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HISTORY FOR READY REFERENCE
FROM THE BEST HISTORIANS, BIOGRAPHERS, SPECIALISTS
THEIR OWN WORDS IN A COMPLETE SYSTEM OF HISTORY
FOR ALL USES, EXTENDING TO ALL COUNTRIES AND SUBJECTS,
AND REPRESENTING FOR BOTH READERS AND STUDENTS THE BETTER AND
NEWER LITERATURE OF HISTORY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
BY J.N.LARNED
WITH NUMEROUS HISTORICAL MAPS FROM ORIGINAL STUDIES
AND DRAWINGS BY ALAN C. REILEY
IN FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME II-EL DORADO TO GREAVES
SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
THE C. A. NICHOLS CO., PUBLISHERS
MDCCCXCV
COPYRIGHT, 1894.
BY J. N. LARNED.
The Riversider Press, Cambridge, Mass, U. S. A.
Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
LIST OF MAPS.
Map of Europe at the close of the Tenth Century, ... To follow page 1020
Map of Europe in 1768, ... To follow page 1086
Four maps of France,
A. D. 1154, 1180, 1814 and 1860, ... To follow page 1168
Two maps of Central Europe, A. D. 848 and 888, ... On page 1404
Map of Germany at the Peace of Westphalia, ... To follow page 1486
Maps of Germany, A. D. 1815 and 1866;
of the Netherlands, 1880-1889; and
of the Zollverein, ... To follow page 1540
LOGICAL OUTLINES, IN COLORS.
English history, ... To follow page 730
French history, ... To follow page 1158
German history, ... To follow page 1428
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES.
The Fifth Century, ... On page 1433
The Sixth Century, ... On page 1434
{769}
EL DORADO,
The quest of.
"When the Spaniards had conquered and pillaged the civilized
empires on the table lands of Mexico, Bogota, and Peru, they
began to look round for new scenes of conquest, new sources of
wealth; the wildest rumours were received as facts, and the
forests and savannas, extending for thousands of square miles
to the eastward of the cordilleras of the Andes, were covered,
in imagination, with populous kingdoms, and cities filled with
gold. The story of El Dorado, of a priest or king smeared with
oil and then coated with gold dust, probably originated in a
custom which prevailed among the civilized Indians of the
plateau of Bogota; but El Dorado was placed, by the credulous
adventurers, in a golden city amidst the impenetrable forests
of the centre of South America, and, as search after search
failed, his position was moved further and further to the
eastward, in the direction of Guiana. El Dorado, the phantom
god of gold and silver, appeared in many forms. ... The
settlers at Quito and in Northern Peru talked of the golden
empire of the Omaguas, while those in Cuzco and Charcas dreamt
of the wealthy cities of Paytiti and Enim, on the banks of a
lake far away, to the eastward of the Andes. These romantic
fables, so firmly believed in those old days led to the
exploration of vast tracts of country, by the fearless
adventurers of the sixteenth century, portions of which have
never been traversed since, even to this day. The most famous
searches after El Dorado were undertaken from the coast of
Venezuela, and the most daring leaders of these wild
adventures were German knights."
C. R. Markham,
Introduction to Simon's Account of the
Expedition of Ursua and Aguirre
(Hakluyt Society 1861).
"There were, along the whole coast of the Spanish Main,
rumours of an inland country which abounded with gold. These
rumours undoubtedly related to the kingdoms of Bogota and
Tunja, now the Nuevo Reyno de Granada. Belalcazar, who was in
quest of this country from Quito, Federman, who came from
Venezuela, and Gonzalo Ximenez de Quesada, who sought it by
way of the River Madalena, and who effected its conquest, met
here. But in these countries also there were rumours of a rich
land at a distance; similar accounts prevailed in Peru; in
Peru they related to the Nuevo Reyno, there they related to
Peru; and thus adventurers from both sides were allured to
continue the pursuit after the game was taken. An imaginary
kingdom was soon shaped out as the object of their quest, and
stories concerning it were not more easily invented than
believed. It was said that a younger brother of Atabalipa
fled, after the destruction of the Incas, took with him the
main part of their treasures, and founded a greater empire
than that of which his family had been deprived. Sometimes the
imaginary Emperor was called the Great Paytite, sometimes the
Great Moxo, sometimes the Enim or Great Paru. An impostor at
Lima affirmed that he had been in his capital, the city of
Manoa, where not fewer than 3,000 workmen were employed in the
silversmiths' street; he even produced a map of the country,
in which he had marked a hill of gold, another of silver, and
a third of salt. ... This imaginary kingdom obtained the name
of El Dorado from the fashion of its Lord, which has the merit
of being in savage costume. His body was anointed every
morning with a certain fragrant gum of great price, and gold
dust was then blown upon him, through a tube, till he was
covered with it: the whole was washed off at night. This the
barbarian thought a more magnificent and costly attire than
could be afforded by any other potentate in the world, and
hence the Spaniards called him El Dorado, or the Gilded One. A
history of all the expeditions which were undertaken for the
conquest of his kingdom would form a volume not less
interesting than extraordinary."
R. Southey,
History of Brazil,
volume 1, chapter 12.
The most tragical and thrilling of the stories of the seekers
after El Dorado is that which Mr. Markham introduces in the
quotation above, and which Southey has told with full details
in The Expedition of Orsua; and the Crimes of Aguirre.
The most famous of the expeditions were those in which Sir
Walter Raleigh engaged, and two of which he personally led--in
1595, and in 1617-18. Released from his long imprisonment in
the Tower to undertake the latter, he returned from it, broken
and shamed, to be sent to the scaffold as a victim sacrificed
to the malignant resentment of Spain. How far Raleigh shared
in the delusion of his age respecting El Dorado, and how far
he made use of it merely to promote a great scheme for the
"expansion of England," are questions that will probably
remain forever in dispute.
Sir Walter Raleigh,
Discoverie of the Large, Rich and
Beautiful Empire of Guiana
(Hakluyt Society 1848).
ALSO IN:
J. A. Van Heuvel,
El Dorado.
E. Edwards,
Life of Raleigh,
volume 1, chapters 10 and 25.
P. F. Tytler,
Life of Raleigh,
chapters 3 and 6.
E. Gosse,
Raleigh,
chapters 4 and 9.
A. F. Bandelier,
The gilded man.
ELECTORAL COLLEGE, The Germanic:
Its rise and constitution.
Its secularization and extinction.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1152,
and 1347-1493;
also, 1801-1803,
and 1805-1806.
ELECTORAL COMMISSION, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1876-1877.
ELECTORS,
Presidential, of the United States of America.
See PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION.
"Electricity, through its etymology at least, traces its
lineage back to Homeric times. In the Odyssey reference is
made to the 'necklace hung with bits of amber' presented by
the Phœnician traders to the Queen of Syra. Amber was highly
prized by the ancients, having been extensively used as an
ornamental gem, and many curious theories were suggested as to
its origin. Some of these, although mythical, were singularly
near the truth, and it is an interesting coincidence that in
the well-known myth concerning the ill-fated and rash youth
who so narrowly escaped wrecking the solar chariot and the
terrestrial sphere, amber, the first known source of
electricity, and the thunder-bolts of Jupiter are linked
together. It is not unlikely that this substance was indebted,
for some of the romance that clung to it through ages, to the
fact that when rubbed it attracts light bodies. This property
it was known to possess in the earliest times: it is the one
single experiment in electricity which has come down to us
from the remotest antiquity. ... The power of certain fishes,
notably what is known as the 'torpedo,' to produce
electricity, was known at an early period, and was commented
on by Pliny and Aristotle.
{770}
... Up to the sixteenth [century] there seems to have been no
attempt to study electrical phenomena in a really scientific
manner. Isolated facts which almost thrust themselves upon
observers, were noted, and, in common with a host of other
natural phenomena, were permitted to stand alone, with no
attempt at classification, generalization, or examination
through experiment. ... Dr. Gilbert can justly be called the
creator of the science of electricity and magnetism. His
experiments were prodigious in number, and many of his
conclusions were correct and lasting. To him we are indebted
for the name 'electricity,' which he bestowed upon the power
or property which amber exhibited in attracting light bodies,
borrowing the name from the substance itself, in order to
define one of its attributes. ... This application of
experiment to the study of electricity, begun by Gilbert three
hundred years ago, was industriously pursued by those who came
after him, and the next two centuries witnessed a rapid
development of science. Among the earlier students of this
period were the English philosopher, Robert Boyle, and the
celebrated burgomaster of Magdeburg, Otto von Guericke. The
latter first noted the sound and light accompanying electrical
excitation. These were afterwards independently discovered by
Dr. Wall, an Englishman, who made the somewhat prophetic
observation, 'This light and crackling seems in some degree to
represent thunder and lightning.' Sir Isaac Newton made a few
experiments in electricity, which he exhibited to the Royal
Society. ... Francis Hawksbee was an active and useful
contributor to experimental investigation, and he also called
attention to the resemblance between the electric spark and
lightning. The most ardent student of electricity in the early
years of the eighteenth century was Stephen Gray. He performed
a multitude of experiments, nearly all of which added
something to the rapidly accumulating stock of knowledge, but
doubtless his most important contribution was his discovery of
the distinction between conductors and non-conductors. ...
Some of Gray's papers fell into the hands of Dufay, an officer
of the French army, who, after several years' service, had
resigned his post to devote himself to scientific pursuits.
... His most important discovery was the existence of two
distinct species of electricity, which he named 'vitreous' and
'resinous.' ... A very important advance was made in 1745 in
the invention of the Leyden jar or phial. As has so many times
happened in the history of scientific discovery, it seems
tolerably certain that this interesting device was hit upon by
at least three persons, working independently of each other.
One Cuneus, a monk named Kleist, and Professor Muschenbroeck,
of Leyden, are all accredited with the discovery. ... Sir
William Watson perfected it by adding the outside metallic
coating, and was by its aid enabled to fire gunpowder and
other inflammables."
T. C. Mendenhall,
A Century of Electricity,
chapter 1.
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1745-1747.
Franklin's identification of Electricity with Lightning.
"In 1745 Mr. Peter Collinson of the Royal Society sent a
[Leyden] jar to the Library Society of Philadelphia, with
instructions how to use it. This fell into the hands of
Benjamin Franklin, who at once began a series of electrical
experiments. On March 28, 1747, Franklin began his famous
letters to Collinson. ... In these letters he propounded the
single-fluid theory of electricity, and referred all electric
phenomena to its accumulation in bodies in quantities more
than their natural share, or to its being withdrawn from them
so as to leave them minus their proper portion." Meantime,
numerous experiments with the Leyden jar had convinced
Franklin of the identity of lightning and electricity, and he
set about the demonstration of the fact. "The account given by
Dr. Stuber of Philadelphia, an intimate personal friend of
Franklin, and published in one of the earliest editions of the
works of the great philosopher, is as follows:--'The plan
which he had originally proposed was to erect on some high
tower, or other elevated place, a sentry-box, from which
should rise a pointed iron rod, insulated by being fixed in a
cake of resin. Electrified clouds passing over this would, he
conceived, impart to it a portion of their electricity, which
would be rendered evident to the senses by sparks being
emitted when a key, a knuckle, or other conductor was
presented to it. Philadelphia at this time offered no
opportunity of trying an experiment of this kind. Whilst
Franklin was waiting for the erection of a spire, it occurred
to him that he might have more ready access to the region of
clouds by means of a common kite. He prepared one by attaching
two cross-sticks to a silk handkerchief, which would not
suffer so much from the rain as paper. To his upright stick
was fixed an iron point. The string was, as usual, of hemp,
except the lower end, which was silk. Where the hempen string
terminated, a key was fastened. With this apparatus, on the
appearance of a thunder-gust approaching, he went into the
common, accompanied by his son, to whom alone he communicated
his intentions, well knowing the ridicule which, too generally
for the interest of science, awaits unsuccessful experiments in
philosophy. He placed himself under a shed to avoid the rain.
His kite was raised. A thunder-cloud passed over it. No signs
of electricity appeared. He almost despaired of success, when
suddenly he observed the loose fibres of his string move
toward an erect position. He now pressed his knuckle to the
key, and received a strong spark. How exquisite must his
sensations have been at this moment! On his experiment
depended the fate of his theory. Doubt and despair had begun
to prevail, when the fact was ascertained in so clear a
manner, that even the most incredulous could no longer
withhold their assent. Repeated sparks were drawn from the
key, a phial was charged, a shock given, and all the
experiments made which are usually performed with
electricity.' And thus the identity of lightning and
electricity was proved. ... Franklin's proposition to erect
lightning rods which would convey the lightning to the ground,
and so protect the buildings to which they were attached, found
abundant opponents. ... Nevertheless, public opinion became
settled ... that they did protect buildings. ... Then the
philosophers raised a new controversy as to whether the
conductors should be blunt or pointed; Franklin, Cavendish,
and Watson advocating points, and Wilson blunt ends. ... The
logic of experiment, however, showed the advantage of pointed
conductors; and people persisted then in preferring them, as
they have done ever since."
{771}
P. Benjamin,
The Age of Electricity,
chapter 3.
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1753-1820.
The beginnings of the Electric Telegraph.
"The first actual suggestion of an electric telegraph was made
in an anonymous letter published in the Scots Magazine at
Edinburgh, February 17th, 1753. The letter is initialed 'C.
M.,' and many attempts have been made to discover the author's
identity. ... The suggestions made in this letter were that a
set of twenty-six wires should be stretched upon insulated
supports between the two places which it was desired to put in
connection, and at each end of every wire a metallic ball was
to be suspended, having under it a letter of the alphabet
inscribed upon a piece of paper. ... The message was to be
read off at the receiving station by observing the letters
which were successively attracted by their corresponding
balls, as soon as the wires attached to the latter received a
charge from the distant conductor. In 1787 Monsieur Lomond, of
Paris, made the very important step of reducing the twenty-six
wires to one, and indicating the different letters by various
combinations of simple movements of an indicator, consisting
of a pith-ball suspended by means of a thread from a conductor
in contact with the wire. ... In the year 1790 Chappe, the
inventor of the semaphore, or optico-mechanical telegraph,
which was in practical use previous to the introduction of the
electric telegraph, devised a means of communication,
consisting of two clocks regulated so that the second hands
moved in unison, and pointed at the same instant to the same
figures. ... In the early form of the apparatus, the exact
moment at which the observer at the receiving station should
read off the figure to which the hand pointed was indicated by
means of a sound signal produced by the primitive method of
striking a copper stew pan, but the inventor soon adopted the
plan of giving electrical signals instead of sound signals.
... In 1795 Don Francisco Salva ... suggested ... that instead
of twenty-six wires being used, one for each letter, six or
eight wires· only should be employed, each charged by a Leyden
jar, and that different letters should be formed by means of
various combinations of signals from these. ... Mr.
(afterwards Sir Francis) Ronalds ... took up the subject of
telegraphy in the year 1816, and published an account of his
experiments in 1823," based on the same idea as that of
Chappe. ... "Ronalds drew up a sort of telegraphic code by
which words, and sometimes even complete sentences, could be
transmitted by only three discharges. ... Ronalds completely
proved the practicability of his plan, not only on [a] short
underground line, .... but also upon an overhead line some
eight miles in length, constructed by carrying a telegraph
wire backwards and forwards over a wooden frame-work erected
in his garden at Hammersmith. ... The first attempt to employ
voltaic electricity in telegraphy was made by Don Francisco
Salva, whose frictional telegraph has already been referred
to. On the 14th of May, 1800, Salva read a paper on 'Galvanism
and its application to Telegraphy' before the Academy of Sciences
at Barcelona, in which he described a number of experiments
which he had made in telegraphing over a line some 310 metres
in length. ... A few years later he applied the then recent
discovery of the Voltaic pile to the same purpose, the
liberation of bubbles of gas by the decomposition of water at
the receiving station being the method adopted for indicating
the passage of the signals. A telegraph of a very similar
character was devised by Sömmering, and described in a paper
communicated by the inventor to the Munich Academy of Sciences
in 1809. Sömmering used a set of thirty-five wires corresponding
to the twenty-five letters of the German alphabet and the ten
numerals. ... Oersted's discovery of the action of the
electric current upon a suspended magnetic needle provided a
new and much more hopeful method of applying the electric
current to telegraphy. The great French astronomer Laplace
appears to have been the first to suggest this application of
Oersted's discovery, and he was followed shortly afterwards by
Ampere, who in the year 1820 read a paper before the Paris
Academy of Sciences."
G. W. De Tunzelmann,
Electricity in Modern Life,
chapter 9.
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1786-1800.
Discoveries of Galvani and Volta.
"The fundamental experiment which led to the discovery of
dynamical electricity [1786] is due to Galvani, professor of
anatomy in Bologna. Occupied with investigations on the
influence of electricity on the nervous excitability of
animals, and especially of the frog, he observed that when the
lumbar nerves of a dead frog were connected with the crural
muscles by a metallic circuit, the latter became briskly
contracted. ... Galvani had some time before observed that the
electricity of machines produced in dead frogs analogous
contractions, and he attributed the phenomena first described
to an electricity inherent in the animal. He assumed that this
electricity, which he called vital fluid, passed from the
nerves to the muscles by the metallic arc, and was thus the
cause of contraction. This theory met with great support,
especially among physiologists, but it was not without
opponents. The most considerable of these was Alexander Volta,
professor of physics in Pavia. Galvani's attention had been
exclusively devoted to the nerves and muscles of the frog;
Volta's was directed upon the connecting metal. Resting on the
observation, which Galvani had also made, that the contraction
is more energetic when the connecting arc is composed of two
metals than where there is only one, Volta attributed to the
metals the active part in the phenomenon of contraction. He
assumed that the disengagement of electricity was due to their
contact, and that the animal parts only officiated as
conductors, and at the same time as a very sensitive
electroscope. By means of the then recently invented
electroscope, Volta devised several modes of showing the
disengagement of electricity on the contact of metals. ... A
memorable controversy arose between Galvani and Volta. The
latter was led to give greater extension to his contact
theory, and propounded the principle that when two
heterogeneous substances are placed in contact, one of them
always assumes the positive and the other the negative
electrical condition. In this form Volta's theory obtained the
assent of the principal philosophers of his time."
A. Ganot,
Elementary Treatise on Physics;
translated by Atkinson, book 10, chapter 1.
Volta's theory, however, though somewhat misleading, did not
prevent his making what was probably the greatest step in the
science up to this time, in the invention (about 1800) of the
Voltaic pile, the first generator of electrical energy by
chemical means, and the forerunner of the vast number of types
of the modern "battery."
{772}
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1810-1890.
The Arc light.
"The earliest instance of applying Electricity to the
production of light was in 1810, by Sir Humphrey Davy, who
found that when the points of two carbon rods whose other ends
were connected by wires with a powerful primary battery were
brought into contact, and then drawn a little way apart, the
Electric current still continued to jump across the gap,
forming what is now termed an Electric Arc. ... Various
contrivances have been devised for automatically regulating
the position of the two carbons. As early as 1847, a lamp was
patented by Staite, in which the carbon rods were fed together
by clockwork. ... Similar devices were produced by Foucault
and others, but the first really successful arc lamp was
Serrin's, patented in 1857, which has not only itself survived
until the present day, but has had its main features
reproduced in many other lamps. ... The Jablochkoff Candle
(1876), in which the arc was formed between the ends of a pair
of carbon rods placed side by side, and separated by a layer of
insulating material, which slowly consumed as the carbons
burnt down, did good service in accustoming the public to the
new illuminant. Since then the inventions by Brush,
Thomson-Houston, and others have done much to bring about its
adoption for lighting large rooms, streets, and spaces out of
doors."
J. B. Verity,
Electricity up to Date for Light, Power, and Traction,
chapter 3.
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1820-1825.
Oersted, Ampere, and the discovery of the Electro-Magnet.
"There is little chance ... that the discoverer of the magnet,
or the discoverer and inventor of the magnetic needle, will
ever be known by name, or that even the locality and date of
the discovery will ever be determined [see COMPASS]. ... The
magnet and magnetism received their first scientific treatment
at the hands of Dr. Gilbert. During the two centuries
succeeding the publication of his work, the science of
magnetism was much cultivated. ... The development of the
science went along parallel with that of the science of
electricity ... although the latter was more fruitful in novel
discoveries and unexpected applications than the former. It is
not to be imagined that the many close resemblances of the two
classes of phenomena were allowed to pass unnoticed. ... There
was enough resemblance to suggest an intimate relation; and
the connecting link was sought for by many eminent
philosophers during the last years of the eighteenth and the
earlier years of the present century."
T. C. Mendenhall,
A Century of Electricity,
chapter 3.
"The effect which an electric current, flowing in a wire, can
exercise upon a neighbouring compass needle was discovered by
Oersted in 1820. This first announcement of the possession of
magnetic properties by an electric current was followed
speedily by the researches of Ampere, Arago, Davy, and by the
devices of several other experimenters, including De la Rive's
floating battery and coil, Schweigger's multiplier, Cumming's
galvanometer, Faraday's apparatus for rotation of a permanent
magnet, Marsh's vibrating pendulum and Barlow's rotating
star-wheel. But it was not until 1825 that the electromagnet
was invented. Arago announced, on 25th September 1820, that a
copper wire uniting the poles of a voltaic cell, and
consequently traversed by an electric current, could attract
iron filings to itself laterally. In the same communication he
described how he had succeeded in communicating permanent
magnetism to steel needles laid at right angles to the copper
wire, and how, on showing this experiment to Ampere, the
latter had suggested that the magnetizing action would be more
intense if for the straight copper wire there were substituted
one wrapped in a helix, in the centre of which the steel
needle might be placed. This suggestion was at once carried
out by the two philosophers. 'A copper wire wound in a helix
was terminated by two rectilinear portions which could be
adapted, at will, to the opposite poles of a powerful
horizontal voltaic pile; a steel needle wrapped up in paper
was introduced into the helix.' 'Now, after some minutes'
sojourn in the helix, the steel needle had received a
sufficiently strong dose of magnetism.' Arago then wound upon
a little glass tube some short helices, each about 2¼ inches
long, coiled alternately right-handedly and left-handedly, and
found that on introducing into the glass tube a steel wire, he
was able to produce 'consequent poles' at the places where the
winding was reversed. Ampère, on October 23rd, 1820, read a
memoir, claiming that these facts confirmed his theory of
magnetic actions. Davy had, also, in 1820, surrounded with
temporary coils of wire the steel needles upon which he was
experimenting, and had shown that the flow of electricity
around the coil could confer magnetic power upon the steel
needles. ... The electromagnet, in the form which can first
claim recognition ... was devised by William Sturgeon, and is
described by him in the paper which he contributed to the
Society of Arts in 1825."
S. P. Thompson,
The Electromagnet,
chapter 1.
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1825-1874.
The Perfected Telegraph.
"The European philosophers kept on groping. At the end of five
years [after Oersted's discovery], one of them reached an
obstacle which he made up his mind was so entirely
insurmountable, that it rendered the electric telegraph an
impossibility for all future time. This was [1825] Mr. Peter
Barlow, fellow of the Royal Society, who had encountered the
question whether the lengthening of the conducting wire would
produce any effect in diminishing the energy of the current
transmitted, and had undertaken to resolve the problem. ... 'I
found [he said] such a considerable diminution with only 200
feet of wire as at once to convince me of the impracticability
of the scheme.' ... The year following the announcement of
Barlow's conclusions, a young graduate of the Albany (N. Y.)
Academy--by name Joseph Henry--was appointed to the
professorship of mathematics in that institution. Henry there
began the series of scientific investigations which is now
historic. ... Up to that time, electro-magnets had been made
with a single coil of naked wire wound spirally around the
core, with large intervals between the strands. The core was
insulated as a whole: the wire was not insulated at all.
Professor Schweigger, who had previously invented the
multiplying galvanometer, had covered his wires with silk.
Henry followed this idea, and, instead of a single coil of
wire, used several. ... Barlow had said that the gentle
current of the galvanic battery became so weakened, after
traversing 200 feet of wire, that it was idle to consider the
possibility of making it pass over even a mile of conductor
and then affect a magnet.
{773}
Henry's reply was to point out that the trouble lay in the way
Barlow's magnet was made. ... Make the magnet so that the
diminished current will exercise its full effect. Instead of
using one short coil, through which the current can easily
slip, and do nothing, make a coil of many turns; that
increases the magnetic field: make it of fine wire, and of
higher resistance. And then, to prove the truth of his
discovery, Henry put up the first electro-magnetic telegraph
ever constructed. In the academy at Albany, in 1831, he
suspended 1,060 feet of bell-wire, with a battery at one end
and one of his magnets at the other; and he made the magnet
attract and release its armature. The armature struck a bell,
and so made the signals. Annihilating distance in this way was
only one part of Henry's discovery. He had also found, that,
to obtain the greatest dynamic effect close at hand, the
battery should be composed of a very few cells of large
surface, combined with a coil or coils of short coarse wire
around the magnet,--conditions just the reverse of those
necessary when the magnet was to be worked at a distance. Now,
he argued, suppose the magnet with the coarse short coil, and
the large-surface battery, be put at the receiving station;
and the current coming over the line be used simply to make
and break the circuit of that local battery. ... This is the
principle of the telegraphic 'relay.' In 1835 Henry worked a
telegraph-line in that way at Princeton. And thus the
electro-magnetic telegraph was completely invented and
demonstrated. There was nothing left to do, but to put up the
posts, string the lines, and attach the instruments."
P. Benjamin,
The Age of Electricity,
chapter 11.
"At last we leave the territory of theory and experiment and
come to that of practice. 'The merit of inventing the modern
telegraph, and applying it on a large scale for public use,
is, beyond all question, due to Professor Morse of the United
States.' So writes Sir David Brewster, and the best
authorities on the question substantially agree with him. ...
Leaving for future consideration Morse's telegraph, which was
not introduced until five years after the time when he was
impressed with the notion of its feasibility, we may mention
the telegraph of Gauss and Weber of Göttingen. In 1833, they
erected a telegraphic wire between the Astronomical and
Magnetical Observatory of Göttingen, and the Physical Cabinet
of the University, for the purpose of carrying intelligence
from the one locality to the other. To these great
philosophers, however, rather the theory than the practice of
Electric Telegraphy was indebted. Their apparatus was so
improved as to be almost a new invention by Steinheil of
Munich, who, in 1837 ... succeeded in sending a current from
one end to the other of a wire 36,000 feet in length, the
action of which caused two needles to vibrate from side to
side, and strike a bell at each movement. To Steinheil the
honour is due of having discovered the important and
extraordinary fact that the earth might be used as a part of
the circuit of an electric current. The introduction of the
Electric Telegraph into England dates from the same year as
that in which Steinheil's experiments took place. William
Fothergill Cooke, a gentleman who held a commission in the
Indian army, returned from India on leave of absence, and
afterwards, because of his bad health, resigned his
commission, and went to Heidelberg to study anatomy. In 1836,
Professor Mönke, of Heidelberg, exhibited an
electro-telegraphic experiment, 'in which electric currents,
passing along a conducting wire, conveyed signals to a distant
station by the deflexion of a magnetic needle enclosed in
Schweigger's galvanometer or multiplier.' ... Cooke was so
struck with this experiment, that he immediately resolved to
apply it to purposes of higher utility than the illustration
of a lecture. ... In a short time he produced two telegraphs
of different construction. When his plans were completed, he
came to England, and in February, 1837, having consulted
Faraday and Dr. Roget on the construction of the
electric-magnet employed in a part of his apparatus, the
latter gentleman advised him to apply to Professor Wheatstone.
... The result of the meeting of Cooke and Wheatstone was that
they resolved to unite their several discoveries; and in the
month of May 1837, they took out their first patent 'for
improvements in giving signals and sounding alarms in distant
places by means of electric currents transmitted through
metallic circuits.' ... By-and-by, as might probably have been
anticipated, difficulties arose between Cooke and Wheatstone,
as to whom the main credit of introducing the Electric
Telegraph into England was due. Mr. Cooke accused Wheatstone
(with a certain amount of justice, it should seem) of entirely
ignoring his claims; and in doing so Mr. Cooke appears to have
rather exaggerated his own services. Most will readily agree
to the wise words of Mr. Sabine: "It was once a popular
fallacy in England that Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone were the
original inventors of the Electric Telegraph. The Electric
Telegraph had, properly speaking, no inventor; it grew up as
we have seen little by little."
H. J. Nicoll,
Great Movements,
pages 424-429.
"In the latter part of the year 1832, Samuel F. B. Morse, an
American artist, while on a voyage from France to the United
States, conceived the idea of an electromagnetic telegraph
which should consist of the following parts, viz: A single
circuit of conductors from some suitable generator of
electricity; a system of signs, consisting of dots or points
and spaces to represent numerals; a method of causing the
electricity to mark or imprint these signs upon a strip or
ribbon of paper by the mechanical action of an electro-magnet
operating upon the paper by means of a lever, armed at one end
with a pen or pencil; and a method of moving the paper ribbon
at a uniform rate by means of clock-work to receive the
characters. ... In the autumn of the year 1835 he constructed
the first rude working model of his invention. ... The first
public exhibition ... was on the 2d of September, 1837, on
which occasion the marking was successfully effected through
one third of a mile of wire. Immediately afterwards a
recording instrument was constructed ... which was
subsequently employed upon the first experimental line between
Washington and Baltimore. This line was constructed in 1843-44
under an appropriation by Congress, and was completed by May
of the latter year. On the 27th of that month the first
despatch was transmitted from Washington to Baltimore. ... The
experimental line was originally constructed with two wires,
as Morse was not at that time acquainted with the discovery of
Steinheil, that the earth might be used to complete the circuit.
{774}
Accident, however, soon demonstrated this fact. ... The
following year (1845) telegraph lines began to be built over
other routes. ... In October, 1851, a convention of deputies
from the German States of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria,
Würtemberg and Saxony, met at Vienna, for the purpose of
establishing a common and uniform telegraphic system, under
the name of the German-Austrian Telegraph Union. The various
systems of telegraphy then in use were subjected to the most
thorough examination and discussion. The convention decided
with great unanimity that the Morse system was practically far
superior to all others, and it was accordingly adopted. Prof.
Steinheil, although himself ... the inventor of a telegraphic
system, with a magnanimity that does him high honor, strongly
urged upon the convention the adoption of the American
system." ... The first of the printing telegraphs was patented
in the United States by Royal E. House, in 1846. The Hughes
printing telegraph, a remarkable piece of mechanism, was
patented by David E. Hughes, of Kentucky, in 1855. A system
known as the automatic method, in which the signals
representing letters are transmitted over the line through the
instrumentality of mechanism, was originated by Alexander Bain
of Edinburgh, whose first patents were taken out in 1846. An
autographic telegraph, transmitting despatches in the
reproduced hand-writing of the sender, was brought out in
1850, by F. C. Bakewell, of London. The same result was
afterwards accomplished with variations of method by Charles
Cros, of Paris, Abbé Caseli, of Florence, and others; but none
of these inventions has been extensively used. "The
possibility of making use of a single wire for the
simultaneous transmission of two or more communications seems
to have first suggested itself to Moses G. Farmer, of Boston,
about the year 1852." The problem was first solved with
partial success by Dr. Gintl, on the line between Prague and
Vienna, in 1853, but more perfectly by Carl Frischen, of
Hanover, in the following year. Other inventors followed in
the same field, among them Thomas A. Edison, of New Jersey,
who was led by his experiments finally, in 1874 to devise a
system "which was destined to furnish the basis of the first
practical solution of the curious and interesting problem of
quadruplex telegraphy."
G. B. Prescott,
Electricity and the Electric Telegraph,
chapter 29-40.
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1831-1872.
Dynamo
Electrical Machines, and Electric Motors.
"The discovery of induction by Faraday, in 1831, gave rise to
the construction of magneto-electro machines. The first of
such machines that was ever made was probably a machine that
never came into practical use, the description of which was
given in a letter, signed 'P. M.,' and directed to Faraday,
published in the Philosophical Magazine of 2nd August, 1832.
We learn from this description that the essential parts of
this machine were six horse-shoe magnets attached to a disc,
which rotated in front of six coils of wire wound on bobbins."
Sept. 3rd, 1832, Pixii constructed a machine in which a single
horse-shoe magnet was made to rotate before two soft iron
cores, wound with wire. In this machine he introduced the
commutator, an essential element in all modern continuous
current machines. "Almost at the same time, Ritchie, Saxton,
and Clarke constructed similar machines. Clarke's is the best
known, and is still popular in the small and portable
'medical' machines so commonly sold. ... A larger machine
[was] constructed by Stöhrer (1843), on the same plan as
Clarke's, but with six coils instead of two, and three
compound magnets instead of one. ... The machines, constructed
by Nollet (1849) and Shepard (1856) had still more magnets and
coils. Shepard's machine was modified by Van Malderen, and was
called the Alliance machine. ... Dr. Werner Siemens, while
considering how the inducing effect of the magnet can be most
thoroughly utilised, and how to arrange the coils in the most
efficient manner for this purpose, was led in 1857 to devise
the cylindrical armature. ... Sinsteden in 1851 pointed out
that the current of the generator may itself be utilised to
excite the magnetism of the field magnets. ... Wilde [in 1863]
carried out this suggestion by using a small steel permanent
magnet and larger electro magnets. ... The next great
improvement of these machines arose from the discovery of what
may be called the dynamo-electric principle. This principle
may be stated as follows:--For the generation of currents by
magneto-electric induction it is not necessary that the
machine should be furnished with permanent magnets; the
residual or temporary magnetism of soft iron quickly rotating
is sufficient for the purpose. ... In 1867 the principle was
clearly enunciated and used simultaneously, but independently,
by Siemens and by Wheatstone. ... It was in February, 1867,
that Dr. C. W. Siemens' classical paper on the conversion of
dynamical into electrical energy without the aid of permanent
magnetism was read before the Royal Society. Strangely enough,
the discovery of the same principle was enunciated at the same
meeting of the Society by Sir Charles Wheatstone. ... The
starting-point of a great improvement in dynamo-electric
machines, was the discovery by Pacinotti of the ring armature
... in 1860. ... Gramme, in 1871, modified the ring armature,
and constructed the first machine, in which he made use of the
Gramme ring and the dynamic principle. In 1872,
Hefner-Alteneck, of the firm of Siemens and Halske,
constructed a machine in which the Gramme ring is replaced by
a drum armature, that is to say, by a cylinder round which
wire is wound. ... Either the Pacinotti-Gramme ring armature,
or the Hefner-Alteneck drum armature, is now adopted by nearly
all constructors of dynamo-electric machines, the parts
varying of course in minor details." The history of the dynamo
since has been one of a gradual perfection of parts, resulting
in the production of a great number of types, which can not
here even be mentioned.
A. R. von Urbanitzky,
Electricity in the Service of Man,
pages 227-242.
S. P. Thompson,
Dynamo Electrical Machines.
ELECTRICITY:
Electric Motors.
It has been known for forty years that every form of electric
motor which operated on the principle of mutual mechanical
force between a magnet and a conducting wire or coil could
also be made to act as a generator of induced currents by the
reverse operation of producing the motion mechanically. And
when, starting from the researches of Siemens, Wilde, Nollet,
Holmes and Gramme, the modern forms of magneto-electric and
dynamo-electric machines began to come into commercial use, it
was discovered that any one of the modern machines designed as
a generator of currents constituted a far more efficient
electric motor than any of the previous forms which had been
designed specially as motors.
{775}
It required no new discovery of the law of reversibility to
enable the electrician to understand this; but to convince the
world required actual experiment."
A. Guillemin, Electricity and Magnetism,
part 2, chapter 10, section 3.
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1835-1889.
The Electric Railway.
"Thomas Davenport, a poor blacksmith of Brandon, Vt.,
constructed what might be termed the first electric railway.
The invention was crude and of little practical value, but the
idea was there. In 1835 he exhibited in Springfield,
Massachusetts, a small model electric engine running upon a
circular track, the circuit being furnished by primary
batteries carried in the car. Three years later, Robert
Davidson, of Aberdeen, Scotland, began his experiments in this
direction. ... He constructed quite a powerful motor, which
was mounted upon a truck. Forty battery cells, carried on the
car, furnished power to propel the motor. The battery elements
were composed of amalgamated zinc and iron plates, the
exciting liquid being dilute sulphuric acid. This locomotive
was run successfully on several steam railroads in Scotland,
the speed attained was four miles an hour, but this machine
was afterwards destroyed by some malicious person or persons
while it was being taken home to Aberdeen. In 1849 Moses
Farmer exhibited an electric engine which drew a small car
containing two persons. In 1851, Dr. Charles Grafton Page, of
Salem, Massachusetts, perfected an electric engine of
considerable power. On April 29 of that year the engine was
attached to a car and a trip was made from Washington to
Bladensburg, over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad track. The
highest speed attained was nineteen miles an hour. The
electric power was furnished by one hundred Grove cells
carried on the engine. ... The same year, Thomas Hall, of
Boston, Mass., built a small electric locomotive called the
Volta. The current was furnished by two Grove battery cells
which were conducted to the rails, thence through the wheels
of the locomotive to the motor. This was the first instance of
the current being supplied to the motor on a locomotive from a
stationary source. It was exhibited at the Charitable
Mechanics fair by him in 1860. ... In 1879, Messrs. Siemen and
Halske, of Berlin, constructed and operated an electric
railway at the Industrial Exposition. A third rail placed in
the centre of the two outer rails, supplied the current, which
was taken up into the motor through a sliding contact under
the locomotive. ... In 1880 Thomas A. Edison constructed an
experimental road near his laboratory in Menlo Park, N. J. The
power from the locomotive was transferred to the car by belts
running to and from the shafts of each. The current was taken
from and returned through the rails. Early in the year of 1881
the Lichterfelde, Germany, electric railway was put into
operation. It is a third rail system and is still running at
the present time. This may be said to be the first commercial
electric railway constructed. In 1883 the Daft Electric
Company equipped and operated quite successfully an electric
system on the Saratoga & Mt. McGregor Railroad, at Saratoga,
N. Y." During the next five or six years numerous electric
railroads, more or less experimental, were built." October 31,
1888, the Council Bluffs & Omaha Railway and Bridge Company
was first operated by electricity, they using the
Thomson-Houston system. The same year the Thomson-Houston Co.
equipped the Highland Division of the Lynn & Boston Horse
Railway at Lynn, Massachusetts. Horse railways now began to be
equipped with electricity all over the world, and especially
in the United States. In February, 1889, the Thomson-Houston
Electric Co. had equipped the line from Bowdoin Square,
Boston, to Harvard Square, Cambridge, of the West End Railway
with electricity and operated twenty cars, since which time it
has increased its electrical apparatus, until now it is the
largest electric railway line in the world."
E. Trevert,
Electric Railway Engineering,
appendix A.
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1841-1880.
The Incandescent Electric Light.
"While the arc lamp is well adapted for lighting large areas
requiring a powerful, diffused light, similar to sunlight, and
hence is suitable for outdoor illumination, and for workshops,
stores, public buildings, and factories, especially those
where colored fabrics are produced, its use in ordinary
dwellings, or for a desk light in offices, is impractical, a
softer, steadier, and more economical light being required.
Various attempts to modify the arc-light by combining it with
the incandescent were made in the earlier stages of electric
lighting. ... The first strictly incandescent lamp was
invented in 1841 by Frederick de Molyens of Cheltenham,
England, and was constructed on the simple principle of the
incandescence produced by the high resistance of a platinum
wire to the passage of the electric current. In 1849 Petrie
employed iridium for the same purpose, also alloys of iridium
and platinum, and iridium and carbon. In 1845 J. W. Starr of
Cincinnati first proposed the use of carbon, and, associated
with King, his English agent, produced, through the financial
aid of the philanthropist Peabody, an incandescent lamp. ...
In all these early experiments, the battery was the source of
electric supply; and the comparatively small current required
for the incandescent light as compared with that required for
the arc light, was an argument in favor of the former. ...
Still, no substantial progress was made with either system
till the invention of the dynamo resulted in the practical
development of both systems, that of the incandescent
following that of the arc. Among the first to make
incandescent lighting a practical success were Sawyer and Man
of New York, and Edison. For a long time, Edison experimented
with platinum, using fine platinum wire coiled into a spiral,
so as to concentrate the heat, and produce incandescence; the
same current producing only a red heat when the wire, whether
of platinum or other metal, is stretched out. ... Failing to
obtain satisfactory results from platinum, Edison turned his
attention to carbon, the superiority of which as an
incandescent illuminant had already been demonstrated; but its
rapid consumption, as shown by the Reynier and similar lamps,
being unfavorable to its use as compared with the durability
of platinum and iridium, the problem was, to secure the
superior illumination of the carbon, and reduce or prevent its
consumption. As this consumption was due chiefly to oxidation,
it was questionable whether the superior illumination were not
due to the same cause, and whether, if the carbon were inclosed
in a glass globe, from which oxygen was eliminated, the same
illumination could be obtained.
{776}
Another difficulty of equal magnitude was to obtain a
sufficiently perfect vacuum, and maintain it in a hermetically
sealed globe inclosing the carbon, and at the same time
maintain electric connection with the generator through the
glass by a metal conductor, subject to expansion and
contraction different from that of the glass, by the change of
temperature due to the passage of the electric current. Sawyer
and Man attempted to solve this problem by filling the globe
with nitrogen, thus preventing combustion by eliminating the
oxygen. ... The results obtained by this method, which at one
time attracted a great deal of attention, were not
sufficiently satisfactory to become practical; and Edison and
others gave their preference to the vacuum method, and sought
to overcome the difficulties connected with it. The invention
of the mercurial air pump, with its subsequent improvements,
made it possible to obtain a sufficiently perfect vacuum, and
the difficulty of introducing the current into the interior of
the globe was overcome by imbedding a fine platinum wire in
the glass, connecting the inclosed carbon with the external
circuit; the expansion and contraction of the platinum not
differing sufficiently from that of the glass, in so fine a
wire, as to impair the vacuum. ... The carbons made by Edison
under his first patent in 1879, were obtained from brown paper
or cardboard. ... They were very fragile and short-lived, and
consequently were soon abandoned. In 1880 he patented the
process which, with some modifications, he still adheres to.
In this process he uses filaments of bamboo, which are taken
from the interior, fibrous portion of the plant."
P. Atkinson,
Elements of Electric Lighting,
chapter 8.
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1854-1866.
The Atlantic Cable.
"Cyrus Field ... established a company in America (in 1854),
which ... obtained the right of landing cables in Newfoundland
for fifty years. Soundings were made in 1856 between Ireland
and Newfoundland, showing a maximum depth of 4,400 metres.
Having succeeded after several attempts in laying a cable
between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, Field founded the
Atlantic Telegraph Company in England. ... The length of the
... cable [used] was 4,000 kilometres, and was carried by the
two ships Agamemnon and Niagara. The distance between the two
stations on the coasts was 2,640 kilometres. The laying of the
cable commenced on the 7th of August, 1857, at Valentia
(Ireland); on the third day the cable broke at a depth of
3,660 metres, and the expedition had to return. A second
expedition was sent in 1858; the two ships met each other
half-way, the ends of the cable were joined, and the lowering
of it commenced in both directions; 149 kilometres were thus
lowered, when a fault in the cable was discovered. It had,
therefore, to be brought on board again, and was broken during
the process. After it had been repaired, and when 476
kilometres had been already laid, another fault was
discovered, which caused another breakage; this time it was
impossible to repair it, and the expedition was again
unsuccessful, and had to return. In spite of the repeated
failures, two ships were again sent out in the same year, and
this time one end of the cable was landed in Ireland, and the
other at Newfoundland. The length of the sunk cable was 3,745
kilometres. Field's first telegram was sent on the 7th of
August, from America to Ireland. The insulation of the cable,
however, became more defective every day, and failed
altogether on the 1st of September. From the experience
obtained, it was concluded that it was possible to lay a
trans-Atlantic cable, and the company, after consulting a
number of professional men, again set to work. ... The Great
Eastern was employed in laying this cable. This ship, which is
211 metres long, 25 metres broad, and 16 metres in height,
carried a crew of 500 men, of which 120 were electricians and
engineers, 179 mechanics and stokers, and 115 sailors. The
management of all affairs relating to the laying of the cable
was entrusted to Canning. The coast cable was laid on the 21st
of July, and the end of it was connected with the Atlantic
cable on the 23rd. After 1,326 kilometres had been laid, a
fault was discovered, an iron wire was found stuck right
across the cable, and Canning considered the mischief to have
been done with a malevolent purpose. On the 2nd of August,
2,196 kilometres of cable were sunk, when another fault was
discovered. While the cable was being repaired it broke, and
attempts to recover it at the time were all unsuccessful; in
consequence of this the Great Eastern had to return without
having completed the task. A new company, the Anglo-American
Telegraph Company, was formed in 1866, and at once entrusted
Messrs. Glass, Elliott and Company with the construction of a
new cable of 3,000 kilometres. Different arrangements were
made for the outer envelope of the cable, and the Great
Eastern was once more equipped to give effect to the
experiments which had just been made. The new expedition was
not only to lay a new cable, but also to take up the end of
the old one, and join it to a new piece, and thus obtain a
second telegraph line. The sinking again commenced in Ireland
on the 13th of July, 1866, and it was finished on the 27th. On
the 4th of August, 1866, the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Line was
declared open."
A. R. von Urbanitzky,
Electricity in the Service of Man,
pages 767-768.
ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1876-1892.
The Telephone.
"The first and simplest of all magnetic telephones is the Bell
Telephone." In "the first form of this instrument, constructed
by Professor Graham Bell, in 1876 ... a harp of steel rods was
attached to the poles of a permanent magnet. ... When we sing
into a piano, certain of the strings of the instrument are set
in vibration sympathetically by the action of the voice with
different degrees of amplitude, and a sound, which is an
approximation to the vowel uttered, is produced from the
piano. Theory shows that, had the piano a much larger number
of strings to the octave, the vowel sounds would be perfectly
reproduced. It was upon this principle that Bell constructed
his first telephone. The expense of constructing such an
apparatus, however, deterred Bell from making the attempt, and
he sought to simplify the apparatus before proceeding further in
this direction. After many experiments with more, or less
unsatisfactory results, he constructed the instrument ...
which he exhibited at Philadelphia in 1876. In this apparatus,
the transmitter was formed by an electro-magnet, through which
a current flowed, and a membrane, made of gold-beater's skin,
on which was placed as a sort of armature, a piece of soft
iron, which thus vibrated in front of the electro-magnet when
the membrane was thrown into sonorous vibration.
{777}
... It is quite clear that when we speak into a Bell
transmitter only a small fraction of the energy of the
sonorous vibrations of the voice can be converted into
electric currents, and that these currents must be extremely
weak. Edison applied himself to discover some means by which
he could increase the strength of these currents. Elisha Gray
had proposed to use the variation of resistance of a fine
platinum wire attached to a diaphragm dipping into water, and
hoped that the variation of extent of surface in contact would
so vary the strength of current as to reproduce sonorous
vibrations; but there is no record of this experiment having
been tried. Edison proposed to utilise the fact that the
resistance of carbon varied under pressure. He had
independently discovered this peculiarity of carbon, but it
had been previously described by Du Moncel. ... The first
carbon transmitter was constructed in 1878 by Edison."
W. H. Preece, and J. Maier,
The Telephone,
chapter 3-4.
In a pamphlet distributed at the Columbian Exposition,
Chicago, 1893, entitled "Exhibit of the American Bell
Telephone Co.," the following statements are made: "At the
Centennial Exposition, in Philadelphia, in 1876, was given the
first general public exhibition of the telephone by its
inventor, Alexander Graham Bell. To-day, seventeen years
later, more than half a million instruments are in daily use
in the United States alone, six hundred million talks by
telephone are held every year, and the human voice is carried
over a distance of twelve hundred miles without loss of sound
or syllable. The first use of the telephone for business
purposes was over a single wire connecting only two
telephones. At once the need of general inter-communication
made itself felt. In the cities and larger towns exchanges
were established and all the subscribers to any one exchange
were enabled to talk to one another through a central office.
Means were then devised to connect two or more exchanges by
trunk lines, thus affording means of communication between all
the subscribers of all the exchanges so connected. This work
has been pushed forward until now have been gathered into what
may be termed one great exchange all the important cities from
Augusta on the east to Milwaukee on the west, and from
Burlington and Buffalo on the north to Washington on the
south, bringing more than one half the people of this country
and a much larger proportion of the business interests, within
talking distance of one another. ... The lines which connect
Chicago with Boston, via New York, are of copper wire of extra
size. It is about one sixth of an inch in diameter, and weighs
435 pounds to the mile. Hence each circuit contains 1,044,000
pounds of copper. ... In the United States there are over a
quarter of a million exchange subscribers, and ... these make
use of the telephone to carry on 600,000,000 conversations
annually. There is hardly a city or town of 5,000 inhabitants
that has not its Telephone Exchange, and these are so knit
together by connecting lines that intercommunication is
constant." The number of telephones in use in the United
States, on the 20th of December in each year since the first
introduction, is given as follows;
1877, 5,187;
1878, 17,567;
1879, 52,517;
1880, 123,380;
1881, 180,592;
1882, 237,728;
1883, 298,580;
1884, 325,574;
1885, 330,040;
1886, 353,518;
1887, 380,277;
1888, 411,511;
1889, 444,861;
1890, 483,790;
1891, 512,407;
1892, 552,720.
----------End: Electricity----------
ELEPHANT, Order of the.
A Danish order of knighthood instituted in 1693 by
King Christian V.
ELEPHANTINE.
See EGYPT: THE OLD EMPIRE AND THE MIDDLE EMPIRE.
ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES, The.
Among the ancient Greeks, "the mysteries were a source of
faith and hope to the initiated, as are the churches of modern
times. Secret doctrines, regarded as holy, and to be kept with
inviolable fidelity, were handed down in these brotherhoods,
and no doubt were fondly believed to contain a saving grace by
those who were admitted, amidst solemn and imposing rites,
under the veil of midnight, to hear the tenets of the ancient
faith, and the promises of blessings to come to those who,
with sincerity of heart and pious trust, took the obligations
upon them. The Eleusinian mysteries were the most imposing and
venerable. Their origin extended back into a mythical
antiquity, and they were among the few forms of Greek worship
which were under the superintendence of hereditary
priesthoods. Thirlwall thinks that 'they were the remains of a
worship which preceded the rise of the Hellenic mythology and
its attendant rites, grounded on a view of Nature less
fanciful, more earnest, and better fitted to awaken both
philosophical thought and religious feeling.' This conclusion
is still further confirmed by the moral and religious tone of
the poets,--such as Æschylus,--whose ideas on justice, sin and
retribution are as solemn and elevated as those of a Hebrew
prophet. The secrets, whatever they were, were never revealed
in express terms; but Isocrates uses some remarkable
expressions, when speaking of their importance to the
condition of man. 'Those who are initiated,' says he
'entertain sweeter hopes of eternal life'; and how could this
be the case, unless there were imparted at Eleusis the
doctrine of eternal life, and some idea of its state and
circumstances more compatible with an elevated conception of
the Deity and of the human soul than the vague and shadowy
images which haunted the popular mind. The Eleusinian
communion embraced the most eminent men from every part of
Greece,--statesmen, poets, philosophers, and generals; and
when Greece became a part of the Roman Empire, the greatest
minds of Rome drew instruction and consolation from its
doctrines. The ceremonies of initiation--which took place
every year in the early autumn, a beautiful season in
Attica--were a splendid ritual, attracting visitors from every
part of the world. The processions moving from Athens to
Eleusis over the Sacred Way, sometimes numbered twenty or
thirty thousand people, and the exciting scenes were well
calculated to leave a durable impression on susceptible minds.
... The formula of the dismissal, after the initiation was
over, consisted in the mysterious words 'konx,' 'ompax'; and
this is the only Eleusinian secret that has illuminated the
world from the recesses of the temple of Demeter and
Persephone. But it is a striking illustration of the value
attached to these rites and doctrines, that, in moments of
extremest peril--as of impending shipwreck, or massacre by a
victorious enemy,--men asked one another, 'Are you initiated?'
as if this were the anchor of their hopes for another life."
{778}
C. C. Felton,
Greece, Ancient and Modern,
chapter 2, lecture 10.
"The Eleusinian mysteries continued to be celebrated during
the whole of the second half of the fourth century, till they
were put an end to by the destruction of the temple at
Eleusis, and by the devastation of Greece in the invasion of
the Goths under Alaric in 395."
See GOTHS: A. D. 395.
W. Smith,
Note to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 25.
ALSO IN:
R. Brown,
The Great Dionysiak Myth,
chapter 6, section. 2.
J. J. I. von Dollinger,
The Gentile and the Jew,
book 3 (volume 1).
See, also, ELEUSIS.
ELEUSIS.
Eleusis was originally one of the twelve confederate townships
into which Attica was said to have been divided before the
time of Theseus. It "was advantageously situated [about
fourteen miles Northwest of Athens] on a height, at a small
distance from the shore of an extensive bay, to which there is
access only through narrow channels, at the two extremities of
the island of Salamis: its position was important, as
commanding the shortest and most level route by land from
Athens to the Isthmus by the pass which leads at the foot of
Mount Cerata along the shore to Megara. ... Eleusis was built
at the eastern end of a low rocky hill, which lies parallel to
the sea-shore. ... The eastern extremity of the hill was
levelled artificially for the reception of the Hierum of Ceres
and the other sacred buildings. Above these are the traces of an
Acropolis. A triangular space of about 500 yards each side,
lying between the hill and the shore, was occupied by the town
of Eleusis. ... To those who approached Eleusis from Athens,
the sacred buildings standing on the eastern extremity of the
height concealed the greater part of the town, and on a nearer
approach presented a succession of magnificent objects, well
calculated to heighten the solemn grandeur of the ceremonies
and the awe and reverence of the Mystæ in their initiation.
... In the plurality of enclosures, in the magnificence of the
pylæ or gateways, in the absence of any general symmetry of
plan, in the small auxiliary temples, we recognize a great
resemblance between the sacred buildings of Eleusis and the
Egyptian Hiera of Thebes and Philæ. And this resemblance is
the more remarkable, as the Demeter of Attica was the Isis of
Egypt. We cannot suppose, however, that the plan of all these
buildings was even thought of when the worship of Ceres was
established at Eleusis. They were the progressive creation of
successive ages. ... Under the Roman Empire ... it was
fashionable among the higher order of Romans to pass some time
at Athens in the study of philosophy and to be initiated in
the Eleusinian mysteries. Hence Eleusis became at that time
one of the most frequented places in Greece; and perhaps it
was never so populous as under the emperors of the first two
centuries of our æra. During the two following centuries, its
mysteries were the chief support of declining polytheism, and
almost the only remaining bond of national union among the
Greeks; but at length the destructive visit of the Goths in
the year 396, the extinction of paganism and the ruin of
maritime commerce, left Eleusis deprived of every source of
prosperity, except those which are inseparable from its
fertile plain, its noble bay, and its position on the road
from Attica to the Isthmus. ... The village still preserves
the ancient name, no further altered than is customary in
Romaic conversions."
W. M. Leake,
Topography of Athens;
volume 2: The Demi, section 5.
ELGIN, Lord.
The Indian administration of.
See INDIA: A. D. 1862-1876.
ELIS.
Elis was an ancient Greek state, occupying the country on the
western coast of Peloponnesus, adjoining Arcadia, and between
Messenia at the south and Achaia on the north. It was noted
for the fertility of its soil and the rich yield of its
fisheries. But Elis owed greater importance to the inclusion
within its territory of the sacred ground of Olympia, where
the celebration of the most famous festival of Zeus came to be
established at an early time. The Elians had acquired Olympia
by conquest of the city and territory of Pisa, to which it
originally belonged, and the presidency of the Olympic games
was always disputed with them by the latter. Elis was the
close ally of Sparta down to the year B. C. 421, when a bitter
quarrel arose between them, and Elis suffered heavily in the
wars which ensued. It was afterwards at war with the
Arcadians, and joined the Ætolian League against the Achaian
League. The city of Elis was one of the most splendid in
Greece; but little now remains, even of ruins, to indicate its
departed glories.
See, also, OLYMPIC GAMES.
ELISII, The.
See LYGIANS.
ELIZABETH,
Czarina of Russia, A. D. 1741-1761..
Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, and the Thirty Years War.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620; 1620; 1621-1623;
1631-1632, and 1648.
Elizabeth, Queen of England, A. D. 1558-1603.
Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain.
See ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735; and
SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725, and 1726-1731.
ELIZABETH, N. J.
The first settlement of.
See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667.
ELK HORN, OR PEA RIDGE, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-MARCH: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).
ELKWATER, OR CHEAT SUMMIT, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (AUGUST-DECEMBER: WEST VIRGINIA).
ELLANDUM, Battle of.
Decisive victory of Ecgberht, the West Saxon king, over the
Mercians, A. D. 823.
ELLEBRI, The.
See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
ELLENBOROUGH, Lord, The Indian administration of.
See INDIA: A. D. 1836-1845.
ELLSWORTH, Colonel, The death of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (MAY: VIRGINIA).
ELMET.
A small kingdom of the Britons which was swallowed up in the
English kingdom of Northumbria early in the seventh century.
It answered, roughly speaking, to the present West-Riding of
Yorkshire. ... Leeds "preserves the name of Loidis, by which
Elmet seems also to have been known."
J. R. Green, The Making of England, page 254.
ELMIRA, N. Y. (then Newtown).
General Sullivan's Battle with the Senecas.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1779 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).
ELSASS.
See ALSACE.
ELTEKEH, Battle of.
A victory won by the Assyrian, Sennacherib, over the
Egyptians, before the disaster befell his army which is
related in 2 Kings xix. 35. Sennacherib's own account of the
battle has been found among the Assyrian records.
{779}
A. H. Sayce,
Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments,
chapter 6.
ELUSATES, The.
See AQUITAINE, TRIBES OF ANCIENT.
ELVIRA, Battle of(1319).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1273-1460.
ELY, The Camp of Refuge at.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1069-1071.
ELYMAIS.
See ELAM.
ELYMEIA.
See MACEDONIA.
ELYMIANS, The.
See SICILY: EARLY INHABITANTS.
ELYSIAN FIELDS.
See CANARY ISLANDS.
ELZEVIRS.
See PRINTING: A. D. 1617-1680.
EMANCIPATION, Catholic.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1811-1829.
EMANCIPATION, Compensated;
Proposal of President Lincoln.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH).
EMANCIPATION, Prussian Edict of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1807-1808.
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATIONS,
President Lincoln's.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER), and 1863 (JANUARY).
EMANUEL,
King of Portugal, A. D. 1495-1521.
Emanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, A. D. 1553-1580.
EMBARGO OF 1807, The American.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1804-1809, and 1808.
EMERICH, King of Hungary, A. D. 1196-1204.
EMERITA AUGUSTA.
A colony of Roman veterans settled in Spain, B. C. 27, by the
emperor Augustus. It is identified with modern Merida, in
Estremadura.
C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 34, note.
EMESSA.
Capture by the Arabs (A. D. 636).
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-639.
ÉMIGRÉS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1791;
1791 (JULY-SEPTEMBER); and 1791-1792.
EMITES, The.
See JEWS: EARLY HEBREW HISTORY.
EMMAUS, Battle of.
Defeat of a Syrian army under Gorgias by Judas Maccabæus,
B. C. 166.
Josephus, Antiquity of the Jews, book 12, chapter 7.
EMMENDINGEN, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER). .
EMMET INSURRECTION, The.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1801-1803.
EMPEROR.
A title derived from the Roman title Imperator.
See IMPERATOR.
EMPORIA, The.
See CARTHAGE, THE DOMINION OF.
ENCOMIENDAS.
See SLAVERY, MODERN: OF THE INDIANS;
also, REPARTIMIENTOS.
ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT, The.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1843-1848.
ENCYCLICAL AND SYLLABUS OF 1864, The.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1864.
ENCYCLOPÆDISTS, The.
"French literature had never been so brilliant as in the
second half of the 18th century. Buffon, Diderot, D'Alembert,
Rousseau, Duclos, Condillac, Helvetius, Holbach, Raynal,
Condorcet, Mably, and many others adorned it, and the
'Encyclopædia,' which was begun in 1751 under the direction of
Diderot, became the focus of an intellectual influence which
has rarely been equalled. The name and idea were taken from a
work published by Ephraim Chambers in Dublin, in 1728. A noble
preliminary discourse was written by D'Alembert; and all the
best pens in France were enlisted in the enterprise, which was
constantly encouraged and largely assisted by Voltaire. Twice
it was suppressed by authority, but the interdict was again
raised. Popular favour now ran with an irresistible force in
favour of the philosophers, and the work was brought to its
conclusion in 1771."
W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter. 20 (volume 5).
ALSO IN:
J. Morley,
Diderot and the Encyclopædists,
chapter 5 (volume 1).
E. J. Lowell,
The Eve of the French Revolution,
chapter 16.
ENDICOTT, John, and the Colony of Massachusetts Bay.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629, and after.
ENDIDJAN, Battle of (1876).
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.
ENGADINE, The.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499.
ENGEN, Battle of (1800).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).
ENGERN, Duchy of.
See SAXONY: THE OLD DUCHY.
ENGHIEN, Duc d',
The abduction and execution of.
See FRANCE: 1804-1805.
ENGLAND:
Before the coming of the English.
The Celtic and Roman periods.
See BRITAIN.
ENGLAND: A. D.449-547.
The three tribes of the English conquest.
The naming of the country.
"It was by ... three tribes [from Northwestern Germany], the
Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes, that southern Britain was
conquered and colonized in the fifth and sixth centuries,
according to the most ancient testimony. ... Of the three, the
Angli almost if not altogether pass away into the migration:
the Jutes and the Saxons, although migrating in great numbers,
had yet a great part to play in their own homes and in other
regions besides Britain; the former at a later period in the
train and under the name of the Danes; the latter in German
history from the eighth century to the present day."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
volume 1, chapter 3.
"Among the Teutonic settlers in Britain some tribes stand out
conspicuously; Angles, Saxons, and Jutes stand out
conspicuously above all. The Jutes led the way; from the
Angles the land and the united nation took their name; the
Saxons gave us the name by which our Celtic neighbours have
ever known us. But there is no reason to confine the area from
which our forefathers came to the space which we should mark
on the map as the land of the continental Angles, Saxons, and
Jutes. So great a migration is always likely to be swollen by
some who are quite alien to the leading tribe; it is always
certain to be swollen by many who are of stocks akin to the
leading tribe, but who do not actually belong to it.
{780}
As we in Britain are those who stayed behind at the time of
the second great migration of our people [to America], so I
venture to look on all our Low-Dutch kinsfolk on the continent
of Europe as those who stayed behind at the time of the first
great migration of our people. Our special hearth and cradle
is doubtless to be found in the immediate marchland of Germany
and Denmark, but the great common home of our people is to be
looked on as stretching along the whole of that long coast
where various dialects of the Low-Dutch tongue are spoken. If
Angles and Saxons came, we know that Frisians came also, and
with Frisians as an element among us, it is hardly too bold to
claim the whole Netherlands as in the widest sense Old
England, as the land of one part of the kinsfolk who stayed
behind. Through that whole region, from the special Anglian
corner far into what is now northern France, the true tongue
of the people, sometimes overshadowed by other tongues, is
some dialect or other of that branch of the great Teutonic
family which is essentially the same as our own speech. From
Flanders to Sleswick the natural tongue is one which differs
from English only as the historical events of fourteen hundred
years of separation have inevitably made the two tongues--two
dialects, I should rather say, of the same tongue--to differ.
From these lands we came as a people. That was our first
historical migration. Our remote forefathers must have made
endless earlier migrations as parts of the great Aryan body,
as parts of the smaller Teutonic body. But our voyage from the
Low-Dutch mainland to the isle of Britain was our first
migration as a people. ... Among the Teutonic tribes which
settled in Britain, two, the Angles and the Saxons, stood out
foremost. These two between them occupied by far the greater
part of the land that was occupied at all. Each of these two
gave its name to the united nation, but each gave it on
different lips. The Saxons were the earlier invaders; they had
more to do with the Celtic remnant which abode in the land. On
the lips then of the Celtic inhabitants of Britain, the whole
of the Teutonic inhabitants of Britain were known from the
beginning, and are known still, as Saxons. But, as the various
Teutonic settlements drew together, as they began to have
common national feelings and to feel the need of a common
national name, the name which they chose was not the same as
that by which their Celtic neighbours called them. They did
not call themselves Saxons and their land Saxony; they called
themselves English and their land England. I used the word
Saxony in all seriousness; it is a real name for the Teutonic
part of Britain, and it is an older name than the name
England. But it is a name used only from the outside by Celtic
neighbours and enemies; it was not used from the inside by the
Teutonic people themselves. In their mouths, as soon as they
took to themselves a common name, that name was English; as
soon as they gave their land a common name, that name was
England. ... And this is the more remarkable, because the age
when English was fully established as the name of the people,
and England as the name of the land, was an age of Saxon
supremacy, an age when a Saxon state held the headship of
England and of Britain, when Saxon kings grew step by step to
be kings of the English and lords of the whole British island.
In common use then, the men of the tenth and eleventh
centuries knew themselves by no name but English."
E. A. Freeman,
The English People in its Three Homes
(Lectures to American Audiences,
pages 30-31, and 45-47).
See ANGLES AND JUTES, and SAXONS.
ENGLAND: A. D. 449-473.
The Beginning of English history.
The conquest of Kent by the Jutes.
"In the year 449 or 450 a band of warriors was drawn to the
shores of Britain by the usual pledges of land and pay. The
warriors were Jutes, men of a tribe which has left its name to
Jutland, at the extremity of the peninsula that projects from
the shores of North-Germany, but who were probably akin to the
race that was fringing the opposite coast of Scandinavia and
settling in the Danish Isles. In three 'keels'--so ran the
legend of their conquest--and with their Ealdormen, Hengest
and Horsa, at their head, these Jutes landed at Ebbsfleet in
the Isle of Thanet. With the landing of Hengest and his
war-band English history begins. ... In the first years that
followed after their landing, Jute and Briton fought side by
side; and the Picts are said to have been scattered to the
winds in a great battle on the eastern coast of Britain. But
danger from the Pict was hardly over when danger came from the
Jutes themselves. Their numbers probably grew fast as the news
of their settlement in Thanet spread among their fellow
pirates who were haunting the channel; and with the increase
of their number must have grown the difficulty of supplying
them with rations and pay. The dispute which rose over these
questions was at last closed by Hengest's men with a threat of
war." The threat was soon executed; the forces of the Jutes
were successfully transferred from their island camp to the
main shore, and the town of Durovernum (occupying the site of
modern Canterbury) was the first to experience their rage.
"The town was left in blackened and solitary ruin as the
invaders pushed along the road to London. No obstacle seems to
have checked their march from the Stour to the Medway." At
Aylesford (A. D. 455), the lowest ford crossing the Medway,
"the British leaders must have taken post for the defence of
West Kent; but the Chronicle of the conquering people tells
... only that Horsa fell in the moment of victory; and the
flint-heap of Horsted which has long preserved his name ...
was held in aftertime to mark his grave. ... The victory of
Aylesford was followed by a political change among the
assailants, whose loose organization around ealdormen was
exchanged for a stricter union. Aylesford, we are told, was no
sooner won than 'Hengest took to the kingdom, and Ælle, his
son.' ... The two kings pushed forward in 457 from the Medway
to the conquest of West Kent." Another battle at the passage
of the Cray was another victory for the invaders, and, "as the
Chronicle of their conquerors tells us, the Britons' forsook
Kent-land and fled with much fear to London.' ... If we trust
British tradition, the battle at Crayford was followed by a
political revolution in Britain itself. ... It would seem ...
that the Romanized Britons rose in revolt under Aurelius
Ambrosianus, a descendant of the last Roman general who
claimed the purple as an Emperor in Britain. ... The
revolution revived for a while the energy of the province."
The Jutes were driven back into the Isle of Thanet, and held
there, apparently, for some years, with the help of the strong
fortresses of Richborough and Reculver, guarding the two
mouths of the inlet which then parted Thanet from the
mainland.
{781}
"In 465 however the petty conflicts which had gone on along
the shores of the Wantsum made way for a decisive struggle.
... The overthrow of the Britons at Wipped'sfleet was so
terrible that all hope of preserving the bulk of Kent seems
from this moment to have been abandoned; and ... no further
struggle disturbed the Jutes in its conquest and settlement.
It was only along its southern shore that the Britons now held
their ground. ... A final victory of the Jutes in 473 may mark
the moment when they reached the rich pastures which the Roman
engineers had reclaimed from Romney Marsh. ... With this
advance to the mouth of the Weald the work of Hengest's men
came to an end; nor did the Jutes from this time play any
important part in the attack on the island, for their
after-gains were limited to the Isle of Wight and a few
districts on the Southampton Water."
J. R. Green,
The Making of England,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
J. M. Lappenberg,
History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings,
volume 1, pages 67-101.
-----------------------------------------------------------
A Logical Outline of English History
IN WHICH THE DOMINANT CONDITIONS AND
INFLUENCES ARE DISTINGUISHED BY COLORS.
Physical or material (Orange).
Ethnological (Dark Blue).
Social and political (Green).
Intellectual, moral and religious (Tan).
Foreign (Black).
5th-7th centuries.
Conquest: and settlement by Saxons, Angles and Jutes.
The Island of Britain, separated from the Continent of Europe
by a narrow breadth of sea, which makes friendly commerce easy
and hostile invasion difficult;--its soil in great part
excellent; its northern climate tempered by the humid warmth
of the Gulf Stream; its conditions good for breeding a robust
population, strongly fed upon corn and meats; holding,
moreover, in store, for later times, a rare deposit of iron
and coal, of tin and potter's clay, and other minerals of like
utility; was occupied and possessed by tribes from Northern
Europe, of the strongest race in history; already schooled in
courage and trained to enterprise by generations of sea-faring
adventure; uncorrupted by any mercenary contact with the
decaying civilization of Rome, but ready for the knowledge it
could give.
7th-11th Centuries.
Fused, after much warring with one another and with their
Danish kin, into a nation of Englishmen, they lived, for five
centuries, an isolated life, until their insular and
independent character had become deeply ingrained, and the
primitive system of their social and political
organization--their Townships, their Hundreds, their Shires,
and the popular Moots, or courts, which determined and
administered law in each--was rooted fast; though their king's
power waxed and the nobles and the common people drew farther
apart.
A. D. 1066.--Norman conquest.
Then they were mastered (in the last successful invasion that
their Island ever knew) by another people, sprung from their
own stock, but whose blood had been warmed and whose wit had
been quickened by Latin and Gallic influences in the country
of the Franks.
11th-18th Centuries.
A new social and political system now formed itself in England
as the result:--Feudalism modified by the essential democracy
inherent in Old English institutions--producing a stout
commonality to daunt the lords, and a strong aristocracy to
curb the king.
A. D. 1215. Magna Oharta.
English royalty soon weakened itself yet more by ambitious
strivings to maintain and extend a wide dominion over-sea, in
Normandy and Aquitaine; and was helpless to resist when barons
and commons came together to demand the signing and sealing of
the Great Charter of Englishmen's rights.
A. D. 1265-1295--Parliament.
Out of the conditions which gave birth to Magna Charta there
followed, soon, the development of the English Parliament as a
representative legislature, from the Curia Regis of the Normans
and the Witenagemot of the older English time.
A. D. 1337-1453--The Hundred Years War.
From the woful wars of a hundred years with France, which
another century brought upon it, the nation, as a whole,
suffered detriment, no doubt, and it progress was hindered in
many ways; but politically the people took some good from
the troubled times, because their kings were more dependant on
them for money and men.
A. D. 1453-1485--War of the Roses
So likewise, they were bettered in some ways by the dreadful
civil Wars of the Roses, which distracted England for thirty
years. The nobles well-nigh perished, as an order, in these
wars, while the middle-class people at large suffered relatively
little, in numbers or estate.
A. D. 1348--The Great Plague.
But, previously, the great Plague, by diminishing the ranks of
the laboring class, had raised wages and the standard of living
among them, and had helped, with other causes, to multiply the
small landowners and tenant farmers of the country, increasing
the independent common class.
A. D. 1327-1377--Immigration of Flemish weavers.
Moreover, from the time of Edward III., who encouraged Flemish
weavers to settle in England and to teach their art to his
people, manufactures began to thrive; trade extended; towns
grew in population and wealth, and the great burgher
middle-class rose rapidly to importance and weight in the
land.
A. D. 1485-1603--Absolutism of the Tudors.
But the commons of England were not prepared to make use of
the actual power which they held. The nobles had led them in
the past; it needed time to raise leaders among themselves,
and time to organize their ranks. Hence no new checks on
royalty were ready to replace those constraints which had been
broken by the ruin of great houses in the civil wars, and the
crown made haste to improve its opportunity for grasping
power. There followed, under the Tudors, a period of
absolutism greater than England had known before.
15th-16th Centuries--Renaissance.
But this endured only for the time of the education of the
commons, who conned the lessons of the age with eagerness and
with understanding. The new learning from Greece and Rome; the
new world knowledge that had been found in the West; the new
ideas which the new art of the printer had furnished with
wings,--all these had now gained their most fertile planting
in the English mind. Their flower was the splendid literature
of the Elizabethan age; they ripened fruits more substantial
at a later day.
The intellectual development of the nation tended first toward
a religious independence, which produced two successive
revolts--from Roman Papacy and from the Anglican Episcopacy
that succeeded it.
This religious new departure of the English people gave
direction to a vast expansion of their energies in the outside
world. It led them into war with Spain, and sent forth Drake
and Hawkins and the Buccaneers, to train the sailors and pilot
the merchant adventurers who would soon make England mistress
of all the wide seas.
A. D. 1608-1688.
The Stuarts.
The Civil War.
The Commonwealth.
The Revolution.
Then, when these people, strong, prosperous and intelligent,
had come to be ripely sufficient for self-government, there
fell to them a foolish race of kings, who challenged them to a
struggle which stripped royalty of all but its fictions, and
established the sovereignty of England in its House of Commons
for all time.
18th-19th Centuries.
Science
Invention.
Material progress.
Economic enlightenment.
Unassailable in its island,--taking part in the great wars of
the 18th century by its fleets and its subsidies
chiefly,--busy with its undisturbed labors at home,--vigorous
in its conquests, its settlements and its trade, which it
pushed into the farthest parts of the earth,--creating wealth
and protecting it from spoliation and from waste,--the English
nation now became the industrial and economic school of the
age. It produced the mechanical inventions which first opened
a new era in the life of mankind on the material side; it
attained to the splendid enlightenment of freedom in trade; it
made England the workshop and mart of the world, and it spread
her Empire to every Continent, through all the seas.
--------- End: A Logical Outline of English History --------------------
ENGLAND: A. D. 477-527.
The conquests of the Saxons.
The founding of the kingdoms of Sussex, Wessex and Essex.
"Whilst the Jutes were conquering Kent, their kindred took
part in the war. Ship after ship sailed from the North Sea,
filled with eager warriors. The Saxons now arrived--Ella and
his three sons landed in the ancient territory of the Regni
(A. D. 477-491). The Britons were defeated with great
slaughter, and driven into the forest of Andreade, whose
extent is faintly indicated by the wastes and commons of the
Weald. A general confederacy of the Kings and 'Tyrants' of the
Britons was formed against the invaders, but fresh
reinforcements arrived from Germany; the city of
Andreades-Ceastre was taken by storm, all its inhabitants were
slain and the buildings razed to the ground, so that its site
is now entirely unknown. From this period the kingdom of the
South Saxons was established in the person of Ella; and though
ruling only over the narrow boundary of modern Sussex, he was
accepted as the first of the Saxon Bretwaldas, or Emperors of
the Isle of Britain. Encouraged, perhaps, by the good tidings
received from Ella, another band of Saxons, commanded by
Cerdic and his son Cynric, landed on the neighbouring shore,
in the modern Hampshire (A. D. 494). At first they made but
little progress. They were opposed by the Britons; but
Geraint, whom the Saxon Chroniclers celebrate for his
nobility, and the British Bards extol for his beauty and
valour, was slain (A. D. 501). The death of the Prince of the
'Woodlands of Dyfnaint,' or Damnonia, may have been avenged,
but the power of the Saxons overwhelmed all opposition; and
Cerdic, associating his son Cynric in the dignity, became the
King of the territory which he gained. Under Cynric and his
son Ceaulin, the Saxons slowly, yet steadily, gained ground.
The utmost extent of their dominions towards the North cannot
be ascertained; but they had conquered the town of Bedford;
and it was probably in consequence of their geographical
position (A. D. 571) with respect to the countries of the
Middle and East Saxons, that the name of the West Saxons was
given to this colony. The tract north of the Thames was soon
lost; but on the south of that river and of the Severn, the
successors of Cerdic, Kings of Wessex, continued to extend
their dominions. The Hampshire Avon, which retains its old
Celtic name, signifying 'the Water,' seems at first to have
been their boundary. Beyond this river, the British princes of
Damnonia retained their power; and it was long before the
country as far as the Exe became a Saxon March-land, or
border. About the time that the Saxons under Cerdic and Cynric
were successfully warring against the Britons, another colony
was seen to establish itself in the territory or kingdom
which, from its geographical position, obtained the name of
East Saxony; but whereof the district of the Middle Saxons,
now Middlesex, formed a part. London, as you well know, is
locally included in Middle Saxony; and the Kings of Essex, and
the other sovereigns who afterwards acquired the country,
certainly possessed many extensive rights of sovereignty in
the city. Yet, I doubt much whether London was ever
incorporated in any Anglo-Saxon kingdom; and I think we must
view it as a weak, tributary, vassal state, not very well able
to resist the usurpations of the supreme Lord or Suzerain,
Æscwin, or Ercenwine, who was the first King of the East
Saxons (A. D. 527). His son Sleda was married to Ricola,
daughter to Ethelbert of Kent, who afterwards appears as the
superior, or sovereign of the country; and though Sleda was
King, yet Ethelbert joined in all important acts of
government. This was the fate of Essex--it is styled a
kingdom, but it never enjoyed any political independence,
being always subject to the adjoining kings."
F. Palgrave,
History of the Anglo Saxons,
chapter 2.
"The descents of [the West Saxons], Cerdic and Cynric, in 495
at the mouth of the Itchen, and a fresh descent on Portchester
in 501, can have been little more than plunder raids; and
though in 508 a far more serious conflict ended in the fall of
5,000 Britons and their chief, it was not till 514 that the
tribe whose older name seems to have been that of the
Gewissas, but who were to be more widely known as the West
Saxons, actually landed with a view to definite conquest."
J. R. Green,
The Making of England,
chapter 3.
"The greatness of Sussex did not last beyond the days of its
founder Ælle, the first Bretwalda. Whatever importance Essex,
or its offshoot, Middlesex, could claim as containing the
great city of London was of no long duration. We soon find
London fluctuating between the condition of an independent
commonwealth, and that of a dependency of the Mercian Kings.
Very different was the destiny of the third Saxon Kingdom.
Wessex has grown into England, England into Great Britain,
Great Britain into the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom into
the British Empire. Every prince who has ruled England before
and since the eleventh century [the interval of the Danish
kings, Harold, son of Godwine, and William the Conqueror, who
were not of the West Saxon house] has had the blood of Cerdic
the West Saxon in his veins. At the close of the sixth century
Wessex had risen to high importance among the English
Kingdoms, though the days of its permanent supremacy were
still far distant."
E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 2, section 1.
{782}
ENGLAND: A. D. 547-633.
The conquests of the Angles.
The founding of their kingdoms.
Northwards of the East Saxons was established the kingdom of
the East Angles, in which a northern and a southern people
(Northfolc and Suthfolc) were distinguished. It is probable
that, even during the last period of the Roman sway, Germans
were settled in this part of Britain; a supposition that gains
probability from several old Saxon sagas, which have reference
to East Anglia at a period anterior to the coming of Hengest
and Horsa. The land of the Gyrwas, containing 1,200 hides ...
comprised the neighbouring marsh districts of Ely and
Huntingdonshire, almost as far as Lincoln. Of the East Angles
Wehwa, or Wewa, or more commonly his son Uffa, or Wuffa, from
whom his race derived their patronymic of Uffings or Wuffings,
is recorded as the first king. The neighbouring states of
Mercia originated in the marsh districts of the Lindisware, or
inhabitants of Lindsey (Lindesig), the northern part of
Lincolnshire. With these were united the Middle Angles. This
kingdom, divided by the Trent into a northern and a southern
portion, gradually extended itself to the borders of Wales.
Among the states which it comprised was the little Kingdom of
the Hwiccas, conterminous with the later diocese of Worcester,
or the counties of Gloucester, Worcester, and a part of
Warwick. This state, together with that of the Hecanas, bore
the common Germanic appellation of the land of the Magesætas.
... The country to the north of the Humber had suffered the
most severely from the inroads of the Picts and Scots. It
became at an early period separated into two British states,
the names of which were retained for some centuries, viz.:
Deifyr (Deora rice), afterwards Latinized into Deira,
extending from the Humber to the Tyne, and Berneich (Beorna
rice), afterwards Bernicia, from the Tyne to the Clyde. Here
also the settlements of the German races appear anterior to
the date given in the common accounts of the first Anglian
kings of those territories, in the middle of the sixth
century."
J. M. Lappenberg,
History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings (Thorpe),
volume 1, pages 112-117.
The three Anglian kingdoms of Northumberland, Mercia and East
Anglia, "are altogether much larger than the Saxon and Jutish
Kingdoms, so you see very well why the land was called
'England' and not 'Saxony.' ... 'Saxonia' does occur now and
then, and it was really an older name than 'Anglia,' but it
soon went quite out of use. ... But some say that there were
either Jutes or Saxons in the North of England as soon or
sooner than there were in the south. If so, there is another
reason why the Scotch Celts as well as the Welsh, call us
Saxons. It is not unlikely that there may have been some small
Saxon or Jutish settlements there very early, but the great
Kingdom of Northumberland was certainly founded by Ida the
Angle in 547. It is more likely that there were some Teutonic
settlements there before him, because the Chronicle does not
say of him, as it does of Hengest, Cissa and Cerdie, that he
came into the land by the sea, but only that he began the
Kingdom. ... You must fully understand that in the old times
Northumberland meant the whole land north of the Humber,
reaching as far as the Firth of Forth. It thus takes in part
of what is now Scotland, including the city of Edinburgh, that
is Eadwinesburh, the town of the great Northumbrian King
Eadwine, or Edwin [Edwin of Deira, A. D. 617-633]. ... You
must not forget that Lothian and all that part of Scotland was
part of Northumberland, and that the people there are really
English, and still speak a tongue which has changed less from
the Old-English than the tongue of any other part of England.
And the real Scots, the Gael in the Highlands, call the
Lowland Scots 'Saxons,' just as much as they do the people of
England itself. This Northumbrian Kingdom was one of the
greatest Kingdoms in England, but it was often divided into
two, Beornicia [or Bernicia] and Deira, the latter of which
answered pretty nearly to Yorkshire. The chief city was the
old Roman town of Eboracum, which in Old-English is Eoforwic,
and which we cut short into York. York was for a long time the
greatest town in the North of England. There are now many
others much larger, but York is still the second city in
England in rank, and it gives its chief magistrate the title
of Lord-Mayor, as London· does, while in other cities and
towns the chief magistrate is merely the Mayor, without any
Lord. ... The great Anglian Kingdom of the Mercians, that is
the Marchmen, the people on the march or frontier, seems to
have been the youngest of all, and to have grown up gradually
by joining together several smaller states, including all the
land which the West Saxons had held north of the Thames. Such
little tribes or states were the Lindesfaras and the Gainas in
Lincolnshire, the Magesætas in Herefordshire, the Hwiccas in
Gloucester, Worcester, and part of Warwick, and several
others. ... When Mercia was fully joined under one King, it
made one of the greatest states in England, and some of the
Mercian Kings were very powerful princes. It was chiefly an
Anglian Kingdom; and the Kings were of an Anglian stock, but
among the Hwiccas and in some of the other shires in southern
and western Mercia, most of the people must really have been
Saxons."
E. A. Freeman,
Old English History for Children,
chapter 5.
ENGLAND: A. D. 560.
Ethelbert becomes king of Kent.
ENGLAND: A. D. 593.
Ethelfrith becomes king of Northumbria.
ENGLAND: A. D. 597-685.
The conversion of the English.
"It happened that certain Saxon children were to be sold for
slaves at the marketplace at Rome; when Divine Providence, the
great clock-keeper of time, ordering not only hours, but even
instants (Luke ii. 38), to his own honour, so disposed it,
that Gregory, afterwards first bishop of Rome of that name,
was present to behold them. It grieved the good man to see the
disproportion betwixt the faces and fortunes, the complexions
and conditions, of these children, condemned to a servile
estate, though carrying liberal looks, so legible was
ingenuity in their faces. It added more to his sorrow, when he
conceived that those youths were twice vassals, bought by
their masters, and 'sold under sin' (Romans vii. 14), servants
in their bodies, and slaves in their souls to Satan; which
occasioned the good man to enter into further inquiry with the
merchants (which set them to sale) what they were and whence
they came, according to this ensuing dialogue:
Gregory.--'Whence come these captives?'
Merchants.--'From the isle of Britain.'
Gregory.--'Are those islanders Christians?'
Merchants.--'O no, they are Pagans.'
Gregory.--'It is sad that the author of darkness should
possess men with so bright faces. But what is the name of
their particular nation?'
Merchants.--'They are called Angli.'
Gregory.--'And well may, for their "angel like faces"; it
becometh such to be coheirs with the angels in heaven. In what
province of England did they live?'
Merchants.--'In Deira.'
Gregory.--'They are to be freed de Dei irâ, "from the anger of
God." How call ye the king of that country?'
Merchants.--'Ella.'
Gregory.--'Surely hallelujah ought to be sung in his kingdom
to the praise of that God who created all things.'
{783}
Thus Gregory's gracious heart set the sound of every word to
the time of spiritual goodness. Nor can his words be justly
censured for levity, if we consider how, in that age, the
elegance of poetry consisted in rhythm, and the eloquence of
prose in allusions. And which was the main, where his pleasant
conceits did end, there his pious endeavours began; which did
not terminate in a verbal jest, but produce real effects,
which ensued hereupon."
Thomas Fuller,
The Church History of Britain,
book 2, section 1.
In 590 the good Gregory became Bishop of Rome, or Pope, and
six years later, still retaining the interest awakened in him
by the captive English youth, he dispatched a band of
missionary monks to Britain, with their prior, Augustine, at
their head. Once they turned back, affrighted by what they
heard of the ferocity of the new heathen possessors of the
once-Christian island of Britain; but Gregory laid his
commands upon them again, and in the spring of 597 they
crossed the channel from Gaul, landing at Ebbsfleet, in the
Isle of Thanet, where the Jutish invaders had made their first
landing, a century and a half before. They found Ethelbert of
Kent, the most powerful of the English kings at that time,
already prepared to receive them with tolerance, if not with
favor, through the influence of a Christian wife--queen
Bertha, of the royal family of the Franks. The conversion and
baptism of the Kentish king and court, and the acceptance of
the new faith by great numbers of the people followed quickly.
In November of the same year, 597, Augustine returned to Gaul
to receive his consecration as "Archbishop of the English,"
establishing the See of Canterbury, with the primacy which has
remained in it to the present day. The East Saxons were the
next to bow to the cross and in 604 a bishop, Mellitus, was
sent to London. This ended Augustine's work--and Gregory's--
for both died that year. Then followed an interval of little
progress in the work of the mission, and, afterwards, a
reaction towards idolatry which threatened to destroy it
altogether. But just at this time of discouragement in the
south, a great triumph of Christianity was brought about in
Northumberland, and due, there, as in Kent, to the influence
of a Christian queen. Edwin, the king, with many of his nobles
and his people, were baptised on Easter Eve, A. D. 627, and a new
center of missionary work was established at York. There, too,
an appalling reverse occurred, when Northumberland was
overrun, in 633, by Penda, the heathen king of Mercia; but the
kingdom rallied, and the Christian Church was reestablished,
not wholly, as before, under the patronage and rule of Rome,
but partly by a mission from the ancient Celtic Church, which
did not acknowledge the supremacy of Rome. In the end,
however, the Roman forms of Christianity prevailed, throughout
Britain, as elsewhere in western Europe. Before the end of the
7th century the religion of the Cross was established firmly
in all parts of the island, the South Saxons being the latest
to receive it. In the 8th century English missionaries were
laboring zealously for the conversion of their Saxon and
Frisian brethren on the continent.
G. F. Maclear,
Conversion of the West; The English.
ALSO IN:
The Venerable Bede,
Ecclesiastical History.
H. Soames,
The Anglo Saxon Church.
R. C. Jenkins,
Canterbury,
chapter 2.
ENGLAND:
End of the 6th. Century.
The extent, the limits and the character
of the Teutonic conquest.
"Before the end of the 6th century the Teutonic dominion
stretched from the German ocean to the Severn, and from the
English Channel to the Firth of Forth. The northern part of
the island was still held by Picts and Scots, Celtic tribes,
whose exact ethnical relation to each other hardly concerns
us. And the whole west side of the island, including not only
modern Wales, but the great Kingdom of Strathclyde, stretching
from Dumbarton to Chester, and the great peninsula containing
Cornwall, Devon and part of Somerset, was still in the hands
of independent Britons. The struggle had been a long and
severe one, and the natives often retained possession of a
defensible district long after the surrounding country had
been occupied by the invaders. It is therefore probable that,
at the end of the 6th century and even later, there may have
been within the English frontier inaccessible points where
detached bodies of Welshmen still retained a precarious
independence. It is probable also that, within the same
frontier, there still were Roman towns, tributary to the
conquerors rather than occupied by them. But by the end of the
6th century even these exceptions must have been few. The work
of the Conquest, as a whole, was accomplished. The Teutonic
settlers had occupied by far the greater part of the territory
which they ever were, in the strictest sense, to occupy. The
complete supremacy of the island was yet to be won; but that
was to be won, when it was won, by quite another process. The
English Conquest of Britain differed in several important
respects from every other settlement of a Teutonic people
within the limits of the Roman Empire. ... Though the literal
extirpation of a nation is an impossibility, there is every
reason to believe that the Celtic inhabitants of those parts
of Britain which had become English at the 6th century had
been as nearly extirpated as a nation can be. The women would
doubtless be largely spared, but as far as the male sex is
concerned, we may feel sure that death, emigration or personal
slavery were the only alternatives which the vanquished found
at the hands of our fathers. The nature of the small Celtic
element in our language would of itself prove the fact. Nearly
every Welsh word which has found its way into English
expresses some small domestic matter, such as women and slaves
would be concerned with."
E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 2, section 1.
"A glance at the map shows that the mass of the local
nomenclature of England begins with the Teutonic conquest,
while the mass of the local nomenclature of France is older
than the Teutonic conquest. And, if we turn from the names on
the map to the living speech of men, there is the most
obvious, but the most important, of all facts, the fact that
Englishmen speak English and that Frenchmen speak French.
{784}
That is to say, in Gaul the speech of Rome lived through the
Teutonic conquest, while in Britain it perished in the
Teutonic conquest, if it had not passed away before. And
behind this is the fact, very much less obvious, a good deal
less important, but still very important, that in Gaul tongues
older than Latin live on only in corners as mere survivals,
while in Britain, while Latin has utterly vanished, a tongue
older than Latin still lives on as the common speech of an
appreciable part of the land. Here then is the final result
open to our own eyes. And it is a final result which could not
have come to pass unless the Teutonic conquest of Britain had
been something of an utterly different character from the
Teutonic conquest of Gaul--unless the amount of change, of
destruction, of havoc of every kind, above all, of slaughter
and driving out of the existing inhabitants, had been far
greater in Britain than it was in Gaul. If the Angles and
Saxons in Britain had been only as the Goths in Spain, or even
as the Franks in Gaul, it is inconceivable that the final
results should have been so utterly different in the two
cases. There is the plain fact: Gaul remained a Latin-speaking
land; England became a Teutonic-speaking land. The obvious
inference is that, while in Gaul the Teutonic conquest led to
no general displacement of the inhabitants, in England it did
lead to such a general displacement. In Gaul the Franks simply
settled among a subject people, among whom they themselves
were gradually merged; in Britain the Angles and Saxons slew
or drove out the people whom they found in the land, and
settled it again as a new people."
E. A. Freeman,
The English People in its Three Homes
(Lectures to American Audiences),
pages 114-115.
"Almost to the close of the 6th century the English conquest
of Britain was a sheer dispossession of the conquered people;
and, so far as the English sword in these earlier days
reached, Britain became England, a land, that is, not of
Britons, but of Englishmen. There is no need to believe that
the clearing of the land meant the general slaughter of the
men who held it, or to account for such a slaughter by
supposed differences between the temper of the English and
those of other conquerors. ... The displacement of the
conquered people was only made possible by their own stubborn
resistance, and by the slow progress of the conquerors in the
teeth of it. Slaughter no doubt there was on the battlefield
or in towns like Anderida, whose long defence woke wrath in
their besiegers. But for the most part the Britons cannot have
been slaughtered; they were simply defeated and drew back."
J. R. Green,
The Making of England,
chapter 4.
The view strongly stated above, as to the completeness of the
erasure of Romano-British society and influence from the whole
of England except its southwestern and north· western
counties, by the English conquest, is combated as strongly by
another less prominent school of recent historians,
represented, for example, by Mr. Henry C. Coote (The Romans of
Britain) and by Mr. Charles H. Pearson, who says: "We know
that fugitives from Britain settled largely during the 5th
century in Armorica and in Ireland; and we may perhaps accept
the legend of St. Ursula as proof that the flight, in some
instances, was directed to the more civilized parts of the
continent. But even the pious story of the 11,000 virgins is
sober and credible by the side of that history which assumes
that some million men and women were slaughtered or made
homeless by a few ship-loads of conquerors."
C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 1, chapter 6.
The opinion maintained by Prof. Freeman and Mr. Green (and, no
less, by Dr. Stubbs) is the now generally accepted one.
ENGLAND: 7th Century.
The so-called "Heptarchy."
"The old notion of an Heptarchy, of a regular system of seven
Kingdoms, united under the regular supremacy of a single
over-lord, is a dream which has passed away before the light
of historic criticism. The English Kingdoms in Britain were
ever fluctuating, alike in their number and in their relations
to one another. The number of perfectly independent states was
sometimes greater and sometimes less than the mystical seven,
and, till the beginning of the ninth century, the whole nation
did not admit the regular supremacy of any fixed and permanent
over-lord. Yet it is no less certain that, among the mass of
smaller and more obscure principalities, seven Kingdoms do
stand out in a marked way, seven Kingdoms of which it is
possible to recover something like a continuous history, seven
Kingdoms which alone supplied candidates for the dominion of
the whole island." These seven kingdoms were Kent, Sussex,
Essex, Wessex, East Anglia, Northumberland and Mercia.
E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 2.
"After the territorial boundaries had become more settled,
there appeared at the commencement of the seventh century
seven or eight greater and smaller kingdoms. ... Historians
have described this condition of things as the Heptarchy,
disregarding the early disappearance of Sussex, and the
existence of still smaller kingdoms. But this grouping was
neither based upon equality, nor destined to last for any
length of time. It was the common interest of these smaller
states to withstand the sudden and often dangerous invasions
of their western and northern neighbours; and, accordingly,
whichever king was capable of successfully combating the
common foe, acquired for the time a certain superior rank,
which some historians denote by the title of Bretwalda. By
this name can only be understood an actual and recognized
temporary superiority; first ascribed to Ælla of Sussex, and
later passing to Northumbria, until Wessex finally attains a
real and lasting supremacy. It was geographical position which
determined these relations of superiority. The small kingdoms
in the west were shielded by the greater ones of
Northumberland, Mercia and Wessex, as though by
crescent-shaped forelands--which in their struggles with the
Welsh kingdoms, with Strathclyde and Cumbria, with Picts and
Scots, were continually in a state of martial activity. And so
the smaller western kingdoms followed the three warlike ones;
and round these Anglo-Saxon history revolved for two whole
centuries, until in Wessex we find a combination of most of
the conditions which are necessary to the existence of a great
State."
R. Gneist,
History of the English Constitution,
chapter 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 617.
Edwin becomes king of Northumbria.
ENGLAND: A. D. 634.
Oswald becomes king of Northumbria.
ENGLAND: A. D. 655.
Oswi becomes king of Northumbria.
{785}
ENGLAND: A. D. 670.
Egfrith becomes king of Northumbria.
ENGLAND: A. D. 688.
Ini becomes king of the West Saxons.
ENGLAND: A. D. 716.
Ethelbald becomes king of Mercia.
ENGLAND: A. D. 758.
Offa becomes king of Mercia.
ENGLAND: A. D. 794.
Cenwulf becomes king of Mercia.
ENGLAND: A. D. 800.
Accession of the West Saxon king Ecgberht.
ENGLAND: A. D. 800-836.
The supremacy of Wessex.
The first king of all the English.
"And now I have come to the reign of Ecgberht, the great
Bretwalda. He was an Ætheling of the blood of Cerdic, and he
is said to have been the son of Ealhmund, and Ealhmund is said
to have been an Under-king of Kent. For the old line of the
Kings of Kent had come to an end and Kent was now sometimes
under Wessex and sometimes under Mercia. ... When Beorhtric
died in 800, he [Ecgberht] was chosen King of the West-Saxons.
He reigned until 836, and in that time he brought all the
English Kingdoms, and the greater part of Britain, more or
less under his power. The southern part of the island, all
Kent, Sussex, and Essex, he joined on to his own Kingdom, and
set his sons or other Æthelings to reign over them as his
Under-kings. But Northumberland, Mercia, and East-Anglia were
not brought so completely under his power as this. Their Kings
submitted to Ecgberht and acknowledged him as their over-lord,
but they went on reigning in their own Kingdoms, and
assembling their own Wise Men, just as they did before. They
became what in after times was called his 'vassals,' what in
English was called being his 'men.' ... Besides the English
Kings, Ecgberht brought the Welsh, both in Wales and in
Cornwall, more completely under his power. ... So King
Ecgberht was Lord from the Irish Sea to the German Ocean, and
from the English Channel to the Firth of Forth. So it is not
wonderful if, in his charters, he not only called himself King
of the West-Saxons or King of the West-Saxons and Kentishmen,
but sometimes 'Rex Anglorum,' or 'King of the English.' But
amidst all this glory there were signs of great evils at hand.
The Danes came several times."
E. A. Freeman,
Old English History for Children,
chapter 7.
ENGLAND: A. D. 836.
Accession of the West Saxon king Ethelwulf.
ENGLAND: A. D. 855-880.
Conquests and settlements of the Danes.
The heroic struggle of Alfred the Great.
The "Peace of Wedmore" and the "Danelaw."
King Alfred's character and reign.
"The Danish invasions of England ... fall naturally into three
periods, each of which finds its parallel in the course of the
English Conquest of Britain. ... We first find a period in
which the object of the invaders seems to be simple plunder.
They land, they harry the country, they fight, if need be, to
secure their booty, but whether defeated or victorious, they
equally return to their ships, and sail away with what they
have gathered. This period includes the time from the first
recorded invasion [A. D. 787] till the latter half of the
ninth century. Next comes a time in which the object of the
Northmen is clearly no longer mere plunder, but settlement.
... In the reign of Æthelwulf the son of Ecgberht it is
recorded that the heathen men wintered for the first time in
the Isle of Sheppey [A. D. 855]. This marks the transition
from the first to the second period of their invasions. ... It
was not however till about eleven years from this time that
the settlement actually began. Meanwhile the sceptre of the
West-Saxons passed from one hand to another. ... Four sons of
Æthelwulf reigned in succession, and the reigns of the first
three among them [Ethelbald, A. D. 858, Ethelberht, 860,
Ethelred, 866] make up together only thirteen years. In the
reign of the third of these princes, Æthelred I., the second
period of the invasions fairly begins. Five years were spent
by the Northmen in ravaging and conquering the tributary
Kingdoms. Northumberland, still disputed between rival Kings,
fell an easy prey [867-869], and one or two puppet princes did
not scruple to receive a tributary crown at the hands of the
heathen invaders. They next entered Mercia [868], they seized
Nottingham, and the West-Saxon King hastening to the relief of
his vassals, was unable to dislodge them from that stronghold.
East Anglia was completely conquered [866-870] and its King
Eadmund died a martyr. At last the full storm of invasion
burst upon Wessex itself [871]. King Æthelred, the first of a
long line of West-Saxon hero-Kings, supported by his greater
brother Ælfred [Alfred the Great] met the invaders in battle
after battle with varied success. He died and Ælfred
succeeded, in the thick of the struggle. In this year [871],
the last of Æthelred and the first of Ælfred, nine pitched
battles, besides smaller engagements, were fought with the
heathens on West-Saxon ground. At last peace was made; the
Northmen retreated to London, within the Mercian frontier;
Wessex was for the moment delivered, but the supremacy won by
Ecgberht was lost. For a few years Wessex was subjected to
nothing more than temporary incursions, but Northumberland and
part of Mercia were systematically occupied by the Northmen,
and the land was divided among them. ... At last the Northmen,
now settled in a large part of the island, made a second
attempt to add Wessex itself to their possessions [878]. For a
moment the land seemed conquered; Ælfred himself lay hid in the
marshes of Somersetshire; men might well deem that the Empire
of Ecgberht and the Kingdom of Cerdic itself, had vanished for
ever. But the strong heart of the most renowned of Englishmen,
the saint, the scholar, the hero, and the lawgiver, carried
his people safely through this most terrible of dangers.
Within the same year the Dragon of Wessex was again victorious
[at the battle of Ethandun, or Edington], and the Northmen
were driven to conclude a peace which Englishmen, fifty years
sooner, would have deemed the lowest depth of degradation, but
which might now be fairly looked upon as honourable and even
as triumphant. By the terms of the Peace of Wedmore the
Northmen were to evacuate Wessex and the part of Mercia
south-west of Watling-Street; they, or at least their chiefs,
were to submit to baptism, and they were to receive the whole
land beyond Watling-Street as vassals of the West-Saxon King.
... The exact boundary started from the Thames, along the Lea
to its source, then right to Bedford and along the Ouse till
it meets Watling-Street, then along Watling-Street to the
Welsh border. See Ælfred and Guthrum's Peace,' Thorpe's 'Laws
and Institutes,' i. 152. This frontier gives London to the
English; but it seems that Ælfred did not obtain full
possession of London till 886."
{786}
The territory thus conceded to the Danes, which included all
northeastern England from the Thames to the Tyne, was
thenceforth known by the name of the Danelagh or Danelaw,
signifying the country subject to the law of the Danes. The
Peace of Wedmore ended the second period of the Danish
invasions. The third period, which was not opened until a full
century later, embraced the actual conquest of the whole of
England by a Danish king and its temporary annexation to the
dominions of the Danish crown.
E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 2, with foot-note.
"Now that peace was restored, and the Danes driven out of his
domains, it remained to be seen whether Alfred was as good a
ruler as he was a soldier. ... What did he see? The towns,
even London itself, pillaged, ruined, or burnt down; the
monasteries destroyed; the people wild and lawless; ignorance,
roughness, insecurity everywhere. It is almost incredible with
what a brave heart he set himself to repair all this; how his
great and noble aims were still before him; how hard he
strove, and how much he achieved. First of all he seems to
have sought for helpers. Like most clever men, he was good at
reading characters. He soon saw who would be true, brave, wise
friends, and he collected these around him. Some of them he
fetched from over the sea, from France and Germany; our friend
Asser from Wales, or, as he calls his country, 'Western
Britain,' while England, he calls 'Saxony.' He says he first
saw Alfred 'in a royal vill, which is called Dene' in Sussex.
'He received me with kindness, and asked me eagerly to devote
myself to his service, and become his friend; to leave
everything which I possessed on the left or western bank of
the Severn, and promised that he would give more than an
equivalent for it in his own dominions. I replied that I could
not rashly and incautiously promise such things; for it seemed
to be unjust that I should leave those sacred places in which
I had been bred, educated, crowned, and ordained for the sake
of any earthly honour and power, unless upon compulsion. Upon
this he said, "If you cannot accede to this, at least let me
have your service in part; spend six months of the year with
me here, and the other six months in Britain."' And to this
after a time Asser consented. What were the principal things
he turned his mind to after providing for the defence of his
kingdom, and collecting his friends and counsellors about him?
Law--justice--religion--education. He collected and studied
the old laws of his nation; what he thought good he kept, what
he disapproved he left out. He added others, especially the
ten commandments and some other parts of the law of Moses.
Then he laid them all before his Witan, or wise men, and with
their approval published them. ... The state of justice in
England was dreadful at this time. ... Alfred's way of curing
this was by inquiring into all cases, as far as he possibly
could, himself; and Asser says he did this 'especially for the
sake of the poor, to whose interest, day and night, he ever
was wonderfully attentive; for in the whole kingdom the poor,
besides him, had few or no protectors.' ... When he found that
the judges had made mistakes through ignorance, he rebuked them,
and told them they must either grow wiser or give up their
posts; and soon the old earls and other judges, who had been
unlearned from their cradles, began to study diligently. ...
For reviving and spreading religion among his people he used
the best means that he knew of; that is, he founded new
monasteries and restored old ones, and did his utmost to get
good bishops and clergymen. For his own part, he strove to
practise in all ways what he taught to others. ... Education
was in a still worse condition than everything else. ... All
the schools had been broken up. Alfred says that when he began
to reign there were very few clergymen south of the Humber who
could even understand the Prayer-book. (That was still in
Latin, as the Roman missionaries had brought it.) And south of
the Thames he could not remember one. His first care was to
get better-educated clergy and bishops. And next to get the
laymen taught also. ... He founded monasteries and schools,
and restored the old ones which had been ruined. He had a
school in his court for his own children and the children of
his nobles. But at the very outset a most serious difficulty
confronted Alfred. Where was he to get books? At this time, as
far as we can judge, there can only have been one, or at most
two books in the English language--the long poem of Cædmon
about the creation of the world, &c., and the poem of Beowulf
about warriors and fiery dragons. There were many English
ballads and songs, but whether these were written down I do
not know. There was no book of history, not even English
history; no book of geography, no religious books, no
philosophy. Bede, who had written so many books, had written
them all in Latin. ... So when they had a time of 'stillness'
the king and his learned friends set to work and translated
books into English; and Alfred, who was as modest and candid
as he was wise, put into the preface of one of his
translations that he hoped, if anyone knew Latin better than
he did, that he would not blame him, for he could but do
according to his ability. ... Beside all this, he had a great
many other occupations. Asser, who often lived with him for
months at a time, gives us an account of his busy life.
Notwithstanding his infirmities and other hindrances, 'he
continued to carry on the government, and to exercise hunting
in all its branches; to teach his workers in gold and
artificers of all kinds, his falconers, hawkers, and
dog-keepers; to build houses, majestic and good, beyond all
the precedents of his ancestors, by his new mechanical
inventions; to recite the Saxon books (Asser, being a
Welshman, always calls the English, Saxon), and especially to
learn by heart the Saxon poems, and to make others learn them;
he never desisted from studying most diligently to the best of
his ability; he attended the mass and other daily services of
religion; he was frequent in psalm-singing and prayer; ... he
bestowed alms and largesses on both natives and foreigners of
all countries; he was affable and pleasant to all, and
curiously eager to investigate things unknown.'"
M. J. Guest,
Lectures on the History of England,
lecture 9.
"It is no easy task for anyone who has been studying his
[Alfred's] life and works to set reasonable bounds to their
reverence, and enthusiasm, for the man. Lest the reader should
think my estimate tainted with the proverbial weakness of
biographers for their heroes; let them turn to the words in
which the earliest, and the last of the English historians of
that time, sum up the character of Alfred.
{787}
Florence of Worcester, writing in the century after his death,
speaks of him as 'that famous, warlike, victorious king; the
zealous protector of widows, scholars, orphans and the poor;
skilled in the Saxon poets; affable and liberal to all;
endowed with prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance;
most patient under the infirmity which he daily suffered; a
most stern inquisitor in executing justice; vigilant and
devoted in the service of God.' Mr. Freeman, in his 'History
of the Norman Conquest,' has laid down the portrait in bold
and lasting colours, in a passage as truthful as it is
eloquent, which those who are familiar with it will be glad to
meet again, while those who do not know it will be grateful to me
for substituting for any poor words of my own. 'Alfred, the
unwilling author of these great changes, is the most perfect
character in history. He is a singular instance of a prince
who has become a hero of romance, who, as such, has had
countless imaginary exploits attributed to him, but to whose
character romance has done no more than justice, and who
appears in exactly the same light in history and in fable. No
other man on record has ever so thoroughly united all the
virtues both of the ruler and of the private man. In no other
man on record were so many virtues disfigured by so little
alloy. A saint without superstition, a scholar without
ostentation, a warrior all whose wars were fought in the
defence of his country, a conqueror whose laurels were never
stained by cruelty, a prince never cast down by adversity,
never lifted up to insolence in the day of triumph--there is
no other name in history to compare with his. Saint Lewis
comes nearest to him in the union of a more than monastic
piety with the highest civil, military, and domestic virtues.
Both of them stand forth in honourable contrast to the abject
superstition of some other royal saints, who were so selfishly
engaged in the care of their own souls that they refused
either to raise up heirs for their throne, or to strike a blow
on behalf of their people. But even in Saint Lewis we see a
disposition to forsake an immediate sphere of duty for the
sake of distant and unprofitable, however pious and glorious,
undertakings. The true duties of the King of the French
clearly lay in France, and not in Egypt or Tunis. No such
charge lies at the door of the great King of the West Saxons.
With an inquiring spirit which took in the whole world, for
purposes alike of scientific inquiry and of Christian
benevolence, Alfred never forgot that his first duty was to
his own people. He forestalled our own age in sending
expeditions to explore the Northern Ocean, and in sending alms
to the distant Churches of India; but he neither forsook his
crown, like some of his predecessors, nor neglected his
duties, like some of his successors. The virtue of Alfred,
like the virtue of Washington, consisted in no marvellous
displays of super-human genius, but in the simple,
straightforward discharge of the duty of the moment. But
Washington, soldier, statesman, and patriot, like Alfred, has
no claim to Alfred's further characters of saint and scholar.
William the Silent, too, has nothing to set against Alfred's
literary merits; and in his career, glorious as it is, there
is an element of intrigue and chicanery utterly alien to the
noble simplicity of both Alfred and Washington. The same union
of zeal for religion and learning with the highest gifts of
the warrior and the statesman is found, on a wider field of
action, in Charles the Great. But even Charles cannot aspire
to the pure glory of Alfred. Amidst all the splendour of
conquest and legislation, we cannot be blind to an alloy of
personal ambition, of personal vice, to occasional unjust
aggressions and occasional acts of cruelty. Among our own
later princes, the great Edward alone can bear for a moment
the comparison with his glorious ancestor. And, when tried by
such a standard, even the great Edward fails. Even in him we
do not see the same wonderful union of gifts and virtues which
so seldom meet together; we cannot acquit Edward of occasional
acts of violence, of occasional recklessness as to means; we
cannot attribute to him the pure, simple, almost childlike
disinterestedness which marks the character of Alfred.' Let
Wordsworth, on behalf of the poets of England, complete the
picture:
'Behold a pupil of the monkish gown,
The pious Alfred, king to justice dear!
Lord of the harp and liberating spear;
Mirror of princes! Indigent renown
Might range the starry ether for a crown
Equal to his deserts, who, like the year,
Pours forth his bounty, like the day doth cheer,
And awes like night, with mercy-tempered frown.
Ease from this noble miser of his time
No moment steals; pain narrows not his cares--
Though small his kingdom as a spark or gem,
Of Alfred boasts remote Jerusalem,
And Christian India, through her widespread clime,
In sacred converse gifts with Alfred shares.'"
Thomas Hughes,
Alfred the Great,
chapter 24.
ALSO IN:
R. Pauli,
Life of Alfred the Great.
Asser,
Life of Alfred.
See, also, NORMANS, and EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL.
ENGLAND: A. D. 901.
Accession of the West Saxon king Edward, called The Elder.
ENGLAND: A. D. 925.
Accession of the West Saxon king Ethelstan.
ENGLAND: A. D. 938.
The battle of Brunnaburgh.
Alfred the Great, dying in 901, was succeeded by his son,
Edward, and Edward, in turn, was followed, A. D. 925, by his
son Athelstane, or Æthalsten. In the reign of Athelstane a
great league was formed against him by the Northumbrian Danes
with the Scots, with the Danes of Dublin and with the Britons
of Strathclyde and Cumbria. Athelstane defeated the
confederates in a mighty battle, celebrated in one of the
finest of Old-English war-songs, and also in one of the Sagas
of the Norse tongue, as the Battle of Brunnaburgh or
Brunanburh, but the site of which is unknown. "Five Kings and
seven northern Iarls or earls fell in the strife. ...
Constantine the Scot fled to the north, mourning his
fair-haired son, who perished in the slaughter. Anlaf [or
Olaf, the leader of the Danes or Ostmen of Dublin], with a sad
and scattered remnant of his forces, escaped to Ireland. ...
The victory was so decisive that, during the remainder of the
reign of Athelstane, no enemy dared to rise up against him;
his supremacy was acknowledged without contest, and his glory
extended to distant realms."
F. Palgrave,
History of the Anglo-Saxons,
chapter 10.
Mr. Skene is of opinion that the battle of Brunnaburgh was
fought at Aldborough, near York.
W. F. Skene,
Celtic Scotland,
volume 1, page 357.
ENGLAND: A. D. 940.
Accession of the West Saxon king Edmund.
ENGLAND: A. D. 946.
Accession of the West Saxon king Edred.
ENGLAND: A. D. 955.
Accession of the West Saxon king Edwig.
{788}
ENGLAND: A. D. 958.
Accession of the West Saxon king Edgar.
ENGLAND: A. D. 958.
Completed union of the realm.
Increase of kingly authority.
Approach towards feudalism.
Rise of the Witenagemot.
Decline of the Freemen.
"Before Alfred's son Edward died, the whole of Mercia was
incorporated with his immediate dominions. The way in which
the thing was done was more remarkable than the thing itself.
Like the Romans, he made the fortified towns the means of
upholding his power. But unlike the Romans, he did not
garrison them with colonists from amongst his own immediate
dependents. He filled them, as Henry the Fowler did afterwards
in Saxony, with free townsmen, whose hearts were at one with
their fellow countrymen around. Before he died in 924, the
Danish chiefs in the land beyond the Humber had acknowledged
his overlordship, and even the Celts of Wales and Scotland had
given in their submission in some form which they were not
likely to interpret too strictly. His son and his two
grandsons, Athelstan, Edmund, and Edred completed the work,
and when after the short and troubled interval of Edwy's rule
in Wessex, Edgar united the undivided realm under his sway in
958, he had no internal enemies to suppress. He allowed the
Celtic Scottish King who had succeeded to the inheritance of
the Pictish race to possess the old Northumbrian land north of
the Tweed, where they and their descendants learned the habits
and speech of Englishmen. But he treated him and the other
Celtic kings distinctly as his inferiors, though it was
perhaps well for him that he did not attempt to impose upon
them any very tangible tokens of his supremacy. The story of
his being rowed by eight kings on the Dee is doubtless only a
legend by which the peaceful king was glorified in the
troubled times which followed. Such a struggle, so
successfully conducted, could not fail to be accompanied by a
vast increase of that kingly authority which had been on the
growth from the time of its first establishment. The
hereditary ealdormen, the representatives of the old kingly
houses, had passed away. The old tribes, or--where their
limitations had been obliterated by the tide of Danish
conquest, as was the case in central and northern England--the
new artificial divisions which had taken their place, were now
known as shires, and the very name testified that they were
regarded only as parts of a greater whole. The shire mote
still continued the tradition of the old popular assemblies.
At its head as presidents of its deliberations were the
ealdorman and the bishop, each of them owing their appointment
to the king, and it was summoned by the shire-reeve or
sheriff, himself even more directly an officer of the king,
whose business it was to see that all the royal dues were paid
within the shire. In the more general concerns of the kingdom,
the king consulted with his Witan, whose meetings were called
the Witenagemot, a body, which, at least for all ordinary
purposes, was composed not of any representatives of the
shire-motes, but of his own dependents, the ealdormen, the
bishops, and a certain number of thegns whose name, meaning
'servants', implied at least at first, that they either were
or had at one time been in some way in the employment of the
king. ... The necessities of war ... combined with the
sluggishness of the mass of the population to favour the
growth of a military force, which would leave the tillers of
the soil to their own peaceful occupations. As the conditions
which make a standing army possible on a large scale did not
yet exist, such a force must be afforded by a special class,
and that class must be composed of those who either had too
much land to till themselves, or, having no land at all, were
released from the bonds which tied the cultivator to the soil,
in other words, it must be composed of a landed aristocracy
and its dependents. In working out this change, England was
only aiming at the results which similar conditions were
producing on the Continent. But just as the homogeneousness of
the population drew even the foreign element of the church
into harmony with the established institutions, so it was with
the military aristocracy. It grouped itself round the king,
and it supplemented, instead of overthrowing, the old popular
assemblies. Two classes of men, the eorls and the gesiths, had
been marked out from their fellows at the time of the
conquest. The thegn of Edgar's day differed from both, but he
had some of the distinguishing marks of either. He was not
like the gesith, a mere personal follower of the king. He did
not, like the eorl, owe his position to his birth. Yet his
relation to the king was a close one, and he had a hold upon
the land as firm as that of the older eorl. He may, perhaps,
best be described as a gesith, who had acquired the position
of an eorl without entirely throwing off his own
characteristics. ... There can be little doubt that the change
began in the practice of granting special estates in the
folkland, or common undivided land, to special persons. At
first this land was doubtless held to be the property of the
tribe. [This is now questioned by Vinogradoff and others. See
FOLCLAND.] ... When the king rose above the tribes, he
granted it himself with the consent of his Witan. A large
portion was granted to churches and monasteries. But a large
portion went in privates estates, or book land, as it was
called, from the book or charter which conveyed them to the
king's own gesiths, or to members of his own family. The
gesith thus ceased to be a mere member of the king's military
household. He became a landowner as well, with special duties.
to perform to the king. ... He had special jurisdiction given
him over his tenants and serfs, exempting him and them from
the authority of the hundred mote, though they still remained,
except in very exceptional cases, under the authority of the
shire mote. ... Even up to the Norman conquest this change was
still going on. To the end, indeed, the old constitutional
forms were not broken down. The hundred mote was not
abandoned, where freemen enough remained to fill it. Even
where all the land of a hundred had passed under the
protection of a lord there was little outward change. ...
There was thus no actual breach of continuity in the nation.
The thegnhood pushed its roots down, as it were, amongst the
free classes. Nevertheless there was a danger of such a breach
of continuity coming about. The freemen entered more and more
largely into a condition of' dependence, and there was a great
risk lest such a condition of dependence should become a
condition of servitude. Here and there, by some extraordinary
stroke of luck, a freeman might rise to be a thegn. But the
condition of the class to which he belonged was deteriorating
every day.
{789}
The downward progress to serfdom was too easy to take, and by
large masses of the population it was already taken. Below the
increasing numbers of the serfs was to be found the lower
class of slaves, who were actually the property of their
masters. The Witenagemot was in reality a select body of
thegns, if the bishops, who held their lands in much the same
way, be regarded as thegns. In was rather an inchoate House of
Lords, than an inchoate Parliament, after our modern ideas. It
was natural that a body of men which united a great part of
the wealth with almost all the influence in the kingdom should
be possessed of high constitutional powers. The Witenagemot
elected the king, though as yet they always chose him out of
the royal family, which was held to have sprung from the god
Woden. There were even cases in which they deposed unworthy
kings."
S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger,
Introduction to the Study of English History,
part 1, chapter 2, section 16-21.
ENGLAND: A. D. 975.
Accession of the West Saxon king Edward, called The Martyr.
ENGLAND: A. D. 979.
Accession of the West Saxon king Ethelred, called The Unready.
ENGLAND: A. D. 979-1016.
The Danish conquest.
"Then [A. D. 979] commenced one of the longest and most
disastrous reigns of the Saxon kings, with the accession of
Ethelred II., justly styled Ethelred the Unready. The Northmen
now renewed their plundering and conquering expeditions
against England; while England had a worthless waverer for her
ruler, and many of her chief men turned traitors to their king
and country. Always a laggart in open war, Ethelred tried in
1001 the cowardly and foolish policy of buying off the enemies
whom he dared not encounter. The tax called Dane-gelt was then
levied to provide 'a tribute for the Danish men on account of
the great terror which they caused.' To pay money thus was in
effect to hire the enemy to renew the war. In 1002 Ethelred
tried the still more weak and wicked measure of ridding
himself of his enemies by treacherous massacre. Great numbers
of Danes were now living in England, intermixed with the
Anglo-Saxon population. Ethelred resolved to relieve himself
from all real or supposed danger of these Scandinavian
settlers taking part with their invading kinsmen, by sending
secret orders throughout his dominions for the putting to
death of every Dane, man, woman, and child, on St. Brice's
Day, Nov. 13. This atrocious order was executed only in
Southern England, that is, in the West-Saxon territories; but
large numbers of the Danish race were murdered there while
dwelling in full security among their Saxon neighbours. ...
Among the victims was a royal Danish lady, named Gunhilde, who
was sister of Sweyn, king of Denmark, and who had married and
settled in England. ... The news of the massacre of St. Brice
soon spread over the Continent, exciting the deepest
indignation against the English and their king. Sweyn
collected in Denmark a larger fleet and army than the north
had ever before sent forth, and solemnly vowed to conquer
England or perish in the attempt. He landed on the south coast
of Devon, obtained possession of Exeter by the treachery of
its governor, and then marched through western and southern
England, marking every shire with fire, famine and slaughter;
but he was unable to take London, which was defended against
the repeated attacks of the Danes with strong courage and
patriotism, such as seemed to have died out in the rest of
Saxon England. In 1013, the wretched king Ethelred fled the
realm and sought shelter in Normandy. Sweyn was acknowledged
king in all the northern and western shires, but he died in
1014, while his vow of conquest was only partly accomplished.
The English now sent for Ethelred back from Normandy,
promising loyalty to him as their lawful king, 'provided he
would rule over them more justly than he had done before.'
Ethelred willingly promised amendment, and returned to reign
amidst strife and misery for two years more. His implacable
enemy, Sweyn, was indeed dead; but the Danish host which Sweyn
had led thither was still in England, under the command of
Sweyn's son, Canute [or Cnut], a prince equal in military
prowess to his father, and far superior to him and to all
other princes of the time in statesmanship and general
ability. Ethelred died in 1016, while the war with Canute was
yet raging. Ethelred's son, Edmund, surnamed Ironside, was
chosen king by the great council then assembled in London, but
great numbers of the Saxons made their submission to Canute.
The remarkable personal valour of Edmund, strongly aided by
the bravery of his faithful Londoners, maintained the war for
nearly a year, when Canute agreed to a compromise, by which he
and Edmund divided the land between them. But within a few
months after this, the royal Ironside died by the hand of an
assassin, and Canute obtained the whole realm of the English
race. A Danish dynasty was now [A. D. 1016] established in
England for three reigns."
Sir E. S. Creasy,
History of England,
volume 1, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
J. M. Lappenberg,
England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings,
volume 2, pages 151-233.
See, also, MALDEN, and ASSANDUN, BATTLES OF.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1016.
Accession and death of King Edmund Ironside.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1016-1042.
The Reign of the Danish kings.
"Cnut's rule was not as terrible as might have been feared. He
was perfectly unscrupulous in striking down the treacherous
and mischievous chieftains who had made a trade of Ethelred's
weakness and the country's divisions. But he was wise and
strong enough to rule, not by increasing but by allaying those
divisions. Resting his power upon his Scandinavian kingdoms
beyond the sea, upon his Danish countrymen in England, and his
Danish huscarles, or specially trained soldiers in his
service, he was able, without even the appearance of weakness,
to do what in him lay to bind Dane and Englishman together as
common instruments of his power. Fidelity counted more with
him than birth. To bring England itself into unity was beyond
his power. The device which he hit upon was operative only in
hands as strong as his own. There were to be four great earls,
deriving their name from the Danish word jarl, centralizing
the forces of government in Wessex, in Mercia, in East Anglia,
and in Northumberland. With Cnut the four were officials of
the highest class. They were there because he placed them
there. They would cease to be there if he so willed it. But it
could hardly be that it would always be so. Some day or
another, unless a great catastrophe swept away Cnut and his
creation, the earldoms would pass into territorial
sovereignties and the divisions of England would be made
evident openly."
S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger,
Introduction to the Study of English History,
chapter 2, section 25.
{790}
"He [Canute] ruled nominally at least, a larger European
dominion than any English sovereign has ever done; and perhaps
also a more homogeneous one. No potentate of the time came
near him except the king of Germany, the emperor, with whom he
was allied as an equal. The king of the Norwegians, the Danes,
and a great part of the Swedes, was in a position to found a
Scandinavian empire with Britain annexed. Canute's division of
his dominions on his death-bed, showed that he saw this to be
impossible; Norway, for a century and a half after his strong
hand was removed, was broken up amongst an anarchical crew of
piratic and blood-thirsty princes, nor could Denmark be
regarded as likely to continue united with England. The
English nation was too much divided and demoralised to retain
hold on Scandinavia, even if the condition of the latter had
allowed it. Hence Canute determined that during his life, as
after his death, the nations should be governed on their own
principles. ... The four nations of the English,
Northumbrians, East Angles, Mercians and West Saxons, might,
each under their own national leader, obey a sovereign who was
strong enough to enforce peace amongst them. The great
earldoms of Canute's reign were perhaps a nearer approach to a
feudal division of England than anything which followed the
Norman Conquest. ... And the extent to which this creation of
the four earldoms affected the history of the next
half-century cannot be exaggerated. The certain tendency of
such an arrangement to become hereditary, and the certain
tendency of the hereditary occupation of great fiefs
ultimately to overwhelm the royal power, are well
exemplified. ... The Norman Conquest restored national unity
at a tremendous temporary sacrifice, just as the Danish
Conquest in other ways, and by a reverse process, had helped
to create it."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 7, section 77.
Canute died in 1035. He was succeeded by his two sons, Harold
Harefoot (1035-1040) and Harthacnute or Hardicanute
(1040-1042), after which the Saxon line of kings was
momentarily restored.
E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 6.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1035.
Accession of Harold, son of Cnut.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1040.
Accession of Harthacnut, or Hardicanute.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1042.
Accession of Edward the Confessor.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1042-1066.
The last of the Saxon kings.
"The love which Canute had inspired by his wise and
conciliatory rule was dissipated by the bad government of his
sons, Harold and Harthacnut, who ruled in turn. After seven
years of misgovernment, or rather anarchy, England, freed from
the hated rule of Harthacnut by his death, returned to its
old line of kings, and 'all folk chose Edward [surnamed The
Confessor, son of Ethelred the Unready] to king,' as was his
right by birth. Not that he was, according to our ideas, the
direct heir, since Edward, the son of Edmund Ironside, still
lived, an exile in Hungary. But the Saxons, by choosing Edward
the Confessor, reasserted for the last time their right to
elect that one of the hereditary line who was most available.
With the reign of Edward the Confessor the Norman Conquest
really began. We have seen the connection between England and
Normandy begun by the marriage of Ethelred the Unready to Emma
the daughter of Richard the Fearless, and cemented by the
refuge offered to the English exiles in the court of the
Norman duke. Edward had long found a home there in Canute's
time. ... Brought up under Norman influence, Edward had
contracted the ideas and sympathies of his adopted home. On
his election to the English throne the French tongue became
the language of the court, Norman favourites followed in his
train, to be foisted into important offices of State and
Church, and thus inaugurate that Normanizing policy which was
to draw on the Norman Conquest. Had it not been for this,
William would never have had any claim on England." The
Normanizing policy of king Edward roused the opposition of a
strong English party, headed by the great West-Saxon Earl
Godwine, who had been lifted from an obscure origin to vast
power in England by the favor of Canute, and whose son Harold
held the earldom of East Anglia. "Edward, raised to the throne
chiefly through the influence of Godwine, shortly married his
daughter, and at first ruled England leaning on the
assistance, and almost overshadowed by the power of the great
earl." But Edward was Norman at heart and Godwine was
thoroughly English; whence quarrels were not long in arising.
They came to the crisis in 1051, by reason of a bloody tumult
at Dover, provoked by insolent conduct on the part of a train
of French visitors returning home from Edward's Court. Godwine
was commanded to punish the townsmen of Dover and refused,
whereupon the king obtained a sentence of outlawry, not only
against the earl, but against his sons. "Godwine, obliged to
bow before the united power of his enemies, was forced to fly
the land. He went to Flanders with his son Swegen, while
Harold and Leofwine went to Ireland, to be well received by
Dermot king of Leinster. Many Englishmen seem to have followed
him in his exile: for a year the foreign party was triumphant,
and the first stage of the Norman Conquest complete. It was at
this important crisis that William [Duke of Normandy], secure
at home, visited his cousin Edward. ... Friendly relations we
may be sure had existed between, the two cousins, and if, as
is not improbable, William had begun to hope that he might
some day succeed to the English throne, what more favourable
opportunity for a visit could have been found? Edward had lost
all hopes of ever having any children. ... William came, and
it would seem, gained all that he desired. For this most
probably was the date of some promise on Edward's part that
William should succeed him on his death. The whole question is
beset with difficulties. The Norman chroniclers alone mention
it, and give no dates. Edward had no right to will away his
crown, the disposition of which lay with King and Witenagemot
(or assembly of Wise Men, the grandees of the country), and
his last act was to reverse the promise, if ever given, in
favour of Harold, Godwine's son. But were it not for some such
promise, it is hard to see how William could have subsequently
made the Normans and the world believe in the sacredness of
his claim. ... William returned to Normandy; but next year
Edward was forced to change his policy." Godwine and his sons
returned to England, with a fleet at their backs; London
declared for them, and the king submitted himself to a
reconciliation.
{791}
"The party of Godwine once more ruled supreme, and no mention
was made of the gift of the crown to William. Godwine, indeed,
did not long survive his restoration, but dying the year
after, 1053, left his son Harold Earl of the West-Saxons and
the most important man in England." King Edward the Confessor
lived yet thirteen years after this time, during which period
Earl Harold grew continually in influence and conspicuous
headship of the English party. In 1062 it was Harold's
misfortune to be shipwrecked on the coast of France, and he
was made captive. Duke William of Normandy intervened in his
behalf and obtained his release; and "then, as the price of
his assistance, extorted an oath from Harold, soon to be used
against him. Harold, it is said, became his man, promised to
marry 'William's daughter Adela, to place Dover at once in
William's hands, and support his claim to the English throne
on Edward's death. By a stratagem of William's the oath was
unwittingly taken on holy relics, hidden by the duke under the
table on which Harold laid hands to swear, whereby, according
to the notions of those days, the oath was rendered more
binding." But two years later, when Edward the Confessor died,
the English Witenagemot chose Harold to be king, disregarding
Edward's promise and Harold's oath to the Duke of Normandy.
A. H. Johnson,
The Normans in Europe,
chapters 10 and 12.
ALSO IN:
E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapters 7-10.
J. R. Green,
The Conquest of England,
chapter 10.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1066.
Election and coronation of Harold.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1066 (spring and summer).
Preparations of Duke William to enforce his claim to the
English crown.
On receiving news of Edward's death and of Harold's acceptance
of the crown, Duke William of Normandy lost no time in
demanding from Harold the performance of the engagements to
which he had pledged himself by his oath. Harold answered that
the oath had no binding effect, by reason of the compulsion
under which it was given; that the crown of England was not
his to bestow, and that, being the chosen king, he could not
marry without consent of the Witenagemot. When the Duke had
this reply he proceeded with vigor to secure from his own
knights and barons the support he would need for the enforcing
of his rights, as he deemed them, to the sovereignty of the
English realm. A great parliament of the Norman barons was
held at Lillebonne, for the consideration of the matter. "In
this memorable meeting there was much diversity of opinion.
The Duke could not command his vassals to cross the sea; their
tenures did not compel them to such service. William could
only request their aid to fight his battles in England: many
refused to engage in this dangerous expedition, and great
debates arose. ...William, who could not restore order,
withdrew into another apartment: and, calling the barons to
him one by one, he argued and reasoned with each of these
sturdy vassals separately, and apart from the others. He
exhausted all the arts of persuasion;--their present courtesy,
he engaged, should not be tamed into a precedent, ... and the
fertile fields of England should be the recompense of their
fidelity. Upon this prospect of remuneration, the barons
assented. ... William did not confine himself to his own
subjects. All the adventurers and adventurous spirits of the
neighbouring states were invited to join his standard. ... To
all, such promises were made as should best incite them to the
enterprise--lands,--liveries,--money,--according to their
rank and degree; and the port of St. Pierre-sur-Dive was
appointed as the place where all the forces should assemble.
William had discovered four most valid reasons for the
prosecution of his offensive warfare against a neighbouring
people:--the bequest made by his cousin;--the perjury of
Harold;--the expulsion of the Normans, at the instigation, as
he alleged, of Godwin;--and, lastly, the massacre of the Danes
by Ethelred on St. Brice's Day. The alleged perjury of Harold
enabled William to obtain the sanction of the Papal See.
Alexander, the Roman Pontiff, allowed, nay, even urged him to
punish the crime, provided England, when conquered, should be
held as the fief of St. Peter. ... Hildebrand, Archdeacon of
the Church of Rome, afterwards the celebrated Pope Gregory
VII., greatly assisted by the support which he gave to the
decree. As a visible token of protection, the Pope transmitted
to William the consecrated banner, the Gonfanon of St. Peter,
and a precious ring, in which a relic of the chief of the
Apostles was enclosed."
Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and England,
volume 3, pages 300-303.
"William convinced, or seemed to convince, all men out of
England and Scandinavia that his claim to the English crown
was just and holy, and that it was a good work to help him to
assert it in arms. ... William himself doubtless thought his
own claim the better; he deluded himself as he deluded others.
But we are more concerned with William as a statesman; and if
it be statesmanship to adapt means to ends, whatever the ends
may be, if it be statesmanship to make men believe the worse
cause is the better, then no man ever showed higher
statesmanship than William showed in his great pleading before
all Western Christendom. ... Others had claimed crowns; none
had taken such pains to convince all mankind that the claim
was a good one. Such an appeal to public opinion marks on one
side a great advance."
E. A. Freeman,
William the Conqueror,
chapter 6.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1066 (September).
The invasion of Tostig and Harold Hardrada and their
overthrow at Stamford Bridge.
"Harold [the English king], as one of his misfortunes, had to
face two powerful armies, in distant parts of the kingdom,
almost at the same time. Rumours concerning the intentions and
preparations of the Duke of Normandy soon reached England.
During the greater part of the summer, Harold, at the head of
a large naval and military force, had been on the watch along
the English coast. But months passed away and no enemy became
visible. William, it was said, had been apprised of the
measures which had been taken to meet him. ... Many supposed
that, on various grounds, the enterprise had been abandoned.
Provisions also, for so great an army, became scarce. The men
began to disperse; and Harold, disbanding the remainder,
returned to London. But the news now came that Harold
Hardrada, king of Norway, had landed in the north, and was
ravaging the country in conjunction with Tostig, Harold's
elder brother. This event came from one of those domestic
feuds which did so much at this juncture to weaken the power
of the English.
{792}
Tostig had exercised his authority in Northumbria [as earl] in
the most arbitrary manner, and had perpetrated atrocious
crimes in furtherance of his objects. The result was an amount
of disaffection which seems to have put it out of the power of
his friends to sustain him. He had married a daughter of
Baldwin, count of Flanders, and so became brother-in-law to
the duke of Normandy. His brother Harold, as he affirmed, had
not done a brother's part towards him, and he was more
disposed, in consequence, to side with the Norman than with
the Saxon in the approaching struggle. The army with which he
now appeared consisted mostly of Norwegians and Flemings, and
their avowed object was to divide not less than half the
kingdom between them. ... [The young Mercian earls Edwin and
Morcar] summoned their forces ... to repel the invasion under
Tostig. Before Harold could reach the north, they hazarded an
engagement at a place named Fulford, on the Ouse, not far from
Bishopstoke. Their measures, however, were not wisely taken.
They were defeated with great loss. The invaders seem to have
regarded this victory as deciding the fate of that part of the
kingdom. They obtained hostages at York, and then moved to
Stamford Bridge, where they began the work of dividing the
northern parts of England between them. But in the midst of
these proceedings clouds of dust were seen in the distance.
The first thought was, that the multitude which seemed to be
approaching must be friends. But the illusion was soon at an
end. The dust raised was by the march of an army of West
Saxons under the command of Harold."
R. Vaughan,
Revolutions of English History,
book 3, chapter 1.
"Of the details of that awful day [Sept. 25, 1066] we have no
authentic record. We have indeed a glorious description [in
the Heimskringla of Snorro Sturleson], conceived in the
highest spirit of the warlike poetry of the North; but it is a
description which, when critically examined, proves to be
hardly more worthy of belief than a battle-piece in the Iliad.
... At least we know that the long struggle of that day was
crowned by complete victory on the side of England. The
leaders of the invading host lay each man ready for all that
England had to give him, his seven feet of English ground.
There Harold of Norway, the last of the ancient Sea-Kings,
yielded up that fiery soul which had braved death in so many
forms and in so many lands. ... There Tostig, the son of
Godwine, an exile and a traitor, ended, in crime and sorrow a
life which had begun with promises not less bright than that
of his royal brother. ... The whole strength of the Northern
army was broken; a few only escaped by flight, and found means
to reach the ships at Riccall."
E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 14, section. 4.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1066 (October).
The Norman invasion and battle of Senlac or Hastings.
The battle of Stamford-bridge was fought on Monday, September
25, A. D. 1066. Three days later, on the Thursday, September
28, William of Normandy landed his more formidable army of
invasion at Pevensey, on the extreme southeastern coast. The
news of William's landing reached Harold, at York, on the
following Sunday, it is thought, and his victorious but worn
and wasted army was led instantly back, by forced marches,
over the route it had traversed no longer than the week
before. Waiting at London a few days for fresh musters to join
him, the English king set out from that city October 12, and
arrived on the following day at a point seven miles from the
camp which his antagonist had entrenched at Hastings. Meantime
the Normans had been cruelly ravaging the coast country, by
way of provoking attack. Harold felt himself driven by the
devastation they committed to face the issue of battle without
waiting for a stronger rally. "Advancing near enough to the coast
to check William's ravages, he intrenched himself on the hill
of Senlac, a low spur of the Sussex Downs, near Hastings, in a
position which covered London, and forced the Norman army to
concentrate. With a host subsisting by pillage, to concentrate
is to starve, and no alternative was left to William but a
decisive victory or ruin. Along the higher ground that leads
from Hastings the Duke led his men in the dim dawn of an
October morning to the mound of Telham. It was from this
point, that the Normans saw the host of the English gathered
thickly behind a rough trench and a stockade on the height of
Senlac. Marshy ground covered their right. ... A general
charge of the Norman foot opened the battle; in front rode the
minstrel Taillefer, tossing his sword in the air and catching
it again while he chanted the song of Roland. He was the first
of the host who struck a blow, and he was the first to fall.
The charge broke vainly on the stout stockade behind which the
English warriors plied axe and javelin with fierce cries of 'Out,
Out,' and the repulse of the Norman footmen was followed by
the repulse of the Norman horse. Again and again the Duke
rallied and led them to the fatal stockade. ... His Breton
troops, entangled in the marshy ground on his left, broke in
disorder, and a cry arose, as the panic spread through the
army, that the Duke was slain. 'I live,' shouted William as he
tore off his helmet, 'and by God's help will conquer yet.'
Maddened by repulse, the Duke spurred right at the standard;
unhorsed, his terrible mace struck down Gyrth, the King's
brother, and stretched Leofwine, a second of Godwine's sons,
beside him; again dismounted, a blow from his hand hurled to
the ground an unmannerly rider who would not lend him his
steed. Amid the roar and tumult of the battle he turned the
flight he had arrested into the means of victory. Broken as
the stockade was by his desperate onset, the shield-wall of
the warriors behind it still held the Normans at bay, when
William by a feint of flight drew a part of the English force
from their post of vantage. Turning on his disorderly
pursuers, the Duke cut them to pieces, broke through the
abandoned line, and was master of the central plateau, while
French and Bretons made good their ascent on either flank. At
three the hill seemed won, at six the fight still raged around
the standard, where Harold's hus-carls stood stubbornly at bay
on the spot marked afterward by the high altar of Battle
Abbey. An order from the Duke at last brought his archers to
the front, and their arrow-flight told heavily on the dense
masses crowded around the King. As the sun went down, a shaft
pierced Harold's right eye; he fell between the royal ensigns,
and the battle closed with a desperate mélée over his corpse."
J. R. Green,
A Short History of the English People,
chapter 2, section 4.
ALSO IN:
E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 15, section 4.
E. S. Creasy,
Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,
chapter 8.
Wace,
Roman de Rou,
translated by Sir A. Malet.
{793}
England: A. D. 1066-1071.
The Finishing of the Norman Conquest.
"It must be well understood that this great victory [of
Senlac] did not make Duke William King nor put him in
possession of the whole land. He still held only part of
Sussex, and the people of the rest of the kingdom showed as
yet no mind to submit to him. If England had had a leader left
like Harold or Gyrth, William might have had to fight as many
battles as Cnut had, and that with much less chance of winning
in the end. For a large part of England fought willingly on
Cnut's side, while William had no friends in England at all,
except a few Norman settlers. William did not call himself
King till he was regularly crowned more than two months later,
and even then he had real possession only of about a third of
the kingdom. It was more than three years before he had full
possession of all. Still the great fight on Senlac none the
less settled the fate of England. For after that fight William
never met with any general resistance. ... During the year 1067
William made no further conquests; all western and northern
England remained unsubdued; but, except in Kent and
Herefordshire, there was no fighting in any part of the land
which had really submitted. The next two years were the time
in which all England was really conquered. The former part of
1068 gave him the West. The latter part of that year gave him
central and northern England as far as Yorkshire, the extreme
north and northwest being still unsubdued. The attempt to win
Durham in the beginning of 1069 led to two revolts at York.
Later in the year all the north and west was again in arms,
and the Danish fleet [of King Swegen, in league with the
English patriots] came. But the revolts were put down one by
one, and the great winter campaign of 1069-1070 conquered the
still unsubdued parts, ending with the taking of Chester.
Early in 1070 the whole land was for the first time in
Williams's possession; there was no more fighting, and he was
able to give his mind to the more peaceful part of his
schemes, what we may call the conquest of the native Church by
the appointment of foreign bishops. But in the summer of 1070
began the revolt of the Fenland, and the defence of Ely, which
lasted till the autumn of 1071. After that William was full
King everywhere without dispute. There was no more national
resistance; there was no revolt of any large part of the
country. ... The conquest of the land, as far as fighting
goes, was now finished."
E. A. Freeman,
Short History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 8, section 9; chapter 10, section 16.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1067-1087.
The spoils of the Conquest.
"The Norman army ... remained concentrated around London [in
the winter of 1067], and upon the southern and eastern coasts
nearest Gaul. The partition of the wealth of the invaded
territory now almost solely occupied them. Commissioners went
over the whole extent of country in which the army had left
garrisons; they took an exact inventory of property of every
kind, public and private, carefully registering every
particular. ... A close inquiry was made into the names of all
the English partisans of Harold, who had either died in
battle, or survived the defeat, or by involuntary delays had
been prevented from joining the royal standard. All the
property of these three classes of men, lands, revenues,
furniture, houses, were confiscated; the children of the first
class were declared forever disinherited; the second class,
were, in like manner, wholly dispossessed of their estates
and property of every kind, and, says one of the Norman
writers, were only too grateful for being allowed to retain
their lives. Lastly, those who had not taken up arms were also
despoiled of all they possessed, for having had the intention
of taking up arms; but, by special grace, they were allowed to
entertain the hope that after many long years of obedience and
devotion to the foreign power, not they, indeed, but their
sons, might perhaps obtain from their new masters some portion
of their paternal heritage. Such was the law of the conquest,
according to the unsuspected testimony of a man nearly
contemporary with and of the race of the conquerors [Richard
Lenoir or Noirot, bishop of Ely in the 12th century]. The
immense product of this universal spoliation became the pay of
those adventurers of every nation who had enrolled under the
banner of the duke of Normandy. ... Some received their pay in
money, others had stipulated that they should have a Saxon
wife, and William, says the Norman chronicle, gave them in
marriage noble dames, great heiresses, whose husbands had
fallen in the battle. One, only, among the knights who had
accompanied the conqueror, claimed neither lands, gold, nor
wife, and would accept none of the spoils of the conquered.
His name was Guilbert Fitz-Richard: he said that he had
accompanied his lord to England because such was his duty, but
that stolen goods had no attraction for him."
A. Thierry,
History of the Conquest of England by the Normans,
book 4.
"Though many confiscations took place, in order to gratify the
Norman army, yet the mass of property was left in the hands of
its former possessors. Offices of high trust were bestowed
upon Englishmen, even upon those whose family renown might
have raised the most aspiring thoughts. But, partly through
the insolence and injustice of William's Norman vassals,
partly through the suspiciousness natural to a man conscious
of having overturned the national government, his yoke soon
became more heavy. The English were oppressed; they rebelled,
were subdued, and oppressed again. ... An extensive spoliation
of property accompanied these revolutions. It appears by the
great national survey of Domesday Book, completed near the
close of the Conqueror's reign, that the tenants in capite of
the crown were generally foreigners. ... But inferior
freeholders were much less disturbed in their estates than the
higher. ... The valuable labours of Sir Henry Ellis, in
presenting us with a complete analysis of Domesday Book,
afford an opportunity, by his list of mesne tenants at the
time of the survey, to form some approximation to the relative
numbers of English and foreigners holding manors under the
immediate vassals of the crown. ... Though I will not now
affirm or deny that they were a majority, they [the English]
form a large proportion of nearly 8,000 mesne tenants, who are
summed up by the diligence of Sir Henry Ellis. ...
{794}
This might induce us to suspect that, great as the spoliation
must appear in modern times, and almost completely as the
nation was excluded from civil power in the commonwealth,
there is some exaggeration in the language of those writers
who represent them as universal reduced to a state of penury
and servitude. And this suspicion may be in some degree just.
Yet those writers, and especial the most English in feeling of
them all, M. Thierry, are warranted by the language of
contemporary authorities."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages.
chapter 8, part 2.
"By right of conquest William claimed nothing. He had come to
take his crown, and he had unluckily met with some opposition
in taking it. The crown-lands of King Edward passed of course
to his successor. As for the lands of other men, in William's
theory all was forfeited to the crown. The lawful heir had
been driven to seek his kingdom in arms; no Englishman had
helped him; many Englishmen had fought against him. All then
were directly or indirectly traitors. The King might lawfully
deal with the lands of all as his own. ... After the general
redemption of lands, gradually carried out as William's power
advanced, no general blow was dealt at Englishmen as such. ...
Though the land had never seen so great a confiscation, or one
so largely for the behoof of foreigners, yet there was nothing
new in the thing itself. ... Confiscation of land was the
every-day punishment for various public and private crimes.
... Once granting the original wrong of his coming at all and
bringing a host of strangers with him, there is singularly
little to blame in the acts of the Conqueror."
E. A. Freeman,
William the Conqueror,
pages 102-104, 126.
"After each effort [of revolt] the royal hand was laid on more
heavily: more and more land changed owners, and with the
change of owners the title changed. The complicated and
unintelligible irregularities of the Anglo-Saxon tenures were
exchanged for the simple and uniform feudal theory. ... It was
not the change from alodial to feudal so much as from
confusion to order. The actual amount of dispossession was no
doubt greatest in the higher ranks."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 9, section. 95.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1069-1071.
The Camp of Refuge in the Fens.
"In the northern part of Cambridgeshire there is a vast extent
of low and marshy land, intersected in every direction by
rivers. All the waters from the centre of England which do not
flow into the Thames or the Trent, empty themselves into these
marshes, which in the latter end of autumn overflow, cover the
land, and are charged with fogs and vapours. A portion of this
damp and swampy country was then, as now, called the Isle of
Ely; another the Isle of Thorney, a third the Isle of
Croyland. This district, almost a moving bog, impracticable
for cavalry and for soldiers heavily armed, had more than once
served as a refuge for the Saxons in the time of the Danish
conquest; towards the close of the year 1069 it became the
rendezvous of several bands of patriots from various quarters,
assembling against the Normans. Former chieftains, now
dispossessed of their lands, successively repaired hither with
their clients, some by land, others by water, by the mouths of
the rivers. They here constructed entrenchments of earth and
wood, and established an extensive armed station, which took
the name of the Camp of Refuge. The foreigners at first
hesitated to attack them amidst their rushes and willows, and
thus gave them time to transmit messages in every direction,
at home and abroad, to the friends of old England. Become
powerful, they undertook a partisan war by land and by sea,
or, as the conquerors called it, robbery and piracy."
A. Thierry,
History of the Conquest of England by the Normans,
book 4.
"Against the new tyranny the free men of the Danelagh and of
Northumbria rose. If Edward the descendant of Cerdic had been
little to them, William the descendant of Rollo was still
less. ... So they rose, and fought; too late, it may be, and
without unity or purpose; and they were worsted by an enemy
who had both unity and purpose; whom superstition, greed, and
feudal discipline kept together, at least in England, in one
compact body of unscrupulous and terrible confederates. And
theirs was a land worth fighting for--a good land and large:
from Humber mouth inland to the Trent and merry Sherwood,
across to Chester and the Dee, round by Leicester and the five
burghs of the Danes; eastward again to Huntingdon and
Cambridge (then a poor village on the site of an old Roman
town); and then northward again into the wide fens, the land
of the Girvii, where the great central plateau of England
slides into the sea, to form, from the rain and river washings
of eight shires, lowlands of a fertility inexhaustible,
because ever-growing to this day. Into those fens, as into a
natural fortress, the Anglo-Danish noblemen crowded down
instinctively from the inland to make their last stand against
the French. ... Most gallant of them all, and their leader in
the fatal struggle against William, was Hereward the Wake,
Lord of Bourne and ancestor of that family of Wake, the arms
of whom appear on the cover of this book."
C. Kingsley,
Hereward the Wake,
Prelude.
The defence of the Camp of Refuge was maintained until
October, 1071, when the stronghold is said to have been
betrayed by the monks of Ely, who grew tired of the
disturbance of their peace. But Hereward did not submit. He
made his escape and various accounts are given of his
subsequent career and his fate.
E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 20, section 1.
ALSO IN:
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
first series, chapter 8.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1085-1086.
The Domesday Survey and Domesday Book.
"The distinctive characteristic of the Norman kings [of
England] was their exceeding greed, and the administrative
system was so directed as to insure the exaction of the
highest possible imposts. From this bent originated the great
registration that William [the Conqueror] caused to be taken
of all lands, whether holden in fee or at rent; as well as the
census of the entire population. The respective registers were
preserved in the Cathedral of Winchester, and by the Norman
were designated 'Ie grand rôle,' 'Ie rôle royal,' 'Ie rôle de
Winchester'; but by the Saxons were termed 'the Book of the
Last Judgment,' 'Doomesdaege Boc,' 'Doomsday Book.'"
E. Fischel,
The English Constitution,
chapter 1.
For a different statement see the following: "The recently
attempted invasion from Denmark seems to have impressed the
king with the desirability of· an accurate knowledge of his
resources, military and fiscal, both of which were based upon
the land. The survey was completed in the remarkably short
space of a single year [1085-1086]. In each shire the
commissioners made their inquiries by the oaths of the
sheriffs, the barons and their Norman retainers, the parish
priests, the reeves and six ceorls of each township.
{795}
The result of their labours was a minute description of all
the lands of the kingdom, with the exception of the four
northern counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland
and Durham, and part of what is now Lancashire. It enumerates
the tenants-in-chief, under tenants, freeholders, villeins,
and serfs, describes the nature and obligations of the
tenures, the value in the time of King Eadward, at the
conquest, and at the date of the survey, and, which gives the
key to the whole inquiry, informs the king whether any advance
in the valuation could be made. ... The returns were
transmitted to Winchester, digested, and recorded in two
volumes which have descended to posterity under the name of
Domesday Book. The name itself is probably derived from Domus
Dei, the appellation of a chapel or vault of the cathedral at
Winchester in which the survey was at first deposited."
T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
chapter 2.
"Of the motives which induced the Conqueror and his council to
undertake the Survey we have very little reliable information,
and much that has been written on the subject savours more of
a deduction from the result than of a knowledge of the
immediate facts. We have the statement from the Chartulary of
St. Mary's, Worcester, of the appointment of the Commissioners
by the king himself to make the Survey. We have also the
heading of the 'Inquisitio Eliensis' which purports to give,
and probably does truly give, the items of the articles of
inquiry, which sets forth as follows:
I. What is the manor called?
II. Who held it in the time of King Edward?
III. Who now holds it?
IV. How many hides?
V. What teams are there in demesne?
VI. What teams of the men?
VII. What villans?
VIII. What cottagers?
IX. What bondmen?
X. What freemen and what sokemen?
XI. What woods?
XII. What meadow?
XIII. What pastures?
XIV. What mills?
XV. What fisheries?
XVI. What is added or taken away?
XVII. What the whole was worth together, and what now?
XVIII. How much each freeman or sokeman had or has?
All this to be estimated three times, viz. in the time of King
Edward, and when King William gave it, and how it is now, and
if more can be had for it than has been had. This document is,
I think, the best evidence we have of the form of the inquiry,
and it tallies strictly with the form of the various returns
as we now have them. ... An external evidence failing, we are
driven back to the Record itself for evidence of the
Conqueror's intention in framing it, and anyone who carefully
studies it will be driven to the inevitable conclusion that it
was framed and designed in the spirit of perfect equity. Long
before the Conquest, in the period between the death of Alfred
and that of Edward the Confessor, the kingdom had been rapidly
declining into a state of disorganisation and decay. The
defence of the kingdom and the administration of justice and
keeping of the peace could not be maintained by the king's
revenues. The tax of Danegeld, instituted by Ethelred at first
to buy peace of the Danes, and afterwards to maintain the
defence of the kingdom, had more and more come to be levied
unequally and unfairly. The Church had obtained enormous
remissions of its liability, and its possessions were
constantly increasing. Powerful subjects had obtained further
remission, and the tax had come to be irregularly collected
and was burdensome upon the smaller holders and their poor
tenants, while the nobility and the Church escaped with a
small share in the burden. In short the tax had come to be
collected upon an old and uncorrected assessment. It had
probably dwindled in amount, and at last had been ultimately
remitted by Edward the Confessor. Anarchy and confusion
appears to have reigned throughout the realm. The Conqueror
was threatened with foreign invasion, and pressed on all sides
by complaints of unfair taxation on the part of his subjects.
Estates had been divided and subdivided, and the incidence of
the tax was unequal and unjust. He had to face the
difficulties before him and to count the resources of his
kingdom for its defence, and the means of doing so were not at
hand. In this situation his masterly and order-loving Norman
mind instituted this great inquiry, but ordered it to be taken
(as I maintain the study of the Book will show) in the most
public and open manner, and with the utmost impartiality, with
the view of levying the taxes of the kingdom equally and
fairly upon all. The articles of his inquiry show that he was
prepared to study the resources of his kingdom and consider
the liability of his subjects from every possible point of
view."
Stuart Moore,
On the Study of Domesday Book
(Domesday Studies, volume 1).
"Domesday Book is a vast mine of materials for the social and
economical history of our country, a mine almost
inexhaustible, and to a great extent as yet unworked. Among
national documents it is unique. There is nothing that
approaches it in interest and value except the Landnámabók,
which records the names of the original settlers in Iceland
and the designations they bestowed upon the places where they
settled, and tells us how the island was taken up and
apportioned among them. Such a document for England,
describing the way in which our forefathers divided the
territory they conquered, and how 'they called the lands after
their own names,' would indeed be priceless. But the Domesday
Book does, indirectly, supply materials for the history of the
English as well as of the Norman Conquest, for it records not
only how the lands of England were divided among the Norman
host which conquered at Senlac, but it gives us also the names
of the Saxon and Danish holders who possessed the lands before
the great battle which changed all the future history of
England, and enables us to trace the extent of the transfer of
the land from Englishmen to Normans; it shows how far the
earlier owners were reduced to tenants, and by its enumeration
of the classes of population--freemen, sokemen, villans,
cottiers, and slaves--it indicates the nature and extent of
the earlier conquests. Thus we learn that in the West of
England slaves were numerous, while in the East they were
almost unknown, and hence we gather that in the districts
first subdued the British population was exterminated or
driven off, while in the West it was reduced to servitude."
I. Taylor,
Domesday Survivals
(Domesday Studies, volume 1).
ALSO IN:
E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest,
chapters 21-22 and appendix A in volume 5.
W. de Gray Birch,
Domesday Book.
F. W. Maitland,
Domesday Book (Dict. Pol. Econ.).
{796}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1087-1135.
The sons of the Conqueror and their reigns.
William the Conqueror, when he died, left Normandy and Maine
to his elder son Robert, the English crown to his stronger
son, William, called Rufus, or the Red, and only a legacy of
£5,000 to his third son, Henry, called Beauclerc, or The
Scholar. The Conqueror's half-brother, Odo, soon began to
persuade the Norman barons in England to displace William
Rufus and plant Robert on the English throne. "The claim of
Robert to succeed his father in England, was supported by the
respected rights of primogeniture. But the Anglo-Saxon crown
had always been elective. ... Primogeniture ... gave at that
time no right to the crown of England, independent of the
election of its parliamentary assembly. Having secured this
title, the power of Rufus rested on the foundation most
congenial with the feelings and institutions of the nation,
and from their partiality received a popular support, which
was soon experienced to be impregnable. The danger compelled
the king to court his people by promises to diminish their
grievances; which drew 30,000 knights spontaneously to his
banners, happy to have got a sovereign distinct from hated
Normandy. The invasion of Robert, thus resisted by the English
people, effected nothing but some temporary devastations. ...
The state of Normandy, under Robert's administration, for some
time furnished an ample field for his ambitious uncle's
activity. It continued to exhibit a negligent government in
its most vicious form. ... Odo's politics only facilitated the
Reannexation of Normandy to England. But this event was not
completed in William's reign. When he retorted the attempt of
Robert, by an invasion of Normandy, the great barons of both
countries found themselves endangered by the conflict, and
combined their interest to persuade their respective
sovereigns to a fraternal pacification. The most important
article of their reconciliation provided, that if either
should die without issue, the survivor should inherit his
dominions. Hostilities were then abandoned; mutual courtesies
ensued; and Robert visited England as his brother's guest. The
mind of William the Red King, was cast in no common mould. It
had all the greatness and the defects of the chivalric
character, in its strong but rudest state. Impetuous, daring,
original, magnanimous, and munificent; it was also harsh,
tyrannical, and selfish; conceited of its own powers, loose in
its moral principles, and disdaining consequences. ... While
Lanfranc lived, William had a counsellor whom he respected,
and whose good opinion he was careful to preserve. ... The
death of Lanfranc removed the only man whose wisdom and
influence could have meliorated the king's ardent, but
undisciplined temper. It was his misfortune, on this event, to
choose for his favourite minister, an able, but an
unprincipled man. ... The minister advised the king, on the
death of every prelate, to seize all his temporal possessions.
... The great revenues obtained from this violent innovation,
tempted both the king and his minister to increase its
productiveness, by deferring the nomination of every new
prelate for an indefinite period. Thus he kept many
bishoprics, and among them the see of Canterbury, vacant for
some years; till a severe illness alarming his conscience, he
suddenly appointed Anselm to the dignity; ... His disagreement
with Anselm soon began. The prelate injudiciously began the
battle by asking the king to restore, not only the possessions
of his see, which were enjoyed by Lanfranc--a fair
request--but also the lands which had before that time
belonged to it; a demand that, after so many years alteration
of property, could not be complied with without great
disturbance of other persons. Anselm also exacted of the king
that in all things which concerned the church, his counsels
should be taken in preference to every other. ... Though
Anselm, as a literary man, was an honour and a benefit to his
age, yet his monastic and studious habits prevented him from
having that social wisdom, that knowledge of human nature,
that discreet use of his own virtuous firmness, and that mild
management of turbulent power, which might have enabled him to
have exerted much of the influence of Lanfranc over the mind
of his sovereign. ... Anselm, seeing the churches and abbeys
oppressed in their property, by the royal orders, resolved to
visit Rome, and to concert with the pope the measures most
adapted to overawe the king. ... William threatened, that if
he did go to Rome, he would seize all the possessions of the
archbishopric. Anselm declared, that he would rather travel
naked and on foot, than desist from his resolution; and he
went to Dover with his pilgrim's staff and wallet. He was
searched before his departure, that he might carry away no
money, and was at last allowed to sail. But the king
immediately executed his threat, and sequestered all his lands
and property. This was about three years before the end of the
reign. ... Anselm continued in Italy till William's death. The
possession of Normandy was a leading object of William's
ambition, and he gradually attained a preponderance in it. His
first invasion compelled Robert to make some cessions; these were
increased on his next attack: and when Robert determined to
join the Crusaders, he mortgaged the whole of Normandy to
William for three years, for 10,000 marks. He obtained the
usual success of a powerful invasion in Wales. The natives
were overpowered on the plains, but annoyed the invaders in
their mountains. He marched an army against Malcolm, king of
Scotland, to punish his incursions. Robert advised the
Scottish king to conciliate William; Malcolm yielded to his
counsel and accompanied Robert to the English court, but on
his return, was treacherously attacked by Mowbray, the earl of
Northumbria, and killed. William regretted the perfidious
cruelty of the action. ... The government of William appears
to have been beneficial, both to England and Normandy. To the
church it was oppressive. ... He had scarcely reigned twelve
years, when he fell by a violent death." He was hunting with a
few attendants in the New Forest. "It happened that, his friends
dispersing in pursuit of game, he was left alone, as some
authorities intimate, with Walter Tyrrel, a noble knight, whom
he had brought out of France, and admitted to his table, and
to whom he was much attached. As the sun was about to set, a
stag passed before the king, who discharged an arrow at it.
... At the same moment, another stag crossing, Walter Tyrrel
discharged an arrow at it. At this precise juncture, a shaft
struck the king, and buried itself in his breast. He fell,
without a word, upon the arrow, and expired on the spot. ...
It seems to be a questionable point, whether Walter Tyrrel
actually shot the king. That opinion was certainly the most
prevalent at the time, both here and in France. ...
{797}
None of the authorities intimate a belief of a purposed
assassination; and, therefore, it would be unjust now to
impute it to anyone. ... Henry was hunting in a different part
of the New Forest when Rufus fell. ... He left the body to the
casual charity of the passing rustic, and rode precipitately
to Winchester, to seize the royal treasure. ... He obtained
the treasure, and proceeding hastily to London, was on the
following Sunday, the third day after William's death, elected
king, and crowned. ... He began his reign by removing the
unpopular agents of his unfortunate brother. He recalled
Anselm, and conciliated the clergy. He gratified the nation,
by abolishing the oppressive exactions of the previous reign.
He assured many benefits to the barons, and by a charter,
signed on the day of his coronation, restored to the people
their Anglo-Saxon laws and privileges, as amended by his
father; a measure which ended the pecuniary oppressions of his
brother, and which favoured the growing liberties of the
nation. The Conqueror had noticed Henry's expanding intellect
very early; had given him the best education which the age
could supply. ... He became the most learned monarch of his
day, and acquired and deserved the surname of Beauclerc, or
fine scholar. No wars, no cares of state, could afterwards
deprive him of his love of literature. The nation soon felt
the impulse and the benefit of their sovereign's intellectual
taste. He acceded at the age of 32, and gratified the nation
by marrying and crowning Mathilda, daughter of the sister of
Edgar Etheling by Malcolm the king of Scotland, who had been
waylaid and killed."
S. Turner,
History of England during the Middle Ages,
volume 1, chapters 5-6.
The Norman lords, hating the "English ways" of Henry, were
soon in rebellion, undertaking to put Robert of Normandy (who
had returned from the Crusade) in his place. The quarrel went
on till the battle of Tenchebray, 1106, in which Robert was
defeated and taken prisoner. He was imprisoned for life. The
duchy and the kingdom were again united. The war in Normandy
led to a war with Louis king of France, who had espoused
Robert's cause. It was ended by the battle of Brêmule, 1119,
where the French suffered a bad defeat. In Henry's reign all
south Wales was conquered; but the north Welsh princes held
out. Another expedition against them was preparing, when, in
1135, Henry fell ill at the Castle of Lions in Normandy, and
died.
E. A. Freeman,
The Reign of William Rufus and accession of Henry I.
ALSO IN:
Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and England,
volume 4.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1135-1154.
The miserable reign of Stephen.
Civil war, anarchy and wretchedness in England.
The transition to hereditary monarchy.
After the death of William the Conqueror, the English throne
was occupied in succession by two of his sons, William II., or
William Rufus (1087-1100), and Henry I., or Henry Beauclerk
(1100-1135). The latter outlived his one legitimate son, and
bequeathed the crown at his death to his daughter, Matilda,
widow of the Emperor Henry V. of Germany and now wife of
Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. This latter marriage had been very
unpopular, both in England and Normandy, and a strong party
refused to recognize the Empress Matilda, as she was commonly
called. This party maintained the superior claims of the
family of Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, who had
married the Earl of Blois. Naturally their choice would have
fallen upon Theobald of Blois, the eldest of Adela's sons; but
his more enterprising younger brother Stephen supplanted him.
Hastening to England, and winning the favour of the citizens
of London, Stephen secured the royal treasure and persuaded a
council of peers to elect him king. A most grievous civil war
ensued, which lasted for nineteen terrible years, during which
long period there was anarchy and great wretchedness in
England. "The land was filled with castles, and the castles
with armed banditti, who seem to have carried on their
extortions under colour of the military commands bestowed by
Stephen on every petty castellan. Often the very belfries of
churches were fortified. On the poor lay the burden of
building these strongholds; the rich suffered in their
donjeons. Many were starved to death, and these were the
happiest. Others were flung into cellars filled with reptiles,
or hung up by the thumbs till they told where their treasures
were concealed, or crippled in frames which did not suffer
them to move, or held just resting on the ground by sharp iron
collars round the neck. The Earl of Essex used to send out
spies who begged from door to door, and then reported in what
houses wealth was still left; the alms-givers were presently
seized and imprisoned. The towns that could no longer pay the
blackmail demanded from them were burned. ... Sometimes the
peasants, maddened by misery, crowded to the roads that led
from a field of battle, and smote down the fugitives without
any distinction of sides. The bishops cursed vainly, when the
very churches were burned and monks robbed. 'To till the
ground was to plough the sea; the earth bare no corn, for the
land was all laid waste by such deeds, and men said openly
that Christ slept, and his saints. Such things, and more than
we can say, suffered we nineteen winters for our sins' (A. S.
Chronicle). ... Many soldiers, sickened with the unnatural
war, put on the white cross and sailed for a nobler
battle-field in the East." As Matilda's son Henry--afterwards
Henry II.--grew to manhood, the feeling in his favor gained
strength and his party made head against the weak and
incompetent Stephen. Finally, in 1153, peace was brought about
under an agreement "that Stephen should wear the crown till
his death, and Henry receive the homage of the lords and towns
of the realm as heir apparent." Stephen died the next year and
Henry came to the throne with little further dispute.
C. H. Pearson,
History of England During the Early and Middle Ages,
chapter 28.
"Stephen, as a king, was an admitted failure. I cannot,
however, but view with suspicion the causes assigned to his
failure by often unfriendly chroniclers. That their criticisms
had some foundation it would not be possible to deny. But in
the first place, had he enjoyed better fortune, we should have
heard less of his incapacity, and in the second, these writers,
not enjoying the same stand-point as ourselves, were, I think,
somewhat inclined to mistake effects for causes. ... His
weakness throughout his reign ... was due to two causes, each
supplementing the other.
{798}
These were--(1) the essentially unsatisfactory character of
his position, as resting, virtually, on a compact that he
should be king so long only as he gave satisfaction to those
who had placed him on the throne; (2) the existence of a rival
claim, hanging over him from the first, like the sword of
Damocles, and affording a lever by which the malcontents could
compel him to adhere to the original understanding, or even to
submit to further demands. ... The position of his opponents
throughout his reign would seem to have rested on two
assumptions. The first, that a breach, on his part, of the
'contract' justified ipso facto revolt on theirs; the second,
that their allegiance to the king was a purely feudal
relation, and, as such, could be thrown off at any moment by
performing the famous diffidatio. This essential feature of
continental feudalism had been rigidly excluded by the
Conqueror. He had taken advantage, as is well known, of his
position as an English king, to extort an allegiance from his
Norman followers more absolute than he could have claimed as
their feudal lord. It was to Stephen's peculiar position that
was due the introduction for a time of this pernicious
principle into England. ... Passing now to the other point,
the existence of a rival claim, we approach a subject of great
interest, the theory of the succession to the English Crown at
what may be termed the crisis of transition from the principle
of election (within the royal house) to that of hereditary
right according to feudal rules. For the right view on this
subject, we turn, as ever, to Dr. Stubbs, who, with his usual
sound judgment, writes thus of the Norman period:--'The crown
then continued to be elective. ... But whilst the elective
principle was maintained in its fulness where it was necessary
or possible to maintain it, it is quite certain that the right
of inheritance, and inheritance as primogeniture, was
recognized as coordinate. ... The measures taken by Henry I.
for securing the crown to his own children, whilst they prove
the acceptance of the hereditary principle, prove also the
importance of strengthening it by the recognition of the
elective theory.' Mr. Freeman, though writing with a strong
bias in favour of the elective theory, is fully justified in
his main argument, namely, that Stephen 'was no usurper in the
sense in which the word is vulgarly used.' He urges,
apparently with perfect truth, that Stephen's offence, in the
eyes of his contemporaries, lay in his breaking his solemn
oath, and not in his supplanting a rightful heir. And he aptly
suggests that the wretchedness of his reign may have hastened
the growth of that new belief in the divine right of the heir
to the throne, which first appears under Henry II., and in the
pages of William of Newburgh. So far as Stephen is concerned the
case is clear enough. But we have also to consider the
Empress. On what did she base her claim? I think that, as
implied in Dr. Stubbs' words, she based it on a double, not a
single, ground. She claimed the kingdom as King Henry's
daughter ('regis Henrici filia '), but she claimed it further
because the succession had been assured to her by oath ('sibi
juratum') as such. It is important to observe that the oath in
question can in no way be regarded in the light of an
election. ... The Empress and her partisans must have largely,
to say the least, based their claim on her right to the throne
as her father's heir, and ... she and they appealed to the
oath as the admission and recognition of that right, rather
than as partaking in any way whatever of the character of a
free election. ... The sex of the Empress was the drawback to
her claim. Had her brother lived, there can be little question
that he would, as a matter of course, have succeeded his
father at his death. Or again, had Henry II. been old enough
to succeed his grandfather, he would, we may be sure, have
done so. ... Broadly speaking, to sum up the evidence here
collected, it tends to the belief that the obsolescence of the
right of election to the English crown presents considerable
analogy to that of canonical election in the case of English
bishoprics. In both cases a free election degenerated into a
mere assent to a choice already made. We see the process of
change already in full operation when Henry I. endeavours to
extort beforehand from the magnates their assent to his
daughter's succession, and when they subsequently complain of
this attempt to dictate to them on the subject. We catch sight
of it again when his daughter bases her claim to the crown,
not on any free election, but on her rights as her father's
heir, confirmed by the above assent. We see it, lastly, when
Stephen, though owing his crown to election, claims to rule by
Divine right ('Dei gratia'), and attempts to reduce that
election to nothing more than a national 'assent' to his
succession. Obviously, the whole question turned on whether
the election was to be held first, or was to be a mere
ratification of a choice already made. ... In comparing
Stephen with his successor the difference between their
circumstances has been insufficiently allowed for. At
Stephen's accession, thirty years of legal and financial
oppression had rendered unpopular the power of the Crown, and
had led to an impatience of official restraint which opened
the path to a feudal reaction: at the accession of Henry, on
the contrary, the evils of an enfeebled administration and of
feudalism run mad had made all men eager for the advent of a
strong king, and had prepared them to welcome the introduction
of his centralizing administrative reforms. He anticipated the
position of the house of Tudor at the close of the Wars of the
Roses, and combined with it the advantages which Charles II.
derived from the Puritan tyranny. Again, Stephen was hampered
from the first by his weak position as a king on sufferance,
whereas Henry came to his work unhampered by compact or
concession. Lastly, Stephen was confronted throughout by a
rival claimant, who formed a splendid rallying-point for all
the discontent in his realm: but Henry reigned for as long as
Stephen without a rival to trouble him; and when he found at
length a rival in his own son, a claim far weaker than that
which had threatened his predecessor seemed likely for a time
to break his power as effectually as the followers of the
Empress had broken that of Stephen. He may only, indeed, have
owed his escape to that efficient administration which years
of strength and safety had given him the time to construct. It
in no way follows from these considerations that Henry was not
superior to Stephen; but it does, surely, suggest itself that
Stephen's disadvantages were great, and that had he enjoyed
better fortune, we might have heard less of his defects."
J. H. Round,
Geoffrey de Mandeville,
chapter. 1.
ALSO IN:
Mrs. J. R. Green,
Henry the Second,
chapter 1.
See, also,
STANDARD, BATTLE OF THE (A. D. 1137).
{799}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1154-1189.
Henry II., the first of the Angevin kings (Plantagenets)
and his empire.
Henry II., who came to the English throne on Stephen's death,
was already, by the death of his father, Geoffrey, Count of
Anjou, the head of the great house of Anjou, in France. From
his father he inherited Anjou, Touraine and Maine; through his
mother, Matilda, daughter of Henry I., he received the dukedom
of Normandy as well as the kingdom of England; by marriage
with Eleanor, of Aquitaine, or Guienne, he added to his empire
the princely domain which included Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge,
Perigord, Limousin, Angoumois, with claims of suzerainty over
Auvergne and Toulouse. "Henry found himself at twenty-one
ruler of dominions such as no king before him had ever dreamed
of uniting. He was master of both sides of the English
Channel, and by his alliance with his uncle, the Count of
Flanders, he had command of the French coast from the Scheldt
to the Pyrenees, while his claims on Toulouse would carry him
to the shores of the Mediterranean. His subjects told with
pride how 'his empire reached from the Arctic Ocean to the
Pyrenees'; there was no monarch save the Emperor himself who
ruled over such vast domains. ... His aim [a few years Inter]
seems to have been to rival in some sort the Empire of the
West, and to reign as an over-king, with sub-kings of his
various provinces, and England as one of them, around him. He
was connected with all the great ruling houses. ... England
was forced out of her old isolation; her interest in the world
without was suddenly awakened. English scholars thronged the
foreign universities; English chroniclers questioned
travellers, scholars, ambassadors, as to what was passing
abroad.' The influence of English learning and English
statecraft made itself felt all over Europe. Never, perhaps,
in all the history of England was there a time when Englishmen
played so great a part abroad." The king who gathered this
wide, incongruous empire under his sceptre, by mere
circumstances of birth and marriage, proved strangely equal,
in many respects, to its greatness. "He was a foreign king who
never spoke the English tongue, who lived and moved for the
most part in a foreign camp, surrounded with a motley host of
Brabançons and hirelings. ... It was under the rule of a
foreigner such as this, however, that the races of conquerors
and conquered in England first learnt to feel that they were
one. It was by his power that England, Scotland and Ireland
were brought to some vague acknowledgement of a common
suzerain lord, and the foundations laid of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland. It was he who abolished
feudalism as a system of government, and left it little more
than a system of land tenure. It was he who defined the
relations established between Church and State, and decreed
that in England churchman as well as baron was to be held
under the Common Law. ... His reforms established the judicial
system whose main outlines have been preserved to our own day.
It was through his 'Constitutions' and his 'Assizes' that it
came to pass that over all the world the English-speaking
races are governed by English and not by Roman law. It was by
his genius for government that the servants of the royal
household became transformed into Ministers of State. It was
he who gave England a foreign policy which decided our
continental relations for seven hundred years. The impress
which the personality of Henry II. left upon his time meets us
wherever we turn."
Mrs. J. R. Green,
Henry the Second,
chapters 1-2.
Henry II. and his two sons, Richard I. (Cœur de Lion), and
John, are distinguished, sometimes, as the Angevin kings, or
kings of the House of Anjou, and sometimes as the
Plantagenets, the latter name being derived from a boyish
habit ascribed to Henry's father, Count Geoffrey, of "adorning
his cap with a sprig of 'plantagenista,' the broom which in
early summer makes the open country of Anjou and Maine a blaze
of living gold." Richard retained and ruled the great realm of
his father; but John lost most of his foreign inheritance,
including Normandy, and became the unwilling benefactor of
England by stripping her kings of alien interests and alien
powers and bending their necks to Magna Charta.
K. Norgate,
England under the Angevin Kings.
ALSO IN:
W. Stubbs,
The Early Plantagenets.
See, also,
AQUITAINE (GUIENNE): A. D. 1137-1152;
IRELAND: A. D. 1169-1175.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1162-1170.
Conflict of King and Church.
The Constitutions of Clarendon.
Murder of Archbishop Becket.
"Archbishop Theobald was at first the King's chief favourite
and adviser, but his health and his influence declining,
Becket [the Archdeacon of Canterbury] was found apt for
business as well as amusement, and gradually became intrusted
with the exercise of all the powers of the crown. ... The
exact time of his appointment as Chancellor has not been
ascertained, the records of the transfer of the Great Seal not
beginning till a subsequent reign, and old biographers being
always quite careless about dates. But he certainly had this
dignity soon after Henry's accession. ... Becket continued
Chancellor till the year 1162, without any abatement in his
favour with the King, or in the power which he possessed, or
in the energy he displayed, or in the splendour of his career.
... In April, 1161, Archbishop Theobald died. Henry declared
that Becket should succeed,--no doubt counting upon his
co-operation in carrying on the policy hitherto pursued in
checking the encroachments of the clergy and of the see of
Rome. ... The same opinion of Becket's probable conduct was
generally entertained, and a cry was raised that 'the Church
was in danger.' The English bishops sent a representation to
Henry against the appointment, and the electors long refused
to obey his mandate, saying that 'it was indecent that a man
who was rather a soldier than a priest, and who had devoted
himself to hunting and falconry instead of the study of the
Holy Scriptures, should be placed in the chair of St.
Augustine.' ... The universal expectation was, that Becket
would now attempt the part so successfully played by Cardinal
Wolsey in a succeeding age; that, Chancellor and Archbishop,
he would continue the minister and personal friend of the
King; that he would study to support and extend all the
prerogatives of the Crown, which he himself was to exercise;
and that in the palaces of which he was now master he would
live with increased magnificence and luxury. ... Never was
there so wonderful a transformation. Whether from a
predetermined purpose, or from a sudden change of inclination,
he immediately became in every respect an altered man.
{800}
Instead of the stately and fastidious courtier, was seen the
humble and squalid penitent. Next [to] his skin he wore
hair-cloth, populous with vermin; he lived upon roots, and his
drink was water, rendered nauseous by an infusion of fennel.
By way of further penance and mortification, he frequently
inflicted stripes on his naked back. ... He sent the Great
Seal to Henry, in Normandy, with this short message, 'I desire
that you will provide yourself with another Chancellor, as I
find myself hardly sufficient for the duties of one office,
and much less of two.' The fond patron, who had been so eager
for his elevation, was now grievously disappointed and
alarmed. ... He at once saw that he had been deceived in his
choice. ... The grand struggle which the Church was then
making was, that all churchmen should be entirely exempted
from the jurisdiction of the secular courts, whatever crime
they might have committed. ... Henry, thinking that he had a
favourable opportunity for bringing the dispute to a crisis,
summoned an assembly of all the prelates at Westminster, and
himself put to them this plain question: 'Whether they were
willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the
kingdom?' Their reply, framed by Becket, was: 'We are willing,
saving our own order.' ... The King, seeing what was
comprehended in the reservation, retired with evident marks of
displeasure, deprived Becket of the government of Eye and
Berkhamstead, and all the appointments which he held at the
pleasure of the Crown, and uttered threats as to seizing the
temporalities of all the bishops, since they would not
acknowledge their allegiance to him as the head of the state.
The legate of Pope Alexander, dreading a breach with so
powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, advised
Becket to submit for the moment; and he with his brethren,
retracting the saving clause, absolutely promised 'to observe
the laws and customs of the kingdom.' To avoid all future
dispute, Henry resolved to follow up his victory by having
these laws and customs, as far as the Church was concerned,
reduced into a code, to be sanctioned by the legislature, and
to be specifically acknowledged by all the bishops. This was
the origin of the famous 'Constitutions of Clarendon.'''
Becket left the kingdom (1164). Several years later he made
peace with Henry and returned to Canterbury; but soon he again
displeased the King, who cried in a rage, 'Who will rid me of
this turbulent priest?' Four knights who were present
immediately went to Canterbury, where they slew the Archbishop
in the cathedral (December 29, 1170). "The government tried to
justify or palliate the murder. The Archbishop of York likened
Thomas à Becket to Pharaoh, who died by the Divine vengeance,
as a punishment for his hardness of heart; and a proclamation
was issued, forbidding anyone to speak of Thomas of Canterbury
as a martyr: but the feelings of men were too strong to be
checked by authority; pieces of linen which had been dipped in
his blood were preserved as relics; from the time of his death
it was believed that miracles were worked at his tomb; thither
flocked hundreds of thousands, in spite of the most violent
threats of punishment; at the end of two years he was
canonised at Rome; and, till the breaking out of the
Reformation, St. Thomas of Canterbury, for pilgrimages and
prayers, was the most distinguished Saint in England."
Lord Campbell,
Lives of the Lord Chancellors,
chapter 3.
"What did Henry II. propose to do with a clerk who was accused
of a crime? ... Without doing much violence to the text, it is
possible to put two different interpretations upon that famous
clause in the Constitutions of Clarendon which deals with
criminous clerks. ... According to what seems to be the
commonest opinion, we might comment upon this clause in some
such words as these:--Offences of which a clerk may be accused
are of two kinds. They are temporal or they are
ecclesiastical. Under the former head fall murder, robbery,
larceny, rape, and the like; under the latter, incontinence,
heresy, disobedience to superiors, breach of rules relating to
the conduct of divine service, and so forth. If charged with
an offence of the temporal kind, the clerk must stand his
trial in the king's court; his trial, his sentence, will be
like that of a layman. For an ecclesiastical offence, on the
other hand, he will be tried in the court Christian. The king
reserves to his court the right to decide what offences are
temporal, what ecclesiastical; also he asserts the right to
send delegates to supervise the proceedings of the spiritual
tribunals. ... Let us attempt a rival commentary. The author
of this clause is not thinking of two different classes of
offences. The purely ecclesiastical offences are not in
debate. No one doubts that for these a man will be tried in
and punished by the spiritual court. He is thinking of the
grave crimes, of murder and the like. Now every such crime is
a breach of temporal law, and it is also a breach of canon
law. The clerk who commits murder breaks the king's peace, but
he also infringes the divine law, and--no canonist will doubt
this--ought to be degraded. Very well. A clerk is accused of
such a crime. He is summoned before the king's court, and he
is to answer there--let us mark this word respondere--for what
he ought to answer for there. What ought he to answer for
there? The breach of the king's peace and the felony. When he
has answered, ... then, without any trial, he is to be sent to
the ecclesiastical court. In that court he will have to answer
as an ordained clerk accused of homicide, and in that court
there will be a trial (res ibi tractabitur). If the spiritual
court convicts him it will degrade him, and thenceforth the
church must no longer protect him. He will be brought back
into the king's court, ... and having been brought back, no
longer a clerk but a mere layman, he will be sentenced
(probably without any further trial) to the layman's
punishment, death or mutilation. The scheme is this:
accusation and plea in the temporal court; trial, conviction,
degradation, in the ecclesiastical court; sentence in the
temporal court to the layman's punishment. This I believe to
be the meaning of the clause."
F. W. Maitland,
Henry II. and the Criminous Clerks
(English Historical Review, April, 1892),
pages 224-226.
The Assize of Clarendon, sometimes confused with the
Constitutions of Clarendon, was an important decree approved
two years later. It laid down the principles on which the
administration of justice was to be carried out, in twenty-two
articles drawn up for the use of the judges.
Mrs. J. R Green,
Henry the Second,
chapters 5-6.
{801}
"It may not be without instruction to remember that the
Constitutions of Clarendon, which Becket spent his life in
opposing, and of which his death procured the suspension, are
now incorporated in the English law, and are regarded, without
a dissentient voice, as among the wisest and most necessary of
English institutions; that the especial point for which he
surrendered his life was not the independence of the clergy
from the encroachments of the Crown, but the personal and now
forgotten question of the superiority of the see of Canterbury
to the see of York."
A. P. Stanley,
Historical Memorials of Canterbury,
page 124.
ALSO IN:
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 12, sections 139-141.
W. Stubbs,
Select Charters,
part 4.
J. C. Robertson,
Becket.
J. A. Giles,
Life and Letters of Thomas à Becket.
R. H. Froude,
History of the Contest between Archbishop
Thomas à Becket and Henry II.
(Remains, part 2, volume 2).
J. A. Froude,
Life and Times of Thomas Becket.
C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 1, chapter 29.
See, also,
BENEFIT OF CLERGY,
and JURY, TRIAL BY.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1189.
Accession of King Richard I. (called Cœur de Lion).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1189-1199.
Reign of Richard Cœur de Lion.
His Crusade and campaigns in France.
"The Third Crusade [see CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192], undertaken
for the deliverance of Palestine from the disasters brought
upon the Crusaders' Kingdom by Saladin, was the first to be
popular in England. ... Richard joined the Crusade in the very
first year of his reign, and every portion of his subsequent
career was concerned with its consequences. Neither in the
time of William Rufus nor of Stephen had the First or Second
Crusades found England sufficiently settled for such
expeditions. ... But the patronage of the Crusades was a
hereditary distinction in the Angevin family now reigning in
England: they had founded the kingdom of Palestine; Henry II.
himself had often prepared to set out; and Richard was
confidently expected by the great body of his subjects to
redeem the family pledge. ... Wholly inferior in statesmanlike
qualities to his father as he was, the generosity,
munificence, and easy confidence of his character made him an
almost perfect representative of the chivalry of that age. He
was scarcely at all in England, but his fine exploits both by
land and sea have made him deservedly a favourite. The
depreciation of him which is to be found in certain modern
books must in all fairness be considered a little mawkish. A
King who leaves behind him such an example of apparently
reckless, but really prudent valour, of patience under jealous
ill-treatment, and perseverance in the face of extreme
difficulties, shining out as the head of the manhood of his
day, far above the common race of kings and emperors,--such a
man leaves a heritage of example as well as glory, and incites
posterity to noble deeds. His great moral fault was his
conduct to Henry, and for this he was sufficiently punished;
but his parents must each bear their share of the blame. ...
The interest of English affairs during Richard's absence
languishes under the excitement which attends his almost
continuous campaigns. ... Both on the Crusade and in France
Richard was fighting the battle of the House which the English
had very deliberately placed upon its throne; and if the war
was kept off its shores, if the troubles of Stephen's reign
were not allowed to recur, the country had no right to
complain of a taxation or a royal ransom which times of peace
enabled it, after all, to bear tolerably well. ... The great
maritime position of the Plantagenets made these sovereigns
take to the sea."
M. Burrows,
Commentaries on the History of England,
book 1, chapter 18.
Richard "was a bad king; his great exploits, his military
skill, his splendour and extravagance, his poetical tastes,
his adventurous spirit, do not serve to cloak his entire want
of sympathy, or even consideration for his people. He was no
Englishman. ... His ambition was that of a mere warrior."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
section. 150 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
K. Norgate,
England under the Angevin Kings,
volume 2, chapter 7-8.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1199.
Accession of King John.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1205.
The loss of Normandy and its effects.
In 1202 Philip Augustus, king of France, summoned John of
England, as Duke of Normandy (therefore the feudal vassal of
the French crown) to appear for trial on certain grave charges
before the august court of the Peers of France. John refused
to obey the summons; his French fiefs were declared forfeited,
and the armies of the French king took possession of them (see
FRANCE: A. D. 1180-1224). This proved to be a lasting
separation of Normandy from England,--except as it was
recovered momentarily long afterwards in the conquests of
Henry V. "The Norman barons had had no choice but between John
and Philip. For the first time since the Conquest there was no
competitor, son, brother, or more distant kinsman, for their
allegiance. John could neither rule nor defend them. Bishops
and barons alike welcomed or speedily accepted their new lord.
The families that had estates on both sides of the Channel
divided into two branches, each of which made terms for
itself; or having balanced their interests in the two
kingdoms, threw in their lot with one or other, and renounced
what they could not save. Almost immediately Normandy settles
down into a quiet province of France. ... For England the
result of the separation was more important still. Even within
the reign of John it became clear that the release of the
barons from their connexion with the continent was all that
was wanted to make them Englishmen. With the last vestiges of
the Norman inheritances vanished the last idea of making
England a feudal kingdom. The Great Charter was won by men who
were maintaining, not the cause of a class, as had been the
case in every civil war since 1070, but the cause of a nation.
From the year 1203 the king stood before the English people
face to face."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 12, section 152.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1180-1224.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1205-1213.
King John's quarrel with the Pope and the Church.
On the death, in 1205, of Archbishop Hubert, of Canterbury,
who had long been chief minister of the crown, a complicated
quarrel over the appointment to the vacant see arose between
the monks of the cathedral, the suffragan bishops of the
province, King John, and the powerful Pope Innocent III. Pope
Innocent put forward as his candidate the afterwards famous
Stephen Langton, secured his election in a somewhat irregular
way (A. D. 1207), and consecrated him with his own hands. King
John, bent on filling the primacy with a creature of his own,
resisted the papal action with more fury than discretion, and
proceeded to open war with the whole Church.
{802}
"The monks of Canterbury were driven from their monastery, and
when, in the following year, an interdict which the Pope had
intrusted to the Bishops of London, Ely and Worcester, was
published, his hostility to the Church became so extreme that
almost all the bishops fled; the Bishops of Winchester,
Durham, and Norwich, two of whom belonged to the ministerial
body, being the only prelates left in England. The interdict
was of the severest form; all services of the Church, with the
exception of baptism and extreme unction, being forbidden,
while the burial of the dead was allowed only in unconsecrated
ground; its effect was however, weakened by the conduct of
some of the monastic orders, who claimed exemption from its
operation, and continued their services. The king's anger knew
no bounds. The clergy were put beyond the protection of the
law; orders were issued to drive them from their benefices,
and lawless acts committed at their expense met with no
punishment. ... Though acting thus violently, John showed the
weakness of his character by continued communication with the
Pope, and occasional fitful acts of favour to the Church; so
much so, that, in the following year, Langton prepared to come
over to England, and, upon the continued obstinacy of the
king, Innocent, feeling sure of his final victory, did not
shrink from issuing his threatened excommunication. John had
hoped to be able to exclude the knowledge of this step from
the island ... ; but the rumour of it soon got abroad, and its
effect was great. ... In a state of nervous excitement, and
mistrusting his nobles, the king himself perpetually moved to
and fro in his kingdom, seldom staying more than a few days in
one place. None the less did he continue his old line of policy.
... In 1211 a league of excommunicated leaders was formed,
including all the princes of the North of Europe; Ferrand of
Flanders, the Duke of Brabant, John, and Otho [John's Guelphic
Saxon nephew, who was one of two contestants for the imperial
crown in Germany], were all members of it, and it was chiefly
organized by the activity of Reinald of Dammartin, Count of
Boulogne. The chief enemy of these confederates was Philip of
France; and John thought he saw in this league the means of
revenge against his old enemy. To complete the line of
demarcation between the two parties, Innocent, who was greatly
moved by the description of the disorders and persecutions in
England, declared John's crown forfeited, and intrusted the
carrying out of the sentence to Philip. In 1213 armies were
collected on both sides. Philip was already on the Channel,
and John had assembled a large army on Barhamdown, not far
from Canterbury." But, at the last moment, when the French
king was on the eve of embarking his forces for the invasion
of England, John submitted himself abjectly to Pandulf, the
legate of the Pope. He not only surrendered to all that he had
contended against, but went further, to the most shameful
extreme. "On the 15th of May, at Dover, he formally resigned
the crowns of England and Ireland into the hands of Pandulf,
and received them again as the Pope's feudatory."
J. F. Bright,
History of England (3d edition),
volume 1, pages 130-134.
ALSO IN:
C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2, chapter 2.
E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages,
Book 4, number 5.
See, also, BOUVINES, BATTLE OF.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1206-1230.
Attempts of John and Henry III. to recover Anjou and Maine.
See ANJOU: A. D. 1206-1442.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1215.
Magna Carta.
"It is to the victory of Bouvines that England owes her Great
Charter [see BOUVINES]. ... John sailed for Poitou with the
dream of a great victory which should lay Philip [of France]
and the barons alike at his feet. He returned from his defeat
to find the nobles no longer banded together in secret
conspiracies, but openly united in a definite claim of liberty
and law. The author of this great change was the new
Archbishop [Langton] whom Innocent had set on the throne of
Canterbury. ... In a private meeting of the barons at St.
Paul's, he produced the Charter of Henry I., and the
enthusiasm with which it was welcomed showed the sagacity with
which the Primate had chosen his ground for the coming
struggle. All hope, however, hung on the fortunes of the
French campaign; it was the victory at Bouvines that broke the
spell of terror, and within a few days of the king's landing
the barons again met at St. Edmundsbury. ... At Christmas they
presented themselves in arms before the king and preferred their
claim. The few months that followed showed John that he stood
alone in the land. ... At Easter the barons again gathered in
arms at Brackley and renewed their claim. 'Why do they not ask
for my kingdom?' cried John in a burst of passion; but the
whole country rose as one man at his refusal. London threw
open her gates to the army of the barons, now organized under
Robert Fitz-Walter, 'the marshal of the army of God and the
holy Church.' The example of the capital was at once followed
by Exeter and Lincoln; promises of aid came from Scotland and
Wales; the northern nobles marched hastily to join their
comrades in London. With seven horsemen in his train John
found himself face to face with a nation in arms. ... Nursing
wrath in his heart the tyrant bowed to necessity, and summoned
the barons to a conference at Runnymede. An island in the
Thames between Staines and Windsor had been chosen as the
place of conference: the king encamped on one bank, while the
barons covered the marshy flat, still known by the name of
Runnymede, on the other. Their delegates met in the island
between them. ... The Great Charter was discussed, agreed to,
and signed in a single day [June 15, A. D. 1215]. One copy of
it still remains in the British Museum, injured by age and
fire, but with the royal seal still hanging from the brown,
shriveled parchment."
J. R Green,
Short History of the England People,
chapter 3, sections 2-3.
"As this was the first effort towards a legal government, so
is it beyond comparison the most important event in our
history, except that, Revolution without which its benefits
would have been rapidly annihilated. The constitution of
England has indeed no single date from which its duration is
to be reckoned. The institutions of positive law, the far more
important changes which time has wrought in the order of
society, during six hundred years subsequent to the Great
Charter, have undoubtedly lessened its direct application to
our present circumstances. But it is still the key-stone of
English liberty. All that has since been obtained is little
more than as confirmation or commentary. ... The essential
clauses of Magna Charta are those which protect the personal
liberty and property of all freemen, by giving security from
arbitrary imprisonment and arbitrary spoliation.
{803}
'No freeman (says the 29th chapter of Henry III.'s charter,
which, as the existing law, I quote in preference to that of
John, the variations not being very material) shall be taken
or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold, or liberties,
or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise
destroyed; nor will we pass upon him, nor send upon, but by
lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We
will sell to no man, we will not deny or delay to any man,
justice or right.' It is obvious that these words, interpreted
by any honest court of law, convey an ample security for the
two main rights of civil society."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 8, part 2.
"The Great Charter, although drawn up in the form of a royal
grant, was really a treaty between the king and his subjects.
... It is the collective people who really form the other high
contracting party in the great capitulation,--the three
estates of the realm, not, it is true, arranged in order
according to their profession or rank, but not the less
certainly combined in one national purpose, and securing by
one bond the interests and rights of each other, severally and
all together. ... The barons maintain and secure the right of
the whole people as against themselves as well as against
their master. Clause by clause the rights of the commons are
provided for as well as the rights of the nobles. ... The
knight is protected against the compulsory exaction of his
services, and the horse and cart of the freeman against the
irregular requisition even of the sheriff. ... The Great
Charter is the first great public act of the nation, after it
has realised its own identity. ... The whole of the
constitutional history of England is little more than a
commentary on Magna Carta."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 12, section 155.
The following is the text of Magna Carta;
"John, by the Grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland,
Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, to his
Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Earls, Barons, Justiciaries,
Foresters, Sheriffs, Governors, Officers, and to all Bailiffs,
and his faithful subjects, greeting. Know ye, that we, in the
presence of God, and for the salvation of our soul, and the
souls of all our ancestors and heirs, and unto the honour of
God and the advancement of Holy Church, and amendment of our
Realm, by advice of our venerable Fathers, Stephen, Archbishop
of Canterbury, Primate of all England and Cardinal of the Holy
Roman Church; Henry, Archbishop of Dublin; William, of London;
Peter, of Winchester; Jocelin, of Bath and Glastonbury; Hugh,
of Lincoln; Walter, of Worcester; William, of Coventry;
Benedict, of Rochester--Bishops; of Master Pandulph,
Sub-Deacon and Familiar of our Lord the Pope; Brother Aymeric,
Master of the Knights-Templars in England; and of the noble
Persons, William Marescall, Earl of Pembroke; William, Earl of
Salisbury; William, Earl of Warren; William, Earl of Arundel;
Alan de Galloway, Constable of Scotland; Warin FitzGerald,
Peter FitzHerbert, and Hubert de Burgh, Seneschal of Poitou;
Hugh de Neville, Matthew FitzHerbert, Thomas Basset, Alan
Basset, Philip of Albiney, Robert de Roppell, John Mareschal,
John FitzHugh, and others, our liegemen, have, in the first
place, granted to God, and by this our present Charter
confirmed, for us and our heirs forever;
1. That the Church of England shall be free, and have her
whole rights, and her liberties inviolable; and we will have
them so observed, that it may appear thence that the freedom
of elections, which is reckoned chief and indispensable to the
English Church, and which we granted and confirmed by our
Charter, and obtained the confirmation of the same from our
Lord the Pope Innocent III., before the discord between us and
our barons, was granted of mere free will; which Charter we
shall observe, and we do will it to be faithfully observed by
our heirs for ever.
2. We also have granted to all the freemen of our kingdom, for
us and for our heirs for ever, all the underwritten liberties,
to be had and holden by them and their heirs, of us and our
heirs for ever; If any of our earls, or barons, or others, who
hold of us in chief by military service, shall die, and at the
time of his death his heir shall be of full age, and owe a
relief, he shall have his inheritance by the ancient
relief--that is to say, the heir or heirs of an earl, for a
whole earldom, by a hundred pounds; the heir or heirs of a
baron, for a whole barony, by a hundred pounds; the heir or
heirs of a knight, for a whole knight's fee, by a hundred
shillings at most; and whoever oweth less shall give less,
according to the ancient custom of fees.
3. But if the heir of any such shall be under age, and shall
be in ward, when he comes of age he shall have his inheritance
without relief and without fine.
4. The keeper of the land of such an heir being under age,
shall take of the land of the heir none but reasonable issues,
reasonable customs, and reasonable services, and that without
destruction and waste of his men and his goods; and if we
commit the custody of any such lands to the sheriff, or any
other who is answerable to us for the issues of the land, and
he shall make destruction and waste of the lands which he hath
in custody, we will take of him amends, and the land shall be
committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who
shall answer for the issues to us, or to him to whom we shall
assign them; and if we sell or give to anyone the custody of
any such lands, and he therein make destruction or waste, he
shall lose the same custody, which shall be committed to two
lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall in like manner
answer to us as aforesaid.
5. But the keeper, so long as he shall have the custody of the
land, shall keep up the houses, parks, warrens, ponds, mills,
and other things pertaining to the land, out of the issues of
the same land; and shall deliver to the heir, when he comes of
full age, his whole land, stocked with ploughs and carriages,
according as the time of wainage shall require, and the issues
of the land can reasonably bear.
6. Heirs shall be married without disparagement, and so that
before matrimony shall be contracted, those who are near in
blood to the heir shall have notice.
7. A widow, after the death of her husband, shall forthwith
and without difficulty have her marriage and inheritance; nor
shall she give anything for her dower, or her marriage, of her
inheritance, which her husband and she held at the day of his
death; and she may remain in the mansion house of her husband
forty days after his death, within which time her dower shall
be assigned.
8. No widow shall be distrained to marry herself, so long as
she has a mind to live without a husband; but yet she shall
give security that she will not marry without our assent, if
she hold of us; or without the consent of the lord of whom she
holds, if she hold of another.
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9. Neither we nor our bailiffs shall seize any land or rent
for any debt so long as the chattels of the debtor are
sufficient to pay the debt; nor shall the sureties of the
debtor be distrained so long as the principal debtor has
sufficient to pay the debt; and if the principal debtor shall
fail in the payment of the debt, not having wherewithal to pay
it, then the sureties shall answer the debt; and if they will
they shall have the lands and rents of the debtor, until they
shall be satisfied for the debt which they paid for him,
unless the principal debtor can show himself acquitted thereof
against the said sureties.
10. If anyone have borrowed anything of the Jews, more or
less, and die before the debt be satisfied, there shall be no
interest paid for that debt, so long as the heir is under age,
of whomsoever he may hold; and if the debt falls into our
hands, we will only take the chattel mentioned in the deed.
11. And if anyone shall die indebted to the Jews, his wife
shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if the
deceased left children under age, they shall have necessaries
provided for them, according to the tenement of the deceased;
and out of the residue the debt shall be paid, saving,
however, the service due to the lords, and in like manner
shall it be done touching debts due to others than the Jews.
12. No scutage or aid shall be imposed in our kingdom, unless
by the general council of our kingdom; except for ransoming
our person, making our eldest son a knight, and once for
marrying our eldest daughter; and for these there shall be
paid no more than a reasonable aid. In like manner it shall be
concerning the aids of the City of London.
13. And the City of London shall have all its ancient
liberties and free customs, as well by land as by water:
furthermore, we will and grant that all other cities and
boroughs, and towns and ports, shall have all their liberties
and free customs.
14. And for holding the general council of the kingdom
concerning the assessment of aids, except in the three cases
aforesaid, and for the assessing of scutages, we shall cause
to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and
greater barons of the realm, singly by our letters. And
furthermore, we shall cause to be summoned generally, by our
sheriffs and bailiffs, all others who hold of us in chief, for
a certain day, that is to say, forty days before their meeting
at least, and to a certain place; and in all letters of such
summons we will declare the cause of such summons. And summons
being thus made, the business shall proceed on the day
appointed, according to the advice of such as shall be
present, although all that were summoned come not.
15. We will not for the future grant to anyone that he may
take aid of his own free tenants, unless to ransom his body,
and to make his eldest son a knight, and once to marry his
eldest daughter; and for this there shall be only paid a
reasonable aid.
16. No man shall be distrained to perform more service for a
knight's fee, or other free tenement, than is due from thence.
17. Common pleas shall not follow our court, but shall be
holden in some place certain.
18. Trials upon the Writs of Novel Disseisin, and of Mort
d'ancestor, and of Darrein Presentment, shall not be taken but
in their proper counties, and after this manner: We, or if we
should be out of the realm, our chief justiciary, will send
two justiciaries through every county four times a year, who,
with four knights of each county, chosen by the county, shall
hold the said assizes in the county, on the day, and at the
place appointed.
19. And if any matters cannot be determined on the day
appointed for holding the assizes in each county, so many of
the knights and freeholders as have been at the assizes
aforesaid shall stay to decide them as is necessary, according
as there is more or less business.
20. A freeman shall not be amerced for a small offence, but
only according to the degree of the offence; and for a great
crime according to the heinousness of it, saving to him his
contenement; and after the same manner a merchant, saving to
him his merchandise. And a villein shall be amerced after the
same manner, saving to him his wainage, if he falls under our
mercy; and none of the aforesaid amerciaments shall be
assessed but by the oath of honest men in the neighbourhood.
21. Earls and barons shall not be amerced but by their peers,
and after the degree of the offence.
22. No ecclesiastical person shall be amerced for his lay
tenement, but according to the proportion of the others
aforesaid, and not according to the value of his
ecclesiastical benefice.
23. Neither a town nor any tenant shall be distrained to make
bridges or embankments, unless that anciently and of right
they are bound to do it.
24. No sheriff, constable, coroner, or other our bailiffs,
shall hold "Pleas of the Crown."
25. All counties, hundreds, wapentakes, and trethings, shall
stand at the old rents, without any increase, except in our
demesne manors.
26. If anyone holding of us a lay fee die, and the sheriff, or
our bailiffs, show our letters patent of summons for debt
which the dead man did owe to us, it shall be lawful for the
sheriff or our bailiff to attach and register the chattels of
the dead, found upon his lay fee, to the amount of the debt,
by the view of lawful men, so as nothing be removed until our
whole clear debt be paid; and the rest shall be left to the
executors to fulfil the testament of the dead; and if there be
nothing due from him to us, all the chattels shall go to the
use of the dead, saving to his wife and children their
reasonable shares.
27. If any freeman shall die intestate, his chattels shall be
distributed by the hands of his nearest relations and friends,
by view of the Church, saving to everyone his debts which the
deceased owed to him.
28. No constable or bailiff of ours shall take corn or other
chattels of any man unless he presently give him money for it,
or hath respite of payment by the good-will of the seller.
29. No constable shall distrain any knight to give money for
castle-guard, if he himself will do it in his person, or by
another able man, in case he cannot do it through any
reasonable cause. And if we have carried or sent him into the
army, he shall be free from such guard for the time he shall
be in the army by our command.
30. No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other, shall take
horses or carts of any freeman for carriage, without the
assent of the said freeman.
31. Neither shall we nor our bailiffs take any man's timber
for our castles or other uses, unless by the consent of the
owner of the timber.
32. We will retain the lands of those convicted of felony only
one year and a day, and then they shall be delivered to the
lord of the fee.
33. All kydells (wears) for the time to come shall be put down
in the rivers of Thames and Medway, and throughout all
England, except upon the seacoast.
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34. The writ which is called prœcipe, for the future, shall
not be made out to anyone, of any tenement, whereby a freeman
may lose his court.
35. There shall be one measure of wine and one of ale through
our whole realm; and one measure of corn, that is to say, the
London quarter; and one breadth of dyed cloth, and russets,
and haberjeets, that is to say, two ells within the lists; and
it shall be of weights as it is of measures.
36. Nothing from henceforth shall be given or taken for a writ
of inquisition of life or limb, but it shall be granted
freely, and not denied.
37. If any do hold of us by fee-farm, or by socage, or by
burgage, and he hold also lands of any other by knight's
service, we will not have the custody of the heir or land,
which is holden of another man's fee by reason of that
fee-farm, socage, or burgage; neither will we have the custody
of the fee-farm, or socage, or burgage, unless knight's
service was due to us out of the same fee-farm. We will not
have the custody of an heir, nor of any land which he holds of
another by knight's service, by reason of any petty serjeanty
by which he holds of us, by the service of paying a knife, an
arrow, or the like.
38. No bailiff from henceforth shall put any man to his law
upon his own bare saying, without credible witnesses to prove
it.
39. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised, or
outlawed, or banished, or any ways destroyed, nor will we pass
upon him, nor will we send upon him, unless by the lawful
judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.
40. We will sell to no man, we will not deny to any man,
either justice or right.
41. All merchants shall have safe and secure conduct, to go
out of, and to come into England, and to stay there and to
pass as well by land as by water, for buying and selling by
the ancient and allowed customs, without any unjust tolls;
except in time of war, or when they are of any nation at war
with us. And if there be found any such in our land, in the
beginning of the war, they shall be attached, without damage
to their bodies or goods, until it be known unto us, or our
chief justiciary, how our merchants be treated in the nation
at war with us; and if ours be safe there, the others shall be
safe in our dominions.
42. It shall be lawful, for the time to come, for anyone to go
out of our kingdom, and return safely and securely by land or
by water, saving his allegiance to us; unless in time of war,
by some short space, for the common benefit of the realm,
except prisoners and outlaws, according to the law of the
land, and people in war with us, and merchants who shall be
treated as is above mentioned.
43. If any man hold of any escheat, as of the honour of
Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne, Lancaster, or of other
escheats which be in our hands, and are baronies, and die, his
heir shall give no other relief, and perform no other service
to us than he would to the baron, if it were in the baron's
hand; and we will hold it after the same manner as the baron
held it.
44. Those men who dwell without the forest from henceforth
shall not come before our justiciaries of the forest, upon
common summons, but such as are impleaded, or are sureties for
any that are attached for something concerning the forest.
45. We will not make any justices, constables, sheriffs, or
bailiffs, but of such as know the law of the realm and mean
duly to observe it.
46. All barons who have founded abbeys, which they hold by
charter from the kings of England, or by ancient tenure, shall
have the keeping of them, when vacant, as they ought to have.
47. All forests that have been made forests in our time shall
forthwith be disforested; and the same shall be done with the
water-banks that have been fenced in by us in our time.
48. All evil customs concerning forests, warrens, foresters,
and warreners, sheriffs and their officers, water-banks and
their keepers, shall forthwith be inquired into in each
county, by twelve sworn knights of the same county, chosen by
creditable persons of the same county; and within forty days
after the said inquest be utterly abolished, so as never to be
restored: so as we are first acquainted therewith, or our
justiciary, if we should not be in England.
49. We will immediately give up all hostages and charters
delivered unto us by our English subjects, as securities for
their keeping the peace, and yielding us faithful service.
50. We will entirely remove from their bailiwicks the
relations of Gerard de Atheyes, so that for the future they
shall have no bailiwick in England; we will also remove
Engelard de Cygony, Andrew, Peter, and Gyon, from the
Chancery; Gyon de Cygony, Geoffrey de Martyn, and his
brothers; Philip Mark, and his brothers, and his nephew,
Geoffrey, and their whole retinue.
51. As soon as peace is restored, we will send out of the
kingdom all foreign knights, cross-bowmen, and stipendiaries,
who are come with horses and arms to the molestation of our
people.
52. If anyone has been dispossessed or deprived by us, without
the lawful judgment of his peers, of his lands, castles,
liberties, or right, we will forthwith restore them to him;
and if any dispute arise upon this head, let the matter be
decided by the five-and-twenty barons hereafter mentioned, for
the preservation of the peace. And for all those things of
which any person has, without the lawful judgment of his
peers, been dispossessed or deprived, either by our father
King Henry, or our brother King Richard, and which we have in
our hands, or are possessed by others, and we are bound to
warrant and make good, we shall have a respite till the term
usually allowed the crusaders; excepting those things about
which there is a plea depending, or whereof an inquest hath
been made, by our order before we undertook the crusade; but
as soon as we return from our expedition, or if perchance we
tarry at home and do not make our expedition, we will
immediately cause full justice to be administered therein.
53. The same respite we shall have, and in the same manner,
about administering justice, disafforesting or letting
continue the forests, which Henry our father, and our brother
Richard, have afforested; and the same concerning the wardship
of the lands which are in another's fee, but the wardship of
which we have hitherto had, by reason of a fee held of us by
knight's service; and for the abbeys founded in any other fee
than our own, in which the lord of the fee says he has a
right; and when we return from our expedition, or if we tarry
at home, and do not make our expedition, we will immediately
do full justice to all the complainants in this behalf.
54. No man shall be taken or imprisoned upon the appeal of a
woman, for the death of any other than her husband.
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55. All unjust and illegal fines made by us, and all
amerciaments imposed unjustly and contrary to the law of the
land, shall be entirely given up, or else be left to the
decision of the five-and-twenty barons hereafter mentioned for
the preservation of the peace, or of the major part of them,
together with the aforesaid Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury,
if he can be present, and others whom he shall think fit to
invite; and if he cannot be present, the business shall
notwithstanding go on without him; but so that if one or more
of the aforesaid five-and-twenty barons be plaintiffs in the
same cause, they shall be set aside as to what concerns this
particular affair, and others be chosen in their room, out of
the said five-and-twenty, and sworn by the rest to decide the
matter.
56. If we have disseised or dispossessed the Welsh of any
lands, liberties, or other things, without the legal judgment
of their peers, either in England or in Wales, they shall be
immediately restored to them; and if any dispute arise upon
this head, the matter shall be determined in the Marches by
the judgment of their peers; for tenements in England
according to the law of England, for tenements in Wales
according to the law of Wales, for tenements of the Marches
according to the law of the Marches: the same shall the Welsh
do to us and our subjects.
57. As for all those things of which a Welshman hath, without
the lawful judgment of his peers, been disseised or deprived
of by King Henry our father, or our brother King Richard, and
which we either have in our hands or others are possessed of,
and we are obliged to warrant it, we shall have a respite till
the time generally allowed the crusaders; excepting those
things about which a suit is depending, or whereof an inquest
has been made by our order, before we undertook the crusade:
but when we return, or if we stay at home without performing
our expedition, we will immediately do them full justice,
according to the laws of the Welsh and of the parts before
mentioned.
58. We will without delay dismiss the son of Llewellin, and
all the Welsh hostages, and release them from the engagements
they have entered into with us for the preservation of the
peace.
59. We will treat with Alexander, King of Scots, concerning
the restoring his sisters and hostages, and his right and
liberties, in the same form and manner as we shall do to the
rest of our barons of England; unless by the charters which we
have from his father, William, late King of Scots, it ought to
be otherwise; and this shall be left to the determination of
his peers in our court.
60. All the aforesaid customs and liberties, which we have
granted to be holden in our kingdom, as much as it belongs to
us, all people of our kingdom, as well clergy as laity, shall
observe, as far as they are concerned, towards their
dependents.
61. And whereas, for the honour of God and the amendment of
our kingdom, and for the better quieting the discord that has
arisen between us and our barons, we have granted all these
things aforesaid; willing to render them firm and lasting, we
do give and grant our subjects the underwritten security,
namely that the barons may choose five-and-twenty barons of
the kingdom, whom they think convenient; who shall take care,
with all their might, to hold and observe, and cause to be
observed, the peace and liberties we have granted them, and by
this our present Charter confirmed in this manner; that is to
say, that if we, our justiciary, our bailiffs, or any of our
officers, shall in any circumstance have failed in the
performance of them towards any person, or shall have broken
through any of these articles of peace and security, and the
offence be notified to four barons chosen out of the
five-and-twenty before mentioned, the said four barons shall
repair to us, or our justiciary, if we are out of the realm,
and, laying open the grievance, shall petition to have it
redressed without delay: and if it be not redressed by us, or
if we should chance to be out of the realm, if it should not
be redressed by our justiciary within forty days, reckoning
from the time it has been notified to us, or to our justiciary
(if we should be out of the realm), the four barons aforesaid
shall lay the cause before the rest of the five-and-twenty
barons; and the said five-and-twenty barons, together with the
community of the whole kingdom, shall distrain and distress us
in all the ways in which they shall be able, by seizing our
castles, lands, possessions, and in any other manner they can,
till the grievance is redressed, according to their pleasure;
saving harmless our own person, and the persons of our Queen
and children; and when it is redressed, they shall behave to
us as before. And any person whatsoever in the kingdom may
swear that he will obey the orders of the five-and-twenty
barons aforesaid in the execution of the premises, and will
distress us, jointly with them, to the utmost of his power;
and we give public and free liberty to anyone that shall
please to swear to this, and never will hinder any person from
taking the same oath.
62. As for all those of our subjects who will not, of their
own accord, swear to join the five-and-twenty barons in
distraining and distressing us, we will issue orders to make
them take the same oath as aforesaid. And if anyone of the
five-and-twenty barons dies, or goes out of the kingdom, or is
hindered any other way from carrying the things aforesaid into
execution, the rest of the said five-and-twenty barons may
choose another in his room, at their discretion, who shall be
sworn in like manner as the rest. In all things that are
committed to the execution of these five-and-twenty barons,
if, when they are all assembled together, they should happen
to disagree about any matter, and some of them, when summoned,
will not or cannot come, whatever is agreed upon, or enjoined,
by the major part of those that are present shall be reputed
as firm and valid as if all the five-and-twenty had given
their consent; and the aforesaid five-and-twenty shall swear
that all the premises they shall faithfully observe, and cause
with all their power to be observed. And we will procure
nothing from anyone, by ourselves nor by another, whereby any
of these concessions and liberties may be revoked or lessened;
and if any such thing shall have been obtained, let it be null
and void; neither will we ever make use of it either by
ourselves or any other. And all the ill-will, indignations,
and rancours that have arisen between us and our subjects, of
the clergy and laity, from the first breaking out of the
dissensions between us, we do fully remit and forgive:
moreover, all trespasses occasioned by the said dissensions,
from Easter in the sixteenth year of our reign till the
restoration of peace and tranquillity, we hereby entirely
remit to all, both clergy and laity, and as far as in us lies
do fully forgive. We have, moreover, caused to be made for
them the letters patent testimonial of Stephen, Lord
Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry, Lord Archbishop of Dublin,
and the bishops aforesaid, as also of Master Pandulph, for the
security and concessions aforesaid.
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63. Wherefore we will and firmly enjoin, that the Church of
England be free, and that all men in our kingdom have and hold
all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions, truly
and peaceably, freely and quietly, fully and wholly to
themselves and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all things
and places, for ever, as is aforesaid. It is also sworn, as
well on our part as on the part of the barons, that all the
things aforesaid shall be observed in good faith, and without
evil subtilty. Given under our hand, in the presence of the
witnesses above named, and many others, in the meadow called
Runingmede, between Windsor and Staines, the 15th day of June,
in the 17th year of our reign."
W. Stubbs,
Select Charters,
part 5.
Old South Leaflets,
General Series,
number 5.
Also IN:
E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages,
book 1, number 7.
C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2, chapter 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.
Character and reign of Henry III.
The Barons' War.
Simon de Montfort and the evolution of the English Parliament.
King John died October 17,1216. "His legitimate successor was
a child of nine years of age. For the first time since the
Conquest the personal government was in the hands of a minor.
In that stormy time the great Earl of Pembroke undertook the
government, as Protector. ... At the Council of Bristol, with
general approbation and even with that of the papal legate,
Magna Charta was confirmed, though with the omission of
certain articles. ... After some degree of tranquillity had
been restored, a second confirmation of the Great Charter took
place in the autumn of 1217, with the omission of the clauses
referring to the estates, but with the grant of a new charta
de foresta, introducing a vigorous administration of the
forest laws. In 9 Henry III. Magna Charta was again confirmed,
and this is the form in which it afterwards took its place
among the statutes of the realm. Two years later, Henry III.
personally assumes the reins of government at the Parliament
of Oxford (1227), and begins his rule without confirming the
two charters. At first the tutorial government still
continues, which had meanwhile, even after the death of the
great Earl of Pembroke (1219), remained in a fairly orderly
condition. The first epoch of sixteen years of this reign must
therefore be regarded purely as a government by the nobility
under the name of Henry III. The regency had succeeded in
removing the dominant influence of the Roman Curia by the
recall of the papal legate, Pandulf, to Rome (1221), and in
getting rid of the dangerous foreign mercenary soldiery
(1224). ... With the disgraceful dismissal of the chief
justiciary, Hubert de Burgh, there begins a second epoch of a
personal rule of Henry III. (1232-1252), which for twenty
continuous years, presents the picture of a confused and
undecided struggle between the king and his foreign favourites
and personal adherents on the one side, and the great barons,
and with them soon the prelates, on the other. ... In 21 Henry
III. the King finds himself, in consequence of pressing money
embarrassments, again compelled to make a solemn confirmation
of the charter, in which once more the clauses relating to the
estates are omitted. Shortly afterwards, as had happened just
one hundred years previously in France, the name
'parliamentum' occurs for the first time (Chron. Dunst., 1244;
Matth. Paris, 1246), and curiously enough, Henry III. himself,
in a writ addressed to the Sheriff of Northampton, designates
with this term the assembly which originated the Magna Charta.
... The name 'parliament,' now occurs more frequently, but
does not supplant the more definite terms concilium,
colloquium, etc. In the meanwhile the relations with the
Continent became complicated, in consequence of the family
connections of the mother and wife of the King, and the greed
of the papal envoys. ... From the year 1244 onwards, neither a
chief justice nor a chancellor, nor even a treasurer, is
appointed, but the administration of the country is conducted
at the Court by the clerks of the offices."
R. Gneist,
History of the English Constitution,
volume 1, pages 313-321.
"Nothing is so hard to realise as chaos; and nothing nearer to
chaos can be conceived than the government of Henry III. Henry
was, like all the Plantagenets, clever; like very few of them,
he was devout; and if the power of conceiving a great policy
would constitute a great King, he would certainly have been
one. ... He aimed at making the Crown virtually independent of
the barons. ... His connexion with Louis IX., whose
brother-in-law he became, was certainly a misfortune to him.
In France the royal power had during the last fifty years been
steadily on the advance; in England it had as steadily
receded; and Henry was ever hearing from the other side of the
Channel maxims of government and ideas of royal authority
which were utterly inapplicable to the actual state of his own
kingdom. This, like a premature Stuart, Henry was incapable of
perceiving; a King he was, and a King he would be, in his own
sense of the word. It is evident that with such a task before
him, he needed for the most shadowy chance of success, an iron
strength of will, singular self-control, great forethought and
care in collecting and husbanding his resources, a rare talent
for administration, the sagacity to choose and the
self-reliance to trust his counsellors. And not one of these
various qualities did Henry possess. ... Henry had imbibed
from the events and the tutors of his early childhood two
maxims of state, and two alone: to trust Rome, and to distrust
the barons of England. ... He filled the places of trust and
power about himself with aliens, to whom the maintenance of
Papal influence was like an instinct of self-preservation.
Thus were definitely formed the two great parties out of whose
antagonism the War of the Barons arose, under whose influence
the relations between the crown and people of England were
remodelled, and out of whose enduring conflict rose,
indirectly, the political principles which contributed so
largely to bring about the Reformation of the English Church.
The few years which followed the fall of Hubert de Burgh were
the heyday of Papal triumph. And no triumph could have been
worse used. ... Thus was the whole country lying a prey to the
ecclesiastical aliens maintained by the Pope, and to the lay
aliens maintained by the King, ... when Simon de Montfort
became ... inseparably intermixed with the course of our
history. ... In the year 1258 opened the first act of the
great drama which has made the name of Simon de Montfort
immortal. ... The Barons of England, at Leicester's
suggestion, had leagued for the defence of their rights. They
appeared armed at the Great Council. ...
{808}
They required as the condition of their assistance that the
general reformation of the realm should be entrusted to a
Commission of twenty-four members, half to be chosen by the
crown, and half by themselves. For the election of this body,
primarily, and for a more explicit statement of grievances,
the Great Council was to meet again at Oxford on the 11th of
June, 1258. When the Barons came, they appeared at the head of
their retainers. The invasion of the Welsh was the plea; but
the real danger was nearer home. They seized on the Cinque
Ports; the unrenewed truce with France was the excuse; they
remembered too vividly King John and his foreign mercenaries.
They then presented their petition. This was directed to the
redress of various abuses. ... To each and every clause the
King gave his inevitable assent. One more remarkable
encroachment was made upon the royal prerogative; the election
in Parliament of a chief justiciar. ... The chief justiciar
was the first officer of the Crown. He was not a mere chief
justice, after the fashion of the present day, but the
representative of the Crown in its high character of the
fountain of justice. ... But the point upon which the barons
laid the greatest stress, from the beginning to the end of
their struggle, was the question of the employment of aliens.
That the strongest castles and the fairest lands of England
should be in the hands of foreigners, was an insult to the
national spirit which no free people could fail to resent. ...
England for the English, the great war cry of the barons, went
home to the heart of the humblest. ... The great question of
the constitution of Parliament was not heard at Oxford; it
emerged into importance when the struggle grew fiercer, and
the barons found it necessary to gather allies round them. ...
One other measure completed the programme of the barons;
namely, the appointment, already referred to, of a committee
of twenty-four. ... It amounted to placing the crown under the
control of a temporary Council of Regency [see OXFORD,
PROVISIONS OF]. ... Part of the barons' work was simple
enough. The justiciar was named, and the committee of
twenty-four. To expel the foreigners was less easy. Simon de
Montfort, himself an alien by birth, resigned the two castles
which he held, and called upon the rest to follow. They simply
refused. ... But the barons were in arms, and prepared to use
them. The aliens, with their few English supporters, fled to
Winchester, where the castle was in the hands of the foreign
bishop Aymer. They were besieged, brought to terms, and
exiled. The barons were now masters of the situation. ...
Among the prerogatives of the crown which passed to the Oxford
Commission not the least valuable, for the hold which it gave
on the general government of the country, was the right to
nominate the sheriffs. In 1261 the King, who had procured a
Papal bull to abrogate the Provisions of Oxford, and an army
of mercenaries to give the bull effect, proceeded to expel the
sheriffs who had been placed in office by the barons. The
reply of the barons was most memorable; it was a direct appeal
to the order below their own. They summoned three knights
elected from each county in England to meet them at St. Albans
to discuss the state of the realm. It was clear that the day
of the House of Commons could not be far distant, when at such
a crisis an appeal to the knights of the shire could be made,
and evidently made with success. For a moment, in this great
move, the whole strength of the barons was united; but
differences soon returned, and against divided counsels the
crown steadily prevailed. In June, 1262, we find peace
restored. The more moderate of the barons had acquiesced in
the terms offered by Henry; Montfort, who refused them, was
abroad in voluntary exile. ... Suddenly, in July, the Earl of
Gloucester died, and the sole leadership of the barons passed
into the hands of Montfort. With this critical event opens the
last act in the career of the great Earl. In October he returns
privately to England. The whole winter is passed in the
patient reorganising of the party, and the preparation for a
decisive struggle. Montfort, fervent, eloquent, and devoted,
swayed with despotic influence the hearts of the younger
nobles (and few in those days lived to be grey), and taught
them to feel that the Provisions of Oxford were to them what
the Great Charter had been to their fathers. They were drawn
together with an unanimity unknown before. ... They demanded
the restoration of the Great Provisions. The King refused, and
in May, 1263, the barons appealed to arms. ... Henry, with a
reluctant hand, subscribed once more to the Provisions of
Oxford, with a saving clause, however, that they should be
revised in the coming Parliament. On the 9th of September,
accordingly, Parliament was assembled. ... The King and the
barons agreed to submit their differences to the arbitration
of Louis of France. ... Louis IX. had done more than any one
king of France to enlarge the royal prerogative; and Louis was
the brother-in-law of Henry. His award, given at Amiens on the
23d of January, 1264. was, as we should have expected,
absolutely in favour of the King. The whole Provisions of
Oxford were, in his view, an invasion of the royal power. ...
The barons were astounded. ... They at once said that the
question of the employment of aliens was never meant to be
included. ... The appeal was made once again to the sword.
Success for a moment inclined to the royal side, but it was
only for a moment; and on the memorable field of Lewes the
genius of Leicester prevailed. ... With the two kings of
England and of the Romans prisoners in his hands, Montfort
dictated the terms of the so-called Mise of Lewes. ... Subject
to the approval of Parliament, all differences were to be
submitted once more to French arbitration. ... On the 23d of
June the Parliament met. It was no longer a Great Council,
after the fashion of previous assemblies; it included four
knights, elected by each English county. This Parliament gave
such sanction as it was able to the exceptional authority of
Montfort, and ordered that until the proposed arbitration
could be carried out, the King's council should consist of
nine persons, to be named by the Bishop of Chichester, and the
Earls of Gloucester and Leicester. The effect was to give
Simon for the time despotic power. ... It was at length agreed
that all questions whatever, the employment of aliens alone
excepted, should be referred to the Bishop of London, the
justiciar Hugh le Despenser, Charles of Anjou, and the Abbot
of Bec. If on any point they could not agree, the Archbishop
of Rouen was to act as referee. ... It was ... not simply the
expedient of a revolutionary chief in difficulties, but the
expression of a settled and matured policy, when, in December
1264, [Montfort] issued in the King's name the ever-memorable
writs which summoned the first complete Parliament which ever
met in England.
{809}
The earls, barons, and bishops received their summons as of
course; and with them the deans of cathedral churches, an
unprecedented number of abbots and priors, two knights from
every shire, and two citizens or burgesses from every city or
borough in England. Of their proceedings we know but little;
but they appear to have appointed Simon de Montfort to the
office of Justiciar of England, and to have thus made him in
rank, what he had before been in power, the first subject in
the realm. ... Montfort ... had now gone so far, he had
exercised such extraordinary powers, he had done so many
things which could never really be pardoned, that perhaps his
only chance of safety lay in the possession of some such
office as this. It is certain, moreover, that something which
passed in this Parliament, or almost exactly at the time of
its meeting, did cause deep offence to a considerable section
of the barons. ... Difficulties were visibly gathering thicker
around him, and he was evidently conscious that disaffection
was spreading fast. ... Negotiations went forward, not very
smoothly, for the release of Prince Edward. They were
terminated in May by his escape. It was the signal for a
royalist rising. Edward took the command of the Welsh border;
before the middle of June he had made the border his own. On
the 29th Gloucester opened its gates to him. He had many
secret friends. He pushed fearlessly eastward, and surprised
the garrison of Kenilworth, commanded by Simon, the Earl's
second son. The Earl himself lay at Evesham, awaiting the
troops which his son was to bring up from Kenilworth. ... On
the fatal field of Evesham, fighting side by side to the last,
fell the Earl himself, his eldest son Henry, Despenser the
late Justiciar, Lord Basset of Drayton, one of his firmest
friends, and a host of minor name. With them, to all
appearance, fell the cause for which they had fought."
Simon de Montfort
(Quarterly Review, January, 1866).
See PARLIAMENT, THE ENGLISH:
EARLY STAGES OF ITS EVOLUTION.
"Important as this assembly [the Parliament of 1264] is in the
history of the constitution, it was not primarily and
essentially a constitutional assembly. It was not a general
convention of the tenants in chief or of the three estates,
but a parliamentary assembly of the supporters of the existing
government."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 14, section 177 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
W. Stubbs,
The Early Plantagenets.
G. W. Prothero,
Life of Simon de Montfort,
chapter 11-12.
H. Blaauw,
The Barons' War.
C. H. Pearson,
England, Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1271.
Crusade of Prince Edward:
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1270-1271.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1272.
Accession of King Edward I.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1275-1295.
Development of Parliamentary representation under Edward 1.
"Happily, Earl Simon [de Montfort] found a successor, and more
than a successor, in the king's [Henry III.'s] son. ... Edward
I. stood on the vantage ground of the throne. ... He could do
that easily and without effort which Simon could only do
laboriously, and with the certainty of rousing opposition.
Especially was this the case with the encouragement given by
the two men to the growing aspirations after parliamentary
representation. Earl Simon's assemblies were instruments of
warfare. Edward's assemblies were invitations to peace. ...
Barons and prelates, knights and townsmen, came together only
to support a king who took the initiative so wisely, and who,
knowing what was best for all, sought the good of his kingdom
without thought of his own ease. Yet even so, Edward was too
prudent at once to gather together such a body as that which
Earl Simon had planned. He summoned, indeed, all the
constituent parts of Simon's parliament, but he seldom
summoned them to meet in one place or at one time. Sometimes
the barons and prelates met apart from the townsmen or the
knights, sometimes one or the other class met entirely alone.
... In this way, during the first twenty years of Edward's
reign, the nation rapidly grew in that consciousness of
national unity which would one day transfer the function of
regulation from the crown to the representatives of the
people."
S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger,
Introduction to the Study of English History,
chapter 4, section 17.
"In 1264 Simon de Montfort had called up from both shires and
boroughs representatives to aid him in the new work of
government. That part of Earl Simon's work had not been
lasting. The task was left for Edward I. to be advanced by
gradual safe steps, but to be thoroughly completed, as a part
of a definite and orderly arrangement, according to which the
English parliament was to be the perfect representation of the
Three Estates of the Realm, assembled for purposes of
taxation, legislation and united political action. ...
Edward's first parliament, in 1275, enabled him to pass a
great statute of legal reform, called the Statute of
Westminster the First, and to exact the new custom on wool;
another assembly, the same year, granted him a fifteenth. ...
There is no evidence that the commons of either town or county
were represented. ... In 1282, when the expenses of the Welsh
war were becoming heavy, Edward again tried the plan of
obtaining money from the towns and counties by separate
negotiation; but as that did not provide him with funds
sufficient for his purpose, he called together, early in 1283,
two great assemblies, one at York and another at Northampton,
in which four knights from each shire and four members from
each city and borough were ordered to attend; the cathedral
and conventual clergy also of the two provinces were
represented at the same places by their elected proctors. At
these assemblies there was no attendance of the barons; they
were with the king in Wales; but the commons made a grant of
one-thirtieth on the understanding that the lords should do
the same. Another assembly was held at Shrewsbury the same
year, 1283, to witness the trial of David of Wales; to this
the bishops and clergy were not called, but twenty towns and
all the counties were ordered to send representatives. Another
step was taken in 1290: knights of the shire were again
summoned; but still much remained to be done before a perfect
parliament was constituted. Counsel was wanted for
legislation, consent was wanted for taxation. The lords were
summoned in May, and did their work in June and July, granting
a feudal aid and passing the statute 'Quia Emptores,' but the
knights only came to vote or to promise a tax, after a law had
been passed; and the towns were again taxed by special
commissions. In 1294, ... under the alarm of war with France,
an alarm which led Edward into several breaches of
constitutional law, he went still further, assembling the
clergy by their representatives in August, and the shires by
their representative knights in October.
{810}
The next year, 1295, witnessed the first summons of a perfect
and model parliament; the clergy represented by their bishops,
deans, archdeacons, and elected proctors; the barons summoned
severally in person by the king's special writ, and the
commons summoned by writs addressed to the sheriffs, directing
them to send up two elected knights from each shire, two
elected citizens from each city, and two elected burghers from
each borough. The writ by which the prelates were called to
this parliament contained a famous sentence taken from the
Roman law, 'That which touches all should be approved by all,'
a maxim which might serve as a motto for Edward's
constitutional scheme, however slowly it grew upon him, now
permanently and consistently completed."
W. Stubbs,
The Early Plantagenets,
chapter 10.
"Comparing the history of the following ages with that of the
past, we can scarcely doubt that Edward had a definite idea of
government before his eyes, or that that idea was successful
because it approved itself to the genius and grew out of the
habits of the people. Edward saw, in fact, what the nation was
capable of, and adapted his constitutional reforms to that
capacity. But although we may not refuse him the credit of
design, it may still be questioned whether the design was
altogether voluntary, whether it was not forced upon him by
circumstances and developed by a series of careful
experiments. ... The design, as interpreted by the result, was
the creation of a national parliament, composed of the three
estates. ... This design was perfected in 1295. It was not the
result of compulsion, but the consummation of a growing policy.
... But the close union of 1295 was followed by the compulsion
of 1297: out of the organic completeness of the constitution
sprang the power of resistance, and out of the resistance the
victory of the principles, which Edward might guide, but which
he failed to coerce."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15, section 244
and chapter 14, section 180-182.
W. Stubbs,
Select Charters,
part 7.
"The 13th century was above all things the age of the lawyer
and the legislator. The revived study of Roman law had been
one of the greatest results of the intellectual renaissance of
the twelfth century. The enormous growth of the universities
in the early part of the thirteenth century was in no small
measure due to the zeal, ardour and success of their legal
faculties. From Bologna there flowed all over Europe a great
impulse towards the systematic and scientific study of the
Civil Law of Rome. ... The northern lawyers were inspired by
their emulation of the civilians and canonists to look at the
rude chaos of feudal custom with more critical eyes. They
sought to give it more system and method, to elicit its
leading principles, and to coordinate its clashing rules into
a harmonious body of doctrine worthy to be put side by side
with the more pretentious edifices of the Civil and Canon Law.
In this spirit Henry de Bracton wrote the first systematic
exposition of English law in the reign of Henry III. The
judges and lawyers of the reign of Edward sought to put the
principles of Bracton into practice. Edward himself strove
with no small success to carry on the same great work by new
legislation. ... His well-known title of the 'English
Justinian' is not so absurd as it appears at first sight. He
did not merely resemble Justinian in being a great legislator.
Like the famous codifier of the Roman law, Edward stood at the
end of a long period of legal development, and sought to arrange
and systematise what had gone before him. Some of his great
laws are almost in form attempts at the systematic
codification of various branches of feudal custom. ... Edward
was greedy for power, and a constant object of his legislation
was the exaltation of the royal prerogative. But he nearly
always took a broad and comprehensive view of his authority,
and thoroughly grasped the truth that the best interests of
king and kingdom were identical. He wished to rule the state,
but was willing to take his subjects into partnership with
him, if they in return recognised his royal rights. ... The
same principles which influenced Edward as a lawgiver stand
out clearly in his relations to every class of his subjects.
... It was the greatest work of Edward's life to make a
permanent and ordinary part of the machinery of English
government, what in his father's time had been but the
temporary expedient of a needy taxgatherer or the last
despairing effort of a revolutionary partisan. Edward I.
is--so much as one man can be--the creator of the historical
English constitution. It is true that the materials were ready
to his hand. But before he came to the throne the parts of the
constitution, though already roughly worked out, were
ill-defined and ill-understood. Before his death the national
council was no longer regarded as complete unless it contained
a systematic representation of the three estates. All over
Europe the thirteenth century saw the establishment of a
system of estates. The various classes of the community, which
had a separate social status and a common political interest,
became organised communities, and sent their representatives
to swell the council of the nation. By Edward's time there had
already grown up in England some rough anticipation of the
three estates of later history. ... It was with no intention
of diminishing his power, but rather with the object of
enlarging it, that Edward called the nation into some sort of
partnership with him. The special clue to this aspect of his
policy is his constant financial embarrassment. He found that
he could get larger and more cheerful subsidies if he laid his
financial condition before the representatives of his people.
... The really important thing was that Edward, like Montfort,
brought shire and borough representatives together in a single
estate, and so taught the country gentry, the lesser
landowners, who, in a time when direct participation in
politics was impossible for a lower class, were the real
constituencies of the shire members, to look upon their
interests as more in common with the traders of lower social
status than with the greater landlords with whom in most
continental countries the lesser gentry were forced to
associate their lot. The result strengthened the union of
classes, prevented the growth of the abnormally numerous
privileged nobility of most foreign countries, and broadened
and deepened the main current of the national life."
T. F. Tout,
Edward the First,
chapter 7-8.
{811}
"There was nothing in England which answered to the 'third
estate' in France--a class, that is to say, both isolated and
close, composed exclusively of townspeople, enjoying no
commerce with the rural population (except such as consisted
in the reception of fugitives), and at once detesting and
dreading the nobility by whom it was surrounded. In England
the contrary was the case. The townsfolk and the other classes
in each county were thrown together upon numberless occasions;
a long period of common activity created a cordial
understanding between the burghers on the one hand and their
neighbours the knights and landowners on the other, and
finally prepared the way for the fusion of the two classes."
E. Boutmy,
The English Constitution,
chapter 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1279.
The Statute of Mortmain.
"For many years past, the great danger to the balance of power
appeared to come from the regular clergy, who, favoured by the
success of the mendicant orders, were adding house to house
and field to field. Never dying out like families, and rarely
losing by forfeitures, the monasteries might well nigh
calculate the time, when all the soil of England should be
their own. ... Accordingly, one of the first acts of the
barons under Henry III. had been to enact, that no fees should
be aliened to religious persons or corporations. Edward
re-enacted and strengthened this by various provisions in the
famous Statute of Mortmain. The fee illegally aliened was now
to be forfeited to the chief lord under the King; and if, by
collusion or neglect, the lord omitted to claim his right, the
crown might enter upon it. Never was statute more unpopular
with the class at whom it was aimed, more ceaselessly eluded,
or more effectual. ... Once the clergy seem to have meditated
open resistance, for, in 1281, we find the king warning the
bishops, who were then in convocation at Lambeth, as they
loved their baronies, to discuss nothing that appertained to
the crown, or the king's person, or his council. The warning
appears to have proved effectual, and the clergy found less
dangerous employment in elaborating subtle evasions of the
obnoxious law. At first fictitious recoveries were practised;
an abbey bringing a suit against a would-be donor, who
permitted judgment against him to go by default. When this was
prohibited, special charters of exemption were procured. Once
an attempt was made to smuggle a dispensing bill through
parliament. One politic abbot in the 15th century encouraged
his friends to make bequests of land, suffered them to
escheat, and then begged them back of the crown, playing on
the religious feelings of Henry VI. Yet it is strong proof of
the salutary terror which the Statute of Mortmain inspired
that even then the abbot was not quieted, and procured an Act
of Parliament to purge him from any consequences of his
illegal practices. In fact, the fear, lest astute crown
lawyers should involve a rich foundation in wholesale
forfeitures, seems sometimes to have hampered its members in
the exercise of their undoubted rights as citizens."
C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2, chapter 9.
ALSO IN:
E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents.
K. E. Digby,
Law of Real Property (4th edition).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1282-1284.
Subjugation of Wales.
See WALES: A. D. 1282-1284.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1290-1305.
Conquest of Scotland by Edward I.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1290-1305.
ENGLAND: 14th Century.
Immigration of Flemish artisans.
The founding of English manufactures.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1335-1337.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1306-1393.
Resistance to the Pope.
"For one hundred and fifty years succeeding the Conquest, the
right of nominating the archbishops, bishops, and mitred
abbots had been claimed and exercised by the king. This right
had been specially confirmed by the Constitutions of
Clarendon, which also provided that the revenues of vacant
sees should belong to the Crown. But John admitted all the
Papal claims, surrendering even his kingdom to the Pope, and
receiving it back as a fief of the Holy See. By the Great
Charter the Church recovered its liberties; the right of free
election being specially conceded to the cathedral chapters
and the religious houses. Every election was, however, subject
to the approval of the Pope, who also claimed a right of veto
on institutions to the smaller church benefices. ... Under
Henry III. the power thus vested in the Pope and foreign
superiors of the monastic orders was greatly abused, and soon
degenerated into a mere channel for draining money into the
Roman exchequer. Edward I. firmly withstood the exactions of
the Pope, and reasserted the independence of both Church and
Crown. ... In the reign of the great Edward began a series of
statutes passed to check the aggressions of the Pope and
restore the independence of the national church. The first of
the series was passed in 1306-7. ... This statute was
confirmed under Edward III. in the 4th, and again in the 5th
year of his reign; and in the 25th of his reign [A. D. 1351],
roused 'by the grievous complaints of all the commons of his
realm,' the King and Parliament passed the famous Statute of
Provisors, aimed directly at the Pope, and emphatically
forbidding his nominations to English benefices. ... Three
years afterwards it was found necessary to pass a statute
forbidding citations to the court of Rome--[the prelude to the
Statute of Præmunire, described below]. ... In 1389, there was an
expectation that the Pope was about to attempt to enforce his
claims, by excommunicating those who rejected them. ... The
Parliament at once passed a highly penal statute. ... Matters
were shortly afterwards brought to a crisis by Boniface IX.,
who after declaring the statutes enacted by the English
Parliament null and void, granted to an Italian cardinal a
prebendal stall at Wells, to which the king had already
presented. Cross suits were at once instituted by the two
claimants in the Papal and English courts. A decision was
given by the latter, in favour of the king's nominee, and the
bishops, having agreed to support the Crown, were forthwith
excommunicated by the Pope. The Commons were now roused to the
highest pitch of indignation,"--and the final great Statute of
Præmunire was passed, A. D. 1393. "The firm and resolute
attitude assumed by the country caused Boniface to yield; 'and
for the moment,' observes Mr. Froude, 'and indeed for ever
under this especial form, the wave of papal encroachment was
rolled back.'"
T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
chapter 11.
"The great Statute of Provisors, passed in 1351, was a very
solemn expression of the National determination not to give
way to the pope's usurpation of patronage. ... All persons
procuring or accepting papal promotions were to be arrested.
... In 1352 the purchasers of Provisions were declared
outlaws; in 1365 another act repeated the prohibitions and
penalties; and in 1390 the parliament of Richard II. rehearsed
and confirmed the statute. By this act, forfeiture and
banishment were decreed against future transgressors."
{812}
The Statute of Præmunire as enacted finally in 1393, provided
that "all persons procuring in the court of Rome or elsewhere
such translations, processes, sentences of excommunication,
bulls, instruments or other things which touch the king, his
crown, regality or realm, should suffer the penalties of
præmunire"--which included imprisonment and forfeiture of
goods. "The name præmunire which marks this form of
legislation is taken from the opening word of the writ by
which the sheriff is charged to summon the delinquent."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 19, section 715-716.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1307.
Accession of King Edward II.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1310-1311.
The Ordainers.
"At the parliament which met in March 1310 [reign of Edward
II.] a new scheme of reform was promulgated, which was framed
on the model of that of 1258 and the Provisions of Oxford. It
was determined that the task of regulating the affairs of the
realm and of the king's household should be committed to an
elected body of twenty-one members, or Ordainers, the chief of
whom was Archbishop Winchelsey. ... The Ordainers were
empowered to remain in office until Michaelmas 1311, and to
make ordinances for the good of the realm, agreeable to the
tenour of the king's coronation oath. The whole administration
of the kingdom thus passed into their hands. ... The Ordainers
immediately on their appointment issued six articles directing
the observance of the charters, the careful collection of the
customs, and the arrest of the foreign merchants; but the
great body of the ordinances was reserved for the parliament
which met in August 1311. The famous document or statute known
as the Ordinances of 1311 contained forty-one clauses, all
aimed at existing abuses."
W. Stubbs,
The Early Plantagenets,
chapter 12.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1314-1328.
Bannockburn and the recovery of Scottish independence.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1314; 1314-1328.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1327.
Accession of King Edward III.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1328.
The Peace of Northampton with Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1328.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1328-1360.
The pretensions and wars of Edward III. in France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1328-1339; and 1337-1360.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1332-1370.
The wars of Edward III. with Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1332-1333, and 1333-1370.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1333-1380.
The effects of the war in France.
"A period of great wars is generally favourable to the growth
of a nobility. Men who equipped large bodies of troops for the
Scotch or French wars, or who had served with distinction in
them, naturally had a claim for reward at the hands of their
sovereign. ... The 13th century had broken up estates all over
England and multiplied families of the upper class; the 14th
century was consolidating properties again, and establishing a
broad division between a few powerful nobles and the mass of
the community. But if the gentry, as an order, lost a little
in relative importance by the formation of a class of great
nobles, more distinct than had existed before, the middle
classes of England, its merchants and yeomen, gained very much
in importance by the war. Under the firm rule of the 'King of
the Sea,' as his subjects lovingly called Edward III., our
commerce expanded. Englishmen rose to an equality with the
merchants of the Hanse Towns, the Genoese, or the Lombards,
and England for a time overflowed with treasure. The first
period of war, ending with the capture of Calais, secured our
coasts; the second, terminated by the peace of Brétigny,
brought the plunder of half [of] France into the English
markets; and even when Edward's reign had closed on defeat and
bankruptcy, and our own shores were ravaged by hostile fleets,
it was still possible for private adventurers to retaliate
invasion upon the enemy. ... The romance of foreign conquest,
of fortunes lightly gained and lightly lost, influenced
English enterprise for many years to come. ... The change to
the lower orders during the reign arose rather from the
frequent pestilences, which reduced the number of working men
and made labour valuable, than from any immediate
participation in the war. In fact, English serfs, as a rule,
did not serve in Edward's armies. They could not be
men-at-arms or archers for want of training and equipment; and
for the work of light-armed troops and foragers, the Irish and
Welsh seem to have been preferred. The opportunity of the
serfs came with the Black Death, while districts were
depopulated, and everywhere there was a want of hands to till
the fields and get in the crops. The immediate effect was
unfortunate. ... The indifference of late years, when men were
careless if their villans stayed on the property or emigrated,
was succeeded by a sharp inquisition after fugitive serfs, and
constant legislation to bring them back to their masters. ...
The leading idea of the legislator was that the labourer,
whose work had doubled or trebled in value, was to receive the
same wages as in years past; and it was enacted that he might
be paid in kind, and, at last, that in all cases of contumacy
he should be imprisoned without the option of a fine. ... The
French war contributed in many ways to heighten the feeling of
English nationality. Our trade, our language and our Church
received a new and powerful influence. In the early years of
Edward III.'s reign, Italian merchants were the great
financiers of England, farming the taxes and advancing loans
to the Crown. Gradually the instinct of race, the influence of
the Pope, and geographical position, contributed, with the
mistakes of Edward's policy, to make France the head, as it
were, of a confederation of Latin nations. Genoese ships
served in the French fleet, Genoese bowmen fought at Crécy,
and English privateers retorted on Genoese commerce throughout
the course of the reign. In 1376 the Commons petitioned that
all Lombards might be expelled [from] the kingdom, bringing
amongst other charges against them that they were French
spies. The Florentines do not seem to have been equally
odious, but the failure of the great firm of the Bardi in
1345, chiefly through its English engagements, obliged Edward
to seek assistance elsewhere; and he transferred the privilege
of lending to the crown to the merchants of the rising Hanse
Towns."
C. H. Pearson,
English History in the Fourteenth Century,
chapter 9.
"We may trace the destructive nature of the war with France in
the notices of adjoining parishes thrown into one for want of
sufficient inhabitants, 'of people impoverished by frequent
taxation of our lord the king,' until they had fled, of
churches allowed to fall into ruin because there were none to
worship within their walls, and of religious houses
extinguished because the monks and nuns had died, and none bad
been found to supply their places. ...
{813}
To the poverty of the country and the consequent inability of
the nation to maintain the costly wars of Edward III., are
attributed the enactments of sumptuary laws, which were passed
because men who spent much on their table and dress were
unable 'to help their liege lord' in the battle field."
W. Denton,
England in the 15th Century,
introduction, part 2.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1318-1349.
The Black Death and its effects.
"The plague of 1349 ... produced in every country some marked
social changes. ... In England the effects of the plague are
historically prominent chiefly among the lower classes of
society. The population was diminished to an extent to which
it is impossible now even to approximate, but which bewildered
and appalled the writers of the time; whole districts were
thrown out of cultivation, whole parishes depopulated, the
number of labourers was so much diminished that on the one
hand the survivors demanded an extravagant rate of wages, and
even combined to enforce it, whilst on the other hand the
landowners had to resort to every antiquated claim of service
to get their estates cultivated at all; the whole system of
farming was changed in consequence, the great landlords and
the monastic corporations ceased to manage their estates by
farming stewards, and after a short interval, during which the
lands with the stock on them were let to the cultivator on
short leases, the modern system of letting was introduced, and
the permanent distinction between the farmer and the labourer
established."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 16, section 259.
"On the first of August 1348 the disease appeared in the
seaport towns of Dorsetshire, and travelled slowly westwards
and northwards, through Devonshire and Somersetshire to
Bristol. In order, if possible, to arrest its progress, all
intercourse with the citizens of Bristol was prohibited by the
authorities of the county of Gloucester. These precautions
were however taken in vain; the Plague continued to Oxford,
and, travelling slowly in the same measured way, reached
London by the first of November. It appeared in Norwich on the
first of January, and thence spread northwards. ... The
mortality was enormous. Perhaps from one-third to one-half the
population fell victims to the disease. Adam of Monmouth says
that only a tenth of the population survived. Similar
amplifications are found in all the chroniclers. We are told
that 60,000 persons perished in Norwich between January and
July 1349. No doubt Norwich was at that time the second city
in the kingdom, but the number is impossible. ... It is stated
that in England the weight of the calamity fell on the poor,
and that the higher classes were less severely affected. But
Edward's daughter Joan fell a victim to it and three
archbishops of Canterbury perished in the same year. ... All
contemporary writers inform us that the immediate consequence
of the Plague was a dearth of labour, and excessive
enhancement of wages, and thereupon a serious loss to the
landowners. To meet this scarcity the king issued a
proclamation directed to the sheriffs of the several counties,
which forbad the payment of higher than the customary wages,
under the penalties of amercement. But the king's mandate was
every where disobeyed. ... Many of the labourers were thrown
into prison; many to avoid punishment fled to the forests, but
were occasionally captured and fined; and all were constrained
to disavow under oath that they would take higher than
customary wages for the future."
J. E. T. Rogers,
History of Agriculture and Prices in England,
volume 1, chapter 15.
ALSO IN:
F. A. Gasquet,
The Great Pestilence.
W. Longman,
Edward III.,
volume 1; chapter 10.
A. Jessop,
The Coming of the Friars, &c.,
chapter 4-5.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1350-1400.
Chaucer and his relations to English language and literature.
"At the time when the conflict between church and state was
most violent, and when Wyclif was beginning to draw upon
himself the eyes of patriots, there was considerable talk at
the English court about a young man named Geoffrey Chaucer,
who belonged to the king's household, and who both by his
personality and his connections enjoyed the favor of the royal
family. ... On many occasions, even thus early, he had
appeared as a miracle of learning to those about him--he read
Latin as easily as French; he spoke a more select English than
others; and it was known that he had composed, or, as the
expression then was, 'made,' many beautiful English verses.
The young poet belonged to a well-to-do middle-class family
who had many far-reaching connections, and even some influence
with the court. ... Even as a boy he may have heard his
father, John Chaucer, the vintner of Thames Street, London,
telling of the marvelous voyage he had made to Antwerp and
Cologne in the brilliant suite of Edward III. in 1338. When a
youth of sixteen or seventeen, Geoffrey served as a page or
squire to Elizabeth, duchess of Ulster, first wife of Lionel,
duke of Clarence, and daughter-in-law of the king. He bore
arms when about nineteen years of age, and went to France in
1359, in the army commanded by Edward III. ... This epoch
formed a sort of 'Indian summer' to the age of chivalry, and
its spirit found expression in great deeds of war as well as
in the festivals and manners of the court. The ideal which men
strove to realize did not quite correspond to the spirit of
the former age. On the whole, people had become more worldly
and practical, and were generally anxious to protect the real
interests of life from the unwarranted interference of
romantic aspirations. The spirit of chivalry no longer formed
a fundamental element, but only an ornament of life--an
ornament, indeed, which was made much of, and which was looked
upon with a sentiment partaking of enthusiasm. ... In the
midst of this outside world of motley pomp and throbbing life
Geoffrey could observe the doings of high and low in various
situations. He was early initiated into court intrigues, and
even into many political secrets, and found opportunities of
studying the human type in numerous individuals and according
to the varieties developed by rank in life, education, age,
and sex. ... Nothing has been preserved from his early
writings. ... The fact is very remarkable that from the first,
or at least from a very early period, Chaucer wrote in the
English language--however natural this may seem to succeeding
ages in 'The Father of English Poetry.' The court of Edward
III. favored the language as well as the literature of France;
a considerable number of French poets and 'menestrels' were in
the service and pay of the English king.
{814}
Queen Philippa, in particular, showing herself in this a true
daughter of her native Hainault, formed the centre of a
society cultivating the French language and poetry. She had in
her personal service Jean Froissart, one of the most eminent
representatives of that language and poetry; like herself he
belonged to one of the most northern districts of the
French-speaking territory; he had made himself a great name,
as a prolific and clever writer of erotic and allegoric
trifles, before he sketched out in his famous chronicle the
motley-colored, vivid picture of that eventful age. We also
see in this period young Englishmen of rank and education
trying their flight on the French Parnassus. ... To these
Anglo-French poets there belonged also a Kentishman of noble
family, named John Gower. Though some ten years the senior of
Chaucer, he had probably met him about this time. They were
certainly afterwards very intimately acquainted. Gower ... had
received a very careful education, and loved to devote the
time he could spare from the management of his estates to
study and poetry. His learning was in many respects greater
than Chaucer's. He had studied the Latin poets so diligently
that he could easily express himself in their language, and he
was equally good at writing French verses, which were able to
pass muster, at least in England. ... But, Chaucer did not let
himself be led astray by examples such as these. It is
possible that he would have found writing in French no easy
task, even if he had attempted it. At any rate his bourgeois
origin, and the seriousness of his vocation as poet, threw a
determining weight into the scale and secured his fidelity to
the English language with a commendable consistency."
B. Ten Brink,
History of English Literature,
book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2, part 1).
"English was not taught in the schools, but French only, until
after the accession of Richard II., or possibly the latter
years of Edward III., and Latin was always studied through the
French. Up to this period, then, as there were no standards of
literary authority, and probably no written collections of
established forms, or other grammatical essays, the language
had no fixedness or uniformity, and hardly deserved to be
called a written speech. ... From this Babylonish confusion of
speech, the influence and example of Chaucer did more to
rescue his native tongue than any other single cause; and if
we compare his dialect with that of any writer of an earlier
date, we shall find that in compass, flexibility,
expressiveness, grace, and all the higher qualities of
poetical diction, he gave it at once the utmost perfection
which the materials at his hand would permit of. The English
writers of the fourteenth century had an advantage which was
altogether peculiar to their age and country. At all previous
periods, the two languages had co-existed, in a great degree
independently of each other, with little tendency to intermix;
but in the earlier part of that century, they began to
coalesce, and this process was going on with a rapidity that
threatened a predominance of the French, if not a total
extinction of the Saxon element. ... When the national spirit
was aroused, and impelled to the creation of a national
literature, the poet or prose writer, in selecting his
diction, had almost two whole vocabularies before him. That
the syntax should be English, national feeling demanded; but
French was so familiar and habitual to all who were able to
read, that probably the scholarship of the day would scarcely
have been able to determine, with respect to a large
proportion of the words in common use, from which of the two
great wells of speech they had proceeded. Happily, a great
arbiter arose at the critical moment of severance of the two
peoples and dialects, to preside over the division of the
common property, and to determine what share of the
contributions of France should be permanently annexed to the
linguistic inheritance of Englishmen. Chaucer did not
introduce into the English language words which it had
rejected as aliens before, but out of those which had been
already received, he invested the better portion with the
rights of citizenship, and stamped them with the mint-mark of
English coinage. In this way, he formed a vocabulary, which,
with few exceptions, the taste and opinion of succeeding
generations has approved; and a literary diction was thus
established, which, in all the qualities required for the
poetic art, had at that time no superior in the languages of
modern Europe. The soundness of Chaucer's judgment, the nicety
of his philological appreciation, and the delicacy of his
sense of adaptation to the actual wants of the English people,
are sufficiently proved by the fact that, of the Romance words
found in his writings, not much above one hundred have been
suffered to become obsolete, while a much larger number of
Anglo-Saxon words employed by him have passed altogether out
of use. ... In the three centuries which elapsed between the
Conquest and the noon-tide of Chaucer's life, a large
proportion of the Anglo-Saxon dialect of religion, of moral
and intellectual discourse, and of taste, had become utterly
obsolete, and unknown. The place of the lost words had been
partly supplied by the importation of Continental terms; but
the new words came without the organic power of composition
and derivation which belonged to those they had supplanted.
Consequently, they were incapable of those modifications of
form and extensions of meaning which the Anglo-Saxon roots
could so easily assume, and which fitted them for the
expression of the new shades of thought and of sentiment born
of every hour in a mind and an age like those of Chaucer."
G. P. Marsh,
Origin and History of the English Language,
lecture 9.
ALSO IN:
T. R. Lounsbury,
Studies in Chaucer.
A. W. Ward,
Chaucer.
W. Godwin,
Life of Geoffrey Chaucer.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1360-1414.
The Lollards.
"The Lollards were the earliest 'Protestants' of England. They
were the followers of John Wyclif, but before his time the
nickname of Lollard had been known on the continent. A little
brotherhood of pious people had sprung up in Holland, about
the year 1300, who lived in a half-monastic fashion and
devoted themselves to helping the poor in the burial of their
dead; and, from the low chants they sang at the
funerals--lollen being the old word for such singing--they
were called Lollards. The priests and friars hated them and
accused them of heresy, and a Walter Lollard, probably one of
them, was burnt in 1322 at Cologne as a heretic, and gradually
the name became a nickname for such people. So when Wyclif's
simple priests' were preaching the new doctrines, the name
already familiar in Holland and Germany, was given to them,
and gradually became the name for that whole movement of
religious reformation which grew up from the seed Wyclif
sowed."
B. Herford,
Story of Religion in England,
chapter 16.
{815}
"A turning point arrived in the history of the reforming party
at the accession of the house of Lancaster. King Henry the
Fourth was not only a devoted son of the Church, but he owed
his success in no slight measure to the assistance of the
Churchmen, and above all to that of Archbishop Arundel. It was
felt that the new dynasty and the hierarchy stood or fell
together. A mixture of religious and political motives led to
the passing of the well-known statute 'De hæretico comburendo'
in 1401 and thenceforward Lollardy was a capital offence."
R. L. Poole,
Wycliffe and Movements for Reform,
chapter 8.
"The abortive insurrection of the Lollards at the commencement
of Henry V. 's reign, under the leadership of Sir John
Oldcastle, had the effect of adding to the penal laws already
in existence against the sect." This gave to Lollardy a
political character and made the Lollards enemies against the
State, as is evident from the king's proclamation in which it
was asserted "that the insurgents intended to 'destroy him,
his brothers and several of the spiritual and temporal lords,
to confiscate the possessions of the Church, to secularize the
religious orders, to divide the realm into confederate
districts, and to appoint Sir John Oldcastle president of the
commonwealth.'"
T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History (4th edition),
chapter 11.
"The early life of Wycliffe is obscure. ... He emerges into
distinct notice in 1360, ten years subsequent to the passing
of the first Statute of Provisors, having then acquired a
great Oxford reputation as a lecturer in divinity. ... He was
a man of most simple life; austere in appearance; with bare
feet and russet mantle. As a soldier of Christ, he saw in his
Great Master and his Apostles the patterns whom he was bound
to imitate. By the contagion of example he gathered about him
other men who thought as he did; and gradually, under his
captaincy, these 'poor priests' as they were called--vowed to
poverty because Christ was poor--vowed to accept no benefice
... spread out over the country as an army of missionaries, to
preach the faith which they found in the Bible--to preach, not of
relics and of indulgences, but of repentance and of the grace
of God. They carried with them copies of the Bible which
Wycliffe had translated, ... and they refused to recognize the
authority of the bishops, or their right to silence them. If
this had been all, and perhaps if Edward III. had been
succeeded by a prince less miserably incapable than his
grandson Richard, Wycliffe might have made good his ground;
the movement of the parliament against the pope might have
united in a common stream with the spiritual move against the
church at home, and the Reformation have been antedated by a
century. He was summoned to answer for himself before the
Archbishop of Canterbury in 1377. He appeared in court
supported by the presence of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster,
the eldest of Edward's surviving sons, and the authorities
were unable to strike him behind so powerful a shield. But the
'poor priests' had other doctrines. ... His [Wycliffe's]
theory of property, and his study of the character of Christ,
had led him to the near confines of Anabaptism." The rebellion
of Wat Tyler, which occurred in 1381, cast odium upon all such
opinions. "So long as Wycliffe lived, his own lofty character was
a guarantee for the conduct of his immediate disciples; and
although his favour had far declined, a party in the state
remained attached to him, with sufficient influence to prevent
the adoption of extreme measures against the 'poor priests.'
... They were left unmolested for the next twenty years. ...
On the settlement of the country under Henry IV. they fell
under the general ban which struck down all parties who had
shared in the late disturbances."
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
chapter 6.
"Wycliffe's translation of the Bible itself created a new era,
and gave birth to what may be said never to have existed till
then--a popular theology. ... It is difficult in our day to
imagine the impression such a book must have produced in an
age which had scarcely anything in the way of popular
literature, and which had been accustomed to regard the
Scriptures as the special property of the learned. It was
welcomed with an enthusiasm which could not be restrained, and
read with avidity both by priests and laymen. ... The homely
wisdom, blended with eternal truth, which has long since
enriched our vernacular speech with a multitude of proverbs,
could not thenceforth be restrained in its circulation by mere
pious awe or time-honoured prejudice. Divinity was discussed
in ale-houses. Popular preachers made war upon old prejudices.
and did much to shock that sense of reverence which belonged
to an earlier generation. A new school had arisen with a
theology of its own, warning the people against the delusive
preaching of the friars, and asserting loudly its own claims
to be true and evangelical, on the ground that it possessed
the gospel in the English tongue. Appealing to such an
authority in their favour, the eloquence of the new teachers
made a marvellous impression. Their followers increased with
extraordinary rapidity. By the estimate of an opponent they
soon numbered half the population, and you could hardly see
two persons in the street but one of them was a Wycliffite.
... They were supported by the powerful influence of John of
Gaunt, who shielded not only Wycliffe himself, but even the
most violent of the fanatics. And, certainly, whatever might
have been Wycliffe's own view, doctrines were promulgated by
his reputed followers that were distinctly subversive of
authority. John Ball fomented the insurrection of Wat Tyler,
by preaching the natural equality of men. ... But the
popularity of Lollardy was short-lived. The extravagance to
which it led soon alienated the sympathies of the people, and
the sect fell off in numbers almost as rapidly as it had
risen."
J. Gairdner,
Studies in English History, 1-2.
"Wyclif ... was not without numerous followers, and the
Lollardism which sprang out of his teaching was a living force
in England for some time to come. But it was weak through its
connection with subversive social doctrines. He himself stood
aloof from such doctrines, but he could not prevent his
followers from mingling in the social fray. It was perhaps
their merit that they did so. The established constitutional
order was but another name for oppression and wrong to the
lower classes. But as yet the lower classes were not
sufficiently advanced in moral and political training to make
it safe to entrust them with the task of righting their own
wrongs as they would have attempted to right them if they had
gained the mastery. It had nevertheless become impossible to
leave the peasants to be once more goaded by suffering into
rebellion. The attempt, if it had been made, to enforce
absolute labour-rents was tacitly abandoned, and gradually
during the next century the mass of the villeins passed into
the position of freemen.
{816}
For the moment, nobles and prelates, landowners and clergy,
banded themselves together to form one great party of
resistance. The church came to be but an outwork of the
baronage."
S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger,
Introduction to the Study of English History,
part 1, chapter 5, sections 14-15.
ALSO IN
L. Sergeant,
John Wyclif.
G. Lechler,
John Wiclif and his English Precursors.
See, also,
BOHEMIA; A. D. 1405-1415,
and BEGUINES.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1377.
Accession of King Richard II.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1377-1399.
The character and reign of Richard II.
"Richard II. was a far superior man to many of the weaker
kings of England; but being self-willed and unwarlike, he was
unfitted for the work which the times required. Yet, on a
closer inspection than the traditional view of the reign has
generally encouraged, we cannot but observe that the finer
qualities which came out in certain crises of his reign appear
to have frequently influenced his conduct: we know that he was
not an immoral man, that he was an excellent husband to an
excellent wife, and that he had devoted friends, willing to
lay down their lives for him when there was nothing whatever
left for them to gain. ... Richard, who had been brought up in
the purple quite as much as Edward II., was kept under
restraint by his uncles, and not being judiciously guided in
the arts of government, fell, like his prototype, into the
hands of favourites. His brilliant behaviour in the
insurrection of 1381 indicated much more than mere possession
of the Plantagenet courage and presence of mind. He showed a
real sympathy with the villeins who had undeniable grievances.
... His instincts were undoubtedly for freedom and
forgiveness, and there is no proof, nor even probability, that
he intended to use the villeins against his enemies. His early
and happy marriage with Anne of Bohemia ought, one might
think, to have saved him from the vice of favouritism; but he
was at least more fortunate than Edward II. in not being cast
under the spell of a Gaveston. When we consider the effect of
such a galling government as that of his uncle Gloucester, and
his cousin Derby, afterwards Henry IV., who seems to have been
pushing Gloucester on from the first, we can hardly be
surprised that he should require some friend to lean upon. The
reign is, in short, from one, and perhaps the truest, point of
view, a long duel between the son of the Black Prince and the
son of John of Gaunt. One or other of them must inevitably
perish. A handsome and cultivated youth, who showed himself at
fifteen every inch a king, who was married at sixteen, and led
his own army to Scotland at eighteen, required a different
treatment from that which he received. He was a man, and
should have been dealt with as such. His lavish and
reprehensible grants to his favourites were made the excuse
for Gloucester's violent interference in 1386, but there is
good ground for believing that the movement was encouraged by
the anti-Wicliffite party, which had taken alarm at the
sympathy with the Reformers shown at this time by Richard and
Anne."
M. Burrows,
Commentaries on the History of England,
book 2, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
J. R. Green,
History of the English People,
book 4, chapter 4 (volume 1).
C. H. Pearson,
English History in the 14th Century,
chapter 10-12.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1381.
Wat Tyler's Rebellion.
"In June 1381 there broke out in England the formidable
insurrection known as Wat Tyler's Rebellion. The movement
seems to have begun among the bondmen of Essex and of Kent;
but it spread at once to the counties of Sussex Hertford,
Cambridge, Suffolk and Norfolk. The peasantry, armed with
bludgeons and rusty swords, first occupied the roads by which
pilgrims went to Canterbury, and made everyone swear that he
would be true to king Richard and not accept a king named
John. This, of course, was aimed at the government of John of
Gaunt [Duke of Lancaster], ... to whom the people attributed
every grievance they had to complain of. The principal, or at
least the immediate cause of offence arose out of a poll-tax
which had been voted in the preceding year."
J. Gairdner,
Houses of Lancaster and York,
chapter 2.
The leaders of the insurgents were Wat the Tyler, who had been
a soldier, John Ball, a priest and preacher of democratic and
socialistic doctrines, and one known as Jack Straw. They made
their way to London. "It ought to have been easy to keep them
out of the city, as the only approach to it was by London
Bridge, and the mayor and chief citizens proposed to defend
it. But the Londoners generally, and even three of the
aldermen, were well inclined to the rebels, and declared that
they would not let the gates be shut against their friends and
neighbours, and would kill the mayor himself if he attempted
to do it. So on the evening of Wednesday, June 13, the
insurgents began to stream in across the bridge, and next
morning marched their whole body across the river, and
proceeded at once to the Savoy, the splendid palace of the
Duke of Lancaster. Proclamation was made that any one found
stealing the smallest article would be beheaded; and the place
was then wrecked and burned with all the formalities of a
solemn act of justice. Gold and silver plate was shattered
with battle-axes and thrown into the Thames; rings and smaller
jewels were brayed in mortars; silk and embroidered dresses
were trampled under feet and torn up. Then the Temple was
burned with all its muniments. The poet Gower was among the
lawyers who had to save their lives by flight, and he passed
several nights in the woods of Essex, covered with grass and
leaves and living on acorns. Then the great house of the
Hospitallers at Clerkenwell was destroyed, taking seven days
to burn." The young king (Richard II.) and his court and
council had taken refuge in the Tower. The insurgents now
threatened to storm their stronghold if the king did not come
out and speak to them. The king consented and appointed a
rendezvous at Mile End. He kept the appointment and met his
turbulent subjects with so much courage and tact and so many
promises, that he persuaded a great number to disperse to
their homes. But while this pacific interview took place, Wat
Tyler, John Ball, and some 400 of their followers burst into
the Tower, determined to find the archbishop of Canterbury and
the Lord Treasurer, Sir Robert de Hales, who were the most
obnoxious ministers. "So great was the general consternation
that the soldiers dared not raise a hand while these ruffians
searched the different rooms, not sparing even the king's
bedroom, running spears into the beds, asked the king's mother
to kiss them, and played insolent jokes on the chief officers.
{817}
Unhappily they were not long in finding the archbishop, who
had said mass in the chapel, and was kneeling at the altar in
expectation of their approach." The Lord Treasurer was also
found, and both he and the archbishop were summarily beheaded
by the mob. "Murder now became the order of the day, and
foreigners were among the chief victims; thirteen Flemings
were dragged out of one church and beheaded, seventeen out of
another, and altogether it is said 400 perished. Many private
enmities were revenged by the London rabble on this day." On
the next day, June 15, the king, with an armed escort, went to
the camp of the insurgents, at Smithfield, and opened
negotiations with Tyler, offering successively three forms of
a new charter of popular rights and liberties, all of which
were rejected. Finally, Tyler was invited to a personal
conference, and there, in the midst of the king's party, on
some provocation or pretended provocation in his words or
bearing, the popular leader was struck from his horse and
killed. King Richard immediately rode out before the ranks of
the rebels, while they were still dazed by the suddenness and
audacity of the treacherous blow, crying "I will be your
leader; follow me." The thoughtless mob followed and soon
found itself surrounded by bodies of troops whose courage had
revived. The king now commanded the trembling peasants "to
fall on their knees, cut the strings of their bows, and leave
the city and its neighbourhood, under pain of death, before
nightfall. This command was instantly obeyed." Meantime and
afterwards there were many lesser risings in various parts of
the country, all of which were suppressed, with such rigorous
prosecutions in the courts that 1,500 persons are said to have
suffered judicially.
C. H. Pearson,
English History in the Fourteenth Century,
chapter 10.
The Wat Tyler insurrection proved disastrous in its effect on
the work of Church reform which Wyclif was then pursuing. "Not
only was the power of the Lancastrian party, on which Wyclif
had relied, for the moment annihilated, but the quarrel
between the Baronage and Church, on which his action had
hitherto been grounded, was hushed in the presence of a common
danger. Much of the odium of the outbreak, too, fell on the
Reformer. ... John Ball, who had figured in the front rank of
the revolt, was claimed as one of his adherents. ... Whatever
belief such charges might gain, it is certain that from this
moment all plans for the reorganization of the Church were
confounded in the general odium which attached to the projects
of the socialist peasant leaders."
J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
chapter 5, section 3.
"When Parliament assembled it proved itself as hostile as the
crown to the conceding any of the demands of the people; both
were faithful to all the records of history in similar cases;
they would have belied all experience if, being victorious,
they had consented to the least concession to the vanquished.
The upper classes repudiated the recognition of the rights of
the poor to a degree, which in our time would be considered
sheer insanity. The king had annulled, by proclamation to the
sheriffs, the charters of manumission which he had granted to
the insurgents, and this revocation was warmly approved by
both Lords and Commons, who, not satisfied with saying that
such enfranchisement could not be made without their consent,
added, that they would never give that consent, even to save
themselves from perishing altogether in one day. There was, it
is true, a vague rumour about the propriety and wisdom of
abolishing villanage; but the notion was scouted, and the
owners of serfs showed that they neither doubted the right by
which they held their fellow-creatures in a state of slavery,
nor would hesitate to increase the severity of the laws
affecting them. They now passed a law by which 'all riots and
rumours, and other such things were turned into high treason';
this law was most vaguely expressed, and would probably
involve those who made it in inextricable difficulties. It was
self-apparent, that this Parliament acted under the impulses
of panic, and of revenge for recent injuries. ... It might be
said that the citizens of the municipalities wrote their
charters of enfranchisement with the very blood of their lords
and bishops; yet, during the worst days of oppression, the
serfs of the cities had never suffered the cruel excesses of
tyranny endured by the country people till the middle of the
fifteenth century. And, nevertheless, the long struggles of
the townships, despite the bloodshed and cruelties of the
citizens, are ever considered and narrated as glorious
revolutions, whilst the brief efforts of the peasants for
vengeance, which were drowned in their own blood, have
remained as a stigma flung in the face of the country
populations whenever they utter a word claiming some
amelioration in their condition. Whence the injustice? The
bourgeoisie was victorious and successful. The rural
populations were vanquished and trampled upon. The
bourgeoisie, therefore, has had its poets, historians, and
flatterers, whilst the poor peasant, rude, untutored, and
ignorant, never had a lyre nor a voice to bewail his
lamentable sorrows and sufferings."
Prof. De Vericour,
Wat Tyler
(Royal Historical Society, Transactions,
number 8, volume 2).
ALSO IN:
G. Lechler,
John Wiclif,
chapter 9, section 3.
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 2, chapter 1.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1383.
The Bishop of Norwich's Crusade in Flanders.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1383.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1388.
The Merciless or Wonderful Parliament.
See PARLIAMENT, THE WONDERFUL.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1399.
Accession of King Henry IV.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1399-1471.
House of Lancaster.
This name is given in English history to the family which
became royal in the person of Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of
Lancaster, who deposed his cousin, Richard II., or forced him
to abdicate the throne, and who was crowned king (Henry IV.),
Oct. 11, 1399, with what seemed to be the consent of the
nation. He not only claimed to be the next in succession to
Richard, but he put forward a claim of descent through his
mother, more direct than Richard's had been, from Henry III.
"In point of fact Henry was not the next in succession. His
father, John of Gaunt [or John of Ghent, in which city he was
born], was the fourth son of Edward III., and there were
descendants of that king's third son, Lionel Duke of Clarence,
living. ... At one time Richard himself had designated as his
successor the nobleman who really stood next to him in the
line of descent. This was Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, the
same who was killed by the rebels in Ireland. This Roger had
left a son Edmund to inherit his title, but Edmund was a mere
child, and the inconvenience of another minority could not
have been endured."
J. Gairdner,
Houses of Lancaster and York,
chapter 2.
{818}
As for Henry's pretensions through his mother, they were
founded upon what Mr. Gairdner calls an "idle story," that
"the eldest son of Henry III. was not king Edward, but his
brother Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, who was commonly
reputed the second son; and that this Edmund had been
purposely set aside on account of his personal deformity. The
plain fact of the matter was that Edmund Crouchback was six
years younger than his brother Edward I.; and that his surname
Crouchback had not the smallest reference to personal
deformity, but only implied that he wore the cross upon his
back as a crusader." Mr. Wylie (History of England under Henry
IV., volume 1, chapter 1) represents that this latter claim
was put forward under the advice of the leading jurists of the
time, to give the appearance of a legitimate succession;
whereas Henry took his real title from the will and assent of
the nation. Henry IV. was succeeded by his vigorous son, Henry
V. and he in turn by a feeble son, Henry VI., during whose
reign England was torn by intrigues and factions, ending in
the lamentable civil wars known as the "Wars of the Roses,"
the deposition of Henry VI. and the acquisition of the throne
by the "House of York," in the persons of Edward IV. and
Richard III. It was a branch of the House of Lancaster that
reappeared, after the death of Richard III. in the royal
family better known as the Tudors.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1400-1436.
Relations with Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1400-1436.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1402-1413.
Owen Glendower's Rebellion in Wales.
See WALES: A. D.1402-1413.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1403.
Hotspur's Rebellion.
The earl of Northumberland and his son, Henry Percy, called
"Hotspur," had performed great services for Henry IV., in
establishing and maintaining him upon the throne. "At the
outset of his reign their opposition would have been fatal to
him; their adhesion ensured his victory. He had rewarded them
with territory and high offices of trust, and they had by
faithful services ever since increased their claims to
gratitude and consideration. ... Both father and son were
high-spirited, passionate, suspicious men, who entertained an
exalted sense of their own services and could not endure the
shadow of a slight. Up to this time [early in 1403] not a
doubt had been cast on their fidelity. Northumberland was
still the king's chief agent in Parliament, his most valued
commander in the field, his Mattathias. It has been thought
that Hotspur's grudge against the king began with the notion
that the release of his brother-in-law, Edmund Mortimer [taken
prisoner, the year before, by the Welsh], had been neglected
by the king, or was caused by Henry's claim to deal with the
prisoners taken at Homildon; the defenders of the Percies
alleged that they had been deceived by Henry in the first
instance, and only needed to be persuaded that Richard lived
in order to desert the king. It is more probable that they
suspected Henry's friendship, and were exasperated by his
compulsory economies. ... Yet Henry seems to have conceived no
suspicion. ... Northumberland and Hotspur were writing for
increased forces [for the war with Scotland]. ... On the 10th
of July Henry had reached Northamptonshire on his way
northwards; on the 17th he heard that Hotspur with his uncle
the earl of Worcester were in arms in Shropshire. They raised
no cry of private wrongs, but proclaimed themselves the
vindicators of national right: their object was to correct the
evils of the administration, to enforce the employment of wise
counsellors, and the proper expenditure of public money. ...
The report ran like wildfire through the west that Richard was
alive, and at Chester. Hotspur's army rose to 14,000 men, and
not suspecting the strength and promptness of the king, he sat
down with his uncle and his prisoner, the earl of Douglas,
before Shrewsbury. Henry showed himself equal to the need.
From Burton-on-Trent, where on July 17 he summoned the forces
of the shires to join him, he marched into Shropshire, and
offered to parley with the insurgents. The earl of Worcester
went between the camps, but he was either an impolitic or a
treacherous envoy, and the negotiations ended in mutual
exasperation. On the 21st the battle of Shrewsbury was fought;
Hotspur was slain; Worcester was taken and beheaded two days
after. The old earl, who may or may not have been cognizant of
his son's intentions from the first, was now marching to his
succour. The earl of Westmoreland, his brother-in-law, met him
and drove him back to Warkworth. But all danger was over. On
the 11th of August he met the king at York, and submitted to
him."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 18, section 632.
ALSO IN:
J. H. Wylie,
History of England under Henry IV.,
volume 1, chapter 25.
W. Shakespeare,
King Henry IV.,
part 1.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1413.
Accession of King Henry V.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1413-1422.
Parliamentary gains under Henry V.
"What the sword had won the sword should keep, said Henry V.
on his accession; but what was meant by the saying has its
comment in the fact that, in the year which witnessed his
victory at Agincourt, he yielded to the House of Commons the
most liberal measure of legislation which until then it had
obtained. The dazzling splendour of his conquests in France
had for the time cast into the shade every doubt or question
of his title, but the very extent of those gains upon the
French soil established more decisively the worse than
uselessness of such acquisitions to the English throne. The
distinction of Henry's reign in constitutional history will
always be, that from it dates that power, indispensable to a
free and limited monarchy, called Privilege of Parliament; the
shield and buckler under which all the battles of liberty and
good government were fought in the after time. Not only were
its leading safeguards now obtained, but at once so firmly
established, that against the shock of incessant resistance in
later years they stood perfectly unmoved. Of the awful right
of impeachment, too, the same is to be said. It was won in the
same reign, and was never afterwards lost."
J. Forster,
Historical and Biographical Essays,
volume 1, page 207.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1415-1422.
Conquests of Henry V. in France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1415; and 1417-1422.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1422.
Accession of King Henry VI.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1431-1453.
Loss of English conquests and possessions in France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453,
and AQUITAINE: A. D. 1360-1453.
{819}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1450.
Cade's Rebellion.
A formidable rebellion broke out in Kent, under the leadership
of one Jack Cade, A. D. 1450. Overtaxation, the bad management
of the council, the extortion of the subordinate officers, the
injustice of the king's bench, the abuse of the right of
purveyance, the "enquestes" and amercements, and the
illegitimate control of elections were the chief causes of the
rising of 1450. "The rising was mainly political, only one
complaint was economical, not a single one was religious. We
find not a single demand for new legislation. ... The movement
was by no means of a distinctly plebeian or disorderly
character, but was a general and organized rising of the
people at large. It was a political upheaval. We find no trace
of socialism or of democracy. ... The commons in 1450 arose
against Lancaster and in favor of York. Their rising was the
first great struggle in the Wars of the Roses."
Kriehn,
Rising in 1450,
Chapter IV., VII.
Cade and his rebels took possession of London; but they were
beaten in a battle and forced to quit the city. Cade and some
followers continued to be turbulent and soon afterwards he was
killed.
J. Gairdner,
Houses of Lancaster and York,
chapter 7, section 6.
ALSO IN:
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
3d series, chapter 7.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1455.
Demoralized state of the nation.
Effects of the wars in France.
"The whole picture of the times is very depressing on the
moral if not on the material side. There are few more pitiful
episodes in history than the whole tale of the reign of Henry
VI., the most unselfish and well-intentioned king that ever
sat upon the English throne--a man of whom not even his
enemies and oppressors could find an evil word to say; the
troubles came, as they confessed, 'all because of his false
lords, and never of him.' We feel that there must have been
something wrong with the heart of a nation that could see
unmoved the meek and holy king torn from wife and child, sent
to wander in disguise up and down the kingdom for which he had
done his poor best, and finally doomed to pine for five years a
prisoner in the fortress where he had so long held his royal
Court. Nor is our first impression concerning the
demoralisation of England wrong. Every line that we read bears
home to us more and more the fact that the nation had fallen
on evil times. First and foremost among the causes of its
moral deterioration was the wretched French War, a war begun
in the pure spirit of greed and ambition,--there was not even
the poor excuse that had existed in the time of Edward
III.--carried on by the aid of hordes of debauched foreign
mercenaries ... and persisted in long after it had become
hopeless, partly from misplaced national pride, partly because
of the personal interests of the ruling classes. Thirty-five
years of a war that was as unjust as it was unfortunate had
both soured and demoralised the nation. ... When the final
catastrophe came and the fights of Formigny [or Fourmigny] and
Chatillon [Castillon] ended the chapter of our disasters, the
nation began to cast about for a scapegoat on whom to lay the
burden of its failures. ... At first the unfortunate Suffolk
and Somerset had the responsibility laid upon them. A little
later the outcry became more bold and fixed upon the
Lancastrian dynasty itself as being to blame not only for
disaster abroad, but for want of governance at home. If King
Henry had understood the charge, and possessed the wit to
answer it, he might fairly have replied that his subjects must
fit the burden upon their own backs, not upon his. The war had
been weakly conducted, it was true; but weakly because the men
and money for it were grudged. ... At home, the bulwarks of
social order seemed crumbling away. Private wars, riot, open
highway robbery, murder, abduction, armed resistance to the
law, prevailed on a scale that had been unknown since the
troublous times of Edward II.--we might almost say since the
evil days of Stephen. But it was not the Crown alone that
should have been blamed for the state of the realm. The nation
had chosen to impose over-stringent constitutional checks on
the kingly power before it was ripe for self-government, and
the Lancastrian house sat on the throne because it had agreed
to submit to those checks. If the result of the experiment was
disastrous, both parties to the contract had to bear their
share of the responsibility. But a nation seldom allows that
it has been wrong; and Henry of Windsor had to serve as a
scapegoat for all the misfortunes of the realm, because Henry
of Bolingbroke had committed his descendants to the unhappy
compact. Want of a strong central government was undoubtedly
the complaint under which England was labouring in the middle
of the 15th century, and all the grievances against which
outcry was made were but symptoms of one latent disease. ...
All these public troubles would have been of comparatively
small importance if the heart of the nation had been sound.
The phenomenon which makes the time so depressing is the
terrible decay in private morals since the previous century.
... There is no class or caste in England which comes well out
of the scrutiny. The Church, which had served as the conscience
of the nation in better times, had become dead to spiritual
things. It no longer produced either men of saintly life or
learned theologians or patriotic statesmen. ... The baronage
of England had often been unruly, but it had never before
developed the two vices which distinguished it in the times of
the Two Roses--a taste for indiscriminate bloodshed and a turn
for political apostacy. ... Twenty years spent in contact with
French factions, and in command of the godless mercenaries who
formed the bulk of the English armies, had taught our nobles
lessons of cruelty and faithlessness such as they had not
before imbibed. ... The knights and squires showed on a
smaller scale all the vices of the nobility. Instead of
holding together and maintaining a united loyalty to the
Crown, they bound themselves by solemn sealed bonds and the
reception of 'liveries' each to the baron whom he preferred.
This fatal system, by which the smaller landholder agreed on
behalf of himself and his tenants to follow his greater
neighbour in peace and war, had ruined the military system of
England, and was quite as dangerous as the ancient feudalism.
... If the gentry constituted themselves the voluntary
followers of the baronage, and aided their employers to keep
England unhappy, the class of citizens and burgesses took a
very different line of conduct. If not actively mischievous,
they were solidly inert. They refused to entangle themselves
in politics at all. They submitted impassively to each ruler
in turn, when they had ascertained that their own persons and
property were not endangered by so doing. A town, it has been
remarked, seldom or never stood a siege during the Wars of the
Roses, for no town ever refused to open its gates to any
commander with an adequate force who asked for entrance."
C. W. Oman,
Warwick the King-maker,
chapter 1.
{820}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.
The Wars of the Roses.
Beginning with a battle fought at St. Albans on the 23d of
May, 1455, England was kept in a pitiable state of civil war,
with short intervals of troubled peace, during thirty years.
The immediate cause of trouble was in the feebleness of King
Henry VI., who succeeded to the throne while an infant, and
whose mind, never strong, gave way under the trials of his
position when he came to manhood. The control of the
government, thus weakly commanded, became a subject of strife
between successive factions. The final leaders in such
contests were Queen Margaret of Anjou, the energetic consort
of the helpless king (with the king himself sometimes in a
condition of mind to cooperate with her), on one side, and, on
the other side, the Duke of York, who traced his lineage to
Edward III., and who had strong claims to the throne if Henry
should leave no heir. The battle at St. Albans was a victory
for the Yorkists and placed them in power for the next two
years, the Duke of York being named Protector. In 1456 the
king recovered so far as to resume the reigns of government,
and in 1459 there was a new rupture between the factions. The
queen's adherents were beaten in the battle of Bloreheath,
September 23d of that year; but defections in the ranks of the
Yorkists soon obliged the latter to disperse and their
leaders, York, Warwick and Salisbury, fled to Ireland and to
Calais. In June, 1460, the earls of Warwick, Salisbury and
March (the latter being the eldest son of the Duke of York)
returned to England and gathered an army speedily, the city of
London opening its gates to them. The king's forces were
defeated at Northampton (July 10) and the king taken prisoner.
A parliament was summoned and assembled in October. Then the Duke
of York came over from Ireland, took possession of the royal
palace and laid before parliament a solemn claim to the crown.
After much discussion a compromise was agreed upon, under
which Henry VI. should reign undisturbed during his life and
the Duke of York should be his undisputed successor. This was
embodied in an act of parliament and received the assent of
the king; but queen Margaret who had retired into the north,
refused to surrender the rights of her infant son, and a
strong party sustained her. The Duke of York attacked these
Lancastrian forces rashly, at Wakefield, Dec. 30, 1460, and
was slain on the field of a disastrous defeat. The queen's
army, then, marching towards London, defeated the Earl of
Warwick at St. Albans, February 17, 1461 (the second battle of
the war at that place), and recovered possession of the person
of the king. But Edward, Earl of March (now become Duke of
York, by the death of his father), who had just routed a
Lancastrian force at Mortimer's Cross, in Wales, joined his
forces with those of Warwick and succeeded in occupying
London, which steadily favored his cause. Calling together a
council of lords, Edward persuaded them to declare King Henry
deposed, on the ground that he had broken the agreement made
with the late Duke of York. The next step was to elect Edward
king, and he assumed the royal title and state at once. The
new king lost no time in marching northwards against the army
of the deposed sovereign, which lay near York. On the 27th of
March the advanced division of the Lancastrians was defeated
at Ferrybridge, and, two days later, their main body was
almost destroyed in the fearful battle of Towton,--said to
have been the bloodiest encounter that ever took place on
English soil. King Henry took refuge in Scotland and Queen
Margaret repaired to France. In 1464 Henry reappeared in the
north with a body of Scots and refugees and there were risings
in his favor in Northumberland, which the Yorkists crushed in
the successive battles of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham. The
Yorkist king (Edward IV.) now reigned without much disturbance
ntil 1470, when he quarreled with the powerful Earl of Warwick--
the "king-maker," whose strong hand had placed him on the
throne. Warwick then passed to the other side, offering his
services to Queen Margaret and leading an expedition which
sailed from Harfleur in September, convoyed by a French fleet.
Edward found himself unprepared to resist the Yorkist risings
which welcomed Warwick and he fled to Holland, seeking aid
from his brother-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy. For nearly six
months, the kingdom was in the hands of Warwick and the
Lancastrians; the unfortunate Henry VI., released from
captivity in the Tower, was once more seated on the throne.
But on the 14th of March, 1471, Edward reappeared in England,
landing at Ravenspur, professing that he came only to recover
his dukedom of York. As he moved southwards he gathered a
large force of supporters and soon reassumed the royal title
and pretensions. London opened its gates to him, and, on the
14th of April--exactly one month after his landing--he
defeated his opponents at Barnet, where Warwick, "the
king-maker"--the last of the great feudal barons--was slain.
Henry, again a captive, was sent back to the Tower. But
Henry's dauntless queen, who landed at Weymouth, with a body
of French allies on the very day of the disastrous Barnet
fight, refused to submit. Cornwall and Devon were true to her
cause and gave her an army with which she fought the last
battle of the war at Tewksbury on the 4th of May. Defeated and
taken prisoner, her young son slain--whether in the battle or
after it is unknown--the long contention of Margaret of Anjou
ended on that bloody field. A few days later, when the
triumphant Yorkist King Edward entered London, his poor,
demented Lancastrian rival died suddenly and suspiciously in
the Tower. The two parties in the long contention had each
assumed the badge of a rose--the Yorkists a white rose, the
Lancastrians a red one. Hence the name of the Wars of the
Roses. "As early as the time of John of Ghent, the rose was
used as an heraldic emblem, and when he married Blanche, the
daughter of the Duke of Lancaster, he used the red rose for a
device. Edmund of Langley, his brother, the fifth son of
Edward III., adopted the white rose in opposition to him; and
their followers afterwards maintained these distinctions in
the bloody wars of the fifteenth century. There is, however,
no authentic account of the precise period when these badges
were first adopted."
Mrs. Hookham,
Life and Times of Margaret of Anjou,
volume 2, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
J. Gairdner,
Houses of Lancaster and York.
Sir J. Ramsay,
Lancaster and York.
C. W. Oman;
Warwick, the King-maker,
chapter 5-17.
See, also,
TOWTON, BARNET, and TEWKSBURY.
{821}
The effects of the Wars of the Roses.
"It is astonishing to observe the rapidity with which it [the
English nation] had settled down to order in the reign of
Henry VII. after so many years of civil dissension. It would
lead us to infer that those wars were the wars of a class, and
not of the nation; and that the effects of them have been
greatly exaggerated. With the single exception of Cade's
rebellion, they had nothing in common with the revolutions of
later or earlier times. They were not wars against classes,
against forms of government, against the order or the
institutions of the nation. It was the rivalry of two
aristocratic factions struggling for superiority, neither of
them hoping or desiring, whichever obtained the upper hand, to
introduce momentous changes in the State or its
administration. The main body of the people took little
interest in the struggle; in the towns at least there was no
intermission of employment. The war passed over the nation,
ruffling the surface, toppling down high cliffs here and
there, washing away ancient landmarks, attracting the
imagination of the spectator by the mightiness of its waves,
and the noise of its thunders; but the great body below the
surface remained unmoved. No famines, no plagues, consequent
on the intermittance of labour caused by civil war, are
recorded; even the prices of land and provisions scarcely
varied more than they have been known to do in times of
profoundest peace. But the indirect and silent operation of
these conflicts was much more remarkable. It reft into
fragments the confederated ranks of a powerful territorial
aristocracy, which had hitherto bid defiance to the King,
however popular, however energetic. Henceforth the position of
the Sovereign in the time of the Tudors, in relation to all
classes of the people, became very different from what it had
been; the royal supremacy was no longer a theory; but a fact.
Another class had sprung up on the decay of the ancient
nobility. The great towns had enjoyed uninterrupted
tranquility, and even flourished, under the storm that was
scourging the aristocracy and the rural districts. Their
population had increased by numbers whom fear or the horrors
of war had induced to find shelter behind stone walls. The
diminution of agricultural labourers converted into soldiers
by the folly of their lords had turned corn-lands into
pasture, requiring less skill, less capital, and less labour."
J. S. Brewer,
The Reign of Henry VIII.,
volume 1, chapter 2.
"Those who would estimate the condition of England aright
should remember that the War of the Roses was only a
repetition on a large scale of those private wars which
distracted almost every county, and, indeed, by taking away
all sense of security, disturbed almost every manor and every
class of society during the same century. ... The lawless
condition of English society in the 15th century resembled
that of Ireland in as recent a date as the beginning of the
19th century. ... In both countries women were carried off,
sometimes at night; they were first violated, then dragged to
the altar in their night-dress and compelled to marry their
captors. ... Children were seized and thrown into a dungeon
until ransomed by their parents."
W. Denton,
England in the 15th Century,
chapter 3.
"The Wars of the Roses which filled the second half of the
15th century furnished the barons with an arena in which their
instincts of violence had freer play than ever; it was they
who, under the pretext of dynastic interests which had ceased
to exist, of their own free choice prolonged the struggle.
Altogether unlike the Italian condottieri, the English barons
showed no mercy to their own order; they massacred and
exterminated each other freely, while they were careful to
spare the commonalty. Whole families were extinguished or
submerged in the nameless mass of the nation, and their
estates by confiscation or escheat helped to swell the royal
domain. When Henry VII. had stifled the last movements of
rebellion and had punished, through the Star Chamber, those
nobles who were still suspected of maintaining armed bands,
the baronage was reduced to a very low ebb; not more than
twenty-nine lay peers were summoned by the king to his first
Parliament. The old Norman feudal nobility existed no longer;
the heroic barons of the great charter barely survived in the
persons of a few doubtful descendants; their estates were
split up or had been forfeited to the Crown. A new class came
forward to fill the gap, that rural middle class which was
formed ... by the fusion of the knights with the free
landowners. It had already taken the lead in the House of
Commons, and it was from its ranks that Henry VII. chose
nearly all the new peers. A peerage renewed almost throughout,
ignorant of the habits and traditions of the earlier nobility,
created in large batches, closely dependent on the monarch who
had raised it from little or nothing and who had endowed it
with his bounty--this is the phenomenon which confronts us at
the end of the fifteenth century."
E. Boutmy,
The English Constitution,
chapter 5.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1461.
Accession of King Edward IV.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1461-1485.
House of York.
The House of York, which triumphed in the Wars of the Roses,
attaining the throne in the person of Edward IV. (A. D. 1461),
derived its claim to the crown through descent, in the female
line, from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward
III. (the second son who lived to manhood and left children);
while the House of Lancaster traced its lineage to John of
Gaunt, a younger son of the same king Edward III., but the
line of Lancastrian succession was through males. "Had the
crown followed the course of hereditary succession, it would
have devolved on the posterity of Lionel. ... By the decease
of that prince without male issue, his possessions and
pretensions fell to his daughter Philippa, who by a singular
combination of circumstances had married Roger Mortimer earl
of March, the male representative of the powerful baron who
was attainted and executed for the murder of Edward II., the
grandfather of the duke of Clarence. The son of that potent
delinquent had been restored to his honours and estates at an
advanced period in the reign of Edward III. ... Edmund, his
grandson, had espoused Philippa of Clarence. Roger Mortimer,
the fourth in descent from the regicide, was lord lieutenant
of Ireland and was considered, or, according to some writers,
declared to be heir of the crown in the early part of
Richard's reign. Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, in whom the
hereditary claim to the crown was vested at the deposition of
Richard, was then only an infant of ten years of age. ...
{822}
Dying without issue, the pretensions to the crown, which he
inherited through the duke of Clarence, devolved on his sister
Anne Mortimer, who espoused Richard of York earl of Cambridge,
the grandson of Edward III. by his fourth [fifth] son Edmund
of Langley duke of York." Edward IV. was the grandson of this
Anne Mortimer and Richard of York.
Sir J. Mackintosh,
History of England,
volume 1, pages 338-339.
The House of York occupied the throne but twenty-four years.
On the death of Edward IV., in 1483, the crown was secured by
his brother, Richard, duke of Gloucester, who caused Edward's
two sons to be murdered in the Tower. The elder of these
murdered princes is named in the list of English kings as
Edward V.; but he cannot be said to have reigned. Richard III.
was overthrown and slain on Bosworth field in 1485.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1471-1485.
The New Monarchy.
The rise of Absolutism and the decline of Parliamentary
government.
"If we use the name of the New Monarchy to express the
character of the English sovereignty from the time of Edward
IV. to the time of Elizabeth, it is because the character of
the monarchy during this period was something wholly new in
our history. There is no kind of sibilantly between the
kingship of the Old English, of the Norman, the Angevin, or
the Plantagenet sovereigns, and the kingship of the Tudors.
... What the Great Rebellion in its final result actually did
was to wipe away every trace of the New Monarchy, and to take
up again the thread of our political development just where it
had been snapped by the Wars of the Roses. ... The founder of
the New Monarchy was Edward IV. ... While jesting with
aldermen, or dallying with his mistresses, or idling over the
new pages from the printing press [Caxton's] at Westminster,
Edward was silently laying the foundations of an absolute rule
which Henry VII. did little more than develop and consolidate.
The almost total discontinuance of Parliamentary life was in
itself a revolution. Up to this moment the two Houses had
played a part which became more and more prominent in the
government of the realm. ... Under Henry VI. an important step
in constitutional progress had been made by abandoning the old
form of presenting the requests of the Parliament in the form
of petitions which were subsequently moulded into statutes by
the Royal Councils; the statute itself, in its final form, was
now presented for the royal assent, and the Crown was deprived
of its former privilege of modifying it. Not only does this
progress cease, but the legislative activity of Parliament
itself comes abruptly to an end. ... The necessity for
summoning the two Houses had, in fact, been removed by the
enormous tide of wealth which the confiscation of the civil
war poured into the royal treasury. ... It was said that
nearly a fifth of the land had passed into the royal
possession at one period or another of the civil war. Edward
added to his resources by trading on a vast scale. ... The
enterprises he had planned against France ... enabled Edward
not only to increase his hoard, but to deal a deadly blow at
liberty. Setting aside the usage of loans sanctioned by the
authority of Parliament, Edward called before him the
merchants of the city and requested from each a present or
benevolence in proportion to the need. Their compliance with
his prayer was probably aided by his popularity with the
merchant class; but the system of benevolence was soon to be
developed into the forced loans of Wolsey and the ship-money
of Charles I."
J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
chapter 6, section 3.
ALSO IN:
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 18, section 696.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1474.
Treaty with the Hanseatic League.
See HANSA TOWNS.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1476.
Introduction of Printing by Caxton.
See PRINTING, &c.: A. D. 1476-1491.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1483-1485.
Murder of the young king, Edward V.
Accession of Richard III.
The battle of Bosworth and the fall of the House of York.
On the death of Edward IV., in 1483, his crafty and
unscrupulous brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, gathered
quickly into his hands the reins of power, proceeding with
consummate audacity and ruthlessness to sweep every strong
rival out of his path. Contenting himself for a few weeks,
only, with the title of Protector, he soon disputed the
validity of his brother Edward's marriage, caused an
obsequious Parliament to set aside the young sons whom the
latter had left, declaring them to be illegitimate, and placed
the crown on his own head. The little princes (King Edward V.,
and Richard, Duke of York), immured in the Tower, were
murdered presently at their uncle's command, and Richard III.
appeared, for the time, to have triumphed in his ambitious
villainy. But, popular as he made himself in many cunning
ways, his deeds excited a horror which united Lancastrians
with the party of York in a common detestation. Friends of
Henry, Earl of Richmond, then in exile, were not slow to take
advantage of this feeling. Henry could claim descent from the
same John of Gaunt, son of Edward III., to whom the House of
Lancaster traced its lineage; but his family--the
Beauforts--sprang from the mistress, not the wife, of the
great Duke of Lancaster, and had only been legitimated by act
of Parliament. The Lancastrians, however, were satisfied with
the royalty of his blood, and the Yorkists were made content
by his promise to marry a daughter of Edward IV. On this
understanding being arranged, Henry came over from Brittany to
England, landing at Milford Haven on the 7th or 8th of August,
1485, and advancing through Wales, being joined by great
numbers as he moved. Richard, who had no lack of courage,
marched quickly to meet him, and the two forces joined battle
on Bosworth Field, in Leicestershire, on Sunday, August 21. At
the outset of the fighting Richard was deserted by a large
division of his army and saw that his fate was sealed. He
plunged, with despairing rage, into the thickest of the
struggle and was slain. His crowned helmet, which he had worn,
was found by Sir Reginald Bray, battered and broken, under a
hawthorn bush, and placed on the head of his rival, who soon
attained a more solemn coronation, as Henry VII.
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
3d Series, chapters 19-20.
"I must record my impression that a minute study of the facts
of Richard's life has tended more and more to convince me of
the general fidelity of the portrait with which we have been
made familiar by Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More. I feel quite
ashamed, at this day, to think how I mused over this subject
long ago, wasting a great deal of time, ink and paper, in
fruitless efforts to satisfy even my own mind that traditional
black was real historical white, or at worst a kind of grey.
...
{823}
Both the character and personal appearance of Richard III.
have furnished matter of controversy. But with regard to the
former the day has now gone by when it was possible to doubt
the evidence at least of his principal crime; and that he was
regarded as a tyrant by his subjects seems almost equally
indisputable. At the same time he was not destitute of better
qualities. ... As king he seems really to have studied his
country's welfare, passed good laws, endeavoured to put an end
to extortion, declined the free gifts offered to him by
several towns, and declared he would rather have the hearts of
his subjects than their money. His munificence was especially
shown in religious foundations. ... His hypocrisy was not of
the vulgar kind which seeks to screen habitual baseness of
motive by habitual affectation of virtue. His best and his
worst deeds were alike too well known to be either concealed
or magnified; at least, soon after he became king, all doubt
upon the subject must have been removed. ... His ingratiating
manners, together with the liberality of his disposition, seem
really to have mitigated to a considerable extent the alarms
created by his fitful deeds of violence. The reader will not
require to be reminded of Shakespeare's portrait of a murderer
who could cajole the woman whom he had most exasperated and
made a widow into marrying himself. That Richard's ingenuity
was equal to this extraordinary feat we do not venture to
assert; but that he had a wonderful power of reassuring those
whom he had most intimidated and deceiving those who knew him
best there can be very little doubt. ... His taste in building
was magnificent and princely. ... There is scarcely any
evidence of Richard's [alleged] deformity to be derived from
original portraits. The number of portraits of Richard which
seem to be contemporary is greater than might have been
expected. ... The face in all the portraits is a remarkable
one, full of energy and decision, yet gentle and sad-looking,
suggesting the idea not so much of a tyrant as of a mind
accustomed to unpleasant thoughts. Nowhere do we find depicted
the warlike hard-favoured visage attributed to him by Sir
Thomas More. ... With such a one did the long reign of the
Plantagenets terminate. The fierce spirit and the valour of
the race never showed more strongly than at the close. The
Middle Ages, too, as far as England was concerned, may be said
to have passed away with Richard III."
J. Gairdner,
History of the Life, and Reign of Richard The Third,
introduction and chapter 6.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1485.
Accession of King Henry VII.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1485-1528.
The Sweating Sickness.
See SWEATING SICKNESS.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1485-1603.
The Tudors.
The Tudor family, which occupied the English throne from the
accession of Henry VII., 1485, until the death of Elizabeth,
1603, took its name, but not its royal lineage, from Sir Owen
Tudor, a handsome Welsh chieftain, who won the heart and the
hand of the young widow of Henry V., Catherine of France. The
eldest son of that marriage, made Earl of Richmond, married in
his turn Margaret Beaufort, great-granddaughter to John of
Gaunt, or Ghent, who was one of the sons of Edward III. From
this latter union came Henry of Richmond, as he was known, who
disputed the crown with Richard III. and made his claim good
on Bosworth Field, where the hated Richard was killed. Henry's
pretensions were based on the royal descent of his
mother--derived, however, through John of Gaunt's mistress--
and the dynasty which he founded was closely related in origin
to the Lancastrian line. Henry of Richmond strengthened his
hold upon the crown, though not his title to it, by marrying
Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV., thus joining the white rose
to the red. He ascended the throne as Henry VII., A. D. 1485;
was succeeded by his son, Henry VIII., in 1509, and the latter
by his three children, in order as follows: Edward VI., 1547;
Mary, 1553; Elizabeth, 1558. The Tudor family became extinct
on the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603. "They [the Tudors]
reigned in England, without a successful rising against them,
for upwards of a hundred years; but not more by a studied
avoidance of what might so provoke the country, than by the
most resolute repression of every effort, on the part of what
remained of the peerage and great families, to make head
against the throne. They gave free indulgence to their tyranny
only within the circle of the court, while they unceasingly
watched and conciliated the temper of the people. The work
they had to do, and which by more scrupulous means was not
possible to be done, was one of paramount necessity; the
dynasty uninterruptedly endured for only so long as was
requisite to its thorough completion; and to each individual
sovereign the particular task might seem to have been
specially assigned. It was Henry's to spurn, renounce and
utterly cast off, the Pope's authority, without too suddenly
revolting the people's usages and habits; to arrive at blessed
results by ways that a better man might have held to be
accursed; during the momentous change in progress to keep in
necessary check both the parties it affected; to persecute
with an equal hand the Romanist and the Lutheran; to send the
Protestant to the stake for resisting Popery, and the Roman
Catholic to the scaffold for not admitting himself to be Pope;
while he meantime plundered the monasteries, hunted down and
rooted out the priests, alienated the abbey lands, and glutted
himself and his creatures with that enormous spoil. It was
Edward's to become the ready and undoubting instrument of
Cranmer's design, and, with all the inexperience and more than
the obstinacy of youth, so to force upon the people his
compromise of doctrine and observance, as to render possible,
even perhaps unavoidable, his elder sister's reign. It was
Mary's to undo the effect of that precipitate eagerness of the
Reformers, by lighting the fires of Smithfield; and
opportunely to arrest the waverers from Protestantism, by
exhibiting in their excess the very worst vices, the cruel
bigotry, the hateful intolerance, the spiritual slavery, of
Rome. It was Elizabeth's finally and forever to uproot that
slavery from amongst us, to champion all over the world a new
and nobler faith, and immovably to establish in England the
Protestant religion."
J. Forster,
Historical and Biographical Essays,
pages 221-222.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger,
Introduction to the Study of English History,
chapter 6.
C. E. Moberly,
The Early Tudors.
{824}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1487-1497.
The Rebellions of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck.
Although Henry VII., soon after he attained the throne,
married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV., and thus
united the two rival houses, the Yorkists were discontented
with his rule. "With the help of Margaret of Burgundy, Edward
IV. 's sister, and James IV. of Scotland, they actually set up
two impostors, one after the other, to claim the throne. There
was a real heir of the House of York still alive--young
Edward, Earl of Warwick [son of the Duke of Clarence, brother
to Edward IV.], ... and Henry had taken the precaution to
keep him in the Tower. But in 1487 a sham Earl of Warwick
appeared in Ireland, and being supported by the Earl of
Kildare, was actually crowned in Dublin Cathedral. Henry soon
put down the imposture by showing the real earl to the people
of London, and defeating the army of the pretended earl at
Stoke, near Newark, June, 1487. He proved to be a lad named
Lambert Simnel, the son of a joiner at Oxford, and he became a
scullion in the king's kitchen." In 1492 another pretender of
like character was brought forward. "A young man, called
Perkin Warbeck, who proved afterwards to be a native of
Tournay, pretended that he was Richard, Duke of York, the
younger of the two little princes in the Tower, and that he
had escaped when his brother Edward V. was murdered. He
persuaded the king of France and Margaret of Burgundy to
acknowledge him, and was not only received at the foreign
courts, but, after failing in Ireland, he went to Scotland,
where James IV. married him to his own cousin Catharine
Gordon, and helped him to invade England in 1496. The invasion
was defeated however, by the Earl of Surrey, and then Perkin
went back to Ireland, where the people had revolted against
the heavy taxes. There he raised an army and marched to
Exeter, but meeting the king's troops at Taunton, he lost
courage, and fled to the Abbey of Beaulieu, where he was taken
prisoner, and sent to the Tower in 1497." In 1501 both Perkin
Warbeck and the young Earl of Warwick were executed.
A. B. Buckley,
History of England for Beginners,
chapter 13.
ALSO IN:
J. Gairdner, Story of Perkin Warbeck
(appendix to Life of Richard III.).
C. M, Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
3d series, chapters 21 and 24.
J. Gairdner,
Henry VII.,
chapters 4 and 7.
ENGLAND: 15th-16th Centuries.
The Renaissance.
Life in "Merry England."
Preludes to the Elizabethan Age of literature.
"Toward the close of the fifteenth century ... commerce and
the woollen trade made a sudden advance, and such an enormous
one that corn-fields were changed into pasture-lands, 'whereby
the inhabitants of the said town (Manchester) have gotten and
come into riches and wealthy livings,' so that in 1553, 40,000
pieces of cloth were exported in English ships. It was already
the England which we see to-day, a land of meadows, green,
intersected by hedgerows, crowded with cattle, abounding in
ships, a manufacturing, opulent land, with a people of
beef-eating toilers, who enrich it while they enrich
themselves. They improved agriculture to such an extent, that
in half a century the produce of an acre was doubled. They
grew so rich, that at the beginning of the reign of Charles I.
the Commons represented three times the wealth of the Upper
House. The ruin of Antwerp by the Duke of Parma sent to
England 'the third part of the merchants and manufacturers,
who made silk, damask, stockings, taffetas, and serges.' The
defeat of the Armada and the decadence of Spain opened the
seas to their merchants. The toiling hive, who would dare,
attempt, explore, act in unison, and always with profit, was
about to reap its advantages and set out on its voyages,
buzzing over the universe. At the base and on the summit of
society, in all ranks of life, in all grades of human
condition, this new welfare became visible. ... It is not when
all is good, but when all is better, that they see the bright
side of life, and are tempted to make a holiday of it. This is
why at this period they did make a holiday of it, a splendid
show, so like a picture that it fostered painting in Italy, so
like a representation, that it produced the drama in England.
Now that the battle-axe and sword of the civil wars had beaten
down the independent nobility, and the abolition of the law of
maintenance had destroyed the petty royalty of each great
feudal baron, the lords quitted their sombre castles,
battlemented fortresses, surrounded by stagnant water, pierced
with narrow windows, a sort of stone breast-plates of no use
but to preserve the life of their masters. They flock into new
palaces, with vaulted roofs and turrets, covered with
fantastic and manifold ornaments, adorned with terraces and
vast staircases, with gardens, fountains, statues, such as
were the palaces of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, half Gothic and
half Italian, whose convenience, grandeur, and beauty
announced already habits of society and the taste for
pleasure. They came to court and abandoned their old manners;
the four meals which scarcely sufficed their former voracity
were reduced to two; gentlemen soon became refined, placing
their glory in the elegance and singularity of their
amusements and their clothes. ... To vent the feelings, to
satisfy the heart and eyes, to set free boldly on all the
roads of existence the pack of appetites and instincts, this
was the craving which the manners of the time betrayed. It was
'merry England,' as they called it then. It was not yet stern
and constrained. It expanded widely, freely, and rejoiced to
find itself so expanded. No longer at court only was the drama
found but in the village. Strolling companies betook
themselves thither, and the country folk supplied any
deficiencies when necessary. Shakspeare saw, before he
depicted them, stupid fellows, carpenters, joiners,
bellow-menders, play Pyramus and Thisbe, represent the lion
roaring as gently as possible, and the wall, by stretching out
their hands. Every holiday was a pageant, in which
townspeople, workmen, and children bore their parts. ... A few
sectarians, chiefly in the towns and of the people, clung
gloomily to the Bible. But the court and the men of the world
sought their teachers and their heroes from pagan Greece and
Rome. About 1490 they began to read the classics; one after
the other they translated them; it was soon the fashion to
read them in the original. Elizabeth, Jane Grey, the Duchess
of Norfolk, the Countess of Arundel, many other ladies, were
conversant with Plato, Xenophon, and Cicero in the original,
and appreciated them. Gradually, by an insensible change, men
were raised to the level of the great and healthy minds who
had freely handled ideas of all kinds fifteen centuries ago.
They comprehended not only their language, but their thought;
they did not repeat lessons from, but held conversations with
them; they were their equals, and found in them intellects as
manly as their own. ...
{825}
Across the train of hooded school men and sordid cavillers the
two adult and thinking ages were united, and the moderns,
silencing the infantine or snuffling voices of the middle-age,
condescended only to converse with the noble ancients. They
accepted their gods, at least they understand them, and keep
them by their side. In poems, festivals, tapestries, almost
all ceremonies they appear, not restored by pedantry merely,
but kept alive by sympathy, and glorified by the arts of an
age as flourishing and almost as profound as that of their
earliest birth. After the terrible night of the middle-age,
and the dolorous legends of spirits and the damned, it was a
delight to see again Olympus shining upon us from Greece; its
heroic and beautiful deities once more ravishing the heart of
men, they raised and instructed this young world by speaking
to it the language of passion and genius; and the age of
strong deeds, free sensuality, bold invention, had only to
follow its own bent, in order to discover in them the eternal
promoters of liberty and beauty. Nearer still was another
paganism, that of Italy; the more seductive because more
modern, and because it circulates fresh sap in an ancient
stock; the more attractive, because more sensuous and present,
with its worship of force and genius, of pleasure and
voluptuousness. ... At that time Italy clearly led in every
thing, and civilisation was to be drawn thence as from its
spring. What is this civilisation which is thus imposed on the
whole of Europe, whence every science and every elegance
comes, whose laws are obeyed in every court, in which Surrey,
Sidney, Spenser, Shakspeare sought their models and their
materials? It was pagan in its elements and its birth; in its
language, which is but slightly different from Latin; in its
Latin traditions and recollections, which no gap has come to
interrupt; in its constitution, whose old municipal life first
led and absorbed the feudal life; in the genius of its race,
in which energy and enjoyment always abounded."
H. A. Taine,
History of English Literature,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).
"The intellectual movement, to which we give the name of
Renaissance, expressed itself in England mainly through the
Drama. Other races in that era of quickened activity, when
modern man regained the consciousness of his own strength and
goodliness after centuries of mental stagnation and social
depression, threw their energies into the plastic arts and
scholarship. The English found a similar outlet for their
pent-up forces in the Drama. The arts and literature of Greece
and Rome had been revealed by Italy to Europe. Humanism had
placed the present once more in a vital relation to the past.
The navies of Portugal and Spain had discovered new continents
beyond the ocean; the merchants of Venice and Genoa had
explored the farthest East. Copernicus had revolutionised
astronomy, and the telescope was revealing fresh worlds beyond
the sun. The Bible had been rescued from the mortmain of the
Church; scholars studied it in the language of its authors,
and the people read it in their own tongue. In this rapid
development of art, literature, science, and discovery, the
English had hitherto taken but little part. But they were
ready to reap what other men had sown. Unfatigued by the
labours of the pioneer, unsophisticated by the pedantries and
sophistries of the schools, in the freshness of their youth
and vigour, they surveyed the world unfolded to them. For more
than half a century they freely enjoyed the splendour of this
spectacle, until the struggle for political and religious
liberty replunged them in the hard realities of life. During
that eventful period of spiritual disengagement from absorbing
cares, the race was fully conscious of its national
importance. It had shaken off the shackles of oppressive
feudalism, the trammels of ecclesiastical tyranny. It had not
yet passed under the Puritan yoke, or felt the encroachments
of despotic monarchy. It was justly proud of the Virgin Queen,
with whose idealised personality the people identified their
newly acquired sense of greatness. ... What in those fifty
years they saw with the clairvoyant eyes of artists, the poets
wrote. And what they wrote, remains imperishable. It is the
portrait of their age, the portrait of an age in which
humanity stood self-revealed, a miracle and marvel to its own
admiring curiosity. England was in a state of transition when
the Drama came to perfection. That was one of those rare
periods when the past and the future are both coloured by
imagination, and both shed a glory on the present. The
medieval order was in dissolution; the modern order was in
process of formation. Yet the old state of things had not
faded from memory and usage; the new had not assumed despotic
sway. Men stood then, as it were, between two dreams--a dream
of the past, thronged with sinister and splendid
reminiscences; a dream of the future, bright with unlimited
aspirations and indefinite hopes. Neither the retreating
forces of the Middle Ages nor the advancing forces of the
modern era pressed upon them with the iron weight of
actuality. The brutalities of feudalism had been softened; but
the chivalrous sentiment remained to inspire the Surreys and
the Sidneys of a milder epoch. ... What distinguished the
English at this epoch from the nations of the South was not
refinement of manners, sobriety, or self-control. On the
contrary they retained an unenviable character for more than
common savagery. ... Erasmus describes the filth of their
houses, and the sicknesses engendered in their cities by bad
ventilation. What rendered the people superior to Italians and
Spaniards was the firmness of their moral fibre, the sweetness
of their humanity, a more masculine temper, less vitiated
instincts and sophisticated intellects, a law-abiding and
religious conscience, contempt for treachery and baseness,
intolerance of political or ecclesiastical despotism combined
with fervent love of home and country. They were coarse, but
not vicious; pleasure-loving, but not licentious; violent, but
not cruel; luxurious but not effeminate. Machiavelli was a
name of loathing to them. Sidney, Essex, Raleigh, More, and
Drake were popular heroes; and whatever may be thought of
these men, they certainly counted no Marquis of Pescara, no
Duke of Valentino, no Malatesta Baglioni, no Cosimo de' Medici
among them. The Southern European type betrayed itself but
faintly in politicians like Richard Cromwell and Robert
Dudley. . . . Affectations of foreign vices were only a
varnish on the surface of society. The core of the nation
remained sound and wholesome. Nor was the culture which the
English borrowed from less unsophisticated nations, more than
superficial. The incidents of Court gossip show how savage was
the life beneath.
{826}
Queen Elizabeth spat, in the presence of her nobles, at a
gentleman who had displeased her; struck Essex on the cheek;
drove Burleigh blubbering from her apartment. Laws in merry
England were executed with uncompromising severity. Every
township had its gallows; every village its stocks,
whipping-post and pillory. Here and there, heretics were
burned upon the market-place; and the block upon Tower Hill
was seldom dry. ... Men and women who read Plato, or discussed
the elegancies of Petrarch, suffered brutal practical jokes,
relished the obscenities of jesters, used the grossest
language of the people. Carrying farms and acres on their
backs in the shape of costly silks and laces, they lay upon
rushes filthy with the vomit of old banquets. Glittering in
suits of gilt and jewelled mail, they jostled with
town-porters in the stench of the bear-gardens, or the bloody
bull-pit. The church itself was not respected. The nave of old
S. Paul's became a rendezvous for thieves and prostitutes. ...
It is difficult, even by noting an infinity of such
characteristics, to paint the many-coloured incongruities of
England at that epoch. Yet in the midst of this confusion rose
cavaliers like Sidney, philosophers like Bacon, poets like
Spenser; men in whom all that is pure, elevated, subtle,
tender, strong, wise, delicate and learned in our modern
civilisation displayed itself. And the masses of the people
were still in harmony with these high strains. They formed the
audience of Shakspere. They wept for Desdemona, adored Imogen,
listened with Jessica to music in the moon-light at Belmont,
wandered with Rosalind through woodland glades of Arden. Such
was the society of which our theatre became the mirror."
J. A. Symonds,
Shakspere's Predecessors in the English Drama,
chapter 2, section 1, 2, and 5.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1497.
Cabot's discovery of the North American Continent.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1497.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1498.
Voyage and discoveries of Sebastian Cabot.
Ground of English claims in the New World.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1498.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1502.
The marriage which brought the Stuarts to the English throne.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1502.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1509.
The character and reign of Henry VII.
"As a king, Bacon tells us that he was 'a wonder for wise
men.' Few indeed were the councillors that shared his
confidence, but the wise men, competent to form an estimate of
his statesmanship, had but one opinion of his consummate
wisdom. Foreigners were greatly struck with the success that
attended his policy. Ambassadors were astonished at the
intimate knowledge he displayed of the affairs of their own
countries. From the most unpropitious beginnings, a proscribed
man and an exile, he had won his way in evil times to a throne
beset with dangers; he had pacified his own country, cherished
commerce, formed strong alliances over Europe, and made his
personal influence felt by the rulers of France, Spain, Italy,
and the Netherlands as that of a man who could turn the scale
in matters of the highest importance to their own domestic
welfare. ... From first to last his policy was essentially his
own; for though he knew well how to choose the ablest
councillors, he asked or took their advice only to such an
extent as he himself deemed expedient. ... No one can
understand his reign, or that of his son, or, we might add, of
his granddaughter Queen Elizabeth, without appreciating the
fact that, however well served with councillors, the sovereign
was in those days always his own Prime Minister. ... Even the
legislation of the reign must be regarded as in large measure
due to Henry himself. We have no means, it is true, of knowing
how much of it originated in his own mind; but that it was all
discussed with him in Council and approved before it was
passed we have every reason to believe. For he never appears
to have put the royal veto upon any Bill, as constitutional
usage both before and after his days allowed. He gave his
assent to all the enactments sent up to him for approval,
though he sometimes added to them provisos of his own. And
Bacon, who knew the traditions of those times, distinctly
attributes the good legislation of his days to the king
himself. 'In that part, both of justice and policy, which is
the most durable part, and cut, as it were, in brass or
marble, the making of good laws, he did excel.' This
statement, with but slight variations in the wording, appears
again and again throughout the History; and elsewhere it is
said that he was the best lawgiver to this nation after Edward
I. ... The parliaments, indeed, that Henry summoned were only
seven in number, and seldom did anyone of them last over a
year, so that during a reign of nearly twenty-four years many
years passed away without a Parliament at all. But even in
those scanty sittings many Acts were passed to meet evils that
were general subjects of complaint. ... He could scarcely be
called a learned man, yet he was a lover of learning, and gave
his children an excellent education. His Court was open to
scholars. ... He was certainly religious after the fashion of
his day. ... His religious foundations and bequests perhaps do
not necessarily imply anything more than conventional feeling.
But we must not overlook the curious circumstance that he once
argued with a heretic at the stake at Canterbury and got him
to renounce his heresy. It is melancholy to add that he did
not thereupon release him from the punishment to which he had
been sentenced; but the fact seems to show that he was afraid
of encouraging insincere conversions by such leniency. During
the last two or three years of the 15th century there was a
good deal of procedure against heretics, but on the whole, we
are told, rather by penances than by fire. Henry had no desire
to see the old foundations of the faith disturbed. His zeal
for the Church was recognised by no less than three Popes in
his time, who each sent him a sword and a cap of maintenance.
... To commerce and adventure he was always a good friend. By
his encouragement Sebastian Cabot sailed from Bristol and
discovered Newfoundland--The New Isle, as it at first was
called. Four years earlier Columbus had first set foot on the
great western continent, and had not his brother been taken by
pirates at sea, it is supposed that he too might have made his
great discovery under Henry's patronage."
James Gairdner,
Henry the Seventh,
chapter 13.
ALSO IN:
Lord Bacon,
History of the Reign of King Henry VII.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1509,
Accession of King Henry VIII.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1151-1513.
Enlisted In the Holy League of Pope Julius II. against France.
See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1513.
Henry's invasion of France.
The victory of the Battle of the Spurs.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1513-1515.
{827}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1513-1529.
The ministry of Cardinal Wolsey.
From 1513 to 1529, Thomas Wolsey, who became Archbishop of
York in 1514, and Cardinal in 1515, was the minister who
guided the policy of Henry VIII., so far as that head-strong
and absolute monarch could be guided at all. "England was
going through a crisis, politically, socially, and
intellectually, when Wolsey undertook the management of
affairs. ... We must regret that he put foreign policy in the
first place, and reserved his constructive measures for
domestic affairs. ... Yet even here we may doubt if the
measures of the English Reformation would have been possible
if Wolsey's mind had not inspired the king and the nation with
a heightened consciousness of England's power and dignity.
Wolsey's diplomacy at least tore away all illusions about Pope
and Emperor, and the opinion of Europe, and taught Henry VIII.
the measure of his own strength. It was impossible that
Wolsey's powerful hand should not leave its impression upon
everything which it touched. If Henry VIII. inherited a strong
monarchy, Wolsey made the basis of monarchical power still
stronger. ... Wolsey saw in the royal power the only possible
means of holding England together and guiding it through the
dangers of impending change. ... Wolsey was in no sense a
constitutional minister, nor did he pay much heed to
constitutional forms. Parliament was only summoned once during
the time that he was in office, and then he tried to browbeat
Parliament and set aside its privileges. In his view the only
function of Parliament was to grant money for the king's
needs. The king should say how much he needed, and Parliament
ought only to advise how this sum might be most conveniently
raised. ... He was unwise in his attempt to force the king's
will upon Parliament as an unchangeable law of its action.
Henry VIII. looked and learned from Wolsey's failure, and when
he took the management of Parliament into his own hands he
showed himself a consummate master of that craft. ... He was
so skilful that Parliament at last gave him even the power
over the purse, and Henry, without raising a murmur, imposed
taxes which Wolsey would not have dared to suggest. ... Where
Wolsey would have made the Crown independent of Parliament,
Henry VIII. reduced Parliament to be a willing instrument of
the royal will. ... Henry ... clothed his despotism with the
appearance of paternal solicitude. He made the people think
that he lived for them, and that their interests were his,
whereas Wolsey endeavoured to convince the people that the
king alone could guard their interests, and that their only
course was to put entire confidence in him. Henry saw that men
were easier to cajole than to convince. ... In spite of the
disadvantage of a royal education, Henry was a more thorough
Englishman than Wolsey, though Wolsey sprang from the people.
It was Wolsey's teaching, however, that prepared Henry for his
task. The king who could use a minister like Wolsey and then
throw him away when he was no longer useful, felt that there
was no limitation to his self-sufficiency. ... For politics in
the largest sense, comprising all the relations of the nation
at home and abroad, Wolsey had a capacity which amounted to
genius, and it is doubtful if this can be said of any other
Englishman. ... Taking England as he found her, he aimed at
developing all her latent possibilities, and leading Europe to
follow in her train. ... He made England for a time the centre
of European politics, and gave her an influence far higher
than she could claim on material grounds. ... He was indeed a
political artist, who worked with a free hand and a certain
touch.. ... He was, though he knew it not, fitted to serve
England, but not to serve the English king. He had the aims of
a national statesman, not of a royal servant. Wolsey's
misfortune was that his lot was cast on days when the career
of a statesman was not distinct from that of a royal servant."
M. Creighton,
Cardinal Wolsey,
chapters 8 and 11.
ALSO IN:
J. S. Brewer,
The Reign of Henry VIII.
J. A. Froude,
History of England from the Fall of Wolsey,
chapters 1-2.
G. Cavendish,
Life of Wolsey.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1514.
Marriage of the king's sister with Louis XII. of France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1513-1515.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1516-1517.
Intrigues against France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1516-1517.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1519.
Candidacy of Henry VIII. for the imperial crown.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1519.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1520-1521.
Rivalry of the Emperor and the French King
for the English alliance.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1525.
The king changes sides in European politics and breaks his
alliance with the Emperor.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1525-1526.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1527.
New alliance with France and Venice against Charles V.
Formal renunciation of the claim of the English kings to the
crown of France.
See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1527-1534.
Henry VIII. and the Divorce question.
The rupture with Rome.
Henry VIII. owed his crown to the early death of his brother
Arthur, whose widow, Catharine of Aragon, the daughter of
Ferdinand, and consequently the aunt of Charles V. [emperor],
Henry was enabled to marry through a dispensation obtained by
Henry VII. from Pope Julius II.,--marriage with the wife of a
deceased brother being forbidden by the laws of the Church.
Henry was in his twelfth year when the marriage was concluded,
but it was not consummated until the death of his father. ...
The question of Henry's divorce from Catharine soon became a
subject of discussion, and the effort to procure the annulling
of the marriage from the pope was prosecuted for a number of
years. Henry professed, and perhaps with sincerity, that he
had long been troubled with doubts of the validity of the
marriage, as being contrary to the divine law, and therefore
not within the limit of the pope's dispensing power. The death
of a number of his children, leaving only a single daughter,
Mary, had been interpreted by some as a mark of the
displeasure of God. At the same time the English people, in
the fresh recollection of the long dynastic struggle, were
anxious on account of the lack of a male heir to the throne.
On the queen's side it was asserted that it was competent for
the pope to authorize a marriage with a brother's widow, and
that no doubt could possibly exist in the present case, since,
according to her testimony, her marriage with Arthur had never
been completed. The eagerness of Henry to procure the divorce
increased with his growing passion for Anne Boleyn. The
negotiations with Rome dragged slowly on. Catharine was six
years older than himself, and had lost her charms.
{828}
He was enamored of this young English girl, fresh from the
court of France. He resolved to break the marriage bond with
the Spanish princess who had been his faithful wife for nearly
twenty years. It was not without reason that the king became
more and more incensed at the dilatory and vacillating course
of the pope. ... Henry determined to lay the question of the
validity of his marriage before the universities of Europe,
and this he did, making a free use of bribery abroad and of
menaces at home. Meantime, he took measures to cripple the
authority of the pope and of the clergy in England. In these
proceedings he was sustained by a popular feeling, the growth
of centuries, against foreign ecclesiastical interference and
clerical control in civil affairs. The fall of Wolsey was the
effect of his failure to procure the divorce, and of the
enmity of Anne Boleyn and her family. ... In order to convict
of treason this minister, whom he had raised to the highest
pinnacle of power, the king did not scruple to avail himself
of the ancient statute of præmunire, which Wolsey was accused
of having transgressed by acting as the pope's legate in
England--it was dishonestly alleged, without the royal
license. Early in 1531 the king charged the whole body of the
clergy with having incurred the penalties of the same law by
submitting to Wolsey in his legatine character. Assembled in
convocation, they were obliged to implore his pardon, and
obtained it only in return for a large sum of money. In their
petition he was styled, in obedience to his dictation, 'The
Protector and Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy of
England,' to which was added, after long debate, at the
suggestion of Archbishop Warham--'as far as is permitted by
the law of Christ.' The Church, prostrate though it was at the
feet of the despotic king, showed some degree of self-respect
in inserting this amendment. Parliament forbade the
introduction of papal bulls into England. The king was
authorized if he saw fit, to withdraw the annats--first-fruits
of benefices--from the pope. Appeals to Rome were forbidden.
The retaliatory measures of Henry did not move the pope to
recede from his position. On or about January 25, 1533, the
king was privately married to Anne Boleyn. ... In 1534 Henry
was conditionally excommunicated by Clement VII. The papal
decree deposing him from the throne, and absolving his
subjects from their allegiance, did not follow until 1538, and
was issued by Paul III. Clement's bull was sent forth on the
23 of March. On the 23 of November Parliament passed the Act
of Supremacy, without the qualifying clause which the clergy
had attached to their vote. The king was, moreover, clothed
with full power and authority to repress and amend all such
errors, heresies, and abuses as 'by any manner of spiritual
authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed.'
Thus a visitatorial function of vast extent was recognized as
belonging to him. In 1532 convocation was driven to engage not
'to enact or promulge or put in execution' any measures
without the royal license, and to promise to change or to
abrogate any of the 'provincial constitutions' which he should
judge inconsistent with his prerogative. The clergy were thus
stripped of all power to make laws. A mixed commission, which
Parliament ordained for the revision of the whole canon law,
was not appointed in this reign. The dissolution of the king's
marriage thus dissolved the union of England with the papacy."
G. P. Fisher,
History of the Christian Church,
period 8, chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
J. S. Brewer,
The Reign of Henry VIII.,
volume 2, chapters 27-35.
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
volume 1, chapter 2.
S. H. Burke,
Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty,
volume 1, chapters 8-25.
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 6, chapter 3.
T. E. Bridgett,
Life and Writings of Sir T. More.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1529-1535.
The execution of Sir Thomas More.
On the 25th of October, 1529, the king, by delivering the
great seal to Sir Thomas More, constituted him Lord
Chancellor. In making this appointment, Henry "hoped to
dispose his chancellor to lend his authority to the projects
of divorce and second marriage, which now agitated the king's
mind, and were the main objects of his policy. ... To pursue
this subject through the long negotiations and discussions
which it occasioned during six years, would be to lead us far
from the life of Sir Thomas More. ... All these proceedings
terminated in the sentence of nullity in the case of Henry's
marriage with Catherine, pronounced by Cranmer, the espousal
of Anne Boleyn by the king, and the rejection of the papal
jurisdiction by the kingdom, which still, however, adhered to
the doctrines of the Roman catholic church. The situation of
More during a great part of these memorable events was
embarrassing. The great offices to which he was raised by the
king, the personal favour hitherto constantly shown to him,
and the natural tendency of his gentle and quiet disposition,
combined to disincline him to resistance against the wishes of
his friendly master. On the other hand, his growing dread and
horror of heresy, with its train of disorders; his belief that
universal anarchy would be the inevitable result of religious
dissension, and the operation of seven years' controversy for
the Catholic church, in heating his mind on all subjects
involving the extent of her authority, made him recoil from
designs which were visibly tending towards disunion with the
Roman pontiff. ... Henry used every means of procuring an
opinion favourable to his wishes from his chancellor, who
excused himself as unmeet for such matters, having never
professed the study of divinity. ... But when the progress
towards the marriage was so far advanced that he saw how soon
the active co-operation of a chancellor must be required, he
made suit to 'his singular dear friend,' the duke of Norfolk,
to procure his discharge from this office. The duke, often
solicited by More, then obtained, by importunate suit, a clear
discharge for the chancellor. ... The king directed Norfolk,
when he installed his successor, to declare publicly, that his
majesty had with pain yielded to the prayers of sir Thomas
More, by the removal of such a magistrate. .... It must be
owned that Henry felt the weight of this great man's opinion,
and tried every possible means to obtain at least the
appearance of his spontaneous approbation. ... The king ...
sent the archbishop of Canterbury, the chancellor, the duke of
Norfolk, and Cromwell, to attempt the conversion of More.
Audley reminded More of the king's special favour and many
benefits. More admitted them; but modestly added, that his
highness had most graciously declared that on this matter More
should be molested no more.
{829}
When in the end they saw that no persuasion could move him,
they then said, 'that the king's highness had given them in
commandment, if they could by no gentleness win him, in the
king's name with ingratitude to charge him, that never was
servant to his master so villainous, nor subject to his prince
so traitorous as he.'. . . By a tyrannical edict, mis-called a
law, in the same session of 1533-4, it was made high treason,
after the 1st of May, 1534, by writing, print, deed, or act,
to do or to procure, or cause to be done or procured, anything
to the prejudice, slander, disturbance, or derogation of the
king's lawful matrimony with queen Anne. If the same offences
were committed by words, they were only misprision. The same
act enjoined all persons to take an oath to maintain the whole
contents of the statute, and an obstinate refusal to make such
oath was subjected to the penalties of misprision. ... Sir T.
More was summoned to appear before these commissioners at
Lambeth, on Monday the 13th of April, 1534. ... After having
read the statute and the form of the oath, he declared his
readiness to swear that he would maintain and defend the order
of succession to the crown as established by parliament. He
disclaimed all censure of those who had imposed, or on those
who had taken, the oath, but declared it to be impossible that
he should swear to the whole contents of it, without offending
against his own conscience. ... He never more returned to his
house, being committed to the custody of the abbot of
Westminster, in which he continued four days; and at the end
of that time he was conveyed to the Tower on Friday the 17th
of April, 1534. ... On the 6th of May, 1535, almost
immediately after the defeat of every attempt to practise on
his firmness, More was brought to trial at Westminster, and it
will scarcely be doubted, that no such culprit stood at any
European bar for a thousand years. ... It is lamentable that
the records of the proceedings against such a man should be
scanty. We do not certainly know the specific offence of which
he was convicted. ... On Tuesday, the 6th of July (St.
Thomas's eve), 1535, sir Thomas Pope, 'his singular good
friend,' came to him early with a message from the king and
council, to say that he should die before nine o'clock of the
same morning. ... The lieutenant brought him to the scaffold,
which was so weak that it was ready to fall, on which he said,
merrily, 'Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up, and
for my coming down let me shift for myself.' When he laid his
head on the block he desired the executioner to wait till he
had removed his beard, for that had never offended his
highness."
Sir J. Mackintosh,
Sir Thomas More
(Cabinet Cyclopedia:
Eminent British Statesmen, volume 1).
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
Historical Biographies,
chapter 3.
T. E. Bridgett,
Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More,
chapters 12-24.
S. H. Burke,
Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty,
volume 1, chapter 29.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1531-1563,
The genesis of the Church of England.
"Henry VIII. attempted to constitute an Anglican Church
differing from the Roman Catholic Church on the point of the
supremacy, and on that point alone. His success in this
attempt was extraordinary. The force of his character, the
singularly favorable situation in which he stood with respect
to foreign powers, the immense wealth which the spoliation of
the ah beys placed at his disposal, and the support of that
class which still halted between two opinions, enabled him to
bid defiance to both the extreme parties, to burn as heretics
those who avowed the tenets of the Reformers, and to hang as
traitors those who owned the authority of the Pope. But
Henry's system died with him. Had his life been prolonged, he
would have found it difficult to maintain a position assailed
with equal fury by all who were zealous either for the new or
for the old opinions. The ministers who held the royal
prerogatives in trust for his infant son could not venture to
persist in so hazardous a policy; nor could Elizabeth venture
to return to it. It was necessary to make a choice. The
government must either submit to Rome, or must obtain the aid
of the Protestants. The government and the Protestants had
only one thing in common, hatred of the Papal power. The
English reformers were eager to go as far as their brethren on
the Continent. They unanimously condemned as Antichristian
numerous dogmas and practices to which Henry had stubbornly
adhered, and which Elizabeth reluctantly abandoned. Many felt
a strong repugnance even to things indifferent which had
formed part of the polity or ritual of the mystical Babylon.
Thus Bishop Hooper, who died manfully at Gloucester for his
religion, long refused to wear the episcopal vestments. Bishop
Ridley, a martyr of still greater renown, pulled down the
ancient altars of his diocese, and ordered the Eucharist to be
administered in the middle of churches, at tables which the
Papists irreverently termed oyster boards. Bishop Jewel
pronounced the clerical garb to be a stage dress, a fool's
coat, a relique of the Amorites, and promised that he would
spare no labour to extirpate such degrading absurdities.
Archbishop Grindal long hesitated about accepting a mitre from
dislike of what he regarded as the mummery of consecration.
Bishop Parkhurst uttered a fervent prayer that the Church of
England would propose to herself the Church of Zurich as the
absolute pattern of a Christian community. Bishop Ponet was of
opinion that the word Bishop should be abandoned to the
Papist, and that the chief officers of the purified church
should be called Superintendents. When it is considered that
none of these prelates belonged to the extreme section of the
Protestant party, it cannot be doubted that, if the general
sense of that party had been followed, the work of reform
would have been carried on as unsparingly in England as in
Scotland. But, as the government needed the support of the
Protestants, so the Protestants needed the protection of the
government. Much was therefore given up on both sides: an
union was effected; and the fruit of that union was the Church
of England."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 1.
"The Reformation in England was, singular amongst the great
religious movements of the sixteenth century. It was the least
heroic of them all--the least swayed by religious passion, or
moulded and governed by spiritual and theological necessities.
From a general point of view, it looks at first little more
than a great political change. The exigencies of royal
passion, and the dubious impulses of statecraft, seem its
moving and really powerful springs. But, regarded more
closely, we recognise a significant train both of religious
and critical forces at work. The lust and avarice of Henry,
the policy of Cromwell, and the vacillations of the leading
clergy, attract prominent notice; but there may be traced
beneath the surface a wide-spread evangelical fervour amongst
the people, and, above all, a genuine spiritual earnestness
and excitement of thought at the universities.
{830}
These higher influences preside at the first birth of the
movement. They are seen in active operation long before the
reforming task was taken up by the Court and the bishops."
J. Tulloch,
Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy
in England in the 17th Century,
volume 1, chapter 2.
"The miserable fate of Anne Boleyn wins our compassion, and
the greatness to which her daughter attained has been in some
degree reflected back upon herself. Had she died a natural
death, and had she not been the mother of Queen Elizabeth, we
should have estimated her character at a very low value
indeed. Protestantism might still, with its usual unhistorical
partizanship, have gilded over her immoralities; but the
Church of England must ever look upon Anne Boleyn with
downcast eyes full of sorrow and shame. By the influence of
her charms, Henry was induced to take those steps which ended
in setting the Church of England free from an uncatholic yoke:
but that such a result should be produced by such an influence
is a fact which must constrain us to think that the land was
guilty of many sins, and that it was these national sins which
prevented better instruments from being raised up for so
righteous an object."
J. H. Blunt,
The Reformation of the Church of England,
pages 197-198.
"Cranmer's work might never have been carried out, there might
have been no English Bible, no Ten Articles or 'Institution,'
no reforming Primers, nor Proclamations against Ceremonies,
had it not been for the tact, boldness and skill of Thomas
Crumwell, who influenced the King more directly and constantly
than Cranmer, and who knew how to make his influence
acceptable by an unprincipled confiscation and an absurd
exaggeration of the royal supremacy. Crumwell knew that in his
master's heart there was a dislike and contempt of the clergy.
... It is probable that Crumwell's policy was simply
irreligious, and only directed towards preserving his
influence with the King; but as the support of the reforming
part of the nation was a useful factor in it, he was thus led
to push forward religious information in conjunction with
Cranmer. It has been before said that purity and
disinterestedness are not to be looked for in all the actors
in the English Reformation. To this it may be added that
neither in the movement itself nor in those who took part in
it is to be found complete consistency. This, indeed, is not
to be wondered at. Men were feeling their way along untrodden
paths, without any very clear perception of the end at which
they were aiming, or any perfect understanding of the
situation. The King had altogether misapprehended the meaning
of his supremacy. A host of divines whose views as to the
distinction between the secular and the spiritual had been
confused by the action of the Popes, helped to mislead him.
The clergy, accustomed to be crushed and humiliated by the
Popes, submitted to be crushed and humiliated by the King; and
as the tide of his autocratic temper ebbed and flowed, yielded
to each change. Hence there was action and reaction throughout
the reign. But in this there were obvious advantages for the
Church. The gradual process accustomed men's thoughts to a
reformation which should not be drastic or iconoclastic, but
rather conservative and deliberate."
G. G, Perry,
History of the Reformation in England,
chapter 5.
"With regard to the Church of England, its foundations rest
upon the rock of Scripture, not upon the character of the King
by whom they were laid. This, however, must be affirmed in
justice to Henry, that mixed as the motives were which first
induced him to disclaim the Pope's authority, in all the
subsequent measures he acted sincerely, knowing the importance
of the work in which he had engaged, and prosecuting it
sedulously and conscientiously, even when most erroneous. That
religion should have had so little influence upon his moral
conduct will not appear strange, if we consider what the
religion was wherein he was trained up;--nor if we look at the
generality of men even now, under circumstances immeasurably
more fortunate than those in which he was placed. Undeniable
proofs remain of the learning, ability, and diligence, with
which he applied himself to the great business of weeding out
superstition, and yet preserving what he believed to be the
essentials of Christianity untouched. This praise (and it is
no light one) is his due: and it is our part to be thankful to
that all-ruling Providence, which rendered even his passions
and his vices subservient to this important end."
R. Southey,
The Book of the Church,
chapter 12.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1535-1539.
The suppression of the Monasteries.
"The enormous, and in a great measure ill-gotten, opulence of
the regular clergy had long since excited jealousy in every
part of Europe. ... A writer much inclined to partiality
towards the monasteries says that they held [in England]
one-fifth part of the kingdom; no insignificant patrimony. ...
As they were in general exempted from episcopal visitation,
and intrusted with the care of their own discipline, such
abuses had gradually prevailed and gained strength by
connivance as we may naturally expect in corporate bodies of
men leading almost of necessity useless and indolent lives,
and in whom very indistinct views of moral obligations were
combined with a great facility of violating them. The vices
that for many ages had been supposed to haunt the monasteries,
had certainly not left their precincts in that of Henry VIII.
Wolsey, as papal legate, at the instigation of Fox, bishop of
Hereford, a favourer of the Reformation, commenced a
visitation of the professed as well as secular clergy in 1523,
in consequence of the general complaint against their manners.
... Full of anxious zeal for promoting education, the noblest
part of his character, he obtained bulls from Rome suppressing
many convents (among which was that of St. Frideswide at
Oxford), in order to erect and endow a new college in that
university, his favourite work, which after his fall was more
completely established by the name of Christ Church. A few
more were afterwards extinguished through his instigation; and
thus the prejudice against interference with this species of
property was somewhat worn off, and men's minds gradually
prepared for the sweeping confiscations of Cromwell [Thomas
Cromwell, who succeeded Wolsey as chief minister of Henry
VIII.]. The king indeed was abundantly willing to replenish
his exchequer by violent means, and to avenge himself on those
who gainsayed his supremacy; but it was this able statesman
who, prompted both by the natural appetite of ministers for
the subjects' money and by a secret partiality towards the
Reformation, devised and
carried on with complete success, if not with the utmost
prudence, a measure of no inconsiderable hazard and
difficulty. ...
{831}
It was necessary, by exposing the gross corruptions of
monasteries, both to intimidate the regular clergy, and to
excite popular indignation against them. It is not to be
doubted that in the visitation of these foundations, under the
direction of Cromwell, as lord vice-gerent of the king's
ecclesiastical supremacy, many things were done in an
arbitrary manner, and much was unfairly represented. Yet the
reports of these visitors are so minute and specific that it
is rather a preposterous degree of incredulity to reject their
testimony whenever it bears hard on the regulars. ... The
dread of these visitors soon induced a number of abbots to
make surrenders to the king; a step of very questionable
legality. But in the next session the smaller convents, whose
revenues were less than £200 a year, were suppressed by act of
parliament, to the number of 376, and their estates vested in
the crown. This summary spoliation led to the great northern
rebellion soon afterwards," headed by Robert Ask, a gentleman
of Yorkshire, and assuming the title of a Pilgrimage of Grace.
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 2.
"Far from benefiting the cause of the monastic houses, the
immediate effect of the Pilgrimage of Grace was to bring ruin
on those monasteries which had as yet been spared. For their
complicity or alleged complicity in it, twelve abbots were
hanged, drawn and quartered, and their houses were seized by
the Crown. Every means was employed by a new set of
Commissioners to bring about the surrender of others of the
greater abbeys. The houses were visited, and their pretended
relics and various tricks to encourage the devotion of the
people were exposed. Surrenders went rapidly on during the
years 1537 and 1538, and it became necessary to obtain a new
Act of Parliament to vest the property of the later surrenders
in the Crown. ... Nothing, indeed, can be more tragical than
the way in which the greater abbeys were destroyed on
manufactured charges and for imaginary crimes. These houses
had been described in the first Act of Parliament as 'great
and honourable,' wherein 'religion was right well kept and
observed.' Yet now they were pitilessly destroyed. A revenue
of about £131,607 is computed to have thus come to the Crown,
while the movables are valued at £400,000. How was this vast
sum of money expended?
(1) By the Act for the suppression of the greater monasteries
the King was empowered to erect six new sees, with their deans
and chapters, namely, Westminster, Oxford, Chester,
Gloucester, Bristol and Peterborough. ...
(2) Some monasteries were turned into collegiate churches, and
many of the abbey churches ... were assigned as parish
churches.
(3) Some grammar schools were erected.
(4) A considerable sum is said to have been spent in making
roads and in fortifying the coasts of the Channel.
(5) But by far the greater part of the monastic property
passed into the hands of the nobility and gentry, either by
purchase at very easy rates, or by direct gift from the Crown.
...
The monks and nuns ejected from the monasteries had small
pensions assigned to them, which are said to have been
regularly paid; but to many of them the sudden return into a
world with which they had become utterly unacquainted, and in
which they had no part to play, was a terrible hardship, ...
greatly increased by the Six Article Law, which ... made the
marriage of the secularized 'religious' illegal under heavy
penalties."
G. G. Perry,
History of the Reformation in England,
chapter 4.
"The religious bodies, instead of uniting in their common
defence, seem to have awaited singly their fate with the
apathy of despair. A few houses only, through the agency of
their friends, sought to purchase the royal favour with offers
of money and lands; but the rapacity of the king refused to
accept a part when the whole was at his mercy."
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 6, chapter 4.
Some of the social results of the suppression "may be summed
up in a few words. The creation of a large class of poor to
whose poverty was attached the stigma of crime; the division
of class from class, the rich mounting up to place and power,
the poor sinking to lower depths; destruction of custom as a
check upon the exactions of landlords; the loss by the poor of
those foundations at schools and universities intended for
their children, and the passing away of ecclesiastical tithes
into the hands of lay owners."
F. A. Gasquet,
Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries,
volume 2, page 523.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1536-1543.
Trial and execution of Anne Boleyn.
Her successors, the later wives of Henry VIII.
Anne Boleyn had been secretly married to the king in January,
1533, and had been crowned on Whitsunday of that year. "The
princess Elizabeth, the only surviving child, was born on the
7th of September following. ... The death of Catherine, which
happened at Kimbolton on the 29th of January, 1536, seemed to
leave queen Anne in undisturbed possession of her splendid
seat." But the fickle king had now "cast his affections on
Jane Seymour, the daughter of Sir John Seymour, a young lady
then of the Queen's bed-chamber, as Anne herself had been in
that of Catherine." Having lost her charms in the eyes of the
lustful despot who had wedded her, her influence was gone--
and her safety. Charges were soon brought against the
unfortunate woman, a commission (her own father included in
it) appointed to inquire into her alleged misdeeds, and "on
the 10th of May an indictment for high treason was found by
the grand jury of Westminster against the Lady Anne, Queen of
England; Henry Norris, groom of the stole; Sir Francis Weston
and William Brereton, gentlemen of the privy chamber; and Mark
Smeaton, a performer on musical instruments, and a person 'of
low degree,' promoted to be a groom of the chamber for his
skill in the fine art which he professed. It charges the queen
with having, by all sorts of bribes, gifts, caresses, and
impure blandishments, which are described with unblushing
coarseness in the barbarous Latinity of the indictment,
allured these members of the royal household into a course of
criminal connection with her, which had been carried on for
three years. It included also George Boleyn viscount Rochford,
the brother of Anne, as enticed by the same lures and snares
with the rest of the accused, so as to have become the
accomplice of his sister, by sharing her treachery and
infidelity to the king. It is hard to believe that Anne could
have dared to lead a life so unnaturally dissolute, without
such vices being more early and very generally known in a
watchful and adverse court.
{832}
It is still more improbable that she should in every instance
be the seducer. ... Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeaton were
tried before a commission of oyer and terminer at Westminster,
on the 12th of May, two days after the bill against them was
found. They all, except Smeaton, firmly denied their guilt to
the last moment. On Smeaton's confession it must be observed
that we know not how it was obtained, how far it extended, or
what were the conditions of it. ... On the 12th of May, the
four commoners were condemned to die. Their sentence was
carried into effect amidst the plaints of the bystanders. ...
On the 15th of May, queen Anne and her brother Rochford were
tried." The place of trial was in the Tower, "which concealed
from the public eye whatever might be wanting in justice."
Condemnation duly followed, and the unhappy queen was executed
May 19, 1536. The king lost little time in wedding Jane
Seymour. "She died in childbed of Edward VI. on the 13th of
October, 1537. The next choice made by or for Henry, who
remained a widower for the period of more than two years," was
the "princess Anne, sister of the duke of Cleves, a
considerable prince on the lower Rhine. ... The pencil of
Holbein was employed to paint this lady for the king, who,
pleased by the execution, gave the flattering artist credit
for a faithful likeness. He met her at Dover, and almost
immediately betrayed his disappointment. Without descending
into disgusting particulars, it is necessary to state that,
though the marriage was solemnised, the king treated the
princess of Cleves as a friend." At length, by common action
of an obsequious parliament and a more obsequious convocation
of the church, the marriage was declared to be annulled, for
reasons not specified. The consent of the repudiated wife was
"insured by a liberal income of £3,000 a year, and she lived
for 16 years in England with the title of princess Anne of
Cleves. ... This annulment once more displayed the triumph of
an English lady over a foreign princess." The lady who now
captivated the brutally amorous monarch was lady Catherine
Howard, niece to the duke of Norfolk, who became queen on the
8th of August, 1540. In the following November, the king
received such information of lady Catherine's dissolute life
before marriage "as immediately caused a rigid inquiry into
her behaviour. ... The confessions of Catherine and of lady
Rochford, upon which they were attainted in parliament, and
executed in the Tower on the 14th of February, are not said to
have been at any time questioned. ... On the 10th of July,
1543, Henry wedded Catherine Parr, the widow of Lord Latimer,
a lady of mature age," who survived him.
Sir J. Mackintosh,
History of England (L. L. C.),
volume 2, chapters 7-8.
ALSO IN:
P. Friedmann,
Ann Boleyn.
H. W. Herbert,
Memoirs of Henry VIII. and his Six Wives.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1539.
The Reformation checked.
The Six Articles.
"Yielding to the pressure of circumstances, he [Henry VIII.]
had allowed the Reformers to go further than he really
approved. The separation from the Church of Rome, the
absorption by the Crown of the powers of the Papacy, the unity
of authority over both Church and State centred in himself, had
been his objects. In doctrinal matters he clung to the Church
of which he had once been the champion. He had gained his
objects because he had the feeling of the nation with him. In
his eagerness he had even countenanced some steps of doctrinal
reform. But circumstances had changed. ... Without detriment
to his position he could follow his natural inclinations. He
listened, therefore, to the advice of the reactionary party,
of which Norfolk was the head. They were full of bitterness
against the upstart Cromwell, and longed to overthrow him as
they had overthrown Wolsey. The first step in their triumph
was the bill of the Six Articles, carried in the Parliament of
1539. These laid down and fenced round with extraordinary
severity the chief points of the Catholic religion at that
time questioned by the Protestants. The bill enacted, first,
'that the natural body and blood of Jesus Christ were present
in the Blessed Sacrament,' and that 'after consecration there
remained no substance of bread and wine, nor any other but the
substance of Christ'; whoever, by word or writing, denied this
article was a heretic, and to be burned. Secondly, the
Communion in both kinds was not necessary, both body and blood
being present in each element; thirdly, priests might not
marry; fourthly, vows of chastity by man or woman ought to be
observed; fifthly, private masses ought to be continued;
sixthly, auricular confession must be retained. Whoever wrote
or spoke against these ... Articles, on the first offence his
property was forfeited; on the second offence he was a felon,
and was put to death. Under this 'whip with six strings' the
kingdom continued for the rest of the reign. The Bishops at
first made wild work with it. Five hundred persons are said to
have been arrested in a fortnight; the king had twice to
interfere and grant pardons. It is believed that only
twenty-eight persons actually suffered death under it."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
volume 2, page 411.
ALSO IN:
J. H. Blunt,
Reformation of the Church of England,
volume 1, chapter 8-9.
S. H. Burke,
Men and Women of the English Reformation,
volume 2, pages 17-24.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1542-1547.
Alliance with Charles V. against Francis I.
Capture and restoration of Boulogne.
Treaty of Guines.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1544-1548.
The wooing of Mary Queen of Scots.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1544-1548.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1547.
Accession of King Edward VI.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1547-1553.
The completing of the Reformation.
Henry VIII., dying on the 28th of January, 1547, was succeeded
by his son Edward,--child of Jane Seymour,--then only nine
years old. By the will of his father, the young king (Edward
VI.) was to attain his majority at eighteen, and the
government of his kingdom, in the meantime, was entrusted to a
body of sixteen executors, with a second body of twelve
councillors to assist with their advice. "But the first act of
the executors and counsellors was to depart from the
destination of the late king in a material article. No sooner
were they met, than it was suggested that the government would
lose its dignity for want of some head who might represent the
royal majesty." The suggestion was opposed by none except the
chancellor, Wriothesley,--soon afterwards raised to the
peerage as Earl of Southampton. "It being therefore agreed to
name a protector, the choice fell of course on the Earl of
Hertford [afterwards Duke of Somerset], who, as he was the
king's maternal uncle, was strongly interested in his safety."
{833}
The protector soon manifested an ambition to exercise his
almost royal authority without any constraint, and, having
found means to remove his principal opponent, Southampton,
from the chancellorship, and to send him into disgrace, he
procured a patent from the infant king which gave him
unbounded power. With this power in his hand he speedily
undertook to carry the work of church reform far beyond the
intentions of Henry VIII. "The extensive authority and
imperious character of Henry had retained the partisans of
both religions in subjection; but upon his demise, the hopes
of the Protestants, and the fears of the Catholics began to
revive, and the zeal of these parties produced every where
disputes and animosities, the usual preludes to more fatal
divisions. The protector had long been regarded as a secret
partisan of the reformers; and being now freed from restraint,
he scrupled not to discover his intention of correcting all
abuses in the ancient religion, and of adopting still more of
the Protestant innovations. He took care that all persons
intrusted with the king's education should be attached to the
same principles; and as the young prince discovered a zeal for
every kind of literature, especially the theological, far
beyond his tender years, all men foresaw, in the course of his
reign, the total abolition of the Catholic faith in England;
and they early began to declare themselves in favour of those
tenets which were likely to become in the end entirely
prevalent. After Southhampton's fall, few members of the
council seemed to retain any attachment to the Romish
communion; and most of the counsellors appeared even sanguine
in forwarding the progress of the reformation. The riches
which most of them had acquired from the spoils of the clergy,
induced them to widen the breach between England and Rome; and by
establishing a contrariety of speculative tenets, as well as
of discipline and worship, to render a coalition with the
mother church altogether impracticable. Their rapacity, also,
the chief source of their reforming spirit, was excited by the
prospect of pillaging the secular, as they had already done
the regular clergy; and they knew, that while any share of the
old principles remained, or any regard to the ecclesiastics,
they could never hope to succeed in that enterprise. The
numerous and burdensome superstitions with which the Romish
church was loaded had thrown many of the reformers, by the
spirit of opposition, into an enthusiastic strain of devotion;
and all rites, ceremonies, pomp, order, and extreme
observances were zealously proscribed by them, as hindrances
to their spiritual contemplations, and obstructions to their
immediate converse with heaven."
D. Hume,
History of England,
volume 3, chapter 34.
"'This year' [1547] says a contemporary, 'the Archbishop of
Canterbury [Cranmer] did eat meat openly in Lent in the hall
of Lambeth, the like of which was never seen since England was
a Christian country.' This significant act was followed by a
rapid succession of sweeping changes. The legal prohibitions
of Lollardry were removed; the Six Articles were repealed; a
royal injunction removed all pictures and images from the
churches; priests were permitted to marry; the new communion
which had taken the place of the mass was ordered to be
administered in both kinds, and in the English tongue; an
English Book of Common Prayer, the Liturgy, which with slight
alterations is still used in the Church of England, replaced
the missal and breviary, from which its contents are mainly
drawn; a new catechism embodied the doctrines of Cranmer and
his friends; and a Book of Homilies compiled in the same sense
was appointed to be read in churches. ... The power of
preaching was restricted by the issue of licenses only to the
friends of the Primate. ... The assent of the nobles about the
Court was won by the suppression of chantries and religious
guilds, and by glutting their greed with the last spoils of
the Church. German and Italian mercenaries were introduced to
stamp out the wider popular discontent which broke out in the
East, in the West, and in the Midland counties. ... The rule
of the upstart nobles who formed the Council of Regency became
simply a rule of terror. 'The greater part of the people,' one
of their creatures, Cecil, avowed, 'is not in favour of
defending this cause, but of aiding its adversaries, the
greater part of the nobles who absent themselves from court,
all the bishops save three or four, almost all the judges and
lawyers, almost all the justices of the peace, the priests who
can move their flocks any way; for the whole of the commonalty
is in such a state of irritation that it will easily follow
any stir towards change.' But with their triumph over the
revolt, Cranmer and his colleagues advanced yet more boldly in
the career of innovation. ... The Forty-two Articles of
Religion, which were now [1552] introduced, though since
reduced by omissions to thirty-nine, have remained to this day
the formal standard of doctrine in the English Church."
J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
chapter 7, section 1.
ALSO IN:
J. Strype,
Memorials of Cranmer,
book 2.
G. Burnet,
History of the Reformation of Church of England,
volume 2, book 1.
L. Von Ranke,
History of England,
book 2, chapter 6.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1548.
First Act for encouragement of Newfoundland fisheries.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1553.
The right of succession to the throne,
on the death of Edward VI.
"If Henry VII. be considered as the stock of a new dynasty, it
is clear that on mere principles of hereditary right, the
crown would descend, first, to the issue of Henry VIII.;
secondly, to those of [his elder sister] Margaret Tudor, queen
of Scots; thirdly, to those of [his younger sister] Mary
Tudor, queen of France. The title of Edward was on all
principles equally undisputed; but Mary and Elizabeth might be
considered as excluded by the sentence of nullity, which had
been pronounced in the case of Catharine and in that of Anne
Boleyn, both which sentences had been confirmed in parliament.
They had been expressly pronounced to be illegitimate
children. Their hereditary right of succession seemed thus to
be taken away, and their pretensions rested solely on the
conditional settlement of the crown on them, made by their
father's will, in pursuance of authority granted to him by act
of parliament. After Elizabeth Henry had placed the
descendants of Mary, queen of France, passing by the progeny
of his eldest sister Margaret. Mary of France, by her second
marriage with Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, had two
daughters,--lady Frances, who wedded Henry Grey, marquis of
Dorset, created duke of Suffolk; and lady Elinor, who espoused
Henry Clifford, earl of Cumberland.
{834}
Henry afterwards settled the crown by his will on the heirs of
these two ladies successively, passing over his nieces
themselves in silence. Northumberland obtained the hand of
lady Jane Grey, the eldest daughter of Grey duke of Suffolk,
by lady Frances Brandon, for lord Guilford Dudley, the
admiral's son. The marriage was solemnised in May, 1553, and
the fatal right of succession claimed by the house of Suffolk
devolved on the excellent and unfortunate lady Jane."
Sir J. Mackintosh,
History of England,
volume 2, chapter 9.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1553.
Accession of Queen Mary.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1553.
The doubtful conflict of religions.
"Great as was the number of those whom conviction or self
interest enlisted under the Protestant banner, it appears
plain that the Reformation moved on with too precipitate a
step for the majority. The new doctrines prevailed in London,
in many large towns, and in the eastern counties. But in the
north and west of England, the body of the people were
strictly Catholics. The clergy, though not very scrupulous
about conforming to the innovations, were generally averse to
most of them. And, in spite of the church lands, I imagine
that most of the nobility, if not the gentry, inclined to the
same persuasion. ... An historian, whose bias was certainly
not unfavourable to Protestantism [Burnet, iii. 190, 196]
confesses that all endeavours were too weak to overcome the
aversion of the people towards reformation, and even intimates
that German troops were sent for from Calais on account of the
bigotry with which the bulk of the nation adhered to the old
superstition. This is somewhat an humiliating admission, that
the protestant faith was imposed upon our ancestors by a
foreign army. ... It is certain that the re-establishment of
popery on Mary's accession must have been acceptable to a
large part, or perhaps to the majority, of the nation."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
volume 1, chapter 2.
"Eight weeks and upwards passed between the proclaiming of
Mary queen and the Parliament by her assembled; during which
time two religions were together set on foot, Protestantism
and Popery; the former hoping to be continued, the latter
labouring to be restored. ... No small justling was there
betwixt the zealous promoters of these contrary religions. The
Protestants had possession on their side, and the protection
of the laws lately made by King Edward, and still standing in
free and full force unrepealed. ... The Papists put their
ceremonies in execution, presuming on the queen's private
practice and public countenance. ... Many which were neuters
before, conceiving to which side the queen inclined, would not
expect, but prevent her authority in alteration: so that
superstition generally got ground in the kingdom. Thus it is
in the evening twilight, wherein light and darkness at first
may seem very equally matched, but the latter within little
time doth solely prevail."
T. Fuller,
Church History of Britain,
book 8, section 1, ¶ 5.
ALSO IN:
J. II. Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England,
volume 1; chapters 8-9.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1554.
Wyat's Insurrection.
Queen Mary's marriage with Philip of Spain was opposed with
great bitterness of popular feeling, especially in London and
its neighborhood. Risings were undertaken in Kent, Devonshire,
and the Midland counties, intended for the frustration of the
marriage scheme; but they were ill-planned and soon
suppressed. That in Kent, led by Sir Thomas Wyat, threatened
to be formidable at first, and the Queen's troops retreated
before it. Wyat, however, lost his opportunity for securing
London, by delays, and his followers dispersed. He was taken
prisoner and executed. "Four hundred persons are said to have
suffered for this rebellion."
D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter 36.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1555-1558.
The restoration of Romanism.
The persecution of Protestants by Queen Mary.
"An attempt was made, by authority of King Edward's will, to
set aside both his sisters from the succession, and raise Lady
Jane Grey to the throne, who had lately been married to one of
Northumberland's sons. This was Northumberland's doing; he was
actuated by ambition, and the other members of the government
assented to it, believing, like the late young King, that it
was necessary for the preservation of the Protestant faith.
Cranmer opposed the measure, but yielded. ... But the
principles of succession were in fact well ascertained at that
time, and, what was of more consequence, they were established
in public opinion. Nor could the intended change be supported
on the ground of religion, for popular feeling was decidedly
against the Reformation. Queen Mary obtained possession of her
rightful throne without the loss of a single life, so
completely did the nation acknowledge her claim; and an after
insurrection, rashly planned and worse conducted, served only
to hasten the destruction of the Lady Jane and her husband.
... If any person may be excused for hating the Reformation,
it was Mary. She regarded it as having arisen in this country
from her mother's wrongs, and enabled the King to complete an
iniquitous and cruel divorce. It had exposed her to
inconvenience, and even danger, under her father's reign, to
vexation and restraint under her brother; and, after having
been bastardized in consequence of it, ... an attempt had been
made to deprive her of the inheritance, because she continued
to profess the Roman Catholic faith. ... Had the religion of
the country been settled, she might have proved a good and
beneficent, as well as conscientious, queen. But she delivered
her conscience to the direction of cruel men; and, believing
it her duty to act up to the worst principles of a persecuting
Church, boasted that she was a virgin sent by God to ride and
tame the people of England. ... The people did not wait till
the laws of King Edward were repealed; the Romish doctrines
were preached, and in some places the Romish clergy took
possession of the churches, turned out the incumbents, and
performed mass in jubilant anticipation of their approaching
triumph. What course the new Queen would pursue had never been
doubtful; and as one of her first acts had been to make
Gardiner Chancellor, it was evident that a fiery persecution
was at hand. Many who were obnoxious withdrew in time, some
into Scotland, and more into Switzerland and the Protestant
parts of Germany. Cranmer advised others to fly; but when his
friends entreated him to preserve himself by the like
precaution, he replied, that it was not fitting for him to
desert his post. ... The Protestant Bishops were soon
dispossessed of their sees; the marriages which the Clergy and
Religioners had contracted were declared unlawful, and their
children bastardized.
{835}
The heads of the reformed Clergy, having been brought forth to
hold disputations, for the purpose rather of intimidating than
of convincing them, had been committed to different prisons,
and after these preparatories the fiery process began."
R. Southey,
Book of the Church,
chapter 14.
"The total number of those who suffered in this persecution,
from the martyrdom of Rogers, in February, 1555, to September,
1558, when its last ravages were felt, is variously related,
in a manner sufficiently different to assure us that the
relaters were independent witnesses, who did not borrow from
each other, and yet sufficiently near to attest the general
accuracy of their distinct statements. By Cooper they are
estimated at about 290. According to Burnet they were 284.
Speed calculates them at 274. The most accurate account is
probably that of Lord Burleigh, who, in his treatise called
'The Execution of Justice in England,' reckons the number of
those who died in that reign by imprisonment, torments, famine
and fire, to be near 400, of which those who were burnt alive
amounted to 290. From Burnet's Tables of the separate years,
it is apparent that the persecution reached its full force in
its earliest year."
Sir J. Mackintosh,
History of England,
volume 2, chapter 11.
"Though Pole and Mary could have laid their hands on earl and
baron, knight and gentleman, whose heresy was notorious,
although, in the queen's own guard, there were many who never
listened to a mass, they durst not strike where there was
danger that they would be struck in return. ... They took the
weaver from his loom, the carpenter from his workshop, the
husbandman from his plough; they laid hands on maidens and
boys 'who had never heard of any other religion than that
which they were called on to abjure'; old men tottering into
the grave, and children whose lips could but just lisp the
articles of their creed; and of these they made their
burnt-offerings; with these they crowded their prisons, and
when filth and famine killed them, they flung them out to
rot."
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
chapter 24.
Queen Mary's marriage with Philip of Spain and his arbitrary
disposition, "while it thoroughly alienated the kingdom from
Mary, created a prejudice against the religion which the
Spanish court so steadily favoured. ... Many are said to have
become Protestants under Mary who, at her coming to the
throne, had retained the contrary persuasion."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
volume 1, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
J. Collier,
Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain,
part 2, book 5.
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 7, chapter 2-3.
J. Fox,
Book of Martyrs.
P. Heylyn,
Ecclesia Restaurata,
volume 2.
J. Strype,
Memorials of Cranmer,
book 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1557-1559.
Involved by the Spanish husband of Queen Mary in war with France.
Loss of Calais.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1558.
Accession of Queen Elizabeth.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1588.
The Age of Elizabeth:
Recovery of Protestantism.
"The education of Elizabeth, as well as her interest, led her
to favour the reformation; and she remained not long in
suspense with regard to the party which she should embrace.
But though determined in her own mind, she resolved to proceed
by gradual and secure steps, and not to imitate the example of
Mary, in encouraging the bigots of her party to make
immediately a violent invasion on the established religion.
She thought it requisite, however, to discover such symptoms
of her intentions as might give encouragement to the
Protestants, so much depressed by the late violent
persecutions. She immediately recalled all the exiles, and
gave liberty to the prisoners who were confined on account of
religion. ... Elizabeth also proceeded to exert, in favour of
the reformers, some acts of power, which were authorized by
the extent of royal prerogative during that age. Finding that
the Protestant teachers, irritated by persecution, broke out
in a furious attack on the ancient superstition, and that the
Romanists replied with no less zeal and acrimony, she
published a proclamation, by which she inhibited all preaching
without a special licence; and though she dispensed with these
orders in favour of some preachers of her own sect, she took
care that they should be the most calm and moderate of the
party. She also suspended the laws, so far as to order a great
part of the service, the litany, the Lord's prayer, the creed,
and the gospels, to be read in English. And, having first
published injunctions that all churches should conform
themselves to the practice of her own chapel, she forbad the
host to be any more elevated in her presence: an innovation
which, however frivolous it may appear, implied the most
material consequences. These declarations of her intentions,
concurring with preceding suspicions, made the bishops
foresee, with certainty, a revolution in religion. They
therefore refused to officiate at her coronation; and it was
with some difficulty that the Bishop of Carlisle was at last
prevailed on to perform the ceremony. ... Elizabeth, though
she threw out such hints as encouraged the Protestants,
delayed the entire change of religion till the meeting of the
Parliament, which was summoned to assemble. The elections had
gone entirely against the Catholics, who seem not indeed to
have made any great struggle for the superiority; and the
Houses met, in a disposition of gratifying the queen in every
particular which she could desire of them. ... The first bill
brought into Parliament, with a view of trying their
disposition on the head of religion, was that for suppressing
the monasteries lately erected, and for restoring the tenths
and first-fruits to the queen. This point being gained without
much difficulty, a bill was next introduced, annexing the
supremacy to the crown; and though the queen was there
denominated governess, not head, of the church, it conveyed
the same extensive power, which, under the latter title, had
been exercised by her father and brother. ... By this act, the
crown, without the concurrence either of the Parliament or
even of the convocation, was vested with the whole spiritual
power; might repress all heresies, might establish or repeal
all canons, might alter every point of discipline, and might
ordain or abolish any religious rite or ceremony. ... A law
was passed, confirming all the statutes enacted in King
Edward's time with regard to religion; the nomination of
bishops was given to the crown without any election of the
chapters. ... A solemn and public disputation was held during
this session, in presence of Lord Keeper Bacon, between the
divines of the Protestant and those of the Catholic communion.
The champions appointed to defend the religion of the
sovereign were, as in all former instances, entirely
triumphant; and the popish disputants, being pronounced
refractory and obstinate, were even punished by imprisonment.
{836}
Emboldened by this victory, the Protestants ventured on the
last and most important step, and brought into Parliament a
bill for abolishing the mass, and re-establishing the liturgy
of King Edward. Penalties were enacted as well against those
who departed from this mode of worship, as against those who
absented themselves from the church and the sacraments. And
thus, in one session, without any violence, tumult, or
clamour, was the whole system of religion altered, on the very
commencement of a reign, and by the will of a young woman,
whose title to the crown was by many thought liable to great
objections."
D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter 38, pages 375-380 (volume 3).
"Elizabeth ascended the throne much more in the character of a
Protestant champion than her own convictions and inclinations
would have dictated. She was, indeed, the daughter of Ann
Boleyn, whom by this time the Protestants were beginning to
regard as a martyr of the faith; but she was also the child of
Henry VIII., and the heiress of his imperious will. Soon,
however, she found herself Protestant almost in her own
despite. The Papacy, in the first pride of successful
reaction, offered her only the alternative of submission or
excommunication, and she did not for a moment hesitate to
choose the latter. Then commenced that long and close alliance
between Catholicism and domestic treason which is so differently
judged as it is approached from the religious or the political
side. These seminary priests, who in every various disguise
come to England, moving secretly about from manor-house to
manor-house, celebrating the rites of the Church, confirming
the wavering, consoling the dying, winning back the lapsed to
the fold, too well acquainted with Elizabeth's prisons, and
often finding their way to her scaffolds,--what are they but
the intrepid missionaries, the self-devoted heroes, of a
proscribed faith? On the other hand, the Queen is
excommunicate, an evil woman, with whom it is not necessary to
keep faith, to depose whom would be the triumph of the Church,
whose death, however compassed, its occasion: how easy to
weave plots under the cloak of religious intercourse, and to
make the unity of the faith a conspiracy of rebellion! The
next heir to the throne, Mary of Scotland, was a Catholic,
and, as long as she lived, a perpetual centre of domestic and
European intrigue: plot succeeded plot, in which the
traitorous subtlety was all Catholic--the keenness of
discovery, the watchfulness of defence, all Protestant. Then,
too, the shadow of Spanish supremacy began to cast itself
broadly over Europe: the unequal struggle with Holland was
still prolonged: it was known that Philip's dearest wish was
to recover to his empire and the Church the island kingdom
which had once unwillingly accepted his rule. It was thus the
instinct of self-defence which placed Elizabeth at the head of
the Protestant interest in Europe: she sent Philip Sidney to
die at Zutphen: her sailor buccaneers, whether there were
peace at home or not, bit and tore at everything Spanish upon
the southern main: till at last, 1588, Philip gathered up all
his naval strength and hurled the Armada at our shores.
'Afflavit Deus, et dissipati sunt.' The valour of England did
much; the storms of heaven the rest. Mary of Scotland had gone
to her death the year before, and her son had been trained to
hate his mother's faith. There could be no question any more
of the fixed Protestantism of the English people."
C. Beard,
Hibbert Lectures, 1883: The Reformation,
lecture 9.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1598.
The Age of Elizabeth:
The Queen's chief councillors.
"Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, already
officially experienced during three reigns, though still
young, was the queen's chief adviser from first to last--that
is to say, till he died in 1598. Philip II., who also died in
that year, was thus his exact contemporary; for he mounted the
Spanish throne just when Elizabeth and her minister began
their work together. He was not long in discovering that there
was one man, possessed of the most balanced judgment ever
brought to the head of English affairs, who was capable of
unwinding all his most secret intrigues; and, in fact, the two
arch-enemies, the one in London and the other in Madrid, were
pitted against each other for forty years. Elizabeth had also
the good sense to select the wisest and most learned
ecclesiastic of his day, Matthew Parker, for her Primate and
chief adviser in Church affairs. It should be noted that both
of these sages, as well as the queen herself, had been
Conformists to the Papal obedience under Mary--a position far
from heroic, but not for a moment to be confused with that of
men whose philosophical indifference to the questions which
exercised all the highest minds enabled them to join in the
persecution of Romanists and Anglicans at different times with
a sublime impartiality. ... It was under the advice of Cecil
and Parker that Elizabeth, on coming to the throne, made her
famous settlement or Establishment of religion."
M. Burrows,
Commentaries on the History of England,
book 2, chapter 17.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1603.
The Age of Elizabeth: Parliament.
"The house of Commons, upon a review of Elizabeth's reign, was
very far, on the one hand, from exercising those
constitutional rights which have long since belonged to it, or
even those which by ancient precedent they might have claimed
as their own; yet, on the other hand, was not quite so servile
and submissive an assembly as an artful historian has
represented it. If many of its members were but creatures of
power, ... there was still a considerable party, sometimes
carrying the house along with them, who with patient
resolution and inflexible aim recurred in every session to the
assertion of that one great privilege which their sovereign
contested, the right of parliament to inquire into and suggest
a remedy for every public mischief or danger. It may be
remarked that the ministers, such as Knollys, Hatton, and
Robert Cecil, not only sat among the commons, but took a very
leading part in their discussions; a proof that the influence
of argument could no more be dispensed with than that of
power. This, as I conceive, will never be the case in any
kingdom where the assembly of the estates is quite subservient
to the crown. Nor should we put out of consideration the
manner in which the commons were composed. Sixty-two members
were added at different times by Elizabeth to the
representation; as well from places which had in earlier times
discontinued their franchise, as from those to which it was
first granted; a very large proportion of them petty boroughs,
evidently under the influence of the crown or peerage. The
ministry took much pains with ejections, of which many proofs,
remain.
{837}
The house accordingly was filled with placemen, civilians, and
common lawyers grasping at preferment. The slavish tone of
these persons, as we collect from the minutes of D'Ewes, is
strikingly contrasted by the manliness of independent
gentlemen. And as the house was by no means very fully
attended, the divisions, a few of which are recorded, running
from 200 to 250 in the aggregate, it may be perceived that the
court, whose followers were at hand, would maintain a
formidable influence. But this influence, however pernicious
to the integrity of parliament, is distinguishable from that
exertion of almost absolute prerogative which Hume has assumed
as the sole spring of Elizabeth's government, and would never
be employed till some deficiency of strength was experienced
in the other."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 5.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1603.
The Age of Elizabeth: Literature.
"The age of Elizabeth was distinguished beyond, perhaps, any
other in our history by a number of great men, famous in
different ways, and whose names have come down to us with
unblemished honours: statesmen, warriors, divines, scholars,
poets, and philosophers; Raleigh, Drake, Coke, Hooker,
and--high and more sounding still, and still more frequent in
our mouths--Shakespear, Spenser, Sidney, Bacon, Jonson,
Beaumont, and Fletcher, men whom fame has eternised in her
long and lasting scroll, and who, by their words and acts,
were benefactors of their country, and ornaments of human
nature. Their attainments of different kinds bore the same
general stamp, and it was sterling; what they did had the mark
of their age and country upon it. Perhaps the genius of Great
Britain (if I may so speak without offence or flattery) never
shone out fuller or brighter, or looked more like itself, than
at this period. Our writers and great men had something in
them that savoured of the soil from which they grew: they were
not French; they were not Dutch, or German, or Greek, or
Latin; they were truly English. They did not look out of
themselves to see what they should be; they sought for truth
and nature, and found it in themselves. There was no tinsel,
and but little art; they were not the spoilt children of
affectation and refinement, but a bold, vigorous, independent
race of thinkers, with prodigious strength and energy, with
none but natural grace, and heartfelt, unobtrusive delicacy.
... For such an extraordinary combination and development of
fancy and genius many causes may be assigned; and we may seek
for the chief of them in religion, in politics, in the
circumstances of the time, the recent diffusion of letters, in
local situation, and in the character of the men who adorned
that period, and availed themselves so nobly of the advantages
placed within their reach. ... The first cause I shall
mention, as contributing to this general effect, was the
Reformation, which had just then taken place. This event gave
a mighty impulse and increased activity to thought and
inquiry, and agitated the inert mass of accumulated prejudices
throughout Europe. ... The translation of the Bible was the
chief engine in the great work. It threw open, by a secret
spring, the rich treasures of religion and morality, which had
been there locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the visions
of the prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers
(such they were thought) to the meanest of the people. It gave
them a common interest in the common cause. Their hearts burnt
within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people, by
giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. ... The
immediate use or application that was made of religion to
subjects of imagination and fiction was not (from an obvious
ground of separation) so direct or frequent as that which was
made of the classical and romantic literature. For much about
the same time, the rich and fascinating stores of the Greek
and Roman mythology, and those of the romantic poetry of Spain
and Italy, were eagerly explored by the curious, and thrown
open in translations to the admiring gaze of the vulgar. ...
What also gave an unusual impetus to the mind of man at this
period, was the discovery of the New World, and the reading of
voyages and travels. Green islands and golden sands seemed to
arise, as by enchantment, out of the bosom of the watery
waste, and invite the cupidity, or wing the imagination of the
dreaming speculator. Fairyland was realised in new and unknown
worlds. ... Again, the heroic and martial spirit which
breathes in our elder writers, was yet in considerable
activity in the reign of Elizabeth. The age of chivalry was
not then quite gone, nor the glory of Europe extinguished
forever. ... Lastly, to conclude this account: What gave a
unity and common direction to all these causes, was the
natural genius of the country, which was strong in these
writers in proportion to their strength. We are a nation of
islanders, and we cannot help it, nor mend ourselves if we
would. We are something in ourselves, nothing when we try to
ape others. Music and painting are not our forte: for what we
have done in that way has been little, and that borrowed from
others with great difficulty. But we may boast of our poets
and philosophers. That's something. We have had strong heads
and sound hearts among us. Thrown on one side of the world,
and left to bustle for ourselves, we have fought out many a
battle for truth and freedom. That is our natural style; and
it were to be wished we had in no instance departed from it.
Our situation has given us a certain cast of thought and
character; and our liberty has enabled us to make the most of
it. We are of a stiff clay, not moulded into every fashion,
with stubborn joints not easily bent. We are slow to think,
and therefore impressions do not work upon us till they act in
masses. ... We may be accused of grossness, but not of
flimsiness; of extravagance, but not of affectation; of want
of art and refinement, but not of a want of truth and nature.
Our literature, in a word, is Gothic and grotesque; unequal
and irregular; not cast in a previous mould, nor of one
uniform texture, but of great weight in the whole, and of
incomparable value in the best parts. It aims at an excess of
beauty or power, hits or misses, and is either very good
indeed, or absolutely good for nothing. This character applies
in particular to our literature in the age of Elizabeth, which
is its best period, before the introduction of a rage for
French rules and French models."
W. Hazlitt,
Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth,
lecture 1.
{838}
"Humanism, before it moulded the mind of the English, had
already permeated Italian and French literature. Classical
erudition had been adapted to the needs of modern thought.
Antique authors had been collected, printed, annotated, and
translated. They were fairly mastered in the south, and
assimilated to the style of the vernacular. By these means
much of the learning popularised by our poets, essayists, and
dramatists came to us at second-hand, and bore the stamp of
contemporary genius. In like manner, the best works of
Italian, French, Spanish, and German literature were
introduced into Great Britain together with the classics. The
age favoured translation, and English readers before the close
of the sixteenth century, were in possession of a cosmopolitan
library in their mother tongue, including choice specimens of
ancient and modern masterpieces. These circumstances
sufficiently account for the richness and variety of
Elizabethan literature. They also help to explain two points
which must strike every student of that literature--its native
freshness, and its marked unity of style. Elizabethan
literature was fresh and native, because it was the utterance
of a youthful race, aroused to vigorous self-consciousness
under conditions which did not depress or exhaust its
energies. The English opened frank eyes upon the discovery of
the world and man, which had been effected by the Renaissance.
They were not wearied with collecting, collating, correcting,
transmitting to the press. All the hard work of assimilating
the humanities had been done for them. They had only to survey
and to enjoy, to feel and to express, to lay themselves open
to delightful influences, to con the noble lessons of the
past, to thrill beneath the beauty and the awe of an authentic
revelation. Criticism had not laid its cold, dry finger on the
blossoms of the fancy. The new learning was still young enough to
be a thing of wonder and entrancing joy."
J. A. Symonds,
A Comparison of Elizabethan with Victorian Poetry
(Fortnightly Rev., volume 45, page 56).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1559.
The Act of Supremacy, the Act of Uniformity, and the Court of
High Commission.
"When Elizabeth's first Parliament met in January 1559,
Convocation, of course, met too. It at once claimed that the
clergy alone had authority in matters of faith, and proceeded
to pass resolutions in favour of Transubstantiation, the Mass,
and the Papal Supremacy. The bishops and the Universities
signed a formal agreement to this effect. That in the
constitution of the English Church, Convocation, as
Convocation, has no such power as this, was proved by the
steps now taken. The Crown, advised by the Council and
Parliament, took the matter in hand. As every element, except
the Roman, had been excluded from the clerical bodies, a
consultation was ordered between the representatives of both
sides, and all preaching was suspended till a settlement had
been arrived at between the queen and the Three Estates of the
realm. The consultation broke upon the refusal of the Romanist
champions to keep to the terms agreed upon; but even before it
took place Parliament restored the Royal Supremacy, repealed
the laws of Mary affecting religion, and gave the queen by her
own desire, not the title of 'Supreme Head,' but 'Supreme
Governor,' of the Church of England."
M. Burrows,
Commentaries on the History of England,
book 2, chapter 17.
This first Parliament of Elizabeth passed two memorable acts
of great importance in English history,--the Act of Supremacy
and the Act of Uniformity of Common Prayer. "The former is
entitled 'An act for restoring to the crown the ancient
jurisdiction over the State Ecclesiastical and Spiritual; and
for abolishing foreign power.' It is the same for substance
with the 25th of Henry VIII. ... but the commons incorporated
several other bills into it; for besides the title of 'Supreme
Governor in all causes Ecclesiastical and Temporal,' which is
restored to the Queen, the act revives those laws of King
Henry VIII. and King Edward VI. which had been repealed in the
late reign. It forbids all appeals to Rome, and exonerates the
subjects from all exactions and impositions heretofore paid to
that court; and as it revives King Edward's laws, it repeals a
severe act made in the late reign for punishing heresy. ...
'Moreover, all persons in any public employs, whether civil or
ecclesiastical, are obliged to take an oath in recognition of
the Queen's right to the crown, and of her supremacy in all
causes ecclesiastical and civil, on penalty of forfeiting all
their promotions in the church, and of being declared
incapable of holding any public office.' ... Further, 'The act
forbids all writing, printing, teaching, or preaching, and all
other deeds or acts whereby any foreign jurisdiction over
these realms is defended, upon pain that they and their
abettors, being thereof convicted, shall for the first offence
forfeit their goods and chattels; ... spiritual persons shall
lose their benefices, and all ecclesiastical preferments; for
the second offence they shall incur the penalties of a
præmunire; and the third offence shall be deemed high
treason.' There is a remarkable clause in this act, which gave
rise to a new court, called 'The Court of High Commission.'
The words are these, 'The Queen and her successors shall have
power, by their letters patent under the great seal, to
assign, name, and authorize, as often as they shall think
meet, and for as long a time as they shall please, persons
being natural-born subjects, to use, occupy, and exercise,
under her and them, all manner of jurisdiction, privileges,
and preeminences, touching any spiritual or ecclesiastical
jurisdiction within the realms of England and Ireland, &c., to
visit, reform, redress, order, correct and amend all errors,
heresies, schisms, abuses, contempts, offences and enormities
whatsoever. Provided, that they have no power to determine
anything to be heresy, but what has been adjudged to be so by
the authority of the canonical scripture, or by the first four
general councils, or any of them; or by any other general
council wherein the same was declared heresy by the express
and plain words of canonical scripture; or such as shall
hereafter be declared to be heresy by the high court of
parliament, with the assent of the clergy in convocation.'
Upon the authority of this clause the Queen appointed a
certain number of 'Commissioners' for ecclesiastical causes,
who exercised the same power that had been lodged in the hands
of one vicegerent in the reign of King Henry VIII. And how
sadly they abused their power in this and the two next reigns
will appear in the sequel of this history. They did not
trouble themselves much with the express words of scripture,
or the four first general councils, but entangled their
prisoners with oaths ex-officio, and the inextricable mazes of
the popish canon law. ... The papists being vanquished, the
next point was to unite the reformed among themselves. ...
Though all the reformers were of one faith, yet they were far
from agreeing about discipline and ceremonies, each party
being for settling the church according to their own model. ...
{839}
The Queen ... therefore appointed a committee of divines to
review King Edward's liturgy, and to see if in any particular
it was fit to be changed; their names were Dr. Parker,
Grindal, Cox, Pilkington, May, Bill, Whitehead, and Sir Thomas
Smith, doctor of the civil law. Their instructions were, to
strike out all offensive passages against the pope, and to
make people easy about the belief of the corporal presence of
Christ in the sacraments; but not a word in favour of the
stricter protestants. Her Majesty was afraid of reforming too
far; she was desirous to retain images in churches, crucifixes
and crosses, vocal and instrumental music, with all the old
popish garments; it is not therefore to be wondered, that in
reviewing the liturgy of King Edward, no alterations were made
in favour of those who now began to be called Puritans, from
their attempting a purer form of worship and discipline than
had yet been established. ... The book was presented to the
two houses and passed into a law. ... The title of the act is
'An act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the
Church, and administration of the Sacraments.' It was brought
into the House of Commons April 18th, and was read a third
time April 20th. It passed the House of Lords April 28th, and
took place from the 24th of June 1559."
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 1, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
G. Burnet,
History of the Reformation of the Church of England.,
volume 2, book 3.
P. Heylyn,
Ecclesia Restaurata: Elizabeth, Anno 1.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1559-1566.
Puritanism taking form.
"The Church of England was a latitudinarian experiment, a
contrivance to enable men of opposing creeds to live together
without shedding each others' blood. It was not intended, and
it was not possible, that Catholics or Protestants should find
in its formulas all that they required. The services were
deliberately made elastic; comprehending in the form of
positive statement only what all Christians agreed in
believing, while opportunities were left open by the rubric to
vary the ceremonial according to the taste of the
congregations. The management lay with the local authorities
in town or parish: where the people were Catholics the
Catholic aspect could be made prominent; where Popery was a
bugbear, the people were not disturbed by the obtrusion of
doctrines which they had outgrown. In itself it pleased no
party or section. To the heated controversialist its chief
merit was its chief defect. ... Where the tendencies to Rome
were strongest, there the extreme Reformers considered
themselves bound to exhibit in the most marked contrast the
unloveliness of the purer creed. It was they who furnished the
noble element in the Church of England. It was they who had
been its martyrs; they who, in their scorn of the world, in
their passionate desire to consociate themselves in life and
death to the Almighty, were able to rival in self-devotion the
Catholic Saints. But they had not the wisdom of the serpent,
and certainly not the harmlessness of the dove. Had they been
let alone--had they been unharassed by perpetual threats of
revolution and a return of the persecutions--they, too, were
not disinclined to reason and good sense. A remarkable
specimen survives, in an account of the Church of Northampton,
of what English Protestantism could become under favouring
conditions. ... The fury of the times unhappily forbade the
maintenance of this wise and prudent spirit. As the power of
evil gathered to destroy the Church of England, a fiercer
temper was required to combat with them, and Protestantism
became impatient, like David, of the uniform in which it was
sent to the battle. It would have fared ill with England had
there been no hotter blood there than filtered in the sluggish
veins of the officials of the Establishment. There needed an
enthusiasm fiercer far to encounter the revival of Catholic
fanaticism; and if the young Puritans, in the heat and glow of
their convictions, snapped their traces and flung off their
harness, it was they, after all, who saved the Church which
attempted to disown them, and with the Church saved also the
stolid mediocrity to which the fates then and ever committed
and commit the government of it."
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
volume 10, chapter 20.
"The compromise arranged by Cranmer had from the first been
considered by a large body of Protestants as a scheme for
serving two masters, as an attempt to unite the worship of the
Lord with the worship of Baal. In the days of Edward VI. the
scruples of this party had repeatedly thrown great
difficulties in the way of the government. When Elizabeth came
to the throne, those difficulties were much increased.
Violence naturally engenders violence. The spirit of
Protestantism was therefore far fiercer and more intolerant
after the cruelties of Mary than before them. Many persons who
were warmly attached to the new opinions had, during the evil
days, taken refuge in Switzerland and Germany. They had been
hospitably received by their brethren in the faith, had sate
at the feet of the great doctors of Strasburg, Zurich and
Geneva, and had been, during some years, accustomed to a more
simple worship, and to a more democratical form of church
government, than England had yet seen. These men returned to
their country, convinced that the reform which had been
effected under King Edward had been far less searching and
extensive than the interests of pure religion required. But it
was in vain that they attempted to obtain any concession from
Elizabeth. Indeed, her system, wherever it differed from her
brother's, seemed to them to differ for the worse. They were
little disposed to submit, in matters of faith, to any human
authority. ... Since these men could not be convinced, it was
determined that they should be persecuted. Persecution
produced its natural effect on them. It found them a sect: it
made them a faction. ... The power of the discontented
sectaries was great. They were found in every rank; but they
were strongest among the mercantile classes in the towns, and
among the small proprietors in the country. Early in the reign
of Elizabeth they began to return a majority of the House of
Commons. And doubtless, had our ancestors been then at liberty
to fix their attention entirely on domestic questions, the
strife between the crown and the Parliament would instantly
have commenced. But that was no season for internal
dissensions. ... Roman Catholic Europe and reformed Europe
were struggling for death or life. ... Whatever might be the
faults of Elizabeth, it was plain that, to speak humanly, the
fate of the realm and of all reformed churches was staked on
the security of her person and on the success of her
administration. ...
{840}
The Puritans, even in the depths of the prisons to which she
had sent them, prayed, and with no simulated fervour, that she
might be kept from the dagger of the assassin, that rebellion
might be put down under her feet, and that her arms might be
victorious by sea and land."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
volume 1, chapter 1.
"Two parties quickly evolved themselves out of the mass of
Englishmen who held Calvinistic opinions; namely those who
were willing to conform to the requirements of the Queen, and
those who were not. To both is often given indiscriminately by
historians the name of Puritan; but it seems more correct, and
certainly is more convenient, to restrict the use of the name
to those who are sometimes called conforming Puritans. ... To
the other party fitly belongs the name of Nonconformist. ...
It was against the Nonconformist organization that Elizabeth's
efforts were chiefly directed. ... The war began in the
enforcement by Archbishop Parker in 1565 of the Advertisements
as containing the minimum of ceremonial that would be
tolerated. In 1566 the clergy of London were required to make
the declaration of Conformity which was appended to the
Advertisements, and thirty-seven were suspended or deprived
for refusal. Some of the deprived ministers continued to
conduct services and preach in spite of their deprivation, and
so were formed the first bodies of Nonconformists, organized
in England."
H. O. Wakeman,
The Church and the Puritans,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
J. Tulloch,
English Puritanism and its Leaders,
introduction.
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 1, chapter 4.
D. Campbell,
The Puritan in Holland, England, and America,
chapters 8-10 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1562-1567.
Hawkins' slave-trading voyages to America.
First English enterprise in the New World.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1562-1567.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1564-1565 (?).
The first naming of the Puritans.
"The English bishops, conceiving themselves empowered by their
canons, began to show their authority in urging the clergy of
their dioceses to subscribe to the Liturgy, ceremonies and
discipline of the Church; and such as refused the same were
branded with the odious name of Puritans. A name which in this
notion first began in this year [A. D. 1564]; and the grief
had not been great if it had ended in the same. The
philosopher banisheth the term, (which is Polysæmon), that is
subject to several senses, out of the predicaments, as
affording too much covert for cavil by the latitude thereof.
On the same account could I wish that the word Puritan were
banished common discourse, because so various in the
acceptations thereof. We need not speak of the ancient Cathari
or primitive Puritans, sufficiently known by their heretical
opinions. Puritan here was taken for the opposers of the
hierarchy and church service, as resenting of superstition.
But profane mouths quickly improved this nickname, therewith
on every occasion to abuse pious people; some of them so far
from opposing the Liturgy, that they endeavoured (according to
the instructions thereof in the preparative to the Confession)
'to accompany the minister with a pure heart,' and laboured
(as it is in the Absolution) 'for a life pure and holy.' We
will, therefore, decline the word to prevent exceptions;
which, if casually slipping from our pen, the reader knoweth
that only nonconformists are thereby intended."
T. Fuller,
Church History of Britain,
book 9, section 1.
"For in this year [1565] it was that the Zuinglian or
Calvinian faction began to be first known by the name of
Puritans, if Genebrard, Gualter, and Spondanus (being all of
them right good chronologers) be not mistaken in the time.
Which name hath ever since been appropriate to them, because
of their pretending to a greater purity in the service of God
than was held forth unto them (as they gave out) in the Common
Prayer Book; and to a greater opposition to the rites and
usages of the Church of Rome than was agreeable to the
constitution of the Church of England."
P. Heylyn,
Ecclesia Restaurata: Elizabeth,
Anno 7, section 6.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1568.
Detention and imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1569.
Quarrel with the Spanish governor of the Netherlands.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1568-1572.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1580.
Drake's piratical warfare with Spain and his famous voyage.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1572-1580.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1603.
Queen Elizabeth's treatment of the Roman Catholics.
Persecution of the Seminary Priests and the Jesuits.
"Camden and many others have asserted that by systematic
connivance the Roman Catholics enjoyed a pretty free use of
their religion for the first fourteen years of Elizabeth's
reign. But this is not reconcilable to many passages in
Strype's collections. We find abundance of persons harassed
for recusancy, that is, for not attending the protestant
church, and driven to insincere promises of conformity. Others
were dragged before ecclesiastical commissions for harbouring
priests, or for sending money to those who had fled beyond
sea. ... A great majority both of clergy and laity yielded to
the times; and of these temporizing conformists it cannot be
doubted that many lost by degrees all thought of returning to
their ancient fold. But others, while they complied with
exterior ceremonies, retained in their private devotions their
accustomed mode of worship. ... Priests ... travelled the
country in various disguises, to keep alive a flame which the
practice of outward conformity was calculated to extinguish.
There was not a county throughout England, says a Catholic
historian, where several of Mary's clergy did not reside, and
were commonly called the old priests. They served as chaplains
in private families. By stealth, at the dead of night, in
private chambers, in the secret lurking places of an
ill-peopled country, with all the mystery that subdues the
imagination, with all the mutual trust that invigorates
constancy, these proscribed ecclesiastics celebrated their
solemn rites, more impressive in such concealment than if
surrounded by all their former splendour. ... It is my
thorough conviction that the persecution, for it can obtain no
better name, carried on against the English Catholics, however
it might serve to delude the government by producing an
apparent conformity, could not but excite a spirit of
disloyalty in many adherents of that faith. Nor would it be
safe to assert that a more conciliating policy would have
altogether disarmed their hostility, much less laid at rest
those busy hopes of the future, which the peculiar
circumstances of Elizabeth's reign had a tendency to produce."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 3.
{841}
"The more vehement Catholics had withdrawn from the country,
on account of the dangers which there beset them. They had
taken refuge in the Low Countries, and there Allen, one of the
chief among them, had established a seminary at Douay, for the
purpose of keeping up a supply of priests in England. To Douay
numbers of young Englishmen from Oxford continually flocked.
The establishment had been broken up by Requescens, and
removed to Rheims, and a second college of the same
description was established at Rome. From these two centres of
intrigue numerous enthusiastic young men constantly repaired
to England, and in the disguise of laymen carried on their
priestly work and attempted to revive the Romanist religion.
But abler and better disciplined workmen were now wanted.
Allen and his friends therefore opened negotiations with
Mercuriano, the head of the Jesuit order, in which many
Englishmen had enrolled themselves. In 1580, as part of a
great combined Catholic effort, a regular Jesuit mission,
under two priests, Campion and Parsons, was despatched to
England. ... The new missionaries were allowed to say that
that part of the Bull [of excommunication issued against
Elizabeth] which pronounced censures upon those who clung to
their allegiance applied to heretics only, that Catholics
might profess themselves loyal until the time arrived for
carrying the Bull into execution; in other words, they were
permitted to be traitors at heart while declaring themselves
loyal subjects. This explanation of the Bull was of itself
sufficient to justify severity on the part of the government.
It was impossible henceforward to separate Roman Catholicism
from disloyalty. Proclamations were issued requiring English
parents to summon their children from abroad, and declaring
that to harbour Jesuit priests was to support rebels. ...
Early in December several priests were apprehended and closely
examined, torture being occasionally used for the purpose. In
view of the danger which these examinations disclosed,
stringent measures were taken. Attendance at church was
rendered peremptorily necessary. Parliament was summoned in
the beginning of 1581 and laws passed against the action of
the Jesuits. ... Had Elizabeth been conscious of the full
extent of the plot against her, had she known the intention of
the Guises [then dominant in France] to make a descent upon
England in co-operation with Spain, and the many ramifications
of the plot in her own country, it is reasonable to suppose
that she would have been forced at length to take decided
measures. But in ignorance of the abyss opening before her
feet, she continued for some time longer her old temporizing
policy." At last, in November, 1583, the discovery of a plot
for the assassination of the queen, and the arrest of one
Throgmorton, whose papers and whose confession were of
startling import, brought to light the whole plan and extent
of the conspiracy. "Some of her Council urged her at once to
take a straightforward step, to make common cause with the
Protestants of Scotland and the Netherlands, and to bid
defiance to Spain. To this honest step, she as usual could not
bring herself, but strong measures were taken in England.
Great numbers of Jesuits and seminary priests were apprehended
and executed, suspected magistrates removed, and those
Catholic Lords whose treachery might have been fatal to her
ejected from their places of authority and deprived of
influence."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 2, pages 546-549.
"That the conspiracy with which these men were charged was a
fiction cannot be doubted. They had come to England under a
prohibition to take any part in secular concerns, and with the
sole view of exercising the spiritual functions of the
priesthood. ... At the same time it must be owned that the
answers which six of them gave to the queries were far from
satisfactory. Their hesitation to deny the opposing power (a
power then indeed maintained by the greater number of divines
in Catholic kingdoms) rendered their loyalty very
problematical, in case of an attempt to enforce the bull by
any foreign prince. It furnished sufficient reason to watch
their conduct with an eye of jealousy ... but could not
justify their execution for an imaginary offence."
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 8, chapter 3.
"It is probable that not many more than 200 Catholics were
executed, as such, in Elizabeth's reign, and this was ten
score too many. ... 'Dod reckons them at 191; Milner has
raised the list to 204. Fifteen of these, according to him,
suffered for denying the Queen's supremacy, 126 for exercising
their ministry, and the rest for being reconciled to the
Romish church. Many others died of hardships in prison, and
many were deprived of their property. There seems,
nevertheless [says Hallam], to be good reason for doubting
whether anyone who was executed might not have saved his life
by explicitly denying the Pope's power to depose the Queen.'"
J. L. Motley,
History of the United Netherlands,
chapter 17, with foot-note.
ALSO IN:
J. Foley,
Records of the English Province of the Society of
Jesus.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1574.
Emancipation of villeins on the royal domains.
Practical end of serfdom.
See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: ENGLAND.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1575.
Sovereignty of Holland and Zealand offered to Queen Elizabeth,
and declined.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1581.
Marriage proposals of the Duke of Anjou declined by Queen
Elizabeth.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1581-1584.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1583.
The expedition of Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
Formal possession taken of Newfoundland.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1583.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1584-1590.
Raleigh's colonizing attempts in America.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1584-1586; and 1587-1590.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1585-1586.
Leicester in the Low Countries.
Queen Elizabeth's treacherous dealing with the
struggling Netherlanders.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1585-1586.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1585-1587.
Mary Queen of Scots and the Catholic conspiracies.
Her trial and execution.
"Maddened by persecution, by the hopelessness of rebellion
within or deliverance from without, the fiercer Catholics
listened to schemes of assassination, to which the murder of
William of Orange lent at the moment a terrible significance.
The detection of Somerville, a fanatic who had received the
host before setting out for London 'to shoot the Queen with
his dagg,' was followed by measures of natural severity, by
the flight and arrest of Catholic gentry, by a vigourous
purification of the Inns of Court, where a few Catholics
lingered, and by the dispatch of fresh batches of priests to
the block. The trial and death of Parry, a member of the House
of Commons who had served in the Queen's household, on a
similar charge, brought the Parliament together in a transport
of horror and loyalty.
{842}
All Jesuits and seminary priests were banished from the realm
on pain of death. A bill for the security of the Queen
disqualified any claimant of the succession who had instigated
subjects to rebellion or hurt to the Queen's person from ever
succeeding to the crown. The threat was aimed at Mary Stuart.
Weary of her long restraint, of her failure to rouse Philip or
Scotland to aid her, of the baffled revolt of the English
Catholics and the baffled intrigues of the Jesuits, she bent
for a moment to submission. 'Let me go,' she wrote to
Elizabeth; 'let me retire from this island to some solitude
where I may prepare my soul to die. Grant this and I will sign
away every right which either I or mine can claim.' But the
cry was useless, and her despair found a new and more terrible
hope in the plots against Elizabeth's life. She knew and
approved the vow of Anthony Babington and a band of young
Catholics, for the most part connected with the royal
household, to kill the Queen; but plot and approval alike
passed through Walsingham's hands, and the seizure of Mary's
correspondence revealed her guilt. In spite of her protests, a
commission of peers sat as her judges at Fotheringay Castle;
and their verdict of 'guilty' annihilated, under the
provisions of the recent statute, her claim to the crown. The
streets of London blazed with bonfires, and peals rang out
from steeple to steeple, at the news of her condemnation; but,
in spite of the prayer of Parliament for her execution, and
the pressure of the Council, Elizabeth shrank from her death.
The force of public opinion, however, was now carrying all
before it, and the unanimous demand of her people wrested at
last a sullen consent from the Queen. She flung the warrant
signed upon the floor, and the Council took on themselves the
responsibility of executing it. Mary died [February 8, 1587]
on a scaffold which was erected in the castle hall at
Fotheringay, as dauntlessly as she had lived. 'Do not weep,'
she said to her ladies, 'I have given my word for you.' 'Tell
my friends,' she charged Melville, 'that I die a good
Catholic.'"
J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
chapter 7, section 6.
"'Who now doubts,' writes an eloquent modern writer, 'that it
would have been wiser in Elizabeth to spare her life?' Rather,
the political wisdom of a critical and difficult act has never
in the world's history been more signally justified. It cut
away the only interest on which the Scotch and English
Catholics could possibly have combined. It determined Philip
upon the undisguised pursuit of the English throne, and it
enlisted against him and his projects the passionate
patriotism of the English nobility."
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
volume 12, chapter 34.
ALSO IN:
A. De Lamartine,
Mary Stuart,
chapter 31-34.
L. S. F. Buckingham,
Memoirs of Mary Stuart,
volume 2, chapter 5-6.
L. von Ranke,
History of England,
book 3, chapter 5.
J. D. Leader,
Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity.
C. Nau,
History of Mary Stuart.
F. A. Mignet,
History of Mary Queen of Scots,
chapters 9-10.
England: A. D. 1587-1588.
The wrath of Catholic Europe.
Spanish vengeance and ambition astir.
"The death of Mary [Queen of Scots] may have preserved England
from the religious struggle which would have ensued upon her
accession to the throne, but it delivered Elizabeth from only
one, and that the weakest of her enemies; and it exposed her
to a charge of injustice and cruelty, which, being itself well
founded, obtained belief for any other accusation, however
extravagantly false. It was not Philip [of Spain] alone who
prepared for making war upon her with a feeling of personal
hatred: throughout Romish Christendom she was represented as a
monster of iniquity; that representation was assiduously set
forth, not in ephemeral libels, but in histories, in dramas,
in poems, and in hawker's pamphlets; and when the king of
Spain equipped an armament for the invasion of England,
volunteers entered it with a passionate persuasion that they
were about to bear a part in a holy war against the wickedest
and most inhuman of tyrants. The Pope exhorted Philip to
engage in this great enterprize for the sake of the Roman
Catholic and apostolic church, which could not be more
effectually nor more meritoriously extended than by the
conquest of England; so should he avenge his own private and
public wrongs; so should he indeed prove himself most worthy
of the glorious title of Most Catholic King. And he promised,
as soon as his troops should have set foot in that island, to
supply him with a million of crowns of gold towards the
expenses of the expedition. ... Such exhortations accorded
with the ambition, the passions, and the rooted principles of
the king of Spain. The undertaking was resolved."
R. Southey,
Lives of the British Admirals,
volume 2, page 319.
"The succours which Elizabeth had from time to time afforded
to the insurgents of the Netherlands was not the only cause of
Philip's resentment and of his desire for revenge. She had
fomented the disturbances in Portugal, ... and her captains,
among whom Sir Francis Drake was the most active, had for many
years committed unjustifiable depredations on the Spanish
possessions of South America, and more than once on the coasts
of the Peninsula itself. ... By Spanish historians, these
hostilities are represented as unprovoked in their origin, and
as barbarous in their execution, and candor must allow that
there is but too much justice in the complaint."
S. A. Dunham,
History of Spain and Portugal,
book 4, section 1, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
volume 12, chapter 35.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1588.
The Spanish Armada.
"Perhaps in the history of mankind there has never been a vast
project of conquest conceived and matured in so protracted and
yet so desultory a manner, as was this famous Spanish
invasion. ... At last, on the 28th, 29th and 30th May, 1588,
the fleet, which had been waiting at Lisbon more than a month
for favourable weather, set sail from that port, after having
been duly blessed by the Cardinal Archduke Albert, viceroy of
Portugal. There were rather more than 130 ships in all,
divided into 10 squadrons. ... The total tonnage of the fleet
was 59,120: the number of guns was 3,165. Of Spanish troops
there were 19,295 on board: there were 8,252 sailors and 2,088
galley-slaves. Besides these, there was a force of noble
volunteers, belonging to the most illustrious houses of Spain,
with their attendants, amounting to nearly 2,000 in all. ...
The size of the ships ranged from 1,200 tons to 300. The
galleons, of which there were about 60, were huge
round-stemmed clumsy vessels, with bulwarks three or four feet
thick, and built up at stem and stern, like castles.
{843}
The galeasses--of which there were four--were a third larger
than the ordinary galley, and were rowed each by 300
galley-slaves. They consisted of an enormous towering fortress
at the stern, a castellated structure almost equally massive
in front, with seats for the rowers amidships. At stem and
stern and between each of the slaves' benches were heavy
cannon. These galeasses were floating edifices, very wonderful
to contemplate. They were gorgeously decorated. There were
splendid state-apartments, cabins, chapels, and pulpits in
each, and they were amply provided with awnings, cushions,
streamers, standards, gilded saints and bands of music. To
take part in an ostentatious pageant, nothing could be better
devised. To fulfil the great objects of a war-vessel--to sail
and to fight--they were the worst machines ever launched upon
the ocean. The four galleys were similar to the galeasses in
every respect except that of size, in which they were by
one-third inferior. All the ships of the fleet--galeasses,
galleys, galleons, and hulks--were so encumbered with
top-hamper, so over-weighted in proportion to their draught of
water, that they could bear but little canvas, even with
smooth seas and light and favourable winds. ... Such was the
machinery which Philip had at last set afloat, for the purpose
of dethroning Elizabeth and establishing the inquisition in
England. One hundred and forty ships, 11,000 Spanish veterans,
as many more recruits, partly Spanish, partly Portuguese, 2,000
grandees, as many galley slaves, and 300 barefooted friars and
inquisitors. The plan was simple. Medina Sidonia [the
captain-general of the Armada] was to proceed straight from
Lisbon to Calais roads: there he was to wait for the Duke of
Parma [Spanish commander in the Netherlands], who was to come
forth from Newport, Sluys, and Dunkirk, bringing with him his
17,000 veterans, and to assume the chief command of the whole
expedition. They were then to cross the channel to Dover, land
the army of Parma, reinforced with 6,000 Spaniards from the
fleet, and with these 23,000 men Alexander was to march at
once upon London. Medina Sidonia was to seize and fortify the
Isle of Wight, guard the entrance of the harbours against any
interference from the Dutch and English fleets, and--so soon
as the conquest of England had been effected--he was to
proceed to Ireland. ... A strange omission had however been
made in the plan from first to last. The commander of the
whole expedition was the Duke of Parma: on his head was the
whole responsibility. Not a gun was to be fired--if it could
be avoided--until he had come forth with his veterans to make
his junction with the Invincible Armada off Calais. Yet there
was no arrangement whatever to enable him to come forth--not
the slightest provision to effect that junction. ... Medina
could not go to Farnese [Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma],
nor could Farnese come to Medina. The junction was likely to
be difficult, and yet it had never once entered the heads of
Philip or his counsellors to provide for that difficulty. ...
With as much sluggishness as might have been expected from
their clumsy architecture, the ships of the Armada consumed
nearly three weeks in sailing from Lisbon to the neighbourhood
of Cape Finisterre. Here they were overtaken by a tempest. ...
Of the squadron of galleys, one was already sunk in the sea,
and two of the others had been conquered by their own slaves.
The fourth rode out the gale with difficulty, and joined the
rest of the fleet, which ultimately reassembled at Coruña; the
ships having, in distress, put in first at Vivera, Ribadeo,
Gijon, and other northern ports of Spain. At the Groyne--as
the English of that day were accustomed to call Coruña--they
remained a month, repairing damages and recruiting; and on the
22d of July (N. S.) the Armada set sail. Six days later, the
Spaniards took soundings, thirty leagues from the Scilly
Islands, and on Friday, the 29th of July, off the Lizard, they
had the first glimpse of the land of promise presented them by
Sixtus V. of which they had at last come to take possession.
On the same day and night the blaze and smoke of ten thousand
beacon-fires from the Land's End to Margate, and from the Isle
of Wight to Cumberland, gave warning to every Englishman that
the enemy was at last upon them."
J. L. Motley,
History of the United Netherlands,
chapter 19.
ALSO IN:
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
volume 12, chapter 36.
J. A. Froude,
The Spanish Story of the Armada.
R. Southey,
Lives of British Admirals,
volume 2, pages 327-334.
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
5th series, chapter 27.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1588.
The Destruction of the Armada.
"The great number of the English, the whole able-bodied
population being drilled, counterbalanced the advantage
possessed, from their universal use of firearms, by the
invaders. In all the towns there were trained bands (a civic
militia); and, either in regular service or as volunteers,
thousands of all ranks had received a military training on the
continent. The musters represented 100,000 men as ready to
assemble at their head-quarters at a day's notice. It was, as
nearly always, in its military administration that the
vulnerable point of England lay. The fitting-out and
victualling of the navy was disgraceful; and it is scarcely an
excuse for the councillors that they were powerless against
the parsimony of the Queen. The Government maintained its
hereditary character from the days of Ethelred the Unready,
and the arrangements for assembling the defensive forces were
not really completed by them until after the Armada was
destroyed. The defeat of the invaders, if they had landed,
must have been accomplished by the people. The flame of
patriotism never burnt purer: all Englishmen alike, Romanists,
Protestant Episcopalians, and Puritans, were banded together
to resist the invader. Every hamlet was on the alert for the
beacon-signal. Some 15,000 men were already under arms in
London; the compact Tilbury Fort was full, and a bridge of
boats from Tilbury to Gravesend blocked the Thames. Philip's
preparations had been commensurate with the grandeur of his
scheme. The dockyards in his ports in the Low Countries, the
rivers, the canals, and the harbours of Spain, Portugal,
Naples, and Italy, echoed the clang of the shipwrights'
hammers. A vast armament, named, as if to provoke Nemesis, the
'Invincible Armada,' on which for three years the treasures of
the American mines had been lavished, at length rode the seas,
blessed with Papal benedictions and under the patronage of the
saints. It comprised 65 huge galleons, of from 700 to 1,300
tons, with sides of enormous thickness, and built high like
castles; four great galleys, each carrying 50 guns and 450
men, and rowed by 300 slaves; 56 armed merchantmen, and 20
pinnaces. These 129 vessels were armed with 2,430 brass and
iron guns of the best manufacture, but each gun was furnished
only with 50 rounds.
{844}
They carried 5,000 seamen: Parma's army amounted to 30,000
men--Spaniards, Germans, Italians and Walloons; and 19,000
Castilians and Portuguese, with 1,000 gentlemen volunteers,
were coming to join him. To maintain this army after it had
effected a landing, a great store of provisions--sufficient
for 40,000 men for six months--was placed on board. The
overthrow of this armament was effected by the navy and the
elements. From the Queen's parsimony the State had only 36
ships in the fleet; but the City of London furnished 33
vessels; 18 were supplied by the liberality of private
individuals; and nearly 100 smaller ships were obtained on
hire; so that the fleet was eventually brought up to nearly
30,000 tons, carrying 16,000 men, and equipped with 837 guns.
But there was sufficient ammunition for only a single day's
fighting. Fortunately for Elizabeth's Government, the
Spaniards, having been long driven from the channel by
privateers, were now unacquainted with its currents; and they
could procure, as the Dutch were in revolt, only two or three
competent pilots. The Spanish commander was the Duke of
Medina-Sidonia, an incapable man, but he had under him some of
the ablest of Philip's officers. When the ships set out from
the Tagus, on the 29th May, 1588, a storm came on, and the
Armada had to put into Coruña to refit. From that port the
Armada set out at the beginning of July, in lovely weather,
with just enough wind to wave from the mastheads the red
crosses which they bore as symbols of their crusade. The Duke
of Medina entered the Channel on the 18th July, and the rear
of his fleet was immediately harassed by a cannonade from the
puny ships of England, commanded by Lord Howard of Effingham
(Lord High Admiral), with Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, Winter,
Fenner, and other famous captains. With the loss of three
galleons from fire or boarding, the Spanish commander, who was
making for Flanders to embark Parma's army, anchored in Calais
roads. In the night fire-ships--an ancient mode of warfare
which had just been reintroduced by the Dutch--passed in among
the Armada, a fierce gale completed their work, and morning
revealed the remnant of the Invincible Armada scattered along
the coast from Calais to Ostend. Eighty vessels remained to
Medina, and with these he sailed up the North Sea, to round
the British Isles. But the treacherous currents of the Orkneys
and the Hebrides were unknown to his officers, and only a few
ships escaped the tempests of the late autumn. More than
two-thirds of the expedition perished, and of the remnant that
again viewed the hills of Spain all but a few hundreds
returned only to die."
H. R. Clinton,
From Crécy to Assye,
chapter 7.
In the fighting on the 23d of July, "the Spaniards' shot flew
for the most part over the heads of the English, without doing
execution, Cock being the only Englishman that died bravely in
the midst of his enemies in a ship of his own. The reason of
this was, that the English ships, being far less than the
enemy's, made the attack with more quickness and agility; and
when they had given a broadside, they presently sheered off to
a convenient distance, and levelled their shot so directly at
the bigger and more unwieldy ships of the Spaniards, as seldom
to miss their aim; though the Lord Admiral did not think it
safe or proper to grapple with them, as some advised, with
much more heat than discretion, because that the enemy's fleet
carried a considerable army within their sides, whereas ours had
no such advantage. Besides their ships far exceeded ours in
number and bulk, and were much stronger and higher built;
insomuch that their men, having the opportunity to ply us from
such lofty hatches, must inevitably destroy those that were
obliged, as it were, to fight beneath them. ... On the 24th
day of the month there was a cessation on both sides, and the
Lord Admiral sent some of his smaller vessels to the nearest
of the English harbours, to fetch a supply of powder and
ammunition; then he divided the fleet into four squadrons, the
first of which he commanded himself, the second he committed
to Drake, the third to Hawkins, and the fourth to Frobisher.
He likewise singled out of the main fleet some smaller vessels
to begin the attack on all sides at once, in the very dead of
the night; but a calm happening spoiled his design." On the
26th "the Spanish fleet sailed forward with a fair and soft
gale at southwest and by south; and the English chased them
close at the heels; but so far was this Invincible Armada from
alarming the sea-coasts with any frightful apprehensions, that
the English gentry of the younger sort entered themselves
volunteers, and taking leave of their parents, wives, and
children, did, with incredible cheerfulness, hire ships at
their own charge; and, in pure love to their country, joined
the grand fleet in vast numbers. ... On the 27th of this month
the Spanish Fleet came to an anchor before Calais, their
pilots having acquainted them that if they ventured any
farther there was some danger that the force of the current
might drive them away into the Northern Channel. Not far from
them came likewise the English Admiral to an anchor, and lay
within shot of their ships. The English fleet consisted by
this time of 140 sail; all of them ships of force, and very
tight and nimble sailors, and easily manageable upon a tack.
But, however, the main brunt of the engagement lay not upon
more than 15 or 16 of them. ... The Lord Admiral got ready
eight of his worst ships the very day after the Spaniards came
to an anchor; and having bestowed upon them a good plenty of
pitch, tar, and rosin, and lined them well with brimstone and
other combustible matter, they sent them before the wind, in
the dead time of the night, under the conduct of Young and
Prowse, into the midst of the Spanish fleet. ... The Spaniards
reported that the duke, upon the approach of the fire-ships,
ordered the whole fleet to weigh anchor and stand to sea, but
that when the danger was over every ship should return to her
station. This is what he did himself, and he likewise
discharged a great gun as a signal to the rest to do as he
did; the report, however, was heard but by very few, by reason
their fears had dispersed them at that rate that some of them
ventured out of the main ocean, and others sailed up the
shallows of Flanders. In the meantime Drake and Fenner played
briskly with their cannon upon the Spanish fleet, as it was
rendezvousing over against Graveling. ... On the last day of
the month the wind blew hard at north-west early in the
morning, and the Spanish fleet attempting to get back again to
the Straits of Calais, was driven toward Zealand.
{845}
The English then gave over the chase, because, in the
Spaniards' opinion, they perceived them making haste enough to
their own destruction. For the wind, lying at the W. N. W.
point, could not choose but force them on the shoals and sands
on the coast of Zealand. But the wind happening to come about
in a little time to Southwest and by West they went before the
wind. ... Being now, therefore, clear of danger in the main
ocean, they steered northward, and the English fleet renewed
the chase after them. ... The Spaniards having now laid aside
all the thoughts and hopes of returning to attempt the
English, and perceiving their main safety lay in their flight,
made no stay or stop at any port whatever. And thus this
mighty armada, which had been three whole years fitting out,
and at a vast expense, met in one month's time with several
attacks, and was at last routed, with a vast slaughter on
their side, and but a very few of the English missing, and not
one ship lost, except that small vessel of Cock's. ... When,
therefore, the Spanish fleet had taken a large compass round
Britain, by the coasts of Scotland, the Orcades, and Ireland,
and had weathered many storms, and suffered as many wrecks and
blows, and all the inconveniences of war and weather, it made
a shift to get home again, laden with nothing but shame and
dishonour. ... Certain it is that several of their ships
perished in their flight, being cast away on the coasts of
Scotland and Ireland, and that above 700 soldiers were cast on
shore in Scotland. ... As for those who had the ill fortune to
be drove upon the Irish shore, they met with the most
barbarous treatment; for some of them were butchered by the
wild Irish, and the rest put to the sword by the Lord Deputy."
W. Camden,
History of Queen Elizabeth.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
Historical Biographies: Drake.
E. S. Creasy,
Fifteen Decisive Battles,
chapter 10.
C. Kingsley,
Westward Ho!
chapter 31.
R. Hakluyt,
Principal Navigations, &C.
(E. Goldsmid's ed.), volume 7.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1596.
Alliance with Henry IV. of France against Spain.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1593--1598.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1596.
Dutch and English expedition against Cadiz.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1596.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1597.
Abolition of the privileges of the Hanse merchants.
See HANSA TOWNS.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1600.
The first charter to the East India Company.
See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1601.
The first Poor Law.
See POOR LAWS, THE ENGLISH.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1603.
Accession of King James I.
The Stuart family.
On the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603, James VI. of
Scotland became also the accepted king of England (under the
title of James I.), by virtue of his descent from that
daughter of Henry VII. and sister of Henry VIII., Margaret
Tudor, who married James IV. king of Scots. His grandfather
was James V.; his mother was Marie Stuart, or Mary, Queen of
Scots, born of her marriage with Lord Darnley. He was the
ninth in the line of the Scottish dynasty of the Stuarts, or
Stewarts, for an account of the origin of which see SCOTLAND:
A. D. 1370. He had been carefully alienated from the religion
of his mother and reared in Protestantism, to make him an
acceptable heir to the English throne. He came to it at a time
when the autocratic spirit of the Tudors, making use of the
peculiar circumstances of their time, had raised the royal
power and prerogative to their most exalted pitch; and he
united the two kingdoms of Scotland and England under one
sovereignty. "The noble inheritance fell to a race who,
comprehending not one of the conditions by which alone it was
possible to be retained, profligately misused until they lost
it utterly. The calamity was in no respect foreseen by the
statesman, Cecil, to whose exertion it was mainly due that
James was seated on the throne: yet in regard to it he cannot
be held blameless. He was doubtless right in the course he
took, in so far as he thereby satisfied a national desire, and
brought under one crown two kingdoms that with advantage to
either could not separately exist; but it remains a reproach
to his name that he let slip the occasion of obtaining for the
people some ascertained and settled guarantees which could not
then have been refused, and which might have saved half a
century of bloodshed. None such were proposed to James. He was
allowed to seize a prerogative, which for upwards of fifty
years had been strained to a higher pitch than at any previous
period of the English history; and his clumsy grasp closed on
it without a sign of question or remonstrance from the leading
statesmen of England. 'Do I mak the judges? Do I mak the
bishops?' he exclaimed, as the powers of his new dominion
dawned on his delighted sense: 'Then, God's wauns! I mak what
likes me, law and gospel!' It was even so. And this license to
make gospel and law was given, with other far more
questionable powers, to a man whose personal appearance and
qualities were as suggestive of contempt, as his public acts
were provocative of rebellion. It is necessary to dwell upon
this part of the subject; for it is only just to his not more
culpable but far less fortunate successor to say, that in it
lies the source and explanation of not a little for which the
penalty was paid by him. What is called the Great Rebellion
can have no comment so pregnant as that which is suggested by
the character and previous career of the first of the Stuart
kings."
J. Forster,
Historical and Biographical Essays,
p.227.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1604.
The Hampton Court Conference.
James I. "was not long seated on the English throne, when a
conference was held at Hampton Court, to hear the complaints
of the puritans, as those good men were called who scrupled to
conform to the ceremonies, and sought a reformation of the
abuses of the church of England. On this occasion, surrounded
with his deans, bishops, and archbishops, who breathed into
his ears the music of flattery, and worshipped him as an
oracle, James, like king Solomon, to whom he was fond of being
compared, appeared in all his glory, giving his judgment on
every question, and displaying before the astonished prelates,
who kneeled every time they addressed him, his polemic powers and
theological learning. Contrasting his present honours with the
scenes from which he had just escaped in his native country,
he began by congratulating himself that, 'by the blessing of
Providence, he was brought into the promised land, where
religion was professed in its purity; where he sat among
grave, learned, and reverend men; and that now he was not, as
formerly, a king without state and honour, nor in a place
where order was banished, and beardless boys would brave him
to his face.'
{846}
After long conferences, during which the king gave the most
extraordinary exhibitions of his learning, drollery, and
profaneness, he was completely thrown off his guard by the
word presbytery, which Dr. Reynolds, a representative of the
puritans, had unfortunately employed. Thinking that he aimed
at a 'Scotch presbytery,' James rose into a towering passion,
declaring that presbytery agreed as well with monarchy as God
and the devil. 'Then,' said he, 'Jack and Tom, and Will and
Dick, shall meet, and at their pleasures censure me and my
council, and all our proceedings. Then Will shall stand up and
say, It must be thus: Then Dick shall reply, and say, Nay
marry, but we will have it thus. And, therefore, here I must
once reiterate my former speech, Le Roy s'avisera (the king
will look after it). Stay, I pray you, for one seven years
before you demand that of me; and if you then find me pursy
and fat, and my wind-pipes stuffed, I will perhaps hearken to
you; for let that government be once up, I am sure I shall be
kept in breath; then we shall all of us have work enough, both
our hands full. But, Dr. Reynolds, till you find that I grow
lazy, let that alone." Then, putting his hand to his hat, 'My
lords the bishops,' said his majesty, 'I may thank you that
these men plead for my supremacy; they think they can't make
their party good against you, but by appealing unto it. But if
once you are out, and they in place, I know what would become
of my supremacy; for no bishop, no king, as I said before.'
Then rising from his chair, he concluded the conference with,
'If this be all they have to say, I'll make them conform, or
I'll harry them out of this land, or else do worse.' The
English lords and prelates were so filled with admiration at
the quickness of apprehension and dexterity in controversy
shown by the king, that, as Dr. Barlow informs us, 'one of
them said his majesty spoke by the instinct of the Spirit of
God; and the lord chancellor, as he went out, said to the dean
of Chester, I have often heard that Rex est mixta persona cum
sacerdote (that a king is partly a priest), but I never saw
the truth thereof till this day!' In these circumstances,
buoyed up with flattery by his English clergy, and placed
beyond the reach of the faithful admonitions of the Scottish
ministry, we need not wonder to find James prosecuting, with
redoubled ardour, his scheme of reducing the church of
Scotland to the English model."
T. McCrie,
Sketches of Scottish Church History,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution,
chapter 1, sections 3.
G. G. Perry,
History of the Church of England,
volume 1, chapter 2.
T. Fuller,
Church History of Britain,
book 10, section 1 (volume 3).
England: A. D. 1605.
The Gunpowder Plot.
"The Roman Catholics had expected great favour and indulgence
on the accession of James, both as he was descended from Mary,
whose life they believed to have been sacrificed to their
cause, and as he himself, in his early youth, was imagined to
have shown some partiality towards them. ... Very soon they
discovered their mistake; and were at once surprised and
enraged to find James, on all occasions, express his intention
of strictly executing the laws enacted against them, and of
persevering in all the rigorous measures of Elizabeth.
Catesby, a gentleman of good parts and of an ancient family,
first thought of a most extraordinary method of revenge; and
he opened his intention to Piercy, a descendant of the
illustrious house of Northumberland. In vain, said he, would
you put an end to the king's life: he has children. ... To
serve any good purpose, we must destroy, at one blow, the
king, the royal family, the Lords, the Commons, and bury all
our enemies in one common ruin. Happily, they are all
assembled on the first meeting of Parliament, and afford us
the opportunity of glorious and useful vengeance. Great
preparations will not be requisite. A few of us, combining,
may run a mine below the hall in which they meet, and choosing
the very moment when the king harangues both Houses, consign over
to destruction these determined foes to all piety and
religion. ... Piercy was charmed with this project of Catesby;
and they agreed to communicate the matter to a few more, and
among the rest to Thomas Winter, whom they sent over to
Flanders, in quest of Fawkes, an officer in the Spanish
service, with whose zeal and courage they were all thoroughly
acquainted. ... All this passed in the spring and summer of
the year 1604; when the conspirators also hired a house in
Piercy's name, adjoining to that in which the Parliament was
to assemble. Towards the end of that year they began their
operations. ... They soon pierced the wall, though three yards
in thickness; but on approaching the other side they were
somewhat startled at hearing a noise which they knew not how
to account for. Upon inquiry, they found that it came from the
vault below the House of Lords; that a magazine of coals had
been kept there; and that, as the coals were selling off, the
vault would be let to the highest bidder. The opportunity was
immediately seized; the place hired by Piercy; thirty-six
barrels of powder lodged in it; the whole covered up with
faggots and billets; the doors of the cellar boldly flung
open, and everybody admitted, as if it contained nothing
dangerous. ... The day [November 5, 1605], so long wished for,
now approached, on which the Parliament was appointed to
assemble. The dreadful secret, though communicated to above
twenty persons, had been religiously kept, during the space of
near a year and a half. No remorse, no pity, no fear of
punishment, no hope of reward, had as yet induced any one
conspirator, either to abandon the enterprise or make a
discovery of it." But the betrayal was unwittingly made, after
all, by one in the plot, who tried to deter Lord Monteagle
from attending the opening session of Parliament, by sending
him a mysterious message of warning. Lord Monteagle showed the
letter to Lord Salisbury, secretary of state, who attached
little importance to it, but who laid it before the king. The
Scottish Solomon read it with more anxiety and was shrewdly
led by some expressions in the missive to order an inspection
of the vaults underneath the parliamentary houses. The
gunpowder was discovered and Guy Fawkes was found in the
place, with matches for the firing of it on his person. Being
put to the rack he disclosed the names of his accomplices.
They were seized, tried and executed, or killed while
resisting arrest.
D. Hume,
History of England,
volume 4, chapter 46.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England,
chapter 6, (volume 1).
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 9, chapter 1.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1606.
The chartering of the Virginia Company, with its London and
Plymouth branches.
See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607.
{847}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1620.
The Monopoly granted to the Council for New England.
See NEW ENGLAND: A.. D. 1620-1623.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1620.
The exodus of the Pilgrims and the planting of their colony at
New Plymouth.
See MASSACHUSETTS (PLYMOUTH COLONY): A. D. 1620.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1621.
Claims in North America conflicting with France.
Grant of Nova Scotia to Sir William Alexander.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1623-1638.
The grants in Newfoundland to Baltimore and Kirke.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1610-1655.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1625.
The Protestant Alliance in the Thirty Years War.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1625.
The gains of Parliament in the reign of James I.
"The commons had now been engaged [at the end of the reign of
James I.], for more than twenty years, in a struggle to
restore and to fortify their own and their fellow subjects'
liberties. They had obtained in this period but one
legislative measure of importance, the late declaratory act
against monopolies. But they had rescued from disuse their
ancient right of impeachment. They had placed on record a
protestation of their claim to debate all matters of public
concern. They had remonstrated against the usurped
prerogatives of binding the subject by proclamation, and of
levying customs at the out-ports. They had secured beyond
controversy their exclusive privilege of determining contested
elections of their members. They had maintained, and carried
indeed to an unwarrantable extent, their power of judging and
inflicting punishment, even for offences not committed against
their house. Of these advantages some were evidently
incomplete; and it would require the most vigorous exertions
of future parliaments to realize them. But such exertions the
increased energy of the nation gave abundant cause to
anticipate. A deep and lasting love of freedom had taken hold
of every class except perhaps the clergy; from which, when
viewed together with the rash pride of the court, and the
uncertainty of constitutional principles and precedents,
collected through our long and various history, a calm
by-stander might presage that the ensuing reign would not pass
without disturbance, nor perhaps end without confusion."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 6.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1625.
Marriage of Charles with Henrietta Maria of France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1624--1626.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1625-1628.
The accession of Charles I.
Beginning of the struggle of King and Parliament.
"The political and religious schism which had originated in
the 16th century was, during the first quarter of the 17th
century, constantly widening. Theories tending to Turkish
despotism were in fashion at Whitehall. Theories tending to
republicanism were in favour with a large portion of the House
of Commons. ... While the minds of men were in this state, the
country, after a peace of many years, at length engaged in a
war [with Spain, and with Austria and the Emperor in the
Palatinate] which required strenuous exertions. This war
hastened the approach of the great constitutional crisis. It
was necessary that the king should have a large military
force. He could not have such a force without money. He could
not legally raise money without the consent of Parliament. It
followed, therefore, that he either must administer the
government in conformity with the sense of the House of
Commons, or must venture on such a violation of the
fundamental laws of the land as had been unknown during
several centuries. ... Just at this conjuncture James died
[March 27, 1625]. Charles I. succeeded to the throne. He had
received from nature a far better understanding, a far
stronger will, and a far keener and firmer temper than his
father's. He had inherited his father's political theories,
and was much more disposed than his father to carry them into
practice. ... His taste in literature and art was excellent,
his manner dignified though not gracious, his domestic life
without blemish. Faithlessness was the chief cause of his
disasters, and is the chief stain on his memory. He was, in
truth, impelled by an incurable propensity to dark and crooked
ways. ... He seems to have learned from the theologians whom
he most esteemed that between him and his subjects there could
be nothing of the nature of mutual contract; that he could
not, even if he would, divest himself of his despotic
authority; and that, in every promise which he made, there was
an implied reservation that such promise might be broken in
case of necessity, and that of the necessity he was the sole
judge. And now began that hazardous game on which were staked
the destinies of the English people. It was played on the side
of the House of Commons with keenness, but with admirable
dexterity, coolness and perseverance. Great statesmen who
looked far behind them and far before them were at the head of
that assembly. They were resolved to place the king in such a
situation that he must either conduct the administration in
conformity with the wishes of his Parliament, or make
outrageous attacks on the most sacred principles of the
constitution. They accordingly doled out supplies to him very
sparingly. He found that he must govern either in harmony with
the House of Commons, or in defiance of all law. His choice
was soon made. He dissolved his first Parliament, and levied
taxes by his own authority. He convoked a second Parliament
[1626] and found it more intractable than the first. He again
resorted to the expedient of dissolution, raised fresh taxes
without any show of legal right, and threw the chiefs of the
opposition into prison. At the same time a new grievance,
which the peculiar feelings and habits of the English nation
made insupportably painful, and which seemed to all discerning
men to be of fearful augury, excited general discontent and
alarm. Companies of soldiers were billeted on the people; and
martial law was, in some places, substituted for the ancient
jurisprudence of the realm. The king called a third Parliament
[1628], and soon perceived that the opposition was stronger
and fiercer than ever. He now determined on a change of
tactics. Instead of opposing an inflexible resistance to the
demands of the commons, he, after much altercation and many
evasions, agreed to a compromise which, if he had faithfully
adhered to it, would have averted a long series of calamities.
The Parliament granted an ample supply. The King ratified, in
the most solemn manner, that celebrated law which is known by
the name of the Petition of Right, and which is the second
Great Charter of the liberties of England."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
J. R. Green,
History of the English People,
book 7, chapter 5 (volume 3).
F. P. Guizot,
History of the English Revolution,
book 1.
{848}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1627-1628.
Buckingham's war with France and expedition to La Rochelle.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1627-1628.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1628.
The Petition of Right.
"Charles had recourse to many subterfuges in hopes to elude
the passing of this law; rather perhaps through wounded pride,
as we may judge from his subsequent conduct, than much
apprehension that it would create a serious impediment to his
despotic schemes. He tried to persuade them to acquiesce in
his royal promise not to arrest anyone without just cause, or
in a simple confirmation of the Great Charter and other
statutes in favour of liberty. The peers, too pliant in this
instance to his wishes, and half receding from the patriot
banner they had lately joined, lent him their aid by proposing
amendments (insidious in those who suggested them, though not
in the body of the house) which the commons firmly rejected.
Even when the bill was tendered to him for that assent which
it had been necessary, for the last two centuries, that the
king should grant or refuse in a word, he returned a long and
equivocal answer, from which it could only be collected that
he did not intend to remit any portion of what he had claimed
as his prerogative. But on an address from both houses for a
more explicit answer, he thought fit to consent to the bill in
the usual form. The commons, of whose harshness towards Charles
his advocates have said so much, immediately passed a bill for
granting five subsidies, about £350,000; a sum not too great
for the wealth of the kingdom or for his exigencies, but
considerable according to the precedents of former times, to
which men naturally look. ... The Petition of Right, ... this
statute is still called, from its not being drawn in the
common form of an act of parliament." Although the king had
been defeated in his attempt to qualify his assent to the
Petition of Right, and had been forced to accede to it
unequivocally, yet "he had the absurd and audacious
insincerity (for we can use no milder epithets), to circulate
1,500 copies of it through the country, after the prorogation,
with his first answer annexed; an attempt to deceive without
the possibility of success. But instances of such ill-faith,
accumulated as they are through the life of Charles, render
the assertion of his sincerity a proof either of historical
ignorance or of a want of moral delicacy."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
volume 1, chapter 7.
The following is the text of the Petition of Right:
"To the King's Most Excellent Majesty. Humbly show unto our
Sovereign Lord the King, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
Commons in Parliament assembled, that whereas it is declared
and enacted by a statute made in the time of the reign of King
Edward the First, commonly called, 'Statutum de Tallagio non
concedendo,' that no tallage or aid shall be laid or levied by
the King or his heirs in this realm, without the goodwill and
assent of the Archbishops, Bishops, Earls, Barons, Knights,
Burgesses, and other the freemen of the commonalty of this
realm: and by authority of Parliament holden in the five and
twentieth year of the reign of King Edward the Third, it is
declared and enacted, that from thenceforth no person shall be
compelled to make any loans to the King against his will,
because such loans were against reason and the franchise of
the land; and by other laws of this realm it is provided, that
none should be charged by any charge or imposition, called a
Benevolence, or by such like charge, by which the statutes
before-mentioned, and other the good laws and statutes of this
realm, your subjects have inherited this freedom, that they
should not be compelled to contribute to any tax, tallage,
aid, or other like charge, not set by common consent in
Parliament: Yet nevertheless, of late divers commissions
directed to sundry Commissioners in several counties with
instructions have issued, by means whereof your people have
been in divers places assembled, and required to lend certain
sums of money unto your Majesty, and many of them upon their
refusal so to do, have had an oath administered unto them, not
warrantable by the laws or statutes of this realm, and have
been constrained to become bound to make appearance and give
attendance before your Privy Council, and in other places, and
others of them have been therefore imprisoned, confined, and
sundry other ways molested and disquieted: and divers other
charges have been laid and levied upon your people in several
counties, by Lords Lieutenants, Deputy Lieutenants,
Commissioners for Musters, Justices of Peace and others, by
command or direction from your Majesty or your Privy Council,
against the laws and free customs of this realm: And where
also by the statute called, 'The Great Charter of the
Liberties of England,' it is declared and enacted, that no
freeman may be taken or imprisoned or be disseised of his
freeholds or liberties, or his free customs, or be outlawed or
exiled; or in any manner destroyed, but by the lawful judgment
of his peers, or by the law of the land: And in the eight and
twentieth year of the reign of King Edward the Third, it was
declared and enacted by authority of Parliament, that no man
of what estate or condition that he be, should be put out of
his lands or tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor
disherited, nor put to death, without being brought to answer
by due process of law: Nevertheless, against the tenor of the
said statutes, and other the good laws and statutes of your
realm, to that end provided, divers of your subjects have of
late been imprisoned without any cause showed, and when for
their deliverance they were brought before your Justices, by
your Majesty's writs of Habeas Corpus, there to undergo and
receive as the Court should order, and their keepers commanded
to certify the causes of their detainer; no cause was
certified, but that they were detained by your Majesty's
special command, signified by the Lords of your Privy Council,
and yet were returned back to several prisons, without being
charged with anything to which they might make answer
according to the law: And whereas of late great companies of
soldiers and mariners have been dispersed into divers counties
of the realm, and the inhabitants against their wills have
been compelled to receive them into their houses, and there to
suffer them to sojourn, against the laws and customs of this
realm, and to the great grievance and vexation of the people:
And whereas also by authority of Parliament, in the 25th year
of the reign of King Edward the Third, it is declared and
enacted, that no man shall be forejudged of life or limb
against the form of the Great Charter, and the law of the
land:
{849}
and by the said Great Charter and other the laws and statutes
of this your realm, no man ought to be adjudged to death; but
by the laws established in this your realm, either by the
customs of the same realm or by Acts of Parliament: and
whereas no offender of what kind soever is exempted from the
proceedings to be used, and punishments to be inflicted by the
laws and statutes of this your realm: nevertheless of late
divers commissions under your Majesty's Great Seal have issued
forth, by which certain persons have been assigned and
appointed Commissioners with power and authority to proceed
within the land, according to the justice of martial law
against such soldiers and mariners, or other dissolute persons
joining with them, as should commit any murder, robbery,
felony, mutiny, or other outrage or misdemeanour whatsoever,
and by such summary course and order, as is agreeable to
martial law, and is used in armies in time of war, to proceed
to the trial and condemnation of such offenders, and them to
cause to be executed and put to death, according to the law
martial: By pretext whereof, some of your Majesty's subjects
have been by some of the said Commissioners put to death, when
and where, if by the laws and statutes of the land they had
deserved death, by the same laws and statutes also they might,
and by no other ought to have been, adjudged and executed: And
also sundry grievous offenders by colour thereof, claiming an
exemption, have escaped the punishments due to them by the
laws and statutes of this your realm, by reason that divers of
your officers and ministers of justice have unjustly refused,
or forborne to proceed against such offenders according to the
same laws and statutes, upon pretence that the said offenders
were punishable only by martial law, and by authority of such
commissions as aforesaid, which commissions, and all other of
like nature, are wholly and directly contrary to the said laws
and statutes of this your realm: They do therefore humbly pray
your Most Excellent Majesty, that no man hereafter be
compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax,
or such like charge, without common consent by Act of
Parliament; and that none be called to make answer, or take
such oath, or to give attendance, or be confined, or otherwise
molested or disquieted concerning the same, or for refusal
thereof; and that no freeman, in any such manner as is
before-mentioned, be imprisoned or detained; and that your
Majesty will be pleased to remove the said soldiers and
mariners, and that your people may not be so burdened in time
to come; and that the foresaid commissions for proceeding by
martial law, may be revoked and annulled; and that hereafter
no commissions of like nature may issue forth to any person or
persons whatsoever, to be executed as aforesaid, lest by
colour of them any of your Majesty's subjects be destroyed or
put to death, contrary to the laws and franchise of the land.
All which they most humbly pray of your Most Excellent
Majesty, as their rights and liberties according to the laws
and statutes of this realm: and that your Majesty would also
vouchsafe to declare, that the awards, doings, and proceedings
to the prejudice of your people, in any of the premises, shall
not be drawn hereafter into consequence or example: and that
your Majesty would be also graciously pleased, for the further
comfort and safety of your people, to declare your royal will
and pleasure, that in the things aforesaid all your officers
and ministers shall serve you, according to the laws and
statutes of this realm, as they tender the honour of your
Majesty, and the prosperity of this kingdom. [Which Petition
being read the 2nd of June 1628, the King's answer was thus
delivered unto it. The King willeth that right be done
according to the laws and customs of the realm; and that the
statutes be put in due execution, that his subjects may have
no cause to complain of any wrong or oppressions, contrary to
their just rights and liberties, to the preservation whereof
he holds himself as well obliged as of his prerogative. On
June 7 the answer was given in the accustomed form, 'Soit
droit fait comme il est désiré.']"
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England,
chapter 63 (volume 6).
S. R. Gardiner,
Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution,
page 1.
J. L. De Lolme,
The English Constitution,
chapter 7 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1628.
Assassination of Buckingham.
"While the struggle [over the Petition of Right] was going on,
the popular hatred of Buckingham [the King's favourite, whose
influence at court was supreme] showed itself in a brutal
manner. In the streets of London, the Duke's physician, Dr.
Lambe, was set upon by the mob, called witch, devil, and the
Duke's conjuror, and absolutely beaten to death. The Council
set inquiries on foot, but no individual was brought before
it, and the rhyme went from mouth to mouth--'Let Charles and
George do what they can, The Duke shall die like Doctor
Lambe.' ... Charles, shocked and grieved, took his friend in
his own coach through London to see the ten ships which were
being prepared at Deptford for the relief of Rochelle. It was
reported that he was heard to say, 'George, there are some
that wish that both these and thou might perish. But care not
thou for them. We will both perish together if thou dost.'
There must have been something strangely attractive about the
man who won and kept the hearts of four personages so
dissimilar as James and Charles of England, Anne of Austria,
and William Laud. ... In the meantime Rochelle held out." One
attempt to relieve the beleaguered town had failed. Buckingham
was to command in person the armament now in preparation for
another attempt. "The fleet was at Portsmouth, and Buckingham
went down thither in high spirits to take the command. The
King came down to Sir Daniel Norton's house at Southwick. On
the 23d of August Buckingham rose and 'cut a caper or two'
before the barber dealt with his moustache and lovelocks. Then
he was about to sit down to breakfast with a number of
captains, and as he rose he received letters which made him
believe that Rochelle had been relieved. He said he must tell
the King instantly, but Soubise and the other refugees did not
believe a word of it, and there was a good deal of disputing
and gesticulation between them. He crossed a lobby, followed
by the eager Frenchmen, and halted to take leave of an
officer, Sir Thomas Fryar. Over the shoulder of this
gentleman, as he bowed, a knife was thrust into Buckingham's
breast. There was an effort to withdraw it; a cry 'The
Villain!' and the great Duke, at 36 years old, was dead. The
attendants at first thought the blow came from one of the
noisy Frenchmen, and were falling on them." But a servant had
seen the deed committed, and ran after the assassin, who was
arrested and proved to be one John Felton, a soldier and a man
of good family. He had suffered wrongs which apparently
unhinged his mind.
{850}
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
6th series, chapter 17.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603-1642,
chapter 65.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1628-1632.
Conquest and brief occupation of Canada and Nova Scotia.
See CANADA (NEW FRANCE): A. D. 1628-1635.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1629.
The royal charter granted to the Governor and Company of
Massachusetts Bay.
See: MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1629.
The King's Carolina grant to Sir Robert Heath.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1629.
Tonnage and Poundage.
The tumult in Parliament and the dissolution.
Charles' third Parliament, prorogued on the 26th of June,
1628, reassembled on the 20th of January, 1629. "The
Parliament Session proved very brief; but very energetic, very
extraordinary. Tonnage and Poundage, what we now call
Customhouse duties, a constant subject of quarrel between
Charles and his Parliaments hitherto, had again been levied
without Parliamentary consent; in the teeth of old 'Tallagio
non concedendo,' nay even of the late solemnly confirmed
Petition of Right; and naturally gave rise to Parliamentary
consideration. Merchants had been imprisoned for refusing to
pay it; Members of Parliament themselves had been 'supoena'd':
there was a very ravelled coil to deal with in regard to
Tonnage and Poundage. Nay the Petition of Right itself had
been altered in the Printing; a very ugly business too. In
regard to Religion also, matters looked equally ill. Sycophant
Mainwaring, just censured in Parliament, had been promoted to
a fatter living. Sycophant Montague, in the like
circumstances, to a Bishopric: Laud was in the act of
consecrating him at Croydon, when the news of Buckingham's
death came thither. There needed to be a Committee of
Religion. The House resolved itself into a Grand Committee of
Religion; and did not want for matter. Bishop Neile of
Winchester, Bishop Laud now of London, were a frightfully
ceremonial pair of Bishops; the fountain they of innumerable
tendencies to Papistry and the old clothes of Babylon. It was
in this Committee of Religion, on the 11th day of February,
1628-9, that Mr. Cromwell, Member for Huntingdon, stood up and
made his first speech, a fragment of which has found its way
into History. ... A new Remonstrance behoves to be resolved
upon; Bishops Neile and Laud are even to be 'named' there.
Whereupon, before they could get well 'named' ... the King
hastily interfered. This Parliament, in a fortnight more, was
dissolved; and that under circumstances of the most
unparalleled sort. For Speaker Finch, as we have seen, was a
Courtier, in constant communication with the King: one day,
while these high matters were astir, Speaker Finch refused to
'put the question' when ordered by the House! He said he had
orders to the contrary; persisted in that;--and at last took
to weeping. What was the House to do? Adjourn for two days;
and consider what to do! On the second day, which was
Wednesday, Speaker Finch signified that by his Majesty's
command they were again adjourned till Monday next. On Monday
next, Speaker Finch, still recusant, would not put the former
nor indeed any question, having the King's order to adjourn
again instantly. He refused; was reprimanded, menaced; once
more took to weeping; then started up to go his ways. But
young Mr. Holles, Denzil Holles, the Earl of Clare's second
son, he and certain other honourable members were prepared for
that movement: they seized Speaker Finch, set him down in his
chair, and by main force held him there! A scene of such
agitation as was never seen in Parliament before. 'The House
was much troubled.' 'Let him go,' cried certain Privy
Councillors, Majesty's Ministers as we should now call them,
who in those days sat in front of the Speaker, 'Let Mr.
Speaker go!' cried they imploringly. 'No!' answered Holles;
'God's wounds, he shall sit there till it please the House to
rise!' The House in a decisive though almost distracted
manner, with their Speaker thus held down for them, locked
their doors; redacted Three emphatic Resolutions, their
Protest against Arminianism, Papistry, and illegal Tonnage and
Poundage; and passed the same by acclamation; letting no man
out, refusing to let even the King's Usher in; then swiftly
vanishing so soon as the resolutions were passed, for they
understood the soldiery was coming. For which surprising
procedure, vindicated by Necessity the mother of Invention,
and supreme of Lawgivers, certain honourable gentlemen, Denzil
Holles, Sir John Eliot, William Strode, John Selden, and
others less known to us, suffered fine, imprisonment, and much
legal tribulation: nay Sir John Eliot, refusing to submit, was
kept in the Tower till he died. This scene fell out on Monday,
2d of March, 1629."
T. Carlyle,
Introduction to Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
J. Forster,
Sir John Eliot: a Biography,
book 10, section 6-8 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1630.
Emigration of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay,
with their royal charter.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1629-1630.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1631.
Aid to Gustavus Adolphus in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1632.
ENGLAND: A. D: 1632.
Cession of Acadia (Nova Scotia) to France.
See NOVA SCOTIA (ACADIA): A. D. 1621-1668.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1632.
The Palatine grant of Maryland to Lord Baltimore.
See MARYLAND: A. D. 1632.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1633-1640.
The Ecclesiastical despotism of Laud.
"When Charles, having quarreled with his parliament, stood
alone in the midst of his kingdom, seeking on all sides the
means of governing, the Anglican clergy believed this day [for
establishing the independent and uncontrolled power of their
church] was come. They had again got immense wealth, and
enjoyed it without dispute. The papists no longer inspired
them with alarm. The primate of the church, Laud, possessed
the entire confidence of the king and alone directed all
ecclesiastical affairs. Among the other ministers, none
professed, like lord Burleigh under Elizabeth, to fear and
struggle against the encroachments of the clergy. The
courtiers were indifferent, or secret papists. Learned men
threw lustre over the church. The universities, that of Oxford
more especially, were devoted to her maxims. Only one
adversary remained--the people, each day more discontented
with uncompleted reform, and more eager fully to accomplish
it. But this adversary was also the adversary of the throne;
it claimed at the same time, the one to secure the other,
evangelical faith and civil liberty.
{851}
The same peril threatened the sovereignty of the crown and of
episcopacy. The king, sincerely pious, seemed disposed to
believe that he was not the only one who held his authority
from God, and that the power of the bishops was neither of
less high origin, nor of less sacred character. Never had so
many favourable circumstances seemed combined to enable the
clergy to achieve independence of the crown, dominion over the
people. Laud set himself to work with his accustomed
vehemence. First, it was essential that all dissensions in the
bosom of the church itself should cease, and that the
strictest uniformity should infuse strength into its
doctrines, its discipline, its worship. He applied himself to
this task with the most unhesitating and unscrupulous
resolution. Power was exclusively concentrated into the hands
of the bishops. The court of high commission, where they took
cognizance of and decided everything relating to religious
matters, became day by day more arbitrary, more harsh in its
jurisdiction, its forms and its penalties. The complete
adoption of the Anglican canons, the minute observance of the
liturgy, and the rites enforced in cathedrals, were rigorously
exacted on the part of the whole ecclesiastical body. A great
many livings were in the hands of nonconformists; they were
withdrawn from them. The people crowded to their sermons; they
were forbidden to preach. ... Persecution followed and reached
them everywhere. ... Meantime, the pomp of catholic worship
speedily took possession of the churches deprived of their
pastors; while persecution kept away the faithful,
magnificence adorned the walls. They were consecrated amid
great display, and it was then necessary to employ force to
collect a congregation. Laud was fond of prescribing minutely
the details of new ceremonies--sometimes borrowed from Rome,
sometimes the production of his own imagination, at once
ostentatious and austere. On the part of the nonconformists,
every innovation, the least derogation from the canons or the
liturgy, was punished as a crime; yet Laud innovated without
consulting anybody, looking to nothing beyond the king's
consent, and sometimes acting entirely upon his own authority.
... And all these changes had, if not the aim, at all events
the result, of rendering the Anglican church more and more
like that of Rome. ... Books were published to prove that the
doctrine of the English bishops might very well adapt itself
to that of Rome; and these books, though not regularly
licensed, were dedicated to the king or to Laud, and openly
tolerated. ... The splendour and exclusive dominion of
episcopacy thus established, at least so he flattered himself,
Laud proceeded to secure its independence. ... The divine
right of bishops became, in a short time, the official
doctrine, not only of the upper clergy, but of the king
himself. ... By the time things had come to this pass, the
people were not alone in their anger. The high nobility, part
of them at least, took the alarm. They saw in the progress of
the church far more than mere tyranny; it was a regular
revolution, which, not satisfied with crushing popular
reforms, disfigured and endangered the first reformation; that
which kings had made and the aristocracy adopted."
F. P. Guizot,
History of the English Revolution of 1640,
book 2.
ALSO IN:
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 2, chapters 4-6.
G. G. Perry,
History of the Church of England,
chapters 13-16 (volume l).
P. Bayne,
The Chief Actors of the Puritan Revolution,
chapter 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1634-1637.
Hostile measures against the Massachusetts Colony.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1634-1637.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1634-1637.
Ship-money.
"The aspect of public affairs grew darker and darker. ... All
the promises of the king were violated without scruple or
shame. The Petition of Right, to which he had, in
consideration of moneys duly numbered, given a solemn assent,
was set at naught. Taxes were raised by the royal authority.
Patents of monopoly were granted. The old usages of feudal
times were made pretexts for harassing the people with
exactions unknown during many years. The Puritans were
persecuted with cruelty worthy of the Holy Office. They were
forced to fly from the country. They were imprisoned. They
were whipped. Their ears were cut off. Their noses were slit.
Their cheeks were branded with red-hot iron. But the cruelty
of the oppressor could not tire out the fortitude of the
victims. ... The hardy sect grew up and flourished, in spite
of everything that seemed likely to stunt it, struck its roots
deep into a. barren soil, and spread its branches wide to an
inclement sky. ... For the misgovernment of this disastrous
period, Charles himself is principally responsible. After the
death of Buckingham, he seemed to have been his own prime
minister. He had, however, two counsellors who seconded him,
or went beyond him, in intolerance and lawless violence; the
one a superstitious driveller, as honest as a vile temper
would suffer him to be; the other a man of great valour and
capacity, but licentious, faithless, corrupt, and cruel. Never
were faces more strikingly characteristic of the individuals
to whom they belonged than those of Laud and Strafford, as
they still remain portrayed by the most skilful hand of that
age. The mean forehead, the pinched features, the peering eyes
of the prelate suit admirably with his disposition. They mark
him out as a lower kind of Saint Dominic. ... But
Wentworth--whoever names him without thinking of those harsh
dark features, ennobled by their expression into more than the
majesty of an antique Jupiter! ... Among the humbler tools of
Charles were Chief-Justice Finch, and Noy, the
attorney-general. Noy had, like Wentworth, supported the cause
of liberty in Parliament, and had, like Wentworth, abandoned that
cause for the sake of office. He devised, in conjunction with
Finch, a scheme of exaction which made the alienation of the
people from the throne complete. A writ was issued by the
king, commanding the city of London to equip and man ships of
war for his service. Similar writs were sent to the towns
along the coast. These measures, though they were direct
violations of the Petition of Right, had at least some show of
precedent in their favour. But, after a time, the government
took a step for which no precedent could be pleaded, and sent
writs of ship-money to the inland counties. This was a stretch
of power on which Elizabeth herself had not ventured, even at
a time when all laws might with propriety have been made to
bend to that highest law, the safety of the state. The inland
counties had not been required to furnish ships, or money in
the room of ships, even when the Armada was approaching our
shores.
{852}
It seemed intolerable that a prince, who, by assenting to the
Petition of Right, had relinquished the power of levying
ship-money even in the outports, should be the first to levy
it on parts of the kingdom where it had been unknown, under
the most absolute of his predecessors. Clarendon distinctly
admits that this tax was intended, not only for the support of
the navy, but 'for a spring and magazine that should have no
bottom, and for an everlasting supply on all occasions.' The
nation well understood this; and from one end of England to
the other, the public mind was strongly excited.
Buckinghamshire was assessed at a ship of 450 tons, or a sum
of £4,500. The share of the tax which fell to Hampden was very
small [twenty shillings]; so small, indeed, that the sheriff
was blamed for setting so wealthy a man at so low a rate. But,
though the sum demanded was a trifle, the principle of the
demand was despotism. Hampden, after consulting the most
eminent constitutional lawyers of the time, refused to pay the
few shillings at which he was assessed; and determined to
incur all the certain expense and the probable danger of
bringing to a solemn hearing this great controversy between
the people and the crown. ... Towards the close of the year
1636, this great cause came on in the Exchequer Chamber before
all the judges of England. The leading counsel against the
writ was the celebrated Oliver St. John; a man whose temper
was melancholy, whose manners were reserved, and who was as
yet little known in Westminster Hall; but whose great talents
had not escaped the penetrating eye of Hampden. The arguments
of the counsel occupied many days; and the Exchequer Chamber
took a considerable time for deliberation. The opinion of the
bench was divided. So clearly was the law in favour of
Hampden, that though the judges held their situations only
during the royal pleasure, the majority against him was the
least possible. Four of the twelve pronounced decidedly in his
favour; a fifth took a middle course. The remaining seven gave
their voices in favour of the writ. The only effect of this
decision was to make the public indignation stronger and
deeper. 'The judgment,' says Clarendon, 'proved of more
advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned than to the
king's service.' The courage which Hampden had shown on this
occasion, as the same historian tells us, 'raised his
reputation to a great height generally throughout the
kingdom.'"
Lord Macaulay,
Essays,
volume 2 (Nugent's Memorials of Hampden).
ALSO IN:
J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Hampden.
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603-1642,
chapter 74 (volume 7),
and chapters 77 and 82 (volume 8);
ALSO
Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution,
pages 37-53, and 115.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1638-1640.
Presbyterianism of the Puritan party.
Rise of the independents.
"It is the artifice of the favourers of the Catholic and of
the prelatical party to call all who are sticklers for the
constitution in church or state, or would square their actions
by any rule, human or divine, Puritans."
J. Rushworth,
Historical Collection,
volume 2, 1355.
"These men [the Puritan party], at the commencement of the
civil war, were presbyterians: and such had at that time been
the great majority of the serious, the sober, and the
conscientious people of England. There was a sort of
imputation of laxness of principles, and of a tendency to
immorality of conduct, upon the adherents of the
establishment, which was infinitely injurious to the episcopal
church. But these persons, whose hearts were in entire
opposition to the hierarchy, had for the most part no
difference of opinion among themselves, and therefore no
thought of toleration for difference of opinion in others.
Their desire was to abolish episcopacy and set up presbytery.
They thought and talked much of the unity of the church of
God, and of the cordial consent and agreement of its members,
and considered all sects and varieties of sentiment as a
blemish and scandal upon their holy religion. They would put
down popery and episcopacy with the strong hand of the law,
and were disposed to employ the same instrument to suppress
all who should venture to think the presbyterian church itself
not yet sufficiently spiritual and pure. Against this party,
which lorded it for a time almost without contradiction,
gradually arose the party of the independents. ... Before the
end of the civil war they became almost as strong as the party
of the presbyterians, and greatly surpassed them in abilities,
intellectual, military and civil."
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 2).
See, also,
INDEPENDENTS; ENGLAND:
A. D. 1643 (JULY) and (JULY-SEPTEMBER),
A. D. 1646 (MARCH),
A. D. 1647 (APRIL-AUGUST),
and A. D. 1648 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1639.
The First Bishops' War in Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1638-1640.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1640.
The Short Parliament and the Second Bishops' War.
The Scots Army in England.
"His Majesty having burnt Scotch paper Declarations 'by the
hands of the common hangman,' and almost cut the Scotch
Chancellor Loudon's head off, and being again resolute to
chastise the rebel Scots with an Army, decides on summoning a
Parliament for that end, there being no money attainable
otherwise. To the great and glad astonishment of England;
which, at one time, thought never to have seen another
Parliament! Oliver Cromwell sat in this Parliament for
Cambridge; recommended by Hampden, say some; not needing any
recommendation in those Fen-countries, think others. Oliver's
Colleague was a Thomas Meautys, Esq. This Parliament met, 13th
April, 1640: it was by no means prompt enough with supplies
against the rebel Scots; the king dismissed it in a huff, 5th
May; after a Session of three weeks: Historians call it the
Short Parliament. His Majesty decides on raising money and an
Army 'by other methods': to which end Wentworth, now Earl
Strafford and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who had advised that
course in the Council, did himself subscribe £20,000.
Archbishop Laud had long ago seen 'a cloud rising' against the
Four surplices at Allhallowtide; and now it is covering the
whole sky in a most dismal and really thundery-looking manner.
His Majesty by 'other methods,' commission of array, benevolence,
forced loan, or how he could, got a kind of Army on foot, and
set it marching out of the several Counties in the South
towards the Scotch Border; but it was a most hopeless Army.
The soldiers called the affair a Bishops' War; they mutinied
against their officers, shot some of their officers: in
various Towns on their march, if the Clergyman were reputed
Puritan, they went and gave him three cheers; if of
Surplice-tendency, they sometimes threw his furniture out of
the window.
{853}
No fighting against poor Scotch Gospellers was to be hoped for
from these men. Meanwhile the Scots, not to be behindhand, had
raised a good Army of their own; and decided on going into
England with it, this time, 'to present their grievances to
the King's Majesty.' On the 20th of August, 1640, they cross
the Tweed at Coldstream; Montrose wading in the van of them
all. They wore uniform of hodden gray, with blue caps; and
each man had a moderate haversack of oatmeal on his back.
August 28th, the Scots force their way across the Tyne, at
Newburn, some miles above Newcastle; the King's Army making
small fight, most of them no fight; hurrying from Newcastle,
and all town and country quarters, towards York again, where
his Majesty and Strafford were. The Bishops' War was at an
end. The Scots, striving to be gentle as doves in their
behaviour, and publishing boundless brotherly Declarations to
all the brethren that loved Christ's Gospel and God's Justice
in England,--took possession of Newcastle next day; took
possession gradually of all Northumberland and Durham,--and
stayed there, in various towns and villages, about a year. The
whole body of English Puritans looked upon them as their
saviours. ... His Majesty and Strafford, in a fine frenzy at
the turn of affairs, found no refuge, except to summon a
'Council of Peers,' to enter upon a 'Treaty' with the Scots;
and alas, at last, summon a New Parliament. Not to be helped
in any way. ... A Parliament was appointed for the 3d of
November next;--whereupon London cheerfully lent £200,000; and
the Treaty with the Scots at Ripon, 1st October, 1640, by and
by transferred to London, went peaceably on at a very
leisurely pace. The Scotch Army lay quartered at Newcastle,
and over Northumberland and Durham, on an allowance of £850 a
day; an Army indispensable for Puritan objects; no haste in
finishing its Treaty. The English army lay across in
Yorkshire; without allowance except from the casualties of the
King's Exchequer; in a dissatisfied manner, and occasionally
getting into 'Army-Plots.' This Parliament, which met on the
3d of November; 1640, has become very celebrated in History by
the name of the 'Long Parliament.'"
T. Carlyle,
Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 1: 1640.
ALSO IN:
J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Strafford.
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603-1642,
chapter 91-94.
J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
chapter 72-73 (volume 7).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1640.
Acquisition and settlement of Madras.
See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1641.
The Long Parliament and the beginning of its work.
Impeachment and Execution of Strafford.
"The game of tyranny was now up. Charles had risked and lost
his last stake. It is impossible to trace the mortifications
and humiliations which this bad man now had to endure without
a feeling of vindictive pleasure. His army was mutinous; his
treasury was empty; his people clamoured for a Parliament;
addresses and petitions against the government were presented.
Strafford was for shooting those who presented them by martial
law, but the king could not trust the soldiers. A great
council of Peers was called at York, but the king would not
trust even the Peers. He struggled, he evaded, he hesitated,
he tried every shift rather than again face the
representatives of his injured people. At length no shift was
left. He made a truce with the Scots, and summoned a
Parliament. ... On the 3d of November, 1640--a day to be long
remembered--met that great Parliament, destined to every
extreme of fortune--to empire and to servitude, to glory and
to contempt;--at one time the sovereign of its sovereign, at
another time the servant of its servants, and the tool of its
tools. From the first day of its meeting the attendance was
great, and the aspect of the members was that of men not
disposed to do the work negligently. The dissolution of the
late Parliament had convinced most of them that half measures
would no longer suffice. Clarendon tells us that 'the same men
who, six months before, were observed to be of very moderate
tempers, and to wish that gentle remedies might be applied,
talked now in another dialect both of kings and persons; and
said that they must now be of another temper than they were
the last Parliament.' The debt of vengeance was swollen by all
the usury which had been accumulating during many years; and
payment was made to the full. This memorable crisis called
forth parliamentary abilities, such as England had never
before seen. Among the most distinguished members of the House
of Commons were Falkland, Hyde, Digby, Young, Harry Vane, Oliver
St. John, Denzil Hollis, Nathaniel Fiennes. But two men
exercised a paramount influence over the legislature and the
country--Pym and Hampden; and, by the universal consent of
friends and enemies, the first place belonged to Hampden."
Lord Macaulay,
Nugent's Memorials of Hampden
(Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, volume 2).
"The resolute looks of the members as they gathered at
Westminster contrasted with the hesitating words of the king,
and each brought from borough or county a petition of
grievances. Fresh petitions were brought every day by bands of
citizens or farmers. Forty committees were appointed to
examine and report on them, and their reports formed the
grounds on which the Commons acted. One by one the illegal
acts of the Tyranny were annulled. Prynne and his fellow
'martyrs' recalled from their prisons, entered London in
triumph, amid the shouts of a great multitude who strewed
laurel in their path. The civil and criminal jurisdiction of
the Privy Council, the Star Chamber, the Court of High
Commission, the irregular jurisdictions of the Council of the
North, of the Duchy of Lancaster, the County of Chester, and a
crowd of lesser tribunals, were summarily abolished.
Ship-money was declared illegal, and the judgment in Hampden's
case annulled. A statute declaring 'the ancient right of the
subjects of this kingdom that no subsidy, custom, impost, or
any charge whatsoever, ought or may be laid or imposed upon
any merchandize exported or imported by subjects, denizens or
allies, without common consent of Parliament,' put an end
forever to all pretensions to a right of arbitrary taxation on
the part of the crown. A Triennial Bill enforced the Assembly
of the Houses every three years, and bound the sheriff and
citizens to proceed to election if the Royal writ failed to
summon them. Charles protested, but gave way. He was forced to
look helplessly on at the wreck of his Tyranny, for the Scotch
army was still encamped in the north. ... Meanwhile the
Commons were dealing roughly with the agents of the Royal
system. ...
{854}
Windebank, the Secretary of State, with the Chancellor, Finch,
fled in terror over sea. Laud himself was flung into prison.
... But even Laud, hateful as he was to all but the poor
neighbours whose prayers his alms had won, was not the centre
of so great and universal a hatred as the Earl of Strafford.
Strafford's guilt was more than the guilt of a servile
instrument of tyranny--it was the guilt of 'that grand
apostate to the Commonwealth who,' in the terrible words which
closed Lord Digby's invective, 'must not expect to be pardoned
in this world till he be dispatched to the other.' He was
conscious of his danger, but Charles forced him to attend the
Court.' He came to London with the solemn assurance of his
master that, "while there was a king in England, not a hair of
Strafford's head should be touched by the Parliament."
Immediately impeached of high treason by the Commons, and sent
to the Tower, he received from the king a second and more
solemn pledge, by letter, that, "upon the word of a king, you
shall not suffer in life, honour or fortune." But the "word of
a king" like Charles Stuart, had neither honor nor gratitude, nor
a decent self respect behind it. He could be false to a friend
as easily as to an enemy. When the Commons, fearing failure on
the trial of their impeachment, resorted to a bill of
attainder, Charles signed it with a little resistance, and
Strafford went bravely and manfully to the block. "As the axe
fell, the silence of the great multitude was broken by a
universal shout of joy. The streets blazed with bonfires. The
bells clashed out from every steeple."
J. R. Green,
Short History of England,
chapter 8, section 6.
The king "was as deeply pledged to Strafford as one man could
be to another; he was as vitally concerned in saving the life
and prolonging the service of incomparably his ablest servant
as was ever any sovereign in the case of any minister; yet it
is clear that for some days past, probably ever since the
first signs of popular tumult began to manifest themselves, he
had been wavering. Four days before the Bill passed the Lords,
Strafford as is well known, entreated the king to assent to
it. There is no reason to doubt the absolute sincerity with
which, at the moment of its conception, the prisoner penned
his famous letter from the Tower. That passionate chivalry of
loyalty, which has never animated any human heart in equal
intensity since Strafford's ceased to beat, inspires every
line. ... Charles turned distractedly from one adviser to
another, not so much for counsel as for excuse. He did not
want his judgment guided, but his conscience quieted; and his
counsellors knew it. They had other reasons, too, for urging
him to his dishonour. Panic seems to have seized upon them
all. The only man who would not have quailed before the fury
of the populace was the man himself whose life was trembling
in the balance. The judges were summoned to declare their
opinion, and replied, with an admirable choice of
non-committing terms, that 'upon all that which their
Lordships have voted to be proved the Earl of Strafford doth
deserve to undergo the pains and forfeitures of high treason.'
Charles sent for the bishops, and the bishops, with the
honourable exception of Juxon, informed him that he had two
consciences,--a public and a private conscience,--and that
'his public conscience as a king might not only dispense with,
but oblige him to do, that which was against his conscience as
a man.' What passed between these two tenants in common of the
royal breast during the whole of Sunday, May 9th, 1641, is
within no earthly knowledge; but at some time on that day
Charles's public conscience got the better of its private
rival. He signed a commission for giving the royal assent to
the Bill, and on Monday, May 10th, in the presence of a House
scarcely able to credit the act of betrayal which was taking
place before them, the Commissioners pronounced the fatal Le
roi le veult over the enactment which condemned his Minister
to the block. Charles, of course, might still have reprieved
him by an exercise of the prerogative, but the fears which
made him acquiesce in the sentence availed to prevent him from
arresting its execution."
H. D. Traill,
Lord Stafford,
pages 195-198.
"It is a sorry office to plant the foot on a worm so crushed
and writhing as the wretched king ... [who abandoned
Strafford] for it was one of the few crimes of which he was in
the event thoroughly sensible, and friend has for once
cooperated with foe in the steady application to it of the
branding iron. There is in truth hardly any way of relieving
the 'damned spot' of its intensity of hue even by distributing
the concentrated infamy over other portions of Charles's
character. ... When we have convinced ourselves that this
'unthankful king' never really loved Strafford; that, as much
as in him lay, he kept the dead Buckingham in his old
privilege of mischief, by adopting his aversions and abiding
by his spleenful purposes; that, in his refusals to award
those increased honours for which his minister was a
petitioner, on the avowed ground of the royal interest, may be
discerned the petty triumph of one who dares not dispense with
the services thrust upon him, but revenges himself by
withholding their well-earned reward;--still does the
blackness accumulate to baffle our efforts. The paltry tears
he is said to have shed only burn that blackness in. If his
after conduct indeed had been different, he might have availed
himself of one excuse,--but that the man, who, in a few short
months, proved that he could make so resolute a stand
somewhere, should have judged this event no occasion for
attempting it, is either a crowning infamy or an infinite
consolation, according as we may judge wickedness or weakness
to have preponderated in the constitution of Charles I. ... As
to Strafford's death, the remark that the people had no
alternative, includes all that it is necessary to urge. The
king's assurances of his intention to afford him no further
opportunity of crime, could surely weigh nothing with men who
had observed how an infinitely more disgusting minister of his
will had only seemed to rise the higher in his master's
estimation for the accumulated curses of the nation. Nothing
but the knife of Felton could sever in that case the weak head
and the wicked instrument, and it is to the honour of the
adversaries of Strafford that they were earnest that their
cause should vindicate itself completely, and look for no
adventitious redress. Strafford had outraged the people--this
was not denied. He was defended on the ground of those
outrages not amounting to a treason against the king. For my
own part, this defence appears to me decisive, looking at it
in a technical view, and with our present settlement of
evidence and treason.
{855}
But to concede that point, after the advances they had made,
would have been in that day to concede all. It was to be shown
that another power had claim to the loyalty and the service of
Strafford--and if a claim, then a vengeance to exact for its
neglect. And this was done. ... One momentary emotion ...
escaped ... [Strafford] when he was told to prepare for death.
He asked if the king had indeed assented to the bill.
Secretary Carleton answered in the affirmative; and Strafford,
laying his hand on his heart, and raising his eyes to heaven,
uttered the memorable words,--'Put not your trust in princes,
nor in the sons of men, for in them there is no salvation.'
Charles's conduct was indeed incredibly monstrous."
R. Browning,
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford
(Eminent British Statesmen, by John Forster, volume 2,
pages 403-406).
ALSO IN:
J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Strafford; Pym.
Earl of Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion,
book 3 (volume 1).
Lord Nugent,
Memorials of Hampden.
parts 5-6 (volumes 1-2).
Lady T. Lewis,
Life of Lord Falkland.
The following are the Articles of Impeachment under which
Strafford was tried and condemned:
"Articles of the Commons, assembled in Parliament, against
Thomas Earl of Strafford, in Maintenance of their Accusation,
whereby he stands charged with High Treason.
I. That he the said Thomas earl of Strafford hath traiterously
endeavoured to subvert the fundamental laws and government of
the realms of England and Ireland, and, instead thereof, to
introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government, against law,
which he hath declared by traiterous words, counsels, and
actions, and by giving his majesty advice, by force of arms,
to compel his loyal subjects to submit thereunto.
II. That he hath traiterously assumed to himself regal power
over the lives, liberties of persons, lands, and goods of his
majesty's subjects, in England and Ireland, and hath exercised
the same tyrannically, to the subversion and undoing of many,
both peers and others, of his majesty's liege people.
III. The better to inrich, and enable himself to go through
with his traiterous designs, he hath detained a great part of
his majesty's revenue, without giving any legal accounts; and
hath taken great sums of money out of the exchequer,
converting them to his own use, when his majesty was
necessitated for his own urgent occasions, and his army had
been a long time unpaid.
IV. That he hath traiterously abused the power and authority
of his government, to the increasing, countenancing, and
encouraging of Papists, that so he might settle a mutual
dependence and confidence betwixt himself and that party, and
by their help prosecute and accomplish his malicious and
tyrannical designs.
V. That he hath maliciously endeavoured to stir up enmity and
hostility between his majesty's subjects of England and those
of Scotland.
VI. That he hath traiterously broken the great trust reposed
in him by his majesty, of lieutenant general of his Army, by
wilfully betraying divers of his majesty's subjects to death,
his majesty's Army to a dishonourable defeat by the Scots at
Newborne, and the town of Newcastle into their hands, to the
end that, by effusion of blood, by dishonour, by so great a
loss as of Newcastle, his majesty's realm of England might be
engaged in a national and irreconcilable quarrel with the
Scots.
VII. That, to preserve himself from being questioned for these
and other his traiterous courses, he laboured to subvert the
right of parliaments, and the ancient course of parliamentary
proceedings, and, by false and malicious slanders, to incense
his maj. against parliaments.--By which words, counsels, and
actions, he hath traiterously, and contrary to his allegiance,
laboured to alienate the hearts of the king's liege people
from his maj. to set a division between them, and to ruin and
destroy his majesty's kingdoms, for which they do impeach him
of High Treason against our sovereign lord the king, his crown
and dignity. And he the said earl of Strafford was lord deputy
of Ireland, or lord lieutenant of Ireland, and lieutenant
general of the Army there, under his majesty, and a sworn
privy counsellor to his maj. for his kingdoms both of England
and Ireland, and lord president of the North, during the time
that all and every of the crimes and offences before set forth
were done and committed; and he the said earl was lieutenant
general of his majesty's Army in the North parts of England,
during the time that the crimes and offences in the 5th and
6th Articles set forth were done and committed.--And the said
commons, by protestation, saving to themselves the liberty of
exhibiting at any time hereafter any other Accusation or
Impeachment against the said earl, and also of replying to the
Answer that he the said earl shall make unto the said
Articles, or to any of them, and of offering proof also of the
premises, or any of them, or of any other Accusation or
Impeachment that shall be by them exhibited, as the case
shall, according to the course of parliaments, require; and do
pray that the said earl may be put to answer to all and every
the premises; and that such proceedings, examination, trial,
and judgment, may be upon every of them had and used, as is
agreeable to law and justice."
Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England,
volume 2, pages 737-739.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (March-May).
The Root and Branch Bill.
"A bill was brought in [March, 1641], known as the Restraining
Bill, to deprive Bishops of their rights of voting in the
House of Lords. The opposition it encountered in that House
induced the Commons to follow it up [May 27] with a more
vehement measure, 'for the utter abolition of Archbishops,
Bishops. Deans, Archdeacons, Prebendaries and Canons,' a
measure known by the title of the Root and Branch Bill. By the
skill of the royal partisans, this bill was long delayed in
Committee."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 2 (volume 2), page 650.
ALSO IN:
D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
volume 2, book 2, chapter 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (October).
Roundheads and Cavaliers.
The birth of English parties.
"After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September,
1641, adjourned for a short vacation and the king visited
Scotland. He with difficulty pacified that kingdom, by
consenting not only to relinquish his plans of ecclesiastical
reform, but even to pass, with a very bad grace, an act
declaring that episcopacy was contrary to the word of God. The
recess of the English Parliament lasted six weeks. The day on
which the houses met again is one of the most remarkable
epochs in our history. From that day dates the corporate
existence of the two great parties which have ever since
alternately governed the country. ...
{856}
During the first months of the Long Parliament, the
indignation excited by many years of lawless oppression was so
strong and general that the House of Commons acted as one man.
Abuse after abuse disappeared without a struggle. If a small
minority of the representative body wished to retain the Star
Chamber and the High Commission, that minority, overawed by
the enthusiasm and by the numerical superiority of the
reformers, contented itself with secretly regretting
institutions which could not, with any hope of success, be
openly defended. At a later period the Royalists found it
convenient to antedate the separation between themselves and
their opponents, and to attribute the Act which restrained the
king from dissolving or proroguing the Parliament, the
Triennial Act, the impeachment of the ministers, and the
attainder of Strafford, to the faction which afterwards made
war on the king. But no artifice could be more disingenuous.
Everyone of those strong measures was actively promoted by the
men who were afterwards foremost among the Cavaliers. No
republican spoke of the long misgovernment of Charles more
severely than Colepepper. The most remarkable speech in favour
of the Triennial Bill was made by Digby. The impeachment of
the Lord Keeper was moved by Falkland. The demand that the
Lord Lieutenant should be kept close prisoner was made at the
bar of the Lords by Hyde. Not till the law attainting
Strafford was proposed did the signs of serious disunion
become visible. Even against that law, a law which nothing but
extreme necessity could justify, only about sixty members of
the House of Commons voted. It is certain that Hyde was not in
the minority, and that Falkland not only voted with the
majority, but spoke strongly for the bill. Even the few who
entertained a scruple about inflicting death by a
retrospective enactment thought it necessary to express the
utmost abhorrence of Strafford's character and administration.
But under this apparent concord a great schism was latent; and
when, in October 1641, the Parliament reassembled after a
short recess, two hostile parties, essentially the same with
those which, under different names, have ever since contended,
and are still contending, for the direction of public affairs,
appeared confronting each other. During some years they were
designated as Cavaliers and Roundheads. They were subsequently
called Tories and Whigs; nor does it seem that these
appellations are likely soon to become obsolete."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 1.
It was not until some months later, however, that the name of
Roundheads was applied to the defenders of popular rights by
their royalist adversaries.
See ROUNDHEADS.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (November).
The Grand Remonstrance.
Early in November, 1641, the king being in Scotland, and news
of the insurrection in Ireland having just reached London, the
party of Pym, Hampden, and Cromwell "resolved on a great
pitched battle between them and the opposition, which should
try their relative strengths before the king's return; and
they chose to fight this battle over a vast document, which
they entitled 'A Declaration and Remonstrance of the State of
the Kingdom,' but which has come to be known since as The
Grand Remonstrance. ... The notion of a great general document
which, under the name of 'A Remonstrance,' should present to
the king in one view a survey of the principal evils that had
crept into the kingdom in his own and preceding reigns, with a
detection of their causes, and a specification of the
remedies, had more than once been before the Commons. It had
been first mooted by Lord Digby while the Parliament was not a
week old. Again and again set aside for more immediate work, it
had recurred to the leaders of the Movement party, just before
the king's departure for Scotland, as likely to afford the
broad battle-ground with the opposition then becoming
desirable. 'A Remonstrance to be made, how we found the
Kingdom and the Church, and how the state of it now stands,'
such was the description of the then intended document (August
7). The document had doubtless been in rehearsal through the
Recess, for on the 8th of November the rough draft of it was
presented to the House and read at the clerk's table. When we
say that the document in its final form occupies thirteen
folio pages of rather close print in Rushworth, and consists
of a preamble followed by 206 articles or paragraphs duly
numbered, one can conceive what a task the reading of even the
first draft of it must have been, and through what a storm of
successive debates over proposed amendments and additions it
reached completeness. There had been no such debates yet in
the Parliament."
D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
volume 2, book 2, chapter 6.
"It [The Grand Remonstrance] embodies the case of the
Parliament against the Ministers of the king. It is the most
authentic statement ever put forth of the wrongs endured by
all classes of the English people, during the first fifteen
years of the reign of Charles I.; and, for that reason, the
most complete justification upon record of the Great
Rebellion." The debates on The Grand Remonstrance were begun
November 9 and ended November 22, when the vote was taken:
Ayes, 159.--Noes, 148.--So evenly were the parties in the
great struggle then divided.
J. Forster,
History and Biographical Essays,
volume 1: Debates on the Grand Remonstrance.
The following is the text of "The Grand Remonstrance," with
that of the Petition preceding it:
"Most Gracious Sovereign: Your Majesty's most humble and
faithful subjects the Commons in this present Parliament
assembled, do with much thankfulness and joy acknowledge the
great mercy and favour of God, in giving your Majesty a safe
and peaceable return out of Scotland into your kingdom of
England, where the pressing dangers and distempers of the
State have caused us with much earnestness to desire the
comfort of your gracious presence, and likewise the unity and
justice of your royal authority, to give more life and power
to the dutiful and loyal counsels and endeavours of your
Parliament, for the prevention of that eminent ruin and
destruction wherein your kingdoms of England and Scotland are
threatened. The duty which we owe to your Majesty and our
country, cannot but make us very sensible and apprehensive,
that the multiplicity, sharpness and malignity of those evils
under which we have now many years suffered, are fomented and
cherished by a corrupt and ill-affected party, who amongst
other their mischievous devices for the alteration of religion
and government, have sought by many false scandals and
imputations, cunningly insinuated and dispersed amongst the
people, to blemish and disgrace our proceedings in this
Parliament, and to get themselves a party and faction amongst
your subjects, for the better strengthening themselves in
their wicked courses; and hindering those provisions and
remedies which might, by the wisdom of your Majesty and
counsel of your Parliament, be opposed against them.
{857}
For preventing whereof, and the better information of your
Majesty, your Peers and all other your loyal subjects, we have
been necessitated to make a declaration of the state of the
kingdom, both before and since the assembly of this
Parliament, unto this time, which we do humbly present to your
Majesty, without the least intention to lay any blemish upon
your royal person, but only to represent how your royal
authority and trust have been abused, to the great prejudice
and danger of your Majesty, and of all your good subjects. And
because we have reason to believe that those malignant
parties, whose proceedings evidently appear to be mainly for
the advantage and increase of Popery, is composed, set up, and
acted by the subtile practice of the Jesuits and other
engineers and factors for Rome, and to the great danger of
this kingdom, and most grievous affliction of your loyal
subjects, have so far prevailed as to corrupt divers of your
Bishops and others in prime places of the Church, and also to
bring divers of these instruments to be of your Privy Council,
and other employments of trust and nearness about your
Majesty, the Prince, and the rest of your royal children. And
by this means have had such an operation in your counsel and
the most important affairs and proceedings of your government,
that a most dangerous division and chargeable preparation for
war betwixt your kingdoms of England and Scotland, the
increase of jealousies betwixt your Majesty and your most
obedient subjects, the violent distraction and interruption of
this Parliament, the insurrection of the Papists in your
kingdom of Ireland, and bloody massacre of your people, have
been not only endeavoured and attempted, but in a great
measure compassed and effected. For preventing the final
accomplishment whereof, your poor subjects are enforced to
engage their persons and estates to the maintaining of a very
expensive and dangerous war, notwithstanding they have already
since the beginning of this Parliament undergone the charge of
£150,000 sterling, or thereabouts, for the necessary support
and supply of your Majesty in these present and perilous
designs. And because all our most faithful endeavours and
engagements will be ineffectual for the peace, safety and
preservation of your Majesty and your people, if some present,
real and effectual course be not taken for suppressing this
wicked and malignant party:--We, your most humble and obedient
subjects, do with all faithfulness and humility beseech your
Majesty,
1. That you will be graciously pleased to concur with the
humble desires of your people in a parliamentary way, for the
preserving the peace and safety of the kingdom from the
malicious designs of the Popish party:
For depriving the Bishops of their votes in Parliament, and
abridging their immoderate power usurped over the Clergy,
and other your good subjects, which they have perniciously
abused to the hazard of religion, and great prejudice and
oppression of the laws of the kingdom, and just liberty of
your people:
For the taking away such oppressions in religion, Church
government and discipline, as have been brought in and
fomented by them;
For uniting all such your loyal subjects together as join
in the same fundamental truths against the Papists, by
removing some oppressions and unnecessary ceremonies by
which divers weak consciences have been scrupled, and seem
to be divided from the rest, and for the due execution of
those good laws which have been made for securing the
liberty of your subjects.
2. That your Majesty will likewise be pleased to remove from
your council all such as persist to favour and promote any of
those pressures and corruptions wherewith your people have
been grieved, and that for the future your Majesty will
vouchsafe to employ such persons in your great and public
affairs, and to take such to be near you in places of trust,
as your Parliament may have cause to confide in; that in your
princely goodness to your people you will reject and refuse
all mediation and solicitation to the contrary, how powerful
and near soever.
3. That you will be pleased to forbear to alienate any of the
forfeited and escheated lands in Ireland which shall accrue to
your Crown by reason of this rebellion, that out of them the
Crown may be the better supported, and some satisfaction made
to your subjects of this kingdom for the great expenses they
are like to undergo [in] this war. Which humble desires of
ours being graciously fulfilled by your Majesty, we will, by
the blessing and favour of God, most cheerfully undergo the
hazard and expenses of this war, and apply ourselves to such
other courses and counsels as may support your real estate
with honour and plenty at home, with power and reputation
abroad, and by our loyal affections, obedience and service,
lay a sure and lasting foundation of the greatness and
prosperity of your Majesty, and your royal prosperity in
future times.
The Commons in this present Parliament assembled, having with
much earnestness and faithfulness of affection and zeal to the
public good of this kingdom, and His Majesty's honour and
service for the space of twelve months, wrestled with great
dangers and fears, the pressing miseries and calamities, the
various distempers and disorders which had not only assaulted,
but even overwhelmed and extinguished the liberty, peace and
prosperity of this kingdom, the comfort and hopes of all His
Majesty's good subjects, and exceedingly weakened and
undermined the foundation and strength of his own royal
throne, do yet find an abounding malignity and opposition in
those parties and factions who have been the cause of those
evils, and do still labour to cast aspersions upon that which
hath been done, and to raise many difficulties for the
hindrance of that which remains yet undone, and to foment
jealousies between the King and Parliament, that so they may
deprive him and his people of the fruit of his own gracious
intentions, and their humble desires of procuring the public
peace, safety and happiness of this realm. For the preventing
of those miserable effects which such malicious endeavours may
produce, we have thought good to declare the root and the
growth of these mischievous designs: the maturity and ripeness
to which they have attained before the beginning of the
Parliament: the effectual means which have been used for the
extirpation of those dangerous evils, and the progress which
hath therein been made by His Majesty's goodness and the
wisdom of the Parliament: the ways of obstruction and
opposition by which that progress hath been interrupted: the
courses to be taken for the removing those obstacles, and for
the accomplishing of our most dutiful and faithful intentions
and endeavours of restoring and establishing the ancient
honour, greatness and security of this Crown and nation.
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The root of all this mischief we find to be a malignant and
pernicious design of subverting the fundamental laws and
principles of government, upon which the religion and justice
of this kingdom are firmly established. The actors and
promoters hereof have been:
1. The Jesuited Papists, who hate the laws, as the obstacles
of that change and subversion of religion which they so much
long for.
2. The Bishops, and the corrupt part of the Clergy, who
cherish formality and superstition as the natural effects and
more probable supports of their own ecclesiastical tyranny and
usurpation.
3. Such Councillors and Courtiers as for private ends have
engaged themselves to further the interests of some foreign
princes or states to the prejudice of His Majesty and the
State at home. The common principles by which they moulded and
governed all their particular counsels and actions were these:
First, to maintain continual differences and discontents
between the King and the people, upon questions of prerogative
and liberty, that so they might have the advantage of siding
with him, and under the notions of men addicted to his
service, gain to themselves and their parties the places of
greatest trust and power in the kingdom. A second, to suppress
the purity and power of religion, and such persons as were
best affected to it, as being contrary to their own ends, and
the greatest impediment to that change which they thought to
introduce. A third, to conjoin those parties of the kingdom
which were most propitious to their own ends, and to divide
those who were most opposite, which consisted in many
particular observations. To cherish the Arminian part in those
points wherein they agree with the Papists, to multiply and
enlarge the difference between the common Protestants and
those whom they call Puritans, to introduce and countenance
such opinions and ceremonies as are fittest for accommodation
with Popery, to increase and maintain ignorance, looseness and
profaneness in the people; that of those three parties,
Papists, Arminians and Libertines, they might compose a body
fit to act such counsels and resolutions as were most
conducible to their own ends. A fourth, to disaffect the King
to Parliaments by slander and false imputations, and by
putting him upon other ways of supply, which in show and
appearance were fuller of advantage than the ordinary course
of subsidies, though in truth they brought more loss than gain
both to the King and people, and have caused the great
distractions under which we both suffer. As in all compounded
bodies the operations are qualified according to the
predominant element, so in this mixed party, the Jesuited
counsels, being most active and prevailing, may easily be
discovered to have had the greatest sway in all their
determinations, and if they be not prevented, are likely to
devour the rest, or to turn them into their own nature. In the
beginning of His Majesty's reign the party began to revive and
flourish again, having been somewhat damped by the breach with
Spain in the last year of King James, and by His Majesty's
marriage with France; the interests and counsels of that State
being not so contrary to the good of religion and the
prosperity of this kingdom as those of Spain; and the Papists
of England, having been ever more addicted to Spain than
France, yet they still retained a purpose and resolution to
weaken the Protestant parties in all parts, and even in
France, whereby to make way for the change of religion which
they intended at home.
1. The first effect and evidence of their recovery and
strength was the dissolution of the Parliament at Oxford,
after there had been given two subsidies to His Majesty, and
before they received relief in any one grievance many other
more miserable effects followed.
2. The loss of the Rochel fleet, by the help of our shipping,
set forth and delivered over to the French in opposition to
the advice of Parliament, which left that town without defence
by sea, and made way, not only to the loss of that important
place, but likewise to the loss of all the strength and
security of the Protestant religion in France.
3. The diverting of His Majesty's course of wars from the West
Indies, which was the most facile and hopeful way for this
kingdom to prevail against the Spaniard, to an expenseful and
successless attempt upon Cadiz, which was so ordered as if it
had rather been intended to make us weary of war than to
prosper in it.
4. The precipitate breach with France, by taking their ships
to a great value without making recompense to the English,
whose goods were thereupon imbarred and confiscated in that
kingdom.
5. The peace with Spain without consent of Parliament,
contrary to the promise of King James to both Houses, whereby
the Palatine's cause was deserted and left to chargeable and
hopeless treaties, which for the most part were managed by
those who might justly be suspected to be no friends to that
cause.
6. The charging of the kingdom with billeted soldiers in all
parts of it, and the concomitant design of German horse, that
the land might either submit with fear or be enforced with
rigour to such arbitrary contributions as should be required
of them.
7. The dissolving of the Parliament in the second year of His
Majesty's reign, after a declaration of their intent to grant
five subsidies.
8. The exacting of the like proportion of five subsidies,
after the Parliament dissolved, by commission of loan, and
divers gentlemen and others imprisoned for not yielding to pay
that loan, whereby many of them contracted such sicknesses as
cost them their lives.
9. Great sums of money required and raised by privy seals.
10. An unjust and pernicious attempt to extort great payments
from the subject by way of excise, and a commission issued
under the seal to that purpose.
11. The Petition of Right, which was granted in full
Parliament, blasted, with an illegal declaration to make it
destructive to itself, to the power of Parliament, to the
liberty of the subject, and to that purpose printed with it,
and the Petition made of no use but to show the bold and
presumptuous injustice of such ministers as durst break the
laws and suppress the liberties of the kingdom, after they had
been so solemnly and evidently declared.
12. Another Parliament dissolved 4 Car., the privilege of
Parliament broken, by imprisoning divers members of the House,
detaining them close prisoners for many months together,
without the liberty of using books, pen, ink or paper; denying
them all the comforts of life, all means of preservation of
health, not permitting their wives to come unto them even in
the time of their sickness.
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13. And for the completing of that cruelty, after years spent
in such miserable durance, depriving them of the necessary
means of spiritual consolation, not suffering them to go
abroad to enjoy God's ordinances in God's House, or God's
ministers to come to them to minister comfort to them in their
private chambers.
14. And to keep them still in this oppressed condition, not
admitting them to be bailed according to law, yet vexing them
with informations in inferior courts, sentencing and fining
some of them for matters done in Parliament; and extorting the
payments of those fines from them, enforcing others to put in
security of good behaviour before they could be released.
15. The imprisonment of the rest, which refused to be bound,
still continued, which might have been perpetual if necessity
had not the last year brought another Parliament to relieve
them, of whom one died [Sir John Eliot] by the cruelty and
harshness of his imprisonment, which would admit of no
relaxation, notwithstanding the imminent danger of his life,
did sufficiently appear by the declaration of his physician,
and his release, or at least his refreshment, was sought by
many humble petitions, and his blood still cries either for
vengeance or repentance of those Ministers of State, who have
at once obstructed the course both of His Majesty's justice
and mercy.
16. Upon the dissolution of both these Parliaments, untrue and
scandalous declarations were published to asperse their
proceedings, and some of their members unjustly; to make them
odious, and colour the violence which was used against them;
proclamations set out to the same purpose; and to the great
dejecting of the hearts of the people, forbidding them even to
speak of Parliaments.
17. After the breach of the Parliament in the fourth of His
Majesty, injustice, oppression and violence broke in upon us
without any restraint or moderation, and yet the first project
was the great sums exacted through the whole kingdom for
default of knighthood, which seemed to have some colour and
shadow of a law, yet if it be rightly examined by that
obsolete law which was pretended for it, it will be found to
be against all the rules of justice, both in respect of the
persons charged, the proportion of the fines demanded, and the
absurd and unreasonable manner of their proceedings.
18. Tonnage and Poundage hath been received without colour or
pretence of law; many other heavy impositions continued
against law, and some so unreasonable that the sum of the
charge exceeds the value of the goods.
19. The Book of Rates lately enhanced to a high proportion,
and such merchants that would not submit to their illegal and
unreasonable payments, were vexed and oppressed above measure;
and the ordinary course of justice, the common birthright of
the subject of England, wholly obstructed unto them.
20. And although all this was taken upon pretence of guarding
the seas, yet a new unheard-of tax of ship-money was devised,
and upon the same pretence, by both which there was charged
upon the subject near £700,000 some years, and yet the
merchants have been left so naked to the violence of the
Turkish pirates, that many great ships of value and thousands
of His Majesty's subjects have been taken by them, and do
still remain in miserable slavery.
21. The enlargements of forests, contrary to 'Carta de
Foresta,' and the composition thereupon.
22. The exactions of coat and conduct money and divers other
military charges.
23. The taking away the arms of trained bands of divers
counties.
24. The desperate design of engrossing all the gunpowder into
one hand, keeping it in the Tower of London, and setting so
high a rate upon it that the poorer sort were not able to buy
it, nor could any have it without licence, thereby to leave
the several parts of the kingdom destitute of their necessary
defence, and by selling so dear that which was sold to make an
unlawful advantage of it, to the great charge and detriment of
the subject.
25. The general destruction of the King's timber, especially
that in the Forest of Deane, sold to Papists, which was the
best store-house of this kingdom for the maintenance of our
shipping.
26. The taking away of men's right, under the colour of the
King's title to land, between high and low water marks.
27. The monopolies of soap, salt, wine, leather, sea-coal, and
in a manner of all things of most common and necessary use.
28. The restraint of the liberties of the subjects in their
habitation, trades and other interests.
29. Their vexation and oppression by purveyors, clerks of the
market and saltpetre men.
30. The sale of pretended nuisances, as building in and about
London.
31. Conversion of arable into pasture, continuance of pasture,
under the name of depopulation, have driven many millions out
of the subjects' purses, without any considerable profit to
His Majesty.
32. Large quantities of common and several grounds hath been
taken from the subject by colour of the Statute of
Improvement, and by abuse of the Commission of Sewers, without
their consent, and against it.
33. And not only private interest, but also public faith, have
been broken in seizing of the money and bullion in the mint,
and the whole kingdom like to be robbed at once in that
abominable project of brass money.
34. Great numbers of His Majesty's subjects for refusing those
unlawful charges, have been vexed with long and expensive
suits, some fined and censured, others committed to long and
hard imprisonments and confinements, to the loss of health in
many, of life in some, and others have had their houses broken
up, their goods seized, some have been restrained from their
lawful callings.
35. Ships have been interrupted in their voyages, surprised at
sea in a hostile manner by projectors, as by a common enemy.
36. Merchants prohibited to unlade their goods in such ports
as were for their own advantage, and forced to bring them to
those places which were much for the advantage of the
monopolisers and projectors.
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37. The Court of Star Chamber hath abounded in extravagant
censures, not only for the maintenance and improvement of
monopolies and other unlawful taxes, but for divers other
causes where there hath been no offence, or very small;
whereby His Majesty's subjects have been oppressed by grievous
fines, imprisonments, stigmatisings, mutilations, whippings,
pillories, gags, confinements, banishments; after so rigid a
manner as hath not only deprived men of the society of their
friends, exercise of their professions, comfort of books, use
of paper or ink, but even violated that near union which God
hath established between men and their wives, by forced and
constrained separation, whereby they have been bereaved of the
comfort and conversation one of another for many years
together, without hope of relief, if God had not by His
overruling providence given some interruption to the
prevailing power, and counsel of those who were the authors
and promoters of such peremptory and heady courses.
38. Judges have been put out of their places for refusing to
do against their oaths and consciences; others have been so
awed that they durst not do their duties, and the better to
hold a rod over them, the clause 'Quam diu se bene gesserit'
was left out of their patents, and a new clause 'Durante bene
placito' inserted.
39. Lawyers have been checked for being faithful to their
clients; solicitors and attorneys have been threatened, and
some punished, for following lawful suits. And by this means
all the approaches to justice were interrupted and forecluded.
40. New oaths have been forced upon the subject against law.
41. New judicatories erected without law. The Council Table
have by their orders offered to bind the subjects in their
freeholds, estates, suits and actions.
42. The pretended Court of the Earl Marshal was arbitrary and
illegal in its being and proceedings.
43. The Chancery, Exchequer Chamber, Court of Wards, and other
English Courts, have been grievous in exceeding their
jurisdiction.
44. The estate of many families weakened, and some ruined by
excessive fines, exacted from them for compositions of
wardships.
45. All leases of above a hundred years made to draw on
wardship contrary to law.
46. Undue proceedings used in the finding of offices to make
the jury find for the King.
47. The Common Law Courts, feeling all men more inclined to
seek justice there, where it may be fitted to their own
desire, are known frequently to forsake the rules of the
Common Law, and straying beyond their bounds, under pretence
of equity, to do injustice.
48. Titles of honour, judicial places, sergeantships at law,
and other offices have been sold for great sums of money,
whereby the common justice of the kingdom hath been much
endangered, not only by opening a way of employment in places
of great trust, and advantage to men of weak parts, but also
by giving occasion to bribery, extortion, partiality, it
seldom happening that places ill-gotton are well used.
49. Commissions have been granted for examining the excess of
fees, and when great exactions have been discovered,
compositions have been made with delinquents, not only for the
time past, but likewise for immunity and security in offending
for the time to come, which under colour of remedy hath but
confirmed and increased the grievance to the subject.
50. The usual course of pricking Sheriffs not observed, but
many times Sheriffs made in an extraordinary way, sometimes as
a punishment and charge unto them; sometimes such were pricked
out as would be instruments to execute whatsoever they would
have to be done.
51. The Bishops and the rest of the Clergy did triumph in the
suspensions, ex-communications, deprivations, and degradations
of divers painful, learned and pious ministers, in the
vexation and grievous oppression of great numbers of His
Majesty's good subjects.
52. The High Commission grew to such excess of sharpness and
severity as was not much less than the Romish Inquisition, and
yet in many cases by the Archbishop's power was made much more
heavy, being assisted and strengthened by authority of the
Council Table.
53. The Bishops and their Courts were as eager in the country;
although their jurisdiction could not reach so high in rigour
and extremity of punishment, yet were they no less grievous in
respect of the generality and multiplicity of vexations, which
lighting upon the meaner sort of tradesmen and artificers did
impoverish many thousands.
54. And so afflict and trouble others, that great numbers to
avoid their miseries departed out of the kingdom, some into
New England and other parts of America, others into Holland.
55. Where they have transported their manufactures of cloth,
which is not only a loss by diminishing the present stock of
the kingdom, but a great mischief by impairing and endangering
the loss of that particular trade of clothing, which hath been
a plentiful fountain of wealth and honour to this nation.
56. Those were fittest for ecclesiastical preferment, and
soonest obtained it, who were most officious in promoting
superstition, most virulent in railing against godliness and
honesty.
57. The most public and solemn sermons before His Majesty were
either to advance prerogative above law, and decry the
property of the subject, or full of such kind of invectives.
58. Whereby they might make those odious who sought to
maintain the religion, laws and liberties of the kingdom, and
such men were sure to be weeded out of the commission of the
peace, and out of all other employments of power in the
government of the country.
59. Many noble personages were councillors in name, but the
power and authority remained in a few of such as were most
addicted to this party, whose resolutions and determinations
were brought to the table for countenance and execution, and
not for debate and deliberation, and no man could offer to
oppose them without disgrace and hazard to himself.
60. Nay, all those that did not wholly concur and actively
contribute to the furtherance of their designs, though
otherwise persons of never so great honour and abilities, were
so far from being employed in any place of trust and power,
that they were neglected, discountenanced, and upon all
occasions injured and oppressed.
61. This faction was grown to that height and entireness of
power, that now they began to think of finishing their work,
which consisted of these three parts.
62. I. The government must be set free from all restraint of
laws concerning our persons and estates.
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63. II. There must be a conjunction between Papists and
Protestants in doctrine, discipline and ceremonies; only it
must not yet be called Popery.
64. III. The Puritans, under which name they include all those
that desire to preserve the laws and liberties of the kingdom,
and to maintain religion in the power of it, must be either
rooted out of the kingdom with force, or driven out with fear.
65. For the effecting of this it was thought necessary to
reduce Scotland to such Popish superstitions and innovations
as might make them apt to join with England in that great
change which was intended.
66. Whereupon new canons and a new liturgy were pressed upon
them, and when they refused to admit of them, an army was
raised to force them to it, towards which the Clergy and the
Papists were very forward in their contribution.
67. The Scots likewise raised an army for their defence.
68. And when both armies were come together, and ready for a
bloody encounter, His Majesty's own gracious disposition, and
the counsel of the English nobility and dutiful submission of
the Scots, did so far prevail against the evil counsel of
others, that a pacification was made, and His Majesty returned
with peace and much honour to London.
69. The unexpected reconciliation was most acceptable to all
the kingdom, except to the malignant party; whereof the
Archbishop and the Earl of Strafford being heads, they and
their faction begun to inveigh against the peace, and to
aggravate the proceedings of the states, which so increased
[incensed?] His Majesty, that he forthwith prepared again for
war.
70. And such was their confidence, that having corrupted and
distempered the whole frame and government of the kingdom,
they did now hope to corrupt that which was the only means to
restore all to a right frame and temper again.
71. To which end they persuaded His Majesty to call a
Parliament, not to seek counsel and advice of them, but to
draw countenance and supply from them, and to engage the whole
kingdom in their quarrel.
72. And in the meantime continued all their unjust levies of
money, resolving either to make the Parliament pliant to their
will, and to establish mischief by a law, or else to break it,
and with more colour to go on by violence to take what they
could not obtain by consent. The ground alleged for the
justification of this war was this,
73. That the undutiful demands of the Parliaments in Scotland
was a sufficient reason for His Majesty to take arms against
them, without hearing the reason of those demands, and
thereupon a new army was prepared against them, their ships
were seized in all ports both of England and Ireland, and at
sea, their petitions rejected, their commissioners refused
audience.
74. The whole kingdom most miserably distempered with levies
of men and money, and imprisonments of those who denied to
submit to those levies.
75. The Earl of Strafford passed into Ireland, caused the
Parliament there to declare against the Scots, to give four
subsidies towards that war, and to engage themselves, their
lives and fortunes, for the prosecution of it, and gave
directions for an army of eight thousand foot and one thousand
horse to be levied there, which were for the most part
Papists.
76. The Parliament met upon the 13th of April, 1640. The Earl
of Strafford and Archbishop of Canterbury, with their party,
so prevailed with His Majesty, that the House of Commons was
pressed to yield a supply for maintenance of the war with
Scotland, before they had provided any relief for the great
and pressing grievances of the people, which being against the
fundamental privilege and proceeding of Parliament, was yet in
humble respect to His Majesty, so far admitted as that they
agreed to take the matter of supply into consideration, and
two several days it was debated.
77. Twelve subsidies were demanded for the release of
ship-money alone, a third day was appointed for conclusion,
when the heads of that party begun to fear the people might
close with the King, in falsifying his desires of money; but
that withal they were like to blast their malicious designs
against Scotland, finding them very much indisposed to give
any countenance to that war.
78. Thereupon they wickedly advised the King to break off the
Parliament and to return to the ways of confusion, in which
their own evil intentions were most likely to prosper and
succeed.
79. After the Parliament ended the 5th of May, 1640, this
party grew so bold as to counsel the King to supply himself
out of his subjects' estates by his own power, at his own
will, without their consent.
80. The very next day some members of both Houses had their
studies and cabinets, yea, their pockets searched: another of
them not long after was committed close prisoner for not
delivering some petitions which he received by authority of
that House.
81. And if harsher courses were intended (as was reported) it
is very probable that the sickness of the Earl of Strafford,
and the tumultuous rising in Southwark and about Lambeth were
the causes that such violent intentions were not brought to
execution.
82. A false and scandalous Declaration against the House of
Commons was published in His Majesty's name, which yet wrought
little effect with the people, but only to manifest the
impudence of those who were authors of it.
83. A forced loan of money was attempted in the City of
London.
84. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their several wards,
enjoined to bring in a list of the names of such persons as
they judged fit to lend, and of the sums they should lend. And
such Aldermen as refused to do so were committed to prison.
85. The Archbishop and the other Bishops and Clergy continued
the Convocation, and by a new commission turned it into a
provincial Synod, in which, by an unheard-of presumption, they
made canons that contain in them many matters contrary to the
King's prerogative, to the fundamental laws and statutes of
the realm, to the right of Parliaments, to the property and
liberty of the subject, and matters tending to sedition and of
dangerous consequence, thereby establishing their own
usurpations, justifying their altar-worship, and those other
superstitious innovations which they formerly introduced
without warrant of law.
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86. They imposed a new oath upon divers of His Majesty's
subjects, both ecclesiastical and lay, for maintenance of
their own tyranny, and laid a great tax on the Clergy, for
supply of His Majesty, and generally they showed themselves
very affectionate to the war with Scotland, which was by some
of them styled 'Bellum Episeopale,' and a prayer composed and
enjoined to be read in all churches, calling the Scots rebels,
to put the two nations in blood and make them irreconcilable.
87. All those pretended canons and constitutions were armed
with the several censures of suspension, excommunication,
deprivation, by which they would have thrust out all the good
ministers, and most of the well-affected people of the
kingdom, and left an easy passage to their own design of
reconciliation with Rome.
88. The Popish party enjoyed such exemptions from penal laws
as amounted to a toleration, besides many other encouragements
and Court favours.
89. They had a Secretary of State, Sir Francis Windebanck, a
powerful agent for speeding all their desires.
90. A Pope's Nuncio residing here, to act and govern them
according to such influences as he received from Rome, and to
intercede for them with the most powerful concurrence of the
foreign princes of that religion.
91. By his authority the Papists of all sorts, nobility,
gentry, and clergy were convocated after the manner of a
Parliament.
92. New jurisdictions were erected of Romish Archbishops,
taxes levied, another state moulded within this state
independent in government, contrary in interest and affection,
secretly corrupting the ignorant or negligent professors of
our religion, and closely uniting and combining themselves
against such as were found in this posture, waiting for an
opportunity by force to destroy those whom they could not hope
to seduce.
93. For the effecting whereof they were strengthened with arms
and munitions, encouraged by superstitious prayers, enjoined
by the Nuncio to be weekly made for the prosperity of some
great design.
94. And such power had they at Court, that secretly a
commission was issued out, or intended to be issued to some
great men of that profession, for the levying of soldiers, and
to command and employ them according to private instructions,
which we doubt were framed for the advantage of those who were
the contrivers of them.
95. His Majesty's treasure was consumed, his revenue
anticipated.
96. His servants and officers compelled to lend great sums of
money.
97. Multitudes were called to the Council Table, who were
tired with long attendances there for refusing illegal
payments.
98. The prisons were filled with their commitments; many of
the Sheriffs summoned into the Star Chamber, and some
imprisoned for not being quick enough in levying the
ship-money; the people languished under grief and fear, no
visible hope being left but in desperation.
99. The nobility began to weary of their silence and patience,
and sensible of the duty and trust which belongs to them: and
thereupon some of the most ancient of them did petition His
Majesty at such a time, when evil counsels were so strong,
that they had occasion to expect more hazard to themselves,
than redress of those public evils for which they interceded.
100. Whilst the kingdom was in this agitation and distemper,
the Scots, restrained in their trades, impoverished by the
loss of many of their ships, bereaved of all possibility of
satisfying His Majesty by any naked supplication, entered with
a powerful army into the kingdom, and without any hostile act
or spoil in the country they passed, more than forcing a
passage over the Tyne at Newburn, near Newcastle, possessed
themselves of Newcastle, and had a fair opportunity to press
on further upon the King's army.
101. But duty and reverence to His Majesty, and brotherly love
to the English nation, made them stay there, whereby the King
had leisure to entertain better counsels.
102. Wherein God so blessed and directed him that he summoned
the Great Council of Peers to meet at York upon the 24th of
September, and there declared a Parliament to begin the 3d of
November then following.
103. The Scots, the first day of the Great Council, presented
an humble Petition to His Majesty, whereupon the Treaty was
appointed at Ripon.
104. A present cessation of arms agreed upon, and the full
conclusion of all differences referred to the wisdom and care
of the Parliament.
105. At our first meeting, all oppositions seemed to vanish,
the mischiefs were so evident which those evil counsellors
produced, that no man durst stand up to defend them: yet the
work itself afforded difficulty enough.
106. The multiplied evils and corruption of fifteen years,
strengthened by custom and authority, and the concurrent
interest of many powerful delinquents, were now to be brought
to judgment and reformation.
107. The King's household was to be provided for:--they had
brought him to that want, that he could not supply his
ordinary and necessary expenses without the assistance of his
people.
108. Two armies were to be paid, which amounted very near to
eighty thousand pounds a month.
109. The people were to be tenderly charged, having been
formerly exhausted with many burdensome projects.
110. The difficulties seemed to be insuperable, which by the
Divine Providence we have overcome. The contrarieties
incompatible, which yet in a great measure we have reconciled.
111. Six subsidies have been granted and a Bill of poll-money,
which if it be duly levied, may equal six subsidies more, in
all £600,000.
112. Besides we have contracted a debt to the Scots of
£220,000, yet God hath so blessed the endeavours of this
Parliament, that the kingdom is a great gainer by all these
charges.
113. The ship-money is abolished, which cost the kingdom about
£200,000 a year.
114. The coat and conduct-money, and other military charges
are taken away, which in many countries amounted to little
less than the ship-money.
115. The monopolies are all suppressed, whereof some few did
prejudice the subject, above £1,000,000 yearly.
116. The soap £100,000.
117. The wine £300,000.
118. The leather must needs exceed both, and salt could be no
less than that.
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119. Besides the inferior monopolies, which, if they could be
exactly computed, would make up a great sum.
120. That which is more beneficial than all this is, that the
root of these evils is taken away, which was the arbitrary
power pretended to be in His Majesty of taxing the subject, or
charging their estates without consent in Parliament, which is
now declared to be against law by the judgment of both Houses,
and likewise by an Act of Parliament.
121. Another step of great advantage is this, the living
grievances, the evil counsellors and actors of these mischiefs
have been so quelled.
122. By the justice done upon the Earl of Strafford, the
flight of the Lord Finch and Secretary Windebank.
123. The accusation and imprisonment of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, of Judge Berkeley; and
124. The impeachment of divers other Bishops and Judges, that
it is like not only to be an ease to the present times, but a
preservation to the future.
125. The discontinuance of Parliaments is prevented by the
Bill for a triennial Parliament, and the abrupt dissolution of
this Parliament by another Bill, by which it is provided it
shall not be dissolved or adjourned without the consent of
both Houses.
126. Which two laws well considered may be thought more
advantageous than all the former, because they secure a full
operation of the present remedy, and afford a perpetual spring
of remedies for the future.
127. The Star Chamber.
128. The High Commission.
129. The Courts of the President and Council in the North were
so many forges of misery, oppression and violence, and are all
taken away, whereby men are more secured in their persons,
liberties and estates, than they could be by any law or
example for the regulation of those Courts or terror of the
Judges.
130. The immoderate power of the Council Table, and the
excessive abuse of that power is so ordered and restrained,
that we may well hope that no such things as were frequently
done by them, to the prejudice of the public liberty, will
appear in future times but only in stories, to give us and our
posterity more occasion to praise God for His Majesty's
goodness, and the faithful endeavours of this Parliament.
131. The canons and power of canon-making are blasted by the
votes of both Houses.
132. The exorbitant power of Bishops and their courts are much
abated, by some provisions in the Bill against the High
Commission Court, the authors of the many innovations in
doctrine and ceremonies.
133. The ministers that have been scandalous in their lives,
have been so terrified in just complaints and accusations,
that we may well hope they will be more modest for the time to
come; either inwardly convicted by the sight of their own
folly, or outwardly restrained by the fear of punishment.
134. The forests are by a good law reduced to their right
bounds.
135. The encroachments and oppressions of the Stannary Courts,
the extortions of the clerk of the market.
136. And the compulsion of the subject to receive the Order of
Knighthood against his will, paying of fines for not receiving
it, and the vexatious proceedings thereupon for levying of
those fines, are by other beneficial laws reformed and
prevented.
137. Many excellent laws and provisions are in preparation for
removing the inordinate power, vexation and usurpation of
Bishops, for reforming the pride and idleness of many of the
clergy, for easing the people of unnecessary ceremonies in
religion, for censuring and removing unworthy and unprofitable
ministers, and for maintaining godly and diligent preachers
through the kingdom.
138. Other things of main importance for the good of this
kingdom are in proposition, though little could hitherto be
done in regard of the many other more pressing businesses,
which yet before the end of this Session we hope may receive
some progress and perfection.
139. The establishing and ordering the King's revenue, that so
the abuse of officers and superfluity of expenses may be cut
off, and the necessary disbursements for His Majesty's honour,
the defence and government of the kingdom, may be more
certainly provided for.
140. The regulating of courts of justice, and abridging both
the delays and charges of lawsuits.
141. The settling of some good courses for preventing the
exportation of gold and silver, and the inequality of
exchanges between us and other nations, for the advancing of
native commodities, increase of our manufactures, and well
balancing of trade, whereby the stock of the kingdom may be
increased, or at least kept from impairing, as through neglect
hereof it hath done for many years last past.
142. Improving the herring-fishing upon our coasts, which will
be of mighty use in the employment of the poor, and a
plentiful nursery of mariners for enabling the kingdom in any
great action.
143. The oppositions, obstructions and other difficulties
wherewith we have been encountered, and which still lie in our
way with some strength and much obstinacy, are these: the
malignant party whom we have formerly described to be the
actors and promoters of all our misery, they have taken heart
again.
144. They have been able to prefer some of their own factors
and agents to degrees of honour, to places of trust and
employment, even during the Parliament.
145. They have endeavoured to work in His Majesty ill
impressions and opinions of our proceedings, as if we had
altogether done our own work, and not his; and had obtained
from him many things very prejudicial to the Crown, both in
respect of prerogative and profit.
146. To wipe out this slander we think good only to say thus
much: that all that we have done is for His Majesty, his
greatness, honour and support, when we yield to give £25,000 a
month for the relief of the Northern Counties; this was given
to the King, for he was bound to protect his subjects.
147. They were His Majesty's evil counsellors, and their ill
instruments that were actors in those grievances which brought
in the Scots.
148. And if His Majesty please to force those who were the
authors of this war to make satisfaction, as he might justly
and easily do, it seems very reasonable that the people might
well be excused from taking upon them this burden, being
altogether innocent and free from being any cause of it.
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149. When we undertook the charge of the army, which cost
above £50,000 a month, was not this given to the King? Was it
not His Majesty's army? Were not all the commanders under
contract with His Majesty, at higher rates and greater wages
than ordinary?
150. And have not we taken upon us to discharge all the
brotherly assistance of £300,000, which we gave the Scots? Was
it not toward repair of those damages and losses which they
received from the King's ships and from his ministers?
151. These three particulars amount to above £1,100,000.
152. Besides, His Majesty hath received by impositions upon
merchandise at least £400,000.
153. So that His Majesty hath had out of the subjects' purse
since the Parliament began, £1,500,000 and yet these men can
be so impudent as to tell His Majesty that we have done
nothing for him.
154. As to the second branch of this slander, we acknowledge
with much thankfulness that His Majesty hath passed more good
Bills to the advantage of the subjects than have been in many
ages.
155. But withal we cannot forget that these venomous councils
did manifest themselves in some endeavours to hinder these
good acts.
156. And for both Houses of Parliament we may with truth and
modesty say thus much: that we have ever been careful not to
desire anything that should weaken the Crown either in just
profit or useful power.
157. The triennial Parliament for the matter of it, doth not
extend to so much as by law we ought to have required (there
being two statutes still in force for a Parliament to be once
a year), and for the manner of it, it is in the King's power
that it shall never take effect, if he by a timely summons
shall prevent any other way of assembling.
158. In the Bill for continuance of this present Parliament,
there seems to be some restraint of the royal power in
dissolving of Parliaments, not to take it out of the Crown,
but to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion
only: which was so necessary for the King's own security and
the public peace, that without it we could not have undertaken
any of these great charges, but must have left both the armies
to disorder and confusion, and the whole kingdom to blood and
rapine.
159. The Star Chamber was much more fruitful in oppression
than in profit, the great fines being for the most part given
away, and the rest stalled at long times.
160. The fines of the High Commission were in themselves
unjust, and seldom or never came into the King's purse. These
four Bills are particularly and more specially instanced.
161. In the rest there will not be found so much as a shadow
of prejudice to the Crown.
162. They have sought to diminish our reputation with the
people, and to bring them out of love with Parliaments.
163. The aspersions which they have attempted this way have
been such as these:
164. That we have spent much time and done little, especially
in those grievances which concern religion.
165. That the Parliament is a burden to the kingdom by the
abundance of protections which hinder justice and trade; and
by many subsidies granted much more heavy than any formerly
endured.
166. To which there is a ready answer; if the time spent in
this Parliament be considered in relation backward to the long
growth and deep root of those grievances, which we have
removed, to the powerful supports of those delinquents, which
we have pursued, to the great necessities and other charges of
the commonwealth for which we have provided.
167. Or if it be considered in relation forward to many
advantages, which not only the present but future ages are
like to reap by the good laws and other proceedings in this
Parliament, we doubt not but it will be thought by all
indifferent judgments, that our time hath been much better
employed than in a far greater proportion of time in many
former Parliaments put together; and the charges which have
been laid upon the subject, and the other inconveniences which
they have borne, will seem very light in respect of the
benefit they have and may receive.
168. And for the matter of protections, the Parliament is so
sensible of it that therein they intended to give them
whatsoever ease may stand with honour and justice, and are in
a way of passing a Bill to give them satisfaction.
169. They have sought by many subtle practices to cause
jealousies and divisions betwixt us and our brethren of
Scotland, by slandering their proceedings and intentions
towards us, and by secret endeavours to instigate and incense
them and us one against another.
170. They have had such a party of Bishops and Popish lords in
the House of Peers, as hath caused much opposition and delay
in the prosecution of delinquents, hindered the proceedings of
divers good Bills passed in the Commons' House, concerning the
reformation of sundry great abuses and corruptions both in
Church and State.
171. They have laboured to seduce and corrupt some of the
Commons' House to draw them into conspiracies and combinations
against the liberty of the Parliament.
172. And by their instruments and agents they have attempted
to disaffect and discontent His Majesty's army, and to engage
it for the maintenance of their wicked and traitorous designs;
the keeping up of Bishops in votes and functions, and by force
to compel the Parliament to order, limit and dispose their
proceedings in such manner as might best concur with the
intentions of this dangerous and potent faction.
173. And when one mischievous design and attempt of theirs to
bring on the army against the Parliament and the City of
London, hath been discovered and prevented;
174. They presently undertook another of the same damnable
nature, with this addition to it, to endeavour to make the
Scottish army neutral, whilst the English army, which they had
laboured to corrupt and envenom against us by their false and
slanderous suggestions, should execute their malice to the
subversion of our religion and the dissolution of our
government.
175. Thus they have been continually practising to disturb the
peace, and plotting the destruction even of all the King's
dominions; and have employed their emissaries and agents in
them, all for the promoting their devilish designs, which the
vigilancy of those who were well affected hath still
discovered and defeated before they were ripe for execution in
England and Scotland.
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176. Only in Ireland, which was farther off, they have had
time and opportunity to mould and prepare their work, and had
brought it to that perfection that they had possessed
themselves of that whole kingdom, totally subverted the
government of it, routed out religion, and destroyed all the
Protestants whom the conscience of their duty to God, their
King and country, would not have permitted to join with them,
if by God's wonderful providence their main enterprise upon
the city and castle of Dublin, had not been detected and
prevented upon the very eve before it should have been
executed.
177. Notwithstanding they have in other parts of that kingdom
broken out into open rebellion, surprising towns and castles,
committed murders, rapes and other villainies, and shaken off
all bonds of obedience to His Majesty and the laws of the
realm.
178. And in general have kindled such a fire, as nothing but
God's infinite blessing upon the wisdom and endeavours of this
State will be able to quench it.
179. And certainly had not God in His great mercy unto this
land discovered and confounded their former designs, we had
been the prologue to this tragedy in Ireland, and had by this
been made the lamentable spectacle of misery and confusion.
180. And now what hope have we but in God, when as the only
means of our subsistence and power of reformation is under Him
in the Parliament?
181. But what can we the Commons, without the conjunction of
the House of Lords, and what conjunction can we expect there,
when the Bishops and recusant lords are so numerous and
prevalent that they are able to cross and interrupt our best
endeavours for reformation, and by that means give advantage
to this malignant party to traduce our proceedings?
182. They infuse into the people that we mean to abolish all
Church government, and leave every man to his own fancy for
the service and worship of God, absolving him of that
obedience which he owes under God unto His Majesty, whom we
know to be entrusted with the ecclesiastical law as well as
with the temporal, to regulate all the members of the Church
of England, by such rules of order and discipline as are
established by Parliament, which is his great council in all
affairs both in Church and State.
183. We confess our intention is, and our endeavours have
been, to reduce within bounds that exorbitant power which the
prelates have assumed unto themselves, so contrary both to the
Word of God and to the laws of the land, to which end we
passed the Bill for the removing them from their temporal
power and employments, that so the better they might with
meekness apply themselves to the discharge of their functions,
which Bill themselves opposed, and were the principal
instruments of crossing it.
184. And we do here declare that it is far from our purpose or
desire to let loose the golden reins of discipline and
government in the Church, to leave private persons or
particular congregations to take up what form of Divine
Service they please, for we hold it requisite that there
should be throughout the whole realm a conformity to that
order which the laws enjoin according to the Word of God. And
we desire to unburden the consciences of men of needless and
superstitious ceremonies, suppress innovations, and take away
the monuments of idolatry.
185. And the better to effect the intended reformation, we
desire there may be a general synod of the most grave, pious,
learned and judicious divines of this island; assisted with
some from foreign parts, professing the same religion with us,
who may consider of all things necessary for the peace and
good government of the Church, and represent the results of
their consultations unto the Parliament, to be there allowed
of and confirmed, and receive the stamp of authority, thereby
to find passage and obedience throughout the kingdom.
186. They have maliciously charged us that we intend to
destroy and discourage learning, whereas it is our chiefest
care and desire to advance it, and to provide a competent
maintenance for conscionable and preaching ministers
throughout the kingdom, which will be a great encouragement to
scholars, and a certain means whereby the want, meanness and
ignorance, to which a great part of the clergy is now subject,
will be prevented.
187. And we intended likewise to reform and purge the
fountains of learning, the two Universities, that the streams
flowing from thence may be clear and pure, and an honour and
comfort to the whole land.
188. They have strained to blast our proceedings in
Parliament, by wresting the interpretations of our orders from
their genuine intention.
189. They tell the people that our meddling with the power of
episcopacy hath caused sectaries and conventicles, when
idolatrous and Popish ceremonies, introduced into the Church
by the command of the Bishops have not only debarred the
people from thence, but expelled them from the kingdom.
190. Thus with Elijah, we are called by this malignant party
the troublers of the State, and still, while we endeavour to
reform their abuses, they make us the authors of those
mischiefs we study to prevent.
191. For the perfecting of the work begun, and removing all
future impediments, we conceive these courses will be very
effectual, seeing the religion of the Papists hath such
principles as do certainly tend to the destruction and
extirpation of all Protestants, when they shall have
opportunity to effect it.
192. It is necessary in the first place to keep them in such
condition as that they may not be able to do us any hurt, and
for avoiding of such connivance and favour as hath heretofore
been shown unto them.
193. That His Majesty be pleased to grant a standing
Commission to some choice men named in Parliament, who may
take notice of their increase, their counsels and proceedings,
and use all due means by execution of the laws to prevent all
mischievous designs against the peace and safety of this
kingdom.
194. Thus some good course be taken to discover the
counterfeit and false conformity of Papists to the Church, by
colour whereof persons very much disaffected to the true
religion have been admitted into place of greatest authority
and trust in the kingdom.
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195. For the better preservation of the laws and liberties of
the kingdom, that all illegal grievances and exactions be
presented and punished at the sessions and assizes.
196. And that Judges and Justices be very careful to give this
in charge to the grand jury, and both the Sheriff and Justices
to be sworn to the due execution of the Petition of Right and
other laws.
197. That His Majesty be humbly petitioned by both Houses to
employ such counsellors, ambassadors and other ministers, in
managing his business at home and abroad as the Parliament may
have cause to confide in, without which we cannot give His
Majesty such supplies for support of his own estate, nor such
assistance to the Protestant party beyond the sea, as is
desired.
198. It may often fall out that the Commons may have just
cause to take exceptions at some men for being councillors,
and yet not charge those men with crimes, for there be grounds
of diffidence which lie not in proof.
199. There are others, which though they may be proved, yet
are not legally criminal.
200. To be a known favourer of Papists, or to have been very
forward in defending or countenancing some great offenders
questioned in Parliament; or to speak contemptuously of either
Houses of Parliament or Parliamentary proceedings.
201. Or such as are factors or agents for any foreign prince
of another religion; such are justly suspected to get
councillors' places, or any other of trust concerning public
employment for money; for all these and divers others we may
have great reason to be earnest with His Majesty, not to put
his great affairs into such hands, though we may be unwilling
to proceed against them in any legal way of charge or
impeachment.
202. That all Councillors of State may be sworn to observe
those laws which concern the subject in his liberty, that they
may likewise take an oath not to receive or give reward or
pension from any foreign prince, but such as they shall within
some reasonable time discover to the Lords of His Majesty's
Council.
203. And although they should wickedly forswear themselves,
yet it may herein do good to make them known to be false and
perjured to those who employ them, and thereby bring them into
as little credit with them as with us.
204. That His Majesty may have cause to be in love with good
counsel and good men, by shewing him in an humble and dutiful
manner how full of advantage it would be to himself, to see
his own estate settled in a plentiful condition to support his
honour; to see his people united in ways of duty to him, and
endeavours of the public good; to see happiness, wealth, peace
and safety derived to his own kingdom, and procured to his
allies by the influence of his own power and government."
ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (JANUARY).
The King's attempt against the Five Members.
On the 3d of January, "the king was betrayed into ... an
indiscretion to which all the ensuing disorders and civil wars
ought immediately and directly to be ascribed. This was the
impeachment of Lord Kimbolton and the five members. ...
Herbert, attorney-general, appeared in the House of Peers,
and, in his majesty's name, entered an accusation of high
treason against Lord Kimbolton and five commoners, Hollis, Sir
Arthur Hazlerig, Hambden, Pym, and Strode. The articles were,
That they had traitorously endeavoured to subvert the
fundamental laws and government of the kingdom, to deprive the
king of his regal power, and to impose on his subjects an
arbitrary and tyrannical authority; that they had endeavoured,
by many foul aspersions on his majesty and his government, to
alienate the affections of his people, and make him odious to
them; that they had attempted to draw his late army to
disobedience of his royal commands, and to side with them in
their traitorous designs; that they had invited and encouraged
a foreign power to invade the kingdom; that they had aimed at
subverting the rights and very being of Parliament; that, in
order to complete their traitorous designs, they had
endeavoured, as far as in them lay, by force and terror, to
compel the Parliament to join with them, and to that end had
actually raised and countenanced tumults against the king and
Parliament; and that they had traitorously conspired to levy,
and actually had levied, war against the king. The whole world
stood amazed at this important accusation, so suddenly entered
upon, without concert, deliberation or reflection. ... But men
had not leisure to wonder at the indiscretion of this measure:
their astonishment was excited by new attempts, still more
precipitate and imprudent. A sergeant at arms, in the king's
name, demanded of the House the five members, and was sent
back without any positive answer. Messengers were employed to
search for them and arrest them. Their trunks, chambers, and
studies, were sealed and locked. The House voted all these
acts of violence to be breaches of privilege, and commanded
everyone to defend the liberty of the members. The king,
irritated by all this opposition, resolved next day to come in
person to the House, with an intention to demand, perhaps
seize, in their presence, the persons whom he had accused.
This resolution was discovered to the Countess of Carlisle,
sister to Northumberland, a lady of spirit, wit, and intrigue.
She privately sent intelligence to the five members; and they
had time to withdraw, a moment before the king entered. He was
accompanied by his ordinary retinue, to the number of above
two hundred, armed as usual, some with halberts, some with
walking swords. The king left them at the door, and he himself
advanced alone through the hall, while all the members rose to
receive him. The speaker withdrew from his chair, and the king
took possession of it. The speech which he made was as
follows: 'Gentlemen, I am sorry for this occasion of coming to
you. Yesterday, I sent a sergeant at arms, to demand some,
who, by my order, were accused of high treason. Instead of
obedience, I received a message. ... Therefore am I come to
tell you, that I must have these men wheresoever I can find
them. Well, since I see all the birds are flown, I do expect
that you will send them to me as soon as they return. But I
assure you, on the word of a king, I never did intend any
force, but shall proceed against them in a fair and legal way,
for I never meant any other.' ... When the king was looking
around for the accused members, he asked the speaker, who
stood below, whether any of these persons were in the House?
The speaker, falling on his knee, prudently replied: 'I have,
sir, neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, in this place,
but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am.
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And I humbly ask pardon, that I cannot give any other answer
to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me.' The Commons
were in the utmost disorder; and when the king was departing,
some members cried aloud so as he might hear them, Privilege!
Privilege! and the House immediately adjourned till next day.
That evening, the accused members, to show the greater
apprehension, removed into the city, which was their fortress.
The citizens were the whole night in arms. ... When the House
of Commons met, they affected the greatest dismay; and
adjourning themselves for some days, ordered a committee to
sit in Merchant-Tailors' hall in the city. ... The House again
met, and after confirming the votes of their committee, instantly
adjourned, as if exposed to the most imminent perils from the
violence of their enemies. This practice they continued for
some time. When the people, by these affected panics, were
wrought up to a sufficient degree of rage and terror, it was
thought proper, that the accused members should, with a
triumphant and military procession, take their seats in the
House. The river was covered with boats, and other vessels,
laden with small pieces of ordnance, and prepared for fight.
Skippon, whom the Parliament had appointed, by their own
authority, major-general of the city militia, conducted the
members, at the head of this tumultuary army, to
Westminster-hall. And when the populace, by land and by water,
passed Whitehall, they still asked, with insulting shouts,
What has become of the king and his cavaliers? And whither are
they fled? The king, apprehensive of danger from the enraged
multitude, had retired to Hampton-court, deserted by all the
world, and overwhelmed with grief, shame, and remorse for the
fatal measures into which he had been hurried."
D. Hume,
History of England,
volume 5, chapter 55, pages 85-91.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution,
chapter 6, section 5.
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603-1642,
chapter 103 (volume 10).
J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Pym; Hampden.
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Cent.,
book 8, chapter 10 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (JANUARY-AUGUST).
Preparations for war.
The marshalling of forces.
The raising of the King's standard.
"January 10th. The King with his Court quits Whitehall; the
Five Members and Parliament proposing to return tomorrow, with
the whole City in arms round them. He left Whitehall; never
saw it again till he came to lay down his head there.
March 9th. The King has sent away his Queen from Dover, 'to be
in a place of safety,'--and also to pawn the Crown-jewels in
Holland, and get him arms. He returns Northward again,
avoiding London. Many messages between the Houses of
Parliament and him: 'Will your Majesty grant us Power of the
Militia; accept this list of Lord-Lieutenants?' On the 9th of
March, still advancing Northward without affirmative response,
he has got to Newmarket; where another Message overtakes him,
earnestly urges itself upon him: 'Could not your Majesty
please to grant us Power of the Militia for a limited time?'
'No, by God!' answers his Majesty, 'not for an hour.'
On the 19th of March he is at York; where his Hull Magazine,
gathered for service against the Scots, is lying near; where a
great Earl of Newcastle, and other Northern potentates, will
help him; where at least London and its Puritanism, now grown
so fierce, is far off. There we will leave him; attempting
Hull Magazine, in vain; exchanging messages with his
Parliament; messages, missives, printed and written Papers
without limit: Law-pleadings of both parties before the great
tribunal of the English Nation, each party striving to prove
itself right and within the verge of Law: preserved still in
acres of typography, once thrillingly alive in every fibre of
them; now a mere torpor, readable by few creatures, not
rememberable by any."
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 2, preliminary.
"As early as June 2 a ship had arrived on the North English
coast, bringing the King arms and ammunition from Holland,
purchased by the sale of the crown-jewels which the Queen had
taken abroad. On the 22d of the same month more than forty of
the nobles and others in attendance on the King at York had
put down their names for the numbers of armed horse they would
furnish respectively for his service. Requisitions in the
King's name were also out for supplies of money; and the two
Universities, and the Colleges in each, were invited to send
in their plate. On the other hand, the Parliament had not been
more negligent. There had been contributions or promises from
all the chief Parliamentarian nobles and others; there was a
large loan from the city; and hundreds of thousands, on a
smaller scale, were willing to subscribe. And already, through
all the shires, the two opposed powers were grappling and
jostling with each other in raising levies. On the King's side
there were what were called Commissions of Array, or powers
granted to certain nobles and others by name to raise troops
for the King. On the side of Parliament, in addition to the
Volunteering which had been going on in many places (as, for
example, in Cambridgeshire, where Oliver Cromwell was forming
a troop of Volunteer horse ... ), there was the Militia
Ordinance available wherever the persons named in that
ordinance were really zealous for Parliament, and able to act
personally in the districts assigned them. And so on the 12th
of July the Parliament had passed the necessary vote for
supplying an army, and had appointed the Earl of Essex to be
its commander-in-chief, and the Earl of Bedford to be its
second in command as general of horse. It was known, on the
other side, that the Earl of Lindsey, in consideration of his
past experience of service both on sea and land, was to have
the command of the King's army, and that his master of horse
was to be the King's nephew, young Prince Rupert, who was
expected from the Continent on purpose. Despite all these
preparations, however, it was probably not till August had
begun that the certainty of Civil War was universally
acknowledged. It was on the 9th of that month that the King
issued his proclamation 'for suppressing the present Rebellion
under the command of Robert, Earl of Essex,' offering pardon
to him and others if within six days they made their
submission. The Parliamentary answer to this was on the 11th;
on which day the Commons resolved, each man separately rising
in his place and giving his word, that they would stand by the
Earl of Essex with their lives and fortunes to the end. Still,
even after that, there were trembling souls here and there who
hoped for a reconciliation.
{868}
Monday the 22d of August put an end to all such fluttering:
--On that day, the King, who had meanwhile left York, and come
about a hundred miles farther south, into the very heart of
England, ... made a backward movement as far as the town of
Nottingham, where preparations had been made for the great
scene that was to follow. ... This consisted in bringing out
the royal standard and setting it up in due form. It was about
six o'clock in the evening when it was done. ... A herald read
a proclamation, declaring the cause why the standard had been
set up, and summoning all the lieges to assist his Majesty.
Those who were present cheered and threw up their hats, and,
with a beating of drums and a sounding of trumpets, the
ceremony ended. ... From that evening of the 22d of August,
1642, the Civil War had begun."
D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
book 2, chapter 8 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
John Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Pym; Hampden.
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603-1642,
chapters 104-105 (volume 10).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).
The nation choosing sides.
"In wealth, in numbers, and in cohesion the Parliament was
stronger than the king. To him there had rallied most of the
greater nobles, many of the lesser gentry, some proportion of
the richer citizens, the townsmen of the west, and the rural
population generally of the west and north of England. For the
Parliament stood a strong section of the peers and greater
gentry, the great bulk of the lesser gentry, the townsmen of
the richer parts of England, the whole eastern and home
counties, and lastly, the city of London. But as the Civil War
did not sharply divide classes, so neither did it
geographically bisect England. Roughly speaking, aristocracy
and peasantry, the Church, universities, the world of culture,
fashion, and pleasure were loyal: the gentry, the yeomanry,
trade, commerce, morality, and law inclined to the Parliament.
Broadly divided, the north and west went for the king; the
south and east for the Houses; but the lines of demarcation
were never exact: cities, castles, and manor-houses long held
out in an enemy's county. There is only one permanent
limitation. Draw a line from the Wash to the Solent. East of
that line the country never yielded to the king; from first to
last it never failed the Parliament. Within it are enclosed
Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford,
Bucks, Herts, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Sussex. This was the
wealthiest, the most populous, and the most advanced portion
of England. With Gloucester, Reading, Bristol, Leicester, and
Northampton, it formed the natural home of Puritanism."
F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 4.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).
Edgehill--the opening battle of the war.
The Eastern Association.
Immediately after the raising of his standard at Nottingham,
the King, "aware at last that he could not rely on the
inhabitants of Yorkshire, moved to Shrewsbury, at once to
collect the Catholic gentry of Lancashire and Cheshire, to
receive the Royalist levies of Wales, and to secure the valley
of the Severn. The movement was successful. In a few days his
little army was increased fourfold, and he felt himself strong
enough to make a direct march towards the capital. Essex had
garrisoned Northampton, Coventry and Warwick, and lay himself
at Worcester; but the King, waiting for no sieges, left the
garrisoned towns unmolested and passed on towards London, and
Essex received peremptory orders to pursue and interpose if
possible between the King and London. On the 22nd of October
he was close upon the King's rear at Keynton, between
Stratford and Banbury. But his army was by no means at its
full strength; some regiments had been left to garrison the
West, others, under Hampden had not yet joined him. But delay
was impossible, and the first battle of the war was fought on
the plain at the foot of the north-west slope of Edgehill,
over which the royal army descended, turning back on its
course to meet Essex. Both parties claimed the victory. In
fact it was with the King. The Parliamentary cavalry found
themselves wholly unable to withstand the charge of Rupert's
cavaliers. Whole regiments turned and fled without striking a
blow; but, as usual, want of discipline ruined the royal
cause. Rupert's men fell to plundering the Parliamentary
baggage, and returned to the field only in time to find that
the infantry, under the personal leading of Essex, had
reestablished the fight. Night closed the battle [which is
sometimes named from Edgehill and sometimes from Keynton]. The
King's army withdrew to the vantage-ground of the hills, and
Essex, reinforced by Hampden, passed the night upon the field.
But the Royalist army was neither beaten nor checked in its
advance, while the rottenness of the Parliamentary troops had
been disclosed." Some attempts at peace-making followed this
doubtful first collision; but their only effect was to
embitter the passions on both sides. The King advanced,
threatening London, but the citizens of the capital turned out
valiantly to oppose him, and he "fell back upon Oxford, which
henceforward became the centre of their operations. ... War
was again the only resource, and speedily became universal.
... There was local fighting over the whole of England. ...
The headquarters of the King were constantly at Oxford, from
which, as from a centre, Rupert would suddenly make rapid
raids, now in one direction, now in another. Between him and
London, about Reading, Aylesbury, and Thame, lay what may be
spoken of as the main army of Parliament, under the command of
Lord-General Essex. ... The other two chief scenes of the war
were Yorkshire and the West. In Yorkshire the Fairfaxes,
Ferdinando Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas, made what head
they could against what was known as the Popish army under the
command of the Earl, subsequently Marquis of Newcastle, which
consisted mainly of the troops of the Northern counties, which
had become associated under Newcastle in favour of Charles.
Newark, in Nottinghamshire, was early made a royal garrison,
and formed the link of connection between the operations in
Yorkshire and at Oxford. In the extreme South-west, Lord
Stamford, the Parliamentary General, was making a somewhat
unsuccessful resistance against Sir Ralph, afterwards Lord
Hopton. Wales was wholly Royalist, and one of the chief
objects of Charles's generals was to secure the Severn valley,
and thus connect the war in Devonshire with the central
operations at Oxford. In the Eastern counties matters assumed
rather a different form. The principle of forming several
counties into an association ... was adopted by the
Parliament, and several such associations were formed, but
none of these came to much except that of the Eastern
counties, which was known by way of preeminence as 'The
Association.' Its object was to keep the war entirely beyond
the borders of the counties of which it consisted. The reason
of its success was the genius and energy of Cromwell."
J. F. Bright,
History of England, period 2,
page 659.
{869}
"This winter there arise among certain Counties 'Associations'
for mutual defence, against Royalism and plunderous Rupertism;
a measure cherished by the Parliament, condemned as
treasonable by the King. Of which 'Associations,' countable to
the number of five or six, we name only one, that of Norfolk,
Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Herts; with Lord Gray of Wark for
Commander; where and under whom Oliver was now serving. This
'Eastern Association' is alone worth naming. All the other
Associations, no man of emphasis being in the midst of them,
fell in a few months to pieces; only this of Cromwell
subsisted, enlarged itself, grew famous;--and kept its own
borders clear of invasion during the whole course of the War."
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 2, preliminary.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
History of the Great Civil War,
chapters 2-4 (volume l).
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth,
chapter 2 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (May).
Cromwell's Ironsides.
"It was ... probably, a little before Edgehill, that there
took place between Cromwell and Hampden the memorable
conversation which fifteen years afterwards the Protector
related in a speech to his second Parliament. It is a piece of
autobiography so instructive and pathetic that it must be set
forth in full in the words of Cromwell himself:
'I was a person who, from my first employment, was suddenly
preferred and lifted up from lesser trusts to greater; from my
first being Captain of a Troop of Horse. ... I had a very
worthy friend then; and he was a very noble person, and I know
his memory was very grateful to all,--Mr. John Hampden. At my
first going out into this engagement, I saw our men were
beaten at every hand. ... Your troops, said I, are most of
them old decayed serving-men, and tapsters, and such kind of
fellows; and, said I, their troops are gentlemen's sons,
younger sons and persons of quality: do you think that the
spirits of such base mean fellows will ever be able to
encounter gentlemen, that have honour and courage and
resolution in them? Truly I did represent to him in this
manner conscientiously; and truly I did tell him: You must get
men of a spirit: and take it not ill what I say,--I know you
will not,--of a spirit that is likely to go on as far as
gentlemen will go: or else you will be beaten still. I told
him so; I did truly. He was a wise and worthy person; and he
did think that I talked a good notion, but an impracticable
one. ... I raised such men as had the fear of God before them,
as made some conscience of what they did; and from that day
forward, I must say to you, they were never beaten, and
wherever they were engaged against the enemy they beat
continually.' ... The issue of the whole war lay in that word.
It lay with 'such men as had some conscience in what they
did.' 'From that day forward they were never beaten.' ... As
for Colonel Cromwell,' writes a news-letter of May, 1643, 'he
hath 2,000 brave men, well disciplined; no man swears but he
pays his twelve-pence; if he be drunk, he is set in the
stocks, or worse; if one calls the other roundhead he is
cashiered: insomuch that the countries where they come leap
for joy of them, and come in and join with them. How happy
were it if all the forces were thus disciplined!' These were
the men who ultimately decided the war, and established the
Commonwealth. On the field of Marston, Rupert gave Cromwell
the name of Ironside, and from thence this famous name passed
to his troopers. There are two features in their history which
we need to note. They were indeed 'such men as had some
conscience in their work'; but they were also much more. They
were disciplined and trained soldiers. They were the only body
of 'regulars' on either side. The instinctive genius of
Cromwell from the very first created the strong nucleus of a
regular army, which at last in discipline, in skill, in
valour, reached the highest perfection ever attained by
soldiers either in ancient or modern times. The fervour of
Cromwell is continually pressing towards the extension of this
'regular' force. Through all the early disasters, this body of
Ironsides kept the cause alive: at Marston it overwhelmed the
king: as soon as, by the New Model, this system was extended
to the whole army, the Civil War was at an end."
F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Cromwell.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).
The King calls in the Irish.
"To balance the accession of power which the alliance with
Scotland brought to the Parliament, Charles was so unwise, men
then said so guilty, as to conclude a peace with the Irish
rebels, with the intent that thus those of his forces which
had been employed against them, might be set free to join his
army in England. No act of the King, not the levying of
ship-money, not the crowd of monopolies which enriched the
court and impoverished the people, neither the extravagance of
Buckingham, the tyranny of Strafford nor the prelacy of Laud, not
even the attempted arrest of the five members, raised such a
storm of indignation and hatred throughout the kingdom, as did
this determination of the King to withdraw (as men said), for
the purpose of subduing his subjects, the force which had been
raised to avenge the blood of 100,000 Protestant martyrs. ...
To the England of the time this act was nauseous, was
exasperating to the highest degree, while to the cause of the
King it was fatal; for, from this moment, the condition of the
Parliamentary party began to mend."
N. L. Walford,
Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War,
chapter 2.
"None of the king's schemes proved so fatal to his cause as
these. On their discovery, officer after officer in his own
army flung down their commissions, the peers who had fled to
Oxford fled back again to London, and the Royalist reaction in
the Parliament itself came utterly to an end."
J. R. Green,
Short History of England,
chapter 8, section 7.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
History of the Great Civil War,
chapter 11 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JULY).
Meeting of the Westminster Assembly of Divines.
At the beginning of July, 1643, "London was astir with a new
event of great consequence in the course of the national
revolution. This was the meeting of the famous Westminster
Assembly. The necessity of an ecclesiastical Synod or
Convocation, to cooperate with the Parliament, had been long
felt.
{870}
Among the articles of the Grand Remonstrance of December 1641
had been one desiring a convention of 'a General Synod of the
most grave, pious, learned, and judicious divines of this
island, assisted by some from foreign parts,' to consider of
all things relating to the Church and report thereon to
Parliament. It is clear from the wording of this article that
it was contemplated that the Synod should contain
representatives from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
Indeed, by that time, the establishment of a uniformity of
Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship between the Churches of
England and Scotland was the fixed idea of those who chiefly
desired a Synod. ... In April, 1642 ... it was ordered by the
House, in pursuance of previous resolutions on the subject,
'that the names of such divines as shall be thought fit to be
consulted with concerning the matter of the Church be brought
in tomorrow morning,' the understood rule being that the
knights and burgesses of each English county should name to
the House two divines, and those of each Welsh county one
divine, for approval. Accordingly, on the 20th, the names were
given in. ... By the stress of the war the Assembly was
postponed. At last, hopeless of a bill that should pass in the
regular way by the King's consent, the Houses resorted, in
this as in other things, to their peremptory plan of Ordinance
by their own authority. On the 13th of May, 1643, an Ordinance
for calling an Assembly was introduced in the Commons; which
Ordinance, after due going and coming between the two Houses,
came to maturity June 12, when it was entered at full length
in the Lords' Journals. 'Whereas, amongst the infinite
blessings of Almighty God upon this nation,'--so runs the
preamble of the Ordinance,--'none is, or can be, more dear to
us than the purity of our religion; and for as much as many
things yet remain in the discipline, liturgy and government of
the Church which necessarily require a more perfect
reformation: and whereas it has been declared and resolved, by
the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament, that the
present Church Government by Archbishops, Bishops, their
Chancellors, Commissaries, Deans, Deans and Chapters,
Archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical officers depending on
the hierarchy, is evil and justly offensive and burdensome to
the kingdom, and a great impediment to reformation and growth
of religion, and very prejudicial to the state and government
of this kingdom, and that therefore they are resolved the same
shall be taken away, and that such a government shall be
settled in the Church as may be agreeable to God's Holy Word,
and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the Church
at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and
other reformed Churches abroad. ... Be it therefore ordained,
&c.' What is ordained is that 149 persons, enumerated by name
in the Ordinance ... shall meet on the 1st of July next in
King Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster; ... 'to confer and
treat among themselves of such matters and things, concerning
the liturgy, discipline and government of the Church of
England ... as shall be proposed by either or both Houses of
Parliament, and no other.' ... Notwithstanding a Royal
Proclamation from Oxford, dated June 22, forbidding the
Assembly and threatening consequences, the first meeting duly
took place on the day appointed--Saturday, July 1, 1643; and
from that day till the 22d of February, 1648-9, or for more
than five years and a half, the Westminster Assembly is to be
borne in mind as a power or institution in the English realm,
existing side by side with the Long Parliament, and in
constant conference and cooperation with it. The number of its
sittings during these five years and a half was 1,163 in all;
which is at the rate of about four sittings every week for the
whole time. The earliest years of the Assembly were the most
important."
D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
book 3, chapter 3 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
A. F. Mitchell,
The Westminster Assembly,
lectures 4-5.
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 3, chapters 2 and 4.
SEE, also, INDEPENDENTS.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
The Solemn League and Covenant with the Scottish nation.
"Scotland had been hitherto kept aloof from the English
quarrel. ... Up to this time the pride and delicacy of the
English patriots withheld them, for obvious reasons, from
claiming her assistance. Had it been possible, they would
still have desired to engage no distant party in this great
domestic struggle; but when the present unexpected crisis
arrived ... these considerations were laid aside, and the
chief leaders of the Parliament resolved upon an embassy to
the North, to bring the Scottish nation into the field. The
conduct of this embassy was a matter of the highest difficulty
and danger. The Scots were known to be bigoted to their own
persuasions of narrow and exclusive church government, while
the greatest men of the English Parliament had proclaimed the
sacred maxim that every man who worshipped God according to
the dictates of his conscience was entitled to the protection
of the State. But these men, Vane, Cromwell, Marten and St.
John, though the difficulties of the common cause had brought
them into the acknowledged position of leaders and directors
of affairs, were in a minority in the House of Commons, and
the party who were their superiors in numbers were as bigoted
to the most exclusive principles of Presbyterianism as the
Scots themselves. Denzil Holies stood at the head of this
inferior class of patriots. ... The most eminent of the
Parliamentary nobility, particularly Northumberland, Essex and
Manchester belonged also to this body; while the London
clergy, and the metropolis itself, were almost entirely
Presbyterian. These things considered, there was indeed great
reason to apprehend that this party, backed by the Scots, and
supported with a Scottish army, would be strong enough to
overpower the advocates of free conscience, and 'set up a
tyranny not less to be deplored than that of Laud and his
hierarchy, which had proved one of the main occasions of
bringing on the war.' Yet, opposing to all this danger only
their own high purposes and dauntless courage, the smaller
party of more consummate statesmen were the first to propose
the embassy to Scotland. ... On the 20th of July, 1643, the
commissioners set out from London. They were four; and the man
principally confided in among them was Vane [Sir Henry, the
younger]. He, indeed, was the individual best qualified to
succeed Hampden as a counsellor in the arduous struggle in
which the nation was at this time engaged. ... Immediately on
his arrival in Edinburgh the negotiation commenced, and what
Vane seems to have anticipated at once occurred. The Scots
offered their assistance heartily on the sole condition of an
adhesion to the Scottish religious system on the part of
England.
{871}
After many long and very warm debates, in which Vane held to
one firm policy from the first, a solemn covenant was
proposed, which Vane insisted should be named a solemn league
and covenant, while certain words were inserted in it on his
subsequent motion, to which he also adhered with immovable
constancy, and which had the effect of leaving open to the
great party in England, to whose interests he was devoted,
that last liberty of conscience which man should never
surrender. ... The famous article respecting religion ran in
these words;
'That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the
grace of God, endeavour, in our several places and callings,
the preservation of the Reformed religion in the Church of
Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government,
against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the
kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship,
discipline, and government, according to the Word of God, and
the example of the best Reformed churches; and we shall
endeavour to bring the churches of God in the three kingdoms
to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion,
confessing of faith, form of church government directory for
worship and catechizing; that we and our posterity after us,
may as brethren live in faith and love, and the Lord may
delight to dwell in the midst of us. That we shall in like
manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation
of popery, prelacy (that is, church government by archbishops,
bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans, deans and
chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers
depending on that hierarchy).' Vane, by this introduction of
'according to the Word of God,' left the interpretation of
that word to the free conscience of every man. On the 17th of
August, the solemn league and covenant was voted by the
Legislature and the Assembly of the Church at Edinburgh. The
king in desperate alarm, sent his commands to the Scotch
people not to take such a covenant. In reply, they 'humbly
advised his majesty to take the covenant himself.' The
surpassing service rendered by Vane on this great occasion to
the Parliamentary cause, exposed him to a more violent hatred
from the Royalists than he had yet experienced, and Clarendon
has used every artifice to depreciate his motives and his
sincerity. ... The solemn league and covenant remained to be
adopted in England. The Scottish form of giving it authority
was followed as far as possible. It was referred by the two
Houses to the Assembly of Divines, which had commenced its
sittings on the 1st of the preceding July, being called
together to be consulted with by the Parliament for the
purpose of settling the government and form of worship of the
Church of England. This assembly already referred to,
consisted of 121 of the clergy; and a number of lay assessors
were joined with them, consisting of ten peers, and twenty
members of the House of Commons. All these persons were named
by the ordinance of the two Houses of Parliament which gave
birth to the assembly. The public taking of the Covenant was
solemnized on the 25th of September, each member of either
House attesting his adherence by oath first, and then by
subscribing his name. The name of Vane, subscribed immediately
on his return, appears upon the list next to that of
Cromwell."
J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Vane.
ALSO IN:
J. K. Hosmer,
Life of Young Sir Henry Vane,
chapter 8.
A. F. Mitchell,
The Westminster Assembly,
lectures 5-6.
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 3, chapter 2.
S. R. Gardiner,
Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution,
page 187.
The following is the text of the Solemn League and Covenant:
"A solemn league and covenant for Reformation and defence of
religion, the honour and happiness of the King, and the peace
and safety of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and
Ireland. We noblemen, barons, knights, gentlemen, citizens,
burgesses, ministers of the Gospel, and commons of all sorts
in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, by the
providence of God living under one King, and being of one
reformed religion; having before our eyes the glory of God,
and the advancement of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, the honour and happiness of the King's Majesty
and his posterity, and the true public liberty, safety and
peace of the kingdoms, wherein everyone's private condition is
included; and calling to mind the treacherous and bloody
plots, conspiracies, attempts and practices of the enemies of
God against the true religion and professors thereof in all
places, especially in these three kingdoms, ever since the
reformation of religion; and how much their rage, power and
presumption are of late, and at this time increased and
exercised, whereof the deplorable estate of the Church and
kingdom of Ireland, the distressed estate of the Church and
kingdom of England, and the dangerous estate of the Church and
kingdom of Scotland, are present and public testimonies: we
have (now at last) after other means of supplication,
remonstrance, protestations and sufferings, for the
preservation of ourselves and our religion from utter ruin and
destruction, according to the commendable practice of these
kingdoms in former times, and the example of God's people in
other nations, after mature deliberation, resolved and
determined to enter into a mutual and solemn league and
covenant, wherein we all subscribe, and each one of us for
himself, with our hands lifted up to the most high God, do
swear,
I. That we shall sincerely, really and constantly, through the
grace of God, endeavour in our several places and callings,
the preservation of the reformed religion in the Church of
Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government,
against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the
kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship,
discipline and government, according to the Word of God, and
the example of the best reformed Churches; and we shall
endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three kingdoms
to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion,
confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for
worship and catechising, that we, and our posterity after us,
may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may
delight to dwell in the midst of us.
II. That we shall in like manner, without respect of persons,
endeavour the extirpation of Popery, prelacy (that is, Church
government by Archbishops, Bishops, their Chancellors and
Commissaries, Deans, Deans and Chapters, Archdeacons, and all
other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy),
superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness and whatsoever shall
be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of
godliness lest we partake in other men's sins, and thereby be
in danger to receive of their plagues; and that the Lord may
be one, and His name one in the three kingdoms.
{872}
III. We shall with the same sincerity, reality and constancy,
in our several vocations, endeavour with our estates and lives
mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of the
Parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms, and to
preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person and authority,
in the preservation and defence of the true religion and
liberties of the kingdoms, that the world may bear witness
with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no
thoughts or intentions to diminish His Majesty's just power
and greatness.
IV. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the
discovery of all such as have been or shall be incendiaries,
malignants or evil instruments, by hindering the reformation
of religion, dividing the King from his people, or one of the
kingdoms from another, or making any faction or parties
amongst the people, contrary to the league and covenant, that
they may be brought to public trial and receive condign
punishment, as the degree of their offences shall require or
deserve, or the supreme judicatories of both kingdoms
respectively, or others having power from them for that
effect, shall judge convenient.
V. And whereas the happiness of a blessed peace between these
kingdoms, denied in former times to our progenitors, is by the
good providence of God granted to us, and hath been lately
concluded and settled by both Parliaments: we shall each one
of us, according to our places and interest, endeavour that
they may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all
posterity, and that justice may be done upon the wilful
opposers thereof, in manner expressed in the precedent
articles.
VI. We shall also, according to our places and callings, in
this common cause of religion, liberty and peace of the
kingdom, assist and defend all those that enter into this
league and covenant, in the maintaining and pursuing thereof;
and shall not suffer ourselves, directly or indirectly, by
whatsoever combination, persuasion or terror, to be divided
and withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether
to make defection to the contrary part, or give ourselves to a
detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause, which so
much concerneth the glory of God, the good of the kingdoms,
and the honour of the King; but shall all the days of our
lives zealously and constantly continue therein, against all
opposition, and promote the same according to our power,
against all lets and impediments whatsoever; and what we are
not able ourselves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and
make known, that it may be timely prevented or removed: all
which we shall do as in the sight of God. And because these
kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocations against God,
and His Son Jesus Christ, as is too manifest by our present
distresses and dangers, the fruits thereof: we profess and
declare, before God and the world, our unfeigned desire to be
humbled for our own sins, and for the sins of these kingdoms;
especially that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable
benefit of the Gospel; that we have not laboured for the
purity and power thereof; and that we have not endeavoured to
receive Christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of Him in our
lives, which are the causes of other sins and transgressions
so much abounding amongst us, and our true and unfeigned
purpose, desire and endeavour, for ourselves and all others
under our power and charge, both in public and in private, in
all duties we owe to God and man, to amend our lives, and each
one to go before another in the example of a real reformation,
that the Lord may turn away His wrath and heavy indignation,
and establish these Churches and kingdoms in truth and peace.
And this covenant we make in the presence of Almighty God, the
Searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the
same, as we shall answer at that Great Day when the secrets of
all hearts shall be disclosed: most humbly beseeching the Lord
to strengthen us by His Holy Spirit for this end, and to bless
our desires and Proceedings with such success as may be a
deliverance and safety to His people, and encouragement to the
Christian Churches groaning under or in danger of the yoke of
Anti-Christian tyranny, to join in the same or like
association and covenant, to the glory of God, the enlargement
of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the peace and tranquility
of Christian kingdoms and commonwealths."
ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (August-September).
Siege of Gloucester and first Battle of Newbury.
"When the war had lasted a year, the advantage was decidedly
with the Royalists. They were victorious, both in the western
and in the northern counties. They had wrested Bristol, the
second city in the kingdom, from the Parliament. They had won
several battles, and had not sustained a single serious or
ignominious defeat. Among the Roundheads, adversity had begun
to produce dissension and discontent. The Parliament was kept
in alarm, sometimes by plots and sometimes by riots. It was
thought necessary to fortify London against the royal army,
and to hang some disaffected citizens at their own doors.
Several of the most distinguished peers who had hitherto
remained at Westminster fled to the court at Oxford; nor can
it be doubted that, if the operations of the Cavaliers had, at
this season, been directed by a sagacious and powerful mind,
Charles would soon have marched in triumph to Whitehall. But
the King suffered the auspicious moment to pass away; and it
never returned. In August, 1643, he sate down before the city
of Gloucester. That city was defended by the inhabitants and
by the garrison, with a determination such as had not, since
the commencement of the war, been shown by the adherents of
the Parliament. The emulation of London was excited. The
trainbands of the City volunteered to march wherever their
services might be required. A great force was speedily
collected, and began to move westward. The siege of Gloucester
was raised. The Royalists in every part of the kingdom were
disheartened; the spirit of the parliamentary party revived;
and the apostate Lords, who had lately fled from Westminster
to Oxford, hastened back from Oxford to Westminster."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 1.
After accomplishing the relief of Gloucester, the
Parliamentary army, marching back to London, was intercepted
at Newbury by the army of the king, and forced to fight a
battle, September 20, 1643, in which both parties, as at
Edgehill, claimed the victory. The Royalists, however, failed
to bar the road to London, as they had undertaken to do, and
Essex resumed his march on the following morning.
{873}
"In this unhappy battle was slain the lord viscount Falkland;
a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge,
of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of
so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind,
and of that primitive sincerity and integrity of life, that if
there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed war
than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable
to all posterity."
Earl of Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion,
book 7, section 217.
This lamented death on the royal side nearly evened, so to
speak, the great, unmeasured calamity which had befallen the
better cause three months before, when the high-souled patriot
Hampden was slain in a paltry skirmish with Rupert's horse, at
Chalgrove Field, not far from the borders of Oxfordshire. Soon
after the fight at Newbury, Charles, having occupied Reading,
withdrew his army to Oxford and went into winter quarters.
N. L. Walford,
Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
Sir E. Cust,
Lives of the Warriors of the Civil Wars,
part 2.
S. R. Gardiner,
History of the Great Civil War,
chapter 10 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (January).
Battle of Nantwich and siege of Lathom House.
The Irish army brought over by King Charles and landed in
Flintshire, in November, 1643, under the command of Lord
Byron, invaded Cheshire and laid siege to Nantwich, which was
the headquarters of the Parliamentary cause in that region.
Young Sir Thomas Fairfax was ordered to collect forces and
relieve the town. With great difficulty he succeeded, near the
end of January, 1644, in leading 2,500 foot-soldiers and
twenty-eight troops of horse, against the besieging army,
which numbered 3,000 foot and 1,800 horse. On the 28th of
January he attacked and routed the Irish royalists completely.
"All the Royalist Colonels, including the subsequently
notorious Monk, 1,500 soldiers, six pieces of ordnance, and
quantities of arms, were captured." Having accomplished this
most important service, Sir Thomas, "to his great annoyance,"
received orders to lay siege to Lathom House, one of the
country seats of the Earl of Derby, which had been fortified
and secretly garrisoned, with 300 soldiers. It was held by the
high-spirited and dauntless Countess of Derby, in the absence
of her husband, who was in the Isle of Man. Sir Thomas Fairfax
soon escaped from this ignoble enterprise and left it to be
carried on, first, by his cousin, Sir William Fairfax, and
afterwards by Colonel Rigby. The Countess defended her house
for three months, until the approach of Prince Rupert forced
the raising of the siege in the following spring. Lathom House
was not finally surrendered to the Roundheads until December
6, 1645, when it was demolished.
C. R. Markham,
Life of the Great Lord Fairfax,
chapter 13.
ALSO IN:
Mrs. Thompson,
Recollections of Literary Characters and Celebrated Places,
volume 2, chapter 2.
E. Warburton,
Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers,
page 2, chapter 4.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (January-July).
The Scots in England.
The Battle of Marston Moor.
"On the 19th of January, 1644, the Scottish army entered
England. Lesley, now earl of Leven, commanded them. ... In the
meantime, the parliament at Westminster formed a council under
the title of 'The Committee of the Two Kingdoms,' consisting
of seven Lords, fourteen members of the Commons, and four
Scottish Commissioners. Whatever belongs to the executive
power as distinguished from the legislative devolved upon this
Committee. In the spring of 1644 the parliament had five
armies in the field, paid by general or local taxation, and by
voluntary contributions. Including the Scottish army there
were altogether 56,000 men under arms; the English forces
being commanded, as separate armies, by Essex, Waller,
Manchester, and Fairfax. Essex and Waller advanced to blockade
Oxford. The queen went to Exeter in April, and never saw
Charles again. The blockading forces around Oxford had become
so strong that resistance appeared to be hopeless. On the
night of the 3d of June the king secretly left the city and
passed safely between the two hostile armies. There had again
been jealousies and disagreements between Essex and Waller.
Essex, supported by the council of war, but in opposition to
the committee of the two kingdoms, had marched to the west.
Waller, meanwhile, went in pursuit of the king into
Worcestershire, Charles suddenly returned to Oxford; and then
at Copredy Bridge, near Banbury, defeated Waller, who had
hastened back to encounter him. Essex was before the walls of
Exeter, in which city the queen had given birth to a princess.
The king hastened to the west. He was strong enough to meet
either of the parliamentary armies thus separated. Meanwhile
the combined English and Scottish armies were besieging York.
Rupert had just accomplished the relief of Lathom House, which
had been defended by the heroic countess of Derby for eighteen
weeks, against a detachment of the army of Fairfax. He then
marched towards York with 20,000 men. The allied English and
Scots retired from Hessey Moor, near York, to Tadcaster.
Rupert entered York with 2,000 cavalry. The Earl of Newcastle
was in command there. He counselled a prudent delay. The
impetuous Rupert said he had the orders of the king for his
guidance, and he was resolved to fight. On the 2nd of July,
having rested two days in and near York, and enabled the city
to be newly provisioned, the royalist army went forth to
engage. They met their enemy on Marston Moor. The issue of the
encounter would have been more than doubtful, but for
Cromwell, who for the first time had headed his Ironsides in a
great pitched battle. The right wing of the parliamentary army
was scattered. Rupert was chasing and slaying the Scottish
cavalry. ... The charges of Fairfax and Cromwell decided the
day. The victory of the parliamentary forces was so complete
that the Earl of Newcastle left York, and embarked at
Scarborough for the continent. Rupert marched away also, with
the wreck of his army, to Chester. Fifteen hundred prisoners,
all the artillery, more than 100 banners, remained with the
victors; 4,150 bodies lay dead on the plain."
C. Knight,
Crown History of England,
chapter 25.
ALSO IN:
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 2, letter 8.
B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts,
King and Commonwealth,
chapter 7.
W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, chapter 12,
(volume 1).
E. Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the
Cavaliers, volume 2, chapter 4.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (August-September).
Essex's surrender.
The second Battle of Newbury.
{874}
"The great success at Marston, which had given the north to
the Parliament, was all undone in the south and west through
feebleness and jealousies in the leaders and the wretched
policy that directed the war. Detached armies, consisting of a
local militia, were aimlessly ordered about by a committee of
civilians in London. Disaster followed on disaster. Essex,
Waller, and Manchester would neither agree amongst themselves
nor obey orders. Essex and Waller had parted before Marston
was fought; Manchester had returned from York to protect his
own eastern counties. Waller, after his defeat at Copredy, did
nothing, and naturally found his army melting away. Essex,
perversely advancing into the west, was out-manœuvred by
Charles, and ended a campaign of blunders by the surrender of
all his infantry [at Fowey, in Cornwall, September 2, 1644].
By September 1644 throughout the whole south-west the
Parliament had not an army in the field. But the Committee of
the Houses still toiled on with honourable spirit, and at last
brought together near Newbury a united army nearly double the
strength of the King's. On Sunday, the 29th of October, was
fought the second battle of Newbury, as usual in these
ill-ordered campaigns, late in the afternoon. An arduous day
ended without victory, in spite of the greater numbers of the
Parliament's army, though the men fought well, and their
officers led them with skill and energy. At night the King was
suffered to withdraw his army without loss, and later to carry
off his guns and train. The urgent appeals of Cromwell and his
officers could not infuse into Manchester energy to win the
day, or spirit to pursue the retreating foe."
F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts,
King and Commonwealth,
chapters 7.
S. R. Gardiner,
History of the Great Civil War,
chapters 19 and 21.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1644-1645.
The Self-denying Ordinance.
"Cromwell had shown his capacity for organization in the
creation of the Ironsides; his military genius had displayed
itself at Marston Moor. Newbury first raised him into a
political leader. 'Without a more speedy, vigorous and
effective prosecution of the war,' he said to the Commons
after his quarrel with Manchester, 'casting off all lingering
proceedings, like those of soldiers of fortune beyond sea to
spin out a war, we shall make the kingdom weary of us, and
hate the name of a Parliament.' But under the leaders who at
present conducted it a vigorous conduct of the war was
hopeless. They were, in Cromwell's plain words, 'afraid to
conquer.' They desired not to crush Charles, but to force him
back, with as much of his old strength remaining as might be,
to the position of a constitutional King. ... The army, too,
as he long ago urged at Edgehill, was not an army to conquer
with. Now, as then, he urged that till the whole force was new
modeled, and placed under a stricter discipline, 'they must
not expect any notable success in anything they went about.'
But the first step in such a reorganization must be a change
of officers. The army was led and officered by members of the
two Houses, and the Self-renouncing [or Self-denying]
Ordinance, which was introduced by Cromwell and Vane, declared
the tenure of civil or military offices incompatible with a
seat in either. In spite of a long and bitter resistance,
which was justified at a later time by the political results
which followed this rupture of the tie which had hitherto
bound the army to the Parliament, the drift of public opinion
was too strong to be withstood. The passage of the Ordinance
brought about the retirement of Essex, Manchester, and Waller;
and the new organization of the army went rapidly on under a
new commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax, the hero of the
long contest in Yorkshire, and who had been raised into fame
by his victory at Nantwich and his bravery at Marston Moor."
J. R. Green,
Short History of England,
chapter 8, section 7.
ALSO IN:
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth,
chapter 15 (volume l).
J. K. Hosmer,
Life of Young Sir Henry Vane,
chapter 11.
J. A. Picton,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 10.
J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Vane.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (January-February).
The attempted Treaty of Uxbridge.
A futile negotiation between the king and Parliament was
opened at Uxbridge in January, 1645. "But neither the king nor
his advisers entered on it with minds sincerely bent on peace;
they, on the one hand, resolute not to swerve from the utmost
rigour of a conqueror's terms, without having conquered; and
he though more secretly, cherishing illusive hopes of a more
triumphant restoration to power than any treaty could be
expected to effect. The three leading topics of discussion
among the negotiators at Uxbridge were, the church, the
militia, and the state of Ireland. Bound by their unhappy
covenant, and watched by their Scots colleagues, the English
commissioners on the parliament's side demanded the complete
establishment of a presbyterian polity, and the substitution
of what was called the directory for the Anglican liturgy.
Upon this head there was little prospect of a union."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 10, part 1.
ALSO IN:
Earl of Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion,
book 8, sections 209-252 (volume 3).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (January-April).
The New Model of the army.
The passage of the Self-denying Ordinance was followed, or
accompanied, by the adoption of the scheme for the so-called
New Model of the army. "The New Model was organised as
follows:
10 Regiments of Cavalry of 600 men, 6,000;
10 Companies of Dragoons of 100 men, 1,000;
10 Regiments of Infantry of 1,400 men, 14,000:
Total, 21,000 men.
All officers were to be nominated by Sir Thomas Fairfax, the
new General, and (as was insisted upon by the Lords, with the
object of excluding the more fanatical Independents) every
officer was to sign the covenant within twenty days of his
appointment. The cost of this force was estimated at £539,460
per annum, about £1,600,000 of our money. ... Sir Thomas
Fairfax having been appointed Commander-in-Chief by a vote of
both Houses on the 1st of April [A. D. 1645], Essex,
Manchester and others of the Lords resigned their commissions
on the 2nd. ... The name of Cromwell was of course, with those
of other members of the Commons, omitted from the original
list of the New Model army; but with a significance which
could not have escaped remark, the appointment of
lieutenant-general was left vacant, while none doubted by whom
that vacancy would be filled."
N. L. Walford,
The Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
Sir E. Cust,
Lives of the Warriors of the Civil Wars,
part. 2: Fairfax.
{875}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE).
The Battle of Naseby.
"Early in April, Fairfax with his new army advanced westward
to raise the siege of Taunton, which city Goring was
besieging. Before that task was completed he received orders
to enter on the siege of Oxford. This did not suit his own
views or those of the Independents. They had joined their new
army upon the implied condition that decisive battles should
be fought. It was therefore with great joy that Fairfax
received orders to proceed in pursuit of the royal forces,
which, having left Worcester, were marching apparently against
the Eastern Association, and had just taken Leicester on their
way. Before entering on this active service, Fairfax demanded
and obtained leave for Cromwell to serve at least for one
battle more in the capacity of Lieutenant-General. He came up
with the king in the neighbourhood of Harborough. Charles
turned back to meet him, and just by the village of Naseby the
great battle known by that name was fought. Cromwell had
joined the army, amid the rejoicing shouts of the troops, two
days before, with the Association horse. Again the victory
seems to have been chiefly due to his skill. In detail it is
almost a repetition of the battle of Marston Moor."
J. F. Bright,
History of England, period 2,
page 675.
"The old Hamlet of Naseby stands yet, on its old hill-top,
very much as it did in Saxon days, on the Northwestern border
of Northamptonshire; nearly on a line, and nearly midway,
between that Town and Daventry. A peaceable old Hamlet, of
perhaps five hundred souls; clay cottages for laborers, but
neatly thatched and swept; smith's shop, saddler's shop,
beer-shop all in order; forming a kind of square, which leads
off, North and South, into two long streets; the old Church
with its graves, stands in the centre, the truncated spire
finishing itself with a strange old Ball, held up by rods; a
'hollow copper Ball, which came from Boulogne in Henry the
Eighth's time,'--which has, like Hudibras's breeches, 'been
at the Siege of Bullen.' The ground is upland, moorland,
though now growing corn; was not enclosed till the last
generation, and is still somewhat bare of wood. It stands
nearly in the heart of England; gentle Dullness, taking a turn
at etymology, sometimes derives it from 'Navel'; 'Navesby,
quasi Navelsby, from being, &c.' ... It was on this high
moor-ground, in the centre of England, that King Charles, on
the 14th of June, 1645, fought his last Battle; dashed
fiercely against the New-Model Army which he had despised till
then: and saw himself shivered utterly to ruin thereby.
'Prince Rupert, on the King's right wing, charged up the hill,
and carried all before him'; but Lieutenant-General Cromwell
charged down hill on the other wing, likewise carrying all
before him,--and did not gallop off the field to plunder, he.
Cromwell, ordered thither by the Parliament, had arrived from
the Association two days before, 'amid shouts from the whole
Army': he had the ordering of the Horse this morning. Prince
Rupert, on returning from his plunder, finds the King's
Infantry a ruin; prepares to charge again with the rallied
Cavalry; but the Cavalry too, when it came to the point,
'broke all asunder,'--never to reassemble more. ... There were
taken here a good few 'ladies of quality in carriages';--and
above a hundred Irish ladies not of quality, tattery
camp-followers 'with long skean-knives about a foot in
length,' which they well knew how to use; upon whom I fear the
Ordinance against Papists pressed hard this day. The King's
Carriage was also taken, with a Cabinet and many Royal
Autographs in it, which when printed made a sad impression
against his Majesty,--gave in fact a most melancholy view of
the veracity of his Majesty, 'On the word of a King.' All was
lost!"
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 2, letter 29.
ALSO IN:
Earl of Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion,
book 9, sections 30-42 (volume 4).
E. Warburton,
Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers,
volume 3, chapter 1.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE-DECEMBER).
Glamorgan's Commissions, and other perfidies of the King
disclosed.
"At the battle of Naseby, copies of some letters to the queen,
chiefly written about the time of the treaty of Uxbridge, and
strangely preserved, fell into the hands of the enemy and were
instantly published. No other losses of that fatal day were
more injurious to [the king's] cause. ... He gave her [the
queen] power to treat with the English catholics, promising to
take away all penal laws against them as soon as God should
enable him to do so, in consideration of such powerful
assistance as might deserve so great a favour, and enable him
to affect it. ... Suspicions were much aggravated by a second
discovery that took place soon afterwards, of a secret treaty
between the earl of Glamorgan and the confederate Irish
catholics, not merely promising the repeal of the penal laws,
but the establishment of their religion in far the greater
part of Ireland. The marquis of Ormond, as well as lord Digby,
who happened to be at Dublin, loudly exclaimed against
Glamorgan's presumption in concluding such a treaty, and
committed him to prison on a charge of treason. He produced
two commissions from the king, secretly granted without any
seal or the knowledge of any minister, containing the fullest
powers to treat with the Irish, and promising to fulfil any
conditions into which he should enter. The king, informed of
this, disavowed Glamorgan. ... Glamorgan, however, was soon
released, and lost no portion of the king's or his family's
favour. This transaction has been the subject of much
historical controversy. The enemies of Charles, both in his
own and later ages, have considered it as a proof of his
indifference, at least, to the protestant religion, and of his
readiness to accept the assistance of Irish rebels on any
conditions. His advocates for a long time denied the
authenticity of Glamorgan's commissions. But Dr. Birch
demonstrated that they were genuine; and, if his dissertation
could have left any doubt, later evidence might be adduced in
confirmation."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 10 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
History of the Great Civil War,
chapters 39 and 44 (volume 2).
T. Carte,
Life of James, Duke of Ormond,
book 4 (volume 3).
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 10, chapter 3.
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ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JULY-AUGUST).
The Clubmen.
"When Fairfax and Cromwell marched into the west [after Naseby
fight], they found that in these counties the country-people
had begun to assemble in bodies, sometimes 5,000 strong, to
resist their oppressors, whether they fought in the name of
King or Parliament. They were called clubmen from their arms,
and carried banners, with the motto--'If you offer to plunder
our cattle, Be assured we will give you battle.' The clubmen,
however, could not hope to control the movements of the
disciplined troops who now appeared against them. After a few
fruitless attempts at resistance they dispersed."
B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts,
King and Commonwealth,
chapter 8.
"The inexpugnable Sir Lewis Dives (a thrasonical person known
to the readers of Evelyn), after due battering, was now soon
stormed; whereupon, by Letters found on him it became apparent
how deeply Royalist this scheme of Clubmen had been:
'Commissions for raising Regiments of Clubmen'; the design to
be extended over England at large, 'yea into the Associated
Counties': however, it has now come to nothing."
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 2, letter 14.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
The storming of Bridgewater and Bristol.
"The continuance of the civil war for a whole year after the
decisive battle of Naseby is a proof of the King's
selfishness, and of his utter indifference to the sufferings
of the people. All rational hope was gone, and even Rupert
advised his uncle to make terms with the Parliament. Yet
Charles, while incessantly vacillating as to his plans,
persisted in retaining his garrisons, and required his
adherents to sacrifice all they possessed in order to prolong
a useless struggle for a few months. Bristol, therefore, was
to stand a siege, and Charles expected the garrison to hold
out, without an object, to the last extremity, entailing
misery and ruin on the second commercial city in the kingdom.
Rupert was sent to take the command there, and when the army
of Sir Thomas Fairfax approached, towards the end of August,
he had completed his preparations." Fairfax had marched
promptly and rapidly westward, after the battle of Naseby. He
had driven Goring from the siege of Taunton, had defeated him
in a sharp battle at Langport, taking 1,400 prisoners, and had
carried Bridgewater by storm, July 21, capturing 2,000 prisoners,
with 36 pieces of artillery and 5,000 stand of arms. On the
21st of August he arrived before Bristol, which Prince Rupert
had strongly fortified, and which he held with an effective
garrison of 2,300 men. On the morning of the 10th of September
it was entered by storm, and on the following day Rupert, who
still occupied the most defensible forts, surrendered the
whole place. This surrender so enraged the King that he
deprived his nephew of all his commissions and sent him a pass
to quit the kingdom. But Rupert understood, as the King would
not, that fighting was useless--that the royal cause was lost.
C. R. Markham,
Life of the Great Lord Fairfax,
chapter 21-22.
ALSO IN.
Earl of Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion,
book 9.
W. Hunt,
Bristol,
chapter 7.
E. Warburton,
Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers,
volume 3, chapter 1.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (SEPTEMBER).
Defeat of Montrose at Philiphaugh.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1644-1645.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1646 (MARCH).
Adoption of Presbyterianism by Parliament.
"For the last three years the Assembly of Divines had been
sitting almost daily in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster
Abbey. ... They were preparing a new Prayer-book, a form of
Church Government, a Confession of Faith, and a Catechism; but
the real questions at issue were the establishment of the
Presbyterian Church and the toleration of sectarians. The
Presbyterians, as we know, desired to establish their own form
of Church government by assemblies and synods, without any
toleration for non-conformists, whether Catholics,
Episcopalians, or sectarians. But though they formed a large
majority in the assembly, there was a well-organized
opposition of Independents and Erastians, whose union made it
no easy matter for the Presbyterians to carry every vote their
own way. ... After the Assembly had sat a year and a half, the
Parliament passed an ordinance for putting a directory,
prepared by the divines, into force, and taking away the
Common Prayer-book (3rd January, 1645). The sign of the cross
in baptism, the ring in marriage, the wearing of vestments,
the keeping of saints' days, were discontinued. The communion
table was ordered to be set in the body of the church, about
which the people were to stand or sit; the passages of
Scripture to be read were left to the minister's choice; no
forms of prayer were prescribed. The same year a new directory
for ordination of ministers was passed into an ordinance. The
Presbyterian assemblies, called presbyteries, were empowered
to ordain, and none were allowed to enter the ministry without
first taking the covenant (8th November, 1645). This was
followed by a third ordinance for establishing the
Presbyterian system of Church government in England by way of
trial for three years. As originally introduced into the
House, this ordinance met with great opposition, because it
gave power to ministers of refusing the sacrament and turning
men out of the Church for scandalous offences. Now, in what,
argued the Erastians, did scandalous offences consist? ... A
modified ordinance accordingly was passed; scandalous
offences, for which ministers might refuse the sacrament and
excommunicate, were specified; assemblies were declared
subject to Parliament, and leave was granted to those who
thought themselves unjustly sentenced, to appeal right up from
one Church assembly after another to the civil power--the
Parliament (16th March, 1646). Presbyterians, both in England
and Scotland, felt deeply mortified. After all these years'
contending, then, just when they thought they were entering on
the fruits of their labours, to see the Church still left
under the power of the State--the disappointment was intense
to a degree we cannot estimate. They looked on the
Independents as the enemies of God; this 'lame Erastian
Presbytery' as hardly worth the having. ... The Assembly of
Divines practically came to an end in 1649, when it was
changed into a committee for examining candidates for the
Presbyterian ministry. It finally broke up without any formal
dismissal on the dispersion of the Rump Parliament in March,
1653."
B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts,
King and Commonwealth,
chapter 9.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
History of the Great Civil War.
chapter 40 (volume 2).
A. F. Mitchell,
The Westminster Assembly,
lectures 7, 9, 13.
Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly.
See, also, INDEPENDENTS.
{877}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1646-1647.
The King in the hands of the Scots.
His duplicity and his intrigues.
The Scots surrender him.
"On the morning of May 6th authentic news came that the King
had ridden into the Scottish army, and had entrusted to his
northern subjects the guardianship of his royal person.
Thereupon the English Parliament at once asserted their right
to dispose of their King so long as he was on English soil;
and for the present ordered that he be sent to Warwick Castle,
an order, however, which had no effect. Newark, impregnable
even to Ironsides, was surrendered at last by royal order; and
the Scots retreated northwards to Newcastle, carrying their
sovereign with them. ... Meantime the City Presbyterians were
petitioning the House to quicken the establishment of the
godly and thorough reformation so long promised; and they were
supported by letters from the Scottish Parliament, which, in
the month of February, 1646, almost peremptorily required that
the Solemn League and Covenant should be carried out in the
Scottish sense of it. ... The question as to the disposal of
the King's person became accidentally involved in the issues
between Presbyterianism and the sects. For if the King had
been a man to be trusted, and if he had frankly accepted the
army programme of free religion, a free Parliament, and
responsible advisers, there is little doubt that he might have
kept his crown and his Anglican ritual--at least for his own
worship--and might yet have concluded his reign prosperously
as the first constitutional King of England. Instead of this,
he angered the army by making their most sacred purposes mere
cards in a game, to be played or held as he thought most to
his own advantage in dealing with the Presbyterian Parliament.
On July 11th, 1646, Commissioners from both Houses were
appointed to lay certain propositions for peace before the
King at Newcastle. These of course involved everything for
which the Parliament had contended, and in a form developed
and exaggerated by the altered position of affairs. All armed
forces were to be absolutely under the control of Parliament
for a period of 20 years. Speaking generally, all public acts
done by Parliament, or by its authority, were to be confirmed;
and all public acts done by the King or his Oxford
anti-Parliament, without due authorisation from Westminster,
were to be void. ... On August 10th the Commissioners who had
been sent to the King returned to Westminster. ... The King
had given no distinct answer. It was a suspicious circumstance
that the Duke of Hamilton had gone into Scotland, especially
as Cromwell learned that, in spite of an ostensible order from
the King, Montrose's force had not been disbanded. The
labyrinthine web of royal intrigue in Ireland was beginning to
be discovered. ... The death of the Earl of Essex on September
14th increased the growing danger of a fatal schism in the
victorious party. The Presbyterians had hoped to restore him
to the head of the army, and so sheathe or blunt the terrible
weapon they had forged and could not wield. They were now left
without a man to rival in military authority the commanders
whose exploits overwhelmed their employers with a too complete
success. Not only were the political and religious opinions of
the soldiers a cause of anxiety, but the burden of their
sustenance and pay was pressing heavily on the country. ... No
wonder that the City of London, always sensitive as to public
security, began to urge upon the Parliament the necessity for
diminishing or disbanding the army in England. ... The
Parliament, however, could not deal with the army, for two
reasons; First, the negotiations with the Scotch lingered; and
next, they could not pay the men. The first difficulty was
overcome, at least for the time, by the middle of January,
1647, when a train of wagons carried £200,000 to Newcastle in
discharge of the English debt to the Scottish army. But the
successful accomplishment of this only increased the remaining
difficulty of the Parliament--that of paying their own
soldiers. We need not notice the charge made against the
Scotch of selling their King further than to say, that it is
unfairly based upon only one subordinate feature of a very
complicated negotiation. If the King would have taken the
Covenant, and guaranteed to them their precious Presbyterian
system, his Scottish subjects would have fought for him almost
to the last man. The firmness of Charles in declining the
Covenant for himself is, no doubt, the most creditable point
in his resistance. But his obstinacy in disputing the right of
two nations, in their political establishment of religion, to
override his convictions by their own, illustrates his entire
incapacity to comprehend the new light dawning on the
relations of sovereign and people. The Scots did their best
for him. They petitioned him, they knelt to him, they preached
to him. ... But to have carried with them an intractable man
to form a wedge of division amongst themselves, at the same
time that he brought against them the whole power of England,
would have been sheer insanity. Accordingly, they made the
best bargain they could both for him and themselves; and,
taking their wages, they left him with his English subjects,
who conducted him to Holdenby House, in Northamptonshire, on
the 6th of February, 1647."
J. A. Picton,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 13.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
The First two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution,
chapter 7, section 4.
S. R. Gardiner,
History of the Great Civil War,
chapter 3845 (volume 2).
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth, book 1,
chapters 24-27, and book 2,
chapter 1-6 (volume 2).
Earl of Clarendon,
History of chapter Rebellion,
book 9, section 161-178,
and book 10 (volume 3).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1647 (APRIL-AUGUST).
The Army takes things in hand.
The King was surrendered to Parliament, and all now looking
toward peace, the Presbyterians were uppermost, discredit
falling upon the Army and its favorers. Many of the Recruiters
[i. e., the new members, elected to fill vacancies in the
Parliament], who at first had acted with the Independents,
inclined now to their opponents. The Presbyterians, feeling
that none would dare to question the authority of Parliament,
pushed energetically their policy as regards the Army, of
sending to Ireland, disbanding, neglecting the payment of
arrears, and displacing the old officers. But suddenly there
came for them a rude awakening. On April 30, 1647, Skippon,
whom all liked, whom the Presbyterians indeed claimed, but who
at the same time kept on good terms with the Army and
Independents, rose in his place in St. Stephens and produced a
letter, brought to him the day before by three private
soldiers, in which eight regiments of horse expressly refused
to serve in Ireland, declaring that it was a perfidious design
to separate the soldiers from the officers whom they
loved,--framed by men who, having tasted of power, were
degenerating into tyrants. Holles and the Presbyterians were
thunder-struck, and laying aside all other business summoned
the three soldiers to appear at once. ...
{878}
A violent tumult arose in the House. The Presbyterians
declared that the three sturdy Ironsides standing there, with
their buff stained from their corselets, ought to be at once
committed; to which it was answered, that if there were to be
commitment, it should be to the best London tavern, and sack
and sugar provided. Cromwell, leaning over toward Ludlow, who
sat next to him, and pointing to the Presbyterians, said that
those fellows would never leave till the Army pulled them out
by the ears. That day it became known that there existed an
organization, a sort of Parliament, in the Army, the officers
forming an upper council and the representatives of the rank
and file a lower council. Two such representatives stood in
the lower council for each squadron or troop, known as
'Adjutators,' aiders, or 'Agitators.' This organization had
taken upon itself to see that the Army had its rights. ... At
the end of a month, there was still greater occasion for
astonishment. Seven hundred horse suddenly left the camp, and
appearing without warning, June 2, at Holmby House, where
Charles was kept, in charge of Parliamentary commissioners,
proposed to assume the custody of the King. A cool, quiet
fellow, of rank no higher than that of cornet, led them and
was their spokesman, Joyce. 'What is your authority?' asked
the King. The cornet simply pointed to the mass of troopers at
his back. ... So bold a step as the seizure of the King made
necessary other bold steps on the part of the Army. Scarcely a
fortnight had passed, when a demand was made for the exclusion
from Parliament of eleven Presbyterians, the men most
conspicuous for extreme views. The Army meanwhile hovered,
ever ominously, close at hand, to the north and east of the
city, paying slight regard to the Parliamentary prohibition to
remain at a distance. The eleven members withdrew. ... But if
Parliament was willing to yield, Presbyterian London and the
country round about were not, and in July broke out into sheer
rebellion. ... The Speakers of the Lords and Commons, at the
head of the strength of the Parliament, fourteen Peers and one
hundred Commoners, betook themselves to Fairfax, and on August
2 they threw themselves into the protection of the Army at
Hounslow Heath, ten miles distant. A grand review took place.
The consummate soldier, Fairfax, had his troops in perfect
condition, and they were drawn out 20,000 strong to receive
the seceding Parliament. The soldiers rent the air with shouts
in their behalf, and all was made ready for a most impressive
demonstration. On the 6th of August, Fairfax marched his
troops in full array through the city, from Hammersmith to
Westminster. Each man had in his hat a wreath of laurel. The
Lords and Commons who had taken flight were escorted in the
midst of the column; the city officials joined the train. At
Westminster the Speakers were ceremoniously reinstalled, and
the Houses again put to work, the first business being to
thank the General and the veterans who had reconstituted them.
The next day, with Skippon in the centre and Cromwell in the
rear, the Army marched through the city itself, a heavy tramp
of battle-seasoned platoons, at the mere sound of which the
war-like ardor of the turbulent youths of the work-shops and
the rough watermen was completely squelched. Yet the soldiers
looked neither to the right nor left; nor by act, word, or
gesture was any offence given."
J. K. Hosmer,
Life of Young Sir Henry Vane,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
C. R. Markham,
Life of the Great Lord Fairfax,
chapter 24.
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 3, letter 26.
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth,
book 2, chapter 7-11.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1647 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
The King's "Game" with Cromwell and the army,
and the ending of it.
After reinstating the Parliament at Westminster, "the army
leaders resumed negotiations with the King. The indignation of
the soldiers at his delays and intrigues made the task hourly
more difficult; but Cromwell ... clung to the hope of
accommodation with a passionate tenacity. His mind,
conservative by tradition, and above all practical in temper,
saw the political difficulties which would follow on the
abolition of Royalty, and in spite of the King's evasions, he
persisted in negotiating with him. But Cromwell stood almost
alone; the Parliament refused to accept Ireton's proposals as
a basis of peace, Charles still evaded, and the army then grew
restless and suspicious. There were cries for a wide reform,
for the abolition of the House of Peers, for a new House of
Commons, and the Adjutators called on the Council of Officers
to discuss the question of abolishing Royalty itself. Cromwell
was never braver than when he faced the gathering storm, forbade
the discussion, adjourned the Council, and sent the officers
to their regiments. But the strain was too great to last long,
and Charles was still resolute to 'play his game.' He was, in
fact, so far from being in earnest in his negotiations with
Cromwell and Ireton, that at the moment they were risking
their lives for him he was conducting another and equally
delusive negotiation with the Parliament. ... In the midst of
his hopes of an accommodation, Cromwell found with
astonishment that he had been duped throughout, and that the
King had fled [November 11, 1647]. ... Even Cromwell was
powerless to break the spirit which now pervaded the soldiers,
and the King's perfidy left him without resource. 'The King is
a man of great parts and great understanding,' he said at
last, 'but so great a dissembler and so false a man that he is
not to be trusted.' By a strange error, Charles had made his
way from Hampton Court to the Isle of Wight, perhaps with some
hope from the sympathy of Colonel Hammond, the Governor of
Carisbrooke Castle, and again found himself a prisoner. Foiled
in his effort to put himself at the head of the new civil war, he
set himself to organize it from his prison; and while again
opening delusive negotiations with the Parliament, he signed a
secret treaty with the Scots for the invasion of the realm.
The rise of Independency, and the practical suspension of the
Covenant, had produced a violent reaction in his favour north
of the Tweed. ... In England the whole of the conservative
party, with many of the most conspicuous members of the Long
Parliament at its head, was drifting, in its horror of the
religious and political changes which seemed impending, toward
the King; and the news from Scotland gave the signal for
fitful insurrections in almost every quarter."
J. R. Green,
Short History of England,
chapter 8, section 8.
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
History of the English Revolution of 1640,
books 7-8.
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 10, chapter 4.
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth.
G. Hillier,
Narrative of attempted Escapes of Charles I. from
Carisbrooke Castle, &c.
{879}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (April-August).
The Second Civil War.
Defeat of the Scots at Preston.
"The Second Civil War broke out in April, and proved to be a
short but formidable affair. The whole of Wales was speedily
in insurrection; a strong force of cavaliers were mustering in
the north of England; in Essex, Surrey, and the southern
counties various outbreaks arose; Berwick, Carlisle, Chester,
Pembroke, Colchester, were held for the king; the fleet
revolted; and 40,000 men were ordered by the Parliament of
Scotland to invade England. Lambert was sent to the north;
Fairfax to take Colchester; and Cromwell into Wales, and
thence to join Lambert and meet the Scotch. On the 24th of May
Cromwell reached Pembroke, but being short of guns, he did not
take it till 11th July. The rising in Wales crushed, Cromwell
turned northwards, where the northwest was already in revolt,
and 20,000 Scots, under the Duke of Hamilton, were advancing
into the country. Want of supplies and shoes, and sickness,
detained him with his army, some 7,000 strong, 'so extremely
harassed with hard service and long marches, that they seemed
rather fit for a hospital than a battle.' Having joined
Lambert in Yorkshire he fought the battle of Preston on 17th
of August. The battle of Preston was one of the most decisive
and important victories ever gained by Cromwell, over the most
numerous enemy he ever encountered, and the first in which he
was in supreme command. ... Early on the morning of the 17th
August, Cromwell, with some 9,000 men, fell upon the army of
the Duke of Hamilton unawares, as it proceeded southwards in a
long, straggling, unprotected line. The invaders consisted of
17,000 Scots and 7,000 good men from northern counties. The
long ill-ordered line was cut In half and rolled back northward
and southward, before they even knew that Cromwell was
upon them. The great host, cut into sections, fought with
desperation from town to town. But for three days it was one
long chase and carnage, which ended only with the exhaustion
of the victors and their horses. Ten thousand prisoners were
taken. 'We have killed we know not what,' writes Cromwell,
'but a very great number; having done execution upon them
above thirty miles together, besides what we killed in the two
great fights.' His own loss was small, and but one superior
officer. ... The Scottish invaders dispersed, Cromwell
hastened to recover Berwick and Carlisle, and to restore the
Presbyterian or Whig party in Scotland."
F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
chapter 74 (volume 7).
Earl of Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion,
book 11 (volume 4).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).
The Treaty at Newport.
"The unfortunate issue of the Scots expedition under the duke
of Hamilton, and of the various insurrections throughout
England, quelled by the vigilance and good conduct of Fairfax
and Cromwell, is well known. But these formidable
manifestations of the public sentiment in favour of peace with
the king on honourable conditions, wherein the city of London,
ruled by the presbyterian ministers, took a share, compelled
the house of commons to retract its measures. They came to a
vote, by 165 to 90, that they would not alter the fundamental
government by king, lords, and commons; they abandoned their
impeachment against seven peers, the most moderate of the
upper house and the most obnoxious to the army: they restored
the eleven members to their seats; they revoked their
resolutions against a personal treaty with the king, and even
that which required his assent by certain preliminary
articles. In a word the party for distinction's sake called
presbyterian, but now rather to be denominated constitutional,
regained its ascendancy. This change in the counsels of
parliament brought on the treaty of Newport. The treaty of
Newport was set on foot and managed by those politicians of
the house of lords, who, having long suspected no danger to
themselves but from the power of the king, had discovered,
somewhat of the latest, that the crown itself was at stake,
and that their own privileges were set on the same cast.
Nothing was more remote from the intentions of the earl of
Northumberland, or lord Say, than to see themselves pushed
from their seats by such upstarts as Ireton and Harrison; and
their present mortification afforded a proof how men reckoned
wise in their generation become the dupes of their own
selfish, crafty, and pusillanimous policy. They now grew
anxious to see a treaty concluded with the king. Sensible that
it was necessary to anticipate, if possible, the return of
Cromwell from the north, they implored him to comply at once
with all the propositions of parliament, or at least to yield
in the first instance as far as he meant to go. They had not,
however, mitigated in any degree the rigorous conditions so
often proposed; nor did the king during this treaty obtain any
reciprocal concession worth mentioning in return for his
surrender of almost all that could be demanded."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 10, part 2.
The utter faithlessness with which Charles carried on these
negotiations, as on all former occasions, was shown at a later
day when his correspondence came to light. "After having
solemnly promised that all hostilities in Ireland should
cease, he secretly wrote to Ormond (October 10): 'Obey my
wife's orders, not mine, until I shall let you know I am free
from all restraint; nor trouble yourself about my concessions
as to Ireland; they will not lead to anything;' and the day on
which he had consented to transfer to parliament for twenty
years the command of the army (October 9), he wrote to sir
William Hopkins: 'To tell you the truth, my great concession
this morning was made only with a view to facilitate my
approaching escape; without that hope, I should never have
yielded in this manner. If I had refused, I could, without
much sorrow, have returned to my prison; but as it is, I own
it would break my heart, for I have done that which my escape
alone can justify.' The parliament, though without any exact
information, suspected all this perfidy; even the friends of
peace, the men most affected by the king's condition, and most
earnest to save him, replied but hesitatingly to the charges
of the independents."
F. P. Guizot,
History of the English Revolution of 1640,
book 8.
ALSO IN:
Earl of Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion,
book 11, sections 153-190 (volume 4).
I. Disraeli,
Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles I.,
volume 2, chapters 39-40.
{880}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
The Grand Army Remonstrance and Pride's Purge.
The Long Parliament cut down to the Rump.
On the 20th of November, 1648, Colonel Ewer and other officers
presented to the house of commons a remonstrance from the Army
against the negotiations and proposed treaty with the king.
This was accompanied by a letter from Fairfax, stating that it
had been voted unanimously in the council of officers, and
entreating for it the consideration of parliament. The
remonstrance recommended an immediate ending of the treaty
conferences at Newport, demanded that the king be brought to
justice, as the capital source of all grievances, and called
upon parliament to enact its own dissolution, with provision
for the electing and convening of future annual or biennial
parliaments. Ten days passed without attention being given to
this army manifesto, the house having twice adjourned its
consideration of the document. On the first of December there
appeared at Newport a party of horse which quietly took
possession of the person of the king, and conveyed him to
Hurst Castle, "a fortress in Hampshire, situated at the
extreme point of a neck of land, which shoots into the sea
towards the isle of Wight." The same day on which this was
done, "the commissioners who had treated with the king at
Newport made their appearance in the two houses of parliament;
and the two following days were occupied by the house of
commons in an earnest debate as to the state of the
negotiation. Vane was one of the principal speakers against
the treaty; and Fiennes, who had hitherto ranked among the
independents, spoke for it. At length, after the house had sat
all night, it was put and carried, at five in the morning of
the 5th, by a majority of 129 to 83, that the king's answers
to the propositions of both houses were a ground for them to
proceed upon, to the settlement of the peace of the kingdom.
On the same day this vote received the concurrence of the
house of lords." Meantime, on the 30th of November, the
council of the army had voted a second declaration more fully
expressive of its views and announcing its intention to draw
near to London, for the accomplishment of the purposes of the
remonstrance. "On the 2d of December Fairfax marched to
London, and quartered his army at Whitehall, St. James's, the
Mews, and the villages near the metropolis. ... On the 5th of
December three officers of the army held a meeting with three
members of parliament, to arrange the plan by which the sound
members might best be separated from those by whom their
measures were thwarted, and might peaceably be put in
possession of the legislative authority. The next morning a
regiment of horse, and another of foot were placed as a guard
upon the two houses, Skippon, who commanded the city-militia,
having agreed with the council of the army to keep back the
guard under his authority which usually performed that duty. A
part of the foot were ranged in the Court of Requests, upon
the stairs, and in the lobby leading to the house of commons.
Colonel Pride was stationed near the door, with a list in his
hand of the persons he was commissioned to arrest; and
sometimes one of the door-keepers, and at others Lord Grey of
Groby, pointed them out to him, as they came up with an
intention of passing into the house. Forty-one members were
thus arrested. ... On the following day more members were
secured, or denied entrance, amounting, with those of the day
before, to about one hundred. At the same time Cromwell took
his seat; and Henry Marten moved that the speaker should
return him thanks for his great and eminent services performed
in the course of the campaign. The day after, the two houses
adjourned to the 12th. During the adjournment many of the
members who had been taken into custody by the military were
liberated. ... Besides those who were absolutely secured, or
shut out from their seats by the power of the army, there were
other members that looked with dislike on the present
proceedings, or that considered parliament as being under
force, and not free in their deliberations, who voluntarily
abstained from being present at their sittings and debates."
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth,
book 2, chapters 23-24 (volume 2).
"The famous Pride's Purge was accomplished. By military force
the Long Parliament was cut down to a fraction of its number,
and the career begins of the mighty 'Rump,' so called in the
coarse wit of the time because it was 'the sitting part.'"
J. K. Hosmer,
Life of Young Sir Henry Vane,
chapter 13.
"This name [the Rump] was first given to them by Walker, the
author of the History of Independency, by way of derision, in
allusion to a fowl all devoured but the rump."
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 4, chapter 1, foot-note.
ALSO IN:
C. R Markham,
Life of the Great Lord Fairfax,
chapter 28.
D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
book 4, chapters 1 and 3 (volume 3).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (JANUARY).
The trial and execution of the King.
"During the month in which Charles had remained at Windsor
[whither he had been brought from Hurst Castle on the 17th of
December], there had been proceedings in Parliament of which
he was imperfectly informed. On the day he arrived there, it
was resolved by the Commons that he should be brought to
trial. On the 2nd of January, 1649, it was voted that, in
making war against the Parliament, he had been guilty of
treason; and a High Court was appointed to try him. One
hundred and fifty commissioners were to compose the Court,--
peers, members of the Commons, aldermen of London. The
ordinance was sent to the Upper House, and was rejected. On
the 6th, a fresh ordinance, declaring that the people being,
after God, the source of all just power, the representatives
of the people are the supreme power in the nation; and that
whatsoever is enacted or declared for law by the Commons in
Parliament hath the force of a law, and the people are
concluded thereby, though the consent of King or Peers be not
had thereto. Asserting this power, so utterly opposed either
to the ancient constitution of the monarchy, or to the
possible working of a republic, there was no hesitation in
constituting the High Court of Justice in the name of the
Commons alone. The number of members of the Court was now
reduced to 135. They had seven preparatory meetings, at which
only 58 members attended. 'All men,' says Mrs. Hutchinson,
'were left to their free liberty of acting, neither persuaded
nor compelled; and as there were some nominated in the
commission who never sat, and others who sat at first but
durst not hold on, so all the rest might have declined it if
they would, when it is apparent they should have suffered
nothing by so doing.' ... On the 19th of January, major
Harrison appeared ... at Windsor with his troop. There was a
coach with six horses in the court-yard, in which the King
took his seat; and, once more, he entered London, and was
lodged at St. James's palace.
{881}
The next day, the High Court of Justice was opened in
Westminster-hall. ... After the names of the members of the
court had been called, 69 being present, Bradshaw, the
president, ordered the serjeant to bring in the prisoner.
Silently the King sat down in the chair prepared for him. He
moved not his hat, as he looked sternly and contemptuously
around. The sixty-nine rose not from their seats, and remained
covered. ... The clerk reads the charge, and when he is
accused therein of being tyrant and traitor, he laughs in the
face of the Court. 'Though his tongue usually hesitated, yet
it was very free at this time, for he was never discomposed in
mind,' writes Warwick. ... Again and again contending against
the authority of the Court, the King was removed, and the
sitting was adjourned to the 22nd. On that day the same scene
was renewed; and again on the 23rd. A growing sympathy for the
monarch became apparent. The cries of 'Justice, justice,'
which were heard at first, were now mingled with 'God save the
King.' He had refused to plead; but the Court nevertheless
employed the 24th and 25th of January in collecting evidence
to prove the charge of his levying war against the Parliament.
Coke, the solicitor-general, then demanded whether the Court
would proceed to pronouncing sentence; and the members
adjourned to the Painted Chamber. On the 27th the public
sitting was resumed. ... The Court, Bradshaw then stated, had
agreed upon the sentence. Ludlow records that the King'
desired to make one proposition before they proceeded to
sentence; which he earnestly pressing, as that which he
thought would lead to the reconciling of all parties, and to
the peace of the three kingdoms, they permitted him to offer
it; the effect of which was, that he might meet the two Houses
in the Painted Chamber, to whom he doubted not to offer that
which should satisfy and secure all interests.' Ludlow goes on
to say, 'Designing, as I have since been informed, to propose
his own resignation, and the admission of his son to the
throne upon such terms as should have been agreed upon.' The
commissioners retired to deliberate, 'and being satisfied,
upon debate, that nothing but loss of time would be the
consequence of it, they returned into the Court with a
negative to his demand.' Bradshaw then delivered a solemn
speech to the King. ... The clerk was lastly commanded to read
the sentence, that his head should be severed from his body;
'and the commissioners,' says Ludlow, 'testified their
unanimous assent by standing up.' The King attempted to speak;
'but being accounted dead in law, was not permitted.' On the
29th of January, the Court met to sign the sentence of
execution, addressed to 'colonel Francis Hacker, colonel
Huncks, and lieutenant-colonel Phayr, and to every one of
them.' ... There were some attempts to save him. The Dutch
ambassador made vigorous efforts to procure a reprieve, whilst
the French and Spanish ambassadors were inert. The ambassadors
from the States nevertheless persevered; and early in the day
of the 30th obtained some glimmering of hope from Fairfax.
'But we found,' they say in their despatch, 'in front of the
house in which we had just spoken with the general, about 200
horsemen; and we learned, as well as on our way as on reaching
home, that all the streets, passages, and squares of London were
occupied by troops, so that no one could pass, and that the
approaches of the city were covered with cavalry, so as to
prevent anyone from coming in or going out; ... The same day,
between two and three o'clock, the King was taken to a
scaffold covered with black, erected before Whitehall.' To
that scaffold before Whitehall, Charles walked, surrounded by
soldiers, through the leafless avenues of St. James's Park. It
was a bitterly cold morning. ... His purposed address to the
people was delivered only to the hearing of those upon the
scaffold, but its purport was that the people mistook the
nature of government; for people are free under a government,
not by being sharers in it, but by due administration of the
laws of it.' His theory of government was a consistent one. He
had the misfortune not to understand that the time had been
fast passing away for its assertion. The headsman did his
office; and a deep groan went up from the surrounding
multitude."
Charles Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 4, chapter 7.
"In the death-warrant of 29th January 1649, next after the
President and Lord Grey, stands the name of Oliver Cromwell.
He accepted the responsibility of it, justified, defended it
to his dying day. No man in England was more entirely
answerable for the deed than he, 'I tell you,' he said to
Algernon Sidney, 'we will cut off his head with the crown upon
it.' ... Slowly he had come to know--not only that the man,
Charles Stuart, was incurably treacherous, but that any
settlement of Parliament with the old Feudal Monarchy was
impossible. As the head of the king rolled on the scaffold the
old Feudal Monarchy expired for ever. In January 1649 a great
mark was set in the course of the national life--the Old Rule
behind it, the New Rule before it. Parliamentary government,
the consent of the nation, equality of rights, and equity in
the law--all date from this great New Departure. The Stuarts
indeed returned for one generation, but with the sting of the
Old Monarchy gone, and only to disappear almost without a
blow. The Church of England returned; but not the Church of
Laud or of Charles. The peers returned, but as a meek House of
Lords, with their castles razed, their feudal rights and their
political power extinct. It is said that the regicides killed
Charles I. only to make Charles II. king. It is not so, They
killed the Old Monarchy; and the restored monarch was by no
means its heir, but a royal Stadtholder or Hereditary
President."
F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 7.
"Respecting the death of Charles it has been pronounced by
Fox, that 'it is much to be doubted whether his trial and
execution have not, as much as any other circumstance, served
to raise the character of the English nation in the opinion of
Europe in general.' And he goes on to speak with considerable
favour of the authors of that event. One of the great
authorities of the age having so pronounced, an hundred and
fifty years after the deed, it may be proper to consider for a
little the real merits of the actors, and the act. It is not
easy to imagine a greater criminal than the individual against
whom the sentence was awarded. ... Liberty is one of the
greatest negative advantages that can fall to the lot of a
man; without it we cannot possess any high degree of
happiness, or exercise any considerable virtue. Now Charles,
to a degree which can scarcely be exceeded, conspired against
the liberty of his country, to assert his own authority
without limitation, was the object of all his desires and all
his actions, so far as the public was concerned.
{882}
To accomplish this object he laid aside the use of a
parliament. When he was compelled once more to have recourse
to this assembly, and found it retrograde to his purposes, he
determined to bring up the army, and by that means to put an
end to its sittings. Both in Scotland and England, the scheme
that he formed for setting aside all opposition, was by force
of arms. For that purpose he commenced war against the English
parliament, and continued it by every expedient in his power
for four years. Conquered, and driven out of the field, he did
not for that, for a moment lose sight of his object and his
resolution. He sought in every quarter for the materials of a
new war; and, after an interval of twenty months, and from the
depths of his prison, he found them. To this must be added the
most consummate insincerity and duplicity. He could never be
reconciled; he could never be disarmed; he could never be
convinced. His was a war to the death, and therefore had the
utmost aggravation that can belong to a war against the
liberty of a nation. ... The proper lesson taught by the act
of the thirtieth of January, was that no person, however high
in station, however protected by the prejudices of his
contemporaries, must expect to be criminal against the welfare
of the state and community, without retribution and
punishment. The event however sufficiently proved that the
condemnation and execution of Charles did not answer the
purposes intended by its authors. It did not conciliate the
English nation to republican ideas. It shocked all those
persons in the country who did not adhere to the ruling party.
This was in some degree owing to the decency with which
Charles met his fate. He had always been in manners, formal,
sober and specious. ... The notion was every where prevalent,
that a sovereign could not be called to account, could not be
arraigned at the bar of his subjects. And the violation of
this prejudice, instead of breaking down the wall which
separated him from others, gave to his person a sacredness
which never before appertained to it. Among his own partisans
the death of Charles was treated, and was spoken of, as a sort
of deicide. And it may be admitted for a universal rule, that
the abrupt violation of a deep-rooted maxim and persuasion of
the human mind, produces a reaction, and urges men to hug the
maxim closer than ever. I am afraid, that the day that saw
Charles perish on the scaffold, rendered the restoration of
his family certain."
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth of England
to the Restoration of Charles II.,
book 2, chapter 26 (volume 2).
"The situation, complicated enough already, had been still
further complicated by Charles's duplicity. Men who would have
been willing to come to terms with him, despaired of any
constitutional arrangement in which he was to be a factor; and
men who had long been alienated from him were irritated into
active hostility. By these he was regarded with increasing
intensity as the one disturbing force with which no
understanding was possible and no settled order consistent. To
remove him out of the way appeared, even to those who had no
thought of punishing him for past offences, to be the only
possible road to peace for the troubled nation. It seemed that
so long as Charles lived deluded nations and deluded parties
would be stirred up, by promises never intended to be
fulfilled, to fling themselves, as they had flung themselves
in the Second Civil War, against the new order of things which
was struggling to establish itself in England."
S. R. Gardiner,
History of the Great Civil War,
1642-1649, chapter 71 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
John Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Henry Marten.
S. R. Gardiner,
Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution,
pages 268-290.
The following is the text of the Act which arraigned the King
and constituted the Court by which he was tried:
"Whereas it is notorious that Charles Stuart, the now king of
England, not content with the many encroachments which his
predecessors had made upon the people in their rights and
freedom, hath had a wicked design totally to subvert the
antient and fundamental laws and liberties of this nation, and
in their place to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical
government; and that, besides all other evil ways and means to
bring his design to pass, he hath prosecuted it with fire and
sword, levied and maintained a civil war in the land, against
the parliament and kingdom; whereby this country hath been
miserably wasted, the public treasure exhausted, trade
decayed, thousands of people murdered, and infinite other
mischiefs committed; for all which high and treasonable
offences the said Charles Stuart might long since have justly
been brought to exemplary and condign punishment: whereas also
the parliament, well hoping that the restraint and imprisonment
of his person after it had pleased God to deliver him into
their hands, would have quieted the distempers of the kingdom,
did forbear to proceed judicially against him; but found, by
sad experience, that such their remissness served only to
encourage him and his accomplices in the continuance of their
evil practices and in raising new commotions, rebellions, and
invasions: for prevention therefore of the like or greater
inconveniences, and to the end no other chief officer or
magistrate whatsoever may hereafter presume, traiterously and
maliciously, to imagine or contrive the enslaving or
destroying of the English nation, and to expect impunity for
so doing; be it enacted and ordained by the [Lords] and
commons in Parliament assembled, and it is hereby enacted and
ordained by the authority thereof, That the earls of Kent,
Nottingham, Pembroke, Denbigh, and Mulgrave; the lord Grey of
Warke; lord chief justice Rolle of the king's bench, lord
chief justice St. John of the common Pleas, and lord chief
baron Wylde; the lord Fairfax, lieutenant general Cromwell,
&c. [in all about 150,] shall be, and are hereby appointed and
required to be Commissioners and Judges, for the Hearing,
Trying, and Judging of the said Charles Stuart; and the said
Commissioners, or any 20 or more of them, shall be, and are
hereby authorized and constituted an High Court of Justice, to
meet and sit at such convenient times and place as by the said
commissioners, or the major part, or 20 or more of them, under
their hands and seals, shall be appointed and notified by
public Proclamation in the Great Hall, or Palace Yard of
Westminster; and to adjourn from time to time, and from place
to place, as the said High Court, or the major part thereof,
at meeting, shall hold fit; and to take order for the charging
of him, the said Charles Stuart, with the Crimes and Treasons
above-mentioned, and for receiving his personal Answer
thereunto, and for examination of witnesses upon oath, (which
the court hath hereby authority to administer) or otherwise,
and taking any other Evidence concerning the same; and
thereupon, or in default of such Answer, to proceed to final
Sentence according to justice and the merit of the cause; and
such final Sentence to execute, or cause to be executed,
speedily and impartially.--
{883}
And the said court is hereby and required to chuse and
appoint all such officers, attendants, and other circumstances
as they, or the major part of them, shall in any sort judge
necessary or useful for the orderly and good managing of the
premises; and Thomas lord Fairfax the General, and all
officers and soldiers, under his command, and all officers of
justice, and other well-affected persons, are hereby
authorized and required to be aiding and assisting unto the
said court in the due execution of the trust hereby committed
unto them; provided that this act, and the authority hereby
granted, do continue in force for the space of one month from
the date of the making hereof, and no longer."
Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England,
volume 3, pages 1254-1255.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY).
The Commonwealth established.
"England was now a Republic. The change had been virtually
made on Thursday, January 4, 1648-9, when the Commons passed
their three great Resolutions, declaring
(1) that the People of England were, under God, the original
of all just power in the State,
(2) that the Commons, in Parliament assembled, having been
chosen by the People, and representing the People, possessed
the supreme power in their name, and
(3) that whatever the Commons enacted should have the force of
a law, without needing the consent of either King or House of
Peers.
On Tuesday, the 30th of January, the theory of these
Resolutions became more visibly a fact. On the afternoon of
that day, while the crowd that had seen the execution in front
of Whitehall were still lingering round the scaffold, the
Commons passed an Act 'prohibiting the proclaiming of any
person to be King of England or Ireland, or the dominions
thereof.' It was thus declared that Kingship in England had
died with Charles. But what of the House of Peers? It was
significant that on the same fatal day the Commons revived
their three theoretical resolutions of the 4th, and ordered
them to be printed. The wretched little rag of a House might
then have known its doom. But it took a week more to convince
them." On the 6th of February it was resolved by the House of
Commons, "'That the House of Peers in Parliament is useless
and dangerous, and ought to be abolished, and that an Act be
brought in to that purpose.' Next day, February 7, after
another long debate, it was further resolved 'That it hath
been found by experience, and this House doth declare, that
the office of a King in this realm, and to have the power
thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burdensome, and
dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the
People of this nation, and therefore ought to be abolished,
and that an Act be brought in to that purpose.' Not till after
some weeks were these Acts deliberately passed after the
customary three readings. The delay, however, was matter of
mere Parliamentary form. Theoretically a Republic since Jan.
4, 1648-9, and visibly a Republic from the day of Charles's
death, England was a Republic absolutely and in every sense
from February 7, 1648-9." For the administration of the
government of the republican Commonwealth, the Commons
resolved, on the 7th of February, that a Council of State be
erected; to consist of not more than forty persons. On the
13th, Instructions to the intended Council of State were
reported and agreed to, "these Instructions conferring almost
plenary powers, but limiting the duration of the Council to
one year." On the 14th and 15th forty-one persons were
appointed to be members of the Council, Fairfax, Cromwell,
Vane, St. John, Whitlocke, Henry Marten, and Colonels
Hutchinson and Ludlow being in the number; nine to constitute
a quorum, and no permanent President to be chosen.
D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
volume 4, book 1, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume. 10, chapter 5.
A. Bisset,
Omitted Chapters of History of England,
chapter 1.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY).
The Eikon Basilike.
"A book, published with great secrecy, and in very mysterious
circumstances, February 9, 1648-9, exactly ten days after the
late King's death, had done much to increase the Royalist
enthusiasm.
'Eikon Basilike: The True Portraicture of His Sacred Majestie
in his Solitudes and Sufferings.--Romans viii. More than
conquerour, &c.--Bona agere et mala pati Regium est.
MDCXLVIII':
such was the title-page of this volume (of 269 pages of text,
in small octavo), destined by fate, rather than by merit, to
be one of the most famous books of the world. ... The book, so
elaborately prepared and heralded, consists of twenty-eight
successive chapters, purporting to have been written by the
late King, and to be the essence of his spiritual
autobiography in the last years of his life. Each chapter,
with scarcely an exception, begins with a little narrative, or
generally rather with reflections and meditations on some
passage of the King's life the narrative of which is supposed
to be unnecessary, and ends with a prayer in italics
appropriate to the circumstances remembered. ... Save for a
few ... passages ... , the pathos of which lies in the
situation they represent, the Eikon Basilike is a rather dull
performance, in third-rate rhetoric, modulated after the
Liturgy; and without incision, point, or the least shred of
real information as to facts. But O what a reception it had!
Copies of it ran about instantaneously, and were read with
sobs and tears. It was in vain that Parliament, March 16, gave
orders for seizing the book. It was reprinted at once in
various forms, to supply the constant demand--which was not
satisfied, it is said, with less than fifty editions within a
single year; it became a very Bible in English Royalist
households. ... By means of this book, in fact, acting on the
state of sentiment which it fitted, there was established,
within a few weeks after the death of Charles I., that
marvellous worship of his memory, that passionate recollection
of him as the perfect man and the perfect king, the saint, the
martyr, the all but Christ on earth again, which persisted
till the other day as a positive religious cultus of the
English mind, and still lingers in certain quarters."
D. Masson,
Life and Times of John Milton,
volume 4, book 1, chapter 1.
{884}
"I struggled through the Eikon Basilike yesterday; one of the
paltriest pieces of vapid, shovel-hatted, clear-starched,
immaculate falsity and cant I have ever read. It is to me an
amazement how any mortal could ever have taken that for a
genuine book of King Charles's. Nothing but a surpliced
Pharisee, sitting at his ease afar off, could have got up such
a set of meditations. It got Parson Gauden [John Gauden,
Bishop of Exeter and Worcester, successively, after the
Restoration, and who is believed to have been the author of
the Eikon Basilike] a bishopric."
T. Carlyle,
History of his Life in London,
by Froude, volume 1, chapter 7, November 26, 1840.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (APRIL-MAY).
Mutiny of the Levellers.
See LEVELLERS.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1649-1650.
Cromwell's campaign in Ireland.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1649-1650.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1650 (JULY).
Charles II. proclaimed King in Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1650 (MARCH-JULY).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1650 (SEPTEMBER).
War with the Scots and Cromwell's victory at Dunbar.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1650 (SEPTEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1651 (SEPTEMBER).
The Scots and Charles II. overthrown at Worcester.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1651.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1651-1653.
The Army and the Rump.
"'Now that the King is dead and his son defeated,' Cromwell
said gravely to the Parliament, 'I think it necessary to come
to a settlement.' But the settlement which had been promised
after Naseby was still as distant as ever after Worcester. The
bill for dissolving the present Parliament, though Cromwell
pressed it in person, was only passed, after bitter
opposition, by a majority of two; and even this success had
been purchased by a compromise which permitted the House to
sit for three years more. Internal affairs were simply at a
dead lock. ... The one remedy for all this was, as the army
saw, the assembly of a new and complete Parliament in place of
the mere 'rump' of the old; but this was the one measure which
the House was resolute to avert. Vane spurred it to a new
activity. ... But it was necessary for Vane's purposes not
only to show the energy of the Parliament, but to free it from
the control of the army. His aim was to raise in the navy a
force devoted to the House, and to eclipse the glories of
Dunbar and Worcester by yet greater triumphs at sea. With this
view the quarrel with Holland had been carefully nursed. ...
The army hardly needed the warning conveyed by the
introduction of a bill for its disbanding to understand the
new policy of the Parliament. ... The army petitioned not only
for reform in Church and State, but for an explicit
declaration that the House would bring its proceedings to a
close. The Petition forced the House to discuss a bill for 'a
New Representative,' but the discussion soon brought out the
resolve of the sitting members to continue as a part of the
coming Parliament without re-election. The officers, irritated
by such a claim, demanded in conference after conference an
immediate dissolution, and the House as resolutely refused. In
ominous words Cromwell supported the demands of the army. 'As
for the members of this Parliament, the army begins to take
them in disgust. I would it did so with less reason.' ... Not
only were the existing members to continue as members of the
New Parliament, depriving the places they represented of their
right of choosing representatives, but they were to constitute
a Committee of Revision, to determine the validity of each
election, and the fitness of the members returned. A
conference took place [April 19, 1653] between the leaders of
the Commons and the officers of the army. ... The conference
was adjourned till the next morning, on an understanding that
no decisive step should be taken; but it had no sooner
reassembled, than the absence of the leading members confirmed
the news that Vane was fast pressing the bill for a new
Representative through the House. 'It is contrary to common
honesty,' Cromwell angrily broke out; and, quitting Whitehall,
he summoned a company of musketeers to follow him as far as
the door of the House of Commons."
J. R Green,
Short History of England,
chapter 8, section 9.
ALSO IN:
J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Cromwell.
J. A. Picton,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 22.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1651-1672.
The Navigation Acts and the American colonies.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1651-1672;
also, NAVIGATION LAWS.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1652-1654.
War with the Dutch Republic.
"After the death of William, Prince of Orange, which was
attended with the depression of his party and the triumph of
the Dutch republicans [see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1647-1650], the
Parliament thought that the time was now favourable for
cementing a closer confederacy with the states. St. John,
chief justice, who was sent over to the Hague, had entertained
the idea of forming a kind of coalition between the two
republics, which would have rendered their interests totally
inseparable; ... but the states, who were unwilling to form a
nearer confederacy with a government whose measures were so
obnoxious, and whose situation seemed so precarious, offered
only to renew 'the former alliances with England; and the
haughty St. John, disgusted with this disappointment, as well
as incensed at many affronts which had been offered him, with
impunity, by the retainers of the Palatine and Orange
families, and indeed by the populace in general, returned into
England and endeavoured to foment a quarrel between the
republics. .... There were several motives which at this time
induced the English Parliament to embrace hostile measures.
Many of the members thought that a foreign war would serve as
a pretence for continuing the same Parliament, and delaying
the new model of a representative, with which the nation had
so long been flattered. Others hoped that the war would
furnish a reason for maintaining, some time longer, that
numerous standing army which was so much complained of. On the
other hand, some, who dreaded the increasing power of
Cromwell, expected that the great expense of naval armaments
would prove a motive for diminishing the military
establishment. To divert the attention of the public from
domestic quarrels towards foreign transactions, seemed, in the
present disposition of men's minds, to be good policy. ... All
these views, enforced by the violent spirit of St. John, who
had great influence over Cromwell, determined the Parliament
to change the purposed alliance into a furious war against the
United Provinces. To cover these hostile intentions, the
Parliament, under pretence of providing for the interests of
commerce, embraced such measures as they knew would give
disgust to the states. They framed the famous act of
navigation, which prohibited all nations from importing into
England in their bottoms any commodity which was not the
growth and manufacture of their own country. ... The minds of
men in both states were every day more irritated against each
other; and it was not long before these humours broke forth
into action."
D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter 60 (volume 5).
{885}
"The negotiations ... were still pending when Blake, meeting
Van Tromp's fleet in the Downs, in vain summoned the Dutch
Admiral to lower his flag. A battle was the consequence, which
led to a declaration of war on the 8th of July (1652). The
maritime success of England was chiefly due to the genius of
Blake, who having hitherto served upon shore, now turned his
whole attention to the navy. A series of bloody fights took
place between the two nations. For some time the fortunes of
the war seemed undecided. Van Tromp, defeated by Blake, had to
yield the command to De Ruyter. De Ruyter in his turn was
displaced to give way again to his greater rival. Van Tromp
was reinstated in command. A victory over Blake off the Naze
(November 28) enabled him to cruise in the Channel with a
broom at his mast-head, implying that he had swept the English
from the seas. But the year 1653 again saw Blake able to fight
a drawn battle of two days' duration between Portland and La
Hogue; while at length, on the 2d and 3d of June, a decisive
engagement was fought off the North Foreland, in which Monk
and Deane, supported by Blake, completely defeated the Dutch
Admiral, who, as a last resource, tried in vain to blow up his
own ship, and then retreated to the Dutch coast, leaving
eleven ships in the hands of the English. In the next month,
another victory on the part of Blake, accompanied by the death
of the great Dutch Admiral, completed the ruin of the naval
power of Holland. The States were driven to treat. In 1654 the
treaty was signed, in which Denmark, the Hanseatic towns, and
the Swiss provinces were included. ... The Dutch acknowledged
the supremacy of the English flag in the British seas; they
consented to the Navigation Act."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 2, page 701.
ALSO IN:
W. H. Dixon,
Robert Blake, Admiral and General at Sea,
chapters 6-7.
D. Hannay,
Admiral Blake,
chapters 6-7.
J. Campbell,
Naval History of Great Britain,
chapter 15 (volume 2).
G. Penn,
Memorials of Sir William Penn,
chapter 4.
J. Corbett,
Monk,
chapter 7.
J. Geddes,
History of the Administration of John De Witt,
volume 1, books 4-5.
See, also, NAVIGATION LAWS, ENGLISH: A. D. 1651.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (APRIL).
Cromwell's expulsion of the Rump.
"In plain black clothes and gray worsted stockings, the
Lord-General came in quietly and took his seat [April 20], as
Vane was pressing the House to pass the dissolution Bill
without delay and without the customary forms. He beckoned to
Harrison and told him that the Parliament was ripe for
dissolution, and he must do it. 'Sir,' said Harrison, 'the
work is very great and dangerous.'--'You say well,' said the
general, and thereupon sat still for about a quarter of an
hour. Vane sat down, and the Speaker was putting the question
for passing the Bill. Then said Cromwell to Harrison again,
'This is the time; I must do it.' He rose up, put off his hat,
and spoke. Beginning moderately and respectfully, he presently
changed his style, told them of their injustice, delays of
justice, self interest, and other faults; charging them not to
have a heart to do anything for the public good, to have
espoused the corrupt interest of Presbytery and the lawyers,
who were the supporters of tyranny and oppression, accusing
them of an intention to perpetuate themselves in power. And
rising into passion, 'as if he were distracted,' he told them
that the Lord had done with them, and had chosen other
instruments for the carrying on His work that were worthy. Sir
Peter Wentworth rose to complain of such language in
Parliament, coming from their own trusted servant. Roused to
fury by the interruption, Cromwell left his seat, clapped on
his hat, walked up and down the floor of the House, stamping
with his feet, and cried out, 'You are no Parliament, I say
you are no Parliament. Come, come, we have had enough of this;
I will put an end to your prating. Call them in!' Twenty or
thirty musketeers under Colonel Worsley marched in onto the
floor of the House. The rest of the guard were placed at the
door and in the lobby. Vane from his place cried out, 'This is
not honest, yea, it is against morality and common honesty.'
Cromwell, who evidently regarded Vane as the breaker of the
supposed agreement, turned on him with a loud voice, crying,
'O Sir Henry Vane, Sir Henry Vane, the Lord deliver me from
Sir Henry Vane.' Then looking upon one of the members, he
said, 'There sits a drunkard;' to another he said, 'Some of
you are unjust, corrupt persons, and scandalous to the
profession of the Gospel.' 'Some are whoremasters,' he said,
looking at Wentworth and Marten. Going up to the table, he
said, 'What shall we do with this Bauble? Here, take it away!'
and gave it to a musketeer. 'Fetch him down,' he cried to
Harrison, pointing to the Speaker. Lenthall sat still, and
refused to come down unless by force. 'Sir,' said Harrison, 'I
will lend you my hand,' and putting his hand within his, the
Speaker came down. Algernon Sidney sat still in his place.
'Put him out,' said Cromwell. And Harrison and Worsley put
their hands on his shoulders, and he rose and went out. The
members went out, fifty-three in all, Cromwell still calling
aloud. To Vane he said that he might have prevented this; but
that he was a juggler and had not common honesty. 'It is you,'
he said, as they passed him, 'that have forced me to do this,
for I have sought the Lord night and day, that He would rather
slay me than put me on the doing of this work.' He snatched
the Bill of dissolution from the hand of the clerk, put it
under his cloak, seized on the records, ordered the guard to
clear the House of all members, and to have the door locked,
and went away to Whitehall. Such is one of the most famous
scenes in our history, that which of all other things has most
heavily weighed on the fame of Cromwell. In truth it is a
matter of no small complexity, which neither constitutional
eloquence nor boisterous sarcasm has quite adequately
unravelled. ... In strict constitutional right the House was
no more the Parliament than Cromwell was the king. A House of
Commons, which had executed the king, abolished the Lords,
approved the 'coup d'état' of Pride, and by successive
proscriptions had reduced itself to a few score of extreme
partisans, had no legal title to the name of Parliament. The
junto which held to Vane was not more numerous than the junto
which held to Cromwell; they had far less public support; nor
had their services to the Cause been so great.
{886}
In closing the House, the Lord-General had used his office of
Commander-in-Chief to anticipate one 'coup d'état' by another.
Had he been ten minutes late, Vane would himself have
dissolved the House; snapping a vote which would give his
faction a legal ascendancy. Yet, after all, the fact remains
that Vane and the remnant of the famous Long Parliament had
that 'scintilla juris,' as lawyers call it, that semblance of
legal right, which counts for so much in things political."
F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
J. K. Hosmer,
Life of Young Sir Henry Vane,
part 3, chapter 17.
F. P. Guizot,
History of Oliver Cromwell,
book 4 (volume l).
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th century,
book 11, chapter 5 (volume 3).
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth,
volume 3, chapters 27-29.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (JUNE-DECEMBER).
The Barebones, or Little Parliament.
Six weeks after the expulsion of the Rump, Cromwell, in his
own name, and upon his own authority, as "Captain-General and
Commander-in-Chief," issued (June 6) a summons to one hundred
and forty "persons fearing God and of approved fidelity and
honesty," chosen and "nominated" by himself, with the advice
of his council of officers, requiring them to be and appear at
the Council Chamber of Whitehall on the following fourth day
of July, to take upon themselves "the great charge and trust"
of providing for "the peace, safety, and good government" of
the Commonwealth, and to serve, each, "as a Member for the
county" from which he was called. "Of all the Parties so
summoned, 'only two' did not attend. Disconsolate Bulstrode
says: 'Many of this Assembly being persons of fortune and
knowledge, it was much wondered by some that they would at
this summons, and from such hands, take upon them the Supreme
Authority of this Nation; considering how little right
Cromwell and his Officers had to give it, or those Gentlemen
to take it.' My disconsolate friend, it is a sign that Puritan
England in general accepts this action of Cromwell and his
Officers, and thanks them for it, in such a case of extremity;
saying as audibly as the means permitted: Yea, we did wish it
so. Rather mournful to the disconsolate official mind. ... The
undeniable fact is, these men were, as Whitlocke intimates, a
quite reputable Assembly; got together by anxious
'consultation of the godly Clergy' and chief Puritan lights in
their respective Counties; not without much earnest revision,
and solemn consideration in all kinds, on the part of men
adequate enough for such a work, and desirous enough to do it
well. The List of the Assembly exists; not yet entirely gone
dark for mankind. A fair proportion of them still recognizable
to mankind. Actual Peers one or two: founders of Peerage
Families, two or three, which still exist among us,--Colonel
Edward Montague, Colonel Charles Howard, Anthony Ashley
Cooper. And better than King's Peers, certain Peers of Nature;
whom if not the King and his pasteboard Norroys have had the
luck to make Peers of, the living heart of England has since
raised to the Peerage and means to keep there,--Colonel Robert
Blake the Sea-King, for one. 'Known persons,' I do think; 'of
approved integrity, men fearing God'; and perhaps not entirely
destitute of sense anyone of them! Truly it seems rather a
distinguished Parliament,--even though Mr. Praisegod Barbone,
'the Leather merchant in Fleet-street,' be, as all mortals
must admit, a member of it. The fault, I hope, is forgivable.
Praisegod, though he deals in leather, and has a name which
can be misspelt, one discerns to be the son of pious parents;
to be himself a man of piety, of understanding and
weight,--and even of considerable private capital, my witty
flunkey friends! We will leave Praisegod to do the best he
can, I think. ... In fact, a real Assembly of the Notables in
Puritan England; a Parliament, Parliamentum, or
Speaking-Apparatus for the now dominant Interest in England,
as exact as could well be got,--much more exact, I suppose,
than any ballot-box, free hustings or ale-barrel election
usually yields. Such is the Assembly called the Little
Parliament, and wittily Bare-bone's Parliament; which meets on
the 4th of July. Their witty name survives; but their history
is gone all dark."
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 7, speech. 1.
The "assembly of godly persons" proved, however, to be quite
an unmanageable body, containing so large a number of erratic
and impracticable reformers that everything substantial among
English institutions was threatened with overthrow at their
hands. After five months of busy session, Cromwell was happily
able to bring about a dissolution of his parliament, by the
action of a majority, surrendering back their powers into his
hands,--which was done on the 10th of December, 1653.
F. P. Guizot,
History of Oliver Cromwell,
book 5 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
J. A. Picton,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 23.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (December).
The Establishment and Constitution of the Protectorate.
The Instrument of Government.
"What followed the dissolution of the Little Parliament is
soon told. The Council of Officers having been summoned by
Cromwell as the only power de facto, there were dialogues and
deliberations, ending in the clear conclusion that the method
of headship in a 'Single Person' for his whole life must now
be tried in the Government of the Commonwealth, and that
Cromwell must be that 'Single Person.' The title of King was
actually proposed; but, as there were objections to that,
Protector was chosen as a title familiar in English History
and of venerable associations. Accordingly, Cromwell having
consented, and all preparations having been made, he was, on
Friday, December 16, in a great assembly of civic, judicial
and military dignities, solemnly sworn and installed in the
Chancery Court, Westminster Hall, as Lord Protector of the
Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. There were some
of his adherents hitherto who did not like this new elevation
of their hero, and forsook him in consequence, regarding any
experiment of the Single Person method in Government 'as a
treason to true Republicanism, and Cromwell's assent to it as
unworthy of him. Among these was Harrison. Lambert, on the
other hand, had been the main agent in the change, and took a
conspicuous part in the installation-ceremony. In fact, pretty
generally throughout the country and even among the
Presbyterians, the elevation of Cromwell to some kind of
sovereignty had come to be regarded as an inevitable necessity
of the time, the only possible salvation of the Commonwealth from
the anarchy, or wild and experimental idealism, in matters
civil and religious, which had been the visible drift at last
of the Barebones or Daft Little Parliament. ... The powers and
duties of the Protectorate had been defined, rather elaborately,
in a Constitutional Instrument of forty-two Articles, called
'The Government of the Commonwealth' [more commonly known as
The Instrument of Government] to which Cromwell had sworn
fidelity at his installation."
{887}
D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
volume 4, book 4, chapters 1 and 3.
ALSO IN:
J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Cromwell.
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 12, chapter 1 (volume 3).
S. R. Gardiner,
Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution,
introduction, section 4 and pages 314-324.
Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England,
volume 3, pages 1417-1426.
The following is the text Of the Instrument of Government:
The government of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and
Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging.
I. That the supreme legislative authority of the Commonwealth
of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto
belonging, shall be and reside in one person, and the people
assembled in Parliament; the style of which person shall be
the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland,
and Ireland.
II. That the exercise of the chief magistracy and the
administration of the government over the said countries and
dominions, and the people thereof, shall be in the Lord
Protector, assisted with a council, the number whereof shall
not exceed twenty-one, nor be less than thirteen.
III. That all writs, processes, commissions, patents, grants,
and other things, which now run in the name and style of the
keepers of the liberty of England by authority of Parliament,
shall run in the name and style of the Lord Protector, from
whom, for the future, shall be derived all magistracy and
honours in these three nations; and have the power of pardons
(except in case of murders and treason) and benefit of all
forfeitures for the public use; and shall govern the said
countries and dominions in all things by the advice of the
council, and according to these presents and the laws.
IV. That the Lord Protector, the Parliament sitting, shall
dispose and order the militia and forces, both by sea and
land, for the peace and good of the three nations, by consent
of Parliament; and that the Lord Protector, with the advice
and consent of the major part of the council, shall dispose
and order the militia for the ends aforesaid in the intervals
of Parliament."
V. That the Lord Protector, by the advice aforesaid, shall
direct in all things concerning the keeping and holding of a
good correspondency with foreign kings, princes, and states;
and also, with the consent of the major part of the council,
have the power of war and peace.
VI. That the laws shall not be altered, suspended, abrogated,
or repealed, nor any new law made, nor any tax, charge, or
imposition laid upon the people, but by common consent in
Parliament, save only as is expressed in the thirtieth
article.
VII. That there shall be a Parliament summoned to meet at
Westminster upon the third day of September, 1654, and that
successively a Parliament shall be summoned once in every
third year, to be accounted from the dissolution of the
present Parliament.
VIII. That neither the Parliament to be next summoned, nor any
successive Parliaments, shall, during the time of five months,
to be accounted from the day of their first meeting, be
adjourned, prorogued, or dissolved, without their own consent.
IX. That as well the next as all other successive Parliaments,
shall be summoned and elected in manner hereafter expressed;
that is to say, the persons to be chosen within England,
Wales, the Isles of Jersey, Guernsey, and the town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed, to sit and serve in Parliament, shall be,
and not exceed, the number of four hundred. The persons to be
chosen within Scotland, to sit and serve in Parliament, shall
be, and not exceed, the number of thirty; and the persons to
be chosen to sit in Parliament for Ireland shall be, and not
exceed, the number of thirty.
X. That the persons to be elected to sit in Parliament from
time to time, for the several counties of England, Wales, the
Isles of Jersey and Guernsey, and the town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed, and all places within the same
respectively, shall be according to the proportions and
numbers hereafter expressed: that is to say,
Bedfordshire, 5;
Bedford Town, 1;
Berkshire, 5;
Abingdon, 1;
Reading, 1;
Buckinghamshire, 5;
Buckingham Town, 1;
Aylesbury, 1;
Wycomb, 1;
Cambridgeshire, 4;
Cambridge Town, 1;
Cambridge University, 1;
Isle of Ely, 2;
Cheshire, 4;
Chester, 1;
Cornwall, 8;
Launceston, 1;
Truro, 1;
Penryn, 1;
East Looe and West Looe, 1;
Cumberland, 2;
Carlisle, 1;
Derbyshire, 4;
Derby Town, 1;
Devonshire, 11;
Exeter, 2;
Plymouth, 2
Clifton, Dartmouth, Hardness, 1;
Totnes, 1;
Barnstable, 1;
Tiverton, 1;
Honiton, 1;
Dorsetshire, 6;
Dorchester, 1;
Weymouth and Melcomb-Regis, 1;
Lyme-Regis, 1;
Poole, 1;
Durham, 2;
City of Durham, 1;
Essex, 13;
Malden, 1;
Colchester, 2;
Gloucestershire, 5;
Gloucester, 2;
Tewkesbury, 1;
Cirencester, 1;
Herefordshire, 4;
Hereford, 1;
Leominster, 1;
Hertfordshire, 5;
St. Alban's, 1:
Hertford, 1;
Huntingdonshire, 3;
Huntingdon, 1;
Kent, 11;
Canterbury, 2;
Rochester, 1
Maidstone, 1;
Dover, 1;
Sandwich, 1;
Queenborough, 1;
Lancashire, 4;
Preston, 1;
Lancaster, 1;
Liverpool, 1;
Manchester, 1;
Leicestershire, 4
Leicester, 2;
Lincolnshire, 10;
Lincoln, 2;
Boston, 1;
Grantham, 1;
Stamford, 1;
Great Grimsby, 1;
Middlesex, 4;
London, 6;
Westminster, 2;
Monmouthshire, 3;
Norfolk 10;
Norwich, 2;
Lynn-Regis, 2
Great Yarmouth, 2
Northamptonshire, 6;
Peterborough, 1;
Northampton, 1;
Nottinghamshire, 4;
Nottingham, 2;
Northumberland, 3;
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1;
Berwick, 1;
Oxfordshire, 5;
Oxford City, 1;
Oxford University, 1;
Woodstock, 1;
Rutlandshire, 2;
Shropshire, 4;
Shrewsbury, 2;
Bridgnorth, 1;
Ludlow, 1;
Staffordshire, 3;
Lichfield, 1;
Stafford, 1;
Newcastle-under-Lyne, 1;
Somersetshire, 11;
Bristol, 2;
Taunton, 2;
Bath, 1;
Wells, 1;
Bridgwater, 1;
Southamptonshire, 8;
Winchester, 1;
Southampton, 1
Portsmouth, 1;
Isle of Wight, 2;
Andover, 1;
Suffolk, 10;
Ipswich, 2;
Bury St. Edmunds, 2;
Dunwich, 1;
Sudbury, 1;
Surrey, 6;
Southwark, 2;
Guildford, 1;
Reigate, 1;
Sussex, 9;
Chichester, 1;
Lewes, 1;
East Grinstead, 1;
Arundel, 1;
Rye, 1;
Westmoreland, 2;
Warwickshire, 4;
Coventry, 2;
Warwick, 1;
Wiltshire, 10;
New Sarum, 2;
Marlborough, 1;
Devizes, 1;
Worcestershire, 5;
Worcester, 2.
YORKSHIRE.
West Riding, 6;
East Riding, 4;
North Riding, 4;
City of York, 2
Kingston-upon-Hull, 1;
Beverley, 1;
Scarborough, 1;
Richmond, 1;
Leeds, 1;
Halifax, 1.
{888}
WALES.
Anglesey, 2:
Brecknoekshire, 2;
Cardiganshire, 2;
Carmarthenshire, 2;
Carnarvonshire, 2;
Denbighshire, 2;
Flintshire, 2;
Glamorganshire, 2;
Cardiff, 1;
Merionethshire, 1;
Montgomeryshire, 2;
Pembrokeshire, 2;
Haverfordwest, 1;
Radnorshire, 2.
The distribution of the persons to be chosen for Scotland and
Ireland, and the several counties, cities, and places therein,
shall be according to such proportions and number as shall be
agreed upon and declared by the Lord Protector and the major
part of the council, before the sending forth writs of summons
for the next Parliament.
XI. That the summons to Parliament shall be by writ under the
Great Seal of England, directed to the sheriffs of the several
and respective counties, with such alteration as may suit with
the present government to be made by the Lord Protector and
his council, which the Chancellor, Keeper, or Commissioners of
the Great Seal shall seal, issue, and send abroad by warrant
from the Lord Protector. If the Lord Protector shall not give
warrant for issuing of writs of summons for the next
Parliament, before the first of June, 1654, or for the
Triennial Parliaments, before the first day of August in every
third year, to be accounted as aforesaid; that then the
Chancellor, Keeper, or Commissioners of the Great Seal for the
time being, shall, without any warrant or direction, within
seven days after the said first day of June, 1654, seal,
issue, and send abroad writs of summons (changing therein what
is to be changed as aforesaid) to the several and respective
sheriffs of England, Scotland, and Ireland, for summoning the
Parliament to meet at Westminster, the third day of September
next; and shall likewise, within seven days after the said
first day of August, in every third year, to be accounted from
the dissolution of the precedent Parliament, seal, issue, and
send forth abroad several writs of summons (changing therein
what is to be changed) as aforesaid, for summoning the
Parliament to meet at Westminster the sixth of November in
that third year. That the said several and respective
sheriffs, shall, within ten days after the receipt of such
writ as aforesaid, cause the same to be proclaimed and
published in every market-town within his county upon the
market-days thereof, between twelve and three of the clock;
and shall then also publish and declare the certain day of the
week and month, for choosing members to serve in Parliament for
the body of the said county, according to the tenor of the
said writ, which shall be upon Wednesday five weeks after the
date of the writ; and shall likewise declare the place where
the election shall be made: for which purpose he shall appoint
the most convenient place for the whole county to meet in; and
shall send precepts for elections to be made in all and every
city, town, borough, or place within his county, where
elections are to be made by virtue of these presents, to the
Mayor, Sheriff, or other head officer of such city, town,
borough, or place, within three days after the receipt of such
writ and writs; which the said Mayors, Sheriffs, and officers
respectively are to make publication of, and of the certain
day for such elections to be made in the said city, town, or
place aforesaid, and to cause elections to be made
accordingly.
XII. That at the day and place of elections, the Sheriff of
each county, and the said Mayors, Sheriffs, Bailiffs, and
other head officers within their cities, towns, boroughs, and
places respectively, shall take view of the said elections,
and shall make return into the chancery within twenty days
after the said elections, of the persons elected by the
greater number of electors, under their hands and seals,
between him on the one part, and the electors on the other
part; wherein shall be contained, that the persons elected
shall not have power to alter the government as it is hereby
settled in one single person and a Parliament.
XIII. That the Sheriff, who shall wittingly and willingly make
any false return, or neglect his duty, shall incur the penalty
of 2,000 marks of lawful English money; the one moiety to the
Lord Protector, and the other moiety to such person as will
sue for the same.
XIV. That all and every person and persons, who have aided,
advised, assisted, or abetted in any war against the
Parliament, since the first day of January 1641 (unless they
have been since in the service of the Parliament, and given
signal testimony of their good affection thereunto) shall be
disabled and incapable to be elected, or to give any vote in
the election of any members to serve in the next Parliament,
or in the three succeeding Triennial Parliaments.
XV. That all such, who have advised, assisted, or abetted the
rebellion of Ireland, shall be disabled and incapable for ever
to be elected, or give any vote in the election of any member
to serve in Parliament; as also all such who do or shall
profess the Roman Catholic religion.
XVI. That all votes and elections given or made contrary, or
not according to these qualifications, shall be null and void;
and if any person, who is hereby made incapable, shall give
his vote for election of members to serve in Parliament, such
person shall lose and forfeit one full year's value of his
real estate, and one full third part of his personal estate;
one moiety thereof to the Lord Protector, and the other moiety
to him or them who shall sue for the same.
XVII. That the persons who shall be elected to serve in
Parliament, shall be such (and no other than such) as are
persons of known integrity, fearing God, and of good
conversation, and being of the age of twenty-one years.
XVIII. That all and every person and persons seised or
possessed to his own use, of any estate, real or personal, to
the value of £200, and not within the aforesaid exceptions,
shall be capable to elect members to serve in Parliament for
counties.
XIX. That the Chancellor, Keeper, or Commissioners of the
Great Seal, shall be sworn before they enter into their
offices, truly and faithfully to issue forth, and send abroad,
writs of summons to Parliament, at the times and in the manner
before expressed: and in case of neglect or failure to issue
and send abroad writs accordingly, he or they shall for every
such offence be guilty of high treason, and suffer the pains
and penalties thereof.
XX. That in case writs be not issued out, as is before
expressed, but that there be a neglect therein, fifteen days
after the time wherein the same ought to be issued out by the
Chancellor, Keeper, or Commissioners of the Great Seal; that
then the Parliament shall, as often as such failure shall
happen, assemble and be held at Westminster, in the usual
place, at the times prefixed, in manner and by the means
hereafter expressed; that is to say, that the sheriffs of the
several and respective counties, sheriffdoms, cities,
boroughs, and places aforesaid, within England, Wales,
Scotland, and Ireland, the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars
of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the Mayor and
Bailiffs of the borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and other
places aforesaid respectively, shall at the several courts and
places to be appointed as aforesaid, within thirty days after
the said fifteen days, cause such members to be chosen for
their said several and respective counties, sheriffdoms,
universities, cities, boroughs, and places aforesaid, by such
persons, and in such manner, as if several and respective
writs of summons to Parliament under the Great Seal had issued
and been awarded according to the tenor aforesaid: that if the
sheriff, or other persons authorized, shall neglect his or
their duty herein, that all and every such sheriff and person
authorized as aforesaid, so neglecting his or their duty,
shall, for every such offence, be guilty of high treason, and
shall suffer the pains and penalties thereof.
{889}
XXI. That the clerk, called the clerk of the Commonwealth in
Chancery for the time being, and all others, who shall
afterwards execute that office, to whom the returns shall be
made, shall for the next Parliament, and the two succeeding
Triennial Parliaments, the next day after such return, certify
the names of the several persons so returned, and of the
places for which he and they were chosen respectively, unto
the Council; who shall peruse the said returns, and examine
whether the persons so elected and returned be such as is
agreeable to the qualifications, and not disabled to be
elected: and that every person and persons being so duly
elected, and being approved of by the major part of the
Council to be persons not disabled, but qualified as
aforesaid, shall be esteemed a member of Parliament, and be
admitted to sit in Parliament, and not otherwise.
XXII. That the persons so chosen and assembled in manner
aforesaid, or any sixty of them, shall be, and be deemed the
Parliament of England, Scotland, and Ireland; and the supreme
legislative power to be and reside in the Lord Protector and
such Parliament, in manner herein expressed.
XXIII. That the Lord Protector, with the advice of the major
part of the Council, shall at any other time than is before
expressed, when the necessities of the State shall require it,
summon Parliaments in manner before expressed, which shall not
be adjourned, prorogued, or dissolved without their own
consent, during the first three months of their sitting. And
in case of future war with any foreign State, a Parliament
shall be forthwith summoned for their advice concerning the
same.
XXIV. That all Bills agreed unto by the Parliament, shall be
presented to the Lord Protector for his consent; and in case
he shall not give his consent thereto within twenty days after
they shall be presented to him, or give satisfaction to the
Parliament within the time limited, that then, upon
declaration of the Parliament that the Lord Protector hath not
consented nor given satisfaction, such Bills shall pass into
and become laws, although he shall not give his consent
thereunto; provided such Bills contain nothing in them
contrary to the matters contained in these presents.
XXV. That [Henry Lawrence, esq.; Philip lord vise. Lisle; the
majors general Lambert, Desborough, and Skippon; lieutenant
general Fleetwood; the colonels Edward Montagu, Philip Jones,
and Wm. Sydenham; sir Gilbert Pickering, sir Ch. Wolseley, and
sir Anth. Ashley Cooper, Barts., Francis Rouse, esq., Speaker
of the late Convention, Walter Strickland, and Rd. Major,
esqrs.]--or any seven of them, shall be a Council for the
purposes expressed in this writing; and upon the death or
other removal of any of them, the Parliament shall nominate
six persons of ability, integrity, and fearing God, for
everyone that is dead or removed; out of which the major part
of the Council shall elect two, and present them to the Lord
Protector, of which he shall elect one; and in case the
Parliament shall not nominate within twenty days after notice
given unto them thereof, the major part of the Council shall
nominate three as aforesaid to the Lord Protector, who out of
them shall supply the vacancy; and until this choice be made,
the remaining part of the Council shall execute as fully in
all things, as if their number were full. And in case of
corruption, or other miscarriage in any of the Council in
their trust, the Parliament shall appoint seven of their
number, and the Council six, who, together with the Lord
Chancellor, Lord Keeper, or Commissioners of the Great Seal
for the time being, shall have power to hear and determine
such corruption and miscarriage, and to award and inflict
punishment, as the nature of the offence shall deserve, which
punishment shall not be pardoned or remitted by the Lord
Protector; and, in the interval of Parliaments, the major part
of the Council, with the consent of the Lord Protector, may,
for corruption or other miscarriage as aforesaid, suspend any
of their number from the exercise of their trust, if they
shall find it just, until the matter shall be heard and
examined as aforesaid.
XXVI. That the Lord Protector and the major part of the
Council aforesaid may, at any time before the meeting of the
next Parliament, add to the Council such persons as they shall
think fit, provided the number of the Council be not made
thereby to exceed twenty-one, and the quorum to be
proportioned accordingly by the Lord Protector and the major
part of the Council.
XXVII. That a constant yearly revenue shall be raised,
settled, and established for maintaining of 10,000 horse and
dragoons, and 20,000 foot, in England, Scotland and Ireland,
for the defence and security thereof, and also for a
convenient number of ships for guarding of the seas; besides
£200,000 per annum for defraying the other necessary charges
of administration of justice, and other expenses of the
Government, which revenue shall be raised by the customs, and
such other ways and means as shall be agreed upon by the Lord
Protector and the Council, and shall not be taken away or
diminished, nor the way agreed upon for raising the same
altered, but by the consent of the Lord Protector and the
Parliament.
XXVIII. That the said yearly revenue shall be paid into the
public treasury, and shall be issued out for the uses
aforesaid.
XXIX. That in case there shall not be cause hereafter to keep
up so great a defence both at land or sea, but that there be
an abatement made thereof, the money which will be saved
thereby shall remain in bank for the public service, and not
be employed to any other use but by consent of Parliament, or,
in the intervals of Parliament, by the Lord Protector and
major part of the Council.
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XXX. That the raising of money for defraying the charge of the
present extraordinary forces, both at sea and land, in respect
of the present wars, shall be by consent of Parliament, and
not otherwise: save only that the Lord Protector, with the
consent of the major part of the Council, for preventing the
disorders and dangers which might otherwise fall out both by
sea and land, shall have power, until the meeting of the first
Parliament, to raise money for the purposes aforesaid; and
also to make laws and ordinances for the peace and welfare of
these nations where it shall be necessary, which shall be
binding and in force, until order shall be taken in Parliament
concerning the same.
XXXI. That the lands, tenements, rents, royalties,
jurisdictions and hereditaments which remain yet unsold or
undisposed of, by Act or Ordinance of Parliament, belonging to
the Commonwealth (except the forests and chases, and the
honours and manors belonging to the same; the lands of the
rebels in Ireland, lying in the four counties of Dublin, Cork,
Kildare, and Carlow; the lands forfeited by the people of
Scotland in the late wars, and also the lands of Papists and
delinquents in England who have not yet compounded), shall be
vested in the Lord Protector, to hold, to him and his
successors, Lords Protectors of these nations, and shall not
be alienated but by consent in Parliament. And all debts,
fines, issues, amercements, penalties and profits, certain and
casual, due to the Keepers of the liberties of England by
authority of Parliament, shall be due to the Lord Protector,
and be payable into his public receipt, and shall be recovered
and prosecuted in his name.
XXXII. That the office of Lord Protector over these nations
shall be elective and not hereditary; and upon the death of
the Lord Protector, another fit person shall be forthwith
elected to succeed him in the Government; which election shall
be by the Council, who, immediately upon the death of the Lord
Protector, shall assemble in the Chamber where they usually
sit in Council; and, having given notice to an their members
of the cause of their assembling, shall, being thirteen at
least present, proceed to the election; and, before they
depart the said Chamber, shall elect a fit person to succeed
in the Government, and forthwith cause proclamation thereof to
be made in an the three nations as shall be requisite; and the
person that they, or the major part of them, shall elect as
aforesaid, shall be, and shall be taken to be, Lord Protector
over these nations of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the
dominions thereto belonging. Provided that none of the
children of the late King, nor any of his line or family, be
elected to be Lord Protector or other Chief Magistrate over
these nations, or any the dominions thereto belonging. And
until the aforesaid election be past, the Council shall take
care of the Government, and administer in an things as fully
as the Lord Protector, or the Lord Protector and Council are
enabled to do.
XXXIII. That Oliver Cromwell, Captain-General of the forces of
England, Scotland and Ireland, shall be, and is hereby
declared to be, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England,
Scotland and Ireland, and the dominions thereto belonging, for
his life.
XXXIV. That the Chancellor, Keeper or Commissioners of the
Great Seal, the Treasurer, Admiral, Chief Governors of Ireland
and Scotland, and the Chief Justices of both the Benches,
shall be chosen by the approbation of Parliament; and, in the
intervals of Parliament, by the approbation of the major part
of the Council, to be afterwards approved by the Parliament.
XXXV. That the Christian religion, as contained in the
Scriptures, be held forth and recommended as the public
profession of these nations; and that, as soon as may be, a
provision, less subject to scruple and contention, and more
certain than the present, be made for the encouragement and
maintenance of able and painful teachers, for the instructing
the people, and for discovery and confutation of error,
hereby, and whatever is contrary to sound doctrine; and until
such provision be made, the present maintenance shall not be
taken away or impeached.
XXXVI. That to the public profession held forth none shall be
compened by penalties or otherwise; but that endeavours be
used to win them by sound doctrine and the example of a good
conversation.
XXXVII. That such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ
(though differing in judgment from the doctrine, worship or
discipline publicly held forth) shall not be restrained from,
but shall be protected in, the profession of the faith and
exercise of their religion; so as they abuse not this liberty
to the civil injury of others and to the actual disturbance of
the public peace on their parts: provided this liberty be not
extended to Popery or Prelacy, nor to such as, under the
profession of Christ, hold forth and practice licentiousness.
XXXVIII. That all laws, statutes and ordinances, and clauses
in any law, statute or ordinance to the contrary of the
aforesaid liberty, shall be esteemed as null and void.
XXXIX. That the Acts and Ordinances of Parliament made for the
sale or other disposition of the lands, rents and
hereditaments of the late King, Queen, and Prince, of
Archbishops and Bishops, &c., Deans and Chapters, the lands of
delinquents and forest-lands, or any of them, or of any other
lands, tenements, rents and hereditaments belonging to the
Commonwealth, shall nowise be impeached or made invalid, but
shall remain good and firm; and that the securities given by
Act and Ordinance of Parliament for any sum or sums of money,
by any of the said lands, the excise, or any other public
revenue; and also the securities given by the public faith of
the nation, and the engagement of the public faith for
satisfaction of debts and damages, shall remain firm and good,
and not be made void and invalid upon any pretence whatsoever.
XL. That the Articles given to or made with the enemy, and
afterwards confirmed by Parliament, shall be performed and
made good to the persons concerned therein; and that such
appeals as were depending in the last Parliament for relief
concerning bills of sale of delinquent's estates, may be heard
and determined the next Parliament, anything in this writing
or otherwise to the contrary notwithstanding.
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XLI. That every successive Lord Protector over these nations
shall take and subscribe a solemn oath, in the presence of the
Council, and such others as they shall call to them, that he
will seek the peace, quiet and welfare of these nations, cause
law and justice to be equally administered; and that he will
not violate or infringe the matters and things contained in
this writing, and in all other things will, to his power and
to the best of his understanding, govern these nations
according to the laws, statutes and customs thereof.
XLII. That each person of the Council shall, before they enter
upon their trust, take and subscribe an oath, that they will
be true and faithful in their trust, according to the best of
their knowledge; and that in the election of every successive
Lord Protector they shall proceed therein impartially, and do
nothing therein for any promise, fear, favour or reward.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1654.
Re-conquest of Acadia (Nova Scotia).
See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1621-1668.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1654 (April).
Incorporation of Scotland with the Commonwealth.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1654.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1654-1658.
The Protector, his Parliaments and his Major-Generals.
The Humble Petition and Advice.
Differing views of the Cromwellian autocracy.
"Oliver addressed his first Protectorate Parliament on Sunday,
the 3d of September. ... Immediately, under the leadership of
old Parliamentarians, Haslerig, Scott, Bradshaw, and many
other republicans, the House proceeded to debate the
Instrument of Government, the constitutional basis of the
existing system. By five votes, it decided to discuss 'whether
the House should approve of government by a Single Person and
a Parliament.' This was of course to set up the principle of
making the Executive dependent on the House; a principle, in
Oliver's mind, fatal to settlement and order. He acted at
once. Calling on the Lord Mayor to secure the city, and
disposing his own guard round Westminster Hall, he summoned
the House again on the 9th day. ... Members were called on to
sign a declaration, 'not to alter the government as settled in
a Single Person and a Parliament.' Some, 300 signed; the
minority--about a fourth--refused and retired. ... The
Parliament, in spite of the declaration, set itself from the
first to discuss the constitution, to punish heretics,
suppress blasphemy, revise the Ordinances of the Council; and
they deliberately withheld all supplies for the services and
the government. At last they passed an Act for revising the
constitution de novo. Not a single bill had been sent up to
the Protector for his assent. Oliver, as usual, acted at once.
On the expiration of their five lunar months, 22d January
1655, he summoned the House and dissolved it, with a speech
full of reproaches."
F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 11.
"In 1656, the Protector called a second Parliament. By
excluding from it about a hundred members whom he judged to be
hostile to his government, he found himself on amicable terms
with the new assembly. It presented to him a Humble Petition
and Advice, asking that certain changes of the Constitution
might be agreed to by mutual consent, and that he should
assume the title of King. This title he rejected, and the
Humble Petition and Advice was passed in an amended form on
May 25, 1657, and at once received the assent of the
Protector. On June 26, it was modified in some details by the
Additional Petition and Advice. Taking the two together, the
result was to enlarge the power of Parliament and to diminish
that of the Council. The Protector, in turn, received the
right of appointing his successor, and to name the
life-members of 'the other House,' which was now to take the
place of the House of Lords. ... In accordance with the
Additional Petition and Advice, the Protector summoned
'certain persons to sit in the other House.' A quarrel between
the two Houses broke out, and the Protector [February 4, 1658]
dissolved the Parliament in anger."
S. R. Gardiner,
Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution,
pages lxiii-lxiv., and 334-350.
"To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper's
wish, but can seldom be in his power. The protector [in 1655]
abandoned all thought of it. Dividing the kingdom into
districts, he placed at the head of each a major-general as a
sort of military magistrate, responsible for the subjection of
his prefecture. These were eleven in number, men bitterly
hostile to the royalist party, and insolent towards all civil
authority. They were employed to secure the payment of a tax
of 10 per cent., imposed by Cromwell's arbitrary will on those
who had ever sided with the king during the late wars, where
their estates exceeded £100 per annum. The major-generals, in
their correspondence printed among Thurloe's papers, display a
rapacity and oppression beyond their master's. ... All
illusion was now gone as to the pretended benefits of the
civil war. It had ended in a despotism, compared to which all
the illegal practices of former kings, all that had cost
Charles his life and crown, appeared as dust in the balance.
For what was ship-money, a general burthen, by the side of the
present decimation of a single class, whose offence had long
been expiated by a composition and effaced by an act of
indemnity? or were the excessive punishments of the
star-chamber so odious as the capital executions inflicted
without trial by peers, whenever it suited the usurper to
erect his high court of justice? ... I cannot ... agree in the
praises which have been showered upon Cromwell for the just
administration of the laws under his dominion. That, between
party and party, the ordinary civil rights of men were fairly
dealt with, is no extraordinary praise; and it may be admitted
that he filled the benches of justice with able lawyers,
though not so considerable as those of the reign of Charles
II.; but it is manifest that, so far as his own authority was
concerned, no hereditary despot, proud in the crimes of a
hundred ancestors, could more have spurned at every limitation
than this soldier of a commonwealth."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 10, part 2.
"Cromwell was, and felt himself to be, a dictator called in by
the winning cause in a revolution to restore confidence and
secure peace. He was, as he said frequently, 'the Constable
set to keep order in the Parish.' Nor was he in any sense a
military despot. ... Never did a ruler invested with absolute
power and overwhelming military force more obstinately strive
to surround his authority with legal limits and Parliamentary
control."
F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 11.
"To this condition, then, England was now reduced. After the
gallantest fight for liberty that had ever been fought by any
nation in the world, she found herself trampled under foot by
a military despot. All the vices of old kingly rule were
nothing to what was now imposed upon her."
J. Forster,
Statesmen of the Commonwealth:
Cromwell.
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"His [Cromwell's] wish seems to have been to govern
constitutionally, and to substitute the empire of the laws for
that of the sword. But he soon found that, hated as he was,
both by Royalists and Presbyterians, he could be safe only by
being absolute. ... Those soldiers who would not suffer him to
assume the kingly title, stood by him when he ventured on acts
of power as high as any English king has ever attempted. The
government, therefore, though in form a republic, was in truth
a despotism, moderated only by the wisdom, the sobriety and
the magnanimity of the despot."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 1.
England: A. D. 1655-1658.
War with Spain, alliance with France.
Acquisition of Dunkirk.
"Though the German war ['the Thirty Years' War,' concluded in
1648 by the Treaty of Westphalia] was over, the struggle
between France and Spain was continued with great animosity,
each country striving to crush her rival and become the first
power in Europe. Both Louis XIV. and Philip IV. of Spain were
bidding for the protector's support. Spain offered the
possession of Calais, when taken from France; France the
possession of Dunkirk when taken from Spain (1655). Cromwell
determined to ally himself with France against Spain. ... It
was in the West Indies that the obstructive policy of Spain
came most into collision with the interests of England. Her
kings based their claims to the possession of two continents
on the bull of Pope Alexander VI., who in 1493 had granted
them all lands they should discover from pole to pole, at the
distance of 100 leagues west from the Azores and Cape Verd
Islands. On the strength of this bull they held that the
discovery of an island gave them the right to the group, the
discovery of a headland the right to a continent. Though this
monstrous claim had quite broken down as far as the North
American continent was concerned, the Spaniards, still
recognizing 'no peace beyond the line,' endeavoured to shut
all Europeans but themselves out of any share in the trade or
colonization of at least the southern half of the New World.
... While war was now proclaimed with Spain, a treaty of peace
was signed between France and England, Louis XIV. agreeing to
banish Charles Stuart and his brothers from French territory
(October 24, 1655). This treaty was afterwards changed into a
league, offensive and defensive (March 23, 1657), Cromwell
undertaking to assist Louis with 6,000 men in besieging
Gravelines, Mardyke, and Dunkirk, on condition of receiving
the two latter towns when reduced by the allied armies. By the
occupation of these towns Cromwell intended to control the
trade of the Channel, to hold the Dutch in check, who were
then but unwilling friends, and to lessen the danger of
invasion from any union of Royalists and Spaniards. The war
opened in the year 1657 [Jamaica, however, had already been
taken from the Spaniards and St. Domingo attacked], with
another triumph by sea." This was Blake's last exploit. He
attacked and destroyed the Spanish bullion fleet, from Mexico,
in the harbor of Santa Cruz, island of Teneriffe, and silenced
the forts which guarded it. The great sea-captain died on his
voyage home, after striking this blow. The next spring "the
siege of Dunkirk was commenced (May, 1658). The Spaniards
tried to relieve the town, but were completely defeated in an
engagement called the Battle of the Dunes from the sand hills
among which it was fought; the defeat was mainly owing to the
courage and discipline of Oliver's troops, who won for
themselves the name of 'the Immortal Six Thousand.' ... Ten
days after the battle Dunkirk surrendered, and the French had
no choice but to give over to the English ambassador the keys
of a town they thought 'unsi bon morceau' ['a good ...'] (June
25)."
B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts,
King and Commonwealth,
chapter 15.
ALSO IN:
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
book 9, speech 5 and book 10, letters 152-157.
J. Campbell,
Naval History of Great Britain,
chapter 15 (volume 2).
J. Waylen,
The House of Cromwell and the Story of Dunkirk,
pages 173-272.
W. H. Dixon,
Robert Blake,
chapters 9-10.
D. Hannay,
Admiral Blake,
chapter 9-11.
See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1655-1658.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1658-1660.
The fall of the Protectorate and Restoration of the Stuarts.
King Charles II.
When Oliver Cromwell died, on the 3d day of September,
1658--the anniversary of his victories at Dunbar and at
Worcester--his eldest son Richard, whom he had nominated, it
was said, on his death-bed, was proclaimed Protector, and
succeeded him "as quietly as any King had ever been succeeded
by any Prince of Wales. During five months, the administration
of Richard Cromwell went on so tranquilly and regularly that
all Europe believed him to be firmly established on the chair
of state." But Richard had none of his father's genius or
personal power, and the discontents and jealousies which the
former had rigorously suppressed soon tossed the latter from
his unstable throne by their fierce upheaval. He summoned a
new Parliament (January 27, 1659), which recognized and
confirmed his authority, though containing a powerful
opposition, of uncompromising republicans and secret
royalists. But the army, which the great Protector had tamed
to submissive obedience, was now stirred into mischievous
action once more as a political power in the state,
subservient to the ambition of Fleetwood and other commanders.
Richard Cromwell could not make himself the master of his
father's battalions. "He was used by the army as an instrument
for the purpose of dissolving the Parliament [April 22], and
was then contemptuously thrown aside. The officers gratified
their republican allies by declaring that the expulsion of the
Rump had been illegal, and by inviting that assembly to resume
its functions. The old Speaker and a quorum of the old members
came together [May 9] and were proclaimed, amidst the scarcely
stifled derision and execration of the whole nation, the
supreme power in the Commonwealth. It was at the same time
expressly declared that there should be no first magistrate
and no House of Lords. But this state of things could not
last. On the day on which the Long Parliament revived, revived
also its old quarrel with the army. Again the Rump forgot that
it owed its existence to the pleasure of the soldiers, and
began to treat them as subjects. Again the doors of the House
of Commons were closed by military violence [October 13]; and
a provisional government, named by the officers, assumed the
direction of affairs." The troops stationed in Scotland, under
Monk, had not been consulted, however, in these transactions,
and were evidently out of sympathy with their comrades in
England. Monk, who had never meddled with politics before, was
now induced to interfere.
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He refused to acknowledge the military provisional government,
declared himself the champion of the civil power, and marched
into England at the head of his 7,000 veterans. His movement
was everywhere welcomed and encouraged by popular
demonstrations of delight. The army in England lost courage
and lost unity, awed and paralyzed by the public feeling at
last set free. Monk reached London without opposition, and was
the recognized master of the realm. Nobody knew his
intentions--himself, perhaps, as little as any--and it was
not until after a period of protracted suspense that he
declared himself for the convening of a new and free
Parliament, in the place of the Rump--which had again resumed
its sittings--for the settlement of the state. "The result of
the elections was such as might have been expected from the
temper of the nation. The new House of Commons consisted, with
few exceptions, of persons friendly to the royal family. The
Presbyterians formed the majority. ... The new Parliament,
which, having been called without the royal writ, is more
accurately described as a Convention, met at Westminster
[April 26, 1660]. The Lords repaired to the hall, from which
they had, during more than eleven years, been excluded by
force. Both Houses instantly invited the King to return to his
country. He was proclaimed with pomp never before known. A
gallant fleet convoyed him from Holland to the coast of Kent.
When he landed [May 25, 1660], the cliffs of Dover were
covered by thousands of gazers, among whom scarcely one could
be found who was not weeping with delight. The journey to
London was a continued triumph."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 1.
The only guarantee with which the careless nation took back
their ejected kings of the faithless race of Stuarts was
embodied in a Declaration which Charles sent over from "Our
Court at Breda" in April, and which was read in Parliament
with an effusive display of respect and thankfulness. In this
Declaration from Breda, "a general amnesty and liberty of
conscience were promised, with such exceptions and limitations
only as the Parliament should think fit to make. All delicate
questions, among others the proprietorship of confiscated
estates, were in like manner referred to the decision of
Parliament, thus leaving the King his liberty while
diminishing his responsibility; and though fully asserting the
ancient rights of the Crown, he announced his intention to
associate the two Houses with himself in all great affairs of
State."
F. P. Guizot,
History of Richard Cromwell and the Restoration,
book 4 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
G. Burnet,
History of My Own Time,
book 2, 1660-61.
Earl of Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion,
book 16 (volume 6).
D. Masson,
Life of Milton,
volume 5, book 3.
J. Corbett,
Monk,
chapter 9-14.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1660-1685.
The Merry Monarch.
"There never were such profligate times in England as under
Charles the Second. Whenever you see his portrait, with his
swarthy ill-looking face and great nose, you may fancy him in
his Court at Whitehall, surrounded by some of the very worst
vagabonds in the kingdom (though they were lords and ladies),
drinking, gambling, indulging in vicious conversation, and
committing every kind of profligate excess. It has been a
fashion to call Charles the Second 'The Merry Monarch.' Let me
try to give you a general idea of some of the merry things
that were done, in the merry days when this merry gentleman
sat upon his merry throne, in merry England. The first merry
proceeding was--of course--to declare that he was one of the
greatest, the wisest, and the noblest kings that ever shone,
like the blessed sun itself, on this benighted earth. The next
merry and pleasant piece of business was, for the Parliament,
in the humblest manner, to give him one million two hundred
thousand pounds a year, and to settle upon him for life that
old disputed 'tonnage and poundage' which had been so bravely
fought for. Then, General Monk, being made Earl of Albemarle,
and a few other Royalists similarly rewarded, the law went to
work to see what was to be done to those persons (they were
called Regicides) who had been concerned in making a martyr of
the late King. Ten of these were merrily executed; that is to
say, six of the judges, one of the council, Colonel Hacker and
another officer who had commanded the Guards, and Hugh Peters,
a preacher who had preached against the martyr with all his
heart. These executions were so extremely merry, that every
horrible circumstance which Cromwell had abandoned was revived
with appalling cruelty. ... Sir Harry Vane, who had furnished
the evidence against Stratford, and was one of the most
staunch of the Republicans, was also tried, found guilty, and
ordered for execution. ... These merry scenes were succeeded
by another, perhaps even merrier. On the anniversary of the
late King's death, the bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Ireton, and
Bradshaw, "Were torn out of their graves in 'Westminster
Abbey, dragged to Tyburn, hanged there on a gallows all day
long, and then beheaded. Imagine the head of Oliver Cromwell
set upon a pole to be stared at by a brutal crowd, not one of
whom would have dared to look the living Oliver in the face
for half a moment! Think, after you have read this reign, what
England was under Oliver Cromwell who was torn out of his
grave, and what it was under this merry monarch who sold it,
like a merry Judas, over and over again. Of course, the
remains of Oliver's wife and daughter were not to be spared,
either, though they had been most excellent women. The base
clergy of that time gave up their bodies, which had been
buried in the Abbey, and--to the eternal disgrace of
England--they were thrown into a pit, together with the
mouldering bones of Pym, and of the brave and bold old Admiral
Blake. ... The whole Court was a great flaunting crowd of
debauched men and shameless women; and Catherine's merry
husband insulted and outraged her in every possible way, until
she consented to receive those worthless creatures as her very
good friends, and to degrade herself by their companionship. A
Mrs. Palmer, whom the King made Lady Castlemaine, and
afterwards Duchess of Cleveland, was one of the most powerful
of the bad women about the Court, and had great influence with
the King nearly all through his reign. Another merry lady
named Moll Davies, a dancer at the theatre, was afterwards her
rival. So was Nell Gwyn, first an orange girl and then an
actress, who really had good in her, and of whom one of the
worst things I know is, that actually she does seem to have
been fond of the King. The first Duke of St. Albans was this
orange girl's child. In like manner the son of a merry
waiting-lady, whom the King created Duchess of Portsmouth,
became the Duke of Richmond.
{894}
Upon the whole it is not so bad a thing to be a commoner. The
Merry Monarch was so exceedingly merry among these merry
ladies, and some equally merry (and equally infamous) lords
and gentlemen, that he soon got through his hundred thousand
pounds, and then, by way of raising a little pocket-money,
made a merry bargain. He sold Dunkirk to the French King for
five millions of livres. When I think of the dignity to which
Oliver Cromwell raised England in the eyes of foreign powers,
and when I think of the manner in which he gained for England
this very Dunkirk, I am much inclined to consider that if the
Merry Monarch had been made to follow his father for this
action, he would have received his just deserts."
C. Dickens,
Child's History of England,
chapter 35.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1661.
Acquisition of Bombay.
See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1661.
The Savoy Conference.
"The Restoration had been the joint work of Episcopalian and
Presbyterian; would it be possible to reconcile them on this
question too [i. e., of the settlement of Church government]?
The Presbyterian indeed was willing enough for a compromise,
for he had an uneasy feeling that the ground was slipping from
beneath his feet. Of Charles's intentions he was still in
doubt; but he knew that Clarendon was the sworn friend of the
Church. The Churchman on the other hand was eagerly expecting
the approaching hour of triumph. It soon appeared that as King
and Parliament, so King and Church were inseparable in the
English mind; that indeed the return of the King was the
restoration of the Church even more than it was the
restoration of Parliament. In the face of the present
Presbyterian majority however it was necessary to temporise.
The former incumbents of Church livings were restored, and the
Commons took the Communion according to the rites of the
Church; but in other respects the Presbyterians were carefully
kept in play; Charles taking his part in the elaborate farce
by appointing ten of their leading ministers royal chaplains,
and even attending, their sermons." In October, 1660, Charles
"took the matter more completely into his own hands by issuing
a Declaration. Refusing, on the ground of constraint, to admit
the validity of the oaths imposed upon him in Scotland, by
which he was bound to uphold the Covenant, and not concealing
his preference for the Anglican Church, as 'the best fence God
hath yet raised against popery in the world,' he asserted that
nevertheless, to his own knowledge, the Presbyterians were not
enemies to Episcopacy or a set liturgy, and were opposed to
the alienation of Church revenues. The Declaration then went
on to limit the power of bishops and archdeacons in a degree
sufficient to satisfy many of the leading Presbyterians, one
of whom, Reynolds, accepted a bishopric. Charles then proposed
to choose an equal number of learned divines of both
persuasions to discuss alterations in the liturgy; meanwhile
no one was to be troubled regarding differences of practice.
The majority in the Commons at first welcomed the Declaration,
... and a bill was accordingly introduced by Sir Matthew Hale
to turn the Declaration into a law. But Clarendon at any rate
had no intention of thus baulking the Church of her revenge.
Anticipating Hale's action, he had in the interval been busy
in securing a majority against any compromise. The Declaration
had done its work in gaining time, and when the bill was
brought in it was rejected by 183 to 157 votes. Parliament was
at once (December 24) dissolved. The way was now open for the
riot of the Anglican triumph. Even before the new House met
the mask was thrown off by the issuing of an order to the
justices to restore the full liturgy. The conference indeed
took place in the Savoy Palace. It failed, like the Hampton
Court Conference of James I., because it was intended to fail.
Upon the two important points, the authority of bishops and
the liturgy, the Anglicans would not give way an inch. Both
parties informed the King that, anxious as they were for
agreement, they saw no chance of it. This last attempt at
union having fallen through, the Government had their hands
free; and their intentions were speedily made plain."
O. Airy,
The English Restoration and Louis XIV.,
chapter 7.
"The Royal Commission [for the Savoy Conference] bore date the
25th of March. It gave the Commissioners authority to review
the Book of Common Prayer, to compare it with the most ancient
Liturgies, to take into consideration all things which it
contained, to consult respecting the exceptions against it,
and by agreement to make such necessary alterations as should
afford satisfaction to tender consciences, and restore to the
Church unity and peace; the instrument appointed 'the Master's
lodgings in the Savoy' as the place of meeting. ... The
Commissioners were summoned to meet upon the 15th of April.
... The Bill of Uniformity, hereafter to be described,
actually passed the House of Commons on the 9th of July, about
a fortnight before the Conference broke up. The proceedings of
a Royal Commission to review the Prayer Book, and make
alterations for the satisfaction of tender consciences were,
by this premature act, really treated with mockery, a
circumstance which could not but exceedingly offend and annoy
the Puritan members, and serve to embitter the language of
Baxter as the end of these fruitless sittings approached."
J. Stoughton,
History of Religion in English,
volume 3, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
E. Calamy,
Nonconformists' Memorial,
introduction, section 3.
W. Orme,
Life and Times of Richard Baxter,
chapter 7.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1662.
The sale of Dunkirk.
"Unable to confine himself within the narrow limits of his
civil list, with his favorites and mistresses, he [Charles
II.] would have sought even in the infernal regions the gold
which his subjects measured out to him with too parsimonious a
hand. ... [He] proposed to sell to France Dunkirk and its
dependencies, which, he said, cost him too much to keep up. He
asked twelve million francs; he fell at last to five millions,
and the treaty was signed October 27, 1662. It was time; the
Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, informed of the
negotiation, had determined to offer Charles II. whatever he
wished in behalf of their city not to alienate Dunkirk.
Charles dared not retract his word, which would have been, as
D'Estrades told him, to break forever with Louis XIV., and on
the 2d of December Louis joyfully made his entry into his good
city, reconquered by gold instead of the sword."
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
translated by M. L. Booth, chapter 4 (volume 1).
{895}
England: A. D. 1662-1665.
The Act of Uniformity and persecution of the Nonconformists.
The failure of the Savoy Conference "was the conclusion which
had been expected and desired. Charles had already summoned
the Convocation, and to that assembly was assigned the task
which had failed in the hands of the commissioners at the
Savoy. ... The act of uniformity followed [passed by the
Commons July 9, 1661; by the Lords May 8, 1662; receiving the
royal assent May 19, 1662], by which it was enacted that the
revised Book of Common Prayer, and of Ordination of Ministers,
and no other, should be used in all places of public worship;
and that all beneficed clergymen should read the service from
it within a given time, and, at the close, profess in a set
form of words, their 'unfeigned assent and consent to
everything contained and prescribed in it.' ... The act of
uniformity may have been necessary for the restoration of the
church to its former discipline and doctrine; but if such was
the intention of those who framed the declaration from Breda,
they were guilty of infidelity to the king and of fraud to the
people, by putting into his mouth language which, with the aid of
equivocation, they might explain away, and by raising in them
expectations which it was never meant to fulfil."
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 11, chapter. 4.
"This rigorous act when it passed, gave the ministers, who
could not conform, no longer time than till Bartholomewday,
August 24th, 1662, when they were all cast out. ... This was
an action without a precedent: The like to this the Reformed
church, nay the Christian world, never saw before. Historians
relate, with tragical exclamations, that between three and
four score bishops were driven at once into the island of
Sardinia by the African vandals; that 200 ministers were
banished by Ferdinand, king of Bohemia; and that great havock
was, a few years after, made among the ministers of Germany by
the Imperial Interim. But these all together fall short of the
number ejected by the act of uniformity, which was not less
than 2,000. The succeeding hardships of the latter were also
by far the greatest. They were not only silenced, but had no
room left for any sort of usefulness, and were in a manner
buried alive. Far greater tenderness was used towards the
Popish clergy ejected at the Reformation. They were suffered
to live quietly; but these were oppressed to the utmost, and
that even by their brethren who professed the same faith
themselves: not only excluded preferments, but turned out into
the wide world without any visible way of subsistence. Not so
much as a poor vicarage, not an obscure chapel, not a school
was left them. Nay, though they offered, as some of them did,
to preach gratis, it must not be allowed them. ... The ejected
ministers continued for ten years in a state of silence and
obscurity. ... The act of uniformity took place August the
24th, 1662. On the 26th of December following, the king
published a Declaration, expressing his purpose to grant some
indulgence or liberty in religion. Some of the Nonconformists
were hereupon much encouraged, and waiting privately on the
king, had their hopes confirmed, and would have persuaded
their brethren to have thanked him for his declaration; but
they refused, lest they should make way for the toleration of
the Papists, whom they understood the king intended to include
in it. ... Instead of indulgence or comprehension, on the 30th
of June, an act against private meetings, called the
Conventicle Act, passed the House of Commons, and soon after
was made a law, viz.: 'That every person above sixteen years
of age, present at any meeting, under pretence of any exercise
of religion, in other manner than is the practice of the
church of England, where there are five persons more than the
household, shall for the first offence, by a justice of peace
be recorded, and sent to gaol three months, till he pay £5,
and for the second offence six months, till he pay £10, and
the third time being convicted by a jury, shall be banished to
some of the American plantations, excepting New England or
Virginia." ... In the year 1665 the plague broke out"--and
the ejected ministers boldly took possession for the time of
the deserted London pulpits. "While God was consuming the
people by this judgment, and the Nonconformists were labouring
to save their souls, the parliament, which sat at Oxford, was
busy in making an act [called the Five Mile Act] to render
their case incomparably harder than it was before, by putting
upon them a certain oath ['that it is not lawful, upon any
pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king,' &c.],
which, if they refused, they must not come (unless upon the
road) within five miles of any city or corporation, any place
that sent burgesses to parliament, any place where they had
been ministers, or had preached after the act of oblivion. ...
When this act came out, those ministers who had any
maintenance of their own, found out some place of residence in
obscure villages, or market-towns, that were not
corporations."
E. Calamy,
The Nonconformist's Memorial,
introduction, sections 4-6.
ALSO IN:
J. Stoughton,
History of Religion in England,
volume 3, chapters 6-9.
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 4, chapter 6-7.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1663.
The grant of the Carolinas to Monk, Clarendon, Shaftesbury,
and others.
See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1663-1670.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1663.
The King's charter to Rhode Island.
See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1660-1663.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1664.
The conquest of New Netherland (New York).
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1664-1665.
The first refractory symptoms in Massachusetts.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1660-1665.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1665.
The grant of New Jersey to Carteret and Berkeley.
See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1665-1666.
War with Holland renewed.
The Dutch fleet in the Thames.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1665-1666.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1668.
The Triple Alliance with Holland and Sweden against Louis XIV.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1668.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1668.
Cession of Acadia (Nova Scotia) to France.
See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1621-1668.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1668-1670.
The secret Catholicism and the perfidy of the King.
His begging of bribes from Louis XIV.
His betrayal of Holland.
His breaking of the Triple Alliance.
In 1668, the royal treasury being greatly embarrassed by the
king's extravagances, an attempt was made "to reduce the
annual expenditure below the amount of the royal income. ...
But this plan of economy accorded not with the royal
disposition, nor did it offer any prospect of extinguishing
the debt. Charles remembered the promise of pecuniary
assistance from France in the beginning of his reign; and,
though his previous efforts to cultivate the friendship of
Louis had been defeated by an unpropitious course of events,
he resolved to renew the experiment.
{896}
Immediately after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Buckingham
opened a negotiation with the duchess of Orleans, the king's
sister, in France, and Charles, in his conversations with the
French resident, apologised for his conduct in forming the
triple alliance, and openly expressed his wish to enter into a
closer union, a more intimate friendship, with Louis. ...
About the end of the year the communications between the two
princes became more open and confidential; French money, or
the promise of French money, was received by the English
ministers; the negotiation began to assume a more regular
form, and the most solemn assurances of secrecy were given,
that their real object might be withheld from the knowledge,
or even the suspicion, of the States. In this stage of the
proceedings Charles received an important communication from
his brother James. Hitherto that prince had been an obedient
and zealous son of the Church of England; but Dr. Heylin's
History of the Reformation had shaken his religious credulity,
and the result of the inquiry was a conviction that it became
his duty to reconcile himself with the Church of Rome. He was
not blind to the dangers to which such a change would expose
him; and he therefore purposed to continue outwardly in
communion with the established church, while he attended at
the Catholic service in private. But, to his surprise, he
learned from Symonds, a Jesuit missionary, that no
dispensation could authorise such duplicity of conduct: a
similar answer was returned to the same question from the
pope; and James immediately took his resolution. He
communicated to the king in private that he was determined to
embrace the Catholic faith; and Charles without hesitation
replied that he was of the same mind, and would consult with
the duke on the subject in the presence of lord Arundell, lord
Arlington, and Arlington's confidential friend, sir Thomas
Clifford. ... The meeting was held in the duke's closet.
Charles, with tears in his eyes, lamented the hardship of
being compelled to profess a religion which he did not
approve, declared his determination to emancipate himself from
this restraint, and requested the opinion of those present, as
to the most eligible means of effecting his purpose with
safety and success. They advised him to communicate his
intention to Louis, and to solicit the powerful aid of that
monarch. Here occurs a very interesting question,--was Charles
sincere or not? ... He was the most accomplished dissembler in
his dominions; nor will it be any injustice to his character
to suspect that his real object was to deceive both his
brother and the king of France. ... Now, however, the secret
negotiation proceeded with greater activity; and lord
Arundell, accompanied by sir Richard Bellings, hastened to the
French court. He solicited from Louis the present of a
considerable sum, to enable the king to suppress any
insurrection which might be provoked by his intended
conversion, and offered the co-operation of England in the
projected invasion of Holland, on the condition of an annual
subsidy during the continuation of hostilities." On the advice
of Louis, Charles postponed, for the time being, his intention
to enter publicly the Romish church and thus provoke a
national revolt; but his proposals were otherwise accepted,
and a secret treaty was concluded at Dover, in May, 1670,
through the agency of Charles' sister, Henrietta, the duchess
of Orleans, who came over for that purpose. "Of this treaty,
... though much was afterwards said, little was certainly
known. All the parties concerned, both the sovereigns and the
negotiators, observed an impenetrable secrecy. What became of
the copy transmitted to France is unknown; its counterpart was
confided to the custody of sir Thomas Clifford, and is still
in the keeping of his descendant, the lord Clifford of
Chudleigh. The principal articles were:
1. That the king of England should publicly profess himself
a Catholic at such time as should appear to him most
expedient, and subsequently to that profession should join
with Louis in a war against the Dutch republic at such time
as the most Christian king should judge proper.
2. That to enable the king of England to suppress any
insurrection which might be occasioned by his conversion,
the king of France should grant him an aid of 2,000,000 of
livres, by two payments, one at the expiration of three
months, the other of six months, after the ratification of
the treaty, and should also assist him with an armed force
of 6,000 men, if ... necessary. ...
4. That if, eventually, any new rights on the Spanish
monarchy should accrue to the king of France, the king of
England should aid him with all his power in the
acquisition of those rights. 5. That both princes should
make war on the united provinces, and that neither should
conclude peace or truce with them without the advice and
consent of his ally.".
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 11, chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 11.
O. Airy,
The English Restoration and Louis XIV.,
chapter 16.
G. Burnet,
History of My Own Time,
book 2 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1671.
The Cabal.
"It was remarked that the committee of council, established
for foreign affairs, was entirely changed; and that Prince
Rupert, the Duke of Ormond, Secretary Trevor, and Lord-keeper
Bridgeman, men in whose honour the nation had great
confidence, were never called to any deliberations. The whole
secret was intrusted to five persons, Clifford, Ashley
[afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury], Buckingham, Arlington, and
Lauderdale. These men were known by the appellation of the
Cabal, a word which the initial letters of their names
happened to compose. Never was there a more dangerous ministry
in England, nor one more noted for pernicious counsels."
D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter. 65 (volume 6).
See, also, CABINET, THE ENGLISH.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1672-1673.
The Declaration of Indulgence and the Test Act.
"It would have been impossible to obtain the consent of the
party in the Royal Council which represented the old
Presbyterians, of Ashley or Lauderdale or the Duke of
Buckingham, to the Treaty of Dover. But it was possible to
trick them into approval of a war with Holland by playing on
their desire for a toleration of the Nonconformists. The
announcement of the King's Catholicism was therefore deferred.
... His ministers outwitted, it only remained for Charles to
outwit his Parliament. A large subsidy was demanded for the
fleet, under the pretext of upholding the Triple Alliance, and
the subsidy was no sooner granted than the two Houses were
adjourned.
{897}
Fresh supplies were obtained by closing the Exchequer, and
suspending--under Clifford's advice--the payment of either
principal or interest on loans advanced to the public
treasury. The measure spread bankruptcy among half the
goldsmiths of London; but it was followed in 1672 by one yet
more startling--the Declaration of Indulgence. By virtue of
his ecclesiastical powers, the King ordered 'that all manner
of penal laws on matters ecclesiastical against whatever sort
of Nonconformists or recusants should be from that day
suspended,' and gave liberty of public worship to all
dissidents save Catholics, who were allowed to practice their
religion only in private houses. ... The Declaration of
Indulgence was at once followed by a declaration of war
against the Dutch on the part of both England and France. ...
It was necessary in 1673 to appeal to the Commons [for war
supplies], but the Commons met in a mood of angry distrust.
... There was a general suspicion that a plot was on foot for
the establishment of Catholicism and despotism, and that the
war and the Indulgence were parts of the plot. The change of
temper in the Commons was marked by the appearance of what was
from that time called the Country party, with Lords Russell
and Cavendish and Sir William Coventry at its head--a party
which sympathized with the Nonconformists, but looked on it as
its first duty to guard against the designs of the Court. As to
the Declaration of Indulgence, however, all parties in the
House were at one. The Commons resolved 'that penal statutes
in matters ecclesiastical cannot be suspended but by consent
of Parliament,' and refused supplies till the Declaration was
recalled. The King yielded; but the Declaration was no sooner
recalled than a Test Act was passed through both Houses
without opposition, which required from everyone in the civil
and military employment of the State the oaths of allegiance
and supremacy, a declaration against transubstantiation, and a
reception of the sacrament according to the rites of the
Church of England. Clifford at once counseled resistance, and
Buckingham talked flightily about bringing the army to London,
but Arlington saw that all hope of carrying the 'great plan'
through was at an end, and pressed Charles to yield. ...
Charles sullenly gave way. No measure has ever brought about
more startling results. The Duke of York owned himself a
Catholic, and resigned his office as Lord High Admiral. ...
Clifford, too, ... owned to being a Catholic, and ... laid
down his staff of office. Their resignation was followed by
that of hundreds of others in the army and the civil service
of the Crown. ... The resignations were held to have proved
the existence of the dangers which the Test Act had been
passed to meet. From this moment all trust in Charles was at
an end."
J. R. Green,
Short History of England,
chapter 9, section 3.
"It is very true that the [Test Act] pointed only at
Catholics, that it really proposed an anti-Popish test, yet
the construction of it, although it did not exclude from
office such Dissenters as could occasionally conform, did
effectually exclude all who scrupled to do so. Aimed at the
Romanists, it struck the Presbyterians. It is clear that, had
the Nonconformists and the Catholics joined their forces with
those of the Court, in opposing the measure, they might have
defeated it; but the first of these classes for the present
submitted to the inconvenience, from the horror which they
entertained of Popery, hoping, at the same time, that some
relief would be afforded for this personal sacrifice in the
cause of a common Protestantism. Thus the passing of an Act,
which, until a late period, inflicted a social wrong upon two
large sections of the community, is to be attributed to the
course pursued by the very parties whose successors became the
sufferers."
J. Stoughton,
History of Religion in England,
volume 3, chapter 11.
ALSO IN:
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 4, chapter 8, and volume 5, chapter 1.
J. Collier,
Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain,
part 2, book 9 (volume 8).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1672-1674.
Alliance with Louis XIV. of France in war with Holland.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1673.
Loss of New York, retaken by the Dutch.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1674.
Peace with the Dutch.
Treaty of Westminster.
Recovery of New York.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1675-1688.
Concessions to France in Newfoundland.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1660-1688.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1678-1679.
The Popish Plot.
"There was an uneasy feeling in the nation that it was being
betrayed, and just then [August, 1678] a strange story caused
a panic throughout all England. A preacher of low character,
named Titus Oates, who had gone over to the Jesuits, declared
that he knew of a plot among the Catholics to kill the king
and set up a Catholic Government. He brought his tale to a
magistrate, named Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, and shortly
afterwards [October 17] Godfrey was found murdered in a ditch
near St. Pancras Church. The people thought that the Catholics
had murdered him to hush up the 'Popish plot,' and when
Parliament met a committee was appointed to examine into the
matter. Some papers belonging to a Jesuit named Coleman
alarmed them, and so great was the panic that an Act was
passed shutting out all Catholics, except the Duke of York,
from Parliament. After this no Catholic sat in either House
for a hundred and fifty years. But worse followed. Oates
became popular, and finding tale-bearing successful, he and
other informers went on to swear away the lives of a great
number of innocent Catholics. The most noted of these was Lord
Stafford, an upright and honest peer, who was executed in
1681, declaring his innocence. Charles laughed among his
friends at the whole matter, but let it go on, and
Shaftesbury, who wished to turn out Lord Danby, did all he
could to fan the flame."
A. B. Buckley,
History of England for Beginners,
chapter 19.
"The capital and the whole nation went mad with hatred and
fear. The penal laws, which had begun to lose something of
their edge, were sharpened anew. Everywhere justices were
busied in searching houses and seizing papers. All the gaols
were filled with Papists. London had the aspect of a city in a
state of siege. The train bands were under arms all night.
Preparations were made for barricading the great
thoroughfares. Patroles marched up and down the streets.
Cannon were planted round Whitehall. No citizen thought
himself safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail
loaded with lead to brain the Popish assassins."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter. 2 (volume 1).
{898}
"It being expected that printed Bibles would soon become rare,
or locked up in an unknown tongue, many honest people, struck
with the alarm, employed themselves in copying the Bible into
short-hand that they might not be destitute of its
consolations in the hour of calamity. ... It was about the
year 1679 that the famous King's Head Club was formed, so
named from its being held at the King's Head Tavern in Fleet
Street. ... They were terrorists and spread alarm with great
effect. It was at this club that silk armour, pistol proof,
was recommended as a security against assassination at the
hands of the Papists; and the particular kind of
life-preserver of that day, called a Protestant flail, was
introduced."
G. Roberts,
Life of Monmouth,
chapter 5 (volume 1).
"And now commenced, before the courts of justice and the upper
house, a sombre prosecution of the catholic lords Arundel,
Petre, Stafford, Powis, Bellasis, the Jesuits Coleman,
Ireland, Grieve, Pickering, and, in succession, all who were
implicated by the indefatigable denunciations of Titus Oates
and Bedloe. Unhappily, these courts of justice, desiring, in
common with the whole nation, to condemn rather than to
examine, wanted neither elements which might, if strictly
acted upon, establish legal proof of conspiracy against some
of the accused, nor terrible laws to destroy them when found
guilty. And it was here that a spectacle, at first imposing,
became horrible. No friendly voice arose to save those men who
were guilty only of impracticable wishes, of extravagant
conceptions. The king, the duke of York, the French
ambassador, thoroughly acquainted as they were with the real
nature of these imputed crimes, remained silent; they were
thoroughly cowed."
A. Carrel,
History of the Counter-Revolution in England,
part 1, chapter 4.
"Although, ... upon a review of this truly shocking
transaction, we may be fairly justified ... in imputing to the
greater part of those concerned in it, rather an extraordinary
degree of blind credulity than the deliberate wickedness of
planning and assisting in the perpetration of legal murders;
yet the proceedings on the popish plot must always be
considered as an indelible disgrace upon the English nation,
in which king, parliament, judges, juries, witnesses,
prosecutors, have all their respective, though certainly not
equal, shares."
C. J. Fox,
History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II.,
introduction, ch.
"In this dreadful scene of wickedness, it is difficult not to
assign the pre-eminence of guilt to Anthony Ashley Cooper,
earl of Shaftesbury. If he did not first contrive, he
certainly availed himself of the revelations of Oates, to work
up the nation to the fury which produced the subsequent
horrors. ... In extenuation of the delusion of the populace,
something may be offered. The defamation of half a century had
made the catholics the objects of protestant odium and
distrust: and these had been increased by the accusation,
artfully and assiduously fomented, of their having been the
authors of the fire of the city of London. The publication,
too, of Coleman's letters, certainly announced a considerable
activity in the catholics to promote the catholic religion;
and contained expressions, easily distorted to the sense, in
which the favourers of the belief of the plot wished them to
be understood. Danby's correspondence, likewise, which had
long been generally known, and was about this time made
public, had discovered that Charles was in the pay of France.
These, with several other circumstances, had inflamed the
imaginations of the public to the very highest pitch. A
dreadful something (and not the less dreadful because its
precise nature was altogether unknown), was generally
apprehended. ... For their supposed part in the plot, ten
laymen and seven priests, one of whom was seventy, another
eighty, years of age, were executed. Seventeen others were
condemned, but not executed. Some died in prison, and some
were pardoned. On the whole body of catholics the laws were
executed with horrible severity."
C. Butler,
Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics,
chapter 32, section 3 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
Lord Campbell,
Lives of the Lord Chancellors,
chapter 89 (volume 3).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1679 (May).
The Habeas Corpus Act.
"Arbitrary imprisonment is a grievance which, in some degree,
has place in almost every government, except in that of Great
Britain; and our absolute security from it we owe chiefly to
the present Parliament; a merit which makes some atonement for
the faction and violence into which their prejudices had, in
other particulars, betrayed them. The great charter had laid
the foundation of this valuable part of liberty; the petition
of right had renewed and extended it; but some provisions were
still wanting to render it complete, and prevent all evasion
or delay from ministers and judges. The act of habeas corpus,
which passed this session, served these purposes. By this act
it was prohibited to send anyone to a prison beyond sea. No
judge, under severe penalties, must refuse to any prisoner a
writ of habeas corpus, by which the gaoler was directed to
produce in court the body of the prisoner (whence the writ has
its name), and to certify the cause of his detainer and
imprisonment. If the gaol lie within twenty miles of the
judge, the writ must be obeyed in three days; and so
proportionably for greater distances; every prisoner must be
indicted the first term after his commitment, and brought to
trial in the subsequent term. And no man, after being enlarged
by order of court, can be recommitted for the same offence."
D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter 67 (volume 6).
"The older remedies serving as a safeguard against unlawful
imprisonment, were--
1. The writ of Mainprise, ensuring the delivery of the accused
to a friend of the same, who gave security to answer for his
appearance before the court when required, and in token of
such undertaking he held him by the hand ('le prit par le
main').
2. The writ 'De odio et atiâ,' i. e., of hatred and malice,
which, though not abolished, has long since been antiquated.
... It directed the sheriff to make inquisition in the county
court whether the imprisonment proceeded from malice or not.
...
3. The writ 'De homine replegiando,' or replevying a man, that
is, delivering him out on security to answer what may be
objected against him.
A writ is, originally, a royal writing,
either an open patent addressed to all to whom it may come,
and issued under the great seal; or, 'litteræ clausæ,' a
sealed letter addressed to a particular person; such writs
were prepared in the royal courts or in the Court of Chancery.
The most usual instrument of protection, however, against
arbitrary imprisonment is the writ of 'Habeas corpus,' so
called from its beginning with the words, 'Habeas corpus ad
subjiciendum,' which, on account of its universal application
and the security it affords, has, insensibly, taken precedence
of all others.
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This is an old writ of the common law, and must be prayed for
in any of the Superior courts of common law. ... But this writ
. . . proved but a feeble, or rather wholly ineffectual
protection against the arbitrary power of the sovereign. The
right of an English subject to a writ of habeas corpus, and to
a release from imprisonment unless sufficient cause be shown
for his detention, was fully canvassed in the first years of
the reign of Charles I. ... The parliament endeavoured to
prevent such arbitrary imprisonment by passing the 'Petition
of Right,' which enacted that no freeman, in any such manner
... should be imprisoned or detained. Even this act was found
unavailing against the malevolent interpretations put by the
judges; hence the 16 Charles I., c. 10, was passed, which
enacts, that when any person is restrained of his liberty by
the king in person, or by the Privy Council, or any member
thereof, he shall, on demand of his counsel, have a writ of
habeas corpus, and, three days after the writ, shall be
brought before the court to determine whether there is ground
for further imprisonment, for bail, or for his release.
Notwithstanding these provisions, the immunity of English
subjects from arbitrary detention was not ultimately
established in full practical efficiency until the passing of
the statute of Charles II., commonly called the 'Habeas Corpus
Act.'"
E. Fischel,
The English Constitution,
book 1, chapter 9.
ALSO IN:
Sir W. Blackstone,
Commentaries on the Laws of England,
book 3, chapter 8.
H. J. Stephen,
Commentaries,
book 5, chapter 12, section 5 (volume 4).
The following is the text of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679:
I. Whereas great Delays have been used by Sheriffs, Gaolers
and other Officers, to whose Custody any of the King's
Subjects have been committed, for criminal or supposed
criminal Matters, in making Returns of Writs of Habeas Corpus
to them directed, by standing out an Alias and Pluries Habeas
Corpus, and sometimes more, and by other Shifts, to avoid
their yielding Obedience to such Writs, contrary to their
Duty, and the known Laws of the Land, whereby many of the
King's Subjects have been, and hereafter may be long detained
in Prison, in such cases where by Law they are bailable, to
their great Charges and Vexation.
II. For the Prevention whereof, and the more speedy Relief of
all Persons imprisoned for any such Criminal, or supposed
Criminal Matters: (2.) Be it Enacted by the King's most
Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the
Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present
Parliament assembled, and by the Authority thereof, that
whensoever any Person or Persons shall bring any Habeas Corpus
directed unto any Sheriff, or Sheriffs, Gaoler, Minister, or
other Person whatsoever, for any Person in his or their
Custody, and the said Writ shall be served upon the said
Officer, or left at the Gaol or Prison, with any of the under
Officers, under Keepers, or Deputy of the said Officers or
Keepers, that the said Officer or Officers, his or their Under
Officers, Under Keepers or Deputies, shall within three Days
after the Service thereof, as aforesaid (unless the Commitment
aforesaid were for Treason or Felony, plainly and specially
expressed in the Warrant of Commitment), upon Payment or
Tender of the Charges of bringing the said Prisoner, to be
ascertained by the Judge or Court that awarded the same, and
endorsed upon the said Writ, not exceeding Twelve-pence per
Mile, and upon Security given by his own Bond, to pay the
Charges of carrying back the Prisoner, if he shall be remanded
by the Court or Judge, to which he shall be brought, according
to the true Intent of this present Act, and that he will not
make any Escape by the way, make Return of such Writ. (3.) And
bring or cause to be brought the Body of the Party so
committed or restrained, unto or before the Lord Chancellor,
or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England for the time
being, or the Judges or Barons of the said Court from whence
the said Writ shall Issue, or unto and before such other
Person or Persons before whom the said Writ is made
returnable, according to the Command thereof. (4.) And shall
then likewise certifie the true causes of his Detainer, or
Imprisonment, unless the commitment of the said party be in
any place beyond the Distance of twenty Miles from the Place
or Places where such Court or Person is, or shall be residing;
and if beyond the Distance of twenty Miles, and not above One
Hundred Miles, then within the Space of Ten Days, and if
beyond the Distance of One Hundred Miles, then within the
space of Twenty Days, after such Delivery aforesaid, and not
longer.
III. And to the Intent that no Sheriff, Gaoler or other
Officer may pretend Ignorance of the Import of any such Writ,
(2.) Be it enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That all such
Writs shall be marked in this manner, Per Statutum Tricesimo
Primo Caroli Secundi Regis, and shall be signed by the Person
that awards the same. (3.) And if any Person or Persons shall
be or stand committed or detained, as aforesaid, for any
Crime, unless for Felony or Treason, plainly expressed in the
Warrant of Commitment, in the Vacation-time, and out of Term,
it shall and may be lawful to and for the Person or Persons so
committed or detained (other than Persons convict, or in
Execution by legal Process) or anyone on his or their Behalf,
to appeal, or complain to the Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper,
or anyone of His Majesty's Justices, either of the one Bench,
or of the other, or the Barons of the Exchequer of the Degree
of the Coif. (4.) And the said Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper,
Justices, or Barons, or any of them, upon View of the Copy or
Copies of the Warrant or Warrants of Commitment and Detainer,
or otherwise upon Oath made, that such Copy or Copies were
denied to be given by such Person or Persons in whose custody
the Prisoner or Prisoners is or are detained, are hereby
authorized and required, upon Request made in Writing by such
Person or Persons, or any on his, her, or their Behalf,
attested and subscribed by two Witnesses, who were present at
the Delivery of the same, to award and grant an Habeas Corpus
under the Seal of such Court, whereof he shall then be one of
the Judges, (5.) to be directed to the Officer or Officers in
whose Custody the Party so committed or detained shall be,
returnable immediate before the said Lord Chancellor, or Lord
Keeper, or such Justice, Baron, or any other Justice or Baron,
of the Degree of the Coif, of any of the said Courts. (6.) And
upon Service thereof as aforesaid, the Officer or Officers,
his or their under Officer or under Officers, under Keeper or
under Keepers, or their Deputy, in whose Custody the Party is
so committed or detained, shall within the times respectively
before limited, bring such Prisoner or Prisoners before the
said Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, or such Justices, Barons,
or one of them, before whom the said Writ is made returnable,
and in case of his Absence, before any of them, with the
Return of such Writ, and the true Causes of the Commitment and
Detainer.
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(7.) And thereupon within two Days after the Party shall be
brought before them the said Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper,
or such Justice or Baron, before whom the Prisoner shall be
brought as aforesaid, shall discharge the said Prisoner from
his Imprisonment, taking his or their Recognizance, with one
or more Surety or Sureties, in any Sum, according to their
Discretions, having regard to the Quality of the Prisoner, and
Nature of the Offence, for his or their Appearance in the
Court of King's Bench the Term following, or at the next
Assizes, Sessions, or general Gaol-Delivery, of and for such
County, City or Place, where the Commitment was, or where the
Offence was committed, or in such other Court where the said
Offence is properly cognizable, as the Case shall require, and
then shall certify the said Writ with the Return thereof, and
the said Recognizance or Recognizances into the said Court,
where such Appearance is to be made. (8.) Unless it shall
appear unto the said Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper, or
Justice, or Justices, or Baron or Barons, that the Party so
committed is detained upon a legal Process, Order, or Warrant
out of some Court that hath Jurisdiction of Criminal Matters,
or by some Warrant signed and sealed with the Hand and Seal of
any of the said Justices or Barons, or some Justice or
Justices of the Peace, for such Matters or Offences, for the
which by the Law, the Prisoner is not bailable.
IV. Provided always, and be it enacted, That if any Person
shall have wilfully neglected by the Space of two whole Terms
after his Imprisonment to pray a Habeas Corpus for his
Enlargement, such Person so wilfully neglecting, shall not
have any Habeas Corpus to be granted in Vacation-time in
Pursuance of this Act.
V. And be it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That
if any Officer or Officers, his or their under Officer, or
under Officers, under Keeper or under Keepers, or Deputy,
shall neglect or refuse to make the Returns aforesaid, or to
bring the Body or Bodies of the Prisoner or Prisoners,
according to the Command of the said Writ, within the
respective times aforesaid, or upon Demand made by the
Prisoner, or Person in his Behalf, shall refuse to deliver, or
within the Space of six Hours after Demand shall not deliver,
to the Person so demanding, a true Copy of the Warrant or
Warrants of Commitment and Detainer of such Prisoner, which he
and they are hereby required to deliver accordingly; all and
every the Head Gaolers and Keepers of such Prisons, and such
other Person, in whose Custody the Prisoner shall be detained,
shall for the first Offence, forfeit to the Prisoner, or Party
grieved, the Sum of One Hundred Pounds. (2.) And for the
second Offence, the Sum of Two Hundred Pounds, and shall and
is hereby made incapable to hold or execute his said Office.
(3.) The said Penalties to be recovered by the Prisoner or
Party grieved, his Executors or Administrators, against such
Offender, his Executors or Administrators, by any Action of
Debt, Suit, Bill, Plaint or Information, in any of the King's
Courts at Westminster, wherein no Essoin, Protection,
Priviledge, Injunction, Wager of Law, or stay of Prosecution,
by Non vult ulterius prosequi, or otherwise, shall be admitted
or allowed, or any more than one Imparlance. (4.) And any
Recovery or Judgment at the Suit of any Party grieved, shall
be a sufficient Conviction for the first Offence; and any
after Recovery or Judgment at the Suit of a Party grieved, for
any Offence after the first Judgment, shall be a sufficient
Conviction to bring the Officers or Person within the said
Penalty for the Second Offence.
VI. And for the Prevention of unjust Vexation, by reiterated
Commitments for the same offence; (2.) Be it enacted by the
Authority aforesaid, That no Person or Persons, which shall be
delivered or set at large upon any Habeas Corpus, shall at any
time hereafter be again imprisoned or committed for the same
Offence, by any Person or Persons whatsoever, other than by
the legal Order and Process of such Court wherein he or they
shall be bound by Recognizance to appear, or other Court
having Jurisdiction of the Cause. (3.) And if any other Person
or Persons shall knowingly, contrary to this Act, recommit or
imprison, or knowingly procure or cause to be recommitted or
imprisoned for the same Offence, or pretended Offence, any
Person or Persons delivered or set at large as aforesaid, or
be knowingly aiding or assisting therein, then he or they
shall forfeit to the Prisoner or Party grieved, the Sum of
Five Hundred Pounds; any colourable Pretence or Variation in
the Warrant or Warrants of Commitment notwithstanding, to be
recovered as aforesaid.
VII. Provided always, and be it further enacted, That if any
Person or Persons shall be committed for High Treason or
Felony, plainly and specially expressed in the Warrant of
Commitment, upon his Prayer or Petition in open Court the
first Week of the Term, or first Day of the Sessions of Oyer
and Terminer, or general Gaol Delivery, to be brought to his
Tryal, shall not be indicted sometime in the next Term,
Sessions of Oyer and Terminer, or general Gaol-Delivery after
such Commitment, it shall and may be lawful to and for the
Judges of the Court of King's Bench, and Justices of Oyer and
Terminer, or general Gaol-Delivery, and they are hereby
required, upon Motion to them made in open Court the last Day
of the Term, Sessions or Gaol-Delivery, either by the
Prisoner, or anyone in his Behalf, to set at Liberty the
Prisoner upon Bail, unless it appear to the Judges and
Justices upon Oath made, that the Witnesses for the King could
not be produced the same Term, Sessions, or general
Gaol-Delivery. (2.) And if any Person or Persons committed as
aforesaid, upon his Prayer or Petition in open Court, the
first Week of the Term, or first Day of the Sessions of Oyer
and Terminer, and general Gaol-Delivery, to be brought to his
Tryal, shall not be indicted and tryed the second Term,
Sessions of Oyer and Terminer, or general Gaol-Delivery, after
his Commitment, or upon his Tryal shall be acquitted, he shall
be discharged from his Imprisonment.
VIII. Provided always, that nothing in this Act shall extend
to discharge out of Prison, any Person charged in Debt, or
other Action, or with Process in any Civil Cause, but that
after he shall be discharged of his Imprisonment for such his
criminal Offence, he shall be kept in Custody, according to
the Law for such other Suit.
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IX. Provided always, and be it enacted by the Authority
aforesaid, That if any Person or Persons, Subjects of this
Realm, shall be committed to any Prison, or in Custody of any
Officer or Officers whatsoever, for any Criminal or supposed
Criminal Matter, that the said Person shall not be removed
from the said Prison and Custody, into the Custody of any
other Officer or Officers. (2.) Unless it be by Habeas Corpus,
or some other legal Writ; or where the Prisoner is delivered
to the Constable or other inferiour Officer, to carry such
Prisoner to some common Gaol. (3.) Or where any Person is sent
by Order of any Judge of Assize, or Justice of the Peace, to
any common Workhouse, or House of Correction. (4.) Or where
the Prisoner is removed from one Prison or Place to another
within the same County, in order to his or her Tryal or
Discharge in due Course of Law. (5.) Or in case of sudden
Fire, or Infection, or other Necessity. (6.) And if any Person
or Persons shall after such Commitment aforesaid, make out and
sign, or countersign, any Warrant or Warrants for such Removal
aforesaid, contrary to this Act, as well he that makes or
signs, or countersigns, such Warrant or Warrants, as the
Officer or Officers, that obey or execute the same, shall
suffer & incur the Pains & Forfeitures in this Act
before-mentioned, both for the 1st & 2nd Offence,
respectively, to be recover'd in manner aforesaid, by the
Party grieved.
X. Provided also, and be it further enacted by the Authority
aforesaid, That it shall and may be lawful to and for any
Prisoner & Prisoners as aforesaid, to move, and obtain his or
their Habeas Corpus, as well out of the High Court of
Chancery, or Court of Exchequer, as out of the Courts of
King's Bench, or Common Pleas, or either of them. (2.) And if
the said Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, or any Judge or
Judges, Baron or Barons for the time being, of the Degree of
the Coif, of any of the Courts aforesaid, in the Vacation
time, upon view of the Copy or Copies of the Warrant or
Warrants of Commitment or Detainer, or upon Oath made that
such Copy or Copies were denied as aforesaid, shall deny any
Writ of Habeas Corpus by this Act required to be granted,
being moved for as aforesaid, they shall severally forfeit to
the Prisoner or Party grieved, the Sum of Five Hundred Pounds,
to be recovered in manner aforesaid.
XI. And be it declared and enacted by the Authority aforesaid,
That an Habeas Corpus according to the true Intent and meaning
of this Act, may be directed, and run into any County
Palatine, the Cinque Ports, or other priviledged Places,
within the Kingdom of England, Dominion of Wales, or Town of
Berwick upon Tweed, and the Isles of Jersey or Guernsey, any
Law or Usage to the contrary notwithstanding.
XII. And for preventing illegal Imprisonments in Prisons
beyond the Seas; (2.) Be it further enacted by the Authority
aforesaid, That no Subject of this Realm that now is, or
hereafter shall be, an Inhabitant or Resiant of this Kingdom
of England, Dominion of Wales, or Town of Berwick upon Tweed,
shall or may be sent Prisoner into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey,
Guernsey, Tangier, or into Parts, Garrisons, Islands, or
Places beyond the Seas, which are, or at any time hereafter
shall be within or without the Dominions of his Majesty, his
Heirs or Successors. (3.) And that every such Imprisonment is
hereby enacted and adjudged to be illegal. (4.) And that if
any of the said Subjects now is, or hereafter shall be so
imprisoned, every such Person and Persons so imprisoned, shall
and may for every such Imprisonment, maintain by Virtue of
this Act, an Action or Actions of False Imprisonment, in any
of his Majesty's Courts of Record, against the Person or
Persons by whom he or she shall be so committed, detained,
imprisoned, sent Prisoner or transported, contrary to the true
meaning of this Act, and against all or any Person or Persons,
that shall frame, contrive, write, seal or countersign any
Warrant or Writing for such Commitment, Detainer, Imprisonment
or Transportation, or shall be advising, aiding or assisting
in the same, or any of them. (5.) And the Plaintiff in every
such Action, shall have judgment to recover his treble Costs,
besides Damages; which Damages so to be given, shall not be
less than Five Hundred Pounds. (6.) In which Action, no Delay,
Stay, or Stop of Proceeding, by Rule, Order or Command, nor no
Injunction, Protection, or Priviledge whatsoever, nor any more
than one Imparlance shall be allowed, excepting such Rule of
the Court wherein the Action shall depend, made in open Court,
as shall be thought in justice necessary, for special Cause to
be expressed in the said Rule. (7.) And the Person or Persons
who shall knowingly frame, contrive, write, seal or
countersign any Warrant for such Commitment, Detainer, or
Transportation, or shall so commit, detain, imprison, or
transport any Person or Persons contrary to this Act, or be
any ways advising, aiding or assisting therein, being lawfully
convicted thereof, shall be disabled from thenceforth to bear
any Office of Trust or Profit within the said Realm of
England, Dominion of Wales, or Town of Berwick upon Tweed, or
any of the Islands, Territories or Dominions thereunto
belonging. (8.) And shall incur and sustain the Pains,
Penalties, and Forfeitures, limited, ordained, and Provided in
and by the Statute of Provision and Premunire made in the
Sixteenth Year of King Richard the Second. (9.) And be
incapable of any Pardon from the King, his Heirs or
Successors, of the said Forfeitures, Losses, or Disabilities,
or any of them.
XIII. Provided always, That nothing in this Act shall extend
to give Benefit to any Person who shall by Contract in
Writing, agree with any Merchant or Owner, of any Plantation,
or other Person whatsoever, to be transported to any part
beyond the Seas, and receive Earnest upon such Agreement,
altho' that afterwards such Person shall renounce such
Contract.
XIV. Provided always, and be it enacted, That if any Person or
Persons, lawfully convicted of any Felony, shall in open Court
pray to be transported beyond the Seas, and the Court shall
think fit to leave him or them in Prison for that Purpose,
such Person or Persons may be transported into any Parts
beyond the Seas; This Act, or any thing therein contained to
the contrary notwithstanding.
XV. Provided also, and be it enacted, That nothing herein
contained, shall be deemed, construed, or taken to extend to
the Imprisonment of any Person before the first Day of June,
One Thousand Six Hundred Seventy and Nine, or to any thing
advised, procured, or otherwise done, relating to such
Imprisonment; Any thing herein contained to the contrary
notwithstanding.
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XVI. Provided also, That if any Person or Persons, at any time
resiant in this Realm, shall have committed any Capital
Offence in Scotland or Ireland, or any of the Islands, or
foreign Plantations of the King, his Heirs or Successors,
where he or she ought to be tryed for such Offence, such
Person or Persons may be sent to such Place, there to receive
such Tryal, in such manner as the same might have been used
before the making this Act; Any thing herein contained to the
contrary notwithstanding.
XVII. Provided also, and be it enacted, That no Person or
Persons, shall be sued, impleaded, molested or troubled for
any Offence against this Act, unless the Party offending be
sued or impleaded for the same within two Years at the most
after such time wherein the Offence shall be committed, in
Case the Party grieved shall not be then in Prison; and if he
shall be in Prison, then within the space of two Years after
the Decease of the Person imprisoned, or his, or her Delivery
out of Prison, which shall first happen.
XVIII. And to the Intent no Person may avoid his Tryal at the
Assizes, or general Gaol Delivery, by procuring his Removal
before the Assizes at such time as he cannot be brought back
to receive his Tryal there; (2.) Be it enacted, That after the
Assizes proclaimed for that County where the Prisoner is
detained, no Person shall be removed from the Common Gaol upon
any Habeas Corpus granted in pursuance of this Act, but upon
any such Habeas Corpus shall be brought before the Judge of
Assize in open Court, who is thereupon to do what to Justice
shall appertain.
XIX. Provided nevertheless, That after the Assizes are ended,
any Person or Persons detained may have his or her Habeas
Corpus, according to the Direction and Intention of this Act.
XX. And be it also enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That if
any Information, Suit or Action, shall be brought or exhibited
against any Person or Persons, for any Offence committed or to
be committed against the Form of this Law, it shall be lawful
for such Defendants to plead the general Issue, that they are
not guilty, or that they owe nothing, and to give such special
Matter in Evidence to the Jury, that shall try the same, which
Matter being pleaded, had been good and sufficient matter in
Law to have discharged the said Defendant or Defendants
against the said Information, Suit or Action, and the said
Matter shall be then as available to him or them, to all
Intents and Purposes, as if he or they had sufficiently
pleaded, set forth, or alleged the same Matter in Bar, or
Discharge of such Information, Suit or Action.
XXI. And because many times Persons charged with Petty-Treason
or Felony, or as Accessaries thereunto, are committed upon
Suspicion only, whereupon they are bailable or not, according
as the Circumstances making out that Suspicion are more or
less weighty, which are best known to the Justices of Peace
that committed the Persons, and have the Examinations before
them, or to other Justices of the Peace in the County; (2.) Be
it therefore enacted, That where any Person shall appear to be
committed by any Judge, or Justice of the Peace, and charged
as necessary before the Fact, to any Petty-Treason or Felony,
or upon Suspicion thereof, or with Suspicion of Petty-Treason
or Felony, which Petty-Treason or Felony, shall be plainly and
specially expressed in the Warrant of Commitment, that such
Person shall not be removed or bailed by Virtue of this Act,
or in any other manner than they might have been before the
making of this Act.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1679 (June).
The Meal-tub Plot.
"Dangerfield, a subtle and dexterous man, who had gone through
all the shapes and practices of roguery, and in particular was
a false coiner, undertook now to coin a plot for the ends of
the papists. He ... got into all companies, and mixed with the
hottest men of the town, and studied to engage others with
himself to swear that they had been invited to accept of
commissions, and that a new form of government was to be set
up, and that the king and the royal family were to be sent
away. He was carried with this story, first to the duke, and
then to the king, and had a weekly allowance of money, and was
very kindly used by many of that side; so that a whisper run
about town, that some extraordinary thing would quickly break
out: and he having some correspondence with one colonel
Mansel, he made up a bundle of seditious but ill contrived
letters, and laid them in a dark corner of his room: and then
some searchers were sent from the custom house to look for
some forbidden goods, which they heard were in Mansel's
chamber. There were no goods found: but as it was laid, they
found that bundle of letters: and upon that a great noise was
made of a discovery: but upon inquiry it appeared the letters
were counterfeited, and the forger of them was suspected; so
they searched into all Dangerfield's haunts, and in one of
them they found a paper that contained the scheme of this
whole fiction, which, because it was found in a meal-tub, came
to be called the meal-tub plot. ... This was a great disgrace
to the popish party, and the king suffered much by the
countenance he had given him."
G. Burnet,
History of My Own Time,
book 3, 1679.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1679-1681.
The Exclusion Bill.
"Though the duke of York was not charged with participation in
the darkest schemes of the popish conspirators, it was evident
that his succession was the great aim of their endeavours, and
evident also that he had been engaged in the more real and
undeniable intrigues of Coleman. His accession to the throne,
long viewed with just apprehension, now seemed to threaten
such perils to every part of the constitution as ought not
supinely to be waited for, if any means could be devised to
obviate them. This gave rise to the bold measure of the
exclusion bill, too bold, indeed, for the spirit of the
country, and the rock on which English liberty was nearly
shipwrecked. In the long parliament, full as it was of
pensioners and creatures of court influence, nothing so
vigorous would have been successful. ... But the zeal they
showed against Danby induced the king to put an end [January
24, 1679] to this parliament of seventeen years' duration; an
event long ardently desired by the popular party, who foresaw
their ascendancy in the new elections. The next house of
commons accordingly came together with an ardour not yet
quenched by corruption; and after reviving the impeachments
commenced by their predecessors, and carrying a measure long
in agitation, a test which shut the catholic peers out of
parliament, went upon the exclusion bill [the second reading
of which was carried, May 21, 1679, by 207 to 128].
{903}
Their dissolution put a stop to this; and in the next
parliament the lords rejected it [after the commons had passed
the bill, without a division, October, 1680]. ... The bill of
exclusion ... provided that the imperial crown of England
should descend to and be enjoyed by such person or persons
successively during the life of the duke of York as would have
inherited or enjoyed the same in case he were naturally dead.
... But a large part of the opposition had unfortunately other
objects in view." Under the contaminating influence of the
earl of Shaftesbury, "they broke away more and more from the
line of national opinion, till a fatal reaction involved
themselves in ruin, and exposed the cause of public liberty to
its most imminent peril. The countenance and support of
Shaftesbury brought forward that unconstitutional and most
impolitic scheme of the duke of Monmouth's succession. [James,
duke of Monmouth, was the acknowledged natural son of king
Charles, by Lucy Walters, his mistress while in exile at the
Hague.] There could hardly be a greater insult to a nation
used to respect its hereditary line of kings, than to set up
the bastard of a prostitute, without the least pretence of
personal excellence or public services, against a princess of
known virtue and attachment to the protestant religion. And
the effrontery of this attempt was aggravated by the libels
eagerly circulated to dupe the credulous populace into a
belief of Monmouth's legitimacy."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
A. Carrel,
History of the Counter-Revolution in England,
part 2, chapter 1.
G. Roberts,
Life of Monmouth,
chapter 4-8 (volume 1).
G. Burnet,
History of My Own Time,
book 3, 1679-81.
Sir W. Temple,
Memoirs,
part 3 (Works, volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1680.
Whigs and Tories acquire their respective names.
"Factions indeed were at this time [A. D. 1680] extremely
animated against each other. The very names by which each
party denominated its antagonist discover the virulence and
rancour which prevailed. For besides petitioner and abhorrer,
appellations which were soon forgotten, this year is
remarkable for being the epoch of the well-known epithets of
Whig and Tory, by which, and sometimes without any material
difference, this island has been so long divided. The court
party reproached their antagonists with their affinity to the
fanatical conventiclers in Scotland, who were known by the
name of Whigs: the country party found a resemblance between
the courtiers and the popish banditti in Ireland, to whom the
appellation of Tory was affixed: and after this manner these
foolish terms of reproach came into public and general use."
D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter 68 (volume 6).
"The definition of the nickname Tory, as it originally arose,
is given in 'A New Ballad' (Narcissus Luttrell's
Collection):--
The word Tory's of Irish Extraction,
'Tis a Legacy that they have left here
They came here in their brogues,
And have acted like Rogues,
In endeavouring to learn us to swear."
J. Grego,
History of Parliamentary Elections,
page 36.
ALSO IN:
G. W. Cooke,
History of Party,
volume 1, chapter 2.
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 2.
For the origin of the name of the 'Whig party,
See WHIGS (WIGGAMORS); also, RAPPAREES.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1681-1683.
The Tory reaction and the downfall of the Whigs.
The Rye-house Plot.
"Shaftesbury's course rested wholly on the belief that the
penury of the Treasury left Charles at his mercy, and that a
refusal of supplies must wring from the King his assent to the
exclusion. But the gold of France had freed the King from his
thraldom. He had used the Parliament [of 1681] simply to
exhibit himself as a sovereign whose patience and conciliatory
temper was rewarded with insult and violence; and now that he
saw his end accomplished, he suddenly dissolved the Houses in
April, and appealed in a Royal declaration to the justice of
the nation at large. The appeal was met by an almost universal
burst of loyalty. The Church rallied to the King; his
declaration was read from every pulpit; and the Universities
solemnly decided that 'no religion, no law, no fault, no
forfeiture' could avail to bar the sacred right of hereditary
succession. ... The Duke of York returned in triumph to St.
James's. ... Monmouth, who had resumed his progresses through
the country as a means of checking the tide of reaction, was
at once arrested. ... Shaftesbury, alive to the new danger,
plunged desperately into conspiracies with a handful of
adventurers as desperate as himself, hid himself in the City,
where he boasted that ten thousand 'brisk boys' were ready to
appear at his call, and urged his friends to rise in arms. But
their delays drove him to flight. ... The flight of
Shaftesbury proclaimed the triumph of the King. His wonderful
sagacity had told him when the struggle was over and further
resistance useless. But the Whig leaders, who had delayed to
answer the Earl's call, still nursed projects of rising in
arms, and the more desperate spirits who had clustered around
him as he lay hidden in the City took refuge in plots of
assassination, and in a plan for murdering Charles and his
brother as they passed the Rye-house [a Hertfordshire farm
house, so-called] on their road from London to Newmarket. Both
the conspiracies were betrayed, and, though they were wholly
distinct from one another, the cruel ingenuity of the Crown
lawyers blended them into one. Lord Essex, the last of an
ill-fated race, saved himself from a traitor's death by
suicide in the Tower. Lord Russell, convicted on a charge of
sharing in the Rye-house Plot, was beheaded in Lincoln Inn
Fields. The same fate awaited Algernon Sidney. Monmouth fled
in terror over sea, and his flight was followed by a series of
prosecutions for sedition directed against his followers. In 1683
the Constitutional opposition which had held Charles so long
in check lay crushed at his feet. ... On the very day when the
crowd around Russell's scaffold were dipping their
handkerchiefs in his blood, as in the blood of a martyr, the
University of Oxford solemnly declared that the doctrine of
passive obedience, even to the worst of rulers, was a part of
religion." During the brief remainder of his reign Charles was
a prudently absolute monarch, governing without a Parliament,
coolly ignoring the Triennial Act, and treating on occasions
the Test Act, as well as other laws obnoxious to him, with
contempt. He died unexpectedly, early in February, 1685, and
his brother, the Duke of York, succeeded to the throne, as
James II., with no resistance, but with much feeling opposed
to him.
J. R. Green,
Short History of England,
chapter 9, sections 5-6.
{904}
ALSO IN:
G. Roberts,
Life of Monmouth;
chapters 8-10 (volume 1).
D. Hume,
History of England,
chapters 68-69 (volume 6).
G. W. Cooke,
History of Party,
volume 1, chapters 6-11.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685.
Accession of James II.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (February).
The new King proclaims his religion.
"The King [James II.] early put the loyalty of his Protestant
friends to the proof. While he was a subject, he had been in
the habit of hearing mass with closed doors in a small oratory
which had been fitted up for his wife. He now ordered the
doors to be thrown open, in order that all who came to pay
their duty to him might see the ceremony. When the host was
elevated there was a strange confusion in the antechamber. The
Roman Catholics fell on their knees: the Protestants hurried
out of the room. Soon a new pulpit was erected in the palace;
and, during Lent, a series of sermons was preached there by
Popish divines."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 4 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (May-July).
Monmouth's Rebellion.
"The Parliament which assembled on the 22nd of May ... was
almost entirely Tory. The failure of the Rye-House Plot had
produced a reaction, which for a time entirely annihilated the
Whig influence. ... The apparent triumph of the King and the
Tory party was completed by the disastrous failure of the
insurrection planned by their adversaries. A knot of exiled
malcontents, some Scotch, some English, had collected in
Holland. Among them was Monmouth and the Earl of Argyle, son
of that Marquis of Argyle who had taken so prominent a part on
the Presbyterian side in the Scotch troubles of Charles I.'s
reign. Monmouth had kept aloof from politics till, on the
accession of James, he was induced to join the exiles at
Amsterdam, whither Argyle, a strong Presbyterian, but a man of
lofty and moderate views, also repaired. National jealousy
prevented any union between the exiles, and two expeditions
were determined on,--the one under Argyle, who hoped to find
an army ready to his hand among his clansmen in the West of
Scotland, the other under Monmouth in the West of England.
Argyle's expedition set sail on the 2nd of May [1685]. ...
Argyle's invasion was ruined by the limited authority
intrusted to him, and by the jealousy and insubordination of
his fellow leaders. ... His army disbanded. He was himself
taken in Renfrewshire, and, after an exhibition of admirable
constancy, was beheaded. ... A week before the final
dispersion of Argyle's troops, Monmouth had landed in England
[at Lyme, June 11]. He was well received in the West. He had
not been twenty-four hours in England before he found himself
at the head of 1,500 men; but though popular among the common
people, he received no support from the upper classes. Even
the strongest Whigs disbelieved the story of his legitimacy,
and thought his attempt ill-timed and fraught with danger. ...
Meanwhile Monmouth had advanced to Taunton, had been there
received with enthusiasm, and, vainly thinking to attract the
nobility, had assumed the title of King. Nor was his reception
at Bridgewater less flattering. But difficulties already began
to gather round him; he was in such want of arms, that,
although rustic implements were converted into pikes, he was
still obliged to send away many volunteers; the militia were
closing in upon him in all directions; Bristol had been seized
by the Duke of Beaufort, and the regular army under Feversham
and Churchill were approaching." After feebly attempting
several movements, against Bristol and into Wiltshire,
Monmouth lost heart and fell back to Bridgewater. "The
Royalist army was close behind him, and on the fifth of July
encamped about three miles from Bridgewater, on the plain of
Sedgemoor." Monmouth was advised to undertake a night
surprise, and did so in the early morning of the 6th. "The
night was not unfitting for such an enterprise, for the mist
was so thick that at a few paces nothing could be seen. Three
great ditches by which the moor was drained lay between the
armies; of the third of these, strangely enough, Monmouth knew
nothing." The unexpected discovery of this third ditch, known
as "the Bussex Rhine," which his cavalry could not cross, and
behind which the enemy rallied, was the ruin of the
enterprise. "Monmouth saw that the day was lost, and with the
love of life which was one of the characteristics of his soft
nature, he turned and fled. Even after his flight the battle
was kept up bravely. At length the arrival of the King's
artillery put an end to any further struggle. The defeat was
followed by all the terrible scenes which mark a suppressed
insurrection. ... Monmouth and Grey pursued their flight into
the New Forest, and were there apprehended in the
neighbourhood of Ringwood." Monmouth petitioned abjectly for
his life, but in vain. He was executed on the 15th of July.
"The failure of this insurrection was followed by the most
terrible cruelties. Feversham returned to London, to be
flattered by the King and laughed at by the Court for his
military exploits. He left Colonel Kirke in command at
Bridgewater. This man had learned, as commander at Tangier,
all the worst arts of cruel despotism. His soldiery in bitter
pleasantry were called Kirke's 'Lambs,' from the emblem of
their regiment. It is impossible to say how many suffered at
the hands of this man and his brutal troops; 100 captives are
said by some to have been put to death the week after the
battle. But this military revenge did not satisfy the Court."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 2, pages 764-768.
The number of Monmouth's men killed is computed by some at
2,000, by others at 300; a disparity, however, which may be
easily reconciled by supposing that the one account takes in
those who were killed in battle, while the other comprehends
the wretched fugitives who were massacred in ditches,
cornfields, and other hiding places, the following day."
C. J. Fox,
History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II.,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
G. Roberts,
Life of Monmouth,
chapters 13-28 (volumes 1-2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (September).
The Bloody Assizes.
"Early in September, Jeffreys [Sir George Jeffreys, Chief
Justice of the Court of King's Bench], accompanied by four
other judges, set out on that circuit of which the memory will
last as long as our race and language. ... At Winchester the
Chief Justice first opened his commission. Hampshire had not
been the theatre of war; but many of the vanquished rebels
had, like their leader, fled thither." Two among these had
been found concealed in the house of Lady Alice Lisle, a widow
of eminent nobility of character, and Jeffreys' first proceeding
was to arraign Lady Alice for the technical reason of the
concealment.
{905}
She was tried with extraordinary brutality of manner on the
part of the judge; the jury was bullied into a verdict of
guilty, and the innocent woman was condemned by the fiend on
the bench to be burned alive. By great exertion of many
people, the sentence was commuted from burning to beheading.
No mercy beyond this could be obtained from Jeffreys or his
fit master, the king. "In Hampshire Alice Lisle was the only
victim: but, on the day following her execution, Jeffreys
reached Dorchester, the principal town of the county in which
Monmouth had landed, and the judicial massacre began. The
court was hung, by order of the Chief Justice, with scarlet;
and this innovation seemed to the multitude to indicate a
bloody purpose. ... More than 300 prisoners were to be tried.
The work seemed heavy; but Jeffreys had a contrivance for
making it light. He let it be understood that the only chance
of obtaining pardon or respite was to plead guilty.
Twenty-nine persons, who put themselves on their country and
were convicted, were ordered to be tied up without delay. The
remaining prisoners pleaded guilty by scores. Two hundred and
ninety-two received sentence of death. The whole number hanged
in Dorsetshire amounted to seventy-four. From Dorchester
Jeffreys proceeded to Exeter. The civil war had barely grazed
the frontier of Devonshire. Here, therefore, comparatively few
persons were capitally punished. Somersetshire, the chief seat
of the rebellion, had been reserved for the last and most
fearful vengeance. In this county two hundred and thirty-three
prisoners were in a few days hanged, drawn and quartered. At
every spot where two roads met, on every market place, on the
green of every large village which had furnished Monmouth with
soldiers, ironed corpses clattering in the wind, or heads and
quarters stuck on poles, poisoned the air, and made the
traveller sick with horror. ... The Chief Justice was all
himself. His spirits rose higher and higher as the work went
on. He laughed, shouted, joked, and swore in such a way that
many thought him drunk from morning to night. ... Jeffreys
boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his
predecessors together since the Conquest. ... Yet those rebels
who were doomed to death were less to be pitied than some of
the survivors. Several prisoners to whom Jeffreys was unable
to bring home the charge of high treason were convicted of
misdemeanours and were sentenced to scourging not less
terrible than that which Oates had undergone. ... The number
of prisoners whom Jeffreys transported was eight hundred and
forty-one. These men, more wretched than their associates who
suffered death, were distributed into gangs, and bestowed on
persons who enjoyed favour at court. The conditions of the
gift were that the convicts should be carried beyond sea as
slaves, that they should not be emancipated for ten years, and
that the place of their banishment should be some West Indian
island. ... It was estimated by Jeffreys that, on an average,
each of them, after all charges were paid, would be worth from
ten to fifteen pounds. There was therefore much angry
competition for grants. ... And now Jeffreys had done his
work, and returned to claim his reward. He arrived at Windsor
from the West, leaving carnage, mourning and terror behind
him. The hatred with which he was regarded by the people of
Somersetshire has no parallel in our history. ... But at the
court Jeffreys was cordially welcomed. He was a judge after
his master's own heart. James had watched the circuit with
interest and delight. ... At a later period, when all men of
all parties spoke with horror of the Bloody Assizes, the
wicked Judge and the wicked King attempted to vindicate
themselves by throwing the blame on each other."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
Sir James Mackintosh,
History of the Revolution
in England, chapter 1.
Lord Campbell,
Lives of the Lord Chancellors,
chapter 100 (volume 3).
G. Roberts,
Life of Monmouth,
chapter 29-31 (volume 2).
See, also, TAUNTON: A. D. 1685.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685-1686.
Faithless and tyrannical measures against
the New England colonies.
See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1685-1687;
and MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1671-1686.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1685-1689.
The Despotism of James II. in Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1681-1689.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1686.
The Court of High Commission revived.
"James conceived the design of employing his authority as head
of the Church of England as a means of subjecting that church
to his pleasure, if not of finally destroying it. It is hard
to conceive how he could reconcile to his religion the
exercise of supremacy in an heretical sect, and thus sanction
by his example the usurpations of the Tudors on the rights of
the Catholic Church. ... He, indeed, considered the
ecclesiastical supremacy as placed in his hands by Providence
to enable him to betray the Protestant establishment. 'God,'
said he to Barillon, 'has permitted that all the laws made to
establish Protestantism now serve as a foundation for my
measures to re-establish true religion, and give me a right to
exercise a more extensive power than other Catholic princes
possess in the ecclesiastical affairs of their dominions.' He
found legal advisers ready with paltry expedients for evading
the two statutes of 1641 and 1660 [abolishing, and
re-affirming the abolition of the Court of High Commission],
under the futile pretext that they forbade only a court vested
with such powers of corporal punishment as had been exercised
by the old Court of High Commission; and in conformity to
their pernicious counsel, he issued, in July, a commission to
certain ministers, prelates, and judges, to act as a Court of
Commissioners in Ecclesiastical Causes. The first purpose of
this court was to enforce directions to preachers, issued by
the King, enjoining them to abstain from preaching on
controverted questions."
Sir James Mackintosh,
History of the Revolution in England,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 5, chapter 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1686.
The consolidation of New England under a royal
Governor-General.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1686.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1687.
Riddance of the Test Act by royal dispensing power.
"The abolition of the tests was a thing resolved upon in the
catholic council, and for this a sanction of some kind or
other was required, as they dared not yet proceed upon the
royal will alone. Chance, or the machinations of the
catholics, created an affair which brought the question of the
tests under another form before the court of king's bench.
{906}
This court had not the power to abolish the Test Act, but it
might consider whether the king had the right of exempting
particular subjects from the formalities. ... The king ...
closeted himself with the judges one by one, dismissed some,
and got those who replaced them, 'ignorant men,' says an
historian, 'and scandalously incompetent,' to acknowledge his
dispensing power. ... The judges of the king's bench, after a
trial, ... declared, almost in the very language used by the
crown counsel:
1. That the kings of England are sovereign princes;
2. That the laws of England are the king's laws;
3. That therefore it is an inseparable prerogative in the
kings of England to dispense with penal laws in particular
cases, and upon particular necessary reasons;
4. That of those reasons, and those necessities, the king
himself is sole judge; and finally, which is consequent
upon all,
5. That this is not a trust invested in, or granted to the
king by the people, but the ancient remains of the
sovereign power and prerogative of the kings of England,
which never yet was taken from them, nor can be.
The case thus decided, the king thought he might rely upon the
respect always felt by the English people for the decisions of
the higher courts, to exempt all his catholic subjects from
the obligations of the test. And upon this, it became no
longer a question merely of preserving in their commissions
and offices those whose dismissal had been demanded by
parliament. ... To obtain or to retain certain employments, it
was necessary to be of the same religion with the king.
Papists replaced in the army and in the administration all
those who had pronounced at all energetically for the
maintenance of the tests. Abjurations, somewhat out of credit
during the last session of parliament, again resumed favour."
A. Carrel,
History of the Counter-Revolution in England,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
J. Stoughton,
History of Religion in England,
volume 4, chapter 4.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1687-1688.
Declarations of Indulgence.
Trial of the Seven Bishops.
"Under pretence of toleration for Dissenters, James
endeavoured, under another form, to remove obstacles from
Romanists. He announced an Indulgence. He began in Scotland by
issuing on the 12th of February, 1687, in Edinburgh, a
Proclamation granting relief to scrupulous consciences. Hereby
he professed to relieve the Presbyterians, but the relief of
them amounted to nothing; to the Romanists it was complete.
... On the 18th of March, 1687, he announced to the English
Privy Council his intention to prorogue Parliament, and to
grant upon his own authority entire liberty of conscience to
all his subjects. Accordingly on the 4th of April he published
his Indulgence, declaring his desire to see all his subjects
become members of the Church of Rome, and his resolution
(since that was impracticable) to protect them in the free
exercise of their religion; also promising to protect the
Established Church: then he annulled a number of Acts of
Parliament, suspended all penal laws against Nonconformists,
authorised Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to
perform worship publicly, and abrogated all Acts of Parliament
imposing any religious test for civil or military offices.
This declaration was then notoriously illegal and
unconstitutional. James now issued a second and third
declaration for Scotland, and courted the Dissenters in
England, but with small encouragement. ... On the 27th of
April, 1688, James issued a second Declaration of Indulgence
for England. ... On the 4th of May, by an order in Council, he
directed his Declaration of the 27th of April to be publicly
read during divine service in all Churches and Chapels, by the
officiating ministers, on two successive Sundays--namely, on
the 20th and 27th of May in London, and on the 3d and 10th of
June in the country; and desired the Bishops to circulate this
Declaration through their dioceses. Hitherto the Bishops and
Clergy had held the doctrine of passive obedience to the
sovereign, however bad in character or in his measures--now
they were placed by the King himself in a dilemma. Here was a
violation of existing law, and an intentional injury to their
Church, if not a plan for the substitution of another. The
Nonconformists, whom James pretended to serve, coincided with
and supported the Church. A decided course must be taken. The
London Clergy met and resolved not to read the Declaration. On
the 12th of May, at Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of
Canterbury and other Prelates assembled. They resolved that
the Declaration ought not to be read. On Friday, the 18th of
May, a second meeting of the Prelates and eminent divines was
held at Lambeth Palace. A petition to the King was drawn up by
the Archbishop of Canterbury in his own handwriting,
disclaiming all disloyalty and all intolerance, ... but
stating that Parliament had decided that the King could not
dispense with Statutes in matters ecclesiastical--that the
Declaration was therefore illegal--and could not be solemnly
published by the petitioners in the House of God and during
divine service. This paper was signed by Sancroft, Archbishop
of Canterbury, Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake
of Chichester, Ken of Bath and Wells, White of Peterborough,
and Trelawny of Bristol. It was approved by Compton, Bishop of
London, but not signed, because he was under suspension. The
Archbishop had long been forbidden to appear at Court,
therefore could not present it. On Friday evening the six
Bishops who had signed were introduced by Sunderland to the
King, who read the document and pronounced it libellous [and
seditious and rebellious], and the Bishops retired. On Sunday,
the 20th of May, the first day appointed, the Declaration was
read in London only in four Churches out of one hundred. The
Dissenters and Church Laymen sided with the Clergy. On the
following Sunday the Declaration was treated in the same
manner in London, and on Sunday, the 3d of June, was
disregarded by Bishops and Clergy in all parts of England.
James, by the advice of Jeffreys, ordered the Archbishop and
Bishops to be indicted for a seditious libel. They were, on
the 8th of June, conveyed to the Tower amidst the most
enthusiastic demonstrations of respect and affection from all
classes. The same night the Queen was said to have given birth
to a son; but the national opinion was that some trick had
been played. On the 29th of June the trial of the seven
Bishops came on before the Court of King's Bench. ... The
Jury, who, after remaining together all night (one being
stubborn) pronounced a verdict of not guilty on the morning of
the 30th June, 1688."
W. H. Torriano,
William the Third,
chapter 2.
{907}
"The court met at nine o'clock. The nobility and gentry
covered the benches, and an immense concourse of people filled
the Hall, and blocked up the adjoining streets. Sir Robert
Langley, the foreman of the jury, being, according to
established form, asked whether the accused were guilty or not
guilty, pronounced the verdict 'Not guilty.' No sooner were
these words uttered than a loud huzza arose from the audience
in the court. It was instantly echoed from without by a shout
of joy, which sounded like a crack of the ancient and massy
roof of Westminster Hall. It passed with electrical rapidity
from voice to voice along the infinite multitude who waited in
the streets. It reached the Temple in a few minutes. ... 'The
acclamations,' says Sir John Reresby, 'were a very rebellion
in noise.' In no long time they ran to the camp at Hounslow,
and were repeated with an ominous voice by the soldiers in the
hearing of the King, who, on being told that they were for the
acquittal of the bishops, said, with an ambiguity probably
arising from confusion, 'So much the worse for them.'"
Sir J. Mackintosh,
History of the Revolution in England in 1688,
chapter 9.
ALSO IN:
A. Strickland,
Lives of the Seven Bishops.
R. Southey,
Book of the Church,
chapter 18.
G. G. Perry,
History of the Church of England,
chapter 30 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1688 (July).
William and Mary of Orange the hope of the nation.
"The wiser among English statesmen had fixed their hopes
steadily on the succession of Mary, the elder daughter and
heiress of James. The tyranny of her father's reign made this
succession the hope of the people at large. But to Europe the
importance of the change, whenever it should come about, lay
not so much in the succession of Mary as in the new power
which such an event would give to her husband, William, Prince
of Orange. We have come, in fact, to a moment when the
struggle of England against the aggression of its King blends
with the larger struggle of Europe against the aggression of
Lewis XIV."
J. R. Green,
Short History of England,
chapter 9, section 7.
"William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of the
republic of the United Provinces, was, before the birth of the
Prince of Wales, first prince of the blood royal of England
[as son of Princess Mary, daughter of Charles I., and,
therefore, nephew as well as son-in-law of James II.]; and his
consort, the Lady Mary, the eldest daughter of the King, was,
at that period, presumptive heiress to the crown."
Sir J. Mackintosh,
History of the Revolution in England,
chapter 10.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1688 (JULY-NOVEMBER).
Invitation to William of Orange and his acceptance of it.
"In July, in almost exact coincidence of time with the Queen's
accouchement [generally doubted and suspected], came the
memorable trial of the Seven Bishops, which gave the first
demonstration of the full force of that popular animosity
which James's rule had provoked. Some months before, however,
Edward Russell, nephew of the Earl of Bedford, and cousin of
Algernon Sidney's fellow-victim, had sought the Hague with
proposals to William [prince of Orange] to make an armed
descent upon England, as vindicator of English liberties and
the Protestant religion. William had cautiously required a
signed invitation from at least a few representative statesmen
before committing himself to such an enterprise, and on the
day of the acquittal of the Seven Bishops a paper, signed in
cipher by Lords Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Danby, and Lumley, by
Compton, Bishop of Northampton, by Edward Russell, and by
Henry Sidney, brother of Algernon, was conveyed by Admiral
Herbert to the Hague. William was now furnished with the
required security for English assistance in the projected
undertaking, but the task before him was still one of extreme
difficulty. ... On the 10th of October, matters now being ripe
for such a step, William, in conjunction with some of his
English advisers, put forth his famous declaration. Starting
with a preamble to the effect that the observance of laws is
necessary to the happiness of states, the instrument proceeds
to enumerate fifteen particulars in which the laws of England
had been set at naught. The most important of these were--
(1) the exercise of the dispensing power;
(2) the corruption, coercion, and packing of the judicial
bench;
(3) the violation of the test laws by the appointment of
papists to offices (particularly judicial and military
offices, and the administration of Ireland), and generally
the arbitrary and illegal measures resorted to by James for
the propagation of the Catholic religion;
(4) the establishment and action of the Court of High
Commission;
(5) the infringement of some municipal charters, and the
procuring of the surrender of others;
(6) interference with elections by turning out of all
employment such as refused to vote as they were required;
and
(7) the grave suspicion which had arisen that the Prince of
Wales was not born of the Queen, which as yet nothing had
been done to remove.
Having set forth these grievances, the Prince's manifesto went
on to recite the close interest which he and his consort had
in this matter as next in succession to the crown, and the
earnest solicitations which had been made to him by many lords
spiritual and temporal, and other English subjects of all
ranks, to interpose, and concluded by affirming in a very
distinct and solemn manner that the sole object of the
expedition then preparing was to obtain the assembling of a
free and lawful Parliament, to which the Prince pledged
himself to refer all questions concerning the due execution of
the laws, and the maintenance of the Protestant religion, and
the conclusion of an agreement between the Church of England
and the Dissenters, as also the inquiry into the birth of the
'pretended Prince of Wales'; and that this object being
attained, the Prince would, as soon as the state of the nation
should permit of it, send home his foreign forces. About a
week after, on the 16th of October, all things being now in
readiness, the Prince took solemn leave of the States-General.
... On the 19th William and his armament set sail from
Helvoetsluys, but was met on the following day by a violent
storm which forced him to put back on the 21st. On the 1st of
November the fleet put to sea a second time. ... By noon of
the 5th of November, the Prince's fleet was wafted safely into
Torbay."
H. D. Traill,
William the Third,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
G. Burnet,
History of My Own Time, 1688
(volume 3).
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 18, chapters 1-4 (volume 4).
Lord Campbell,
Lives of the Lord Chancellors,
chapters 106-107: Somers (volume 4).
T. P. Courtenay,
Life of Danby (Lardner's Cab. Cyclop.),
pages 315-324.
{908}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1688 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
The Revolution.
Ignominious flight of James.
"The declaration published by the prince [on landing]
consisted of sixteen articles. It enumerated those proceedings
of the government since the accession of the king, which were
regarded as in the greatest degree opposed to the liberty of
the subject and to the safety of the Protestant religion. ...
To provide some effectual remedy against these and similar
evils, was the only design of the enterprise in which the
prince, in compliance with earnest solicitations from many
lords, both spiritual and temporal, from numbers among the
gentry and all ranks of people, had now embarked. ...
Addresses were also published to the army and navy. ... The
immediate effect of these appeals did not correspond with the
expectations of William and his followers. On the 8th of
November the people of Exeter received the prince with quiet
submission. The memory of Monmouth's expedition was still
fresh and terrible through the west. On the 12th, lord
Cornbury, son of the earl of Clarendon, went over, with some
officers, and about a hundred of his regiment, to the prince;
and most of the officers, with a larger body of the privates
belonging to the regiment commanded by the duke of St.
Alban's, followed their example. Of three regiments, however,
quartered near Salisbury, the majority could not be induced to
desert the service of the king. ... Every day now brought with
it new accessions to the standard of the prince, and tidings
of movements in different parts of the kingdom in his favour;
while James was as constantly reminded, by one desertion after
another, that he lived in an atmosphere of treachery, with
scarcely a man or woman about him to be trusted. The defection
of the lords Churchill and Drumlaneric, and of the dukes of
Grafton and Ormond, was followed by that of prince George and
the princess Anne. Prince George joined the invader at
Sherburne; the princess made her escape from Whitehall at
night, under the guardianship of the bishop of London, and
found an asylum among the adherents of the prince of Orange
who were in arms in Northamptonshire. By this time Bristol and
Plymouth, Hull, York, and Newcastle, were among the places of
strength which had been seized by the partisans of the prince.
His standard had also been unfurled with success in the
counties of Derby, Nottingham, York, and Cheshire. ... Even in
Oxford, several of the heads of colleges concurred in sending
Dr. Finch, warden of All Souls' College, to invite the prince
from Dorsetshire to their city, assuring him of their
willingness to receive him, and to melt down their plate for
his service, if it should be needed. So desperate had the
affairs of James now become, that some of his advisers urged
his leaving the kingdom, and negotiating with safety to his
person from a distance; but from that course he was dissuaded
by Halifax and Godolphin. In compliance with the advice of an
assembly of peers, James issued a proclamation on the 13th of
November, stating that writs had been signed to convene a
parliament on the 15th of January; that a pardon of all
offences should previously pass the great seal; and that
commissioners should proceed immediately to the head-quarters
of the prince of Orange, to negotiate on the present state of
affairs. The commissioners chosen by the king were Halifax,
Nottingham, and Godolphin; but William evaded for some days
the conference which they solicited. In the meantime a forged
proclamation in the name of the prince was made public in
London, denouncing the Catholics of the metropolis as plotting
the destruction of life and property on the largest possible
scale. ... No one doubted the authenticity of this document,
and the ferment and disorder which it spread through the city
filled the king with the greatest apprehension for the safety
of himself and family. On the morning of the 9th of December,
the queen and the infant prince of Wales were lodged on board
a yacht at Gravesend, and commenced a safe voyage to Calais.
James pledged himself to follow within 24 hours. In the course
of that day the royal commissioners sent a report of their
proceedings to Whitehall. The demands of the prince were, that
a parliament should be assembled; that all persons holding
public trusts in violation of the Test-laws should relinquish
them; that the city should have command of the Tower; that the
fleet, and the places of strength through the kingdom should
be placed in the hands of Protestants; that the expense of the
Dutch armament should be defrayed, in part, from the English
Treasury; and that the king and the prince, and their
respective forces, should remain at an equal distance from
London during the sitting of parliament. James read these
articles with some surprise, observing that they were much
more moderate than he had expected. But his pledge had been
given to the queen; the city was still in great agitation; and
private letters, intimating that his person was not beyond the
reach of danger, suggested that his interests might possibly
be better served by his absence than by his presence. Hence
his purpose to leave the kingdom remained unaltered. At three
o'clock on the following morning the king left Whitehall with
sir Edward Hales, disguising himself as an attendant. The
vessel provided to convey him to France was a miserable
fishing-boat. It descended the river without interruption
until it came near to Feversham, where some fishermen,
suspecting Hales and the king to be Catholics, probably
priests endeavouring to make their escape in disguise, took
them from the vessel. ... The arrest of the monarch at
Feversham on Wednesday was followed by an order of the privy
council, commanding that his carriage and the royal guards
should be sent to reconduct him to the capital. ... After some
consultation the king was informed that the public interests
required his immediate withdrawment to some distance from
Westminster, and Hampton Court was named. James expressed a
preference for Rochester, and his wishes in that respect were
complied with. The day on which the king withdrew to Rochester
William took up his residence in St. James's. The king chose
his retreat, deeming it probable that it might be expedient
for him to make a second effort to reach the continent. ...
His guards left him so much at liberty, that no impediment to
his departure was likely to arise; and on the last day of this
memorable year--only a week after his removal from Whitehall,
James embarked secretly at Rochester, and with a favourable
breeze safely reached the French coast."
R. Vaughan,
History of England under the House of Stuart,
volume 2, pages 914-918.
ALSO IN:
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapters 9-10 (volume 2).
H. D. Traill,
William the Third,
chapter 4.
Continuation of Sir J. Mackintosh's
History of the Revolution in 1688,
chapters 16-17.
Sir J. Dalrymple,
Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland,
part 1, books 6-7 (volume 2).
{909}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).
The settlement of the Crown on William and Mary.
The Declaration of Rights.
"The convention met on the 22nd of January. Their first care
was to address the prince to take the administration of
affairs and disposal of the revenue into his hands, in order
to give a kind of parliamentary sanction to the power he
already exercised. On the 28th of January the commons, after a
debate in which the friends of the late king made but a faint
opposition, came to their great vote: That king James II.,
having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of this
kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and
people, and by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons
having violated the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn
himself out of the kingdom, has abdicated the government, and
that the throne is thereby vacant. They resolved unanimously
the next day, That it hath been found by experience
inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this protestant
kingdom to be governed by a popish prince. This vote was a
remarkable triumph of the Whig party, who had contended for
the exclusion bill. ... The lords agreed with equal unanimity
to this vote; which, though it was expressed only as an
abstract proposition, led by a practical inference to the
whole change that the whigs had in view. But upon the former
resolution several important divisions took place." The lords
were unwilling to commit themselves to the two propositions,
that James had "abdicated" the government by his desertion of
it, and that the throne had thereby become "vacant." They
yielded at length, however, and adopted the resolution as the
commons had passed it. They "followed this up by a resolution,
that the prince and princess of Orange shall be declared king
and queen of England, and all the dominions thereunto
belonging. But the commons, with a noble patriotism, delayed
to concur in this hasty settlement of the crown, till they
should have completed the declaration of those fundamental
rights and liberties for the sake of which alone they had gone
forward with this great revolution. That declaration, being at
once an exposition of the mis-government which had compelled
them to dethrone the late king, and of the conditions upon
which they elected his successors, was incorporated in the
final resolution to which both houses came on the 13th of
February, extending the limitation of the crown as far as the
state of affairs required: That William and Mary, prince and
princess of Orange, be, and be declared, king and queen of
England, France and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto
belonging, to hold the crown and dignity of the said kingdoms
and dominions to them, the said prince and princess, during
their lives, and the life of the survivor of them; and that
the sole and full exercise of the regal power be only in, and
executed by, the said prince of Orange, in the names of the
said prince and princess, during their joint lives; and after
their decease the said crown and royal dignity of the said
kingdoms and dominions to be to the heirs of the body of the
said princess; for default of such issue, to the princess Anne
of Denmark [younger daughter of James II.], and the heirs of
her body; and for default of such issue, to the heirs of the
body of the said prince of Orange. ... The Declaration of
Rights presented to the prince of Orange by the marquis of
Halifax, as speaker of the lords, in the presence of both
houses, on the 18th of February, consists of three parts: a
recital of the illegal and arbitrary acts committed by the
late king, and of their consequent vote of abdication; a
declaration, nearly following the words of the former part,
that such enumerated acts are illegal; and a resolution, that
the throne shall be filled by the prince and princess of
Orange, according to the limitations mentioned. ... This
declaration was, some months afterwards [in October],
confirmed by a regular act of the legislature in the bill of
rights."
See ENGLAND: 1689 (OCTOBER).
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapters 14-15 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 10 (volume 2).
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 19, chapters 2-3 (volume 4).
R. Gneist,
History of English Constitution,
chapter 42 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (APRIL-AUGUST).
The Church and the Revolution.
The Toleration Act.
The Non-Jurors.
"The men who had been most helpful in bringing about the late
changes were not all of the same way of thinking in religion;
many of them belonged to the Church of England; many were
Dissenters. It seemed, therefore, a fitting time to grant the
Dissenters some relief from the harsh laws passed against them
in Charles II.'s reign. Protestant Dissenters, save those who
denied the Trinity, were no longer forbidden to have places of
worship and services of their own, if they would only swear to
be loyal to the king, and that his power was as lawful in
Church as in State matters. The law that gave them this is
called the Toleration Act. Men's notions were still, however,
very narrow; care was taken that the Roman Catholics should
get no benefit from this law. Even a Protestant Dissenter
might not yet lawfully be a member of either House of
Parliament, or take a post in the king's service; for the Test
Acts were left untouched. King William, who was a Presbyterian
in his own land, wanted very much to see the Dissenters won
back to the Church of England. To bring this about, he wished
the Church to alter those things in the Prayer Book which kept
Dissenters from joining with her. But most of the clergy would
not have any change; and because these were the stronger party in
Convocation--as the Parliament of the Church is
called--William could get nothing done. At the same time a
rent, which at first seemed likely to be serious, was made in
the Church itself. There was a strong feeling among the clergy
in favour of the banished king. So a law was made by which
every man who held a preferment in the Church, or either of
the Universities, had to swear to be true to King William and
Queen Mary, or had to give up his preferment. Most of the
clergy were very unwilling to obey this law; but only 400 were
found stout-hearted enough to give up their livings rather
than do what they thought to be a wicked thing. These were
called 'non-jurors,' or men who would not swear. Among them
were five out of the seven Bishops who had withstood James II.
only a year before. The sect of non-jurors, who looked upon
themselves as the only true Churchmen, did not spread. But it
did not die out altogether until seventy years ago [i. e.,
early in the 19th century]. It was at this time that the names
High-Church and Low-Church first came into use."
J. Rowley,
The Settlement of the Constitution,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
J. Stoughton,
History of Religion in England,
volume 5, chapters 4-11.
T. Lathbury,
History of the Non-jurors.
{910}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (MAY).
War declared against France.
The Grand Alliance.
See FRANCE: A.. D. 1689-1690.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (OCTOBER).
The Bill of Rights.
The following is the text of the Bill of Rights, passed by
Parliament at its sitting in October, 1689:
Whereas the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons,
assembled at Westminster, lawfully, fully, and freely
representing all the estates of the people of this realm, did
upon the Thirteenth day of February, in the year of our Lord
One Thousand Six Hundred Eighty-eight [o. s.], present unto
their Majesties, then called and known by the names and style
of William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, being
present in their proper persons, a certain Declaration in
writing, made by the said Lords and Commons, in the words
following, viz.:
"Whereas the late King James II., by the assistance of divers
evil counsellors, judges, and ministers employed by him, did
endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion,
and the laws and liberties of this kingdom:
1. By assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with
and suspending of laws, and the execution of laws, without
consent of Parliament.
2. By committing and prosecuting divers worthy prelates for
humbly petitioning to be excused from concurring to the
said assumed power.
3. By issuing and causing to be executed a commission under
the Great Seal for erecting a court, called the Court of
Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes.
4. By levying money for and to the use of the Crown by
pretence of prerogative, for other time and in other manner
than the same was granted by Parliament.
5. By raising and keeping a standing army within this
kingdom in time of peace, without consent of Parliament,
and quartering soldiers contrary to law.
6. By causing several good subjects, being Protestants, to
be disarmed, at the same time when Papists were both armed
and employed contrary to law.
7. By violating the freedom of election of members to serve
in Parliament.
8. By prosecutions in the Court of King's Bench for matters
and causes cognisable only in Parliament, and by divers
other arbitrary and illegal causes.
9. And whereas of late years, partial, corrupt, and
unqualified persons have been returned, and served on
juries in trials, and particularly divers jurors in trials
for high treason, which were not freeholders.
10. And excessive bail hath been required of persons
committed in criminal cases, to elude the benefit of the
laws made for the liberty of the subjects.
11. And excessive fines have been imposed; and illegal and
cruel punishments inflicted.
12. And several grants and promises made of fines and
forfeitures before any conviction or judgment against the
persons upon whom the same were to be levied.
All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known laws
and statutes, and freedom of this realm. And whereas the said
late King James II. having abdicated the government, and the
throne being thereby vacant, his Highness the Prince of Orange
(whom it hath pleased Almighty God to make the glorious
instrument of delivering this kingdom from Popery and
arbitrary power) did (by the advice of the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and divers principal persons of the Commons) cause
letters to be written to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal,
being Protestants, and other letters to the several counties,
cities, universities, boroughs, and Cinque ports, for the
choosing of such persons to represent them as were of right to
be sent to Parliament, to meet and sit at Westminster upon the
two-and-twentieth day of January, in this year One Thousand
Six Hundred Eighty and Eight, in order to such an
establishment, as that their religion, laws, and liberties
might not again be in danger of being subverted; upon which
letters elections have been accordingly made. And thereupon
the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, pursuant
to their respective letters and elections, being now assembled
in a full and free representation of this nation, taking into
their most serious consideration the best means for attaining
the ends aforesaid, do in the first place (as their ancestors
in like case have usually done) for the vindicating and
asserting their ancient rights and liberties, declare:
1. That the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the
execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of
Parliament, is illegal.
2. That the pretended power of dispensing with laws, or the
execution of laws by regal authority, as it hath been
assumed and exercised of late, is illegal.
3. That the commission for erecting the late Court of
Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes, and all other
commissions and courts of like nature, are illegal and
pernicious.
4. That levying money for or to the use of the Crown by
pretence and prerogative, without grant of Parliament, for
longer time or in other manner than the same is or shall be
granted, is illegal.
5. That it is the right of the subjects to petition the
King, and all commitments and prosecutions for such
petitioning are illegal.
6. That the raising or keeping a standing army within the
kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of
Parliament, is against law.
7. That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms
for their defence suitable to their conditions, and as
allowed by law.
8. That election of members of Parliament ought to be free.
9. That the freedom of speech, and debates or proceedings
in Parliament, ought not to be impeached or questioned in
any court or place out of Parliament.
10. That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor
excessive fines imposed; nor cruel and unusual punishments
inflicted.
11. That jurors ought to be duly impanelled and returned,
and jurors which pass upon men in trials for high treason
ought to be freeholders.
12. That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures
of particular persons before conviction are illegal and
void.
13. And that for redress of all grievances, and for the
amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws,
Parliament ought to be held frequently.
{911}
And they do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular
the premises, as their undoubted rights and liberties; and
that no declarations, judgments, doings or proceedings, to the
prejudice of the people in any of the said premises, ought in any
wise to be drawn hereafter into consequence or example. To
which demand of their rights they are particularly encouraged
by the declaration of his Highness the Prince of Orange, as
being the only means for obtaining a full redress and remedy
therein. Having therefore an entire confidence that his said
Highness the Prince of Orange will perfect the deliverance so
far advanced by him, and will still preserve them from the
violation of their rights, which they have here asserted, and
from all other attempts upon their religion, rights, and
liberties:
II. The said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
Commons, assembled at Westminster, do resolve, that William
and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, be, and be declared,
King and Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and the
dominions thereunto belonging, to hold the crown and royal
dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to them the said
Prince and Princess during their lives, and the life of the
survivor of them; and that the sole and full exercise of the
regal power be only in, and executed by, the said Prince of
Orange, in the names of the said Prince and Princess, during
their joint lives; and after their deceases, the said crown
and royal dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to be to
the heirs of the body of the said Princess; and for default of
such issue to the Princess Anne of Denmark, and the heirs of
her body; and for default of such issue to the heirs of the
body of the said Prince of Orange. And the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and Commons, do pray the said Prince and Princess to
accept the same accordingly.
III. And that the oaths hereafter mentioned be taken by all
persons of whom the oaths of allegiance and supremacy might be
required by law instead of them; and that the said oaths of
allegiance and supremacy be abrogated. 'I, A. B., do sincerely
promise and swear, That I will be faithful and bear true
allegiance to their Majesties King William and Queen Mary: So
help me God.' 'I, A. B., do swear, That I do from my heart
abhor, detest, and abjure as impious and heretical that
damnable doctrine and position, that princes excommunicated or
deprived by the Pope, or any authority of the See of Rome, may
be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other
whatsoever. And I do declare, that no foreign prince, person,
prelate, state, or potentate hath, or ought to have, any
jurisdiction, power, superiority, preeminence, or authority,
ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm: So help me
God.'"
IV. Upon which their said Majesties did accept the crown and
royal dignity of the kingdoms of England, France, and Ireland,
and the dominions thereunto belonging, according to the
resolution and desire of the said Lords and Commons contained
in the said declaration.
V. And thereupon their Majesties were pleased, that the said
Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, being the two
Houses of Parliament, should continue to sit, and with their
Majesties' royal concurrence make effectual provision for the
settlement of the religion, laws and liberties of this
kingdom, so that the same for the future might not be in
danger again of being subverted; to which the said Lords
Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, did agree and proceed to
act accordingly.
VI. Now in pursuance of the premises, the said Lords Spiritual
and Temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, for the
ratifying, confirming, and establishing the said declaration,
and the articles, clauses, matters, and things therein
contained, by the force of a law made in due form by authority
of Parliament, do pray that it may be declared and enacted,
That all and singular the rights and liberties asserted and
claimed in the said declaration are the true, ancient, and
indubitable rights and liberties of the people of this
kingdom, and so shall be esteemed, allowed, adjudged, deemed,
and taken to be, and that all and every the particulars
aforesaid shall be firmly and strictly holden and observed, as
they are expressed in the said declaration; and all officers
and ministers whatsoever shall serve their Majesties and their
successors according to the same in all times to come.
VII. And the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons,
seriously considering how it hath pleased Almighty God, in his
marvellous providence, and merciful goodness to this nation,
to provide and preserve their said Majesties' royal persons
most happily to reign over us upon the throne of their
ancestors, for which they render unto Him from the bottom of
their hearts their humblest thanks and praises, do truly,
firmly, assuredly, and in the sincerity of their hearts,
think, and do hereby recognise, acknowledge, and declare, that
King James II. having abdicated the Government, and their
Majesties having accepted the Crown and royal dignity as
aforesaid, their said Majesties did become, were, are, and of
right ought to be, by the laws of this realm, our sovereign
liege Lord and Lady, King and Queen of England, France, and
Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, in and to
whose princely persons the royal state, crown, and dignity of
the said realms, with all honours, styles, titles, regalities,
prerogatives, powers, jurisdictions, and authorities to the same
belonging and appertaining, are most fully, rightfully, and
entirely invested and incorporated, united, and annexed.
VIII. And for preventing all questions and divisions in this
realm, by reason of any pretended titles to the Crown, and for
preserving a certainty in the succession thereof, in and upon
which the unity, peace, tranquillity, and safety of this
nation doth, under God, wholly consist and depend, the said
Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do beseech their
Majesties that it may be enacted, established, and declared,
that the Crown and regal government of the said kingdoms and
dominions, with all and singular the premises thereunto
belonging and appertaining, shall be and continue to their
said Majesties, and the survivor of them, during their lives,
and the life of the survivor of them. And that the entire,
perfect, and full exercise of the regal power and government
be only in, and executed by, his Majesty, in the names of both
their Majesties, during their joint lives; and after their
deceases the said Crown and premises shall be and remain to
the heirs of the body of her Majesty: and for default of such
issue, to her Royal Highness the Princess Anne of Denmark, and
the heirs of her body; and for default of such issue, to the
heirs of the body of his said Majesty: And thereunto the said
Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in the name of
all the people aforesaid, most humbly and faithfully submit
themselves, their heirs and posterities, for ever: and do
faithfully promise, that they will stand to, maintain, and
defend their said Majesties, and also the limitation and
succession of the Crown herein specified and contained, to the
utmost of their powers, with their lives and estates, against
all persons whatsoever that shall attempt anything to the
contrary.
{912}
IX. And whereas it hath been found by experience, that it is
inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant
kingdom to be governed by a Popish prince, or by any king or
queen marrying a Papist, the said Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and Commons, do further pray that it may be enacted,
That all and every person and persons that is, are, or shall be
reconciled to, or shall hold communion with, the See or Church
of Rome, or shall profess the Popish religion, or shall marry
a Papist, shall be excluded, and be for ever incapable to
inherit, possess, or enjoy the Crown and Government of this
realm, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, or
any part of the same, or to have, use, or exercise, any regal
power, authority, or jurisdiction within the same; and in all
and every such case or cases the people of these realms shall
be and are hereby absolved of their allegiance, and the said
Crown and government shall from time to time descend to, and
be enjoyed by, such person or persons, being Protestants, as
should have inherited and enjoyed the same, in case the said
person or persons so reconciled, holding communion, or
professing, or marrying, as aforesaid, were naturally dead.
X. And that every King and Queen of this realm, who at any
time hereafter shall come to and succeed in the Imperial Crown
of this kingdom, shall, on the first day of the meeting of the
first Parliament, next after his or her coming to the Crown,
sitting in his or her throne in the House of Peers, in the
presence of the Lords and Commons therein assembled, or at his
or her coronation, before such person or persons who shall
administer the coronation oath to him or her, at the time of
his or her taking the said oath (which shall first happen),
make, subscribe, and audibly repeat the declaration mentioned
in the statute made in the thirteenth year of the reign of
King Charles II., intituled "An Act for the more effectual
preserving the King's person and Government, by disabling
Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament." But if it
shall happen that such King or Queen, upon his or her
succession to the Crown of this realm, shall be under the age
of twelve years, then every such King or Queen shall make,
subscribe, and audibly repeat the said declaration at his or
her coronation, or the first day of meeting of the first
Parliament as aforesaid, which shall first happen after such
King or Queen shall have attained the said age of twelve
years.
XI. All which their Majesties are contented and pleased shall
be declared, enacted, and established by authority of this
present Parliament, and shall stand, remain, and be the law of
this realm for ever; and the same are by their said Majesties,
by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, and by the
authority of the same, declared, enacted, or established
accordingly.
XII. And be it further declared and enacted by the authority
aforesaid, That from and after this present session of
Parliament, no dispensation by "non obstante" of or to any
statute, or any part thereof, shall be allowed, but that the
same shall be held void and of no effect, except a
dispensation be allowed of in such statute, and except in such
cases as shall be specially provided for by one or more bill
or bills to be passed during this present session of
Parliament.
XIII. Provided that no charter, or grant, or pardon granted
before the three-and-twentieth day of October, in the year of
our Lord One thousand six hundred eighty-nine, shall be any
ways impeached or invalidated by this Act, but that the same
shall be and remain of the same force and effect in law, and
no other, than as if this Act had never been made.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1689-1696.
The war of the League of Augsburg, or the Grand Alliance
against Louis XIV. (called in American history "King William's
War ").
See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690; 1689-1691; 1692;
1693 (JULY); 1694; 1695-1696.
Also, CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690; 1692-1697;
and NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1694--1697.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1690 (JUNE).
The Battle of Beachy Head.
The great peril of the kingdom.
"In June, 1690, whilst William was in Ireland, the French sent
a fleet, under Tourville, to threaten England. He left Brest
and entered the British Channel. Herbert (then Earl of
Torrington) commanded the English fleet lying in the Downs,
and sailed to Saint Helens, where he was joined by the Dutch
fleet under Evertsen. On the 26th of June the English and
French fleets were close to each other, and an important
engagement was expected, when unexpectedly Torrington
abandoned the Isle of Wight and retreated towards the Straits
of Dover. ... The Queen and her Council, receiving this
intelligence, sent to Torrington peremptory orders to fight.
Torrington received these orders on the 29th June. Next day he
bore down on the French fleet in order of battle. He had less
than 60 ships of the line, whilst the French had 80. He placed
the Dutch in the van, and during the whole fight rendered them
little or no assistance. He gave the signal to engage, which
was immediately obeyed by Evertsen, who fought with the most
splendid courage, but at length, being unsupported, his second
in command and many other officers of high rank having fallen,
and his ships being fearfully shattered, Evertsen was obliged
to draw off his contingent from the unequal battle. Torrington
destroyed some of these injured ships, took the remainder in
tow, and sailed along the coast of Kent for the Thames. When
in that river he pulled up all the buoys to prevent pursuit.
... Upon his return to London he was sent to the Tower, and in
December was tried at Sheerness by court-martial, and on the
third day was acquitted; but William refused to see him, and
ordered him to be dismissed from the navy."
W. H. Torriano,
William the Third,
chapter 24.
"There has scarcely ever been so sad a day in London as that
on which the news of the Battle of Beachy Head arrived. The
shame was insupportable; the peril was imminent. ... At any
moment London might be appalled by news that 20,000 French
veterans were in Kent. It was notorious that, in every part of
the kingdom, the Jacobites had been, during some months,
making preparations for a rising. All the regular troops who
could be assembled for the defence of the island did not
amount to more than 10,000 men. It may be doubted whether our
country has ever passed through a more alarming crisis than
that of the first week of July 1690."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 15 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
J. Campbell,
Naval History of Great Britain,
chapter 18 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1690-1691.
Defeat of James and the Jacobites in Ireland.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1692.
The new charter to Massachusetts as a royal province.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1689-1692.
{912}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1692.
Attempted invasion from France.
Battle of La Hogue.
"The diversion in Ireland having failed, Louis wished to make
an effort to attack England without and within. James II., who
had turned to so little advantage the first aid granted by the
King of France saw therefore in preparation a much more
powerful assistance, and obtained what had been refused him
after the days of the Boyne and Beachy-Head,--an army to
invade England. News received from that country explained this
change in the conduct of Louis. The opinion of James at
Versailles was no better than in the past; but England was
believed to be on the eve of counter-revolution, which it
would be sufficient to aid with a vigorous and sudden blow.
... Many eminent personages, among the Whigs as well as among
the Tories, among others the Duke of Marlborough (Churchill),
had opened a secret correspondence with the royal exile at
Saint-Germain. James had secret adherents in the English fleet
which he had so long commanded before reigning, and believed
himself able to count on Rear-Admiral Carter, and even on
Admiral Russell. Louis gave himself up to excessive confidence
in the result of these plots, and arranged his plan of naval
operations accordingly. An army of 30,000 men, with 500
transports, was assembled on the coast of Normandy, the
greater part at La Hogue and Cherbourg, the rest at Havre:
this was composed of all the Irish troops, a number of
Anglo-Scotch refugees, and a corps of French troops. Marshal
de Bellefonds commanded under King James. Tourville was to set
ut from Brest in the middle of April with fifty ships of the
line, enter the Channel, attack the English fleet before it
could be reinforced by the Dutch, and thus secure the
invasion. Express orders were sent to him to engage the enemy
'whatever might be his numbers.' It was believed that half of
the English fleet would go over to the side of the allies of
its king. The landing effected, Tourville was to return to
Brest, to rally there the squadron of Toulon, sixteen vessels
strong, and the rest of our large ships, then to hold the
Channel during the whole campaign. They had reckoned without
the elements, which, hitherto hostile to the enemies of
France, this time turned against her." The French fleets were
detained by contrary winds and by incomplete preparations.
Tourville was not reinforced, as he expected to be, by the
squadrons of Toulon and Rochefort. Before he found it possible
to sail from Brest, the Jacobite plot had been discovered in
England, the government was on its guard, and the Dutch and
English fleets had made their junction. Still, the French
admiral was under orders which left him no discretion, and he
went out to seek the enemy. "May 29, at daybreak, between the
Capes of La Hogue and Barfleur, Tourville found himself in
presence of the allied fleet, the most powerful that had ever
appeared on the sea. He had been joined by seven ships from
the squadron of Rochefort, and numbered 44 vessels against 99,
78 of which carried over 50 guns, and, for the most part, were
much larger than a majority of the French. The English had 63
ships and [4,540] guns; the Dutch, 36 ships and 2,614 guns; in
all, 7,154 guns; the French counted only 3,114. The allied
fleet numbered nearly 42,000 men; the French fleet less than
20,000." Notwithstanding this great inferiority of numbers and
strength, it was the French fleet which made the attack,
bearing down under full sail "on the immense mass of the
enemy." The attempt was almost hopeless; and yet, when night
fell, after a day of tremendous battle, Tourville had not yet
lost a ship; but his line of battle had been broken, and no
chance of success remained. "May 30, at break of day,
Tourville rallied around him 35 vessels. The other nine had
strayed, five towards La Hogue, four towards the English
coast, whence they regained Brest. If there had been a naval
port at La Hogue or at Cherbourg, as Colbert and Vauban had
desired, the French fleet would have preserved its laurels!
There was no place of retreat on all that coast. The fleet of
the enemy advanced in full force. It was impossible to renew
the prodigious effort of the day before." In this emergency,
Tourville made a daring attempt to escape with his fleet
through the dangerous channel called the Race of Alderney,
which separates the Channel Islands from the Normandy coast.
Twenty-two vessels made the passage safely and found a place
of refuge at St. Malo; thirteen were too late for the tide and
failed. Most of these were destroyed, during the next few
days, by the English and Dutch at Cherbourg and in the bay of
La Hogue,--in the presence and under the guns of King James'
army of invasion. "James II. had reason to say that 'his
unlucky star' everywhere shed a malign influence around him;
but this influence was only that of his blindness and
incapacity. Such was that disaster of La Hogue, which has left
among us such a fatal renown, and the name of which resounds in
our history like another Agincourt or Cressy. Historians have
gone so far as to ascribe to this the destruction of the
French navy. ... La Hogue was only a reprisal for Beachy-Head.
The French did not lose in it a vessel more than the allies
had lost two years before, and the 15 vessels destroyed were
soon replaced."
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV:
(translated by M. L. Booth),
volume 2, chapter 2.'
ALSO IN:
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 18 (volume 4).
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 20, chapter 4 (volume 5).
Sir J. Dalrymple,
Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland,
part 2, book 7 (volume 3).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1695.
Expiration of censorship law.
Appearance of first newspapers.
See PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1695.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1696-1749.
Measures of commercial and industrial restriction
in the American colonies.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1696-1749.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1697.
The Peace of Ryswick.
Recognition of William III. by France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1697.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1698.
The founding of Calcutta.
See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1698-1700.
The question of the Spanish Succession.
The Treaties of Partition.
The Spanish king's will.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1701.
The Act of Settlement.
The source of the sovereignty of the
House of Hanover or Brunswick.
"William and Mary had no children; and in 1700 the young Duke
of Gloucester, the only child of Anne that lived beyond
infancy, died. There was now no hope of there being anyone to
inherit the crown by the Bill of Rights after the death of
William and of Anne. In 1701, therefore, Parliament settled
the crown on the Electress Sophia of Hanover, and her heirs.
Sophia was one of the children of that Elizabeth, daughter of
James I., who in 1613 had married the Palsgrave Frederick. She
was chosen to come after William and Anne because she was the
nearest to the Stuart line who was a Protestant. The law that
did this is called the Act of Settlement; it gives Queen
Victoria her title to the throne. Parliament in passing it
tried to make the nation's liberties still safer. It was now
made impossible (1) for any foreigner to sit in Parliament or
to hold an office under the Crown; (2). for the king to go to
war in defence of countries that did not belong to England,
unless Parliament gave him leave; or (3) to pardon anyone so
that the Commons might not be able to impeach him."
J. Rowley,
The Settlement of the Constitution,
book 1, chapter 5.
{914}
"Though the choice was truly free in the hands of parliament,
and no pretext of absolute right could be advanced on any
side, there was no question that the princess Sophia was the
fittest object of the nation's preference. She was indeed very
far removed from any hereditary title. Besides the pretended
prince of Wales, and his sister, whose legitimacy no one
disputed, there stood in her way the duchess of Savoy,
daughter of Henrietta duchess of Orleans, and several of the
Palatine family. These last had abjured the reformed faith, of
which their ancestors had been the strenuous assertors; but it
seemed not improbable that some one might return to it. ...
According to the tenor and intention of the act of settlement,
all prior claims of inheritance, save that of the issue of
king William and the princess Anne, being set aside and
annulled, the princess Sophia became the source of a new royal
line. The throne of England and Ireland, by virtue of the
paramount will of parliament, stands entailed upon the heirs
of her body, being protestants. In them the right is as truly
hereditary as it ever was in the Plantagenets or the Tudors.
But they derive it not from those ancient families. The blood
indeed of Cerdic and of the Conqueror flows in the veins of
his present majesty [George IV.]. Our Edwards and Henries
illustrate the almost unrivalled splendour and antiquity of
the house of Brunswic. But they have transmitted no more right
to the allegiance of England than Boniface of Este or Henry
the Lion. That rests wholly on the act of settlement, and
resolves itself into the sovereignty of the legislature.
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
Sir A. Halliday,
Annals of the House of Hanover,
book 10 (volume 2).
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1714.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1701-1702.
The rousing of the nation to war with France.
When Louis XIV. procured and accepted for his grandson the
bequest of the Spanish crown, throwing over the Partition
Treaty, "William had the intolerable chagrin of discovering
not only that he had been befooled, but that his English
subjects had no sympathy with him or animosity against the
royal swindler who had tricked him. 'The blindness of the
people here,' he writes sadly to the Pensionary Heinsius, 'is
incredible. For though the affair is not public, yet it was no
sooner said that the King of Spain's will was in favour of the
Duke of Anjou, that it was the general opinion that it was
better for England that France should accept the will than
fulfil the Treaty of Partition.' ... William dreaded the idea
of a Bourbon reigning at Madrid, but he saw no very grave
objection, as the two treaties showed, to Naples and Sicily
passing into French hands. With his English subjects the exact
converse was the case. They strongly deprecated the assignment
of the Mediterranean possessions of the Spaniard to the
Dauphin; but they were undisturbed by the sight of the Duke of
Anjou seating himself on the Spanish throne. ... But just as,
under a discharge from an electric battery, two repugnant
chemical compounds will sometimes rush into sudden
combination, so at this juncture the King and the nation were
instantaneously united by the shock of a gross affront. The
hand that liberated the uniting fluid was that of the
Christian king. On the 16th of September 1701 James II.
breathed his last at St. Germains, and, obedient to one of
those impulses, half-chivalrous, half-arrogant, which so often
determined his policy, Louis XIV. declared his recognition of
the Prince of Wales as de jure King of England. No more timely
and effective assistance to the policy of its de facto king
could possibly have been rendered. Its effect upon English
public opinion was instantaneous; and when William returned
from Holland on the 4th of November, he found the country in
the temper in which he could most have wished it to be."
Dissolving the Parliament in which his plans had long been
factiously opposed, he summoned a new one, which met on the
last day of the year 1701. "Opposition in Parliament--in the
country it was already inaudible--was completely silenced. The
two Houses sent up addresses assuring the King of their firm
resolve to defend the succession against the pretended Prince
of Wales and all other pretenders whatsoever. ... Nor did the
goodwill of Parliament expend itself in words. The Commons
accepted without a word of protest the four treaties
constituting the new Grand Alliance. ... The votes of supply
were passed unanimously." But scarcely had the nation and the
King arrived at this agreement with one another than the
latter was snatched from his labors. On the 21st of February,
1702, William received an injury, through the stumbling of his
horse, which his frail and diseased body could not bear. His
death would not have been long delayed in any event, but it
was hastened by this accident, and occurred on the 8th of
March following. He was succeeded by Anne, the sister of his
deceased queen, Mary, and second daughter of the deposed
Stuart king, James II.
H. D. Traill,
William the Third,
chapters 14-15.
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 21, chapters 7-10 (volume 5).
See, also, SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1702.
Accession of Queen Anne.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1702.
Union of rival East India Companies.
See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1702.
The War of the Spanish Succession.
Failure at Cadiz.
The treasure ships in Vigo Bay.
Marlborough's first campaigns.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1702;
and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1711.
The War of the Spanish Succession in America
(called "Queen Anne's War").
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710;
CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.
{915}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1714.
The Age of Anne in literature.
"That which was once called the Augustan age of English
literature was specially marked by the growing development of
a distinct literary class. It was a period of transition from
the early system of the patronage of authors to the later
system of their professional independence. Patronage was being
changed into influence. The system of subscription, by which
Pope made his fortune, was a kind of joint-stock patronage.
The noble did not support the poet, but induced his friends to
subscribe. The noble, moreover, made another discovery. He found
that he could dispense a cheaper and more effective patronage
than of old by patronising at the public expense. During the
reign of Queen Anne, the author of a successful poem or an
effective pamphlet might look forward to a comfortable place.
The author had not to wear the livery, but to become the
political follower, of the great man. Gradually a separation
took place. The minister found it better to have a regular
corps of politicians and scribblers in his pay than
occasionally to recruit his ranks by enlisting men of literary
taste. And, on the other hand, authors, by slow degrees,
struggled into a more independent position as their public
increased. In the earlier part of the century, however, we
find a class of fairly cultivated people, sufficiently
numerous to form a literary audience, and yet not so numerous
as to split into entirely distinct fractions. The old
religious and political warfare has softened; the statesman
loses his place, but not his head; and though there is plenty
of bitterness, there is little violence. We have thus a
brilliant society of statesmen, authors, clergymen, and
lawyers, forming social clubs, meeting at coffee-houses,
talking scandal and politics, and intensely interested in the
new social phenomena which emerge as the old order decays;
more excitable, perhaps, than their fathers, but less
desperately in earnest, and waging a constant pamphleteering
warfare upon politics, literature, and theology, which is yet
consistent with a certain degree of friendly intercourse. The
essayist, the critic, and the novelist appear for the first
time in their modern shape; and the journalist is slowly
gaining some authority as the wielder of a political force.
The whole character of contemporary literature, in short, is
moulded by the social conditions of the class for which and by
which it was written, still more distinctly than by the ideas
current in contemporary speculation. ... Pope is the typical
representative of the poetical spirit of the day. He may or
may not be regarded as the intellectual superior of Swift or
Addison; and the most widely differing opinions may be formed
of the intrinsic merits of his poetry. The mere fact, however,
that his poetical dynasty was supreme to the end of the
century proved that, in some sense, he is a most
characteristic product. Nor is it hard to see the main sources
of his power. Pope had at least two great poetical qualities.
He was amongst the most keenly sensitive of men, and he had an
almost unique felicity of expression, which has enabled him to
coin more proverbs than any writer since Shakespeare.
Sensitive, it may be said, is a polite word for morbid, and
his felicity of phrase was more adapted to coin epigrams than
poetry. The controversy is here irrelevant. Pope, whether, as
I should say, a true poet, or, as some have said, only the
most sparkling of rhymesters, reflects the thoughts of his day
with a curious completeness. ... There is, however, another
wide province of literature in which writers of the eighteenth
century did work original in character and of permanent value.
If the seventeenth century is the great age of dramatists and
theologians, the eighteenth century was the age in which the
critic, the essayist, the satirist, the novelist, and the
moralist first appeared, or reached the highest mark.
Criticism, though still in its infancy, first became an
independent art with Addison. Addison and his various
colleagues set the first example of that kind of social essay
which is still popular. Satire had been practised in the
preceding century, and in the hands of Dryden had become a
formidable political weapon; but the social satire of which
Pope was, and remains, the chief master, began with the
century, and may be said to have expired with it, in spite of
the efforts of Byron and Gifford. De Foe, Richardson,
Fielding, and Smollett developed the modern novel out of very
crude rudiments; and two of the greatest men of the century,
Swift and Johnson, may be best described as practical
moralists in a vein peculiar to the time. ... The English
novel, as the word is now understood, begins with De Foe.
Though, like all other products of mind or body, it was
developed out of previously existing material, and is related
to the great family of stories with which men have amused
themselves in all ages, it is, perhaps, as nearly an original
creation as anything can be. The legends of saints which
amused the middle ages, or the chivalrous romances which were
popular throughout the seventeenth century, had become too
unreal to amuse living human beings. De Foe made the discovery
that a history might be equally interesting if the recorded
events had never happened."
L. Stephen,
History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century,
chapter 12, sections 23-56 (volume 2).
"This so-called classic age of ours has long ceased to be
regarded with that complacency which led the most flourishing
part of it to adopt the epithet 'Augustan.' It will scarcely
be denied by its greatest admirer, if he be a man of wide
reading, that it cannot be ranked with the poorest of the five
great ages of literature. Deficient in the highest
intellectual beauty, in the qualities which awaken the fullest
critical enthusiasm, the eighteenth century will be enjoyed
more thoroughly by those who make it their special study than
by those who skim the entire surface of literature. It has,
although on the grand scale condemned as second-rate, a
remarkable fulness and sustained richness which endear it to
specialists. If it be compared, for instance, with the real
Augustan age in Rome, or with the Spanish period of literary
supremacy, it may claim to hold its own against these rivals
in spite of their superior rank, because of its more copious
interest. If it has neither a Horace nor a Calderon, it has a
great extent and variety of writers just below these in merit,
and far more numerous than what Rome or Spain can show during
those blossoming periods. It is, moreover, fertile at far more
points than either of these schools. This sustained and
variegated success, at a comparatively low level of effort,
strikes one as characteristic of an age more remarkable for
persistent vitality than for rapid and brilliant growth. The
Elizabethan vivida vis is absent, the Georgian glow has not
yet dawned, but there is a suffused prosaic light of
intelligence, of cultivated form, over the whole picture, and
during the first half of the period, at least, this is bright
enough to be very attractive. Perhaps, in closing, the
distinguishing mark of eighteenth-century literature may be
indicated as its mastery of prose as a vehicle for general
thought."
E. Gosse,
The Study of Eighteenth-Century Literature
(New Princeton Rev., July, 1888, page 21).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1703.
The Methuen Treaty with Portugal.
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1703;
and SPAIN: A. D. 1703-1704.
{916}
England: A. D. 1703.
The Aylesbury election case.
"Ashby, a burgess of Aylesbury, sued the returning officer for
maliciously refusing his vote. Three judges of the King's
Bench decided, against the opinion of Chief Justice Holt, that
the verdict which a jury had given in favor of Ashby must be
set aside, as the action was not maintainable. The plaintiff
went to the House of Lords upon a writ of error, and there the
judgment was reversed by a large majority of Peers. The Lower
House maintained that 'the qualification of an elector is not
cognizable elsewhere than before the Commons of England'; that
Ashby was guilty of a breach of privilege; and that all
persons who should in future commence such an action, and all
attorneys and counsel conducting the same, are also guilty of
a high breach of privilege. The Lords, led by Somers, then
came to counter-resolutions. ... The prorogation of Parliament
put an end to the quarrel in that Session; but in the next it
was renewed with increased violence. The judgment against the
Returning Officer was followed up by Ashby levying his
damages. Other Aylesbury men brought new actions. The Commons
imprisoned the Aylesbury electors. The Lords took strong
measures that affected, or appeared to affect, the privileges
of the Commons. The Queen finally stopped the contest by a
prorogation; and the quarrel expired when the Parliament
expired under the Triennial Act. Lord Somers 'established the
doctrine which has been acted on ever since, that an action
lies against a Returning Officer for maliciously refusing the
vote of an elector.'"
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 5, chapter 17.
ALSO IN:
Lord Campbell,
Lives of the Lord Chancellors: Somers,
chapter. 110 (volume 4).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1704-1707.
Marlborough's campaigns in the War of the Spanish Succession.
Campaigns in Spain.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1704;
SPAIN: A. D. 1703-1704, to 1707;
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1705, and 1706-1707.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1707.
The Union with Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1707-1708.
Hostility to the Union in Scotland.
Spread of Jacobitism.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707-1708.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1708-1709.
The War of the Spanish Succession:
Oudenarde and Malplaquet.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709;
and SPAIN: A. D. 1707-1710.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1709.
The Barrier Treaty with Holland.
"The influence of the Whig party in the affairs of government
in England, always irksome to the Queen, had now began visibly
to decline; and the partiality she was suspected of
entertaining for her brother, with her known dislike of the
house of Hanover, inspired them with alarm, lest the Tories
might seek still further to propitiate her favour, by
altering, in his favour, the line of succession, as at present
established. They had, accordingly, made it one of the
preliminaries of the proposed treaty of peace, that the
Protestant succession, in England, should be secured by a
general guarantee, and now sought to repair, as far as
possible, the failure caused by the unsuccessful termination
of the conferences, by entering into a treaty to that effect
with the States. The Marquis Townshend, accordingly, repaired
for this purpose to the Hague, when the States consented to
enter into an engagement to maintain the present succession to
the crown, with their whole force, and to make the recognition
of that succession, and the expulsion of the Pretender from
France, an indispensable preliminary to any peace with that
kingdom. In return for this important guarantee, England was
to secure to the States a barrier, formed of the towns of
Nieuport, Furnes and the fort of Knokke, Menin, Lille, Ryssel,
Tournay, Conde, and Valenciennes, Maubeuge, Charleroi, Namur,
Lier, Halle, and some forts, besides the citadels of Ghent and
Dendermonde. It was afterwards asserted, in excuse for the
dereliction from that treaty on the part of England, that
Townshend had gone beyond his instructions; but it is quite
certain that it was ratified without hesitation by the queen,
whatever may have been her secret feelings regarding it."
C. M. Davies,
History of Holland,
part 3, chapter 11 (volume 3 ).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.
Opposition to the war.
Trial of Sacheverell.
Fall of the Whigs and Marlborough.
"A 'deluge of blood' such as that of Malplaquet increased the
growing weariness of the war, and the rejection of the French
offers was unjustly attributed to a desire on the part of
Marlborough of lengthening out a contest which brought him
profit and power. The expulsion of Harley and St. John
[Bolingbroke] from the Ministry had given the Tories leaders
of a more vigorous stamp, and St. John brought into play a new
engine of political attack whose powers soon made themselves
felt. In the Examiner, and in a crowd of pamphlets and
periodicals which followed in its train, the humor of Prior,
the bitter irony of Swift, and St. John's own brilliant
sophistry spent themselves on the abuse of the war and of its
general. ... A sudden storm of popular passion showed the way
in which public opinion responded to these efforts. A
High-Church divine, Dr. Sacheverell, maintained the doctrine
of non-resistance [the doctrine, that is, of passive obedience
and non-resistance to government, implying a condemnation of
the Revolution of 1688 and of the Revolution settlement], in a
sermon at St. Paul's, with a boldness which deserved
prosecution; but in spite of the warning of Marlborough and of
Somers the Whig Ministers resolved on his impeachment. His
trial in 1710 at once widened into a great party struggle, and
the popular enthusiasm in Sacheverell's favor showed the
gathering hatred of the Whigs and the war. ... A small
majority of the peers found him guilty, but the light sentence
they inflicted was in effect an acquittal, and bonfires and
illuminations over the whole country welcomed it as a Tory
triumph. The turn of popular feeling freed Anne at once from
the pressure beneath which she had bent; and the skill of
Harley, whose cousin, Mrs. Masham, had succeeded the Duchess
of Marlborough in the Queen's favor, was employed in bringing
about the fall both of Marlborough and the Whig Ministers. ...
The return of a Tory House of Commons sealed his
[Marlborough's] fate. His wife was dismissed from court. A
masterly plan for a march into the heart of France in the
opening of 1711 was foiled by the withdrawal of a part of his
forces, and the negotiations which had for some time been
conducted between the French and English Ministers without his
knowledge marched rapidly to a close. ... At the opening of
1712 the Whig majority of the House of Lords was swamped by
the creation of twelve Tory peers. Marlborough was dismissed
from his command, charged with peculation, and condemned as
guilty by a vote of the House of Commons. He at once withdrew
from England, and with his withdrawal all opposition to the
peace was at an end."
J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
section 9, chapter 9.
{917}
Added to other reasons for opposition to the war, the death of
the Emperor Joseph I., which occurred in April, 1711, had
entirely reversed the situation in Europe out of which the war
proceeded. The Archduke Charles, whom the allies had been
striving to place on the Spanish throne, was now certain to be
elected Emperor. He received the imperial crown, in fact, in
December, 1711. By this change of fortune, therefore, he
became a more objectionable claimant of the Spanish crown than
Louis XIV. 's grandson had been.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1711.
Earl Stanhope,
History of England, Reign of Anne,
chapters 12-15.
"Round the fall of Marlborough has gathered the interest
attaching to the earliest political crisis at all resembling
those of quite recent times. It is at this moment that Party
Government in the modern sense actually commenced. William the
Third with military instinct had always been reluctant to
govern by means of a party. Bound as he was, closely, to the
Whigs, he employed Tory Ministers. ... The new idea of a
homogeneous government was working itself into shape under the
mild direction of Lord Somers; but the form finally taken
under Sir Robert Walpole, which has continued to the present
time, was as yet some way off. Marlborough's notions were
those of the late King. Both abroad and at home he carried out
the policy of William. He refused to rely wholly upon the
Whigs, and the extreme Tories were not given employment. The
Ministry of Godolphin was a composite administration,
containing at one time, in 1705, Tories like Harley and St.
John as well as Whigs such as Sunderland and Halifax. ... Lord
Somers was a type of statesman of a novel order at that time.
... In the beginning of the eighteenth century it was rare to
find a man attaining the highest political rank who was
unconnected by birth or training or marriage with any of the
great 'governing families,' as they have been called. Lord
Somers was the son of a Worcester attorney. ... It was
fortunate for England that Lord Somers should have been the
foremost man of the Whig party at the time when constitutional
government, as we now call it, was in course of construction.
By his prudent counsel the Whigs were guided through the
difficult years at the end of Queen Anne's reign; and from the
ordeal of seeing their rivals in power they certainly managed,
as a party, to emerge on the whole with credit. Although he
was not nominally their leader, the paramount influence in the
Tory party was Bolingbroke's; and that the Tories suffered from
the defects of his great qualities, no unprejudiced critic can
doubt. Between the two parties, and at the head of the
Treasury through the earlier years of the reign, stood
Godolphin, without whose masterly knowledge of finance and
careful attention to the details of administration
Marlborough's policy would have been baffled and his campaigns
remained unfought. To Godolphin, more than to any other one
man, is due the preponderance of the Treasury control in
public affairs. It was his administration, during the absence
of Marlborough on the Continent, which created for the office
of Lord Treasurer its paramount importance, and paved the way
for Sir Robert Walpole's government of England under the title
of First Lord of the Treasury. ... Marlborough saw and always
admitted that his victories were due in large measure to the
financial skill of Godolphin. To this statesman's lasting
credit it must be remembered that in a venal age, when the
standards of public honesty were so different from those which
now prevail, Godolphin died a poor man. ... Bolingbroke is
interesting to us as the most striking figure among the
originators of the new parliamentary system. With Marlborough
disappeared the type of Tudor statesmen modified by contact
with the Stuarts. He was the last of the Imperial Chancellors.
Bolingbroke and his successor Walpole were the earlier types
of constitutional statesmen among whom Mr. Pitt and, later,
Mr. Gladstone stand pre-eminent. ... He and his friends,
opponents of Marlborough, and contributors to his fall, are
interesting to us mainly as furnishing the first examples of
'Her Majesty's Opposition,' as the authors of party government
and the prototypes of cabinet ministers of to-day. Their ways
of thought, their style of speech and of writing, may be
dissimilar to those now in vogue, but they show greater
resemblance to those of modern politicians than to those of
the Ministers of William or of the Stuarts. Bolingbroke may
have appeared a strange product of the eighteenth century to
his contemporaries, but he would not have appeared peculiarly
misplaced among the colleagues of Lord Randolph Churchill or
Mr. Chamberlain."
R. B. Brett,
Footprints of Statesmen,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Marlborough,
chapters 89-107.
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Walpole,
volume 1, chapters 5-6.
G. Saintsbury,
Marlborough.
G. W. Cooke,
Memoirs of Bolingbroke,
volume 1, chapters 6-13.
J. C. Collins,
Bolingbroke.
A. Hassall,
Life of Bolingbroke,
chapter 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1711-1714.
The Occasional Conformity Bill and the Schism Act.
"The Test Act, making the reception of the Anglican Sacrament
a necessary qualification for becoming a member of
corporations, and for the enjoyment of most civil offices, was
very efficacious in excluding Catholics, but was altogether
insufficient to exclude moderate Dissenters. ... Such men,
while habitually attending their own places of worship, had no
scruple about occasionally entering an Anglican church, or
receiving the sacrament from an Anglican clergyman. The
Independents, it is true, and some of the Baptists, censured
this practice, and Defoe wrote vehemently against it, but it
was very general, and was supported by a long list of imposing
authorities. ... In 1702, in 1703, and in 1704, measures for
suppressing occasional conformity were carried through the
Commons, but on each occasion they were defeated by the Whig
preponderance in the Lords." In 1711, the Whigs formed a
coalition with one section of the Tories to defeat the
negotiations which led to the Peace of Utrecht; but the Tories
"made it the condition of alliance that the Occasional
Conformity Bill should be accepted by the Whigs.
{918}
The bargain was made; the Dissenters were abandoned, and, on
the motion of Nottingham, a measure was carried providing that
all persons in places of profit or trust, and all common
councilmen in corporations, who, while holding office, were
proved to have attended any Nonconformist place of worship,
should forfeit the place, and should continue incapable of
public employment till they should depose that for a whole
year they had not attended a conventicle. The House of Commons
added a fine of £40, which was to be paid to the informer, and
with this addition the Bill became a law. Its effects during
the few years it continued in force were very inconsiderable,
for the great majority of conspicuous Dissenters remained in
office, abstaining from public worship in conventicles, but
having Dissenting ministers as private chaplains in their
houses. ... The object of the Occasional Conformity Bill was
to exclude the Dissenters from all Government positions of
power, dignity or profit. It was followed in 1714 by the
Schism Act, which was intended to crush their seminaries and
deprive them of the means of educating their children in their
faith. ... As carried through the House of Commons, it
provided that no one, under pain of three months'
imprisonment, should keep either a public or a private school,
or should even act as tutor or usher, unless he had obtained a
licence from the Bishop, had engaged to conform to the
Anglican liturgy, and had received the sacrament in some
Anglican church within the year. In order to prevent
occasional conformity it was further provided that if a
teacher so qualified were present at any other form of worship
he should at once become liable to three months' imprisonment,
and should be incapacitated for the rest of his life from
acting as schoolmaster or tutor. ... Some important clauses,
however, were introduced by the Whig party qualifying its
severity. They provided that Dissenters might have
school-mistresses to teach their children to read; that the
Act should not extend to any person instructing youth in
reading, writing, or arithmetic, in any part of mathematics
relating to navigation, or in any mechanical art only. ... The
facility with which this atrocious Act was carried, abundantly
shows the danger in which religious liberty was placed in the
latter years of the reign of Queen Anne."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 1.
The Schism Act was repealed in 1719, during the administration
of Lord Stanhope.
Cobbett's Parliamentary History,
volume 7, pages 567-587.
ALSO IN:
J. Stoughton,
History of Religion in England,
volume 5, chapters 14-16.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1713.
Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession.
The Peace of Utrecht.
Acquisitions from Spain and France.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714;
CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713;
also, NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1713;
and SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1698-1776.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1713.
Second Barrier Treaty with the Dutch.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1713-1715.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1713-1714.
The desertion of the Catalans.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1714.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1714.
The end of the Stuart line and the beginning of the
Hanoverians.
Queen Anne died, after a short illness, on the morning of
August 1, 1714. The Tories, who had just gained control of the
ministry, were wholly unprepared for this emergency. They
assembled in Privy Council, on the 29th of July, when the
probably fatal issue of the Queen's illness became apparent,
and "a strange scene is said to have occurred. Argyle and
Somerset, though they had contributed largely by their
defection to the downfall of the Whig ministry of Godolphin,
were now again in opposition to the Tories, and had recently
been dismissed from their posts. Availing themselves of their
rank of Privy Councillors, they appeared unsummoned in the
council room, pleading the greatness of the emergency.
Shrewsbury, who had probably concocted the scene, rose and
warmly thanked them for their offer of assistance; and these
three men appear to have guided the course of events. ...
Shrewsbury, who was already Chamberlain and Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, became Lord Treasurer, and assumed the authority of
Prime Minister. Summons were at once sent to all Privy
Councillors, irrespective of party, to attend; and Somers and
several other of the Whig leaders were speedily at their post.
They had the great advantage of knowing clearly the policy
they should pursue, and their measures were taken with
admirable promptitude and energy. The guards of the Tower were
at once doubled. Four regiments were ordered to march from the
country to London, and all seamen to repair to their vessels.
An embargo was laid on all shipping. The fleet was equipped,
and speedy measures were taken to protect the seaports and to
secure tranquility in Scotland and Ireland. At the same time
despatches were sent to the Netherlands ordering seven of the
ten British battalions to embark without delay; to Lord
Strafford, the ambassador at the Hague, desiring the
States-General to fulfil their guarantee of the Protestant
succession in England; to the Elector, urging him to hasten to
Holland, where, on the death of the Queen, he would be met by
a British squadron, and escorted to his new kingdom." When the
Queen's death occurred, "the new King was at once proclaimed,
and it is a striking proof of the danger of the crisis that
the funds, which had fallen on a false rumour of the Queen's
recovery, rose at once when she died. Atterbury is said to
have urged Bolingbroke to proclaim James III. at Charing
Cross, and to have offered to head the procession in his lawn
sleeves, but the counsel was mere madness, and Bolingbroke saw
clearly that any attempt to overthrow the Act of Settlement
would be now worse than useless. ... The more violent spirits
among the Jacobites now looked eagerly for a French invasion,
but the calmer members of the party perceived that such an
invasion was impossible. ... The Regency Act of 1705 came at
once into operation. The Hanoverian minister produced the
sealed list of the names of those to whom the Elector
entrusted the government before his arrival, and it was found
to consist of eighteen names taken from the leaders of the
Whig party. ... Parliament, in accordance with the provisions
of the Bill, was at once summoned, and it was soon evident
that there was nothing to fear. The moment for a restoration
was passed."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 1 (volume 1).
{919}
"George I., whom circumstances and the Act of Settlement had
thus called to be King of Great Britain and Ireland, had been
a sovereign prince for sixteen years, during which time he had
been Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He was the second who ever
bore that title. By right of his father he was Elector; it was
by right of his mother that he now became ruler of the United
Kingdom. The father was Ernest Augustus, Sovereign Bishop of
Osnaburg, who, by the death of his elder brothers, had become
Duke of Hanover, and then Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg. In
1692 he was raised by the Emperor to the dignity of Elector.
... The mother of George I. was Sophia, usually known as the
Electress Sophia. The title was merely one of honour, and only
meant wife of an Elector. ... The Electress Sophia was the
daughter of Elizabeth, daughter of King James I., and
Frederick, the Elector Palatine [whose election to the throne
of Bohemia and subsequent expulsion from that kingdom and from
his Palatine dominions were the first acts in the Thirty
Years' War]. ... The new royal house in England is sometimes
called the House of Hanover, sometimes the House of Brunswick.
It will be found that the latter name is more generally used
in histories written during the last century, the former in
books written in the present day. If the names were equally
applicable, the modern use is the more convenient, because
there is another, and in some respects well known, branch of
the House of Brunswick; but no other has a right to the name
of Hanover. It is, however, quite certain that, whatever the
English use may be, Hanover is properly the name of a town and
of a duchy, but that the electorate was Brunswick-Lüneburg.
... The House of Brunswick was of noble origin, tracing itself
back to a certain Guelph d'Este, nicknamed 'the Robust,' son
of an Italian nobleman, who had been seeking his fortunes in
Germany. Guelph married Judith, widow of the English King,
Harold, who fell on the hill of Senlac. ... One of Guelph's
descendants, later, married Maud, the daughter of King Henry
II., probably the most powerful king in Europe of his day, at
whose persuasion the Emperor conferred on the Guelphs the
duchy of Brunswick."
E. E. Morris,
The Early Hanoverians,
book 1, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
P. M. Thornton,
The Brunswick Accession,
chapters 1-10.
Sir A. Halliday,
Annals of the House of Hanover,
book 10 (volume 2).
J. McCarthy,
History of the Four Georges,
chapters 1-4.
W. M. Thackeray,
The Four Georges,
lecture 1.
A. W. Ward,
The Electress Sophia and the Hanoverian Succession (English
History Review, volume 1).
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1701,
THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1714-1721.
First years of George I.
The rise of Walpole to power and the founding of Parliamentary
Government.
"The accession of the house of Hanover in the person of the
great-grandson of James I. was once called by a Whig of this
generation the greatest miracle in our history. It took place
without domestic or foreign disturbance. ... Within our own
borders a short lull followed the sharp agitations of the last
six months. The new king appointed an exclusively Whig
Ministry. The office of Lord Treasurer was not revived, and
the title disappears from political history. Lord Townshend
was made principal Secretary of State, and assumed the part of
first Minister. Mr. Walpole [Sir Robert] took the subaltern
office of paymaster of the forces, holding along with it the
paymastership of Chelsea Hospital. Although he had at first no
seat in the inner Council or Cabinet, which seems to have
consisted of eight members, only one of them a commoner, it is
evident that from the outset his influence was hardly second
to that of Townshend himself. In little more than a year
(October 1715) he had made himself so prominent and valuable
in the House of Commons, that the opportunity of a vacancy was
taken to appoint him to be First Commissioner of the Treasury
and Chancellor of the Exchequer. ... Besides excluding their
opponents from power, the Whigs instantly took more positive
measures. The new Parliament was strongly Whig. A secret
committee was at once appointed to inquire into the
negotiations for the Peace. Walpole was chairman, took the
lead in its proceedings, and drew the report." On Walpole's
report, the House "directed the impeachment of Oxford,
Bolingbroke, and Ormond for high treason, and other high
crimes and misdemeanours mainly relating to the Peace of
Utrecht. ... The proceedings against Oxford and Bolingbroke
are the last instance in our history of a political
impeachment. They are the last ministers who were ever made
personally responsible for giving bad advice and pursuing a
discredited policy, and since then a political mistake has
ceased to be a crime. ... The affair came to an abortive end.
... The opening years of the new reign mark one of the least
attractive periods in political history. George I. ... cared
very little for his new kingdom, and knew very little about
its people or its institutions. ... His expeditions to Hanover
threw the management of all domestic affairs almost without
control into the hands of his English ministers. If the two
first Hanoverian kings had been Englishmen instead of Germans,
if they had been men of talent and ambition, or even men of
strong and commanding will without much talent, Walpole would
never have been able to lay the foundations of government by
the House of Commons and by Cabinet so firmly that even the
obdurate will of George III. was unable to overthrow it
See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.
Happily for the system now established, circumstances
compelled the first two sovereigns of the Hanoverian line to
strike a bargain with the English Whigs, and it was faithfully
kept until the accession of the third George. The king was to
manage the affairs of Hanover, and the Whigs were to govern
England. It was an excellent bargain for England. Smooth as
this operation may seem in historic description, Walpole found
its early stages rough and thorny." The king was not easily
brought to understand that England would not make war for
Hanoverian objects, nor allow her foreign policy to be shaped
by the ambitions of the Electorate. Differences arose which
drove Townshend from the Cabinet, and divided the Whig party.
Walpole retired from the government with Townshend, and was in
opposition for three years, while Lord Stanhope and the Earl of
Sunderland controlled the administration. The Whig schism came
to an end in 1720, and Townshend and Walpole rejoined the
administration, the latter as Paymaster of the Forces without
a seat in the Cabinet. "His opposition was at an end, but he
took no part in the active work of government. ... Before many
months had passed the country was overtaken by the memorable
disasters of the South Sea Bubble.
See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.
{920}
All eyes were turned to Walpole. Though he had privately
dabbled in South Sea stock on his own account, his public
predictions came back to men's minds; they remembered that he
had been called the best man for figures in the House, and the
disgrace of' his most important colleagues only made his
sagacity the more prominent. ... He returned to his old posts,
and once more became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor
of the Exchequer (April 1721), while Townshend was again
Secretary of State. Walpole held his offices practically
without a break for twenty-one years. The younger Pitt had an
almost equal span of unbroken supremacy, but with that
exception there is no parallel to Walpole's long tenure of
power. To estimate aright the vast significance of this
extraordinary stability, we must remember that the country had
just passed through eighty years of revolution. A man of 80 in
1721 could recall the execution of Charles I., the protectorate
of Oliver, the fall of Richard Cromwell, the restoration of
Charles II., the exile of James II., the change of the order
of succession to William of Orange, the reactionary ministry
of Anne, and finally the second change to the House of
Hanover. The interposition, after so long a series of violent
perturbations as this, of twenty years of settled system and
continuous order under one man, makes Walpole's government of
capital and decisive importance in our history, and
constitutes not an artificial division like the reign of a
king, but a true and definite period, with a beginning, an
end, a significance, and a unity of its own."
J. Morley,
Walpole,
chapters 3-4.
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole,
chapters 9-21 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1715.
The Jacobite rising.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1715.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1716.
The Septennial Act.
The easy suppression of the Jacobite rebellion was far from
putting an end to the fears of the loyal supporters of the
Hanoverian dynasty. They regarded with especial anxiety the
approaching Parliamentary elections. "As, by the existing
statute of 6 William and Mary [the Triennial Act, of 1694],
Parliament would be dissolved at the close of the year, and a
new election held in the spring of 1717, there seemed great
probability of a renewal of the contest, or at least of very
serious riots during the election time. With this in view, the
ministers proposed that the existing Parliament should be
continued for a term of seven instead of three years. This,
which was meant for a temporary measure, has never been
repealed, and is still the law under which Parliaments are
held. It has been often objected to this action of Parliament,
that it was acting arbitrarily in thus increasing its own
duration. 'It was a direct usurpation,' it has been said, 'of
the rights of the people, analogous to the act of the Long
Parliament in declaring itself indestructible.' It has been
regarded rather as a party measure than as a forward step in
liberal government. We must seek its vindication in the
peculiar conditions of the time. It was useless to look to the
constituencies for the support of the popular liberty. The
return of members in the smaller boroughs was in the hands of
corrupt or corruptible freemen; in the counties, of great
landowners; in the larger towns, of small place-holders under
Government. A general election in fact only gave fresh
occasion for the exercise of the influence of the Crown and of
the House of Lords--freedom and independence in the presence
of these two permanent powers could be secured only by the
greater permanence of the third element of the Legislature,
the House of Commons. It was thus that, though no doubt in
some degree a party measure for securing a more lengthened
tenure of office to the Whigs, the Septennial Act received,
upon good constitutional grounds, the support and approbation
of the best statesmen of the time."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 3, page 938.
ALSO IN:
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
volume 1, chapter 6.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1717-1719.
The Triple Alliance.
The Quadruple Alliance.
War with Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725;
also, ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1720.
The South Sea Bubble.
See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1721-1742.
Development of the Cabinet System of ministerial government.
See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1725.
The Alliance of Hanover.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1726-1731.
Fresh differences with Spain.
Gibraltar besieged.
The Treaty of Seville.
The Second Treaty of Vienna.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1727.
Accession of King George II.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1727-1741.
Walpole's administration under George II.
"The management of public affairs during the six years of
George the First's reign in which Walpole was Prime Minister,
was easy. ... His political fortunes seemed to be ruined by
George the First's death [1727]. That King's successor had
ransacked a very copious vocabulary of abuse, in order to
stigmatise the minister and his associates. Rogue and rascal,
scoundrel and fool, were his commonest utterances when Robert
Walpole's name was mentioned. ... Walpole bowed meekly to the
coming storm," and an attempt was made to put Sir Spencer
Compton in his place. But Compton himself, as well as the king
and his sagacious queen, soon saw the futility of it, and the
old ministry was retained. "At first, Walpole was associated
with his brother-in-law, Townsend. But they soon disagreed,
and the rupture was total after the death of Walpole's sister,
Townsend's wife. ... After Townsend's dismissal, Walpole
reigned alone, if, indeed, he could be said to exercise sole
functions while Newcastle was tied to him. Long before he was
betrayed by this person, of whom he justly said that his name
was perfidy, he knew how dangerous was the association. But
Newcastle was the largest proprietor of rotten boroughs in the
kingdom, and, fool and knave as he was, he had wit enough to
guess at his own importance, and knavery enough to make his
market. Walpole's chief business lay in managing the King, the
Queen, the Church, the House of Commons, and perhaps the
people. I have already said, that before his accession George
hated Walpole. But there are hatreds and hatreds, equal in
fervency while they last, but different in duration. The King
hated Walpole because he had served his father well. But one
George was gone, and another George was in possession. Then
came before the man in possession the clear vision of
Walpole's consummate usefulness. The vision was made clearer
by the sagacious hints of the Queen. It became clear as
noonday when Walpole contrived to add £115,000 to the civil
list. ... Besides, Walpole was sincerely determined to support
the Hanoverian succession. He constantly insisted to George
that the final settlement of his House on the throne would be
fought out in England. ... Hence he was able to check one of
the King's ruling passions, a longing to engage in war. ...
{921}
It is generally understood that Walpole managed the House of
Commons by bribery; that the secret service money was thus
employed: and that this minister was the father of that
corruption which was reported to have disgraced the House
during the first half of the last century. I suspect that
these influences have been exaggerated. It is a stock story
that Walpole said he knew every man's price. It might have
been generally true, but the foundation of this apothegm is,
in all likelihood, a recorded saying of his about certain
members of the opposition. ... Walpole has been designated,
and with justice, as emphatically a peace minister. He held
'that the most pernicious circumstances in which this country
can be, are those of war, as we must be great losers while the
war lasts, and cannot be great gainers when it ends.' He kept
George the Second at peace, as well as he could, by insisting
on it that the safety of his dynasty lay in avoiding foreign
embroilments. He strove in vain against the war which broke
out in 1739. ... I do not intend to disparage Walpole's
administrative ability when I say that the country prospered
independently of any financial policy which he adopted or
carried out. ... Walpole let matters take their course, for he
understood that the highest merit of a minister consists in
his doing no mischief. But Walpole's praise lies in the fact,
that, with this evident growth of material prosperity, he
steadily set his face against gambling with it. He resolved,
as far as lay in his power, to keep the peace of Europe; and
he was seconded in his efforts by Cardinal Fleury. He
contrived to smooth away the difficulties which arose in 1727;
and on January 13, 1730, negotiated the treaty of Seville [see
SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731], the benefits of which lasted through
ten years of peace, and under which he reduced the army to
5,000 men." But the opposition to Walpole's peace policy
became a growing passion, which overcame him in 1741 and
forced him to resign. On his resignation he was raised to the
peerage, with the title of Earl of Orford, and defeated,
though with great difficulty, the determination of his enemies
to impeach him.
J. E. T. Rogers,
Historical Gleanings,
volume 1, chapter 2.
"It is impossible, I think, to consider his [Walpole's] career
with adequate attention without recognising in him a great
minister, although the merits of his administration were often
rather negative than positive, and although it exhibits few of
those dramatic incidents, and is but little susceptible of
that rhetorical colouring, on which the reputation of
statesmen largely depends. ... He was eminently true to the
character of his countrymen. He discerned with a rare sagacity
the lines of policy most suited to their genius and to their
needs, and he had a sufficient ascendancy in English politics
to form its traditions, to give a character and a bias to its
institutions. The Whig party, under his guidance, retained,
though with diminished energy, its old love of civil and of
religious liberty, but it lost its foreign sympathies, its
tendency to extravagance, its military restlessness. The
landed gentry, and in a great degree the Church, were
reconciled to the new dynasty. The dangerous fissures which
divided the English nation were filled up. Parliamentary
government lost its old violence, it entered into a period of
normal and pacific action, and the habits of compromise, of
moderation, and of practical good sense, which are most
essential to its success, were greatly strengthened. These
were the great merits of Walpole. His faults were very
manifest, and are to be attributed in part to his own
character, but in a great degree to the moral atmosphere of
his time. He was an honest man in the sense of desiring
sincerely the welfare of his country and serving his sovereign
with fidelity; but he was intensely wedded to power,
exceedingly unscrupulous about the means of grasping or
retaining it, and entirely destitute of that delicacy of
honour which marks a high-minded man. ... His estimate of
political integrity was very similar to his estimate of female
virtue. He governed by means of an assembly which was
saturated with corruption, and he fully acquiesced in its
conditions and resisted every attempt to improve it. ... It is
necessary to speak with much caution on this matter,
remembering that no statesman can emancipate himself from the
conditions of his time. ... The systematic corruption of
Members of Parliament is said to have begun under Charles II.,
in whose reign it was practised to the largest extent. It was
continued under his successor, and the number of scandals
rather increased than diminished after the Revolution. ... And
if corruption did not begin with Walpole, it is equally
certain that it did not end with him. His expenditure of
secret service money, large as it was, never equalled in an
equal space of time the expenditure of Bute. ... The real
charge against him is that in a period of profound peace, when
he exercised an almost unexampled ascendancy in politics, and
when public opinion was strongly in favour of the diminution
of corrupt influence in Parliament, he steadily and
successfully resisted every attempt at reform. ... It was his
settled policy to maintain his Parliamentary majority, not by
attracting to his ministry great orators, great writers, great
financiers, or great statesmen, ... but simply by engrossing
borough influence and extending the patronage of the Crown."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter. 3 (volume 1).
"But for Sir Robert Walpole, we should have had the Pretender
back again. But for his obstinate love of peace, we should
have had wars, which the nation was not strong enough nor
united enough to endure. But for his resolute counsels and
good-humoured resistance, we might have had German despots
attempting a Hanoverian regimen over us: we should have had
revolt, commotion, want, and tyrannous misrule, in place of a
quarter of a century of peace, freedom and material
prosperity, such as the country never enjoyed, until that
corrupter of parliaments, that dissolute tipsy cynic, that
courageous lover of peace and liberty, that great citizen,
patriot and statesman governed it. ... In private life the old
pagan revelled in the lowest pleasures: he passed his Sundays
tippling at Richmond; and his holidays bawling after dogs, or
boozing at Houghton with Boors over beef and punch. He cared
for letters no more than his master did: he judged human
nature so meanly that one is ashamed to have to own that he
was right, and that men could be corrupted by means so base.
But, with his hireling House of Commons, he defended liberty
for us; with his incredulity he kept Church-craft down. ... He
gave Englishmen no conquests, but he gave them peace, and
ease, and freedom; the Three per Cents. nearly at par; and
wheat at five and six and twenty shillings a quarter."
W. M. Thackeray,
The Four Georges,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole,
chapters 31-59 (volume 1).
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapters 15-23 (volumes 2-3).
Lord Hervey,
Memoirs of the Reign of George II.
{922}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1731-1740.
The question of the Austrian Succession.
Guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, and 1740.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1732.
The grant of Georgia to General Oglethorpe.
See GEORGIA: A. D. 1732-1739.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1733.
The first Bourbon Family Compact.
Its hostility to Great Britain.
See FRANCE, A. D. 1733.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1733-1787
The great inventions which built up the
Cotton Manufacture.
See COTTON MANUFACTURE.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.
The War of Jenkins' Ear.
"In spite of Walpole's love of peace, and determined efforts
to preserve it, in the year 1739 a war broke out with Spain,
which is an illustration of the saying that the occasion of a
war may be trifling, though its real cause be very serious.
The war is often called the War of Jenkins' Ear. The story ran
that eight years before (1731) a certain Captain Jenkins,
skipper of the ship 'Rebecca,' of London, had been maltreated
by the Spaniards. His ship was sailing from Jamaica, and
hanging about the entrance of the Gulf of Florida, when it was
boarded by the Spanish coast guard. The Spaniards could find
no proof that Jenkins was smuggling, though they searched
narrowly, and being angry at their ill-success they hanged him
to the yardarm, lowering him just in time to save his life. At
length they pulled off his ear and told him to take it to his
king. ... Seven years later Captain Jenkins was examined by
the House of Commons, on which occasion some member asked him
how he felt when being maltreated, and Jenkins answered, 'I
recommended my soul to God and my cause to my country.' The
answer, whether made at the time or prepared for use in the
House of Commons, touched a chord of sympathy, and soon was
circulated through the country. 'No need of allies now,' said
one politician; 'the story of Jenkins will raise us
volunteers.' The truth of the matter is that this story from
its somewhat ridiculous aspect has remained in the minds of
men, but that it is only a specimen of many stories then
afloat, all pointing to insolence of Spaniards in insisting
upon what was after all strictly within their rights. But the
legal treaty rights of Spain were growing intolerable to
Englishmen, though not necessarily to the English Government;
and traders and sailors were breaking the international laws
which practically stopped the expansion of England in the New
World. The war arose out of a question of trade, in this as in
so many other cases the English being prepared to fight in
order to force an entrance for their trade, which the
Spaniards wished to shut out from Spanish America. This
question found a place amongst the other matters arranged by
the treaty of Utrecht, when the English obtained almost as
their sole return for their victories what was known as the
Assiento. This is a Spanish word meaning contract, but its use
had been for some time confined to the disgraceful privilege
of providing Spanish America with negroes kidnapped from their
homes in Africa. The Flemings, the Genoese, the Portuguese,
and the French Guinea Company received in turn from Spanish
kings the monopoly in this shameful traffic, which at the
treaty of Utrecht was passed on for a period of thirty years
to England, now becoming mistress of the seas, and with her
numerous merchant ships better able than others to carry on
the business. The English Government committed the contract to
the South Sea Company, and the number of negroes to be
supplied annually was no less than 4,800 'sound, healthy,
merchantable negroes, two-thirds to be male, none under ten or
over forty years old.' In the Assiento Treaty there was also a
provision for the trading of one English ship each year with
Spanish America; but in order to prevent too great advantage
therefrom it was carefully stipulated that the ship should not
exceed 600 tons burden. There is no doubt that this
stipulation was regularly violated by the English sending a
ship of the required number of tons, but with it numerous
tenders and smaller craft. Moreover smuggling, being very
profitable, became common; it was of this smuggling that
Captain Jenkins was accused. ... Walpole, always anxious for
peace, by argument, by negotiation, by delays, resisted the
growing desire for war; at length he could resist no longer.
For the sake of his reputation he should have resigned office,
but he had enjoyed power too long to be ready to yield it, and
most unwisely he allowed himself to be forced into a
declaration of war October 19, 1739. The news was received
throughout England with a perfect frenzy of delight. ... A
year and a day after this declaration of war an event
occurred--the death of the Emperor--which helped to swell the
volume of this war until it was merged into the European war,
called the War of the Austrian Succession, which includes
within itself the First and Second Silesian Wars, between
Austria and Frederick the Great of Prussia. The European war
went on until the general pacification in the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748. Within another ten years war broke out
again on somewhat similar grounds, but on a much wider scale
and with the combatants differently arranged, under the title
'Seven Years' War.' The events of this year, whilst the war
was only between Spain and England, were the attacks on
Spanish settlements in America, the capture of Porto Bello,
and the failure before Cartagena, which led to Anson's famous
voyage."
E. E. Morris,
The Early Hanoverians,
book 2, chapter 3.
"Admiral Vernon, setting sail with the English fleet from
Jamaica, captured Porto Bello, on the Isthmus of Darien,
December 1st--an exploit for which he received the thanks of
both Houses of Parliament. His attempt on Carthagena, in the
spring of 1741, proved, however, a complete failure through
his dissensions, it is said, with General Wentworth, the
commander of the land forces. A squadron, under Commodore
Anson, despatched to the South Sea for the purpose of annoying
the Spanish colonies of Peru and Chili, destroyed the Peruvian
town of Paita, and made several prizes; the most important of
which was one of the great Spanish galleons trading between
Acapulco and Manilla, having a large treasure on board. It was
on this occasion that Anson circumnavigated the globe, having
sailed from England in 1740 and returned to Spithead in 1744."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 6, chapter 3.
{923}
ALSO IN:
R. Walter,
Voyage around the World of George Anson.
Sir J. Barrow,
Life of Lord George Anson,
chapter 1-2.
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain,
chapter 43 (volume 3).
See, also,
FRANCE, A. D. 1733,
and GEORGIA: A. D. 1738-1743.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1740-1741.
Beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1742.
Naval operations in the Mediterranean.
See ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1742-1745.
Ministries of Carteret and the Pelhams,
Pitt's admission to the Cabinet.
"Walpole resigned in the beginning of February, 1742; but his
retirement did not bring Pitt into office. The King had
conceived a violent prejudice against him, not only on account
of the prominent and effective part he had taken in the
general assault upon the late administration, but more
especially in consequence of the strong opinions he had
expressed on the subject of Hanover, and respecting the public
mischiefs arising from George the Second's partiality to the
interests of the Electorate. Lord Wilmington was the nominal
head of the new administration, which was looked on as little
more than a weak continuation of Walpole's. The same character
was generally given to Pelham's ministry, (Pelham succeeded
Wilmington as Premier, on the death of the latter in 1743,)
and Pitt soon appeared in renewed opposition to the Court. It
was about this time that he received a creditable and
convenient addition to his private fortune, which also
attested his celebrity. In 1744, the celebrated Duchess of
Marlborough died, leaving him a legacy' of 10,000 l. on
account of his merit in the noble defence he has made of the
laws of England, to prevent the ruin of his country.' Pitt was
now at the head of a small but determined band of Opposition
statesmen, with whom he was also connected by intermarriages
between members of their respective families and his own.
These were Lord Cobham, the Grenvilles, and his schoolfellow
Lord Lyttelton. The genius of Pitt had made the opposition of
this party so embarrassing to the minister, that Mr. Pelham,
the leader of the House of Commons, and his brother, the Duke
of Newcastle, found it necessary to get rid of Lord Carteret,
who was personally most obnoxious to the attacks of Pitt, on
account of his supposed zeal in favour of the King's
Hanoverian policy. Pitt's friends, Lyttelton and Grenville,
were taken into the ministry [called the Broad-bottomed
Administration], and the undoubted wish of the Pelhams was to
enlist Pitt also among their colleagues. But 'The great Mr.
Pitt,' says old Horace Walpole--using in derision an epithet
soon confirmed by the serious voice of the country--'the great
Mr. Pitt insisted on being Secretary at War';--but it was
found that the King's aversion to him was insurmountable; and
after much reluctance and difficulty, his friends were
persuaded to accept office without him, under an assurance
from the Duke of Newcastle that 'he should at no distant day
be able to remove this prejudice from his Majesty's mind.'
Pitt concurred in the new arrangement, and promised to give
his support to the remodelled administration. ... On the
breaking out of the rebellion of 1745, Pitt energetically
supported the ministry in their measures to protect the
established government. George the Second's prejudices
against him, were, however, as strong as ever. At last a sort
of compromise was effected. Pitt waived for a time his demand
of the War Secretaryship, and on the 22nd of February, 1746,
he was appointed one of the joint Vice-treasurers for Ireland;
and on the 6th of May following he was promoted to the more
lucrative office of Paymaster-General of the Forces. ... In
his office of Paymaster of the Forces Pitt set an example then
rare among statesmen, of personal disinterestedness. He held
what had hitherto been an exceedingly lucrative situation: for
the Paymaster seldom had less than 100,000 l. in his hands,
and was allowed to appropriate the interest of what funds he
held to his own use. In addition to this it had been customary
for foreign princes in the pay of England to allow the
Paymaster of the Forces a per-centage on their subsidies. Pitt
nobly declined to avail himself of these advantages, and would
accept of nothing beyond his legal salary."
Sir E. Creasy,
Memoirs of Eminent Etonians,
chapter 4.
"From Walpole's death in 1745, when the star of the Stuarts
set for ever among the clouds of Culloden, to 1754, when Henry
Pelham followed his old chief, public life in England was
singularly calm and languid. The temperate and peaceful
disposition of the Minister seemed to pervade Parliament. At
his death the King exclaimed: 'Now I shall have no more
peace'; and the words proved to be prophetic. Both in
Parliament and in the country, as well as beyond its shores,
the elements of discord were swiftly at war. Out of
conflicting ambitions and widely divergent interests a new
type of statesman, very different from Walpole, or from
Bolingbroke, or from Pelham, or from the 'hubble-bubble
Newcastle,' was destined to arise. And along with the new
statesman a new force, of which he was in part the
representative, in part the creator, was to be introduced into
political life. This new force was the unrepresented voice of
the people. The new statesman was an ex-cornet of horse,
William Pitt, better known as Lord Chatham. The
characteristics of William Pitt which mainly influenced his
career were his ambition and his ill-health. Power, and that
conspicuous form of egotism called personal glory, were the
objects of his life. He pursued them with all the ardour of a
strong-willed purpose; but the flesh was in his case painfully
weak. Gout had declared itself his foe while he was still an
Eton boy. His failures, and prolonged withdrawal at intervals
from public affairs, were due to the inroads of this fatal
enemy, from whom he was destined to receive his death-blow.
Walpole had not been slow to recognise the quality of this
'terrible cornet of horse,' as he called him."
R. B. Brett,
Footprints of Statesmen,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapters 24-28 (volume 3).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1743.
The British Pragmatic Army.
Battle of Dettingen.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER).
The second Bourbon Family Compact.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1743-1752.
Struggle of French and English for supremacy in India.
The founding of British empire by Clive.
See INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1744-1745.
War of the Austrian Succession:
Hostilities in America.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744: and 1745.
{924}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1745 (MAY).
War of the Austrian Succession in the Netherlands.
Fontenoy.
See NETHERLANDS (THE AUSTRIAN PROVINCES): A. D. 1745.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1746.
The Young Pretender's invasion.
Last rising of the Jacobites.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1745-1746.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1747.
War of the Austrian Succession
British incapacity.
Final successes at Sea.
"The extraordinary incapacity of English commanders, both by
land and sea, is one of the most striking facts in the war we
are considering. ... Mismanagement and languor were general.
The battle of Dettingen was truly described as a happy escape
rather than a great victory; the army in Flanders can hardly
be said to have exhibited any military quality except courage,
and the British navy, though it gained some successes, added
little to its reputation. The one brilliant exception was the
expedition of Anson round Cape Horn, for the purpose of
plundering the Spanish merchandise and settlements in the
Pacific. It lasted for nearly four years. ... The overwhelming
superiority of England upon the sea began, however, gradually
to influence the war. The island of Cape Breton, which
commanded the mouth of Gulf St. Lawrence, and protected the
Newfoundland fisheries, was captured in the June of 1745. In
1747 a French squadron was destroyed by a very superior
English fleet off Cape Finisterre. Another was defeated near
Belleisle, and in the same year as many as 644 prizes were
taken. The war on the part of the English, however, was most
efficiently conducted by means of subsidies, which were
enormously multiplied."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 3 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1746-1747.
War of the Austrian Succession in Italy.
Siege of Genoa.
See ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1748 (OCTOBER).
End and results of the War of the Austrian Succession.
See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: A. D. 1748;
and NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1748-1754.
First movements to dispute possession of the Ohio Valley with
the French.
See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1749-1755.
Unsettled boundary disputes with France in America.
Preludes of the final contest.
See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755;
CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753;
and OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1751.
Reformation of the Calendar.
See CALENDAR, GREGORIAN.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1753.
The Jewish Naturalization Bill.
See JEWS: A. D. 1662-1753.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1754.
Collision with the French in the Ohio Valley.
See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1754-1755.
The Seven Years War.
Its causes and provocations.
"The seven years that succeeded the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle
are described by Voltaire as among the happiest that Europe
ever enjoyed. Commerce revived, the fine arts flourished, and
the European nations resembled, it is said, one large family
that had been reunited after its dissensions. Unfortunately,
however, the peace had not exterminated all the elements of
discord. Scarcely had Europe begun to breathe again when new
disputes arose, and the seven years of peace and prosperity
were succeeded by another seven of misery and war. The ancient
rivalry between France and England, which had formerly vented
itself in continental struggles, had, by the progress of
maritime discovery and colonisation, been extended to all the
quarters of the globe. The interests of the two nations came
into collision in India, Africa and America, and a dispute
about boundaries in this last quarter again plunged them into
a war. By the 9th article of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle,
France and England were mutually to restore their conquests in
such state as they were before the war. This clause became a
copious source of quarrel. The principal dispute regarded the
limits of Acadia, or Nova Scotia, which province had, by the
12th article of the Treaty of Utrecht, been ceded to England
'conformably to its ancient boundaries'; but what these were
had never been accurately determined, and each Power fixed
them according to its convenience. Thus, while the French
pretended that Nova Scotia embraced only the peninsula
extending from Cape St. Mary to Cape Canseau, the English
further included in it that part of the American continent
which extends to Pentagoet on the west, and to the river St.
Lawrence on the north, comprising all the province of New
Brunswick. Another dispute regarded the western limits of the
British North American settlements. The English claimed the
banks of the Ohio as belonging to Virginia, the French as
forming part of Louisiana; and they attempted to confine the
British colonies by a chain of forts stretching from Louisiana
to Canada. Commissaries were appointed to settle these
questions, who held their conferences at Paris between the
years 1750 and 1755. Disputes also arose respecting the
occupation by the French of the islands of St. Lucia,
Dominica, St. Vincent, and Tobago, which had been declared
neutral by former treaties. Before the Commissaries could
terminate their labours, mutual aggressions had rendered a war
inevitable. As is usual in such cases, it is difficult to say
who was the first aggressor. Each nation laid the blame on the
other. Some French writers assert that the English resorted to
hostilities out of jealousy at the increase of the French
navy. According to the plans of Rouillé, the French Minister
of Marine, 111 ships of the line, 54 frigates, and smaller
vessels in proportion, were to be built in the course of ten
years. The question of boundaries was, however, undoubtedly
the occasion, if not also the true cause, of the war. A series
of desultory conflicts had taken place along the Ohio, and on
the frontiers of Nova Scotia, in 1754, without being avowed by
the mother countries. A French writer, who flourished about
this time, the Abbé Raynal, ascribes "this clandestine warfare
to the policy of the Court of Versailles, which was seeking
gradually to recover what it had lost by treaties. Orders were
now issued to the English fleet to attack French vessels
wherever found. ... It being known that a considerable French
fleet was preparing to sail from Brest and Rochefort for
America, Admiral Boscawen was despatched thither, and captured
two French men-of-war off Cape Race in Newfoundland, June 1755.
Hostilities were also transferred to the shores of Europe. ...
A naval war between England and France was now unavoidable;
but, as in the case of the Austrian Succession, this was also
to be mixed up with a European war.
{925}
The complicated relations of the European system again caused
these two wars to run into one, though their origin had
nothing in common. France and England, whose quarrel lay in
the New World, appeared as the leading Powers in a European
contest in which they had only a secondary interest, and
decided the fate of Canada on the plains of Germany. The war
in Europe, commonly called the Seven Years' War, was chiefly
caused by the pride of one Empress [Maria Theresa], the vanity
of another [Elizabeth of Russia], and the subserviency of a
royal courtezan [Madame Pompadour], who became the tool of
these passions."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 6, chapter 5 (volume 3).
"The Seven Years' War was in its origin not an European war at
all; it was a war between England and France on Colonial
questions with which the rest of Europe had nothing to do; but
the alliances and enmities of England and France in Europe,
joined with the fact that the King of England was also Elector
of Hanover, made it almost certain that a war between England
and France must spread to the Continent. I am far from
charging on the English Government of the time--for it was
they, and not the French, who forced on the war--as Macaulay
might do, the blood of the Austrians who perished at Leuthen,
of the Russians sabred at Zorndorf, and the Prussians mown
down at Kunersdorf. The States of the Continent had many old
enmities not either appeased or fought out to a result; and
these would probably have given rise to a war some day, even
if no black men, to adapt Macaulay again, had been previously
fighting on the coast of Coromandel, nor red men scalping each
other by the great lakes of North America. Still, it is to be
remembered that it was the work of England that the war took
place then and on those lines; and in view of the enormous
suffering and slaughter of that war, and of the violent and
arbitrary proceedings by which it was forced on, we may well
question whether English writers have any right to reprobate
Frederick's seizure of Silesia as something specially immoral
in itself and disastrous to the world. If the Prussians were
highway robbers, the English were pirates. ... The origin of
the war between England and France, if a struggle which had
hardly been interrupted since the nominal peace could be said
to have an origin, was the struggle for America."
A. R. Ropes,
The Causes of the Seven Years' War
(Royal Historical Society, Transactions,
new series, volume 4).
ALSO IN:
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapters 31-32 (volume 4).
F. Parkman,
Montcalm and Wolfe,
chapters 1-7.
See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756;
CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753;
and OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (APRIL).
Demand of the royal governors in America for taxation of the
colonies by act of Parliament.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1755.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (JUNE).
Boscawen's naval victory over the French.
See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (JUNE).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (JULY).
Braddock's defeat in America.
See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1755.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (SEPTEMBER).
Victory at Lake George.
See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (SEPTEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1756.
Loss of Minorca and reverses in America.
See MINORCA: A. D. 1756;
and CANADA: A. D. 1756-1757.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1757-1759.
Campaigns on the Continent.
Defence of Hanover.
See GERMANY: A D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER),
to 1759 (APRIL-AUGUST).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1757-1760.
The great administration of the elder Pitt.
"In 1754 Henry Pelham died. The important consequence of his
death was the fact that it gave Pitt at last an opportunity of
coming to the front. The Duke of Newcastle, Henry Pelham's
brother, became leader of the administration, with Henry Fox
for Secretary at War, Pitt for Paymaster-general of the
Forces, and Murray, afterwards to be famous as Lord Mansfield,
for Attorney-general. There was some difficulty about the
leadership of the House of Commons. Pitt was still too much
disliked by the King, to be available for the position. Fox
for a while refused to accept it, and Murray was unwilling to
do anything which might be likely to withdraw him from the
professional path along which he was to move to such
distinction. An attempt was made to get on with a Sir Thomas
Robinson, a man of no capacity for such a position, and the
attempt was soon an evident failure. Then Fox consented to
take the position on Newcastle's own terms, which were those
of absolute submission to the dictates of Newcastle. Later
still he was content to descend to a subordinate office which
did not even give him a place in the Cabinet. Fox never
recovered the damage which his reputation and his influence
suffered by this amazing act. ... The Duke of Newcastle's
Ministry soon fell. Newcastle was not a man who had the
slightest capacity for controlling or directing a policy of
war; and the great struggle known as the Seven Years' War had
now broken out. One lamentable event in the war has to be
recorded, although it was but of minor importance. This was
the capture of Minorca by the French under the romantic,
gallant, and profligate Duc de Richelieu. The event is
memorable chiefly, or only, because it was followed by the
trial and execution [March 14, 1757] of the unfortunate
Admiral Byng.
See MINORCA: A. D. 1756.
The Duke of Newcastle resigned office, and for a short time
the Duke of Devonshire was at the head of a coalition Ministry
which included Pitt. The King, however, did not stand this
long, and one day suddenly turned them all out of office. Then
a coalition of another kind was formed, which included
Newcastle and Pitt, with Henry Fox in the subordinate position
of paymaster. Pitt now for the first time had it all his own
way. He ruled everything in the House of Commons. He flung
himself with passionate and patriotic energy into the alliance
with that great Frederick whose genius and daring were like
his own."
Justin McCarthy,
History of the Four Georges,
volume 2, chapter 41.
"Newcastle took the Treasury. Pitt was Secretary of State,
with the lead in the House of Commons, and with the supreme
direction of the war and of foreign affairs. Fox, the only man
who could have given much annoyance to the new Government, was
silenced with the office of Paymaster, which, during the
continuance of that war, was probably the most lucrative place
in the whole Government. He was poor, and the situation was
tempting. ... The first acts of the new administration were
characterized rather by vigour than by judgment. Expeditions
were sent against different parts of the French coast with
little success. ... But soon conquests of a very different
kind filled the kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succession
of victories undoubtedly brilliant, and, as it was thought,
not barren, raised to the highest point the fame of the
minister to whom the conduct of the war had been intrusted.
{926}
In July, 1758, Louisburg fell. The whole island of Cape Breton
was reduced. The fleet to which the Court of Versailles had
confided the defence of French America was destroyed. The
captured standards were borne in triumph from Kensington
Palace to the city, and were suspended in St. Paul's Church,
amidst the roar of guns and kettle-drums, and the shouts of an
immense multitude. Addresses of congratulation came in from all
the great towns of England. Parliament met only to decree
thanks and monuments, and to bestow, without one murmur,
supplies more than double of those which had been given during
the war of the Grand Alliance. The year 1759 opened with the
conquest of Goree. Next fell Guadaloupe; then Ticonderoga;
then Niagara. The Toulon squadron was completely defeated by
Boscawen off Cape Lagos. But the greatest exploit of the year
was the achievement of Wolfe on the heights of Abraham. The
news of his glorious death and of the fall of Quebec reached
London in the very week in which the Houses met. All was joy
and triumph. Envy and faction were forced to join in the
general applause. Whigs and Tories vied with each other in
extolling the genius and energy of Pitt. His colleagues were
never talked of or thought of. The House of Commons, the
nation, the colonies, our allies, our enemies, had their eyes
fixed on him alone. Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument
to Wolfe when another great event called for fresh rejoicings.
The Brest fleet, under the command of Conflans, had put out to
sea. It was overtaken by an English squadron under Hawke.
Conflans attempted to take shelter close under the French
coast. The shore was rocky: the night was black: the wind was
furious: the waves of the Bay of Biscay ran high. But Pitt had
infused into every branch of the service a spirit which had
long been unknown. No British seaman was disposed to err on
the same side with Byng. The pilot told Hawke that the attack
could not be made without the greatest danger. 'You have done
your duty in remonstrating,' answered Hawke; 'I will answer
for everything. I command you to lay me alongside the French
admiral.' Two French ships of the line struck. Four were
destroyed. The rest hid themselves in the rivers of Brittany.
The year 1760 came; and still triumph followed triumph.
Montreal was taken; the whole Province of Canada was
subjugated; the French fleets underwent a succession of
disasters in the seas of Europe and America. In the meantime
conquests equalling in rapidity, and far surpassing in
magnitude, those of Cortes and Pizarro, had been achieved in
the East. In the space of three years the English had founded
a mighty empire. The French had been defeated in every part of
India. Chandernagore had surrendered to Clive, Pondicherry to
Coote. Throughout Bengal, Bahar, Orissa and the Carnatic, the
authority of the East India Company was more absolute than
that of Acbar or Aurungzebe had ever been. On the continent of
Europe the odds were against England. We had but one important
ally, the King of Prussia; and he was attacked, not only by
France, but also by Russia and Austria. Yet even on the
Continent, the energy of Pitt triumphed over all difficulties.
Vehemently as he had condemned the practice of subsidising
foreign princes, he now carried that practice farther than
Carteret himself would have ventured to do. The active and
able Sovereign of Prussia received such pecuniary assistance
as enabled him to maintain the conflict on equal terms against
his powerful enemies. On no subject had Pitt ever spoken with
so much eloquence and ardour as on the mischiefs of the
Hanoverian connection. He now declared, not without much show
of reason, that it would be unworthy of the English people to
suffer their King to be deprived of his electoral dominions in
an English quarrel. He assured his countrymen that they should
be no losers, and that he would conquer America for them in
Germany. By taking this line he conciliated the King, and lost
no part of his influence with the nation. In Parliament, such
was the ascendeney which his eloquence, his success, his high
situation, his pride, and his intrepidity had obtained for
him, that he took liberties with the House of which there had
been no example, and which have never since been imitated. ...
The face of affairs was speedily changed. The invaders [of
Hanover] were driven out. ... In the meantime, the nation
exhibited all the signs of wealth and prosperity. ... The
success of our arms was perhaps owing less to the skill of his
[Pitt's] dispositions than to the national resources and the
national spirit. But that the national spirit rose to the
emergency, that the national resources were contributed with
unexampled cheerfulness, this was undoubtedly his work. The
ardour of his soul had set the whole kingdom on fire. ... The
situation which Pitt occupied at the close of the reign of
George the Second was the most enviable ever occupied by any
public man in English history. He had conciliated the King; he
domineered over the House of Commons; he was adored by the
people; he was admired by all Europe. He was the first
Englishman of his time; and he had made England the first
country in the world. The Great Commoner, the name by which he
was often designated, might look down with scorn on coronets
and garters. The nation was drunk with joy and pride."
Lord Macaulay,
First Essay on William Pitt, Earl of Chatham
(Essays, volume 3).
ALSO IN:
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapters 33-36 (volume 4).
Sir E. Creasy,
Memoirs of Eminent Etonians,
chapter 4.
England: A. D. 1758 (JUNE-AUGUST).
The Seven Years War.
Abortive expeditions against the coast of France.
Early in 1758 there was sent out "one of those joint military
and naval expeditions which Pitt seems at first to have
thought the proper means by which England should assist in a
continental war. Like all such isolated expeditions, it was of
little value. St. Malo, against which it was directed, was
found too strong to be taken, but a large quantity of shipping
and naval stores was destroyed. The fleet also approached
Cherbourg, but although the troops were actually in their
boats ready to land, they were ordered to re-embark, and the
fleet came home. Another somewhat similar expedition was sent
out later in the year. In July General Bligh and Commodore
Howe took and destroyed Cherbourg, but on attempting a similar
assault on St. Malo they found it too strong for them. The
army had been landed in the Bay of St. Cast, and, while
engaged in re-embarkation, it was attacked by some French
troops which had been hastily collected, and severely
handled."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 3, page 1027.
{927}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1758 (JULY-NOVEMBER).
The Seven Years War in America: Final capture of Louisbourg
and recovery of Fort Duquesne.
Bloody defeat at Ticonderoga.
See CANADA: A. D. 1758;
and CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1758-1761.
Breaking of French power in India.
See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1759.
Great victories in America.
Niagara, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Quebec.
See CANADA: A. D. 1759.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1759 (AUGUST-NOVEMBER).
British naval supremacy established.
Victories off Lagos and in Quiberon Bay.
"Early in the year [1759] the French had begun to make
preparations for an invasion of the British Isles on a large
scale. Flat-bottomed boats were built at Havre and other
places along the coasts of Normandy and Brittany, and large
fleets were collected at Brest and Toulon, besides a small
squadron at Dunkirk. A considerable force was assembled at
Vannes in the south of Brittany, under the command of the Duc
d'Aiguillon, which was to be convoyed to the Irish coasts by
the combined fleets of Brest and Toulon, while the
flat-bottomed boats transported a second army across the
channel under cover of a dark night. The Dunkirk squadron,
under Admiral Thurot, a celebrated privateer, was to create a
diversion by attacking some part of the Scotch coast. The
design was bold and well contrived, and would not improbably
have succeeded three or even two years before, but the
opportunity was gone. England was no longer in 'that enervate
state in which 20,000 men from France could shake her.' Had a
landing been effected, the regular troops in the country, with
the support of the newly created militia, would probably have
been equal to the emergency; but a more effectual bulwark was
found in the fleet, which watched the whole French coast,
ready to engage the enemy as soon as he ventured out of his
ports. The first attempt to break through the cordon was made
by M. de la Clue from Toulon. The English Mediterranean fleet,
under Admiral Boscawen, cruising before that port, was
compelled early in July to retire to Gibraltar to take in
water and provisions and to refit some of' the ships. Hereupon
M. de la Clue put to sea, and hugging the African coast,
passed the straits without molestation. Boscawen, however,
though his ships were not yet refitted, at once gave chase,
and came up with the enemy off [Lagos, on] the coast of
Portugal, where an engagement took place [August 18], in which
three French ships were taken and two driven on shore and burnt.
The remainder took refuge in Cadiz, where they were blockaded
till the winter, when, the English fleet being driven off the
coast by a storm, they managed to get back to Toulon. The
discomfiture of the Brest fleet, under M. de Conflans, was
even more complete. On November 9 Admiral Sir Edward Hawke,
who had blockaded Brest all the summer and autumn, was driven
from his post by a violent gale, and on the 14th, Conflans put
to sea with 21 sail of the line and 4 frigates. On the same
day, Hawke, with 22 sail of the line, stood out from Torbay,
where he had taken shelter, and made sail for Quiberon Bay,
judging that Conflans would steer thither to liberate a fleet
of transports which were blocked up in the river Morbihan, by
a small squadron of frigates under Commodore Duff. On the
morning of the 20th, he sighted the French fleet chasing Duff
in Quiberon Bay. Conflans, when he discerned the English,
recalled his chasing ships and prepared for action; but on
their nearer approach changed his mind, and ran for shelter
among the shoals and rocks of the coast. The sea was running
mountains high and the coast was very dangerous and little
known to the English, who had no pilots; but Hawke, whom no
peril could daunt, never hesitated a moment, but crowded all
sail after them. Without regard to lines of battle, every ship
was directed to make the best of her way towards the enemy,
the admiral telling his officers he was for the old way of
fighting, to make downright work with them. In consequence
many of the English ships never got into action at all; but
the short winter day was wearing away, and all haste was
needed if the enemy were not to escape. ... As long as
daylight lasted the battle raged with great fury, so near the
coast that '10,000 persons on the shore were the sad
spectators of the white flag's disgrace.' ... By nightfall two
French ships, the Thésée 74, and Superb 70, were sunk, and two,
the Formidable 80, and the Héros 74, had struck. The Soleil
Royal afterwards went aground, but her crew escaped, as did
that of the Héros, whose captain dishonourably ran her ashore
in the night. Of the remainder, seven ships of the line and
four frigates threw their guns overboard, and escaped up the
river Vilaine, where most of them bumped their bottoms out in
the shallow water; the rest got away and took shelter in the
Charente, all but one, which was wrecked, but very few ever
got out again. With two hours more of daylight Hawke thought
he could have taken or destroyed all, as he was almost up with
the French van when night overtook him. Two English ships, the
Essex 64, and the Resolution 74, went ashore in the night and
could not be got off, but the crews were saved, and the
victory was won with the loss of 40 killed and 200 wounded.
The great invasion scheme was completely wrecked. Thurot had
succeeded in getting out from Dunkirk, and for some months was
a terror to the northern coast-towns, but early in the
following year an end was put to his career. For the rest of
the war the French never ventured to meet the English in
battle on the high seas, and could only look on helplessly
while their colonies and commerce fell into the hands of their
rivals. From the day of the fight in Quiberon Bay, the naval
and commercial supremacy of England was assured."
F. W. Longman,
Frederick the Great and the Seven Years War,
chapter 12, section 3.
ALSO IN:
C. D. Yonge,
History of the British Navy,
volume 1, chapter 12.
J. Entick,
History of the late War,
volume 4, pages 241-290.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1760.
Completed conquest of Canada.
Successes of the Prussians and their allies.
See CANADA: A. D. 1760;
and GERMANY: A. D. 1760.
{928}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1763.
Accession of George III.
His ignorance and his despotic notions of kingship.
Retirement of the elder Pitt.
Rise and fall of Bute.
The Grenville Ministry.
"When George III. came to the throne, in 1760, England had
been governed for more than half a century by the great Whig
families which had been brought into the foreground by the
revolution of 1688. ... Under Walpole's wise and powerful
sway, the first two Georges had possessed scarcely more than
the shadow of sovereignty. It was the third George's ambition
to become a real king, like the king of France or the king of
Spain. From earliest babyhood, his mother had forever been
impressing upon him the precept, 'George be king!' and this
simple lesson had constituted pretty much the whole of his
education. Popular tradition regards him as the most ignorant
king that ever sat upon the English throne; and so far as
general culture is concerned, this opinion is undoubtedly
correct. ... Nevertheless ... George III. was not destitute of
a certain kind of ability, which often gets highly rated in
this not too clear-sighted world. He could see an immediate
end very distinctly, and acquired considerable power from the
dogged industry with which he pursued it. In an age where some
of the noblest English statesmen drank their gallon of strong
wine daily, or sat late at the gambling-table, or lived in
scarcely hidden concubinage, George III. was decorous in
personal habits and pure in domestic relations, and no
banker's clerk in London applied himself to the details of
business more industriously than he. He had a genuine talent
for administration, and he devoted this talent most
assiduously to selfish ends. Scantily endowed with human
sympathy, and almost boorishly stiff in his ordinary unstudied
manner, he could be smooth as oil whenever he liked. He was an
adept in gaining men's confidence by a show of interest, and
securing their aid by dint of fair promises; and when he found
them of no further use, he could turn them adrift with wanton
insult. Anyone who dared to disagree with him upon even the
slightest point of policy he straightway regarded as a natural
enemy, and pursued him ever afterward with vindictive hatred.
As a natural consequence, he surrounded himself with weak and
short-sighted advisers, and toward all statesmen of broad
views and independent character he nursed the bitterest
rancour. ... Such was the man who, on coming to the throne in
1760, had it for his first and chiefest thought to break down
the growing system of cabinet government in England."
J. Fiske,
The American Revolution,
chapter 1 (volume 1).
"The dissolution of Parliament, shortly after his accession,
afforded an opportunity of strengthening the parliamentary
connection of the king's friends. Parliament was kept sitting
while the king and Lord Bute were making out lists of the
court candidates, and using every exertion to secure their
return. The king not only wrested government boroughs from the
ministers, in order to nominate his own friends, but even
encouraged opposition to such ministers as he conceived not to
be in his interest. ... Lord Bute, the originator of the new
policy, was not personally well qualified for its successful
promotion. He was not connected with the great families who
had acquired a preponderance of political influence; he was no
parliamentary debater: his manners were unpopular: he was a
courtier rather than a politician: his intimate relations with
the Princess of Wales were an object of scandal; and, above
all, he was a Scotchman. ... Immediately after the king's
accession he had been made a privy councillor, and admitted
into the cabinet. An arrangement was soon afterwards
concerted, by which Lord Holdernesse retired from office with
a pension, and Lord Bute succeeded him as Secretary of State.
It was now the object of the court to break up the existing
ministry, and to replace it with another, formed from among
the king's friends. Had the ministry been united, and had the
chiefs reposed confidence in one another, it would have been
difficult to overthrow them. But there were already jealousies
amongst them, which the court lost no opportunity of
fomenting. A breach soon arose between Mr. Pitt, the most
powerful and popular of the ministers, and his colleagues. He
desired to strike a sudden blow against Spain, which had
concluded a secret treaty of alliance with France, then at war
with this country.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (AUGUST).
Though war minister he was opposed by all his colleagues
except Lord Temple. He bore himself haughtily at the council,
--declared that he had been called to the ministry by the
voice of the people, and that he could not be responsible for
measures which he was no longer allowed to guide. Being met
with equal loftiness in the cabinet, he was forced to tender
his resignation. The king overpowered the retiring minister
with kindness and condescension. He offered the barony of
Chatham to his wife, and to himself an annuity of £3,000 a
year for three lives. The minister had deserved these royal
favours, and he accepted them, but at the cost of his
popularity. ... The same Gazette which announced his
resignation, also trumpeted forth the peerage and the pension,
and was the signal for clamors against the public favourite.
On the retirement of Mr. Pitt, Lord Bute became the most
influential of the ministers. He undertook the chief
management of public affairs in the cabinet, and the sole
direction of the House of Lords. ... His ascendency provoked
the jealousy and resentment of the king's veteran minister,
the Duke of Newcastle: who had hitherto distributed all the
patronage of the Crown, but now was never consulted. ... At
length, in May 1762, his grace, after frequent disagreements
in the cabinet and numerous affronts, was obliged to resign.
And now, the object of the court being at length attained,
Lord Bute was immediately placed at the head of affairs, as
First Lord of the Treasury. ... The king and his minister were
resolved to carry matters with a high hand, and their
arbitrary attempts to coerce and intimidate opponents
disclosed their imperious views of the prerogative.
Preliminaries of a treaty of peace with France having been
agreed upon, against which a strong popular feeling was
aroused, the king's vengeance was directed against all who
ventured to disapprove them. The Duke of Devonshire having
declined to attend the council summoned to decide upon the
peace, was insulted by the king, and forced to resign his
office of Lord Chamberlain. A few days afterwards the king,
with his own hand, struck his grace's name from the list of
privy councillors. ... No sooner had Lord Rockingham heard of
the treatment of the Duke of Devonshire than he ... resigned
his place in the household. A more general proscription of the
Whig nobles soon followed. The Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton,
and the Marquess of Rockingham, having presumed, as peers of
Parliament, to express their disapprobation of the peace, were
dismissed from the lord-lieutenancies of their counties. ...
Nor was the vengeance of the court confined to the heads of
the Whig party.
{929}
All placemen, who had voted against the preliminaries of
peace, were dismissed. ... The preliminaries of peace were
approved by Parliament; and the Princess of Wales, exulting in
the success of the court, exclaimed, 'Now my son is king of
England.' But her exultation was premature. ... These
stretches of prerogative served to unite the Whigs into an
organised opposition. ... The fall of the king's favoured
minister was even more sudden than his rise. ... Afraid, as he
confessed, 'not only of falling himself, but of involving his
royal master in his ruin,' he resigned suddenly [April 7,
1763],--to the surprise of all parties, and even of the king
himself,--before he had held office for eleven months. ... He
retreated to the interior cabinet, whence he could direct more
securely the measures of the court; having previously negotiated
the appointment of Mr. George Grenville as his successor, and
arranged with him the nomination of the cabinet. The ministry
of Mr. Grenville was constituted in a manner favourable to the
king's personal views, and was expected to be under the
control of himself and his favorite."
T. E. May,
Constitutional History of England, 1760-1860,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
J. H. Jesse,
Memoirs of the Life and Reign of George III.,
chapter 1-10 (volume 1).
The Grenville Papers,
volumes 1-2.
W. Massey,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapters 2-3 (volume 1).
G. O. Trevelyan,
Early History of Charles James Fox,
chapter 4.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1775.
Crown, Parliament and Colonies.
The conflicting theories of their relations.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1761-1762.
The third Family Compact of the Bourbon kings.
War with Spain.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (AUGUST).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1761-1762.
The Seven Years War: Last Campaigns in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1761-1762.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1 762.
Capture of Havana.
See CUBA: A. D. 1514-1851.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1762-1764.
"The North Briton," No. 45, and the prosecution of Wilkes.
"The popular dislike to the new system of Government by
courtiers had found vent in a scurrilous press, the annoyance
of which continued unabated by the sham retirement of the
minister whose ascendancy had provoked this grievous kind of
opposition. The leader of the host of libellers was John
Wilkes, a man of that audacity and self-possession which are
indispensable to success in the most disreputable line of
political adventure. But Wilkes had qualities which placed him
far above the level of a vulgar demagogue. Great sense and
shrewdness, brilliant wit, extensive knowledge of the world,
with the manners of a gentleman, were among the
accomplishments which he brought to a vocation, but rarely
illustrated by the talents of a Catiline. Long before he
engaged in public life, Wilkes had become infamous for his
debaucheries, and, with a few other men of fashion, had tested
the toleration of public opinion by a series of outrages upon
religion and decency. Profligacy of morals, however, has not
in any age or country proved a bar to the character of a
patriot. ... Wilkes' journal, which originated with the
administration of Lord Bute [first issued June 5, 1762], was
happily entitled 'The North Briton,' and from its boldness and
personality soon obtained a large circulation. It is surpassed
in ability though not often equalled in virulence by the
political press of the present day; but at a time when the
characters of public men deservedly stood lowest in public
estimation, they were protected, not unadvisedly perhaps, from
the assaults of the press by a stringent law of libel. ... It
had been the practice since the Revolution, and it is now
acknowledged as an important constitutional right, to treat
the Speech from the Throne, on the opening of Parliament, as
the manifesto of the minister; and in that point of view, it
had from time to time been censured by Pitt, and other leaders
of party, with the ordinary license of debate. But when Wilkes
presumed to use this freedom in his paper, though in a degree
which would have seemed temperate and even tame had he spoken
to the same purport in his place in Parliament, it was thought
necessary to repress such insolence with the whole weight of
the law. A warrant was issued from the office of the Secretary
of State to seize--not any person named--but 'the authors,
printers, and publishers of the seditious libel, entitled the
North Briton, No. 45.' Under this warrant, forty-nine persons
were arrested and detained in custody for several days; but as
it was found that none of them could be brought within the
description in the warrant, they were discharged. Several of
the individuals who had been so seized, brought actions for
false imprisonment against the messengers; and in one of these
actions, in which a verdict was entered for the plaintiff
under the direction of the Lord Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas, the two important questions as to the claim of a
Secretary of State to the protection given by statute to
justices of the peace acting in that capacity, and as to the
legality of a warrant which did not specify any individual by
name, were raised by a Bill of Exceptions to the ruling of the
presiding judge, and thus came upon appeal before the Court of
King's Bench. ... The Court of King's Bench ... intimated a
strong opinion against the Crown upon the important
constitutional questions which had been raised, and directed
the case to stand over for further argument; but when the case
came on again, the Attorney-General Yorke prudently declined
any further agitation of the questions. ... These proceedings
were not brought to a close until the end of the year 1765,
long after the administration under which they were instituted
had ceased to exist. ... The prosecution of Wilkes himself was
pressed with the like indiscreet vigour. The privilege of
Parliament, which extends to every case except treason,
felony, and breach of the peace, presented an obstacle to the
vengeance of the Court. But the Crown lawyers, with a
servility which belonged to the worst times of prerogative,
advised that a libel came within the purview of the exception,
as having a tendency to a breach of the peace; and upon this
perversion of plain law, Wilkes was arrested, and brought
before Lord Halifax for examination. The cool and wary
demagogue, however, was more than a match for the Secretary of
State; but his authorship of the alleged libel having been
proved by the printer, he was committed close prisoner to the
Tower. In a few days, having sued out writs of habeas, he was
brought up before the Court of Common Pleas. ... The argument
which would confound the commission of a crime with conduct
which had no more than a tendency to provoke it, was at once
rejected by an independent court of justice; and the result
was the liberation of Wilkes from custody.
{930}
But the vengeance of the Court was not turned aside by this
disappointment. An ex-officio prosecution for libel was
immediately instituted against the member for Aylesbury; he
was deprived of his commission as colonel of the
Buckinghamshire militia; his patron, Earl Temple, who provided
the funds for his defence, was at the same time dismissed from
the lord-lieutenancy of the same county, and from the Privy
Council. When Parliament assembled in the autumn, the first
business brought forward by the Government was this
contemptible affair--a proceeding not merely foolish and
undignified, but a flagrant violation of common justice and
decency. Having elected to prosecute Wilkes for this alleged
libel before the ordinary tribunals of the country, it is
manifest that the Government should have left the law to take
its course unprejudiced. But the House of Commons was now
required to pronounce upon the very subject-matter of inquiry
which had been referred to the decision of a court of law; and
this degenerate assembly, at the bidding of the minister,
readily condemned the indicted paper in terms of extravagant
and fulsome censure, and ordered that it should be burned by
the hands of the common hangman. Lord North, on the part of
the Government, then pressed for an immediate decision on the
question of privilege; but Pitt, in his most solemn manner,
insisting on an adjournment, the House yielded this point. On
the following day, Wilkes, being dangerously wounded in a duel
with Martin, one of the joint Secretaries to the Treasury, who
had grossly insulted him in the House, for the purpose of
provoking a quarrel, was disabled from attending in his place;
but the House, nevertheless, refused to postpone the question
of privilege beyond the 24th of the month. On that day, they
resolved 'that the privilege of Parliament does not extend to
the case of writing and publishing seditious libels, nor ought
to be allowed to obstruct the ordinary course of the laws in
the speedy and effectual prosecution of so heinous and
dangerous an offence.' Whatever may be thought of the public
spirit or prudence of a House of Commons which could thus
officiously define its privilege, the vote was practically
futile, since a court of justice had already decided in this
very case, as a matter of strict law, that the person of a
member of Parliament was protected from arrest on a charge of
this description. The conduct of Pitt on this occasion was
consistent with the loftiness of his character. ... The
conduct of the Lords was in harmony with that of the Lower
House. ... The session was principally occupied by the
proceedings against this worthless demagogue, whom the
unworthy hostility of the Crown and both Houses of Parliament
had elevated into a person of the first importance. His name
was coupled with that of Liberty; and when the executioner
appeared to carry into effect the sentence of Parliament upon
'The North Briton,' he was driven away by the populace, who
rescued the obnoxious paper from the flames, and evinced their
hatred and contempt for the Court faction by 'burning in its
stead the jack-boot and the petticoat, the vulgar emblems
which they employed to designate John Earl of Bute and his
supposed royal patroness. ... Wilkes himself, however, was
forced to yield to the storm. Beset by the spies of
Government, and harassed by its prosecutions, which he had not
the means of resisting, he withdrew to Paris. Failing to attend
in his place in the House of Commons on the first day after
the Christmas recess, according to order, his excuse was
eagerly declared invalid; a vote of expulsion immediately
followed [January 19, 1764], and a new writ was ordered for
Aylesbury."
W. Massey,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapter 4 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
J. E. T. Rogers,
Historical Gleanings,
volume 2, chapter 3.
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapters 41-42 (volume 5).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1763.
The end and results of the Seven Years War:
The Peace of Paris and Peace of Hubertsburg.
America to be English, not French.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1763-1764.
Determination to tax the American colonies.
The Sugar (or Molasses) Act.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763-1764.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1764.
The climax of the mercantile colonial policy and its
consequences.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1764.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1765.
Passage of the Stamp Act for the colonies.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1765-1768.
Grenville dismissed.
The Rockingham and the Grafton-Chatham Ministries.
Repeal of the Stamp Act.
Fresh trouble in the American colonies.
"Hitherto the Ministry had only excited the indignation of the
people and the colonies. Not satisfied with the number of
their enemies, they now proceeded to quarrel openly with the
king. In 1765 the first signs of the illness, to which George
afterwards fell a victim, appeared; and as soon as he
recovered he proposed, with wonderful firmness, that a Regency
Bill should be brought in, limiting the king's choice of a
Regent to the members of the Royal Family. The Ministers,
however, in alarm at the prospect of a new Bute Ministry,
persuaded the king that there was no hope of the Princess's
name being accepted, and that it had better be left out of the
Bill. The king unwisely consented to this unparalleled insult
on his parent, apparently through lack of consideration.
Parliament, however, insisted on inserting the Princess's name
by a large majority, and thus exposed the trick of his
Ministers. This the king never forgave. They had been for some
time obnoxious to him, and now he determined to get rid of
them. With this view he induced the Duke of Cumberland to make
overtures to Chatham [Pitt, not yet titled], offering almost
any terms." But no arrangement was practicable, and the king
was left quite at the mercy of the Ministers be detested. "He
was obliged to consent to dismiss Bute and all Bute's
following. He was obliged to promise that he would use no
underhand influence for the future. Life, in fact, became a
burden to him under George Grenville's domination, and he
determined to dismiss him, even at the cost of accepting the
Whig Houses, whom he had pledged himself never to employ
again. Pitt and Temple still proving obdurate, Cumberland
opened negotiations with the Rockingham Whigs, and the
Grenville Ministry was at an end [July, 1765]. ... The new
Ministry was composed as follows: Rockingham became First Lord
of the Treasury; Dowdeswell, Chancellor of the Exchequer;
Newcastle, Privy Seal; Northington, Lord Chancellor. ...
{931}
Their leader Rockingham was a man of sound sense, but no power
of language or government. ... He was totally free from any
suspicion of corruption. In fact there was more honesty than
talent in the Ministry altogether. ... The back-bone of the
party was removed by the refusal of Pitt to co-operate. Burke
was undoubtedly the ablest man among them, but his time was
not yet come. Such a Ministry, it was recognized even by its
own members, could not last long. However, it had come in to
effect certain necessary legislation, and it certainly so far
accomplished the end of its being. It repealed the Stamp Act
[see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766], which had caused
so much indignation among the Americans; and at the same time
passed a law securing the dependence of the colonies. ... The
king, however, made no secret of his hostility to his
Ministers. ... The conduct of Pitt in refusing to join them
was a decided mistake, and more. He was really at one with
them on most points. Most of their acts were in accordance
with his views. But he was determined not to join a purely
party Ministry, though he could have done so practically on
whatever terms he pleased. In 1766, however, he consented to
form a coalition, in which were included men of the most
opposite views--'King's Friends,' Rockingham Whigs, and the
few personal followers of Pitt. Rockingham refused to take any
office, and retired to the more congenial occupation of
following the hounds. The nominal Prime Minister of this
Cabinet was the Duke of Grafton, for Pitt refused the
leadership, and retired to the House of Lords as Lord Chatham.
Charles Townshend became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lord
North, the leader of the 'King's Friends,' was Pay-master. The
Ministry included Shelburne, Barré, Conway, Northington,
Barrington, Camden, Granby--all men of the most opposite
views. ... This second Ministry of Pitt was a mistake from the
very first. He lost all his popularity by taking a peerage.
... As a peer and Lord Privy Seal he found himself in an
uncongenial atmosphere. ... His name, too, had lost a great
deal of its power abroad. 'Pitt' had, indeed, been a word to
conjure with; but there were no associations of defeat and
humiliation connected with the name of 'Chatham.' ... There
were other difficulties, however, as well. His arrogance had
increased, and it was so much intensified by irritating gout,
that it became almost impossible to serve with him. His
disease later almost approached madness. ... The Ministry
drifted helplessly about at the mercy of each wind and wave of
opinion like a water-logged ship; and it was only the utter want
of union among the Opposition which prevented its sinking
entirely. As it was, they contrived to renew the breach with
America, which had been almost entirely healed by Rockingham's
repeal of the Stamp Act. Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, was by far the ablest man left in the Cabinet,
and he rapidly assumed the most prominent position. He had
always been in favour of taxing America. He now brought
forward a plan for raising a revenue from tea, glass, and
paper [see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766-1767, and
1767-1768], by way of import duty at the American ports. ...
This wild measure was followed shortly by the death of its
author, in September; and then the weakness of the Ministry
became so obvious that, as Chatham still continued incapable,
some fresh reinforcement was absolutely necessary. A coalition
was effected with the Bloomsbury Gang; and, in consequence, Lords
Gower, Weymouth, and Sandwich joined the Ministry. Lord
Northington and General Conway retired. North succeeded
Townshend at the Exchequer. Lord Hillsborough became the first
Secretary of State for the Colonies, thus raising the number
of Secretaries to three. This Ministry was probably the worst
that had governed England since the days of the Cabal; and the
short period of its existence was marked by a succession of
arbitrary and foolish acts. On every important question that
it had to deal with, it pursued a course diametrically opposed
to Chatham's views; and yet with singular irony his nominal
connection with it was not severed for some time"--that is,
not until the following year, 1768.
B. C. Skottowe,
Our Hanoverian Kings,
pages 234-239.
ALSO IN:
The Grenville Papers,
volumes 3-4.
C. W. Dilke,
Papers of a Critic,
volume 2.
E. Lodge,
Portraits,
volume 8, chapter 2.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1767-1769.
The first war with Hyder Ali, of Mysore.
See INDIA: A. D. 1767-1769.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1768-1770.
The quartering of troops in Boston and Its ill consequences.
See BOSTON: A. D. 1768; and 1770.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1768-1774.
John Wilkes and the King and Parliament again.
The Middlesex elections.
In March, 1768, Wilkes, though outlawed by the court, returned
to London from Paris and solicited a pardon from the king; but
his petition was unnoticed. Parliament being then dissolved
and writs issued for a new election, he offered himself as a
candidate to represent the City of London. "He polled 1,247
votes, but was unsuccessful. On the day following this
decision he issued an address to the freeholders of Middlesex.
The election took place at Brentford, on the 28th of March. At
the close of the poll the numbers were--Mr. Wilkes, 1,292; Mr.
Cooke, 827; Sir W. B. Proctor, 807. This was a victory which
astonished the public and terrified the ministry. The mob was
in ecstasies. The citizens of London were compelled to
illuminate their houses and to shout for 'Wilkes and liberty.'
It was the earnest desire of the ministry to pardon the man whom
they had persecuted, but the king remained inexorable. ... A
month after the election he wrote to Lord North: 'Though
relying entirely on your attachment to my person as well as in
your hatred of any lawless proceeding, yet I think it highly
expedient to apprise you that the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes
appears to be very essential, and must be effected.' What the
sovereign counselled was duly accomplished. Before his
expulsion, Wilkes was a prisoner in the King's Bench. Having
surrendered, it was determined that his outlawry was informal;
consequently it was reversed, and sentence was passed for the
offences whereof he had been convicted. He was fined £1,000,
and imprisoned for twenty-two months. On his way to prison he
was rescued by the mob; but as soon as he could escape out of
the hands of his boisterous friends he went and gave himself
into the custody of the Marshal of the King's Bench.
Parliament met on the 10th of April, and it was thought that
he would be released in order to take his seat. A dense
multitude assembled before the prison, but, balked in its
purpose of escorting the popular favourite to the House,
became furious, and commenced a riot.
{932}
Soldiers were at hand prepared for this outbreak. They fired,
wounding and slaughtering several persons; among others, they
butchered a young man whom they found in a neighbouring house,
and who was mistaken for a rioter they had pursued. At the
inquest the jury brought in a verdict of wilful murder against
the magistrate who ordered the firing, and the soldier who did
the deed. The magistrate was tried and acquitted. The soldier
was dismissed the service, but received in compensation, as a
reward for his services, a pension of one shilling a day. A
general order sent from the War Office by Lord Barrington
conveyed his Majesty's express thanks to the troops employed,
assuring them 'that every possible regard shall be shown to
them; their zeal and good behaviour on this occasion deserve
it; and in case any disagreeable circumstance should happen in
the execution of their duty, they shall have every defence and
protection that the law can authorise and this office can
give.' This approbation of what the troops had done was the
necessary supplement to a despatch from Lord Weymouth sent
before the riot, and intimating that force was to be used
without scruple. Wilkes commented on both documents. His
observations on the latter drew a complaint from Lord Weymouth
of breach of privilege. This was made an additional pretext
for his expulsion from the House of Commons. Ten days
afterwards he was re-elected, his opponent receiving five
votes only. On the following day the House resolved 'that John
Wilkes, Esquire, having been in this session of Parliament
expelled this House, was and is incapable of being elected a
member to serve in this present Parliament'; and his election
was declared void. Again the freeholders of Middlesex returned
him, and the House re-affirmed the above resolution. At
another election he was opposed by Colonel Luttrell, a Court
tool, when he polled 1,143 votes against 296 cast for
Luttrell. It was declared, however, that the latter had been
elected. Now began a struggle between the country, which had
been outraged in the persons of the Middlesex electors, and a
subservient majority in the House of Commons that did not
hesitate to become instrumental in gratifying the personal
resentment of a revengeful and obstinate king. The cry of
'Wilkes and liberty' was raised in quarters where the very
name of the popular idol had been proscribed. It was evident
that not the law only had been violated in his person, but
that the Constitution itself had sustained a deadly wound.
Wilkes was overwhelmed with substantial marks of sympathy. In
the course of a few weeks £20,000 were subscribed to pay his
debts. He could boast, too, that the courts of law had at
length done what was right between him and one of the
Secretaries of State who had signed the General Warrant, the
other having been removed by death beyond the reach of
justice. Lord Halifax was sentenced to pay £4,000 damages.
These damages, and the costs of the proceedings, were defrayed
out of the public purse. Lord North admitted that the outlay had
exceeded £100,000. Thus the nation was doubly insulted by the
ministers, who first violated the law, and then paid the costs
of the proceedings out of the national taxes. On the 17th of
April, 1770, Wilkes left the prison, to be elected in rapid
succession to the offices--then much sought after, because
held in high honour--of Alderman, Sheriff, and Lord Mayor of
London. In 1774 he was permitted to take his seat as Member
for Middlesex. After several failures, he succeeded in getting
the resolutions of his incapacity to sit in the House formally
expunged from its journals. He was elected Chamberlain of the
City in 1779, and filled that lucrative and responsible post
till his death, in 1797, at the age of seventy. Although the
latter portion of his career as Member of Parliament has
generally been considered a blank, yet it was marked by
several incidents worthy of attention. He was a consistent and
energetic opponent of the war with America."
W. F. Rae,
John Wilkes
(Fortnightly Review, September, 1868, volume 10).
ALSO IN:
W. F. Rae,
Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox,
part 1.
G. O. Trevelyan,
Early History of Charles James Fox,
chapters 5-6, and 8.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1769-1772.
The Letters of Junius.
"One of the newspapers in London at this period was the
'Public Advertiser,' printed and directed by Mr. Henry Sampson
Woodfall. His politics were those of the Opposition of the
day; and he readily received any contributions of a like
tendency from unknown correspondents. Among others was a
writer whose letters beginning at the latest in April, 1767,
continued frequent through that and the ensuing year. It was
the pleasure of this writer to assume a great variety of
signatures in his communications, as Mnemon, Atticus, and
Brutus. It does not appear, however, that these letters
(excepting only some with the signature of Lucius which were
published in the autumn of 1768) attracted the public
attention to any unusual extent, though by no means wanting in
ability, or still less in acrimony. ... Such was the state of
these publications, not much rising in interest above the
common level of many such at other times, when on the 21st of
January 1769 there came forth another letter from the same
hand with the novel signature of Junius. It did not differ
greatly from its predecessors either in superior merit or
superior moderation; it contained, on the contrary, a fierce
and indiscriminate attack on most men in high places,
including the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Granby. But, unlike its
predecessors, it roused to controversy a well-known and
respectable opponent. Sir William Draper, General in the army
and Knight of the Bath, undertook to meet and parry the blows
which it had aimed at his Noble friend. In an evil hour for
himself he sent to the Public Advertiser a letter subscribed
with his own name, and defending the character and conduct of
Lord Granby. An answer from Junius soon appeared, urging anew
his original charge, and adding some thrusts at Sir William
himself on the sale of a regiment, and on the nonpayment of
the Manilla ransom. Wincing at the blow, Sir William more than
once replied; more than once did the keen pen of Junius lay
him prostrate in the dust. The discomfiture of poor Sir
William was indeed complete. Even his most partial friends
could not deny that so far as wit and eloquence were concerned
the man in the mask had far, very far, the better in the
controversy. ... These victories over a man of rank and
station such as Draper's gave importance to the name of
Junius. Henceforth letters with that signature were eagerly
expected by the public, and carefully prepared by the author.
{933}
He did not indeed altogether cease to write under other names;
sometimes especially adopting the part of a bystander, and the
signature of Philo-Junius; but it was as Junius that his main
and most elaborate attacks were made. Nor was it long before
he swooped at far higher game than Sir William. First came a
series of most bitter pasquinades against the Duke of Grafton.
Dr. Blackstone was then assailed for the unpopular vote which
he gave in the case of Wilkes. In September was published a
false and malignant attack upon the Duke of Bedford,--an
attack, however, of which the sting is felt by his descendants
to this day. In December the acme of audacity was reached by
the celebrated letter to the King. All this while conjecture
was busy as to the secret author. Names of well-known
statesmen or well-known writers--Burke or Dunning, Boyd or
Dyer, George Sackville or Gerard Hamilton--flew from mouth to
mouth. Such guesses were for the most part made at mere
hap-hazard, and destitute of any plausible ground.
Nevertheless the stir and talk which they created added not a
little to the natural effects of the writer's wit and
eloquence. 'The most important secret of our times!' cries
Wilkes. Junius himself took care to enhance his own importance
by arrogant, nay even impious, boasts of it. In one letter of
August 1771 he goes so far as to declare that 'the Bible and
Junius will be read when the commentaries of the Jesuits are
forgotten!' Mystery, as I have said, was one ingredient to the
popularity of Junius. Another not less efficacious was
supplied by persecution. In the course of 1770 Mr. Woodfall
was indicted for publishing, and Mr. Almon with several others
for reprinting, the letter from Junius to the King. The
verdict in Woodfall's case was: Guilty of printing and
publishing only. It led to repeated discussions and to
ulterior proceedings. But in the temper of the public at that
period such measures could end only in virtual defeat to the
Government, in augmented reputation to the libeller. During
the years 1770 and 1771 the letters of Junius were continued
with little abatement of spirit. He renewed invectives against
the Duke of Grafton; he began them against Lord Mansfield, who
had presided at the trials of the printers; he plunged into
the full tide of City politics; and he engaged in a keen
controversy with the Rev. John Horne, afterwards Horne Tooke.
The whole series of letters from January 1769, when it
commences, until January 1772, when it terminates, amounts to
69, including those with the signature of Philo-Junius, those
of Sir William Draper, and those of Mr. Horne. ... Besides the
letters which Junius designed for the press, there were many
others which he wrote and sent to various persons, intending
them for those persons only. Two addressed to Lord Chatham
appear in Lord Chatham's correspondence. Three addressed to
Mr. George Grenville have until now remained in manuscript
among the papers at Wotton, or Stowe; all three were written
in the same year, 1768, and the two first signed with the same
initial C. Several others addressed to Wilkes were first made
known through the son of Mr. Woodfall. But the most important
of all, perhaps, are the private notes addressed to Mr.
Woodfall himself. Of these there are upwards of sixty, signed
in general with the letter C.; some only a few lines in
length; but many of great value towards deciding the question
of authorship. It seems that the packets containing the
letters of Junius for Mr. Woodfall or the Public Advertiser
were sometimes brought to the office-door, and thrown in, by
an unknown gentleman, probably Junius himself; more commonly
they were conveyed by a porter or other messenger hired in the
streets. When some communication from Mr. Woodfall in reply
was deemed desirable, Junius directed it to be addressed to
him under some feigned name, and to be left till called for at
the bar of some coffee-house. ... It may be doubted whether
Junius had any confidant or trusted friend. ... When
dedicating his collected letters to the English people, he
declares: 'I am the sole depository of my own secret, and it
shall perish with me.'"
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 47 (v. 5).
The following list of fifty-one names of persons to whom the
letters of Junius have been attributed at different times by
different writers is given in Cushing's "Initials and
Pseudonyms":
James Adair, M. P.;
Captain Allen;
Lieutenant-Colonel Isaac Barre, M. P.;
William Henry Cavendish Bentinck;
Mr. Bickerton;
Hugh M'Aulay Boyd;
Edmund Burke;
William Burke;
John Butler, Bishop of Hereford;
Lord Camden;
John Lewis De Lolme;
John Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton;
Samuel Dyer;
Henry Flood;
Sir Philip Francis;
George III.;
Edward Gibbon;
Richard Glover;
Henry Grattan;
William Greatrakes;
George Grenville;
James Grenville;
William Gerard Hamilton;
James Hollis;
Thomas Hollis;
Sir George Jackson;
Sir William Jones;
John Kent;
Major-General Charles Lee;
Charles Lloyd;
Thomas Lyttleton;
Laughlin Maclean;
Rev. Edmund Marshall;
Thomas Paine;
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham;
the Duke of Portland;
Thomas Pownall;
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Robert Rich;
John Roberts;
Rev. Philip Rosenhagen;
George, Viscount Sackville;
the Earl of Shelburne;
Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield;
Richard Suett;
Earl Temple;
John Horne Tooke;
Horace Walpole;
Alexander Wedderburn, Lord Loughborough;
John Wilkes;
James Wilmot, D. D.;
Daniel Wray.
ALSO IN:
G. W. Cooke,
History of Party,
volume 3, chapter 6.
C. W. Dilke,
Papers of a Critic,
volume 2.
Lord Macaulay,
Warren Hastings
(Essays, volume 5).
A. Bisset,
Short History of the English Parliament,
chapter 7.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1770.
Fall of the Grafton Ministry.
Beginning of the administration of Lord North.
"The incompetency of the ministry was ... becoming obvious. In
the first place it was divided within itself. The Prime
Minister, with the Chancellor and some others, were remnants
of the Chatham ministry and admirers of Chatham's policy. The
rest of the Cabinet were either men who represented Bedford's
party, or members of that class whose views are sufficiently
explained by their name, 'the King's friends.' Grafton, fonder
of hunting and the turf than of politics, had by his indolence
suffered himself to fall under the influence of the last-named
party, and unconstitutional action had been the result which
had brought discontent in England to the verge of open
outbreak. Hillsborough, under the same influence, was hurrying
along the road which led to the loss of America. On this point
the Prime Minister had found himself in a minority in his own
Cabinet.
{934}
France too, under Choiseul, in alliance with Spain, was
beginning to think of revenge for the losses of the Seven
Years' War. A crisis was evidently approaching, and the
Opposition began to close their ranks. Chatham, yielding again
to the necessities of party, made a public profession of
friendship with Temple and George Grenville; and though there
was no cordial connection, there was external alliance between
the brothers and the old Whigs under Rockingham. In the first
session of 1770 the storm broke. Notwithstanding the state of
public affairs, the chief topic of the King's speech was the
murrain among 'horned beasts,'--a speech not of a king, but,
said Junius, of 'a ruined grazier.' Chatham at once moved an
amendment when the address in answer to this speech was
proposed. He deplored the want of all European alliances, the
fruit of our desertion of our allies at the Peace of Paris; he
blamed the conduct of the ministry with regard to America,
which, he thought, needed much gentle handling, inveighed
strongly against the action of the Lower House in the case of
Wilkes, and ended by moving that that action should at once be
taken into consideration. At the sound of their old leader's
voice his followers in the Cabinet could no longer be silent.
Camden declared he had been a most unwilling party to the
persecution of Wilkes, and though retaining the Seals attacked
and voted against the ministry. In the Lower House, Granby,
one of the most popular men in England, followed the same
course. James Grenville and Dunning, the Solicitor-General,
also resigned. Chatham's motion was lost but was followed up
by Rockingham, who asked for a night to consider the state of
the nation. ... Grafton thus found himself in no state to meet
the Opposition, and in his heart still admiring Chatham, and
much disliking business, he suddenly and unexpectedly gave in
his resignation the very day fixed for Rockingham's motion.
The Opposition seemed to have everything in their own hands,
but there was no real cordiality between the two sections. ...
The King with much quickness and decision, took advantage of
this disunion. To him it was of paramount importance to retain
his friends in office, and to avoid a new Parliament elected
in the present excited state of the nation. There was only one
of the late ministry capable of assuming the position of Prime
Minister. This was Lord North, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and to him the King immediately and successfully applied, so
that while the different sections of the Opposition were still
unable to decide on any united action they were astonished to
find the old ministry reconstituted and their opportunity
gone. The new Prime Minister ... had great capacity for
business and administration, and much sound sense; he was a
first-rate debater, and gifted with a wonderful sweetness of
temper, which enabled him to listen unmoved, or even to sleep,
during the most violent attacks upon himself, and to turn
aside the bitterest invectives with a happy joke. With his
accession to the Premiership the unstable character of the
Government ceased. Resting on the King, making himself no more
than an instrument of the King's will, and thus commanding the
support of all royal influence from whatever source derived,
North was able to bid defiance to all enemies, till the ill
effects of such a system of government, and of the King's
policy, became so evident that the clamour for a really
responsible minister grew too loud to be disregarded. Thus is
closed the great constitutional struggle of the early part of
the reign--the struggle of the King, supported by the
unrepresented masses, and the more liberal and independent of
those who were represented, against the domination of the
House of Commons. It was an attempt to break those trammels
which, under the guise of liberty, the upper classes, the
great lords and landed aristocracy, had succeeded after the
Revolution in laying on both Crown and people. In that
struggle the King had been victorious. But he did not
recognize the alliance which had enabled him to succeed. He
did not understand that the people had other objects much
beyond his own."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 3, pages 1057-1060.
ALSO IN:
Correspondence of George III. with Lord North,
volume 1.
W. Massey,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapters 10-13 (volume 1).
J. Adolphus,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapter 17 (volume 1).
E. Burke,
Thoughts on the Present Discontents
(Works, volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1770-1773.
Repeal of the Townshend duties, except on tea.
The tea-ships and the Boston Tea-party.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1770,
and 1772-1773; and BOSTON: A. D. 1773.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1771.
Last contention of Parliament against the Press.
Freedom of reporting secured.
"The session of 1771 commenced with a new quarrel between the
House of Commons and the country. The standing order for the
exclusion of strangers, which had long existed (and which
still exists), was seldom enforced, except when it was thought
desirable that a question should be debated with closed doors.
It was now attempted, by means of this order, to prevent the
publication of the debates and proceedings of the House. It
had long been the practice of the newspapers, and other
periodical journals, to publish the debates of Parliament,
under various thin disguises, and with more or less fulness
and accuracy, from speeches furnished at length by the
speakers themselves, to loose and meagre notes of more or less
authenticity. One of the most attractive features of the
'Gentleman's Magazine,' a monthly publication of
respectability, which has survived to the present day, was an
article which purported to be a report of the debates in
Parliament. This report was, for nearly three years, prepared
by Dr. Johnson, who never attended the galleries himself, and
derived his information from persons who could seldom give him
more than the names of the speakers, and the side which each
of them took in the debate. The speeches were, therefore, the
composition of Johnson himself; and some of the most admired
oratory of the period was avowedly the product of his genius.
Attempts were made from time to time, both within and without
the walls of Parliament, to abolish, or at least to modify,
the standing order for the exclusion of strangers, by means of
which the license of reporting had been restricted; for there was
no order of either House specifically prohibiting the
publication of its debates. But such proposals had always been
resisted by the leaders of parties, who thought that the
privilege was one which might be evaded, but could not safely
be formally relinquished. The practice of reporting,
therefore, was tolerated on the understanding, that a decent
disguise should be observed; and that no publication of the
proceedings of Parliament should take place during the
session.
{935}
There can be little doubt, however, that the public journals
would have gone on, with the tacit connivance of the
parliamentary chiefs, until they had practically established a
right of reporting regularly the proceedings of both Houses,
had not the presumptuous folly of inferior members provoked a
conflict with the press upon this ground of privilege, and, in
the result, driven Parliament reluctantly to yield what they
would otherwise have quietly conceded. It was Colonel Onslow,
member for Guildford, who rudely agitated a question which
wiser men had been content to leave unvexed; and by his rash
meddling, precipitated the very result which he thought he
could prevent. He complained that the proceedings of the House
had been inaccurately reported; and that the newspapers had
even presumed to reflect on the public conduct of honourable
members."
William Massey,
History of England,
volume 2, chapter 15.
"Certain printers were in consequence ordered to attend the
bar of the House. Some appeared and were discharged, after
receiving, on their knees, a reprimand from the Speaker.
Others evaded compliance; and one of them, John Miller, who
failed to appear, was arrested by its messenger, but instead
of submitting, sent for a constable and gave the messenger
into custody for an assault and false imprisonment. They were
both taken before the Lord Mayor (Mr. Brass Crosby), Mr.
Alderman Oliver, and the notorious John Wilkes, who had
recently been invested with the aldermanic gown. These civic
magistrates, on the ground that the messenger was neither a
peace-officer nor a constable, and that his warrant was not
backed by a city magistrate, discharged the printer from
custody, and committed the messenger to prison for an unlawful
arrest. Two other printers, for whose apprehension a reward had
been offered by a Government proclamation, were collusively
apprehended by friends, and taken before Aldermen Wilkes and
Oliver, who discharged the prisoners as 'not being accused of
having committed any crime.' These proceedings at once brought
the House into conflict with the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of
London. The Lord Mayor and Alderman Oliver, who were both
members of Parliament, were ordered by the House to attend in
their places, and were subsequently committed to the Tower.
Their imprisonment, instead of being a punishment, was one
long-continued popular ovation, and from the date of their
release, at the prorogation of Parliament shortly afterwards,
the publication of debates has been pursued without any
interference or restraint. Though still in theory a breach of
privilege, reporting is now encouraged by Parliament as one of
the main sources of its influence--its censure being reserved for
wilful misrepresentation only. But reporters long continued
beset with many difficulties. The taking of notes was
prohibited, no places were reserved for reporters, and the
power of a single member of either House to require the
exclusion of strangers was frequently and capriciously
employed. By the ancient usage of the House of Commons [until
1875] any one member by merely 'spying' strangers present
could compel the Speaker to order their withdrawal."
T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
chapter 17.
ALSO IN:
R. F. D. Palgrave,
The House of Commons,
lecture 2.
T. E. May,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 7 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1772.
The ending of Negro slavery in the British Islands.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1685-1772.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1773.
Reconstitution of the Government of British India.
See INDIA: A. D. 1770-1773.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1774.
The Boston Port Bill, the Massachusetts Act and the Quebec Act.
The First Continental Congress in America.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1774.
Advent in English industries of the Steam-Engine as made
efficient by James Watt.
See STEAM ENGINE: A. D. 1765-1785.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1775.
The beginning of the War of the American Revolution.
Lexington.
Concord.
The colonies in arms and Boston beleaguered.
Ticonderoga.
Bunker Hill.
The Second Continental Congress.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1775-1776.
Successful defence of Canada against American invasion.
See CANADA: A. D. 1775-1776.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1776.
War measures against the colonies.
The drift toward American independence.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-JUNE).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1776-1778.
The People, the Parties, the King, and Lord North, in their
relations to the American War.
"The undoubted popularity of the war [in America] in its first
stage had for some time continued to increase, and in the
latter part of 1776 and 1777 it had probably attained its
maximum. ... The Whigs at this time very fully admitted that
the genuine opinion of the country was with the Government and
with the King. ... The Declaration of Independence, and the
known overtures of the Americans to France, were deemed the
climax of insolence and ingratitude. The damage done to
English commerce, not only in the West Indies but even around
the English and Irish coast, excited a widespread bitterness.
... In every stage of the contest the influence of the
Opposition was employed to trammel the Government. ... The
statement of Wraxall that the Whig colours of buff and blue
were first adopted by Fox in imitation of the uniform of
Washington's troops, is, I believe, corroborated by no other
writer; but there is no reason to question his assertion that
the members of the Whig party in society and in both Houses of
Parliament during the whole course of the war wished success
to the American cause and rejoiced in the American triumphs.
... While the Opposition needlessly and heedlessly intensified
the national feeling against them, the King, on his side, did
the utmost in his power to embitter the contest. It is only by
examining his correspondence with Lord North that we fully
realise how completely at this time he assumed the position
not only of a prime minister but of a Cabinet, superintending,
directing, and prescribing, in all its parts, the policy of
the Government. ... 'Every means of distressing America,'
wrote the King, 'must meet with my concurrence.' He strongly
supported the employment of Indians. ... It was the King's
friends who were most active in promoting all measures of
violence. ... The war was commonly called the 'King's war,'
and its opponents were looked upon as opponents of the King.
The person, however, who in the eye of history appears most
culpable in this matter, was Lord North. ...
{936}
The publication of the correspondence of George III. ...
supplies one of the most striking and melancholy examples of
the relation of the King to his Tory ministers. It appears
from this correspondence that for the space of about five
years North, at the entreaty of the King, carried on a bloody,
costly, and disastrous war in direct opposition to his own
judgment and to his own wishes. ... Again and again he
entreated that his resignation might be accepted, but again
and again he yielded to the request of the King, who
threatened, if his minister resigned, to abdicate the throne.
... The King was determined, under no circumstances, to treat
with the Americans on the basis of the recognition of their
independence; but he acknowledged, after the surrender of
Burgoyne, and as soon as the French war had become inevitable,
that unconditional submission could no longer be hoped for.
... He consented, too, though apparently with extreme
reluctance, and in consequence of the unanimous vote of the
Cabinet, that new propositions should be made to the
Americans." These overtures, conveyed to America by three
Commissioners, were rejected, and the colonies concluded, in
the spring of 1778, their alliance with France. "The moment
was one of the most terrible in English history. England had
not an ally in the world. ... England, already exhausted by a
war which its distance made peculiarly terrible, had to
confront the whole force of France, and was certain in a few
months to have to encounter the whole force of Spain. ...
There was one man to whom, in this hour of panic and
consternation, the eyes of all patriotic Englishmen were
turned. . . . If any statesman could, at the last moment,
conciliate [the Americans], dissolve the new alliance, and
kindle into a flame the loyalist feeling which undoubtedly
existed largely in America, it was Chatham. If, on the other
hand, conciliation proved impossible, no statesman could for a
moment be compared to him in the management of a war. Lord
North implored the King to accept his resignation, and to send
for Chatham. Bute, the old Tory favourite, breaking his long
silence, spoke of Chatham as now indispensable. Lord
Mansfield, the bitterest and ablest rival of Chatham, said,
with tears in his eyes, that unless the King sent for Chatham
the ship would assuredly go down. ... The King was unmoved. He
consented indeed--and he actually authorised Lord North to make
the astounding proposition--to receive Chatham as a
subordinate minister to North. ... This episode appears to me
the most criminal in the whole reign of George III., and in my
own judgment it is as criminal as any of those acts which led
Charles I. to the scaffold."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 14 (volume 4).
"George III. and Lord North have been made scapegoats for sins
which were not exclusively their own. The minister, indeed,
was only the vizier, who hated his work, but still did not
shrink from it, out of a sentiment that is sometimes admired
under the name of loyalty, but which in such a case it is
difficult to distinguish from base servility. The impenetrable
mind of the King was, in the case of the American war, the
natural organ and representative of all the lurking ignorance
and arbitrary humours of the entire community. It is totally
unjust and inadequate to lay upon him the entire burden."
J. Morley,
Edmund Burke: a Historical Study,
page 135.
"No sane person in Great Britain now approves of the attempt
to tax the colonies. No sane person does otherwise than
rejoice that the colonies became free and independent. But let
us in common fairness say a word for King George. In all that
he did he was backed by the great mass of the British nation.
And let us even say a word for the British nation also. Had
the King and the nation been really wise, they would have let
the colonies go without striking a blow. But then no king and
no nation ever was really wise after that fashion. King George
and the British nation were simply not wiser than other
people. I believe that you may turn the pages of history from
the earliest to the latest times, without finding a time when
any king or any commonwealth, freely and willingly, without
compulsion or equivalent, gave up power or dominion, or even
mere extent of territory on the map, when there was no real
power or dominion. Remember that seventeen years after the
acknowledgment of American independence, King George still
called himself King of France. Remember that, when the title
was given up, some people thought it unwise to give it up.
Remember that some people in our own day regretted the
separation between the crowns of Great Britain and Hanover. If
they lived to see the year 1866, perhaps they grew wiser."
E. A. Freeman,
The English People in its Three Homes
(Lectures to American Audiences),
pages 183-184.
ALSO IN:
Correspondence of George III. with Lord North.
Lord Brougham,
Historical Sketches of Statesmen
in the Reign of George III.
T. Macknight,
History of the Life and Times of Edmund Burke,
chapters 22-26 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1778.
War with France.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1778 (FEBRUARY).
ENGLAND: A.D. 1778-1780.
Repeal of Catholic penal laws.
The Gordon No-Popery Riots.
"The Quebec Act of 1774 [see CANADA: A. D. 1763-1774],
establishing Catholicism in Canada, would a generation earlier
have been impossible, and it was justly considered a
remarkable sign of the altered condition of opinion that such
a law should be enacted by a British Parliament, and should
have created no serious disturbances in the country. ... The
success of the Quebec Act led Parliament, a few years later,
to undertake the relief of the Catholics at home from some
part of the atrocious penal laws to which they were still
subject. ... The Act still subsisted which gave a reward of
£100 to any informer who procured the conviction of a Catholic
priest performing his functions in England, and there were
occasional prosecutions, though the judges strained the law to
the utmost in order to defeat them. ... The worst part of the
persecution of Catholics was based upon a law of William III.,
and in 1778 Sir George Savile introduced a bill to repeal
those portions of this Act which related to the apprehending
of Popish bishops, priests, and Jesuits, which subjected these
and also Papists keeping a school to perpetual imprisonment,
and which disabled all Papists from inheriting or purchasing
land. ... It is an honourable fact that this Relief Bill was
carried without a division in either House, without any
serious opposition from the bench of bishops, and with the
concurrence of both parties in the State. The law applied to
England only, but the Lord Advocate promised, in the ensuing
session, to introduce a similar measure for Scotland.
{937}
It was hoped that a measure which was so manifestly moderate
and equitable, and which was carried with such unanimity
through Parliament, would have passed almost unnoticed in the
country; but fiercer elements of fanaticism than politicians
perceived were still smouldering in the nation. The first
signs of the coming storm were seen among the Presbyterians of
Scotland. The General Assembly of the Scotch Established
Church was sitting when the English Relief Bill was pending,
and it rejected by a large majority a motion for a
remonstrance to Parliament against it. But in a few months an
agitation of the most dangerous description spread swiftly
through the Lowlands. It was stimulated by many incendiary
resolutions of provincial synods, by pamphlets, hand-bills,
newspapers, and sermons, and a 'Committee for the Protestant
Interests' was formed at Edinburgh to direct it. ... Furious
riots broke out in January, 1779, both in Edinburgh and
Glasgow. Several houses in which Catholics lived, or the
Catholic worship was celebrated, were burnt to the ground. The
shops of Catholic tradesmen were wrecked, and their goods
scattered, plundered, or destroyed. Catholic ladies were
compelled to take refuge in Edinburgh Castle. The houses of
many Protestants who were believed to sympathise with the
Relief Bill were attacked, and among the number was that of
Robertson the historian. The troops were called out to
suppress the riot, but they were resisted and pelted, and not
suffered to fire in their defence. ... The flame soon spread
southwards. For some years letters on the increase of Popery
had been frequently appearing in the London newspapers. Many
murmurs had been heard at the enactment of the Quebec Act, and
many striking instances in the last ten years had shown how
easily the spirit of riot could be aroused, and how impotent
the ordinary watchmen were to cope with it. ... The fanatical
party had unfortunately acquired an unscrupulous leader in the
person of Lord George Gordon, whose name now attained a
melancholy celebrity. He was a young man of thirty, of very
ordinary talents, and with nothing to recommend him but his
connection with the ducal house of Gordon. ... A 'Protestant
Association,' consisting of the worst agitators and fanatics,
was formed, and at a great meeting held on May 29, 1780, and
presided over by Lord George Gordon, it was determined that
20,000 men should march to the Parliament House to present a
petition for the repeal of the Relief Act. It was about
half-past two on the afternoon of Friday, June 2, that three
great bodies, consisting of many thousands of men, wearing
blue cockades, and carrying a petition which was said to have
been signed by near 120,000 persons, arrived by different
roads at the Parliament House. Their first design appears to
have been only to intimidate, but they very soon proceeded to
actual violence. The two Houses were just meeting, and the
scene that ensued resembled on a large scale and in an
aggravated form the great riot which had taken place around
the Parliament House in Dublin during the administration of
the Duke of Bedford. The members were seized, insulted,
compelled to put blue cockades in their hats, to shout 'No
Popery!' and to swear that they would vote for the repeal; and
many of them, but especially the members of the House of
Lords, were exposed to the grossest indignities. ... In the
Commons Lord George Gordon presented the petition, and
demanded its instant consideration. The House behaved with
much courage, and after a hurried debate it was decided by 192
to 7 to adjourn its consideration till the 6th. Lord George
Gordon several times appeared on the stairs of the gallery,
and addressed the crowd, denouncing by name those who opposed
him, and especially Burke and North; but Conway rebuked him in
the sight and hearing of the mob, and Colonel Gordon, one of
his own relatives, declared that the moment the first man of
the mob entered the House he would plunge his sword into the
body of Lord George. The doors were locked. The strangers'
gallery was empty, but only a few doorkeepers and a few other
ordinary officials protected the House, while the mob is said
at first to have numbered not less than 60,000 men. Lord North
succeeded in sending a messenger for the guards, but many
anxious hours passed before they arrived. Twice attempts were
made to force the doors. ... At last about nine o'clock the
troops appeared, and the crowd, without resisting, agreed to
disperse. A great part of them, however, were bent on further
outrages. They attacked the Sardinian Minister's chapel in
Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. They broke it open, carried
away the silver lamps and other furniture, burnt the benches in
the street, and flung the burning brands into the chapel. The
Bavarian Minister's chapel in Warwick Street Golden Square was
next attacked, plundered, and burnt before the soldiers could
intervene. They at last appeared upon the scene, and some
slight scuffling ensued, and thirteen of the rioters were
captured. It was hoped that the riot had expended its force,
for Saturday and the greater part of Sunday passed with little
disturbance, but on Sunday afternoon new outrages began in
Moorfields, where a considerable Catholic population resided.
Several houses were attacked and plundered, and the chapels
utterly ruined."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of English in the 18th Century,
chapter 13 (volume 3).
"On Monday the rioters continued their outrages. ...
Notwithstanding, however, that the town might now be said to
have been in the possession of the rioters for more than three
days, it does not appear that any more decided measures were
adopted to put them down. Their audacity and violence, as
might have been expected, increased under this treatment. On
Tuesday afternoon and evening the most terrible excesses were
perpetrated. Notwithstanding that a considerable military
force was stationed around and on the way to the Houses of
Parliament, several of the members were again insulted and
maltreated in the grossest manner. Indeed, the mob by this
time seem to have got over all apprehensions of the
interference of the soldiers." The principal event of the day
was the attack on Newgate prison, which was destroyed and the
prisoners released. "The New Prison, Clerkenwell, was also
broken open ... and all the prisoners set at large. Attacks
were likewise made upon several ... private houses. ... But
the most lamentable of all the acts of destruction yet
perpetrated by these infuriated ruffians was that with which
they closed the day of madness and crime--the entire
demolition of the residence of Lord Mansfield, the venerable
Lord Chief Justice, in Bloomsbury Square. ...
{938}
The scenes that took place on Wednesday were still more
dreadful than those by which Tuesday had been marked. The town
indeed was now in a state of complete insurrection: and it was
felt by all that the mob must be put down at any cost, if it
was intended to save the metropolis of the kingdom from utter
destruction. This day, accordingly, the military were out in
all quarters, and were everywhere employed against the
infuriated multitudes who braved their power. ... The King's
Bench Prison, the New Gaol, the Borough Clink, the Surrey
Bridewell, were all burned today. ... The Mansion House, the
Museum, the Exchange, the Tower, and the Bank, were all, it is
understood, marked for destruction. Lists of these and the
other buildings which it was intended to attack were
circulated among the mob. The bank was actually twice
assaulted; but a powerful body of soldiers by whom it was
guarded on both occasions drove off the crowd, though not
without great slaughter. At some places the rioters returned
the fire of the military. ... Among other houses which were
set on fire in Holborn were the extensive premises of Mr.
Langdale, the distiller, who was a Catholic. ... The worst
consequence of this outrage, however, was the additional
excitement which the frenzy of the mob received from the
quantities of spirits with which they were here supplied. Many
indeed drank themselves literally dead; and many more, who had
rendered themselves unable to move, perished in the midst of
the flames. Six and thirty fires, it is stated, were this
night to be seen, from one spot, blazing at the same time in
different quarters of the town. ... By Thursday morning ...
the exertions of Government, now thoroughly alarmed, had
succeeded in bringing up from different parts so large a force
of regular troops and of militia as to make it certain that
the rioters would be speedily overpowered. ... The soldiers
attacked the mob in various places, and everywhere with
complete success. ... On Friday the courts of justice were
again opened for business, and the House of Commons met in the
evening. ... On this first day after the close of the riots,
'the metropolis,' says the Annual Register, 'presented in many
places the image of a city recently stormed and sacked.' ...
Of the persons apprehended and brought to trial, 59 were
capitally convicted; and of these more than 20 were executed;
the others were sent to expiate their offences by passing the
remainder of their days in hard labour and bondage in a
distant land. ... Lord George Gordon, in consequence of the
part he had borne in the measures which led to these riots,
was sent to the Tower, and some time afterwards brought to
trial on a charge of high treason," but was acquitted.
Sketches of Popular Tumults,
section 1, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
J. H. Jesse,
Memoirs of the Life and Reign of George III.,
chapter 34 (volume 2).
H. Walpole,
Journal of the Reign of George III.,
volume 2, pages 403-424.
Annual Register, 1780,
pages 254-287.
C. Dickens,
Barnaby Rudge.
W. J. Amherst,
History of Catholic Emancipation,
volume 1, chapters 1-5.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1780-1782.
Declining strength of the government.
Rodney's great naval victory.
The siege of Gibraltar.
"The fall of Lord North's ministry, and with it the overthrow
of the personal government of George III., was now close at
hand. For a long time the government had been losing favour.
In the summer of 1780, the British victories in South Carolina
had done something to strengthen, yet when, in the autumn of
that year, Parliament was dissolved, although the king
complained that his expenses for purposes of corruption had
been twice as great as ever before, the new Parliament was
scarcely more favourable to the ministry than the old one.
Misfortunes and perplexities crowded in the path of Lord North
and his colleagues. The example of American resistance had
told upon Ireland. ... For more than a year there had been war
in India, where Hyder Ali, for the moment, was carrying
everything before him. France, eager to regain her lost
foothold upon Hindustan, sent a strong armament thither, and
insisted that England must give up all her Indian conquests
except Bengal. For a moment England's great Eastern empire
tottered, and was saved only by the superhuman efforts of
Warren Hastings, aided by the wonderful military genius of Sir
Eyre Coote. In May, 1781, the Spaniards had taken Pensacola,
thus driving the British from their last position in Florida.
In February, 1782, the Spanish fleet captured Minorca, and the
siege of Gibraltar, which had been kept up for nearly three
years, was pressed with redoubled energy. During the winter
the French recaptured St. Eustatius, and handed it over to
Holland; and Grasse's great fleet swept away all the British
possessions in the West Indies, except Jamaica, Barbadoes, and
Antigua. All this time the Northern League kept up its jealous
watch upon British cruisers in the narrow seas, and among all
the powers of Europe the government of George could not find a
single friend. The maritime supremacy of England was, however,
impaired but for a moment. Rodney was sent back to the West
Indies, and on the 12th of April, 1782, his fleet of 36 ships
encountered the French near the island of
Sainte-Marie-Galante. The battle of eleven hours which ensued,
and in which 5,000 men were killed or wounded, was one of the
most tremendous contests ever witnessed upon the ocean before
the time of Nelson. The French were totally defeated, and
Grasse was taken prisoner,--the first French
commander-in-chief, by sea or land, who had fallen into an
enemy's hands since Marshal Tallard gave up his sword to
Marlborough, on the terrible day of Blenheim. France could do
nothing to repair this crushing disaster. Her naval power was
eliminated from the situation at a single blow; and in the
course of the summer the English achieved another great
success by overthrowing the Spaniards at Gibraltar, after a
struggle which, for dogged tenacity, is scarcely paralleled in
modern warfare. By the autumn of 1782, England, defeated in
the United States, remained victorious and defiant as regarded
the other parties to the war."
J. Fiske,
American Revolution,
chapter 15 (volume 2).
"Gibraltar ... had been closely invested for nearly three
years. At first, the Spanish had endeavoured to starve the
place; but their blockade having been on two occasions forced
by the British fleet, they relinquished that plan, and
commenced a regular siege. During the spring and summer of
1781, the fortress was bombarded, but with little success; in
the month of November, the enemy were driven from their
approaches, and the works themselves were almost destroyed by
a sally from the garrison. Early in the year, however, the
fall of Minorca enabled the Spanish to reform the siege of
Gibraltar.
{939}
De Grillon himself, the hero of Minorca, superseding Alvarez,
assumed the chief command. ... The garrison of Gibraltar
comprised no more than 7,000 men; while the force of the
allied monarchies amounted to 33,000 soldiers, with an immense
train of artillery. De Grillon, however, who was well
acquainted with the fortress, had little hope of taking it
from the land side, but relied with confidence on the
formidable preparations which he had made for bombarding it
from the sea. Huge floating batteries, bomb-proof and
shot-proof, were constructed; and it was calculated that the
action of these tremendous engines alone would be sufficient
to destroy the works. Besides the battering ships, of which
ten were provided, a large armament of vessels of all rates
was equipped; and a grand attack was to take place, both from
sea and land, with 400 pieces of artillery. Six months were
consumed in these formidable preparations; and it was not
until September that they were completed. A partial cannonade
took place on the 9th and three following days; but the great
attack, which was to decide the fate of the beleaguered
fortress, was commenced on the 13th of September. On that day,
the combined fleets of France and Spain, consisting of 47 sail
of the line, besides numerous ships of inferior rate, were
drawn out in order of battle before Gibraltar. Numerous bomb
ketches, gun and mortar boats, dropped their anchors within
close range; while the ten floating batteries were moored with
strong iron chains within half gun-shot of the walls. On the
land 170 guns were prepared to open fire simultaneously with
the ships; and 40,000 troops were held in readiness to rush in
at the first practicable breach. ... The grand attack was
commenced at ten o'clock in the forenoon, by the fire of 400
pieces of artillery. The great floating batteries, securely
anchored within 600 yards of the walls, poured in an incessant
storm, from 142 guns. Elliot had less than 100 guns to reply to
the cannonade both from sea and land; and of these he made the
most judicious use. Disregarding the attack from every other
quarter, he concentrated the whole of his ordnance on the
floating batteries in front of him; for unless these were
silenced, their force would prove irresistible. But for a long
time the thunder of 80 guns made no impression on the enormous
masses of wood and iron. The largest shells glanced harmless
from their sloping roofs; the heaviest shot could not
penetrate their hulls seven feet in thickness. Nevertheless,
the artillery of the garrison was still unceasingly directed
against these terrible engines of destruction. A storm of
red-hot balls was poured down upon them; and about midday it
was observed that the combustion caused by these missiles,
which had hitherto been promptly extinguished, was beginning
to take effect. Soon after, the partial cessation of the guns
from the battering ships, and the volumes of smoke which
issued from their decks, made it manifest they were on fire,
and that all the efforts of the crews were required to subdue
the conflagration. Towards evening, their guns became silent;
and before midnight, the flames burst forth from the principal
floating battery, which carried the Admiral's flag. ... Eight
of the 10 floating batteries were on fire during the night;
and the only care of the besieged was to save from the flames
and from the waters, the wretched survivors of that terrible
flotilla, which had so recently menaced them with
annihilation. . . . The loss of the enemy was computed at
2,000; that of the garrison, in killed and wounded, amounted
to no more than 84. The labour of a few hours sufficed to
repair the damage sustained by the works. The French and
Spanish fleets remained in the Straits, expecting the
appearance of the British squadron under Lord Howe; and
relying on their superiority in ships and weight of metal,
they still hoped that the result of an action at sea might
enable them to resume the siege of Gibraltar. Howe, having
been delayed by contrary winds, did not reach the Straits
until the 9th of October; and, notwithstanding the superior
array which the enemy presented, he was prepared to risk an
engagement. But at this juncture, a storm having scattered the
combined fleet, the British Admiral was enabled to land his
stores and reinforcements without opposition. Having performed
this duty, he set sail for England; nor did the Spanish
Admiral, though still superior by eight sail of the line,
venture to dispute his passage. Such was the close of the
great siege of Gibraltar; an undertaking which had been
regarded by Spain as the chief object of the war, which she
had prosecuted for three years, and which, at the last, had
been pressed by the whole force of the allied monarchies.
After this event, the war itself was virtually at an end."
W. Massey,
History of England, Reign of George III.,
chapter 27 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapters 62-66 (volume 7).
J. Drinkwater,
History of the Siege of Gibraltar.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1780-1783.
Second war with Hyder Ali, or Second Mysore War.
See INDIA: A. D. 1780--1783.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1781-1783.
War with Holland.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1746-1787.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1782.
Legislative independence conceded to Ireland.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1778-1794.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1782-1783.
Fall of Lord North.
The second Rockingham Ministry.
Fox, Shelburne, and the American peace negotiations.
The Shelburne Ministry.
Coalition of Fox and North.
"There comes a point when even the most servile majority of an
unrepresentative Parliament finds the strain of party
allegiance too severe, and that point was reached when the
surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown became known in November,
1781. 'O God, it is all over!' cried Lord North, wringing his
hands, when he heard of it. ... On February 7, a vote of
censure, moved by Fox, upon Lord Sandwich, was negatived by a
majority of only twenty-two. On the 22nd, General Conway lost
a motion in favour of putting an end to the war by only one
vote. On the 27th, the motion was renewed in the form of a
resolution and carried by a majority of nineteen.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782 (FEBRUARY-MAY).
Still the King would not give his consent to Lord North's
resignation. Rather than commit himself to the opposition, he
seriously thought of abdicating his crown and retiring to
Hanover. ... Indeed, if it had not been for his large family,
and the character of the Prince of Wales, already too well
known, it is far from improbable that he would have carried
this idea into execution, and retired from a Government of
which he was no longer master.
{940}
By the 20th [of March], however, even George III. saw that the
game could not be kept up any longer. He gave permission to
Lord North to announce his resignation, and parted with him
with the characteristic words: 'Remember, my Lord, it is you
who desert me, not I who desert you.' ... Even when the
long-deferred blow fell, and Lord North's Ministry was no
more, the King refused to send for Lord Rockingham. He still
flattered himself that he might get together a Ministry from
among the followers of Chatham and of Lord North, which would
be able to restore peace without granting independence, and
Shelburne was the politician whom he fixed upon to aid him in
this scheme. ... Shelburne, however, was too clever to fall
into the trap. A Ministry which had against it the influence
of the Rockingham connection and the talents of Charles Fox,
and would not receive the hearty support of Lord North's
phalanx of placemen, was foredoomed to failure. The pear was
not yet ripe. He saw clearly enough that his best chance of
permanent success lay in becoming the successor, not the
supplanter, of Rockingham. ... His game was to wait. He
respectfully declined to act without Rockingham. ... Before
Rockingham consented to take office, he procured a distinct
pledge from the King that he would not put a veto upon
American independence, if the Ministers recommended it; and on
the 27th of March the triumph of the Opposition was completed
by the formation of a Ministry, mainly representative of the
old Whig families, pledged to a policy of economical reform,
and of peace with America on the basis of the acknowledgment
of independence. Fox received the reward of his services by
being appointed Foreign Secretary, and Lord Shelburne took
charge of the Home and Colonial Department. Rockingham himself
went to the Treasury, Lord John Cavendish became Chancellor of
the Exchequer, Lord Keppel First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord
Camden President of the Council. Burke was made Paymaster of
the Forces, and Sheridan Under-Secretary to his friend Fox. At
the King's special request, Thurlow was allowed to remain as
Chancellor. ... The Cabinet no sooner met than it divided into
the parties of Shelburne and of Fox, while Rockingham, Conway,
and Cavendish tried to hold the balance between them, and
Thurlow artfully fomented the dissensions. ... Few
Administrations have done so much in a short time as did the
Rockingham Ministry during the three months of its existence,
and it so happened that the lion's share of the work fell to
Fox. Upon his appointment to office his friends noticed a
change in habits and manner of life, as complete as that
ascribed to Henry V. on his accession to the throne. He is
said never to have touched a card during either of his three
short terms of office. ... By the division of work among the
two Secretaries of State, all matters which related to the
colonies were under the control of Shelburne, while those
relating to foreign Governments belonged to the department of
Fox. Consequently it became exceedingly important to these two
Ministers whether independence was to be granted to the American
colonies by the Crown of its own accord, or should be reserved
in order to form part of the general treaty of peace.
According to Fox's plan, independence was to be offered at
once fully and freely to the Americans. They would thus gain
at a blow all that they wanted. Their jealousy of French and
Spanish interests in America would at once assert itself, and
England would have no difficulty in bringing them over to her
side in the negotiations with France. Such was Fox's scheme,
but unfortunately, directly America became independent, she
ceased to be in any way subject to Shelburne's management, and
the negotiations for peace would pass wholly out of his
control into the hands of Fox. ... Shelburne at once threw his
whole weight into the opposite scale. He urged with great
effect that to give independence at once was to throw away the
trump card. It was the chief concession which England would be
required to make, the only one which she was, prepared to
make; and to make it at once, before she was even asked, was
wilfully to deprive herself of her best weapon. The King and
the Cabinet adopted Shelburne's view. Fox's scheme for the
isolation of France failed, and a double negotiation for peace
was set on foot. Shelburne and Franklin took charge of the
treaty with America [see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782
(SEPTEMBER)], Fox and M. de Vergennes that with France and
Spain and Holland. An arrangement of this sort could hardly
have succeeded had the two Secretaries been the firmest of
friends; since they were rivals and enemies it was foredoomed
to failure." Fox found occasion very soon to complain that
important matters in Shelburne's negotiation with Franklin
were kept from his knowledge, and once more he proposed to the
Cabinet an immediate concession of independence to the
Americans. Again he was outvoted, and, "defeated and
despairing, only refrained from resigning there and then
because he would not embitter Rockingham's last moments upon
earth." This was on the 30th of June. "On the 1st of, July
Rockingham died, and on the 2nd Shelburne accepted from the
King the task of forming a Ministry." Fox, of course, declined
to enter it, and suffered in influence because he could not
make public the reasons for his inability to act with Lord
Shelburne. "Only Lord Cavendish, Burke, and the
Solicitor-General, Lee, left office with Portland and Fox, and
the gap was more than supplied by the entrance of William Pitt
[Lord Chatham's son, who had entered Parliament in 1780] into
the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Fortune seemed to
smile on Shelburne. He ... might well look forward to a long
and unclouded tenure of political power. His Administration
lasted not quite seven months." It was weakened by distrust
and dissatisfaction among its members, and overturned in
February, 1783, by a vote of censure on the peace which it had
concluded with France, Spain and the American States. It was
succeeded in the Government by the famous Coalition Ministry
formed under Fox and Lord North. "The Duke of Portland
succeeded Shelburne at the Treasury. Lord North and Fox became
the Secretaries of State. Lord John Cavendish returned to the
Exchequer, Keppel to the Admiralty, and Burke to the
Paymastership, the followers of Lord North ... were rewarded
with the lower offices. Few combinations in the history of
political parties have been received by historians and
posterity with more unqualified condemnation than the
coalition of 1783. ... There is no evidence to show that at
the time it struck politicians in general as being specially
heinous."
H. O. Wakeman,
Life of Charles James Fox,
chapters 3-5.
ALSO IN:
Lord J. Russell,
Life of Fox,
chapters 16-17 (volume l).
W. F. Rae,
Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox,
pages 307-317.
Lord E. Fitzmaurice,
Life of William, Earl of Shelburne,
volume 3, chapters 3-6.
{941}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1783.
The definitive Treaty of Peace with the United States of
America signed at Paris.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (SEPTEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1783-1787.
Fall of the Coalition.
Ascendancy of the younger Pitt.
His extraordinary grasp of power.
His attempted measures of reform.
"Parliament met on the 11th of November; on the 18th Fox asked
for leave to introduce a Bill for the Better Government of
India. That day month[?] the Government had ceased to exist.
Into the merits of the Bill it is not now necessary to enter.
... It was clear that it furnished an admirable weapon against
an unpopular Coalition which had resisted economical reform,
demanded a great income for a debauched prince, and now aimed
at securing a monopoly of the vast patronage of
India,--patronage which, genially exercised by Dundas, was
soon to secure Scotland for Pitt. In the House of Commons the
majority for the Bill was over 100; the loftiest eloquence of
Burke was exerted in its favour; and Fox was, as ever,
dauntless and crushing in debate. But outside Parliament the
King schemed, and controversy raged. ... When the Bill arrived
at the House of Lords, the undertakers were ready. The King
had seen Temple, and empowered him to communicate to all whom
it might concern his august disapprobation. The uneasy whisper
circulated, and the joints of the lords became as water. The
peers who yearned for lieutenancies or regiments, for stars or
strawberry leaves; the prelates, who sought a larger sphere of
usefulness; the minions of the bedchamber and the janissaries
of the closet; all, temporal or spiritual, whose convictions
were unequal to their appetite, rallied to the royal nod. ...
The result was overwhelming. The triumphant Coalition was
paralysed by the rejection of their Bill. They rightly refused
to resign, but the King could not sleep until he had resumed
the seals. Late at night he sent for them. The messenger found
North and Fox gaily seated at supper with their followers. At
first he was not believed. 'The King would not dare do it,'
exclaimed Fox. But the under Secretary charged with the
message soon convinced them of its authenticity, and the seals
were delivered with a light heart. In such dramatic fashion, and
the springtide of its youth, fell that famous government,
unhonoured and unwept. 'England,' once said Mr. Disraeli,
'does not love coalitions.' She certainly did not love this
one. On this occasion there was neither hesitation nor delay;
the moment had come, and the man. Within 12 hours of the
King's receiving the seals, Pitt had accepted the First
Lordship of the Treasury and the Chancellorship of the
Exchequer. That afternoon his writ was moved amid universal
derision. And so commenced a supreme and unbroken Ministry of
17 years. Those who laughed were hardly blamable, for the
difficulties were tremendous. ... The composition of the
Government was ... the least of Pitt's embarrassments. The
majority against him in the House of Commons was not less than
40 or 50, containing, with the exception of Pitt himself and
Dundas, every debater of eminence; while he had, before the
meeting of Parliament, to prepare and to obtain the approval
of the East India Company to a scheme which should take the
place of Burke's. The Coalition Ministers were only dismissed
on the 18th of December, 1783; but, when the House of Commons
met on the 12th of January, 1784, all this had been done. The
narrative of the next three months is stirring to read, but
would require too much detail for our limits. ... On the day
of the meeting of Parliament, Pitt was defeated in two pitched
divisions, the majorities against him being 39 and 54. His
government seemed still-born. His colleagues were dismayed.
The King came up from Windsor to support him. But in truth he
needed no support. He had inherited from his father that
confidence which made Chatham once say, 'I am sure that I can
save this country, and that nobody else can'; which made
himself say later, 'I place much dependence on my new
colleagues; I place still more dependence on myself.' He had
refused, in spite of the King's insistance, to dissolve; for
he felt that the country required time. ... The Clerkship of
the Pells, a sinecure office worth not less than £3,000 a
year, fell vacant the very day that Parliament met. It was
universally expected that Pitt would take it as of right, and
so acquire an independence, which would enable him to devote
his life to politics, without care for the morrow. He had not
£300 a year; his position was to the last degree precarious.
... Pitt disappointed his friends and amazed his enemies. He
gave the place to Barré. ... To a nation inured to jobs this
came as a revelation. ... Above and beyond all was the fact
that Pitt, young, unaided, and alone, held his own with the
great leaders allied against him. ... In face of so resolute a
resistance, the assailants began to melt away. Their divisions,
though they always showed a superiority to the Government,
betrayed notable diminution. ... On the 25th of March
Parliament was dissolved, the announcement being retarded by
the unexplained theft of the Great Seal. When the elections
were over, the party of Fox, it was found, had shared the fate
of the host of Sennacherib. The number of Fox's martyrs--of
Fox's followers who had earned that nickname by losing their
seats--was 160. ... The King and Pitt were supported on the
tidal wave of one of those great convulsions of feeling, which
in Great Britain relieve and express pent-up national
sentiment, and which in other nations produce revolutions."
Lord Rosebery,
Pitt,
chapter 3.
"Three subjects then needed the attention of a great
statesman, though none of them were so pressing as to force
themselves on the attention of a little statesman. These were,
our economical and financial legislation, the imperfection of
our parliamentary representation, and the unhappy' condition
of Ireland. Pitt dealt with all three. ... He brought in a
series of resolutions consolidating our customs laws, of which
the inevitable complexity may be estimated by their number.
They amounted to 133, and the number of Acts of Parliament
which they restrained or completed was much greater. He
attempted, and successfully, to apply the principles of Free
Trade, the principles which he was the first of English
statesmen to learn from Adam Smith, to the actual commerce of
the country. ... The financial reputation of Pitt has greatly
suffered from the absurd praise which was once lavished on the
worst part of it.
{942}
The dread of national ruin from the augmentation of the
national debt was a sort of nightmare in that age. ... Mr.
Pitt sympathised with the general apprehension and created the
well-known 'Sinking Fund.' He proposed to apply annually a
certain fixed sum to the payment of the debt, which was in
itself excellent, but he omitted to provide real money to be
so paid. ... He proposed to borrow the money to payoff the
debt, and fancied that he thus diminished it. ... The exposure
of this financial juggle, for though not intended to be so,
such in fact it was, has reacted very unfavourably upon Mr.
Pitt's deserved fame. ... The subject of parliamentary reform
is the one with which, in Mr. Pitt's early days, the public
most connected his name, and is also that with which we are
now least apt to connect it. ... He proposed the abolition of
the worst of the rotten boroughs fifty years before Lord Grey
accomplished it. ... If the strong counteracting influence of
the French Revolution had not changed the national opinion, he
would unquestionably have amended our parliamentary
representation. ... The state of Ireland was a more pressing
difficulty than our financial confusion, our economical
errors, or our parliamentary corruption. ... He proposed at
once to remedy the national danger of having two Parliaments,
and to remove the incredible corruption of the old Irish
Parliament, by uniting the three kingdoms in a single
representative system, of which the Parliament should sit in
England. ... Of these great reforms he was only permitted to
carry a few into execution. His power, as we have described
it, was great when his reign commenced, and very great it
continued to be for very many years; but the time became
unfavourable for all forward-looking statesmanship."
W. Bagehot,
Biographical Studies: William Pitt.
ALSO IN:
Earl Stanhope,
Life of William Pitt,
chapters 4-9 (volume 1).
G. Tomline,
Life of William Pitt,
chapters 3-9 (volume 1-2).
Lord Rosebery,
Pitt,
chapters 3-4.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1788 (FEBRUARY).
Opening of the Trial of Warren Hastings.
See INDIA: A. D.1785-1795.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1788-1789.
The King's second derangement.
The king's second derangement, which began to show itself in
the summer of 1788, was more serious and of longer duration
than the first. "He was able ... to sign a warrant for the
further prorogation of Parliament by commission, from the 25th
September to the 20th November. But, in the interval, the
king's malady increased: he was wholly deprived of reason, and
placed under restraint; and for several days his life was in
danger. As no authority could be obtained from him for a
further prorogation, both Houses assembled on the 20th
November. ... According to long established law, Parliament,
without being opened by the Crown, had no authority to proceed
to any business whatever: but the necessity of an occasion,
for which the law had made no provision, was now superior to
the law; and Parliament accordingly proceeded to deliberate
upon the momentous questions to which the king's illness had
given rise." By Mr. Fox it was maintained that "the Prince of
Wales had as clear a right to exercise the power of
sovereignty during the king's incapacity as if the king were
actually dead; and that it was merely for the two Houses of
Parliament to pronounce at what time he should commence, the
exercise of his right. ... Mr. Pitt, on the other hand,
maintained that as no legal provision had been made for
carrying on the government, it belonged to the Houses of
Parliament to make such provision." The discussion to which
these differences, and many obstructing circumstances in the
situation of affairs, gave rise, was so prolonged, that the
king recovered his faculties (February, 1789) before the
Regency Bill, framed by Mr. Pitt, had been passed.
T. E. May,
Constitutional History of England,
volume 1, chapter 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1789-1792.
War with Tippoo Saib (third Mysore War).
See INDIA: A. D. 1785-1793.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1793.
The Coalition against Revolutionary France.
Unsuccessful siege of Dunkirk.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER),
and (JULY-DECEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1793-1796.
Popular feeling towards the French Revolution.
Small number of the English Jacobins.
Pitt forced into war.
Tory panic and reign of terror.
Violence of government measures.
"That the war [of Revolutionary France] with Germany would
widen into a vast European struggle, a struggle in which the
peoples would rise against their oppressors, and the freedom
which France had won diffuse itself over the world, no French
revolutionist doubted for an hour. Nor did they doubt that in
this struggle England would join them. It was from England
that they had drawn those principles of political and social
liberty which they believed themselves to be putting into
practice. It was to England that they looked above all for
approbation and sympathy. ... To the revolutionists at Paris
the attitude of England remained unintelligible and
irritating. Instead of the aid they had counted on, they found
but a cold neutrality. ... But that this attitude was that of the
English people as a whole was incredible to the French
enthusiasts. ... Their first work therefore they held to be
the bringing about a revolution in England. ... They strove,
through a number of associations which had formed themselves
under the name of Constitutional Clubs, to rouse the same
spirit which they had roused in France; and the French envoy,
Chauvelin, protested warmly against a proclamation which
denounced this correspondence as seditious. ... Burke was
still working hard in writings whose extravagance of style was
forgotten in their intensity of feeling to spread alarm
throughout Europe. He had from the first encouraged the
emigrant princes to take arms, and sent his son to join them
at Coblentz. 'Be alarmists,' he wrote to them; 'diffuse
terror!' But the royalist terror which he sowed would have
been of little moment had it not roused a revolutionary terror
in France. ... In November the Convention decreed that France
offered the aid of her soldiers to all nations who would
strive for freedom. ... In the teeth of treaties signed only
two years before, and of the stipulation made by England when
it pledged itself to neutrality, the French Government
resolved to attack Holland, and ordered its generals to
enforce by arms the opening of the Scheldt [see FRANCE: A.
D.1792-1793 (DECEMBER-FEBRUARY)]. To do this was to force
England into war. Public opinion was already pressing every
day harder upon Pitt. ... But even while withdrawing our
Minister from Paris on the imprisonment of the King, to whose
Court he had been commissioned, Pitt clung stubbornly to a
policy of peace. ...
{943}
No hour of Pitt's life is so great as the hour when he stood
lonely and passionless before the growth of national passion,
and refused to bow to the gathering cry for war. ... But
desperately as Pitt struggled for peace, his struggle was in
vain. ... Both sides ceased from diplomatic communications,
and in February 1793 France issued her Declaration of War.
From that moment Pitt's power was at an end. His pride, his
immovable firmness, and the general confidence of the nation,
still kept him at the head of affairs; but he could do little
save drift along with a tide of popular feeling which he never
fully understood. Around him the country broke out in a fit of
passion and panic which rivalled the passion and panic
oversea. ... The partisans of Republicanism were in reality
but a few handfuls of men. ... But in the mass of Englishmen
the dread of these revolutionists passed for the hour into
sheer panic. Even the bulk of the Whig party believed property
and the constitution to be in peril, and forsook Fox when he
still proclaimed his faith in France and the Revolution."
J. R. Green,
History of the English People,
book 9, chapter 4 (volume 4).
"Burke himself said that not one man in a hundred was a
Revolutionist. Fox's revolutionary sentiments met with no
response, but with general reprobation, and caused even his
friends to shrink from his side. Of the so-called Jacobin
Societies, the Society for Constitutional Information numbered
only a few hundred members, who, though they held extreme
opinions, were headed by men of character, and were quite
incapable of treason or violence. The Corresponding Society
was of a more sinister character; but its numbers were
computed only at 6,000, and it was swallowed up in the loyal
masses of the people. ... It is sad to say it, but when Pitt
had once left the path of right, he fell headlong into evil.
To gratify the ignoble fears and passions of his party, he
commenced a series of attacks on English liberty of speaking
and writing which Mr. Massey, a strong anti-revolutionist,
characterizes as unparalleled since the time of Charles I. The
country was filled with spies. A band of the most infamous
informers was called into activity by the government. ...
There was a Tory reign of terror, to which a slight increase
of the panic among the upper classes would probably have lent
a redder hue. Among other measures of repression the Habeas
Corpus Act was suspended; and the liberties of all men were
thus placed at the mercy of the party in power. ... In
Scotland the Tory reign of terror was worse than in England."
Goldwin Smith,
Three English Statesmen,
pages 239-247.
"The gaols were filled with political delinquents, and no man
who professed himself a reformer could say, that the morrow
might not see him a prisoner upon a charge of high treason.
... But the rush towards despotism against which the Whigs
could not stand, was arrested by the people. Although the
Habeas Corpus had fallen, the Trial by Jury remained, and now,
as it had done before, when the alarm of fictitious plots had
disposed the nation to acquiesce in the surrender of its
liberties, it opposed a barrier which Toryism could not pass."
The trials which excited most interest were those of Hardy,
who organized the Corresponding Society, and Horne Tooke. But
no unlawful conduct or treasonable designs could be proved
against them by creditable witnesses, and both were
acquitted." The public joy was very general at these
acquittals. ... The war lost its popularity; bread grew
scarce; commerce was crippled; ... the easy success that had
been anticipated was replaced by reverses. The people
clamoured and threw stones at the king, and Pitt eagerly took
advantage of their violence to tear away the few shreds of the
constitution which yet covered them. He brought forward the
Seditious Meetings bill, and the Treasonable Practices bill.
Bills which, among other provisions, placed the conduct of
every political meeting under the protection of a magistrate,
and rendered disobedience to his command a felony."
G. W. Cooke,
History of Party,
volume 3, chapter 17.
ALSO IN:
J. Adolphus,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapters 81-89 and 95 (volumes 5-6).
J. Gifford,
History of the Political Life of William Pitt,
chapters 23-24, and 28-29 (volumes 3-4).
W. Massey,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapters 32-36 (volumes 3-4).
E. Smith,
The Story of the English Jacobins.
A. Bisset,
Short History of the English Parliament,
chapter 8.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1794.
Campaigns of the Coalition against France.
French successes in the Netherlands and on the Rhine.
Conquest of Corsica.
Naval victory of Lord Howe.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1794.
Angry relations with the United States.
The Jay Treaty.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1794-1795.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1794-1795.
Withdrawal of troops from the Netherlands.
French conquest of Holland.
Establishment of the Batavian Republic.
Crumbling of the European Coalition.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1795.
Disastrous expedition to Quiberon Bay.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1796.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1795.
Capture of the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (JUNE-DECEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1796 (SEPTEMBER).
Evacuation and abandonment of Corsica.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (SEPTEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1796 (OCTOBER).
Unsuccessful peace negotiations with the French Directory.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (OCTOBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1796-1798.
Attempted French invasions of Ireland.
Irish Insurrection.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1793-1798.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1797.
Monetary panic and suspension of specie payments.
Defeat of the first Reform movement.
Mutiny of the Fleet.
Naval victories of Cape St. Vincent and Camperdown.
"The aspect of affairs in Britain had never been so clouded
during the 18th century as at the beginning of the year 1797.
The failure of Lord Malmesbury's mission to Paris had closed
every hope of an honourable termination to the war, while of
all her original allies, Austria alone remained; the national
burdens were continually increasing, and the three-per-cents
had fallen to fifty-one; while party spirit raged with
uncommon violence, and Ireland was in a state of partial
insurrection. A still greater disaster resulted from the panic
arising from the dread of invasion, and which produced such a
run on all the banks, that the Bank of England itself was
reduced to payment in sixpences, and an Order in Council
appeared (February 26) for the suspension of all cash
payments. This measure, at first only temporary, was prolonged
from time to time by parliamentary enactments, making bank-notes
a legal-tender; and it was not till 1819, after the conclusion
of peace, that the recurrence to metallic currency took place.
{944}
The Opposition deemed this a favourable opportunity to renew
their cherished project of parliamentary reform; and on 26th
May, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Grey brought forward a plan chiefly
remarkable for containing the outlines of that subsequently
carried into effect in 1831. It was negatived, however, after
violent debates, by a majority of 258 against 93. After a
similar strife of parties, the motion for the continuance of
the war was carried by a great majority in both houses; and
the requisite supplies were voted. ... Unknown to the
government, great discontent had for a long time prevailed in
the navy. The exciting causes were principality the low rate
of pay (which had not been raised since the time of Charles
II.), the unequal distribution of prize-money, and undue
severity in the maintenance of discipline. These grounds of
complaint, with others not less well founded, gave rise to a
general conspiracy, which broke out (April 15) in the Channel
fleet under Lord Bridport. All the ships fell under the power
of the insurgents; but they maintained perfect order, and
memorialised the Admiralty and the Commons on their
grievances: their demands being examined by government, and
found to be reasonable, were granted; and on the 7th of May
the fleet returned to its duty. But scarcely was the spirit of
disaffection quelled in this quarter, when it broke out in a
more alarming form (May 22) among the squadron at the Nore,
which was soon after (June 6) joined by the force which had
been cruising off the Texel under Lord Duncan. The mutineers
appointed a seaman named Parker to the command; and,
blockading the mouth of the Thames, announced their demands in
such a tone of menacing audacity as insured their instant
rejection by the government. This second mutiny caused
dreadful consternation in London; but the firmness of the King
remained unshaken, and he was nobly seconded by the
parliament. A bill was passed, prohibiting all communication
with the mutineers under pain of death. Sheerness and Tilbury
Fort were armed and garrisoned for the defence of the Thames;
and the sailors, finding the national feelings strongly
arrayed against them, became gradually sensible that their
enterprise was desperate. One by one the ships returned to
their duty; and on 15th June all had submitted. Parker and
several other ringleaders suffered death; but clemency was
extended to the multitude. ... Notwithstanding all these
dissensions, the British navy was never more terrible to its
enemies than during this eventful year. On the 14th of
February, the Spanish fleet of 27 sail of the line and 12
frigates, which had put to sea for the purpose of raising the
blockade of the French harbours, was encountered off Cape St.
Vincent by Sir John Jarvis, who had only 15 ships and 6
frigates. By the old manœuvre of breaking the line, 9 of the
Spanish ships were cut off from the rest; and the admiral,
while attempting to regain them by wearing round the rear of
the British line, was boldly assailed by Nelson and
Collingwood,--the former of whom, in the Captain, of 74 guns,
engaged at once two of the enemy's gigantic vessels, the
Santissima Trinidad of 136 guns, and the San Josef of 112;
while the Salvador del Mundo, also of 112 guns, struck in a
quarter of an hour to Collingwood. Nelson at length carried
the San Josef by boarding, and received the Spanish admiral's
sword on his own quarterdeck. The Santissima Trinidad--an
enormous four-decker--though her colours were twice struck,
escaped in the confusion; but the San Josef and the Salvador,
with two 74-gun ships, remained in the hands of the British;
and the Spanish armament, thus routed by little more than half
its own force, retired in the deepest dejection to Cadiz, which
was shortly after insulted by a bombardment from the gallant
Nelson. A more important victory than that of Sir John Jarvis
(created in consequence Earl St. Vincent) was never gained at
sea, from the evident superiority of skill and seamanship
which it demonstrated in the British navy. The battle of St.
Vincent disconcerted the plans of Truguet for the naval
campaign; but later in the season a second attempt to reach
Brest was made by a Dutch fleet of 15 sail of the line and 11
frigates, under the command of De Winter, a man of tried
courage and experience. The British blockading fleet, under
Admiral Duncan, consisted of 16 ships and 3 frigates; and the
battle was fought (October 16) off Camperdown, about nine
miles from the shore of Holland. The manœuvres of the British
Admiral were directed to cut off the enemy's retreat to his
own shores; and this having been accomplished, the action
commenced yard-arm to yard-arm, and continued with the utmost
fury for more than three hours. The Dutch sailors fought with
the most admirable skill and courage, and proved themselves
worthy descendants of Van Tromp and De Ruyter; but the prowess
of the British was irresistible. 12 sail of the line,
including the flagship, two 56-gun ships, and 2 frigates,
struck their colours; but the nearness of the shore enabled
two of the prizes to escape, and one 74-gun ship foundered.
The obstinacy of the conflict was evidenced by the nearly
equal number of killed and wounded, which amounted to 1,040
English, and 1,160 Dutch. ... The only remaining operations of
the year were the capture of Trinidad in February, by a force
which soon after was repulsed from before Porto Rico; and an
abortive attempt at a descent in Pembroke Bay by about 1,400
French."
Epitome of Alison's History of Europe,
sections 190-196 (chapter 22,
volume 5--of complete work).
ALSO IN:
J. Adolphus,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapters 100-103 (volume 6).
R. Southey,
Life of Nelson,
chapter 4.
E. J. De La Gravière,
Sketches of the Last Naval War,
volume 1, part 2.
Captain A. T. Mahan,
Influence of Sea Power on the
French Revolution and Empire,
chapters 8 and 11 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1798 (AUGUST).
Nelson's victory in the Battle of the Nile.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1798 (MAY-AUGUST).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1798.
Second Coalition against Revolutionary France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1799 (APRIL).
Final war with Tippoo Saib (third Mysore War).
See INDIA: A. D. 1798-1805.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-OCTOBER).
Expedition against Holland.
Seizure of the Dutch fleet.
Ignominious ending of the enterprise.
Capitulation of the Duke of York.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER),
and (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1800.
Legislative union of Ireland with Great Britain.
Creation of the "United Kingdom."
See IRELAND: A. D. 1798-1800.
{945}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1801.
The first Factory Act.
See FACTORY LEGISLATION.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1801-1802.
Import of the Treaty of Luneville.
Bonaparte's preparations for conflict with Great Britain alone.
Retirement of Pitt.
The Northern Maritime League and its summary annihilation at
Copenhagen.
Expulsion of the French from Egypt.
The Peace of Amiens.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1802.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1801-1806.
Pitt's promise to the Irish Catholics broken by the King.
His resignation.
The Addington Ministry.
The Peace of Amiens.
War resumed.
Pitt at the helm again.
His death.
The Ministry of "All the Talents."
"The union with Ireland introduced a new topic of party
discussion, which quickly became only second to that of
parliamentary reform. In transplanting the parliament of
College Green to St. Stephen's, Pitt had transplanted the
questions which were there debated; and, of these, none had
been more important than the demand of the Catholics to be
admitted to the common rights of citizens. Pitt, whose Toryism
was rather the imperiousness of a haughty master, than the
cautious cowardice of the miser of power, thought their
complaints were just. In his private negotiations with the
Irish popular leaders he probably promised that emancipation
should be the sequel to the union. In his place in parliament
he certainly gave an intimation, which from the mouth of a
minister could receive no second interpretation. Pitt was not
a minister who governed by petty stratagems, by ambiguous
professions, and by skilful shuffles: he was at least an
honourable enemy. He prepared to fulfil the pledge he had
given, and to admit the Catholics within the pale of the
constitution. It had been better for the character of George
III. had he imitated the candour of his minister; had he told
him that he had made a promise he would not be suffered to
fulfil, before he had obtained the advantage to gain which
that promise had been made. When Pitt proposed Catholic
emancipation as one of the topics of the king's speech, for
the session of 1801, the royal negative was at once
interposed, and when Dundas persisted in his attempt to
overcome his master's objections, the king abruptly terminated
the conference, saying, 'Scotch metaphysics cannot destroy
religious obligations.' Pitt immediately tendered his
resignation. ... All that was brilliant in Toryism passed from
the cabinet with the late minister: When Pitt and Canning were
withdrawn, with their satellites, nothing remained of the Tory
party but the mere courtiers who lived upon the favour of the
king, and the insipid lees of the party; men who voted upon
every subject in accordance with their one ruling idea--the
certain ruin, which must follow the first particle of
innovation. Yet from these relicts the king was obliged to
form a new cabinet, for application to the Whigs was out of
the question. These were more strenuous for emancipation than
Pitt. Henry Addington, Pitt's speaker of the house of commons,
was the person upon whom the king's choice fell; and he
succeeded, with the assistance of the late premier, in filling
up the offices at his disposal. ... The peace of Amiens was
the great work of this feeble administration [see FRANCE: A.
D. 1801-1802], and formed a severe commentary upon the
boastings of the Tories. 'Unless the monarchy of France be
restored,' Pitt had said, eight years before, 'the monarchy of
England is lost forever.' Eight years of warfare had succeeded,
yet the monarchy of France was not restored, and the crusade
was stayed. England had surrendered her conquests, France
retained hers; the landmarks of Europe had been in some degree
restored; England, alone, remained burdened with the enduring
consequences of the ruinous and useless strife. The peace was
approved by the Whigs, who were glad of any respite from such
a war, and by Pitt, who gave his support to the Addington
administration. But he could not control his adherents. ... As
the instability of the peace grew manifest, the incompetency
of the administration became generally acknowledged: with Pitt
sometimes chiding, Windham and Canning, and Lords Spencer and
Grenville continually attacking, and Fox and the Whigs only
refraining from violent opposition from a knowledge that if
Addington went out Pitt would be his successor, the conduct of
the government was by no means an easy or a grateful task to a
man destitute of commanding talents. When to these
parliamentary difficulties were added a recommencement of the
war, and a popular panic at Bonaparte's threatened invasion,
Addington's embarrassments became inextricable. He had
performed the business which Pitt had assigned him; he had
made an experimental peace, and had saved Pitt's honour with
the Roman Catholics. The object of his appointment he had
unconsciously completed, and no sooner did his predecessor
manifest an intention of returning to office, than the
ministerial majorities began to diminish, and Addington found
himself without support. On the 12th of April it was announced
that Mr. Addington had resigned, and Pitt appeared to resume
his station as a matter of course. During his temporary
retirement, Pitt had, however, lost one section of his
supporters. The Grenville party and the Whigs had gradually
approximated, and the former now refused to come into the new
arrangements unless Fox was introduced into the cabinet. To
this Pitt offered no objection, but the king was firm--or
obstinate. ... In the following year, Addington himself, now
created Viscount Sidmouth, returned to office with the
subordinate appointment of president of the council. The
conflagration had again spread through Europe. ... Pitt had
the mortification to see his grand continental coalition, the
produce of such immense expense and the object of such hope,
shattered in one campaign. At home, Lord Melville, his most
faithful political supporter, was attacked by a charge from
which he could not defend him, and underwent the impeachment
of the commons for malpractices in his office as treasurer of
the navy. Lord Sidmouth and several others seceded from the
cabinet, and Pitt, broken in health, and dispirited by
reverses, had lost much of his wonted energy. Thus passed away
the year 1805. On the 23d of January, 1806, Pitt expired. ...
The death of Pitt was the dissolution of his administration.
The Tory party was scattered in divisions and subdivisions
innumerable. Canning now recognised no political leader, but
retained his old contempt for Sidmouth and his friends, and
his hostility to the Grenvilles for their breach with Pitt.
Castlereagh, William Dundas, Hawkesbury, or Barham, although
sufficiently effective when Pitt was present to direct and to
defend, would have made a hopeless figure without him in face
of such an opposition as the house of commons now afforded.
{946}
The administration, which was ironically designated by its
opponents as 'All the Talents,' succeeded. Lord Grenville was
first lord of the treasury. Fox chose the office of secretary
for foreign affairs with the hope of putting an end to the
war. Windham was colonial secretary. Earl Spencer had the
seals of the home department. Erskine was lord chancellor. Mr.
Grey was first lord of the admiralty. Sheridan, treasurer of
the navy. Lord Sidmouth was privy seal. Lord Henry Petty, who,
although now only in his 26th year, had already acquired
considerable distinction as an eloquent Whig speaker, was
advanced to the post of chancellor of the exchequer, the
vacant chair of Pitt. Such were the men who now assumed the
reins under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty."
G. W. Cooke,
History of Party,
volume 3, chapters 17-18.
ALSO IN:
Earl Stanhope (Lord Mahon),
Life of Pitt,
chapters 29-44 (volumes 3-4).
A. G. Stapleton,
George Canning and His Times,
chapters 6-8.
Earl Russell,
Life and Times of Charles James Fox,
chapters 58-69 (volume 3).
G. Pellew,
Life and Correspondence of Henry Addington,
1st Viscount Sidmouth,
chapters 10-26 (volumes 1-2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1802 (OCTOBER).
Protest against Bonaparte's interference in Switzerland.
His extraordinary reply.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1803.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1802-1803.
Bonaparte's complaints and demands.
The Peltier trial.
The First Consul's rage.
Declaration of war.
Napoleon's seizure of Hanover.
Cruel detention of all English people in France, Italy,
Switzerland and the Netherlands.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1802-1803.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1804-1809.
Difficulties with the United States.
Questions of neutral rights.
Right of Search and Impressment.
The American Embargo.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809, and 1808.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1805 (JANUARY-APRIL).
Third Coalition against France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (JANUARY-APRIL).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1805.
Napoleon's threatened invasion.
Nelson's long pursuit of the French fleet.
His victory and death at Trafalgar.
The crushing of the Coalition at Austerlitz.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (MARCH-DECEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1806.
Final seizure of Cape Colony from the Dutch.
See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1486-1806.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1806.
Cession of Hanover to Prussia by Napoleon.
War with Prussia.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (JANUARY-AUGUST).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1806.
Attempted reinstatement of the dethroned King of Naples.
The Battle of Maida.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (DECEMBER-SEPTEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1806.
Death of Pitt.
Peace negotiations with Napoleon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (JANUARY-OCTOBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1806-1807.
Expedition against Buenos Ayres.
See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1806-1820.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1806-1810.
Commercial warfare with Napoleon.
Orders in Council.
Berlin and Milan Decrees.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1806-1812.
The ministry of "All the Talents."
Abolition of the Slave Trade.
The Portland and the Perceval ministries.
Confirmed insanity of George III.
Beginning of the regency of the Prince of Wales.
Assassination of Mr. Perceval.
The "Ministry of All the Talents" is "remarkable solely for
its mistakes, and is to be remembered chiefly for the death of
Fox [September 13, 1806] and the abolition of the slave-trade.
Fox was now destined at the close of his career to be
disillusioned with regard to Napoleon. He at last thoroughly
realized the insincerity of his hero. ... The second great
object of Fox's life he succeeded in attaining before his
death;--this was the abolition of the slave-trade. For more
than thirty years the question had been before the country,
and a vigorous agitation had been conducted by Clarkson,
Wilberforce, and Fox. . Pitt was quite at one with them on
this question, and had brought forward motions on the subject.
The House of Lords, however, rejected all measures of this
description during the Revolutionary War, under the influence
of the Anti-Jacobin feeling. It was reserved for Fox to
succeed in carrying a Bill inflicting heavy pecuniary
punishments on the traffic in slaves. And yet this
measure--the sole fruit of Fox's statesmanship--was wholly
inadequate; nor was it till the slave-trade was made felony in
1811 that its final extinction was secured. The remaining acts
of the Ministry were blunders. ... Their financial system was
a failure. They carried on the war so as to alienate their
allies and to cover themselves with humiliation. Finally, they
insisted on bringing forward a measure for the relief of the
Catholics, though there was not the slightest hope of carrying
it, and it could only cause a disruption of the Government.
... The king and the Pittites were determined to oppose it,
and so the Ministry agreed to drop the question under protest.
George insisted on their withdrawing the protest, and as this was
refused he dismissed them. ... This then was the final triumph
of George III. He had successfully dismissed this Ministry; he
had maintained the principle that every Ministry is bound to
withdraw any project displeasing to the king. These principles
were totally inconsistent with Constitutional Government, and
they indirectly precipitated Reform by rendering it absolutely
necessary in order to curb the royal influence. ... The Duke
of Portland's sole claims to form a Ministry were his high
rank, and the length of his previous services. His talents
were never very great, and they were weakened by age and
disease. The real leader was Mr. Perceval, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, a dexterous debater and a patriotic statesman.
This Government, being formed on the closest Tory basis and on
the king's influence, was pledged to pursue a retrograde
policy and to oppose all measures of Reform. The one really
high-minded statesman in the Cabinet was Canning, the Foreign
Minister. His advanced views, however, continually brought him
into collision with Castlereagh, the War Minister, a man of
much inferior talents and the narrowest Tory views. Quarrels
inevitably arose between the two, and there was no real Prime
Minister to hold them strongly under control. ... At last the
ill-feeling ended in a duel, which was followed by a mutual
resignation on the ground that neither could serve with the
other. This was followed by the resignation of Portland, who
felt himself wholly unequal to the arduous task of managing
the Ministry any longer.
{947}
The leadership now devolved on Perceval, who found himself in
an apparently hopeless condition. His only supporters were
Lords Liverpool, Eldon, Palmerston, and Wellesley. Neither
Canning, Castlereagh, nor Sidmouth (Addington) would join him.
The miserable expedition to Walcheren had just ended in
ignominy. The campaign in the Peninsula was regarded as a
chimerical enterprise, got up mainly for the benefit of a Tory
commander. Certainly the most capable man in the Cabinet was
Lord Wellesley, the Foreign Minister, but he was continually
thwarted by the incapable men he had to deal with. However, as
long as he remained at the Foreign Office, he supported the
Peninsular War with vigour, and enabled his brother to carry
out more effectually his plans with regard to the defence of
Portugal. In November, 1810, the king was again seized with
insanity, nor did he ever recover the use of his faculties
during the rest of his life. The Ministry determined to bring
forward Pitt's old Bill of 1788 in a somewhat more modified
form, February, 1811. The Prince of Wales requested Grey and
Grenville to criticize this, but, regarding their reply as
lukewarm, he began to entertain an ill-will for them. At this
moment the judicious flattery of his family brought him over
from the Whigs, and he decided to continue Perceval in office.
Wellesley, however, took the opportunity to resign, and was
succeeded by Castlereagh, February, 1812. In May Perceval was
assassinated by Mr. Bellingham, a lunatic, and his Ministry at
once fell to pieces."
B. C. Skottowe,
Our Hanoverian Kings,
book 10, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
F. H. Hill,
George Canning,
chapters 13-17.
S. Walpole,
Life of Spencer Perceval,
volume 2.
R. I. and S. Wilberforce,
Life of William Wilberforce,
chapter 20 (volume 3).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1807.
Act for the Abolition of the Slave-Trade.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1792-1807.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1807 (FEBRUARY-SEPTEMBER).
Operations in support of the Russians against the Turks and
French.
Bold naval attack on Constantinople and humiliating failure.
Disastrous expedition to Egypt.
See TURKS: A. D. 1806-1807.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1807 (JUNE-JULY).
Alliance formed at Tilsit between Napoleon and Alexander I. of
Russia.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (JUNE-JULY).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1807 (AUGUST-NOVEMBER).
Bombardment of Copenhagen and seizure of the Danish fleet.
War with Russia and Denmark.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1807-1810.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1807 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).
Submission of Portugal to Napoleon under English advice.
Flight of the house of Braganza to Brazil.
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1808 (MAY).
Ineffectual attempt to aid Sweden.
Expedition of Sir John Moore.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1807-1810.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1808 (JULY).
Peace and alliance with the Spanish people against the new
Napoleonic monarchy.
Opening of the Peninsular War.
See SPAIN: A. D.1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1808.
Expulsion of English forces from Capri.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D.1808-1809.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1808-1809.
Wellington's first campaign in the Peninsula.
Convention of Cintra.
Evacuation of Portugal by the French.
Sir John Moore's advance into Spain and his retreat.
His death at Corunna.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (AUGUST-JANUARY).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1809 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
Wellington sent to the Peninsula.
The passage of the Douro and the Battle of Talavera.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1809 (JULY-DECEMBER).
The Walcheren Expedition.
"Three times before, during the war, it had occurred to one or
another, connected with the government, that it would be a
good thing to hold Antwerp, and command the Scheldt, seize the
French ships in the river, and get possession of their
arsenals and dockyards. On each occasion, men of military
science and experience had been consulted; and invariably they
had pronounced against the scheme. Now, however, what Mr. Pitt
had considered impracticable, Lord Castlereagh, with the
rashness of incapacity, resolved should be done: and, in order
not to be hindered, he avoided consulting with those who would
have objected to the enterprise. Though the scene of action
was to be the swamps at the mouths of the Scheldt, he
consulted no physician. Having himself neither naval,
military, nor medical knowledge, he assumed the
responsibility--except such as the King and the Duke of York
chose to share. ... It was May, 1809, before any stir was
apparent which could lead men outside the Cabinet to infer
that an expedition for the Scheldt was in contemplation; but
so early as the beginning of April (it is now known), Mr.
Canning signified that he could not share in the
responsibility of an enterprise which must so involve his own
office. ... The fleet that rode in the channel consisted of 39
ships of the line, and 36 frigates, and a due proportion of
small vessels: in all, 245 vessels of war: and 400 transports
carried 40,000 soldiers. Only one hospital ship was provided
for the whole expedition, though the Surgeon General implored
the grant of two more. He gave his reasons, but was refused.
... The naval commander was Sir Richard J. Strachan, whose
title to the responsibility no one could perceive, while many
who had more experience were unemployed. The military command
was given (as the selection of the present Cabinet bad been)
to Lord Chatham, for no better reason than that he was a
favourite with the King and Queen, who liked his gentle and
courtly manners, and his easy and amiable temper. ... The
fatal mistake was made of not defining the respective
authorities of the two commanders; and both being
inexperienced or apathetic, each relied upon the other first,
and cast the blame of failure upon him afterwards. In the
autumn, an epigram of unknown origin was in every body's
mouth, all over England:
'Lord Chatham, with his sword undrawn,
Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strachan;
Sir Richard, longing to be at 'em,
Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham.'
The fleet set sail on the 28th of July, and was on the coast
of Holland the next day. The first discovery was that there
were not boats enough to land the troops and the ordnance. The
next was that no plan had been formed about how to proceed.
The most experienced officers were for pushing on to Antwerp,
45 miles off, and taking it before it could be prepared for
defence; but the commanders determined to take Flushing first.
They set about it so slowly that a fortnight was consumed in
preparations.
{948}
In two days more, the 15th of August, Flushing was taken.
After this, Lord Chatham paused to consider what he should do
next; and it was the 21st before be began to propose to go on
to Antwerp. Then came the next discovery, that, by this time
two intermediate places had been so strengthened that there
must be some fighting on the way. So he did nothing more but
take possession of two small islands near Flushing. Not
another blow was struck; not another league was traversed by
this magnificent expedition. But the most important discovery
of all now disclosed itself. The army had been brought into
the swamps at the beginning of the sickly season. Fever sprang
up under their feet, and 3,000 men were in hospital in a few
days, just when it became necessary to reduce the rations,
because provisions were falling short. On the 27th of August,
Lord Chatham led a council of war to resolve that 'it was not
advisable to pursue further operations.' But, if they could
not proceed, neither could they remain where they were. The
enemy had more spirit than their invaders. On the 30th and
31st, such a fire was opened from both banks of the river,
that the ships were obliged to retire. Flushing was given up,
and everything else except the island of Walcheren, which it
was fatal to hold at this season. On the 4th of September,
most of the ships were at home again; and Lord Chatham
appeared on the 14th. Eleven thousand men were by that time in
the fever, and he brought home as many as he could. Sir Eyre
Coote, whom he left in command, was dismayed to see all the
rest sinking down in disease at the rate of hundreds in a day.
Though the men had been working in the swamps, up to the waist
in marsh water, and the roofs of their sleeping places had
been carried off by bombardment, so that they slept under a
canopy of autumn fog, it was supposed that a supply of Thames
water to drink would stop the sickness; and a supply of 500
tons per week was transmitted. At last, at the end of October,
a hundred English bricklayers, with tools, bricks, and mortar,
were sent over to mend the roofs; but they immediately dropped
into the hospitals. Then the patients were to be accommodated
in the towns; but to spare the inhabitants, the soldiers were
laid down in damp churches; and their bedding had from the
beginning been insufficient for their need. At last,
government desired the chief officers of the army Medical
Board to repair to Walcheren, and see what was the precise
nature of the fever, and what could be done. The
Surgeon-General and the Physician-General threw the duty upon
each other. Government appointed it to the Physician-General,
Sir Lucas Pepys; but he refused to go. Both officers were
dismissed, and the medical department of the army was
reorganized and greatly improved. The deaths were at this time
from 200 to 300 a week. When Walcheren was evacuated, on the
23rd of December, nearly half the force sent out five months
before were dead or missing; and of those who returned, 35,000
were admitted into the hospitals of England before the next 1st
of June. Twenty millions sterling were spent on this
expedition. It was the purchase money of tens of thousands of
deaths, and of ineffaceable national disgrace."
H. Martineau,
History of England, 1800-1815,
book 2, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 7, chapter 20.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1809 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
Difficulties of Wellington's campaign in the Peninsula.
His retreat into Portugal.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1810.
Capture of the Mauritius.
See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1810-1812.
The War in the Peninsula.
Wellington's Lines of Torres Vedras.
French recoil from them.
English advance into Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1800-1810 (OCTOBER-SEPTEMBER),
and 1810-1812.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1811.
Capture of Java from the Dutch.
See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1811-1812.
Desertion of Napoleon's Continental System by Russia and Sweden.
Reopening of their ports to British commerce.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1812 (JANUARY).
Building of the first passenger Steam-boat.
See STEAM NAVIGATION: THE BEGINNINGS.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-AUGUST).
The Peninsular War.
Wellington's victory at Salamanca and advance to Madrid.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-AUGUST).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1812-1813.
The Liverpool Ministry.
Business depression and bad harvests.
Distress and rioting.
The Luddites.
"Again there was much negotiation, and an attempt to introduce
Lord Wellesley and Mr. Canning to the ministry. Of course they
could not serve with Castlereagh; they were then asked to form
a ministry with Grenville and Grey, but these Lords objected
to the Peninsular War, to which Wellesley was pledged.
Grenville and Grey then attempted a ministry of their own but
quarrelled with Lord Moira on the appointments to the
Household; and as an American war was threatening, and the
ministry had already given up their Orders in Council (one of
the chief causes of their unpopularity), the Regent rather
than remain longer without a ministry, intrusted Lord
Liverpool with the Premiership, with Castlereagh as his
Foreign Secretary, and the old ministry remained in office.
Before the day of triumph of this ministry arrived, while
Napoleon was still at the height of his power, and the success
of Wellington as yet uncertain, England had drifted into war
with America. It is difficult to believe that this useless war
might not have been avoided had the ministers been men of
ability. It arose from the obstinate manner in which the
Government clung to the execution of their retaliatory
measures against France, regardless of the practical injury
they were inflicting upon all neutrals. ... The same motive of
class aggrandizement which detracts from the virtue of the
foreign policy of this ministry underlay the whole
administration of home affairs. There was an incapacity to
look at public affairs from any but a class or aristocratic
point of view. The natural consequence was a constantly
increasing mass of discontent among the lower orders, only
kept in restraint by an overmastering fear felt by all those
higher in rank of the possible revolutionary tendencies of any
attempt at change. Much of the discontent was of course the
inevitable consequence of the circumstances in which England
was placed, and for which the Government was only answerable
in so far as it created those circumstances. At the same time
it is impossible not to blame the complacent manner in which
the misery was ignored and the occasional success of
individual merchants and contractors regarded as evidences of
national prosperity. ...
{949}
A plentiful harvest in 1813, and the opening of many
continental ports, did much to revive both trade and
manufactures; but it was accompanied by a fall in the price of
corn from 171s. to 75s. The consequence was widespread
distress among the agriculturists, which involved the country
banks, so that in the two following years 240 of them stopped
payment. So great a crash could not fail to affect the
manufacturing interest also; apparently, for the instant, the
very restoration of peace brought widespread ruin. ... Before
the end of the year 1811, wages had sunk to 7s. 6d. a week.
The manufacturing operatives were therefore in a state of
absolute misery. Petitions signed by 40,000 or 50,000 men
urged upon Parliament that they were starving; but there was
another class which fared still worse. Machinery had by no
means superseded hand-work. In thousands of hamlets and
cottages handlooms still existed. The work was neither so good
nor so rapid as work done by machinery; even at the best of
times used chiefly as an auxiliary to agriculture, this hand
labour could now scarcely find employment at all. Not
unnaturally, without work and without food, these hand workers
were very ready to believe that it was the machinery which
caused their ruin, and so in fact it was; the change, though
on the whole beneficial, had brought much individual misery.
The people were not wise enough to see this. They rose in
riots in many parts of England, chiefly about Nottingham,
calling themselves Luddites (from the name of a certain idiot
lad who some 30 years before, had broken stocking-frames),
gathered round them many of the disbanded soldiery with whom
the country was thronged, and with a very perfect secret
organization, carried out their object of machine-breaking.
The unexpected thronging of the village at nightfall, a crowd
of men with blackened faces, armed sentinels holding every
approach, silence on all sides, the village inhabitants
cowering behind closed doors, an hour or two's work of
smashing and burning, and the disappearance of the crowd as
rapidly as it had arrived--such were the incidents of the
night riots."
J. F. Bright,
History of England, period 3,
pages 1325-1332.
ALSO IN:
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 7, chapter 30.
Pictorial History of England,
volume 8, chapter 4
(Reign of George III., volume 4).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1812-1815.
War with the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809;
1808; and 1810-1812, to 1815 (JANUARY).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1813 (JUNE).
Joined with the new European Coalition against Napoleon.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (MAY-AUGUST).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1813-1814.
Wellington's victorious and final campaigns
in the Peninsular War.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1813-1816.
War with the Ghorkas of Nepal.
See INDIA: A. D..1805-1816.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1814.
The allies in France and in possession of Paris.
Fall of Napoleon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH),
and (MARCH-APRIL).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1814 (May-June).
Treaty of Paris.
Acquisition of Malta, the Isle of France
and the Cape of Good Hope.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER).
The Treaty of Ghent, terminating war with the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1814-1815.
The Congress of Vienna and its revision of the map of Europe.
See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1815 (MARCH).
The Corn Law.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1815-1828.
[Transcriber's Note:]
INDONESIA: A. D. 1815 (APRIL).
Eruption of Mount Tambora precipitating the "Year without a
Summer" and widespread famine.
"Low temperatures and heavy rains resulted in failed harvests
in Britain and Ireland. ... With the cause of the problems
unknown, hungry people demonstrated in front of grain markets
and bakeries. Later riots, arson, and looting took place in
many European cities. On some occasions, rioters carried flags
reading "Bread or Blood". Though riots were common during
times of hunger, the food riots of 1816 and 1817 were the
highest levels of violence since the French Revolution. It was
the worst famine of 19th-century mainland Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer#Europe
[End Transcriber's Note]
ENGLAND: A. D. 1815 (JUNE).
The Waterloo campaign.
Defeat and final Overthrow of Napoleon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JUNE).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1815 (JULY-AUGUST).
Surrender of Napoleon.
His confinement on the Island of St. Helena.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JUNE-AUGUST).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1815 (JULY-NOVEMBER).
Wellington's army in Paris.
The Second Treaty.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JULY-NOVEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1815 (SEPTEMBER).
The Holy Alliance.
See HOLY ALLIANCE.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1816-1820.
Agitation for Parliamentary Reform.
Hampden Clubs.
Spencean philanthropists.
Trials of William Hone.
The Spa-fields meeting and riot.
March of the Blanketeers.
Massacre of Peterloo.
The Six Acts.
Death of George III.
Accession of George IV.
"From this time the name of Parliamentary Reform became, for
the most part, a name of terror to the Government. ... It
passed away from the patronage of a few aristocratic lovers of
popularity, to be advocated by writers of 'two-penny trash,'
and to be discussed and organized by 'Hampden Clubs' of
hungering philanthropists and unemployed 'weaver-boys.' Samuel
Bamford, who thought it no disgrace to call himself 'a
Radical' ... says, 'at this time (1816) the writings of
William Cobbett suddenly became of great authority; they were
read on nearly every cottage hearth in the manufacturing
districts of South Lancashire, in those of Leicester, Derby,
and Nottingham; also in many of the Scottish manufacturing
towns. Their influence was speedily visible.' Cobbett
advocated Parliamentary Reform as the corrective of whatever
miseries the lower classes suffered. A new order of
politicians was called into action: 'The Sunday-schools of the
preceding thirty years had produced many working men of
sufficient talent to become readers, writers, and speakers in
the village meetings for Parliamentary Reform; some also were
found to possess a rude poetic talent, which rendered their
effusions popular, and bestowed an additional charm on their
assemblages; and by such various means, anxious listeners at
first, and then zealous proselytes, were drawn from the
cottages of quiet nooks and dingles to the weekly readings and
discussions of the Hampden Clubs.' ... In a Report of the
Secret Committee of the House of Commons, presented on the
19th of February, 1817, the Hampden Clubs are described as
'associated professedly for the purpose of Parliamentary
Reform, upon the most extended principle of universal suffrage
and annual parliaments'; but that 'in far the greater number
of them ... nothing short of a Revolution is the object
expected and avowed.' The testimony of Samuel Bamford shows
that, in this early period of their history, the Hampden Clubs
limited their object to the attainment of Parliamentary Reform.
... Bamford, at the beginning of 1817, came to London as a
delegate from the Middleton Club, to attend a great meeting of
delegates to be assembled in London. ...
{950}
The Middleton delegate was introduced, amidst the reeking
tobacco-fog of a low tavern, to the leading members of a
society called the 'Spencean Philanthropists.' They derived
their name from that of a Mr. Spence, a school-master in
Yorkshire, who had conceived a plan for making the nation
happy, by causing all the lands of the country to become the
property of the State, which State should divide all the
produce for the support of the people. ... The Committee of
the Spenceans openly meddled with sundry grave questions
besides that of a community in land; and, amongst other
notable projects, petitioned Parliament to do away with
machinery. Amongst these fanatics some dangerous men had
established themselves, such as Thistlewood, who subsequently
paid the penalty of five years of maniacal plotting." A
meeting held at Spa-fields on the 2d of December, 1816, in the
interest of the Spencean Philanthropists, terminated in a
senseless outbreak of riot, led by a young fanatic named
Watson. The mob plundered some gunsmiths' shops, shot one
gentleman who remonstrated, and set out to seize the Tower;
but was dispersed by a few resolute magistrates and
constables. "It is difficult to imagine a more degraded and
dangerous position than that in which every political writer
was placed during the year 1817. In the first place, he was
subject, by a Secretary of State's warrant, to be imprisoned
upon suspicion, under the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act.
Secondly, he was open to an ex-officio information, under
which he would be compelled to find bail, or be imprisoned.
The power of ex-officio information had been extended so as to
compel bail, by an Act of 1808; but from 1808 to 1811, during
which three years forty such informations were laid, only one
person was held to bail. In 1817 numerous ex-officio
informations were filed, and the almost invariable practice
then was to hold the alleged offender to bail, or, in default,
to commit to prison. Under this Act Mr. Hone and others were
committed to prison during this year. ... The entire course of
these proceedings was a signal failure. There was only one
solitary instance of success--William Cobbett ran away. On the
28th of March he fled to America, suspending the publication
of his 'Register' for four months. On the 12th of May earl
Grey mentioned in the House of Lords that a Mr. Hone was
proceeded against for publishing some blasphemous parody; but
he had read one of the same nature, written, printed, and
published, some years ago, by other people, without any notice
having been officially taken of it. The parody to which earl
Grey alluded, and a portion of which he recited, was Canning's
famous parody, 'Praise Lepaux'; and he asked whether the
authors, be they in the cabinet or in any other place, would
also be found out and visited with the penalties of the law?
This hint to the obscure publisher against whom these
ex-officio informations had been filed for blasphemous and
seditious parodies, was effectually worked out by him in the
solitude of his prison, and in the poor dwelling where he had
surrounded himself, as he had done from his earliest years,
with a collection of odd and curious books. From these he had
gathered an abundance of knowledge that was destined to
perplex the technical acquirements of the Attorney-General, to
whom the sword and buckler of his precedents would be wholly
useless, and to change the determination of the boldest judge
in the land [Lord Ellenborough] to convict at any rate, into
the prostration of helpless despair. Altogether, the three
trials of William Hone are amongst the most remarkable in our
constitutional history. They produced more distinct effects
upon the temper of the country than any public proceedings of
that time. They taught the Government a lesson which has never
been forgotten, and to which, as much as to any other cause,
we owe the prodigious improvement as to the law of libel
itself, and the use of the law, in our own day,--an
improvement which leaves what is dangerous in the press to be
corrected by the remedial power of the press itself; and
which, instead of lamenting over the newly-acquired ability of
the masses to read seditious and irreligious works, depends
upon the general diffusion of this ability as the surest
corrective of the evils that are incident even to the best
gift of heaven,--that of knowledge."
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapter 5.
In 1817 "there was widespread distress. There were riots in
the counties of England arising out of the distress. There
were riots in various parts of London. Secret Committees were
appointed by both Houses of the Legislature to inquire into
the alleged disaffection of part of the people. The Habeas
Corpus Act was suspended. The march of the Blanketeers from
Manchester [March, 1817] caused panic and consternation
through various circles in London. The march of the
Blanketeers was a very simple and harmless project. A large
number of the working-men in Manchester conceived the idea of
walking to London to lay an account of their distress before
the heads of the Government, and to ask that some remedy might
be found, and also to appeal for the granting of Parliamentary
reform. It was part of their arrangement that each man should
carry a blanket with him, as they would, necessarily, have to
sleep at many places along the way, and they were not exactly
in funds to pay for first-class hotel accommodation. The
nickname of Blanketeers was given to them because of their
portable sleeping-arrangements. The whole project was simple,
was touching in its simplicity. Even at this distance of time
one cannot read about it without being moved by its pathetic
childishness. These poor men thought they had nothing to do
but to walk to London, and get to speech of Lord Liverpool,
and justice would be done to them and their claims. The
Government of Lord Liverpool dealt very roundly, and in a very
different way, with the Blanketeers. If the poor men had been
marching on London with pikes, muskets and swords, they could
not have created a greater fury of panic and of passion in
official circles. The Government, availing itself of the
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, had the leaders of the
movement captured and sent to prison, stopped the march by
military force, and dispersed those who were taking part in
it. ... The 'Massacre of Peterloo,' as it is not
inappropriately called, took place not long after. A great
public meeting was held [August 16, 1819] at St. Peter's
Field, then on the outskirts of Manchester, now the site of
the Free Trade Hall, which many years later rang so often to
the thrilling tones of John Bright. The meeting was called to
petition for Parliamentary reform. It should be remembered
that in those days Manchester, Birmingham, and other great
cities were without any manner of representation in
Parliament.
{951}
It was a vast meeting--some 80,000 men and women are stated to
have been present. The yeomanry [a mounted militia force], for
some reason impossible to understand, endeavoured to disperse
the meeting, and actually dashed in upon the crowd, spurring
their horses and flourishing their sabres. Eleven persons were
killed, and several hundreds were wounded. The Government
brought in, as their panacea for popular trouble and
discontent, the famous Six Acts. These Acts were simply
measures to render it more easy for the authorities to put
down or disperse meetings which they considered objectionable,
and to suppress any manner of publication which they chose to
call seditious. But among them were some Bills to prevent
training and drilling, and the collection and use of arms.
These measures show what the panic of the Government was. It
was the conviction of the ruling classes that the poor and the
working-classes of England were preparing a revolution. ...
During all this time, the few genuine Radicals in the House of
Commons were bringing on motion after motion for Parliamentary
reform, just as Grattan and his friends were bringing forward
motion after motion for Catholic Emancipation. In 1818, a
motion by Sir Francis Burdett for annual Parliaments and
universal suffrage was lost by a majority of 106 to nobody.
... The motion had only two supporters--Burdett himself, and
his colleague, Lord Cochrane. ... The forms of the House
require two tellers on either side, and a compliance with this
inevitable rule took up the whole strength of Burdett's party.
... On January 29, 1820, the long reign of George III. came to
an end. The life of the King closed in darkness of eyes and mind.
Stone-blind, stone-deaf, and, except for rare lucid intervals,
wholly out of his senses, the poor old King wandered from room
to room of his palace, a touching picture, with his long,
white, flowing beard, now repeating to himself the awful words
of Milton--the 'dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of
noon--irrecoverably dark'--now, in a happier mood, announcing
himself to be in the companionship of angels. George, the
Prince Regent, succeeded, of course, to the throne; and George
IV. at once announced his willingness to retain the services
of the Ministry of Lord Liverpool. The Whigs had at one time
expected much from the coming of George IV. to the throne, but
their hopes had begun to be chilled of late."
J. McCarthy,
Sir Robert Peel,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
J. Routledge,
Chapters in the History of Popular Progress,
chapters 12-19.
H. Martineau,
History of the Thirty Years' Peace,
book 1, chapters 5-17 (volume 1).
E. Smith,
William Cobbett,
chapters 21-23 (volume 2).
See, also, TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1815-1828.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1818.
Convention with the United States relating to Fisheries, etc.
See FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1814-1818.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1820.
Accession of King George IV.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1820-1822.
Congresses of Troppau, Laybach and Verona.
Projects of the Holy Alliance.
English protests.
Canning's policy towards Spain and the Spanish American
colonies.
See VERONA, THE CONGRESS OF.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1820-1827.
The Cato Street Conspiracy.
Trial of Queen Caroline.
Canning in the Foreign Office.
Commercial Crisis of 1825.
Canning as Premier.
His death.
"Riot and social misery had, during the Regency, heralded the
Reign. They did not cease to afflict the country. At once we
are plunged into the wretched details of a conspiracy. Secret
intelligence reached the Home Office to the effect that a man
named Thistlewood, who had been a year in jail for challenging
Lord Sidmouth, had with several accomplices laid a plot to
murder the Ministers during a Cabinet dinner, which was to
come off at Lord Harrowby's. The guests did not go, and the
police pounced on the gang, arming themselves in a stable in
Cato Street, off the Edgeware Road. Thistlewood blew out the
candle, having first stabbed a policeman to the heart. For
that night he got off; but, being taken next day, he was soon
hanged, with his four leading associates. This is called the
Cato Street Conspiracy. ... George IV., almost as soon as the
crown became his own, began to stir in the matter of getting a
divorce from his wife. He had married this poor Princess
Caroline of Brunswick in 1795, merely for the purpose of
getting his debts paid. Their first interview disappointed
both. After some time of semi-banishment to Blackheath she had
gone abroad to live chiefly in Italy, and had been made the
subject of more than one 'delicate investigation' for the
purpose of procuring evidence of infidelity against her. She
now came to England (June 6, 1820), and passed from Dover to
London through joyous and sympathizing crowds. The King sent a
royal message to the Lords, asking for an inquiry into her
conduct. Lord Liverpool and Lord Castlereagh laid before the
Lords and Commons a green bag, stuffed with indecent and
disgusting accusations against the Queen. Happily for her she
had two champions, whose names shall not readily lose the
lustre gained in her defence--Henry Brougham and Thomas
Denman, her Attorney-General and Solicitor-General. After the
failure of a negotiation, in which the Queen demanded two
things that the Ministers refused--the insertion of her name
in the Liturgy, and a proper reception at some foreign
court--Lord Liverpool brought into the Upper House a 'Bill of
Pains and Penalties,' which aimed at her degradation from the
throne and the dissolution of her marriage. Through the
fever-heat of a scorching summer the case went on, counsel and
witnesses playing their respective parts before the Lords. ...
At length the Bill, carried on its third reading by a majority
of only nine, was abandoned by the Ministry (November 10). And
the country broke out into cheers and flaming windows. Had she
rested content with the vindication of her fair fame, it would
have been better for her own peace. But she went in public
procession to St. Paul's to return thanks for her victory. And
more rashly still in the following year she tried to force her
way into Westminster Abbey during the Coronation of her
husband (July 19, 1821). But mercy came a few days later from
the King of kings. The people, true to her even in death,
insisted that the hearse containing her remains should pass
through the city; and in spite of bullets from the carbines of
dragoons they gained their point, the Lord Mayor heading the
procession till it had cleared the streets. ... George Canning
had resigned his office rather than take any part with the
Liverpool Cabinet in supporting the 'Bill of Pains and
Penalties,' and had gone to the Continent for the summer of
the trial year.
{952}
Early in 1822 Lord Sidmouth ... resigned the Home Office. He
was succeeded by Robert Peel, a statesman destined to achieve
eminence. Canning about the same time was offered the post of
Governor-General of India," and accepted it; but this
arrangement was suddenly changed by the death of Castlereagh,
who committed suicide in August. Canning then became Foreign
Secretary. "The spirit of Canning's foreign policy was
diametrically opposed to that of Londonderry [Castlereagh].
... Refusing to interfere in Spanish affairs, he yet
acknowledged the new-won freedom of the South American States,
which had lately shaken off the Spanish yoke. To preserve peace
and yet cut England loose from the Holy Alliance were the
conflicting aims, which the genius of Canning enabled him to
reconcile [see VERONA, CONGRESS OF]. ... During the years
1824-25, the country, drunk with unusual prosperity, took that
speculation fever which has afflicted her more than once
during the last century and a half. ... A crop of fungus
companies sprang up temptingly from the heated soil of the
Stock Exchange. ... Shares were bought and gambled in. The
winter passed; but spring shone on glutted markets.
depreciated stock, no buyers, and no returns from the shadowy
and distant investments in South America, which had absorbed
so much capital. Then the crashing began--the weak broke
first, the strong next, until banks went down by dozens, and
commerce for the time was paralyzed. By causing the issue of
one and two pound notes, by coining in great haste a new
supply of sovereigns, and by inducing the Bank of England to
lend money upon the security of goods--in fact to begin the
pawnbroking business--the Government met the crisis, allayed
the panic, and to some extent restored commercial credit.
Apoplexy having struck down Lord Liverpool early in 1827, it
became necessary to select a new Premier. Canning was the
chosen man." He formed a Cabinet with difficulty in April,
Wellington, Peel, Eldon, and others of his former colleagues
refusing to take office with him. His administration was
brought abruptly to an end in August by his sudden death.
W. F. Collier,
History of England,
pages 526-529.
ALSO IN:
Lord Brougham,
Life and Times, by Himself,
chapters 12-18 (volume 2).
A. G. Stapleton,
George Canning and His Times,
chapters 18-34.
A. G. Stapleton,
Some Official Correspondence of George Canning,
2 volumes
F. H. Hill,
George Canning,
chapters 19-22.
Sir T. Martin,
Life of Lord Lyndhurst,
chapter 7.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1824-1826.
The first Burmese War.
See INDIA: A. D. 1823-1833.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1825-1830.
The beginning of railroads.
See STEAM LOCOMOTION ON LAND.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1827-1828.
Removal of Disabilities from the Dissenters.
Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.
"Early in 1827 a private member, of little influence,
unexpectedly raised a dormant question. For the best part of a
century the Dissenters had passively submitted to the
anomalous position in which they had been placed by the
Legislature [see above: A. D. 1662-1665; 1672-1673;
1711-1714]. Nominally unable to hold any office under the
Crown, they were annually 'whitewashed' for their infringement
of the law by the passage of an Indemnity Act. The Dissenters
had hitherto been assenting parties to this policy. They
fancied that the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts would
logically lead to the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, and
they preferred remaining under a disability themselves to
running the risk of conceding relief to others. The tacit
understanding, which thus existed between the Church on one
side and Dissent on the other, was maintained unbroken and
almost unchallenged till 1827. It was challenged in that year
by William Smith, the member for Norwich. Smith was a London
banker; he was a Dissenter; and he felt keenly the hard,
unjust, and unnecessary' law which disabled him from holding,
any office, however insignificant, under the Crown,' and from
sitting 'as a magistrate in any corporation without violating
his conscience.' Smith took the opportunity which the annual
Indemnity Act afforded him of stating these views in the House
of Commons. As he spoke the scales fell from the eyes of the
Liberal members. The moment he sat down Harvey, the member for
Colchester, twitted the Opposition with disregarding 'the
substantial claims of the Dissenters,' while those of the
Catholics were urged year after year' with the vehemence of
party,' and supported by 'the mightiest powers of energy and
eloquence.' The taunt called up Lord John Russell, and
elicited from him the declaration that he would bring forward
a motion on the Test and Corporation Acts, 'if the Protestant
Dissenters should think it to their interest that he should do
so.' A year afterwards--on the 26th of February, 1828--Lord
John Russell rose to redeem the promise which he thus gave."
His motion "was carried by 237 votes to 193. The Ministry had
sustained a crushing and unexpected reverse. For the moment it
was doubtful whether it could continue in office. It was saved
from the necessity of resigning by the moderation and
dexterity of Peel. Peel considered that nothing could be more
unfortunate for the Church than to involve the House of
Commons in a conflict with the House of Lords on a religious
question. ... On his advice the Bishops consented to
substitute a formal declaration for the test hitherto in
force. The declaration, which contained a promise that the
maker of it would 'never exert any power or any influence to
injure or subvert the Protestant' Established Church, was to
be taken by the members of every corporation, and, at the
pleasure of the Crown, by the holder of every office. Russell,
though he disliked the declaration, assented to it for the
sake of securing the success of his measure." The bill was
modified accordingly and passed both Houses, though
strenuously resisted by all the Tories of the old school.
S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 10 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
J. Stoughton,
Religion in England from 1800 to 1850,
volume 1, chapter 2.
H. S. Skeats,
History of the Free Churches of England,
chapter 9.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1827-1828.
The administration of Lord Goderich.
Advent of the Wellington Ministry.
"The death of Mr. Canning placed Lord Goderich at the head of
the government. The composition of the Cabinet was slightly
altered. Mr. Huskisson became Colonial Secretary, Mr. Herries
Chancellor of the Exchequer. The government was generally
considered to be weak, and not calculated for a long
endurance. ... The differences upon financial measures between
Mr. Herries ... and Mr. Huskisson ... could not be reconciled
by Lord Goderich, and he therefore tendered his resignation to
the king on the 9th of January, 1828.
{953}
His majesty immediately sent to lord Lyndhurst to desire that
he and the duke of Wellington should come to Windsor. The king
told the duke that he wished him to form a government of which
he should be the head. ... It was understood that lord
Lyndhurst was to continue in office. The duke of Wellington
immediately applied to Mr. Peel, who, returning to his post of
Secretary of State for the Home Department, saw the impossibility
of re-uniting in this administration those who had formed the
Cabinet of lord Liverpool. He desired to strengthen the
government of the duke of Wellington by the introduction of
some of the more important of Mr. Canning's friends into the
Cabinet and to fill some of the lesser offices. The earl of
Dudley, Mr. Huskisson, lord Palmerston, and Mr. Charles Grant,
became members of the new administration. Mr. William Lamb,
afterwards lord Melbourne, was appointed Chief Secretary for
Ireland. The ultra-Tories were greatly indignant at these
arrangements. They groaned and reviled as if the world was
unchanged."
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapter 13.
ALSO IN:
Sir T. Martin,
Life of Lord Lyndhurst,
chapter 9.
W. M. Torrens,
Life of Viscount Melbourne,
volume 1, chapter 15.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1827-1829.
Intervention on behalf of Greece.
Battle of Navarino.
See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1828.
Corn Law amendment.
The Sliding Scale.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1815-1828.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1829.
Catholic Emancipation.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1811-1829.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1830.
The state of the Parliamentary representation before Reform.
Death of George IV.
Accession of William IV.
Fall of the Wellington Ministry.
"Down to the year 1800, when the Union between Great Britain
and Ireland was effected, the House consisted of 558 members;
after 1800, it consisted of 658 members. In the earlier days
of George III., it was elected by 160,000 voters, out of a
population of a little more than eight millions; in the later
days of that monarch, it was elected by about 440,000 voters,
out of a population of twenty-two millions. ... But the
inadequacy of the representation will be even more striking if
we consider the manner in which the electors were broken up
into constituencies. The constituencies consisted either of
counties, or of cities or boroughs. Generally speaking, the
counties of England and Wales (and of Ireland, after the
Union) were represented by two members, and the counties of
Scotland by one member; and the voters were the forty-shilling
freeholders. The number of cities and boroughs which returned
members varied; but, from the date of the Union, there were
about 217 in England and Wales, 14 in Scotland, and 39 in
Ireland,--all the English and Welsh boroughs (with a few
exceptions) returning two members, and the Scotch and Irish
boroughs one member. How the particular places came to be
Parliamentary boroughs is a question of much historic
interest, which cannot be dealt with here in detail.
Originally, the places to which writs were issued seem to have
been chosen by the Crown, or, not unfrequently, by the
Sheriffs of the counties. Probably, in the first instance, the
more important places were selected; though other
considerations, such as the political opinions of the owners
of the soil, and the desire to recognise services (often of a
very questionable character) rendered by such owners to the
King, no doubt had their weight. In the time of Cromwell, some
important changes were made. In 1654, he disfranchised many small
boroughs, increased the number of county members, and
enfranchised Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax. All these reforms
were cancelled after the Restoration; and from that time very
few changes were made. ... In the hundred and fifty years
which followed the Restoration, however, there were changes in
the condition of the country, altogether beyond the control of
either kings or parliaments. Old towns disappeared or decayed,
and new ones sprang up. Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds were
remarkable examples of the latter,--Old Sarum was an example
of the former. ... At one time a place of some importance, it
declined from the springing up of New Sarum (Salisbury); and,
even so far back as the reign of Henry VII., it existed as a
town only in imagination, and in the roll of the Parliamentary
boroughs. ... Many other places might be named [known as Rotten
Boroughs and Pocket Boroughs]--such as Gatton in Surrey, and
Ludgershall in Wiltshire--which represented only their owners.
In fact, the representation of owners, and of owners only, was
a very prominent feature of the electoral system now under
consideration. Thus, the Duke of Norfolk was represented by
eleven members, who sat for places forming a part of his
estates; similarly, Lord Lonsdale was represented by nine
members, Lord Darlington by seven, the Duke of Rutland and
several other peers by six each; and it is stated by one
authority that the Duke of Newcastle, at one time, returned
one third of all the members for the boroughs, while, up to
1780, the members for the county of York--the largest and most
influential of the counties--were always elected in Lord
Rockingham's dining-room. But these are only selected
instances. Many others might be cited. According to a
statement made by the Duke of Richmond in 1780, 6,000 persons
returned a clear majority of the House of Commons. In 1793,
the Society of the Friends of the People asserted, and
declared that they were able to prove, that 84 individuals
returned 157 members; that 70 individuals returned 150
members; and that of the 154 individuals who thus returned 307
members--the majority of the House before the Union with
Ireland--no fewer than 40 were peers. The same Society
asserted in the same year, and declared that they were able to
prove, that 70 members were returned by 35 places, in which
there were scarcely any electors; that 90 members were
returned by 46 places, in which there were fewer than 50
electors; that 37 members were returned by 19 places, with not
more than 100 electors; and that 52 members were returned by
26 places, with not more than 200 electors: all these in
England alone. Even in the towns which had a real claim to
representation, the franchise rested upon no uniform basis.
... In some cases the suffrage was practically household
suffrage; in other cases the suffrage was extremely
restricted. But they all returned their two members equally;
it made no difference whether the voters numbered 3,000 or
only three or four. Such being the state of the
representation, corruption was inevitable. Bribery was
practised to an inconceivable extent. Many of the smaller
boroughs had a fixed price, and it was by no means uncommon to
see a borough advertised for sale in the newspapers. ...
{954}
As an example of cost in contesting a county election, it is
on record that the joint expenses of Lord Milton and Mr.
Lascelles, in contesting the county of York in 1807, were
£200,000. ... It is not to be supposed that a condition of
things which appears to us so intolerable attracted no
attention before what may be called the Reform era. So far
back as 1745, Sir Francis Dashwood (afterwards Lord de
Spencer) moved an amendment to the Address in favour of
Reform; Lord Chatham himself, in 1766 and 1770, spoke of the
borough representation as 'the rotten part of the
constitution,' and likened it to a 'mortified limb'; the Duke
of Richmond of that day, in 1780, introduced a bill into the
House of Lords which would have given manhood suffrage and
annual parliaments; and three times in succession, in 1782,
1783, and 1785, Mr. Pitt proposed resolutions in favour of
Reform. ... After Mr. Pitt had abandoned the cause, Mr.
(afterwards Earl) Grey took up the subject. First, in 1792, he
presented that famous petition from the Society of the Friends
of the People, to which allusion has been already made, and
founded a resolution upon it. He made further efforts in 1793,
1795, and 1797, but was on every occasion defeated by large
majorities. ... From the beginning of the 19th century to the
year 1815--with the exception of a few months after the Peace
of Amiens in 1802--England was at war. During that time Reform
dropped out of notice. ... In 1817, and again in 1818 and
1819, Sir Francis Burdett, who was at that time member for
Westminster and a leading Reformer, brought the question of
Reform before the House of Commons. On each occasion he was
defeated by a tremendous majority. ... The next ten years were
comparatively uneventful, so far as the subject of this
history is concerned. ... Two events made the year 1830
particularly opportune for raising the question of
Parliamentary Reform. The first of these events was the death
of George IV. [June 26],--the second, the deposition of
Charles X. of France. ... For the deposition of
Charles--followed as it was very soon by a successful
insurrection in Belgium--produced an immense impression upon
the Liberals of this country, and upon the people generally.
In a few days or weeks there had been secured in two
continental countries what the people of England had been
asking for in vain for years. ... We must not omit to notice
one other circumstance that favoured the cause of Reform. This
was the popular distress. Distress always favours agitation.
The distress in 1830 was described in the House of Lords at
the time as 'unparalleled in any previous part of our
history.' Probably this was an exaggeration. But there can be
no doubt that the distress was general, and that it was acute.
... By the law as it stood when George IV. died, the demise of
the Crown involved a dissolution of Parliament. The Parliament
which was in existence in 1830 had been elected in 1826. Since
the beginning o£ 1828 the Duke of Wellington had been Prime
Minister, with Mr. (soon after Sir Robert) Peel as Home
Secretary, and Leader of the House of Commons. They decided to
dissolve at once. ... In the Parliament thus dissolved, and
especially in the session just brought to a close, the
question of Reform had held a prominent place. At the very
beginning of the session, in the first week of February, the
Marquis of Blandford (afterwards Duke of Marlborough) moved an
amendment to the Address, in which, though a Tory, he affirmed
the conviction 'that the State is at this moment in the most
imminent danger, and that no effectual measures of salvation
will or can be adopted until the people shall be restored to
their rightful share in the legislation of the country.' ...
He was supported on very different grounds by Mr. O'Connell,
but was defeated by a vote of 96 to 11. A few days later he
introduced a specific plan of Reform--a very Radical plan
indeed--but was again ignominiously defeated; then, on the 23d
of February, Lord John Russell ... asked for leave to bring in
a bill for conferring the franchise upon Leeds, Manchester,
and Birmingham, as the three largest unrepresented towns in
the kingdom, but was defeated by 188 votes to 140; and
finally, on the 28th of May--scarcely two months before the
dissolution--Mr. O'Connell brought in a bill to establish
universal suffrage, vote by ballot, and triennial parliaments,
but found only 13 members to support him in a House of 332.
... Thus, the question of Reform was now before the country,
not merely as a popular but as a Parliamentary question. It is
not too much to say that, when the dissolution occurred, it
occupied all minds. ... The whole of August and a considerable
part of September, therefore, were occupied with the
elections, which were attended by an unparalleled degree of
excite merit. ... When all was over, and the results were
reckoned up, it was found that, of the 28 members who
represented the thirteen greatest cities in England (to say
nothing of Wales, Scotland, or Ireland), only 3 were
Minsterialists. ... Of the 236 men who were returned by
elections, more or less popular, in England, only 79 were
Ministerialists. ... The first Parliament of William IV. met
on the 26th of October, but the session was not really opened
till the 2d of November, when the King came down and delivered
his Speech. ... The occasion was made memorable, however, not
by the King's Speech, but by a speech by the Duke of
Wellington, who was then Prime Minister. ... 'The noble Earl
[Grey],' said the Duke, 'has alluded to something in the shape
of a Parliamentary Reform, but he has been candid enough to
acknowledge that he is not prepared with any measure of
Reform; and I have as little scruple to say that his Majesty's
Government is as totally unprepared as the noble lord. Nay, on
my own part, I will go further, and say, that I have never
read or heard of any measure, up to the present moment, which
could in any degree satisfy my mind that the state of the
representation could be improved, or be rendered more
satisfactory to the country at large than at the present
moment. ... I am not only not prepared to bring forward any
measure of this nature, but I will at once declare that, as
far as I am concerned, as long as I hold any station in the
government of the country, I shall always feel it my duty to
resist such measures when proposed by others.' Exactly
fourteen days after the delivery of this speech, the Duke's
career' as Prime Minister came for the time to a close. On the
16th of November he came down to Westminster, and announced
that he had resigned office. In the meantime, there had been
something like a panic in the city, because Ministers,
apprehending disturbance, had advised the King and Queen to
abandon an engagement to dine, on the 9th, with the Lord Mayor
at the Guildhall.
{955}
On the 15th, too, the Government had sustained a defeat in the
House of Commons, on a motion proposed by Sir Henry Parnell on
the part of the Opposition, having reference to the civil
list. This defeat was made the pretext for resignation. But it
was only a pretext. After the Duke's declaration in regard to
Reform, and in view of his daily increasing unpopularity, his
continuance in office was impossible."
W. Heaton,
The Three Reforms of Parliament,
chapters 1-2.
ALSO IN:
A. Paul,
History of Reform,
chapters 1-6.
W. Bagehot,
Essays on Parliamentary Reform,
essay 2.
H. Cox,
Antient Parliamentary Elections.
S. Walpole,
The Electorate and the Legislature,
chapter 4.
E. A. Freeman,
Decayed Boroughs
(Historical Essays, 4th series).
England: A. D. 1830-1832.
The great Reform of Representation in Parliament, under the
Ministry of Earl Grey.
"Earl Grey was the new Minister; and Mr. Brougham his Lord
Chancellor. The first announcement of the premier was that the
government would 'take into immediate consideration the state
of the representation, with a view to the correction of those
defects which have been occasioned in it, by the operation of
time; and with a view to the reestablishment of that
confidence upon the part of the people, which he was afraid
Parliament did not at present enjoy, to the full extent that
is essential for the welfare and safety of the country, and
the preservation of the government.' The government were now
pledged to a measure of parliamentary reform; and during the
Christmas recess were occupied in preparing it. Meanwhile, the
cause was eagerly supported by the people. ... So great were
the difficulties with which the government had to contend,
that they needed all the encouragement that the people could
give. They had to encounter the reluctance of the king,--the
interests of the proprietors of boroughs, which Mr. Pitt,
unable to overcome, had sought to purchase,--the opposition of
two thirds of the House of Lords; and perhaps of a majority of
the House of Commons,--and above all, the strong Tory spirit
of the country. ... On the 3d February, when Parliament
reassembled, Lord Grey announced that the government had
succeeded in framing 'a measure which would be effective,
without exceeding the bounds of a just and well-advised
moderation,' and which 'had received the unanimous consent of
the whole government.' ... On the 1st March, this measure was
brought forward in the House of Commons by Lord John Russell,
to whom,--though not in the cabinet,--this honorable duty had
been justly confided. ... On the 22d March, the second reading
of the bill was carried by a majority of one only, in a House
of 608,--probably the greatest number which, up to that time,
had ever been assembled at a division. On the 19th of April,
on going into committee, ministers found themselves in a
minority of eight, on a resolution proposed by General
Gascoyne, that the number of members returned for England
ought not to be diminished. On the 21st, ministers announced
that it was not their intention to proceed with the bill. On
that same night, they were again defeated on a question of
adjournment, by a majority of twenty-two. This last vote was
decisive. The very next day, Parliament was prorogued by the
king in person, 'with a view to its immediate dissolution.' It
was one of the most critical days in the history of our
country. ... The people were now to decide the question;--and
they decided it. A triumphant body of reformers was returned,
pledged to carry the reform bill; and on the 6th July, the
second reading of the renewed measure was agreed to, by a
majority of 136. The most tedious and irritating discussions
ensued in committee,--night after night; and the bill was not
disposed of until the 21st September, when it was passed by a
majority of 109. That the peers were still adverse to the bill
was certain; but whether, at such a crisis, they would venture to
oppose the national will, was doubtful. On the 7th October,
after a debate of five nights,--one of the most memorable by
which that House has ever been distinguished, and itself a
great event in history,--the bill was rejected on the second
reading, by a majority of forty-one. The battle was to be
fought again. Ministers were too far pledged to the people to
think of resigning; and on the motion of Lord Ebrington, they
were immediately supported by a vote of confidence from the
House of Commons. On the 20th October, Parliament was
prorogued; and after a short interval of excitement,
turbulence, and danger [see BRISTOL: A. D. 1831], met again on
the 6th December. A third reform bill was immediately brought
in,--changed in many respects,--and much improved by reason of
the recent census, and other statistical investigations.
Amongst other changes, the total number of members was no
longer proposed to be reduced. This bill was read a second
time on Sunday morning, the 18th of December, by a majority of
162. On the 23d March, it was passed by the House of Commons,
and once more was before the House of Lords. Here the peril of
again rejecting it could not be concealed,--the courage of some
was shaken,--the patriotism of others aroused; and after a
debate of four nights, the second reading was affirmed by the
narrow majority of nine. But danger still awaited it. The
peers who would no longer venture to reject such a bill, were
preparing to change its essential character by amendments.
Meanwhile the agitation of the people was becoming dangerous.
... The time had come, when either the Lords must be coerced;
or the ministers must resign. This alternative was submitted
to the king. He refused to create peers: the ministers
resigned, and their resignation was accepted. Again the
Commons came to the rescue of the bill and the reform
ministry. On the motion of Lord Ebrington, an address was
immediately voted by them, renewing their expressions of
unaltered confidence in the late ministers, and imploring his
Majesty 'to call to his councils such persons only as will
carry into effect, unimpaired in all its essential provisions,
that bill for reforming the representation of the people,
which has recently passed this House.' ... The public
excitement was greater than ever; and the government and the
people were in imminent danger of a bloody collision, when
Earl Grey was recalled to the councils of his sovereign. The
bill was now secure. The peers averted the threatened addition
to their numbers by abstaining from further opposition; and
the bill,--the Great Charter of 1832,--at length received the
Royal Assent. It is now time to advert to the provisions of
this famous statute; and to inquire how far it corrected the
faults of a system, which had been complained of for more than
half a century.
{956}
The main evil had been the number of nomination, or rotten
boroughs enjoying the franchise. Fifty-six of these,--having
less than 2,000 inhabitants, and returning 111 members,--were
swept away. Thirty boroughs, having less than 4,000
inhabitants, lost each a member. Weymouth and Melcombe Regis
lost two. This disfranchisement extended to 143 members. The
next evil had been, that large populations were unrepresented;
and this was now redressed. Twenty-two large towns, including
metropolitan districts, received the privilege of returning
two members; and 20 more of returning one. The large county
populations were also regarded in the distribution of
seats,--the number of county members being increased from 94
to 159. The larger counties were divided; and the number of
members adjusted with reference to the importance of the
constituencies. Another evil was the restricted and unequal
franchise. This too was corrected. All narrow rights of
election were set aside in Boroughs; and a £10 household
franchise was established. The freemen of corporate towns were
the only class of electors whose rights were reserved; but
residence within the borough was attached as a condition to
their right of voting. ... The county constituency was
enlarged by the addition of copyholders and leaseholders, for
terms of years, and of tenants-at-will paying a rent of £50 a
year. ... The defects of the Scotch representation, being even
more flagrant and indefensible than those of England, were not
likely to be omitted from Lord Grey's general scheme of
reform. ... The entire representation was remodelled.
Forty-five members had been assigned to Scotland at the Union:
this number was now increased to 53 of whom 30 were allotted
to counties, and 23 to cities and burghs. The county franchise
was extended to all owners of property of £10 a year, and to
certain classes of leaseholders; and the burgh franchise to
all £10 householders. The representation of Ireland had many
of the defects of the English system. ... The right of
election was taken away from the corporations, and vested in
£10 householders; and large additions were made to the county
constituency. The number of members in Ireland, which the Act
of Union had settled at 100, was now increased to 105."
T. E. May,
Constitutional History of England, 1760-1860,
chapter 6 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
W. N. Molesworth,
History of the Reform Bill of 1832.
W. Jones,
Biographical Sketches of the Reform Ministers.
Lord Brougham, Life and Times, by Himself,
chapters 21-22.
S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 11 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1831.
First assumption of the name Conservatives by the Tories.
See CONSERVATIVE PARTY.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1831-1832.
Intervention in the Netherlands.
Creation of the kingdom of Belgium.
War with Holland.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1830-1832.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1832-1833.
Abolition of Slavery in the West Indies.
Trade monopoly of the East India Company withdrawn.
Factory Bill.
Irish tithes.
"The period which succeeded the passing of the Reform Bill was
one of immense activity and earnestness in legislation. ...
The first great reform was the complete abolition of the
system of slavery in the British colonies. The slave trade had
itself been suppressed so far as we could suppress it long
before that time, but now the whole system of West Indian
slavery was brought to an end [see SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D.
1834-1838]. ... A long agitation of the small but energetic
anti-slavery party brought about this practical result in
1833. ... Granville Sharpe, Zachary Macaulay, father of the
historian and statesman, Thomas Fowell Buxton, Wilberforce,
Brougham, and many others, had for a long time been striving
hard to rouse up public opinion to the abolition of the slave
system." The bill which passed Parliament gave immediate
freedom to all children subsequently born, and to all those
who were then under six years of age; while it determined for
all other slaves a period of apprenticeship, lasting five
years in one class and seven years in another, after which
they attained absolute freedom. It appropriated £20,000,000
for the compensation of the slave-owners. "Another reform of
no small importance was accomplished when the charter of the
East India Company came to be renewed in 1833. The clause
giving them a commercial monopoly of the trade of the East was
abolished, and the trade thrown open to the merchants of the
world [see INDIA: A. D. 1823-1833]. There were other slaves in
those days as well as the negro. There were slaves at home,
slaves to all intents and purposes, who were condemned to a
servitude as rigorous as that of the negro, and who, as far as
personal treatment went, suffered more severely than negroes in
the better class plantations. We speak now of the workers in
the great mines and factories. No law up to this time
regulated with anything like reasonable stringency the hours
of labour in factories. ... A commission was appointed to
investigate the condition of those who worked in the
factories. Lord Ashley, since everywhere known as the Earl of
Shaftesbury, ... brought forward the motion which ended in the
appointment of the commission. The commission quickly brought
together an immense amount of evidence to show the terrible
effect, moral and physical, of the over-working of women and
children, and an agitation set in for the purpose of limiting
by law the duration of the hours of labour. ... The principle
of legislative interference to protect children working in
factories was established by an Act passed in 1833, limiting
the work of children to eight hours a day, and that of young
persons under eighteen to 69 hours a week [see FACTORY
LEGISLATION]. The agitation then set on foot and led by Lord
Ashley was engaged for years after in endeavouring to give
that principle a more extended application. ... Irish tithes
were one of the grievances which came under the energetic
action of this period of reform. The people of Ireland
complained with justice of having to pay tithes for the
maintenance of the church establishment in which they did not
believe, and under whose roofs they never bent in worship." In
1832, committees of both Houses of Parliament reported in
favor of the extinction of tithes; but the Government
undertook temporarily a scheme whereby it made advances to the
Irish clergy and assumed the collection of tithes among its
own functions. It only succeeded in making matters worse, and
several years passed before the adoption (in 1838) of a bill
which "converted the tithe composition into a rent charge."
J. McCarthy,
The Epoch of Reform,
chapters 7-8.
ALSO IN: C. Knight, Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapter 17.
H. Martineau,
History of the Thirty Years' Peace,
book 4, chapters 6-9 (volumes 2-3).
{957}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1833-1840.
Turko-Egyptian question and its settlement.
The capture of Acre.
Bombardment of Alexandria.
See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1833-1845.
The Oxford or Tractarian Movement.
See OXFORD OR TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1834-1837.
Resignation of Lord Grey and the Reform Ministry.
The first Melbourne Administration.
Peel's first Ministry and Melbourne's second.
Death of William IV.
Accession of Queen Victoria.
"On May 27th, Mr. Ward, member of St. Albans, brought forward
... resolutions, that the Protestant Episcopal Church of
Ireland much exceeded the spiritual wants of the Protestant
population; that it was the right of the State, and of
Parliament, to distribute church property, and that the
temporal possessions of the Irish church ought to be reduced.
The ministers determined to adopt a middle course and appoint
a commission of inquiry; they hoped thereby to induce Mr. Ward
to withdraw his motion, because the question was already in
government hands. While the negotiations were going on, news
was received of the resignation of four of the most
conservative members of the Cabinet, who regarded any
interference with church property with abhorrence; they were
Mr. Stanley, Sir James Graham, the Duke of Richmond, and the
Earl of Ripon. ... Owing to the difference of opinion in the
Cabinet on the Irish coercion bill, on July 9, 1834, Earl Grey
placed his resignation as Prime Minister in the hands of the
king. On the 10th the House of Commons adjourned for four
days. On the 14th, Viscount Melbourne stated in the House of
Lords that his Majesty had honored him with his commands for
the formation of a ministry. He had undertaken the task, but
it was not yet completed. There was very little change in the
Cabinet; Lord Melbourne's place in the Home Department was
filled by Lord Duncannon; Sir John Cam Hobhouse obtained a
seat as First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, and Lord
Carlisle surrendered the Privy Seal to Lord Mulgrave. The
Irish Church Bill was again brought forward, and although it
passed the Commons, was defeated in the Lords, August 1st. The
king much disliked the church policy of the Whigs, and dreaded
reform. He was eager to prevent the meeting of the House, and
circumstances favored him. Before the session Lord Spencer
died, and Lord Althorpe, his son, was thus removed to the
upper House. There was no reason why this should have broken
up the ministry, but the king seized the opportunity, sent for
Lord Melbourne, asserted that the ministry depended chiefly on
the personal influence of Lord Althorpe in the Commons,
declared that, deprived of it as it now was, the government
could not go on, and dismissed his ministers, instructing
Melbourne at once to send for the Duke of Wellington. The
sensation in London was great; the dismissal of the ministry
was considered unconstitutional; the act of the king was
wholly without precedent. ... The Duke of Wellington, from
November 15th to December 9th, was the First Lord of the
Treasury, and the sole Secretary of State, having only one
colleague, Lord Lyndhurst, who held the great seal, while at
the same time he sat as Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer.
This temporary government was called a dictatorship. ... On
Sir Robert Peel's return from Italy, whence he had been
called, he waited upon the king and accepted the office of
First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
With the king's permission, he applied to Lord Stanley and Sir
James Graham, entreating them to give him the benefit of their
co-operation as colleagues in the Cabinet. They both declined.
Prevented from forming a moderate Conservative ministry, he
was reduced to fill his places with men of more pronounced
opinions, which promised ill for any advance in reform. ...
The Foreign, Home, War, and Colonial offices were filled by
Wellington, Goulburn, Herries, and Aberdeen; Lord Lyndhurst
was Lord Chancellor; Harding, Secretary for Ireland; and Lord
Wharncliffe, Privy Seal. With this ministry Peel had to meet a
hostile House of Commons. ... The Prime Minister therefore
thought it necessary to dissolve Parliament, and took the
opportunity [in what was called 'the Tamworth manifesto'] of
declaring his policy. He declared his acceptance of the Reform
Bill as a final settlement of the question. ... The elections,
though they returned a House, as is generally the case, more
favorable to the existing government than that which had been
dissolved, still gave a considerable majority to the Liberals.
... Lord John Russell, on April 7th, proposed the resolution,
'That it is the opinion of this House that no measure upon the
subject of the tithes in Ireland can lead to satisfactory and
final adjustment which does not embody the temporalities of
the Church in Ireland.' This was adopted by a majority of 27,
and that majority was fatal to the ministry. On the following
day the Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, stated that
in consequence of the resolution in the House of Commons, the
ministry had tendered their resignation. Sir Robert made a
similar explanation in the Commons. Ten days later, Viscount
Melbourne, in moving the adjournment of the House of Lords,
stated that the king had been pleased to appoint him First
Lord of the Treasury. ... On June 9, 1837, a bulletin issued
from Windsor Castle informing a loyal and really affectionate
people that the king was ill. From the 12th they were
regularly issued until the 19th, when the malady, inflammation
of the lungs, had greatly increased. ... On Tuesday, June 20th,
the last of these official documents was issued. His Majesty
had expired that morning at 2 o'clock. William died in the
seventy-second year of his age and seventh year of his reign,
leaving no legitimate issue. He was succeeded by his niece,
Alexandrina Victoria."
A. H. McCalman,
Abridged History of England,
pages 565-570.
ALSO IN:
W. C. Taylor,
Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 2, chapters 10-12.
W. M. Torrens,
Memoirs of Viscount Melbourne,
volume 2, chapters 1-8.
J. W. Croker,
Correspondence and Diaries,
chapters 18-20 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1836-1839.
Beginning of the Anti-Corn-Law Agitation.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1836-1839.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1837.
Separation of Hanover.
See HANOVER: A. D. 1837.
{958}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1837-1839.
Opening of the reign of Queen Victoria.
End of personal rule.
Beginning of purely constitutional government.
Peel and the Bedchamber Question.
"The Duke of Wellington thought the accession of a woman to
the sovereign's place would be fatal to the present hopes of
the Tories [who were then expecting a turn of events in their
favor, as against the Whig administration of Lord Melbourne].
'Peel,' he said, 'has no manners, and I have no small talk.'
He seemed to take it for granted that the new sovereign would
choose her Ministers as a school-girl chooses her companions.
He did not know, did not foresee, that with the accession of
Queen Victoria the real reign of constitutional government in
these islands was to begin. The late King had advanced
somewhat on the ways of his predecessors, but his rule was
still, to all intents and purposes, a personal rule. With the
accession of Victoria the system of personal rule came to an
end. The elections which at that time were necessary on the
coming of a new sovereign went slightly in favour of the
Tories. The Whigs had many troubles. They were not reformers
enough for the great body of their supporters. ... The
Radicals had split off from them. They could not manage
O'Connell. The Chartist fire was already burning. There was
many a serious crisis in foreign policy--in China and in
Egypt, for example. The Canadian Rebellion and the mission of
Lord Durham involved the Whigs in fresh anxieties, and laid
them open to new attacks from their enemies. On the top of all
came some disturbances, of a legislative rather than an
insurrectionary kind, in Jamaica, and the Government felt
called upon to bring in a Bill to suspend for five years the
Constitution of the island. A Liberal and reforming Ministry
bringing in a Bill to suspend a Constitution is in a highly
awkward and dangerous position. Peel saw his opportunity, and
opposed the Bill. The Government won by a majority of only 5.
Lord Melbourne accepted the situation, and resigned [May 7,
1839]. The Queen sent for the Duke of Wellington, and he, of
course, advised her to send for Peel. When Peel came, the
young Queen told him with all the frankness of a girl that she
was sorry to part with her late Ministers, and that she did
not disapprove of their conduct, but that she felt bound to
act in accordance with constitutional usages; Peel accepted
the task of forming an Administration. And then came the
famous dispute known as the 'Bedchamber Question'--the
'question de jupons.' The Queen wished to retain her
ladies-in-waiting; Peel insisted that there must be some
change. Two of these ladies were closely related to Whig
statesmen whose policy was diametrically opposed to that of
Peel on no less important a question than the Government of
Ireland. Peel insisted that he could not undertake to govern
under such conditions. The Queen, acting on the advice of her
late Ministers, would not give way. The whole dispute created
immense excitement at the time. There was a good deal of
misunderstanding on both sides. It was quietly settled, soon
after, by a compromise which the late Prince Consort
suggested, and which admitted that Peel had been in the right.
... Its importance to us now is that, as Peel would not give
way, the Whigs had to come back again, and they came back
discredited and damaged, having, as Mr. Molesworth puts it,
got back 'behind the petticoats of the ladies-in-waiting.'"
J. McCarthy,
Sir Robert Peel,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 2, chapter 1.
H. Dunckley,
Lord Melbourne,
chapter 11.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1837.
The Victorian Age in Literature.
"It may perhaps be assumed without any undue amount of
speculative venturesomeness that the age of Queen Victoria
will stand out in history as the period of a literature as
distinct from others as the age of Elizabeth or Anne, although
not perhaps equal in greatness to the latter, and far indeed
below the former. At the opening of Queen Victoria's reign a
great race of literary men had come to a close. It is curious
to note how sharply and completely the literature of Victoria
separates itself from that of the era whose heroes were Scott,
Byron, and Wordsworth: Before Queen Victoria came to the
throne, Scott, Byron, Coleridge, and Keats were dead.
Wordsworth lived, indeed, for many years after; so did Southey
and Moore; and Savage Landor died much later still. But
Wordsworth, Southey, Moore, and Landor had completed their
literary work before Victoria came to the throne. Not one of
them added a cubit or an inch to his intellectual stature from
that time; some of them even did work which distinctly proved
that their day was done. A new and fresh breath was soon after
breathed into literature. Nothing, perhaps, is more remarkable
about the better literature of the age of Queen Victoria than
its complete severance from the leadership of that which had
gone before it, and its evidence of a fresh and genuine
inspiration. It is a somewhat curious fact, too, very
convenient for the purposes of this history, that the
literature of Queen Victoria's time thus far divides itself
clearly enough into two parts. The poets, novelists, and
historians who were making their fame with the beginning of
the reign had done all their best work and made their mark
before these later years, and were followed by a new and
different school, drawing inspiration from wholly different
sources, and challenging comparison as antagonists rather than
disciples. We speak now only of literature. In science the
most remarkable developments were reserved for the later years
of the reign."
J. McCarthy,
The Literature of the Victorian Reign
(Appletons' Journal, January, 1879, page 498).
"The age of Queen Victoria is as justly entitled to give name
to a literary epoch as any of those periods on which this
distinction has been conferred by posterity. A new tone of
thought and a new colour of style are discernible from about
the date of the Queen's accession, and, even should these
characteristics continue for generations without apparent
break, it will be remembered that the Elizabethan age did not
terminate with Elizabeth. In one important respect, however,
it differs from most of those epochs which derive their
appellation from a sovereign. The names of Augustus, Lorenzo,
Louis XIV., Anne, are associated with a literary advance, a
claim to have bequeathed models for imitation to succeeding
ages. This claim is not preferred on behalf of the age of
Victoria. It represents the fusion of two currents which had
alternately prevailed in successive periods. Delight and
Utility met, Truth and Imagination kissed each other.
Practical reform awoke the enthusiasm of genius, and genius
put poetry to new use, or made a new path for itself in prose.
The result has been much gain, some loss, and an originality
of aspect which would alone render our Queen's reign
intellectually memorable.
{959}
Looking back to the 18th century in England, we see the spirit
of utility entirely in the ascendant. Intellectual power is as
great as ever, immortal books are written as of old, but there
is a general incapacity not only for the production, but for
the comprehension of works of the imagination. Minds as robust
as Johnson's, as acute as Hume's, display neither strength nor
intelligence in their criticism of the Elizabethan writers,
and their professed regard for even the masterpieces of
antiquity is evidently in the main conventional. Conversely,
when the spell is broken and the capacity for imaginative
composition returns, the half-century immediately preceding
her Majesty's accession does not, outside the domain of the
ideal, produce a single work of the first class. Hallam, the
elder Mill, and others compose, indeed, books of great value,
but not great books. In poetry and romantic fiction, on the
other hand, the genius of that age reaches a height unattained
since Milton, and probably not destined to be rivalled for
many generations. In the age of Victoria we witness the fusion
of its predecessors."
R. Garnett,
Literature (The Reign of Queen Victoria,
edited by T. H. Ward, volume 2, pages 445-446).
"The most conspicuous of the substantial distinctions between
the literature of the present day and that of the first
quarter or third of the century may be described as consisting
in the different relative positions at the two dates of Prose
and Verse. In the Georgian era verse was in the ascendant; in
the Victorian era the supremacy has passed to prose. It is not
easy for anyone who has grown up in the latter to estimate
aright the universal excitement which used to be produced in
the former by a new poem of Scott's, or Byron's, or Moore's,
or Campbell's, or Crabbe's, or the equally fervid interest
that was taken throughout a more limited circle in one by
Wordsworth, or Southey, or Shelley. There may have been a
power in the spirit of poetry which that of prose would in
vain aspire to. Probably all the verse ages would be found to
have been of higher glow than the prose ones. The age in
question, at any rate, will hardly be denied by anyone who
remembers it to have been in these centuries, perhaps from the
mightier character of the events and circumstances in the
midst of which we were then placed, an age in which the
national heart beat more strongly than it does at present in
regard to other things as well as this. Its reception of the
great poems that succeeded one another so rapidly from the
first appearance of Scott till the death of Byron was like its
reception of the succession of great victories that, ever
thickening, and almost unbroken by a single defeat, filled up
the greater part of the ten years from Trafalgar to
Waterloo--from the last fight of Nelson to the last of
Wellington. No such huzzas, making the welkin ring with the
one voice of a whole people, and ascending alike from every
city and town and humblest village in the land, have been
heard since then. ... Of course, there was plenty of prose
also written throughout the verse era; but no book in prose
that was then produced greatly excited the public mind, or
drew any considerable amount of attention, till the Waverley
novels began to appear; and even that remarkable series of
works did not succeed in at once reducing poetry to the second
place, however chief a share it may have had in hastening that
result. Of the other prose writing that then went on what was
most effective was that of the periodical press,--of the
Edinburgh Review and Cobbett's Register, and, at a later date,
of Blackwood's Magazine and the London Magazine (the latter
with Charles Lamb and De Quincey among its
contributors),--much of it owing more or less of its power to
its vehement political partisanship. A descent from poetry to
prose is the most familiar of all phenomena in the history of
literature. Call it natural decay or degeneracy, or only a
relaxation which the spirit of a people requires after having
been for a certain time on the wing or on the stretch, it is
what a period of more than ordinary poetical productiveness
always ends in."
G. L. Craik,
Compendious History of English Literature,
volume 2, pages 553-555.
"What ... are the specific channels of Victorian utterance in
verse? To define them is difficult, because they are so subtly
varied and so inextricably interwoven. Yet I think they may be
superficially described as the idyll and the lyric. Under the
idyll I should class all narrative and descriptive poetry, of
which this age has been extraordinarily prolific; sometimes
assuming the form of minstrelsy, as in the lays of Scott;
sometimes approaching to the classic style, as in the
Hellenics of Landor; sometimes rivalling the novellette, as in
the work of Tennyson; sometimes aiming at psychological
analysis, as in the portraits drawn by Robert Browning;
sometimes confining art to bare history, as in Crabbe;
sometimes indulging flights of pure artistic fancy, as in
Keats' "Endymion" and "Lamia." Under its many metamorphoses
the narrative and descriptive poetry of our century bears the
stamp of the idyll, because it is fragmentary and because it
results in a picture. ... No literature and no age has been
more fertile of lyric poetry than English literature in the
age of Victoria. The fact is apparent. I should superfluously
burden my readers if I were to prove the point by reference to
Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Rossetti,
Clough, Swinburne, Arnold, Tennyson, and I do not know how
many of less illustrious but splendid names, in detail. The
causes are not far to seek. Without a comprehensive vehicle
like the epic, which belongs to the first period of national
life, or the drama, which belongs to its secondary period, our
poets of a later day have had to sing from their inner selves,
subjectively, introspectively, obeying impulses from nature
and the world, which touched them not as they were Englishmen,
but as they were this man or that woman. ... When they sang,
they sang with their particular voice; and the lyric is the
natural channel for such song. But what a complex thing is
this Victorian lyric! It includes Wordsworth's sonnets and
Rossetti's ballads, Coleridge's' Ancient Mariner' and Keats'
odes, Clough's 'Easter day' and Tennyson's 'Maud,' Swinburne's
'Songs before Sunrise' and Browning's 'Dramatis Personæ,'
Thomson's 'City of Dreadful Night' and Mary Robinson's
'Handful of Honeysuckles,' Andrew Lang's Ballades and Sharp's
'Weird of Michael Scot,' Dobson's dealings with the eighteenth
century and Noel's 'Child's Garland,' Barnes's Dorsetshire
Poems and Buchanan's London Lyrics, the songs from Empedocles
on Etna and Ebenezer Jones's 'Pagan's Drinking Chant,'
Shelley's Ode to the West Wind and Mrs. Browning's 'Pan is
Dead,' Newman's hymns and Gosse's Chant Royal.
{960}
The kaleidoscope presented by this lyric is so inexhaustible
that any man with the fragment of a memory might pair off
scores of poems by admired authors, and yet not fall upon the
same parallels as those which I have made. The genius of our
century, debarred from epic, debarred from drama, falls back
upon idyllic and lyrical expression. In the idyll it satisfies
its objective craving after art. In the lyric it pours forth
personality. It would be wrong, however, to limit the wealth
of our poetry to these two branches. Such poems as
Wordsworth's 'Excursion,' Byron's 'Don Juan' and 'Childe
Harold,' Mrs. Browning's 'Aurora Leigh,' William Morris's
'Earthly Paradise,' Clough's 'Amours de Voyage,' are not to be
classified in either species. They are partly
autobiographical, and in part the influence of the tale makes
itself distinctly felt in them. Nor again can we omit the
translations, of which so many have been made; some of them
real masterpieces and additions to our literature."
J. A. Symonds,
A Comparison of Elizabethan with Victorian Poetry
(Fortnightly Review, January 1, 1889,
pages 62-64).
The difference between the drama and the novel "is one of
perspective; and it is this which in a wide sense
distinguishes the Elizabethan and the Victorian views of life,
and thence of art. ... It is ... the present aim of art to
throw on life all manner of side-lights, such as the stage can
hardly contrive, but which the novel professes to manage for
those who can read. The round unvarnished tale of the early
novelists has been dead for over a century, and in its place
we have fiction that seeks to be as complete as life itself.
... There is, then, in each of these periods an excellence and
a relative defect: in the Elizabethan, roundness and balance,
but, to us, a want of fulness; in the Victorian, amplified
knowledge, but a falling short of comprehensiveness. And
adapted to each respectively, the drama and the novel are its
most expressive literary form. The limitations and scope of
the drama are those of its time, and so of the novel. Even as
the Elizabethan lived with all his might and was not troubled
about many things, his art was intense and round, but
restricted; and as the Victorian commonly views life by the
light of a patent reading-lamp, and so, sitting apart, sees
much to perplex, the novel gives a more complex treatment of
life, with rarer success in harmony. This rareness is not,
however, due to the novel itself, but to the minds of its
makers. In possibility it is indeed the greater of the two,
being more epical; for it is as capable of grandeur, and is
ampler. This largeness in Victorian life and art argues in the
great novelists a quality of spirit which it is difficult to
name without being misunderstood, and which is peculiarly
non-Elizabethan. It argues what Burns would call a castigated
pulse, a supremacy over passion. Yet they are not Lucretian
gods, however calm their atmosphere; their minds are not built
above humanity, but, being rooted deep in it, rise high. ...
Both periods are at heart earnest, and the stamp on the great
literature of each is that of reality, heightened and made
powerful by romance. Nor is their agreement herein greatly
shaken by the novel laying considerable stress on the outside
of life, while the drama is almost heedless of it; for they
both seek to break into the kernel, their variance being
chiefly one of method, dictated by difference of knowledge,
taste, and perception."
T. D. Robb,
The Elizabethan Drama and the Victorian Novel
(Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, April, 1891,
pages 520-522).
England: A. D. 1838-1842.
The Chartist agitation.
"When the Parliament was opened by the Queen on the 5th of
February, 1839, a passage in the Royal Speech had reference to
a state of domestic affairs which presented an unhappy
contrast to the universal loyalty which marked the period of
the Coronation. Her Majesty said: 'I have observed with pain
the persevering efforts which have been made in some parts of
the country to excite my subjects to disobedience and
resistance to the law, and to recommend dangerous and illegal
practices.' Chartism, which for ten subsequent years
occasionally agitated the country, had then begun to take
root. On the previous 12th of December a proclamation had been
issued against illegal Chartist assemblies, several of which
had been held, says the proclamation, 'after sunset by
torchlight.' The persons attending these meetings were armed
with guns and pikes; and demagogues, such as Feargus O'Connor
and the Rev. Mr. Stephens at Bury, addressed the people in the
most inflammatory language. ... The document called 'The People's
Charter,' which was embodied in the form of a bill in 1838,
comprised six points:--universal suffrage, excluding,
however, women; division of the United Kingdom into equal
electoral districts; vote by ballot; annual parliaments; no
property qualification for members; and a payment to every
member for his legislative services. These principles so
quickly recommended themselves to the working-classes that in
the session of 1839 the number of signatures to a petition
presented to Parliament was upwards of a million and a
quarter. The middle classes almost universally looked with
extreme jealousy and apprehension upon any attempt for an
extension of the franchise. The upper classes for the most
part regarded the proceedings of the Chartists with a contempt
which scarcely concealed their fears. This large section of the
working population very soon became divided into what were
called physical-force Chartists and moral-force Chartists. As
a natural consequence, the principles and acts of the
physical-force Chartists disgusted every supporter of order
and of the rights of property."
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapter 23.
"Nothing can be more unjust than to represent the leaders and
promoters of the movement as mere factious and self-seeking
demagogues. Some of them were men of great ability and
eloquence; some were impassioned young poets, drawn from the
class whom Kingsley has described in his 'Alton Locke'; some
were men of education; many were earnest and devoted fanatics;
and, so far as we can judge, all, or nearly all, were sincere.
Even the man who did the movement most harm, and who made
himself most odious to all reasonable outsiders, the once
famous, now forgotten, Feargus O'Connor, appears to have been
sincere, and to have personally lost more than he gained by
his Chartism. ... He was of commanding presence, great
stature, and almost gigantic strength. He had education; he
had mixed in good society; he belonged to an old family. ...
There were many men in the movement of a nobler moral nature
than poor, huge, wild Feargus O'Connor. There were men like
Thomas Cooper, ... devoted, impassioned, full of poetic
aspiration, and no scant measure of poetic inspiration as
well. Henry Vincent was a man of unimpeachable character. ...
{961}
Ernest Jones was as sincere and self-sacrificing a man as ever
joined a sinking cause. ... It is necessary to read such a
book as Thomas Cooper's Autobiography to understand how
genuine was the poetic and political enthusiasm which was at
the heart of the Chartist movement, and how bitter was the
suffering which drove into its ranks so many thousands of
stout working men who, in a country like England, might well
have expected to be able to live by the hard work they were
only too willing to do. One must read the Anti-Corn-Law Rhymes
of Ebenezer Elliott to understand how the 'bread tax' became
identified in the minds of the very best of the working class,
and identified justly, with the system of political and
economical legislation which was undoubtedly kept up, although
not of conscious purpose, for the benefit of a class. ... A
whole literature of Chartist newspapers sprang up to advocate
the cause. The 'Northern Star,' owned and conducted by Feargus
O'Connor, was the most popular and influential of them; but
every great town had its Chartist press. Meetings were held at
which sometimes very violent language was employed. ... A
formidable riot took place in Birmingham, where the
authorities endeavoured to put down a Chartist meeting. ...
Efforts were made at times to bring about a compromise with
the middle-class Liberals and the Anti-Corn-Law leaders; but
all such attempts proved failures. The Chartists would not
give up their Charter; many of them would not renounce the
hope of seeing it carried by force. The Government began to
prosecute some of the orators and leaders of the Charter
movement; and some of these were convicted, imprisoned and
treated with great severity. Henry Vincent's imprisonment at
Newport, in Wales, was the occasion of an attempt at rescue
[November 4, 1839] which bore a very close resemblance indeed
to a scheme of organised and armed rebellion." A conflict
occurred in which ten of the Chartists were killed, and some
50 were wounded. Three of the leaders, named Frost, Williams,
and Jones, were tried and convicted on the charge of high
treason, and were sentenced to death; but the sentence was
commuted to one of transportation. "The trial and conviction
of Frost, Williams, and Jones, did not put a stop to the
Chartist agitation. On the contrary, that agitation seemed
rather to wax and strengthen and grow broader because of the
attempt at Newport and its consequences. ... There was no lack
of what were called energetic measures on the part of the
Government. The leading Chartists all over the country were
prosecuted and tried, literally by hundreds. In most cases
they were convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment.
... The working classes grew more and more bitter against the
Whigs, who they said had professed Liberalism only to gain
their own ends. ... There was a profound distrust of the
middle class and their leaders," and it was for that reason
that the Chartists would not join hands with the Anti-Corn-Law
movement, then in full progress. "It is clear that at that
time the Chartists, who represented the bulk of the artisan
class in most of the large towns, did in their very hearts
believe that England was ruled for the benefit of aristocrats
and millionaires who were absolutely indifferent to the
sufferings of the poor. It is equally clear that most of what
are called the ruling class did really believe the English
working men who joined the Chartist movement to be a race of
fierce, unmanageable, and selfish communists, who, if they
were allowed their own way for a moment, would prove
themselves determined to overthrow throne, altar, and all
established securities of society."
J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 5 (volume 1).
Among the measures of coercion advocated in the councils of
the Chartists was that of appointing and observing what was to
be called a "'sacred month,' during which the working classes
throughout the whole kingdom were to abstain from every kind
of labour, in the hope of compelling the governing classes to
concede the charter."
W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 2, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
T. Cooper,
Life, by himself,
chapter 14-23.
W. Lovett,
Life and Struggles,
chapters 8-15.
T. Frost,
Forty Years' Recollections,
chapters 3-11.
H. Jephson,
The Platform,
part 4, chapters 17 and 19 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1839-1842.
The Opium War with China.
See CHINA: A. D. 1839-1842.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1840.
Adoption of Penny-Postage.
"In 1837 Mr. Rowland Hill had published his plan of a cheap
and uniform postage. A Committee of the House of Commons was
appointed in 1837, which continued its inquiries throughout
the session of 1838, and arrived at the conviction that the
plan was feasible, and deserving of a trial under legislative
sanction. After much discussion, and the experiment of a
varying charge, the uniform rate for a letter not weighing
more than half an ounce became, by order of the Treasury, one
penny. This great reform came into operation on the 10th of
January, 1840. Its final accomplishment is mainly due to the
sagacity and perseverance of the man who first conceived the
scheme."
C. Knight,
Crown History of England,
page 883.
"Up to this time the rates of postage on letters were very
heavy, and varied according to the distance. For instance, a
single letter conveyed from one part of a town to another cost
2d.; a letter from Reading, to London 7d.; from Brighton, 8d.;
from Aberdeen, 1s. 3½d.; from Belfast, 1s. 4d. If the letter
was written on more than a single sheet, the rate of postage
was much higher."
W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 2, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Hill,
Life of Sir Rowland Hill.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1840.
The Queen's marriage.
"On January 16,1840, the Queen, opening Parliament in person,
announced her intention to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of
Saxe Coburg-Gotha--a step which she trusted would be
'conducive to the interests of my people as well as to my own
domestic happiness.' ... It was indeed a marriage founded on
affection. ... The Queen had for a long time loved her cousin.
He was nearly her own age, the Queen being the elder by three
months and two or three days. Francis Charles Augustus Albert
Emmanuel was the full name of the young Prince. He was the
second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and of his
wife Louisa, daughter of Augustus, Duke of
Saxe-Gotha-Altenberg. Prince Albert was born at the Rosenau,
one of his father's residences, near Coburg, on August 26,
1819. ... A marriage between the Princess Victoria and Prince
Albert had been thought of as desirable among the families on
both sides, but it was always wisely resolved that nothing
should be said to the young Princess on the subject unless she
herself showed a distinct liking for her cousin.
{962}
In 1836, Prince Albert was brought by his father to England,
and made the personal acquaintance of the Princess, and she
seems at once to have been drawn toward him in the manner
which her family and friends would most have desired. ... The
marriage of the Queen and the Prince took place on February
10, 1840."
J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 7 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1841-1842.
Interference in Afghanistan.
The first Afghan War.
See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1803-1838; 1838-1842; 1842-1869.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1841-1842.
Fall of the Melbourne Ministry.
Opening of the second administration of Sir Robert Peel.
In 1841, the Whig Ministry (Melbourne's) determined "to do
something for freedom of trade. ... Colonial timber and sugar
were charged with a duty lighter than was imposed on foreign
timber and sugar; and foreign sugar paid a lighter or a
heavier duty according as it was imported from countries of
slave labour or countries of free labour. It was resolved to
raise the duty on colonial timber, but to lower the duty on
foreign timber and foreign sugar, and at the same time to
replace the sliding scale of the Corn Laws then in force [see
TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1815-1828] with a fixed
duty of 8s. per quarter. ... The concessions offered by the
Ministry, too small to excite the enthusiasm of the free
traders, were enough to rally all the threatened interests
around Peel. Baring's revision of the sugar duties was
rejected by a majority of 36. Everybody expected the Ministers
to resign upon this defeat; but they merely announced the
continuance of the former duties. Then Peel gave notice of a
vote of want of confidence, and carried it on the 4th of June
by a single vote in a House of 623 members. Instead of
resigning, the Ministers appealed to the country. The
elections went on through the last days of June and the whole
of July. When the new Parliament was complete, it appeared
that the Conservatives could count upon 367 votes in the House
of Commons. The Ministry met Parliament on the 24th of August.
Peel in the House of Commons and Ripon in the House of Lords
moved amendments to the Address, which were carried by
majorities of 91 and 72 respectively." The Ministry resigned
and a Conservative Government was formed, with Peel at its
head, as First Lord of the Treasury. "Wellington entered the
Cabinet without office, and Lyndhurst assumed for the third
time the honours of Lord Chancellor." Among the lesser members
of the Administration--not in the Cabinet--was Mr. Gladstone,
who became Vice-President of the Board of Trade. "This time
Peel experienced no difficulty with regard to the Queen's
Household. It had been previously arranged that in the case of
Lord Melbourne's resignation three Whig Ladies, the Duchess of
Bedford, the Duchess of Sutherland, and Lady Normanby, should
resign of their own accord. One or two other changes in the
Household contented Peel, and these the Queen accorded with a
frankness which placed him entirely at his ease. ... During
the recess Peel took a wide survey of the ills affecting the
commonwealth, and of the possible remedies. To supply the
deficiency in the revenue without laying new burthens upon the
humbler class; to revive our fainting manufactures by
encouraging the importation of raw material; to assuage
distress by making the price of provisions lower and more
regular, without taking away that protection which he still
believed essential to British agriculture: these were the
tasks which Peel now bent his mind to compass. ... Having
solved [the problems] to his own satisfaction, he had to
persuade his colleagues that they were right. Only one proved
obstinate. The Duke of Buckingham would hear of no change in
the degree of protection afforded to agriculture. He
surrendered the Privy Seal, which was given to the Duke of
Buccleugh. ... The Queen's Speech recommended Parliament to
consider the state of the laws affecting the importation of
corn and other commodities. It announced the beginning of a
revolution which few persons in England thought possible,
although it was to be completed in little more than ten
years."
F. C. Montague,
Life of Sir Robert Peel,
chapter 7-8.
ALSO IN:
J. R. Thursfield,
Peel,
chapter 7-8.
W. C. Taylor,
Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 3, chapters 3-5.
J. W. Croker,
Correspondence and Diaries,
chapter 22 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1842.
The Ashburton Treaty with the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1842.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1845-1846.
Repeal of the Corn Laws and dissolution of the League.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1845-1846.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1845-1846.
First war with the Sikhs.
See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.
Settlement of the Oregon Boundary Question with the United
States.
See OREGON: A. D. 1844-1846.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.
The vengeance of the Tory-Protectionists.
Overthrow of Peel.
Advent of Disraeli.
Ministry of Lord John Russell.
"Strange to say, the day when the Bill [extinguishing the
duties on corn] was read in the House of Lords for the third
time [June 25] saw the fall of Peel's Ministry. The fall was
due to the state of Ireland. The Government had been bringing
in a Coercion Bill for Ireland. It was introduced while the
Corn Bill was yet passing through the House of Commons. The
situation was critical. All the Irish followers of Mr.
O'Connell would be sure to oppose the Coercion Bill. The
Liberal party, at least when out of office, had usually made
it their principle to oppose Coercion Bills, if they were not
attended with some promises of legislative reform. The English
Radical members, led by Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, were
certain to oppose coercion. If the protectionists should join
with these other opponents of the Coercion Bill, the fate of
the measure was assured, and with it the fate of the
Government. This was exactly what happened. Eighty
Protectionists followed Lord George Bentinck into the lobby
against the Bill, in combination with the Free Traders, the
Whigs, and the Irish Catholic and national members. The
division took place on the second reading of the Bill on
Thursday, June 25, and there was a majority of 73 against the
Ministry."
J. McCarthy,
The Epoch of Reform,
page 183.
{963}
The revengeful Tory-Protectionist attack on Peel was led by
Sir George Bentinck and Benjamin Disraeli, then just making
himself felt in the House of Commons. It was distinctly
grounded upon no objection in principle to the Irish Coercion
Bill, but on the declaration that they could "no longer trust
Peel, and, must therefore refuse to give him unconstitutional
powers.' ... He had twice betrayed the party who had trusted
his promises. ... 'The gentlemen of England,' of whom it had
once been Sir Robert's proudest boast to be the leader,
declared against him. He was beaten by an overpowering
majority, and his career as an English Minister was closed.
Disraeli's had been the hand which dethroned him, and to
Disraeli himself, after three years of anarchy and
uncertainty, descended the task of again building together the
shattered ruins of the Conservative party. Very unwillingly
they submitted to the unwelcome necessity. Canning and the
elder Pitt had both been called adventurers, but they had
birth and connection, and they were at least Englishmen.
Disraeli had risen out of a despised race; he had never sued
for their favours; he had voted and spoken as he pleased,
whether they liked it or not. ... He was without Court favour,
and had hardly a powerful friend except Lord Lyndhurst. He had
never been tried on the lower steps of the official ladder. He
was young, too--only 42--after all the stir that he had made.
There was no example of a rise so sudden under such
conditions. But the Tory party had accepted and cheered his
services, and he stood out alone among them as a debater of
superior power. Their own trained men had all deserted them.
Lord George remained for a year or two as nominal chief: but
Lord George died; the conservatives could only consolidate
themselves under a real leader, and Disraeli was the single
person that they had who was equal to the situation. ... He
had overthrown Peel and succeeded to Peel's honours."
J. A. Froude,
Lord Beaconsfield,
chapter 9.
Although the Tory-Protectionists had accomplished the
overthrow of Peel, they were not prepared to take the
Government into their own hands. The new Ministry was formed
under Lord John Russell, as First Lord of the Treasury, with
Lord Palmerston in the Foreign Office, Sir George Grey in the
Home Department, Earl Grey Colonial Secretary, Sir C. Wood
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Macaulay
Paymaster-General.
W. C. Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 3, chapter 11.
The most important enactment of the Coercion Bill "(which
subsequently gave it the name of the Curfew Act) was that
which conferred on the executive Government the power in
proclaimed districts of forbidding persons to be out of their
dwellings between sunset and sunrise. The right of proclaiming
a district as a disturbed district was placed in the hands of
the Lord-Lieutenant, who might station additional constabulary
there, the whole expense of which was to be borne by the
district."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 4, page 137.
ALSO IN:
S. Walpole,
Life of Lord John Russell,
chapter 16 (volume 1).
B. Disraeli,
Lord George Bentinck,
chapter 14-16.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.
Difference with France on the Spanish marriages.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1841-1848.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1848.
The last Chartist demonstration.
"The more violent Chartists had broken from the Radical
reformers, and had themselves divided into two sections; for
their nominal leader, Feargus O'Connor, was at bitter enmity
with more thoroughgoing and earnest leaders such as O'Brien
and Cooper. O'Connor had not proved a very efficient guide. He
had entered into a land scheme of a somewhat doubtful
character. ... He had also injudiciously taken up a position
of active hostility to the free-traders, and while thus
appearing as the champion of a falling cause had alienated
many of his supporters. Yet the Parliament elected in 1846
contained several representatives of the Chartist principles,
and O'Connor himself had been returned for Nottingham by a
large majority over Hobhouse, a member of the new Ministry.
The revolution in France gave a sudden and enormous impulse to
the agitation. The country was filled with meetings at which
violent speeches were uttered and hints, not obscure, dropped
of the forcible establishment of a republic in England. A new
Convention was summoned for the 6th of April, a vast petition
was prepared, and a meeting, at which it was believed that
half a million of people would have been present, was summoned
to meet on Kennington Common on the 10th of April for the
purpose of carrying the petition to the House in procession.
The alarm felt in London was very great. It was thought
necessary to swear in special constables, and the wealthier
classes came forward in vast numbers to be enrolled. There are
said to have been no less than 170,000 special constables. The
military arrangements were entrusted to the Duke of
Wellington; the public offices were guarded and fortified;
public vehicles were forbidden to pass the streets lest they
should be employed for barricades; and measures were taken to
prevent the procession from crossing the bridges. ... Such a
display of determination seemed almost ridiculous when
compared with what actually occurred. But it was in fact the
cause of the harmless nature of the meeting. Instead of half a
million, about 30,000 men assembled on Kennington Common.
Feargus O'Connor was there; Mr. Maine, the Commissioner of
Police, called him aside, told him he might hold his meeting,
but that the procession would be stopped, and that he would be
held personally responsible for any disorder that might occur.
His heart had already begun to fail him, and he ... used all
his influence to put an end to the procession. His prudent
advice was followed, and no disturbance of any importance took
place. ... The air of ridicule thrown over the Chartist movement
by the abortive close of a demonstration which had been
heralded with so much violent talk was increased by the
disclosures attending the presentation of the petition." There
were found to be only 2,000,000 names appended to the
document, instead of 5,000,000 as claimed, and great numbers
of them were manifestly spurious. "This failure proved a
deathblow to Chartism."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 4, pages 176-178.
ALSO IN:
S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 20 (volume 4).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1848-1849.
Second war with the Sikhs.
Conquest and annexation of the Punjab.
See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1849.
Repeal of the Navigation Laws.
See NAVIGATION LAWS: A. D. 1849.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1849-1850.
The Don Pacifico Affair.
Lord Palmerston's speech.
The little difficulty with Greece which came to a crisis in
the last weeks of 1849 and the first, of 1850 (see GREECE: A.
D. 1846-1850), and which was commonly called the Don Pacifico
Affair, gave occasion for a memorable speech in Parliament by
Lord Palmerston, defending his foreign policy against attacks.
{964}
The speech (June 24, 1850), which occupied five hours, "from
the dusk of one day till the dawn of another," was greatly
admired, and proved immensely effective in raising the
speaker's reputation. "The Don Pacifico debate was
unquestionably an important landmark in the life of Lord
Palmerston. Hitherto his merits had been known only to a
select few; for the British public does not read Blue Books,
and as a rule troubles itself very little about foreign
politics at all. ... But the Pacifico speech caught the ear of
the nation, and was received with a universal verdict of
approval. From that hour Lord Palmerston became the man of the
people, and his rise to the premiership only a question of
time."
L. C. Sanders,
Life of Viscount Palmerston,
chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
Marquis of Lorne,
Viscount Palmerston,
chapter 7.
J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 19 (volume 2).
J. Morley,
Life of Cobden,
volume 2, chapter 3.
T. Martin,
Life of the Prince Consort,
chapter 38 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1850.
The so-called Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with the United States,
establishing a joint protectorate over the projected Nicaragua
Canal.
See NICARAGUA: A. D. 1850.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1850.
Restoration of the Roman Episcopate.
The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1850.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1850-1852.
The London protocol and treaty on the Schleswig-Holstein
Question.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1851.
The Great Exhibition.
"The first of May, 1851, will always be memorable as the day
on which the Great Exhibition was opened in Hyde Park. ...
Many exhibitions of a similar kind have taken place since.
Some of these far surpassed that of Hyde Park in the splendour
and variety of the collections brought together. Two of them
at least--those of Paris in 1867 and 1878--were infinitely
superior in the array and display of the products, the
dresses, the inhabitants of far-divided countries. But the
impression which the Hyde Park Exhibition made upon the
ordinary mind was like that of the boy's first visit to the
play--an impression never to be equalled. ... It was the first
organised to gather all the representatives of the world's
industry into one great fair. ... The Hyde Park Exhibition was
often described as the festival to open the long reign of
Peace. It might, as a mere matter of chronology, be called
without any impropriety the festival to celebrate the close of
the short reign of Peace. From that year, 1851, it may be said
fairly enough that the world has hardly known a week of peace.
... The first idea of the Exhibition was conceived by Prince
Albert; and it was his energy and influence which succeeded in
carrying the idea into practical execution. ... Many persons
were disposed to sneer at it; many were sceptical about its
doing any good; not a few still regarded Prince Albert as a
foreigner and a pedant, and were slow to believe that anything
really practical was likely to be developed under his impulse
and protection. ... There was a great deal of difficulty in
selecting a plan for the building. ... Happily, a sudden
inspiration struck Mr. (afterward Sir Joseph) Paxton, who was
then in charge of the Duke of Devonshire's superb grounds at
Chatsworth. Why not try glass and iron? he asked himself. ...
Mr. Paxton sketched out his plan hastily, and the idea was
eagerly accepted by the Royal Commissioners. He made many
improvements afterwards in his design; but the palace of glass
and iron arose within the specified time on the green turf of
Hyde Park."
J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 21 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
T. Martin,
Life of the Prince Consort,
chapters 33-36, 39, 42-43 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1851-1852.
The Coup d'Etat in France and Lord Palmerston's dismissal from
the Cabinet.
Defeat and resignation of Lord John Russell.
The first Derby
Disraeli Ministry and the Aberdeen coalition Ministry.
The "coup d'etat" of December 2nd, 1851, by which Louis
Napoleon made himself master of France (see FRANCE: A. D.
1851) brought about the dismissal of Lord Palmerston from the
British Ministry, followed quickly by the overthrow of the
Ministry which expelled him. "Lord Palmerston not only
expressed privately to Count Walewski [the French ambassador]
his approval of the 'coup d'etat,' but on the 16th of December
wrote a despatch to Lord Normanby, our representative in
Paris, expressing in strong terms his satisfaction at the
success of the French President's arbitrary action. This
despatch was not submitted either to the Prime Minister or to
the Queen, and of course the offence was of too serious a
character to be passed over. A great deal of correspondence
ensued, and as Palmerston's explanations were not deemed
satisfactory, and he had clearly broken the undertaking he
gave some time previously, he was dismissed from office. ...
There were some who thought him irretrievably crushed from
this time forward; but a very short time only elapsed before
he retrieved his fortunes and was as powerful as ever. In
February 1852 Lord John Russell brought in a Militia Bill
which was intended to develop a local militia for the defence
of the country. Lord Palmerston strongly disapproved of the
scope of the measure, and in committee moved an amendment to
omit the word 'local,' so as to constitute a regular militia,
which should be legally transportable all over the kingdom,
and thus be always ready for any emergency. The Government
were defeated by eleven votes, and as the Administration had
been very weak for some time, Lord John resigned. Lord Derby
formed a Ministry, and invited the cooperation of Palmerston,
but the offer was declined, as the two statesmen differed on
the question of imposing a duty on the importation of corn,
and other matters.'
G. B. Smith,
The Prime Ministers of Queen Victoria,
pages 264-265.
"The new Ministry [in which Mr. Disraeli became Chancellor of
the Exchequer] took their seats on the 27th of February, but
it was understood that a dissolution of Parliament would take
place in the summer, by which the fate of the new Government
would be decided, and that in the meantime the Opposition
should hold its hand. The raw troops [of the Tory Party in the
House of Commons], notwithstanding their inexperience,
acquitted themselves with credit, and some good Bills were
passed, the Militia Bill among the number, while a
considerable addition to the strength of the Navy was effected
by the Duke of Northumberland. No doubt, when the general
election began, the party had raised itself considerably in
public estimation. But for one consideration the country would
probably have been quite willing to entrust its destinies to
their hands.
{965}
But that one consideration was all important. ... The
Government was obliged to go to the country, to some extent,
on Protectionist principles. It was known that a Derbyite
majority meant a moderate import duty; and the consequence was
that Lord Derby just lost the battle, though by a very narrow
majority. When Parliament met in November, Lord Derby and Mr.
Disraeli had a very difficult game to play. ... Negotiations
were again opened with Palmerston and the Peelites, and on
this occasion Gladstone and Mr. Sidney Herbert were willing to
join if Lord Palmerston might lead in the House of Commons.
But the Queen put her veto on this arrangement, which
accordingly fell to the ground; and Lord Derby had to meet the
Opposition attack without any reinforcements. ... On the 16th
of December, ... being defeated on the Budget by a majority of
19, Lord Derby at once resigned."
T. E. Kebbel,
Life of the Earl of Derby,
chapter 6.
"The new Government [which succeeded that of Derby] was a
coalition of Whigs and Peelites, with Sir William Molesworth
thrown in to represent the Radicals. Lord Aberdeen became
Prime Minister, and Mr. Gladstone Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The other Peelites in the Cabinet were the Duke of Newcastle,
Sir James Graham, and Mr. Sidney Herbert."
G. W. E. Russell,
The Rt. Hon. William Ewart Gladstone,
chapter 5.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1852.
Second Burmese War.
Annexation of Pegu.
See INDIA: A. D. 1852.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1852-1853.
Abandonment of Protection by the Conservatives.
Further progress in Free Trade.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1846-1879.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1853-1855.
Civil-Service Reform.
See CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM IN ENGLAND.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1853-1856.
The Crimean War.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1853-1854, to 1854-1856.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1855.
Popular discontent with the management of the war.
Fall of the Aberdeen Ministry.
Palmerston's first premiership.
A brightening of prospects.
"Our army system entirely broke down [in the Crimea], and Lord
Aberdeen and the Duke of Newcastle were made the scapegoats of
the popular indignation. ... But England was not only
suffering from unpreparedness and want of administrative power
in the War department; there were dissensions in the Cabinet.
... Lord John Russell gave so much trouble, that Lord
Aberdeen, after one of the numerous quarrels and
reconciliations which occurred at this juncture, wrote to the
Queen that nothing but a sense of public duty and the
necessity for avoiding the scandal of a rupture kept him at
his post. ... At a little later stage ... the difficulties
were renewed. Mr. Roebuck gave notice of his motion for the
appointment of a select committee to inquire into the
condition of the army before Sebastopol, and Lord John
definitively resigned. The Ministry remained in office to
await the fate of Mr. Roebuck's motion, which was carried
against them by the very large majority of 157. Lord Aberdeen
now placed the resignation of the Cabinet in the hands of the
Queen [January 31, 1855]. ... Thus fell the Coalition Cabinet
of Lord Aberdeen. In talent and parliamentary influence it was
apparently one of the strongest Governments ever seen, but it
suffered from a fatal want of cohesion."
G. B. Smith,
Prime Ministers of Queen Victoria,
pages 227-230.
"Lord Palmerston had passed his 70th year when the Premiership
came to him for the first time. On the fall of the Coalition
Government the Queen sent for Lord Derby, and upon his failure
for Lord John Russell. Palmerston was willing at the express
request of her Majesty to serve once more under his old chief,
but Clarendon and many of the Whigs not unnaturally positively
refused to do so. Palmerston finally undertook and
successfully achieved the task of forming a Government out of
the somewhat heterogeneous elements at his command. Lord
Clarendon continued at the Foreign Office, and Gladstone was
still Chancellor of the Exchequer. The War Department was
reorganised, the office of Secretary at War disappearing, and
being finally merged in that of Secretary of State for War.
Although Palmerston objected to Roebuck's Committee, he was
practically compelled to accept it, and this led to the
resignation of Gladstone, Graham and Herbert; their places
being taken by Sir G. C. Lewis, Sir Charles Wood, and Lord
John Russell."
Marquis of Lorne,
Viscount Palmerston,
chapter 10.
"It was a dark hour in the history of the nation when Lord
Palmerston essayed the task which had been abandoned by the
tried wisdom of Derby, Lansdowne, and John Russell. Far away
in the Crimea the war was dragging on without much hope of a
creditable solution, though the winter of discontent and
mismanagement was happily over. The existence of the European
concert was merely nominal. The Allies had discovered, many
months previously, that, though Austria was staunch, Prussia
was a faithless friend. ... Between the belligerent powers the
cloud of suspicion and distrust grew thicker; for
Abd-el-Medjid was known to be freely squandering his war loans
on seraglios and palaces while Kars was starving; and though
there was no reason for distrusting the present good faith of
the Emperor of the French, his policy was straight-forward
only as long as he kept himself free from the influence of the
gang of stock-jobbers and adventurers who composed his Ministry.
Nor was the horizon much brighter on the side of England. A
series of weak cabinets, and the absence of questions of
organic reform, had completely relaxed the bonds of Party. If
there was no regular Opposition, still less was there a
regular majority. ... And the hand that was to restore order
out of chaos was not so steady as of yore. ... Lord Palmerston
was not himself during the first weeks of his leadership. But
the prospect speedily brightened. Though Palmerston was
considerably over seventy, he still retained a wonderful
vigour of constitution. He was soon restored to health, and
was always to be found at his post. ... His generalship
secured ample majorities for the Government in every division
during the session. Of the energy which Lord Palmerston
inspired into the operations against Sebastopol, there can
hardly be two opinions."
L. C. Sanders,
Life of Viscount Palmerston,
chapter 10.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1855.
Mr. Gladstone's Commission to the Ionian Islands.
See IONIAN ISLANDS: A. D. 1815-1862.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1856-1860.
War with China.
French alliance in the war.
Capture of Canton.
Entrance into Pekin.
Destruction of the Summer Palace.
See CHINA: A. D. 1856-1860.
{966}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1857-1858.
The Sepoy Mutiny in India.
See INDIA: A. D. 1857, to 1857-1858 (JULY-JUNE).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1858.
Assumption of the government of India by the Crown.
End of the rule of the East India Co.
See INDIA: A. D. 1858.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1858-1859.
The Conspiracy Bill.
Fall of Palmerston's government.
Second Ministry of Derby and Disraeli.
Lord Palmerston again Premier.
"On January 14, 1858, an attempt was made to assassinate
Napoleon III. by a gang of desperadoes, headed by Orsini,
whose head-quarters had previously been in London. Not without
some reason it was felt in France that such men ought not to
be able to find shelter in this country, and the French
Minister was ordered to make representations to that effect.
Lord Palmerston, always anxious to cultivate the good feeling
of the French nation, desired to pass a measure which should
give to the British Government the power to banish from
England any foreigner conspiring in Britain against the life
of a foreign sovereign. ... An unfortunate outburst of
vituperation against England in the French press, and the
repetition of such language by officers of the French army who
were received by the Emperor when they waited on him as a
deputation, aroused very angry English feeling. Lord
Palmerston had already introduced the Bill he desired to pass,
and it had been read the first time by a majority of 200. But the
foolish action of the French papers changed entirely the
current of popular opinion. Lord Derby saw his advantage. An
amendment to the second reading, which was practically a vote
of censure, was carried against Lord Palmerston, and to his
own surprise no less than to that of the country, he was
obliged to resign. Lord Derby succeeded to Palmerston's vacant
office. ... Lord Derby's second Ministry was wrecked upon the
fatal rock of Reform early in 1859, and at once appealed to
the country. ... The election of 1859 failed to give the
Conservatives a majority, and soon after the opening of the
session they were defeated upon a vote of want of confidence
moved by Lord Hartington. Earl Granville was commissioned by
the Queen to form a Ministry, because her Majesty felt that
'to make so marked a distinction as is implied in the choice
of one or other as Prime Minister of two statesmen so full of
years and honour as Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell
would be a very invidious and unwelcome task.' Each of these
veterans was willing to serve under the other, but neither
would follow the lead of a third. And so Granville failed, and
to Palmerston was entrusted the task. He succeeded in forming
what was considered the strongest Ministry of modern times, so
far as the individual ability of its members was concerned.
Russell went to the Foreign Office and Gladstone to the
Exchequer."
Marquis of Lorne,
Viscount Palmerston,
chapters 10-11.
ALSO IN:
T. Martin,
Life of the Prince Consort,
chapters 82-84, 91-92,
and 94 (volume 4).
T. E. Kebbel,
Life of the Earl of Derby,
chapter 7.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1860.
The Cobden-Chevalier commercial treaty with France.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (FRANCE): A. D. 1853-1860.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1861 (May).
The Queen's Proclamation of Neutrality with reference
to the American Civil War.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL-MAY).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1861 (October).
The allied intervention in Mexico.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1861-1867.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1861 (November).
The Trent Affair.
Seizure of Mason and Slidell.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (NOVEMBER).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1861-1865.
The Cotton Famine.
"Upon a population, containing half a million of cotton
operatives, in a career of rapid prosperity, the profits of
1860 reaching in some instances from 30 to 40 per cent upon
the capital engaged; and with wages also at the highest point
which they had ever touched, came the news of the American
war, with the probable stoppage of 85 per cent of the raw
material of their manufacture. A few wise heads hung
despondently down, or shook with fear for the fate of 'the
freest nation under heaven,' but the great mass of traders
refused to credit a report which neither suited their opinions
nor their interests. ... There was a four months' supply held
on this side the water at Christmas (1860), and there had been
three months' imports at the usual rate since that time, and
there would be the usual twelve months' supply from other
sources; and by the time this was consumed, and the five
months' stock of goods held by merchants sold, all would be
right again. That this was the current opinion was proved by
the most delicate of all barometers, the scale of prices; for
during the greater part of the year 1861 the market was dull,
and prices scarcely moved upwards. But towards the end of the
year the aspect of affairs began to change. ... The Federals
had declared a blockade of the Southern ports, and, although
as yet it was pretty much a 'paper blockade,' yet the newly
established Confederate government was doing its best to
render it effective. They believed that cotton was king in
England, and that the old country could not do without it, and
would be forced, in order to secure its release, to side with
those who kept it prisoner. Mills began to run short time or
to close in the month of October, but no noise was made about
it; and the only evidence of anything unusual was at the
boards of guardians, where the applications had reached the
mid-winter height three months earlier than usual. The
poor-law guardians in the various unions were aware that the
increase was not of the usual character--it was too early for
out-door labourers to present themselves; still the difference
was not of serious amount, being only about 3,000 in the whole
twenty-eight unions. In November, 7,000 more presented
themselves, and in December the increase was again 7,000; so
that the recipients of relief were at this time 12,000 (or
about 25 per cent) more than in the January previous. And now
serious thoughts began to agitate many minds; cotton was very
largely held by speculators for a rise, the arrivals were
meagre in quantity, and the rates of insurance began to show
that, notwithstanding the large profits on imports, the
blockade was no longer on paper alone. January, 1862, added
16,000 more to the recipients of relief, who were now 70 per
cent above the usual number for the same period of the year.
But from the facts as afterwards revealed, the statistics of
boards of guardians were evidently no real measure of the
distress prevailing. ... The month of February usually lessens
the dependents on the poor-rates, for out-door labour begins
again as soon as the signs of spring appear; but in 1862 it
added nearly 9,000 to the already large number of extra cases,
the recipients being now 105 per cent above the average for the
same period of the year.
{967}
But this average gives no idea of the pressure in particular
localities. ... The cotton operatives were now, if left to
themselves, like a ship's crew upon short provisions, and
those very unequally distributed, and without chart or
compass, and no prospect of getting to land. In Ashton there
were 3,197; in Stockport, 8,588; and in Preston, 9,488 persons
absolutely foodless; and who nevertheless declined to go to
the guardians. To have forced the high-minded heads of these
families to hang about the work-house lobbies in company with
the idle, the improvident, the dirty, the diseased, and the
vicious, would have been to break their heaving hearts, and to
hurl them headlong into despair. Happily there is spirit
enough in this country to appreciate nobility, even when
dressed in fustian, and pride and sympathy enough to spare
even the poorest from unnecessary humiliation; and
organisations spring up for any important work so soon as the
necessity of the case becomes urgent in any locality.
Committees arose almost simultaneously in Ashton, Stockport,
and Preston; and in April, Blackburn followed in the train,
and the guardians and the relief committees of these several
places divided an extra 6,000 dependents between them. The
month of May, which usually reduces pauperism to almost its
lowest ebb, added 6,000 more to the recipients from the
guardians, and 5,000 to the dependents on the relief
committees, which were now six in number, Oldham and Prestwich
(a part of Manchester) being added to the list. ... The month
of June sent 6,000 more applicants to sue for bread to the
boards of guardians, and 5,000 additional to the six relief
committees; and these six committees had now as many
dependents as the whole of the boards of guardians in the
twenty-eight unions supported in ordinary years. ... In the
month of July, when all unemployed operatives would ordinarily
be lending a hand in the hay harvest, and picking up the means
of living whilst improving in health and enjoying the glories
of a summer in the country, the distress increased like a
flood, 13,000 additional applicants being forced to appeal for
poor-law relief; whilst 11,000 others were adopted by the
seven relief committees. ... In August the flood had become a
deluge, at which the stoutest heart might stand appalled. The
increased recipients of poor-law relief were in a single
month, 33,000, being nearly as many as the total number
chargeable in the same month of the previous year, whilst a
further addition of more than 34,000 became chargeable to the
relief committees. ... Most of the cotton on hand at this
period was of Indian growth, and needed alterations of
machinery to make it workable at all, and in good times an
employer might as well shut up his mill as try to get it spun
or manufactured. But oh! how glad would the tens of thousands
of unwilling idlers have been now, to have had a chance even
of working at Surats, although they knew that it required much
harder work for one-third less than normal wages. ... Another
month is past, and October has added to the number under the
guardians no less than 55,000, and to the charge of the relief
committees 39,000 more. ... And now dread winter approaches,
and the authorities have to deal not only with hundreds of
thousands who are compulsorily idle, and consequently
foodless, but who are wholly unprepared for the inclemencies
of the season; who have no means of procuring needful
clothing, nor even of making a show of cheerfulness upon the
hearth by means of the fire, which is almost as useful as
food. ... The total number of persons chargeable at the end of
November, 1862, was, under boards of guardians, 258,357, and on
relief committees, 200,084; total 458,441. ... There were not
wanting men who saw, or thought they saw, a short way out of
the difficulty, viz., by a recognition on the part of the
English government of the Southern confederacy in America. And
meetings were called in various places to memorialise the
government to this effect. Such meetings were always balanced
by counter meetings, at which it was shown that simple
recognition would be waste of words; that it would not bring
to our shores a single shipload of cotton, unless followed up
by an armed force to break the blockade, which course if
adopted would be war; war in favour of the slave confederacy
of the South, and against the free North and North-west,
whence comes a large proportion of our imported corn. In
addition to the folly of interfering in the affairs of a
nation 3,000 miles away, the cotton, if we succeeded in
getting it, would be stained with blood and cursed with the
support of slavery, and would also prevent our getting the
food which we needed from the North equally as much as the
cotton from the South. ... These meetings and counter meetings
perhaps helped to steady the action of the government
(notwithstanding the sympathy of some of its members towards
the South), to confirm them in the policy of the royal
proclamation, and to determine them to enforce the provisions
of the Foreign Enlistment Act against all offenders. ... The
maximum pressure upon the relief committees was reached early
in December, 1862, but, as the tide had turned before the end
of the month, the highest number chargeable at any one time is
nowhere shown. The highest number exhibited in the returns is
for the last week in the year 1862, viz.: 485,434 persons; but
in the previous weeks of the same month some thousands more
were relieved."
J. Watts,
The Facts of the Cotton Famine,
chapters 8 and 12.
ALSO IN:
R. A. Arnold,
History of the Cotton Famine.
E. Waugh,
Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1862 (JULY).
The fitting out of the Confederate cruiser Alabama
at Liverpool.
See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1862-1864.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1865.
Governor Eyre and the Jamaica Insurrection.
See JAMAICA: A. D. 1865.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1865-1868.
Death of Palmerston.
Ministry of Lord John Russell.
Its unsatisfactory Reform Bill and its resignation.
Triumph of the Adullamites.
Third administration of Derby and Disraeli,
and its Reform Bills.
"On the death of Lord Palmerston [which occurred October 18,
1865], the premiership was intrusted for the second time to
Earl Russell, with Mr. Gladstone as leader in the House of
Commons. The queen opened her seventh parliament (February 6,
1866), in person, for the first time since the prince
consort's death. On March 12th Mr. Gladstone brought forward
his scheme of reform, proposing to extend the franchise in
counties and boroughs, but the opposition of the moderate
Liberals, and their joining the Conservatives, proved fatal to
the measure, and in consequence the ministry of Earl Russell
resigned.
{968}
The government had been personally weakened by the successive
deaths of Mr. Sidney Herbert, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, the
Duke of Newcastle, Earl of Elgin, and Lord Palmerston. The
queen sent for the Earl of Derby to form a Cabinet, who,
although the Conservative party was in the minority in the
House of Commons, accepted the responsibility of undertaking
the management of the government: he as Premier and First Lord
of the Treasury; Mr. Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer."
A. H. McCalman,
Abridged History of England,
page 603.
"The measure, in fact, was too evidently a compromise. The
Russell and Gladstone section of the Cabinet wanted reform:
the remnants of Palmerston's followers still thought it
unnecessary. The result was this wretched, tinkering measure,
which satisfied nobody, and disappointed the expectation of
all earnest Reformers. ... The principal opposition came not
from the Conservatives, as might have been expected, but from
Mr. Horsman and Mr. Robert Lowe, both members of the Liberal
party, who from the very first declared they would have none
of it. ... Mr. Bright denounced them furiously as
'Adullamites'; all who were in distress, all who were
discontented, had gathered themselves together in the
political cave of Adullam for the attack on the Government.
But Mr. Lowe, all unabashed by denunciation or sarcasm,
carried the war straight into the enemy's camp in a swift
succession of speeches of extraordinary brilliance and power.
... The party of two, which in its origin reminded Mr. Bright
of 'the Scotch terrier which was so covered with hair that you
could not tell which was the head and which was the tail of
it,' was gradually reinforced by deserters from the ranks of
the Government until at last the Adullamites were strong
enough to turn the scale of a division. Then one wild night,
after a hot and furious debate, the combined armies of the
Adullamites and Conservatives carried triumphantly an
amendment brought forward by one of the Adullamite chiefs,
Lord Dunkellin, to the effect that a rating be substituted for
a rental qualification; and the Government was at an end. ...
The failure of the bill brought Lord Russell's official career
to its close. He formally handed over the leadership of the
party to Mr. Gladstone, and from this time took but little
part in politics. Lord Derby, his opponent, was soon to follow
his example, and then the long-standing duel between Gladstone
and Disraeli would be pushed up to the very front of the
parliamentary stage, right in the full glare of the
footlights. Meanwhile, however, Lord Derby had taken office
[July 9, 1866]. Disraeli and Gladstone were changing weapons
and crossing the stage. ... The exasperated Liberals, however,
were rousing a widespread agitation throughout the country in
favour of Reform: monster meetings were held in Hyde Park; the
Park railings were pulled down and trampled on by an excited
mob, and the police regulations proved as unable to bear the
unusual strain as police regulations usually do on such
occasions. The result was that Mr. Disraeli became convinced
that a Reform Bill of some kind or other was inevitable, and
Mr. Disraeli's opinion naturally carried the day. The
Government, however, did not go straight to the point at once.
They began by proposing a number of resolutions on the
subject, which were very soon laughed out of existence. Then
they brought a bill founded on them, which, however, was very
shortly afterwards withdrawn after a very discouraging
reception. Finally, the Ministry, lightened by the loss of
three of its members--the Earl of Carnarvon, Viscount
Cranborne, and General Peel--announced their intention of
bringing in a comprehensive measure. The measure in question
proposed household suffrage in the boroughs subject to the
payment of rates, and occupation franchise for the counties
subject to the same limitation, and a variety of fanciful
clauses, which would have admitted members of the liberal
professions, graduates of the universities, and a number of
other classes to the franchise. The most novel feature was a
clause which permitted a man to acquire two votes if he
possessed a double qualification by rating and by profession.
The great objection to the bill was that it excluded the
compound householder.' The compound householder is now as
extinct an animal as the potwalloper found in earlier
parliamentary strata, but he was the hero of the Reform
debates of 1867, and as such deserves more than a passing
reference. He was, in fact, an occupier of a small house who
did not pay his rates directly and in person, but paid them
through his landlord. Now the occupiers of these very small
houses were naturally by far the most numerous class of
occupiers in the boroughs, and the omission of them implied a
large exclusion from the franchise. The Liberal party,
therefore, rose in defence of the compound householder, and
the struggle became fierce and hot. It must be remembered,
however, that neither Mr. Gladstone nor Mr. Bright wished to
lower the franchise beyond a certain point, and a meeting was
held in consequence, in which it was agreed that the programme
brought forward in committee should begin by an alteration of
the rating laws, so that the compound householder above a
certain level should pay his own rates and be given a vote,
and that all occupiers below the level should be excluded from
the rates and the franchise alike. On what may be described
roughly as 'the great drawing-the-line question,' however, the
Liberal party once more split up. The advanced section were
determined that all occupiers should be admitted, and they
would have no 'drawing the line.' Some fifty or sixty of them
held a meeting in the tea-room of the House of Commons and
decided on this course of action: in consequence they acquired
the name of the 'Tea-Room Party.' The communication of their
views to Mr. Gladstone made him excessively indignant. He
denounced them in violent language, and his passion was
emulated by Mr. Bright. ... Mr. Gladstone had to give in, and
his surrender was followed by that of Mr. Disraeli. The
Tea-Room Party, in fact, were masters of the day, and were
able to bring sufficient pressure to bear on the Government to
induce them to admit the principle of household suffrage pure
and simple, and to abolish all distinctions of rating. ... Not
only was the household suffrage clause considerably extended,
the dual vote abolished, and most of the fancy franchises
swept away, but there were numerous additions which completely
altered the character of the bill, and transformed it from a
balanced attempt to enlarge the franchise without shifting the
balance of power to a sweeping measure of reform."
B. C. Skottowe,
Short History of Parliament,
chapter 22.
{969}
The Reform Bill for England "was followed in 1868 by measures
for Scotland and Ireland. By these Acts the county franchise
in England was extended to all occupiers of lands or houses of
the yearly value of £12, and in Scotland to all £5 property
owners and £14 property occupiers; while that in Ireland was
not altered. The borough franchise in England and Scotland was
given to all ratepaying householders and to lodgers occupying
lodgings of the annual value of £10; and in Ireland to all
ratepaying £4 occupiers. Thus the House of Commons was made
nearly representative of all taxpaying commoners, except
agricultural labourers and women."
D. W. Rannie,
Historical Outline of the English Constitution,
chapter 12, section 4.
ALSO IN:
W. BAGEHOT,
Essays on Parliamentary Reform, 3.
G. B. Smith,
Life of Gladstone,
chapters 17-18 (volume 2).
W. Robertson,
Life and Times of John Bright,
chapters 39-40.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1865-1869.
Discussion of the Alabama Claims of the United States.
The Johnson-Clarendon Treaty and its rejection.
See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1862-1869.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1867-1868.
Expedition to Abyssinia.
See ABYSSINIA: A. D. 1854-1889.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1868-1870.
Disestablishment of the Irish Church.
Retirement of the Derby-Disraeli Ministry.
Mr. Gladstone in power.
His Irish Land Bill.
"On March 16, 1868, a remarkable debate took place in the
House of Commons. It had for its subject the condition of
Ireland, and it was introduced by a series of resolutions
which Mr. John Francis Maguire, an Irish member, proposed. ...
It was on the fourth night of the debate that the importance
of the occasion became fully manifest. Then it was that Mr.
Gladstone spoke, and declared that in his opinion the time had
come when the Irish Church as a State institution must cease
to exist. Then every man in the House knew that the end was
near. Mr. Maguire withdrew his resolutions. The cause he had
to serve was now in the hands of one who, though not surely
more earnest for its success, had incomparably greater power
to serve it. There was probably not a single Englishman
capable of forming an opinion who did not know that from the
moment when Mr. Gladstone made his declaration, the fall of
the Irish State Church had become merely a question of time.
Men only waited to see how Mr. Gladstone would proceed to
procure its fall. Public expectation was not long kept in
suspense. A few days after the debate on Mr. Maguire's motion,
Mr. Gladstone gave notice of three resolutions on the subject
of the Irish State Church. The first declared that in the
opinion of the House of Commons it was necessary that the
Established Church of Ireland should cease to exist as an
Establishment, due regard being had to all personal interests
and to all individual rights of property. The second
resolution pronounced it expedient to prevent the creation of
new personal interests by the exercise of any public
patronage; and the third asked for an address to the Queen,
praying that Her Majesty would place at the disposal of
Parliament her interest in the temporalities of the Irish
Church. The object of these resolutions was simply to prepare
for the actual disestablishment of the Church, by providing
that no further appointments should be made, and that the
action of patronage should be stayed, until Parliament should
decide the fate of the whole institution. On March 30, 1868,
Mr. Gladstone proposed his resolutions. Not many persons could
have had much doubt as to the result of the debate. But if
there were any such, their doubts must have begun to vanish
when they read the notice of amendment to the resolutions
which was given by Lord Stanley. The amendment proclaimed even
more surely than the resolutions the impending fall of the Irish
Church. Lord Stanley must have been supposed to speak in the
name of the Government and the Conservative party; and his
amendment merely declared that the House, while admitting that
considerable modifications in the temporalities of the Church
in Ireland might appear to be expedient, was of opinion 'that
any proposition tending to the disestablishment or
disendowment of the Church ought to be reserved for the
decision of the new Parliament.' Lord Stanley's amendment
asked only for delay. ... The debate was one of great power
and interest. ... When the division was called there were 270
votes for the amendment, and 331 against it. The doom of the
Irish Church was pronounced by a majority of 61. An interval
was afforded for agitation on both sides. ... Mr. Gladstone's
first resolution came to a division about a month after the
defeat of Lord Stanley's amendment. It was carried by a
majority somewhat larger than that which had rejected the
amendment--330 votes were given for the resolution; 265
against it. The majority for the resolution was therefore 65.
Mr. Disraeli quietly observed that the Government must take
some decisive step in consequence of that vote; and a few days
afterwards it was announced that as soon as the necessary
business could be got through, Parliament would be dissolved
and an appeal made to the country. On the last day of July the
dissolution took place, and the elections came on in November.
Not for many years had there been so important a general
election. The keenest anxiety prevailed as to its results. The
new constituencies created by the Reform Bill were to give
their votes for the first time. The question at issue was not
merely the existence of the Irish State Church. It was a
general struggle of advanced Liberalism against Toryism. ...
The new Parliament was to all appearance less marked in its
Liberalism than that which had gone before it. But so far as
mere numbers went the Liberal party was much stronger than it
had been. In the new House of Commons it could count upon a
majority of about 120, whereas in the late Parliament it had
but 60. Mr. Gladstone it was clear would now have everything
in his own hands, and the country might look for a career of
energetic reform. ... Mr. Disraeli did not meet the new
Parliament as Prime Minister. He decided very properly that it
would be a mere waste of public time to wait for the formal
vote of the House of Commons, which would inevitably command
him to surrender. He at once resigned his office, and Mr.
Gladstone was immediately sent for by the Queen, and invited
to form an Administration. Mr. Gladstone, it would seem, was
only beginning his career. He was nearly sixty years of age,
but there were scarcely any evidences of advancing years to be
seen on his face. ... The Government he formed was one of
remarkable strength. ... Mr. Gladstone went to work at once
with his Irish policy.
{970}
On March 1, 1869, the Prime Minister introduced his measure
for the disestablishment and partial disendowment of the Irish
State Church. The proposals of the Government were, that the
Irish Church should almost at once cease to exist as a State
Establishment, and should pass into the condition of a free
Episcopal Church. As a matter of course the Irish bishops were
to lose their seats in the House of Lords. A synodal, or
governing body, was to be elected from the clergy and laity of
the Church and was to be recognised by the Government, and
duly incorporated. The union between the Churches of England
and Ireland was to be dissolved, and the Irish Ecclesiastical
Courts were to be abolished. There were various and
complicated arrangements for the protection of the life
interests of those already holding positions in the Irish
Church, and for the appropriation of the fund which would
return to the possession of the State when all these interests
had been fairly considered and dealt with. ... Many amendments
were introduced and discussed; and some of these led to a
controversy between the two Houses of Parliament; but the
controversy ended in compromise. On July 26, 1869, the measure
for the disestablishment of the Irish Church received the
royal assent. Lord Derby did not long survive the passing of
the measure which he had opposed with such fervour and so much
pathetic dignity. Be died before the Irish State Church had
ceased to live. ... When the Irish Church had been disposed
of, Mr. Gladstone at once directed his energies to the Irish
land system. ... In a speech delivered by him during his
electioneering campaign in Lancashire, he had declared that
the Irish upas-tree had three great branches: the State
Church, the Land Tenure System, and the System of Education,
and that he meant to hew them all down if he could. On
February 15, 1870, Mr. Gladstone introduced his Irish Land
Bill into the House of Commons. ... It recognised a certain
property or partnership of the tenant in the land which he
tilled. Mr. Gladstone took the Ulster tenant-right as he found
it, and made it a legal institution. In places where the
Ulster practice, or something analogous to it, did not exist,
he threw upon the landlord the burden of proof as regarded the
right of eviction. The tenant disturbed in the possession of
his land could claim compensation for improvements, and the
bill reversed the existing assumption of the law by presuming
all improvements to be the property of the tenant, and leaving
it to the landlord, if he could, to prove the contrary. The
bill established a special judiciary machinery for carrying
out its provisions. ... It put an end to the reign of the
landlord's absolute power; it reduced the landlord to the
level of every other proprietor, of every other man in the
country who had anything to sell or hire. ... The bill passed
without substantial alteration. On August 1, 1870, the bill
received the Royal assent. The second branch of the upas-tree
had been hewn down. ... Mr. Gladstone had dealt with Church
and land; he had yet to deal with university education. He had
gone with Irish ideas thus far."
J. McCarthy,
Short History of Our Own Times,
chapter 23.
ALSO IN:
W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 3, chapter 6.
Annual Register, 1869,
part 1: English History,
chapters 2-3, and 1870, chapters 1-2.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1870.
The Education Bill.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES,
ENGLAND: A. D. 1699-1870.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1871.
Abolition of Army Purchase and University Religious Tests.
Defeat of the Ballot Bill.
"The great measure of the Session [of 1871] was of course the
Army Bill, which was introduced by Mr. Cardwell, on the 16th
of February. It abolished the system by which rich men
obtained by purchase commissions and promotion in the army,
and provided £8,000,000 to buy all commissions, as they fell
in, at their regulation and over-regulation value [the
regulation value being a legal price, fixed by a Royal
Warrant, but which in practice was never regarded]. In future,
commissions were to be awarded either to those who won them by
open competition, or who had served as subalterns in the
Militia, or to deserving non-commissioned officers. ... The
debate, which seemed interminable, ended in an anti-climax
that astonished the Tory Opposition. Mr. Disraeli threw over
the advocates of Purchase, evidently dreading an appeal to the
country. ... The Army Regulation Bill thus passed the Second
Reading without a division," and finally, with some amendments
passed the House. "In the House of Lords the Bill was again
obstructed. ... Mr. Gladstone met them with a bold stroke. By
statute it was enacted that only such terms of Purchase could
exist as her Majesty chose to permit by Royal Warrant. The
Queen, therefore, acting on Mr. Gladstone's advice, cancelled
her warrant permitting Purchase, and thus the opposition of
the Peers was crushed by what Mr. Disraeli indignantly termed
'the high-handed though not illegal' exercise of the Royal
Prerogative. The rage of the Tory Peers knew no bounds." They
"carried a vote of censure on the Government, who ignored it,
and then their Lordships passed the Army Regulation Bill
without any alterations. ... The Session of 1871 was also made
memorable by the struggle over the Ballot Bill, in the course
of which nearly all the devices of factious obstruction were
exhausted. ... When the Bill reached the House of Lords, the
real motive which dictated the ... obstruction of the
Conservative Opposition in the House of Commons was quickly
revealed. The Lords rejected the Bill on the 18th of August,
not merely because they disliked and dreaded it, but because
it had come to them too late for proper consideration.
Ministers were more successful with some other measures. In
spite of much conservative opposition they passed a Bill
abolishing religious tests in the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, and throwing open all academic distinctions and
privileges except Divinity Degrees and Clerical Fellowships to
students of all creeds and faiths."
R. Wilson,
Life and Times of Queen Victoria,
volume 2, chapter 16.
ALSO IN:
G. W. E. Russell,
The Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone,
chapter 9.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1871-1872.
Renewed negotiations with the United States.
The Treaty of Washington and the Geneva Award.
See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1869-1871; 1871; and 1871-1872.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1873-1879.
Rise of the Irish Home Rule Party
and organization of the Land League.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1873-1879.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1873-1880.
Decline and fall of the Gladstone government.
Disraeli's Ministry.
His rise to the peerage, as Earl of Beaconsfield.
The Eastern Question.
Overthrow of the administration.
The Second Gladstone Ministry.
{971}
"One of the little wars in which we had to engage broke out
with the Ashantees, a misunderstanding resulting from our
purchase of the Dutch possessions (1873) in their
neighbourhood. Troops and marines under Wolseley ... were sent
out to West Africa. Crossing the Prah River, January 20th,
1874, he defeated the Ashantees on the last day of that month
at a place called Amoaful, entered and burnt their capital,
Coomassie, and made a treaty with their King, Koffee, by which
he withdrew all claims of sovereignty over the tribes under
our protection. The many Liberal measures carried by the
Ministry caused moderate men to wish for a halt. Some
restrictions on the licensed vintners turned that powerful
body against the Administration, which, on attempting to carry
an Irish University Bill in 1873, became suddenly aware of its
unpopularity, as the second reading was only carried by a
majority of three. Resignation followed. The erratic, but
astute, Disraeli declined to undertake the responsibility of
governing the country with the House of Commons then existing,
consequently Mr. Gladstone resumed office; yet Conservative
reaction progressed. He in September became Chancellor of the
Exchequer (still holding the Premiership) and 23rd January,
1874, he suddenly dissolved Parliament, promising in a letter
to the electors of Greenwich the final abolition of the income
tax, and a reduction in some other 'imposts.' The elections
went against him. The 'harassed' interests overturned the
Ministry (17th February, 1874). ... On the accession of the
Conservative Government under Mr. Disraeli (February, 1874),
the budget showed a balance of six millions in favour of the
reduction of taxation. Consequently the sugar duties were
abolished and the income tax reduced to 2d. in the pound.
This, the ninth Parliament of Queen Victoria, sat for a little
over six years. ... Mr. Disraeli, now the Earl of Beaconsfield,
was fond of giving the country surprises. One of these
consisted in the purchase of the interest of the Khedive of
Egypt in the Suez Canal for four millions sterling (February,
1876). Another was the acquisition of the Turkish Island of
Cyprus, handed over for the guarantee to Turkey of her Asiatic
provinces in the event of any future Russian encroachments.
... As war had broken out in several of the Turkish provinces
(1876), and as Russia had entered the lists for the insurgents
against the Sultan, whom England was bound to support by
solemn treaties, we were treated to a third surprise by the
conveyance, in anticipation of a breach with Russia, of 7,000
troops from India to Malta. The Earl of Derby, looking upon
this manœuvre as a menace to that Power, resigned his office,
which was filled by Lord Salisbury (1878). ... The war proving
disastrous to Turkey, the treaty of St. Stephano (February,
1878), was concluded with Russia, by which the latter acquired
additional territory in Asia Minor in violation of the treaty
of Paris (1856). Our Government strongly remonstrated, and war
seemed imminent. Through the intercession, however, of
Bismarck, the German Chancellor, war was averted, and a
congress soon met in Berlin, at which Britain was represented
by Lords Salisbury and Beaconsfield; the result being the
sanction of the treaty already made, with the exception that
the town of Erzeroum was handed back to Turkey. Our
ambassadors returned home rather pompously, the Prime Minister
loftily declaring, that they had brought back 'peace with
honour.' ... Our expenses had rapidly increased, the wealthy
commercial people began to distrust a Prime Minister who had
brought us to the brink of war, the Irish debates, Irish
poverty, and Irish outrages had brought with them more or less
discredit on the Ministry. ... The Parliament was dissolved March
24th, but the elections went so decisively in favour of the
Liberals that Beaconsfield resigned (April 23rd). Early in the
following year he appeared in his place in the House of Peers,
but died April 19th. Though Mr. Gladstone had in 1875
relinquished the political leadership in favour of Lord
Hartington yet the 'Bulgarian Atrocities' and other writings
brought him again so prominent before the public that his
leadership was universally acknowledged by the party. ... He
now resumed office, taking the two posts so frequently held
before by Prime Ministers since the days of William Pitt, who
also held them. ... The result of the general election of 1880
was the return of more Liberals to Parliament than
Conservatives and Home Rulers together. The farming interest
continued depressed both in Great Britain and Ireland,
resulting in thousands of acres being thrown on the landlords'
hands in the former country, and numerous harsh evictions in the
latter for non-payment of rent. Mr. Gladstone determined to
legislate anew on the Irish Land Question: and (1881) carried
through both Houses that admirable measure known as the Irish
Land Act, which for the first time in the history of that
country secured to the tenant remuneration for his own
industry. A Land Commission Court was established to fix Fair
Rents for a period of 15 years. After a time leaseholders were
included in this beneficent legislation."
R. Johnston,
A Short History of the Queen's Reign,
pages 49-57.
ALSO IN:
J. A. Froude,
Lord Beaconsfield,
chapters 16-17.
G. B. Smith,
Life of Gladstone,
chapters 22-28 (volume 2).
H. Jephson,
The Platform,
chapters 21-22 (volume 2).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1877.
Assumption by the Queen of the title of Empress of India.
See INDIA: A. D. 1877.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1877-1878.
The Eastern Question again.
Bulgarian atrocities.
Excitement over the Russian successes in Turkey.
War-clamor of "the Jingoes."
The fleet sent through the Dardanelles.
Arrangement of the Berlin Congress.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1875-1878;
and TURKS: A. D. 1878.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1877-1881.
Annexation of the Transvaal.
The Boer War.
See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1806-1881.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1878.
The Congress of Berlin.
Acquisition of the control of Cyprus.
See TURKS: A. D. 1878.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1878-1880.
The second Afghan War.
See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1869-1881.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1880.
Breach between the Irish Party and the English Liberals.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1880.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1882.
War in Egypt.
Bombardment of Alexandria.
Battle of Tel-el-Kebir.
See EGYPT: A. D. 1875-1882, and 1882-1883.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1883.
The Act for Prevention of Corrupt and Illegal Practices at
Parliamentary Elections.
{972}
"Prior to the General Election of 1880 there were those who
hoped and believed that Corrupt Practices at Elections were
decreasing. These hopes were based upon the growth of the
constituencies and their increased political intelligence, and
also upon the operation of the Ballot Act. The disclosures
following the General Election proved to the most sanguine
that this belief was an error. Corrupt practices were found to
be more prevalent than ever. If in olden times larger
aggregate sums were expended in bribery and treating, never
probably had so many persons been bribed and treated as at the
General Election of 1880. After that election nineteen
petitions against returns on the ground of corrupt practices
were presented. In eight instances the Judges reported that
those practices had extensively prevailed, and in respect of
seven of these the reports of the Commissioners appointed
under the Act of 1852 demonstrated the alarming extent to
which corruption of all kinds had grown. ... A most serious
feature in the Commissioners' Reports was the proof they
afforded that bribery was regarded as a meritorious not as a
disgraceful act. Thirty magistrates were reported as guilty of
corrupt practices and removed from the Commission of the Peace
by the Lord Chancellor. Mayors, aldermen, town-councillors,
solicitors, the agents of the candidates, and others of a like
class were found to have dealt with bribery as if it were a
part of the necessary machinery for conducting an election.
Worst of all, some of these persons had actually attained
municipal honours, not only after they had committed these
practices, but even after their misdeeds had been exposed by
public inquiry. The Reports also showed, and a Parliamentary
Return furnished still more conclusive proof, that election
expenses were extravagant even to absurdity, and moreover were
on the increase. The lowest estimate of the expenditure during
the General Election of 1880 amounts to the enormous sum of
two and a half millions. With another Reform Bill in view, the
prospects of future elections were indeed alarming. ... The
necessity for some change was self-evident. Public opinion
insisted that the subject should be dealt with, and the evil
encountered. ... The Queen's Speech of the 6th of January,
1881, announced that a measure 'for the repression of corrupt
practices' would be submitted to Parliament, and on the
following day the Attorney-General (Sir Henry James), in
forcible and eloquent terms, moved for leave to introduce his
Bill. His proposals (severe as they seemed) were received with
general approval and sympathy, both inside and outside the
House of Commons, at a time when members and constituents
alike were ashamed of the excesses so recently brought to
light. It is true that the two and a half years' delay that
intervened between the introduction of the Bill and its
finally becoming law (a delay caused by the necessities of
Irish legislation), sufficed very considerably to cool the
enthusiasm of Parliament and the public. Yet enough desire for
reform remained to carry in July 1883 the Bill of January
1881, modified indeed in detail, but with its principles
intact and its main provisions unaltered. The measure which
has now become the Parliamentary Elections Act of 1883, was in
its conception pervaded by two principles. The first was to
strike hard and home at corrupt practices; the second was to
prohibit by positive legislation any expenditure in the
conduct of an election which was not absolutely necessary.
Bribery, undue influence, and personation, had long been
crimes for which a man could be fined and imprisoned. Treating
was now added to the same class of offences, and the
punishment for all rendered more deterrent by a liability to
hard labour. ... Besides punishment on conviction,
incapacities of a serious character are to result from a
person being reported guilty of corrupt practices by Election
Judges or Election Commissioners. ... A candidate reported
personally guilty of corrupt practices can never sit again for
the same constituency, and is rendered incapable of being a
member of the House of Commons for seven years. All persons,
whether candidates or not, are, on being reported, rendered
incapable of holding any public office or exercising any
franchise for the same period. Moreover, if any persons so
found guilty are magistrates, barristers, solicitors, or
members of other honourable professions, they are to be
reported to the Lord Chancellor, Inns of Court, High Court of
Justice, or other authority controlling their profession, and
dealt with as in the case of professional misconduct. Licensed
victuallers are, in a similar manner, to be reported to the
licensing justices, who may on the next occasion refuse to
renew their licenses. ... The employment of all paid
assistants except a very limited number is forbidden; no
conveyances are to be paid for, and only a restricted number
of committee rooms are to be engaged. Unnecessary payments for
the exhibition of bills and addresses, and for flags, bands,
torches, and the like are declared illegal. But these
prohibitions of specific objects were not considered
sufficient. Had these alone been enacted, the money of wealthy
and reckless candidates would have found other channels in
which to flow. ... And thus it was that the 'maximum scale'
was adopted as at once the most direct and the most
efficacious means of limiting expenditure. Whether by himself
or his agents, by direct payment or by contract, the candidate
is forbidden to spend more in 'the conduct and management of
an election' than the sums permitted by the Act, sums which
depend in each case on the numerical extent of the
constituency."
H. Hobhouse,
The Parliamentary Elections
(Corrupt and Illegal Practices) Act, 1883,
pages 1-8.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.
The Third Reform Bill and the Redistribution Bill.
The existing qualifications and disqualifications
of the Suffrage.
"Soon after Mr. Gladstone came into power in 1880, Mr.
Trevelyan became a member of his Administration. Already the
Premier had secured the co-operation of two other men new to
office--Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke. ... Their
presence in the Administration was looked upon as a good
augury by the Radicals, and the augury was not destined to
prove misleading. It was understood from the first that, with
such men as his coadjutors, Mr. Gladstone was pledged to a
still further Reform. He was pledged already, in fact, by his
speeches in Midlothian. ... On the 17th of October, 1883, a
great Conference was held at Leeds, for the purpose of
considering the Liberal programme for the ensuing season. The
Conference was attended by no fewer than 2,000 delegates, who
represented upwards of 500 Liberal Associations.
{973}
It was presided over by Mr. John Morley. ... To a man the
delegates agreed as to the imperative necessity of household
suffrage being extended to the counties; and almost to a man
they agreed also as to the necessity of the measure being no
longer delayed. ... When Parliament met on the 5th of the
following February ... a measure for 'the enlargement of the
occupation franchise in Parliamentary Elections throughout the
United Kingdom' was distinctly promised in the Royal Speech;
and the same evening Mr. Gladstone gave notice that 'on the
first available day,' he would move for leave to bring in the
bill. So much was the House of Commons occupied with affairs
in Egypt and the Soudan, however, that it was not till the
29th of February that the Premier was able to fulfil his
pledge." Four months were occupied in the passage of the bill
through the House of Commons, and when it reached the Lords it
was rejected. This roused "an intense feeling throughout the
country. On the 21st of July, a great meeting was held in Hyde
Park, attended, it was believed, by upwards of 100,000
persons. ... On the 30th of July, a great meeting of delegates
was held in St. James's Hall, London. ... Mr. John Morley, who
presided, used some words respecting the House that had
rejected the bill which were instantly caught up by Reformers
everywhere. 'Be sure,' he said, 'that no power on earth can
separate henceforth the question of mending the House of
Commons from the question of mending, or ending, the House of
Lords.' On the 4th of August, Mr. Bright, speaking at
Birmingham, referred to the Lords as 'many of them the spawn
of the plunder and the wars and the corruption of the dark
ages of our country'; and his colleague, Mr. Chamberlain, used
even bolder words: 'During the last one hundred years the
House of Lords has never contributed one iota to popular
liberties or popular freedom, or done anything to advance the
common weal; and during that time it has protected every abuse
and sheltered every privilege. ... It is irresponsible without
independence, obstinate without courage, arbitrary without
judgment, and arrogant without knowledge.' ... In very many
instances, a strong disposition was manifested to drop the
agitation for the Reform of the House of Commons for a time,
and to concentrate the whole strength of the Liberal party on
one final struggle for the Reform (or, preferably, the
extinction) of the Upper House." But Mr. Gladstone gave no
encouragement to this inclination of his party. The outcome of
the agitation was the passage of the Franchise Bill a second time
in the House of Commons, in November, 1884, and by the Lords
soon afterwards. A concession was made to the latter by
previously satisfying them with regard to the contemplated
redistribution of seats in the House of Commons, for which a
separate bill was framed and introduced while the Franchise
Bill was yet pending. The Redistribution Bill passed the
Commons in May and the Lords in June, 1885.
W. Heaton,
The Three Reforms of Parliament,
chapter 6.
"In regard to electoral districts, the equalization, in other
words, the radical refashioning of electoral districts, having
about the same number of inhabitants, is carried out. For this
purpose, 79 towns, having less than 15,000 inhabitants, are
divested of the right of electing a separate member; 36 towns,
with less than 50,000, return only one member; 14 large towns
obtain an increase of the number of the members in proportion
to the population; 35 towns, of nearly 50,000, obtain a new
franchise. The counties are throughout parcelled-out into
'electoral districts' of about the like population, to elect
one member each. This single-seat system is, regularly,
carried out in towns, with the exception of 28 middle-sized
towns, which have been left with two members. The County of
York forms, for example, 26 electoral districts; Liverpool 9.
To sum up, the result stands thus:--the counties choose 253
members (formerly 187), the towns 237 (formerly 297). The
average population of the county electoral districts is now
52,800 (formerly 70,800); the average number of the town
electoral districts 52,700 (formerly 41,200). ... The number
of the newly-enfranchised is supposed, according to an average
estimate, to be 2,000,000."
Dr. R. Gneist,
The English Parliament in its Transformations,
chapter 9.
ALSO IN:
J. Murdoch,
History of Constitutional Reform in Great
Britain and Ireland,
pages 277-398.
H. Jephson,
The Platform,
chapter 23 (volume 2).
The following is the text of the "Third Reform Act," which is
entitled "The Representation of the People Act, 1884":
An Act to amend the Law relating to the Representation of
the People of the United Kingdom. [6th December, 1884.]
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and
with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament
assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
1. This Act may be cited as the Representation of the
People Act, 1884.
2. A uniform household franchise and a uniform lodger
franchise at elections shall be established in all counties
and boroughs throughout the United Kingdom, and every man
possessed of a household qualification or a lodger
qualification shall, if the qualifying premises be situate
in a county in England or Scotland, be entitled to be
registered as a voter, and when registered to vote at an
election for such county, and if the qualifying premises be
situate in a county or borough in Ireland, be entitled to
be registered as a voter, and when registered to vote at an
election for such county or borough.
3. Where a man himself inhabits any dwelling-house by
virtue of any office, service, or employment, and the
dwelling-house is not inhabited by any person under whom
such man serves in such office, service, or employment, he
shall be deemed for the purposes of this Act and of the
Representation of the People Acts to be an inhabitant
occupier of such dwelling-house as a tenant.
4. Subject to the saving in this Act for existing voters,
the following provisions shall have effect with reference
to elections:
(1.) A man shall not be entitled to be registered as a
voter in respect of the ownership of any rentcharge except
the owner of the whole of the tithe rentcharge of a
rectory, vicarage, chapelry, or benefice to which an
apportionment of tithe rentcharge shall have been made in
respect of any portion of tithes.
(2.) Where two or more men are owners either as joint
tenants or as tenants in common of an estate in any land or
tenement, one of such men, but not more than one, shall, if
his interest is sufficient to confer a qualification as a
voter in respect of the ownership of such estate, be
entitled (in the like cases and subject to the like
conditions as if he were the sole owner) to be registered
as a voter, and when registered to vote at an election.
{974}
Provided that where such owners have derived their interest
by descent, succession, marriage, marriage settlement, or
will, or where they occupy the land or tenement, and are
bonâ fide engaged as partners carrying on trade or business
thereon, each of such owners whose interest is sufficient
to confer on him a qualification as a voter shall be
entitled (in the like cases and subject to the like
conditions as if he were sole owner) to be registered as a
voter in respect of such ownership, and when registered to
vote at an election, and the value of the interest of each
such owner where not otherwise legally defined shall be
ascertained by the division of the total value of the land
or tenement equally among the whole of such owners.
5. Every man occupying any land or tenement in a county or
borough in the United Kingdom of a clear yearly value of
not less than ten pounds shall be entitled to be registered
as a voter and when registered to vote at an election for
such county or borough in respect of such occupation
subject to the like conditions respectively as a man is, at
the passing of this Act, entitled to be registered as a
voter and to vote at an election for such county in respect
of the county occupation franchise, and at an election for
such borough in respect of the borough occupation
franchise.
6. A man shall not by virtue of this Act be entitled to be
registered as a voter or to vote at any election for a
county in respect of the occupation of any dwelling-house,
lodgings, land, or tenement, situate in a borough.
7. (1.) In this Act the expression "a household
qualification" means, as respects England and Ireland, the
qualification enacted by the third section of the
Representation of the People Act, 1867 [see comments
appended to this text], and the enactments amending or
affecting the same, and the said section and enactments so
far as they are consistent with this Act, shall extend to
counties in England and to counties and boroughs in
Ireland.
(2.) In the construction of the said enactments, as amended
and applied to Ireland, the following dates shall be
substituted for the dates therein mentioned, that is to say,
the twentieth day of July for the fifteenth day of July, the
first day of July for the twentieth day of July, and the
first day of January for the fifth day of January.
(3.) The expression "a lodger qualification" means the
qualification enacted, as respects England, by the fourth
section of the Representation of the People Act, 1867 [see
comments appended to this text], and the enactments amending
or affecting the same, and as respects Ireland, by the
fourth section of the Representation of the People (Ireland)
Act, 1868, and the enactments amending or affecting the
same, and the said section of the English Act of 1867, and
the enactments amending or affecting the same, shall, so far
as they are consistent with this Act, extend to counties in
England, and the said section of the Irish Act of 1868, and
the enactments amending or affecting the same, shall, so far
as they are consistent with this Act, extend to counties in
Ireland; and sections five and six and twenty-two and
twenty-three of the Parliamentary and Municipal Registration
Act, 1878, so far as they relate to lodgings, shall apply to
Ireland, and for the purpose of such application the
reference in the said section six to the Representation of
the People Act, 1867, shall be deemed to be made to the
Representation of the People (Ireland) Act, 1868, and in the
said section twenty-two of the Parliamentary and Municipal
Registration Act, 1878, the reference to section thirteen of
the Parliamentary Registration Act, 1843, shall be construed
to refer to the enactments of the Registration Acts in
Ireland relating to the making out, signing, publishing, and
otherwise dealing with the lists of voters, and the
reference to the Parliamentary Registration Acts shall be
construed to refer to the Registration Acts in Ireland, and
the following dates shall be substituted in Ireland for the
dates in that section mentioned, that is to say, the
twentieth day of July for the last day of July, and the
fourteenth day of July for the twenty-fifth day of July,
and the word "overseers" shall be construed to refer in a
county to the clerk of the peace, and in a borough to the
town clerk.
(4.) The expression "a household qualification" means, as
respects Scotland, the qualification enacted by the third
section of the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act,
1868, and the enactments amending or affecting the same,
and the said section and enactments shall, so far as they
are consistent with this Act, extend to counties in
Scotland, and for the purpose of the said section and
enactments the expression "dwelling-house" in Scotland
means any house or part of a house occupied as a separate
dwelling, and this definition of a dwelling-house shall be
substituted for the definition contained in section
fifty-nine of the Representation of the People (Scotland)
Act, 1868.
(5.) The expression "a lodger qualification" means, as
respects Scotland, the qualification enacted by the fourth
section of the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act,
1868, and the enactments amending or affecting the same,
and the said section and enactments, so far as they are
consistent with this Act, shall extend to counties in
Scotland.
(6.) The expression "county occupation franchise" means, as
respects England, the franchise enacted by the sixth
section of the Representation of the People Act, 1867 [see
comments appended to this text]; and, as respects Scotland,
the franchise enacted by the sixth section of the
Representation of the People (Scotland) Act, 1868; and, as
respects Ireland, the franchise enacted by the first
section of the Act of the session of the thirteenth and
fourteenth years of the reign of Her present Majesty,
chapter sixty-nine.
(7.) The expression "borough occupation franchise" means,
as respects England, the franchise enacted by the
twenty-seventh section of the Act of the session of the
second and third years of the reign of King William the
Fourth, chapter forty-five [see comments appended to this
text]; and as respects Scotland, the franchise enacted by
the eleventh section of the Act of the session of the
second and third years of the reign of King William the
Fourth, chapter sixty-five; and as respects Ireland the
franchise enacted by section five of the Act of the session
of the thirteenth and fourteenth years of the reign of Her
present Majesty, chapter sixty-nine, and the third section
of the Representation of the People (Ireland) Act, 1868.
{975}
(8.) Any enactments amending or relating to the county
occupation franchise or 'borough occupation franchise other
than the sections in this Act in that behalf mentioned
shall be deemed to be referred to in the definition of the
county occupation franchise and the borough occupation
franchise in this Act mentioned.
8. (1.) In this Act the expression "the Representation of
the People Acts" means the enactments for the time being in
force in England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively
relating to the representation of the people, inclusive of
the Registration Acts as defined by this Act.
(2.) The expression "the Registration Acts" means the
enactments for the time being in force in England,
Scotland, and Ireland respectively, relating to the
registration of persons entitled to vote at elections for
counties and boroughs, inclusive of the Rating Acts as
defined by this Act.
(3.) The expressions "the Representation of the People
Acts" and "the Registration Acts" respectively, where used
in this Act, shall be read distributively in reference to
the three parts of the United Kingdom as meaning in the
case of each part the enactments for the time being in
force in that part.
(4.) All enactments of the Registration Acts which relate
to the registration of persons entitled to vote in boroughs
in England in respect of a household or a lodger
qualification, and in boroughs in Ireland in respect of a
lodger qualification, shall, with the necessary variations
and with the necessary alterations of precepts, notices,
lists, and other forms, extend to counties as well as to
boroughs.
(5.) All enactments of the Registration Acts which relate
to the registration in counties and boroughs in Ireland of
persons entitled to vote in respect of the county
occupation franchise and the borough occupation franchise
respectively, shall, with the necessary variations and with
the necessary alterations of precepts, notices, lists, and
other forms, extend respectively to the registration in
counties and boroughs in Ireland of persons entitled to
vote in respect of the household qualification conferred by
this Act.
(6.) In Scotland all enactments of the Registration Acts
which relate to the registration of persons entitled to
vote in burghs, including the provisions relating to dates,
shall, with the necessary variations, and with the
necessary alterations of notices and other forms, extend
and apply to counties as well as to burghs; and the
enactments of the said Acts which relate to the
registration of persons entitled to vote in counties shall,
so far as inconsistent with the enactments so applied, be
repealed: Provided that in counties the valuation rolls,
registers, and lists shall continue to be arranged in
parishes as heretofore.
9. (1.) In this Act the expression "the Rating Acts" means
the enactments for the time being in force in England,
Scotland, and Ireland respectively, relating to the placing
of the names of occupiers on the rate book, or other
enactments relating to rating in so far as they are
auxiliary to or deal with the registration of persons
entitled to vote at elections; and the expression "the
Rating Acts" where used in this Act shall be read
distributively in reference to the three parts of the
United Kingdom as meaning in the case of each part the Acts
for the time being in force in that part.
(2.) In every part of the United Kingdom it shall be the
duty of the overseers annually, in the months of April and
May, or one of them, to inquire or ascertain with respect
to every hereditament which comprises any dwelling-house or
dwelling-houses within the meaning of the Representation of
the People Acts, whether any man, other than the owner or
other person rated or liable to be rated in respect of such
hereditament, is entitled to be registered as a voter in
respect of his being an inhabitant occupier of any such
dwelling-house, and to enter in the rate book the name of
every man so entitled, and the situation or description of
the dwelling-house in respect of which he is entitled, and
for the purposes of such entry a separate column shall be
added to the rate book.
(3.) For the purpose of the execution of such duty the
overseers may serve on the person who is the occupier or
rated or liable to be rated in respect of such
hereditament, or on some agent of such person concerned in
the management of such hereditament, the requisition
specified in the Third Schedule of this Act requiring that
the form in that notice be accurately filled up and
returned to the overseers within twenty-one days after such
service; and if any such person or agent on whom such
requisition is served fails to comply therewith, he shall
be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding
forty shillings, and any overseer who fails to perform his
duty under this section shall be deemed guilty of a breach
of duty in the execution of the Registration Acts, and
shall be liable to be fined accordingly a sum not exceeding
forty shillings for each default.
(4.) The notice under this section may be served in manner
provided by the Representation of the People Acts with
respect to the service on occupiers of notice of
non-payment of rates, and, where a body of persons,
corporate or unincorporate, is rated, shall be served on
the secretary or agent of such body of persons; and where
the hereditament by reason of belonging to the Crown or
otherwise is not rated, shall be served on the chief local
officer having the superintendence or control of such
hereditament.
(5.) In the application of this section to Scotland the
expression rate book means the valuation roll, and where a
man entered on the valuation roll by virtue of this section
inhabits a dwelling-house by virtue of any office, service,
or employment, there shall not be entered in the valuation
roll any rent or value against the name of such man as
applicable to such dwelling-house, nor shall any such man
by reason of such entry become liable to be rated in
respect of such dwelling-house.
(6.) The proviso in section two of the Act for the
valuation of lands and heritages in Scotland passed in the
session of the seventeenth and eighteenth years of the
reign of Her present Majesty chapter ninety-one, and
section fifteen of the Representation of the People
(Scotland) Act, 1868, shall be repealed: Provided that in
any county in Scotland the commissioners of supply, or the
parochial board of any parish, or any other rating
authority entitled to impose assessments according to the
valuation roll, may, if they think fit, levy such
assessments in respect of lands and heritages separately
let for a shorter period than one year or at a rent not
amounting to four pounds per annum in the same manner and
from the same persons as if the names of the tenants and
occupiers of such lands and heritages were not inserted in
the valuation roll.
{976}
(7.) In Ireland where the owner of a dwelling-house is
rated instead of the occupier, the occupier shall
nevertheless be entitled to be registered as a voter, and
to vote under the same conditions under which an occupier
of a dwelling-house in England is entitled in pursuance of
the Poor Rate Assessment and Collection Act, 1869, and the
Acts amending the same, to be registered as a voter, and to
vote where the owner is rated, and the enactments referred
to in the First Schedule to this Act shall apply to Ireland
accordingly, with the modifications in that schedule
mentioned.
(8.) Both in England and Ireland where a man inhabits any
dwelling-house by virtue of any office, service, or
employment, and is deemed for the purposes of this Act and
of the Representation of the People Acts to be an
inhabitant occupier of such dwelling-house as a tenant, and
another person is rated or liable to be rated for such
dwelling-house, the rating of such other person shall for
the purposes of this Act and of the Representation of the
People Acts be deemed to be that of the inhabitant
occupier; and the several enactments of the Poor Rate
Assessment and Collection Act, 1869, and other Acts
amending the same referred to in the First Schedule to this
Act shall for those purposes apply to such inhabitant
occupier, and in the construction of those enactments the
word "owner" shall be deemed to include a person actually
rated or liable to be rated as aforesaid.
(9.) In any part of the United Kingdom where a man inhabits
a dwelling-house in respect of which no person is rated by
reason of such dwelling-house belonging to or being
occupied on behalf of the Crown, or by reason of any other
ground of exemption, such person shall not be disentitled
to be registered as a voter, and to vote by reason only
that no one is rated in respect of such dwelling-house, and
that no rates are paid in respect of the same, and it shall
be the duty of the persons making out the rate book or
valuation roll to enter any such dwelling-house as last
aforesaid in the rate book or valuation roll, together with
the name of the inhabitant occupier thereof.
10. Nothing in this Act shall deprive any person (who at
the date of the passing of this Act is registered in
respect of any qualification to vote for any county or
borough), of his right to be from time to time registered
and to vote for such county or borough in respect of such
qualification in like manner as if this Act had not passed.
Provided that where a man is so registered in respect of
the county or borough occupation franchise by virtue of a
qualification which also qualifies him for the franchise
under this Act, he shall be entitled to be registered in
respect of such latter franchise only. Nothing in this Act
shall confer on any man who is subject to any legal
incapacity to be registered as a voter or to vote, any
right to be registered as a voter or to vote.
11. This Act, so far as may be consistently with the tenor
thereof, shall be construed as one with the Representation
of the People Acts as defined by this Act; and the
expressions "election," "county," and "borough," and other
expressions in this Act and in the enactments applied by
this Act, shall have the same meaning as in the said Acts.
Provided that in this Act and the said enactments--The
expression "overseers" includes assessors, guardians,
clerks of unions, or other persons by whatever name known,
who perform duties in relation to rating or to the
registration of voters similar to those performed in
relation to such matters by overseers in England. The
expression "rentcharge" includes a fee farm rent, a feu
duty in Scotland, a rent seck, a chief rent, a rent of
assize, and any rent or annuity granted out of land. The
expression "land or tenement" includes any part of a house
separately occupied for the purpose of any trade, business,
or profession, and that expression, and also the expression
"hereditament" when used in this Act, in Scotland includes
"lands and heritages." The expressions "joint tenants" and
"tenants in common" shall include "pro indiviso
proprietors." The expression "clear yearly value" as
applied to any land or tenement means in Scotland the
annual value as appearing in the valuation roll, and in
Ireland the net annual value at which the occupier of such
land or tenement was rated under the last rate for the time
being, under the Act of the session of the first and second
years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter
fifty-six, or any Acts amending the same.
12. Whereas the franchises conferred by this Act are in
substitution for the franchises conferred by the enactments
mentioned in the first and second parts of the Second
Schedule hereto, be it enacted that the Acts mentioned in
the first part of the said Second Schedule shall be
repealed to the extent in the third column of that part of
the said schedule mentioned except in so far as relates to
the rights of persons saved by this Act; and the Acts
mentioned in the second part of the said Second Schedule
shall be repealed to the extent in the third column of that
part of the said schedule mentioned, except in so far as
relates to the rights of persons saved by this Act and
except in so far as the enactments so repealed contain
conditions made applicable by this Act to any franchise
enacted by this Act.
13. This Act shall commence and come into operation on the
first day of January one thousand eight hundred and
eighty-five: Provided that the register of voters in any
county or borough in Scotland made in the last-mentioned
year shall not come into force until the first day of
January one thousand eight hundred and eighty-six, and
until that day the previous register of voters shall
continue in force.
The following comments upon the foregoing act afford
explanations which are needed for the understanding of some of
its provisions:
"The introduction of the household franchise into counties is
the main work of the Representation of the People Act, 1884.
... The county household franchise is ... made identical with
the borough franchise created by the Reform Act of 1867 (30 &
31 Vict., c. 102), to which we must, therefore, turn for the
definition of the one household franchise now established in
both counties and boroughs throughout the United Kingdom. The
third section of the Act in question provides that 'Every man
shall in and after the year 1868 be entitled to be registered
as a voter, and when registered to vote, for a member or
members to serve in Parliament for a borough [we must now add
"or for a county or division of a county"] who is qualified as
follows:
(1.) Is of full age and not subject to any legal
incapacity;
(2.) Is on the last day of July [now July 15th] in any
year, and has during the whole of the preceding twelve
calendar months been an inhabitant occupier as owner or
tenant of any dwelling house within the borough [or within
a county or division of a county];
{977}
(3.) Has during the time of such occupation been rated as
an ordinary occupier in respect of the premises so occupied
by him within the borough to all rates (if any) made for
the relief of the poor in respect of such premises; and,
(4.) Has on or before the 20th day of July in the same year
bona fide paid an equal amount in the pound to that payable
by other ordinary occupiers in respect of all poor rates
that have been payable by him in respect of the said
premises up to the preceding 5th day of January: Provided
that no man shall under this section be entitled to be
registered as a voter by reason of his being a joint
occupier of any dwelling house. ... The lodger franchise
was the creation of the Reform Act of 1867 (30 & 31 Vict.,
c. 102), the 4th section of which conferred the suffrage
upon lodgers who, being of full age and not subject to any
legal incapacity, have occupied in the same borough
lodgings 'of a clear yearly value, if let unfurnished, of
£10 or upwards' for twelve months preceding the last day of
July, and have claimed to be registered as voters at the
next ensuing registration of voters. By this clause certain
limitations or restrictions were imposed on the lodger franchise;
but these were swept away by the 41 & 42 Vict., c. 26, the
6th section of which considerably enlarged the franchise by
enacting that:--
(1.) Lodgings occupied by a person in any year or two
successive years shall not be deemed to be different
lodgings by reason only that in that year or either of
those years he has occupied some other rooms or place in
addition to his original lodgings.
(2.) For the purpose of qualifying a lodger to vote the
occupation in immediate succession of different lodgings of
the requisite value in the same house shall have the same effect
as continued occupation of the same lodgings.
(3.) Where lodgings are jointly occupied by more than one
lodger, and the clear yearly value of the lodgings if let
unfurnished is of an amount which, when divided by the
number of the lodgers, gives a sum of not less than £10 for
each lodger, then each lodger (if otherwise qualified and
subject to the conditions of the Representation of the
People Act, 1867) shall be entitled to be registered and
when registered to vote as a lodger, provided that not more
than two persons being such joint lodgers shall be entitled
to be registered in respect of such lodgings. ... Until the
passing of the Representation of the People Act, 1884, no
householder was qualified to vote unless he not only
occupied a dwelling house, but occupied it either as owner
or as the tenant of the owner. And where residence in an
official or other house was necessary, or conducive to the
efficient discharge of a man's duty or service, and was
either expressly or impliedly made a part of such duty or
service then the relation of landlord or tenant was held
not to be created. The consequence was that a large number
of persons who as officials, as employes, or as servants
are required to reside in public buildings, on the premises
of their employers or in houses assigned to them by their
masters were held not to be entitled to the franchise. In
future such persons will ... be entitled to vote as
inhabitant occupiers and tenants (under Section 3 of the
recent Act), notwithstanding that they occupy their
dwelling houses 'by virtue of any office, service or
employment.' But this is subject to the condition that a
subordinate cannot qualify or obtain a vote in respect of a
dwelling house which is also inhabited by any person under whom
'such man serves in such office, service or employment.'
... Persons seised of (i. e., owning) an estate of
inheritance (i. e., in fee simple or fee-tail) of freehold
tenure, in lands or tenements, of the value of 40s. per
annum, are entitled to a vote for the county or division of
the county in which the estate is situated. This is the
class of electors generally known as 'forty shilling
freeholders.' Originally all freeholders were entitled to
county votes, but by the 8 Henry VI., c. 7, it was provided
that no freehold of a less annual value than 40s. should
confer the franchise. Until the Reform Act of 1832, 40s.
freeholders, whether their estate was one of inheritance or
one for life or lives, were entitled to county votes. That Act,
however, restricted the county freehold franchise by
drawing a distinction between (1) freeholds of inheritance,
and (2) freeholds not of inheritance. While the owners of
the first class of freeholds were left in possession of
their former rights (except when the property is situated
within a Parliamentary borough), the owners of the latter
were subjected to a variety of conditions and restrictions. ...
Before the passing of the Representation of the People Act,
1884, any number of persons might qualify and obtain county
votes as joint owners of a freehold of inheritance,
provided that it was of an annual value sufficient to give
40s. for each owner. But ... this right is materially
qualified by Section 4 of the recent Act. ... Persons
seised of an estate for life or lives of freehold tenure of
the annual value of 40s., but of less than £5, are entitled
to a county vote, provided that they
(1) actually and bonâ fide occupy the premises, or
(2) were seised of the property at the time of the passing
of the 2 Will. IV., c. 45 (June 7th, 1832), or
(3) have acquired the property after the date by marriage,
marriage settlement, devise, or promotion to a benefice or
office. ... Persons seised of an estate for life or lives
or of any larger estate in lands or tenements of any tenure
whatever of the yearly value of £5 or upwards: This
qualification is not confined to the ownership of freehold
lands. Under the words 'of any tenure whatever' (30 & 31
Vict., c. 102, s. 5) copyholders have county votes if their
property is of the annual value of £5. ... The electoral
qualifications in Scotland are defined by the 2 & 3 Will.
IV., c. 65, the 31 & 32 Vict., c. 48, and the
Representation of the People Act, 1884 (48 Vict., c. 3).
The effect of the three Acts taken together is that the
County franchises are as follows:
1. Owners of Land, &c., of the annual value of £5, after
deducting feu duty, ground annual, or other considerations
which an owner may be bound to pay or to give an account
for as a condition of his right.
2. Leaseholders under a lease of not less than 57 years or
for the life of the tenant of the clear yearly value of
£10, or for a period of not less than 19 years when the
clear yearly value is not less than £50, or the tenant is
in actual personal occupancy of the land.
3. Occupiers of land, &c., of the clear yearly value of £10.
4. Householders.
5. Lodgers.
6. The service franchise.
Borough franchises.
1. Occupiers of land or tenements of the annual value of £10.
2. Householders.
3. Lodgers.
4. The service franchise.
{978}
The qualification for these franchises is in all material
respects the same as for the corresponding franchises in
the Scotch counties, and in the counties and boroughs of
England and Wales. ... The Acts relating to the franchise
in Ireland are 2 & 3 Will. IV., c. 88, 13 & 14 Vict., c.
69, the representation of the People (Ireland) Act, 1868,
and the Representation of the People Act, 1884. Read
together they give the following qualifications:
County franchises.
1. Owners of freeholds of inheritance or of freeholds for
lives renewable for ever rated to the poor at the annual
value of £5.
2. Freeholders and copyholders of a clear annual value of
£10.
3. Leaseholders of various terms and value.
4. Occupiers of land or a tenement of the clear annual
value of £10.
5. Householders.
6. The lodger franchise.
7. The service franchise.
Borough franchises.
1. Occupiers of lands and tenements of the annual value of
£10.
2. Householders. ...
3. Lodgers.
4. The service franchise.
5. Freemen in certain boroughs. ...
All the franchises we have described ... are subject to this
condition, that no one, however qualified, can be registered
or vote in respect of them if he is subjected to any legal
incapacity to become or act as elector. ... No alien unless
certificated or naturalised, no minor, no lunatic or idiot,
nor any person in such a state of drunkenness as to be
incapable--is entitled to vote. Police magistrates in London
and Dublin, and police officers throughout the country,
including the members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, are
disqualified from voting either generally or for
constituencies within which their duties lie. In the case of
the police the disqualification continues for six months after
an officer has left the force. ... Persons are disqualified
who are convicted of treason or treason-felony, for which the
sentence is death or penal servitude, or any term of
imprisonment with hard labour or exceeding twelve months,
until they have suffered their punishment (or such as may be
substituted by competent authority), or until they receive a
free pardon. Peers are disqualified from voting at the
election of any member to serve in Parliament. A returning
officer may not vote at any election for which he acts, unless
the numbers are equal, when he may give a casting vote. No
person is entitled to be registered in any year as a voter for
any county or borough who has within twelve calendar months
next previous to the last day of July in such year received
parochial relief or other alms which by the law of Parliament
disqualify from voting. Persons employed at an election for
reward or payment are disqualified from voting thereat
although they may be on the register. ... The Corrupt and
Illegal Practices Prevention Act, 1883 (46 & 47 Vict., c. 51),
disqualifies a variety of offenders [see above, A. D. 1883]
against its provisions from being registered or voting."
W. A. Holdsworth,
The New Reform Act,
pages 20-36.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1881-1885.
Campaign in the Soudan for the relief of General Gordon.
See EGYPT: A. D. 1884-1885.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1885.
The fall of the Gladstone government.
The brief first Ministry of Lord Salisbury.
"Almost simultaneously with the assembling of Parliament
[February 19, 1885] had come the news of the fall of Khartoum
and the death of General Gordon [see EGYPT: A. D. 1884-1885].
These terrible events sent a thrill of horror and indignation
throughout the country, and the Government was severely
condemned in many quarters for its procrastination. Mr.
Gladstone, who was strongly moved by Gordon's death, rose to
the situation, and announced that it was necessary to
overthrow the Mahdi at Khartoum, to renew operations against
Osman Digma, and to construct a railway from Suakim to Berber
with a view to a campaign in the autumn. A royal proclamation
was issued calling out the reserves. Sir Stafford Northcote
initiated a debate on the Soudan question with a motion
affirming that the risks and sacrifices which the Government
appeared to be ready to encounter could only be justified by a
distinct recognition of our responsibility for Egypt, and
those portions of the Soudan which are necessary to its
security. Mr. John Morley introduced an amendment to the
motion, waiving any judgment on the policy of the Minister,
but expressing regret at its decision to continue the conflict
with the Mahdl. Mr. Gladstone skilfully dealt with both motion
and amendment. Observing that it was impossible to give rigid
pledges as to the future, he appealed to the Liberal party, if
they had not made up their minds to condemn and punish the
Government, to strengthen their hands by an unmistakable vote
of confidence. The Government obtained a majority of 14, the
votes being 302 in their favour with 288 against; but many of
those who supported the Government had also voted for the
amendment by Mr. Morley. ... Financial questions were
extremely embarrassing to the Government, and it was not until
the 30th of April that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was
ready with his financial statement. He was called upon to deal
with a deficit of upwards of a million, with a greatly
depressed revenue, and with an estimated expenditure for the
current year--including the vote of credit--of no less than
£100,000,000. Amongst Mr. Childers's proposals was one to levy
upon land an amount of taxation proportioned to that levied on
personal property. There was also an augmentation of the
spirit duties and of the beer duty. The country members were
dissatisfied and demanded that no new charges should be thrown
on the land till the promised relief of local taxation had
been carried out. The agricultural and the liquor interests
were discontented, as well as the Scotch and Irish members
with the whiskey duty. The Chancellor made some concessions,
but they were not regarded as sufficient, and on the Monday
after the Whitsun holidays, the Opposition joined battle on a
motion by Sir M. Hicks Beach. ... Mr. Gladstone stated at the
close of the debate that the Government would resign if
defeated. The amendment was carried against them by 264 to
252, and the Ministry went out. ... Lord Salisbury became
Premier. ... The general election ... [was] fixed for November
1885."
G. B. Smith,
The Prime Ministers of Queen Victoria,
pages 373-377.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1885-1886.
The partition of East Africa with Germany.
See AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1889.
{979}
ENGLAND: A. D. 1885-1886.
Mr. Gladstone's return to power.
His Home Rule Bill for Ireland and his Irish Land Bill.
Their defeat.
Division of the Liberal Party.
Lord Salisbury's Ministry.
"The House of Commons which had been elected in November and
December, 1885, was the first House of Commons which
represented the whole body of the householders and lodgers of
the United Kingdom. The result of the appeal to new
constituencies and an enlarged electorate had taken all
parties by surprise. The Tories found themselves, by the help
of their Irish allies, successful in the towns beyond all
their hopes; the Liberals, disappointed in the boroughs, had
found compensation in unexpected successes in the counties;
and the Irish Nationalists had almost swept the board. ... The
English representation--exclusive of one Irish Nationalist for
Liverpool--gave a liberal majority of 28 in the English
constituencies; which Wales and Scotland swelled to 106. The
Irish representation had undergone a still more remarkable
change. Of 103 members for the sister island, 85 were Home
Rulers and only 18 were Tories. ... The new House of Commons
was exactly divided between the Liberals on one side and the
Tories with their Irish allies on the other. Of its 670
members just one-half, or 335, were Liberals, 249 were Tories,
and 86 were Irish Nationalists [or Home Rulers]. ... It was
soon clear enough that the alliance between the Tory Ministers
and the Irish Nationalists was at an end." On the 25th of
January 1886, the Government was defeated on an amendment to
the address, and on the 28th it resigned. Mr. Gladstone was
invited to form a Ministry and did so with Lord Herschell for
Lord Chancellor, Sir William Harcourt for Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Mr. Childers for Home Secretary, Lord Granville for
Secretary for the Colonies, Mr. John Morley for Chief
Secretary for Ireland, and Mr. Chamberlain for President of
the Local Government Board. On the 29th of March "Mr.
Gladstone announced in the House of Commons that on the 8th of
April he would ask for leave to bring in a bill 'to amend the
provision for the future government of Ireland'; and that on
the 15th he would ask leave to bring in a measure 'to make
amended provision for the sale and purchase of land in
Ireland.'" The same day Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan
(Secretary for Ireland) resigned their seats in the Cabinet,
and it was generally understood that differences of opinion on
the Irish bills had arisen. On the 8th of April the House of
Commons was densely crowded when Mr. Gladstone introduced his
measure for giving Home Rule to Ireland. In a speech which
lasted three hours and a half he set forth the details of his
plan and the reasons on which they were based. The essential
conditions observed in the framing of the measure, as he
defined them, were these: "The unity of the Empire must not be
placed in jeopardy; the minority must be protected; the
political equality of the three countries must be maintained,
and there must be an equitable distribution of Imperial
burdens. He then discussed some proposals which had been made
for the special treatment of Ulster--its exclusion from the
bill, its separate autonomy or the reservation of certain
matters, such as education, for Provincial Councils; all of
which he rejected. The establishment of an Irish legislature
involved the removal of Irish peers from the House of Lords
and the Irish representatives from the House of Commons. But
if Ireland was not represented at Westminster, how was it to
be taxed? The English people would never force on Ireland
taxation without representation. The taxing power would be in
the hands of the Irish legislature, but Customs and Excise
duties connected with Customs would be solely in the control
of the Imperial Parliament, Ireland's share in these being
reserved for Ireland's use. Ireland must have security against
her Magna Charta being tampered with; the provision of the Act
would therefore only be capable of modification with the
concurrence of the Irish legislature, or after the recall of
the Irish members to the two Houses of Parliament. The Irish
legislature would have all the powers which were not specially
reserved from it in the Act. It was to consist of two orders,
though not two Houses. It would be subject to all the
prerogatives of the Crown; it would have nothing to do with
Army or Navy, or with Foreign or Colonial relations; nor could
it modify the Act on which its own authority was based.
Contracts, charters, questions of education, religious
endowments and establishments, would be beyond its authority.
Trade and navigation, coinage, currency, weights and measures,
copyright, census, quarantine laws, and some other matters,
were not to be within the powers of the Irish Parliament. The
composition of the legislature was to be first, the 103
members now representing Ireland with 101, elected by the same
constituencies, with the exception of the University, with
power to the Irish legislature to give two members to the
Royal University if it chose; then the present Irish members
of the House of Lords, with 75 elected by the Irish people
under a property qualification. The Viceroyalty was to be
left, but the Viceroy was not to quit office with an outgoing
government, and no religious disability was to affect his
appointment. He would have a Privy Council, and the executive
would remain as at present, but might be changed by the action
of the legislative body. The present judges would preserve their
lien on the Consolidated Fund of Great Britain, and the Queen
would be empowered to antedate their pensions if it was seen
to be desirable. Future judges, with the exception of two in
the Court of Exchequer, would be appointed by the Irish
government, and, like English judges, would hold their office
during good behaviour. The Constabulary would remain under its
present administration, Great Britain paying all charges over
a million. Eventually, however, the whole police of Ireland
would be under the Irish government. The civil servants would
have two years' grace, with a choice of retirement on pension
before passing under the Irish executive. Of the financial
arrangements Mr. Gladstone spoke in careful and minute detail.
He fixed the proportion of Imperial charges Ireland should pay at
one-fifteenth, or in other words she would pay one part and
Great Britain fourteen parts. More than a million of duty is
paid on spirits in Ireland which come to Great Britain, and
this would be practically a contribution towards the Irish
revenue. So with Irish porter and with the tobacco
manufactured in Ireland and sold here. Altogether the British
taxpayers would contribute in this way £1,400,000 a year to
the Irish Exchequer; reducing the actual payment of Ireland
itself for Imperial affairs to one-twenty-sixth." On the 16th
of April Mr. Gladstone introduced his Irish Land Bill,
connecting it with the Home Rule Bill as forming part of one
great measure for the pacification of Ireland. In the meantime
the opposition to his policy within the ranks of the Liberal
party had been rapidly taking form. It Mr. Trevelyan, Sir
Henry James, Sir John Lubbock, Mr. Goschen, and Mr. Courtney.
It soon received the support of Mr. John Bright. The debate in
the House, which lasted until the 3rd of June, was passionate
and bitter.
{980}
It ended in the defeat of the Government by a majority of 30
against the bill. The division was the largest which had ever
been taken in the House of Commons, 657 members being present.
The majority was made up of 249 Conservatives and 94 Liberals.
The minority consisted of 228 Liberals and 85 Nationalists.
Mr. Gladstone appealed to the country by a dissolution of
Parliament. The elections were adverse to him, resulting in
the return to Parliament of members representing the several
parties and sections of parties as follows:
Home Rule Liberals, or Gladstonians, 194,
Irish Nationalists 85
total 279;
seceding Liberals 75,
Conservatives 316
total 391.
Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues resigned and a new Ministry
was formed under Lord Salisbury. The Liberals, in alliance
with the Conservatives and giving their support to Lord
Salisbury's Government, became organized as a distinct party
under the leadership of Lord Hartington, and took the name of
Liberal Unionists.
P. W. Clayden,
England under the Coalition,
chapters 1-6.
ALSO IN:
H. D. Traill,
The Marquis of Salisbury,
chapter 12.
Annual Register, 1885, 1886.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1885-1888.
Termination of the Fishery Articles of the Treaty of
Washington.
Renewed controversies with the United States.
The rejected Treaty.
See FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1877-1888.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1886.
Defeat of Mr. Parnell's Tenants' Relief Bill.
The plan of campaign in Ireland.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1886.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1886-1893.
The Bering Sea Controversy and Arbitration.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1886-1893.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1890.
Settlement of African questions with Germany.
Cession of Heligoland.
See AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1889.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1891.
The Free Education Bill.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1891.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1892-1893.
The fourth Gladstone Ministry.
Passage of the Irish Home Rule Bill by the House of Commons.
Its defeat by the Lords.
On the 28th of June, 1892, Parliament was dissolved, having
been in existence since 1886, and a new Parliament was
summoned to meet on the 4th of August. Great excitement
prevailed in the ensuing elections, which turned almost
entirely on the question of Home Rule for Ireland. The Liberal
or Gladstonian party, favoring Home Rule, won a majority of 42
in the House of Commons; but in the representation of England
alone there was a majority of 70 returned against it. In
Ireland, the representation returned was 103 for Home Rule,
and 23 against; in Scotland, 51 for and 21 against; in Wales,
28 for and 2 against. Conservatives and Liberal Unionists
(opposing Home Rule) lost little ground in the boroughs, as
compared with the previous Parliament, but largely in the
counties. As the result of the election, Lord Salisbury and
his Ministry resigned August 12, and Mr. Gladstone was
summoned to form a Government. In the new Cabinet, which was
announced four days later, Earl Rosebery became Foreign
Secretary; Baron Herschell, Lord Chancellor; Sir William
Vernon Harcourt, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Mr. Herbert H.
Asquith, Home Secretary; and Mr. John Morley, Chief Secretary
for Ireland. Although the new Parliament assembled in August,
1892, it was not until the 13th of February following that Mr.
Gladstone introduced his bill to establish Home Rule in
Ireland. The bill was under debate in the House of Commons
until the night of September 1, 1893, when it passed that body
by a vote of 301 to 267. "The bill provides for a Legislature
for Ireland, consisting of the Queen and of two Houses--the
Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly. This
Legislature, with certain restrictions, is authorized to make
laws for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland in
respect of matters exclusively relating to Ireland or some
part thereof. The bill says that the powers of the Irish
Legislature shall not extend to the making of any law
respecting the establishment or endowment of religion or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or imposing any
disability or conferring any privilege on account of religious
belief, or whereby any person may be deprived of life,
liberty, or property without due process of law, or whereby
private property may be taken without just compensation.
According to the bill the executive power in Ireland shall
continue vested in her Majesty the Queen, and the Lord
Lieutenant, on behalf of her Majesty, shall exercise any
prerogatives or other executive power of the Queen the
exercise of which may be delegated to him by her Majesty, and
shall in the Queen's name summon, prorogue, and dissolve the
Legislature. An Executive Committee of the Privy Council of
Ireland is provided for, which 'shall aid and advise in the
government of Ireland.' The Lord Lieutenant, with the advice
and consent of the Executive Council, is authorized to give or
withhold the assent of her Majesty to bills passed by the houses
of the Legislature. The Legislative Council by the terms of
the bill shall consist of forty-eight Councilors. Every man
shall be entitled to vote for a Councilor who owns or occupies
any land or tenement of a ratable value of £20. The term of
office of the Councilors is to be for eight years, which is
not to be affected by dissolution, but one-half of the
Councilors shall retire in every fourth year and their seats
be filled by a new election. The Legislative Assembly is to
consist of 103 members returned by the Parliamentary
constituencies existing at present in Ireland. This Assembly,
unless sooner dissolved, may exist for five years. The bill
also provides for 80 Irish members in the House of Commons. In
regard to finance, the bill provides that for the purposes of
this act the public revenue shall be divided into general
revenue and special revenue, and general revenue shall consist
of the gross revenue collected in Ireland from taxes; the portion
due to Ireland of the hereditary revenues of the crown which
are managed by the Commissioners of Woods, an annual sum for
the customs and excise duties collected in Great Britain on
articles consumed in Ireland, provided that an annual sum of
the customs and excise duties collected in Ireland on articles
consumed in Great Britain shall be deducted from the revenue
collected in Ireland and treated as revenue collected in Great
Britain; these annual sums to be determined by a committee
appointed jointly by the Irish Government and the Imperial
Treasury. It is also provided that one-third of the general
revenue of Ireland and also that portion of any imperial
miscellaneous revenue to which Ireland may claim to be
entitled shall be paid into the Treasury of the United Kingdom
as the contribution of Ireland to imperial liabilities and
expenditures; this plan to continue for a term of six years,
at the end of which time a new scheme of tax division shall be
devised.
{981}
The Legislature, in order to meet expenses of the public
service, is authorized to impose taxes other than those now
existing in Ireland. Ireland should also have charged up
against her and be compelled to pay out of her own Treasury
all salaries and pensions of Judges and liabilities of all
kinds which Great Britain has assumed for her benefit. The
bill further provides that appeal from courts in Ireland to
the House of Lords shall cease and that all persons having the
right of appeal shall have a like right to appeal to the Queen in
council. The term of office of the Lord Lieutenant is fixed at
six years. Ultimately the Royal Irish Constabulary shall cease
to exist and no force other than the ordinary civil police
shall be permitted to be formed. The Irish Legislature shall
be summoned to meet on the first Tuesday in September, 1894,
and the first election for members shall be held at such time
before that day as may be fixed by her Majesty in council." In
the House of Lords, the bill was defeated on the 8th of
September--the second reading postponed to a day six months
from that date--by the overwhelming vote of 419 to 41.
----------ENGLAND: End----------
ENGLE.--ENGLISH.
See ANGLES AND JUTES;
also, ENGLAND: A. D. 547-633.
ENGLISH PALE, The.
See PALE, THE ENGLISH.
ENGLISH SWEAT, The.
See SWEATING SICKNESS.
ENGLISHRY.
To check the assassination of his tyrannical Norman followers
by the exasperated English, William the Conqueror ordained
that the whole Hundred within which one was slain should pay a
heavy penalty. "In connexion with this enactment there grew up
the famous law of 'Englishry,' by which every murdered man was
presumed to be a Norman, unless proofs of 'Englishry' were
made by the four nearest relatives of the deceased.
'Presentments of Englishry,' as they were technically termed,
are recorded in the reign of Richard I., but not later."
T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History.
page 68.
ENNISKILLEN, The defence of.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1688-1689.
ENÔMOTY, The.
In the Spartan military organization the enômoty "was a small
company of men, the number of whom was variable, being given
differently at 25, 32, or 36 men,--drilled and practised
together in military evolutions, and bound to each other by a
common oath. Each Enômoty had a separate captain or
enomotarch, the strongest and ablest soldier of the company."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 8.
ENRIQUE.
See HENRY.
ENSISHEIM, Battle of (1674).
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.
EORL AND CEORL.
"The modern English forms of these words have completely lost
their ancient meaning. The word 'Earl,' after several
fluctuations, has settled down as the title of one rank in the
Peerage; the word 'Churl' has come to be a word of moral
reprobation, irrespective of the rank of the person who is
guilty of the offence. But in the primary meaning of the
words, 'Eorl' and 'Ceorl'--words whose happy jingle causes
them to be constantly opposed to each other--form an
exhaustive division of the free members of the state. The
distinction in modern language is most nearly expressed br the
words 'Gentle' and 'Simple.' The 'Ceorl' is the simple
freeman, the mere unit in the army or in the assembly, whom no
distinction of birth or office marks out from his fellows."
E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 3, section 2.
See, also, ETHEL;
and ENGLAND: A. D. 958.
EORMEN STREET.
See ERMYN STREET.
EPAMINONDAS, and the greatness of Thebes.
See GREECE: B. C. 379-371, and 371-362;
also THEBES: B. C. 378.
EPEIROS.
See Epmus.
EPHAH, The.
"The ephah, or bath, was the unit of measures of capacity for
both liquids and grain [among the ancient Jews]. The ephah is
considered by Queipo to have been the measure of water
contained in the ancient Egyptian cubic foot, and thus
equivalent to 29.376 litres, or 6.468 imperial gallons, and to
have been nearly identical with the ancient Egyptian artaba
and the Greek metretes. For liquids, the ephah was divided
into six hin, and the twelfth part of the hin was the log. As
a grain measure, the ephah was divided into ten omers, or
gomers. The omer measure of manna gathered by the Israelites
in the desert as a day's food for each adult person was thus
equal to 2.6 imperial quarts. The largest measure of capacity
both for liquids and dry commodities was the cor of twelve
ephahs."
H. W. Chisholm,
On the Science of Weighing and Measuring,
chapter 2.
EPHES-DAMMIM, Battle of.
The battle which followed David's encounter with Goliath, the
gigantic Philistine.
1 Samuel, xvii.
EPHESIA, The.
See IONIC (PAN-IONIC) AMPHIKTYONY.
EPHESUS.
The Ephesian Temple.
"The ancient city of Ephesus was situated on the river
Cayster, which falls into the Bay of Scala Nova, on the
western coast of Asia Minor. Of the origin and foundation of
Ephesus we have no historical record. Stories were told which
ascribed the settlement of the place to Androklos, the son of
the Athenian king, Codrus. ... With other Ionian cities of
Asia Minor, Ephesus fell into the hands of Crœsus, the last of
the kings of Lydia, and, on the overthrow of Crœsus by Cyrus,
it passed under the heavier yoke of the Persian despot.
Although from that time, during a period of at least five
centuries, to the conquest by the Romans, the city underwent
great changes of fortune, it never lost its grandeur and
importance. The Temple of Artemis (Diana), whose splendour has
almost become proverbial, tended chiefly to make Ephesus the most
attractive and notable of all the cities of Asia Minor. Its
magnificent harbour was filled with Greek and Phenician
merchantmen, and multitudes flocked from all parts to profit
by its commerce and to worship at the shrine of its tutelary
goddess. The City Port was fully four miles from the sea,
which has not, as has been supposed, receded far. ... During
the generations which immediately followed the conquest of
Lydia and the rest of Asia Minor by the Persian kings, the
arts of Greece attained their highest perfection, and it was
within this short period of little more than two centuries
that the great Temple of Artemis was three times built upon
the same site, and, as recent researches have found, each time
on the same grand scale."
J. T. Wood,
Discoveries at Ephesus,
chapter 1.
{982}
The excavations which were carried on at Ephesus by Mr. Wood,
for the British Museum, during eleven years, from 1863 until
1874, resulted in the uncovering of a large part of the site
of the great Temple and the determining of its architectural
features, besides bringing to light many inscriptions and much
valuable sculpture. The account given in the work named above
is exceedingly interesting.
EPHESUS: Ionian conquest and occupation.
See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES.
EPHESUS: Ancient Commerce.
"The spot on the Asiatic coast which corresponded most nearly
with Corinth on the European, was Ephesus, a city which, in
the time of Herodotus, had been the starting point of caravans
for Upper Asia, but which, under the change of dynasties and
ruin of empires, had dwindled into a mere provincial town. The
mild sway of Augustus restored it to wealth and eminence, and
as the official capital of the province of Asia, it was
reputed to be the metropolis of no less than 500 cities."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 40.
EPHESUS: A. D. 267.
Destruction by the Goths of the Temple of Diana.
See GOTHS: A. D. 258-267.
EPHESUS: A. D. 431 and 449.
The General Council and the "Robber Synod."
See NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY.
----------EPHESUS: End----------
EPHETÆ, The.
A board of fifty-one judges instituted by the legislation of
Draco, at Athens, for the trial of crimes of bloodshed upon
the Areopagus.
G. Schömann,
Antiquities of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapter 3.
EPHORS.
"Magistrates, called by the name of Ephors, existed in many
Dorian as well as in other States [of ancient Greece],
although our knowledge with regard to them extends no further
than to the fact of their existence; while the name, which
signifies quite generally 'overseers,' affords room for no
conclusion as to their political position or importance. In
Sparta, however, the Board of Five Ephors became, in the
course of time, a magistracy of such dignity and influence
that no other can be found in any free State with which it can
be compared. Concerning its first institution nothing certain
can be ascertained. ... The following appears to be a probable
account:--The Ephors were originally magistrates appointed by
the kings, partly to render them special assistance in the
judicial decision of private disputes,--a function which they
continued to exercise in later times,--partly to undertake,
as lieutenants of the kings, other of their functions, during
their absence in military service, or through some other
cause. ... When the monarchy and the Gerousia wished to
re-establish their ancient influence in opposition to the
popular assembly, they were obliged to agree to a concession
which should give some security to the people that this power
should not be abused to their detriment. This concession
consisted in the fact that the Ephors were independently
authorized to exercise control over the kings themselves. ...
The Ephors were enabled to interfere in every department of
the administration, and to remove or punish whatever they
found to be contrary to the laws or adverse to the public
interest."
G. F. Schömann,
Antiquities of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapter 1, section 8.
See, also, SPARTA: THE CONSTITUTION, &c.
EPHTHALITES, The.
See HUNS, THE WHITE.
EPIDAMNUS.
See GREECE: B. C. 435-432;
and KORKYRA.
EPIDII, The.
See BRITAIN, CELTIC TRIBES.
EPIGAMIA.
The right of marriage in ancient Athens.
G. F. Schömann, Antiquities of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapter 3.
EPIGONI, The.
See BŒOTIA.
EPIPOLÆ.
One of the parts or divisions of the ancient city of Syracuse,
Sicily.
EPIROT LEAGUE, The.
"The temporary greatness of the Molossian kingdom [of Epeiros,
or Epirus] under Alexander and Pyrrhus is matter of general
history. Our immediate business is with the republican
government which succeeded on the bloody extinction of royalty
and the royal line [which occurred B. C. 239]. Epeiros now
became a republic; of the details of its constitution we know
nothing, but its form can hardly fail to have been federal.
The Epeirots formed one political body; Polybios always speaks
of them, like the Achaians and Akarnanians, as one people
acting with one will. Decrees are passed, ambassadors are sent
and received, in the name of the whole Epeirot people, and
Epeiros had, like Akarnania, a federal coinage bearing the
common name of the whole nation."
E. A. Freeman,
History of Federal Government,
book 4, section 1.
EPIRUS.--THE EPIROTS.
"Passing over the borders of Akarnania [in ancient western
Greece] we find small nations or tribes not considered as
Greeks, but known, from the fourth century B. C. downwards,
under the common name of Epirots. This word signifies,
properly, inhabitants of a continent, as opposed to those of
an island or a peninsula. It came only gradually to be applied
by the Greeks as their comprehensive denomination to designate
all those diverse tribes, between the Ambrakian Gulf on the
south and west, Pindus on the east, and the Illyrians and
Macedonians to the north and north-east. Of these Epirots the
principal were--the Chaonians, Thesprotians, Kassopians, and
Molossians, who occupied the country inland as well as
maritime along the Ionian Sea, from the Akrokeraunian
mountains to the borders of Ambrakia in the interior of the
Ambrakian Gulf. ... Among these various tribes it is difficult
to discriminate the semi-Hellenic from the non-Hellenic; for
Herodotus considers both Molossians and Thesprotians as
Hellenic,--and the oracle of Dôdôna, as well as the
Nekyomanteion (or holy cavern for evoking the dead) of
Acheron, were both in the territory of the Thesprotians, and
both (in the time of the historian) Hellenic. Thucydides, on
the other hand, treats both Molossians and Thesprotians as
barbaric. ... Epirus is essentially a pastoral country: its
cattle as well as its shepherds and shepherds' dogs were
celebrated throughout all antiquity; and its population then,
as now, found divided village residence the most suitable to
their means and occupations. ... Both the Chaonians and
Thesprotians appear, in the time of Thucydides, as having no
kings: there was a privileged kingly race, but the presiding
chief was changed from year to year. The Molossians, however,
had a line of kings, succeeding from father to son, which
professed to trace its descent through fifteen generations
downward from Achilles and Neoptolemus to Tharypas about the
year 400 B. C."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 24.
{983}
The Molossian kings subsequently extended their sovereignty
over the whole country and styled themselves kings of Epirus.
Pyrrhus, whose war with Rome (see ROME: B. C. 282-275) is one
of the well known episodes of history, was the most ambitious
and energetic of the dynasty (see MACEDONIA: B. C. 297-280);
Hannibal reckoned him among the greatest of soldiers. In the
next century Epirus fell under the dominion of Rome.
Subsequently it formed part of the Byzantine empire; then
became a separate principality, ruled by a branch of the
imperial Comnenian family; was conquered by the Turks in 1466
and is now represented by the southern half of the province of
Turkey, called Albania.
See, also, ŒNOTRIANS.
EPIRUS: A. D. 1204-1350.
The Greek Despotat.
From the ruins of the Byzantine empire, overthrown by the
Crusaders and the Venetians in 1204, "that portion ...
situated to the west of the range of Pindus was saved from
feudal domination by Michael, a natural son of Constantine
Angelos, the uncle of the Emperors Isaac II. and Alexius III.
After the conquest of Constantinople, he escaped into Epirus,
where his marriage with a lady of the country gave him some
influence; and assuming the direction of the administration of
the whole country from Dyrrachium to Naupactus, he collected a
considerable military force, and established the seat of his
authority generally at Ioannina or Arta. ... History has
unfortunately preserved very little information concerning the
organisation and social condition of the different classes and
races which inhabited the dominions of the princes of Epirus.
Almost the only facts that have been preserved relate to the
wars and alliances of the despots and their families with the
Byzantine emperors and the Latin princes. ... They all assumed
the name of Angelos Komnenos Dukas; and the title of despot,
by which they are generally distinguished, was a Byzantine
honorary distinction, never borne by the earlier members of
the family until it had been conferred on them by the Greek
emperor. Michael I, the founder of the despotat, distinguished
himself by his talents as a soldier and a negotiator. He
extended his authority over all Epirus, Acarnania and Etolia,
and a part of Macedonia and Thessaly. Though virtually
independent, he acknowledged Theodore I. (Laskaris), [at
Nicæa] as the lawful emperor of the East." The able and
unscrupulous brother of Michael, Theodore, who became his
successor in 1214, extinguished by conquest the Lombard
kingdom of Saloniki, in Macedonia (A. D. 1222), and assumed
the title of emperor, in rivalry with the Greek emperor at
Nicæa, establishing his capital at Thessalonica. The empire of
Thessalonica was short lived. Its capital was taken by the
emperor of Nicæa, in 1234, and Michael's son John, then
reigning, was forced to resign the imperial title. The
despotat of Epirus survived for another century, much torn and
distracted by wars and domestic conflicts. In 1350 its
remaining territory was occupied by the king of Servia, and
finally it was swallowed up in the conquests of the Turks.
G. Finlay,
History of Greece from its Conquest by the Crusader,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
Sir J. E. Tennent,
History of Modern Greece,
chapter 3.
EPIRUS: Modern History.
See ALBANIANS.
EPISCOPALIAN CHURCH.
See CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
EPISTATES.
The presiding officer of the ancient Athenian council and
popular assembly.
EPONYM.--EPONYMUS.
The name-giver,--the name-giving hero of primitive myths, in
which tribes and races of people set before themselves, partly
by tradition, partly by imagination, an heroic personage who
is supposed to be their common progenitor and the source of
their name.
EPONYM CANON OF ASSYRIA.
See ASSYRIA, EPONYM CANON OF.
EPPING FOREST.
Once so extensive that it covered the whole county of Essex,
England, and was called the Forest of Essex. Subsequently,
when diminished in size, it was called Waltham Forest. Still
later, when further retrenched, it took the name of Epping,
from a town that is embraced in it. It is still quite large,
and within recent years it has been formally declared by the
Queen "a people's park."
J. C. Brown,
Forests of England.
EPULONES, The.
"The epulones [at Rome] formed a college for the
administration of the sacred festivals."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 31.
EQUADOR.
See ECUADOR.
EQUAL RIGHTS PARTY.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1835-1837.
EQUESTRIAN ORDER, Roman.
"The selection of the burgess cavalry was vested in the
censors. It was, no doubt, the duty of these to make the
selection on purely military grounds, and at their musters to
insist that all horsemen incapacitated by age or otherwise, or
at all unserviceable, should surrender their public horse; but
it was not easy to hinder them from looking to noble birth
more than to capacity, and from allowing men of standing, who
were once admitted, senators particularly, to retain their
horse beyond the proper time. Accordingly it became the
practical rule for the senators to vote in the eighteen
equestrian centuries, and the other places in these were
assigned chiefly to the younger men of the nobility. The
military system, of course, suffered from this, not so much
through the unfitness for effective service of no small part
of the legionary cavalry, as through the destruction of
military equality to which the change gave rise; the noble
youth more and more withdrew from serving in the infantry, and
the legionary cavalry became a close aristocratic corps."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapter 11.
"The eighteen centuries, therefore, in course of time ... lost
their original military character and remained only as a
voting body. It was by the transformation thus effected in the
character of the eighteen centuries of knights, whilst the
cavalry service passed over to the richer citizens not
included in the senatorial families, that a new class of Roman
citizens began gradually to be formed, distinct from the
nobility proper and from the mass of the people, and
designated as the equestrian order."
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 7, chapter. 1.
The equestrian order became a legally constituted class under
the judicial law of Caius Gracchus, B. C. 123, which fixed its
membership by a census, and transferred to it the judicial
functions previously exercised by the senators only. It formed
a kind of monetary aristocracy, as a counterweight to the
nobility.
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 7, chapter 6.
{984}
ERA, Christian.
"Unfortunately for ancient Chronology, there was no one fixed
or universally established Era. Different countries reckoned
by different eras, whose number is embarrassing, and their
commencements not always easily to be adjusted or reconciled
to each other; and it was not until A. D. 532 that the
Christian Era was invented by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian by
birth, and a Roman Abbot, who flourished in the reign of
Justinian. ... Dionysius began his era with the year of our
Lord's incarnation and nativity, in U. C. 753, of the
Varronian Computation, or the 45th of the Julian Era. And at
an earlier period, Panodorus, an Egyptian monk, who flourished
under the Emperor Arcadius, A. D. 395, had dated the
incarnation in the same year. But by some mistake, or
misconception of his meaning, Bede, who lived in the next
century after Dionysius, adopted his year of the Nativity, U.
C. 753, yet began the Vulgar Era, which he first introduced,
the year after, and made it commence Jan. 1, U. C. 754, which
was an alteration for the worse, as making the Christian Era
recede a year further from the true year of the Nativity. The
Vulgar Era began to prevail in the West about the time of
Charles Martel and Pope Gregory II. A. D. 730. ... But it was
not established till the time of Pope Eugenius IV. A. D. 1431,
who ordered this era to be used in the public Registers. ...
Dionysius was led to date the year of the Nativity, U. C. 753,
from the Evangelist Luke's account that John the Baptist began
his ministry 'in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius
Cæsar'; and that Jesus, at his baptism, 'was beginning to be
about 30 years of age.' Luke iii. 1-23. ... But this date of
the Nativity is at variance with Matthew's account, that
Christ was born before Herod's death; which followed shortly
after his massacre of the infants at Bethlehem. ... Christ's
birth, therefore, could not have been earlier than U. C. 748,
nor later than U. C. 749. And if we assume the latter year, as
most conformable to the whole tenor of Sacred History, with
Chrysostom, Petavius, Prideaux, Playfair, &c., this would give
Christ's age at his baptism, about 34 years; contrary to
Luke's account."
W. Hales,
New Analysis of Chronology,
volume 1, book l.
In a subsequent table, Mr. Hales gives the results of the
computations made by different chronologists, ancient and
modern, to fix the true year of the Nativity, as accommodated
to what is called "the vulgar," or popularly accepted,
Christian Era. The range is through no less than ten years,
from B. C. 7 to A. D. 3. His own conclusion, supported by
Prideaux and Playfair, is in favor of the year B. C. 5.
Somewhat more commonly at the present time, it is put at B. C.
4.
See, also, JEWS: B. C. 8-A. D. 1.
ERA, French Revolutionary.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER),
and 1793 (OCTOBER).
ERA, Gregorian.
See CALENDAR, GREGORIAN.
ERA, Jalalæan.
See TURKS (THE SELJUK): A. D. 1073-1092.
ERA, Julian.
See CALENDAR, JULIAN.
ERA, Mahometan, or Era of the Hegira.
"The epoch of the Era of the Hegira is, according to the civil
calculation, Friday, the 16th of July, A. D. 622, the day of
the flight of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina, which is the date
of the Mahometans; but astronomers and some historians assign
it to the preceding day, viz., Thursday, the 15th of July; an
important fact to be borne in mind when perusing Arabian
writers. The years of the Hegira are lunar years, and contain
twelve months, each commencing with the new moon; a practice
which necessarily leads to great confusion and uncertainty,
inasmuch as every year must begin considerably earlier in the
season than the preceding. In chronology and history, however,
and in dating their public instruments, the Turks use months
which contain alternately thirty and twenty-nine days,
excepting the last month, which, in intercalary years,
contains thirty days. ... The years of the Hegira are divided
into cycles of thirty years, nineteen of which are termed
common years, of 354 days each; and the eleven others
intercalary, or abundant, from their consisting of one day
more: these are the 2d, 5th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 18th,
21st, 24th, 26th and 29th. To ascertain whether any given year
be intercalary or not divide it by 30; and if either of the
above numbers remain, the year is one of 355 days."
Sir H. Nicolas,
Chronology of History.
See, also, MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.
ERA, Spanish.
"The Spanish era dates from 38 B. C. (A. U. 716) and is
supposed to mark some important epoch in the organization of
the province by the Romans. It may coincide with the campaign
of Calvinus, which is only known to us from a notice in the
Fasti Triumphales. ... The Spanish era was preserved in Aragon
till 1358, in Castile till 1383, and in Portugal till 1415."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 34, note.
ERA OF DIOCLETIAN, or Era of Martyrs.
See ROME: A. D. 192-284.
ERA OF GOOD FEELING.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1824.
ERA OF THE FOUNDATION OF ROME.
See ROME: B. C. 753.
ERA OF THE OLYMPIADS.
See OLYMPIADS, ERA OF THE.
ERANI.
Associations existing in ancient Athens which resembled the
mutual benefit or friendly-aid societies of modern times.
G. F. Schömann,
Antiquity of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapter 3.
ERASTIANISM.
A doctrine which "received its name from Thomas Erastus, a
German physician of the 16th century, contemporary with
Luther. The work in which he delivered his theory and
reasonings on the subject is entitled 'De Excommunicatione
Ecclesiastica.' ... The Erastians ... held that religion is an
affair between man and his creator, in which no other man or
society of men was entitled to interpose. ... Proceeding on
this ground, they maintained that every man calling himself a
Christian has a right to make resort to any Christian place of
worship, and partake in all its ordinances. Simple as this
idea is, it strikes at the root of all priestcraft."
W. Godwin,
History of the Commonwealth,
volume 1, chapter 13.
ERCTÉ, Mount, Hamilcar on.
See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.
See, also, ERYX.
ERDINI, The.
See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
EREMITES OF ST. FRANCIS.
See MINIMS.
ERETRIA.
See CHALCIS AND ERETRIA.
ERFURT, IMPERIAL CONFERENCE AND TREATY OF.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1808 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).
{985}
ERECTHEION AT ATHENS, The.
"At a very early period there was, opposite the long northern
side of the Parthenon, a temple which, according to Herodot,
was dedicated jointly to Athene Polias and the Attic hero,
Erectheus. ... This temple was destroyed by fire while the
Persians held the city. Not unlikely the rebuilding of the
Erectheion was begun by Perikles together with that of the
other destroyed temples of the Akropolis; but as it was not
finished by him, it is generally not mentioned amongst his
works. ... This temple was renowned amongst the ancients as
one of the most beautiful and perfect in existence, and seems
to have remained almost intact down to the time of the Turks.
The siege of Athens by the Venetians in 1687 seems to have
been fatal to the Erectheion, as it was to the Parthenon."
E. Guhl and W. Koner,
Life of the Greeks,
section 14.
See, also, ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS.
ERIC,
King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, A. D. 1412-1439.
Eric Blodaexe, King of Norway, A. D. 934-940.
Eric I., King of Denmark, A. D: 850-854.
Eric I. (called Saint), King of Sweden, A. D. 1155-1161.
Eric II., King of Denmark, A. D. 854-883.
Eric II., King of·Norway, A. D. 1280-1299.
Eric II. (Knutsson), King of Sweden, A. D. 1210-1216.
Eric III., King of Denmark, A. D. 1095-1103.
Eric III. (called The Stammerer), King of Sweden, A. D. 1222-1250.
Eric IV., King of Denmark, A. D. 1134-1137.
Eric V., King of Denmark, A. D. 1137-1147.
Eric VI., King of Denmark, A. D. 1241-1250.
Eric VII., King of Denmark, A. D. 1259-1286.
Eric VIII., King of Denmark, A. D. 1286-1319.
Eric XIV., King of Sweden, A. D. 1560-1568.
ERICSSON, John
Invention and construction of the Monitor.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH).
ERIE, The City of: A. D. 1735.
Site occupied by the French.
See CANADA: A. D. 1700-1735.
ERIE, Fort: A. D. 1764-1791.
Origin.
Four years after the British conquest of Canada, in 1764,
Colonel John Bradstreet built a blockhouse and stockade near
the site of the later Fort Erie, which was not constructed
until 1791. When war with the United States broke out, in
1812, the British considered the new fort untenable, or
unnecessary, and evacuated and partly destroyed it, in May,
1813.
C. K. Remington,
Old Fort Erie.
ERIE, Fort: A. D. 1814.
The siege and the destruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
ERIE, Fort: A. D. 1866.
The Fenian invasion.
See CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.
----------ERIE: End----------
ERIE, Lake:
The Indian name.
See NIAGARA: THE NAME, &c.
ERIE, Lake: A. D. 1679.
Navigated by La Salle.
See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.
ERIE, Lake: A. D. 1813.
Perry's naval victory.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.
----------ERIE, Lake: End----------
ERIE CANAL, Construction of the.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1817-1825.
ERIES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HURONS, &c.,
and IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY: THEIR CONQUESTS.
ERIN.
See IRELAND.
ERMANRIC, OR HERMANRIC, The empire of.
See GOTHS (OSTROGOTHS): A. D. 350-375; and 376.
ERMYN STREET.
A corruption of Eormen street, the Saxon name of one of the
great Roman roads in Britain, which ran from London to
Lincoln. Some writers trace it northwards through York to the
Scottish border and southward to Pevensey.
See ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.
ERNESTINE LINE OF SAXONY.
See SAXONY: A. D. 1180-1553.
ERPEDITANI, The.
See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
ERTANG, The.
The sacred book of the Manicheans.
See MANICHEANS.
ERYTHRÆ.-ERYTHRÆAN SIBYL.
Erythræ was an ancient Ionian city on the Lydian coast of Asia
Minor, opposite the island of Chios or Scio. It was chiefly
famous as the home or seat of one of the most venerated of the
sibyls--prophetic women--of antiquity. The collection of
Sibylline oracles which was sacredly preserved at Rome appears
to have been largely derived from Erythræ. The Cumæan Sibyl is
sometimes identified with her Erythræan sister, who is said to
have passed into Europe.
See, also, SIBYLS.
ERYTHRÆAN SEA, The.
The Erythræan Sea, in the widest sense of the term, as used by
the ancients, comprised "the Arabian Gulf (or what we now call
the Red Sea), the coasts of Africa outside the straits of Bab
el Mandeb as far as they had then been explored, as well as
those of Arabia and India down to the extremity of the Malabar
coast." The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea is a geographical
treatise of great importance which we owe to some unknown
Greek writer supposed to be nearly contemporary with Pliny. It
is "a kind of manual for the instruction of navigators and
traders in the Erythræan Sea."
E. H. Bunbury,
History of Ancient Geography,
chapter 25.
"The Erythrêam Sea is an appellation ... in all appearance
deduced [by the ancients] from their entrance into it by the
straits of the Red Sea, styled Erythra by the Greeks, and not
excluding the gulph of Persia, to which the fabulous history
of a king Erythras is more peculiarly appropriate."
W. Vincent,
Periplus of the Erythrêan Sea,
book 1, prelim. disquis.
ERYX.--ERCTE.
A town originally Phoœnician or Carthaginian on the
northwestern coast of Sicily. It stood on the slope of a
mountain which was crowned with an ancient temple of
Aphrodite, and which gave the name Erycina to the goddess when
her worship was introduced at Rome.
See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.
ERZEROUM: A. D. 1878.
Taken by the Russians.
See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.
ESCOCÉS, The party of the.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1822-1828.
ESCOMBOLI.
See STAMBOUL.
ESCORIAL, The.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1559-1563.
ESCUYER.--ESQUIRE.
See CHIVALRY.
ESDRAELON, Valley of.
See MEGIDDO.
ESKIMO, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESKIMAUAN FAMILY.
ESNE.
See THEOW.
ESPARTERO, Regency of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1833-1846.
ESPINOSA, Battle of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).
{986}
ESQUILINE, The.
See SEVEN HILLS OF ROME.
ESQUIRE.--ESCUYER.--SQUIRE.
See CHIVALRY.
ESQUIROS, Battle of (1521).
See NAVARRE: A. D. 1442-1521.
ESSELENIAN FAMILY, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESSELENIAN FAMILY.
ESSENES, The.
See Supplement in volume 5.
ESSEX.
Originally the kingdom formed by that body of the Saxon
conquerors of Britain, in the fifth and sixth centuries, who
acquired, from their geographical position in the island, the
name of the East Saxons. It covered the present county of
Essex and also included London and Middlesex.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 477-527.
ESSEX JUNTO, The.
In the Massachusetts election of 1781, "the representatives of
the State in Congress, and some of the more moderate leaders
at home, opposed Governor Hancock, the popular candidate, and
supported James Bowdoin, who was thought to represent the more
conservative elements. ... It was at this time that Hancock is
said to have bestowed on his opponents the title of the 'Essex
Junto,' and this is the first appearance of the name in
American politics. ... The 'Junto' was generally supposed to
be composed of such men as Theophilus Parsons, George Cabot,
Fisher Ames, Stephen Higginson, the Lowells, Timothy
Pickering, &c., and took its name from the county to which
most of its reputed members originally belonged. ... The
reputed members of the 'Junto' held political power in
Massachusetts [as leaders of the Federalist party] for more
than a quarter of a century." According to Chief Justice
Parsons, as quoted by Colonel Pickering in his Diary, the term
'Essex Junto' was applied by one of the Massachusetts royal
governors, before the Revolution, to certain gentlemen of
Essex county who opposed his measures. Hancock, therefore,
only revived the title and gave it currency, with a new
application.
H. C. Lodge,
Life and Letters of George Cabot,
pages 17-22.
ESSLINGEN, OR ASPERN, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE).
ESSUVII, The.
A Gallic tribe established anciently in the modern French
department of the Orne.
Napoleon III.,
History of Cæsar,
book 3, chapter 2, note.
ESTATES, Assembly of.
"An assembly of estates is an organised collection, made by
representation or otherwise, of the several orders, states or
conditions of men, who are recognised as possessing political
power. A national council of clergy and barons is not an
assembly of estates, because it does not include the body of
the people, the plebs, the simple freemen or commons."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15, section 185.
See, also, ESTATES, THE THREE.
ESTATES, The Three.
"The arrangement of the political factors in three estates is
common, with some minor variations, to all the European
constitutions, and depends on a principle of almost universal
acceptance. This classification differs from the system of
caste and from all divisions based on differences of blood or
religion, historical or prehistorical. ... In Christendom it
has always taken the form of a distinction between clergy and
laity, the latter being subdivided according to national
custom into noble and non-noble, patrician and plebeian,
warriors and traders, landowners and craftsmen. ... The
Aragonese cortes contained four brazos or arms, the clergy,
the great barons or ricos hombres, the minor barons, knights
or infanzones, and the towns. The Germanic diet comprised
three colleges, the electors, the princes and the cities, the
two former being arranged in distinct benches, lay and
clerical. ... The Castilian cortes arranged the clergy, the
ricos hombres and the communidades, in three estates. The
Swedish diet was composed of clergy, barons, burghers and
peasants. ... In France, both in the States General and in the
provincial estates, the division is into gentz de l'eglise,
nobles, and gentz des bonnes villes. In England, after a
transitional stage, in which the clergy, the greater and
smaller barons, and the cities and boroughs, seemed likely to
adopt the system used in Aragon and Scotland, and another in
which the county and borough communities continued to assert
an essential difference, the three estates of clergy, lords
and commons, finally emerge as the political constituents of
the nation, or, in their parliamentary form, as the lords
spiritual and temporal and the commons. This familiar formula
in either shape bears the impress of history. The term commons
is not in itself an appropriate expression for the third
estate; it does not signify primarily the simple freemen, the
plebs, but the plebs organised and combined in corporate
communities, in a particular way for particular purposes. The
commons are the communitates or universitates, the organised
bodies of freemen of the shires and towns. ... The third
estate in England differs from the same estate in the
continental constitutions, by including the landowners under
baronial rank. In most of those systems it contains the
representatives of the towns or chartered communities only."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15, sections 185, 193.
"The words 'gens de tiers et commun état' are found in many
acts [France] of the 15th century. The expressions 'tiers
état,' 'commun état,' and 'le commun' are used indifferently,
... This name of 'Tiers État, when used in its ordinary sense,
properly comprises only the population of the privileged
cities; but in effect it extends much beyond this; it includes
not only the cities, but the villages and hamlets--not only
the free commonalty, but all those for whom civil liberty is a
privilege still to come."
A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers État in France,
volume 1, pages 61 and 60.
ESTATES, or "States," of the Netherland Provinces.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585.
ESTATES GENERAL.
See STATES GENERAL.
ESTE, The House of.
"Descended from one of the northern families which settled in
Italy during the darkest period of the middle ages, the Este
traced their lineal descent up to the times of Charlemagne.
They had taken advantage of the frequent dissensions between
the popes and the German emperors of the houses of Saxony and
Swabia, and acquired wide dominions in Lunigiana, and the
March of Treviso, where the castle of Este, their family
residence, was situated. Towards the middle of the 11th
century, that family had been connected by marriages with the
Guelphs of Bavaria, and one of the name of Este was eventually
to become the common source from which sprung the illustrious
houses of Brunswick and Hanover. The Este had warmly espoused
the Guelph party [see GUELFS], during the wars of the Lombard
League. ...
{987}
Towards the year 1200, Azzo V., Marquis of Este, married
Marchesella degli Adelardi, daughter of one of the most
conspicuous Guelphs at Ferrara, where the influence of the
House of Este was thus first established."
L. Mariotti (A. Gallenga),
Italy,
volume 2, pages 62-63.
The Marquesses of Este became, "after some of the usual
fluctuations, permanent lords of the cities of Ferrara [1264]
and Modena [1288]. About the same time they lost their
original holding of Este, which passed to Padua, and with
Padua to Venice. Thus the nominal marquess of Este and real
lord of Ferrara was not uncommonly spoken of as Marquess of
Ferrara. In the 15th century these princes rose to ducal rank;
but by that time the new doctrine of the temporal dominion of
the Popes had made great advances. Modena, no man doubted, was
a city of the Empire; but Ferrara was now held to be under the
supremacy of the Pope. The Marquess Borso had thus to seek his
elevation to ducal rank from two separate lords. He was
created Duke of Modena [1453] and Reggio by the Emperor, and
afterwards Duke of Ferrara [1471] by the Pope. This difference
of holding ... led to the destruction of the power of the
house of Este. In the times in which we are now concerned,
their dominions lay in two masses. To the west lay the duchy
of Modena and Reggio; apart from it to the east lay the duchy
of Ferrara. Not long after its creation, this last duchy was
cut short by the surrender of the border-district of Rovigo to
Venice. ... Modena and Ferrara remained united, till Ferrara
was annexed [1598] as an escheated fief to the dominions of
its spiritual overlord. But the house of Este still reigned
over Modena with Reggio and Mirandola, while its dominions
were extended to the sea by the addition of Massa and other
small possessions between Lucca and Genoa. The duchy in the
end passed by female succession to the House of Austria
[1771-1803]."
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 8, sections 3-4.
"The government of the family of Este at Ferrara, Modena, and
Reggio displays curious contrasts of violence and popularity.
Within the palace frightful deeds were perpetrated; a princess
was beheaded [1425] for alleged adultery with a stepson;
legitimate and illegitimate children fled from the court, and
even abroad their lives were threatened by assassins sent in
pursuit of them (1471). Plots from without were incessant; the
bastard of a bastard tried to wrest the crown from the lawful
heir, Hercules I.: this latter is said afterwards (1493) to
have poisoned his wife on discovering that she, at the
instigation of her brother, Ferrante of Naples, was going to
poison him. This list of tragedies is closed by the plot of
two bastards against their brothers; the ruling Duke Alfonso
I. and the Cardinal Ippolito (1506), which was discovered in
time, and punished with imprisonment for life. ... It is
undeniable that the dangers to which these princes were
constantly exposed developed in them capacities of a
remarkable kind."
J. Burckhardt,
The Civilization of the Period of the Renaissance in Italy,
part 1, chapter 5.
For the facts of the ending of the legitimate Italian line of
Este,
See PAPACY: A. D. 1597.
ESTHONIA, OR ESTONIA:
Origin of the name.
See ÆSTII.
ESTHONIA, OR ESTONIA: Christian conquest.
See LIVONIA: 12TH-13TH CENTURIES.
ESTIENNES, The Press of the.
See PRINTING: A. D. 1496-1598.
ESTREMOS, OR AMEIXAL, Battle of (1663).
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1637-1668.
ETCHEMINS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
ETHANDUN, OR EDINGTON, Battle of (A. D. 878).
See ENGLAND: A. D. 855-880.
ETHEL, ETHELINGS, OR ÆTHELINGS.
"The sons and brothers of the king [of the English] were
distinguished by the title of Æthelings. The word Ætheling,
like eorl, originally denoted noble birth simply; but as the
royal house of Wessex rose to pre-eminence and the other royal
houses and the nobles generally were thereby reduced to a
relatively lower grade, it became restricted to the near
kindred of the national king."
T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
page 29.
"It has been sometimes held that the only nobility of blood
recognized in England before the Norman Conquest was that of
the king's kin. The statement may be regarded as deficient in
authority, and as the result of a too hasty generalization
from the fact that only the sons and brothers of the kings
bear the name of ætheling. On the other hand must be alleged
the existence of a noble (edhiling) class among the
continental Saxons who had no kings at all. ... The laws of
Ethelbert prove the existence of a class bearing the name of
eorl of which no other interpretation can be given. That
these, eorlas and æthel, were the descendants of the primitive
nobles of the first settlement, who, on the institution of
royalty, sank one step in dignity from the ancient state of
rude independence, in which they had elected their own chiefs
and ruled their own dependents, may be very reasonably
conjectured. ... The ancient name of eorl, like that of
ætheling, changed its application, and, under the influence,
perhaps, of Danish association, was given like that of jarl to
the official ealdorman. Henceforth the thegn takes the place
of the æthel, and the class of thegns probably embraces all
the remaining families of noble blood. The change may have
been very gradual; the 'north people's law' of the tenth or
early eleventh century still distinguishes the eorl and
ætheling with a wergild nearly double that of the ealdorman
and seven times that of the thegn; but the north people's law
was penetrated with Danish influence, and the eorl probably
represents the jarl rather than the ealdorman, the great eorl
of the fourth part of England as it was divided by Canute. ...
The word eorl is said to be the same as the Norse jarl and
another form of ealdor (?); whilst the ceorl answers to the
Norse Karl; the original meaning of the two being old man and
young man."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 6, section 64, and note.
ETHEL.--Family-land.
See ALOD; and FOLCLAND.
ETHELBALD,
King of Mercia, A. D. 716-755.
Ethelbald, King of Wessex, A. D. 858-860.
ETHELBERT,
King of Kent, A. D. 565-616.
Ethelbert, King of Wessex, A. D. 860-866.
ETHELFRITH, King of Northumberland, A. D. 593-617.
ETHELRED,
King of Wessex, A. D. 866-871.
Ethelred, called the Unready, King of Wessex, A. D. 979-1016.
{988}
ETHELSTAN, King of Wessex, A. D. 925-940.
ETHELWULF, King of Wessex, A. D. 836-858.
ETHIOPIA.
The Ethiopia of the ancients, "in the ordinary and vague sense
of the term, was a vast tract extending in length above a
thousand miles, from the 9th to the 24th degree of north
latitude, and in breadth almost 900 miles, from the shores of
the Red Sea and Indian Ocean to the desert of the Sahara. This
tract was inhabited for the most part by wild and barbarous
tribes--herdsmen, hunters, or fishermen--who grew no corn,
were unacquainted with bread, and subsisted on the milk and
flesh of their cattle, or on game, turtle, and fish, salted or
raw. The tribes had their own separate chiefs, and
acknowledged no single head, but on the contrary were
frequently at war one with the other, and sold their prisoners
for slaves. Such was Ethiopia in the common vague sense; but
from this must be distinguished another narrower Ethiopia,
known sometimes as 'Ethiopia Proper' or 'Ethiopia above
Egypt,' the limits of which were, towards the south, the
junction of the White and Blue Niles, and towards the north
the Third Cataract. Into this tract, called sometimes 'the
kingdom of Meroë,' Egyptian civilisation had, long before the
eighth century [B. C.], deeply penetrated. Temples of the
Egyptian type, stone pyramids, avenues of sphinxes, had been
erected; a priesthood had been set up, which was regarded as
derived from the Egyptian priesthood; monarchical institutions
had been adopted; the whole tract formed ordinarily one
kingdom, and the natives were not very much behind the
Egyptians in arts or arms, or very different from them in
manners, customs, and mode of life. Even in race the
difference was not great. The Ethiopians were darker in
complexion than the Egyptians, and possessed probably a
greater infusion of Nigritic blood; but there was a common
stock at the root of the two races--Cush and Mizraim were
brethren. In the region of Ethiopia Proper a very important
position was occupied in the eighth century [B. C.] by Napata.
Napata was situated midway in the great bend of the Nile,
between latitude 18° and 19°. ... It occupied the left bank of
the river in the near vicinity of the modern Gebel Berkal. . .
Here, when the decline of Egypt enabled the Ethiopians to
reclaim their ancient limits, the capital was fixed of that
kingdom, which shortly became a rival of the old empire of the
Pharaohs, and aspired to take its place. ... The kingdom of
Meroë, whereof it was the capital, reached southward as far as
the modern Khartoum, and eastward stretched up to the
Abyssinian highlands, including the valleys of the Atbara and
its tributaries, together with most of the tract between the
Atbara and the Blue Nile. ... Napata continued down to Roman
times a place of importance, and only sank to ruin in
consequence of the campaigns of Petronius against Candacé in
the first century after our era."
G. Rawlinson,
History of Ancient Egypt,
chapter 25.
ALSO IN:
A. H. L. Heeren,
Historical Researches, Carthaginians,
Ethiopians, &c., pages 143-249.
See, also, EGYPT: ABOUT B. C. 1200-670;
and LIBYANS, THE.
ETON SCHOOL.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.--ENGLAND.
ETRURIA, Ancient.
See ETRUSCANS.
ETRURIA, The kingdom of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803;
also PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807;
and FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808(NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).
ETRUSCANS, The.
"At the time when Roman history begins, we find that a
powerful and warlike race, far superior to the Latins in
civilisation and in the arts of life, hemmed in the rising
Roman dominion in the north. The Greeks called them Turrhenoi,
the Romans called them Etrusci, they called themselves the
Rasenna. Who they were and whence they came has ever been
regarded as one of the most doubtful and difficult problems in
ethnology. One conclusion only can be said to have been
universally accepted both in ancient and in modern times. It
is agreed on every hand that in all essential points, in
language, in religion, in customs, and in appearance, the
Etruscans were a race wholly different from the Latins. There
is also an absolute agreement of all ancient tradition to the
effect that the Etruscans were not the original inhabitants of
Etruria, but that they were an intrusive race of conquerors.
... It has been usually supposed that the Rasenna made their
appearance in Italy some ten or twelve centuries before the
Christian era. ... For some six or seven centuries, the
Etruscan power and territory continued steadily to increase,
and ultimately stretched far south of the Tiber, Rome itself
being included in the Etruscan dominion, and being ruled by an
Etruscan dynasty. The early history of Rome is to a great
extent the history of the uprising of the Latin race, and its
long struggle for Italian supremacy with its Etruscan foe. It
took Rome some six centuries of conflict to break through the
obstinate barrier of the Etruscan power. The final conquest of
Etruria by Rome was effected in the year 281 B. C. ... The
Rasennic people were collected mainly in the twelve great
cities of Etruria proper, between the Arno and the Tiber.
[Modern Tuscany takes its name from the ancient Etruscan
inhabitants of the region.] This region was the real seat of
the Etruscan power. ... From the 'Shah-nameh,' the great
Persian epic, we learn that the Aryan Persians called their
nearest non-Aryan neighbours--the Turkic or Turcoman tribes to
the north of them--by the name Turan, a word from which we
derive the familiar ethnologic term Turanian. The Aryan
Greeks, on the other hand, called the Turkic tribe of the
Rasenna, the nearest non-Aryan race, by the name of Turrhenoi.
The argument of this book is to prove that the Tyrrhenians of
Italy were of kindred race with the Turanians of Turkestan. Is
it too much to conjecture that the Greek form Turrhene may be
identically the same word as the Persian form Turan?"
I. Taylor,
Etruscan Researches,
chapter 2.
"The utmost we can say is that several traces, apparently
reliable, point to the conclusion that the Etruscans may be on
the whole included among the Indo-Germans. ... But even
granting those points of connection, the Etruscan people
appears withal scarcely less isolated. 'The Etruscans,'
Dionysius said long ago, 'are like no other nation in language
and manners'; and we have nothing to add to his statement. ...
Reliable traces of any advance of the Etruscans beyond the
Tiber, by land, are altogether wanting. ... South of the Tiber
no Etruscan settlement can be pointed out as having owed its
origin to founders who came by land; and that no indication
whatever is discernible of any serious pressure by the
Etruscans upon the Latin nation."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 1, chapter 9.
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EUBŒA.
"The island of Eubœa, long and narrow like Krête, and
exhibiting a continuous backbone of lofty mountains from
northwest to southeast, is separated from Bœotia at one point
by a strait so narrow (celebrated in antiquity under the name
of the Eurīpus) that the two were connected by a bridge for a
large portion of the historical period of Greece, erected
during the later times of the Peloponnesian war by the
inhabitants of Chalkis [Chalcis]. Its general want of breadth
leaves little room for plains. The area of the island consists
principally of mountain, rock, dell, and ravine, suited in
many parts for pasture, but rarely convenient for
grain-culture or town habitations. Some plains there were,
however, of great fertility, especially that of Lelantum,
bordering on the sea near Chalkis, and continuing from that
city in a southerly direction towards Eretria. Chalkis and
Eretria, both situated on the western coast, and both
occupying parts of this fertile plain, were the two principal
places in the island: the domain of each seems to have
extended across the island from sea to sea. ... Both were in
early times governed by an oligarchy, which among the
Chalcidians was called the Hippobotæ, or Horse feeders,--
proprietors probably of most part of the plain called
Lelantum."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 12.
See, also, NEGROPONT.
EUBOIC TALENT.
See TALENT.
EUCHITES, The.
See MYSTICISM.
EUDES, King of France
(in partition with Charles the Simple), A. D. 887-898.
EUDOSES, The.
See AVIONES.
EUGENE (Prince) of Savoy, Campaigns of.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1699-1718;
GERMANY: A. D. 1704;
ITALY (SAVOY AND PIEDMONT): A. D. 1701-1713;
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709, and 1710-1712.
EUGENE I., Pope, A. D. 655-657.
Eugene II., Pope, A. D. 824-827.
Eugene III., Pope, A. D. 1145-1153.
Eugene IV., Pope, A. D. 1431-1447.
EUGENIANS, The.
See HY-NIALS.
EUMENES, and the wars of the Diadochi.
See MACEDONIA: B. C. 323-316.
EUMOLPHIDÆ, The.
See PHYLÆ.
EUPATRIDÆ, The.
"The Eupatridæ [in ancient Athens] are the wealthy and
powerful men, belonging to the most distinguished families in
all the various gentes, and principally living in the city of
Athens, after the consolidation of Attica: from them are
distinguished the middling and lower people, roughly
classified into husbandmen and artisans. To the Eupatridæ is
ascribed a religious as well as a political and social
ascendency. They are represented as the source of all
authority on matters both sacred and profane,"
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 10.
EUROKS, OR YUROKS.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MODOCS.
EUROPE.
A HISTORICAL SKETCH.
A general sketch of the history of Europe at large cannot, for
obvious reasons, be constructed of quotations from the
historians, on the plan followed in other parts of this work.
The editor has found it necessary, therefore, to introduce
here an essay of his own.
The first inhabitants of the continent of Europe have left no
trace of their existence on the surface of the land. The
little that we know of them has been learned by the discovery
of deeply buried remains, including a few bones and skulls,
many weapons and tools which they had fashioned out of stone
and bone, and some other rude marks of their hands which time
has not destroyed. The places in which these remains are
found--under deposits that formed slowly in ancient river beds
and in caves--have convinced geologists that the people whose
existence they reveal lived many thousands of years ago, and
that the continent of Europe in their time was very different
from the Europe of the present day, in its climate, in its
aspect, and in its form. They find reason to suppose that the
peninsula of Italy, as well as that of Spain, was then an
isthmus which joined Europe to Africa; and this helps to
explain the fact that remains of such animals as the elephant,
the lion, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the hyena, as
well as the mammoth, are found with the remains of these early
men. They all seem to have belonged, together, to a state of
things, on the surface of the earth, which was greatly changed
before the men and the animals that we have historical
knowledge of appeared.
The Stone Age.
These primitive Europeans were evidently quite at the bottom
of the savage state. They had learned no use of metals, since
every relic of their workmanship that can be found is of
stone, or bone, or wood. It is thought possible that they
shaped rough vessels out of unbaked clay; but that is
uncertain. There is nothing to show that they had domesticated
any animals. It is plain that they dwelt in caves, wherever
nature provided such dwellings; but what shelters they may
have built elsewhere for themselves is unknown.
In one direction, only, did these ancient people exhibit a
faculty finer than we see in the lowest savages of the present
day: they were artists, in a way. They have left carvings and
drawings of animals--the latter etched with a sharp point on
horns, bones, and stones--which are remarkable for uncultured
men.
The period in man's life on the earth at which these people
lived--the period before metals were known--has been named by
archæologists the Stone Age. But the Stone Age covers two
stages of human culture--one in which stone implements were
fashioned unskilfully, and a second in which they were
finished with expert and careful hands. The first is called
the Palæolithic or Old Stone Age, the second the Neolithic or
New Stone Age. Between the two periods in Europe there seems
to have been a long interval of time, and a considerable
change in the condition of the country, as well as in that of
its people.
{990}
In fact, the Europe of the Neolithic Age was probably not very
different in form and climate from the Europe of our own day.
Relics of the human life of that time are abundantly scattered
over the face of the continent. There are notable deposits of
them in the so-called "kitchen-middens" of Denmark, which are
great mounds of shells,--shells of oysters and other
molluscs,--which these ancient fishermen had opened and
emptied, and then cast upon a refuse heap. Buried in those
mounds, many bits of their workmanship have been preserved,
and many hints of their manner of life are gleaned from the
signs and tokens which these afford. They had evidently risen
some degrees above the state of the men of the Palæolithic or
Old Stone Age; but they were inferior in art.
The Bronze Age.
The discovery and use of copper--the metal most easily worked,
and most frequently found in the metallic state--is the event
by which archæologists mark the beginning of a second state in
early civilizations. The period during which copper, and
copper hardened by an alloy of tin, are the only metals found
in use, they call the Bronze Age. There is no line of positive
division between this and the Neolithic period which it
followed. The same races appear to have advanced from the one
stage to the other, and probably some were in possession of
tools and weapons of bronze, while others were still
contenting themselves with implements of stone.
Lake Dwellings.
In many parts of Europe, especially in Switzerland and
northern Italy, plain traces of some curious habitations of
people who lived through the later Stone Age into the Bronze
Age, and even after it, have been brought to light. These are
the "lake dwellings," or "lacustrine habitations," as they
have been called, which have excited interest in late years.
They were generally built on piles, driven into a lake-bottom,
at such distance from shore as would make them easy of defence
against enemies. The foundations of whole villages of these
dwellings have been found in the Swiss and North Italian
lakes, and less numerously elsewhere. From the lake-mud under
and around them, a great quantity of relics of the
lake-dwellers have been taken, and many facts about their arts
and mode of life have been learned. It is known that, even
before a single metal had come into their hands, they had
begun to cultivate the earth; had raised wheat and barley and
flax; had domesticated the horse, the ox, the sheep, the goat,
the pig and the dog; had become fairly skilful in weaving, in
rope-making, and in the art of the potter, but without the
potter's wheel.
Gradually copper and bronze made their appearance among the
implements of these people, as modern search discovers them
imbedded, layer upon layer, in the old ooze of the lake-beds
where they were dropped. In time, iron, too, reveals itself
among their possessions, showing that they lived in their
lake-villages from the later Stone Age into that third period
of the early process of civilization which is named the Iron
Age--when men first acquired the use of the most useful of all
the metals. It appears, in fact, that the lake-dwellings were
occupied even down to Roman times, since articles of Roman
make have been found in the ruins of them.
Barrows.
In nearly all parts of Europe there are found burial mounds,
called barrows, which contain buried relics of people who
lived at one or the other of the three periods named. For the
most part, they represent inhabitants of the Neolithic and of
the Bronze Ages. In Great Britain some of these barrows are
long, some are round; and the skulls found in the long barrows
are different in shape from those in the round ones, showing a
difference of race. The people to whom the first belonged are
called "long-headed," or "dolichocephalic"; the others are
called "broad-headed," or "brachycephalic." In the opinion of
some ethnologists, who study this subject of the distinctions
of race in the human family, the broad-headed people were
ancestors of the Celtic or Keltic tribes, whom the Romans
subdued in Gaul and Britain; while the long-headed men were of
a preceding race, which the Celts, when they came, either
drove out of all parts of Europe, except two or three
mountainous corners, or else absorbed by intermarriage. The
Basques of northwestern Spain, and some of their neighbors on
the French side of the Pyrenees, are supposed to be survivals
of this very ancient people; and there are suspected to be
traces of their existence seen in the dark-haired and
dark-skinned people of parts of Wales, Ireland, Corsica, North
Africa, and elsewhere.
The Aryan Nations.
At least one part of this conjecture has much to rest upon.
The inhabitants of western Europe when our historical
knowledge of them--that is, our recorded and reported
knowledge of them--begins, were, certainly, for the most
part, Celtic peoples, and it is extremely probable that they
had been occupying the country as long as the period
represented by the round barrows. It is no less probable that
they were the lake-dwellers of Switzerland, North Italy, and
other regions; and that they did, in fact, displace some
earlier people in most parts of Western Europe.
The Celts--whose nearly pure descendants are found now in the
Bretons of France, the Welsh, the Highland Scotch and the
Celtic Irish, and who formed the main stock of the larger part
of the French nation--were one branch of the great family of
nations called Aryan or Indo-European. The Aryan peoples are
assumed to be akin to one another--shoots from one
stem--because their languages are alike in grammatical
structure and contain great numbers of words that are
manifestly formed from the same original "root"; and because
they differ in these respects from all other languages. The
nations thus identified as Aryan are the nations that have
acted the most important parts in all human history except the
history of extremely ancient times. Besides the Celtic peoples
already mentioned, they include the English, the Dutch, the
Germans, and the Scandinavians, forming the Teutonic race; the
Russians, Poles, and others of the Slavonic group; the ancient
Greeks and Romans, with their modern representatives, and the
Persians and Hindus in Asia. According to the evidence of
their languages, there must have been a time and a place, in
the remote past, when and where a primitive Aryan race, which
was ancestral to all these nations, lived and multiplied until
it outgrew its original country and began to send forth
successive "swarms," or migrating hordes, as many unsettled
races have been seen to do within the historic age.
{991}
It is hopeless, perhaps, to think of determining the time when
such a dispersion of the Aryan peoples began; but many
scholars believe it possible to trace, by various marks and
indications, in language and elsewhere, the lines of movement
in the migration, so far as to guess with some assurance the
region of the primitive Aryan home; but thus far there are
great disagreements in the guessing. Until recent years, the
prevailing judgment pointed to that highland district in
Central Asia which lies north of the Hindoo-Koosh range of
mountains, and between the upper waters of the Oxus and
Jaxartes. But later studies have discredited this first theory
and started many opposing ones. The strong tendency now is to
believe that the cradle of all the peoples of Aryan speech was
somewhere in Europe, rather than in Asia, and in the north of
Europe rather than in the center or the south. At the same
time, there seems to be a growing opinion that the language of
the Aryans was communicated to conquered peoples so
extensively that its spread is not a true measure of the
existing diffusion of the race.
The Celtic Branch.
Whatever may have been the starting-point of the Aryan
migrations, it is supposed that the branch now distinguished
as Celtic was the first to separate from the parent stem and
to acquire for itself a new domain. It occupied southwestern
Europe, from northern Spain to the Rhine, and across the
Channel to the British islands, extending eastward into
Switzerland, North It&ly and the Tyrol. But little of what the
tribes and nations forming this Celtic race did is known,
until the time when another Aryan people, better civilized,
came into collision with them, and drew them into the written
history of the world by conquering them and making them its
subjects.
The people who did this were the Romans, and the Romans and
the Greeks are believed to have been carried into the two
peninsulas which they inhabited, respectively, by one and the
same movement in the Aryan dispersion. Their languages show
more affinity to one another than to the other Aryan tongues,
and there are other evidences of a near relationship between
them; though they separated, it is quite certain, long before
the appearance of either in history.
The Hellenes, or Greeks.
The Greeks, or Hellenes, as they called themselves, were the
first among the Aryan peoples in Europe to make themselves
historically known, and the first to write the record which
transmits history from generation to generation. The peninsula
in which they settled themselves is a very peculiar one in its
formation. It is crossed in different directions by mountain
ranges, which divide the land into parts naturally separated
from one another, and which form barriers easily defended
against invading foes. Between the mountains lie numerous
fertile valleys. The coast is ragged with gulfs and bays,
which notch it deeply on all sides, making the whole main
peninsula a cluster of minor peninsulas, and supplying the
people with harbors which invite them to a life of seafaring
and trade. It is surrounded, moreover, with islands, which
repeat the invitation.
Almost necessarily, in a country marked with such features so
strongly, the Greeks became divided politically into small
independent states--city-states they have been named--and
those on the sea-coast became engaged very early in trade with
other countries of the Mediterranean Sea. Every city of
importance in Greece was entirely sovereign in the government
of itself and of the surrounding territory which formed its
domain. The stronger among them extended their dominion over
some of the weaker or less valiant ones; but even then the
subject cities kept a considerable measure of independence.
There was no organization of national government to embrace
the whole, nor any large part, of Greece. Certain among the
states were sometimes united in temporary leagues, or
confederacies, for common action in war; but these were
unstable alliances, rather than political unions. In their
earliest form, the Greek city-states were governed by kings,
whose power appears to have been quite limited, and who were
leaders rather than sovereigns. But kingship disappeared from
most of the states in Greece proper before they reached the
period of distinct and accepted history. The kings were first
displaced by aristocracies--ruling families, which took all
political rights and privileges to themselves, and allowed
their fellows (whom they usually oppressed) no part or voice
in public affairs. In most instances these aristocracies, or
oligarchies, were overthrown, after a time, by bold agitators
who stirred up a revolution, and then contrived, while
confusion prevailed, to gather power into their own hands.
Almost every Greek city had its time of being ruled by one or
more of these Tyrants, as they were called. Some of them, like
Pisistratus of Athens, ruled wisely and justly for the most
part, and were not "tyrants" in the modern sense of the term;
but all who gained and held a princely power unlawfully were
so named by the Greeks. The reign of the Tyrants was nowhere
lasting. They were driven out of one city after another until
they disappeared. Then the old aristocracies came uppermost
again in some cities, and ruled as before. But some, like
Athens, had trained the whole body of their citizens to such
intelligence and spirit that neither kingship nor oligarchy
would be endured any longer, and the people undertook to
govern themselves. These were the first democracies--the first
experiments in popular government--that history gives any
account of. "The little commonwealths of Greece," says a great
historian, "were the first states at once free and civilized
which the world ever saw. They were the first states which
gave birth to great statesmen, orators, and generals who did
great deeds, and to great historians who set down those great
deeds in writing. It was in the Greek commonwealths, in short,
that the political and intellectual life of the world began."
In the belief of the Greeks, or of most men among them, their
early history was embodied with truth in the numerous legends
and ancient poems which they religiously preserved; but people
in modern times look differently upon those wonderful myths
and epics, studying them with deep interest, but under more
critical views. They throw much light on the primitive life of
the Hellenes, and more light upon the development of the
remarkable genius and spirit of those thoughtful and
imaginative people; but of actual history there are only
glimpses and guesses to be got from them.
{992}
The Homeric poems, the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," describe a
condition of things in which the ruling state of Peloponnesus
(the southern peninsula of Greece) was a kingdom of the
Achaians, having its capital at Mycenæ, in Argolis,--the realm
of King Agamemnon,--and in which Athens is unknown to the
poet. Within recent years, Dr. Schliemann has excavated the
ruins of Mycenæ, and has found evidence that it really must
have been, in very early times, the seat of a strong and rich
monarchy. But the Achaian kingdom had entirely disappeared,
and the Achaian people had shrunk to an insignificant
community, on the Gulf of Corinth, when the first assured
views of Greek history open to us.
The Dorians.
It seems to be a fact that the Achaians had been overwhelmed
by a great invasion of more barbarous Greek tribes from the
North, very much as the Roman Empire, in later times, was
buried under an avalanche of barbarism from Germany. The
invaders were a tribe or league of tribes called Dorians, who
had been driven from their own previous home on the slopes of
the Pindus mountain range. Their movement southward was part,
as appears, of an extensive shifting of place, or migration,
that occurred at that time (not long, it is probable, before
the beginning of the historic period) among the tribes of
Hellas. The Dorians claimed that in conquering Peloponnesus
they were recovering a heritage from which their chiefs had
been anciently expelled, and their legends were shaped
accordingly. The Dorian chiefs appeared in these legends as
descendants of Hercules, and the tradition of the conquest
became a story of "The Return of the Heraclids."
The principal states founded or possessed and controlled by
the Dorians in Peloponnesus, after their conquest, were
Sparta, or Lacedæmon, Argos, and Corinth. The Spartans were
the most warlike of the Greeks,--the most resolute and
energetic,--and their leadership in practical affairs common
to the whole came to be generally acknowledged. At the same
time they had little of the intellectual superiority which
distinguished some of their Hellenic kindred in so remarkable
a degree. Their state was organized on military principles;
its constitution (the body of famous ordinances ascribed to
Lycurgus) was a code of rigid discipline, which dealt with the
citizen as a soldier always under training for war, and
demanded from him the utmost simplicity of life. Their form of
government combined a peculiar monarchy (having two royal
families and two kings) with an aristocratic senate (the
Gerousia), and a democratic assembly (which voted on matters
only as submitted to it by the senate), with an irresponsible
executive over the whole, consisting of five men called the
Ephors. This singular government, essentially aristocratic or
oligarchical, was maintained, with little disturbance or
change, through the whole independent history of Sparta. In
all respects, the Spartans were the most conservative and the
least progressive among the politically important Greeks.
At the beginning of the domination of the Dorians in
Peloponnesus, their city of Argos took the lead, and was the
head of a league which included Corinth and other city-states.
But Sparta soon rose to rivalry with Argos; then reduced it to
a secondary place, and finally subjugated it completely.
The Ionians.
The extensive shifting of population which had produced its
most important result in the invasion of Peloponnesus by the
Dorians, must have caused great commotions and changes
throughout the whole Greek peninsula; and quite as much north
of the Corinthian isthmus as south of it. But in the part
which lies nearest to the isthmus--the branch peninsula of
Attica--the old inhabitants appear to have held their ground,
repelling invaders, and their country was affected only by an
influx of fugitives, flying from the conquered Peloponnesus.
The Attic people were more nearly akin to the expelled
Achaians and Ionians than to the conquering Dorians, although
a common brotherhood in the Hellenic race was recognized by
all of them. Whatever distinction there may have been before
between Achaians and Ionians now practically disappeared, and
the Ionic name became common to the whole branch of the Greek
people which derived itself from them. The important division
of the race through all its subsequent history was between
Dorians and Ionians. The Æolians constituted a third division,
of minor importance and of far less significance. The
distinction between Ionians and Dorians was a very real one,
in character no less than in traditions and name. The Ionians
were the superior Greeks on the intellectual side. It was
among them that the wonderful genius resided which produced
the greater marvels of art, literature and philosophy in Greek
civilization. It was among them, too, that the institutions of
political freedom were carried to their highest attainment.
Their chief city was Athens, and the splendor of its history
bears testimony to their unexampled genius. On the other hand,
the Dorians were less thoughtful, less imaginative, less broad
in judgment or feeling--less susceptible, it would seem, of a
high refinement of culture; but no less capable in practical
pursuits, no less vigorous in effective action, and sounder,
perhaps, in their moral constitution. Sparta, which stood at
the head of the Doric states, contributed almost nothing to
Greek literature, Greek thought, Greek art, or Greek commerce,
but exercised a great influence on Greek political history.
Other Doric states, especially Corinth, were foremost in
commercial and colonizing enterprise, and attained some
brilliancy of artistic civilization, but with moderate
originality.
Greeks and Phœnicians.
It was natural, as noted above, that the Greeks should be
induced at an early day to navigate the surrounding seas, and
to engage in trade with neighboring nations. They were not
original, it is supposed, in these ventures, but learned more
or less of ship-building and the art of navigation from an
older people, the Phœnicians, who dwelt on the coast of Syria
and Palestine, and whose chief cities were Sidon and Tyre. The
Phœnicians had extended their commerce widely through the
Mediterranean before the Greeks came into rivalry with them.
Their ships, and their merchants, and the wares they bartered,
were familiar in the Ægean when the Homeric poems were
composed.
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They seem to have been the teachers of the early Greeks in
many things. They gave them, with little doubt, the invention
of the alphabet, which they themselves had borrowed from
Egypt. They conveyed hints of art, which bore astonishing
fruits when planted in the fertile Hellenic imagination. They
carried from the East strange stories of gods and demigods,
which were woven into the mythology of the Greeks. They gave,
in fact, to Greek civilization, at its beginning, the greatest
impulse it received. But all that Hellas took from the outer
world it wrought into a new character, and put upon it the
stamp of its own unmistakable genius. In navigation and
commerce the Greeks of the coast-cities and the islands were
able, ere long, to compete on even terms with the Phœnicians,
and it happened, in no great space of time, that they had
driven the latter entirely from the Ægean and the Euxine seas.
Greek Colonies.
They had now occupied with colonies the coast of Asia Minor
and the islands on both their own coasts. The Ionian Greeks
were the principal colonizers of the Asiatic shore and of the
Cyclades. On the former and near it they founded twelve towns
of note, including Samos, Miletus, Ephesus, Chios, and Phocæa,
which are among the more famous cities of ancient times. Their
important island settlements in the Cyclades were Naxos,
Delos, Melos, and Paros. They possessed, likewise, the great
island of Eubœa, with its two wealthy cities of Chalcis and
Eretria. These, with Attica, constituted, in the main, the
Ionic portion of Hellas.
The Dorians occupied the islands of Rhodes and Cos, and
founded on the coast of Asia Minor the cities of Halicarnassus
and Cnidus. The important Æolian colonies in Asia were Smyrna
(acquired later by the Ionians), Temnos, Larissa, and Cyme. Of
the islands they occupied Lesbos and Tenedos.
From these settlements on neighboring coasts and islands the
vigorous Greeks pushed on to more distant fields. It is
probable that their colonies were in Cyprus and Crete before
the eighth century, B. C. In the seventh century B. C., during
a time of confusion and weakness in Egypt, they had entered
that country as allies or as mercenaries of the kings, and had
founded a city, Naucratis, which became an important agent in
the exchange of arts and ideas, as well as of merchandise,
between the Nile and the Ægean. Within a few years past the
site of Naucratis has been uncovered by explorers, and much
has been brought to light that was obscure in Greek and
Egyptian history before. Within the same seventh century,
Cyrene and Barca had been built on the African coast, farther
west. Even a century before that time, the Corinthians had
taken possession of Corcyra (modern Corfu), and they, with the
men of Chalcis and Megara, had been actively founding cities
that grew great and rich, in Sicily and in southern Italy,
which latter acquired the name of "Magna Græcia" (Great
Greece). At a not much later time they had pressed northwards
to the Euxine or Black Sea, and had scattered settlements
along the Thracian and Macedonian coast, including one
(Byzantium) on the Bosphorus, which became, after a thousand
years had passed, the imperial city of Constantinople. About
597 B. C., the Phocæans had planted a colony at Massalia, in
southern Gaul, from which sprang the great city known in
modern times as Marseilles. And much of all this had been
done, by Ionians and Dorians together, before Athens (in which
Attica now centered itself, and which loomed finally greater
in glory than the whole Hellenic world besides) had made a
known mark in history.
Rise of Athens.
At first there had been kings in Athens, and legends had
gathered about their names which give modern historians a
ground-work for critical guessing, and scarcely more. Then the
king disappeared and a magistrate called Archon took his
place, who held office for only ten years. The archons are
believed to have been chosen first from the old royal family
alone; but after a time the office was thrown open to all
noble families. This was the aristocratic stage of political
evolution in the city-state. The next step was taken in 683 B.
C. (which is said to be the beginning of authentic Athenian
chronology) when nine archons were created, in place of the
one, and their term of office was reduced to a single year.
Fifty years later, about 621 B. C., the people of Athens
obtained their first code of written law, ascribed to one
Draco, and described as a code of much severity. But it gave
certainty to law, for the first time, and was the first great
protective measure secured by the people. In 612 B. C. a noble
named Kylon attempted to overthrow the aristocratic government
and establish a tyranny under himself, but he failed.
Legislation of Solon.
Then there came forward in public life another noble, who was
one of the wisest men and purest patriots of any country or
age, and who made an attempt of quite another kind. This was
Solon, the famous lawgiver, who became archon in 594 B. C. The
political state of Athens at that time has been described for
us in an ancient Greek treatise lately discovered, and which
is believed to be one of the hitherto lost writings of
Aristotle. "Not only," says the author of this treatise, "was
the constitution at this time oligarchical in every respect,
but the poorer classes, men, women, and children, were in
absolute slavery to the rich. ... The whole country was in the
hands of a few persons, and if the tenants failed to pay their
rent, they were liable to be haled into slavery, and their
children with them. Their persons were mortgaged to their
creditors." Solon saw that this was a state of things not to
be endured by such a people as the Athenians, and he exerted
himself to change it. He obtained authority to frame a new
constitution and a new code of laws for the state. In the
latter, he provided measures for relieving the oppressed class
of debtors. In the former, he did not create a democratic
government, but he greatly increased the political powers of
the people. He classified them according to their wealth,
defining four classes, the citizens in each of which had
certain political duties and privileges measured to them by
the extent of their property and income. But the whole body of
citizens, in their general assembly (the Ecclesia), were given
the important right of choosing the annual archons, whom they
must select, however, from the ranks of the wealthiest class.
At the same time, Solon enlarged the powers of the old
aristocratic senate--the Areopagus--giving it a supervision of
the execution of the laws and a censorship of the morals of
the people.
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"These changes did not constitute Democracy,--a form of
government then unknown, and for which there was as yet no
word in the Greek language. But they initiated the democratic
spirit. ... Athens, thus fairly started on her
way,--emancipated from the discipline of aristocratic
school-masters, and growing into an age of manly liberty and
self-restraint,--came eventually nearer to the ideal of 'the
good life' [Aristotle's phrase] than any other State in
Hellas."
(W. W. Fowler.)
Tyranny of Pisistratus.
But before the Athenians reached their nearness to this "good
life," they had to pass under the yoke of a "tyrant,"
Pisistratus, who won the favor of the poorer people, and, with
their help, established himself in the Acropolis (560 B. C.)
with a foreign guard to maintain his power. Twice driven out,
he was twice restored, and reigned quite justly and prudently,
on the whole, until his death in 527 B. C. He was succeeded by
his two sons, Hippias and Hipparchus; but the latter was
killed in 514, and Hippias was expelled by the Spartans in 510
B. C.; after which there was no tyranny in Athens.
The Democratic Republic.
On the fall of the Pisistratidæ, a majority of the noble or
privileged class struggled hard to regain their old
ascendancy; but one of their number, Cleisthenes, took the
side of the people and helped them to establish a democratic
constitution. He caused the ancient tribal division of the
citizens to be abolished, and substituted a division which
mixed the members of clans and broke up or weakened the
clannish influence in politics. He enlarged Solon's senate or
council and divided it into committees, and he brought the
"ecclesia," or popular assembly, into a more active exercise
of its powers. He also introduced the custom of ostracism,
which permitted the citizens of Athens to banish by their vote
any man whom they thought dangerous to the state. The
constitution of Cleisthenes was the final foundation of the
Athenian democratic republic. Monarchical and aristocratic
Sparta resented the popular change, and undertook to restore
the oligarchy by force of arms; but the roused democracy of
Athens defended its newly won liberties with vigor and
success.
The Persian Wars.
Not Athens only, but all Greece, was now about to be put to a
test which proved the remarkable quality of both, and formed
the beginning of their great career. The Ionian cities of Asia
Minor had recently been twice conquered, first by Crœsus, King
of Lydia, and then by Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian
empire, who had overthrown Crœsus (B. C. 547), and taken his
dominions. The Persians oppressed them, and in 500 B. C. they
rose in revolt. Athens and Eretria sent help to them, while
Sparta refused. The revolt was suppressed, and Darius, the
king of Persia, planned vengeance upon the Athenians and
Eretrians for the aid they had given to it. He sent an
expedition against them in 493 B. C., which was mostly
destroyed by a storm. In 490 B. C. he sent a second powerful
army and fleet, which took Eretria and razed it to the ground.
The great Persian army then marched upon Athens, and was met at
Marathon by a small Athenian force of 9,000 men. The little
city of Platæa sent 1,000 more to stand with them in the
desperate encounter. They had no other aid in the fight, and
the Persians were a great unnumbered host. But Miltiades, the
Greek general that day, planned his battle-charge so well that
he routed the Asiatic host and lost but 192 men. The Persians
abandoned their attempt and returned to their wrathful king.
One citizen of Athens, Themistocles, had sagacity enough to
foresee that the "Great King," as he was known, would not rest
submissive under his defeat; and with difficulty he persuaded
his fellow citizens to prepare themselves for future conflicts
by building a fleet and by fortifying their harbors, thus making
themselves powerful at sea. The wisdom of his counsels was
proved in 480 B. C., when Xerxes, the successor of Darius, led
an army of prodigious size into Greece, crossing the
Hellespont by a bridge of boats. This time, Sparta, Corinth,
and several of the lesser states, rallied with Athens to the
defence of the common country; but Thebes and Argos showed
friendship to the Persians, and none of the important
island-colonies contributed any help. Athens was the brain and
right arm of the war, notwithstanding the accustomed
leadership of Sparta in military affairs.
The first encounter was at Thermopylæ, where Leonidas and his
300 Spartans defended the narrow pass, and died in their place
when the Persians found a way across the mountain to surround
them. But on that same day the Persian fleet was beaten at
Artemisium. Xerxes marched on Athens, however, found the city
deserted, and destroyed it. His fleet had followed him, and
was still stronger than the naval force of the Greeks.
Themistocles forced a battle, against the will of the
Peloponnesian captains, and practically destroyed the Persian
fleet. This most memorable battle of Salamis was decisive of
the war, and decisive of the independence of Greece. Xerxes,
in a panic, hastened back into Asia, leaving one of his
generals, Mardonius, with 300,000 men, to pursue the war. But
Mardonius was routed and his host annihilated, at Platæa, the
next year, while the Persian fleet was again defeated on the
same day at Mycale.
The Golden Age of Athens.
The war had been glorious for the Athenians, and all could see
that Greece had been saved by their spirit and their
intelligence much more than by the valor of Sparta and the
other states. But they were in a woful condition, with their
city destroyed and their families without homes. Wasting no
time in lamentations, they rebuilt the town, stretched its
walls to a wider circuit, and fortified it more strongly than
before, under the lead of the sagacious Themistocles. Their
neighbors were meanly jealous, and Sparta made attempts to
interfere with the building of the walls; but Themistocles
baffled them cunningly, and the new Athens rose proudly out of
the ashes of the old.
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The Ionian islands and towns of Asia Minor (which had broken
the Persian yoke) now recognized the superiority and
leadership of Athens, and a league was formed among them,
which held the meetings of its deputies and kept its treasury
in the temple of Apollo on the sacred island of Delos; for
which reason it was called the Confederacy of Delos, or the
Delian League. The Peloponnesian states formed a looser rival
league under the headship of Sparta. The Confederacy of Delos
was in sympathy with popular governments and popular parties
everywhere, while the Spartans and their following favored
oligarchies and aristocratic parties. There were many
occasions for hostility between the two.
The Athenians, at the head of their Confederacy, were strong,
until they impaired their power by using it in tyrannical
ways. Many lesser states in the league were foolish enough to
commute in money payments the contribution of ships and men
which they had pledged themselves to make to the common naval
force. This gave Athens the power to use that force
despotically, as her own, and she did not scruple to exercise
the power. The Confederacy was soon a name; the states forming
it were no longer allies of Athens, but her subjects; she
ruled them as the sovereign of an Empire, and her rule was
neither generous nor just. Thereby the double tie of kinship
and of interest which might have bound the whole circle of
Ionian states to her fortunes and herself was destroyed by her
own acts. Provoking the hatred of her allies and challenging
the jealous fear of her rivals, Athens had many enemies.
At the same time, a dangerous change in the character of her
democratic institutions was begun, produced especially by the
institution of popular jury-courts, before which prosecutions
of every kind were tried, the citizens who constituted the
courts acting as jury and judge at once. This gave them a
valuable training, without doubt, and helped greatly to raise
the common standard of intelligence among the Athenians so
high; but it did unquestionably tend also to demoralizations
that were ruinous in the end. The jury service, which was
slightly paid, fell more and more to an unworthy class, made
up of idlers or intriguers. Party feeling and popular passions
gained an increasing influence over the juries, and demagogues
acquired an increasing skill in making use of them.
But these evils were scarcely more than in their seed during
the great period of "Athenian Empire," as it is sometimes
called, and everything within its bounds was suffused with the
shining splendor of that matchless half-century. The genius of
this little Ionic state was stimulated to amazing achievements
in every intellectual field. Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
Aristophanes, within a single generation, crowded Athenian
literature with the masterpieces of classic drama. Pheidias
and his companions crowned the Acropolis and filled the city
with works that have been the models in art for all ages
since. Socrates began the quizzing which turned philosophy
into honest truth-seeking paths, and Plato listened to him and
was instructed for his mission. Thucydides watched events with
sagacious young eyes, and prepared his pen for the chronicling
of them; while Herodotus, pausing at Athens from his wide
travels, matured the knowledge he had gathered up and
perfected it for his final work. Over all of them came
Pericles to preside and rule, not as a master, or "tyrant,"
but as leader, guide, patron, princely republican,--statesman
and politician in one.
The Peloponnesian War.
The period of the ascendancy of Pericles was the "golden age"
of Athenian prosperity and power, both material and
intellectual. The beginning of the end of it was reached a
little before he died, when the long-threatened war between
Athens and the Peloponnesian league, led by Sparta, broke out
(B. C. 431). If Athens had then possessed the good will of the
cities of her own league, and if her citizens had retained
their old sobriety and intelligence, she might have triumphed
in the war; for she was all powerful at sea and fortified
almost invincibly against attacks by land. But the subject
states, called allies, were hostile, for the most part, and
helped the enemy by their revolts, while the death of Pericles
(B. C. 429) let loose on the people a swarm of demagogues who
flattered and deluded them, and baffled the wiser and more
honest, whose counsels and leadership might have given her
success.
The fatal folly of the long war was an expedition against the
distant city of Syracuse (B. C. 415-413), into which the
Athenians were enticed by the restless and unscrupulous
ambition of Alcibiades. The entire force sent to Sicily
perished there, and the strength and spirit of Athens were
ruinously sapped by the fearful calamity. She maintained the
war, however, until 404 B. C., when, having lost her fleet in
the decisive battle of Ægospotami, and being helplessly
blockaded by sea and land, the city was surrendered to the
Spartan general Lysander. Her walls and fortifications were
then destroyed and her democratic government was overthrown,
giving place to an oligarchy known as the "thirty tyrants."
The democracy soon suppressed the thirty tyrants and regained
control, and Athens, in time, rose somewhat from her deep
humiliation, but never again to much political power in
Greece. In intellect and cultivation, the superiority of the
Attic state was still maintained, and its greatest productions
in philosophy and eloquence were yet to be given to the world.
Spartan and Theban Ascendancy.
After the fall of Athens, Sparta was dominant in the whole of
Greece for thirty years and more, exercising her power more
oppressively than Athens had done. Then Thebes, which had been
treacherously seized and garrisoned by the Spartans, threw off
their yoke (B. C. 379) and led a rising, under her great and
high-souled citizen, Epaminondas, which resulted in bringing
Thebes to the head of Greek affairs. But the Theban ascendancy
was short-lived, and ended with the death of Epaminondas in
362 B. C.
Macedonian Supremacy.
Meantime, while the city-states of Hellas proper had been
wounding and weakening one another by their jealousies and
wars, the semi-Greek kingdom of Macedonia, to the north of
them, in their own peninsula, had been acquiring their
civilization and growing strong. And now there appeared upon
its throne a very able king, Philip, who took advantage of
their divisions, interfered in their affairs, and finally made
a practical conquest of the whole peninsula, by his victory at
the battle of Chæronea (B. C. 338). At Athens, the great
orator Demosthenes had exerted himself for years to rouse
resistance to Philip. If his eloquence failed then, it has
served the world immortally since, by delighting and
instructing mankind.
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King Philip was succeeded by his famous son, Alexander the
Great, who led an army of Macedonians and Greeks into Asia (B.
C. 334), overthrew the already crumbling Persian power,
pursued his conquests through Afghanistan to India, and won a
great empire which he did not live to rule. When he died (B.
C. 323), his generals divided the empire among them and fought
with one another for many years. But the general result was
the spreading of the civilization and language of the Greeks,
and the establishing of their intellectual influence, in
Egypt, in Syria, in Asia Minor, and beyond.
In Greece itself, a state of disturbance and of political
confusion and weakness prevailed for another century. There
was promise of something better, in the formation, by several
of the Peloponnesian states, of a confederacy called the
Achaian League, which might possibly have federated and
nationalized the whole of Hellas in the end; but the Romans,
at this juncture, turned their conquering arms eastward, and
in three successive wars, between 211 and 146 B. C., they
extinguished the Macedonian kingdom, and annexed it, with the
whole peninsula, to the dominions of their wonderful republic.
The Romans.
The Romans, as stated already, are believed to have been
originally near kindred to the Greeks. The same movement, it
is supposed, in the successive outswarmings of Aryan peoples,
deposited in one peninsula the Italian tribes, and in the next
peninsula, eastward, the tribes of the Hellenes. Among the
Italian tribes were Latins, Umbrians, Sabines, Samnites, etc.,
occupying the middle and much of the southern parts of the
peninsula, while a mysterious alien people, the Etruscans,
whose origin is not known, possessed the country north of them
between the Arno and the Tiber. In the extreme south were
remnants of a primitive race, the Iapygian, and Greek colonies
were scattered there around the coasts. From the Latins sprang
the Romans, at the beginning of their separate existence; but
there seems to have been a very early union of these Romans of
the primitive tradition with a Sabine community, whereby was
formed the Roman city-state of historical times. That union
came about through the settlement of the two communities,
Latin and Sabine, on two neighboring hills, near the mouth of
the river Tiber, on its southern bank. In the view of some
historians, it is the geographical position of those hills,
hardly less than the masterful temper and capacity of the race
seated on them, which determined the marvellous career of the
city founded on that site. Says Professor Freeman: "The whole
history of the world has been determined by the geological
fact that at a point a little below the junction of the Tiber
and the Anio the isolated hills stand nearer to one another
than most of the other hills of Latium. On a site marked out
above all other sites for dominion, the centre of Italy, the
centre of Europe, as Europe then was, a site at the junction
of three of the great nations of Italy, and which had the
great river as its highway to lands beyond the bounds of
Italy, stood two low hills, the hill which bore the name of
Latin Saturn, and the hill at the meaning of whose name of
Palatine scholars will perhaps guess for ever. These two
hills, occupied by men of two of the nations of Italy, stood
so near to one another that a strait choice indeed was laid on
those who dwelled on them. They must either join together on
terms closer than those which commonly united Italian leagues,
or they must live a life of border warfare more ceaseless,
more bitter, than the ordinary warfare of Italian enemies.
Legend, with all likelihood, tells us that warfare was tried;
history, with all certainty, tells us that the final choice
was union. The two hills were fenced with a single wall; the
men who dwelled on them changed from wholly separate
communities into tribes of a single city."
The followers of Romulus occupied the Palatine Mount, and the
Sabines were settled on the Quirinal. At subsequent times, the
Cœlian, the Capitoline, the Aventine, the Esquiline and the
Viminal hills were embraced in the circumvallation, and the
city on the seven hills thus acquired that name.
If modern students and thinkers, throwing light on the
puzzling legends and traditions of early Rome from many
sources, in language and archæology, have construed their
meaning lightly, then great importance attaches to those first
unions or incorporations of distinct settlements in the
forming of the original city-state. For it was the beginning
of a process which went on until the whole of Latium, and then
the whole of Italy, and, finally, the whole Mediterranean
world, were joined to the seven hills of Rome. "The whole
history of Rome is a history of incorporation"; and it is
reasonable to believe that the primal spring of Roman
greatness is found in that early adoption and persistent
practice of the policy of political absorption, which gave
conquest a character it had never borne before. At the same
time, this view of the creation of the Roman state contributes
to an understanding of its early constitutional history. It
supposes that the union of the first three tribes which
coalesced--those of the Palatine, the Quirinal and Capitoline
(both occupied by the Sabines) and the Cœlian hills--ended the
process of incorporation on equal terms. These formed the
original Roman people--the "fathers," the "patres," whose
descendants appear in later times as a distinct class or
order, the "patricians"--holding and struggling to maintain
exclusive political rights, and exclusive ownership of the
public domain, the "ager publicus," which became a subject of
bitter contention for four centuries. Around these heirs of
the "fathers" of Rome arose another class of Romans, brought
into the community by later incorporations, and not on equal
terms. If the first class were "fathers," these were children,
in a political sense, adopted into the Roman family, but without
a voice in general affairs, or a share in the public lands, or
eligibility to the higher offices of the state. These were the
"plebeians" or "plebs" of Rome, whose long struggle with the
patricians for political and agrarian rights is the more
interesting side of Roman history throughout nearly the whole
of the prosperous age of the republic.
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At Rome, as at Athens, there was a period of early kingship,
the legends of which are as familiar to us all as the stories
of the Bible, but the real facts of which are almost totally
unknown. It is surmised that the later kings--the well known
Tarquins of the classical tale--were Etruscan princes (it is
certain that they were Etruscans), who had broken for a time
the independence of the Romans and extended their sovereignty
over them. It is suspected, too, that this period of Etruscan
domination was one in which Roman civilization made a great
advance, under the tuition of a more cultivated people. But if
Rome in its infancy did know a time of subjugation, the
endurance was not long. It ended, according to Roman
chronology, in the 245th year of the city, or 509 B.C., by the
expulsion of Tarquin the Proud, the last of the kings.
The Roman Republic.
The Republic was then founded; but it was an aristocratic and
not a democratic republic. The consuls, who replaced the
kings, were required to be patricians, and they were chosen by
the landholders of the state. The senate was patrician; all
the important powers of government were in patrician hands,
and the plebs suffered grievous oppression in consequence.
They were not of a tamely submissive race. They demanded
powers for their own protection, and by slow degrees they won
them--strong as the patricians were in their wealth and their
trained political skill.
Precisely as in Athens, the first great effort among the
common people was to obtain relief from crushing burdens of
debt, which had been laid upon them in precisely the same
way--by loss of harvests while in military service, and by the
hardness of the laws which creditors alone had framed. An army
of plebs, just home from war, marched out of the city and
refused to return until magistrates of their own choosing had
been conceded to them. The patricians could not afford to lose
the bone and sinew of their state, and they yielded the point
in demand (B. C. 494). This first "secession of the plebs"
brought about the first great democratic change in the Roman
constitution, by calling into existence a powerful
magistracy--the Tribunes of the Plebs--who henceforth stood
between the consuls and the common people, for the protection
of the latter.
From this first success the plebeian order went forward, step
by step, to the attainment of equal political rights in the
commonwealth, and equal participation in the lands which Roman
conquest was continually adding to the public domain. In 450
B. C., after ten years of struggle, they secured the
appointment of a commission which framed the famous Twelve
Tables of the Law, and so established a written and certain
code. Five years later, the caste exclusiveness of the
patricians was broken down by a law which permitted marriages
between the orders. In 367 B. C. the patrician monopoly of the
consular office was extinguished, by the notable Licinian
Laws, which also limited the extent of land that any citizen
might occupy, and forbade the exclusive employment of slave
labor on any estate. One by one, after that, other
magistracies were opened to the plebs; and in 287 B. C. by the
Lex Hortensia, the plebeian concilium, or assembly, was made
independent of the senate and its acts declared to be valid
and binding. The democratic commonwealth was now completely
formed.
Roman Conquest of Italy.
While these changes in the constitution of their Republic were
in progress, the Romans had been making great advances toward
supremacy in the peninsula. First they had been in league with
their Latin neighbors, for war with the Æquians, the
Volscians, and the Etruscans. The Volscian war extended over
forty years, and ended about 450 B. C. in the practical
disappearance of the Volscians from history. Of war with the
Æquians, nothing is heard after 458 B. C., when, as the tale
is told, Cincinnatus left his plow to lead the Romans against
them. The war with the Etruscans of the near city of Veii had
been more stubborn. Suspended by a truce between 474 and 438
B. C., it was then renewed, and ended in 396 B. C., when the
Etruscan city was taken and destroyed. At the same time the
power of the Etruscans was being shattered at sea by the
Greeks of Tarentum and Syracuse, while at home they were
attacked from the north by the barbarous Gauls or Celts.
These last named people, having crossed the Alps from Gaul and
Switzerland and occupied northern Italy, were now pressing
upon the more civilized nations to the south of the Po. The
Etruscans were first to suffer, and their despair became so
great that they appealed to Rome for help. The Romans gave
little aid to them in their extremity; but enough to provoke
the wrath of Brennus, the savage leader of the Gauls. He
quitted Etruria and marched to Rome, defeating an army which
opposed him on the Allia, pillaging and burning the city (B.
C. 390) and slaying the senators, who had refused to take
refuge, with other inhabitants, in the capitol. The defenders
of the capitol held it for seven months; Rome was rebuilt,
when the Gauls withdrew, and soon took up her war again with
the Etruscan cities. By the middle of the same century she was
mistress of southern Etruria, though her territories had been
ravaged twice again by renewed incursions of the Gauls. In a
few years more, when her allies of Latium complained of their
meager share of the fruits of these common wars, and demanded
Roman citizenship and equal rights, she fought them fiercely
and humbled them to submissiveness (B. C. 339-338), reducing
their cities to the status of provincial towns.
And now, having awed or subdued her rivals, her friends, and
her enemies, near at hand, the young Republic swung into the
career of rapid conquest which subdued to her will, within
three-fourths of a century, the whole of Italy below the mouth
of the Arno.
In 343 B. C. the Roman arms had been turned against the
Samnites at the south, and they had been driven from the
Campania. In 327 B. C. the same dangerous rivals were again
assailed, with less impunity. At the Caudine Forks, in 321 B.
C., the Samnites inflicted both disaster and shame upon their
indomitable foes; but the end of the war (B. C. 304) found
Rome advanced and Samnium fallen back. A third contest ended
the question of supremacy; but the Samnites (B. C. 290)
submitted to become allies and not subjects of the Roman
state.
In this last struggle the Samnites had summoned Gauls and
Etruscans to join them against the common enemy, and Rome had
overcome their united forces in a great fight at Sentinum.
This was in 295 B. C. Ten years later she annihilated the
Senonian Gauls, annexed their territory and planted a colony
at Sena on the coast. In two years more she had paralyzed the
Boian Gauls by a terrible chastisement, and had nothing more
to fear from the northward side of her realm. Then she turned
back to finish her work in the south.
{998}
War with Pyrrhus.
The Greek cities of the southern coast were harassed by
various marauding neighbors, and most of them solicited the
protection of Rome, which involved, of course, some surrender
of their independence. But one great city, Tarentum, the most
powerful of their number, refused these terms, and hazarded a
war with the terrible republic, expecting support from the
ambitious Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, on the Greek coast opposite
their own. Pyrrhus came readily at their call, with dreams of
an Italian kingdom more agreeable than his own. Assisted in
the undertaking by his royal kinsmen of Macedonia and Syria,
he brought an army of 25,000 men, with 20 elephants--which
Roman eyes had never seen before. In two bloody fights (B. C.
280-279), Pyrrhus was victorious; but the cost of victory was
so great that he dared not follow it up. He went over to
Sicily, instead, and waged war for three years (B. C. 278-276)
with the Carthaginians, who had subjugated most of the island.
The Epirot king brought timely aid to the Sicilian Greeks, and
drove their Punic enemies into the western border of the
island; but he claimed sovereignty over all that his arms
delivered, and was not successful in enforcing the claim. He
returned to Italy and found the Romans better prepared than
before to face his phalanx and his elephants. They routed him
at Beneventum, in the spring of 275 B. C. and he went back to
Epirus, with his dreams dispelled. Tarentum fell, and Southern
Italy was added to the dominion of Rome.
Punic Wars.
During her war with Pyrrhus, the Republic had formed an
alliance with Carthage, the powerful maritime Phœnician city
on the African coast. But friendship between these two cities
was impossible. The ambition of both was too boundless and too
fierce. They were necessarily competitors for supremacy in the
Mediterranean world, from the moment that a narrow strait
between Italy and Sicily was all that held them apart. Rome
challenged her rival to the duel in 264 B. C., when she sent
help to the Mamertines, a band of brigands who had seized the
Sicilian city of Messina, and who were being attacked by both
Carthaginians and Syracusan Greeks. The "First Punic War,"
then begun, lasted twenty-four years, and resulted in the
withdrawal of the Carthaginians from Sicily, and in their
payment of an enormous war indemnity to Rome. The latter
assumed a protectorate over the island, and the kingdom of
Hiero of Syracuse preserved its nominal independence for the
time; but Sicily, as a matter of fact, might already be looked
upon as the first of those provinces, beyond Italy, which Rome
bound to herself, one by one, until she had compassed the
Mediterranean with her dominion and gathered to it all the
islands of that sea.
The "Second Punic war," called sometimes the "Hannibalic war,"
was fought with a great Carthaginian, rather than with
Carthage herself. Hamilcar Barca had been the last and ablest
of the Punic generals in the contest for Sicily. Afterwards he
undertook the conquest of Spain, where his arms had such
success that he established a very considerable power, more
than half independent of the parent state. He nursed an
unquenchable hatred of Rome, and transmitted it to his son
Hannibal, who solemnly dedicated his life to warfare with the
Latin city. Hamilcar died, and in due time Hannibal found
himself prepared to make good his oath. He provoked a
declaration of war (B. C. 218) by attacking Saguntum, on the
eastern Spanish coast--a town which the Romans "protected."
The latter expected to encounter him in Spain; but before the
fleet bearing their legions to that country had reached
Massilia, he had already passed the Pyrenees and the Rhone,
with nearly 100,000 men, and was crossing the Alps, to assail
his astounded foes on their own soil. The terrific barrier was
surmounted with such suffering and loss that only 20,000 foot
and 6,000 horse, of the great army which left Spain, could be
mustered for the clearing of the last Alpine pass. With this
small following, by sheer energy, rapidity and precision of
movement--by force, in other words, of a military genius never
surpassed in the world--he defeated the armies of Rome again
and again, and so crushingly in the awful battle of Cannæ (B.
C. 216) that the proud republic was staggered, but never
despaired. For fifteen years the great Carthaginian held his
ground in southern Italy; but his expectation of being joined
by discontented subjects of Rome in the peninsula was very
slightly realized, and his own country gave him little
encouragement or help. His brother Hasdrubal, marching to his
relief in 207 B. C., was defeated on the river Metaurus and
slain. The arms of Rome had prospered meantime in Sicily and
in Spain, even while beaten at home, and her Punic rival had
been driven from both. In 204 B. C. the final field of battle
was shifted to Carthaginian territory by Scipio, of famous
memory, thereafter styled Africanus, because he "carried the
war into Africa." Hannibal abandoned Italy to confront him,
and at Zama, in the autumn of 202 B. C., the long contention
ended, and the career of Carthage as a Power in the ancient
world was forever closed. Existing by Roman sufferance for
another half century, she then gave her implacable conquerors
another pretext for war, and they ruthlessly destroyed her
(B.C. 146).
Roman Conquest of Greece.
In that same year of the destruction of Carthage, the conquest
of Greece was finished. The first war of the Romans on that
side of the Adriatic had taken place during the Second Punic
war, and had been caused by an alliance formed between
Hannibal and King Philip of Macedonia (B. C. 214). They
pursued it then no further than to frustrate Philip's designs
against themselves; but they formed alliances with the Greek
states oppressed or menaced by the Macedonian, and these drew
them into a second war, just as the century closed. On
Cynoscephalæ, Philip was overthrown (B. C. 197), his kingdom
reduced to vassalage, and the freedom of all Greece was
solemnly proclaimed by the Roman Consul Flaminius.
{999}
And now, for the first time, Rome came into conflict with an
Asiatic power. The throne of the Syrian monarchy, founded by
one of the generals of Alexander the Great, was occupied by a
king more ambitious than capable, who had acquired a large and
loosely jointed dominion in the East, and who bore the
sounding name of Antiochus the Great. This vainglorious King,
having a huge army and many elephants at his disposal, was
eager to try a passage at arms with the redoubtable men of
Rome. He was encouraged in his desire by the Ætolians in
Greece, who bore ill-will to Rome. Under this encouragement,
and having Hannibal--then a fugitive at his court--to give him
counsel, which he lacked intelligence to use, Antiochus
crossed the Ægean and invaded Greece (B. C. 192). The Romans
met him at the pass of Thermopylæ; drove him back to the
shores from which he came; pursued him thither; crushed and
humbled him on the field of Magnesia, and took the kingdoms
and cities of Asia Minor under their protection, as the allies
(soon to be subjects) of Rome.
Twenty years passed with little change in the outward
situation of affairs among the Greeks. But discontent with the
harshness and haughtiness of Roman "protection" changed from
sullenness to heat, and Perseus, son of Philip of Macedonia,
fanned it steadily, with the hope of bringing it to a flame.
Rome watched him with keen vigilance, and before his plans
were ripe her legions were upon him. He battled with them
obstinately for three years (B. C. 171-168); but his fate was
sealed at Pydna. He went as a prisoner to Rome; his kingdom
was broken into four small republics; the Achæan League was
stricken by the captivity of a thousand of its chief men; the
whole of Greece was humbled to submissiveness, though not yet
formally reduced to the state of a Roman province. That
followed some years later, when risings in Macedonia and
Achaia were punished by the extinction of the last semblance
of political independence in both (B. C. 148-146).
The Zenith of the Republic.
Rome now gripped the Mediterranean (the ocean of the then
civilized world) as with four fingers of a powerful hand: one
laid on Italy and all its islands, one on Macedonia and
Greece, one on Carthage, one on Spain, and the little finger
of her "protection" reaching over to the Lesser Asia. Little
more than half a century, since the day that Hannibal
threatened her own city gates, had sufficed to win this vast
dominion. But the losses of the Republic had been greater,
after all, than the gains; for the best energies of its
political constitution had been expended in the acquisition,
and the nobler qualities in its character had been touched
with the incurable taints of a licentious prosperity.
Beginning of Decline.
A century and a half had passed since the practical ending of
the struggle of plebeians with patricians for political and
agrarian rights. In theory and in form, the constitution
remained as democratic as it was made by the Licinian Laws of
367 B. C., and by the finishing touch of the Hortensian Law of
287 B. C. But in practical working it had reverted to the
aristocratic mode. A new aristocracy had risen out of the
plebeian ranks to reinforce the old patrician order. It was
composed of the families of men who had been raised to
distinction and ennobled by the holding of eminent offices,
and its spirit was no less jealous and exclusive than that of
the older high caste.
The Senate and the Mob.
Thus strengthened, the aristocracy had recovered its
ascendancy in Rome, and the Senate, which it controlled, had
become the supreme power in government. The amazing success of
the Republic during the last century just reviewed--its
successes in war, in diplomacy, and in all the sagacious
measures of policy by which its great dominion had been
won--are reasonably ascribed to this fact. For the Senate had
wielded the power of the state, in most emergencies, with
passionless deliberation and with unity and fixity of aim.
But it maintained its ascendancy by an increasing employment
of means which debased and corrupted all orders alike. The
people held powers which might paralyze the Senate at any
moment, if they chose to exercise them, through their
assemblies and their tribunes. They had seldom brought those
powers into play thus far, to interfere with the senatorial
government of the Republic, simply because they had been
bribed to abstain. The art of the politician in Rome, as
distinguished from the statesman, had already become
demagoguery. This could not well have been otherwise under the
peculiar constitution of the Roman citizenship. Of the
thirty-five tribes who made up the Roman people, legally
qualified to vote, only four were within the city. The
remaining thirty-one were "plebs urbana." There was no
delegated representation of this country populace--citizens
beyond the walls. To exercise their right of suffrage they
must be personally present at the meetings of the "comitia
tributa"--the tribal assemblies; and those of any tribe who
chanced to be in attendance at such a meeting might give a
vote which carried with it the weight of their whole tribe.
For questions were decided by the majority of tribal, not
individual, votes; and a very few members of a tribe might act
for and be the tribe, for all purposes of voting, on occasions
of the greatest possible importance. It is quite evident that
a democratic system of this nature gave wide opportunity for
corrupt "politics." There must have been, always, an
attraction for the baser sort among the rural plebs, drawing
them into the city, to enjoy the excitement of political
contests, and to partake of the flatteries and largesses which
began early to go with these. And circumstances had tended
strongly to increase this sinister sifting into Rome of the
most vagrant and least responsible of her citizens, to make
them practically the deputies and representatives of that
mighty sovereign which had risen in the world--the "Populus
Romanus." For there was no longer either thrift or dignity
possible in the pursuits of husbandry. The long Hannibalic War
had ruined the farming class in Italy by its ravages; but the
extensive conquests that followed it had been still more
ruinous to that class by several effects combined. Corn
supplies from the conquered provinces were poured into Rome at
cheapened prices; enormous fortunes, gathered in the same
provinces by officials, by farmers of taxes, by money-lenders,
and by traders, were largely invested in great estates,
absorbing the small farms of olden time; and, finally,
free-labor in agriculture was supplanted, more and more, by
the labor of slaves, which war and increasing wealth combined
to multiply in numbers. Thus the "plebs urbana" of Rome were a
depressed and, therefore, a degenerating class, and the same
circumstances that made them so impelled them towards the
city, to swell the mob which held its mighty sovereignty in
their hands.
{1000}
So far, a lavish amusement of this mob with free games, and
liberal bribes, had kept it generally submissive to the
senatorial government. But the more it was debased by such
methods, and its vagrancy encouraged, the more extravagant
gratuities of like kind it claimed. Hence a time could never
be far away when the aristocracy and the senate would lose
their control of the popular vote on which they had built
their governing power.
Agrarian Agitations.
But they invited the quicker coming of that time by their own
greediness in the employment of their power for selfish and
dishonest ends. They had practically recovered their monopoly
of the use of the public lands. The Licinian law, which
forbade any one person to occupy more than five hundred jugera
(about three hundred acres) of the public lands, had been made
a dead letter. The great tracts acquired in the Samnite wars,
and since, had remained undistributed, while the use and
profit of them were enjoyed, under one form of authority or
another, by rich capitalists and powerful nobles.
This evil, among many that waxed greater each year, caused the
deepest discontent, and provoked movements of reform which
soon passed by rapid stages into a revolution, and ended in
the fall of the Republic. The leader of the movement at its
beginning was Tiberius Gracchus, grandson of Scipio Africanus
on the side of his mother, Cornelia. Elected tribune in 133 B.
C., he set himself to the dangerous task of rousing the people
against senatorial usurpations, especially in the matter of
the public domain. He only drew upon himself the hatred of the
senate and its selfish supporters; he failed to rally a
popular party that was strong enough for his protection, and
his enemies slew him in the very midst of a meeting of the
tribes. His brother Caius took up the perilous cause and won
the office of tribune (B. C. 123) in avowed hostility to the
senatorial government. He was driven to bid high for popular
help, even when the measures which he strove to carry were
most plainly for the welfare of the common people, and he may
seem to modern eyes to have played the demagogue with some
extravagance. But statesmanship and patriotism without
demagoguery for their instrument or their weapon were hardly
practicable, perhaps, in the Rome of those days, and it is not
easy to find them clean-handed in any political leader of the
last century of the Republic. The fall of Caius Gracchus was
hastened by his attempt to extend the Roman franchise beyond
the "populus Romanus," to all the freemen of Italy. The mob in
Rome was not pleased with such political generosity, and
cooled in its admiration for the large-minded tribune. He lost
his office and the personal protection it threw over him, and
then he, like his brother, was slain (B. C. 121) in a melee.
Jugurthine War.
For ten years the senate, the nobility, and the capitalists
(now beginning to take the name of the equestrian order), had
mostly their own way again, and effaced the work of the
Gracchi as completely as they could. Then came disgraceful
troubles in Numidia which enraged the people and moved them to
a new assertion of themselves. The Numidian king who helped
Scipio to pull Carthage down had been a ward of Rome since
that time. When he died, he left his kingdom to be governed
jointly by two young sons and an older nephew. The latter,
Jugurtha, put his cousins out of the way, took the kingdom to
himself, and baffled attempts at Rome to call him to account,
by heavy bribes. The corruption in the case became so flagrant
that even the corrupted Roman populace revolted against it, and
took the Numidian business into its own hands. War was
declared against Jugurtha by popular vote, and, despite
opposing action in the Senate, one Marius, an experienced
soldier of humble birth, was elected consul and sent out to
take command. Marius distinguished himself in the war much
less than did one of his officers, Cornelius Sulla; but he
bore the lion's share of glory when Jugurtha was taken captive
and conveyed to Rome (B. C. 104). Marius was now the great
hero of the hour, and events were preparing to lift him to the
giddiest heights of popularity.
Teutones and Cimbri.
Hitherto, the barbarians of wild Europe whom the Romans had
met were either the Aryan Celts, or the non-Aryan tribes found
in northern Italy, Spain and Gaul. Now, for the first time,
the armies of Rome were challenged by tribes of another grand
division of the Aryan stock, coming out of the farther North.
These were the Cimbri and the Teutones, wandering hordes of
the great Teutonic or Germanic race which has occupied Western
Europe north of the Rhine since the beginning of historic
time. So far as we can know, these two were the first of the
Germanic nations to migrate to the South. They came into
collision with Rome in 113 B. C., when they were in Noricum,
threatening the frontiers of her Italian dominion. Four years
later they were in southern Gaul, where the Romans were now
settling colonies and subduing the native Celts. Twice they
had beaten the armies opposed to them; two years later they
added a third to their victories; and in 105 B. C. they threw
Rome into consternation by destroying two great armies on the
Rhone. Italy seemed helpless against the invasion for which
these terrible barbarians were now preparing, when Marius went
against them. In the summer of 102 B. C. he annihilated the
Teutones, near Aquæ Sextiæ (modern Aix), and in the following
year he destroyed the invading Cimbri, on a bloody field in
northern Italy, near modern Vercellæ.
Marius.
From these great victories, Marius went back to Rome, doubly
and terribly clothed with power, by the devotion of a reckless
army and the hero-worship of an unthinking mob. The state was
at his mercy. A strong man in his place might have crushed the
class-factions and accomplished the settlement which Cæsar
made after half a century more of turbulence and shame. But
Marius was ignorant, he was weak, and he became a mere
blood-stained figure in the ruinous anarchy of his time.
{1001}
Optimates and Populares.
The social and political state of the capital had grown
rapidly worse. A middle-class in Roman society had practically
disappeared. The two contending parties or factions, which had
taken new names--"optimates" and "populares"--were now
divided almost solely by the line which separates rich from
poor. "If we said that 'optimates' signified the men who
bribed and abused office under the banner of the Senate and
its connections, and that 'populares' meant men who bribed and
abused office with the interests of the people outside the
Senatorial pale upon their lips, we might do injustice to many
good men on both sides, but should hardly be slandering the
parties" (Beesly). There was a desperate conflict between the
two in the year 100, B. C. and the Senate once more recovered
its power for a brief term of years.
The Social War.
The enfranchisement of the so-called "allies"--the Latin and
other subjects of Rome who were not citizens--was the burning
question of the time. The attempt of Caius Gracchus to extend
rights of citizenship to them had been renewed again and
again, without success, and each failure had increased the
bitter discontent of the Italian people. In 90 B. C. they drew
together in a formidable confederation and rose in revolt. In
the face of this great danger Rome sobered herself to action
with old time wisdom and vigor. She yielded her full
citizenship to all Italian freemen who had not taken arms, and
then offered it to those who would lay their arms down. At the
same time, she fought the insurrection with every army she
could put into the field, and in two years it was at an end.
Marius and his old lieutenant, Sulla, had been the principal
commanders in this "Social War," as it was named, and Sulla
had distinguished himself most. The latter had now an army at
his back and was a power in the state, and between the two
military champions there arose a rivalry which produced the
first of the Roman Civil Wars.
Marius and Sulla.
A troublesome war in the East had been forced upon the Romans
by aggressions of Mithridates, King of Pontus. Both Marius and
Sulla aspired to the command. Sulla obtained election to the
consulship in 88 B. C. and was named for the coveted place.
But Marius succeeded in getting the appointment annulled by a
popular assembly and himself chosen instead for the Eastern
command. Sulla, personally imperilled by popular tumults, fled
to his legions, put himself at their head, and marched back to
Rome--the first among her generals to turn her arms against
herself. There was no effective resistance; Marius fled; both
Senate and people were submissive to the dictates of the
consul who had become master of the city. He "made the tribes
decree their own political extinction, resuscitating the
comitia centuriata; he reorganized the Senate by adding three
hundred to its members and vindicating the right to sanction
legislation; conducted the consular elections, exacting from
L. Cornelius Cinna, the newly elected consul, a solemn oath
that he would observe the new regulations, and securing the
election of Cn. Octavius in his own interest, and then, like
'a countryman who had just shaken the lice off his coat,' to
use his own figure, he turned to do his great work in the
East."
(Horton).
Sulla went to Greece, which was in revolt and in alliance with
Mithridates, and conducted there a brilliant, ruthless
campaign for three years (B. C. 87-84), until he had restored
Roman authority in the peninsula, and forced the King of
Pontus to surrender all his conquests in Asia Minor. Until
this task was finished, he gave no heed to what his enemies
did at Rome; though the struggle there between "Sullans" and
"Marians" had gone fiercely and bloodily on, and his own
partisans had been beaten in the fight. The consul Octavius,
who was in Bulla's interest, had first driven the consul Cinna
out of the city, after slaying 10,000 of his faction. Cinna's
cause was taken up by the new Italian citizens; he was joined
by the exiled Marius, and these two returned together, with an
army which the Senate and the party of Sulla were unable to
resist. Marius came back with a burning heart and with savage
intentions of revenge. A horrible massacre of his opponents
ensued, which went on unchecked for five days, and was
continued more deliberately for several months, until Marius
died, at the beginning of the year 86 B. C. Then Cinna ruled
absolutely at Rome for three years, supported in the main by
the newly-made citizens; while the provinces generally
remained under the control of the party of the optimates. In
83 B. C. Sulla, having finished with carefulness his work in
the East, came back into Italy, with 40,000 veterans to attend
his steps. He had been outlawed and deprived of his command,
by the faction governing at the capital; but its decrees had
no effect and troubled him little. Cinna had been killed by
his own troops, even before Bulla's landing at Brundisium.
Several important leaders and soldiers on the Marian side,
such as Pompeius, then a young general, and Crassus, the
millionaire, went over to Sulla's camp. One of the consuls of
the year saw his troops follow their example, in a body; the
other consul was beaten and driven into Capua. Sulla wintered
in Campania, and the next spring he pressed forward to Rome,
fighting a decisive battle with Marius the younger on the way,
and took possession of the city; but not in time to prevent a
massacre of senators by the resentful mob.
Sulla's Dictatorship.
Before that year closed, the whole of Italy had been subdued,
the final battle being fought with the Marians and Italians at
the Colline Gate, and Sulla again possessed power supreme. He
placed it beyond dispute by a deliberate extermination of his
opponents, more merciless than the Marian massacre had been.
They were proscribed by name, in placarded lists, and rewards
paid to those who killed them; while their property was
confiscated, and became the source of vast fortunes to Sulla's
supporters, and of lands for distribution to his veterans.
When this terror had paralyzed all resistance to his rule, the
Dictator (for he had taken that title) undertook a complete
reconstruction of the constitution, aiming at a permanent
restoration of senatorial ascendancy and a curbing of the
powers which the people, in their assemblies, and the
magistrates who especially represented them, had gained during
the preceding century. He remodelled, moreover, the judicial
system, and some of his reforms were undoubtedly good, though
they did not prove enduring. When he had fashioned the state
to his liking, this extraordinary usurper quietly abdicated
his dictatorial office (B. C. 80) and retired to private life,
undisturbed until his death (B. C. 78).
{1002}
After Sulla.
The system he had established did not save Rome from renewed
distractions and disorder after Sulla died. There was no
longer a practical question between Senate and people--between
the few and the many in government. The question now, since
the legionaries held their swords prepared to be flung into
the scale, was what one should again gather the powers of
government into his hands, as Sulla had done.
The Great Game and the Players.
The history of the next thirty years--the last generation of
republican Rome--is a sad and sinister but thrilling chronicle
of the strifes and intrigues, the machinations and
corruptions, of a stupendous and wicked game in politics that
was played, against one another and against the Republic, by a
few daring, unscrupulous players, with the empire of the
civilized world for the stake between them. There were more
than a few who aspired; there were only three players who
entered really as principals into the game. These were
Pompeius, called "the Great," since he extinguished the Marian
faction in Sicily and in Spain; Crassus, whose wealth gave him
power, and who acquired some military pretensions besides, by
taking the field against a formidable insurrection of slaves
(B. C. 73-71); and Julius Cæsar, a young patrician, but nephew
of Marius by marriage, who assiduously strengthened that
connection with the party of the people, and who began, very
soon after Sulla's death, to draw attention to himself as a
rising power in the politics of the day. There were two other
men, Cicero and the younger Cato, who bore a nobler and
greater because less selfish part in the contest of that
fateful time. Both were blind to the impossibility of
restoring the old order of things, with a dominant Senate, a
free but well guided populace, and a simply ordered social
state; but their blindness was heroic and high-souled.
Pompeius in the East.
Of the three strong rivals for the vacant dictatorial chair
which waited to be filled, Pompeius held by far the greater
advantages. His fame as a soldier was already won; he had been
a favorite of Fortune from the beginning of his career;
everything had succeeded with him; everything was expected for
him and expected from him. Even while the issues of the great
struggle were pending, a wonderful opportunity for increasing
his renown was opened to him. The disorders of the civil war
had licensed a swarm of pirates, who fairly possessed the
eastern Mediterranean and had nearly extirpated the maritime
trade. Pompeius was sent against them (B. C. 67), with a
commission that gave him almost unlimited powers, and within
ninety days he had driven them from the sea. Then, before he
had returned from this exploit, he was invested with supreme
command in the entire East, where another troublesome war with
Mithridates was going on. He harvested there all the laurels
which belonged by better right to his predecessor, Lucullus,
finding the power of Mithridates already broken down. From
Pontus he passed into Armenia, and thence into Syria, easily
subjugating both, and extinguishing the monarchy of the
Seleucids. The Jews resisted him and he humbled them by the
siege and conquest of their sacred city. Egypt was now the
only Mediterranean state left outside the all-absorbing
dominion of Rome; and even Egypt, by bequest of its late king,
belonged to the Republic, though not yet claimed.
The First Triumvirate.
Pompeius came back to Rome in the spring of 61 B. C. so
glorified by his successes that he might have seemed to be
irresistible, whatever he should undertake. But, either
through an honest patriotism or an overweening confidence, he
had disbanded his army when he reached Italy, and he had
committed himself to no party. He stood alone and aloof, with
a great prestige, great ambitions, and no ability to use the
one or realize the other. Before another year passed, he was
glad to accept offers of a helping hand in politics from
Cæsar, who had climbed the ladder of office rapidly within
four or five years, spending vast sums of borrowed money to
amuse the people with games, and distinguishing himself as a
democratic champion. Cæsar, the far seeing calculator,
discerned the enormous advantages that he might gain for
himself by massing together the prestige of Pompeius, the
wealth of Crassus and his own invincible genius, which was
sure to be the master element in the combination. He brought
the coalition about through a bargain which created what is
known in history as the First Triumvirate, or supremacy of
three.
Cæsar in Gaul.
Under the terms of the bargain, Cæsar was chosen consul for 59
B. C., and at the end of his term was given the governorship
of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul, with command of three
legions there, for five years. His grand aim was a military
command--the leadership of an army--the prestige of a
successful soldier. No sooner had he secured the command than
fortune gave him opportunities for its use in the most
striking way and with the most impressive results. The Celtic
tribes of Gaul, north of the two small provinces which the
Romans had already acquired on the Mediterranean coast, gave
him pretexts or provocations (it mattered little to Cæsar
which) for war with them, and in a series of remarkable
campaigns, which all soldiers since have admired, he pushed
the frontiers of the dominion of Rome to the ocean and the
Rhine, and threatened the nations of Germany on the farther
banks of that stream. "The conquest of Gaul by Cæsar," says
Mr. Freeman, "is one of the most important events in the
history of the world. It is in some sort the beginning of
modern history, as it brought the old world of southern
Europe, of which Rome was the head, into contact with the
lands and nations which were to play the greatest part in
later times--with Gaul, Germany, and Britain." From Gaul
Cæsar crossed the channel to Britain in 55 B. C. and again in
the following year, exacting tribute from the Celtic natives,
but attempting no lodgment in the island.
{1003}
Meantime, while pursuing a career of conquest which excited
the Roman world, Cæsar never lost touch with the capital and
its seething politics. Each winter he repaired to Lucca, the
point in his province which was nearest to Rome, and conferred
there with his friends, who flocked to the rendezvous. He
secured an extension of his term, to enable him to complete
his plans, and year by year he grew more independent of the
support of his colleagues in the triumvirate, while they
weakened one another by their jealousies, and the Roman state
was more hopelessly distracted by factious strife.
End of the Triumvirate.
The year after Cæsar's second invasion of Britain, Crassus,
who had obtained the government of Syria, perished in a
disastrous war with the Parthians, and the triumvirate was at
an end. Disorder in Rome increased and Pompeius lacked energy
or boldness to deal with it, though he seemed to be the one
man present who might do so. He was made sole consul in 52 B.
C.; he might have seized the dictatorship, with approval of
many, but he waited for it to be offered to him, and the offer
never came. He drew at last into close alliance with the party
of the Optimates, and left the Populares to be won entirely to
Cæsar's side.
Civil War.
Matters came to a crisis in 50 B. C., when the Senate passed
an order removing Cæsar from his command and discharging his
soldiers who had served their term. He came to Ravenna with a
single legion and concerted measures with his friends. The
issue involved is supposed to have been one of life or death
to him, as well as of triumph or failure in his ambitions; for
his enemies were malignant. His friends demanded that he be
made consul, for his protection, before laying down his arms.
The Senate answered by proclaiming him a public enemy if he
failed to disband his troops with no delay. It was a
declaration of war, and Cæsar accepted it. He marched his
single legion across the Rubicon, which was the boundary of
his province, and advanced towards Rome.
Pompeius, with the forces he had gathered, retreated
southward, and consuls, senators and nobles generally streamed
after him. Cæsar followed them--turning aside from the
city--and his force gathered numbers as he advanced. The
Pompeians continued their flight and abandoned Italy,
withdrawing to Epirus, planning to gather there the forces of
the East and return with them. Cæsar now took possession of
Rome and secured the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, from
which it drew its supply of food. This done, he proceeded
without delay to Spain, where seven legions strongly devoted
to Pompeius were stationed. He overcame them in a single
campaign, enlisted most of the veterans in his own service,
and acquired a store of treasure. Before the year ended he was
again in Rome, where the citizens had proclaimed him dictator. He
held the dictatorship for eleven days, only, to legalize an
election which made him consul, with a pliant associate. He
reorganized the government, complete in all its branches,
including a senate, partly composed of former members of the
body who had remained or returned. Then (B. C. 48.--January) he
took up the pursuit of Pompeius and the Optimates. Crossing to
Epirus, after some months of changeful fortune, he fought and
won the decisive battle of Pharsalia. Pompeius, flying to
Egypt, was murdered there. Cæsar, following, with a small
force, was placed in great peril by a rising at Alexandria,
but held his ground until assistance came. He then garrisoned
Egypt with Roman troops and made the princess Cleopatra, who
had captivated him by her charms, joint occupant of the throne
with her younger brother. During his absence, affairs at Rome
were again disturbed, and he was once more appointed dictator,
as well as tribune for life. His presence restored order at
once, and he was soon in readiness to attack the party of his
enemies who had taken refuge in Africa. The battle of Thapsus,
followed by the suicide of Cato and the surrender of Utica,
practically finished the contest, though one more campaign was
fought in Spain the following year.
Cæsar Supreme.
Cæsar was now master of the dominions of Rome, and as entirely
a monarch as anyone of his imperial successors, who took his
name, with the power which he caused it to symbolize, and
called themselves "Cæsars," and "Imperators," as though the
two titles were equivalent. "Imperator" was the title under
which he chose to exercise his sovereignty. Other Roman
generals had been Imperators before, but he was the first to
be named Imperator for life, and the word (changed in our
tongue to Emperor) took a meaning from that day more regal
than Rex or King. That Cæsar, the Imperator, first of all
Emperors, ever coveted the crown and title of an
older-fashioned royalty, is not an easy thing to believe.
Having settled his authority firmly, he gave his attention to
the organization of the Empire (still Republic in name) and to
the reforming of the evils which afflicted it. That he did
this work with consummate judgment and success is the opinion
of all who study his time. He gratified no resentments,
executed no revenges, proscribed no enemies. All who submitted
to his rule were safe; and it seems to be clear that the
people in general were glad to be rescued by his rule from the
old oligarchical and anarchical state. But some of Cæsar's own
partisans were dissatisfied with the autocracy which they
helped to create, or with the slenderness of their own parts
in it. They conspired with surviving leaders of the Optimates,
and Cæsar was assassinated by them, in the Senate chamber, on
the 15th of March, B. C. 44.
Professor Mommsen has expressed the estimate of Cæsar which
many thoughtful historians have formed, in the following
strong words: "In the character of Cæsar the great contrasts
of existence meet and balance each other. He was of the
mightiest creative power, and yet of the most penetrating
judgment; of the highest energy of will and the highest
capacity of execution; filled with republican ideals, and at
the same time born to be king. He was 'the entire perfect
man'; and he was this because he was the entire and perfect
Roman." This may be nearly true if we ignore the moral side of
Cæsar's character. He was of too large a nature to do evil
things unnecessarily, and so he shines even morally in
comparison with many of his kind; but he had no scruples.
{1004}
After the Murder of Cæsar.
The murderers of Cæsar were not accepted by the people as the
patriots and "liberators" which they claimed to be, and they
were soon in flight from the city. Marcus Antonius, who had
been Cæsar's associate in the consulship, now naturally and
skilfully assumed the direction of affairs, and aspired to
gather the reins of imperial power into his own hands. But
rivals were ready to dispute with him the great prize of
ambition. Among them, it is probable that Antony gave little
heed at first to the young man, Caius Octavius, or Octavianus,
who was Cæsar's nephew, adopted son and heir; for Octavius was
less than nineteen years old, he was absent in Apollonia, and
he was little known. But the young Cæsar, coming boldly though
quietly to Rome, began to push his hereditary claims with a
patient craftiness and dexterity that were marvellous in one
so young.
The Second Triumvirate.
The contestants soon resorted to arms. The result of their
first indecisive encounter was a compromise and the formation
of a triumvirate, like that of Cæsar, Pompeius and Crassus.
This second triumvirate was made up of Antonius, Octavius, and
Lepidus, lately master of the horse in Cæsar's army. Unlike
the earlier coalition, it was vengeful and bloody-minded. Its
first act was a proscription, in the terrible manner of Sulla,
which filled Rome and Italy with murders, and with terror and
mourning. Cicero, the patriot and great orator, was among the
victims cut down.
After this general slaughter of their enemies at home,
Antonius and Octavius proceeded against Brutus and Cassius,
two of the assassins of Cæsar, who had gathered a large force
in Greece. They defeated them at Philippi, and both
"liberators" perished by their own hands. The triumvirs now
divided the empire between them, Antonius ruling the East,
Octavius the West, and Lepidus taking Africa--that is, the
Carthaginian province, which included neither Egypt nor
Numidia. Unhappily for Antonius, the queen of Egypt was among
his vassals, and she ensnared him. He gave himself up to
voluptuous dalliance with Cleopatra at Alexandria, while the
cool intriguer, Octavius, at Rome, worked unceasingly to
solidify and increase his power. After six years had passed,
the young Cæsar was ready to put Lepidus out of his way, which
he did mercifully, by sending him into exile. After five years
more, he launched his legions and his war galleys against
Antonius, with the full sanction of the Roman senate and
people. The sea-fight at Actium (B. C. 31) gave Octavius the
whole empire, and both Antonius and Cleopatra committed
suicide after flying to Egypt. The kingdom of the Ptolemies
was now extinguished and became a Roman province in due form.
Octavius (Augustus) Supreme.
Octavius was now more securely absolute as the ruler of Rome
and its great empire than Sulla or Julius Cæsar had been, and
he maintained that sovereignty without challenge for
forty-five years, until his death. He received from the Senate
the honorary title of "Augustus," by which he is most commonly
known. For official titles, he took none but those which had
belonged to the institutions of the Republic, and were
familiarly known. He was Imperator, as his uncle had been. He
was Princeps, or head of the Senate; he was Censor; he was
Tribune; he was Supreme Pontiff. All the great offices of the
Republic he kept alive, and ingeniously constructed his
sovereignty by uniting their powers in himself.
Organization of the Empire.
The historical position of Augustus, as the real founder of
the Roman Empire, is unique in its grandeur; and yet History
has dealt contemptuously, for the most part, with his name.
His character has been looked upon, to use the language of De
Quincey, as "positively repulsive, in the very highest
degree." "A cool head," wrote Gibbon of him, "an unfeeling
heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted him, at the age of
nineteen, to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which he never
afterwards laid aside." And again: "His virtues, and even his
vices, were artificial; and according to the various dictates
of his interest, he was at first the enemy, and at last the
father, of the Roman world." Yet, how can we deny surpassing
high qualities of some description to a man who set the
shattered Roman Republic, with all its democratic bases broken
up, on a new--an imperial--foundation, so gently that it
suffered no further shock, and so solidly that it endured, in
whole or in part, for a millennium and a half?
In the reign of Augustus the Empire was consolidated and
organized; it was not much extended. The frontiers were
carried to the Danube, throughout, and the subjugation of
Spain was made complete. Augustus generally discouraged wars
of conquest. His ambitious stepsons, Drusus and Tiberius,
persuaded him into several expeditions beyond the Rhine,
against the restless German nations, which perpetually menaced
the borders of Gaul; but these gained no permanent footing in
the Teutonic territory. They led, on the contrary, to a
fearful disaster (A. D. 9), near the close of the reign of
Augustus, when three legions, under Varus, were destroyed in
the Teutoburg Forest by a great combination of the tribes,
planned and conducted by a young chieftain named Hermann, or
Arminius, who is the national hero of Germany to this day.
The policy of Drusus in strongly fortifying the northern
frontier against the Germans left marks which are
conspicuously visible at the present day. From the fifty
fortresses which he is said to have built along the line
sprang many important modern cities,--Basel, Strasburg, Worms,
Mainz, Bingen, Coblenz, Bonn, Cologne, and Leyden, among the
number. From similar forts on the Danubian frontier rose
Vienna, Regensburg and Passau.
Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero.
Augustus died A. D. 11, and was succeeded in his honors, his
offices, and his powers, by his step-son, Tiberius Claudius
Nero, whom he had adopted. Tiberius, during most of his reign,
was a vigorous ruler, but a detestable man, unless his
subjects belied him, which some historians suspect. Another
attempt at the conquest of Germany was made by his nephew
Germanicus, son of Drusus; but the jealousy of the emperor
checked it, and Germanicus died soon after, believing that he
had been poisoned. A son of Germanicus, Caius, better known by
his nick-name of Caligula, succeeded to the throne on the
death of Tiberius (A. D. 37), and was the first of many
emperors to be crazed and made beast-like, in lust, cruelty
and senselessness, by the awful, unbounded power which passed
into their hands.
{1005}
The Empire bore his madness for three years, and then he was
murdered by his own guards. The Senate had thoughts now of
restoring the commonwealth, and debated the question for a
day; but the soldiers of the prætorian guard took it out of
their hands, and decided it, by proclaiming Tiberius Claudius
(A. D. 41), a brother of Germanicus, and uncle of the emperor
just slain. Claudius was weak of body and mind, but not
vicious, and his reign was distinctly one of improvement and
advance in the Empire. He began the conquest of Britain, which
the Romans had neglected since Cæsar's time, and he opened the
Senate to the provincials of Gaul. He had two wives of
infamous character, and the later one of these, Agrippina,
brought him a son, not his own, whom he adopted, and who
succeeded him (A.D. 54). This was Nero, of foul memory, who
was madman and monster in as sinister a combination as history
can show. During the reign of Nero, the spread of
Christianity, which had been silently making its way from
Judæa into all parts of the Empire, began to attract the
attention of men in public place, and the first persecution of
its disciples took place (A. D. 64). A great fire occurred in
Rome, which the hated emperor was believed to have caused; but
he found it convenient to accuse the Christians of the deed,
and large numbers of them were put to death in horrible ways.
Vespasian and his Sons.
Nero was tolerated for fourteen years, until the soldiers in
the provinces rose against him, and he committed suicide (A.
D. 68) to escape a worse death. Then followed a year of civil
war between rival emperors--Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and
Vespasian--proclaimed by different bodies of soldiers in
various parts of the Empire. The struggle ended in favor of
Vespasian, a rude, strong soldier, who purged the government,
disciplined the army, and brought society back toward simpler
and more decent ways. The great revolt of the Jews (A. D.
66-70) had broken out before he received the purple, and he
was commanding in Judæa when Nero fell. The siege, capture and
destruction of Jerusalem was accomplished by his son Titus. A
more formidable revolt in the West (A. D. 69) was begun the
Batavians, a German tribe which occupied part of the
Netherland territory, near the mouth of the Rhine. They were
joined by neighboring Gauls and by disaffected Roman
legionaries, and they received help from their German kindred
on the northern side of the Rhine. The revolt, led by a
chieftain named Civilis, who had served in the Roman army, was
overcome with extreme difficulty.
Vespasian was more than worthily succeeded (A. D. 79) by his
elder son, Titus, whose subjects so admired his many virtues
that he was called "the delight of the human race." His short
reign, however, was one of calamities: fire at Rome, a great
pestilence, and the frightful eruption of Vesuvius which
destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii. After Titus came his
younger brother Domitian (A. D. 81), who proved to be another
creature of the monstrous species that appeared so often in
the series of Roman emperors. The conquest of southern Britain
(modern England) was completed in his reign by an able
soldier, Agricola, who fought the Caledonians of the North,
but was recalled before subduing them. Domitian was murdered
by his own servants (A. D. 96), after a reign of fifteen
years.
Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian.
Rome and the Empire were happy at last in the choice that was
made of a sovereign to succeed the hateful son of Vespasian.
Not the soldiery, but the Senate, made the choice, and it fell
on one of their number, Cocceius Nerva, who was already an
aged man. He wore the purple but sixteen months, and his
single great distinction in Roman history is, that he
introduced to the imperial succession a line of the noblest
men who ever sat in the seat of the Cæsars. The first of these
was the soldier Trajan, whom Nerva adopted and associated with
himself in authority. When Nerva died (A. D. 97), his son by
adoption ascended the throne with no opposition. The new
Emperor was simple and plain in his habits and manners of
life; he was honest and open in all his dealings with men; he
was void of suspicion, and of malice and jealousy no less. He
gave careful attention to the business of state and was wise
in his administration of affairs, improving roads, encouraging
trade, helping agriculture, and developing the resources of the
Empire in very prudent and practical ways. But he was a
soldier, fond of war, and he unwisely reopened the career of
conquest which had been almost closed for the Empire since
Pompeius came back from the East. A threatening kingdom having
risen among the Dacians, in the country north of the lower
Danube--the Transylvania and Roumania of the present day--he
attacked and crushed it, in a series of vigorous campaigns (A.
D. 101-106), and annexed the whole territory to the dominion
of Rome. He then garrisoned and colonized the country, and
Romanized it so completely that it keeps the Roman name, and
its language to this day is of the Latin stock, though Goths,
Huns, Bulgarians and Slavs have swept it in successive
invasions, and held it among their conquests for centuries at
a time. In the East, he ravaged the territory of the Parthian
king, entered his capital and added Mesopotamia, Armenia, and
Arabia Petræa to the list of Roman provinces. But he died (A.
D. 117) little satisfied with the results of his eastern
campaigns.
His successor abandoned them, and none have doubted that he
did well; because the Empire was weakened by the new frontier
in Asia which Trajan gave it to defend. His Dacian conquests
were kept, but all beyond the Euphrates in the East were given
up. The successor who did this was Hadrian, a kinsman, whom
the Emperor adopted in his last hours. Until near the close of
his life, Hadrian ranked among the best of the emperors. Rome
saw little of him, and resented his incessant travels through
every part of his great realm. His manifest preference for
Athens, where he lingered longest, and which flourished anew
under his patronage, was still more displeasing to the ancient
capital. For the Emperor was a man of cultivation, fond of
literature, philosophy and art, though busy with the cares of
State. In his later years he was afflicted with a disease
which poisoned his nature by its torments, filled his mind
with dark suspicions, and made him fitfully tyrannical and
cruel. The event most notable in his generally peaceful and
prosperous reign was the renewed and final revolt of the Jews,
under Barchochebas, which resulted in their total expulsion
from Jerusalem, and its conversion into a heathen city, with a
Roman name.
{1006}
The Antonines.
Hadrian had adopted before his death (A. D. 138) a man of
blameless character, Titus Aurelius Antoninus, who received
from his subjects, when he became Emperor, the appellation
"Pius," to signify the dutiful reverence and kindliness of his
disposition. He justified the name of Antoninus Pius, by which
he is historically known, and his reign, though disturbed by
some troubles on the distant borders of the Empire, was happy
for his subjects in nearly all respects. "No great deeds are
told of him, save this, perhaps the greatest, that he secured
the love and happiness of those he ruled" (Capes).
Like so many of the emperors, Antoninus had no son of his own;
but even before he came to the throne, and at the request of
Hadrian, he had adopted a young lad who won the heart of the
late Emperor while still a child. The family name of this son
by adoption was Verus, and he was of Spanish descent; the name
which he took, in his new relationship, was Marcus Aurelius
Antoninus. It is unquestionably the most illustrious name in
the whole imperial line, from Augustus to the last
Constantine, and made so, not so much by deeds as by
character. He gave the world the solitary example of a
philosopher upon the throne. There have been a few--a very
few--surpassingly good men in kingly places; but there has
never been another whose soul was lifted to so serene a height
above the sovereignty of his station. Unlimited power tempted
no form of selfishness in him; he saw nothing in his imperial
exaltation but the duties which it imposed. His mind was
meditative, and inclined him to the studious life; but he
compelled himself to be a man of vigor and activity in
affairs. He disliked war; but he spent years of his life in
camp on the frontiers; because it fell to his lot to encounter
the first great onset of the barbarian nations of the north,
which never ceased from that time to beat against the barriers
of the Empire until they had broken them down. His struggle
was on the line of the Danube, with the tribes of the
Marcomanni, the Quadi, the Vandals, and others of less
formidable power. He held them back, but the resources of the
Empire were overstrained and weakened lastingly by the effort.
For the first time, too, there were colonies of barbarians
brought into the Empire, from beyond its lines, to be settled
for the supply of soldiers to the armies of Rome: It was a
dangerous sign of Roman decay and a fatal policy to begin. The
decline of the great world-power was, in truth, already well
advanced, and the century of good emperors which ended when
Marcus Aurelius died (A. D. 180), only retarded, and did not
arrest, the progress of mortal maladies in the state.
From Commodus to Caracalla.
The best of emperors was followed on the throne by a son,
Commodus, who went mad, like Nero and Caligula, with the
drunkenness of power, and who was killed (A. D. 192) by his
own servants, after a reign of twelve years. The soldiers of
the prætorian guard now took upon themselves the making of
emperors, and placed two upon the throne--first, Pertinax, an
aged senator, whom they murdered the next year, and then
Didius Julianus, likewise a senator, to whom, as the highest
bidder, they sold the purple. Again, as after Nero's death,
the armies on the frontiers put forward, each, a rival
claimant, and there was war between the competitors. The
victor who became sovereign was Septimius Severus (A. D.
194-211), who had been in command on the Danube. He was an
able soldier, and waged war with success against the Parthians
in the East, and with the Caledonians in Britain, which latter
he could not subdue. Of his two sons, the elder, nicknamed
Caracalla (A. D. 211-217), killed his brother with his own
hands, and tortured the Roman world with his brutalities for
six years, when he fell under the stroke of an assassin. The
reign of this foul beast brought one striking change to the
Empire. An imperial edict wiped away the last distinction
between Romans and Provincials, giving citizenship to every
free inhabitant of the Empire. "Rome from this date became
constitutionally an empire, and ceased to be merely a
municipality. The city had become the world, or, viewed from
the other side, the world had become 'the City'" (Merivale).
Anarchy and Decay.
The period of sixty-seven years from the murder of Caracalla
to the accession of Diocletian--when a great constitutional
change occurred--demands little space in a sketch like this.
The weakening of the Empire by causes inherent in its social
and political structure,--the chief among which were the
deadly influence of its system of slavery and the paralyzing
effects of its autocracy,--went on at an increasing rate,
while disorder grew nearly to the pitch of anarchy, complete.
There were twenty-two emperors in the term, which scarcely
exceeded that of two generations of men. Nineteen of these
were taken from the throne by violent deaths, through mutiny
or murder, while one fell in battle, and another was held
captive in Persia till he died. Only five among these
twenty-two ephemeral lords of the world,--namely Alexander
Severus, Decius (who was a vigorous soldier and ruler, but who
persecuted the Christians with exceptional cruelty), Claudius,
Aurelian, and Probus,--can be credited with any personal
weight or worth in the history of the time; and they held
power too briefly to make any notable mark.
The distractions of the time were made worse by a great number
of local "tyrants," as they were called--military adventurers
who rose in different parts of the Empire and established
themselves for a time in authority over some district, large
or small. In the reign of Gallienus (A. D. 260-268) there were
nineteen of these petty "imperators," and they were spoken of
as the "thirty tyrants." The more important of the "provincial
empires" thus created were those of Postumus, in Gaul, and of
Odenatus of Palmyra. The latter, under Zenobia; queen and
successor of Odenatus, became a really imposing monarchy,
until it was overthrown by Aurelian, A. D. 273.
{1007}
The Teutonic Nations.
The Germanic nations beyond the Rhine and the Danube had, by
this time, improved their organization, and many of the tribes
formerly separated and independent were now gathered into
powerful confederations. The most formidable of these leagues
in the West was that which acquired the common name of the
Franks, or Freemen, and which was made up of the peoples
occupying territory along the course of the Lower Rhine.
Another of nearly equal power, dominating the German side of
the Upper Rhine and the headwaters of the Danube, is believed
to have absorbed the tribes which had been known in the
previous century as Boii, Marcomanni, Quadi, and others. The
general name it received was that of the Alemanni. The
Alemanni were in intimate association with the Suevi, and
little is known of the distinction that existed between the
two. They had now begun to make incursions across the Rhine,
but were driven back in 238. Farther to the East, on the Lower
Danube, a still more dangerous horde was now threatening the
flanks of the Empire in its European domain. These were Goths,
a people akin, without doubt, to the Swedes, Norsemen and
Danes; but whence and when they made their way to the
neighborhood of the Black Sea is a question in dispute. It was
in the reign of Caracalla that the Romans became first aware
of their presence in the country since known as the Ukraine. A
few years later, when Alexander Severus was on the throne, they
began to make incursions into Dacia. During the reign of
Philip the Arabian (A. D. 244-249) they passed through Dacia,
crossed the Danube, and invaded Mœsia (modern Bulgaria). In
their next invasion (A. D. 251) they passed the Balkans,
defeated the Romans in two terrible battles, the last of which
cost the reigning Emperor, Decius, his life, and destroyed the
city of Philippopolis, with 100,000 of its people. But when, a
few years later, they attempted to take possession of even
Thrace and Macedonia, they were crushingly defeated by the
Emperor Claudius, whose successor Aurelian made peace by
surrendering to them the whole province of Dacia (A. D. 270),
where they settled, giving the Empire no disturbance for
nearly a hundred years. Before this occurred, the Goths,
having acquired the little kingdom of Bosporus (the modern
Crimea) had begun to launch a piratical navy, which plundered
the coast cities of Asia Minor and Greece, including Athens
itself.
On the Asiatic side of the Empire a new power, a revived and
regenerated Persian monarchy, had risen out of the ruins of
the Parthian kingdom, which it overthrew, and had begun
without delay to contest the rule of Rome in the East.
Diocletian.
Briefly described, this was the state and situation of the
Roman Empire when Diocletian, an able Illyrian soldier, came
to the throne (A. D. 284). His accession marks a new epoch.
"From this time," says Dean Merivale, "the old names of the
Republic, the consuls, the tribunes, and the Senate itself,
cease, even if still existing, to have any political
significance." "The empire of Rome is henceforth an Oriental
sovereignty." But the changes which Diocletian made in the
organization and administration of the Empire, if they did
weigh it down with a yet more crushing autocracy and
contribute to its exhaustion in the end, did also, for the
time, stop the wasting of its last energies, and gather them
in hand for potent use. It can hardly be doubted that he
lengthened the term of its career.
Finding that one man in the exercise of supreme sovereignty,
as absolute as he wished to make it, could not give sufficient
care to every part of the vast realm, he first associated one
Maximian with himself, on equal terms, as Emperor, or
Augustus, and six years later (A. D. 292) he selected two
others from among his generals and invested them with a
subordinate sovereignty, giving them the title of "Cæsars."
The arrangement appears to have worked satisfactorily while
Diocletian remained at the head of his imperial college. But
in 305 he wearied of the splendid burden that he bore, and
abdicated the throne, unwillingly followed by his associate,
Maximian. The two Cæsars, Constantius and Galerius, were then
advanced to the imperial rank, and two new Cæsars were named.
Jealousies, quarrels, and civil war were soon rending the
Empire again. The details are unimportant.
Constantine and Christianity.
After nine years of struggle, two competitors emerged (A. D.
314) alone, and divided the Empire between them. They were
Constantine, son of Constantius, the Cæsar, and one Licinius.
After nine years more, Licinius had disappeared, defeated and
put to death, and Constantine (A. D. 323) shared the
sovereignty of Rome with none. In its final stages, the
contest had become, practically, a trial of strength between
expiring Paganism in the Roman world and militant
Christianity, now grown to great strength. The shrewd
adventurer Constantine saw the political importance to which
the Christian Church had risen, and identified himself with it
by a "conversion" which has glorified his name most
undeservedly. If to be a Christian with sincerity is to be a
good man, then Constantine was none; for his life was full of
evil deeds, after he professed the religion of Christ, even
more than before. "He poured out the best and noblest blood in
torrents, more especially of those nearly connected with
himself. ... In a palace which he had made a desert, the
murderer of his father-in-law, his brothers-in-law, his
sister, his wife, his son, and his nephew, must have felt the
stings of remorse, if hypocritical priests and courtier
bishops had not lulled his conscience to rest" (Sismondi).
But the so-called "conversion" of Constantine was an event of
vast import in history. It changed immensely, and with
suddenness, the position, the state, the influence, and very
considerably the character and spirit of the Christian Church.
The hierarchy of the Church became, almost at once, the
greatest power in the Empire, next to the Emperor himself, and
its political associations, which were dangerous from the
beginning, soon proved nearly fatal to its spiritual
integrity. "Both the purity and the freedom of the Church were
in danger of being lost. State and Church were beginning an
amalgamation fraught with peril. The State was becoming a kind
of Church, and the Church a kind of State. The Emperor
preached and summoned councils, called himself, though half in
jest, a 'bishop,' and the bishops had become State officials,
who, like the high dignitaries of the Empire, travelled by the
imperial courier-service, and frequented the ante-chambers of
the palaces in Constantinople." "The Emperor determined what
doctrines were to prevail in the Church, and banished Arius
to-day and Athanasius to-morrow." "The Church was surfeited
with property and privileges. The Emperor, a poor financier,
impoverished the Empire to enrich" it (Uhlhorn). That
Christianity had shared the gain of the Christian Church from
these great changes, is very questionable.
{1008}
By another event of his reign, Constantine marked it in
history with lasting effect. He rebuilt with magnificence the
Greek city of Byzantium on the Bosphorus, transferred to it
his imperial residence, and raised it to a nominal equality
with Rome, but to official find practical superiority, as the
capital of the Empire. The old Rome dwindled in rank and
prestige from that day; the new Rome--the city of Constantine,
or Constantinople--rose to the supreme place in the eyes and
the imaginations of men.
Julian and the Pagan Revival.
That Constantine added the abilities of a statesman to the
unscrupulous cleverness of an adventurer is not to be
disputed; but he failed to give proof of this when he divided
the Empire between his three sons at his death (A. D. 337).
The inevitable civil wars ensued, until, after sixteen years,
one survivor gathered the whole realm under his scepter again.
He (Constantius), who debased and disgraced the Church more
than his father had done, was succeeded (A. D. 361) by his
cousin, Julian, an honest, thoughtful, strong man, who, not
unnaturally, preferred the old pagan Greek philosophy to the
kind of Christianity which he had seen flourishing at the
Byzantine court. He publicly restored the worship of the
ancient gods of Greece and Rome; he excluded Christians from
the schools, and bestowed his favor on those who scorned the
Church; but he entered on no violent persecution. His reign
was brief, lasting only two years. He perished in a hapless
expedition against the Persians, by whom the Empire was now
almost incessantly harassed.
Valentinian and Valens.
His successor, Jovian, whom the army elected, died in seven
months; but Valentinian, another soldier, raised by his
comrades to the throne, reigned vigorously for eleven years.
He associated his brother, Valens, with him in the
sovereignty, assigning the latter to the East, while he took
the administration of the West.
Until the death of Valentinian, in 375, the northern frontiers
of the Empire, along the Rhine and the Danube, were well
defended. Julian had commanded in Gaul, with Paris for his
capital, six years before he became Emperor, and had organized
its defence most effectively. Valentinian maintained the line
with success against the Alemanni; while his lieutenant,
Theodosius, delivered Roman Britain from the ruinous attacks
of the Scots and Picts of its northern region. On the Danube,
there continued to be peace with the Goths, who held back all
other barbarians from that northeastern border.
The Goths in the Empire.
But the death of Valentinian was the beginning of fatal
calamities. His brother, Valens, had none of his capability or
his vigor, and was unequal to such a crisis as now occurred.
The terrible nation of the Huns had entered Europe from the
Asiatic steppes, and the Western Goths, or Visigoths, fled
before them. These fugitives begged to be permitted to cross
the Danube and settle on vacant lands in Mœsia and Thrace.
Valens consented, and the whole Visigothic nation, 200,000
warriors, with their women and children, passed the river (A.
D. 376). It is possible that they might, by fair treatment,
have been converted into loyal citizens, and useful defenders
of the land. But the corrupt officials of the court took
advantage of their dependent state, and wrung extortionate
prices from them for disgusting food, until they rose in
desperation and wasted Thrace with fire and sword. Fresh
bodies of Ostrogoths (Eastern Goths) and other barbarians came
over to join them (A. D. 378); the Roman armies were beaten in
two great battles, and Valens, the Emperor, was slain. The
victorious Goths swept on to the very walls of Constantinople,
which they could not surmount, and the whole open country,
from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, was ravaged by them at
will.
Theodosius.
In the meantime, the western division of the Empire had
passed, on the death of Valentinian, under the nominal rule of
his two young sons, Gratian, aged sixteen, and Valentinian
II., aged four. Gratian had made an attempt to bring help to
his uncle Valens; but the latter fought his fatal battle while
the boy emperor was on the way, and the latter, upon hearing
of it, turned back. Then Gratian performed his one great act.
He sought a colleague, and called to the throne the most
promising young soldier of the day. This was Theodosius, whose
father, Count Theodosius, the deliverer of Britain, had been
put to death by Valens, on some jealous accusation, only three
years before. The new Emperor took the East for his realm, having
Gratian and Valentinian II. for colleagues in the West. He
speedily checked the ravages of the Goths and restored the
confidence of the Roman soldiers. Then he brought diplomacy to
bear upon the dangerous situation, and succeeded in arranging
a peace with the Gothic chieftains, which enlisted them in the
imperial service with forty thousand of their men. But they
retained their distinctive organization, under their own
chiefs, and were called "fœderati," or allies. This concession
of a semi-independence to so great a body of armed barbarians
in the heart of the Empire was a fatal mistake, as was proved
before many years.
For the time being it secured peace, and gave Theodosius
opportunity to attend to other things. The controversies of
the Church were among the subjects of his consideration, and
by taking the side of the Athanasians, whom his predecessor
had persecuted, he gave a final victory to Trinitarianism, in
the Roman world. His reign was signalized, moreover, by the
formal, official abolition of paganism at Rome.
The weak but amiable Gratian, reigning at Paris, lost his
throne and his life, in 383, as the consequence of a revolt
which began in Britain and spread to Gaul. The successful
rebel and usurper, Maximus, seemed so strong that Theodosius
made terms with him, and acknowledged his sovereignty for a
number of years. But, not content with a dominion which
embraced Britain, Gaul and Spain, Maximus sought, after a
time, to add Italy, where the youth, Valentinian II., was
still enthroned (at Milan, not Rome), under the tutelage of
his mother. Valentinian fled to Theodosius; the Eastern
Emperor adopted his cause, and restored him to his throne,
defeating the usurper and putting him to death (A. D. 388).
Four years later Valentinian II. died; another usurper arose,
and again Theodosius (A. D. 394) recovered the throne.
{1009}
Final Division of the Empire.
Theodosius was now alone in the sovereignty. The Empire was
once more, and for the last time, in its full extent, united
under a single lord. It remained so for but a few months. At
the beginning of the year 395, Theodosius died, and his two
weak sons, Arcadius and Honorius, divided the perishing Empire
between them, only to augment, in its more venerable seat, the
distress of the impending fall.
Arcadius, at the age of eighteen, took the government of the
East; Hononus, a child of eleven, gave his name to the
administration of the West. Each emperor was under the
guardianship of a minister chosen by Theodosius before he
died. Rufinus, who held authority at Constantinople, was
worthless in all ways; Stilicho, who held the reins at Milan,
was a Vandal by birth, a soldier and a statesman of vigorous
powers.
Decay of the Western Empire.
The West seemed more fortunate than the East, in this
division; yet the evil days now fast coming near fell
crushingly on the older Rome, while the New Rome lived through
them, and endured for a thousand years. No doubt the Empire
had weakened more on its elder side; had suffered more
exhaustion of vital powers. It had little organic vitality now
left in it. If no swarms of barbaric invaders had been waiting
and watching at its doors, and pressing upon it from every
point with increasing fierceness, it seems probable that it
would have gone to pieces ere long through mere decay. And if,
on the other hand, it could have kept the vigorous life of its
best republican days, it might have defied Teuton and Slav
forever. But all the diseases, political and social, which the
Republic engendered in itself, had been steadily consuming the
state, with their virulence even increased, since it took on the
imperial constitution. All that imperialism did was to gather
waning energies in hand, and make the most of them for
external use. It stopped no decay. The industrial palsy,
induced by an ever-widening system of slave-labor, continued
to spread. Production decreased; the sum of wealth shrunk in
the hands of each succeeding generation; and yet the great
fortunes and great estates grew bigger from age to age. The
gulf between rich and poor opened deeper and wider, and the
bridges once built across it by middle-class thrift were
fallen down. The burden of imperial government had become an
unendurable weight; the provincial municipalities, which had
once been healthy centers of a local political life, were
strangled by the nets of taxation flung over them. Men sought
refuge even in death from the magistracies which made them
responsible to the imperial treasury for revenues which they
could not collect. Population dwindled, year by year.
Recruiting from the body of citizens for the common needs of
the army became more impossible. The state was fully
dependent, at last, on barbaric mercenaries of one tribe for
its defence against barbaric invaders of another; and it was
no longer able, as of old, to impress its savage servitors
with awe of its majesty and its name.
Stilicho and Alaric.
Stilicho, for a time, stoutly breasted the rising flood of
disaster. He checked the Picts and Scots of Northern Britain,
and the Alemanni and their allies on the frontiers of Gaul.
But now there arose again the more dreadful barbarian host
which had footing in the Empire itself, and which Theodosius
had taken into pay. The Visigoths elected a king (A. D. 395),
and were persuaded with ease to carve a kingdom for him out of
the domain which seemed waiting to be snatched from one or
both of the feeble monarchs, who sat in mockery of state at
Constantinople and Milan. Alaric, the new Gothic king, moved
first against the capital on the Bosphorus; but Rufinus
persuaded him to pass on into Greece, where he went pillaging
and destroying for a year. Stilicho, the one manly defender of
the Empire, came over from Italy with an army to oppose him;
but he was stopped on the eve of battle by orders from the
Eastern Court, which sent him back, as an officious meddler.
This act of mischief and malice was the last that Rufinus
could do. He was murdered, soon afterwards, and Arcadius,
being free from his influence, then called upon Stilicho for
help. The latter came once more to deliver Greece, and did so
with success. But Alaric, though expelled from the peninsula,
was neither crushed nor disarmed, and the Eastern Court had
still to make terms with him. It did so for the moment by
conferring on him the government of that part of Illyricum
which the Servia and Bosnia of the present day coincide with,
very nearly. He rested there in peace for four years, and then
(A. D. 400) he called his people to arms again, and led the whole
nation, men, women and children, into Italy. The Emperor,
Honorius, fled from Milan to Ravenna, which, being a safe
shelter behind marshes and streams, became the seat of the
court for years thereafter. Stilicho, stripping Britain and
Gaul of troops, gathered forces with which, at Eastertide in
the year 402, and again in the following year, he defeated the
Goths, and forced them to retreat.
He had scarcely rested from these exertions, when the valiant
Stilicho was called upon to confront a more savage leader,
Radagaisus by name, who came from beyond the lines (A. D.
405), with a vast swarm of mixed warriors from many tribes
pouring after him across the Alps. Again Stilicho, by superior
skill, worsted the invaders, entrapping them in the mountains
near Fiesole (modern Florence), and starving them there till
they yielded themselves to slavery and their chieftain to
death.
This was the last great service to the dying Roman state which
Stilicho was permitted to do. Undermined by the jealousies of
the cowardly court at Ravenna, he seems to have lost suddenly
the power by which he held himself so high. He was accused of
treasonable designs and was seized and instantly executed, by
the Emperor's command.
{1010}
Alaric and his Goths in Rome.
Stilicho dead, there was no one in Italy for Alaric to fear,
and he promptly returned across the Alps, with the nation of
the Visigoths behind him. There was no resistance to his
march, and he advanced straight upon Rome. He did not assail
the walls, but sat down before the gates (A. D. 408), until
the starving citizens paid him a great ransom in silver and
gold and precious spices and silken robes. With this booty he
retired for the winter into Tuscany, where his army was
swelled by thousands of fugitive barbarian slaves, and by
reinforcements of Goths and Huns. From his camp he opened
negotiations with Honorius, demanding the government of
Dalmatia, Venetia and Noricum, with certain subsidies of money
and corn. The contemptible court, skulking at Ravenna, could
neither make war nor make concessions, and it soon exhausted
the patience of the barbarian by its puerilities. He marched
again to Rome (A. D. 409), seized the port of Ostia, with its
supplies of grain, and forced the helpless capital to join him
in proclaiming a rival emperor. The prefect of the city, one
Attalus, accepted the purple at his hands, and played the
puppet for a few months in imperial robes. But the scheme
proved unprofitable, Attalus was deposed, and negotiations
were reopened with Honorius. Their only result was a fresh
provocation which sent Alaric once more against Rome, and this
time with wrath and vengeance in his heart. Then the great,
august capital of the world was entered, through treachery or
by surprise, on the night of the 24th of August, 410, and
suffered all that the lust, the ferocity and the greed of a
barbarous army let loose could inflict on an unresisting city.
It was her first experience of that supreme catastrophe of
war, since Brennus and the Gauls came in; but it was not to be
the last.
From the sack of Rome, Alaric moved southward, intending to
conquer Sicily; but a sudden illness brought his career to an
end.
The Barbarians Swarming in.
The Empire was now like a dying quarry, pulled down by fierce
hunting packs and torn on every side. The Goths were at its
throat; the tribes of Germany--Sueves, Vandals, Burgundians,
Alans--had leaped the Rhine (A. D. 406) and swarmed upon its
flanks, throughout Gaul and Spain. The inrush began after
Stilicho, to defend Italy against Alaric and Radagaisus, had
stripped the frontiers of troops. Sueves, Vandals, and Alans
passed slowly through the provinces, devouring their wealth
and making havoc of their civilization as they went. After
three years, they had reached and surmounted the Pyrenees, and
were spreading the same destruction through Spain.
The confederated tribes of the Franks had already been
admitted as allies into northwestern Gaul, and were settled
there in peace. At first, they stood faithful to the Roman
alliance, and valiantly resisted the new invasion; but its
numbers overpowered them, and their fidelity gave way when
they saw the pillage of the doomed provinces going on. They
presently joined the barbarous mob, and with an energy which
secured the lion's share of plunder and domain.
The Burgundians did not follow the Vandals and Sueves to the
southwest, but took possession of the left bank of the middle
Rhine, whence they gradually spread into western Switzerland
and Savoy, and down the valleys of the Rhone and Saone,
establishing in time an important kingdom, to which they gave
their name.
No help from Ravenna or Rome came to the perishing provincials
of Gaul in the extremity of their distress; but a pretender
arose in Britain, who assumed the imperial title and promised
deliverance. He crossed over to Gaul in 407 and was welcomed
with eagerness, both there and in Spain, to which he advanced.
He gained some success, partly by enlisting and partly by
resisting the invaders; but his career was brief. Other
pretenders appeared in various provinces, of the West; but the
anarchy of the time was too great for any authority,
legitimate or revolutionary, to establish itself.
The Visigoths in Gaul.
And, now, into the tempting country of the afflicted Gauls,
already crowded with rapacious freebooters, the Visigoths made
their way. Their new king, Ataulph, or Adolphus, who succeeded
Alaric, passed into Gaul, but not commissioned, as sometimes
stated, to restore the imperial sovereignty there. He moved
with his nation, as Alaric had moved, and Italy, by his
departure, was relieved; but Narbonne, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and
the Aquitainian country at large, was soon subject to his
command (A. D. 412-419). He passed the Pyrenees and entered
Spain, where an assassin took his life. His successor, Wallia,
drove the Sueves into the mountains and the Vandals into the
South; but did not take possession of the country until a
later time. The Visigoths, returning to Aquitaine, found
there, at last, the kingdom which Alaric set out from the
Danube to seek, and they were established in it with the Roman
Emperor's consent. It was known as the kingdom of Gothia, or
Septimania, but is more commonly called, from its capital, the
kingdom of Toulouse.
The Eastern Empire.
Affairs in the Eastern Empire had never arrived at so
desperate a state as in the West. With the departure of
Alaric, it had been relieved from its most dangerous immediate
foe. There had been tumults, disorders, assassinations, court
conspiracies, fierce religious strifes, and every evidence of
a government with no settled authority and no title to
respect; but yet the Empire stood and was not yet seriously
shaken. In 408 Arcadius died. His death was no loss, though he
left an infant son to take his place; for he also left a
daughter, Pulcheria, who proved to be a woman of rare virtue
and talents, and who reigned in her brother's name.
Aetius and the Huns.
The imbecile Honorius, with whose name the failing sovereignty
of Rome had been so disastrously linked for eight and twenty
rears, died in 423. An infant nephew was his heir, and
Placidia, the mother, ruled at Ravenna for a fourth of a
century, in the name of her child. Her reign was far stronger
than her wretched brother's had been, because she gave loyal
support to a valiant and able man, who stood at her side.
Aetius, her minister, did all, perhaps, that man could do to
hold some parts of Gaul, and to play barbarian against
barbarian--Hun against Goth and Frank--in skilful diplomacy
and courageous war. But nothing that he won was any lasting
gain. In his youth, Aetius had been a hostage in the camps of
both the Goths and the Huns, and had made acquaintances among
the chieftains of both which served his policy many times.
{1011}
He had employed the terrible Huns in the early years of his
ministry, and perhaps they had learned too much of the
weakness of the Roman State. These most fearful of all the
barbarian peoples then surging in Europe had been settled, for
some years, in the region since called Hungary, under Attila,
their most formidable king. He terrorized all the surrounding
lands and exercised a lordship from the Caspian to the Baltic
and the Rhine. The imperial court at the East stooped to pay
him annual tribute for abstaining from the invasion of its
domain. But in 450, when the regent Pulcheria became Empress
of the East, by her brother's death, and married a brave old
soldier, Marcian, in order to give him the governing power, a
new tone was heard in the voice from Constantinople which
answered Attila's demands.
Defeat of Attila.
The Hun then appears to have seen that the sinking Empire of
the West offered a more certain victim to his terrors and his
arms, and he turned them to that side. First forming an
alliance with the Vandals (who had crossed from Spain to
Africa in 429, had ravaged and subdued the Roman provinces,
and had established a kingdom on the Carthaginian ground, with
a naval power in the Carthaginian Sea), Attila led his huge
army into suffering Gaul. There were Ostrogoths, and warriors
from many German tribes, as well as Huns, in the terrific
host; for Attila's arm stretched far, and his subjects were
forced to follow when he led. His coming into Gaul affrighted
Romans and barbarians alike, and united them in a common
defense. Aetius formed an alliance with Theodoric, the
Visigothic king, and their forces were joined by Burgundians
and Franks. They met Attila near Chalons, and there, on a day
in June, A. D. 451, upon the Catalaunian fields, was fought a
battle that is always counted among the few which gave shape
to all subsequent history. The Huns were beaten back, and
Europe was saved from the hopeless night that must have
followed a Tartar conquest in that age.
Attila threatening Rome.
Attila retreated to Germany, foiled but not daunted. The next
year (A. D. 452) he invaded Italy and laid siege to Aquileia,
an important city which stood in his path. It resisted for
three months and was then utterly destroyed. The few
inhabitants who escaped, with fugitives from neighboring
ports, found a refuge in some islands of the Adriatic coast,
and formed there a sheltered settlement which grew into the
great city and republican state of Venice. Aetius made
strenuous exertions to gather forces for another battle with
the Huns; but the resources of the Empire had sunk very low.
While he labored to collect troops, the effect of a pacific
embassy was despairingly tried, and it went forth to the camp
of Attila, led by the venerable bishop of Rome--the first
powerful Pope--Leo I., called the Great. The impression which
Leo made on the Hunnish king, by his venerable presence, and
by the persuasiveness of his words, appears to have been
extraordinary. At all events, Attila consented to postpone his
designs on Rome; though he demanded and received promise of an
annual tribute. The next winter he died, and Rome was troubled
by him no more.
Rome Sacked by the Vandals.
But another enemy came, who rivalled Attila in ruthlessness,
and who gave a name to barbarity which it has kept to this
day. The Vandal king, Genseric, who now swept the
Mediterranean with a piratical fleet, made his appearance in
the Tiber (A. D. 455) and found the Roman capital powerless to
resist his attack. The venerable Pope Leo again interceded for
the city, and obtained a promise that captives should not be
tortured nor buildings burned,--which was the utmost stretch
of mercy that the Vandal could afford. Once more, then, was
Rome given up, for fourteen days and nights, to pillage and
the horrors of barbaric debauch. "Whatever had survived the
former sack,--whatever the luxury of the Roman Patriciate,
during the intervening forty-five years, had accumulated in
reparation of their loss,--the treasures of the imperial
palace, the gold and silver vessels employed in the churches,
the statues of pagan divinities and men of Roman renown, the
gilded roof of the temple of Capitolian Jove, the plate and
ornaments of private individuals, were leisurely conveyed to
the Vandal fleet and shipped off to Africa" (Sheppard).
The Vandal invasion had been preceded, in the same year, by a
palace revolution which brought the dynasty of Theodosius to
an end. Placidia was dead, and her unworthy son, Valentinian
III., provoked assassination by dishonoring the wife of a
wealthy senator, Maximus, who mounted to his place. Maximus
was slain by a mob at Rome, just before the Vandals entered
the city. The Empire was now without a head, and the throne
without an heir. In former times, the Senate or the army would
have filled the vacant imperial seat; now, it was a barbarian
monarch, Theodoric, the Visigothic king, who made choice of a
successor to the Cæsars. He named a Gallic noble, Avitus by
name, who had won his esteem, and the nomination was confirmed
by Marcian, Emperor of the East.
Ricimer and Majorian.
But the influence of Theodoric in Roman affairs was soon
rivalled by that of Count Ricimer, another Goth, or Sueve, who
held high command in the imperial army, and who resented the
elevation of Avitus. The latter was deposed, after reigning a
single year; and Majorian, a soldier of really noble and
heroic character, was promoted to the throne. He was too great
and too sincere a man to be Ricimer's tool, and the same hand
which raised him threw him down, after he had reigned four
years (A. D. 457-461). He was in the midst of a powerful
undertaking against the Vandals when he perished. Majorian was
the last Emperor in the Western line who deserves to be named.
The last Emperors in the West.
Ricimer ruled Italy, with the rigor of a despot, under the
modest title of Patrician, until 472. His death was soon
followed by the rise of another general of the barbarian
troops, Orestes, to like autocracy, and he, in turn, gave way
to a third, Odoacer, who slew him and took his place. The
creatures, half a dozen in number, who put on and put off the
purple robe, at the command of these adventurers, who played
with the majesty of Rome, need no further mention.
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The last of them was Romulus Augustulus, son of Orestes, who
escaped his father's fate by formally resigning the throne. He
was the last Roman Emperor in the West, until Charlemagne
revived the title, three centuries and a quarter later. "The
succession of the Western Emperors came to an end, and the way
in which it came to an end marks the way in which the names
and titles of Rome were kept on, while all power was passing
into the hands of the barbarians. The Roman Senate voted that
one Emperor was enough, and that the Eastern Emperor, Zeno,
should reign over the whole Empire. But at the same time Zeno
was made to entrust the government of Italy, with the title of
Patrician, to Odoacer. ... Thus the Roman Empire went on at
Constantinople, or New Rome, while Italy and the Old Rome
itself passed into the power of the Barbarians. Still the
Roman laws and names went on, and we may be sure that any man
in Italy would have been much surprised if he had been told
that the Roman Empire had come to an end" (Freeman).
Odoacer.
The government of Odoacer, who ruled with the authority of a
king, though pretending to kingship only in his own nation,
was firm and strong. Italy was better protected from its
lawless neighbors than it had been for nearly a century
before. But nothing could arrest the decay of its
population--the blight that had fallen upon its prosperity.
Nor could that turbulent age afford any term of peace that
would be long enough for even the beginning of the cure of
such maladies and such wounds as had brought Italy low. For
fourteen years Odoacer ruled; and then he was overthrown by a
new kingdom-seeking barbarian, who came, like Alaric, out of
the Gothic swarm.
Theodoric the Ostrogoth.
The Ostrogoths had now escaped, since Attila died, from the
yoke of the Huns, and were prepared, under an able and
ambitious young king, Theodoric, who had been reared as a
hostage at Constantinople, to imitate the career of their
cousins, the Visigoths. Having troubled the Eastern Court
until it stood in fear of him, Theodoric asked for a
commission to overthrow Odoacer, in Italy, and received it
from the Emperor's hand. Thus empowered by one still
recognized as lawful lord on both sides of the Adriatic,
Theodoric crossed the Julian Alps (A. D. 489) with the
families of his nation and their household goods. Three
battles made him master of the peninsula and decided the fate
of his rival. Odoacer held out in Ravenna for two years and a
half, and surrendered on a promise of equal sovereignty with
the Ostrogothic king. But Theodoric did not scruple to kill
him with his own sword, at the first opportunity which came.
In that act, the native savagery in him broke loose; but
through most of his life he kept his passions decently tamed,
and acted the barbarian less frequently than the civilized
statesman and king. He gave Italy peace, security, and
substantial justice for thirty years. With little war, he
extended his sovereignty over Illyrium, Pannonia, Noricum,
Rhætia and Provence, in south-eastern Gaul. If the extensive
kingdom which he formed--with more enlightenment than any
other among those who divided the heritage of Rome--could have
endured, the parts of Europe which it covered might have fared
better in after times than they did. "Italy might have been
spared six hundred years of gloom and degradation." But
powerful influences were against it from the first, and they
were influences which proceeded mischievously from the
Christian Church. Had the Goths been pagans, the Church might
have turned a kindly face to them, and wooed them to
conversion as she wooed the Franks. But they were Christians,
of a heretic stamp, and the orthodox Christianity of Rome held
them in deadly loathing. While still beyond the Danube, they had
received the faith from an Arian apostle, at the time of the
great conflict of Athanasius against Arius, and were stubborn
in the rejection of Trinitarian dogma. Hence the Church in the
West was never reconciled to the monarchy of Theodoric in
Italy, nor to that of the Visigoths at Toulouse; and its
hostility was the ultimate cause of the failure of both.
The Empire in the East.
To understand the events which immediately caused the fall of
the Ostrogothic power, we must turn back for a moment to the
Empire in the East. Marcian, whom Pulcheria, the wise daughter
of Arcadius, made Emperor by marrying him, died in 457, and
Aspar, the barbarian who commanded the mercenaries, selected
his successor. He chose his own steward, one Leo, who proved
to have more independence than his patron expected, and who
succeeded in destroying the latter. After Leo I. came (474)
his infant grandson; Leo II., whose father, an Isaurian
chieftain, took his place when he died, within the year. The
Isaurian assumed a Greek name, Zeno, and occupied the
throne--with one interval of flight and exile for twenty
months--during seven years. When he died, his widow gave her
hand in marriage to an excellent officer of the palace,
Anastasius by name, and he was sovereign of the Empire for
twenty-seven years.
The reign of Justinian.
After Anastasius, came Justin I., born a peasant in Dacia
(modern Roumania), but advanced as a soldier to the command of
the imperial guards, and thence to the throne. He had already
adopted and educated his nephew, Justinian, and before dying,
in 527, he invested him with sovereignty as a colleague. The
reign of Justinian was the most remarkable in the whole
history of the Empire in the East. Without breadth of
understanding, or notable talents of any kind: without
courage; without the least nobility of character; without even
the virtue of fidelity to his ministers and friends,--this
remarkable monarch contrived to be splendidly served by an
extraordinary generation of great soldiers, great jurists,
great statesmen, who gave a brilliance to his reign that was
never rivalled while the Byzantine seat of Empire stood. It
owes, in modern esteem, its greatest fame to the noble
collection of Roman laws which was made, in the Pandects and
the Code, under the direction of the wise and learned
Tribonian. Transiently it was glorified by conquests that bore
a likeness to the march of the resistless legions of ancient
Rome; and the laurelled names of Belisarius and Narses claimed
a place on the columns of victory with the names of Cæsar and
Pompeius.
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But the splendors of the reign were much more than offset by
miseries and calamities of the darkest kind. "The reign of
Justinian, from its length, its glory and its disasters, may
be compared to the reign of Louis XIV., which exceeded it in
length, and equalled it in glory and disaster. ... He extended
the limits of his empire; but he was unable to defend the
territory he had received from his predecessors. Everyone of
the thirty-eight years of his reign was marked by an invasion
of the barbarians; and it has been said that, reckoning those
who fell by the sword, who perished from want, or were led
into captivity, each invasion cost 200,000 subjects to the
empire. Calamities which human prudence is unable to resist
seemed to combine against the Romans, as if to compel them to
expiate their ancient glory. ... So that the very period which
gave birth to so many monuments of greatness, may be looked
back upon with horror, as that of the widest desolation and
the most terrific mortality" (Sismondi). The first and longest
of the wars of Justinian was the Persian war, which he inherited
from his predecessors, and which scarcely ceased while the
Persian monarchy endured. It was in these Asiatic campaigns
that Belisarius began his career. But his first great
achievement was the overthrow and extinction of the Vandal
power in Africa, and the restoration of Roman authority (the
empire of the new Rome) in the old Carthaginian province (A.
D. 533-534). He accomplished this with a force of but 10,000
foot and 5,000 horse, and was hastily recalled by his jealous
lord on the instant of his success.
Conquests of Belisarius in Italy.
But the ambition of Justinian was whetted by this marvellous
conquest, and he promptly projected an expedition against the
kingdom of the Eastern Goths. The death of Theodoric had
occurred in 526. His successor was a child of ten years, his
grandson, whose mother exercised the regency. Amalsuentha, the
queen-regent, was a woman of highly cultivated mind, and she
offended her subjects by too marked a Romanization of her
ideas. Her son died in his eighteenth year, and she associated
with herself on the throne the next heir to it, a worthless
nephew of Theodoric, who was able, in a few weeks, to strip
all her power from her and consign her to a distant prison,
where she was soon put to death (A. D. 535). She had
previously opened negotiations with Justinian for the
restoration of his supremacy in Italy, and the ambitious
Emperor assumed with eagerness a right to avenge her
deposition and death. The fate of Amalsuentha was his excuse,
the discontent of Roman orthodoxy with the rule of the heretic
Goths was his encouragement, to send an army into Italy with
Belisarius at its head. First taking possession of Sicily,
Belisarius landed in Italy in 536, took Naples and advanced on
Rome. An able soldier, Vitiges, had been raised to the Gothic
throne, and he evacuated Rome in December; but he returned the
following March and laid siege to the ancient capital, which
Belisarius had occupied with a moderate force. It was defended
against him for an entire year, and the strength of the Gothic
nation was consumed on the outer side of the walls, while the
inhabitants within were wasted by famine and disease. The
Goths invoked the aid of the Franks in Gaul, and those fierce
warriors, crossing the Alps (A. D. 538), assailed both Goths
and Greeks, with indiscriminate hostility, destroyed Milan and
Genoa, and mostly perished of hunger themselves before they
retreated from the wasted Cisalpine country.
Released from Rome, Belisarius advanced in his turn against
Ravenna, and took the Gothic capital, making Vitiges a
prisoner (A. D. 539). His reward for these successes was a
recall from command. The jealous Emperor could not afford his
generals too much glory at a single winning. As a consequence
of his folly, the Goths, under a new king, Totila, were
allowed to recover so much ground in the next four years that,
when, in 544, Belisarius was sent back, almost without an
army, the work of conquest had to be done anew. Rome was still
being held against Totila, who besieged it, and the great
general went by sea to its relief. He forced the passage of
the Tiber, but failed through the misconduct of the commander
in the city to accomplish an entry, and once more the great
capital was entered and yielded to angry Goths (A. D. 546).
They spared the lives of the few people they found, and the
chastity of the women; but they plundered without restraint.
Rome a Solitude for Forty Days.
Totila commanded the total destruction of the city; but his
ruthless hand was stayed by the remonstrances of Belisarius.
After demolishing a third of the walls, he withdrew towards
the South, dragging the few inhabitants with him, and, during
forty days, Rome is said to have been an unpeopled solitude.
The scene which this offers to the imagination comes near to
being the most impressive in history. At the end of that
period it was entered by Belisarius, who hastily repaired the
walls, collected his forces, and was prepared to defend
himself when Totila came back by rapid marches from Apulia.
The Goths made three assaults and were bloodily repulsed.
End of the Ostrogothic Kingdom.
But again Belisarius was recalled by a mean and jealous court,
and again the Gothic cause was reanimated and restored. Rome
was taken again from its feeble garrison (A. D. 549), and this
time it was treated with respect. Most of Italy and Sicily,
with Corsica and Sardinia, were subdued by Totila's arms, and
that king, now successful, appealed to Justinian for peace. It
was refused, and in 552 a vigorous prosecution of the war
resumed, under a new commander--the remarkable eunuch Narses,
who proved himself to be one of the great masters of war.
Totila was defeated and slain in the first battle of the
campaign; Rome was again beleaguered and taken; and the last
blow needed to extinguish the Gothic kingdom in Italy was
given the following year (A. D. 553), when Totila's successor,
Teia, ended his life on another disastrous field of battle.
The Exarchate.
Italy was restored for the moment to the Empire, and was
placed under the government of an imperial viceroy, called
Exarch, which high office the valiant Narses was the first to
fill. His successors, known in history as the Exarchs of
Ravenna, resided in that capital for a long period, while the
arm of their authority was steadily shortened by the conquests
of new invaders, whose story is yet to be told.
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Events in the West.
Leaving Italy and Rome, once more in the imperial fold, but
mere provinces now of a distant and alienated sovereignty, it
is necessary to turn back to the West, and glance over the
regions in which, when we looked at them last, the
institutions of Roman government and society were being
dissolved and broken up by flood upon flood of barbaric
invasion from the Teutonic North.
Teutonic Conquest of Britain.
If we begin at the farthest West which the Roman dominion
reached, we shall find that the island of Britain was
abandoned, practically, by the imperial government earlier
than the year 410, when Rome was sinking under the blows of
Alaric. From that time the inhabitants were left to their own
government and their own defense. To the inroads of the savage
Caledonian Picts and Irish Scots, there were added, now, the
coast ravages of a swarm of ruthless pirates, which the tribes
of northwestern Europe had begun to launch upon the German or
North Sea. The most cruel and terrible of these ocean
freebooters were the Saxons, of the Elbe, and they gave their
name for a time to the whole. Their destructive raids upon the
coasts of Britain and Gaul had commenced more than a century
before the Romans withdrew their legions, and that part of the
British coast most exposed to their ravages was known as the
Saxon Shore. For about thirty years after the Roman and
Romanized inhabitants of Britain had been left to defend
themselves, they held their ground with good courage, as
appears; but the incessant attacks of the Picts wore out, at
last, their confidence in themselves, and they were fatally
led to seek help from their other enemies, who scourged them
from the sea. Their invitation was given, not to the Saxons,
but to a band of Jutes--warriors from that Danish peninsula in
which they have left their name. The Jutes landed at
Ebbsfleet, in the Isle of Thanet (A. D. 449 or 450), with two
chiefs, Hengest and Horsa, at their head. They came as allies,
and fought by the side of the Britons against the Picts with
excellent success. Then came quarrels, and presently, in 455,
the arms of Hengest and Horsa were turned against their
employers. Ten years later the Jutes had secure possession of
the part of Britain now called Kent, and Hengest was their
king, Horsa having fallen in the war. This was the beginning
of the transformation of Roman-Celtic Britain into the
Teutonic England of later history. The success of the Jutes
drew their cousins and piratical comrades, the Saxons and the
Angles, to seek kingdoms in the same rich island. The Saxons
came first, landing near Selsey, in 477, and taking gradual
possession of a district which became known as the kingdom of
the South Saxons, or Sussex. The next invasion was by Saxons
under Cerdic, and Jutes, who joined to form the kingdom of the
West Saxons, or Wessex, covering about the territory of modern
Hampshire. So much of their conquest was complete by the year
519. At about the same time, other colonies were established
and gave their names, as East Saxons and Middle Saxons, to the
Essex and Middlesex of modern English geography. A third tribe
from the German shore, the Angles, now came (A. D. 547) to
take their part in the conquest of the island, and these laid
their hands upon kingdoms in the East and North of England, so
much larger than the modest Jute and Saxon realms in the south
that their name fixed itself, at last, upon the whole country,
when it lost the name of Britain. Northumberland, which
stretched from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, Mercia, which
covered at one time the whole middle region of England, and
East Anglia, which became divided into the two English
counties of Norfolk (North-folk) and Suffolk (South-folk),
were the three great kingdoms of the Angles.
The Making of England.
Before the end of the sixth century, almost the whole of
modern England, and part of Scotland, on its eastern side, as
far to the north as Edinburgh, was in possession of the German
invaders. They had not merely subdued the former
possessors--Britons and Roman provincials (if Romans remained
in the island after their domination ceased),--but, in the
judgment of the best investigators of the subject, they had
practically swept them from all the parts of the island in
which their own settlements were established. That is to say,
the prior population was either exterminated by the merciless
swords of these Saxon and English pagans, or was driven into
the mountains of Wales, into the peninsula of Cornwall and
Devon, or into the Strathclyde corner of Scottish
territory,--in all which regions the ancient British race has
maintained itself to this day. Scarcely a vestige of its
existence remains elsewhere in England,--neither in language,
nor in local names, nor in institutions, nor in survivals of
any other kind; which shows that the inhabitants were effaced
by the conquest, as the inhabitants of Gaul, of Spain, and of
Italy, for example, were not.
The new society and the new states which now arose on the soil
of Britain, and began to shape themselves into the England of
the future, were as purely Germanic as if they had grown up in
the Jutish peninsula or on the Elbe. The institutions,
political and social, of the immigrant nations, had been
modified by changed circumstances, but they had incorporated
almost nothing from the institutions which they found existing
in their new home and which they supplanted. Broadly speaking,
nothing Roman and nothing Celtic entered into them. They were
constructed on German lines throughout.
The barbarism of the Saxons and their kin when they entered
Britain was far more unmitigated than that of most of the
Teutonic tribes which overwhelmed the continental provinces of
Rome had been. The Goths had been influenced to some extent
and for quite a period by Roman civilization, and had
nominally accepted Christian precepts and beliefs, before they
took arms against the Empire. The Franks had been allies of
Rome and in contact with the refinements of Roman Gaul, for a
century or two before they became masters in that province.
Most of the other nations which transplanted themselves in the
fifth century from beyond the Rhine to new homes in the
provinces of Rome, had been living for generations on the
borders of the Empire, or near; had acquired some
acquaintance, at least, with the civilization which they did
not share, and conceded to it a certain respect; while some of
them had borne arms for the Emperor and taken his pay. But the
Saxons, Angles and Jutes had thus far been remote from every
influence or experience of the kind.
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They knew the Romans only as rich strangers to be plundered
and foes to be fought. Christianity represented nothing to
them but an insult to their gods. There seems to be little
doubt, therefore, that the civilizing work which Rome had done
in western Europe was obliterated nowhere else so ruthlessly
and so wantonly as in Britain. Christianity, still sheltered
and strong in Ireland, was wholly extinguished in England for
a century and more, until the memorable mission of Augustine,
sent by Pope Gregory the Great (A. D. 597), began the
conversion of the savage islanders.
The Kingdom of the Franks.
In Gaul, meanwhile, and in southwestern Germany, the Franks
had become the dominant power. They had moved tardily to the
conquest, but when they moved it was with rapid strides. While
they dwelt along the Lower Rhine, they were in two divisions:
the Salian Franks, who occupied, first, the country near the
mouth of the river, and then spread southwards, to the Somme,
or beyond; and the Ripuarians, who lived farther up the Rhine,
in the neighborhood of Cologne, advancing thence to the
Moselle. In the later part of the fifth century a Roman
Patrician, Syagrius, still exercised some kind of authority in
northern Gaul; but in 486 he was defeated and overthrown by
Chlodvig, or Clovis, the chief of the Salian Franks. Ten years
later, Clovis, leading both the Salian and the Ripuarian
Franks in an attack upon the German Alemanni, beyond the Upper
Rhine, subdued that people completely, and took their country.
Their name survived, and adhered to the whole people of
Germany, whom the Franks and their successors the French have
called Allemands to this day. After his conquest of the
Alemanni, Clovis, who had married a Christian wife, accepted
her faith and was baptized, with three thousand of his chief
men. The professed conversion was as fortunate politically for
him as it had been for Constantine. He adopted the
Christianity which was that of the Roman Church--the Catholic
Christianity of the Athanasian creed--and he stood forth at
once as the champion of orthodoxy against the heretic Goths
and Burgundians, whose religion had been poisoned by the
condemned doctrines of Arius. The blessings, and the more
substantial endeavors, of the Roman Church were, therefore, on
his side, when he attacked the Burgundians and made them
tributary, and when, a few years later, he expelled the Goths
from Aquitaine and drove them into Spain (A.D. 500-508).
Beginning, apparently, as one of several chiefs among the
Salian Franks, he ended his career (510) as sole king of the
whole Frank nation, and master of all Gaul except a Gothic
corner of Provence, with a considerable dominion beyond the
Rhine.
The Merovingian Kings.
But Clovis left his realm to four sons, who divided it into as
many kingdoms, with capitals at Metz, Orleans, Paris, and
Soissons. There was strife and war between them, until one of
the brothers, Lothaire, united again the whole kingdom, which,
meantime, had been enlarged by the conquest of Thuringia and
Provence, and by the extinction of the tributary Burgundian
kings. When he died, his sons rent the kingdom again, and
warred with one another, and once more it was brought
together. Says Hallam: "It is a weary and unprofitable task to
follow these changes in detail, through scenes of tumult and
bloodshed, in which the eye meets with no sunshine, nor can
rest upon any interesting spot. It would be difficult, as
Gibbon has justly observed, to find anywhere more vice or less
virtue." But, as Dean Church has remarked, the Franks were
maintained in their ascendancy by the favor of the clergy and
the circumstances of their position, despite their divisions
and the worthless and detestable character of their kings,
after Clovis. "They occupied a land of great natural wealth,
and great geographical advantages, which had been prepared for
them by Latin culture; they inherited great cities which they
had not built, and fields and vineyards which they had not
planted; and they had the wisdom, not to destroy, but to use
their conquest. They were able with singular ease and
confidence to employ and trust the services, civil and
military, of the Latin population. ... The bond between the
Franks and the native races was the clergy. ... The forces of
the whole nation were at the disposal of the ruling race; and
under Frank chiefs, the Latins and Gauls learned once more to
be warriors." This no doubt suggests a quite true explanation
of the success of the Franks; but too much may easily be
inferred from it. It will not be safe to conclude that the
Franks were protectors of civilization in Gaul, and did not
lay destroying hands upon it. We shall presently see that it
sank to a very darkened state under their rule, though the
eclipse may have been less complete than in some other of the
barbarized provinces of Rome.
Rise of the Carolingians.
The division in the Frankish dominion which finally marked
itself deeply and became permanent was that which separated
the East Kingdom, or Austrasia, from the West Kingdom, or
Neustria. In Austrasia, the Germanic element prevailed; in
Neustria, the Roman and Gallic survivals entered most largely
into the new society. Austrasia widened into the Germany of
later history; Neustria into France. In both these kingdoms,
the Frankish kings sank lower and lower in character, until
their name (of Merwings or Merovingians, from an ancestor of
Clovis) became a byword for sloth and worthlessness. In each
kingdom there arose, beside the nominal monarch, a strong
minister, called the Major Domus, or Mayor of the Palace, who
exercised the real power and governed in the king's name.
During the last half of the seventh century, the Austrasian
Mayor, Pippin of Heristal, and the Neustrian Mayor, Ebroin,
converted the old antagonism of the two kingdoms into a
personal rivalry and struggle for supremacy. Ebroin was
murdered, and Pippin was the final victor, in a decisive
battle at Testry (687), which made him virtual master of the
whole Frank realm, although the idle Merwings still sat on
their thrones. Pippin's son, Charles Martel, strengthened and
extended the domination which his father had acquired. He
drove back the Saxons and subdued the Frisians in the North,
and, in the great and famous battle of Tours (732) he
repelled, once for all, the attempt of the Arab and Moorish
followers of Mahomet, already lodged in Spain, to push their
conquests beyond the Pyrenees.
{1016}
The next of the family, Pippin the Short, son of Charles
Martel, put an end to the pretence of governing in the name of
a puppet-king. The last of the Merovingians was quietly
deposed--lacking even importance enough to be put to death--
and Pippin received the crown at the hands of Pope Zachary (A.
D. 751). He died in 768, and the reign of his son, who
succeeded him--the Great Charles--the Charlemagne of mediæval
history--is the introduction to so new an era, and so changed
an order of circumstances in the European world, that it will
be best to finish with all that lies behind it in our hasty
survey before we take it up.
The Conquests of Islam.
Outside of Europe, a new and strange power had now risen, and
had spread its forces with extraordinary rapidity around the
southern and eastern circuit of the Mediterranean, until it
troubled both extremities of the northern shore. This was the
power of Islam--the proselyting, war-waging religion of
Mahomet, the Arabian prophet. At the death of Mahomet, in 632,
he was lord of Arabia, and his armies had just crossed the
border, to attack the Syrian possessions of the Eastern Roman
Empire. In seven years from that time, the whole of Palestine
and Syria had been overrun, Jerusalem, Damascus, Antioch, and
all the strong cities taken, and Roman authority expelled. In
two years more, they had dealt the last blow to the Sassanian
monarchy in Persia and shattered it forever. At the same time
they were besieging Alexandria and adding Egypt to their
conquests. In 668, only thirty-six years after the death of
the Prophet, they were at the gates of Constantinople, making
the first of their many attempts to gain possession of the New
Rome. In 698 they had taken Carthage, had occupied all North
Africa to the Atlantic coast, had converted the Mauretanians,
or Moors, and absorbed them into their body politic as well as
into their communion. In 711 the commingled Arabs and Moors
crossed the Straits and entered Spain, and the overthrow of
the Christian kingdom of the Visigoths was practically
accomplished in a single battle that same year. Within two
years more, the Moors (as they came to be most commonly
called) were in possession of the whole southern, central, and
eastern parts of the Spanish peninsula, treating the
inhabitants who had not fled with a more generous toleration
than differing Christians were wont to offer to one another.
The Spaniards (a mixed population of Roman, Suevic, Gothic,
and aboriginal descent) who did, not submit, took refuge in
the mountainous region of the Asturias and Galicia, where they
maintained their independence, and, in due time, became
aggressive, until, after eight centuries, they recovered their
whole land.
The Eastern Empire.
At the East, as we have seen, the struggle of the Empire with
the Arabs began at the first moment of their career of foreign
conquest. They came upon it when it was weak from many wounds,
and exhausted by conflict with many foes. Before the death of
Justinian (565), the transient glories of his reign had been
waning fast. His immediate successor saw the work of
Belisarius and Narses undone, for the most part, and the
Italian peninsula overrun by a new horde of barbarians, more
rapacious and more savage than the Goths. At the same time,
the Persian war broke out again, and drained the imperial
resources to pay for victories that had no fruit. Two better
and stronger emperors--Tiberius and Maurice--who came after
him, only made an honorable struggle, without leaving the
Empire in a better state. Then a brutal creature--Phocas--held
the throne for eight years (602-610) and sunk it very low by his
crimes. The hero, Heraclius, who was now raised to power, came
too late. Assailed suddenly, at the very beginning of his
reign, by a fierce Persian onset, he was powerless to resist.
Syria, Egypt and Asia Minor were successively ravaged and
conquered by the Persian arms. They came even to the
Bosphorus, and for ten years they held its eastern shore and
maintained a camp within sight of Constantinople itself; while
the wild Tartar nation of the Avars raged, at the same time,
through the northern and western provinces of the Empire, and
threatened the capital on its landward sides. The Roman Empire
was reduced, for a time, to "the walls of Constantinople, with
the remnant of Greece, Italy, and Africa, and some maritime
cities, from Tyre to Trebizond, of the Asiatic coast." But in
622 Heraclius turned the tide of disaster and rolled it back
upon his enemies. Despite an alliance of the Persians with the
Avars, and their combined assault upon Constantinople in 626,
he repelled the latter, and wrested from the former, in a
series of remarkable campaigns, all the territory they had
seized. He had but just accomplished this great deliverance of
his dominions, when the Arabs came upon him, as stated above.
There was no strength left in the Empire to resist the
terrible prowess of these warriors of the desert. They
extinguished its authority in Syria and Egypt, as we have
seen, in the first years of their career; but then turned
their arms to the East and the West, and were slow in
disputing Asia Minor with its Christian lords. "From the time
of Heraclius the Byzantine theatre is contracted and darkened:
the line of empire which had been defined by the laws of
Justinian and the arms of Belisarius recedes on all sides from
our view" (Gibbon). There was neither vigor nor virtue in the
descendants of Heraclius; and when the last of them was
destroyed by a popular rising against his vicious tyranny
(711), revolution followed revolution so quickly that three
reigns were begun and ended in six years.
The so-called Byzantine Empire.
Then came to the throne a man of strong character, who
redeemed it at least from contempt; who introduced a dynasty
which endured for a century, and whose reign is the beginning
of a new era in the history of the Eastern Empire, so marked
that the Empire has taken from that time, in the common usage,
a changed name, and is known thenceforth as the Byzantine,
rather than the Eastern or the Greek. This was Leo the
Isaurian, who saved Constantinople from a second desperate
Moslem siege; who checked for a considerable period the
Mahometan advance in the East; who reorganized the imperial
administration on lasting lines; and whose suppression of
image-worship in the Christian churches of his empire led to a
rupture with the Roman Church in the West,--to the breaking of
all relations of dependence in Rome and Italy upon the Empire
in the East, and to the creating of a new imperial sovereignty
in Western Europe which claimed succession to that of Rome.
{1017}
Lombard Conquest of Italy.
On the conquest of Italy by Belisarius and Narses, for
Justinian, the eunuch Narses, as related before, was made
governor, residing at Ravenna, and bearing the title of
Exarch. In a few years he was displaced, through the influence
of a palace intrigue at Constantinople. To be revenged, it is
said that he persuaded the Lombards, a German tribe lately
become threatening on the Upper Danube, to enter Italy. They
came, under their leader Alboin, and almost the whole northern
and middle parts of the peninsula submitted to them with no
resistance. Pavia stood a siege for three years before it
surrendered to become the Lombard capital; Venice received an
added population of fugitives, and was safe in her
lagoons--like Ravenna, where the new Exarch watched the march
of Lombard conquest, and scarcely opposed it. Rome was
preserved, with part of southern Italy and with Sicily; but no
more than a shadow of the sovereignty of the Empire now
stretched westward beyond the Adriatic.
Temporal Power of the Popes.
The city of Rome, and the territory surrounding it, still
owned a nominal allegiance to the Emperor at Constantinople;
but their immediate and real ruler was the Bishop of Rome, who
had already acquired, in a special way, the fatherly name of
"Papa" or Pope. Many circumstances had combined to place both
spiritual and temporal power in the hands of these Christian
pontiffs of Rome. They may have been originally, in the
constitution of the Church, on an equal footing of
ecclesiastical authority with the four other chiefs of the
hierarchy--the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria,
Antioch and Jerusalem; but the great name of Rome gave them
prestige and weight of superior influence to begin with. Then,
they stood, geographically and sympathetically, in nearest
relations with that massive Latin side of Christendom, in
western Europe, which was never much disturbed by the raging
dogmatic controversies that tore and divided the Church on its
Eastern, Greek side. It was inevitable that the Western Church
should yield homage to one head--to one bishopric above all
other bishoprics; and it was more inevitable that the See of
Rome should be that one. So the spiritual supremacy to which
the Popes arrived is easily enough explained. The temporal
authority which they acquired is accounted for as obviously.
Even before the interruption of the line of emperors in the
West, the removal of the imperial residence for long periods
from Rome, to Constantinople, to Milan, to Ravenna, left the
Pope the most impressive and influential personage in the
ancient capital. Political functions were forced on him,
whether he desired to exercise them or not. It was Pope Leo
who headed the embassy to Attila, and saved the city from the
Huns. It was the same Pope who pleaded for it with the Vandal
king, Genseric. And still more and more, after the imperial
voice which uttered occasional commands to his Roman subjects
was heard from a distant palace in Constantinople, and in
accents that had become wholly Greek, the chair of St. Peter
grew throne-like,--the respect paid to the Pope in civil
matters took on the spirit of obedience, and his aspect before
the people became that of a temporal prince.
This process of the political elevation of the Papacy was
completed by the Lombard conquest of Italy. The Lombard kings
were bent upon the acquisition of Rome; the Popes were
resolute and successful in holding it against them. At last
the Papacy made its memorable and momentous alliance with the
Carolingian chiefs of the Franks. It assumed the tremendous
super-imperial right and power to dispose of crowns, by taking
that of the kingdom of the Franks from Childeric and giving it
to Pippin (751); and this was the first assumption of that
right by the chief priest of Western Christendom. In return,
Pippin led an army twice to Italy (754-755), humbled the
Lombards, took from them the exarchate of Ravenna and the
Pentapolis (a district east of the Appenines, between Ancona
and Ferrara), and transferred this whole territory as a
conqueror's "donation" to the Apostolic See. The temporal
sovereignty of the Popes now rested on a base as political and
as substantial as that of the most worldly and vulgar
potentates around them.
Charlemagne's restored Roman Empire.
Pippin's greater son, Charlemagne, renewed the alliance of his
house with the Papacy, and strengthened it by completing the
conquest of the Lombards, extinguishing their kingdom (774),
and confirming his father's donation of the States of the
Church. Charlemagne was now supreme in Italy, and the Pope
became the representative of his sovereignty at Rome,--a
position which lastingly enhanced the political importance of
the Roman See in the peninsula. But while Pope and King stood
related, in one view, as agent and principal, or subject and
sovereign, another very different relationship slowly shaped
itself in the thoughts of one, if not of both. The Western
Church had broken entirely with the Eastern, on the question
of image-worship; the titular sovereignty of the Eastern
Emperor in the ancient Roman capital was a worn-out fiction;
the reign of a female usurper, Irene, at Constantinople
afforded a good occasion for renouncing and discarding it. But
a Roman Emperor there must be, somewhere, for lesser princes
and sovereigns to do homage to; the political habit and
feeling of the European world, shaped and fixed by the long
domination of Rome, still called for it. "Nor could the
spiritual head of Christendom dispense with the temporal;
without the Roman Empire there could not be," according to the
feeling of the ninth century, "a Roman, nor by necessary
consequence a Catholic and Apostolic Church." For "men could
not separate in fact what was indissoluble in thought:
Christianity must stand or fall along with the great Christian
state: they were but two names for one and the same thing"
(Bryce). Therefore the head of the Church, boldly enlarging
the assumption of his predecessor who bestowed the crown of
the Merovingians upon Pippin, now took it upon himself to set
the diadem of the Cæsars on the head of Charlemagne. On the
Christmas Day, in the year 800, in the basilica of St. Peter,
at Rome, the solemn act of coronation was performed by Pope
Leo III.; the Roman Empire lived again, in the estimation of
that age, and Charles the Great reopened the interrupted line
of successors to Augustus.
{1018}
Before this imperial coronation of Charlemagne occurred, he
had already made his dominion imperial in extent, by the
magnitude of his conquests. North, south, east, and west, his
armies had been everywhere victorious. In eighteen campaigns
against the fierce and troublesome Saxons, he subdued those
stubborn pagans and forced them to submit to a Christian
baptism--with how much of immediate religious effect may be
easily surmised. But by opening a way for the more Christ-like
missionaries of the cross, who followed him, this missionary
of the battle-ax did, no doubt, a very real apostolic work. He
checked the ravages of the piratical Danes. He crushed the
Avars and took their country, which comprised parts of the
Austria and Hungary of the present day. He occupied Bavaria,
on the one hand, and Brittany on the other. He crossed the
Pyrenees to measure swords with the Saracens, and drove them
from the north of Spain, as far as the Ebro. His lordship in
Italy has been noticed already. He was unquestionably one of
the greatest monarchs of any age, and deserves the title
Magnus, affixed to his name, if that title ever has been
deserved by the kings who were flattered with it. There was
much more in his character than the mere aggressive energy
which subjugated so wide a realm. He was a man of
enlightenment far beyond his time; a man who strove after
order, in that disorderly age, and who felt oppressed by the
ignorance into which the world had sunk. He was a seeker after
learning, and the friend and patron of all in his day who
groped in the darkness and felt their way towards the light.
He organized his Empire with a sense of political system which
was new among the Teutonic masters of Western Europe (except
as shown by Theodoric in Italy); but there were not years
enough in his own life for the organism to mature, and his
sons brought back chaos again.
Appearance of the Northmen.
Before Charlemagne died (814) he saw the western coasts and
river valleys of his Empire harried by a fresh outpouring of
sea-rovers from the far North, and it is said that he had sad
forebodings of the affliction they would become to his people
thereafter. These new pirates of the North Sea, who took up,
after several centuries, the abandoned trade of their kinsmen,
the Saxons (now retired from their wild courses and
respectably settled on one side of the water, while subdued
and kept in order on the other), were of the bold and rugged
Scandinavian race, which inhabited the countries since known
as Denmark, Sweden and Norway. They are more or less confused
under the general name of Northmen, or Norsemen--men of the
North; but that term appears to have been applied more
especially to the freebooters from the Norwegian coast, as
distinguished from the "Danes" of the lesser peninsula. It is
convenient, in so general a sketch as this, to ignore the
distinction, and to speak of the Northmen as inclusive, for
that age, of the whole Scandinavian race.
Their visitations began to terrify the coasts of England,
France and Germany, and the lower valleys of the rivers which
they found it possible to ascend, some time in the later half
of the eighth century. It is probable that their appearance on
the sea at this time, and not before, was due to a revolution
which united Norway under a single king and a stronger
government, and which, by suppressing independence and
disorder among the petty chiefs, drove many of them to their
ships and sent them abroad, to lead a life of lawlessness more
agreeable to their tastes. It is also probable that the
northern countries had become populated beyond their
resources, as seemed to have happened before, when the Goths
swarmed out, and that the outlet by sea was necessarily and
deliberately opened. Whatever the cause, these Norse
adventurers, in fleets of long boats, issued with some
suddenness from their "vics," or fiords (whence the name
"viking"), and began an extraordinary career. For more than
half a century their raids had no object but plunder, and what
they took they carried home to enjoy. First to the Frisian
coast, then to the Rhine--the Seine--the Loire,--they came
again and again to pillage and destroy; crossing at the same
time to the shores of their nearest kinsmen--but heeding no
kinship in their savage and relentless forays along the
English coasts--and around to Ireland and the Scottish
islands, where their earliest lodgments were made.
The Danes in England.
About the middle of the ninth century they began to seize
tracts of land in England and to settle themselves there in
permanent homes. The Angles in the northern and eastern parts
and the Saxons in the southern part of England had weakened
themselves and one another by rivalry and war between their
divided kingdoms. There had been for three centuries an
unceasing struggle among them for supremacy. At the time of
the coming of the Danes (who were prominent in the English
invasion and gave their name to it), the West Saxon kings had
won a decided ascendancy. The Danes, by degrees, stripped them
of what they had gained. Northumberland, Mercia and East
Anglia were occupied in succession, and Wessex itself was
attacked. King Alfred, the great and admirable hero of early
English history, who came to the throne in 871, spent the
first eight years of his reign in a deadly struggle with the
invaders. He was obliged in the end to concede to them the
whole northeastern part of England, from the Thames to the
Tyne, which was known thereafter as "the Danelaw"; but they
became his vassals, and submitted to Christian baptism. A
century later, the Norse rovers resumed their attacks upon
England, and a cowardly English king, distrusting the now
settled and peaceful Danes, ordered an extensive massacre of
them (1002). The rage which this provoked in Denmark led to a
great invasion of the country. England was completely
conquered, and remained subject to the Danish kings until
1042, when its throne was recovered for a brief space of time
by the English line.
{1019}
The Normans in Normandy.
Meanwhile the Northmen had gained a much firmer and more
important footing in the territory of the Western
Franks--which had not yet acquired the name of France. The
Seine and its valley attracted them again and again, and after
repeated expeditions up the river, even to the city of Paris,
which they besieged several times, one of their chiefs, Rolf
or Rollo, got possession of Rouen and began a permanent
settlement in the country. The Frank King, Charles the Simple,
now made terms with Rollo and granted him a district at the
mouth of the Seine, (912), the latter acknowledging the
suzerainty or feudal superiority of Charles, and accepting at
the same time the doubly new character of a baptised Christian
and a Frankish Duke. The Northmen on the Seine were known
thenceforth as Normans, their dukedom as Normandy, and they
played a great part in European history during the next two
centuries.
The Northmen in the West.
The northern sea-rovers who had settled neither in Ireland,
England, nor Frankland, went farther afield into the West and
North and had wonderful adventures there. They took possession
of the Orkneys, the Shetlands, the Hebrides, and other islands
in those seas, including Man, and founded a powerful
island-kingdom, which they held for a long period. Thence they
passed on to Faroë and Iceland, and in Iceland, where they
lived peaceful and quiet lives of necessity, they founded an
interesting republic, and developed a very remarkable
civilization, adorned by a literature which the world is
learning more and more to admire. From Iceland, it was a
natural step to the discovery of Greenland, and from
Greenland, there is now little doubt that they sailed
southwards and saw and touched the continent of America, five
centuries before Columbus made his voyage.
The Northmen in the East.
While the Northmen of the ninth and tenth centuries were
exciting and disturbing all Western Europe by their naval
exploits, other adventurers from the Swedish side of the
Scandinavian country were sallying eastwards under different
names. Both as warriors and as merchants, they made their way
from the Baltic to the Black Sea and the Bosphorus, and bands
of them entered the service of the Eastern Emperor, at
Constantinople, where they received the name of Varangians,
from the oath by which they bound themselves. One of the
Swedish chiefs, Rurik by name, was chosen by certain tribes of
the country now called Russia, to be their prince. Rurik's
capital was Novgorod, where he formed the nucleus of a kingdom
which grew, through many vicissitudes, into the modern empire
of Russia. His successors transferred their capital to Kief,
and ultimately it was shifted again to Moscow, where the
Muscovite princes acquired the title, the power, and the great
dominion of the Czars of all the Russias.
The Slavonic Race.
The Russian sovereigns were thus of Swedish origin; but their
subjects were of another race. They belonged to a branch of
the great Aryan stock, called the Slavic or Slavonic, which
was the last to become historically known. The Slavonians bore
no important part in events that we have knowledge of until
several centuries of the Christian era had passed. They were
the obscure inhabitants in that period of a wide region in
Eastern Europe, between the Vistula and the Caspian. In the
sixth century, pressed by the Avars, they crossed the Vistula,
moving westwards, along the Baltic; and, about the same time
they moved southwards, across the Danube, and established the
settlements which formed the existing Slavonic states in
South-eastern Europe--Servia, Croatia and their lesser
neighbors. But the principal seat of the Slavonic race within
historic times has always been in the region still occupied by
its principal representatives, the Russians and the Poles.
Mediæval Society.--The Feudal System.
We have now come to a period in European history--the middle
period of the Middle Ages--when it is appropriate to consider
the peculiar state of society which had resulted from the
transplanting of the Germanic nations of the North to the
provinces of the Roman Empire, and from placing the well
civilized surviving inhabitants of the latter in subjection to
and in association with masters so vigorous, so capable and so
barbarous. In Gaul, the conquerors, unused to town-life, not
attracted to town pursuits, and eager for the possession of
land, had generally spread themselves over the country and
left the cities more undisturbed, except as they pillaged them
or extorted ransom from them. The Roman-Gallic population of
the country had sought refuge, no doubt, to a large extent, in
the cities; the agricultural laborers were already, for the
most part, slaves or half-slaves--the coloni of the Roman
system--and remained in their servitude; while some of the
poorer class of freemen may have sunk to the same condition.
How far the new masters of the country had taken possession of
its land by actual seizure, ousting the former owners, and
under what rules, if any, it was divided among them, are
questions involved in great obscurity. In the time of
Charlemagne, there seems to have been a large number of small
landowners who cultivated their own holdings, which they
owned, not conditionally, but absolutely, by the tenure called
allodial. But alongside of these peasant proprietors there was
another landed class whose estates were held on very different
terms, and this latter class, at the time now spoken of, was
rapidly absorbing the former. It was a class which had not
existed before, neither among the Germans nor among the
Romans, and the system of land tenure on which it rested was
equally new to both, although both seem to have contributed
something to the origin of it. This was the Feudal System,
which may be described, in the words of Bishop Stubbs, as
being "a complete organization of society through the medium
of land tenure, in which, from the king down to the landowner,
all are bound together by obligation of service and defence:
the lord to protect his vassal, the vassal to do service to
his lord; the defence and service being based on, and
regulated by, the nature and extent of the land held by the
one of the other." Of course, the service exacted was, in the
main, military, and the system grew up as a military system,
expanding into a general governing system, during a time of
loose and ineffective administration. That it was a thing of
gradual growth is now fairly well settled, although little is
clearly known of the process of growth. It came to its
perfection in the tenth century, by which time most other
tenures of land had disappeared. The allodial tenure gave way
before it, because, in those disorderly times, men of small or
moderate property in land were in need of the protection which
a powerful lord, who had many retainers at his back, or a strong
monastery, could give, and were induced to surrender, to one
or the other, their free ownership of the land they held,
receiving it back as tenants, in order to establish the
relation which secured a protector.
{1020}
In its final organization, the feudal system, as stated
before, embraced the whole society of the kingdom.
Theoretically, the king was the pinnacle of the system. In the
political view of the time--so far as a political view
existed--he was the over-lord of the realm rather by reason of
being its ultimate land-lord, than by being the center of
authority and the guardian of law. The greater subordinate
lordships of the kingdom--the dukedoms and counties--were
held as huge estates, called fiefs, derived originally by
grant from the king, subject to the obligation of military
service, and to certain acts of homage, acknowledging the
dependent relationship. The greater feudatories, or vassals,
holding immediately from the king, were lords in their turn of
a second order of feudatories, who held lands under them; and
they again might divide their territories among vassals of a
third degree; for the process of sub-infeudation went on until
it reached the cultivator of the soil, who bore the whole
social structure of society on his bent back.
But the feudal system would have wrought few of the effects
which it did if it had involved nothing but land tenure and
military service. It became, however, as before intimated, a
system of government, and one which inevitably produced a
disintegration of society and a destruction of national bonds.
A grant of territory generally carried with it almost a grant
of sovereignty over the inhabitants of the territory, limited
only by certain rights and powers reserved to the king, which
he found extreme difficulty in exercising. The system was one
"in which every lord judged, taxed, and commanded the class
next below him, in which abject slavery formed the lowest and
irresponsible tyranny the highest grade, in which private war,
private coinage, private prisons, took the place of the
imperial institutions of government" (Stubbs). This was the
singular system which had its original and special growth
among the Franks, in the Middle Ages, and which spread from
them, under the generally similar conditions of the age, to
other countries, with various degrees of modification and
limitation. Its influence was obviously opposed to political
unity and social order, and to the development of institutions
favorable to the people.
But an opposing influence had kept life in one part of society
which feudalism was not able to envelope. That was in cities.
The cities, as before stated, had been the refuge of a large
and perhaps a better part of the Roman-Gallic free population
which survived the barbarian conquest. They, in conjunction
with the Church, preserved, without doubt, so much of the
plant of Roman civilization as escaped destruction. They
certainly suffered heavily, and languished for several
centuries; but a slow revival of industries and arts went on
in them,--trade crept again into its old channels, or found
new ones,--and wealth began to be accumulated anew. With the
consciousness of wealth came feelings of independence; and
such towns were now beginning to acquire the spirit which made
them, a little later, important instruments in the weakening
and breaking of the feudal system.
Rise of the Kingdom of France.
During the period between the death of Charlemagne and the
settlement of the Normans in the Carlovingian Empire, that
Empire had become permanently divided. The final separation
had taken place (887) between the kingdom of the East Franks,
or Germany, and the kingdom of the West Franks, which
presently became France. Between them stretched a region in
dispute called Lotharingia, out of which came the duchy of
Lorraine. The kingdom of Burgundy (sometimes cut into two) and
the kingdom of Italy, had regained a separate existence; and
the Empire which Charlemagne had revived was nothing but a
name. The last of the Carlovingian emperors was Arnulf, who
died in 899. The imperial title was borne afterwards by a
number of petty Italian potentates, but lost all imperial
significance for two-thirds of a century, until it was
restored to some grandeur again and to a lasting influence in
history, by another German king.
Before this occurred, the Carlovingian race of kings had
disappeared from both the Frank kingdoms. During the last
hundred years of their reign in the West kingdom, the throne
had been disputed with them two or three times by members of a
rising family, the Counts of Paris and Orleans, who were also
called Dukes of the French, and whose duchy gave its name to
the kingdom which they finally made their own. The kings of
the old race held their capital at Laon, with little power and
a small dominion, until 987, when the last one died. The then
Count of Paris and Duke of the French, Hugh, called Capet,
became king of the French, by election; Paris became the
capital of the kingdom, and the France of modern times had its
birth, though very far from its full growth.
The royal power had now declined to extreme weakness. The
development of feudalism had undermined all central authority,
and Hugh Capet as king had scarcely more power than he drew
from his own large fief. "At first he was by no means
acknowledged in the kingdom; but ... the chief vassals
ultimately gave at least a tacit consent to the usurpation,
and permitted the royal name to descend undisputed upon his
posterity. But this was almost the sole attribute of
sovereignty which the first kings of the third dynasty
enjoyed. For a long period before and after the accession of
that family France has, properly speaking, no national
history" (Hallam).
The Communes.
When the royal power began to gain ascendancy, it seems to
have been largely in consequence of a tacitly formed alliance
between the kings and the commons or burghers of the towns.
The latter, as noted before, were acquiring a spirit of
independence, born of increased prosperity, and were
converting their guilds or trades unions into crude forms of
municipal organization, as "communes" or commons. Sometimes by
purchase and sometimes by force, they were ridding themselves
of the feudal pretensions which neighboring lords held over
them, and were obtaining charters which defined and guaranteed
municipal freedom to them. One or two kings of the time
happened to be wise enough to give encouragement to this
movement towards the enfranchisement of the communes, and it
proved to have an important influence in weakening feudalism
and strengthening royalty.
{1021}
Germany.
In the German kingdom, much the same processes of
disintegration had produced much the same results as in
France. The great fiefs into which it was divided--the duchies
of Saxony, Franconia, Swabia and Bavaria--were even more
powerful than the great fiefs of France. When the Carlovingian
dynasty came to an end, in 911, the nobles made choice of a
king, electing Conrad of Franconia, and, after him (919),
Henry the Fowler, Duke of Saxony. The monarchy continued
thereafter to be elective, actually as well as in theory, for
a long period. Three times the crown was kept in the same
family during several successive generations: in the House of
Saxony from 919 to 1024; in the House of Franconia from 1024
to 1137; in the House of the Hohenstaufens, of Swabia, from
1137 to 1254: but it never became an acknowledged heritage
until long after the Hapsburgs won possession of it; and even
to the end the forms of election were preserved.
The Holy Roman Empire.
The second king of the Saxon dynasty, Otho I., called the
Great, recovered the imperial title, which had become extinct
again in the West, added the crown of Lombardy to the crown of
Germany, and founded anew the Germanic Roman Empire, which
Charlemagne had failed to establish enduringly, but which now
became one of the conspicuous facts of European history for
more than eight hundred years, although seldom more than a
shadow and a name. But the shadow and the name were those of
the great Rome of antiquity, and the mighty memory it had left
in the world gave a superior dignity and rank to these German
emperors, even while it diminished their actual power as kings
of Germany. It conferred upon them, indeed, more than rank and
dignity; it bestowed an "office" which the ideas and feelings
of that age could not suffer to remain vacant. The Imperial
office seemed to be required, in matters temporal, to balance
and to be the complement of the Papal office in matters
spiritual. "In nature and compass the government of these two
potentates is the same, differing only in the sphere of its
working; and it matters not whether we call the Pope a
spiritual Emperor, or the Emperor a secular Pope." "Thus the
Holy Roman Church and the Holy Roman Empire are one and the
same thing, in two aspects; and Catholicism, the principle of
the universal Christian society, is also Romanism; that is,
rests upon Rome as the origin and type of its universality"
(Bryce). These mediæval ideas of the "Holy Roman Empire," as
it came to be called (not immediately, but after a time), gave
importance to the imperial coronation thenceforth claimed by
the German kings. It was a factitious importance, so far as
concerned the immediate realm of those kings. In Germany,
while it brought no increase to their material power, it
tended to alarm feudal jealousies; it tended to draw the kings
away from their natural identification with their own country; it
tended to distract them from an effective royal policy at
home, by foreign ambitions and aims; and altogether it
interfered seriously with the nationalization of Germany, and
gave a longer play to the disrupting influences of feudalism
in that country than in any other.
Italy, the Empire and the Papacy.
Otto I. had won Italy and the Imperial crown (962) very
easily. For more than half a century the peninsula had been in
a deplorable state. The elective Lombard crown, quarreled over
by the ducal houses of Friuli, Spoleto, Ivrea, Provence, and
others, settled nowhere with any sureness, and lost all
dignity and strength, though several of the petty kings who
wore it had been crowned emperors by the Pope. At Rome, all
legitimate government, civil or ecclesiastical, had
disappeared. The city and the Church had been for years under
the rule of a family of courtesans, who made popes of their
lovers and their sons. Southern Italy was being ravaged by the
Saracens, who occupied Sicily, and Northern Italy was
desolated by the Hungarians. Under these circumstances, Otto
I., the German king, listened to an appeal from an oppressed
queen, Adelaide, widow of a murdered king, and crossed, the
Alps (951), like a gallant knight, to her relief. He chastised
and humbled the oppressor, rescued the queen, and married her. A
few years later, on further provocation, he entered Italy
again, deposed the troublesome King Berengar, caused himself
to be crowned King of Italy, and received the imperial crown
at Rome (962) from one of the vilest of a vile brood of popes,
John XII. Soon afterwards, he was impelled to convoke a synod
which deposed this disgraceful pope and elected in his place
Leo VIII., who had been Otto's chief secretary. The citizens
now conceded to the Emperor an absolute veto on papal
elections, and the new pope confirmed their act. The German
sovereigns, from that time, for many years, asserted their
right to control the filling of the chair of St. Peter, and
exercised the right on many occasions, though always with
difficulty.
Nominally they were sovereigns of Rome and Italy; but during
their long absences from the country they scarcely made a show
of administrative government in it, and their visits were
generally of the nature of expeditions for a reconquest of the
land. Their claims of sovereignty were resisted more and more,
politically throughout Italy and ecclesiastically at Rome. The
Papacy emancipated itself from their control and acquired a
natural leadership of Italian opposition to German imperial
pretensions. The conflict between these two forces became, as
will be seen later on, one of the dominating facts of European
history for four centuries--from the eleventh to the
fourteenth.
{1022}
The Italian City-republics.
The disorder that had been scarcely checked in Italy since the
Goths came into it,--the practical extinction of central
authority after Charlemagne dropped his sceptre, and the
increasing conflicts of the nobles among themselves,--had one
consequence of remarkable importance in Italian history. It
opened opportunities to many cities in the northern parts of
the peninsula for acquiring municipal freedom, which they did
not lack spirit to improve. They led the movement and set the
example which created, a little later, so many vigorous
communes in Flanders and France, and imperial free cities in
Germany at a still later day. They were earlier in winning
their liberties, and they pushed them farther,--to the point
in many cases of creating, as at Pisa, Genoa, Florence, and
Venice, a republican city state. Venice, growing up in the
security of her lagoons, from a cluster of fishing villages to
a great city of palaces, had been independent from the
beginning, except as she acknowledged for a time the nominal
supremacy of the Eastern Emperor. Others won their way to
independence through struggles that are now obscure, and
developed, before these dark centuries reached their close, an
energy of life and a splendor of genius that come near to
comparison with the power and the genius of the Greeks. But,
like the city-republics of Greece, they were perpetually at
strife with one another, and sacrificed to their mutual
jealousies, in the end, the precious liberty which made them
great, and which they might, by a well settled union, have
preserved.
The Saxon line of Emperors.
Such were the conditions existing or taking shape in Italy
when the Empire of the West--the Holy Roman Empire of later
times--was founded anew by Otho the Great. Territorially, the
Empire as he left it covered Germany to its full extent, and
two-thirds of Italy, with the Emperor's superiority
acknowledged by the subject states of Burgundy, Bohemia,
Moravia, Poland, Denmark, and Hungary--the last named with
more dispute.
Otho the Great died in 972. His two immediate successors, Otho
II. (973-983) and Otho III. (983-1002) accomplished little,
though the latter had great ambitions, planning to raise Rome
to her old place as the capital of the world; but he died in
his youth in Italy, and was succeeded by a cousin, Henry II.,
whose election was contested by rivals in Germany, and
repudiated in Italy. In the latter country the great nobles
placed Ardoin, marquis of Ivrea, on the Lombard throne; but
the factions among them soon caused his overthrow, and, Henry,
crossing the Alps, reclaimed the crown.
The Franconian Emperors.
Henry II. was the last of the Saxon line, and upon his death,
in 1024, the House of Franconia came to the throne, by the
election of Conrad II., called "the Salic." Under Conrad, the
kingdom of Burgundy, afterwards called the kingdom of Arles
(which is to be distinguished from the French Duchy of
Burgundy--the northwestern part of the old kingdom), was
reunited to the Empire, by the bequest of its last king,
Rudolph III. Conrad's son, grandson, and great grandson
succeeded him in due order; Henry III. from 1039 to 1056;
Henry IV. from 1056 to 1106; Henry V. from 1106 to 1125. Under
Henry III. the Empire was at the summit of its power. Henry
II., exercising the imperial prerogative, had raised the Duke
of Hungary to royal rank, giving him the title of king. Henry
III. now forced the Hungarian king to acknowledge the imperial
supremacy and pay tribute. The German kingdom was ruled with a
strong hand and peace among its members compelled. "In Rome,
no German sovereign had ever been so absolute. A disgraceful
contest between three claimants of the papal chair had shocked
even the reckless apathy of Italy. Henry deposed them all and
appointed their successor." "The synod passed a decree
granting to Henry the right of nominating the supreme pontiff;
and the Roman priesthood, who had forfeited the respect of the
world even more by habitual simony than by the flagrant
corruption of their manners, were forced to receive German
after German as their bishop, at the bidding of a ruler so
powerful, so severe, and so pious. But Henry's encroachments
alarmed his own nobles no less than the Italians, and the
reaction, which might have been dangerous to himself, was
fatal to his successor. A mere chance, as some might call it,
determined the course of history. The great Emperor died
suddenly in A. D. 1056, and a child was left at the helm,
while storms were gathering that might have demanded the
wisest hand" (Bryce).
Hildebrand and Henry IV.
The child was Henry IV., of unfortunate memory; the storms
which beset him blew from Rome. The Papacy, lifted from its
degradation by Henry's father and grandfather, had recovered
its boldness of tone and enlarged its pretensions and claims.
It had come under the influence of an extraordinary man, the
monk Hildebrand, who swayed the councils of four popes before
he became pope himself (1073), and whose pontifical reign as
Gregory VII. is the epoch of greatest importance in the
history of the Roman Church. The overmastering ascendancy of
the popes, in the Church and over all who acknowledge its
communion, really began when this invincible monk was raised
to the papal throne. He broke the priesthood and the whole
hierarchy of the West to blind obedience by his relentless
discipline. He isolated them, as an order apart, by enforcing
celibacy upon them; and he extinguished the corrupting
practices of simony. Then, when he had marshalled the forces
of the Church, he proclaimed its independence and its
supremacy in absolute terms. In the growth of feudalism
throughout Europe, the Church had become compromised in many
ways with the civil powers. Its bishoprics and abbeys had
acquired extensively the nature of fiefs, and bishops and
abbots were required to do homage to a secular lord before
they could receive an "investiture" of the rich estates which
had become attached by a feudal tenure to their sees. The
ceremony of investiture, moreover, included delivery of the
crozier and the pastoral ring, which were the very symbols of
their spiritual office. Against this dependence of the Church
upon temporal powers, Gregory now arrayed it in revolt, and
began the "War of Investitures," which lasted for half a
century. The great battle ground was Germany; the Emperor, of
necessity, was the chief opponent; and Henry IV., whose youth
had been badly trained, and whose authority had been weakened
by a long, ill-guardianed minority, was at a disadvantage in
the contest. His humiliation at Canossa (1077), when he stood
through three winter days, a suppliant before the door of the
castle which lodged his haughty enemy, praying to be released
from the dread penalties of excommunication, is one of the
familiar tableaux of history. He had a poor revenge seven
years later, when he took Rome, drove Gregory into the castle
St. Angelo, and seated an anti-pope in the Vatican. But his
triumph was brief. There came to the rescue of the
beleaguered Pope certain new actors in Italian history, whom
it is now necessary to introduce.
{1023}
The Normans in Italy and Sicily.
The settlement of predatory Northmen on the Seine, which took
the name of Normandy and the constitution of a ducal fief of
France, had long since grown into an important
half-independent state. Its people--now called Normans in the
smoother speech of the South--had lost something of their
early rudeness, and had fallen a little under the spell of the
rising chivalry of the age; but the goad of a warlike temper
which drove their fathers out of Norway still pricked the sons
and sent them abroad, in restless search of adventures and
gain. Some found their way into the south of Italy, where
Greeks, Lombards and Saracens were fighting merrily, and where
a good sword and a tough lance were tools of the only industry
well-paid. Presently there was banded among them there a
little army, which found itself a match for any force that
Greek or Lombard, or other opponent, could bring against it,
and which proceeded accordingly to work its own will in the
land. It seized Apulia (1042) and divided it into twelve
countships, as an aristocratic republic. Pope Leo IX. led an
army against it and was beaten and taken prisoner (1053). To
release himself he was compelled to grant the duchy they had
taken to them, as a fief of the Church, and to extend his
grant to whatever they might succeed in taking, beyond it. The
chiefs of the Normans thus far had been, in succession, three
sons of a poor gentleman in the Cotentin, Tancred by name, who
now sent a fourth son to the scene. This new comer was Robert,
having the surname of Guiscard, who became the fourth leader
of the Norman troop (1057), and who, in a few years, assumed
the title of Duke of Calabria and Apulia. His duchies
comprised, substantially, the territory of the later kingdom
of Naples. A fifth brother, Roger, had meantime crossed to
Sicily, with a small following of his countrymen; and, between
1060 and 1090, had expelled the Saracens from that island, and
possessed it as a fief of his brother's duchy. But in the next
generation these relations between the two conquests were
practically reversed. The son of Roger received the title of
King of Sicily from the Pope, and Calabria and Apulia were
annexed to his kingdom, through the extinction of Robert's
family.
These Normans of Southern Italy were the allies who came to
the rescue of Pope Gregory, when the Emperor, Henry IV.,
besieged him in Castle St. Angelo. He summoned Robert Guiscard
as a vassal of the Church, and the response was prompt. Henry
and his Germans retreated when the Normans came near, and the
latter entered Rome (1084). Accustomed to pillage, they began,
soon, to treat the city as a captured place, and the Romans
rose against them. They retaliated with torch and sword, and
once more Rome suffered from the destroying rage of a
barbarous soldiery let loose. "Neither Goth nor Vandal,
neither Greek nor German, brought such desolation on the city
as this capture by the Normans" (Milman). Duke Robert made no
attempt to hold the ruined capital, but withdrew to his own
dominions. The Pope went with him, and died soon afterwards
(1085), unable to return to Rome. But the imperious temper he
had imparted to the Church was lastingly fixed in it, and his
lofty pretensions were even surpassed by the pontiffs who
succeeded him. He spoke for the Papacy the first syllables of
that awful proclamation that was sounded in its finality,
after eight hundred years, when the dogma of infallibility was
put forth.
Norman Conquest of England.
The Normans in Italy established no durable power. In another
quarter they were more fortunate. Their kinsmen, the Danes,
who subjugated England and annexed it to their own kingdom in
1016, had lost it again in 1042, when the old line of kings
was restored, in the person of Edward, called the Confessor.
But William, Duke of Normandy, had acquired, in the course of
these shiftings of the English crown, certain claims which he
put forth when Edward died, and when Harold, son of the great
Earl Godwine, was elected king to succeed him, in 1066. To
enforce his claim, Duke William, commissioned by the Pope,
invaded England, in the early autumn of that year, and won the
kingdom in the great and decisive battle of Senlac, or
Hastings, where Harold was slain. On Christmas Day he was
crowned, and a few years sufficed to end all resistance to his
authority. He established on the English throne a dynasty
which, though shifting sometimes to collateral lines, has held
it to the present day.
The Norman Conquest, as estimated by its greatest historian,
Professor Freeman, wrought more good effects than ill to the
English people. It did not sweep away their laws, customs or
language, but it modified them all, and not unfavorably; while
"it aroused the old national spirit to fresh life, and gave
the conquered people fellow-workers in their conquerors." The
monarchy was strengthened by William's advantages as a
conqueror, used with the wisdom and moderation of a statesman.
Feudalism came into England stripped of its disrupting forces;
and the possible alternative of absolutism was hindered by
potent checks. At the same time, the Conquest brought England
into relations with the Continent which might otherwise have
arisen very slowly, and thus gave an early importance to the
nation in European history.
The Crusades.
At the period now reached in our survey, all Europe was on the
eve of a profounder excitement and commotion than it had ever
before known--one which stirred it for the first time with a
common feeling and with common thoughts. A great cry ran
through it, for help to deliver the holy places of the
Christian faith from the infidels who possessed them. The
pious and the adventurous, the fanatical and the vagrant, rose
up in one motley and tumultuous response to the appeal, and
mobs and armies (hardly distinguishable) of Crusaders--
warriors of the Cross--began to whiten the highways into Asia
with their bones. The first movement, in 1096, swept 300,000
men, women and children, under Peter the Hermit, to their
death, with no other result; but nearly at the same time there
went an army, French and Norman for the most part, which made its
way to Jerusalem, took the city by assault (1099) and founded
a kingdom there, which defended itself for almost a hundred
years. Long before it fell, it was pressed sorely by the
surrounding Moslems and cried to Europe for help.
{1024}
A Second Crusade, in 1147, accomplished nothing for its
relief, but spent vast multitudes of lives; and when the
feeble kingdom disappeared, in 1187, and the Sepulchre of the
Saviour was defiled again by unbelievers, Christendom grew
wild, once more, with passion, and a Third Crusade was led by
the redoubtable Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, of Germany, King
Richard Cœur de Lion, of England, and King Philip Augustus of
France. The Emperor perished miserably on the way and his army
was wasted in its march; the French and English exhausted
themselves in sieges which won nothing of durable advantage to
the Christian world; the Sultan Saladin gathered most of the
laurels of the war.
The Turks on the Scene.
The armies of Islam which the Crusaders encountered in Asia
Minor and the Holy Land were no longer, in their leadership,
of the race of Mahomet. The religion of the Prophet was still
triumphant in the East, but his nation had lost its lordship,
and Western Asia had submitted to new masters. These were the
Turks--Turks of the House of Seljuk--first comers of their
swarm from the great Aral basin. First they had been
disciples, won by the early armed missionaries of the
Crescent; then servants and mercenaries, hired to fight its
battles and guard its princes, when the vigor of the Arab
conquerors began to be sapped, and their character to be
corrupted by luxury and pride; then, at last, they were
masters. About the middle of the ninth century, the Caliph at
Bagdad became a puppet in their hands, and the Moslem Empire
in Asia (Africa and Spain being divided between rival Caliphs)
soon passed under their control.
These were the possessors of Jerusalem and its sacred shrines,
whose grievous and insulting treatment of Christian pilgrims,
in the last years of the eleventh century, had stirred Europe
to wrath and provoked the great movement of the Crusades. The
movement had important consequences, both immediate and
remote; but its first effects were small in moment compared
with those which lagged after. To understand either, it will
be necessary to glance back at the later course of events in
the Eastern or Byzantine Empire.
The Byzantine Empire.
The fortunes of the Empire, since it gave up Syria and Egypt
to the Saracens, had been, on the whole, less unhappy than the
dark prospect at that time. It had checked the onrush of Arabs
at the Taurus mountain range, and retained Asia Minor; it had
held Constantinople against them through two terrible sieges;
it had fought for three centuries, and finally subdued, a new
Turanian enemy, the Bulgarians, who had established a kingdom
south of the Danube, where their name remains to the present
day. The history of its court, during much of the period, had
been a black and disgusting record of conspiracies,
treacheries, murders, mutilations, usurpations and foul vices
of every description; with now and then a manly figure
climbing to the throne and doing heroic things, for the most
part uselessly; but the system of governmental administration
seems to have been so well constructed that it worked with a
certain independence of its vile or imbecile heads, and the
country was probably better and better governed than its
court.
At Constantinople, notwithstanding frequent tumults and
revolutions, there had been material prosperity and a great
gathering of wealth. The Saracen conquests, by closing other
avenues of trade between the East and the West, had
concentrated that most profitable commerce in the Byzantine
capital. The rising commercial cities of Italy--Amalphi,
Venice, Genoa, Pisa--seated their enterprises there. Art and
literature, which had decayed, began then to revive, and
Byzantine culture, on its surface, took more of superiority to
that of Teutonic Europe.
The conquests of the Seljuk Turks gave a serious check to this
improvement of the circumstances of the Empire. Momentarily,
by dividing the Moslem power in Asia, they had opened an
opportunity to an energetic Emperor, Nicephorus Phocas, to
recover northern Syria and Cilicia (961-969). But when, in the
next century, they had won a complete mastery of the dominions
of the Caliphate of Bagdad, they speedily swept back the
Byzantines, and overran and occupied the most of Asia Minor
and Armenia. A decisive victory at Manzikert, in 1071, when
the emperor of the moment was taken prisoner and his army
annihilated, gave them well nigh the whole territory to the
Hellespont. The Empire was nearly reduced to its European
domain, and suffered ten years of civil war between rivals for
the throne.
At the end of that time it acquired a ruler, in the person of
Alexius Comnenus, who is the generally best known of all the
Byzantine line, because he figures notably in the stories of
the First Crusade. He was a man of crafty abilities and
complete unscrupulousness. He took the Empire at its lowest
state of abasement and demoralization. In the first year of
his reign he had to face a new enemy. Robert Guiscard, the
Norman, who had conquered a dukedom in Southern Italy, thought
the situation favorable for an attack on the Eastern Empire,
and for winning the imperial crown. Twice he invaded the Greek
peninsula (1081-1084) and defeated the forces brought against
him by Alexius; but troubles in Italy recalled him on the
first occasion, and his death brought the second expedition to
naught.
Such was the situation of the Byzantines when the waves of the
First Crusade, rolling Asia-ward, surged up to the gates of
Constantinople. It was a visitation that might well appall
them,--these hosts of knights and vagabonds, fanatics and
freebooters, who claimed and proffered help in a common
Christian war with the infidels, and who, nevertheless, had no
Christian communion with them--schismatics as they were,
outside the fold of the Roman shepherd. There is not a doubt
that they feared the crusading Franks more than they feared
the Turks. They knew them less, and the little hearsay
knowledge they had was of a lawless, barbarous, fighting
feudalism in the countries of the West,--more rough and
uncouth, at least, than their own defter methods of murdering
and mutilating one another. They received their dangerous
visitors with nervousness and suspicion; but Alexius Comnenus
proved equal to the delicate position in which he found
himself placed. He burdened his soul with lies and perfidies;
but he managed affairs so wonderfully that the Empire plucked
the best fruits of the first Crusades, by recovering a great
part of Asia Minor, with all the coasts of the Euxine and the
Ægean, from the weakened Turks. The latter were so far shaken
and depressed by the hard blows of the Crusaders that they
troubled the Byzantines very little in the century to come.
{1025}
But against this immediate gain to the Eastern Empire from the
early Crusades, there were serious later offsets. The commerce
of Constantinople declined rapidly, as soon as the Moslem
blockade of the Syrian coast line was broken. It lost its
monopoly. Trade ran back again into other reopened channels.
The Venetians and Genoese became more independent. Formerly,
they had received privileges in the Empire as a gracious
concession. Now they dictated the terms of their commercial
treaties and their naval alliances. Their rivalries with one
another involved the Empire in quarrels with both, and a state
of things was brought about which had much to do with the
catastrophe of 1204, when the fourth Crusade was diverted to
the conquest of Constantinople, and a Latin Empire supplanted
the Empire of the Roman-Greeks.
Effects of the Crusades.
Briefly noted, these were the consequences of the early
Crusades in the East. In western Europe they had slower, but
deeper and more lasting effects. They weakened feudalism, by
sending abroad so many of the feudal lords, and by
impoverishing so many more; whereby the towns gained more
opportunity for enfranchisement, and the crown, in France
particularly, acquired more power. They checked smaller wars
and private quarrels for a time, and gave in many countries
unwonted seasons of peace, during which the thoughts and
feelings of men were acted on by more civilizing influences.
They brought men into fellowship who were only accustomed to
fight one another, and thus softened their provincial and
national antipathies. They expanded the knowledge--the
experience--the ideas--of the whole body of those who visited
the East and who survived the adventurous expedition; made
them acquainted with civilizations at least more polished than
their own; taught them many things which they could only learn in
those days by actual sight, and sent them back to their homes
throughout Europe, to be instructors and missionaries, who did
much to prepare Western Christendom for the Renaissance or new
birth of a later time. The twelfth century--the century of the
great Crusades--saw the gray day-break in Europe after the
long night of darkness which settled down upon it in the
fifth. In the thirteenth it reached the brightening dawn, and
in the fifteenth it stood in the full morning of the modern
day. Among all the movements by which it was pushed out of
darkness into light, that of the Crusades would appear to have
been the most important; important in itself, as a social and
political movement of great change, and important in the seeds
that it scattered for a future harvest of effects.
In both the Byzantine and Arabian civilizations of the East
there was much for western Europe to learn. Perhaps there was
more in the last named than in the first; for the Arabs, when
they came out from behind their deserts, and exchanged the
nomadic life for the life of cities, had shown an amazing
avidity for the lingering science of old Greece, which they
encountered in Egypt and Syria. They had preserved far more of
it, and more of the old fineness of feeling that went with it,
than had survived in Greece itself, or in any part of the
Teutonized empire of Rome. The Crusaders got glimpses of its
influence, at least, and a curiosity was wakened, which sent
students into Moorish Spain, and opened scholarly interchanges
which greatly advanced learning in Europe.
Rising Power of the Church.
Not the least important effect of the Crusades was the
atmosphere of religion which they caused to envelope the great
affairs of the time, and which they made common in politics
and society. The influence of the Church was increased by
this; and its organization was powerfully strengthened by the
great monastic revival that followed presently: the rise of
purer and more strictly disciplined orders of the "regular"
(that is the secluded or monastic) clergy--Cistercians,
Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, etc.; as well as the
creation of the great military-religious orders--Knights
Templars, Knights of the Hospital of St. John, Teutonic
Knights, and others, which were immediately connected with the
Crusades.
To say that the Church gained influence is to say that the
clergy gained it, and that the chief of the clergy, the Pope,
concentrated the gain in himself. The whole clerical body was
making encroachments in every field of politics upon the
domain of the civil authority, using shrewdly the advantages
of superior learning, and busying itself more and more in
temporal affairs. The popes after Gregory VII. maintained his
high pretensions and pursued his audacious course. In most
countries they encountered resistance from the Crown; but the
brunt of the conflict still fell upon the emperors, who, in
some respects, were the most poorly armed for it.
Guelfs and Ghibellines.
Henry IV., who outlived his struggle with Gregory, was beaten
down at last--dethroned by a graceless son, excommunicated by
a relentless Church and denied burial when he died (1106) by
its clergy. The rebellious son, Henry V., in his turn fought
the same battle over for ten years, and forced a compromise
which saved about half the rights of investiture that his
father had claimed. His death (1125) ended the Franconian
line, and the imperial crown returned for a few years to the
House of Saxony, by the election of the Duke Lothaire. But the
estates of the Franconian family had passed, by his mother, to
Frederick of Hohenstaufen, duke of Swabia; and now a bitter
feud arose between the House of Saxony and the House of
Hohenstaufen or Swabia,--a feud that was the most memorable
and, the longest lasting in history, if measured by the
duration of party strifes which began in it and which took
their names from it. For the raging factions of Guelfs and
Ghibellines which divided Italy for two centuries had their
beginning in this Swabian-Saxon feud, among the Germans. The
Guelfs were the partisans of the House of Saxony; the
Ghibellines were the party of the Hohenstaufens. The
Hohenstaufens triumphed when Lothaire died (1138), and made
Conrad of their House Emperor. They held the crown, moreover,
in their family for four generations, extending through more
than a century; and so it happened that the German name of the
German party of the Hohenstaufens came to be identified in
Italy with the party or faction in that country which
supported imperial interests and claims in the free cities and
against the popes. Whereupon the opposed party name was
borrowed from Germany likewise and applied to the Italian
faction which took ground against the Emperors--although these
Italian Guelfs had no objects in common with the partisans of
Saxony.
{1026}
The Hohenstaufens in Italy.
The first Hohenstaufen emperor was succeeded (1152) by his
nephew Frederick I., called Barbarossa, because of his red
beard. The long reign of Frederick, until 1190, was mainly
filled with wars and contentions in Italy, where he pushed the
old quarrel of the Empire with the Papacy, and where,
furthermore, he resolutely undertook to check the growing
independence of the Lombard cities. Five times during his
reign he led a great army into the peninsula, like a hostile
invader, and his destroying marches through the country, of
which he claimed to be sovereign, were like those of the
barbarians who came out of the North seven centuries before.
The more powerful cities, like Milan, were undoubtedly
oppressing their weaker neighbors, and Barbarossa assumed to
be the champion of the latter. But he smote impartially the
weak and the strong, the village and the town, which provoked
his arrogant temper in the slightest degree. Milan escaped his
wrath on the first visitation, but went down before it when he
came again (1158), and was totally destroyed, the inhabitants
being scattered in other towns. Even the enemies of Milan were
moved to compassion by the savageness of this punishment, and
joined, a few years later, in rebuilding the prostrate walls
and founding Milan anew. A great "League of Lombardy" was
formed by all the northern towns, to defend their freedom
against the hated Emperor, and the party of the Ghibellines
was reduced for the time to a feeble minority. Meantime
Barbarossa had forced his way into Rome, stormed the very
Church of St. Peter, and seated an anti-pope on the throne.
But a sudden pestilence fell upon his army, and he fled before
it, out of Italy, almost alone. Yet he never relaxed his
determination to bend both the Papacy and the Lombard
republics to his will. After seven years he returned, for the
fifth time, and it proved to be the last. The League met him
at Legnano (1176) and administered to him an overwhelming
defeat. Even his obstinacy was then overcome, and after a
truce of six years he made peace with the League and the Pope,
on terms which conceded most of the liberties that the cities
claimed. It was in the reign of Frederick that the name "Holy
Roman Empire" began, it seems, to be used.
Frederick died while on a crusade and was succeeded (1190) by
his son, Henry VI., who had married the daughter and heiress
of the King of Sicily and who acquired that kingdom in her
right. His short reign was occupied mostly in subduing the
Sicilian possession. When he died (1197) his son Frederick was
a child. Frederick succeeded to the crown of Sicily, but his
rights in Germany (where his father had already caused him to
be crowned "King of the Romans"--the step preliminary to an
imperial election) were entirely ignored. The German crown was
disputed between a Swabian and a Saxon claimant, and the
Saxon, Otho, was King and Emperor in name, until 1218, when he
died. But he, too, quarreled with a pope, about the lands of
the Countess Matilda, which she gave to the Church; and his
quarrel was with Innocent III., a pope who realized the
autocracy which Hildebrand had looked forward to, and who
lifted the Papacy to the greatest height of power it ever
attained. To cast down Otho, Innocent took up the cause of
Frederick, who received the royal crown a second time, at
Aix-la-Chapelle (1215) and the imperial crown at Rome (1220).
Frederick II. (his designation) was one of the few men of
actual genius who have ever sprung from the sovereign families
of the world; a man so far in advance of his time that he
appears like a modern among his mediæval contemporaries. He
was superior to the superstitions of his age,--superior to its
bigotries and its provincialisms. His large sympathies and
cosmopolitan frame of mind were acted upon by all the new
impulses of the epoch of the crusades, and made him reflect,
in his brilliant character, as in a mirror, the civilizing
processes that were working on his generation.
Between such an emperor as Frederick II. and such popes as
Innocent III. and his immediate successors, there could not
fail to be collision and strife. The man who might, perhaps,
under other circumstances, have given some quicker movement to
the hands which measure human, progress on the dial of time,
spent his life in barely proving his ability to live and reign
under the anathemas and proscriptions of the Church. But he
fought a losing fight, even when he seemed to be winning
victories in northern Italy, over the Guelf cities of
Lombardy, and when the party of the Ghibellines appeared to be
ascendant throughout the peninsula. His death (1250) was the
end of the Hohenstaufens as an imperial family. His son,
Conrad, who survived him four years, was king of Sicily and
had been crowned king of Germany; but he never wore the crown
imperial. Conrad's illegitimate brother, Manfred, succeeded on
the Sicilian throne; but the implacable Papacy gave his
kingdom to Charles of Anjou, brother of King Louis IX. of
France, and invited a crusade for the conquest of it. Manfred
was slain in battle, Conrad's young son, Conradin, perished on
the scaffold, and the Hohenstaufens disappeared from history.
Their rights, or claims, in Sicily and Naples, passed to the
Spanish House of Aragon, by the marriage of Manfred's daughter
to the Aragonese king; whence long strife between the House of
Anjou and the House of Aragon, and a troubled history for the
Neapolitans and the Sicilians during some centuries. In the
end, Anjou kept Naples, while Aragon won Sicily; the kings in
both lines called themselves Kings of Sicily, and a subsequent
re-union of the two crowns created a very queerly named
"Kingdom of the Two Sicilies."
{1027}
Germany and the Empire.
After the death of Frederick II., the German kings, while
maintaining the imperial title, practically abandoned their
serious attempts to enforce an actual sovereignty in Italy.
The Holy Roman Empire, as a political factor comprehending
more than Germany, now ceased in reality to exist. The name
lived on, but only to represent a flattering fiction for
magnifying the rank and importance of the German kings. In
Italy, the conflict, as between Papacy and Empire, or between
Lombard republican cities and Empire, was at an end. No
further occasion existed for an imperial party, or an
anti-imperial party. The Guelf and Ghibelline names and
divisions had no more the little meaning that first belonged
to them. But Guelfs and Ghibellines raged against one another,
more furiously than before, and generations passed before
their feud died out.
While the long, profitless Italian conflict of the Emperors
went on, their kingship in Germany suffered sorely. As they
grasped at a shadowy imperial title, the substance of royal
authority slipped from them. Their frequent prolonged absence
in Italy gave opportunities for enlarged independence to the
German princes and feudal lords; their difficulties beyond the
Alps forced them to buy support from their vassals at home by
fatal concessions and grants; their neglect of German affairs
weakened the ties of loyalty, and provoked revolts. The result
might have been a dissolution of Germany so complete as to
give rise to two or three strong states, if another potent
influence had not worked injury in a different way. This came
from the custom of equalized inheritance which prevailed among
the Germans. The law of primogeniture, which already governed
hereditary transmissions of territorial sovereignty in many
countries, even where it did not give an undivided private
estate, as in England, to the eldest son of a family, got
footing in Germany very late and very slowly. At the time now
described, it was the quite common practice to divide
principalities between all the sons surviving a deceased duke
or margrave. It was this practice which gave rise to the
astonishing number of petty states into which Germany came to
be divided, and the forms of which are still intact. It was
this, in the main, which prevented the growth of any states to
a power that would absorb the rest. On the other hand, the
flimsy, half fictitious general constitution which the Empire
substituted for such an one as the Kingdom of Germany would
naturally have grown into, made an effective centralization of
sovereignty--easy as the conditions seemed to be prepared for
it--quite impossible.
Free Cities in Germany and their Leagues.
One happy consequence of this state of things was the
enfranchisement, either wholly or nearly so, of many thriving
cities. The growth of cities, as centers of industry and
commerce, and the development of municipal freedom among them,
was considerably later in Germany than in Italy, France and
the Netherlands; but the independence gained by some among
them was more entire than in the Low Countries or in France,
and more lasting than in Italy.
Most of the free cities of Germany were directly or
immediately subject to the Emperor, and wholly independent of
the princes whose territories surrounded them; whence they
were called "imperial cities." This relationship bound them to
the Empire by strong ties; they had less to fear from it than
from the nearer small potentates of their country; and it
probably drew a considerable part of such strength as it
possessed, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from their
support. Their own power was being augmented at this period by
the formation of extensive Leagues among them, for common
defense, and for the protection, regulation and extension of
their trade. In that age of lawless violence, there was so
little force in government, everywhere, and so entire a want
of co-operation between governments, that the operations of
trade were exposed to piracy, robbery, and black-mail, on
every sea and in every land. By the organization of their
Leagues, the energetic merchants of north-western Europe did
for themselves what their half-civilized governments failed to
do for them. They not only created effective agencies for the
protection of their trade, but they legislated, nationally and
internationally, for themselves, establishing codes and
regulations, negotiating commercial treaties, making war, and
exercising many functions and powers that seem strange to
modern times. The great Hansa, or Hanseatic League, which rose
to importance in the thirteenth century among the cities in
the north of Germany, was the most extensive, the longest
lasting and the most formidable of these confederations. It
controlled the trade between Germany, England, Russia, the
Scandinavian countries, and the Netherlands, and through the
latter it made exchanges with southern Europe and the East. It
waged successful war with Denmark, Sweden and Norway combined,
in defiance of the opposition of the Emperor and the Pope. But
the growth of its power engendered an arrogance which provoked
enmity in all countries, while the slow crystalizing of
nationalities in Europe, with national sentiments and
ambitions, worked in all directions against the commercial
monopoly of the Hansa towns. By the end of the fifteenth
century their league had begun to break up and its power to
decline. The lesser associations of similar character--such as
the Rhenish and the Swabian--had been shorter-lived.
The Great Interregnum.
These city-confederations represented in their time the only
movement of concentration that appeared in Germany. Every
other activity seemed tending toward dissolution. Headship
there was none for a quarter of a century after Frederick II.
died. The election of the Kings, who took rank and title as
Emperors when crowned by the Pope, had now become the
exclusive privilege of three prince-bishops and four temporal
princes, who acquired the title of Electors. Jealous of one
another, and of all the greater lords outside their electoral
college, it was against their policy to confer the scepter on
any man who seemed likely to wield it with a strong hand. For
twenty years--a period in German history known as the Great
Interregnum--they kept the throne practically vacant. Part of
the Electors were bribed to choose Richard, Earl of Cornwall,
brother of the English King Henry III., and the other part
gave their votes to Alfonso, King of Castile. Alfonso never
came to be crowned, either as King or Emperor; Richard was
crowned King, but exercised no power and lived mostly in his
own country. The Empire was virtually extinct; the Kingdom
hardly less so. Burgundy fell away from the imperial
jurisdiction even more than Italy did. Considerable parts of
it passed to France.
{1028}
Rise of the House of Austria.
At last, in 1273, the interregnum was ended by the election of
a German noble to be King of Germany. This was Rodolph, Count
of Hapsburg,--lord of a small domain and of little importance
from his own possessions, which explains, without doubt, his
selection. But Rodolph proved to be a vigorous king, and he
founded a family of such lasting stamina and such self-seeking
capability that it secured in time permanent possession of the
German crown, and acquired, outside of Germany, a great
dominion of its own. He began the aggrandizement of his House
by taking the fine duchy of Austria from the kingdom of
Bohemia and bestowing it upon his sons. He was energetic in
improving opportunities like this, and energetic, too, in
destroying the castles of robber-knights and hanging the
robbers on their own battlements; but of substantial authority
or power he had little enough. He never went to Rome for the
imperial crown; nor troubled himself much with Italian
affairs.
On Rodolph's death (1291), his son Albert of Austria was a
candidate for the crown. The Electors rejected him and ejected
another poor noble, Adolphus of Nassau; but Adolphus
displeased them after a few years, and they decreed his
deposition, electing Albert in his place. War followed and
Adolphus was killed. Albert's reign was one of vigor, but he
accomplished little of permanent effect. He planted one of his
sons on the throne of Bohemia, where the reigning family had
become extinct; but the new king died in a few months, much
hated, and the Bohemians resisted an Austrian successor. In
1308, Albert was assassinated, and the electors raised Count
Henry of Luxemburg to the throne, as Henry VII. Henry VII. was
the first king of Germany since the Hohenstaufens who went to
Italy (1310) for the crown of Lombardy and the crown of the
Cæsars, both of which he received. The Ghibelline party was
still strong among the Italians. In the distracted state of
that country there were many patriots--the poet Dante
prominent among them--who hoped great things from the
reappearance of an emperor; but the enthusiastic welcome he
received was mainly from those furious partisans who looked
for a party triumph to be won under the new emperor's lead.
When they found that he would not let himself be made an
instrument of faction in the unhappy country, they turned
against him. His undertakings in Italy promised nothing but
failure, when he died suddenly (1313), from poison, as the
Germans believed. His successor in Germany, chosen by the
majority of the electors, was Lewis of Bavaria; but Frederick
the Fair of Austria, supported by a minority, disputed the
election, and there was civil war for twelve years, until
Frederick, a prisoner, so won the heart of Lewis that the
latter divided the throne with him and the two reigned
together.
France under the Capetians.
While Germany and the fictitious Empire linked with it were
thus dropping from the foremost place in western Europe into
the background, several kingdoms were slowly emerging out of
the anarchy of feudalism, and acquiring the organization of
authority and law which creates stable and substantial power.
France for two centuries, under the first three Capetian
kings, had made little progress to that end. At the accession
(1103) of the fourth of those kings, namely, Louis VI., it is
estimated that the actual possessions of the Crown, over which
it exercised sovereignty direct, equalled no more than about
five of the modern departments of France; while twenty-nine
were in the great fiefs of Flanders, Burgundy, Champagne,
Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Vermandois, and Boulogne, where the
royal authority was but nominal; thirty-three, south of the
Loire, were hardly connected with the Crown, and twenty-one
were then dependent on the Empire. The actual "France," as a
kingdom, at that time, was very small. "The real domain of
Louis VI. was almost confined to the five towns of Paris,
Orleans, Estampes, Melun, and Compiegne, and to estates in
their neighbourhood." But the strengthening of the Crown was
slightly begun in the reign of this king, by his wise policy
of encouraging the enfranchisement of the communes, as noted
before, which introduced a helpful alliance between the
monarchy and the burgher-class, or third estate, as it came to
be called, of the cities, against the feudal aristocracy.
But progress in that direction was slight at first and slowly
made. Louis VII., who came to the throne in 1137, acquired
momentarily the great duchy of Aquitaine, or Guienne, by his
marriage with Eleanor, who inherited it; but he divorced her,
and she married Henry Plantagenet, who became Henry II., King
of England, being at the same time Duke of Normandy, by
inheritance from his mother, and succeeding his father in
Anjou, Maine and Touraine. Eleanor having carried to him the
great Aquitanian domain of her family, he was sovereign of a
larger part of modern France than owned allegiance to the
French king.
French recovery of Normandy and Anjou,
But the next king in France, Philip, called Augustus (1180),
who was the son of Louis VII., wrought a change of these
circumstances. He was a prince of remarkable vigor, and he
rallied with rare ability all the forces that the Crown could
command. He wrested Vermandois from the Count of Flanders, and
extorted submission from the rebellious Duke of Burgundy.
Suspending his projects at home for a time, to go crusading to
the Holy Land in company with King Richard of England, he
resumed them with fresh energy after Richard's death. The
latter was succeeded by his mean brother John, who seems to
have been hated with unanimity. John was accused of the murder
of his young nephew, Arthur of Brittany, who disputed the
inheritance from Richard. As Duke of Normandy and Anjou, John,
though King of England, was nevertheless a vassal of the King
of France. Philip summoned him, on charges, to be tried by his
peers. John failed to answer the summons, and the forfeiture
of his fiefs was promptly declared. The French king stood well
prepared to make the confiscation effective, while John, in
serious trouble with his English subjects, could offer little
resistance. Thus the Norman realm of the English kings--their
original dominion--was lost beyond recovery, and with it Anjou
and Maine. They held Guienne and Poitou for some years; but
the bases of the French monarchy were broadened immensely from
the day when the great Norman and Angevin fiefs became royal
domain.
{1029}
The Albigenses.
Events in the south of France, during Philip's reign, prepared
the way for a further aggrandisement of the Crown. Ancient
Latin civilization had lingered longer there, in spirit, at
least, than in the central and northern districts of the
kingdom, and the state of society intellectually was both
livelier and more refined. It was the region of Europe where
thought first showed signs of independence, and where the
spiritual despotism of Rome was disputed first. A sect arose
in Languedoc which took its name from the district of Albi,
and which offended the Church perhaps more by the freedom of
opinion that it claimed than by the heresy of the opinions
themselves. These Albigeois, or Albigenses, had been at issue
with the clergy of their country and with the Papacy for some
years before Innocent III., the pontifical autocrat of his
age, proclaimed a crusade against them (1208), and launched
his sentence of excommunication against Raymond, Count of
Toulouse, who gave them countenance if not sympathy. The
fanatical Simon de Montfort, father of the great noble of like
name who figures more grandly in English history, took the
lead of the Crusade, to which bigots and brutal adventurers
flocked together. Languedoc was wasted with fire and sword,
and after twenty years of intermittent war, in which Peter of
Aragon took part, assisting the Albigeois, the Count of
Toulouse purchased peace for his ruined land by ceding part of
it to the king of France, and giving his daughter in marriage
to the king's brother Alphonso,--by which marriage the
remainder of the country was transferred, a few years later,
to the French crown.
The Battle of Bouvines.
Philip Augustus, in whose reign this brutal crushing of
Provençal France began, took little part in it, but he saw
with no unwillingness another too powerful vassal brought low.
The next blow of like kind he struck with his own hand. John
of England had quarreled with the mighty Pope Innocent III.;
his kingdom had been placed under interdict and his subjects
absolved from their allegiance. Philip of France eagerly
offered to become the executor of the papal decree, and
gathered an army for the invasion of England, to oust John
from his throne. But John hastened now to make peace with the
Church, submitting himself, surrendering his kingdom to the
Pope, and receiving it back as a papal fief. This
accomplished, the all-powerful pontiff persuaded the French
king to turn his army against the Count of Flanders, who had
never been reduced to a proper degree of submission to his
feudal sovereign. He seems to have become the recognized head
of a body of nobles who showed alarm and resentment at the
growing power of the Crown, and the war which ensued was quite
extraordinary in its political importance. King John of
England came personally to the assistance of the Flemish
Count, because of the hatred he felt towards Philip of France.
Otho, Emperor of Germany, who had been excommunicated and
deposed by the Pope, and who was struggling for his crown with
the young Hohenstaufen, Frederick II., took part in the melee,
because John was his uncle, and because the Pope was for
Philip, and because Germany dreaded the rising power of
France. So the war, which seemed at first to be a trifling
affair in a corner, became in fact a grand clearing storm, for
the settlement of many large issues, important to all Europe.
The settlement was accomplished by a single decisive battle,
fought at Bouvines (1214), not far from Tournay. It
established effectively in France the feudal superiority and
actual sovereignty of the king. It evoked a national spirit
among the French people, having been their first national
victory, won under the banners of a definite kingdom, over
foreign foes. It was a triumph for the Papacy and the Church
and a crushing blow to those who dared resist the mandates of
Rome. It sent King John back to England so humbled and
weakened that he had little stomach for the contest which
awaited him there, and the grand event of the signing of Magna
Charta next year was more easily brought about. It settled the
fate of Otho of Germany, and cleared the bright opening of the
stormy career of Frederick II., his successor. Thus the battle
of Bouvines, which is not a famous field in common knowledge,
must really be numbered among the great and important battles
of the world.
When Philip Augustus died in 1223, the regality which he
bequeathed to his son, Louis VIII., was something vastly
greater than that which came to him from his predecessors. He
had enhanced both the dignity and the power, both the
authority and the prestige, of the Crown, and made a
substantial kingdom of France. Louis VIII. enlarged his
dominions by the conquest of Lower Poitou and the taking of
Rochelle from the English; but he sowed the seeds of future
weakness in the monarchy by creating great duchies for his
children, which became as troublesome to later kings as
Normandy and Anjou had been to those before him.
Saint Louis.
Louis IX.--Saint Louis in the calendar of the Catholic
Church--who came to the throne in 1226, while a child of
eleven years, was a king of so noble a type that he stands
nearly alone in history. Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor, and
King Alfred of England, are the only sovereigns who seem
worthy to be compared with him; and even the purity of those
rare souls is not quite so simple and so selfless, perhaps, as
that which shines in the beautiful character of this most
Christian king. His goodness was of that quality which rises
to greatness--above all other measures of greatness in the
distinction of men. It was of that quality which even a wicked
world is compelled to feel and to bend to as a power, much
exceeding the power of state-craft or of the sword. Of all the
kings of his line, this Saint Louis was probably the one who
had least thought of a royal interest in France distinct from
the interest of the people of France; and the one who
consciously did least to aggrandize the monarchy and enlarge
its powers; but no king before him or after him was so much
the true architect of the foundations of the absolute French
monarchy of later times. His constant purpose was to give
peace to his kingdom and justice to his people; to end
violence and wrong-doing.
{1030}
In pursuing this purpose, he gave a new character and a new
influence to the royal courts,--established them in public
confidence,--accustomed his subjects to appeal to them; he
denounced the brutal senselessness of trials by combat, and
commanded their abolition; he gave encouragement to the study
and the introduction of Roman law, and so helped to dispel the
crude political as well as legal ideas that feudalism rested
on. His measures in these directions all tended to the
undermining of the feudal system and to the breaking down of
the independence of the great vassals who divided sovereignty
with the king. At the same time the upright soul of King
Louis, devotedly pious son of the Church as he was, yielded
his conscience to it, and the just ordinances of his kingdom,
no more than he yielded to the haughty turbulence of the great
vassals of the crown.
The great misfortunes of the reign of Saint Louis were the two
calamitous Crusades in which he engaged (1248-1254, and 1270),
and in the last of which he died. They were futile in every
way--as unwisely conducted as they were unwisely conceived;
but they count among the few errors of a noble, great life.
Regarded altogether, in the light which after-history throws
back upon it, the reign of Louis IX. is more loftily
distinguished than any other in the annals of France.
Philip the Fair and Pope Boniface.
There is little to distinguish the reign of St. Louis' son,
Philip III., "le Hardi," "the Rash" (1270-1285), though the
remains of the great fief of Toulouse were added in his time
to the royal domain; but under the grandson of St. Louis, the
fourth Philip, surnamed "le Bel," there was a season of storms
in France. This Philip was unquestionably a man of clear, cold
intellect, and of powerful, unbending will. There was nothing
of the soldier in him, much of the lawyer-like mind and
disposition. The men of the gown were his counsellors; he
advanced their influence, and promoted the acceptance in
France of the principles of the Roman or civil law, which were
antagonistic to feudal ideas. In his attitude towards the
Papacy--which had declined greatly in character and power
within the century past--he was extraordinarily bold. His
famous quarrel with Pope Boniface VIII. resulted in
humiliations to the head of the Church from which, in some
respects, there was no recovery. The quarrel arose on
questions connected chiefly with the taxing of the clergy. The
Pope launched one angry Bull after another against the
audacious king, and the latter retorted with Ordinances which
were as effective as the Bulls. Excommunication was defied;
the Inquisition was suppressed in France; appeal taken to a
General Council of the Church. At last Boniface suffered
personal violence at the hands of a party of hired ruffians,
in French pay, who attacked him at his country residence, and
received such indignities that he expired soon after of shame
and rage. The pope immediately succeeding died a few months
later, and dark suspicions as to the cause of his death were
entertained; for he gave place (1305) to one, Clement V., who
was the tool of the French king, bound to him by pledges and
guarantees before his election. This Pope Clement removed the
papal residence from Rome to Avignon, and for a long
period--the period known as "the Babylonish Captivity"--the
Holy See was subservient to the monarchy of France.
In this contest with the Papacy, Philip threw himself on the
support of the whole body of his people, convoking (1302) the
first meeting of the Three Estates--the first of the few
general Parliaments--ever assembled in France.
Destruction of the Templars.
A more sinister event in the reign of Philip IV. was his
prosecution and destruction of the famous Order of the Knights
Templars. The dark, dramatic story has been told many times,
and its incidents are familiar. Perhaps there will never be
agreement as to the bottom of truth that might exist in the
charges brought against the Order; but few question the fact
that its blackest guilt in the eyes of the French King was its
wealth, which he coveted and which he was resolved to find
reasons for taking to himself. The knights were accused of
infidelity, blasphemy, and abominable vices. They were tried,
tortured, tempted to confessions, burned at the stake, and
their lands and goods were divided between the Crown and the
Knights of St. John.
Flemish Wealth and Independence.
The wilful king had little mercy in his cold heart and few
scruples in his calculating brain. His character was not
admirable; but the ends which he compassed were mostly good
for the strength and independence of the monarchy of France,
and, on the whole, for the welfare of the people subject to
it. Even the disasters of his reign had sometimes their good
effect: as in the case of his failure to subjugate the great
county of Flanders. Originally a fief of the Kings of France,
it had been growing apart from the French monarchy, through
the independent interests and feelings that rose in it with
the increase of wealth among its singularly industrious and
thrifty people. The Low Countries, or Netherlands, on both
sides of the Rhine, had been the first in western Europe to
develop industrial arts and the trade that goes with them in a
thoroughly intelligent and systematic way. The Flemings were
leaders in this industrial development. Their country was full
of busy cities,--communes, with large liberties in
possession,--where prosperous artisans, pursuing many crafts,
were organized in gilds and felt strong for the defense of
their chartered rights. Ghent exceeded Paris in riches and
population at the end of the thirteenth century. Bruges was
nearly its equal; and there were many of less note. The
country was already a prize to be coveted by kings; and the
kings of France, who claimed the rights of feudal superiority
over its count, had long been seeking to make their
sovereignty direct, while the spirit of the Flemings carried
them more and more toward independence.
In 1294, Philip IV. became involved in war with Edward I. of
England over Guienne. Flanders, which traded largely with
England and was in close friendship with the English king and
people, took sides with the latter, and was basely abandoned
when Philip and Edward made peace, in 1302. The French king
then seized his opportunity to subjugate the Flemings, which
he practically accomplished for a time, mastering all of their
cities except Ghent. His need and his greed made the burden of
taxes which he now laid on these new subjects very heavy and
they were soon in revolt. By accident, and the folly of the
French, they won a fearfully decisive victory at Courtray,
where some thousands of the nobles and knights of France
charged blindly into a canal, and were drowned, suffocated and
slaughtered in heaps. The carnage was so great that it broke
the strength of the feudal chivalry of France, and the French
crown, while it lost Flanders, yet gained power from the very
disaster.
{1031}
In 1314, Philip IV. died, leaving three sons, who occupied the
throne for brief terms in succession: Louis X, surnamed Hutin
(disorder), who survived his father little more than a year;
Philip V., called "the Long" (1316-1322), and Charles IV.,
known as "the Fair" (1322-1328). With the death of Charles the
Fair, the direct line of the Capetian Kings came to an end,
and Philip, Count of Valois, first cousin of the late kings,
and grandson of Philip III., came to the throne, as Philip
VI.--introducing the Valois line of kings.
Claims of Edward III. of England.
The so-called Salic law, excluding females, in France, from
the throne, had now, in the arrangement of these recent
successions, been affirmed and enforced. It was promptly
disputed by King Edward III. of England, who claimed the
French crown by right of his mother, daughter of Philip IV.
and sister of the last three kings. His attempt to enforce
this claim was the beginning of the wicked, desolating
"Hundred Years War" between England and France, which
well-nigh ruined the latter, while it contributed in the
former to the advancement of the commons in political power.
England after the Norman Conquest.
The England of the reign of Edward III., when the Hundred
Years War began, was a country quite different in condition
from that which our narrative left, at the time it had yielded
(about 1071) to William the Norman conqueror. The English
people were brought low by that subjugation, and the yoke
which the Normans laid upon them was heavy indeed. They were
stripped of their lands by confiscation; they were disarmed
and disorganized; every attempt at rebellion failed miserably,
and every failure brought wider confiscations. The old
nobility suffered most and its ranks were thinned. England
became Norman in its aristocracy and remained English in its
commons and its villeinage.
Modified Feudalism in England.
Before the Conquest, feudalism had crept into its southern
parts and was working a slow change of its old free Germanic
institutions. But the Normans quickened the change and widened
it. At the same time they controlled it in certain ways,
favorably both to the monarchy and the people. They
established a feudal system, but it was a system different
from that which broke up the unity of both kingdoms of the
Franks. William, shrewd statesman that he was, took care that
no dangerous great fiefs should be created; and he took care,
too, that every landlord in England should swear fealty direct
to the king,--thus placing the Crown in immediate relations
with all its subjects, permitting no intermediary lord to take
their first allegiance to himself and pass it on at second
hand to a mere crowned overlord.
The effect of this diluted organization of feudalism in
England was to make the monarchy so strong, from the
beginning, that both aristocracy and commons were naturally
put on their defence against it, and acquired a feeling of
association, a sense of common interest, a habit of alliance,
which became very important influences in the political
history of the nation. In France, as we have seen, there had
been nothing of this. There, at the beginning, the feudal
aristocracy was dominant, and held itself so haughtily above
the commons, or Third Estate, that no political cooperation
between the two orders could be thought of when circumstances
called for it. The kings slowly undermined the aristocratic
power, using the communes in the process; and when, at last,
the power of the monarchy had become threatening to both
orders in the state, they were separated by too great an
alienation of feeling and habit to act well together.
It was the great good fortune of England that feudalism was
curbed by a strong monarchy. It was the greater good fortune
of the English people that their primitive Germanic
institutions--their folk-moots, and their whole simple popular
system of local government--should have had so long and sturdy
a growth before the feudal scheme of society began seriously
to intrude upon them. The Norman conqueror did no violence to
those institutions. He claimed to be a lawful English king,
respecting English laws. The laws, the customs, the
organization of government, were, indeed, greatly modified in
time; but the modification was slow, and the base of the whole
political structure that rose in the Anglo-Norman kingdom
remained wholly English.
Norman Influences in England.
The Normans brought with them into England a more active,
enterprising, enquiring spirit than had animated the land
before. They brought an increase of learning and of the
appetite for knowledge. They brought a more educated taste in
art, to improve the building of the country and its
workmanship in general. They brought a wider acquaintance with
the affairs of the outside world, and drew England into
political relations with her continental neighbors, which were
not happy for her in the end, but which may have contributed
for a time to her development. They brought, also, a more
powerful organization of the Church, which gave England
trouble in later days.
The Conqueror's Sons.
When the Conqueror died (1087), his eldest son Robert
succeeded him in Normandy, but he wished the crown of England
to go to his son William, called Rufus, or "the Red." He could
not settle the succession by his will, because in theory the
succession was subject to the choice or assent of the nobles
of the realm. But, in fact, William Rufus became king through
mere tardiness of opposition; and when, a few months after his
coronation, a formidable rebellion broke out among the Normans
in England, who preferred his wayward brother Robert, it was
the native English who sustained him and established him on
the throne. The same thing occurred again after William Rufus
died (1100). The Norman English tried again to bring in Duke
Robert, while the native English preferred the younger
brother, Henry, who was born among them. They won the day.
Henry I., called Beauclerc, the Scholar, was seated on the
throne. Unlike William Rufus, who had no gratitude for the
support the English gave him, and ruled them harshly, Henry
showed favor to his English subjects, and, during his reign of
thirty-five years, the two races were so effectually
reconciled and drawn together that little distinction between
them appears thereafter.
{1032}
Henry acquired Normandy, as well as England, uniting again the
two sovereignties of his father. His thriftless brother,
Robert, had pledged the dukedom to William Rufus, who lent him
money for a crusading expedition. Returning penniless, Robert
tried to recover his heritage; but Henry claimed it and made
good the claim.
Anarchy in Stephen's Reign.
At Henry's death, the succession fell into dispute. He had
lost his only son. His daughter, Matilda, first married to the
Emperor Henry V., had subsequently wedded Count Geoffrey of
Anjou, by whom she had a son. Henry strove, during his life,
to bind his nobles by oath to accept Matilda and her son as
his successors. But on his death (1135) their promises were
broken. They gave the crown to Stephen of Blois, whose mother
was Henry's sister; whereupon there ensued the most dreadful
period of civil war and anarchy that England ever knew.
Stephen, at his coronation, swore to promises which he did not
keep, losing many of his supporters for that reason; the
Empress Matilda and her young son Henry had numerous
partisans; and each side was able to destroy effectually the
authority of the other. "The price of the support given to
both was the same--absolute licence to build castles, to
practise private war, to hang their private enemies, to
plunder their neighbours, to coin their money, to exercise
their petty tyrannies as they pleased." "Castles innumerable
sprang up, and as fast as they were built they were filled
with devils; each lord judged and taxed and coined. The feudal
spirit of disintegration had for once its full play. Even
party union was at an end, and every baron fought on his own
behalf. Feudalism had its day, and the completeness of its
triumph ensured its fall" (Stubbs).
Angevin Kings of England.
At length, in 1153, peace was made by a treaty which left
Stephen in possession of the throne during his life, but made
Henry, already recognized as Duke of Normandy, his heir.
Stephen died the following year, and Henry II., now twenty-one
years old, came quietly into his kingdom, beginning a new
royal line, called the Angevin kings, because of their descent
from Geoffrey of Anjou; also taking the name Plantagenets from
Geoffrey's fashion of wearing a bit of broom, Planta Genista,
in his hat.
Henry II. proved, happily, to be a king of the strong
character that was needed in the England of that wretched
time. He was bold and energetic, yet sagacious, prudent,
politic. He loved power and he used it with an unsparing hand;
but he used it with wise judgment, and England was the better
for it. He struck hard and persistently at the lawlessness of
feudalism, and practically ended it forever as a menace to
order and unity of government in England. He destroyed
hundreds of the castles which had sprung up throughout the
land in Stephen's time, to be nests of robbers and strongholds
of rebellion. He humbled the turbulent barons. He did in
England, for the promotion of justice, and for the enforcement
of the royal authority, what Louis IX. did a little later in
France: that is, he reorganized and strengthened the king's
courts, creating a judicial system which, in its most
essential features, has existed to the present time. His
organizing hand brought system and efficiency into every
department of the government. He demanded of the Church that
its clergy should be subject to the common laws of the
kingdom, in matters of crime, and to trial before the ordinary
courts; and it was this most just reform of a crying
abuse--the exemption of clerics from the jurisdiction of
secular courts--which brought about the memorable collision
of King Henry with Thomas Becket, the inflexible archbishop of
Canterbury. Becket's tragical death made a martyr of him, and
placed Henry in a penitential position which checked his great
works of reform; but, on the whole, his reign was one of
splendid success, and shines among the epochs that throw light
on the great after-career of the English nation.
Aside from his importance as an English statesman, Henry II.
figured largely, in his time, among the most powerful of the
monarchs of Europe. His dominions on the continent embraced
much more of the territory of modern France than was ruled
directly by the contemporary French king, though nominally he
held them as a vassal of the latter. Normandy came to him from
his grandfather; from his father he inherited the large
possessions of the House of Anjou; by his marriage with
Eleanor of Aquitaine (divorced by Louis VII. of France, as
mentioned already) he acquired her wide and rich domain. On
the continent, therefore, he ruled Normandy, Maine, Touraine,
Anjou, Guienne, Poitou and Gascony. He may be said to have
added Ireland to his English kingdom, for he began the
conquest. He held a great place, in his century, and
historically he is a notable figure in the time.
His rebellious, undutiful son Richard, Cœur de Lion, the
Crusader, the hard fighter, the knight of many rude
adventures, who succeeded Henry II. in 1189, is popularly
better known than he; but Richard's noisy brief career shows
poorly when compared with his father's life of thoughtful
statesmanship. It does not show meanly, however, like that of
the younger son, John, who came to the throne in 1199. The
story of John's probable murder of his young nephew, Arthur,
of Brittany, and of his consequent loss of all the Angevin
lands, and of Normandy (excepting only the Norman islands, the
Jerseys, which have remained English to our own day) has been
briefly told heretofore, when the reign of Philip Augustus of
France was under review.
{1033}
The whole reign of John was ignominious. He quarreled with the
Pope--with the inflexible Innocent III., who humbled many
kings--over a nomination to the Archbishopric of Canterbury
(1205); his kingdom was put under interdict (1208); he was
threatened with deposition; and when, in affright, he
surrendered, it was so abjectly done that he swore fealty to
the Pope, as a vassal to his suzerain, consenting to hold his
kingdom as a fief of the Apostolic See. The triumph of the
Papacy in this dispute brought one great good to England. It
made Stephen Langton Archbishop of Canterbury, and thereby
gave a wise and righteous leader to the opponents of the
king's oppressive rule. Lords and commons, laity and clergy,
were all alike sufferers from John's greed, his perfidy, his
mean devices and his contempt of law. Langton rallied them to
a sober, stern, united demonstration, which awed King John,
and compelled him to put his seal to Magna Charta--the grand
Charter of English liberties (1215). A few weeks later he
tried to annul what he had done, with encouragement from the
Pope, who anathematized the Charter and all who had to do with
it. Then certain of the barons, in their rage, offered the
English crown to the heir of France, afterwards Louis VIII.;
and the French prince actually came to England (1216) with an
army to secure it. But before the forces gathered on each side
were brought to any decisive battle, John died. Louis'
partisans then dropped away from him and the next year, after
a defeat at sea, he returned to France.
Henry III. and the Barons' War.
John left a son, a lad of nine years, who grew to be a better
man than himself, though not a good king, for he was weak and
untruthful in character, though amiable and probably
well-meaning. He held the throne for fifty-six years, during
which long time, after his minority was passed, no minister of
ability and honorable character could get and keep office in
the royal service. He was jealous of ministers, preferring
mere administrative clerks; while he was docile to favorites,
and picked them for the most part from a swarm of foreign
adventurers whom the nation detested. The Great Charter of his
father had been reaffirmed in his name soon after he received
the crown, and in 1225 he was required to issue it a third
time, as the condition of a grant of money; but he would not
rule honestly in compliance with its provisions, and sought
continually to lay and collect heavy taxes in unlawful ways.
He spent money extravagantly, and was foolish and reckless in
foreign undertakings, accepting, for example, the Kingdom of
Sicily, offered to his son Edmund by the Pope, whose gift
could only be made good by force of arms. At the same time he
was servile to the popes, whose increasing demands for money
from England were rousing even the clergy to resistance. So
the causes of discontent grew abundantly until they brought it
to a serious head. All classes of the people were drawn
together again, as they had been to resist the aggressions of
John. The great councils of the kingdom, or assemblies of
barons and bishops (which had taken the place of the
witenagemot of the old English time, and which now began to be
called Parliaments), became more and more united against the
king. At last the discontent found a leader of high capacity
and of heroic if not blameless character, in Simon de
Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Simon de Montfort was of foreign
birth,--son of that fanatical crusader of the same name, who
spread ruin over the fair country of the Albigeois. The
English earldom of Leicester had passed to his family, and the
younger Simon, receiving it, came to England and became an
Englishman. After some years he threw himself into the
struggle with the Crown, and his leadership was soon
recognized. In 1258, a parliament held at London compelled the
king to consent to the appointment of an extraordinary
commission of twenty-four barons, clothed with full power to
reform the government. The commission was named at a
subsequent meeting of parliament, the same year, at Oxford,
where the grievances to be redressed were set forth in a paper
known as the Provisions of Oxford. From the twenty-four
commissioners there were chosen fifteen to be the King's
Council. This was really the creation of a new constitution
for the kingdom, and Henry swore to observe it. But ere long
he procured a bull from the Pope, absolving him from his oath,
and he began to prepare for throwing off the restraints that
had been put upon him. The other side took up arms, under
Simon's lead; but peace was preserved for a time by referring
all questions in dispute to the arbitration of Louis IX. of
France. The arbiter decided against the barons (1264) and
Montfort's party refused to abide by the award. Then followed
the civil conflict known as the Barons' War. The king was
defeated and taken prisoner, and was obliged to submit to
conditions which practically transferred the administration of
the government to three counsellors, of whom Simon de Montfort
was the chief.
Development of the English Parliament;
In January, 1265, a memorable parliament was called together.
It was the first national assembly in which the larger element
of the English Commons made its appearance; for Montfort had
summoned to it certain representatives of borough towns, along
with the barons, the bishops and the abbots, and along,
moreover, with representative knights, who had been gaining
admittance of late years to what now became a convocation of
the Three Estates. The parliamentary model thus roughly shaped
by the great Earl of Leicester was not continuously followed
until another generation came; but it is his glory,
nevertheless, to have given to England the norm and principle
on which its unexampled parliament was framed. By dissensions
among themselves, Simon de Montfort and his party soon lost
the great advantage they had won, and on another appeal to
arms they were defeated (1265) by the king's valiant and able
son, afterwards King Edward I., and Montfort was slain. It was
seven years after this before Edward succeeded his father, and
nine before he came to the throne, because he was absent on a
Crusade; but when he did, it was to prove himself, not merely
one of the few statesmen-kings of England, but one large
enough in mind to take lessons from the vanquished enemies of
the Crown. He, in reality, took up the half-planned
constitutional work of Simon de Montfort, in the development
of the English Parliament as a body representative of all
orders in the nation, and carried it forward to substantial
completion. He did it because he had wit to see that the
people he ruled could be led more easily than they could be
driven, and that their free-giving of supplies to the Crown
would be more open-handed than their giving under compulsion.
The year 1295 "witnessed the first summons of a perfect and
model parliament; the clergy represented by their bishops,
deans, archdeacons, and elected proctors; the barons summoned
severally in person by the king's special writ, and the
commons summoned by writs addressed to the sheriffs, directing
them to send up two elected knights from each shire, two
elected citizens from each city, and two elected burghers from
each borough" (Stubbs).
{1034}
Two years later, the very fundamental principle of the English
Constitution was established, by a Confirmation of the
Charters, conceded in Edward's absence by his son, but
afterwards assented to by him, which definitely renounced the
right of the king to tax the nation without its consent. Thus
the reign of Edward I. was really the most important in the
constitutional history of England. It was scarcely less
important in the history of English jurisprudence; for Edward
was in full sympathy with the spirit of an age in which the
study and reform of the law were wonderfully awakened
throughout Europe. The great statutes of his reign are among
the monuments of Edward's statesmanship, and not the least
important of them are those by which he checked the
encroachments of the Church and its dangerous acquisition of
wealth.
At the same time, the temper of this vigorous king was warlike
and aggressive. He subdued the Welsh and annexed Wales as a
principality to England. He enforced the feudal supremacy
which the English kings claimed over Scotland, and, upon the
Scottish throne becoming vacant, in 1290, seated John Baliol,
as a vassal who did homage to him. The war of Scottish
Independence then ensued, of which William Wallace and Robert
Bruce were the heroes. Wallace perished on an English scaffold
in 1305; Bruce, the next year, secured the Scottish crown, and
eventually broke the bonds in which his country was held.
Edward I. died in 1307, and his kingly capability died with
him. He transmitted neither spirit nor wisdom to his son, the
second Edward, who gave himself and his kingdom up to foreign
favorites, as his grandfather had done. His angry subjects
practically took the government out of his hands (1310), and
confided it to a body of twenty-one members, called Ordainers.
His reign of twenty years was one of protracted strife and
disorder; but the constitutional power of Parliament made
gains. In outward appearance, however, there was nothing to
redeem the wretchedness of the time. The struggle of factions
was pushed to civil war; while Scotland, by the great blow
struck at Bannockburn (1314), made her independence complete.
In 1322, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, whose descent was as royal
as the king's, but who headed the opponents of Edward and
Edward's unworthy favorites, was defeated in battle, taken
prisoner, and brought to the block. This martyrdom, as it was
called, embalmed Lancaster's memory in the hearts of the
people.
Edward III. and his French Claims.
The queen of Edward II., Isabella of France, daughter of
Philip the Fair, made, at last, common cause with his enemies.
In January, 1327, he was forced to formally resign the crown,
and in September of the same year he was murdered, the queen,
with little doubt, assenting to the deed. His son, Edward
III., who now came to the throne, founded claims to the crown
of France upon the rights of his mother, whose three brothers,
as we have seen, had been crowned in succession and had died,
bringing the direct line of royalty in France to an end. By
this claim the two countries were plunged into the miseries of
the dreadful Hundred Years War, and the progress of
civilization in Europe was seriously checked.
Recovery of Christian Spain.
Before entering that dark century of war, it will be necessary
to go back a little in time, and carry our survey farther
afield, in the countries of Europe more remote from the center
of the events we have already scanned. In Spain, for example,
there should be noticed, very briefly, the turning movement of
the tide of Mahometan conquest which drove the Spanish
Christians into the mountains of the North. In the eighth
century, their little principality of Asturia had widened into
the small kingdom of Leon, and the eastern county of Leon had
taken the name of Castella (Castile) from the number of forts
or castles with which it bristled, on the Moorish border. East
of Leon, in the Pyrenees, there grew up about the same time the
kingdom of Navarre, which became important in the eleventh
century, under an enterprising king, Sancho the Great, who
seized Castile and made a separate kingdom of it, which he
bequeathed to his son. The same Navarrese king extended his
dominion over a considerable part of the Spanish March, which
Charlemagne had wrested from the Moors in the ninth century,
and out of this territory the kingdom of Aragon was presently
formed. These four kingdoms, of Leon, Navarre, Castile, and
Aragon, were shuffled together and divided again, in changing
combinations, many times during the next century or two; but
Castile and Leon were permanently united in 1230. Meantime
Portugal, wrested from the Moors, became a distinct kingdom;
while Navarre was reduced in size and importance. Castile,
Aragon, and Portugal are from that time the Christian Powers
in the Peninsula which carried on the unending war with their
Moslem neighbors. By the end of the thirteenth century they
had driven the Moors into the extreme south of the peninsula,
where the latter, thenceforth, held little beyond the small
kingdom of Granada, which defended itself for two centuries
more.
Moorish Civilization and its Decay.
The Christians were winners and the Moslems were losers in
this long battle, because adversity had disciplined the one
and prosperity had relaxed and vitiated the other. Success
bred disunion, and the spoils of victory engendered
corruption, among the followers of Mahomet, very quickly in
their career. The middle of the eighth century was hardly
passed when the huge empire they had conquered broke in twain,
and two Caliphates on one side of the Mediterranean, imitated the
two Roman Empires on the other. We have seen how the Caliphate
of the East, with its seat at Bagdad, went steadily to wreck;
but fresh converts of Islam, out of deserts at the North, were
in readiness, there, to gather the fragments and construct a
new Mahometan power. In the West, where the Caliphs held their
court at Cordova, the same crumbling of their power befell
them, through feuds and jealousies and the decay of a sensuous
race; but there were none to rebuild it in the Prophet's name.
The Moor gave way to the Castilian in Spain for reasons not
differing very much from the reasons which explain the
supplanting of the Arab by the Turk in the East.
{1035}
While its grandeur lasted in Spain,--from the eighth to the
eleventh centuries--the empire of the Saracens, or Moors, was
the most splendid of its age. It developed a civilization
which must have been far finer, in the superficial showing,
and in much of its spirit as well, than anything found in
Christian Europe at that time. Its religious temper was less
fierce and intolerant. Its intellectual disposition was
towards broader thinking and freer inquiry. Its artistic
feeling was truer and more instinctive. It took lessons from
classic learning and philosophy before Germanized Europe had
become aware of the existence of either, and it gave the
lessons at second hand to its Christian neighbors. Its
industries were conducted with a knowledge and a skill that
could be found among no other people. Says Dr. Draper: "Europe
at the present day does not offer more taste, more refinement,
more elegance, than might have been seen, at the epoch of
which we are speaking, in the capitals of the Spanish Arabs.
Their streets were lighted and solidly paved. Their houses
were frescoed and carpeted; they were warmed in winter by
furnaces, and cooled in summer with perfumed air brought by
underground pipes from flower beds. They had baths, and
libraries, and dining halls, fountains of quicksilver and
water. City and country were full of conviviality, and of
dancing to lute and mandolin. Instead of the drunken and
gluttonous wassail orgies of their northern neighbors, the
feasts of the Saracens were marked with sobriety."
The brilliancy of the Moorish civilization seems like that of
some short-lived flower, which may spring from a thin soil of
no lasting fertility. The qualities which yielded it had their
season of ascendancy over the deeper-lying forces that worked
in the Gothic mind of Christian Spain; but time exhausted the
one, while it matured the other.
Mediæval Spanish Character.
There seems to be no doubt that the long conflict of races and
religions in the peninsula affected the character of the
Spanish Christians more profoundly, both for good and for ill,
than it affected the people with whom they strove. It hardened
and energized them, preparing them for the bold adventures
they were soon to pursue in a new-found world, and for a
lordly career in all parts of the rounded globe. It embittered
and gave fierceness to a sentiment among them which bore some
likeness to religion, but which was, in reality, the
partisanship of a church, and not the devotion of a faith. It
tended to put bigotry in the place of piety--religious rancor
in the place of charity--priests and images in the place of
Christ--much more among the Spaniards than among other
peoples; for they, alone, were Crusaders against the Moslem
for eight hundred years.
Early Free Institutions in Spain.
The political effects of those centuries of struggle in the
peninsula were also remarkable and strangely mixed. In all the
earlier stages of the national development, until the close of
the mediæval period, there seems to have been as promising a
growth of popular institutions, in most directions, as can be
found in England itself. Apparently, there was more good
feeling between classes than elsewhere in Europe. Nobles,
knights and commons fought side by side in so continuous a
battle that they were more friendly and familiar in
acquaintance with one another. Moreover, the ennobled and the
knighted were greatly more numerous in Spain than in the
neighboring countries. The kings were lavish of such honors in
rewarding valor, on every battlefield and after every campaign.
It was impossible, therefore, for so great a distance to widen
between the grandee and the peasant or the burgher as that
which separated the lord and the citizen in Germany or France.
The division of Christian Spain into several petty kingdoms,
and the circumstances under which they were placed, retarded
the growth of monarchical power, and yet did not tend to a
feudal disintegration of society; because the pressure of its
perpetual war with the infidels forced the preservation of a
certain degree of unity, sufficient to be a saving influence.
At the same time, the Spanish cities became prosperous, and
naturally, in the circumstances of the country, acquired much
freedom and many privileges. The inhabitants of some cities in
Aragon enjoyed the privileges of nobility as a body; the
magistrates of other cities were ennobled. Both in Aragon and
Castile, the towns had deputies in the Cortes before any
representatives of boroughs sat in the English Parliament; and
the Cortes seems to have been, in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, a more potent factor in government than any
assembly of estates in any other part of Europe.
But something was wanting in Spain that was not wanting in
England and in the Netherlands, for example, to complete the
evolution of a popular government from this hopeful beginning.
And the primary want, it would seem, was a political sense or
faculty in the people. To illustrate this in one particular:
the Castilian Commons did not grasp the strings of the
national purse when they had it in their hands, as the
practical Englishmen did. They allowed the election of
deputies from the towns to slip out of their hands and to
become an official function of the municipalities, where it
was corrupted and controlled by the Crown. In Aragon, the
popular rights were more efficiently maintained, perhaps; but
even there the political faculty of the people must have been
defective, as compared with that of the nations in the North
which developed free government from less promising germs.
And, yet, it is possible that the whole subsequent failure of
Spain may be fully explained by the ruinous prosperity of her
career in the sixteenth century,--by the fatal gold it gave
her from America, and the independent power it put into the
hands of her kings.
Northern and North-eastern Europe.
While the Spaniards in their southern peninsula were wrestling
with the infidel Moor, their Gothic kindred of Sweden, and the
other Norse nations of that opposite extremity of Europe, had
been casting off paganism and emerging from the barbarism of
their piratical age, very slowly. It was not until the tenth
and eleventh centuries that Christianity got footing among
them. It was not until the thirteenth century that unity and
order, the fruits of firm government, began to be really fixed
in any part of the Scandinavian peninsulas.
{1036}
The same is substantially true of the greater Slavic states on
the eastern side of Europe. The Poles had accepted
Christianity in the tenth century, and their dukes, in the
same century, had assumed the title of kings. In the twelfth
century they had acquired a large dominion and exercised great
power; but the kingdom was divided, was brought into collision
with the Teutonic Knights, who conquered Prussia, and it fell
into a disordered state. The Russians had been Christianized
in the same missionary century--the tenth; but civilization
made slow progress among them, and their nation was being
divided and re-divided in shifting principalities by
contending families and lords. In the thirteenth century they
were overwhelmed by the fearful calamity of a conquest by
Mongol or Tartar hordes, and fell under the brutal domination
of the successors of Genghis Khan.
Latin Conquest of Constantinople.
At Constantinople, the old Greek-Roman Empire of the East had
been passing through singular changes since we noticed it
last. The dread with which Alexius Comnenius saw the coming of
the Crusaders in 1097 was justified by the experience of his
successors, after little more than a hundred years. In 1204, a
crusade, which is sometimes numbered as the fourth and
sometimes as the fifth in the crusading series, was diverted
by Venetian influence from the rescue of Jerusalem to the
conquest of Constantinople, ostensibly in the interest of a
claimant of the Imperial throne. The city was taken and
pillaged, and the Greek line of Emperors was supplanted by a
Frank or Latin line, of which Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was
the first. But this Latin Empire was reduced to a fraction of
the conquered dominion, the remainder being divided among
several partners in the conquest; while two Greek princes of
the fallen house saved fragments of the ancient realm in Asia,
and throned themselves as emperors at Trebizond and Nicæa. The
Latin Empire was maintained, feebly and without dignity, a
little more than half a century; and then (1261) it was
extinguished by the sovereign of its Nicæan rival, Michael
Palæologus, who took Constantinople by a night surprise,
helped by treachery within. Thus the Greek or Byzantine Empire
was restored, but much shorn of its former European
possessions, and much weakened by loss of commerce and wealth.
It was soon involved in a fresh struggle for life with the
Turks.
The Thirteenth Century.
We have now, in our general survey of European history, just
passed beyond the thirteenth century, and it will be
instructive to pause here a moment and glance back over the
movements and events which distinguish that remarkable age.
For the thirteenth century, while it belongs chronologically
to mediæval times, seems nearer in spirit to the
Renaissance--shows more of the travail of the birth of our
modern mind and life--than the fourteenth, and even more than
the greater part of the years of the fifteenth century.
For England, it was the century in which the enduring bases of
constitutional government were laid down; within which Magna
Charta and its Confirmations were signed; within which the
Parliament of Simon de Montfort and the Parliaments of Edward
I. gave a representative form and a controlling power to the
wonderful legislature of the English nation. In France, it was
the century of the Albigenses; of Saint Louis and his judicial
reforms; and it stretched within two years of the first
meeting of the States-General of the kingdom. In Switzerland,
it was the century which began the union of the three forest
cantons. In Spain, it was the century which gave Aragon the
"General Privilege" of Peter III.; in Hungary, it was the
century of its Golden Bull. In Italy it was the century of
Frederick II.,--the man of modern spirit set in mediæval
circumstances; and it was the century, too, which moulded the
city-republics that resisted and defeated his despotic
pretensions. Everywhere, it was an age of impulses toward
freedom, and of mighty upward strivings out of the chaos and
darkness of the feudal state. It was an age of vast energies,
directed with practical judgment and power. It organized the
great league of the Hansa Towns, which surpassed, as an
enterprise of combination in commercial affairs, the most
stupendous undertakings of the present time. It put the
weavers and traders of Flanders on a footing with knights and
princes. In Venice and Genoa it crowned the merchant like a
king. It sent Marco Polo to Cathay, and inoculated men with
the itch of exploration from which they find no ease to this
day. It was the century which saw painting revived as a living
art in the world by Cimabue and Giotto, and sculpture restored
by Niccola Pisano. It was the age of great church-building in
Italy, in Germany and in France. It was the century of St.
Francis of Assisi, and of the creation of the mendicant orders
in the Church,--a true religious reformation in its spirit,
however unhappy in effect it may have been. It was the time of
the high tide of mediæval learning; the epoch of Aquinas, of
Duns Scotus, of Roger Bacon; the true birth-time of the
Universities of Paris and Oxford. It was the century which
educated Dante for his immortal work.
The Fourteenth Century.
The century which followed was a period of many wars--of
ruinous and deadly wars, and miserable demoralizations and
disorders, which depressed all Europe by their effects. In the
front of them all was the wicked Hundred Years War, forced on
France by the ambition of an English king to wear two crowns;
while with it came the bloody insurrection of the Jacquerie,
the ravages of the free companies, and ruinous anarchy
everywhere. Then, in Italy, there was a duel to the death
between Venice and Genoa; and a long, wasting contest of
rivals for the possession of Naples. In Germany, a contested
imperial election, and the struggle of the Swiss against the
Austrian Dukes. In Flanders, repeated revolts under the two
Artevelds. In the East, the terrible fight of Christendom with
the advancing Turk. And while men were everywhere so busily
slaying one another, there came the great pestilence which
they called the Black Death, to help them in the grim work,
and Europe was half depopulated by it. At the same time, the
Church, which might have kindled some beacon lights of faith
and hope in the midst of all this darkness and terror, was
sinking to its lowest state, and Rome had become an unruled
robbers' den.
There were a few voices heard, above the wailing and the
battle-din of the afflicted age, which charmed and comforted
it; voices which preached the pure gospel of Wycliffe and
Huss,--which recited the great epic of Dante,--which syllabled
the melodious verse of Petrarch and Chaucer,--which told the
gay tales of Boccaccio; but the pauses of peace in which men
might listen to such messages and give themselves to such
delights were neither many nor long.
{1037}
The Hundred Years War.
The conflict between England and France began in Flanders,
then connected with the English very closely in trade. Philip
VI. of France forced the Count of Flanders to expel English
merchants from his territory. Edward III. retaliated (1336) by
forbidding the exportation of wool to Flanders, and this
speedily reduced the Flemish weavers to idleness. They rose in
revolt, drove out their count, and formed an alliance with
England, under the lead of Jacob van Arteveld, a brewer, of
Ghent. The next year (1337) Edward joined the Flemings with an
army and entered France; but made no successful advance,
although his fleet won a victory, in a sea-fight off Sluys,
and hostilities were soon suspended by a truce. In 1341 they
were renewed in Brittany, over a disputed succession to the
dukedom, and the scattered sieges and chivalric combats which
made up the war in that region for two years are described
with minuteness by Froissart, the gossipy chronicler of the
time. After a second truce, the grimly serious stage of the
war was reached in 1346. It was in that year that the English
won the victory at Crécy, which was the pride and boast of
their nation for centuries; and the next season they took
Calais, which they held for more than two hundred years.
Philip died in 1350 and was succeeded by his son John. In
1355, Edward of England repeated his invasion, ravaging
Artois, while his son, the Black Prince, from Guienne (which
the English had held since the Angevin time), devastated
Languedoc. The next year, this last named prince made another
sally from Bordeaux, northwards, towards the Loire, and was
encountered by the French king, with a splendid army, at
Poitiers. The victory of the English in this case was more
overwhelming than at Crécy, although they were greatly
outnumbered. King John was taken prisoner and conveyed to
London. His kingdom was in confusion. The dauphin called
together the States-General of France, and that body, in which
the commons, or third estate, attained to a majority in numbers,
assumed powers and compelled assent to reforms which seemed
likely to place it on a footing of equal importance with the
Parliament of England. The leader of the third estate in these
measures was Etienne or Stephen Marcel, provost of Paris, a
man of commanding energy and courage. The dauphin, under
orders from his captive father, attempted to nullify the
ordinances of the States-General. Paris rose at the call of
Marcel and the frightened prince became submissive; but the
nobles of the provinces resented these high-handed proceedings
of the Parisians and civil war ensued. The peasants, who were
in great misery, took advantage of the situation to rise in
support of the Paris burgesses, and for the redressing of
their own wrongs. This insurrection of the Jacquerie, as it is
known, produced horrible deeds of outrage and massacre on both
sides, and seems to have had no other result. Paris, meantime
(1358), was besieged and hard pressed; Marcel, suspected of an
intended treachery, was killed, and with his death the whole
attempt to assert popular rights fell to the ground.
The state of France at this time was one of measureless
misery. It was overrun with freebooters--discharged soldiers,
desperate homeless and idle men, and the ruffians who always
bestir themselves when authority disappears. They roamed the
country in bands, large and small, stripped it of what war had
spared, and left famine behind them.
At length, in 1360, terms of peace were agreed upon, in a
treaty signed at Bretigny, and fighting ceased, except in
Brittany, where the war went on for four years more. By the
treaty, all French claims upon Aquitaine and the dependencies
were given up, and Edward acquired full sovereignty there, no
longer owing homage, as a vassal, to the king of France.
Calais, too, was ceded to England, and so heavy a ransom was
exacted from the captive King John that he failed to collect
money for the payment of it and died in London (1364).
Charles the Wise.
Charles V., who now ruled independently, as he had ruled for
some years in his father's name, proved to be a more prudent
and capable prince, and his counsellors and captains were
wisely chosen. He was a man of studious tastes and of
considerable learning for that age, with intelligence to see
and understand the greater sources of evil in his kingdom.
Above all, he had patience enough to plant better things in
the seed and wait for them to grow, which is one of the
grander secrets of statesmanship. By careful, judicious
measures, he and those who shared the task of government with
him slowly improved the discipline and condition of their
armies. The "great companies" of freebooters, too strong to be
put down, were lured out of the kingdom by an expedition into
Spain, which the famous warrior Du Guesclin commanded, and
which was sent against the detestable Pedro, called the Cruel,
of Castile, whom the English supported. A stringent economy in
public expenditure was introduced, and the management of the
finances was improved. The towns were encouraged to strengthen
their fortifications, and the state and feeling of the whole
country were slowly lifted from the gloomy depth to which the
war had depressed them.
At length, in 1369, Charles felt prepared to challenge another
encounter with the English, by repudiating the ignominious
terms of the treaty of Bretigny. Before the year closed,
Edward's armies were in the country again, but accomplished
nothing beyond the havoc which they wrought as they marched.
The French avoided battles, and their cities were well
defended. Next year the English returned, and the Black Prince
earned infamy by a ferocious massacre of three thousand men,
women, and children, in the city of Limoges, when he had taken
it by storm. It was his last campaign. Already suffering from
a mortal disease, he returned to England, and died a few years
later. The war went on, with no decisive results, until 1375,
when it was suspended by a truce. In 1377, Edward III. died,
and the French king began war again with great success. Within
three years he expelled the English from every part of France
except Bayonne, Bordeaux, Brest, Cherbourg and Calais.
If he had lived a little longer, there might soon have been an
end of the war. But he died in 1380, and fresh calamities fell
upon unhappy France.
{1038}
Rising Power of Burgundy.
The son who succeeded him, Charles VI., was an epileptic boy
of twelve years, who had three greedy and selfish uncles to
quarrel over the control of him, and to plunder the Crown of
territory and treasures. One of these was the Duke of
Burgundy, the first prince of a new great house which King
John had foolishly created. Just before that fatuous king
died, the old line of Burgundian dukes came to an end, and he
had the opportunity, which wise kings before him would have
improved very eagerly, to annex that fief to the crown.
Instead of doing so, he gave it as an appanage to his son
Philip, called "the Bold," and thus rooted a new plant of
feudalism in France which was destined to cause much trouble.
Another of the uncles was Louis, Duke of Anjou, heir to the
crown of Naples under a will of the lately murdered Queen
Joanna, and who was preparing for an expedition to enforce his
claim. The third was Duke of Berry, upon whom his father, King
John, had conferred another great appanage, including Berry,
Poitou and Auvergne.
The pillage and misgovernment of the realm under these
rapacious guardians of the young king was so great that
desperate risings were provoked, the most formidable of which
broke out in Paris. They were all suppressed, and with
merciless severity. At the same time, the Flemings, who had
again submitted to their count, revolted once more, under the
lead of Philip van Arteveld, son of their former leader. The
French moved an army to the assistance of the Count of
Flanders, and the sturdy men of Ghent, who confronted it
almost alone, suffered a crushing defeat at Roosebeke (1382).
Philip van Arteveld fell in the battle, with twenty-six
thousand of his men. Two years later, the Count of Flanders
died, and the Duke of Burgundy, who had married his daughter,
acquired that rich and noble possession. This beginning of the
union of Burgundy and the Netherlands, creating a power by the
side of the throne of France which threatened to overshadow
it, and having for its ultimate consequence the casting of the
wealth of the Low Countries into the lap of the House of
Austria and into the coffers of Spain, is an event of large
importance in European history.
Burgundians and Armagnacs.
When Charles VI. came of age, he took the government into his
own hands, and for some years it was administered by capable
men. But in 1392 the king's mind gave way, and his uncles
regained control of affairs. Philip of Burgundy maintained the
ascendancy until his death, in 1404. Then the controlling
influence passed to the king's brother, the Duke of Orleans,
between whom and the new Duke of Burgundy, John, called the
Fearless, a bitter feud arose. John, who was unscrupulous,
employed assassins to waylay and murder the Duke of Orleans,
which they did in November, 1407. This foul deed gave rise to
two parties in France. Those who sought vengeance ranged
themselves under the leadership of the Count of Armagnac, and
were called by his name. The Burgundians, who sustained Duke
John, were in the main a party of the people; for the Duke had
cultivated popularity, especially in Paris, by advocating
liberal measures and extending the rights and privileges of
the citizens.
The kingdom was kept in turmoil and terror for years by the
war of these factions, especially in and about Paris, where
the guild of the butchers took a prominent part in affairs, on
the Burgundian side, arming a riotous body of men who were
called Cabochiens, from their leader's name. In 1413 the
Armagnacs succeeded in recovering possession of the capital
and the Cabochiens were suppressed.
Second Stage of the Hundred Years War.
Meantime, Henry V. of England, the ambitious young Lancastrian
king who came to the throne of that country in 1413, saw a
favorable opportunity, in the distracted state of France, to
reopen the questions left unsettled by the breaking of the
treaty of Bretigny. He invaded France in 1415, as the rightful
king coming to dethrone a usurper, and began by taking
Harfleur at the mouth of the Seine, after a siege which cost
him so heavily that he found it prudent to retreat towards
Calais. The French intercepted him at Agincourt and forced him
to give them battle. He had only twenty thousand men, but they
formed a well disciplined and well ordered army. The French
had gathered eighty thousand men, but they were a feudal mob.
The battle ended, like those of Crécy and Poitiers, in the
routing and slaughter of the French, with small loss to
Henry's force. His army remained too weak in numbers, however,
for operations in a hostile country, and the English king
returned home, with a great train of captive princes and
lords.
He left the Armagnacs and Burgundians still fighting one
another, and disabling France as effectually as he could do if
he stayed to ravage the land. In 1417 he came back and began
to attack the strong cities of Normandy, one by one, taking
Caen first. In the next year, by a horrible massacre, the
Burgundian mob in Paris overcame the Armagnacs there, and
reinstated Duke John of Burgundy in possession of the capital.
The latter was already in negotiation with the English king,
and evidently prepared to sacrifice the kingdom for whatever
might seem advantageous to himself. But in 1419 Henry V. took
Rouen, and, when all of Normandy submitted with its capital,
he demanded nothing less than that great province, with
Brittany, Guienne, Maine, Anjou and Touraine in addition,--or,
substantially, the western half of France.
Burgundian and English Alliance.
Parleyings were brought to an end in September of that year by
the treacherous murder of Duke John. The Armagnacs slew him
foully, at an interview to which he had been enticed, on the
bridge of Montereau. His son, Duke Philip of Burgundy, now
reopened negotiations with the invader, in conjunction with
Queen Isabella (wife of the demented king), who had played an
evil part in all the factious troubles of the time. These two,
having control of the king's person, concluded a treaty with
Henry V. at Troyes, according to the terms of which Henry
should marry the king's daughter Catherine; should be
administrator of the kingdom of France while Charles VI.
lived, and should receive the crown when the latter died. The
marriage took place at once, and almost the whole of France
north of the Loire seemed submissive to the arrangement. The
States-General and the Parliament of Paris gave official
recognition to it; the disinherited dauphin of France, whose
own mother had signed away his regal heritage, retired, with
his Armagnac supporters, to the country south of the Loire,
and had little apparent prospect of holding even that.
{1039}
Two Kings in France.
But a mortal malady had already stricken King Henry V., and he
died in August, 1422. The unfortunate, rarely conscious French
king, whose crown Henry had waited for, died seven weeks
later. Each left an heir who was proclaimed king of France.
The English pretender (Henry VI. in England, Henry II. in
France) was an innocent infant, ten months old; but his court
was in Paris, his accession was proclaimed with due ceremony
at St. Denis, his sovereignty was recognized by the Parliament
and the University of that city, and the half of France
appeared resigned to the lapse of nationality which its
acceptance of him signified. The true heir of the royal house
of France (Charles VII.) was a young man of nearly mature age
and of fairly promising character; but he was proclaimed in a
little town of Berry, by a small following of lords and
knights, and the nation for which he stood hardly seemed to
exist.
The English supporters of the English king of France were too
arrogant and overbearing to retain very long the good will of
their allies among the French people. Something like a
national feeling in northern France was aroused by the
hostility they provoked, and the strength of the position in
which Henry V. left them was steadily but slowly lost. Charles
proved incapable, however, of using any advantages which
opened to him, or of giving his better counsellors an
opportunity to serve him with good effect, and no important
change took place in the situation of affairs until the
English laid siege, in 1428, to the city of Orleans, which was
the stronghold of the French cause.
Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid of Orleans.
Then occurred one of the most extraordinary episodes in
history; the appearance of the young peasant girl of Lorraine,
Jeanne d'Arc, whose coming upon the scene of war was like the
descent of an angel out of Heaven, sent with a Divine
commission to rescue France. Belief in the inspiration of this
simple maiden, who had faith in her own visions and voices,
was easier for that age than belief in a rational rally of
public energies, and it worked like a miracle on the spirit of
the nation. But it could not have done so with effect if the
untaught country girl of Domremy had not been endowed in a
wonderful way, with a wise mind, as well as with an
imaginative one, and with courage as well as with faith. When
the belief in her inspired mission gave her power to lead the
foolish king, and authority to command his disorderly troops,
she acted almost invariably with understanding, with good
sense, with a clear, unclouded judgment, with straightforward
singleness of purpose, and with absolute personal
fearlessness. She saw the necessity for saving Orleans; and
when that had been done under her own captaincy (1429), she
saw how greatly King Charles would gain in prestige if he made
his way to Rheims, and received, like his predecessors, a
solemn coronation and consecration in the cathedral of that
city. It was by force of her gentle obstinacy of determination
that this was done, and the effect vindicated the sagacity of
the Maid. Then she looked upon her mission as accomplished,
and would have gone quietly home to her village; for she seems
to have remained as simple in feeling as when she left her
father's house, and was innocent to the end of any selfish
pleasure in the fame she had won and the importance she had
acquired. But those she had helped would not let her go; and
yet they would not be guided by her without wrangle and
resistance. She wished to move the army straight from Rheims
to Paris, and enter that city before it had time to recover
from the consternation it was in. But other counsellors
retarded the march, by stopping to capture small towns on the
way, until the opportunity for taking Paris was lost. The
king, who had been braced up to a little energy by her
influence, sank back into his indolent pleasures, and faction
and frivolity possessed the court again. Jeanne strove with
high courage against malignant opposition and many
disheartenments, in the siege of Paris and after, exposing
herself in battle with the bravery of a seasoned warrior; and
her reward was to find herself abandoned at last, in a
cowardly way, to the enemy, when she had led a sortie from the
town of Compiegne, to drive back the Duke of Burgundy, who was
besieging it. Taken prisoner, she was given up to the Duke,
and sold by him to the English at Rouen.
That the Maid acted with supernatural powers was believed by
the English as firmly as by the French; but those powers, in
their belief, came, not from Heaven, but from Hell. In their
view she was not a saint, but a sorceress. They paid a high
price to the Duke of Burgundy for his captive, in order to put
her on trial for the witchcraft which they held she had
practised against them, and to destroy her mischievous power.
No consideration for her sex, or her youth, or for the beauty
and purity of character that is revealed in all the accounts
of her trial, moved her judges to compassion. They condemned
her remorselessly to the stake, and she was burned on the 31st
of May, 1431, with no effort put forth on the part of the
French or their ungrateful king to save her from that horrible
fate.
End of the Hundred Years War.
After this, things went badly with the English, though some
years passed before Charles VII. was roused again to any
display of capable powers. At last, in 1435, a general
conference of all parties in the war was brought about at
Arras. The English were offered Normandy and Aquitaine in full
sovereignty, but they refused it, and withdrew from the
conference when greater concessions were denied to them. The
Duke of Burgundy then made terms with King Charles, abandoning
the English alliance, and obtaining satisfaction for the
murder of his father. Charles was now able, for the first time
in his reign, to enter the capital of his kingdom (May, 1436),
and it is said that he found it so wasted by a pestilence and
so ruined and deserted, that wolves came into the city, and
that forty persons were devoured by them in a single week,
some two years later.
{1040}
Charles now began to show better qualities than had appeared
in his character before. He adopted strong measures to
suppress the bands of marauders who harassed and wasted the
country, and to bring all armed forces in the kingdom under
the control and command of the Crown. He began the creation of
a disciplined and regulated militia in France. He called into
his service the greatest French merchant of the day, Jacques
Cœur, who successfully reorganized the finances of the state,
and whose reward, after a few years, was to be prosecuted and
plundered by malignant courtiers, while the king looked
passively on, as he had looked on at the trial and execution
of Jeanne d'Arc.
In 1449, a fresh attack upon the English in Normandy was
begun; and as civil war--the War of the Roses--was then at the
point of outbreak in England, they could make no effective
resistance. Within a year, the whole of Normandy had become
obedient again to the rule of the king of France. In two years
more Guienne had been recovered, and when, in October, 1453,
the French king entered Bordeaux, the English had been finally
expelled from every foot of the realm except Calais and its
near neighborhood. The Hundred Years War was at an end.
England under Edward III.
The century of the Hundred Years War had been, in England, one
of few conspicuous events; and when the romantic tale of that
war--the last sanguinary romance of expiring Chivalry--is
taken out of the English annals of the time, there is not much
left that looks interesting on the surface of things. Below
the surface there are movements of no little importance to be
found.
When Edward III. put forward his claim to the crown of France,
and prepared to make it good by force of arms, the English
nation had absolutely no interest of its own in the
enterprise, from which it could derive no possible advantage,
but which did, on the contrary, promise harm to it, very
plainly, whatever might be the result. If the king succeeded,
his English realm would become a mere minor appendage to a far
more imposing continental dominion, and he and his successors
might easily acquire a power independent and absolute, over
their subjects. If he failed, the humiliation of failure would
wound the pride and the prestige of the nation, while its
resources would have been drained for naught. But these
rational considerations did not suffice to breed any
discoverable opposition to King Edward's ambitious
undertaking. The Parliament gave sanction to it; most probably
the people at large approved, with exultant expectations of
national glory; and when Crécy and Poitiers, with victories
over the hostile Scots, filled the measure of England's glory
to overflowing, they were intoxicated by it, and had little
thought then of the cost or the consequences.
But long before Edward's reign came to an end, the splendid
pageantries of the war had passed out of sight, and a new
generation was looking at, and was suffering from, the
miseries and mortifications that came in its train. The
attempt to conquer France had failed; the fruits of the
victories of Crécy and Poitiers had been lost; even Guienne,
which had been English ground since the days of Henry II., was
mostly given up. And England was weak from the drain of money
and men which the war had caused. The awful plague of the 14th
century, the Black Death, had smitten her people hard and left
diminished numbers to bear the burden. There had been famine
in the land, and grievous distress, and much sorrow.
But the calamities of this bitter time wrought beneficent
effects, which no man then living is likely to have clearly
understood. By plague, famine and battle, labor was made
scarce, wages were raised, the half-enslaved laborer was
speedily emancipated, despite the efforts of Parliament to
keep him in bonds, and land-owners were forced to let their
lands to tenant-farmers, who strengthened the English
middle-class. By the demands of the war for money and men, the
king was held more in dependence on Parliament than he might
otherwise have been, and the plant of constitutional
government, which began its growth in the previous century,
took deeper root.
In the last years of his life Edward III. lost all of his
vigor, and fell under the influence of a woman, Alice Perrers,
who wronged and scandalized the nation. The king's eldest son,
the Black Prince, was slowly dying of an incurable disease,
and took little part in affairs; when he interfered, it seems
to have been with some leanings to the popular side. The next
in age of the living sons of Edward was a turbulent, proud,
self-seeking prince, who gave England much trouble and was
hated profoundly. This was John, Duke of Lancaster, called
John of Gaunt, or Ghent, because of his birth in that city.
England under Richard II.
The Black Prince, dying in 1376, left a young son, Richard,
then ten years old, who was immediately recognized as the heir
to the throne, and who succeeded to it in the following year,
when Edward III. died. The Duke of Lancaster had been
suspected of a design to set Richard aside and claim the crown
for himself. But he did not venture the attempt; nor was he
able to secure even the regency of the kingdom during the
young king's minority. The distrust of him was so general that
Parliament and the lords preferred to invest Richard with full
sovereignty even in his boyhood. But John of Gaunt,
notwithstanding these endeavors to exclude him from any place
of authority, contrived to attain a substantial mastery of the
government, managing the war in France and the expenditure of
public moneys in his own way, and managing them very badly. At
least, he was held chiefly responsible for what was bad, and
his name was heard oftenest in the mutterings of popular
discontent. The peasants were now growing very impatient of
the last fetters of villeinage which they wore, and very
conscious of their right to complete freedom. Those feelings
were strongly stirred in them by a heavy poll-tax which
Parliament levied in 1381. The consequence was an outbreak of
insurrection, led by one Wat the Tyler, which became
formidable and dangerous. The insurgents began by making
everybody they encountered swear to be true to King Richard,
and to submit to no king named John, meaning John of Gaunt.
They increased in numbers and boldness until they entered and
took possession of the city of London, where they beheaded the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and other obnoxious persons; but
permitted no thieving to be done.
{1041}
The day after this occurred, Wat Tyler met the young king at
Smithfield, for a conference, and was suddenly killed by one
of those who attended the king. The excuse made for the deed
was some word of insolence on the part of the insurgent
leader; but there is every appearance of a foul act of
treachery in the affair. Richard on this occasion behaved
boldly and with much presence of mind, acquiring by his
courage and readiness a command over the angry rebels, which
resulted in their dispersion.
The Wat Tyler rebellion appears to have manifested a more
radically democratic state of thinking and feeling among the
common people than existed again in England before the
seventeenth century. John Ball, a priest, and others who were
associated with Wat Tyler in the leadership, preached
doctrines of social equality that would nearly have satisfied
a Jacobin of the French Revolution.
This temper of political radicalism had no apparent connection
with the remarkable religious feeling of the time, which the
great reformer, Wyclif, had aroused; yet the two movements of
the English mind were undoubtedly started by one and the same
revolutionary shock, which it took from the grave alarms and
anxieties of the age, and for which it had been prepared by
the awakening of the previous century. Wyclif was the first
English Puritan, and more of the spirit of the reformation of
religion which he sought, than the spirit of Luther's
reformation, went into the Protestantism that ultimately took
form in England. The movement he stirred was a more wonderful
anticipation of the religious revolt of the sixteenth century
than any other which occurred in Europe; for that of Huss in
Bohemia took its impulse from Wyclif and the English Lollards,
as Wyclif's followers were called.
Richard was a weak but wilful king, and the kingdom was kept
in trouble by his fitful attempts at independence and
arbitrary rule. He made enemies of most of the great lords,
and lost the good will and confidence of Parliament. He did
what was looked upon as a great wrong to Henry of Bolingbroke,
son of John of Gaunt, by banishing both him and the Duke of
Norfolk from the kingdom, when he should have judged between
them; and he made the wrong greater by seizing the lands of
the Lancastrian house when John of Gaunt died. This caused his
ruin. Henry of Bolingbroke, now Duke of Lancaster, came back to
England (1399), encouraged by the discontent in the kingdom,
and was immediately joined by so many adherents that Richard
could offer little resistance. He was deposed by act of
Parliament, and the Duke of Lancaster (a grandson of Edward
III., as Richard was), was elected to the throne, which he
ascended as Henry IV. By judgment of King and Parliament,
Richard was presently condemned to imprisonment for life in
Pomfret Castle; and, early in the following year, after a
conspiracy in his favor had been discovered, he died
mysteriously in his prison.
England Under Henry IV.
The reign of Henry IV., which lasted a little more than
thirteen years, was troubled by risings and conspiracies, all
originating among the nobles, out of causes purely personal or
factious, and having no real political significance. But no
events in English history are more commonly familiar, or seem
to be invested with a higher importance, than the rebellions
of Owen Glendower and the Percys,--Northumberland and Harry
Hotspur,--simply because Shakespeare has laid his magic upon
what otherwise would be a story of little note. Wars with the
always hostile Scots supplied other stirring incidents to the
record Of the time; but these came to a summary end in 1405,
when the crown prince, James, of Scotland, voyaging to France,
was driven by foul winds to the English coast and taken
prisoner. The prince's father, King Robert, died on hearing
the news, and James, the captive, was now entitled to be king.
But the English held him for eighteen years, treating him as a
guest at their court, rather than as a prisoner, and educating
him with care, but withholding him from his kingdom.
To strengthen his precarious seat upon the throne, Henry
cultivated the friendship of the Church, and seems to have
found this course expedient, even at considerable cost to his
popularity. For the attitude of the commons towards the Church
during his reign was anything but friendly. They went so far
as to pass a bill for the confiscation of Church property,
which the Lords rejected; and they seem to have repented of an
Act passed early in his reign, under which a cruel persecution
of the Lollards was begun. The clergy and the Lords, with the
favor of the king, maintained the barbarous law, and England
for the first time saw men burned at the stake for heresy.
England Under Henry V. and Henry VI.
Henry IV. died in 1413, and was succeeded by his spirited and
able, but too ambitious son, Henry V., the Prince Hal of
Shakespeare, who gave up riotous living when called to the
grave duties of government and showed himself to be a man of
no common mould. The war in France, which he renewed, and the
chief events of which have been sketched already, filled up
most of his brief reign of nine years. His early death (1422)
left two crowns to an infant nine months old. The English
crown was not disputed. The French crown, though practically
won by conquest, was not permanently secured, but was still to
be fought for; and in the end, as we have seen, it was lost.
No more need be said of the incidents of the war which had
that result.
The infant king was represented in France by his elder uncle,
the Duke of Bedford. In England, the government was carried on
for him during his minority by a council, in which his younger
uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, occupied the chief place,
but with powers that were jealously restricted. While the war
in France lasted, or during most of the thirty-one years
through which it was protracted after Henry V.'s death, it
engrossed the English mind and overshadowed domestic
interests, so that the time has a meagre history.
Soon after he came of age, Henry VI. married (1444) Margaret
of Anjou, daughter of René, Duke of Anjou, who claimed to be
King of Naples and Jerusalem. The marriage, which aimed at
peace with France, and which had been brought about by the
cession to that country of Maine and Anjou, was unpopular in
England. Discontent with the feeble management of the war, and
with the general weakness and incapability of the government,
grew apace, and showed itself, among other exhibitions, in a
rebellion (1450) known as Jack Cade's, from the name of an
Irishman who got the lead of it. Jack Cade and his followers
took possession of London and held it for three days, only
yielding at last to an offer of general pardon, after they had
beheaded Lord Say, the most obnoxious adviser of the king. A
previous mob had taken the head of the Earl of Suffolk, who
was detested still more as the contriver of the king's
marriage and of the humiliating policy in France.
{1042}
The Wars of the Roses.
At length, the Duke of York, representing an elder line of
royal descent from Edward III., took the lead of the
discontented in the nation, and civil war was imminent in
1452; but pacific counsels prevailed for the moment. The king,
who had always been weak-minded, and entirely under the
influence of the queen, now sank for a time into a state of
complete stupor, and was incapable of any act. The Lords in
Parliament thereupon appointed the Duke of York Protector of
England, and the government was vigorously conducted by him
for a few months, until the king recovered. The queen, and the
councillors she favored, now regained their control of
affairs, and the opposition took arms.
The long series of fierce struggles between these two parties,
which is commonly called the Wars of the Roses, began on the
22d of May, 1455, with a battle at St. Albans--the first of
two that were fought on the same ground. At the beginning, it
was a contest for the possession of the unfortunate,
irresponsible king, and of the royal authority which resided
nominally in his person. But it became, ere long, a contest
for the crown which Henry wore, and to which the Duke of York
denied his right. The Duke traced his ancestry to one son of
Edward III., and King Henry to another son. But the Duke's
forefather, Lionel, was prior in birth to the King's
forefather, John of Gaunt, and, as an original proposition,
the House of York was clearly nearer than the House of
Lancaster to the royal line which had been interrupted when
Richard II. was deposed. The rights of the latter House were
such as it had gained prescriptively by half a century of
possession.
At one time it was decided by the Lords that Henry should be
king until he died, and that the Duke of York and his heirs
should succeed him. But Queen Margaret would not yield the
rights of her son, and renewed the war. The Duke of York was
killed in the next battle fought. His son, Edward, continued
the contest, and early in 1461, having taken possession of
London, he was declared king by a council of Lords, which
formally deposed Henry. The Lancastrians were driven from the
kingdom, and Edward held the government with little
disturbance for eight years. Then a rupture occurred between
him and his most powerful supporter, the Earl of Warwick.
Warwick put himself at the head of a rebellion which failed in
the first instance, but which finally, when Warwick had joined
forces with Queen Margaret, drove Edward to flight. The latter
took refuge in the Netherlands (1470), where he received
protection and assistance from the Duke of Burgundy, who was
his brother-in-law. Henry VI. was now restored to the throne;
but for no longer a time than six months. At the end of that
period Edward landed again in England, with a small force,
professing that he came only to demand his dukedom. As soon as
he found himself well received and strongly supported, he
threw off the mask, resumed the title of king, and advanced to
London, where the citizens gave him welcome. A few days later
(April 14, 1471) he went out to meet Warwick and defeated and
slew him in the fierce battle of Barnet. One more fight at
Tewkesbury, where Queen Margaret was taken prisoner, ended the
war. King Henry died, suspiciously, in the Tower, on the very
night of his victorious rival's return to London, and Edward
IV. had all his enemies under his feet.
England under the House of York.
For a few years England enjoyed peace within her borders, and
the material effects of the protracted civil wars were rapidly
effaced. Indeed, the greater part of England appears to have
been lightly touched by those effects. The people at large had
taken little part in the conflict, and had been less disturbed
by it, in their industries and in their commerce, than might
have been expected. It had been a strife among the great
families, enlisting the gentry to a large extent, no doubt,
but not the middle class. Hence its chief consequence had been
the thinning and weakening of the aristocratic order, which
relatively enhanced the political importance of the commons.
But the commons were not yet trained to act independently in
political affairs. Their rise in power had been through joint
action of lords and commons against the Crown, with the former
in the lead; they were accustomed to depend on aristocratic
guidance, and to lean on aristocratic support. For this
reason, they were not only unprepared to take advantage of the
great opportunity which now opened to them, for decisively
grasping the control of government, but they were unfitted to
hold what they had previously won, without the help of the
class above them. As a consequence, it was the king who
profited by the decimation and impoverishment of the nobles,
grasping not only the power which they lost, but the power
which the commons lacked skill to use. For a century and a
half following the Wars of the Roses, the English monarchy
approached more nearly to absolutism than at any other period
before or after.
The unsparing confiscations by which Edward IV. and his
triumphant party crushed their opponents enriched the Crown
for a time and made it independent of parliamentary subsidies.
When supply from that source began to fall short, the king
invented another. He demeaned himself so far as to solicit
gifts from the wealthy merchants of the kingdom, to which he
gave the name of "benevolences," and he practiced this system
of royal beggary so persistently and effectually that he had
no need to call Parliament together. He thus began, in a
manner hardly perceived or resisted, the arbitrary and
unconstitutional mode of government which his successors
carried further, until the nation roused itself and took back
its stolen liberties with vengeance and wrath.
{1043}
Richard III. and the first of the Tudors.
Edward IV. died in 1483, leaving two young sons, the elder not
yet thirteen. Edward's brother, Richard, contrived with
amazing ability and unscrupulousness to acquire control of the
government, first as Protector, and presently as King. The
young princes, confined in the Tower, were murdered there, and
Richard III. might have seemed to be secure on his wickedly
won throne; for he did not lack popularity, notwithstanding
his crimes. But an avenger soon came, in the person of Henry,
Earl of Richmond, who claimed the Crown. Henry's claim was not
a strong one. Through his mother, he traced his lineage to
John of Gaunt, as the Lancastrians had done; but it was the
mistress and not the wife of that prince who bore Henry's
ancestor. His grandfather was a Welsh chieftain, Sir Owen
Tudor, who won the heart of the widowed queen of Henry V.,
Catherine of France, and married her. But the claim of Henry
of Richmond, if a weak one genealogically, sufficed for the
overthrow of the red-handed usurper, Richard. Henry, who had
been in exile, landed in England in August, 1485, and was
quickly joined by large numbers of supporters. Richard
hastened to attack them, and was defeated and slain on
Bosworth Field. With no more opposition, Henry won the
kingdom, and founded, as Henry VII., the Tudor dynasty which
held the throne until the death of Elizabeth.
Under that dynasty, the history of England took on a new
character, disclosing new tendencies, new impulses, new
currents of influence, new promises of the future. We will not
enter upon it until we have looked at some prior events in
other regions.
Germany.
If we return now to Germany, we take up the thread of events
at an interesting point. We parted from the affairs of that
troubled country while two rival Emperors, Louis IV., or
Ludwig, of Bavaria, and Frederick of Austria, were endeavoring
(1325) to settle their dispute in a friendly way, by sharing
the throne together. Before noting the result of that
chivalric and remarkable compromise, let us glance backward
for a moment at the most memorable and important incident of
the civil war which led to it.
Birth of the Swiss Confederacy.
The three cantons of Switzerland which are known distinctively
as the Forest Cantons, namely, Schwytz (which gave its name in
time to the whole country), Uri, and Unterwalden, had stood in
peculiar relations to the Hapsburg family since long before
Rudolph became Emperor and his house became the House of
Austria. In those cantons, the territorial rights were held
mostly by great monasteries, and the counts of Hapsburg for
generations past had served the abbots and abbesses in the
capacity of advocates, or champions, to rule their vassals for
them and to defend their rights. Authority of their own in the
cantons they had none. At the same time, the functions they
performed so continually developed ideas in their minds,
without doubt, which grew naturally into pretensions that were
offensive to the bold mountaineers. On the other hand, the
circumstances of the situation were calculated to breed
notions and feelings of independence among the men of the
mountains. They gave their allegiance to the Emperor--to the
high sovereign who ruled over all, in the name of Rome--and
they opposed what came between them and him. It is manifest
that a threatening complication for them arose when the Count
of Hapsburg became Emperor, which occurred in 1273. They had
no serious difficulty with Rudolph, in his time; but they
wisely prepared themselves for what might come, by forming, or
by renewing, in 1291, a league of the three cantons,--the
beginning and nucleus of the Swiss Confederation, which has
maintained its independence and its freedom from that day to
this. The league of 1291 had existed something more than
twenty years when the confederated cantons were first called
upon to stand together in resistance to the Austrian
pretensions. This occurred in 1315, during the war between
Louis and Frederick, when Leopold, Duke of Austria, invaded
the Forest Cantons and was disastrously beaten in a fight at
the pass of Morgarten. The victory of the confederates and the
independence secured by it gave them so much prestige that
neighboring cities and cantons sought admission to their
league. In 1332 Luzern was received as a member; in 1351,
1352, and 1353, Zurich, Glarus, Zug, and Bern came in,
increasing the membership to eight. It took the name of the
Old League of High Germany, and its members were known as
Eidgenossen, or Confederates.
Such, in brief, are the ascertained facts of the origin of the
Swiss Confederacy. There is nothing found in authentic history
to substantiate the popular legend of William Tell.
The questions between the league and the Austrian princes,
which continued to be troublesome for two generations, were
practically ended by the two battles of Sempach and Naefels,
fought in 1386 and 1388, in both of which the Austrians were
overthrown.
The Emperor Louis IV. and the Papacy,
While the Swiss were gaining the freedom which they never
lost, Germany at large was making little progress in any
satisfactory direction. Peace had not been restored by the
friendly agreement of 1325 between Ludwig and Frederick. The
partisans of neither were contented with it. Frederick was
broken in health and soon retired from the government; in 1330
he died. The Austrian house persisted in hostility to Louis;
but his more formidable enemies were the Pope and the King of
France. The period was that known in papal history as "the
Babylonish Captivity," when the popes resided at Avignon and
were generally creatures of the French court and subservient
to its ambitions or its animosities. Philip of Valois, who now
reigned in France, aspired to the imperial crown, which the head
of the Church had conferred on the German kings, and which the
same supreme pontiff might claim authority to transfer to the
sovereigns of France. This is supposed to have been the secret
of the relentless hostility with which Louis was pursued by
the Papacy--himself excommunicated, his kingdom placed under
interdict, and every effort made to bring about his deposition
by the princes of Germany. But divided and depressed as the
Germans were, they revolted against these malevolent
pretensions of the popes, and in 1338 the electoral princes
issued a bold declaration, asserting the sufficiency of the
act of election to confer imperial dignity and power, and
denying the necessity for any papal confirmation whatever. Had
Louis been a commanding leader, and independent of the Papacy in
his own feelings, he could probably have rallied a national
sentiment on this issue that would have powerfully affected
the future of German history.
{1044}
But he lacked the needful character, and his troubles
continued until he died (1347). A year before his death, his
opponents had elected and put forward a rival emperor,
Charles, the son of King John of Bohemia. Charles (IV.) was
subsequently recognized as king without dispute, and secured
the imperial crown. "It may be affirmed with truth that the
genuine ancient Empire, which contained a German kingdom, came
to an end with the Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian. None strove
again after his death to restore the imperial power. The
golden bull of his successor Charles IV. sealed the fate of
the old Empire. Through it, and indeed through the entire
conduct of Charles IV., King of Bohemia as he really was, and
emperor scarcely more than in name, the imperial government
passed more and more into the hands of the prince-electors,
who came to regard the emperor no longer as their master, but
as the president of an assembly in which he shared the power
with themselves." "From the time of Charles IV. the main
object and chief occupation of the emperors was not the
Empire, but the aggrandisement and security of their own
house. The Empire served only as the means and instrument of
their purpose" (Dollinger).
The Golden Bull of Charles IV.
The Golden Bull referred to by Dr. Dollinger was an instrument
which became the constitution, so to speak, of the Holy Roman
or Germanic Empire. It prescribed the mode of the election of
the King, and definitively named the seven Electors. It also
conferred certain special powers and privileges on these seven
princes, which raised them much above their fellows and gave
them an independence that may be said to have destroyed every
hope of Germanic unity. This was the one mark which the reign
of Charles IV. left upon the Empire. His exertions as Emperor
were all directed to the aggrandizement of his own family, and
with not much lasting result. In his own kingdom of Bohemia he
ruled with better effect. He made its capital, Prague, an
important city, adorning it with noble buildings and founding
in it the most ancient of German universities. This University
of Prague soon sowed seeds from which sprang the first
movement of religious reformation in Germany.
Charles IV., dying in 1378, was succeeded by his son Wenzel,
or Wenceslaus, on the imperial throne as well as the Bohemian.
Wenceslaus neglected both the Empire and the Kingdom, and the
confusion of things in Germany grew worse. Some of the
principal cities continued to secure considerable freedom and
prosperity for themselves, by the combined efforts of their
leagues; but everywhere else great disorder and oppression
prevailed. It was at this time that the Swabian towns, to the
number of forty-one, formed a union and waged unsuccessful war
with a league which the nobles entered into against them. They
were defeated, and crushingly dealt with by the Emperor.
In 1400 Wenceslaus was deposed and Rupert of the Palatinate
was elected, producing another civil war, and reducing the
imperial government to a complete nullity. Rupert died in
1410, and, after some contention, Sigmund, or Sigismund,
brother of Wenceslaus, was raised to the throne. He was
Margrave of Brandenburg and King of Hungary, and would become
King of Bohemia when Wenceslaus died.
The Reformation of Huss in Bohemia.
Bohemia was about to become the scene of an extraordinary
religious agitation, which John Huss, teacher and preacher in
the new but already famous University of Prague, was beginning
to stir. Huss, who drew more or less of his inspiration from
Wyclif, anticipated Luther in the boldness of his attacks upon
iniquities in the Church. In his case as in Luther's, the
abomination which he could not endure was the sale of papal
indulgences; and it was by his denunciation of that impious
fraud that he drew on himself the deadly wrath of the Roman
hierarchy. He was summoned before the great Council of the
Church which opened at Constance in 1414. He obeyed the
summons and went to the Council, bearing a safe-conduct from
the Emperor which pledged protection to him until he returned.
Notwithstanding this imperial pledge, he was imprisoned for
seven months at Constance, and was then impatiently listened
to and condemned to the stake. On the 6th of July, 1415, he
was burned. In the following May, his friend and disciple,
Jerome of Prague, suffered the same martyrdom. The Emperor,
Sigismund, blustered a little at the insolent violation of his
safe-conduct; but dared do nothing to make it effective.
In Bohemia, the excitement produced by these outrages was
universal. The whole nation seemed to rise, in the first
wide-spread aggressive popular revolt that the Church of Rome
had yet been called upon to encounter. In 1419 there was an
armed assembly of 40,000 men, on a mountain which they called
Tabor, who placed themselves under the leadership of John
Ziska, a nobleman, one of Huss' friends. The followers of
Ziska soon displayed a violence of temper and a radicalism
which repelled the more moderate Hussites, or Reformers, and
two parties appeared, one known as the Taborites, the other as
the Calixtines, or Utraquists. The former insisted on entire
separation from the Church of Rome; the latter confined their
demands to four reforms, namely: Free preaching of the Word of
God; the giving of the Eucharistic cup to the laity; the
taking of secular powers and of worldly goods from the clergy;
the enforcing of Christian discipline by all authorities. So much
stress was laid by the Calixtines on their claim to the
chalice or cup (communion in both kinds) that it gave them
their name. The breach between these parties widened until
they were as hostile to each other as to the Catholics, and
the Bohemian reform movement was ruined in the end by their
division.
In 1419, the deposed Emperor Wenceslaus, who had still
retained his kingdom of Bohemia, was murdered in his palace,
at Prague. His brother, the Emperor Sigismund, was his heir;
but the Hussites refused the crown to him, and resisted his
pretensions with arms. This added a political conflict to the
religious one, and Bohemia was afflicted with a frightful
civil war for fifteen years. Ziska fortified mount Tabor and
took possession of Prague. The Emperor and the Pope allied
themselves, to crush an insurrection which was aimed against
both. They summoned Christendom to a new crusade, and
Sigismund led 100,000 men against Prague, in 1420. Ziska met
him and defeated him, and drove him, with his crusaders, from
the country. The Taborites were now maddened by their success,
and raged over the land, destroying convents and burning
priests. Their doctrines, moreover, began to take on a
socialistic and republican character, threatening property in
general and questioning monarchy, too. The well-to-do and
conservative classes were more and more repelled from them.
{1045}
In 1421 a second crusading army, 200,000 strong, invaded
Bohemia and was scattered like chaff by Ziska (now blind) and
his peasant soldiery. The next year they defeated the Emperor
again; but in 1424 Ziska died, and a priest called Procopius
the Great took his place. Under their new leader, the fierce
Taborites were as invincible as they had been under Ziska.
They routed an imperial army in 1426, and then carried the war
into Austria and Silesia, committing fearful ravages. Still
another crusade was set in motion against them by the Pope,
and still another disastrous failure was made of it. Then
Germany again suffered a more frightful visitation from the
vengeful Hussites than before. Towns and villages were
destroyed by hundreds, and wide tracks of ruin and death were
marked on the face of the land, to its very center. Once more,
and for the last time, in 1431, the Germans rallied a great force
to retaliate these attacks, and they met defeat, as in all
previous encounters, but more completely than ever before.
Then the Pope and the Emperor gave up hope of putting down the
indomitable revolutionists by force, and opened parleyings.
The Pope called a council at Basel for the discussion of
questions with the Hussites, and, finally, in 1433, their
moderate party was prevailed upon to accept a compromise which
really conceded nothing to them except the use of the cup in
the communion. The Taborites refused the terms, and the two
parties grappled each other in a fierce struggle for the
control of the state. But the extremists had lost much of
their old strength, and the Utraquists vanquished them in a
decisive battle at Lipan, in May, 1434. Two years later
Sigismund was formally acknowledged King of Bohemia and
received in Prague. In 1437 he died. His son-in-law, Albert of
Austria, who succeeded him, lived but two years, and the heir
to the throne then was a son, Ladislaus, born after his
father's death. This left Bohemia in a state of great
confusion and disorder for several years, until a strong man,
George Podiebrad, acquired the control of affairs.
Meantime, the Utraquists had organized a National Church of
Bohemia, considerably divergent from Rome. It failed to
satisfy the deeper religious feelings that were widely current
among the Bohemians in that age, and there grew up a sect
which took the name of "Unitas Fratrum," or "Unity of the
Brethren," but which afterwards became incorrectly known as
the Moravian Brethren. This sect, still existing, has borne an
important part in the missionary history of the Christian
world.
The Papacy.--The Great Schism.
The Papacy, at the time of its conflict with the Hussites, in
Bohemia, was rapidly sinking to that lowest level of
debasement which it reached in the later part of the fifteenth
century. Its state was not yet so abhorrent as it came to be
under the Borgias; but it had been brought even more into
contempt, perhaps, by the divisions and contentions of "the
Great Schism." The so-called "Babylonish Captivity" of the
series of popes who resided for seventy years at Avignon
(1305-1376), and who were under French influence, had been
humiliating to the Church; but the schism which immediately
followed (1378-1417), when a succession of rival popes, or
popes and antipopes, thundered anathemas and excommunications
at one another, from Rome and from Avignon, was even more
scandalous and shameful. Christendom was divided by the
quarrel. France, Spain, Scotland, and some lesser states, gave
their allegiance to the pope at Avignon; England, Germany and
the northern kingdoms adhered to the pope at Rome. In 1402, an
attempt to heal the schism was made by a general Council of
the Church convened at Pisa. It decreed the deposition of both
the contending pontiffs, and elected a third; but its
authority was not recognized, and the confusion of the Church
was only made worse by bringing three popes into the quarrel,
instead of two. Twelve years later, another Council, held at
Constance,--the same which burned Huss,--had more success.
Europe had now grown so tired of the scandal, and so disgusted
with the three pretenders to spiritual supremacy, that the
action of the Council was backed by public opinion, and they
were suppressed. A fourth pope, Martin V., whom the Council
then seated in the chair of St. Peter (1417), was universally
acknowledged, and the Great Schism was at an end.
But other scandals and abuses in the Church, which public
opinion in Europe had already begun to cry loudly against,
were untouched by these Councils. A subsequent Council at
Basel, which met in 1431, attempted some restraints upon papal
extortion (ignoring the more serious moral evils that claimed
attention); but was utterly beaten in the conflict with Pope
Eugenius IV., which this action brought on, and its decrees
lost all effect. So the religious autocracy at Rome, sinking
stage by stage below the foulest secular courts of the time,
continued without check to insult and outrage, more and more,
the piety, the common sense, and the decent feeling of
Christendom, until the habit of reverence was quite worn out
in the minds of men throughout the better half of Europe.
Rome and the last Tribune, Rienzi.
The city of Rome had fallen from all greatness of its own when
it came to be dependent on the fortunes of the popes. Their
departure to Avignon had reduced it to a lamentable state.
They took with them, in reality, the sustenance of the city;
for it lived, in the main, on the revenues of the Papacy, and
knew little of commerce beyond the profitable traffic in
indulgences, absolutions, benefices, relics and papal
blessings, which went to Avignon with the head of the Church.
Authority, too, departed with the Pope, and the wretched city
was given up to anarchy almost uncontrolled. A number of
powerful families--the Colonna, the Orsini, and
others--perpetually at strife with one another, fought out
their feuds in the streets, and abused and oppressed their
neighbors with impunity. Their houses were impregnable
castles, and their retainers were a formidable army.
{1046}
It was while this state of things was at its worst that the
famous Cola di Rienzi, "last of the Tribunes," accomplished a
revolution which was short-lived but extraordinary. He roused
the people to action against their oppressors and the
disturbers of their peace. He appealed to them to restore the
republican institutions of ancient Rome, and when they
responded, in 1347, by conferring on him the title and
authority of a Tribune, he actually succeeded in expelling the
turbulent nobles, or reducing them to submission, and
established in Rome, for a little time, what he called "the
Good Estate." But his head was quickly turned by his success;
he was inflated with conceit and vanity; he became arrogant
and despotic; the people tired of him, and after a few months
of rule he was driven from Rome. In 1354 he came back as a
Senator, appointed by the Pope, who thought to use him for the
restoration of papal authority; but his influence was gone,
and he was slain by a-riotous mob.
The return of the Pope to Rome in 1376 was an event so long
and ardently desired by the Roman people that they submitted
themselves eagerly to his government. But his sovereignty over
the States of the Church was substantially lost, and the
regaining of it was the principal object of the exertions of
the popes for a long subsequent period.
The Two Sicilies.
In Southern Italy and Sicily, since the fall of the
Hohenstaufens (1268), the times had been continuously evil.
The rule of the French conqueror, Charles of Anjou, was hard
and unmerciful, and the power he established became
threatening to the Papacy, which gave the kingdom to him. In
1282, Sicily freed itself, by the savage massacre of Frenchmen
which bears the name of the Sicilian Vespers. The King of
Aragon, Peter III., whose queen was the Hohenstaufen heiress,
supported the insurrection promptly and vigorously, took
possession of the island, and was recognized by the people as
their king. A war of twenty years' duration ensued. Both
Charles and Peter died and their sons continued the battle. In
the end, the Angevin house held the mainland, as a separate
kingdom, with Naples for its capital, and a younger branch of
the royal family of Aragon reigned in the island. But both
sovereigns called themselves Kings of Sicily, so that History,
ever since, has been forced to speak puzzlingly of "Two
Sicilies." For convenience it seems best to distinguish them
by calling one the kingdom of Naples and the other the kingdom
of Sicily. On the Neapolitan throne there came one estimable
prince, in Robert, who reigned from 1309 to 1343, and who was
a friend of peace and a patron of arts and letters. But after
him the throne was befouled by crimes and vices, and the
kingdom was made miserable by civil wars. His grand-daughter
Joanna, or Jane, succeeded him. Robert's elder brother
Caribert had become King of Hungary, and Joanna now married
one of that king's sons--her cousin Andrew. At the end of two
years he was murdered (1345) and the queen, a notoriously
vicious woman, was accused of the crime. Andrew's brother,
Louis, who had succeeded to the throne in Hungary, invaded
Naples to avenge his death, and Joanna was driven to flight.
The country then suffered from the worst form of civil war--a
war carried on by the hireling ruffians of the "free
companies" who roamed about Italy in that age, selling their
swords to the highest bidders. In 1351 a peace was brought
about which restored Joanna to the throne. The Hungarian
King's son, known as Charles of Durazzo, was her recognized
heir, but she saw fit to disinherit him and adopt Louis, of
the Second House of Anjou, brother of Charles V. in France.
Charles of Durazzo invaded Naples, took the queen prisoner and
put her to death. Louis of Anjou attempted to displace him, but
failed. In 1383 Louis died, leaving his claims to his son.
Charles of Durazzo was called to Hungary, after a time, to
take the crown of that kingdom, and left his young son,
Ladislaus, on the Neapolitan throne. The Angevin claimant,
Louis II., was then called in by his partisans, and civil war
was renewed for years. When Ladislaus reached manhood he
succeeded in expelling Louis, and he held the kingdom until
his death, in 1414. He was succeeded by his sister, Joanna
II., who proved to be as wicked and dissolute a woman as her
predecessor of the same name. She incurred the enmity of the
Pope, who persuaded Louis III., son of Louis II., to renew the
claims of his house. The most renowned "condottiere" (or
military contractor, as the term might be translated), of the
day, Atteridolo Sforza, was engaged to make war on Queen
Joanna in the interest of Louis. On her side she obtained a
champion by promising her dominions to Alfonso V., of Aragon
and Sicily. The struggle went on for years, with varying
fortunes. The fickle and treacherous Joanna revoked her
adoption of Alfonso, after a time, and made Louis her heir.
When Louis died, she bequeathed her crown to his brother René,
Duke of Lorraine. Her death occurred in 1435, but still the
war continued, and nearly all Italy was involved in it, taking
one side or the other. Alfonso succeeded at last (1442) in
establishing himself at Naples, and René practically gave up
the contest, although he kept the title of King of Naples. He
was the father of the famous English Queen Margaret of Anjou,
who fought for her weak-minded husband and her son in the Wars
of the Roses.
While the Neapolitan kingdom was passing through these endless
miseries of anarchy, civil war, and evil government, the
Sicilian kingdom enjoyed a more peaceful and prosperous
existence. The crown, briefly held by a cadet branch of the
House of Aragon, was soon reunited to that of Aragon; and
under Alfonso, as we have seen, it was once more joined with
that of Naples, in a "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies." But both
these unions were dissolved on the death of Alfonso, who
bequeathed Aragon and Sicily to his legitimate heir, and
Naples to a bastard son.
The Despots of Northern Italy.
In Northern Italy a great change in the political state of
many among the formerly free commonwealths had been going on
since the thirteenth century. The experience of the Greek
city-republics had been repeated in them. In one way and
another, they had fallen under the domination of powerful
families, who had established a despotic rule over them,
sometimes gathering several cities and their surrounding
territory into a considerable dominion, and obtaining from the
Emperor or the Pope a formally conferred and hereditary title.
Thus the Visconti had established themselves at Milan, and had
become a ducal house. After a few generations they gave way to
the military adventurer, Francesco Sforza, son of the Sforza
who made war for Louis III. of Anjou on Joanna II. of Naples.
In Verona, the Della Scala family reigned for a time, until
Venice overcame them; at Modena and Ferrara, the Estes; at
Mantua, the Gonzagas; at Padua, the Carraras.
{1047}
The Italian Republics.
In other cities, the political changes were of a different
character. Venice, which grew rich and powerful with
extraordinary rapidity, was tyrannically governed by a haughty
and exclusive aristocracy. In commerce and in wealth she
surpassed all her rivals, and her affairs were more shrewdly
conducted. She held large possessions in the East, and she was
acquiring an extensive dominion on the Italian mainland. The
Genoese, who were the most formidable competitors of Venice in
commerce, preserved their democracy, but at some serious
expense to the administrative efficiency of their government.
They were troubled by a nobility which could only be turbulent
and could not control. They fought a desperate but losing
fight with the Venetians, and were several times in subjection
to the dukes of Milan and the kings of France. Pisa, which had
led both Venice and Genoa in the commercial race at the
beginning, was ruined by her wars with the latter, and with
Florence, and sank, in the fourteenth century, under the rule
of the Visconti, who sold their rights to the Florentines.
Florence.
The wonderful Florentine republic was the one which preserved
its independence under popular institutions the longest, and
in which they bore the most splendid fruit. For a period that
began in the later part of the thirteenth century, the
government of Florence was so radically democratic that the
nobles (grandi) were made ineligible to office, and could only
qualify themselves for election to any place in the magistracy
by abandoning their order and engaging in the labor of some
craft or art. The vocations of skilled industry were all
organized in gilds, called Arti, and were divided into two
classes, one representing what were recognized as the superior
arts (Arti Major, embracing professional and mercantile callings,
with some others); the other including the commoner
industries, known as the Arti Minori. From the heads, or
Priors, of the Arti were chosen a Signory, changed every two
months, which was entrusted with the government of the
republic. This popular constitution was maintained in its
essential features through the better part of a century, but
with continual resistance and disturbance from the excluded
nobles, on one side, and from the common laboring people, on
the other, who belonged to no art-gild and who, therefore,
were excluded likewise from participation in political
affairs. Between these two upper and lower discontents, the
bourgeois constitution gave way at last. The mob got control
for a time; but only, as always happens, to bring about a
reactionary revolution, which placed an oligarchy in power;
and the oligarchy made smooth the way for a single family of
great wealth and popular gifts and graces to rise to supremacy
in the state. This was the renowned family which began to rule
in Florence in 1435, when Cosimo de' Medici entered on the
office of Gonfaloniere. The Medici were not despots, of the
class of the Visconti, or the Sforzas, or the Estes. They
governed under the old constitutional forms, with not much
violation of anything except the spirit of them. They acquired
no princely title, until the late, declining days of the
house. Their power rested on influence and prestige, at first,
and finally on habit. They developed, and enlisted in their
own support, as something reflected from themselves, the pride
of the city in itself,--in its magnificence,--in its great and
liberal wealth,--in its patronage of letters and art,--in its
fame abroad and the admiration with which men looked upon it.
Through all the political changes in Florence there ran an
unending war of factions, the bitterest and most inveterate in
history. The control of the city belonged naturally to the
Guelfs, for it was the head and front of the Guelfic party in
Italy. "Without Florence," says one historian, "there would
have been no Guelfs." But neither party scrupled to call armed
help from the outside into its quarrels, and the Ghibellines
were able, nearly as often as the Guelfs, to drive their
opponents from the city. For the ascendancy of one faction
meant commonly the flight or expulsion of every man in the
other who had importance enough to be noticed. It was thus
that Dante, an ardent Ghibelline, became an exile from his
beloved Florence during the later years of his life. But the
strife of Guelfs with Ghibellines did not suffice for the
partisan rancor of the Florentines, and they complicated it
with another split of factions, which bore the names of the
Bianchi and the Neri, 01' the Whites and the Blacks.
For two or three centuries the annals of Florence are naught,
one thinks in reading them, but an unbroken tale of strife
within, or war without--of tumult, riot, revolution,
disorder. And yet, underneath, there is an amazing story to be
found, of thrift, industry, commerce, prosperity, wealth, on
one side, and of the sublimest genius, on another, giving
itself, in pure devotion, to poetry and art. The contradiction
of circumstances seems irreconcilable to our modern
experience, and we have to seek an explanation of it in the
very different conditions of mediæval life. It is with
certainty a fact that Florence, in its democratic time, was
phenomenal in genius, and in richness of life,--in prosperity
both material and intellectual; and it is reasonable to credit
to that time the planting and the growing of fruits which
ripened surpassingly in the Medicean age.
The Ottomans and the Eastern Empire.
So little occasion has arisen for any mention of the lingering
Eastern Empire, since Michael Palæologus, the Greek, recovered
Constantinople from the Franks (1261), that its existence
might easily be forgotten. It had no importance until it fell,
and then it loomed large again, in history, not only by the
tragic impression of its fall upon the imaginations of men,
but by the potent consequences of it.
For nearly two hundred years, the successors of Palæologus,
still calling themselves "Emperors of the Romans," and ruling
a little Thracian and Macedonian corner of the old dominion of
the Eastern Cæsars, struggled with a new race of Turks, who
had followed the Seljuk horde out of the same Central Asian
region. One of the first known leaders of this tribe was
Osman, or Othman, after whom they are sometimes called
Osmanlis, but more frequently Ottoman Turks. They appeared in
Asia Minor about the middle of the thirteenth century,
attacking both Christian and Mahometan states, and gradually
extending their conquest over the whole. About the end of the
first century of their career, they passed the straits and won
a footing in Europe. In 1361, they took Hadrianople and made
it their capital. Their sultan at this time was Amurath.
{1048}
As yet, they did not attack Constantinople. The city itself
was too strong in its fortifications; but beyond the walls of
the capital there was no strength in the little fragment of
Empire that remained. It appealed vainly to Western Europe for
help. It sought to make terms with the Church of Rome. Nothing
saved it for the moment but the evident disposition of the
Turk to regard it as fruit which would drop to his hand in due
time, and which he might safely leave waiting while he turned
his arms against its more formidable neighbors. He contented
himself with exacting tribute from the emperors, and
humiliating them by commands which they dared not disobey. In
the Servians, the Bosnians, and the Bulgarians, Amurath found
worthier foes. He took Sophia, their principal city, from the
latter, in 1382; in 1389 he defeated the two former nations in
the great battle of Kossova. At the moment of victory he was
assassinated, and his son Bajazet mounted the Ottoman throne.
The latter, at Nicopolis (1396), overwhelmed and destroyed the
one army which Western Europe sent to oppose the conquering
march of his terrible race. Six years later, he himself was
vanquished and taken prisoner in Asia by a still more terrible
conqueror,--the fiendish Timour or Tamerlane, then scourging
the eastern Continent. For some years the Turks were paralyzed
by a disputed succession; but under Amurath II., who came to
the throne in 1421, their advance was resumed, and in a few
years more their long combat with the Hungarians began.
Hungary and the Turks.
The original line of kings of Hungary having died out in 1301,
the influence of the Pope, who claimed the kingdom as a fief
of the papal see, secured the election to the throne of
Charles Robert, or Caribert, of the Naples branch of the House
of Anjou. He and his son Louis, called the Great, raised the
kingdom to notable importance and power. Louis added the crown
of Poland to that of Hungary, and on his death, leaving two
daughters, the Polish crown passed to the husband of one and
the Hungarian crown to the husband of the other. This latter
was Sigismund of Luxemburg, who afterwards became Emperor, and
also King of Bohemia. Under Sigismund, Hungary was threatened
on one side by the Turks, and ravaged on the other by the
Hussites of Bohemia. He was succeeded (1437) by his
son-in-law, Albert of Austria, who lived only two years, and
the latter was followed by Wladislaus, King of Poland; who
again united the two crowns, though at the cost of a
distracting civil war with partisans of the infant son of
Albert. It was in the reign of this prince that the Turks
began their obstinate attacks on Hungary, and thenceforth, for
two centuries and more, that afflicted country served
Christendom as a battered bulwark which the new warriors of
Islam could beat and disfigure but could not break down. The
hero of these first Hungarian wars with the Turks was John
Huniades, or Hunyady, a Wallachian, who fought them with
success until a peace was concluded in 1444. But King
Wladislaus was persuaded the same year by a papal agent to
break the treaty and to lead an expedition against the enemy's
lines. The result was a calamitous defeat, the death of the
king, and the almost total destruction of his army. Huniades
now became regent of the kingdom, during the minority of the
late King Albert's young son, Ladislaus.
He suffered one serious defeat at the hands of the Turks, but
avenged it again and again, with help from an army of
volunteers raised in all parts of Europe by the exertions of a
zealous monk named Capistrano. When Huniades died, in 1456,
his enemies already controlled the worthless young king,
Ladislaus, and the latter pursued him in his grave with
denunciations as a traitor and a villain. In 1458, Ladislaus
died, and Mathias, a son of Huniades, was elected king. After
he had settled himself securely upon the throne, Mathias
turned his arms, not against the Turks, but against the
Hussites of Bohemia, in an attempt to wrest the crown of that
kingdom from George Podiebrad.
The Fall of Constantinople.
Meantime, the Turkish Sultan, Mohammed II., had accomplished
the capture of Constantinople and brought the venerable Empire
of the East--Roman, Greek, or Byzantine, as we choose to name
it--to an end. He was challenged to the undertaking by the
folly of the last Emperor, Constantine Palæologus, who
threatened to support a pretender to Mohammed's throne. The
latter began serious preparations at once for a siege of the
long coveted city, and opened his attack in April, 1453. The
Greeks, even in that hour of common danger, were too hotly
engaged in a religious quarrel to act defensively together.
Their last preceding emperor had gone personally to the
Council of the Western Church, at Florence, in 1439, with some
of the bishops of the Greek Church, and had arranged for the
submission of the latter to Rome, as a means of procuring help
from Catholic Europe against the Turks. His successor,
Constantine, adhered to this engagement, professed the
Catholic faith and observed the Catholic ritual. His subjects
in general repudiated the imperial contract with scorn, and
avowedly preferred a Turkish master to a Roman shepherd. Hence
they took little part in the defense of the city. Constantine,
with the small force at his command, fought the host of
besiegers with noble courage and obstinacy for seven weeks,
receiving a little succor from the Genoese, but from no other
quarter. On the 29th of May the walls were carried by storm;
the Emperor fell, fighting bravely to the last; and the Turks
became masters of the city of Constantine. There was no
extensive massacre of the inhabitants; the city was given up
to pillage, but not to destruction, for the conqueror intended
to make it his capital. A number of fugitives had escaped,
before, or during the siege, and made their way into Italy and
other parts of Europe, carrying an influence which was
importantly felt, as we shall presently see; but 60,000
captives, men, women and children, were sold into slavery and
scattered throughout the Ottoman Empire.
Greece and most of the islands of the Ægean soon shared the
fate of Constantinople, and the subjugation of Servia and
Bosnia was made complete. Mohammed was even threatening Italy
when he died, in 1481.
{1049}
Renaissance.
We have now come, in our hasty survey of European history, to
the stretch of time within which historians have quite
generally agreed to place the ending of the state of things
characteristic of the Middle Ages, and the beginning of the
changed conditions and the different spirit that belong to the
modern life of the civilized world. The transition in European
society from mediæval to modern ways, feelings, and thoughts
has been called Renaissance, or new birth; but the figure
under which this places the conception before one's mind does
not seem to be really a happy one. There was no birth of
anything new in the nature of the generations of men who
passed through that change, nor in the societies which they
formed. What occurred to make changes in both was an
expansion, a liberation, an enlightenment--an opening of eyes,
and of ears, and of inner senses and sensibilities. There was no
time and no place that can be marked at which this began; and
there is no cause nor chain of causes to which it can be
traced. We have found signs of its coming, here and there, in
one token of movement and another, all the way through later
mediæval times--at least since the first Crusades. In the
thirteenth century there was a wonderful quickening of all the
many processes which made it up. In the fourteenth century
they were checked; but still they went on. In the fifteenth
they revived with greater energy than before; and in the
sixteenth they rose to their climax in intensity and effect.
That which took place in European society was not a
re-naissance so much as the re-wakening of men to a day-light
existence, after a thousand years of sunless
night,--moonlighted at the best. The truest descriptive figure
is that which represents these preludes to our modern age as a
morning dawn and daybreak.
Probably foremost among the causes of the change in Western
Europe from the mediæval to the modern state, we must place
those influences that extinguished the disorganizing forces in
feudalism. Habits and forms of the feudal arrangement remained
troublesome in society, as they do in some measure to the
present day; but feudalism as a system of social disorder and
disintegration was by this time cleared away. We have noted in
passing some of the undermining agencies by which it was
destroyed: the crusading movements; the growth and
enfranchisement of cities; the spread of commerce; the rise of
a middle class; the study of Roman law; the consequent increase
of royal authority in France,--all these were among the causes
of its decline. But possibly none among them wrought such
quick and deadly harm to feudalism as the introduction of
gunpowder and fire-arms in war, which occurred in the
fourteenth century. When his new weapons placed the
foot-soldier on a fairly even footing in battle with the
mailed and mounted knight, the feudal military organization of
society was ruined beyond remedy. The changed conditions of
warfare made trained armies, and therefore standing armies, a
necessity; standing armies implied centralized authority; with
centralized authority the feudal condition disappeared.
If these agencies in the generating of the new movement of
civilization which we call Modern are placed before the
subtler and more powerful influence of the printing press, it
is because they had to do a certain work in the world before
the printing press could be an efficient educator. Some
beginning of a public, in our modern sense, required to be
created, for letters to act upon. Until that came about, the
copyists of the monasteries and of the few palace libraries
existing were more than sufficient to satisfy all demands for
the multiplication of ancient writings or the publication of
new ones. The printer, if he had existed, would have starved
for want of employment. He would have lacked material,
moreover, to work upon; for it was the rediscovery of a great
ancient literature which made him busy when he came.
Invention of Printing.
The preparation of Europe for an effective use of the art of
printing may be said to have begun in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, when the great universities of Paris,
Bologna, Naples, Padua, Modena, and others, came into
existence, to be centers of intellectual
irritation--disputation--challenge--groping inquiry. But it
was not until the fourteenth century, when the labors and the
influence of Petrarch and other scholars and men of genius
roused interest in the forgotten literature of ancient Rome
and Greece, that the craving and seeking for books grew
considerable. Scholars and pretended scholars from the Greek
Empire then began to find employment, in Italy more
especially, as teachers of the Greek language, and a market
was opened for manuscripts of the older Greek writings, which
brought many precious ones to light, after long burial, and
multiplied copies of them. From Italy, this revival of classic
learning crept westward and northward somewhat slowly, but it
went steadily on, and the book as a commodity in the commerce
of the world rose year by year in importance, until the
printer came forward, about the middle of the fifteenth
century, to make it abundant and cheap.
Whether John Gutenberg, at Mentz, in 1454, or Laurent Coster,
at Haarlem, twenty years earlier, executed the first printing
with movable types, is a question of small importance, except
as a question of justice between the two possible inventors,
in awarding a great fame which belongs to one or both. The
grand fact is, that thought and knowledge took wings from that
sublime invention, and ideas were spread among men with a
swift diffusion that the world had never dreamed of before.
The slow wakening that had gone on for two centuries became
suddenly so quick that scarcely more than fifty years, from
the printing of the first Bible, sufficed to inoculate half of
Europe with the independent thinking of a few boldly
enlightened men.
{1050}
The Greek Revival.
If Gutenberg's printing of Pope Nicholas' letter of
indulgence, in 1454, was really the first achievement of the
new-born art, then it followed by a single year the event
commonly fixed upon for the dating of our Modern Era, and it
derived much of its earliest importance indirectly from that
event. For the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, was preceded
and followed by a flight of Greeks to Western Europe, bearing
such treasures as they could save from the Turks. Happily
those treasures included precious manuscripts; and among the
fugitives was no small number of educated Greeks, who became
teachers of their language in the West. Thus teaching and text
were offered at the moment when the printing press stood ready
to make a common gift of them to every hungering student. This
opened the second of the three stages which the late John
Addington Symonds defined in the history of scholarship during
the Renaissance: "The first is the age of passionate desire;
Petrarch poring over a Homer he could not understand, and
Boccaccio in his maturity learning Greek, in order that he
might drink from the well-head of poetic inspiration, are the
heroes of this period. They inspired the Italians with a
thirst for antique culture. Next comes the age of acquisition
and of libraries. Nicholas V., who founded the Vatican Library
in 1453, Cosmo de' Medici, who began the Medicean Collection a
little earlier, and Poggio Bracciolani, who ransacked all the
cities and convents of Europe for manuscripts, together with
the teachers of Greek, who in the first half of the fifteenth
century escaped from Constantinople with precious freights of
classic literature, are the heroes of this second period."
"Then came the third age of scholarship--the age of the
critics, philologers, and printers. ... Florence, Venice,
Basle, and Paris groaned with printing presses. The Aldi, the
Stephani, and Froben, toiled by night and day, employing
scores of scholars, men of supreme devotion and of mighty
brain, whose work it was to ascertain the right reading of
sentences, to accentuate, to punctuate, to commit to the
press, and to place beyond the reach of monkish hatred or of
envious time, that everlasting solace of humanity which exists
in the classics. All subsequent achievements in the field of
scholarship sink into insignificance beside the labours of
these men, who needed genius, enthusiasm, and the sympathy of
Europe for the accomplishment of their titanic task. Virgil
was printed in 1470, Homer in 1488, Aristotle in 1498, Plato
in 1512. They then became the inalienable heritage of mankind.
... This third age in the history of the Renaissance
Scholarship may be said to have reached its climax in Erasmus
[1465-1536]; for by this time Italy had handed on the torch
of learning to the northern nations" (Symonds).
Art had already had its new birth in Italy; but it shared with
everything spiritual and intellectual the wonderful quickening
of the age, and produced the great masters of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries: Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci,
Raphael, Titian, in Italy, the Brothers Van Eyck in Flanders,
Holbein and Dürer, in Germany, and the host of their compeers
in that astonishing age of artistic genius.
Portuguese Explorations.
A ruder and more practical direction in which the spirit of
the age manifested itself conspicuously and with prodigious
results was that of exploring navigation, to penetrate the
unknown regions of the globe and find their secrets out. But,
strangely, it was none of the older maritime and commercial
peoples who led the way in this: neither the Venetians, nor
the Genoese, nor the Catalans, nor the Flemings, nor the Hansa
Leaguers, nor the English, were early in the search for new
countries and new routes of trade. The grand exploit of
"business enterprise" in the fifteenth century, which changed
the face of commerce throughout the world, was left to be
performed by the Portuguese, whose prior commercial experience
was as slight as that of any people in Europe. And it was one
great man among them, a younger son in their royal family,
Prince Henry, known to later times as "the Navigator," who
woke the spirit of exploration in them and pushed them to the
achievement which placed Portugal, for a time, at the head of
the maritime states. Beginning in 1434, Prince Henry sent
expedition following expedition down the western coast of
Africa, searching for the southern extremity of the continent,
and a way round it to the eastward--to the Indies, the goal of
commercial ambition then and long after. In our own day it
seems an easy thing to sail down the African coast to the
Cape; but it was not easy in the middle of the fifteenth
century; and when Prince Henry died, in 1460, his ships had
only reached the mouth of the Gambia, or a little way beyond
it. His countrymen had grown interested, however, in the
pursuit which he began, and expeditions were continued, not
eagerly but at intervals, until Bartolomew Diaz, in 1486,
rounded the southern point of the continent without knowing
it, and Vasco da Gama, in 1497, passed beyond, and sailed to
the coast of India.
Discovery of America.
Five years before this, Columbus, in the service of Ferdinand
and Isabella of Spain, had made the more venturesome voyage
westward, and had found the New World of America. That the
fruits of that surpassing discovery fell to Spain, is one of
the happenings of history which one need not try to explain;
since (if we except the Catalans among them) there were no
people in Europe less inclined to ocean adventure than the
Spaniards. But they had just finished the conquest of the
Moors; their energies, long exercised in that struggle,
demanded some new outlet, and the Genoese navigator, seeking
money and ships, and baffled in all more promising lands, came
to them at the right moment for a favorable hearing. So
Castile won the amazing prize of adventure, which seems to
have belonged by more natural right to Genoa, or Venice, or
Bruges, or Lubeck, or Bristol.
The immediate material effects of the finding of the new way
to the Asiatic side of the world were far more important than
the effects of the discovery of America, and they were
promptly felt. No sooner had the Portuguese secured their
footing in the eastern seas, and on the route thither, which
they proceeded vigorously to do, than the commerce of Europe
with that rich region of spices and silks, and curious
luxuries which Europe loved, abandoned its ancient channels
and ran quickly into the new one. There were several strong
reasons for this: (1) the carriage of goods by the longer
ocean route was cheaper than by caravan routes to the
Mediterranean; (2) the pestilent Moorish pirates of the
Barbary Coast were escaped; (3) European merchants found heavy
advantages in dealing directly with the East instead of
trading at second hand through Arabs and Turks. So the
commerce of the Indies fled suddenly away from the
Mediterranean to the Atlantic; fled from Venice, from Genoa,
from Marseilles, from Barcelona, from Constantinople, from
Alexandria; fled, too, from many cities of the arrogant Hanse
league in the North, which had learned the old ways of traffic
and were slow to catch the idea of a possible change. At the
outset of the rearrangement of trade, the Portuguese won and
held, for a time, the first handling of East Indian
commodities, while Dutch, English and German
traders--especially the first named--met them at Lisbon and
took their wares for distribution through central and northern
Europe. But, in no long time, the Dutch and English went to
India on their own account, and ousted the Portuguese from
their profitable monopoly.
{1051}
Commercially, the discovery of America had little effect on
Europe for a century or two. Politically, it had vast
consequences in the sixteenth century, which came, in the
main, from the power and prestige that accrued to Spain. But
perhaps its most important effects were those moral and
intellectual ones which may be attributed to the sudden,
surprising enlargement of the geographical horizon of men. The
lifting of the curtain of mystery which had hung so long
between two halves of the world must have compelled every man,
who thought at all, to suspect that other curtains of mystery
might be hiding facts as simple and substantial, waiting for
their Columbus to disclose them; and so the bondage of the
mediæval mind to that cowardice of superstition which fears
inquiry, must surely have been greatly loosened by the
startling event. But the Spaniards, who rushed to the
possession of the new-found world, showed small signs of any
such effect upon their minds; and perhaps it was the greedy
thought of their possession which excluded it.
Nationalization of Spain.
The Spaniards were one of half-a-dozen peoples in Western
Europe who had just arrived, in this fifteenth century, at a
fairly consolidated nationality, and were prepared, for the
first time in their history, to act with something like
organic unity in the affairs of the world. It was one of the
singular birth-marks of the new era in history, that so many
nations passed from the inchoate to the definite form at so
nearly the same time. The marriage of Isabella of Castile to
Ferdinand of Aragon, in 1469, effected a permanent union of
the two crowns, and a substantial incorporation of the greater
part of the Spanish peninsula into a single strong kingdom,
made yet stronger in 1491 by the conquest of Grenada and
subjugation of the last of the Spanish Moors.
Louis XI. and the Nationalizing of France.
The nationalizing of France had been a simultaneous but quite
different process. From the miserably downfallen and divided
state in which it was left by the Hundred Years War, it was
raised by a singular king, who employed strange, ignoble
methods, but employed them with remarkable success. This was
Louis XI., who owes to Sir Walter Scott's romance of "Quentin
Durward" an introduction to common fame which he could hardly
have secured otherwise; since popular attention is not often
drawn to the kind of cunning and hidden work in politics which
he did.
Louis XI., on coming to the throne in 1461, found himself
surrounded by a state of things which seemed much like a
revival of the feudal state at its worst, when Philip Augustus
and Louis IX. had to deal with great vassals who rivalled or
overtopped them in power. The reckless granting of appanages
to children of the royal family had raised up a new group of
nobles, too powerful and too proud to be loyal and obedient
subjects of the monarchy. At the head of them was the Duke of
Burgundy, whose splendid dominion, extended by marriage over
most of the Netherlands, raised him to a place among the
greater princes of Europe, and who quite outshone the King of
France in everything but the royal title. It was impossible,
under the circumstances, for the crown to establish its
supremacy over these powerful lords by means direct and open.
The craft and dishonesty of Louis found methods more
effectual. He cajoled, beguiled, betrayed and cheated his
antagonists, one by one. He played the selfishness and
ambitions of each against the others, and he skilfully evoked
something like a public opinion in his kingdom against the
whole. At the outset of his reign the nobles formed a
combination against him which they called the League of the
Public Weal, but which aimed at nothing but fresh gains to the
privileged class and advantages to its chiefs. Of alliance with
the people against the crown, as in England, there was no
thought. Louis yielded to the League in appearance, and
cunningly went beyond its demands in his concessions, making
it odious to the kingdom at large, and securing to himself the
strong support of the States-General of France, when he
appealed to it.
The tortuous policy of Louis was aided by many favoring
circumstances and happenings. It was favored not least,
perhaps, by the hot-headed character of Charles the Bold, who
succeeded his father, Philip, in the Duchy of Burgundy, in
1467. Charles was inspired with a great and not unreasonable
ambition, to make his realm a kingdom, holding a middle place
between France and Germany. He had abilities, but he was of a
passionate and haughty temper, and no match for the cool,
perfidious, plotting King of France. The latter, by skilful
intrigue, involved him in a war with the Swiss, which he
conducted imprudently, and in which he was defeated and killed
(1477). His death cleared Louis' path to complete mastery in
France, and he made the most of his opportunity. Charles left
only a daughter, Mary of Burgundy, and her situation was
helpless. Louis lost no time in seizing the Duchy of Burgundy,
as a fief of France, and in the pretended exercise of his
rights as godfather of the Duchess Mary. He also took
possession of Franche Comté, which was a fief of the Empire,
and he put forward claims in Flanders, Artois, and elsewhere.
But the Netherlanders, while they took advantage of the young
duchess' situation, and exacted large concessions of chartered
privileges from her, yet maintained her rights; and before the
first year of her orphanage closed, she obtained a champion by
marriage with the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, son of the
Emperor, Frederick III. Maximilian was successful in war with
Louis; but the latter succeeded, after all, in holding
Burgundy, which was thenceforth absorbed in the royal domain
of France and gave no further trouble to the monarchy, while
he won some important extensions of the northwestern frontiers
of his kingdom.
Before the death of Louis XI. the French crown regained Anjou,
Maine, and Provence, by inheritance from the last
representative of the great second House of Anjou. Thus the
kingdom which he left to his son, Charles VIII. (1483), was a
consolidated nation, containing in its centralized government
the germs of the absolute monarchy of a later day.
{1052}
Italian Expedition of Charles VIII.
Charles VIII. was a loutish and uneducated boy of eight years
when his father died. His capable sister Anne carried on the
government for some years, and continued her father's work by
defeating a revolt of the nobles, and by marrying the young
king to the heiress of Brittany--thereby uniting to the crown
the last of the great semi-independent fiefs. When Charles
came of age, he conceived the idea of recovering the kingdom
of Naples, which the House of Anjou claimed, and which he
looked upon as part of his inheritance from that House. He was
incited to the enterprise, moreover, by Ludovico il Moro, or
Louis the Moor, an intriguing uncle of the young Duke of
Milan, who conspired to displace his nephew. In 1494 Charles
crossed the Alps with a large and well-disciplined army, and
met with no effectual opposition. The Medici of Florence and
the Pope had agreed together to resist this French intrusion,
which they feared; but the invading force proved too
formidable, and the Florentines, then under the influence of
Savonarola, looked to it for their liberation from the
Medicean rule, already oppressive. Accordingly Charles marched
triumphantly through the peninsula, making some stay at Rome.
On his approach to Naples, the Aragonese King, Alfonso,
abdicated in favor of his son, Ferdinand II., and died soon
after. Ferdinand, shut out of Naples by an insurrection, fled
to Sicily, and Charles entered the city, where the populace
welcomed him with warmth. Most of the kingdom submitted within
a few weeks, and the conquest seemed complete, as it had been
easy.
But what they had won so easily the French held with a
careless hand, and they lost it with equal ease. While they
revelled and caroused in Naples, abusing the hospitality of
their new subjects, and gathering plunder with reckless greed,
a dangerous combination was formed against them, throughout
the peninsula. Before they were aware, it had put them in
peril, and Charles was forced to retreat with haste, in the
spring of 1495, leaving an inadequate garrison to hold the
Neapolitan capital. In Lombardy, he had to fight with the
Venetians, and with his protege, Louis the Moor, now Duke of
Milan. He defeated them, and regained France in November. Long
before that time, the small force he left at Naples had been
overcome, and Ferdinand had recovered his kingdom.
In one sense, the French had nothing to show for this their
first expedition of conquest. In another sense they had much
to show and their gain was great. They had made their first
acquaintance with the superior culture of Italy. They had
breathed the air beyond the Alps, which was then surcharged
with the inspirations of the Renaissance. Both the ideas and
the spoil they brought back were of more value to France than
can be easily estimated. They had returned laden with booty,
and much of it was in treasures of art, every sight of which
was a lesson to the sense of beauty and the taste of the
people among whom they were shown. The experience and the
influence of the Italian expedition were undoubtedly very
great, and the Renaissance in France, as an artistic and a
literary birth, is reasonably dated from it.
Italian Wars of Louis XII.
Charles VIII. died suddenly in 1498 and was succeeded by his
cousin, of the Orleans branch of the Valois family, Louis XII.
The new king was weak in character, but not wicked. His first
thought on mounting the throne was of the claims of his family
to other thrones, in Italy. Besides the standing Angevin claim
to the kingdom of Naples, he asserted rights of his own to the
duchy of Milan, as a descendant of Valentina Visconti, heiress
of the ducal house which the Sforzas supplanted. In 1499 he sent
an army against Louis the Moor, and the latter fled from Milan
without an attempt at resistance. Louis took possession of the
duchy with the greatest good will of the people; but, before
half a year had passed, French taxes, French government, and
French manners had disgusted them, and they made an attempt to
restore their former tyrant. The attempt failed, and Louis the
Moor was imprisoned in France for the remainder of his life.
Milan secured, Louis XII. began preparations to repeat the
undertaking of Charles VIII. against Naples. The Neapolitan
crown had now passed to an able and popular king, Frederick,
and Frederick had every reason to suppose that he would be
supported and helped by his kinsman, Ferdinand of Aragon, the
well-known consort of Isabella of Castile. Ferdinand had the
power to hold the French king in check; but instead of using
it for the defense of the Neapolitan branch of his house, he
secretly and treacherously agreed with Louis to divide the
kingdom of Naples with him. Under these circumstances, the
conquest was easily accomplished (1501). The betrayed
Frederick surrendered to Louis, and lived as a pensionary in
France until his death. The Neapolitan branch of the House of
Aragon came to an end.
Louis and Ferdinand speedily quarreled over the division of
their joint conquest. The treacherous Spaniard cheated the
French king in treaty negotiations, gaining time to send
forces into Italy which expelled the French. It was in this
war that the Spanish general, Gonsalvo di Cordova, won the
reputation which gave him the name of "the Great Captain"; and
it was likewise in this war that the chivalric French knight,
Bayard, began the winning of his fame.
The League of Cambrai and the Holy League.
Naples had again slipped from the grasp of France, and this
time it had passed to Spain. Louis XII. abandoned the tempting
kingdom to his rival, and applied himself to the establishing
of his sovereignty over Milan and its domain. Some territory
formerly belonging to the Milaness had been ceded to Venice by
the Sforzas. He himself had ceded another district or two to
the republic in payment for services rendered. Ferdinand of
Spain had made payments in the same kind of coin, from his
Neapolitan realm, for Venetian help to secure it.
{1053}
The warlike Pope Julius II. saw Rimini and other towns
formerly belonging to the States of the Church now counted
among the possessions of the proud mistress of the Adriatic.
All of these disputants in Italy resented the gains which
Venice had gathered at their expense, and envied and feared
her somewhat insolent prosperity. They accordingly suspended
their quarrels with one another, to form a league for breaking
her down and for despoiling her. The Emperor Maximilian, who had
grievances of his own against the Venetians, joined the
combination, and Florence was bribed to become a party to it
by the betrayal of Pisa into her hands. Thus was formed the
shameful League of Cambrai (1508). The French did most of the
fighting in the war that ensued, though Pope Julius, who took
the field in person, easily proved himself a better soldier
than priest. The Venetians were driven for a time from the
greater part of the dominion they had acquired on the
mainland, and were sorely pressed. But they made terms with
the Pope, and it then became his interest, not merely to stop
the conquests of his allies, but to press them out of Italy,
if possible. He began accordingly to intrigue against the
French, and presently had a new league in operation, making
war upon them. It was called a Holy League, because the head
of the Church was its promoter, and it embraced the Emperor,
King Ferdinand of Spain, King Henry VIII. of England, and the
Republic of Venice. As the result of the ruthless and
destructive war which they waged, Louis XII., before he died,
in 1515, saw all that he had won in Lombardy stripped from him
and restored to the Sforzas--the old family of the Dukes of
Milan; Venice recovered most of her possessions, but never
regained her former power, since the discovery of the ocean
route to India, round the Cape of Good Hope, was now turning
the rich trade of the East, the great source of her wealth,
into the hands of the Portuguese; the temporal dominion of the
Popes was enlarged by the recovery of Bologna and Perugia and by
the addition of Parma and Piacenza; and Florence, which had
been a republic since the death of Savonarola, was forced to
submit anew to the Medici.
The Age of Infamous Popes.
The fighting Pope, Julius II., who made war and led armies,
while professing to be the vicar of Him who brought the
message of good-will and peace to mankind, was very far from
being the worst of the popes of his age. He was only worldly,
thinking much of his political place as a temporal sovereign
in Italy, and little of his spiritual office as the head of
the Church of Christ. As the sovereign of Rome and the Papal
States, Julius II. ran a brilliant career, and is one of the
splendid figures of the Italian renaissance. Patron of Michael
Angelo and Raphael, projector of St. Peter's, there is a
certain grandeur in his character to be admired, if we could
forget the pretended apostolic robe which he smirched with
perfidious politics and stained with blood.
But the immediate predecessors of Julius II., Sixtus IV. and
Alexander VI., had had nothing in their characters to lure
attention from the hideous examples of bestial wickedness
which they set before the world. Alexander, especially, the
infamous Borgia,--systematic murderer and robber, liar and
libertine,--accomplished practitioner of every crime and every
vice that was known to the worst society of a depraved
generation, and shamelessly open in the foulest of his
doings,--there is scarcely a pagan monster of antiquity that
is not whitened by comparison with him. Yet he sat in the
supposed seat of St. Peter for eleven years, to be venerated
as the Vicar of Christ, the "Holy Father" of the Christian
Church; his declarations and decrees in matters of faith to be
accepted as infallible inspirations; his absolution to be
craved as a passport to Heaven; his anathema to be dreaded as
a condemnation to Hell!
This evil and malignant being died in 1503. poisoned by one of
his own cups, which he had brewed for another. Julius II.
reigned until 1513; and after him came the Medicean Pope, Leo
X., son of Lorenzo the Magnificent,--princely and worldly as
Julius, but in gentler fashion; loving ease, pleasure, luxury,
art, and careless of all that belonged to religion beyond its
ceremonies and its comfortable establishment of clerical
estates. Is it strange that Christendom was prepared to give
ear to Luther?
Luther and the Reformation.
When Luther raised his voice, he did but renew a protest which
many pure and pious and courageous men before him had uttered,
against evils in the Church and falsities and impostures in
the Papacy. But some of them, like Arnold of Brescia, like
Peter Waldo, and the Albigenses, had been too far in advance
of their time, and their revolt was hopeless from the
beginning. Wyclif's movement had been timed unfortunately in
an age of great commotions, which swallowed it up. That of
Huss had roused an ignorant peasantry, too uncivilized to
represent a reformed Christianity, and had been ruined by the
fierceness of their misguided zeal. The Reformation of
Savonarola, at Florence, had been nobly begun, but not wisely
led, and it had spent its influence at the end on aims less
religious than political.
But there occurred a combination, when Luther arose, of
character in himself, of circumstances in his country, and of
temper in his generation, which made his protest more
lastingly effective. He had high courage, without rashness. He
had earnestness and ardor, without fanaticism. He had the
plain good sense and sound judgment which win public
confidence. His substantial learning put him on terms with the
scholars of his day, and he was not so much refined by it as
to lose touch with the common people. A certain coarseness in
his nature was not offensive to the time in which he lived,
but rather belonged among the elements of power in him. His
spirituality was not fine, but it was strong. He was sincere,
and men believed in him. He was open, straightforward, manly,
commanding respect. His qualities showed themselves in his
speech, which went straight to its mark, in the simplest
words, moulding the forms and phrases of the German language
with more lasting effect than the speech of any other man who
ever used it. Not many have lived in any age or any country
who possessed the gift of so persuasive a tongue, with so
powerful a character to command the hearing for it.
{1054}
And the generation to which Luther spoke really waited for a
bold voice to break into the secret of its thoughts concerning
the Church. It had inherited a century of alienation from
quarreling popes and greedy, corrupted priests and now there
had been added in its feeling the deep abhorrence roused by
such villains as the Borgia in the papal chair, and by their
creatures and minions in the priesthood of the Church. If it
is crediting too much to the common multitude of the time to
suppose them greatly sickened by the vices and corruptions of
their priests, we may be sure, at least, that they were
wearied and angered by the exactions from them, which a
vicious hierarchy continually increased. The extravagance of
the Papacy kept pace with its degradation, and Christendom
groaned under the burden of the taxes that were wrung from it
in the name of the lowly Saviour of mankind.
Nowhere in Europe were the extortions of the Church felt more
severely than in Germany, where the serfdom of the peasants
was still real and hard, and where the depressing weight of
the feudal system had scarcely been lifted from society at
all. Feudalism had given way in that country less than in any
other. Central authority remained as weak, and national
solidification as far away, as ever. Of organic unity in the
heterogeneous bundle of electoral principalities, duchies,
margravates and free cities which made up the nominal realm of
the King of the Romans, there was no more at the beginning of
the sixteenth century than there had been in the twelfth. But
that very brokenness and division in the political state of
Germany proved to be one of the circumstances which favored
the Protestant Reformation of the Church. Had monarchical
authority established itself there as in France, then the
Austro-Spanish family which wielded it, with the concentrated
bigotry of their narrow-minded race, would have crushed the
religious revolt as completely in Saxony as they did in
Austria and Bohemia.
The Ninety-five Theses.
The main events of the Reformation in Germany are so commonly
known that no more than the slightest sketching of them is
needed here. Letters of indulgence, purporting to grant a
remission of the temporal and purgatorial penalties of sin,
had been sold by the Church for centuries; but none before
Pope Leo X. had made merchandize of them in so peddlar-like
and shameful a fashion as that which scandalized the
intelligent piety of Europe in 1517. Luther, then a professor
in the new University of Wittenberg, Saxony, could not hide
his indignation, as most men did. He stood forth boldly and
challenged the impious fraud, in a series of propositions or
theses, which, after the manner of the time, he nailed to the
door of Wittenberg Church. Just that bold action was needed to
let loose the pent-up feeling of the German people. The
ninety-five theses were printed and went broadcast through the
land, to be read and to be listened to, and to stir every
class with independent ideas. It was the first great appeal
made to the public opinion of the world, after the invention
of printing had put a trumpet to the mouths of eloquent men,
and the effect was too amazing to be believed by the careless
Pope and his courtiers.
Political Circumstances.
But more than possibly--probably, indeed--the popular feeling
stirred up would never have accomplished the rupture with Rome
and the religious independence to which North Germany attained
in the end, if political motives had not coincided with
religious feelings to bring certain princes and great nobles
into sympathy with the Monk of Wittenberg. The Elector of
Saxony, Luther's immediate sovereign, had long been in
opposition to the Papacy on the subject of its enormous
collections of money from his subjects, and he was well
pleased to have the hawking of indulgences checked in his
dominions. Partly for this reason, partly because of the pride
and interest with which he cherished his new University,
partly from personal liking and admiration of Luther, and
partly, too, no doubt, in recognition of the need of Church
reforms, he gave Luther a quiet protection and a concealed
support. He was the strongest and most influential of the
princes of the Empire, and his obvious favor to the movement
advanced it powerfully and rapidly.
At first, there was no intention to break with the Papacy and
the Papal Church,--certainly none in Luther's mind. His
attitude towards both was conciliatory in every way, except as
concerned the falsities and iniquities which he had protested
against. It was not until the Pope, in June, 1520, launched
against him the famous Bull, "Exurge Domine," which left no
alternative between abject submission and open war, that
Luther and his followers cast off the authority of the Roman
Church and its head, and grounded their faith upon Holy
Scripture alone. By formally burning the Bull, Luther accepted
the papal challenge, and those who believed with him were
ready for the contest.
The Diet of Worms.
In 1521, the reformer was summoned before a Diet of the
Empire, at Worms, where a hearing was given him. The influence
of the Church, and of the young Austro-Spanish Emperor,
Charles V., who adhered to it, was still great enough to
procure his condemnation; but they did not dare to deal with
him as Huss had been dealt with. He was suffered to depart
safely, pursued by an imperial edict which placed the ban of
the Empire on all who should give him countenance or support.
His friends among the nobles spirited him away and concealed
him in a castle, the Wartburg, where he remained for several
months, employed in making his translation of the Bible.
Meantime, the Emperor had been called away from Germany by his
multifarious affairs, in the Netherlands and Spain, and had
little attention to give to Luther and the questions of
religion for half-a-dozen years. He was represented in Germany
by a Council of Regency, with the Elector of Saxony at the
head of, it; and the movement of reformation, if not
encouraged in his absence, was at least considerably
protected. It soon showed threatening signs of wildness and
fanaticism in many quarters; but Luther proved himself as
powerful in leadership as he had been in agitation, and the
religious passion of the time was controlled effectively, on
the whole.
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Organization of the Lutheran Church.
Before the close of the year 1521, Pope Leo X. died, and his
successor, Adrian, while insisting upon the enforcement of the
Edict of Worms against Luther and his supporters, yet
acknowledged the corruptions of the Church and promised a
reformation of them. His promises came too late; his
confessions only gave testimony to the independent reformers
which their opponents could not impeach. There was no longer
any thought of cleansing the Church of Rome, to abide in it. A
separated--a restored Church--was clearly determined on, and
Luther framed a system of faith and discipline which was
adopted in Saxony, and then accepted very generally by the
reformed Churches throughout Germany. In 1525, the Elector
Frederick of Saxony died. He had quietly befriended the
Lutherans and tolerated the reform, but never identified
himself with them. His brother, John, who succeeded him, made
public profession of his belief in the Lutheran doctrines, and
authoritatively established the church system which Luther had
introduced. The Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, the Margrave of
Brandenburg, and the Dukes of Mecklenburg, Pomerania and Zell,
followed his example; while the imperial cities of Frankfort,
Nuremberg, Bremen, Strasburg, Brunswick, Nordhausen, and
others, formally ranged themselves on the same side. By the
year 1526, when a diet at Spires declared the freedom of each
state in the Empire to deal with the religious reform
according to its own will, the Reformation in Germany was a
solidly organized fact. But those of the reform had not yet
received their name, of "Protestants." That came to them three
years later, when the Roman party had rallied its forces in a
new diet at Spires, to undo the declaration of 1526, and the
leaders of the Lutheran party recorded their solemn protest.
The Austro-Burgundian Marriage.
To understand the situation politically, during the period of
struggle for and against the Reformation, it will be necessary
to turn back a little, for the noting of important occurrences
which have not been mentioned.
When Albert II., who was King of Hungary and Bohemia, as well
as King of the Romans (Emperor-elect, as the title came to be,
soon afterwards), died, in 1439, he was succeeded by his
second cousin Frederick III., Duke of Styria, and from that
time the Roman or imperial crown was held continuously in the
Austrian family, becoming practically hereditary. But
Frederick did not succeed to the duchy of Austria, and he
failed of election to the throne in Hungary and Bohemia. Hence
his position as Emperor was peculiarly weak and greatly
impoverished, through want of revenue from any considerable
possessions of his own. During his whole long reign, of nearly
fifty-four years, Frederick was humiliated and hampered by his
poverty; the imperial authority was brought very low, and
Germany was in a greatly disordered state. There were frequent
wars between its members, and between Austria and Bohemia, with
rebellions in Vienna and elsewhere; while the Hungarians were
left to contend with the aggressive Turks, almost unhelped.
But in 1477 a remarkable change in the circumstances and
prospects of the family of the Emperor Frederick III. was made
by the marriage of his son and heir, Maximilian, to Mary, the
daughter and heiress of the wealthy and powerful Duke of
Burgundy, Charles the Bold. The bridegroom was so poor that
the bride is said to have loaned him the money which enabled
him to make a fit appearance at the wedding. She had lost, as
we saw, the duchy of Burgundy, but the valiant arm of
Maximilian enabled her to hold the Burgundian county, Franche
Comté, and the rich provinces of the Netherlands, which formed
at that time, perhaps, the most valuable principality in
Europe. The Duchess Mary lived only five years after her
marriage; but she left a son, Philip, who inherited the
Netherlands and Franche Comté, and Maximilian ruled them as
his guardian.
In 1493, the Emperor Frederick died, and Maximilian, who had
been elected King of the Romans some years before, succeeded
him in the imperial office. He was never crowned at Rome, and
he took the title, not used before, of King of Germany and
Emperor-elect. He was Archduke of Austria, Duke of Styria,
Carinthia and Carniola, and Count of Tyrol; and, with his
guardianship in the Low Countries, he rose greatly in
importance and power above his father. But he accomplished
less than might possibly have been done by a ruler of more
sureness of judgment and fixity in purpose. His plans were
generally beyond his means, and the failures in his
undertakings were numerous. He was eager to interfere with the
doings of Charles VIII. and Louis XIII. in Italy; but the
Germanic diet gave him so little support that he could do
nothing effective. He joined the League of Cambrai against
Venice, and the Holy League against France, but bore no
important part in either. His reign was signalized in Germany
by the division of the nation into six administrative
"Circles," afterwards increased to ten, and by the creation of
a supreme court of appeal, called the Imperial Chamber,--both
of which measures did something towards the diminution of
private wars and disorders.
The Austro-Spanish Marriage.--Charles V.
But Maximilian figures most conspicuously in history as the
immediate ancestor of the two great sovereign dynasties--the
Austrian and the Austro-Spanish--which sprang from his
marriage with Mary of Burgundy and which dominated Europe for
a century after his death. His son Philip, heir to the
Burgundian sovereignty of the Netherlands, married (1496)
Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Two
children, Charles and Ferdinand, were the fruit of this
marriage. Charles, the elder, inherited more crowns and
coronets than were ever gathered, in reality, by one
sovereign, before or since. Ferdinand and Isabella had united
by their marriage the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile, and, by
the conquest of Granada and the partial conquest of Navarre,
the entire peninsula, except Portugal, was subsequently added
to their joint dominion. Joanna inherited the whole, on the
death of Isabella, in 1504, and the death of Ferdinand, in
1516. She also inherited from her father, Ferdinand, the
kingdom of the Two Sicilies--which he had reunited--and the
island of Sardinia. Philip, on his side, already in possession
of the Netherlands and Franche Comté, was heir to the domain of
the House of Austria. Both of these great inheritances
descended in due course to Charles, and he had not long to
wait for them. His father, Philip, died in 1506, and his
mother, Joanna, lost her mind, through grief at that event.
The death of his Spanish grandfather, Ferdinand, occurred in
1516, and that of his Austrian grandfather, the Emperor
Maximilian, followed three years later.
{1056}
At the age of twenty years (representing his mother in her
incapacity) Charles found himself sovereign of Spain, and
America, of Sicily, Naples, Sardinia, the Low Countries,
Franche Comté, Austria, and the duchies associated with it.
The same year (1519) he was chosen King of Germany and
Emperor-elect, after a keen contest over the imperial crown,
in which Francis I. of France and Henry VIII. of England were
his competitors. On attaining this dignity, he conferred the
Austrian possessions on his brother Ferdinand. But he remained
the most potent and imposing monarch that Europe had seen
since Charlemagne. He came upon the stage just as Luther had
marshalled, in Germany, the reforming forces of the new era,
against intolerable iniquities in the Papal Church.
Unfortunately, he came, with his vast armament of powers, to
resist the demands of his age, and to be the champion of old
falsities and wrongs, both in Church and State. There was
nothing in the nature of the man, nor in his education, nor in
the influences which bore upon him, from either the Spanish or
the Austrian side of his family, to put him in sympathy with
lifting movements or with liberal ideas. He never formed a
conception of the world in which it looked larger to his eyes,
or signified more to him, than the globe upon his scepter. So,
naturally enough, this Cæsar of the Renaissance (Charles V. in
Germany and Charles I. in Spain) did his utmost, from the day
he climbed the throne, to thrust Europe back into the murk of
the fourteenth century, which he found it pretty nearly
escaped from. He did not succeed; but he gave years of misery
to several countries by his exertions, and he resigned the
task to a successor whom the world is never likely to tire of
abhorring and despising.
The end of popular freedom in Spain.
The affairs which called Charles V. away from Germany, after
launching his ineffectual edict of Worms against Luther and
Luther's supporters, grew in part out of disturbances in his
kingdom of Spain. His election to the imperial office had not
been pleasing to the Spaniards, who anticipated the
complications they would be dragged into by it, the foreign
character which their sovereign (already foreign in mind by
his education in the Netherlands) would be confirmed in, and
the indifference with which their grievances would be
regarded. For their grievances against the monarchy had been
growing serious in the last years of Ferdinand, and since his
death. The crown had gained power in the process of political
centralization, and its aggrandizement from the possession of
America began to loom startlingly in the light of the conquest
of Mexico, just achieved. During the absence of Charles in
Germany, his former preceptor, Cardinal Adrian, of Utrecht,
being in charge of the government as regent, a revolt broke
out at Toledo which spread widely and became alarming. The
insurgents organized their movement under the name of the
Santa Junta, or Holy League, and having obtained possession of
the demented Queen, Joanna, they assumed to act for her and
with her authority. This rebellion was suppressed with
difficulty; but the suppression was accomplished (1521-1522),
and it proved to be the last struggle for popular freedom in
Spain. The government used its victory with an unsparing
determination to establish absolute powers, and it succeeded.
The conditions needed for absolutism were already created, in
fact, by the deadly blight which the Inquisition had been
casting upon Spain for forty years. Since the beginning of the
frightful work of Torquemada, in 1483, it had been diligently
searching out and destroying every germ of free thought and
manly character that gave the smallest sign of fruitfulness in
the kingdom; and the crushing of the Santa Junta may be said
to have left few in Spain who deserved a better fate than the
political, the religious and the intellectual servitude under
which the nation sank.
Persecution of the Spanish Moriscoes.
Charles, whose mind was dense in its bigotry, urged on the
Inquisition, and pointed its dreadful engines of destruction
against the unfortunate Moriscoes, or Moors, who had been
forced to submit to Christian baptism after their subjugation.
Many of these followers of Mahomet had afterwards taken up
again the prayers and practices of their own faith, either
secretly or in quiet ways, and their relapse appears to have
been winked at, more or less. For they were a most useful
people, far surpassing the Spaniards in industry, in thrift
and knowledge of agriculture, and in mechanical skill. Many of
the arts and manufactures of the kingdom were entirely in
their hands. It was ruinous to interfere with their peaceful
labors. But Charles, as heathenish as the Grand Turk when it
suited his ends to be so, could look on these well-behaved and
useful Moors with no eyes but the eyes of an orthodox piety, and
could take account of nothing but their infidel faith. He
began, therefore, in 1524, the heartless, senseless and
suicidal persecution of the Moriscoes which exterminated them
or drove them from the land, and which contributed signally to
the making of Spain an exemplary pauper among the nations.
Despotism of Charles V. in the Netherlands.
In his provinces of the Low Countries, Charles found more than
in Spain to provoke his despotic bigotry. The Flemings and the
Dutch had been tasting of freedom too much for his liking, in
recent years, and ideas, both political and religious, had
been spreading among them, which were not the ideas of his
august mind, and must therefore, of necessity, be false. They
had already become infected with the rebellious anti-papal
doctrines of Luther. Indeed, they had been even riper than
Luther's countrymen for a religious revolution, when he
sounded the signal note which echoed through all northern
Europe. In Germany, the elected emperor could fulminate an
edict against the audacious reformers, but he had small power
to give force to it. In the Netherlands, he possessed a
sovereignty more potent, and he took instant measures to
exercise the utmost arbitrariness of which he could make it
capable. The Duchess Margaret, his aunt, who had been
governess of the provinces, was confirmed by him in that
office, and he enlarged the powers in her commission. His
commands practically superseded the regular courts, and
subjected the whole administration of justice to his arbitrary
will and that of his representative. At the same time they
stripped the States of their legislative functions and reduced
them to insignificance.
{1057}
Having thus trampled on the civil liberties of the provinces,
he borrowed the infernal enginery of the Inquisition, and
introduced it for the destruction of religious freedom. Its
first victims were two Augustine monks, convicted of
Lutheranism, who were burned at Brussels, in July, 1523. The
first martyr in Holland was a priest who suffered impalement
as well as burning, at the Hague, in 1525. From these
beginnings the persecution grew crueler as the alienation of
the stubborn Netherlanders from the Church of Rome widened;
and Charles did not cease to fan its fires with successive
proclamations or "placards," which denounced and forbade every
reading of Scripture, every act of devotion, every
conversation of religion, in public or private, which the
priests of the Church did not conduct. "The number of
Netherlanders who were burned, strangled, beheaded, or buried
alive, in obedience to his edicts, ... have been placed as
high as 100,000 by distinguished authorities, and have never
been put at a lower mark than 50,000."
Charles V. and Francis I. in Italy.
These exercises of an autocratic piety in Spain and the Low
Countries may be counted, perhaps, among the pleasures of the
young Emperor during the earlier years of his reign. His more
serious affairs were connected mainly with his interests or
ambitions in Italy, which seemed to be threatened by the King
of France. The throne in that country was now occupied by
Francis I., a cousin of Louis XII., who had succeeded the
latter in 1515, and who had taken up anew the Italian projects
in which Louis failed. In the first year of his reign, he
crossed the Alps with an army, defeated the Swiss whom the
Duke of Milan employed against him, and won the whole duchy by
that single fight. This re-establishment of the French at
Milan was regarded with exceeding jealousy by the Austrian
interest, and by the Pope. Maximilian, shortly before his
death, had made a futile effort to dislodge them, and Charles
V., on coming to the throne, lost no time in organizing plans
to the same end. He entered into an alliance with Pope Leo X.,
by a treaty which bears the same date as the Edict of Worms
against Luther, and there can be little doubt that the two
instruments were part of one understanding. Both parties
courted the friendship of Henry VIII. of England, whose power
and importance had risen to a high mark, and Henry's able
minister, Cardinal Wolsey, figured notably in the diplomatic
intrigues which went on during many years.
War began in 1521, and in three months the French were
expelled from nearly every part of the Milanese territory.
Pope Leo X. lived just long enough to receive the news. His
successor was Adrian VI., former tutor of the Emperor, who
made vain attempts to arrange a peace. Wolsey had brought
Henry VIII. of England into the alliance against Francis,
expecting to win the papal tiara through the Emperor's
influence; but he was disappointed.
Francis made an effort in 1523 to recover Milan; but was
crippled at the moment of sending his expedition across the
Alps by the treason of the most powerful noble of France, the
Constable, Charles, Duke of Bourbon. The Constable had been
wronged and affronted by the King's mother, and by intriguers
at court, and he revenged himself basely by going over to the
enemies of his country. In the campaigns which followed
(1523-1524), the French had ill-success, and lost their
chivalrous and famous knight, Bayard, in one of the last
skirmishes of their retreat. Another change now occurred in
the occupancy of the papal throne, and Wolsey's ambitious
schemes were foiled again. The new Pope was Giulio de'Medici,
who took the name of Clement VII.
Once more the King of France, in October, 1524, led his forces
personally into Italy and laid siege to Pavia. It was a
ruinous undertaking. He was defeated overwhelmingly in a
battle fought before Pavia (February 24, 1525) and taken
prisoner. After a captivity in Spain of nearly a year, he
regained his freedom disgracefully, by signing and solemnly
swearing to a treaty which he never intended to observe. By
this treaty he not only renounced all claims to Milan, Naples,
Genoa, and other Italian territory, but he gave up the duchy
of Burgundy. Released in good faith on these terms, in the
early part of 1526, he perfidiously repudiated the treaty, and
began fresh preparations for war. He found the Italians now as
ready to oust the Spaniards from their peninsula with French
help, as they had been ready before to expel the French with
help from Spain. The papal interest was in great alarm at the
power acquired by the Emperor, and Venice and Milan shared the
feeling. A new "Holy Alliance" was accordingly formed, with
the Pope at its head, and with Henry VIII. of England for its
"Protector." But before this League took the field with its
forces, Rome and Italy were stricken and trampled, as though
by a fresh invasion of Goths.
Sack of Rome, by the army of the Constable.
The imperial army, quartered in the duchy of Milan, under the
command of the Constable Bourbon, was scantily paid and fed.
The soldiers were forced to plunder the city and country for
their subsistence, and, of course, under those circumstances,
there was little discipline among them. The region which they
terrorized was soon exhausted, by their robberies and by the
stoppage of industries and trade. It then became necessary for
the Constable to lead them to new fields, and he moved
southwards. His forces were made up in part of Spaniards and
in part of Germans--the latter under a Lutheran commander, and
enlisted for war with the Pope and for pillage in Italy. He
directed the march to Rome, constrained, perhaps, by the
demands of his soldiery, but expecting, likewise, to crush the
League by seizing its apostolic head. On the 5th of May, 1527,
his 40,000 brigands arrived before the city. At daybreak, the
next morning, they assaulted the walls irresistibly and
swarmed over them. Bourbon was killed in the assault, and his
men were left uncontrolled masters of the venerable capital of
the world. They held it for seven months, pillaging and
destroying, committing every possible excess and every
imaginable sacrilege. Rome is believed to have suffered at
their hands more lasting defacement and loss of the splendors
of its art than from the sacking of Vandals or Goths.
The Pope held out in Castle St. Angelo for a month and then
surrendered. The hypocritical Charles V., when he learned what
his imperially commissioned bandits had done, made haste to
express horror and grief, but did not hasten to check or
repair the outrage in the least. Pope Clement was not released
from captivity until a great money-payment had been extorted
from him, with the promise of a general council of the Church
to reform abuses and to eradicate Lutheranism.
{1058}
Spanish Domination in Italy.
Europe was shocked by the barbarity of the capture of Rome,
and the enemies leagued against Charles were stimulated to
more vigorous exertions. Assisted with money from England,
Francis sent another army into Italy, which took Genoa and
Pavia and marched to Naples, blockading the city by sea and
land. But the siege proved fatal to the French army. So many
perished of disease that the survivors were left at the mercy
of the enemy, and capitulated in September, 1528.
The great Genoese Admiral, Andrea Doria, had been offended,
meantime, by King Francis, and had excited his fellow citizens
to a revolution, which made Genoa, once more, an independent
republic, with Doria at its head. Shortly before this
occurred, Florence had expelled the Medici and reorganized her
government upon the old republican basis. But the defeat of
the French before Naples ended all hope of Italian liberty;
since the Pope resigned himself after that event to the will
of the Emperor, and the papal and imperial despotisms became
united as one, to exterminate freedom from the peninsula.
Florence was the first victim of the combination. The city was
besieged and taken by the Emperor's troops, in compliance with
the wishes of the Pope, and the Medici, his relatives, were
restored. Francis continued war feebly until 1529, when a
peace called the "Ladies Peace" was brought about, by
negotiations between the French King's mother and the
Emperor's aunt. This was practically the end of the long
French wars in Italy.
Germany.
Such were the events which, in different quarters of the
world, diverted the attention of the Emperor during several
years from Luther and the Reformation in Germany. The
religious movement in those years had been making a steady
advance. Yet its enemies gained control of another Diet held
at Spires in 1529 and reversed the ordinance of the Diet of
1526, by which each state had been left free to deal in its
own manner with the edict of Worms. Against this action of the
Diet, the Lutheran princes and the representatives of the
Lutheran towns entered their solemn protest, and so acquired
the name, "Protestants," which became in time the accepted and
adopted name of all, in most parts of the world, who withdrew
from the Roman communion.
The Peasants' War and the Anabaptists.
Before this time, the Reform had passed through serious
trials, coming from excesses in the very spirit out of which
itself had risen and to which it gave encouragement. The long
suffering, much oppressed peasantry of Germany, who had found
bishops as pitiless extortioners as lords, caught eagerly at a
hope of relief from the overthrow of the ancient Church.
Several times within the preceding half-century they had risen
in formidable revolts, with a peasants' clog, or bundschuh for
their banner. In 1525 fresh risings occurred in Swabia,
Franconia, Alsace, Lorraine, Bavaria, Thuringia and elsewhere,
and a great Peasants' War raged for months, with ferocity and
brutality on both sides. The number who perished in the war is
estimated at 100,000. The demands made by the peasants were for
measures of the simplest justice--for the poorest rights and
privileges in life. But their cause was taken up by
half-crazed religious fanatics, who became in some parts their
leaders, and such a character was given to it that reasonable
reformers were justified, perhaps, in setting themselves
sternly against it. The wildest prophet of the outbreak was
one Thomas Münzer, a precursor of the frenzied sect of the
Anabaptists. Münzer perished in the wreck of the peasants'
revolt; but some of his disciples, who fled into Westphalia
and the Netherlands, made converts so rapidly in the town of
Münster that in 1535 they controlled the city, expelled every
inhabitant who would not join their communion, elected and
crowned a king, and exhibited a madness in their proceedings
that is hardly equalled in history. The experience at Münster
may reasonably be thought to have proved the soundness of
Luther's judgment in refusing countenance to the cause of the
oppressed peasants when they rebelled.
At all events, his opposition to them was hard and bitter. And
it has been remarked that what may be called Luther's
political position in Germany had become by this time quite
changed. "Instead of the man of the people, Luther became the
man of the princes; the mutual confidence between him and the
masses, which had supported the first faltering steps of the
movement, was broken; the democratic element was supplanted by
the aristocratic; and the Reformation, which at first had
promised to lead to a great national democracy, ended in
establishing the territorial supremacy of the German princes.
... The Reformation was gradually assuming a more secular
character, and leading to great political combinations"
(Dyer).
Progress of Lutheranism in Germany.
By the year 1530, the Emperor Charles was prepared to give
more attention to affairs in Germany and to gratify his
animosity towards the movement of Reformation. He had
effectually beaten his rival, the King of France, had
established his supremacy in Italy, had humbled the Pope, and
was quite willing to be the zealous champion of a submissive
Church. His brother Ferdinand, the Archduke of Austria, had
secured, against much opposition, both the Hungarian and the
Bohemian crowns, and so firmly that neither was ever again
wrested from his family, though they continued for some time
to be nominally elective. The dominions of Ferdinand had
suffered a great Turkish invasion, in 1529, under the Sultan
Solyman, who penetrated even to Vienna and besieged the city,
but without success, losing heavily in his retreat.
In May, 1530, Charles re-entered Germany from Italy. The
following month he opened the sitting of the Diet, which had
been convened at Augsburg. His first act at Augsburg was to
summon the protesting princes, of Saxony, Hesse, Brandenburg,
and other states, before him and to signify to them his
imperial command that the toleration of Lutheranism in their
dominions must cease. He expected the mandate to suffice; when
he found it ineffectual, he required an abstract of the new
religions doctrines to be laid before him. This was prepared
by Melancthon, and, afterwards known as the Confession of
Augsburg, became the Lutheran standard of faith.
{1059}
The Catholic theologians prepared a reply to it, and both were
submitted to the Emperor. He made some attempt to bring about
a compromise of the differences, but he demanded of the
Protestants that they should submit themselves to the Pope,
pending the final decisions of a proposed general Council of
the Church. When this was refused, the Diet formally condemned
their doctrines and required them to reunite themselves with
the Catholic Church before the 15th of April following. The
Emperor, in November, issued a decree accordingly, renewing
the Edict of Worms and commanding its enforcement.
The Protestant princes, thus threatened, assembled in
conference at Schmalkald at Christmas, 1530, and there
organized their famous armed league. But fresh preparations
for war by the Turk now compelled Charles to make terms with
his Lutheran subjects. They refused to give any assistance to
Austria or Hungary against the Sultan, while threatened by the
Augsburg decree. The gravity of the danger forced a concession
to them, and by the Peace of Nuremberg (1532) it was agreed
that the Protestants should have freedom of worship until the
next Diet should meet, or a General Council should be held.
This peace was several times renewed, and there were ten years
of quiet under it, in Germany, during which time the cause of
Protestantism made rapid advances. By the year 1540, it had
established an ascendancy in Würtemberg, among the states of
the South, and in the imperial cities of Nuremberg, Augsburg,
Ulm, Constance, and Strasburg. Its doctrines had been adopted
by "the whole of central Germany, Thuringia, Saxony, Hesse,
part of Brunswick, and the territory of the Guelphs; in the
north by the bishoprics of Magdeburg, Halberstadt, and
Naumburg ... ; by East Friesland, the Hanse Towns, Holstein
and Schleswig, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Anhalt, Silesia, the
Saxon states, Brandenburg, and Prussia. Of the larger states
that were closed against it there remained only Austria,
Bavaria, the Palatinate and the Rhenish Electorates"
(Hausser). In 1542, Duke Henry of Brunswick, the last of the
North German princes who adhered to the Papal Church, was
expelled from his duchy and Protestantism established. About
the same time the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne announced his
conviction of the truth of the Protestant doctrines.
The Schmalkaldic War.
Charles was still too much involved in foreign wars to venture
upon a struggle with the Lutherans; but a few years more
sufficed to free his hands. The Treaty of Crespy, in 1544,
ended his last conflict with Francis I. In the same year, Pope
Paul III. summoned the long promised General Council of the
Church to meet at Trent the following spring--by which
appointment a term was put to the toleration conceded in the
Peace of Nuremberg. The Protestants, though greatly increased
in numbers, were now less united than at the time of the
formation of the Schmalkaldic League. There was much division
among the leading princes. They yielded no longer to the
influence of their wisest and ablest chief, Philip of Hesse.
Luther, whose counsels had always been for peace, approached
his end, and died in 1546. The circumstances were favorable to
the Emperor, when he determined to put a stop to the
Reformation by force. He secured an important ally in the very
heart of Protestant Germany, winning over to his side the
selfish schemer, Duke Maurice of Saxony--now the head of the
Albertine branch of the Saxon house. In 1546 he felt prepared
and war began. The successes were all on the imperial side.
There was no energy, no unity, no forethoughtfulness of plan,
among the Lutherans. The Elector, John Frederick, of Saxony,
and Philip of Hesse, both fell into the Emperor's hands and
were barbarously imprisoned. The former was compelled to
resign his Electorate, and it was conferred upon the renegade
Duke Maurice. Philip was kept in vile places of confinement
and inhumanly treated for years. The Protestants of Germany
were entirely beaten down, for the time being, and the Emperor
imposed upon them in 1548 a confession of faith called "the
Interim," the chief missionaries of which were the Spanish
soldiers whom he had brought into the country. But if the
Lutherans had suffered themselves to be overcome, they were
not ready to be trodden upon in so despotic a manner. Even
Maurice, now Elector of Saxony, recoiled from the tyranny
which Charles sought to establish, while he resented the
inhuman treatment of Philip of Hesse, who was his
father-in-law. He headed a new league, therefore, which was
formed against the Emperor, and which entered into a secret
alliance with Henry II. of France (Francis I. having died in
1547). Charles was taken by surprise when the revolt broke
out, in 1552, and barely escaped capture. The operations of
Maurice were vigorous and ably conducted, and in a few weeks
the Protestants had recovered all the ground lost in 1546-7;
while the French had improved the opportunity to seize the
three bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun. The ultimate result
was the so-called "Religious Peace of Augsburg," concluded in
1555, which gave religious freedom to the ruling princes of
Germany, but none whatever to the people. It put the two
religions on the same footing, but it was simply a footing of
equal intolerance. Each ruler had the right to choose his own
creed, and to impose it arbitrarily upon his subjects if he
saw fit to do so. As a practical consequence, the final
division of Germany between Protestantism and Catholicism was
substantially determined by the princes and not by the people.
The humiliating failure of Charles V. to crush the Reformation
in Germany was no doubt prominent among the experiences which
sickened him of the imperial office and determined him to
abdicate the throne, which he did in the autumn of 1556.
Reformation in Switzerland.
A generation had now passed since the Lutheran movement of
Reformation was begun in Germany, and, within that time, not
only had the wave of influence from Wittenberg swept over all
western Europe, but other reformers had risen independently
and contemporaneously, or nearly so, in other countries, and
had co-operated powerfully in making the movement general. The
earliest of these was the Swiss reformer, Ulrich Zwingli, who
began preaching against indulgences and other flagrant abuses
in the Church, at Zurich, in 1519, the same year in which
Luther opened his attack. The effect of his preaching was so
great that Zurich, four years later, had practically separated
itself from the Roman Church.
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From that beginning the Reformation spread so rapidly that in
half-a-dozen years it had mastered most of the Cantons of
Switzerland outside of the five Forest Cantons, where
Catholicism held its ground with stubbornness. The two
religions were then represented by two parties, which absorbed
in themselves all the political as well as the religious
questions of the day, and which speedily came to blows. The
Catholics allied themselves with Ferdinand of Austria, and the
Protestants with several of the imperial cities of Germany.
But such an union between the Swiss and the German Protestants
as seemed plainly desirable was prevented; mainly, by the
dictatorial obstinacy of Luther. Zwingli's reforming ideas
were broader, and at the same time more radical, than
Luther's, and the latter opposed them with irreconcilable
hostility. He still held with the Catholics to the doctrine of
transubstantiation, which the Swiss reformer rejected. Hence
Zwingli was no less a heretic in Luther's eyes than in the
eyes of the pope, and the anathemas launched against him from
Wittenberg were hardly less thunderous than those from Rome.
So the two contemporaneous reformation movements, German and
Swiss, were held apart from one another, and went on side by
side, with little help or sympathy from one another. In 1531
the Forest Cantons attacked and defeated the men of Zurich,
and Zwingli was slain in the battle. Peace was then concluded
on terms which left each canton free to establish its own
creed, and each congregation free to do the same in the common
territories of the confederation.
Reformation in France.
In France, the freer ideas of Christianity--the ideas less
servile to tradition and to Rome--that were in the upper air
of European culture when the sixteenth century began, had
found some expression even before Luther spoke. The influence
of the new classical learning, and of the "humanists" who
imbibed its spirit, tended to that liberation of the mind, and
was felt in the greatest center of the learning of the time,
the University of Paris. But not sufficiently to overcome the
conservatism of the Sorbonne--the theological faculty of the
University; for Luther's writings were solemnly condemned and
burned by it in 1521, and a persecution of those inclined
toward the new doctrines was early begun. Francis I., in whose
careless and coarse nature there was some taste for letters and
learning, as well as for art, and who patronized in an idle
way the Renaissance movements of his reign, seemed disposed at
the beginning to be friendly to the religious Reformers. But
he was too shallow a creature, and too profoundly unprincipled
and false, to stand firmly in any cause of righteousness, and
face such a power as that of Rome. His nobler sister, Margaret
of Angoulême, who embraced the reformed doctrines with
conviction, exerted a strong influence upon the king in their
favor while she was by his side; but after her marriage to
Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre, and after Francis had
suffered defeat and shame in his war with Charles V., he was
ready to make himself the servant of the Papacy for whatever
it willed against his Protestant subjects, in order to have
its alliance and support. So the persecution grew steadily
more fierce, more systematic, and more determined, as the
spirit of the Reformation spread more widely through the
kingdom.
Calvin at Geneva.
One of the consequences of the persecution was the flight from
France, in 1534, of John Calvin, who subsequently became the
founder and the exponent of a system of Protestant theology
which obtained wider acceptance in Europe than that of Luther.
All minor differences were practically merged in the great
division between these two theologies--the Lutheran and the
Calvinistic--which split the Reformation in twain. After two
years of wandering, Calvin settled in the free city of Geneva,
where his influence very soon rose to so extraordinary a
height that he transformed the commonwealth and ruled it,
unselfishly, and in perfect piety, but with iron-handed
despotism, for a quarter of a century.
The French Court.
The reign of Francis I. has one other mark in history, besides
that of his persecution of the Reformers, his careless
patronage of arts and letters, and his unsuccessful wars with
the Emperor. He gave to the French Court--at least more than
his predecessors had done--the character which made it in
later French history so evil and mischievous a center of
dissoluteness, of base intrigue, of national demoralization.
It was invested in his time with the fascinations which drew
into it the nobles of France and its men of genius, to corrupt
them and to destroy their independence. It was in his time that
the Court began to seem to be, in its own eyes, a kind of
self-centered society, containing all of the French nation
which needed or deserved consideration, and holding its place
in the order of things quite apart from the kingdom which it
helped its royal master to rule. Not to be of the Court was to
be non-existent in its view; and thus every ambition in France
was invited to push at its fatal doors.
Catherine de' Medici and the Guises.
Francis I. died in 1547, and was followed on the throne by his
son Henry II., whose marriage to Catherine de' Medici, of the
renowned Florentine family, was the most important personal
act of his life. It was important in the malign fruits which
it bore; since Catherine, after his death, gave an evil
Italian bend-sinister to French politics, which had no lack of
crookedness before. Henry continued the war with Charles V.,
and was afterwards at war with Philip II., Charles' son, and
with England, the latter country losing Calais in the
contest,--its last French possession. Peace was made in 1559,
and celebrated with splendid tournaments, at one of which the
French king received a wound that caused his death.
He left three sons, all weaklings in body and character, who
reigned successively. The elder, Francis II., died the year
following his accession. Although aged but seventeen when he
died, he had been married some two years to Mary Stuart, the
young queen of Scots. This marriage had helped to raise to
great power in the kingdom a family known as the Guises. They
were a branch of the ducal House of Lorraine, whose duchy was
at that time independent of France, and, although the father
of the family, made Duke of Guise by Francis I., had become
naturalized in France in 1505, his sons were looked upon as
foreigners by the jealous Frenchmen whom they supplanted at
Court.
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Of the six sons, there were two of eminence, one (the second
duke of Guise) a famous general in his day, the other a
powerful cardinal. Five sisters completed the family in its
second generation. The elder of these, Mary, had married James
V. of Scotland (whose mother was the English princess,
Margaret, sister of Henry VIII.), and Mary Stuart, queen of
Scots, born of that marriage, was therefore a niece of the
Guises. They had brought about her marriage to Francis II.,
while he was dauphin, and they mounted with her to supreme
influence in the kingdom when she ascended the throne with her
husband. The queen-mother, Catherine de' Medici, was as eager
as the Guises to control the government, in what appeared to
her eyes the interest of her children; but during the short
reign of Francis II. she was quite thrust aside, and the
queen's uncles ruled the state.
The death of Francis II. (1560) brought a change, and with the
accession of Charles IX., a boy of ten years, there began a
bitter contest for ascendancy between Catherine and the
Guises; and this struggle became mixed and strangely
complicated with a deadly conflict of religions, which the
steady advance of the Reformation in France had brought at
this time to a crisis.
The Huguenots.
Under the powerful leadership which Calvin assumed, at Geneva,
the reformed religion in France had acquired an organized
firmness and strength which not only resisted the most cruel
persecution, but made rapid headway against it. "Protestantism
had become a party which did not, like Lutheranism in Germany,
spring up from the depths." "It numbered its chief adherents
among the middle and upper grades of society, spread its roots
rather among the nobles than the citizens, and among learned
men and families of distinction rather than among the people."
"Some of the highest aristocracy, who were discontented, and
submitted unwillingly to the supremacy of the Guises, had
joined the Calvinistic opposition--some undoubtedly from
policy, others from conviction. The Turennes, the Rohans, and
Soubises, pure nobles, who addressed the king as 'mon cousin,'
especially the Bourbons, the agnates of the royal house, had
adopted the new faith" (Hausser). One branch of the Bourbons
had lately acquired the crown of Navarre. The Spanish part of
the old Navarrese kingdom had been subjugated and absorbed by
Ferdinand of Aragon; but its territory on the French side of
the Pyrenees--Béarn and other counties--still maintained a
half independent national existence, with the dignity of a
regal government. When Margaret of Angoulême, sister of
Francis I., married Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre, as
mentioned before, she carried to that small court an earnest
inclination towards the doctrines of the Reform. Under her
protection Navarre became largely Protestant, and a place of
refuge for the persecuted of France. Margaret's daughter, the
famous Jeanne d'Albret, espoused the reformed faith fully, and
her husband, Antoine de Bourbon, as well as Antoine's brother,
Louis de Condé, found it politic to profess the same belief.
For the Protestants (who were now acquiring, in some unknown
way, the name of Huguenots) had become so numerous and so
compactly organized as to form a party capable of being
wielded with great effect, in the strife of court factions
which the rivalry of Catherine and the Guises produced. Hence
politics and religion were inextricably confused in the civil
wars which broke out shortly after the death of Francis II.
(1560), and the accession of the boy king, Charles IX. These
wars belong to a different movement in the general current of
European events, and we will return to them after a glance at
the religious Reformation, and at the political circumstances
connected with it, in England and elsewhere.
England.
Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, made king of England by his
victory at Bosworth, established himself so firmly in the seat
of power that three successive rebellions failed to disturb
him. In one of these (1487) a pretender, Lambert Simnel, was
put forward, who claimed to be the Earl of Warwick. In another
(1491-1497) a second pretender, Perkin Warbeck, personated one
of the young princes whom Richard III. had caused to be
murdered in the tower. Neither of the impostures had much
success in the kingdom. Henry VII. was not a popular king, but
he was able and strong, and he solidified all the bases of
monarchical independence which circumstances had enabled
Edward IV. to begin laying down.
It was in the reign of Henry that America was discovered, and
he might have been the patron of Columbus, the beneficiary of
the great voyage, and the proprietor and lord of the grand
realm which Isabella and Ferdinand secured. But he lacked the
funds or the faith--apparently both--and put aside his
unequaled opportunity. When the field of westward exploration
had been opened, however, he was early in entering it, and
sent the Cabots upon those voyages which gave England her
claim to the North American coasts.
During the reign of Henry VII. there were two quiet marriages
in his family which strangely influenced subsequent history.
One was the marriage, in 1501, of the king's eldest son,
Arthur, to Catherine of Aragon, youngest daughter of Ferdinand
and Isabella. The other, in 1503, united the king's daughter,
Margaret, to James IV., King of Scotland. It was through this
latter marriage that the inheritance of the English crown
passed to the Scottish House of Stuart, exactly one hundred
years later, upon the failure of the direct line of descent in
the Tudor family. The first marriage, of Prince Arthur to
Catherine of Aragon, was soon dissolved by the death of the
prince, in 1502. Seven years afterwards the widowed Catherine
married her late husband's brother, just after he became Henry
VIII., King of England, upon the death of his father, in 1509.
Whence followed notable consequences which will presently
appear.
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Henry VIII. and his breach with Rome.
It was the ambition of Henry VIII. to play a conspicuous part
in European affairs; and as England was rich and strong, and
as the king had obtained nearly the absoluteness of the crown
in France, the parties to the great contests then going on
were all eagerly courting his alliance. His ambitions ran
parallel, too, with those of the able minister, Thomas Wolsey,
who rose to high influence at his side soon after his reign
began. Wolsey aspired to the Papal crown, with the cardinal's
cap as a preparatory adornment, and he drew England, as we
have seen, into the stormy politics of the sixteenth century
in Europe, with no gain, of glory or otherwise, to the nation,
and not much result of any kind. When the Emperor Maximilian
died, in 1519, Henry entered the lists against Maximilian's
grandson, Charles of Spain, and Francis I. of France, as a
candidate for the imperial crown. In the subsequent wars which
broke out between his two rivals, he took the side of the
successful Charles, now Emperor, and helped him to climb to
supremacy in Europe over the prostrate French king. He had
dreams of conquering France again, and casting the glories of
Henry V. in the shade; but he carried his enterprise little
beyond the dreaming. When it was too late to check the growth
of Charles' overshadowing power, he changed his side and took
Francis into alliance.
But Henry's motives were always selfish and personal--never
political; and the personal motives had now taken on a most
despicable character. He had tired of his wife, the Spanish
Catherine, who was six years older than himself. He had two
pretexts for discontent with his marriage: 1, that his queen
had borne him only a daughter, whereas England needed a male
heir to the throne; 2, that he was troubled with scruples as
to the lawfulness of wedlock with his brother's widow. On this
latter ground he began intrigues to win from the Pope, not a
divorce in the ordinary sense of the term, but a declaration
of the nullity of his marriage. This challenged the opposition
of the Emperor, Catherine's nephew, and Henry's alliances were
naturally changed.
The Pope, Clement VII., refused to annul the marriage, and
Henry turned his unreasoning wrath upon Cardinal Wolsey, who
had conducted negotiations with the Pope and failed in them.
Wolsey was driven from the Court in disgrace and died soon
afterwards. He was succeeded in the king's favor by a more
unscrupulous man, Thomas Cromwell. Henry had not yet despaired
of bringing the Pope to compliance with his wishes; and he
began attacks upon the Church and upon the papal revenues
which might shake, as he hoped, the firmness of the powers at
Rome. With the help of a pliant minister and a subservient
Parliament, he forced the clergy (1531-1532) in Convocation
to acknowledge him to be the Supreme Head of the English
Church, and to submit themselves entirely to his authority. At
the same time he grasped the "annates," or first year's income
of bishoprics, which had been the richest perquisite of the papal
treasury. In all these proceedings, the English king was
acting on a line parallel to that of the continental rising
against Rome; but it was not in friendliness toward it nor in
sympathy with it that he did so. He had been among the
bitterest enemies of the Reformation, and he never ceased to
be so. He had won from the Pope the empty title of "Defender
of the Faith," by a foolish book against Luther, and the faith
which he defended in 1521 was the faith in which he died. But
when he found that the influence of Charles V. at Rome was too
great to be overcome, and that the Pope could be neither
bribed, persuaded nor coerced to sanction the putting away of
his wife, he resolved to make the English Church sufficient in
authority to satisfy his demand, by establishing its
ecclesiastical independence, with a pontiff of its own, in
himself. He purposed nothing more than this. He contemplated
no change of doctrine, no cleansing of abuses. He permitted no
one whose services he commanded in the undertaking to bring
such changes into contemplation. So far as concerned Henry's
initiative, there was absolutely nothing of religious
Reformation in the movement which separated the Church of
England from the Church of Rome. It accomplished its sole
original end when it gave finality to the decree of an English
ecclesiastical court, on the question of the king's marriage,
and barred queen Catherine's appeal from it. It was the
intention of Henry VIII. that the Church under his papacy
should remain precisely what it had been under the Pope at
Rome, and he spared neither stake nor gibbet in his
persecuting zeal against impudent reformers.
But the spirit of Reformation which was in the atmosphere of
that time lent itself, nevertheless, to King Henry's project,
and made that practicable which could hardly have been so a
generation before. The influence of Wyclif had never wholly
died out; the new learning was making its way in England and
broadening men's minds; the voice of Luther and his fellow
workers on the continent had been heard, and not vainly.
England was ripe for the religious revolution, and her king
promoted it, without intention. But while his reign lasted,
and his despotism was heavy on the land, there was nothing
accomplished but the breaking of the old Church fetters, and
the binding of the nation anew with green withes, which,
presently, it would burst asunder.
The conspicuous events of Henry's reign are familiarly known.
Most of them bear the stamp of his monstrous egotism and
selfishness. He was the incomparable tyrant of English
history. The monarch who repudiated two wives, sent two to the
block, and shared his bed with yet two more; who made a whole
national church the servant of his lusts, and who took the
lives of the purest men of his kingdom when they would not
bend their consciences to say that he did well--has a pedestal
quite his own in the gallery of infamous kings.
Edward VI. and the Reformation.
Dying in 1547, Henry left three children: Mary, daughter of
Catherine of Aragon, Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, and
Edward, son of Jane Seymour. The latter, in his tenth year,
became King (Edward VI.), and his uncle, the Duke of Somerset,
acquired the control of the government, with the title of
Protector. Somerset headed a party which had begun before the
death of the king to press for more changes in the character
of the new Church of England and less adherence to the pattern
of Rome. There seems to be little reason to suppose that the
court leaders of this party were much moved in the matter by
any interest of a religious kind; but the growth of thinking
and feeling in England tended that way, and the side of
Reformation had become the stronger. They simply gave way to
it, and, abandoned the repression which Henry had persisted
in. At the same time, their new policy gave them more freedom
to grasp the spoils of the old Church, which Henry VIII. had
begun to lay hands on, by suppression of monasteries and
confiscation of their estates. The wealth thus sequestered
went largely into private hands.
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It was in the short reign of Edward VI. that the Church of
England really took on its organic form as one of the Churches
of the Reformation, by the composition of its first
prayer-books, and by the framing of a definite creed.
Lady Jane Grey.
In 1553, the young king died. Somerset had fallen from power
the previous year and had suffered death. He had been
supplanted by Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of
Northumberland, and that minister had persuaded Edward to
bequeath his crown to Lady Jane Grey, grand-daughter of the
younger sister of Henry VIII. But Northumberland was hated by
the people, and few could recognize the right of a boy on the
throne to change the order of regal succession by his will.
Parliament had formally legitimated both Catherine's daughter,
Mary, and Anne Boleyn's daughter, Elizabeth, and had placed
them in the line of inheritance. Mary's legal title to the
crown was clear. She had adhered with her mother to the Roman
Church, and her advent upon the throne would mean the
subjection of the English Church to the Papacy anew; since the
constitution of the Church armed the sovereign with supreme
and indisputable power over it. The Protestants of the kingdom
knew what to expect, and were in great fear; but they submitted.
Lady Jane Grey was recommended to them by her Protestant
belief, and by her beautiful character; but her title was too
defective and her supporters too much distrusted. There were
few to stand by the poor young girl when Northumberland
proclaimed her queen, and she was easily dethroned by the
partisans of Mary. A year later she was sent to the block.
Catholicism was now ascendant again, and England was brought
to share in the great reaction against the Reformation which
prevailed generally through Europe and which we shall
presently consider. Before doing so, let us glance briefly at
the religious state of some other countries not yet touched
upon.
The Reformation in Scotland.
In Scotland, a deep undercurrent of feeling against the
corruptions of the Church had been repressed by resolute
persecutions, until after the middle of the sixteenth century.
Wars with England, and the close connection of the Scottish
Court with the Guises of France, had both tended to retard the
progress of a reform sentiment, or to delay the manifestation
of it. But when the pent-up feeling began to respond to the
voice of the great Calvinistic evangelist and organizer, John
Knox, it swept the nation like a storm. Knox's first
preaching, after his captivity in France and exile to Geneva,
was in 1555. In 1560, the authority of the Pope was renounced,
the mass prohibited, and the Geneva confession of faith
adopted, by the Scottish Estates. After that time the Reformed
Church in Scotland--the Church of Presbyterianism--had only
to resist the futile hostility of Mary Stuart for a few years,
until it came to its great struggle against English
Episcopacy, under Mary's son and grandson, James and Charles.
The Reformation in the North.
In the three Scandinavian nations the ideas of the
Reformation, diffused from Germany, had won early favor, both
from kings and people, and had soon secured an enduring
foothold. They owed their reception quite as much, perhaps, to
the political situation as to the religious feeling of the
northern peoples.
When the ferment of the Reformation movement began, the three
crowns were worn by one king, as they had been since the
"Union of Calmar," in 1397, and the King of Denmark was the
sovereign of the Union. His actual power in Sweden and Norway
was slight; his theoretical authority was sufficient to
irritate both. In Sweden, especially, the nobles chafed under
the yoke of the profitless federation. Christian II., the last
Danish king of the three kingdoms, crushed their disaffection
by a harsh conquest of the country (1520), and by savage
executions, so perfidious and so numerous that they are known
in Swedish history as the Massacre of Stockholm. But this
brutal and faithless king became so hateful in his own proper
kingdom that the Danish nobles rose against him in 1523 and he
was driven from the land. The crown was given to his uncle,
Frederick, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. In that German Duchy,
Lutheranism had already made its way, and Frederick was in
accord with it. On coming to the throne of Denmark, where
Catholicism still prevailed, he pledged himself to attempt no
interference with it; but he felt no obligation, on the other
hand, to protect it. He demanded and established a toleration
for both doctrines, and gave to the reformers a freedom of
opportunity which speedily undermined the old faith and
overthrew it.
In the meantime, Sweden had undergone the important revolution
of her history, which placed the national hero, Gustavus Vasa,
on the throne. Gustavus was a young noble whose title to the
crown was not derived from his lineage, but from his genius.
After Christian II. had bloodily exterminated the elder
leaders of the Swedish state, this young lord, then a hostage
and prisoner in the tyrant's hands, made his escape and took
upon himself the mission of setting his country free. For
three years Gustavus lived a life like that of Alfred the
Great in England, when he, too, struggled with the Danes. His
heroic adventures were crowned with success, and Sweden, led
to independence by its natural king, bestowed the regal title
upon him (1523) and seated him upon its ancient throne. The
new Danish king, Frederick, acknowledged the revolution, and
the Union of Calmar was dissolved. Sweden under Gustavus Vasa
recovered from the state of great disorder into which it had
fallen, and grew to be a nation of important strength. As a
measure of policy, he encouraged the introduction of
Lutheranism and promoted the spread of it, in order to break
the power of the Catholic clergy, and also, in order, without
doubt, to obtain possession of the property of the Church,
which secured to the Crown the substantial revenues it
required.
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Italy.
In Italy, the reformed doctrines obtained no popular footing
at any time, though many among the cultivated people regarded
them with favor, and would gladly have witnessed, not only a
practical purging of the Church, but a revision of those
Catholic dogmas most offensive to a rational mind. But such
little movement as stirred in that direction was soon stopped
by the success of the Emperor, Charles V., in his Italian wars
with Francis I., and by the Spanish domination in the
peninsula which ensued thereon. The Spain of that age was like
the bloodless octopus which paralyzes the victim in its
clutch, and Italy, gripped in half of its many principalities
by the deadly tentacles thrust out from Madrid, showed no
consciousness for the next two centuries.
The Council of Trent.
The long demanded, long promised General Council, for
considering the alleged abuses in the Church and the alleged
falsities in its doctrine, and generally for discussion and
action upon the questions raised by the Reformation, assembled
at Trent in December, 1545. The Emperor seems to have desired
with sincerity that the Council might be one which the
Protestants would have confidence in, and in which they might
be represented, for a full discussion of their differences
with Rome. But this was made impossible from the beginning.
The Protestants demanded that "final appeal on all debated
points should be made to the sole authority of Holy
Scripture," and this being refused by the Pope (Paul III.),
there remained no ground on which the two parties could meet.
The Italian prelates who composed the majority of the Council
made haste, it would seem, to take action which closed the
doors of conciliation against the Reformers. "First, they
declared that divine revelation was continuous in the Church
of which the Pope was the head; and that the chief written
depository of this revelation--namely, the Scriptures--had no
authority except in the version of the Vulgate. Secondly, they
condemned the doctrine of justification by Faith. ... Thirdly,
they confirmed the efficacy and the binding authority of the
Seven Sacraments." "The Council terminated in December [1563]
with an act of submission, which placed all its decrees at the
pleasure of the Papal sanction. Pius [Pius IV. became Pope in
1560] was wise enough to pass and ratify the decrees of the
Tridentine fathers by a Bull dated on December 26, 1563,
reserving to the Papal sovereign the sole right of
interpreting them in doubtful or disputed cases. This he could
well afford to do; for not an article had been penned without
his concurrence, and not a stipulation had been made without a
previous understanding with the Catholic powers. The very terms,
moreover, by which his ratification was conveyed, secured his
supremacy, and conferred upon his successors and himself the
privileges of a court of ultimate appeal. At no previous
period in the history of the Church had so wide, so undefined,
and so unlimited an authority been accorded to the See of
Rome" (Symonds).
Some practical reforms in the Church were wrought by the
Council of Trent, but its disciplinary decrees were less
important than the dogmatic. From beginning to end of its
sessions, which, broken by many suspensions and adjournments,
dragged through eighteen years, it addressed itself to the
task of solidifying the Church of Rome, as left by the
Protestant schism,--not of healing the schism itself or of
removing the provocations to it. The work which the Council
did in that direction was of vast importance, and profoundly
affected the future of the Papacy and of its spiritual realm.
It gave a firm dogmatic footing to the great reactionary new
forces which now came into play, with aggressive enthusiasm
and zeal, to arrest the advance of the Reformation and roll it
back.
The Catholic reaction.
The extraordinary revival of Catholicism and thrusting back of
Protestantism which occurred in the later half of the
sixteenth century had several causes behind it and within it.
1. The spiritual impulse from which the Reformation started
had considerably spent itself, or had become debased by a
gross admixture of political and mercenary aims. In Germany,
the spoils derived from the suppressing of monastic
establishments and the secularizing of ecclesiastical fiefs
and estates, appeared very early among the potent inducements
by which mercenary princes were drawn to the side of the
Lutheran reform. Later, as the opposing leagues, Protestant
and Catholic, settled into chronic opposition and hostility,
the struggle between them took on more and more the character
of a great political game, and lost more and more the spirit
of a battle for free conscience and a free mind. In France, as
we have noticed, the political entanglements of the Huguenot
party were such, by this time, that it could not fail to be
lowered by them in its religious tone. In England, every
breath of spirituality in the movement had so far (to the
death of Henry VIII.) been stifled, and it showed nothing but
a brazen political front to the world. In the Netherlands, the
struggle for religious freedom was about to merge itself in a
fight of forty years for self-government, and the fortitude
and valor of the citizen were more surely developed in that
long war than the faith and fervor of the Christian. And so,
generally throughout Europe, Protestantism, in its conflict
with the powers of the ancient Church, had descended, ere the
sixteenth century ran far into its second half, to a
distinctly lower plane than it occupied at first. On that
lower plane Rome fronted it more formidably, with stronger
arms, than on the higher.
2. Broadly stating the fact, it may be said that Protestantism
made all its great inroads upon the Church of Rome before
partisanship came to the rescue of the latter, and closed the
open mind with which Luther, and Zwingli, and Farel, and
Calvin were listened to at first. It happens always, when new
ideas, combative of old ones, whether religious or political,
are first put forward in the world, they are listened to for a
time with a certain disinterestedness of attention--a certain
native candor in the mind--which gives them a fair hearing. If
they seem reasonable, they obtain ready acceptance, and spread
rapidly,--until the conservatism of the beliefs assailed
takes serious alarm, and the radicalism of the innovating
beliefs becomes ambitious and rampant; until the for and the
against stiffen themselves in opposing ranks, and the voice of
argument is drowned by the cries of party. That ends all
shifting of masses from the old to the new ground. That ends
conversion as an epidemic and dwindles it to the sporadic
character.
3. Protestantism became bitterly divided within itself at an
early stage of its career by doctrinal differences, first
between Zwinglians and Lutherans, and then between Lutherans
and Calvinists, while Catholicism, under attack, settled into
more unity and solidity than before.
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4. The tremendous power in Europe to which the Spanish
monarchy, with its subject dominions, and its dynastic
relations, had now risen, passed, in 1556, to a dull-brained
and soulless bigot, who saw but one use for it, namely, the
extinction of all dissent from his own beliefs, and all
opposition to his own will. Philip II. differed from his
father, Charles V., not in the enormity of his bigoted
egotism--they were equals, perhaps, in that--but in the
exclusiveness of it. There was something else in Charles,
something sometimes faintly admirable. He did have some
interests in life that were not purely malignant. But his
horrid vampire of a son, the most repulsive creature of his
kind in all history, had nothing in him that was not as deadly
to mankind as the venom secreted behind the fang of a cobra. It
was a frightful day for the world when a despotism which
shadowed Spain, Sicily, Italy and the Low Countries, and which
had begun to drag unbounded treasure from America, fell to the
possession of such a being as this. Nothing substantial was
taken away from the potent malevolence of Philip by his
failure of election in Germany to the Imperial throne. On the
contrary, he was the stronger for it, because all his dominion
was real and all his authority might assume to be absolute.
His father had been more handicapped than helped by his German
responsibilities and embarrassments, which Philip escaped. It
is not strange that his concentration of the vast enginery
under his hands to one limited aim, of exterminating what his
dull and ignorant mind conceived to be irreligion and treason,
had its large measure of success. The stranger thing is, that
there was fortitude and courage to resist such power, in even
one corner of his realm.
5. The Papacy was restored at this time to the purer and
higher character of its best ages, by well-guided elections,
which raised in succession to the throne a number of men, very
different in ability, and quite different, too, in the spirit
of their piety, but generally alike in dignity and decency of
life, and in qualities which command respect. The fiery
Neapolitan zealot, Caraffa, who became Pope in 1555 as Paul
IV.; his cool-tempered diplomatic successor, Pius IV., who
manipulated the closing labors of the Council of Trent; the
austere inquisitor, Pius V.; the more commonplace Gregory
XIII., and the powerful Sixtus V., were pontiffs who gave new
strength to Catholicism, in their different ways, both by what
they did and by what they were.
6. The revival of zeal in the Roman Church, naturally
following the attacks upon it, gave rise to many new religious
organizations within its elastic fold, some reformatory, some
missionary and militant, but all bringing an effectual
reinforcement to it, at the time when its assailants began to
show faltering signs. Among these was one--Loyola's Society of
Jesus--which marched promptly to the front of the battle, and
which contributed more than any other single force in the
field to the rallying of the Church, to the stopping of
retreat, and to the facing of its stubborn columns forward for
a fresh advance. The Jesuits took such a lead and accomplished
such results by virtue of the military precision of discipline
under which they had been placed and to which they were
singularly trained by the rules of the founder; and also by
effect of a certain subtle sophistry that runs through their
ethical maxims and their counsels of piety. They fought for
their faith with a sublime courage, with a devotion almost
unparalleled, with an earnestness of belief that cannot be
questioned; but they used weapons and modes of warfare which
the higher moral feeling of civilized mankind, whether
Christian or Pagan, has always condemned. It is not Protestant
enemies alone who say this. It is the accusation that has been
brought against them again and again in their own Church, and
which has expelled them from Catholic countries, again and
again. In the first century or more of their career, this
plastic conscience, moulded by a passionate zeal, and
surrendered, with every gift of mind and body, to a service of
obedience which tolerated no evasion on one side nor bending
on the other, made the Jesuits the most invincible and
dangerous body of men that was ever organized for defense and
aggression in any cause.
The order was founded in 1540, by a bull of Pope Paul III. At
the time of Loyola's death, in 1556, it numbered about one
thousand members, and under Lainez, the second general of the
order, who succeeded Loyola at the head, it advanced rapidly,
in numbers, in efficiency of organization, and in wide-spread
influence.
Briefly stated, these are the incidents and circumstances
which help to explain--not fully, perhaps, but almost
sufficiently--the check to Protestantism and the restored
energy and aggressiveness of the Catholic Church, in the later
half of the sixteenth century.
The Ruin of Spain.
In his kingdoms of Spain, Philip II. may be said to have
finished the work of death which his father and his father's
grand-parents committed to him. They began it, and appointed
the lines on which it was to be done. The Spain of their day
had the fairest opportunity of any nation in Europe for a
great and noble career. The golden gates of her opportunity
were unlocked and opened by good Queen Isabella; but the pure
hands of the same pious queen threw over the neck of her
country the noose of a strangler, and tightened it
prayerfully. Her grandson, who was neither pious nor good,
flung his vast weight of power upon it. But the strangling
halter of the Spanish Inquisition did not extinguish signs of
life in his kingdom fast enough to satisfy his royal
impatience, and he tightened other cords upon the suffering
body and all its limbs. Philip, when he came to take up the
murderous task, found every equipment for it that he could
desire. He had only to gather the strands of the infernal mesh
into his hands, and bring the strain of his awful sovereignty
to bear upon them: then sit and watch the palsy of death creep
over his dominions.
Of political life, Charles really left nothing for his son to
kill. Of positive religious life, there can have been no
important survival, for he and his Inquisition had been keenly
vigilant; but Philip made much of the little he could
discover. As to the industrial life of Spain, father and son
were alike active in the murdering of it, and alike ingenious.
They paralyzed manufactures, in the first instance, by
persecuting and expelling the thrifty and skilful Moriscoes;
then they made their work complete by heavy duties on raw
materials. To extinguish the agricultural industries of the
kingdom, they had happy inspirations.
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They prohibited the exportation of one commodity after
another--corn, cattle, wool, cloth, leather, and the
like--until they had brought Spain practically to the point of
being dependent on other countries for many products of skill,
and yet of having nothing to offer in exchange, except the
treasure of precious metals which she drew from America. Hence
it happened that the silver and gold of the Peruvian and
Mexican mines ran like quicksand through her fingers, into the
coffers of the merchants of the Low Countries and of England;
and, probably, no other country in Europe saw so little of
them, had so little of benefit from them, as the country they
were supposed to enrich.
If the killing of Spain needed to be made complete by anything
more, Philip supplied the need, in the deadliness of his
taxation. Spending vast sums in his attempt to repeat upon the
Netherlands the work of national murder he had accomplished in
Spain; losing, by the same act, the rich revenues of the
thrifty provinces; launching into new expenditures as he
pursued, by clumsy warfare, his mission of death into fresh
fields, aiming now at the life of France, and now at the life
of England,--he squeezed the cost of his armies and armadas
from a country in which he had strangled production already,
and made poverty the common estate. It was the last draining
of the life-blood of a nation which ought to have been strong
and great, but which suffered murder most foul and unnatural.
We hardly exaggerate even in figure when we say that Spain was
a dead nation whim Philip quitted the scene of his arduous
labors. It is true that his successors still found something
for their hands to do, in the ways that were pleasant to their
race, and burned and bled and crushed the unhappy kingdom with
indefatigable persistency; but it was really the corpse of a
nation which they practised on. The life of Spain, as a
breathing, sentient state, came to an end under the hands of
Philip II., first of the Thugs.
Philip II. and the Netherlands.
The hand of Charles V. had been heavy on the Netherlands; but
resistance to such a power as that of Spain in his day was
hardly dreamed of. It was not easy for Philip to outdo his
father's despotism; less easy to drive the laborious
Hollanders and Flemings to desperation and force them into
rebellious war. But he accomplished it. He filled the country
with Spanish troops. He reorganized and stimulated the
Inquisition. He multiplied bishoprics in the Provinces,
against the wish of even the Catholic population. He scorned
the counsels of the great nobles, and gave foreign advisers to
the Regent, his half-sister, Margaret of Parma, illegitimate
daughter of Charles V., whom he placed at the head of the
government. His oppressions were endured, with increasing
signs of hidden passion, for ten years. Then, in 1566, the
first movement of patriotic combination appeared. It was a
league among certain of the nobles; its objects were peaceful,
its plans were legal; but it was not countenanced by the wiser
of the patriots, who saw that events were not ripe. The
members of the league went in solemn procession to the Regent
with a petition; whereupon one of her councillors denounced
them as "a troop of beggars." They promptly seized the epithet
and appropriated it. A beggar's wallet became their emblem;
the idea was caught up and carried through the country, and a
visible party rose quickly into existence.
The religious feeling now gained boldness. Enormous
field-meetings began to be held, under arms, in every part of
the open country, defying edicts and Inquisition. There
followed a little later some fanatical and riotous outbreaks
in several cities, breaking images and desecrating churches.
Upon these occurrences, Philip despatched to the Netherlands,
in the summer of 1567, a fresh army of Spanish troops,
commanded by a man who was after his own heart--as mean, as
false, as merciless, as little in soul and mind, as
himself,--the Duke of Alva. Alva brought with him authority
which practically superseded that of the Regent, and secret
instructions which doomed every man of worth in the Provinces.
At the head of the nobility of the country; by eminence of
character, no less than by precedence in rank, stood William
of Nassau, Prince of Orange, who derived his higher title from
a petty and remote principality, but whose large family
possessions were in Flanders, Brabant, Holland and Luxemburg.
Associated closely with him, in friendship and in political
action, were Count Egmont, and the Admiral Count Horn, the
latter of a family related to the Montmorencies of France.
These three conspicuous nobles Philip had marked with special
malice for the headsman, though their solitary crime had been
the giving of advice against his tyrannies. William of
Orange-"the Silent," as he came to be known--far-seeing in
his wisdom, and well-advised by trusty agents in Spain,
withdrew into Germany before Alva arrived. He warned his
friends of their danger and implored them to save themselves;
but they were blinded and would not listen. The perfidious
Spaniard lured them with flatteries to Brussels and thrust
them into prison. They were to be the first victims of the
appalling sacrifice required to appease the dull rage of the
king. Within three months they had eighteen hundred
companions, condemned like themselves to the scaffold, by a
council in which Alva presided and which the people called
"the Council of Blood." In June, 1568, they were brought to
the block.
Meantime Prince William and his brother, Louis of Nassau, had
raised forces in Germany and attempted the rescue of the
terrorized Provinces; but their troops were ill-paid and
mutinous and they suffered defeat. For the time being, the
Netherlands were crushed. As many of the people as could
escape had fled; commerce was at a standstill; workshops were
idle; the cities, once so wealthy, were impoverished; death,
mourning, and terror, were everywhere. Alva had done very
perfectly what he was sent to do.
The first break in the blackness of the clouds appeared in
April, 1572, when a fleet, manned by refugee adventurers who
called themselves Sea-Beggars, attacked and captured the town
of Brill. From that day the revolt had its right footing, on
the decks of the ships of the best sailors in the world. It
faced Philip from that day as a maritime power, which would
grow by the very feeding of its war with him, until it had
consumed everything Spanish within its reach. The taking of
Brill soon gave the patriots control of so many places in
Holland and Zealand that a meeting of deputies was held at
Dort, in July, 1572, which declared William of Orange to be
"the King's legal Stadtholder in Holland, Zealand, Friesland
and Utrecht," and recommended to the other Provinces that he
be appointed Protector of all the Netherlands during the
King's absence.
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Alva's reign of terror had failed so signally that even he was
discouraged and asked to be recalled. It was his boast when he
retired that he had put eighteen thousand and six hundred of
the Netherlanders to death since they were delivered into his
hands, above and beyond the horrible massacres by which he had
half depopulated every captured town. Under Alva's successor,
Don Louis de Requesens, a man of more justice and humanity,
the struggle went on, adversely, upon the whole, to the
patriots, though they triumphed gloriously in the famous
defense of Leyden. To win help from England, they offered the
sovereignty of their country to Queen Elizabeth; but in vain.
They made no headway in the southern provinces, where
Catholicism prevailed, and where the religious difference drew
people more to the Spanish side. But when Requesens died
suddenly, in the spring of 1576, and the Spanish soldiery
broke into a furious mutiny, sacking Antwerp and other cities,
then the nobles of Flanders and Brabant applied to the northern
provinces for help. The result was a treaty, called the
Pacification of Ghent, which contemplated a general effort to
drive the Spaniards from the whole land. But not much came of
this confederacy; the Catholic provinces never co-operated
with the Protestant provinces, and the latter went their own
way to freedom and prosperity, while the former sank back,
submissive, to their chains.
For a short time after the death of Requesens, Philip was
represented in the Netherlands by his illegitimate
half-brother, Don John of Austria; but Don John died in
October, 1578, and then came the great general, Alexander
Farnese, Prince of Parma, who was to try the patriots sorely
by his military skill. In 1579, the Prince of Orange drew them
more closely together, in the Union of Utrecht, which Holland,
Zealand, Gelderland, Zutphen, Utrecht, Overyssel, and
Groningen, subscribed, and which was practically the
foundation of the Dutch republic, though allegiance to Philip
was not yet renounced. This followed two years later, in July,
1581, when the States General, assembled at the Hague, passed a
solemn Act of Abjuration, which deposed Philip from his
sovereignty and transferred it to the Duke of Anjou, a prince
of the royal family of France, who did nothing for the
Provinces, and who died soon after. At the same time, the
immediate sovereignty of Holland and Zealand was conferred on
the Prince of Orange.
In March, 1582, Philip made his first deliberate attempt to
procure the assassination of the Prince. He had entered into a
contract for the purpose, and signed it with his own hand. The
assassin employed failed only because the savage pistol wound
he inflicted, in the neck and jaw of his victim, did not kill.
The master-murderer, at Madrid, was not discouraged. He
launched his assassins, one following the other, until six had
made their trial in two years. The sixth, one Balthazar
Gerard, accomplished that for which he was sent, and William
the Silent, wise statesman and admirable patriot, fell under
his hand (July 10, 1584). Philip was so immeasurably delighted
at this success that he conferred three lordships on the
parents of the murderer.
William's son, Maurice, though but eighteen years old, was
immediately chosen Stadtholder of Holland, Zealand and
Utrecht, and High Admiral of the Union. In the subsequent
years of the war, he proved himself a general of great
capacity. Of the details of the war it is impossible to speak.
Its most notable event was the siege of Antwerp, whose
citizens defended themselves against the Duke of Parma, with
astonishing courage and obstinacy, for many months. They
capitulated in the end on honorable terms; but the prosperity
of their city had received a blow from which it never revived.
Once more the sovereignty of the Provinces was offered to
Queen Elizabeth of England, and once more declined; but the
queen sent her favorite, the Earl of Leicester, with a few
thousand men, to help the struggling Hollanders (1585). This
was done, not in sympathy with them or their cause, but purely
as a self-defensive measure against Spain. The niggardliness
and the vacillations of Elizabeth, combined with the
incompetency of Leicester, caused troubles to the Provinces
nearly equal to the benefit of the forces lent them. Philip of
Spain was now involved in his undertakings with the Guises and
the League in France, and in his plans against England, and
was weakened in the Netherlands for some years. Parma died in
1592, and Count Mansfield took his place, succeeded in his
turn by the Marquis Spinola. The latter, at last, made an
honest report, that the subjugation of the United Provinces
was impracticable, and, Philip II. being now dead, the Spanish
government was induced in 1607 to agree to a suspension of
arms. A truce for twelve years was arranged; practically it
was the termination of the war of independence, and
practically it placed the United Provinces among the nations,
although the formal acknowledgment of their independence was
not yielded by Spain until 1648.
England under Mary.
While the Netherlands had offered to Philip of Spain a special
field for his malice, there were others thrown open to him
which he did not neglect. He may be said, in fact, to have
whetted his appetite for blood and for burned human flesh in
England, whither he went, as a young prince, in 1554, to marry
his elderly second cousin, Queen Mary. We may be sure that he
did not check the ardor of his consort, when she hastened to
re-establish the supremacy of the Pope, and to rekindle the
fires of religious persecution. The two-hundred and
seventy-seven heretics whom she is reckoned to have burned may
have seemed to him, even then, an insignificant handful. He
quickly tired of her, if not of her congenial work, and left
her in 1555. In 1558 she died, and the Church of Rome fell
once more, never to regain its old footing of authority.
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England under Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, who now came to the
throne, was Protestant by the necessities of her position,
whether doctrinally convinced or no. The Catholics denied her
legitimacy of birth, and disputed, therefore, her right to the
crown. She depended upon the Protestants for her support, and
Protestantism, either active or passive, had become, without
doubt, the dominant faith of the nation. But the mild schism
which formerly took most of its direction from Luther, had now
been powerfully acted upon by the influence of Calvin. Geneva
had been the refuge of many ministers and teachers who fled
from Mary's fires, and they returned to spread and deepen in
England the stern, strong, formidable piety which Calvin
evoked. These Calvinistic Protestants now made themselves felt
as a party in the state, and were known ere long by that name
which the next century rendered famous in English and American
history--the great name of the Puritans. They were not
satisfied with the stately, decorous, ceremonious Church which
Elizabeth reconstructed on the pattern of the Church of Edward
VI. At the same time, no party could be counted on more surely
for the support of the queen, since the hope of Protestantism
in England depended upon her, even as she was dependent upon
it.
The Catholics, denying legitimacy to Elizabeth, recognized
Mary Queen of Scots as the lawful sovereign of England. And
Mary was, in fact, the next in succession, tracing her
lineage, as stated before, to the elder sister of Henry VIII.
If Elizabeth had been willing to frankly acknowledge Mary's
heirship, failing heirs of her own body, it seems probable
that the partisans of the Scottish queen would have been
quieted, to a great extent. But Mary had angered her by
assuming, while in France, the arms and style of Queen of
England. She distrusted and disliked her Stuart cousin, and,
moreover, the whole idea of a settlement of the succession was
repugnant to her mind. At the same time, she could not be
brought to marry, as her Protestant subjects wished. She
coquetted with the notion of marriage through half her reign,
but never to any purpose.
Such were the elements of agitation and trouble in England
under Elizabeth. The history of well-nigh half-a-century was
shaped in almost all its events by the threatening attitude of
Catholicism and its supporters, domestic and foreign, toward
the English queen. She was supported by the majority of her
subjects with staunch loyalty and fidelity, even though she
treated them none too well, and troubled them in their very
defense of her by her whims and caprices. They identified her
cause with themselves, and took such pride in her courage that
they shut their eyes to the many weaknesses that went with it.
She never grasped the affairs she dealt with in a broadly
capable way. She never acted on them with well considered
judgment. Her ministers, it is clear, were never able to
depend upon a reasonable action of her mind. Her vanity or her
jealousy might put reason in eclipse at any moment, and a skilful
flatterer could make the queen as foolish as a milkmaid. But
she had a royal courage and a royal pride of country, and she
did make the good and glory of England her aim. So she won the
affection of all Englishmen whose hearts were not in the
keeping of the Pope, and no monarch so arbitrary was ever more
ardently admired.
Mary, Queen of Scots.
In 1567, Mary Stuart was deposed by her own subjects, or
forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son, James. She had
alienated the Scottish people, first by her religion, and then
by her suspected personal crimes. Having married her second
cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, she was accused of being
false to him. Darnley revenged his supposed wrongs as a
husband by murdering her secretary, David Rizzio. In the next
year (1567) Darnley was killed; the hand of the Earl of
Bothwell appeared quite plainly in the crime, and the queen's
complicity was believed. She confirmed the suspicions against
herself by marrying Bothwell soon afterwards. Then her
subjects rose against her, imprisoned her in Loch Leven
Castle, and made the Earl of Murray regent of the Kingdom. In
1568 Mary escaped from her Scottish prison and entered
England. From that time until her death, in 1587, she was a
captive in the hands of her rival, Queen Elizabeth, and was
treated with slender magnanimity. More than before, she became
the focus of intrigues and conspiracies which threatened both
the throne and the life of Elizabeth, and a growing feeling of
hostility to the wretched woman was inevitable.
In 1570, Pope Pius V. issued against Elizabeth his formal bull
of excommunication, absolving her subjects from their
allegiance. This quickened, of course, the activity of the
plotters against the queen and set treason astir. Priests from
the English Catholic Seminary at Douai, afterwards at Rheims,
began to make their appearance in the country; a few Jesuits
came over; and both were active agents of the schemes on foot
which contemplated the seating of Mary Stuart on the throne of
Elizabeth Tudor. Some of these emissaries were executed, and
they are counted among the martyrs of the Catholic Church,
which is a serious mistake. The Protestantism of the sixteenth
century was quite capable of religious persecution, even to
death; but it has no responsibilities of that nature in these
Elizabethan cases. As a matter of fact, the religion of the
Jesuit sufferers in the reign of Elizabeth was a mere incident
attaching itself to a high political crime, which no nation
has ever forgiven.
The plotting went on for twenty years, keeping the nation in
unrest; while beyond it there were thickening signs of a great
project of invasion in the sinister mind of Philip II. At
last, in 1586, the coolest councillors of Elizabeth persuaded
her to bring Mary Stuart to trial for alleged complicity in a
conspiracy of assassination which had lately come to light.
Convicted, and condemned to death, Mary ended her sad life on
the scaffold, at Fotheringay, on the 8th of February, 1587.
Whether guilty or guiltless of any knowledge of what had been
done in her name, against the peace of England and against the
life of the English queen, it cannot be thought strange that
Protestant England took her life.
The Spanish Armada.
A great burst of wrath in Catholic Europe was caused by the
execution of Mary, and Philip of Spain hastened forward his
vast preparations for the invasion and conquest of England. In
1588, the "invincible armada," as it was believed to be,
sailed out of the harbors of Portugal and Spain, and wrecked
itself with clumsy imbecility on the British and Irish coasts.
It scarcely did more than give sport to the eager English
sailors who scattered its helpless ships and hunted them down.
Philip troubled England no more, and conspiracy ceased.
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England at Sea.
But the undeclared, half-piratical warfare which private
adventurers had been carrying on against Spanish commerce for
many years now acquired fresh energy. Drake, Hawkins,
Frobisher, Grenvil, Raleigh, were the heroic spirits of this
enterprising warfare; but they had many fellows. It was the
school of the future navy of England, and the foundations of
the British Empire were laid down by those who carried it on.
Otherwise, Elizabeth had little war upon her hands, except in
Ireland, where the state of misery and disorder had already
been long chronic. The first really complete conquest of the
island was accomplished by Lord Mountjoy between 1600 and
1603.
Intellectual England.
But neither the political troubles nor the naval and military
triumphs of England during the reign of Elizabeth are of much
importance, after all, compared with the wonderful flowering
of the genius of the nation which took place in that age.
Shakespeare, Spenser, Bacon, Ben Jonson, Marlowe, Hooker,
Raleigh, Sidney, are the great facts of Elizabeth's time, and
it shines with the luster of their names, the period most
glorious in English history.
The Religious Wars in France.
Wherever the stealthy arm of the influence of Philip II. of
Spain could reach, there the Catholic reaction of his time
took on a malignant form. In France, it is quite probable that
the Catholics and the Huguenots, if left to themselves, would
have come to blows; but it is certain that the meddling
fingers of the Spanish king put fierceness and fury into the
wars of religion, which raged from 1562 to 1596, and that they
were prolonged by his encouragement and help.
Catherine de' Medici, to strengthen herself against the
Guises, after the death of Francis II., offered attentions for
a time to the Huguenot nobles, and encouraged them to expect a
large and lasting measure of toleration. She went so far that
the Huguenot influence at court, surrounding the young king,
became very seriously alarming to Catholic onlookers, both at
home and abroad. Among the many remonstrances addressed to the
queen-regent, the one which appears to have been decisive in
its effect came from Philip. He coldly sent her word that he
intended to interfere in France and to establish the supremacy
of the Catholic Church; that he should give his support for that
purpose to any true friend of the Church who might request it.
Whether Catherine had entertained an honest purpose or not, in
her dealing with the Huguenots, this threat, with what lay
behind it, put an end to the hope of justice for them. It is
true that an assembly of notables, in January, 1562, did
propose a law which the queen put forth, in what is known as
the "Edict of January," whereby the Huguenots were given, for
the first time, a legal recognition, ceasing to be outlaws,
and were permitted to hold meetings, in the daytime, in open
places, outside of walled cities; but their churches were
taken away from them, they were forbidden to build more, and
they could hold no meetings in walled towns. It was a measure
of toleration very different from that which they had been led
to expect; and even the little meted out by this Edict of January
was soon shown to have no guarantee. Within three months, the
Duke of Guise had found an opportunity for exhibiting his
contempt of the new law, by ordering his armed followers to
attack a congregation at Vassy, killing fifty and wounding two
hundred of the peaceful worshippers. This outrage drove the
Huguenots to arms and the civil wars began.
The frivolous Anthony, King of Navarre, had been won back to
the Catholic side. His staunch wife, Jeanne d'Albret, with her
young son, the future Henry IV., and his brother, Louis,
Prince of Condé, remained true to their faith. Condé was the
chief of the party. Next to him in rank, and first in real
worth and weight, was the noble Admiral Coligny. The first war
was brief, though long enough to end the careers of Anthony of
Navarre, killed in battle, and the Duke of Guise,
assassinated. Peace was made in 1563 through a compromise,
which conceded certain places to the Huguenots, wherein they
might worship God in their own way. But it was a hollow peace,
and the malicious finger of the great master of assassins at
Madrid never ceased picking at it. In 1566, civil war broke
out a second time, continuing until 1570. Its principal
battles were that of Jarnac, in which Condé was taken prisoner
and basely assassinated by his captors, and that of
Moncontour. The Huguenots were defeated in both. After the
death of Condé, young Henry of Navarre, who had reached his
fifteenth year, was chosen to be the chief of the party, with
Coligny for his instructor in war.
Again peace was made, on a basis of slight concessions. Henry
of Navarre married the King's sister, Margaret of Valois;
prior to which he and his mother took up their residence with
the court, at Paris, where Jeanne d'Albret soon sickened and
died. The Admiral Coligny acquired, apparently, a marked
influence over the mind of the young king; and once more there
seemed to be a smiling future for the Reformed. But damnable
treacheries were hidden underneath this fair showing. The most
hideous conspiracy of modern times was being planned, at the
very moment of the ostentatious peace-marriage of the King of
Navarre, and the chief parties to it were Catherine de' Medici
and the Guises, whose evil inclinations in common had brought
them together at last. On the 22d of August, 1572, Coligny was
wounded by an assassin, employed by the widow and son of the
late Duke of Guise, whose death they charged against him,
notwithstanding his protestations of innocence. Two days
later, the monstrous and almost incredible massacre of St.
Bartholomew's Day was begun. Paris was full of Huguenots--the
heads of the party--its men of weight and influence--who had
been drawn to the capital by the King of Navarre's marriage
and by the supposed new era of favor in which they stood. To
cut these off was to decapitate Protestantism in France, and
that was the purpose of the infernal scheme. The weak-minded
young king was not an original party to the plot. When
everything had been planned, he was easily excited by a tale
of pretended Huguenot conspiracies, and his assent to summary
measures of prevention was secured. A little after midnight,
on the morning of Sunday, August 24, the signal was given, by
Catherine's order, which let loose a waiting swarm of
assassins, throughout Paris, on the victims who had been
marked for them. The Huguenots had had no warning; they were
taken everywhere by surprise, and they were easily murdered in
their beds, or hunted down in their hopeless flight.
{1070}
The noble Coligny, prostrated by the wound he had received two
days before, was killed in his chamber, and his body flung out
of the window. The young Duke of Guise stood waiting in the
court below, to gloat on the corpse and to basely spurn it
with his foot.
The massacre in Paris was carried on through two nights and
two days; and, for more than a month following, the example of
the capital was imitated in other cities of France, as the
news of what were called "the Paris Matins" reached them. The
total number of victims in the kingdom is estimated variously
to have been between twenty thousand and one hundred thousand.
Henry of Navarre and the young Prince of Condé escaped the
massacre, but they saved their lives by a hypocritical
abjuration of their religion.
The strongest town in the possession of the Huguenots was La
Rochelle, and great numbers of their ministers and people of
mark who survived the massacre now took refuge in that city,
with a considerable body of armed men. The royal forces laid
siege to the city, but made no impression on its defences.
Peace was conceded in the end on terms which again promised
the Huguenots some liberty of worship. But there was no
sincerity in it.
In 1574, Charles IX. died, and his brother, the Duke of Anjou,
who had lately been elected King of Poland, ran away from his
Polish capital with disgraceful haste and secrecy, to secure
the French crown. He was the most worthless of the
Valois-Medicean brood, and the French court in his reign
attained its lowest depth of degradation. The contending
religions were soon at war again, with the accustomed result,
in 1576, of another short-lived peace. The Catholics were
divided into two factions, one fanatical, following the
Guises, the other composed of moderate men, calling themselves
the Politiques, who hated the Spanish influence under which
the Guises were always acting, and who were willing to make
terms with the Huguenots. The Guises and the ultra-Catholics
now organized throughout France a great oath-bound "Holy
League", which became so formidable in power that the king
took fright, put himself at the head of it, and reopened war
with the Reformed.
More and more, the conflict of religions became confused with
questions of politics and mixed with personal quarrels. At one
time, the king's younger brother, the Duke of Alençon, had
gone over to the Huguenot side; but stayed only long enough to
extort from the court some appointments which he desired. The
king, more despised by his subjects than any king of France
before him had ever been, grew increasingly jealous and afraid
of the popularity and strength of the Duke of Guise, who was
proving to be a man quite superior to his father in
capability. Guise, on his side, was made arrogant by his sense
of power, and his ambition soared high. There were reasons for
believing that he did not look upon the throne itself as
beyond his reach.
After 1584, when the Duke of Alençon (Duke of Anjou under his
later title) died, a new political question, vastly
disturbing, was brought into affairs. That death left no heir
to the crown in the Valois line, and the King of Navarre, of
the House of Bourbon, was now nearer in birth to the throne
than any other living person. Henry had, long ere this,
retracted his abjuration of 1572, had rejoined the Huguenots
and taken his place as their chief. The head of the Huguenots
was now the heir presumptive to the crown, and the wretched,
incapable king was being impelled by his fear of Guise to look
to his Huguenot heir for support. It was a strange situation.
In 1588 it underwent a sinister change. Guise and his brother,
the Cardinal, were both assassinated by the king's body-guard,
acting under the king's orders, in the royal residence at the
Castle of Blois. When the murder had been done, the cowardly
king spurned his dead enemy with his foot, as Guise, sixteen
years before, had spurned the murdered Coligny, and said "I am
King at last." He was mistaken. His authority vanished with
the vile deed by which he expected to reinvigorate it. Paris
broke into open rebellion. The League renewed its activity
throughout France. The king, abandoned and cursed on all
sides, had now no course open to him but an alliance with
Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots. The alliance was effected,
and the two Henrys joined forces to subdue insurgent Paris.
While the siege of the city was in progress (1589), Henry III.
fell a victim, in his turn, to the murderous mania of his
depraved age and court. He was assassinated by a fanatical
monk.
Henry of Navarre.
Henry of Navarre now steps into the foreground of French
history, as Henry IV., lawful King of France as well as of
Navarre, and ready to prove his royal title by a more useful
reign than the French nation had known since it buried St.
Louis, his last ancestor on the throne. But his title was
recognized at first by few outside the party of the Huguenots.
The League went openly into alliance with Philip of Spain, who
even half-stopped his war in the Netherlands to send money and
troops into France. The energies of his insignificant soul
were all concentrated on the desire to keep the heretical
Béarnese from the throne of France. But happily his powers
were no longer equal to his malice; he was still staggering
under the blow which destroyed his great Armada.
Henry received some help in money from Queen Elizabeth, and
5,000 English and Scotch came over to join his army. He was an
abler general than any among his opponents, and he made
headway against them. His splendid victory at Ivry, on the
14th of March, 1590, inspirited his followers and took heart
from the League. He was driven from his subsequent siege of
Paris by a Spanish army, under the Duke of Parma; but the very
interference of the Spanish king helped to turn French feeling
in Henry's favor. On the 25th of July, 1593, he practically
extinguished the opposition to himself by his final submission
to the Church of Rome. It was an easy thing for him to do. His
religion sat lightly on him. He had accepted it from his
mother; he had adhered to it--not faithfully--as the creed of
a party. He could give it up, in exchange for the crown of
France, and feel no trouble of conscience. But the Reformed
religion in France was really benefited by his apostacy. Peace
came to the kingdom, as the consequence,--a peace of many
years,--and the Huguenots were sheltered in considerable
religious freedom by the peace. Henry secured it to them in
1598 by the famous Edict of Nantes, which remained in force
for nearly a hundred years.
{1071}
The reign of Henry IV. was one of the satisfactory periods in
the life of France, so far as concerns the material prosperity
of the nation. He was a man of strong, keen intellect, with
firmness of will and elasticity of temper, but weak on the
moral side. He was of those who win admiration and friendship
easily, and he remains traditionally the most popular of
French kings. He had the genius for government which so rarely
coincides with royal birth. A wise minister, the Duke of
Sully, gave stability to his measures, and between them they
succeeded in remarkably improving and promoting the
agricultural and the manufacturing industries of France,
effacing the destructive effects of the long civil wars, and
bringing economy and order into the finances of the
overburdened nation. His useful career was ended by an
assassin in 1610.
Germany and the Thirty Years War.
The reactionary wars of religion in Germany came
half-a-century later than in France. While the latter country
was being torn by the long civil conflicts which Henry IV.
brought to an end, the former was as nearly in the enjoyment
of religious peace as the miserable contentions in the bosom
of Protestantism, between Lutherans and Calvinists (the latter
more commonly called "the Reformed"), would permit. On the
abdication of Charles V., in 1556, he had fortunately failed
to bring about the election of his son Philip to the imperial
throne. His brother Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and King of
Bohemia and Hungary, was chosen Emperor, and that sovereign
had too many troubles in his immediate dominions to be willing
to invite a collision with the Protestant princes of Germany
at large. The Turks had overrun Hungary and established
themselves in possession of considerable parts of the country.
Ferdinand obtained peace with the redoubtable Sultan Suleiman,
but only by payments of money which bore a strong likeness to
tribute. He succeeded, through his prudent and skilful policy,
in making both the Hungarian and the Bohemian crowns practically
hereditary in the House of Austria.
Dying in 1564, Ferdinand transmitted both those kingdoms, with
the Austrian Archduchy and the imperial office, to his son,
Maximilian II., the broadest and most liberal minded of his
race. Though educated in Spain, and in companionship with his
cousin, Philip II., Maximilian exhibited the most tolerant
spirit that appears anywhere in his age. Perhaps it was the
hatefulness of orthodox zeal as exemplified in Philip which
drove the more generous nature of Maximilian to revolt. He
adhered to the Roman communion; but he manifested so much
respect for the doctrines of the Lutheran that his father felt
called upon at one time to make apologies for him to the Pope.
Throughout his reign he held himself aloof from religious
disputes, setting an example of tolerance and spiritual
intelligence to all his subjects, Lutherans, Calvinists and
Catholics alike, which ought to have influenced them more for
their good than it did. Under the shelter of the toleration
which Maximilian gave it, Protestantism spread quickly over
Austria, where it had had no opportunity before; revived the
old Hussite reform in Bohemia; made great gains in Hungary,
and advanced in all parts of his dominions except the Tyrol.
The time permitted to it for this progress was short, since
Maximilian reigned but twelve years. He died in 1576, and his
son Rudolph, who followed him, brought evil changes upon the
country in all things. He, too, had been educated in Spain,
but with a very different result. He came back a creature of
the Jesuits; but so weakly wilful a creature that even they
could do little with him. Authority of government went to
pieces in his incompetent hands, and at last, in 1606, a
family conclave of princes of the Austrian house began
measures which aimed at dispossessing Rudolph of his various
sovereignties, so far as possible, in favor of his brother
Matthias. Rudolph resisted with some effect, and in the
contests which ensued the Protestants of Austria and Bohemia
improved their opportunity for securing an enlargement of
their rights. Matthias made the concession of complete
toleration in Austria, while Rudolph, in Bohemia, granted the
celebrated charter, called the Letter of Majesty (1609), which
gave entire religious liberty to all sects.
These concessions were offensive to two princes, the Archduke
Ferdinand of Styria, and Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, who had
already taken the lead in a vigorous movement of Catholic
reaction. Some proceedings on the part of Maximilian, which
the Emperor sanctioned, against the Protestant free city of
Donauwörth, had caused certain Protestant princes and cities,
in 1608, to form a defensive Union. But the Elector Palatine,
who attached himself to the Reformed or Calvinist Church, was
at the head of this Union, and the bigoted Lutherans,
especially the Elector of Saxony, looked with coldness upon
it. On the other hand, the Catholic states formed a
counter-organization--a Holy League--which was more compact
and effective. The two parties being thus set in array, there
rose suddenly between them a political question of the most
disturbing character. It related to the right of succession to
an important duchy, that of Juliers, Clèves, and Berg. There
were several powerful claimants, in both of the Saxon
families, and including also the Elector of Brandenburg and
the Palsgrave of Neuberg, two members of the Union. As usual,
the political question took possession of the religious issue
and used it for its own purposes. The Protestant Union opened
negotiations with Henry IV. of France, who saw an opportunity
to weaken the House of Austria and to make some gains for
France at the expense of Germany. A treaty was concluded, and
Henry began active preparations for campaigns in both Germany
and Italy, with serious intent to humble and diminish the
Austrian power. The Dutch came into the alliance, likewise,
and James I. of England promised his co-operation. The
combination was formidable, and might have changed very
extensively the course of events that awaited unhappy Germany,
if the whole plan had not been frustrated by the assassination
of Henry IV., in 1610. All the parties to the alliance drew
back after that event, and both sides waited.
{1072}
In 1611, Rudolph was deposed in Bohemia, and the following
year he died. Matthias, already King of Hungary, succeeded
Rudolph in Bohemia and in the Empire. But Matthias was
scarcely stronger in mind or body than his brother, and the
same family pressure which had pushed Rudolph aside now forced
Matthias to accept a coadjutor, in the person of the vigorous
Ferdinand, Archduke of Styria. For the remainder of his reign
Matthias was a cipher, and all power in the government was
exercised by Ferdinand. His bitter opposition to the tolerant
policy which had prevailed generally for half-a-century was
well understood. Hence, his rise to supremacy in the Empire
gave notice that the days of religious peace were ended. The
outbreak of civil war was not long in coming.
Beginning of the war in Bohemia.
It began in Bohemia. A violation of the Protestant rights
guaranteed by the Letter of Majesty provoked a rising under
Count Thurn. Two of the king's councilors, with their
secretary, were flung from a high window of the royal castle,
and this act of violence was followed by more revolutionary
measures. A provisional government of thirty Directors was set
up and the king's authority set wholly aside. The Protestant
Union gave prompt support to the Bohemian insurrection and
sent Count Mansfield with three thousand soldiers to its aid.
The Thirty Years War was begun (1618).
Early in these disturbances, Matthias died (1619). Ferdinand
had already made his succession secure, in Austria, Bohemia
and Hungary, and the imperial crown was presently conferred on
him. But the Bohemians repudiated his kingship and offered
their crown to Frederick, the Elector Palatine, lately married
to the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I. of England.
The Elector, persuaded, it is said, by his ambitious young
wife, unwisely accepted the tempting bauble, and went to
Prague to receive it. But he had neither prudence nor energy
to justify his bold undertaking. Instead of strengthening
himself for his contest with Ferdinand, he began immediately
to enrage his new subjects by pressing Calvinistic forms and
doctrines upon them, and by arrogantly interfering with their
modes of worship. His reign was so brief that he is known in
Bohemian annals as "the winter king." A single battle, won by
Count Tilly, in the service of the Catholic League and of its
chief, Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, ended his sovereignty. He
lost his Electorate as well as his kingdom, and was a
wandering fugitive for the remainder of his life. Bohemia was
mercilessly dealt with by the victorious Ferdinand. Not only
was Protestantism crushed, and Catholicism established as the
exclusive religion, but the very life of the country,
intellectually and materially, was extinguished; so that
Bohemia never again stood related to the civilization of
Europe as it had stood before, when Prague was an important
center of learning and thought. To a less extent, Austria
suffered the same repression, and its Protestantism was
uprooted.
In this sketch it is unnecessary to follow the details of the
frightful Thirty Years War, which began as here described.
During the first years it was carried on mainly by the troops
of the Catholic League, under Tilly, acting against Protestant
forces which had very little coherence or unity, and which
were led by Count Mansfield, Christian of Anhalt, and other
nobles, in considerable independence of one another. In 1625
the first intervention from outside occurred. Christian IV. of
Denmark took up the cause of threatened Protestantism. As Duke
of Schleswig-Holstein, he was a prince of the Empire, and he
joined with other Protestant princes in condemning the
deposition of the Elector-Palatine, whose electorate had been
conferred on Maximilian of Bavaria. King Christian entered
into an alliance with England and Holland, which powers
promised help for the reinstatement of the Elector. But the
aid given was trifling, and slight successes which Christian
and his German allies obtained against Tilly were soon changed
to serious reverses.
Wallenstein.
For the first time during the war, the Emperor now brought
into the field an army acting in his own name, and not in that
of the League. It was done in a singular manner--by contract,
so to speak, with a great soldier and wealthy nobleman, the
famous Wallenstein. Wallenstein offered to the Emperor the
services of an army of 50,000 men, which he would raise and
equip at his own expense, and which should be maintained
without public cost--that is, by plunder. His proposal was
accepted, and the formidable body of trained and powerfully
handled brigands was launched upon Germany, for the torture
and destruction of every region in which it moved. It was the
last appearance in European warfare of the "condottiere" of
the Middle Ages. Wallenstein and Tilly swept all before them.
The former failed only before the stubborn town of Stralsund,
which defied his siege. Mansfield and Christian of Anhalt both
died in 1627. Peace was forced upon the Danish king. The
Protestant cause was prostrate, and the Emperor despised its
weakness so far that he issued an "Edict of Restitution,"
commanding the surrender of certain bishoprics and
ecclesiastical estates which had fallen into Protestant hands
since the Treaty of Passau. At the same time, he yielded to
the jealousy which Wallenstein's power had excited, by
dismissing that commander from his service.
Gustavus Adolphus.
The time was an unfavorable one for such an experiment. A new
and redoubtable champion of Protestantism had just appeared on
the scene and was about to revive the war. This was Gustavus
Adolphus, King of Sweden, who had ambitions, grievances and
religious sympathies, all urging him to rescue the Protestant
states of Germany from the Austrian-Catholic despotism which
seemed to be impending over them. His interference was
jealously resented at first by the greater Protestant princes.
The Elector of Brandenburg submitted to an alliance with him
only under compulsion. The Elector of Saxony did not join the
Swedish king until (1631) Tilly had ravaged his territories
with ferocity, burning 200 villages. When Gustavus had made
his footing in the country secure, he quickly proved himself
the greatest soldier of his age. Tilly was overwhelmed in a
battle fought on the Breitenfeld, at Leipsic. The following
spring he was again beaten, on the Lech, in Bavaria, and died
of wounds received in the battle. Meantime, the greater part
of Germany was at the feet of the Swedish king; and a sincere
co-operation between him and the German princes would probably
have ended the war. But small confidence existed between these
allies, and Richelieu, the shrewd Cardinal who was ruling
France, had begun intrigues which made the Thirty Years War
profitable in the end to France. The victories of Gustavus
seemed to bear little fruit. Wallenstein was summoned once
more to save the Emperor's cause, and reappeared in the field
with 40,000 men. The heroic Swede fought him at Lützen, on the
16th of November, 1632, and routed him, but fell in the battle
among the slain.
{1073}
With the death of Gustavus Adolphus, the possibility of a
satisfactory conclusion of the war vanished. The Swedish army
remained in Germany, under the military command of Duke
Bernhard of Saxe Weimar and General Horn, but under the
political direction of Axel Oxenstiern, the able Swedish
Chancellor. On the Imperial side, Wallenstein again incurred
distrust and suspicion. His power was so formidable that his
enemies were afraid to let him live. They plotted his death by
assassination, and he was murdered on the 25th of February,
1634. The Emperor's son Ferdinand now took the command of the
Imperial forces, and, a few months later, having received
reinforcements from Spain, he had the good fortune to defeat
the Swedes at Nördlingen.
The French in the War.
The Elector of Saxony, and other Protestant princes, then made
peace with the Emperor, and the war was only prolonged by the
intrigues of Richelieu and for the aggrandizement of France.
In this final stage of it, when the original elements of
contention, and most of the original contestants, had
disappeared, it lasted for yet fourteen years. Ferdinand II.
died in 1637, and was succeeded by his son Ferdinand III. Duke
Bernhard died in 1639. In the later years of the war,
Piccolomini on the Imperial side, Baner, Torstenson and
Wrangel at the head of the Swedes, and Turenne and Condé in
command of the French, were the soldiers who made great names.
Destructiveness of the War.
In 1648, the long suffering of Germany was eased by the Peace
of Westphalia. Years of quiet, and of order fairly restored,
would be needed to heal the bleeding wounds of the country and
revive its strength. From end to end, it had been trampled
upon for a generation by armies which plundered and destroyed
as they passed. There is nothing more sickening in the annals
of war than the descriptions which eye-witnesses have left of
the misery, the horror, the desolation of that frightful
period in German history. "Especially in the south and west,
Germany was a wilderness of ruins; places that were formerly
the seats of prosperity were the haunts of wolves and robbers
for many a long year. It is estimated that the population was
diminished by twenty, by some even by fifty, per cent. The
population of Augsburg was reduced from 80,000 to 18,000; of
Frankenthal, from 18,000 to 324 inhabitants. In Würtemberg, in
1641, of 400,000 inhabitants, 48,000 remained; in the
Palatinate, in 1636, there were 201 peasant farmers; and in
1648, but a fiftieth part of the population remained"
(Häusser).
The Peace of Westphalia.
By the treaties of Westphalia, the religious question was
settled with finality. Catholics, Lutherans, and the Reformed
(Calvinists), were put on an equal footing of religious
liberty. Politically, the effects of the Peace were radical
and lasting in their injury to the German people. The few
bonds of Germanic unity which had survived the reign of
feudalism were dissolved. The last vestige of authority in the
Empire was destroyed. "From this time Germany long remained a
mere lax confederation of petty despotisms and oligarchies
with hardly any national feeling. Its boundaries too were cut
short in various ways. The independence of the two free
Confederations at the two ends of the Empire, those of
Switzerland and the United Provinces, which had long been
practically cut off from the Empire, was now formally
acknowledged. And, what was far more important, the two
foreign kingdoms which had had the chief share in the war,
France and Sweden, obtained possessions within the Empire, and
moreover, as guarantors or sureties of the peace, they
obtained a general right of meddling in its affairs." "The
right of France to the 'Three Lotharingian Bishoprics,' which
had been seized nearly a hundred years before, was now
formally acknowledged, and, besides this, the possessions and
rights of the House of Austria in Elsass, the German land
between the Rhine and the Vosges, called in France Alsace,
were given to France. The free city of Strasburg and other
places in Elsass still remained independent, but the whole of
South Germany now lay open to France. This was the greatest
advance that France had yet made at the expense of the Empire.
Within Germany itself the Elector of Brandenburg also received
a large increase of territory" (Freeman).
Among the treaties which made up the Peace of Westphalia was
one signed by Spain, acknowledging the independence of the
United Provinces, and renouncing all claims to them.
France under Richelieu.
The great gains of France from the Thirty Years War were part
of the fruit of bold and cunning statesmanship which Richelieu
had ripened and plucked for that now rising nation. For a time
after the death of Henry IV., chaos had seemed likely to
return again in France. His son, Louis XIII., was but nine
years old. The mother, Marie de' Medici, who secured the
regency, was a foolish woman, ruled by Italian favorites, who
made themselves odious to the French people. As soon as the
young king approached manhood, he put himself in opposition to
his mother and her favorites, under the influence of a set of
rivals no more worthy, and France was carried to the verge of
civil war by their puerile hostilities. Happily there was
something in the weak character of Louis XIII. which bent him
under the influence of a really great mind when circumstances
had brought him within its reach. Richelieu entered the King's
council in 1624. The king was soon an instrument in his hands,
and he ruled France, as though the scepter was his own, for
eighteen years. He was as pitiless a despot as ever set heel
on a nation's neck; but the power which he grasped with what
seemed to be a miserly and commonplace greed, was all gathered
for the aggrandizement of the monarchy that he served. He
believed that the nation needed to have one master, sole and
unquestioned in his sovereignty. That he enjoyed being that
one master, in reality, while he lived, is hardly doubtful;
but his whole ambition is not so explained. He wrought
according to his belief for France, and the king, in his eyes,
was the embodiment of France. He erected the pedestal on which
"the grand monarch" of the next generation posed with
theatrical effect.
{1074}
Three things Richelieu did;
1. He enforced the royal authority, with inexorable rigor,
against the great families and personages, who had not
learned, even under Henry IV., that they were subjects in the
absolute sense.
2. He struck the Huguenots, not as a religious sect, but as a
political party, and peremptorily stopped their growth of
strength in that character, which had clearly become
threatening to the state.
3. He organized hostility in Europe to the overbearing and
dangerous Austro-Spanish power, put France at the head of it,
and took for her the lion's share of the conquests by which
the Hapsburgs were reduced.
Mazarin and the Fronde.
The great Cardinal died near the close of the year 1642; and
Louis XIII. followed him to the grave in the succeeding May,
leaving a son, Louis XIV., not yet five years of age, under
the regency of his mother, Anne of Austria. The minister,
Cardinal Mazarin, who enjoyed the confidence of the
queen-regent, and who was supposed to enjoy her affections as
well, had been Richelieu's disciple, and took the helm of
government on Richelieu's recommendation. He was an adroit
politician, with some statesmanlike sagacity, but he lacked
the potent spirit by which his master had awed and ruled every
circle into which he came, great or small. Mazarin had the
Thirty Years War to bring to a close, and he managed the
difficult business with success, wasting nothing of the effect
of the brilliant victories of Condé and Turenne. But the war had
been very costly. Mazarin was no better financier than
Richelieu had been before him, and the burdens of taxation
were greater than wise management would have made them. There
was inevitable discontent, and Mazarin, as a foreigner, was
inevitably unpopular. With public feeling in this state, the
Court involved itself in a foolish conflict with the
Parliament of Paris, and presently there was a Paris
revolution and a civil war afoot (1649). It was a strange
affair of froth and empty rages--this war of "The Fronde," as
it was called--having no depth of earnestness in it and no
honesty of purpose anywhere visible in its complications. The
men and women who sprang to a lead in it--the women more
actively and rancorously than the men--were mere actors of
parts in a great play of court intrigue, for the performance
of which unhappy France had lent its grand stage. There seems
to have been never, in any other civil conflict which history
describes, so extraordinary a mixture of treason and
libertinism, of political and amorous intrigue, of
heartlessness and frivolity, of hot passion and cool
selfishness. The people who fought most and suffered most
hardly appear as noticeable factors in the contest. The court
performers amused themselves with the stratagems and bloody
doings of the war as they might have done with the tricks of a
masquerade.
It was in keeping with the character of the Frondeurs that
they went into alliance, at last, with Spain, and that, even
after peace within the nation had been restored, "the Great
Condé" remained in the Spanish service and fought against his
own countrymen. Mazarin regained control of affairs, and
managed them on the whole ably and well. He brought about an
alliance with England, under Cromwell, and humbled Spain to
the acceptance of a treaty which considerably raised the
position of France among the European Powers. By this Treaty
of the Pyrenees (1659), the northwestern frontier of the
kingdom was both strengthened and advanced; Lorraine was shorn
of some of its territory and prepared for the absorption which
followed after no long time; there were gains made on the side
of the Pyrenees; and, finally, Louis XIV. was wedded to the
infanta of Spain, with solemn renunciations on her part, for
herself and her descendants, of all claims upon the Spanish
crown, or upon Flanders, or Burgundy, or Charolais. Not a
claim was extinguished by these solemn renunciations, and the
Treaty of the Pyrenees is made remarkable by the number of
serious wars and important events to which it gave rise.
Cardinal Mazarin died in 1661 and the government was assumed
personally by Louis XIV., then twenty-three years old.
England Under the Stuarts.
While Germany and France had, each in turn, been disordered by
extremely unlike civil wars, one to the unmitigated
devastation and prostration of the land, the other to the
plain putting in proof of the nothingness of the nation at
large, as against its monarchy and court, the domestic peace
of England had been ruffled in a very different way, and with
very different effects.
The death of Queen Elizabeth united the crown of England with
that of Scotland, on the head of James, son of the unhappy
Mary Stuart. In England he was James I., in Scotland James VI.
His character combined shrewdness in some directions with the
most foolish simplicity in others. He was not vicious, he was
not in any particular a bad man; but he was exasperating in
his opinionated self-conceit, and in his gaucheries of mind
and body. The Englishmen of those days did not love the Scots;
and, all things considered, we may wonder, perhaps, that James
got on so well as he did with his English subjects. He had
high notions of kingship, and a superlative opinion of his own
king-craft, as he termed the art of government. He scarcely
deviated from the arbitrary lines which Elizabeth had laid
down, though he had nothing of Elizabeth's popularity. He
offended the nation by truckling to its old enemy, the King of
Spain, and pressing almost shamefully for a marriage of his
elder son to the Spanish infanta. The favorites he enriched
and lavished honors upon were insolent upstarts. His treatment
of the growing Puritanism in English religious feeling was
contemptuous. There was scarcely a point on which any
considerable number of his subjects could feel in agreement
with him, or entertain towards him a cordial sentiment of
loyalty or respect. Yet his reign of twenty-two years was
disturbed by nothing more serious than the fatuous "gunpowder
plot" (1605) of a few discontented Catholics. But his son had
to suffer the retarded consequences of a loyalty growing weak,
on one side, while royalty strained its prerogatives on the
other.
The reign of James I. witnessed the effective beginnings of
English colonization in America,--the planting of a durable
settlement in Virginia and the migration of the Pilgrim
Fathers to New England. The latter movement (1620) was one of
voluntary exile, produced by the hard treatment inflicted on
those "Separatists" or "Independents" who could not reconcile
themselves to a state-established Church. Ten years later, the
Pilgrim movement, of Independents, was followed by the greater
migration of Puritans--quite different in class, in character
and in spirit.
{1075}
Charles. I.
James died in 1625, and the troubled reign of his son, Charles
I., began. Charles took over from his father a full measure of
popular discontent, along with numerous active springs in
operation for increasing it. The most productive of these was
the favorite, Buckingham, who continued to be the sole
counselor and minister of the young king, as he had been of
the older one, and who was utterly hateful to England, for
good reasons of incapacity and general worthlessness. In the
king himself, though he had virtues, there was a coldness and
a falsity of nature which were sure to widen the breach
between him and his people.
Failing the Spanish marriage, Charles had wedded (1624) a
French princess, Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII. The
previous subserviency to Spain had then been followed by a war
with that country, which came to Charles among his
inheritances, and which Buckingham mismanaged, to the shame of
England. In 1627 another war began, but this time with France,
on account of the Huguenots besieged at La Rochelle. Again the
meddlesome hand of Buckingham wrought disaster and national
disgrace, and public indignation was greatly stirred. When
Parliament endeavored to call the incapable minister to
account, and to obtain some security for a better management
of affairs, the king dissolved it. Twice was this done, and
Charles and his favorite employed every arbitrary and
questionable device that could be contrived for them, to raise
money without need of the representatives of the people. At
length, in 1628, they were driven to face a third Parliament,
in order to obtain supplies. By this time the Commons of
England were wrought up to a high and determined assertion of
their rights, as against the Crown, and the Puritans had
gained a majority in the popular representation. In the lower
House of Parliament, therefore, the demands of the king for
money were met by a counter-demand for guarantees to protect
the people from royal encroachments on their liberties. The
Commons were resolute, and Charles gave way to them, signing
with much reluctance the famous instrument known as the
"Petition of Right," which pledged the Crown to abstain in
future from forced loans, from taxes imposed without
Parliamentary grant, from arbitrary imprisonments, without
cause shown, and from other despotic proceedings. In return
for his signature to the Petition of Right, Charles received a
grant of money; but the Commons refused to authorize his
collection of certain customs duties, called Tonnage and
Poundage, beyond a single year, and it began attacks on
Buckingham,--whereupon the king prorogued it. Shortly
afterwards Buckingham was assassinated; a second expedition to
relieve Rochelle failed miserably; and early in 1629
Parliament was assembled again. This time the Puritan temper
of the House began to show itself in measures to put a stop to
some revivals of ancient ceremony which had appeared in
certain churches. At the same time officers of the king, who
had seized goods belonging to a member of the House, for
non-payment of Tonnage and Poundage, were summoned to the bar
to answer for it. The king protected them, and a direct
conflict of authority arose. On the 2d of March, the king sent
an order to the Speaker of the House of Commons for
adjournment; but the Speaker was forcibly held in his chair,
and not permitted to announce the adjournment, until three
resolutions had been read and adopted, denouncing as an enemy
to the kingdom every person who brought in innovations in
religion, or who advised the levying of Tonnage and Poundage
without parliamentary grant, or who voluntarily paid such
duties, so levied. This done, the members dispersed; the king
dissolved Parliament immediately, and his resolution was taken
to govern England thenceforth on his own authority, with no
assembly of the representatives of the people to question or
criticise him. He held to that determination for eleven years,
during which long time no Parliament sat in England, and the
Constitution was practically obliterated.
The leaders of the Commons in their recent proceedings were
arrested and imprisoned. Sir John Eliot, the foremost of them,
died in harsh confinement within the Tower, and others were
held in long custody, refusing to recognize the jurisdiction
of the king's judges over things done in Parliament.
Wentworth and Laud.
One man, of great ability, who had stood at the beginning with
Sir John Eliot, and acted with the party which opposed the
king, now went over to the side of the latter and rose high in
royal favor, until he came in the end to be held chiefly
responsible for the extreme absolutism to which the government
of Charles was pushed. This was Sir Thomas Wentworth, made
Earl of Strafford at a later day, in the tardy rewarding of
his services. But William Laud, Bishop of London, and
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was the evil counselor of
the king, much more than Wentworth, in the earlier years of
the decade of tyranny. It was Laud's part to organize the
system of despotic monarchy on its ecclesiastical side; to
uproot Puritanism and all dissent, and to cast religion for
England and for Scotland in one mould, as rigid as that of
Rome.
For some years, the English nation seemed terrorized or
stupefied by the audacity of the complete overthrow of its
Constitution. The king and his servants might easily imagine
that the day of troublesome Parliaments and of inconvenient
laws was passed. At least in those early years of their
success, it can scarcely have occurred to their minds that a
time of accounting for broken laws, and for the violated
pledges of the Petition of Right, might come at the end. At
all events they went their way with seeming satisfaction, and
tested, year by year, the patient endurance of a people which
has always been slow to move. Their courts of Star Chamber and
of High Commission, finding a paramount law in the will and
pleasure of the king, imprisoned, fined, pilloried, flogged
and mutilated in quite the spirit of the Spanish Inquisition,
though they did not burn.
{1076}
They collected Tonnage and Poundage without parliamentary
consent, and servile judges enforced the payment. They
invented a claim for "ship-money" (in commutation of an
ancient demand for ships to serve in the King's navy) from
inland towns and counties, as well as from the commercial
ports; and when John Hampden, a squire in Buckinghamshire,
refused payment of the unlawful tax, their obedient judges
gave judgment against him. And still the people endured; but
they were laying up in memory many things, and gathering a
store of reasons for the action that would by and by begin.
Rebellion in Scotland.
At last, it was Scotland, not England, that moved to rebel.
Laud and the king had determined to break down Presbyterianism
in the northern kingdom and to force a Prayer Book on the
Scottish Church. There was a consequent riot at St. Giles, in
Edinburgh (1637); Jenny Geddes threw her stool at the bishop,
and Scotland presently was in revolt, signing a National
Covenant and defying the king. Charles, attempting to frighten
the resolute Scots with an army which he could not pay, was
soon driven to a treaty with them (1639) which he had not
honesty enough to keep. Wentworth, who had been Lord Deputy of
Ireland since 1632, and who had framed a model of absolutism
in that island, for the admiration of his colleagues in
England, now returned to the king's side and became his chief
adviser. He counselled the calling of a Parliament, as the
only means by which English help could be got for the
restoring of royal authority in Scotland. The Parliament was
summoned and met in April, 1640. At once, it showed a temper
which alarmed the king and he dissolved it in three weeks.
Again Charles made the attempt to put down his Scottish
subjects without help from an English Parliament, and again
the attempt failed.
The Long Parliament.
Then the desperate king summoned another Parliament, which
concentrated in itself, when it came together, the suppressed
rebellion that had been in the heart of England for ten years,
and which broke his flimsy fabric of absolutism, almost at a
single blow. It was the famous Long Parliament of English
history, which met in November, 1640, and which ruled England
for a dozen years, until it gave way to the Cromwellian
dictatorship. It sent Laud and Strafford to the Tower,
impeached the latter and brought him to the block, within six
months from the beginning of its session; and the king gave up
his minister to the vengeance of the angry Commons with hardly
one honest attempt to protect him. Laud waited in prison five
years before he suffered the same fate. The Parliament
declared itself to be indissoluble by any royal command; and
the king assented. It abolished the Star Chamber and the Court
of High Commission; and the king approved. It swept
ship-money, and forest claims, and all of Charles' lawless
money-getting devices into the limbo; and he put his signature
to its bills. But all the time he was intriguing with the
Scots for armed help to overthrow his masterful English
Parliament, and he was listening to Irish emissaries who
offered an army for the same purpose, on condition that
Ireland' should be surrendered to the Catholics.
Civil War.
Charles had arranged nothing on either of these treacherous
plans, nor had he gained anything yet from the division
between radicals and moderates that was beginning to show
itself in the popular party, when he suddenly brought the
strained situation to a crisis, in January, 1642, by his most
foolish and arrogant act. He invaded the House of Commons in
person, with a large body of armed men, for the purpose of
arresting five members--Pym, Hampden, Holles, Hazlerigg and
Strode--whom he accused of having negotiated treasonably with
the Scots in 1640. The five members escaped; the House
appealed to the citizens of London for protection; king and
Parliament began immediately to raise troops; the nation
divided and arrayed itself on the two sides,--most of the
gentry, the Cavaliers, supporting the king, and most of the
Puritan middle-class, wearing close-cut hair and receiving the
name Roundheads, being ranged in the party of Parliament. They
came to blows in October, when the first battle was fought, at
Edgehill.
In the early period of the war, the parliamentary forces were
commanded by the Earl of Essex; and Sir Thomas Fairfax was
their general at a later stage; but the true leader on that
side, for war and for politics alike, was soon found in Oliver
Cromwell, a member of Parliament, whose extraordinary capacity
was first shown in the military organization of the Eastern
Counties, from which he came. After 1645, when the army was
remodeled, with Cromwell as second in rank, his real
chieftainship was scarcely disguised. The decisive battle of
the war was fought that year at Naseby, where the king's cause
suffered an irrecoverable defeat.
The Presbyterians of Scotland had now allied themselves with
the English Roundheads, on condition that the Church of
England should be remodeled in the Presbyterian form. The
Puritan majority in Parliament being favorable to that form, a
Solemn League and Covenant between the two nations had been
entered into, in 1643, and an Assembly of Divines was convened
at Westminster to frame the contemplated system of the Church.
But the Independents, who disliked Presbyterianism, and who
were more tolerantly inclined in their views, had greatly
increased in numbers, and some of the stronger men on the
Parliament side, including Cromwell, the strongest of all,
were among them. This difference brought about a sharp
struggle within the popular party for the control of the
fruits of the triumph now beginning to seem secure. Under
Cromwell, the Army became a powerful organization of religious
Independency, while Parliament sustained Presbyterianism, and
the two stood against each other as rival powers in the state.
{1077}
At the beginning of the year 1646 the fortunes of Charles had
fallen very low. His partisan, Montrose, in Scotland, had been
beaten; his intrigues in Ireland, for the raising of a
Catholic army, had only alarmed and disgusted his English
friends; he was at the end of his resources, and he gave
himself up to the Scots. The latter, in conjunction with the
Presbyterian majority in Parliament, were willing to make
terms with him, and restore him to his throne; on conditions
which included the signing of the Covenant and the
establishing of Presbyterianism in the Churches of both
kingdoms. He refused the proposal, being deluded by a belief
that the quarrel of Independents and Presbyterians would open
his way to the recovery of power without any concessions at
all. The Scots then surrendered him to the English, and he was
held in confinement by the latter for the next two years,
scheming and pursuing intrigues in many directions, and
convincing all who dealt with him that his purposes were never
straightforward--that he was faithless and false to the core.
Ill-will and suspicion, meanwhile, were widening the breach
between Parliament and the Army. Political and religious
agitators were gaining influence in the latter and republican
ideas were spreading fast. At length (December, 1648), the
Army took matters into its own hands; expelled from Parliament
those members who favored a reconciliation with the king, on
the basis of a Presbyterian establishment of the Church, and
England passed under military rule. The "purged" Parliament
(or rather the purged House of Commons, which now set the
House of Lords aside, declaring itself to be the sole and
supreme power in the state) brought King Charles to trial in
the following month, before a High Court of Justice created
for the occasion. He was convicted of treason, in making war
upon his subjects, and was beheaded on the 30th of January,
1649.
The Commonwealth and the Protectorate.
The king being thus disposed of, the House of Commons
proclaimed England a Commonwealth, "without a King or House of
Lords," took to itself the name of Parliament, and appointed
an executive Council of State, forty-one in number. The new
government, in its first year, had a rebellion in Ireland to
deal with, and sent Cromwell to the scene. He crushed it with
a merciless hand. The next year Scotland was in arms, for the
late king's son, now called Charles II., who had entered the
country, accepted Presbyterianism, and signed the Covenant.
Again Cromwell was the man for the occasion, and in a campaign
of two months he ended the Scottish war, with such decision that
he had no more fighting to do on English or Scottish soil
while he lived. There was war with the Dutch in 1652, 1653 and
1654, over questions of trade, and the long roll of English naval
victories was opened by the great soldier-seaman, Robert
Blake.
But the power which upheld and carried forward all things at
this time was the power of Oliver Cromwell, master of the
Army, and, therefore, master of the Commonwealth. The
surviving fragment of the Long Parliament was an anomaly, a
fiction; men called it "the Rump." In April, 1653, Cromwell
drove the members of it from their chamber and formally took
to himself the reins of government which in fact he had been
holding before. A few months later he received from his
immediate supporters the title of Lord Protector, and an
Instrument of Government was framed, which served as a
constitution during the next three years. Cromwell was as
unwilling as Charles had been to share the government with a
freely elected and representative Parliament. The first House
which he called together was dissolved at the end of five
months (1655), because it persisted in discussing a revision
of the constitution. His second Parliament, which he summoned
the following year, required to be purged by the arbitrary
exclusion of about a hundred members before it could be
brought to due submission. This tractable body then made
certain important changes in the constitution, by an enactment
called the "Humble Petition and Advice." It created a second
house, to take the place of the House of Lords, and gave to
the Lord Protector the naming of persons to be life-members of
such upper house. It also gave to the Protector the right of
appointing his own successor, a right which Cromwell exercised
on his death-bed, in 1658, by designating his son Richard.
The responsible rule of Cromwell, from the expulsion of the
Rump and his assumption of the dignity of Lord Protector,
covered only the period of five years. But in that brief time
he made the world respect the power of England as it had never
been respected before. His government at home was as absolute
and arbitrary as the government of the Stuarts, but it was
infinitely wiser and more just. Cromwell was a statesman of
the higher order; a man of vast power, in intellect and will.
That he did not belong to the yet higher order of commanding
men, whose statesmanship is pure in patriotism and uncolored
by selfish aims, is proved by his failure to even plan a more
promising settlement of the government of England than that
which left it, an anomalous Protectorate, to a man without
governing qualities, who happened to be his son.
Restoration of the Stuarts.
Richard Cromwell was brushed aside after eight months of an
absurd attempt to play the part of Lord Protector. The
officers of the Army and the resuscitated Rump Parliament,
between them, managed affairs, in a fashion, for almost a
year, and then they too were pushed out of the way by the army
which had been stationed in Scotland, under General George
Monk. By the action of Monk, with the consent, and with more
than the consent, of England at large, the Stuart monarchy was
restored. Charles II. was invited to return, and in May, 1660,
he took his seat on the re-erected throne.
The nation, speaking generally, was tired of a military
despotism; tired of Puritan austerity; tired of revolution and
political uncertainty;--so tired that it threw itself down at
the feet of the most worthless member of the most worthless
royal family in its history, and gave itself up to him without
a condition or a guarantee. For twenty-five years it endured
both oppression and disgrace at his hands. It suffered him to
make a brothel of his Court; to empty the national purse into
the pockets of his shameless mistresses and debauched
companions; to revive the ecclesiastical tyranny of Laud; to
make a crime of the religious creeds and the worship of more
than half his subjects; to sell himself and sell the honor of
England to the king of France for a secret pension, and to be
in every possible way as ignoble and despicable as his father
had been arrogant and false. When he died, in 1685, the
prospects of the English nation were not improved by the
accession of his brother, the Duke of York, who became James
II.
{1078}
James had more honesty than his brother or his father; but the
narrowness and meanness of the Stuart race were in his blood.
He had made himself intolerable; to his subjects, both English
and Scotch, by entering the Catholic Church, openly, while
Charles was believed to have done the same in secret. His
religion was necessarily bigotry, because of the smallness of
his nature, and he opposed it to the Protestantism of the
kingdom with a kind of brutal aggressiveness. In the first
year of his reign there was a rebellion undertaken, in the
interest of a bastard son of Charles II., called Duke of
Monmouth; but it was savagely put down, first by force of
arms, at Sedgemoor, and afterwards by the "bloody assizes" of
the ruthless Judge Jeffreys. Encouraged by this success
against his enemies James began to ignore the "Test Act,"
which excluded Catholics from office, and to surround himself
by men of his own religion. The Test Act was an unrighteous
law, and the "Declaration of Indulgence" which James issued,
for the toleration of Catholics and Dissenters, was just in
principle, according to the ideas of later times; but the
action of the king with respect to both was, nevertheless, a
gross and threatening violation of law. England had submitted
to worse conduct from Charles II., but its Protestant temper
was now roused, and the loyalty of the subject was consumed by
the fierceness of the Churchman's wrath. James' daughter,
Mary, and her husband, William, Prince of Orange, were invited
from Holland to come over and displace the obnoxious father
from his throne. They accepted the invitation, November, 1688;
the nation rose to welcome them; James fled,--and the great
Revolution, which ended arbitrary monarchy in England forever,
and established constitutional government on clearly defined
and lasting bases, was accomplished without the shedding of a
drop of blood.
The House of Orange and the Dutch Republic.
William of Orange, who thus acquired a place in the line of
English kings, held, at the same time, the nearly regal office
of Stadtholder of Holland; but the office had not remained
continuously in his family since William the Silent, whose
great-grandson he was. Maurice, the son of the murdered
William the Silent, had been chosen to the stadtholdership
after his father's death, and had carried forward his father's
work with success, so far as concerned the liberation of the
United Provinces from the Spanish yoke. He was an abler
soldier than William, but not his equal as a statesman, nor as
a man. The greater statesman of the period was John of
Barneveldt, between whom and the Stadtholder an opposition
grew up which produced jealousy and hostility, more especially
on the part of the latter. A shameful religious conflict had
arisen at this time between the Calvinists, who numbered most
of the clergy in their ranks, and a dissenting body, led by
Jacob Hermann, or Arminius, which protested against the
doctrine of predestination. Barneveldt favored the Arminians.
The Stadtholder, Maurice, without any apparent theological
conviction in the matter, threw his whole weight of influence
on the side of the Calvinists; and was able, with the help of
the Calvinist preachers, to carry the greater part of the
common people into that faction. The Arminians were everywhere
put down as heretics, barred from preaching or teaching, and
otherwise silenced and ill treated. It is a singular fact
that, at the very time of this outburst of Calvinistic fury,
the Dutch were exhibiting otherwise a far more tolerant temper
in religion than any other people in Europe, and had thrown
open their country as a place of shelter for the persecuted of
other lands,--both Christian sectaries and Jews. We infer,
necessarily, that the bitterness of the Calvinists against the
Arminians was more political than religious in its source, and
that the source is really traceable to the fierce ambition of
Prince Maurice, and the passion of the party which supported
his suspicious political aims.
Barneveldt lost influence as the consequence of the
Calvinistic triumph, and was exposed helplessly to the
vindictive hatred of Prince Maurice, who did not scruple to
cause his arrest, his trial and execution (1619), on charges
which none believed. Maurice, whose memory is blackened by
this great crime, died in 1625, and was succeeded by his
half-brother, Frederic Henry. The war with Spain had been
renewed in 1621, at the end of the twelve years truce, and
more than willingly renewed; for the merchant class, and the
maritime interest in the cities which felt secure, preferred
war to peace. Under a hostile flag they pushed their commerce
into Spanish and Portuguese seas from which a treaty of peace
would undoubtedly exclude them; and, so long as Spanish
American silver fleets were afloat, the spoils of ocean war
were vastly enriching. It was during these years of war that
the Dutch got their footing on the farther sides of the world,
and nearly won the mastery of the sea which their slower but
stronger English rivals wrested from them in the end. Not
until the general Peace of Westphalia, in 1648, was a final
settlement of issues between Spain and the United Provinces
brought about. The freedom and independence of the Provinces,
as sovereign states, was then acknowledged by the humbled
Spaniard, and favorable arrangements of trade were conceded to
them. The southern, Catholic Provinces, which Spain had held,
were retained in their subjection to her.
Frederic Henry, the third Stadtholder, was succeeded in 1647
by his son, William II. The latter wasted his short career of
less than four years in foolish plotting to revolutionize the
government and transform the stadtholdership into a monarchy,
supported by France, for the help of which country he seemed
willing to pay any base and treasonable price. Dying suddenly
in the midst of his scheming, he left an unborn son--the
future William III. of England--who came into the world a week
after his father had left it. Under these circumstances the
stadtholdership was suspended, with strong feelings against
the revival of it, resulting from the conduct of William II.
The lesser provinces then fell under the domination of
Holland--so much so that the name of Holland began soon to be
applied to the confederation at large, and is very commonly
used with that meaning for a long subsequent time. The chief
minister of the Estates of Holland, known as the Grand
Pensionary, became the practical head of the federal
government. After 1653 the office of Grand Pensionary was
filled by a statesman of high ability, John de Witt, the chief
end of whose policy appears to have been the prevention of the
return of the House of Orange to power. The government thus
administered, and controlled by the commercial class, was
successful in promoting the general prosperity of the
provinces, and in advancing their maritime importance and
power.
{1079}
It conducted two wars with England--one with the Commonwealth
and one with the restored monarchy--and could claim at least
an equal share of the naval glory won in each. But it
neglected the land defense of the country, and was found
shamefully unprepared in 1672, when the Provinces were
attacked by a villainous combination, formed between Louis
XIV. of France and his servile pensioner, Charles II. of
England. The republic, humbled and distressed by the rushing
conquests of the French, fixed its hopes upon the young Prince
of Orange, heir to the prestige of a great historic name, and
turned its wrath against the party of De Witt. The Prince was
made Stadtholder, despite the opposition of John de Witt, and
the latter, with his brother Cornelius, was murdered by a mob
at Amsterdam. William of Orange proved both wise and heroic as
a leader, and the people were roused to a new energy of
resistance by his appeals and his example. They cut their
dykes and flooded the land, subjecting themselves to
unmeasured loss and distress, but peremptorily stopping the
French advance, until time was gained for awakening public
feeling in Europe against the aggressions of the unscrupulous
French king. Then William of Orange began that which was to be
his great and important mission in life,--the organizing of
resistance to Louis XIV. Without the foresight and penetration
of French designs which he evinced,--without his unflagging
exertions for the next thirty years,--without his diplomatic
tact, his skill of management, his patience in war, his
obstinate perseverance,--it seems to be a certainty that the
ambitious "grand monarch," concentrating the whole power of
France in himself, would have been able to break the
surrounding nations one by one, and they would not have
combined their strength for an effective self-protection. The
revolution of 1688-9 in England, which gave the crown of that
kingdom to William, and his wife Mary, contributed greatly to
his success, and was an event nearly as important in European
politics at large as it was in the constitutional history of
Great Britain.
Germany after the Thirty Years War.
In a natural order of things, Germany should have supplied the
main resistance to Louis XIV. and held his unscrupulous
ambition in check. But Germany had fallen to its lowest state
of political demoralization and disorder. The very idea of
nationality had disappeared. The Empire, even collapsed to the
Germanic sense, and even reduced to a frame and a form, had
almost vanished from practical affairs. The numerous petty
states which divided the German people stood apart from one
another, in substantial independence, and were sundered by
small jealousies and distrusts. Little absolute principalities
they were, each having its little court, which aped, in a
little way, the grand court of the grand monarch of
France--central object of the admiration and the envy of all
small souls in its time. Half of them were ready to bow down
to the splendid being at Versailles, and to be his creatures,
if he condescended to bestow a nod of patronage and attention
upon them. The French king had more influence among them than
their nominal Emperor. More and more distinctly the latter
drew apart in his immediate dominions as an Austrian
sovereign; and more and more completely Austrian interests and
Austrian policy became removed and estranged from the interests
of the Germanic people. The ambitions and the cares of the
House of Hapsburg were increasingly in directions most
opposite to the German side of its relations, tending towards
Italy and the southeast; while, at the same time, the narrow
church influence which depressed the Austrian states widened a
hopeless intellectual difference between them and the northern
German people.
Brandenburg.--Prussia.
The most notable movements in dull German affairs after the
Peace of Westphalia were those which connected themselves with
the settling and centering in Brandenburg of a nucleus of
growing power, around which the nationalizing of Germany has
been a crystalizing process ever since. The Mark of
Brandenburg was one of the earliest conquests (tenth century)
of the Germans from the Wends. Prussia, afterwards united with
Brandenburg, was a later conquest (thirteenth century) from
Wendish or Slavonic and other pagan inhabitants, and its
subjugation was a missionary enterprise, accomplished by the
crusading Order of Teutonic Knights, under the authority and
direction of the Pope. The Order, which held the country for
more than two centuries, and ruled it badly, became
degenerate, and about the middle of the fifteenth century it
was overcome in war by Casimir IV. of Poland, who took away
from it the western part of its territory, and forced it to do
homage to him for the eastern part, as a fief of the Polish
crown. Sixty years later, the Reformation movement in Germany
brought about the extinguishment of the Teutonic Order as a
political power. The Grand Master of the Order at that time
was Albert, a Hohenzollern prince, belonging to a younger
branch of the Brandenburg family. He became a Lutheran, and
succeeded in persuading the Polish king, Sigismund I., to
transfer the sovereignty of the East Prussian fief to him
personally, as a duchy. He transmitted it to his descendants,
who held it for a few generations; but the line became extinct
in 1618, and the Duchy of Prussia then passed to the elder
branch of the family and was united with Brandenburg. The Mark
of Brandenburg had been raised to the rank of an Electorate in
1356 and had been acquired by the Hohenzollern family in 1417.
The superior weight of the Brandenburg electors in northern
Germany may be dated from their acquisition of the important
Duchy of Prussia; but they made no mark on affairs until the
time of Frederick William I., called the Great Elector, who
succeeded to the Electorate in 1640, near the close of the
Thirty Years War. In the arrangements of the Peace of
Westphalia he secured East Pomerania and other considerable
additions of territory. In 1657 he made his Duchy of Prussia
independent of Poland, by treaty with the Polish king. In 1672
and 1674 he had the courage and the independence to join the
allies against Louis XIV., and when the Swedes, in alliance
with Louis, invaded his dominions, he defeated and humbled
them at Fehrbellen, and took from them the greater part of
their Pomeranian territory. When the Great Elector died, in
1688, Brandenburg was the commanding North-German power, and
the Hohenzollern family had fully entered on the great career
it has since pursued.
{1080}
Frederick William's son Frederick, with none of his father's
talent, had a pushing but shallow ambition. He aspired to be a
king, and circumstances made his friendship so important to
the Emperor Leopold I. that the latter, exercising the
theoretical super-sovereignty of the Cæsars, endowed him with
the regal title. He was made King of Prussia, not of
Brandenburg, because Brandenburg stood in vassalage to the
Empire, while Prussia was an independent state.
Poland and Russia.
When Brandenburg and Prussia united began to rise to
importance, the neighboring kingdom of Poland had already
passed the climax of its career. Under the Jagellon dynasty,
sprung from the Duke Jagellon of Lithuania, who married
Hedwig, Queen of Poland, in 1386, and united the two states,
Poland was a great power for two centuries, and seemed more
likely than Russia to dominate the Slavonic peoples of Europe.
The Russians at that time were under the feet of the Mongols
or Tartars, whose terrific sweep westwards, from the steppes
of Asia, had overwhelmed them completely and seemed to bring
their independent history to an end. Slowly a Russian duchy
had emerged, having its seat of doubtful sovereignty at
Moscow, and being subject quite humbly to the Mongol Khan.
About 1477 the Muscovite duke of that time, Ivan Vasilovitch,
broke the Tartar yoke and acquired independence. But his
dominion was limited. The Poles and Lithuanians, now united,
had taken possession of large and important territories
formerly Russian, and the Muscovite state was entirely cut off
from the Baltic. It began, however, in the next century, under
Ivan the Terrible, first of the Czars, to make conquests
southward and south-eastward, from the Tartars, until it had
reached the Caspian Sea. The dominion of the Czar stretched
northward, at the same time, to the White Sea, at the single
port of which trade was opened with the Russian country by
English merchant adventurers in the reign of Elizabeth. Late
in the sixteenth century the old line of rulers, descended
from the Scandinavian Ruric, came to an end, and after a few
years Michael Romanoff established the dynasty which has
reigned since his time.
As between the two principal Slavonic nations, Russia was now
gaining stability and weight, while Poland had begun to lose
both. It was a fatal day for the Poles when, in 1573, on the
death of the last of the Jagellons, they made their monarchy
purely elective, abolishing the restriction to one family
which had previously prevailed. The election was by the
suffrage of the nobles, not the people at large (who were
generally serfs), and the government became an oligarchy of
the most unregulated kind known in history. The crown was
stripped of power, and the unwillingness of the nobility to
submit to any national authority, even that of its own
assembly, reached a point, about the middle of the seventeenth
century, at which anarchy was virtually agreed upon as the
desirable political state. The extraordinary "liberum veto,"
then made part of the Polish constitution, gave to each single
member of the assemblies of the nobles, or of the deputies
representing them, a right to forbid any enactment, or to
arrest the whole proceedings of the body, by his unsupported
negative. This amazing prerogative appears to have been
exercised very rarely in its fullness; but its theoretical
existence effectually extinguished public spirit and paralyzed
all rational legislation. Linked with the singular feebleness
of the monarchy, it leaves small room for surprise at the
ultimate shipwreck of the Polish state.
The royal elections at Warsaw came to be prize contests at
which all Europe assisted. Every Court set up its candidate
for the paltry titular place; every candidate emptied his
purse into the Polish capital, and bribed, intrigued,
corrupted, to the best of his ability. Once, at least (1674),
when the game was on, a sudden breeze of patriotic feeling
swept the traffickers out of the diet, and inspired the
election of a national hero, John Sobieski, to whom Europe
owes much; for it was he who drove back the Turks, in 1683,
when their last bold push into central Europe was made, and
when they were storming at the gates of Vienna. But when
Sobieski died, in 1696, the old scandalous vendue of a crown
was re-opened, and the Elector of Saxony was the buyer. During
most of the last two centuries of its history, Poland sold its
throne to one alien after another, and allowed foreign states
to mix and meddle with its affairs. Of real nationality there
was not much left to extinguish when the time of extinction
came. There were patriots, and very noble patriots, among the
Poles, at all periods of their history; but it seems to have
been the very hopelessness of the state into which their
country had drifted which intensified their patriotic feeling.
Russia had acquired magnitude and strength as a barbaric
power, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but it was
not until the reign of Peter the Great, which opened in 1682,
that the great Slavonic empire began to take on a European
character, with European interests and influences, and to
assimilate the civilization of the West. Peter may be said to
have knotted Russia to Europe at both extremities, by pushing
his dominions to the Baltic on the north and to the Black Sea
on the south, and by putting his own ships afloat in both.
From his day, Russia has been steadily gathering weight in
each of the two continents over which her vast bulk of empire
is stretched, and moving to a mysterious great destiny in time
to come.
The Turks.
The Turks, natural enemies of all the Christian races of
eastern and southeastern Europe, came practically to the end
of their threatening career of conquest about the middle of
the sixteenth century, when Suleiman the Magnificent died
(1566). He had occupied a great part of Hungary; seated a
pasha in Buda; laid siege to Vienna; taken Rhodes from the
Knights of St. John; attacked them in Malta; made an alliance
with the King of France; brought a Turkish fleet into the
western Mediterranean, and held Europe in positive terror of
an Ottoman domination for half a century. His son Selim added
Cyprus to the Turkish conquests; but was humbled in the
Mediterranean by the great Christian victory of Lepanto, won
by the combined fleets of Spain, Venice and the Pope, under
Don John of Austria. After that time Europe had no great fear
of the Turk; though he still fought hard with the Venetians,
the Poles, the Russians, the Hungarians, and, once more,
carried his arms even to Vienna. But, on the whole, it was a
losing fight; the crescent was on the wane.
{1081}
Last glories of Venice.
In the whole struggle with the Ottomans, through the
fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, the republic
of Venice bore a noble part. She contested with them foot by
foot the Greek islands, Peloponnesus, and the eastern shores
of the Adriatic. Even after her commerce began to slip from
her control, and the strength which came from it sank rapidly,
she gave up her eastern possessions but slowly, one by one,
and after stout resistance. Crete cost the Turks a war of
twenty-four years (1645-1669). Fifteen years afterwards the
Venetians gathered their energies afresh, assumed the
aggressive, and conquered the whole Peloponnesus, which they
held for a quarter of a century. Then it was lost again, and
the Ionian Islands alone remained Venetian territory in the
East.
Rise of the House of Savoy.
Of Italy at large, in the seventeenth century, lying prostrate
under the heavy hand of Spain, there is no history to claim
attention in so brief a sketch as this. One sovereign family
in the northwest, long balanced on the Alps, in uncertainty
between a cis-Alpine and a trans-Alpine destiny, but now
clearly committed to Italian fortunes, had begun to win its
footing among the noticeable smaller powers of the day by
sheer dexterity of trimming and shifting sides in the
conflicts of the time. This was the House of Savoy, whose
first possessions were gathered in the crumbling of the old
kingdom of Burgundy, and lay on both slopes of the Alps,
commanding several important passes. On the western and
northern side, the counts, afterwards dukes, of Savoy had to
contend, as time went on, with the expanding kingdom of France
and with the stout-hearted communities which ultimately formed
the Swiss Confederacy. They fell back before both. At one
period, in the fifteenth century, their dominion had stretched
to the Saone, and to the lake of Neufchatel, on both sides of
it, surrounding the free city of Geneva, which they were never
able to overcome, and the lake of Geneva entire. After that
time, the Savoyards gradually lost territory on the Gallic
side and won compensations on the Italian side, in Piedmont,
and at the expense of Genoa and the duchy of Milan. The Duke
Victor Amadeus II. was the most successful winner for his
house, and he made his gains by remarkable manœuvering on both
sides of the wars of Louis XIV. One of his acquisitions (1713)
was the island kingdom of Sicily, which gave him a royal title. A
few years later he exchanged it with Austria for the island
kingdom of Sardinia--a realm more desirable to him for
geographical reasons only. The dukes of Savoy and princes of
Piedmont thus became kings of Sardinia, and the name of the
kingdom was often applied to their whole dominion, down to the
recent time when the House of Savoy attained the grander
kingship of united Italy.
First wars of Louis XIV.
The wars of Louis XIV. gave little opportunity for western and
central Europe to make any other history than that of struggle
and battle, invasion and devastation, intrigue and faithless
diplomacy, shifting of political landmarks and traffic in
border populations, as though they were pastured cattle, for
fifty years, in the last part of the seventeenth century and
the first part of the eighteenth (1665-1715). It will be
remembered that when this King of France married the Infanta
of Spain, he joined in a solemn renunciation of all rights on
her part and on that of her children to such dominions as she
might otherwise inherit. But such a renunciation, with no
sentiment of honor behind it, was worthless, of course, and
Louis XIV., in his own esteem, stood on a height quite above
the moral considerations that have force with common men. When
Philip IV. of Spain died, in 1665, Louis promptly began to put
forward the claims which he had pledged himself not to make.
He demanded part of the Netherlands, and Franche Comté--the
old county (not the duchy) of Burgundy--as belonging to his
queen. It was his good fortune to be served by some of the
greatest generals, military engineers and administrators of
the day--by Turenne, Condé, Vauban, Louvois, and others--and
when he sent his armies of invasion into Flanders and Franche
Comté they carried all before them. Holland took alarm at
these aggressions which came so near to her, and formed an
alliance with England and Sweden to assist Spain. But the
unprincipled English king, Charles II., was easily bribed to
betray his ally; Sweden was bought over; Spain submitted to a
treaty which gave the Burgundian county back to her, and
surrendered an important part of the Spanish Netherlands to
France. Louis' first exploit of national brigandage had thus
been a glorious success, as glory is defined in the vocabulary
of sovereigns of his class. He had stolen several valuable
towns, killed some thousands of people, carried misery into
the lives of some thousands more, and provoked the Dutch to a
challenge of war that seemed promising of more glory of like
kind.
In 1672 he prepared himself to chastise the Dutch, and his
English pensioner, Charles II., with several German princes,
joined him in the war. It was this war, as related already,
which brought about the fall and the death of John de Witt,
Grand Pensionary of Holland; which raised William of Orange to
the restored stadtholdership, and which gave him a certain
leadership of influence in Europe, as against the French king.
It was this war, likewise, which gave the Hohenzollerns their
first great battle-triumph, in the defeat of the Swedes,
allies of the French, at Fehrbellin. For Frederick William,
the Great Elector, had joined the Emperor Leopold and the King
of Spain in another league with Holland to resist the
aggressions of France; while Sweden now took sides with Louis.
England was soon withdrawn from the contest, by the determined
action of Parliament, which forced its king to make peace.
Otherwise the war became general in western Europe and was
frightful in the death and misery it cost. Generally the
French had the most success. Turenne was killed in 1675 and
Condé retired the same year; but able commanders were found in
Luxemburg and Crequi to succeed them. In opposition to William
of Orange, the Dutch made peace at Nimegueu, in 1678, and
Spain was forced to give up Franche Comté, with another
fraction of her Netherland territories; but Holland lost
nothing. Again Louis XIV. had beaten and robbed his neighbors
with success, and was at the pinnacle of his glory. France, it
is true, was oppressed and exhausted, but her king was a
"grand monarch," and she must needs be content.
{1082}
For a few years the grand monarch contented himself with small
filchings of territory, which kept his conscience supple and
gave practice to his sleight-of-hand. On one pretext and
another he seized town after town in Alsace, and, at last,
1681, surprised and captured the imperial free city of
Strasburg, in a time of entire peace. He bombarded Genoa, took
Avignon from the Pope, bullied and abused feeble Spain, made
large claims on the Palatinate in the name of his
sister-in-law, but against her will, and did nearly what he
was pleased to do, without any effective resistance, until
after William of Orange had been called to the English throne.
That completed a great change in the European situation.
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
The change had already been more than half brought about by a
foul and foolish measure which Louis had adopted in his
domestic administration. Cursed by a tyrant's impatience at
the idea of free thought and free opinion among his subjects,
he had been persuaded by Catholic zealots near his person to
revoke the Edict of Nantes and revive persecution of the
Huguenots. This was done in 1685. The fatal effects within
France resembled those which followed the persecution of the
Moriscoes of Spain. The Huguenots formed a large proportion of
the best middle class of the kingdom,--its manufacturers, its
merchants, its skilled and thrifty artisans. Infamous efforts
were made to detain them in the country and there force them
to apostacy or hold them under punishment if they withstood.
But there was not power enough in the monarchy, with all its
absolutism, to enclose France in such a wall. Vast numbers
escaped--half a million it is thought--carrying their skill,
their knowledge, their industry and their energy into Holland,
England, Switzerland, all parts of Protestant Germany, and
across the ocean to America. France was half ruined by the
loss.
The League of Augsburg.
At the same time, the Protestant allies in Germany and the
North, whom Louis had held in subserviency to himself so long,
were angered and alarmed by his act. They joined a new
defensive league against him, formed at Augsburg, in 1686,
which embraced the Emperor, Spain, Holland, and Sweden, at
first, and afterwards took in Savoy and other Italian states,
along with Germany almost entire. But the League was miserably
unprepared for war, and hardly hindered the march of Louis'
armies when he suddenly moved them into the Rhenish
electorates in 1688. For the second time in his reign, and
under his orders, the Palatinate was fearfully devastated with
fire and sword. But this attack on Germany, occupying the arms
of France, gave William of Orange his opportunity to enter
England unopposed and take the English crown. That
accomplished, he speedily brought England into the League,
enlarging it to a "grand alliance" of all western Europe
against the dangerous monarch of France, and inspiring it with
some measure of his own energy and courage. France had now to
deal with enemies on every side. They swarmed on all her
frontiers, and the strength and valor with which she met them
were amazing. For three years the French more than held their
own, not only in land-fighting, but on the sea, where they
seemed likely, for a time, to dispute the supremacy of the
English and the Dutch with success. But the frightful draft
made on the resources of the nation, and the strain on its
spirit, were more than could be kept up. The obstinacy of the
king, and his indifference to the sufferings of his people,
prolonged the war until 1697, but with steady loss to the
French of the advantages with which they began. Two years
before the end, Louis had bought over the Duke of Savoy, by
giving back to him all that France had taken from his Italian
territories since Richelieu's time. When the final peace was
settled, at Ryswick, like surrenders had to be made in the
Netherlands, Lorraine, and beyond the Rhine; but Alsace, with
Strasburg, was kept, to be a German graft on France, until the
sharp Prussian pruning knife, in our own time, cut it away.
War of the Spanish Succession.
There were three years of peace after the treaty of Ryswick,
an then a new war--longer, more bitter, and more destructive
than those before it--arose out of questions connected with
the succession to the crown of Spain. Charles II., last of the
Austro-Spanish or Spanish-Hapsburg kings, died in 1700,
leaving no heir. The nearest of his relatives to the throne
were the descendants of his two sisters, one of whom had
married Louis XIV. and the other the Emperor Leopold, of the
Austrian House. Louis XIV., as we know, had renounced all the
Spanish rights of his queen and her issue; but that
renunciation had been shown already to be wasted paper.
Leopold had renounced nothing; but he had required a
renunciation of her Spanish claims from the one daughter,
Maria, of his Spanish wife, and he put forward claims to the
Spanish succession, on his own behalf, because his mother had
been a princess of that nation, as well as his wife. He was
willing, however, to transfer his own rights to a younger son,
fruit of a second marriage, the Archduke Charles.
The question of the Spanish succession was one of European
interest and importance, and attempts had been made to settle
it two years before the death of the Spanish king, in 1698, by
a treaty, or agreement, between France, England, and Holland.
By that treaty these outside powers (consulting Spain not at
all) undertook a partition of the Spanish monarchy, in what
they assumed to be the interest of the European balance of
power. They awarded Naples, Sicily, and some lesser Italian
possessions to a grandson of Louis XIV., the Milanese
territory to the Archduke Charles, and the rest of the Spanish
dominions to an infant son of Maria, the Emperor's daughter,
who was married to the elector of Bavaria. But the infant so
selected to wear the crown of Spain died soon afterwards, and
a second treaty of partition was framed. This gave the
Milanese to the Duke of Lorraine, in exchange for his own
duchy, which he promised to cede to France, and the whole
remainder of the Spanish inheritance was conceded to the
Austrian archduke, Charles. In Spain, these arrangements were
naturally resented, by both people and king, and the latter
was persuaded to set against them a will, bequeathing all that
he ruled to the younger grandson of Louis XIV., Philip of
Anjou, on condition that the latter renounce for himself and
for his heirs all claims to the crown of France. The
inducement to this bequest was the power which the King of
France possessed to enforce it, and so to preserve the unity
of the Spanish realm. That the argument and the persuasion
came from Louis' own agents, while other agents amused
England, Holland and Austria with treaties of partition, is
tolerably clear.
{1083}
Near the end of the year 1700, the King of Spain died; his
will was disclosed; the treaties were as coolly ignored as the
prior renunciation had been, and the young French prince was
sent pompously into Spain to accept the proffered crown. For a
time, there was indignation in Europe, but no more. William of
Orange could persuade neither England nor Holland to war, and
Austria could not venture hostilities without their help. But
that submissiveness only drew from the grand monarch fresh
displays of his dishonesty and his insolence. Philip of
Anjou's renunciation of a possible succession to the French
throne, while occupying that of Spain, was practically
annulled: The government of Spain was guided from Paris like
that of a dependency of France. Dutch and English commerce was
injured by hostile measures. Movements alarming to Holland
were made on the frontiers of the Spanish Netherlands.
Finally, when the fugitive ex-king of England, James II., died
at St. Germains, in September, 1701, Louis acknowledged James'
son, the Pretender, as King of England. This insult roused the
war spirit in England which King William had striven so hard
to evoke. He had already arranged the terms of a new defensive
Grand Alliance with Holland, Austria, and most of the German
states. There was no difficulty now in making it an offensive
combination.
But William, always weak in health, and worn by many cares and
harassing troubles, died in March, 1702, before the war which
he desired broke out. His death made no pause in the movement
of events. Able statesmen, under Queen Anne, his successor,
carried forward his policy and a great soldier was found, in
the person of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, to command
the armies of England and the Dutch. Another commander, of
remarkable genius, Prince Eugene of Savoy, took service with
the Emperor, and these two, acting cordially together, humbled
the overweening pride of Louis XIV. in the later years of his
reign. He had worn out France by his long exactions. His
strong ministers, Colbert, Louvois and others, were dead, and
he did not find successors for them. He had able generals, but
none equal to Turenne, Condé or Luxemburg,--none to cope with
Marlborough and Prince Eugene. The war was widespread, on a
stupendous scale, and it lasted for twelve years. Its
campaigns were fought in the Low Countries, in Germany, in
Italy and in Spain. It glorified the reign of Anne, in English
history, by the shining victories of Blenheim, Ramilies,
Oudenarde and Malplaquet, and by the capture of Gibraltar, the
padlock of the Mediterranean. The misery to which France was
reduced in the later years of the war was probably the
greatest that the much suffering nation ever knew.
The Peace of Utrecht.
Louis sought peace, and was willing to go far in surrenders to
obtain it. But the allies pressed him too hard in their
demands. They would have him not only abandon the Bourbon
dynasty that he had set up in Spain, but join them in
overthrowing it. He refused to negotiate on such terms, and
Fortune approved his resolution, by giving decisive victories
to his arms in Spain, while dealing, out disaster and defeat
in every other field. England grew weary of the war when it
came to appear endless, and Marlborough and the Whigs, who had
carried it on, were ousted from power. The Tories, under
Harley and Bolingbroke, came into office and negotiated the
famous Peace of Utrecht (1713), to which all the belligerents
in the war, save the Emperor, consented. The Emperor yielded
to a supplementary treaty, signed at Rastadt the next year.
These treaties left the Bourbon King of Spain, Philip V., on
his throne, but bound him, by fresh renunciations, not to be
likewise King of France. They gave to England Gibraltar and
Minorca, at the expense of Spain, and Nova Scotia,
Newfoundland and Hudson's Bay at the expense of France. They
took much more from Spain. They took Sicily, which they gave
to the Duke of Savoy, with the title of King; they took
Naples, Milan, Mantua and Sardinia, which they gave to
Austria, or, more strictly speaking, to the Emperor; and they
took the Spanish Netherlands, which they gave to Austria in
the main, with some barrier towns to the Dutch. They took from
France her conquests on the right bank of the Rhine; but they
left her in possession of Alsace, with Strasburg and Landau.
The great victim of the war was Spain.
France at the death of Louis XIV.
Louis XIV. was near the end of his reign when this last of the
fearful wars which he caused was brought to a close. He died
in September, 1715, leaving a kingdom which had reasons to
curse his memory in every particular of its state. He had
foiled the exertions of as wise a minister, Jean Colbert, as
ever strove to do good to France. He had dried the sources of
national life as with a searching and monstrous sponge. He had
repressed everything which he could not absorb in his
flaunting court, in his destroying armies, and in himself. He
had dealt with France as with a dumb beast that had been given
him to bestride; to display himself upon, before the gaze of an
envious world; to be bridled, and spurred at his pleasure, and
whipped; to toil for him and bear burdens as he willed; to
tread upon his enemies and trample his neighbors' fields. It
was he, more than all others before or after, who made France
that dumb creature which suffered and was still for a little
longer time, and then began thinking and went mad.
{1084}
Charles XII. of Sweden.
While the Powers of western Europe were wrestling in the great
war of the Spanish Succession, the nations of the North and
East were tearing each other, at the same time, with equal
stubbornness and ferocity. The beginning of their conflict was
a wanton attack from Russia, Poland and Denmark, on the
possessions of Sweden. Sweden, in the past century, had made
extensive, conquests, and her territories, outside of the
Scandinavian peninsula, were thrust provokingly into the sides
of all these three neighbors. There had been three Charleses
on the Swedish throne in succession, following Christina, the
daughter of Gustavus Adolphus. Queen Christina, an eccentric
character, had abdicated in 1654, in order to join the
Catholic Church, and had been succeeded by her cousin, Charles
X. The six years reign of this Charles was one of constant war
with the Danes and the Poles, and almost uniformly he was the
aggressor. His son and successor, Charles XI., suffered the
great defeat at Fehrbellin which gave prestige to Brandenburg;
but he was shielded by the puissant arm of Louis XIV., his
ally, and lost no territory. More successful in his domestic
policy than in his wars, he, both practically and formally,
established absolutism in the monarchy. Inheriting from his
father that absolute power, while inheriting at the same time
the ruthless ambition of his grandfather, Charles XII. came to
the throne in 1697.
In the first two years of his reign, this extraordinary young
autocrat showed so little of his character that his royal
neighbors thought him a weakling, and Peter the Great, of
Russia, conspired with Augustus of Poland and Frederick IV. of
Denmark to strip him of those parts of his dominion which they
severally coveted. The result was like the rousing of a lion
by hunters who went forth to pursue a hare. The young Swede,
dropping, instantly and forever, all frivolities, sprang at
his assailants before they dreamed of finding him awake, and
the game was suddenly reversed. The hunters became the hunted,
and they had no rest for nine years from the implacable
pursuit of them which Charles kept up. He defeated the Danes
and the Russians in the first year of the war (1700). In 1702
he invaded Poland and occupied Warsaw; in 1704 he forced the
deposition of the Saxon King of Poland, Augustus, and the
election of Stanislaus Leczinski. Not yet satisfied, he
followed Augustus into his electorate of Saxony, and compelled
him there to renounce the Polish crown and the Russian
alliance. In 1708 he invaded Russia, marching on Moscow, but
turning aside to meet an expected ally, Mazeppa the Cossack.
It was the mistake which Napoleon repeated a century later.
The Swedes exhausted themselves in the march, and the Russians
bided their time. Peter the Czar had devoted eight years,
since Charles defeated him at Narva, to making soldiers,
well-trained, out of the mob which that fight scattered. When
Charles had worn his army down to a slender and disheartened
force, Peter struck and destroyed it at Pultowa. Charles
escaped from the wreck and took refuge, with a few hundreds of
is guards, in the Turkish province of Bessarabia, at Bender. In
that shelter, which the Ottomans hospitably accorded to him,
he remained for five years, intriguing to bring the Porte into
war with his Muscovite enemy, while all the fruits of his nine
years of conquest in the North were stripped from him by the
old league revived. Augustus returned to Poland and recovered
his crown. Peter took possession of Livonia, Ingria, and a
great part of Finland. Frederick IV., of Denmark, attacked
Sweden itself. The kingless kingdom made a valiant defense
against the crowd of eager enemies; but Charles had used the
best of its energies and its resources, and it was not strong.
Near the end of 1710, Charles succeeded in pushing the Sultan
into war with the Czar, and the latter, advancing into
Moldavia, rashly placed himself in a position of great peril,
where the Turks had him really at their mercy. But Catherine,
the Czarina, who was present, found means to bribe the Turkish
vizier in command, and Peter escaped with no loss more serious
than the surrender of Azov. That ended the war, and the hopes
of the Swedish king. But still the stubborn Charles wearied
the Porte with his importunities, until he was commanded to
quit the country. Even then he refused to depart,--resisted
when force was used to expel him, and did not take his leave
until late in November, 1714, when he received intelligence
that his subjects were preparing to appoint his sister regent
of the kingdom and to make peace with the Czar. That news
hurried him homeward; but only for continued war. He was about
to make terms with Russia, and to secure her alliance against
Denmark, Poland and Hanover, when he was killed during an
invasion of Norway, in the siege of Friedrickshall (December,
1718). The crown of Sweden was then conferred upon his sister,
but shorn of absolute powers, and practically dependent upon
the nobles. All the wars in which Charles XII. had involved
his kingdom were brought to an end by great sacrifices, and
Russia rose to the place of Sweden as the chief power in the
North. The Swedes paid heavily for the career of their
"Northern Alexander."
Alliance against Spain.
Before the belligerents in the North had quieted themselves,
those of the West were again in arms. Spain had fallen under
the influence of two eager and restless ambitions, that of the
queen, Elizabeth of Parma, and an Italian minister, Cardinal
Alberoni; and the schemes into which these two drew the
Bourbon king, Philip V., soon ruptured the close relations
with France which Louis XIV. had ruined his kingdom to bring
about. To check them, a triple alliance was formed (1717)
between France, England and Holland,--enlarged the next year
to a quadruple alliance by the adhesion of Austria. At the
outset of the war, Spain made a conquest of Sardinia, and
almost accomplished the same in Sicily; but the English
crushed her navy and her rising commerce, while the French
crossed the Pyrenees with an army which the Spaniards could
not resist. A vast combination which Alberoni was weaving, and
which took in Charles XII., Peter the Great, the Stuart
pretender, the English Jacobites, and the opponents of the
regency in France, fell to pieces when the Swedish king fell.
Alberoni was driven from Spain and all his plans were given
up. The Spanish king withdrew from Sicily and surrendered
Sardinia. The Emperor and the Duke of Savoy exchanged islands,
as stated before, and the former (holding Naples already)
revived the old Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, while the latter
became King of Sardinia.
{1085}
War of the Polish Succession.
These disturbances ended, there were a few years of rest in
Europe, and then another war, of the character peculiar to the
eighteenth century, broke out. It had its cause in the Polish
election of a king to succeed Augustus II. As usual, the
neighboring nations formed a betting ring of onlookers, so to
speak, and "backed" their several candidates heavily. The
deposed and exiled king, Stanislaus Leczinski, who received
his crown from Charles XII. and lost it after Pultowa, was the
French candidate; for he had married his daughter to Louis XV.
Frederick Augustus of Saxony, son of the late King Augustus,
was the Russian and Austrian candidate. The contest resulted
in a double election (1733), and out of that came war. Spain
and Sardinia joined France, and the Emperor had no allies.
Hence the House of Austria suffered greatly in the war, losing
the Two Sicilies, which went to Spain, and were conferred on a
younger son of the king, creating a third Bourbon monarchy.
Part of the duchy of Milan was also yielded by Austria to the
King of Sardinia; and the Duke of Lorraine, husband of the
Emperor's daughter, Maria Theresa, gave up his duchy to
Stanislaus, who renounced therefor his claim on the crown of
Poland. The Duke of Lorraine received as compensation a right
of succession to the grand duchy of Tuscany, where the
Medicean House was about to expire. These were the principal
consequences, humiliating to Austria, of what is known as the
First Family Compact of the French and Spanish Bourbons.
War of Jenkins' Ear.
This alliance between the two courts gave encouragement to
hostile demonstrations in the Spanish colonies against English
traders, who were accused of extensive smuggling, and the
outcome was a petty war (1739), called "the War of Jenkins'
Ear."
War of the Austrian Succession.
Before these hostilities were ended, another "war of
succession," more serious than any before it, was wickedly
brought upon Europe. The Emperor, Charles VI., died in 1740,
leaving no son, but transmitting his hereditary dominions to
his eldest daughter, the celebrated Maria Theresa, married to
the ex-Duke of Lorraine. Years before his death he had sought
to provide against any possible disputing of the succession,
by an instrument known as the Pragmatic Sanction, to which he
obtained, first, the assent of the estates of all the
provinces and kingdoms of the Austrian realm, and, secondly,
the guaranty by solemn treaty of almost every European Power.
He died in the belief that he had established his daughter
securely, and left her to the enjoyment of a peaceful reign.
It was a pitiful illusion. He was scarcely in his grave before
half the guarantors of the Pragmatic Sanction were putting
forward claims to this part and that part of the Austrian
territories. The Elector of Bavaria, the Elector of Saxony (in
his wife's name) and the King of Spain, claimed the whole
succession; the two first mentioned on grounds of collateral
lineage, the latter (a Bourbon cuckoo in the Spanish-Hapsburg
nest) as being the heir of the Hapsburgs of Spain.
While these larger pretensions were still jostling each other
in the diplomatic stage, a minor claimant, who said little but
acted powerfully, sent his demands to the Court of Vienna with
an army following close at their heels. This was Frederick II.
of Prussia, presently known as Frederick the Great, who
resuscitated an obsolete claim on Silesia and took possession
of the province (1740-41) without waiting for debate. If,
anywhere, there had been virtuous hesitations before, his bold
stroke ended them. France could not see her old Austrian rival
dismembered without hastening to grasp a share. She contracted
with the Spanish king and the Elector of Bavaria to enforce
the latter's claims, and to take the Austrian Netherlands in
prospect for compensation, while Spain should find indemnity
in the Austro-Italian states. Frederick of Prussia, having
Silesia in hand, offered to join Maria Theresa in the defense
of her remaining dominions; but his proposals were refused,
and he entered the league against her. Saxony did the same.
England and Sardinia were alone in befriending Austria, and
England was only strong at sea. Maria Theresa found her
heartiest support in Hungary, where she made a personal appeal
to her subjects, and enlarged their constitutional privileges.
In 1742 the Elector of Bavaria was elected Emperor, as Charles
VII. In the same year, Maria Theresa, acting under pressure
from England, gave up the greater part of Silesia to
Frederick, by treaty, as a price paid, not for the help he had
offered at first, but barely for his neutrality. He abandoned
his allies and withdrew from the war. His retirement produced
an immense difference in the conditions of the contest. Saxony
made peace at the same time, and became an active ally on the
Austrian side. So rapidly did the latter then recover their
ground and the French slip back that Frederick, after two
years of neutrality, became alarmed, and found a pretext to
take up arms again. The scale was now tipped to the side on
which he threw himself, but not immediately; and when, in
1745, the Emperor, Charles VII., died suddenly, Maria Theresa
was able to secure the election of her husband, Francis of
Lorraine (or Tuscany), which founded the Hapsburg-Lorraine
dynasty on the imperial throne. This was in September. In the
following December Frederick was in Dresden, and Saxony--the
one effective ally left to the Austrians, since England had
withdrawn from the war in the previous August--was at his
feet. Maria Theresa, having the Spaniards and the French still
to fight in Italy and the Netherlands, could do nothing but make
terms with the terrible Prussian king. The treaty, signed at
Dresden on Christmas Day, 1745, repeated the cession of
Silesia to Frederick, with Glatz, and restored Saxony to the
humbled Elector.
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
France and Spain, deserted the second time by their faithless
Prussian ally, continued the war until 1748, when the
influence of England and Holland brought about a treaty of
peace signed at Aix-la-Chapelle. France gained nothing from
the war, but had suffered a loss of prestige, distinctly.
Austria, besides giving up Silesia to Frederick of Prussia,
was required to surrender a bit of Lombardy to the King of
Sardinia, and to make over Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla to
Don Philip of Spain, for a hereditary principality. Under the
circumstances, the result to Maria Theresa was a notable
triumph, and she shared with her enemy, Frederick, the
fruitage of fame harvested in the war. But antagonism between
these two, and between the interests and ambitions which they
respectively represented--dynastic on one side and national
on the other--was henceforth settled and irreconcilable, and
could leave in Germany no durable peace.
{1086}
Colonial conflicts of France and England.
The peace was broken, not for Germany alone, but for Europe
and for almost the world at large, in six years after the
signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The rupture occurred
first very far from Europe--on the other sides of the globe,
in America and Hindostan, where England and France were eager
rivals in colonial conquest. In America, they had quarreled
since the Treaty of Utrecht over the boundaries of Acadia, or
Nova Scotia, which that treaty transferred to England.
Latterly, they had come to a more serious collision in the
interior of the continent. The English, rooting their
possession of the Atlantic seaboard by strong and stable
settlements, had been tardy explorers and slow in passing the
Alleganies to the region inland. On the other hand, the
French, nimble and enterprising in exploration, and in
military occupation, but superficial and artificial in
colonizing, had pushed their way by a long circuit from
Canada, through the great lakes to the head waters of the
Ohio, and were fortifying a line in the rear of the British
colonies, from the valley of the St. Lawrence to the valley of
the Mississippi, before the English were well aware of their
intent. Then the colonists, Virginians and Pennsylvanians,
took arms, and the career of George Washington was begun as
leader of an expedition in 1754 to drive the French from the
Ohio. It was not successful, and a strong force of regular
troops was sent over next year by the British government,
under Braddock, to repeat the attempt. A frightful
catastrophe, worse than failure, came of this second
undertaking, and open war between France and England, which
had not yet been declared, followed soon. This colonial
conflict of England and France fired the train, so to speak,
which caused a great explosion of suppressed hostilities in
Europe.
The House of Hanover in England.
If the English crown had not been worn by a German king,
having a German principality to defend, the French and English
might have fought out their quarrel on the ocean, and in the
wilderness of America, or on the plains of the Carnatic,
without disturbing their continental neighbors. But England
was now under a new, foreign-bred line of sovereigns,
descended from that daughter of James I., the princess
Elizabeth, who married the unfortunate Elector Palatine and
was queen of Bohemia for a brief winter term. After William of
Orange died, his wife, Queen Mary, having preceded him to the
grave, and no children having been born to them, Anne, the
sister of Mary, had been called to the throne. It was in her
reign that the brilliant victories of Marlborough were won,
and in her reign that the Union of Scotland with England,
under one parliament as well as one sovereign, was brought
about. On Anne's death (1714), her brother, the son of James
II., called "the Pretender," was still excluded from the
throne, because of his religion, and the next heir was sought
and summoned, in the person of the Elector George, of Hanover,
whose remote ancestress was Elizabeth Stuart. George I. had
reigned thirteen years, and his son, George II., had been
twenty-seven years on the throne, when these quarrels with
France arose. Throughout the two reigns, until 1742, the
English nation had been kept mostly at peace, by the potent
influence of a great minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and had
made a splendid advance in material prosperity and strength;
while the system of ministerial government, responsible to
Parliament and independent of the Crown, which has been in
later times the peculiar feature of the British constitution,
was taking shape. In 1742, Walpole fell from power, and the
era of peace for England was ended. But her new dynasty had
been firmly settled, and politically, industrially, and
commercially, the nation was so sound in its condition as to
be well prepared for the series of wars into which it plunged.
In the War of the Austrian Succession England had taken a limited
part, and with small results to herself. She was now about to
enter, under the lead of the high spirited and ambitious Pitt,
afterwards Earl of Chatham, the greatest career of conquest in
her history.
The Seven Years War.
As before said, it was the anxiety of George II. for his
electorate of Hanover which caused an explosion of hostilities
in Europe to occur, as consequence of the remote fighting of
French and English colonists in America. For the strengthening
of Hanover against attacks from France, he sought an alliance
with Frederick of Prussia. This broke the long-standing
anti-French alliance of England with Austria, and Austria
joined fortunes with her ancient Bourbon enemy, in order to be
helped to the revenge which Maria Theresa now promised herself
the pleasure of executing upon the Prussian king. As the
combination finally shaped itself on the French side, it
embraced France, Austria, Russia, Sweden, Poland, Saxony, and
the Palatinate, and its inspiring purpose was to break Prussia
down and partition her territories, rather than to support
France against England. The agreements to this end were made
in secret; but Frederick obtained knowledge of them, and
learned that papers proving the conspiracy against him were in
the archives of the Saxony government, at Dresden. His action was
decided with that promptitude which so often disconcerted his
enemies. He did not wait to be attacked by the tremendous
league formed against him, nor waste time in efforts to
dissolve it, but defiantly struck the first blow. He poured
his army into Saxony (August, 1756), seized Dresden by
surprise, captured the documents he desired, and published
them to the world in vindication of his summary precipitation
of war. Then, blockading the Saxon army in Pirna, he pressed
rapidly into Bohemia, defeated the Austrians at Lowositz, and
returned as rapidly, to receive the surrender of the Saxons
and to enlist most of them in his own ranks. This was the
European opening of the Seven Years War, which raged, first
and last, in all quarters of the globe. In the second year of
the war, Frederick gained an important victory at Prague and
suffered a serious reverse at Kolin, which threw most of
Silesia into the hands of the Austrians. Close following that
defeat came crushing news from Hanover, where the incompetent
Duke of Cumberland, commanding for his father, the English
King George, had allowed the French to force him to an
agreement which disbanded his army, and left Prussia alone in
the terrific fight. Frederick's position seemed desperate; but
his energy retrieved it.
{1087}
He fought and defeated the French at Rossbach, near Lützen, on
the 5th of November, and the Austrians, at Leuthen, near
Breslau, exactly one month later. In the campaigns of 1758, he
encountered the Russians at Zorndorf, winning a bloody
triumph, and he sustained a defeat at Hochkirk, in battle with
the Austrians. But England had repudiated Cumberland's
convention and recalled him; English and Hanoverian forces
were again put into the field, under the capable command of
Prince Frederick of Brunswick, who turned the tide in that
quarter against the French, and the results of the year were
generally favorable to Frederick. In 1759, the Hanoverian
army, under Prince Ferdinand, improved the situation on that
side; but the prospects of the King of Prussia were clouded by
heavy disasters. Attempting to push a victory over the
Russians too far, at Kunersdorf, he was terribly beaten. He
lost Dresden, and a great part of Saxony. In the next year he
recovered all but Dresden, which he wantonly and inhumanly
bombarded. The war was now being carried on with great
difficulty by all the combatants. Prussia, France and Austria
were suffering almost equally from exhaustion; the misery
among their people was too great to be ignored; the armies of
each had dwindled. The opponents of Pitt's war policy in
England overcame him, in October, 1761, whereupon he resigned,
and the English subsidy to Frederick was withdrawn. But that
was soon made up to him by the withdrawal of Russia from the
war, at the beginning of 1762, when Peter of Holstein, who
admired Frederick, became Czar. Sweden made peace a little
later. The remainder of the worn and wearied fighters went on
striking at each other until near the end of the year.
Meantime, on the colonial and East Indian side of it, this
prodigious Seven Years War, as a great struggle for
world-empire between England and France, had been adding
conquest to conquest and triumph to triumph for the former. In
1759, Wolfe had taken Quebec and died on the Heights of
Abraham in the moment of victory. Another twelve months saw
the whole of Canada clear of Frenchmen in arms. In the East,
to use the language of Macaulay, "conquests equalling in
rapidity and far surpassing in magnitude those of Cortes and
Pizarro, had been achieved." "In the space of three years the
English had founded a mighty empire. The French had been
defeated in every part of India. Chandernagore had yielded to
Clive, Pondicherry to Coote. Throughout Bengal, Bahar, Orissa,
and the Carnatic, the authority of the East India Company was
more absolute than that of Acbar or Aurungzebe had ever been."
Treaties of Paris and Hubertsburg.
In February, 1763, two treaties of peace were concluded, one
at Paris, on the 10th, between England, France and Spain (the
latter Power having joined France in the war as late as
January, 1762); the other at Hubertsburg, on the 15th, between
Prussia and Austria. France gave up to England all her
possessions in North America, except Louisiana (which passed
to Spain,), and yielded Minorca, but recovered the
Philippines. She surrendered, moreover, considerable interests
in the West Indies and in Africa. The colonial aspirations of
the French were cast down by a blow that was lasting in its
effect. As between Prussia and Austria, the triumphs of the
peace and the glories of the war were won entirely by the
former. Frederick came out of it, "Frederick the Great," the
most famous man of his century, as warrior and as statesman,
both. He had defended his little kingdom for seven years
against three great Powers, and yielded not one acre of its
territory. He had raised Prussia to the place in Germany from
which her subsequent advance became easy and almost
inevitable. But the great fame he earned is spotted with many
falsities and much cynical indifference to the commonest
ethics of civilization. His greatness is of that character
which requires to be looked at from selected standpoints.
Russia.
Another character, somewhat resembling that of Frederick, was
now drawing attention on the eastern side of Europe. Since the
death of Peter the Great, the interval in Russian history had
been covered by six reigns, with a seventh just opening, and
the four sovereigns who really exercised power were women.
Peter's widow, Catherine I., had succeeded him (1725) for two
years. His son, Alexis, he had put to death; but Alexis left a
son, Peter, to whom Catherine bequeathed the crown. Peter II.
died after a brief reign, in 1730; and the nearest heirs were
two daughters of Peter the Great, Anne and Elizabeth. But they
were set aside in favor of another Anne--Anne of
Courland--daughter of Peter the Great's brother. Anne's reign
of ten years was under the influence of German favorites and
ministers, and nearly half of it was occupied with a Turkish
War, in cooperation with Austria. For Austria the war had most
humiliating results, costing her Belgrade, all of Servia, part
of Bosnia and part of Wallachia. Russia won back Asov, with
fortifications forbidden, and that was all. Anne willed her
crown to an infant nephew, who appears in the Russian annals
as Ivan VI.; but two regencies were overthrown by palace
revolutions within little more than a year, and the second one
carried to the throne that Princess Elizabeth, younger
daughter of Peter the Great, who had been put aside eleven
years before. Elizabeth, a woman openly licentious and
intemperate, reigned for twenty-one years, during the whole
important period of the War of the Austrian Succession, and
almost to the end of the Seven Years War. She was bitterly
hostile to Frederick the Great, whose sharp tongue had
offended her, and she joined Maria Theresa with eagerness in
the great effort of revenge, which failed. In the early part
of her reign, war with Sweden had been more successful and had
added South Finland to the Russian territories. It is claimed
for her domestic government that the general prosperity of the
country was advanced.
{1088}
Catherine II.
On the death of Elizabeth, near the end of the year 1761, the
crown passed to her nephew, Peter of Holstein, son of her
eldest sister, Anne, who had married the Duke of Holstein.
This prince had been the recognized heir, living at the
Russian court, during the whole of Elizabeth's reign. He was
an ignorant boor, and he had become a besotted drunkard. Since
1744 he had been married to a young German princess, of the
Anhalt Zerbst family, who took the baptismal name of Catherine
when she entered the Greek Church. Catherine possessed a superior
intellect and a strong character; but the vile court into
which she came as a young girl, bound to a disgusting husband,
had debauched her in morals and lowered her to its own
vileness. She gained so great an ascendancy that the court was
subservient to her, from the time that her incapable husband,
Peter III., succeeded to the throne. He reigned by sufferance
for a year and a half, and then (July, 1762) he was easily
deposed and put to death. In the deposition, Catherine was the
leading actor. Of the subsequent murder, some historians are
disposed to acquit her. She did not scruple, at least, to
accept the benefit of both deeds, which raised her, alone, to
the throne of the Czars.
Partition of Poland.
Peter III., in his short reign, had made one important change
in Russian policy, by withdrawing from the league against
Frederick of Prussia, whom he greatly admired. Catherine found
reasons, quite aside from those of personal admiration, for
cultivating the friendship of the King of Prussia, and a close
understanding with that astute monarch was one of the earliest
objects of her endeavor. She had determined to put an end to
the independence of Poland. As she first entertained the
design, there was probably no thought of the partitioning
afterwards contrived. But her purpose was to keep the Polish
kingdom in disorder and weakness, and to make Russian
influence supreme in it, with views, no doubt, that looked
ultimately to something more. On the death of the Saxon king
of Poland, Augustus III., in 1763, Catherine put forward a
native candidate for the vacant throne, in the person of
Stanislaus Poniatowsky, a Russianized Pole and a former lover
of her own. The King of Prussia supported her candidate, and
Poniatowsky was duly elected, with 10,000 Russian troops in
Warsaw to see that it was properly done. The Poles were
submissive to the invasion of their political independence;
but when Catherine, who sought to create a Russian party in
Poland by protecting the members of the Greek Church and the
Protestants, against the intolerance of the Polish Catholics,
forced a concession of civil equality to the former (1768),
there was a wide-spread Catholic revolt. In the fierce war
which followed, a band of Poles was pursued across the Turkish
border, and a Turkish town was burned by the Russian pursuers.
The Sultan, who professed sympathy with the Poles, then
declared war against Russia. The Russo-Turkish war, in turn,
excited Austria, which feared Russian conquests from the
Turks, and another wide disturbance of the peace of Europe
seemed threatening. In the midst of the excitement there came
a whispered suggestion, to the ear of the courts of Vienna and
St. Petersburg, that they severally satisfy their territorial
cravings and mutually assuage each other's jealousy, at the
expense of the crumbling kingdom of Poland. The whisper may
have come from Frederick II. of Prussia, or it may not. There
are two opinions on the point. From whatever source it came,
it found favorable consideration at Vienna and St. Petersburg,
and between February and August, 1772, the details of the
partition were worked out.
Poland was not yet extinguished. The kingdom was only shorn of
some 160,000 square miles of territory, more than half of
which went to Russia, a third to Austria, and the remainder,
less than 10,000 square miles, to Prussia. This last mentioned
annexation was the old district of West Prussia which the
Polish king, Casimir IV., had wrested from the Teutonic
Knights in 1466, before Brandenburg had aught to do with
Prussian lands or name. After three centuries, Frederick
reclaimed it.
The diminished kingdom of Poland showed more signs of a true
national life, of an earnest national feeling, of a sobered
and rational patriotism, than had appeared in its former
history. The fatal powers monopolized by the nobles, the
deadly "liberum veto," the corrupting elective kingship, were
looked at in their true light, and in May, 1791, a new
constitution was adopted which reformed those evils. But a few
nobles opposed the reformation and appealed to Russia,
supplying a pretext to Catherine on which she filled Poland
with her troops. It was in vain that the patriot Kosciusko led
the best of his countrymen in a brave struggle with the
invader. They were overborne (1793-1794); the unhappy nation
was put in fetters, while Catherine and a new King of Prussia,
Frederick William II., arranged the terms of a second
partition. This gave to Prussia an additional thousand square
miles, including the important towns of Danzig and Thorn,
while Russia took four times as much. A year later, the small
remainder of Polish territory was dismembered and divided
between Russia, Prussia and Austria, and thus Poland
disappeared from the map of Europe as a state.
Russia as left by Catherine II.
Meantime, in her conflicts with the Turks, Catherine was
extending her vast empire to the Dneister and the Caucasus,
and opening a passage for her fleets from the Black Sea to the
Mediterranean. By treaty in 1774 she placed the Tartars of the
Crimea in independence of the Turks, and so isolated them for
easy conquest. In 1783 the conquest was made complete. By the
same treaty she secured a right of remonstrance on behalf of
the Christian subjects of the Sultan, in the Danubian
principalities and in the Greek Church at Constantinople,
which opened many pretexts for future interference and for war
at Russian convenience. The aggressions of the strong-willed
and powerful Czarina, and their dazzling success, filled her
subjects with pride, and effaced all remembrance of her
foreign origin and her want of right to the seat which she
filled. She was ambitious to improve the empire, as well as to
expand it; for her liberal mind took in the large ideas of that
speculative age and was much moved by them. She attempted many
reforms; but most things that she tried to do for the
bettering of civilization and the lifting of the people were
done imperiously, and spoiled by the autocratic method of the
doing. In her later years, her inclination towards liberal
ideas was checked, and the French Revolution put an end to it.
{1089}
State of France in the Eighteenth Century.
In tracing the destruction of Poland and the aggrandizement of
Russia, we have passed the date of that great catastrophe in
France which ended the old modern order of things, and
introduced a new one, not for France only, but for Europe at
large. It was a catastrophe toward which the abused French
people had been slowly slipping for generations, pushed
unrelentingly to it by blind rulers and a besotted
aristocracy. By nature a people ardent and lively in temper,
hopeful and brave in spirit, full of intelligence, they had
been held down in dumb repression: silenced in voice, even for
the uttering of their complaints; the national meeting of
their representative States suppressed for nearly two
centuries; taxes wrung from them on no measure save the will
of a wanton-minded and ignorant king; their beliefs
prescribed, their laws ordained, their courts of justice
commanded, their industries directed, their trade hedged
round, their rights and permissions in all particulars meted
out to them by the same blundering and irresponsible
autocracy. How long would they bear it? and would their
deliverance come by the easing of their yoke, or by the
breaking of it?--were the only questions.
Their state was probably at its worst in the later years of
Louis XIV. That seems to be the conclusion which the deepest
study has now reached, and the picture formerly drawn by
historians, of a society continually sinking into lower
miseries, is mostly put aside. The worst state, seemingly, was
passed, or nearly so, when Louis XIV. died. It began to mend
under his despicable successor, Louis XV. (1715-1774),--
perhaps even during the regency of the profligate Orleans
(1715-1723). Why it mended, no historian has clearly
explained. The cause was not in better government; for the
government grew worse. It did not come from any rise in
character of the privileged classes; for the privileged
classes abused their privileges with increasing selfishness.
But general influences were at work in the world at large,
stimulating activities of all kinds,--industry, trade,
speculation, combination, invention, experiment, science,
philosophy,--and whatever improvement occurred in the material
condition and social state of the common people of France may
find its explanation in these. There was an augmentation of
life in the air of the eighteenth century, and France took
some invigoration from it, despite the many maladies in its
social system and the oppressions of government under which it
bent.
But the difference between the France of Louis XIV. and the
France of Louis XVI. was more in the people than in their
state. If their misery was a little less, their patience was
less, and by not a little. The stimulations of the age, which
may have given more effectiveness to labor and more energy to
trade, had likewise set thinking astir, on the same practical
lines. Men whose minds in former centuries would have labored
on riddles dialectical, metaphysical and theological, were now
bent on the pressing problems of daily life. The mysteries of
economic science began to challenge them. Every aspect of
surrounding society thrust questions upon them, concerning its
origin, its history, its inequalities, its laws and their
principles, its government and the source of authority in it.
The so-called "philosophers" of the age, Rousseau, Voltaire
and the encyclopædists--were not the only questioners of the
social world, nor did the questioning all come from what they
taught. It was the intellectual epidemic of the time, carried
into all countries, penetrating all classes, and nowhere with
more diffusion than in France.
After the successful revolt of the English colonies in
America, and the conspicuous blazoning of the doctrines of
political equality and popular self-government in their
declaration of independence and their republican constitution,
the ferment of social free-thinking in France was naturally
increased. The French had helped the colonists, fought side by
side with them, watched their struggle with intense interest,
and all the issues involved in the American revolution were
discussed among them, with partiality to the republican side.
Franklin, most republican representative of the young
republic, came among them and captivated every class. He
recommended to them the ideas for which he stood, perhaps more
than we suspect.
Louis XVI. and his reign.
And thus, by many influences, the French people of all classes
except the privileged nobility, and even in that class to some
small extent, were made increasingly impatient of their
misgovernment and of the wrongs and miseries going with it.
Louis XVI., who came to the throne in 1774, was the best in
character of the Bourbon kings. He had no noxious vices and no
baleful ambitions. If he had found right conditions prevailing
in his kingdom he would have made the best of them. But he had
no capacity for reforming the evils that he inherited, and no
strength of will to sustain those who had. He accepted an
earnest reforming minister with more than willingness, and
approved the wise measures of economy, of equitable taxation,
and of emancipation for manufactures and trade, which Turgot
proposed. But when protected interests, and the privileged
order which fattened on existing abuses, raised a storm of
opposition, he weakly gave way to it, and dismissed the man
(1776) who might possibly have made the inevitable revolution
a peaceful one. Another minister, the Genevan banker, Necker,
who aimed at less reform, but demanded economy, suffered the
same overthrow (1781). The waste, the profligate expenditure,
the jobbery, the leeching of the treasury by high-born
pensioners and sinecure office-holders, went on, scarcely
checked, until the beginnings of actual bankruptcy had
appeared.
The States-General.
Then a cry, not much heeded before, for the convocation of the
States-general of the kingdom--the ancient great legislature
of France, extinct since the year 1614--became loud and
general. The king yielded (1788). The States-general was
called to meet on the 1st of May, 1789, and the royal summons
decreed that the deputies chosen to it from the third
estate--the common people--should be equal in number to the
deputies of the nobility and the clergy together. So the dumb
lips of France as a nation were opened, its tongue unloosed,
its common public opinion, and public feeling made articulate,
for the first time in one hundred and seventy-five years. And
the word that it spoke was the mandate of Revolution.
The States-general assembled at Versailles on the 5th of May,
and a conflict between the third estate and the nobles
occurred at once on the question between three assemblies and
one. Should the three orders deliberate and vote together as
one body, or sit and act separately and apart. The commons
demanded the single assembly. The nobles and most of the
clergy refused the union, in which their votes would be
overpowered.
{1090}
The National Assembly.
After some weeks of dead-lock on this fundamental issue, the
third estate brought it to a summary decision, by boldly
asserting its own supremacy, as representative of the mass of
the nation, and organizing itself in the character of the
"National Assembly" of France. Under that name and character
it was joined by a considerable part of the humbler clergy,
and by some of the nobles,--additional to a few, like
Mirabeau, who sat from the beginning with the third estate, as
elected representatives of the people. The king made a weak
attempt to annul this assumption of legislative sufficiency on
the part of the third estate, and only hurried the exposure of
his own powerlessness. Persuaded by his worst advisers to
attempt a stronger demonstration of the royal authority, he
filled Paris with troops, and inflamed the excitement, which
had risen already to a passionate heat.
Outbreak of the Revolution.
Necker, who had been recalled to the ministry when the meeting
of the States-general was decided upon, now received his
second dismissal (July 11), and the news of it acted on Paris
like a signal of insurrection. The city next day was in
tumult. On the 14th the Bastile was attacked and taken. The
king's government vanished utterly. His troops fraternized
with the riotous people. Citizens of Paris organized
themselves as a National Guard, on which every hope of order
depended, and Lafayette took command. The frightened nobility
began flight, first from Paris, and then from the provinces,
as mob violence spread over the kingdom from the capital. In
October there were rumors that the king had planned to follow
the "émigrés" and take refuge in Metz. Then occurred the
famous rising of the women; their procession to Versailles;
the crowd of men which followed, accompanied but not
controlled by Lafayette and his National Guards; the
conveyance of the king and royal family to Paris, where they
remained during the subsequent year, practically in captivity,
and at the mercy of the Parisian mob.
Meanwhile, the National Assembly, negligent of the dangers of
the moment, while actual anarchy prevailed, busied itself with
debates on constitutional theory, with enactments for the
abolition of titles and privileges, and with the creating of
an inconvertible paper money, based on confiscated church
lands, to supply the needs of the national treasury. Meantime,
too, the members of the Assembly and their supporters outside
of it were breaking into parties and factions, divided by
their different purposes, principles and aims, and forming
clubs,--centers of agitation and discussion,--clubs of the
Jacobins, the Cordeliers, the Feuillants and the like,--where
fear, distrust and jealousy were soon engendering ferocious
conflicts among the revolutionists themselves. And outside of
France, on the border where the fugitive nobles lurked,
intrigue was always active, striving to enlist foreign help
for King Louis against his subjects.
The First Constitution.
In April, 1791, Mirabeau, whose influence had been a powerful
restraint upon the Revolution, died. In June, the king made an
attempt to escape from his durance in Paris, but was captured
at Varennes and brought back. Angry demands for his deposition
were now made, and a tumultuous republican demonstration
occurred, on the Champ de Mars, which Lafayette and the mayor
of Paris, Bailly, dispersed, with bloodshed. But republicanism
had not yet got its footing. In the constitution, which the
Assembly completed at this time, the throne was left
undisturbed. The king accepted the instrument, and a
constitutional monarchy appeared to have quietly taken the
place of the absolute monarchy of the past.
The Girondists.
It was an appearance not long delusive. The Constituent
National Assembly being dissolved, gave way to a Legislative
Assembly (October, 1791) elected under the new constitution.
In the Legislative Assembly the republicans appeared with a
strength which soon gave them control of it. They were divided
into various groups; but the most eloquent and energetic of
these, coming from Bordeaux and the department of the Gironde,
fixed the name of Girondists upon the party to which they
belonged. The king, as a constitutional sovereign, was forced
presently to choose ministers from the ranks of the
Girondists, and they controlled the government for several
months in the spring of 1792. The earliest use they made of
their control was to hurry the country into war with the
German powers, which were accused of giving encouragement to
the hostile plans of the émigrés on the border. It is now a
well-determined fact that the Emperor Leopold was strongly
opposed to war with France, and used all his influence for the
preservation of peace. It was revolutionary France which
opened the conflict, and it was the Girondists who led and
shaped the policy of war.
Overthrow of the Monarchy.
In the first encounters of the war, the undisciplined French
troops were beaten, and Paris was in panic. Measures were
adopted which the king refused to sanction, and he dismissed
his Girondist ministers. Lafayette, who was commanding one
division of the army in the field, approved the king's course,
and wrote an unwise letter to the Assembly, intimating that
the army would not submit to a violation of the constitution.
The republicans were enraged. Everything seemed proof to them
of a treasonable connivance with the enemies of France, to
bring about the subjugation of the country, and a forcible
restoration of the old regime, absolutism, aristocratic
privilege and all. On the 20th of June there was another
rising of the Paris mob, unchecked by those who could, as yet,
have controlled it. The rioters broke into the Tuileries and
humiliated the king and queen with insults, but did no
violence. Lafayette came to Paris and attempted to reorganize
his old National Guard, for the defense of the constitution
and the preservation of order, but failed. The extremists then
resolved to throw down the toppling monarchy at once, by a
sudden blow. In the early morning of August 10, they expelled
the Council-General of the Municipality of Paris from the
Hotel de Ville, and placed the government of the city under
the control of a provisional Commune, with Danton at its head.
{1091}
At the same hour, the mob which these conspirators held in
readiness, and which they directed, attacked the Tuileries and
massacred the Swiss guard, while the king and the royal family
escaped for refuge to the Chamber of the Legislative Assembly,
near at hand. There, in the king's presence, on a formal
demand made by the new self-constituted Municipality or
Commune of Paris, the Assembly declared his suspension from
executive functions, and invited the people to elect without
delay a National Convention for the revising of the
Constitution. Commissioners, hastily sent out to the provinces
and the armies in the field, were received everywhere with
submission to the change of government, except by Lafayette
and his army, in and around Sedan. The Marquis placed them
under arrest and took from his soldiers a new oath of fidelity
to the constitution and the king. But he found himself
unsupported, and, yielding to the sweep of events, he obeyed a
dismissal by the new government from his command, and left
France, to wait in exile for a time when he might serve his
Country with a conscience more assured.
The Paris Commune.
Pending the meeting of the Convention, the Paris Commune,
increased in number to two hundred and eighty-eight, and
dominated by Danton and Robespierre, became the governing
power in France. The Legislative Assembly was subservient to
it; the kingless Ministry, which had Danton in association
with the restored Girondists, was no less so. It was the
fierce vigor of the Commune which caused the king and the
royal family to be imprisoned in the Temple; which instituted
a special tribunal for the summary trial of political
prisoners; which searched Paris for "suspects," on the night
of August 29-30, gathered three thousand men and women into
the prisons and convents of the city, planned and ordered the
"September Massacres" of the following week, and thus thinned
the whole number of these "suspects" by a half.
Fall of the Girondists.
On the 22d of September the National Convention assembled. The
Jacobins who controlled the Commune were found to have carried
Paris overwhelmingly and all France largely with them, in the
election of representatives. A furious, fanatical democracy, a
bloodthirsty anarchism, was in the ascendant. The republican
Girondists were now the conservative party in the Convention.
They struggled to hold their ground, and very soon they were
struggling for their lives. The Jacobin fury was tolerant of
no opposition. What stood in its path, with no deadlier weapon
than an argument or an appeal, must be, not merely overcome,
but destroyed. The Girondists would have saved the king from
the guillotine, but they dared not adopt his defense, and
their own fate was sealed when they gave votes, under fear,
which sent him in January to his death. Five months longer
they contended irresolutely, as a failing faction, with their
terrible adversaries, and then, in June, 1793, they were
proscribed and their arrest decreed. Some escaped and raised
futile insurrections in the provinces. Some stayed and faced
the death which awaited them in the fast approaching "reign of
terror."
"The Mountain" and "the Terror."
The fall of the Girondists left the Jacobin "Mountain"
(so-called from the elevation of the seats on which its
deputies sat in the Convention) unopposed. Their power was not
only absolute in fact, but unquestioned, and they inevitably
ran to riot in the exercise of it. The same madness overcame
them in the mass which overcame Nero, Caligula, Caracalla, as
individuals; for it is no more strange that the unnatural and
awful feeling of unlimited dominion over one's fellows should
turn the brain of a suddenly triumphant faction, than that it
should madden a single shallow-minded man. The men of "the
Mountain" were not only masters of France--except in La Vendée
and the neighboring region south of the Loire, where an obstinate
insurrection had broken out--but the armies which obeyed them
had driven back the invading Germans, had occupied the
Austrian Netherlands and taken possession of Savoy and Nice.
Intoxicated by these successes, the Convention had proclaimed
a crusade against all monarchical government, offering the
help of France to every people which would rise against
existing authorities, and declaring enmity to those who
refused alliance with the Revolution. Holland was attacked and
England forced to war. The spring of 1793 found a great
European coalition formed against revolutionary France, and
justified by the aggressions of the Jacobinical government.
For effective exercise of the power of the Jacobins, the
Convention as a whole proved too large a body, even when it
had been purged of Girondist opposition. Its authority was now
gathered into the hands of the famous Committee of Public
Safety, which became, in fact, the Revolutionary Government,
controlling the national armies, and the whole administration
of domestic and foreign affairs. Its reign was the Reign of
Terror, and the fearful Revolutionary Tribunal, which began
its bloody work with the guillotine in October, 1793, was the
chief instrument of its power. Robespierre, Barère, St. Just,
Couthon, Billaud-Varennes, Collot d' Herbois and Carnot--the
latter devoted to the business of the war--were the
controlling members of the Committee. Danton withdrew from it,
refusing to serve.
In September, the policy of terrorism was avowedly adopted,
and, in the language of the Paris Commune, "the Reign of
Terror" became "the order of the day." The arraignment of
"suspects" before the Revolutionary Tribunal began. On the
14th of October Marie Antoinette was put on trial; on the 16th
she met her death. On the 31st the twenty-one imprisoned
Girondist deputies were sent to the guillotine; followed on
the 10th of November by the remarkable woman, Madame Roland,
who was looked upon as the real leader of their party. From
that time until the mid-summer following, the blood-madness
raged; not in Paris alone, but throughout France, at Lyons,
Marseilles, Toulon, Bordeaux, Nantes, and wherever a show of
insurrection and resistance had challenged the ferocity of the
Commissioners of the Revolutionary Government, who had been
sent into the provinces with unlimited death-dealing powers.
{1092}
But when Jacobinism had destroyed all exterior opposition, it
began very soon to break into factions within itself. There
was a pitch in its excesses at which even Danton and
Robespierre became conservatives, as against Hébert and the
atheists of his faction. A brief struggle ensued, and the
Hébertists, in March, 1794, passed under the knife of the
guillotine. A month later Danton's enemies had rallied and he,
with his followers, went down before their attack, and the
sharp knife in the Place de la Revolution silenced his bold
tongue. Robespierre remained dominant for a few weeks longer
in the still reigning Committee of Public Safety; but his
domination was already undermined by many fears, distrusts and
jealousies among his colleagues and throughout his party. His
downfall came suddenly on the 27th of July. On the morning of
that day he was the dictator of the Convention and of its
ruling committee; at night he was a headless corpse, and Paris
was shouting with joy.
On the death of Robespierre the Reign of Terror came quickly
to an end. The reaction was sudden and swift. The Committee of
Public Safety was changed; of the old members only Carnot,
indispensable organizer of war, remained. The Revolutionary
Tribunal was remodeled. The Jacobin Club was broken up. The
surviving Girondist deputies came back to the Convention.
Prosecution of the Terrorists for their crimes began. A new
struggle opened, between the lower elements in Parisian and
French society, the sansculotte elements, which had controlled
the Revolution thus far, and the middle class, the
bourgeoisie, long cowed and suppressed, but now rallying to
recover its share of power. Bourgeoisie triumphed in the
contest. The Sansculottes made their last effort in a rising
on the 1st Prairial (May 20, 1795) and were put down. A new
constitution was framed which organized the government of the
Republic under a legislature in two chambers,--a Council of
Five Hundred and a Council of Ancients,--with an executive
Directory of Five. But only one third of the legislature first
assembled was to be freely elected by the people. The
remaining two thirds were to be taken from the membership of
the existing Convention. Paris rejected this last mentioned
feature of the constitution, while France at large ratified
it. The National Guard of Paris rose in insurrection on the
13th Vendémiare (October 5), and it was on this occasion that
the young Corsican officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, got his foot
on the first round of the ladder by which he climbed
afterwards to so great a height. Put in command of the regular
troops in Paris, which numbered only 5,000, against 30,000 of the
National Guards, he crushed the latter in an action of an
hour. That hour was the opening hour of his career.
The government of the Directory was instituted on the 27th of
October following. Of its five members, Carnot and Barras were
the only men of note, then or afterwards.
The war with the Coalition.
While France was cowering under "the Terror," its armies,
under Jourdan, Hoche, and Pichegru, had withstood the great
European combination with astonishing success. The allies were
weakened by ill feeling between Prussia and Austria over the
second partition of Poland, and generally by a want of concert
and capable leadership in their action. On the other side, the
democratic military system of the Republic, under Carnot's
keen eyes, was continually bringing forward fresh soldierly
talent to the front. The fall of the Jacobins made no change
in that vital department of the administration, and the
successes of the French were continued. In the summer of 1794
they carried the war into Germany, and expelled the allies
from the Austrian Netherlands. Thence they invaded Holland,
and before the end of January, 1795, they were masters of the
country; the Stadtholder had fled to England, and a Batavian
Republic had been organized. Spain had suffered losses in
battle with them along the Pyrenees, and the King of Sardinia
had yielded to them the passes of the Maritime Alps. In April
the King of Prussia made peace with France. Before the close
of the year 1795 the revolt in La Vendée was at an end; Spain
had made peace; Pichegru had attempted a great betrayal of the
armies on the Rhine, and had failed.
Napoleon in Italy.
This in brief was the situation at the opening of the year
1796, when the "little Corsican officer," who won the
confidence of the new government of the Directory by saving
its constitution on the 13th Vendemiare, planned the campaign
of the year, and received the command of the army sent to
Italy. He attacked the Sardinians in April, and a single month
sufficed to break the courage of their king and force him to a
treaty of peace. On the 10th of May he defeated the Austrians
at Lodi; on the 15th he was in Milan. Lombardy was abandoned
to him; all central Italy was at his mercy, and he began to
act the sovereign conqueror in the peninsula, with a contempt
for the government at Paris which he hardly concealed. Two
ephemeral republics were created under his direction, the
Cisalpine, in Lombardy, and the Cispadane, embracing Modena,
Ferrara and Bologna. The Papacy was shorn of part of its
territories.
Every attempt made by the Austrians to shake the hold which
Bonaparte had fastened on the peninsula only fixed it more
firmly. In the spring he began movements beyond the Alps, in
concert with Hoche on the Rhine, which threatened Vienna
itself and frightened Austria into proposals of peace.
Preliminaries, signed in April, foreshadowed the hard terms of
the treaty concluded at Campo Formio in the following October.
Austria gave up her Netherland provinces to France, and part
of her Italian territories to the Cisalpine Republic; but
received, in partial compensation, the city of Venice and a
portion of the dominions of the Venetian state; for, between
the armistice and the treaty, Bonaparte had attacked and
overthrown the venerable republic, and now divided it with his
humbled enemy.
France under the Directory.
The masterful Corsican, who handled these great matters with
the airs of a sovereign, may have known himself already to be
the coming master of France. For the inevitable submission
again of the many to one was growing plain to discerning eyes.
The frightful school-teaching of the Revolution had not
impressed practical lessons in politics on the mind of the
untrained democracy, so much as suspicions, distrusts, and
alarms. All the sobriety of temper, the confidence of feeling,
the constraining habit of public order, without which the
self-government of a people is impracticable, were yet to be
acquired. French democracy was not more prepared for
republican institutions in 1797 than it had been in 1789.
{1093}
There was no more temperance in its factions, no more balance
between parties, no more of a steadying potency in public
opinion. But it had been brought to a state of feeling that
would prefer the sinking of all factions under some vigorous
autocracy, rather than another appeal of their quarrels to the
guillotine. And events were moving fast to a point at which
that choice would require to be made. The summer of 1797 found
the members of the Directory in hopeless conflict with one
another and with the legislative councils. On the 4th of
September a "coup d' état," to which Bonaparte contributed
some help, purged both the Directory and the Councils of men
obnoxious to the violent faction, and exiled them to Guiana.
Perhaps the moment was favorable then for a soldier, with the
great prestige that Bonaparte had won, to mount to the seat of
power; but he did not so judge.
The Expedition to Egypt.
He planned, instead, an expedition to Egypt, directed against
the British power in the East,--an expedition that failed in
every object it could have, except the absence in which it
kept him from increasing political disorders at home. He was
able to maintain some appearance of success, by his
subjugation of Egypt and His invasion of Syria; but of harm
done to England, or of gain to France in the Mediterranean,
there was none; since Nelson, at the battle of the Nile,
destroyed the French fleet, and Turkey was added to the
Anglo-Austrian coalition. The blunder of the expedition, as
proved by its whole results, was not seen by the French people
so plainly, however, as they saw the growing hopelessness of
their own political state, and the alarming reverses which
their armies in Italy and on the Rhine had sustained since
Bonaparte went away.
French Aggressions.--The new Coalition.
Continued aggressions on the part of the French had provoked a
new European coalition, formed in 1798. In Switzerland they
had overthrown the ancient constitution of the confederacy,
organizing a new Helvetic Republic on the Gallic model, but
taking Geneva to themselves. In Italy they had set up a third
republic, the Roman, removing the Pope forcibly from his
sovereignty and from Rome. Every state within reach had then
taken fresh alarm, and even Russia, undisturbed in the
distance, was now enlisted against the troublesome democracy
of France.
The unwise King of Naples, entering rashly into the war before
his allies could support him, and hastening to restore the
Pope, had been driven (December, 1798) from his kingdom, which
underwent transformation into a fourth Italian republic, the
Parthenopeian. But this only stimulated the efforts of the
Coalition, and in the course of the following year the French
were expelled from all Italy, saving Genoa alone, and the
ephemeral republics they had set up were extinguished. On the
Rhine they had lost ground; but they had held their own in
Switzerland, after a fierce struggle with the Russian forces
of Suwarrow.
Napoleon in power.
When news of these disasters, and of the ripeness of the
situation at Paris for a new coup d' état, reached Bonaparte,
in Egypt, he deserted his army there, leaving it, under
Kléber, in a helpless situation, and made his way back to
France. He landed at Fréjus on the 9th of October. Precisely a
month later, by a combination with Sieyès, a veteran
revolutionist and maker of constitutions, he accomplished the
overthrow of the Directory. Before the year closed, a fresh
constitution was in force, which vested substantially
monarchical powers in an executive called the First Consul,
and the chosen First Consul was Napoleon Bonaparte. Two
associate Consuls, who sat with him, had no purpose but to
conceal for a short time the real absoluteness of his rule.
From that time, for fifteen years, the history of France--it
is almost possible to say the history of Europe--is the story
of the career of the extraordinary Corsican adventurer who
took possession of the French nation, with unparalleled
audacity, and who used it, with all that pertained to
it--lives, fortunes, talents, resources--in the most
prodigious and the most ruthless undertakings of personal
ambition that the modern world has ever seen. He was
selfishness incarnate; and he was the incarnation of genius in
all those modes of intellectual power which bear upon the
mastery of momentary circumstances and the mastery of men. But
of the higher genius that might have worthily employed such
vast powers,--that might have enlightened and inspired a
really great ambition in the man, to make himself an enduring
builder of civilization in the world, he had no spark. The
soul behind his genius was ignoble, the spirit was mean. And
even on the intellectual side, his genius had its narrowness.
His projects of selfishness were extraordinary, but never
sagacious, never far-sighted, thoughtfully studied, wisely
planned. There is no appearance in any part of his career of a
pondered policy, guiding him to a well-determined end in what
he did. The circumstances of any moment, whether on the
battle-field or in the political arena, he could handle with a
swift apprehension, a mastery and a power that may never have
been surpassed. But much commoner men have apprehended and
have commanded in a larger and more successful way the general
sweep of circumstances in their lives. It is that fact which
belittles Napoleon in the comparison often made between him
and Cæsar. He was probably Cæsar's equal in war. But who can
imagine Cæsar in Napoleon's place committing the blunders of
blind arrogance which ruined the latter in Germany and Spain,
or making his fatuous attempt to shut England, the great naval
power, out of continental Europe?
His domestic administration was beneficial to France in many
ways. He restored order, and maintained it, with a powerful
hand. He suppressed faction effectually, and eradicated for
the time all the political insanities of the Revolution. He
exploited the resources of the country with admirable success;
for his discernment in such matters was keen and his practical
judgment was generally sound. But he consumed the nation
faster than he gave it growth. His wars--the wars in which
Europe was almost unceasingly kept by the aggression of his
insolence and his greed--were the most murderous, the most
devouring, that any warrior among the civilized races of
mankind has ever been chargeable with.
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His blood-guiltiness in these wars is the one glaring fact
which ought to be foremost in every thought of them. But it is
not. There is a pitiable readiness in mankind to be dazzled
and cheated by red battle-lights, when it looks into history
for heroes; and few figures have been glorified more
illusively in the world's eye than the marvelous warrior, the
vulgar-minded adventurer, the prodigy of self-exalting genius,
Napoleon Bonaparte.
In the first year of his Consulate, Bonaparte recovered Italy,
by the extraordinary Marengo campaign, while Moreau won the
victory of Hohenlinden, and the Treaty of Luneville was
brought about. Austria obtained peace again by renewing the
concessions of Campo Formio, and by taking part in a
reconstruction of Germany, under Bonaparte's dictation, which
secularized the ecclesiastical states, extinguished the
freedom of most of the imperial cities, and aggrandized
Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden and Saxony, as protégés and
dependencies of France. England was left alone in the war,
with much hostile feeling raised against her in Europe and
America by the arrogant use she had made of her mastery of the
sea. The neutral powers had all been embittered by her
maritime pretensions, and Bonaparte now brought about the
organization among them of a Northern League of armed
neutrality. England broke it with a single blow, by Nelson's
bombardment of Copenhagen. Napoleon, however, had conceived
the plan of starving English industries and ruining British
trade by a "continental system" of blockade against them,
which involved the compulsory exclusion of British ships and
British goods from all European countries. This impossible
project committed him to a desperate struggle for the
subjugation of Europe. It was the fundamental cause of his
ruin.
The First Empire.
In 1802 the First Consul advanced his restoration of
absolutism in France a second step, by securing the Consulate
for life. A short interval of peace with England was arranged,
but war broke out anew the following year, and the English for
a time had no allies. The French occupied Hanover, and the
Germans were quiescent. But in 1804, Bonaparte shocked Europe
by the abduction and execution of the Bourbon prince, Duc
d'Enghien, and began to challenge again the interference of
the surrounding powers by a new series of aggressive measures.
His ambition had thrown off all disguises; he had transformed
the Republic of France into an Empire, so called, and himself,
by title, into an Emperor, with an imposing crown. The
Cisalpine or Italian Republic received soon afterwards the
constitution of a kingdom, and he took the crown to himself as
King of Italy. Genoa and surrounding territory (the Ligurian
Republic) were annexed, at nearly the same time, to France;
several duchies were declared to be dependencies, and an
Italian principality was given to Napoleon's elder sister. The
effect produced in Europe by such arbitrary and admonitory
proceedings as these enabled Pitt, the younger, now at the
head of the English government, to form an alliance (1805),
first with Russia, afterwards with Austria, Sweden and Naples,
and finally with Prussia, to break the yoke which the French
Emperor had put upon Italy, Holland, Switzerland and Hanover,
and to resist his further aggressions.
Austerlitz and Trafalgar.
The amazing energy and military genius of Napoleon never had
more astonishing proof than in the swift campaign which broke
this coalition at Ulm and Austerlitz. Austria was forced to
another humiliating treaty, which surrendered Venice and
Venetia to the conqueror's new Kingdom of Italy; gave up Tyrol
to Bavaria; yielded other territory to Würtemberg, and raised
both electors to the rank of kings, while making Baden a grand
duchy, territorially enlarged. Prussia was dragged by force
into alliance with France, and took Hanover as pay. But
England triumphed at the same time on her own element, and
Napoleon's dream of carrying his legions across the Channel,
as Cæsar did, was forever dispelled by Nelson's dying victory
at Trafalgar. That battle, which destroyed the combined navies
of France and Spain, ended hope of contending successfully
with the relentless Britons at sea.
End of the Holy Roman Empire.
France was never permitted to learn the seriousness of
Trafalgar, and it put no check on the vaulting ambition in
Napoleon which now began to o'erleap itself. He gave free rein
to his arrogance in all directions. The King of Naples was
expelled from his kingdom and the crown conferred on Joseph
Bonaparte. Louis Bonaparte was made King of Holland. Southern
Germany was suddenly reconstructed again. The little kingdoms
of Napoleon's creation and the small states surrounding them
were declared to be separated from the ancient Empire, and
were formed into a Confederation of the Rhine, under the
protection of France. Warned by this rude announcement of the
precarious tenure of his imperial title as the head of the
Holy Roman Empire, Francis II. resigned it, and took to
himself, instead, a title as meaningless as that which
Napoleon had assumed,--the title of Emperor of Austria. The
venerable fiction of the Holy Roman Empire disappeared from
history on the 6th of August, 1806.
Subjugation of Prussia.
But while Austria had become submissive to the offensive
measures of Napoleon, Prussia became now fired with
unexpected, sudden wrath, and declared war in October, 1800.
It was a rash explosion of national resentment, and the
rashness was dearly paid for. At Jena and Auerstadt, Prussia
sank under the feet of the merciless conqueror, as helplessly
subjugated as a nation could be. Russia, attempting her
rescue, was overcome at Eylau and Friedland; and both the
vanquished powers came to terms with the victor at Tilsit
(July, 1807). The King of Prussia gave up all his kingdom west
of the Elbe, and all that it had acquired in the second and
third partitions of Poland. A new German kingdom, of
Westphalia, was constructed for Napoleon's youngest brother,
Jerome. A free state of Danzig, dependent on France, and a
Grand Duchy of Warsaw, were created. The Russian Czar, bribed
by some pieces of Polish Prussia, and by prospective
acquisitions from Turkey and Sweden, became an ally of
Napoleon and an accomplice in his plans for the subjection of
Europe. He enlisted his empire in the "continental system"
against England, and agreed to the enforcement of the decree
which Napoleon issued from Berlin, declaring the British
islands in a state of blockade, and prohibiting trade with
them. The British government retorted by its "orders in
council," which blockaded in the like paper-fashion all ports
of France and of the allies and dependencies of France. And so
England and Napoleon fought one another for years in the
peaceful arena of commerce, to the exasperation of neutral
nations and the destruction of the legitimate trade of the
world.
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The crime against Spain.
And now, having prostrated Germany, and captivated the Czar,
Napoleon turned toward another field, which had scarcely felt,
as yet, his intrusive hand. Spain had been in servile alliance
with France for ten years, while Portugal adhered steadily to
her friendship with Great Britain, and now refused to be
obedient to the Berlin Decree. Napoleon took prompt measures
for the punishment of so bold a defiance. A delusive treaty
with the Spanish court, for the partition of the small kingdom
of the Braganzas, won permission for an army under Junot to
enter Portugal, through Spain. No resistance to it was made.
The royal family of Portugal quitted Lisbon, setting sail for
Brazil, and Junot took possession of the kingdom. But this
accomplished only half of Napoleon's design. He meant to have
Spain, as well; and he found, in the miserable state of the
country, his opportunity to work out an ingenious,
unscrupulous scheme for its acquisition. His agents set on
foot a revolutionary movement, in favor of the worthless crown
prince, Ferdinand, against his equally worthless father, Charles
IV., and pretexts were obtained for an interference by French
troops. Charles was first coerced into an abdication; then
Ferdinand was lured to an interview with Napoleon, at Bayonne,
was made prisoner there, and compelled in his turn to
relinquish the crown. A vacancy on the Spanish throne having
been thus created, the Emperor gathered at Bayonne a small
assembly of Spanish notables, who offered the seat to Joseph
Bonaparte, already King of Naples. Joseph, obedient to his
imperial brother's wish, resigned the Neapolitan crown to
Murat, his sister's husband, accepted the crown of Spain, and
was established at Madrid with a French army at his back.
This was one of the two most ruinous of the political blunders
of Napoleon's life. He had cheated and insulted the whole
Spanish nation, in a way too contemptuous to be endured even
by a people long cast down. There was a revolt which did not
spring from any momentary passion, but which had an obstinacy
of deep feeling behind that made effective suppression of it
impossible. French armies could beat Spanish armies, and
disperse them, but they could not keep them dispersed; and
they could not break up the organization of a rebellion which
organized itself in every province, and which went on, when
necessary, without any organization at all. England sent
forces to the peninsula, under Wellington, for the support of
the insurgent Spaniards and Portuguese; and thenceforward, to
the end of his career, the most inextricable difficulties of
Napoleon were those in which he had entangled himself on the
southern side of the Pyrenees.
The chastening of Germany.
The other cardinal blunder in Napoleon's conduct, which proved
more destructive to him than the crime in Spain, was his
exasperating treatment of Germany. There was neither
magnanimity on the moral side of him nor real wisdom on the
intellectual side, to restrain him from using his victory with
immoderate insolence. He put as much shame as he could invent
into the humiliations of the German people. He had Prussia
under his heel, and he ground the heel upon her neck with the
whole weight of his power. The consequence was a pain and a
passion which wrought changes like a miracle in the temper and
character of the abused nation. There were springs of feeling
opened and currents of national life set in motion that might
never have been otherwise discovered. Enlightened men and
strong men from all parts of Germany found themselves called
to Prussia and to the front of its affairs, and their way made
easy for them in labors of restoration and reform. Stein and
Hardenburg remodeled the administration of the kingdom,
uprooted the remains of serfdom in it, and gave new freedom to
its energies. Scharnhorst organized the military system on
which rose in time the greatest of military powers. Humboldt
planned the school system which educated Prussia beyond all
her neighbors, in the succeeding generations. Even the
philosophers came out of their closets and took part, as
Fichte did, in the stirring and uplifting of the spirit of
their countrymen. So it was that the outrages of Napoleon in
Germany revenged themselves, by summoning into existence an
unsuspected energy that would be turned against him to destroy
him in the end.
But the time of destruction was not yet come. He had a few
years of triumph still before him,--of triumph everywhere
except in Portugal and Spain. Austria, resisting him once more
(1809), was once more crushed at Wagram, and to such
submissiveness that it gave a daughter of the imperial house
in marriage to the parvenu sovereign of France, next year,
when he divorced his wife Josephine. He was at the summit of
his renown that year, but already declining from the greatest
height of his power. In 1811 there was little to change the
situation.
The fall of Napoleon.
In 1812 the downfall of Napoleon was begun by his fatal
expedition to Russia. The next year Prussia, half regenerated
within the brief time since Jena and Tilsit, went into
alliance with Russia, and the War of Liberation was begun.
Austria soon joined the alliance; and at Leipzig (Oct. 18,
1813) the three nations shattered at last the yoke of
oppression that had bound Europe so long. At the same time,
the French armies in Spain were expelled, and Wellington
entered France through the Pyrenees, to meet the allies who
pursued Napoleon across the Rhine. Forced to abdicate and
retire to the little island of Elba (the sovereignty of which
was ceded to him), he remained there in quiet from May, 1814,
until March, 1815, when he escaped and reappeared in France.
Army and people welcomed him. The Bourbon monarchy, which had
been restored by the allies, fell at his approach. The king,
Louis XVIII., fled. Napoleon recovered his throne and occupied
it for it few weeks. But the alliance which had expelled him from
it refused to permit his recovery of power. The question was
settled finally at Waterloo, on the 18th of June, when a
British army under Wellington and a Prussian army under
Blücher won a victory which left no hope to the beaten
Emperor. He surrendered himself to the commander of a British
vessel of war, and was sent to confinement for the remainder
of his life on the remote island of St. Helena.
{1096}
The Congress of Vienna.
But Europe, delivered from one tyrannical master, was now
given over to several of them, in a combination which
oppressed it for a generation. The sovereigns who had united
to dethrone Napoleon, with the two emperors, of Austria and
Russia, at their head, and with the Austrian minister,
Metternich, for their most trusted counselor, assumed first,
in the Congress of Vienna, a general work of political
rearrangement, to repair the Revolutionary and Napoleonic
disturbances, and then, subsequently, an authoritative
supervision of European politics which proved as meddlesome as
Napoleon's had been. Their first act, as before stated, was to
restore the Bourbon monarchy in France, indifferent to the
wishes of the people. In Spain, Ferdinand had already taken
the throne, when Joseph fled. In Italy, the King of Sardinia
was restored and Genoa transferred to him; Lombardy and
Venetia were given back to Austria; Tuscany, Modena and some
minor duchies received Hapsburg princes; the Pope recovered
his States, and the Bourbons returned to Naples and Sicily. In
Germany, the Prussian kingdom was enlarged again by several
absorptions, including part of Saxony, but some of its Polish
territory was given to the Czar; Hanover became a kingdom;
Austria resumed the provinces which Napoleon had conveyed to
his Rhenish proteges; and, finally, a Germanic Confederation
was formed, to take the place of the extinct Empire, and with
no more efficiency in its constitution. In the Netherlands, a
new kingdom was formed, to bear the Netherland name, and to
embrace Holland and Belgium in union, with the House of Orange
on the throne.
The Holy Alliance.
Between the Czar, the Emperor of Austria, and the King of
Prussia, there was a personal agreement that went with these
arrangements of the Congress of Vienna, and which was
prolonged for a number of years. In the public understanding,
this was associated, perhaps wrongly, with a written
declaration, known as the Holy Alliance, in which the three
sovereigns set forth their intention to regulate their foreign
and domestic policy by the precepts of Christianity, and
invited all princes to join their alliance for the maintenance
of peace and the promotion of brotherly love. Whether
identical as a fact with this Holy Alliance or secreted behind
it, there was, and long continued to be, an undoubted league
between these sovereigns and others, which had aims very
different from the promotion of brotherly love. It was wholly
reactionary, hostile to all political liberalism, and
repressive of all movements in the interest of the people.
Metternich was its skilful minister, and the deadly, soulless
system of beaureaucratic absolutism which he organized in
Austria was the model of government that it strove to
introduce.
In Italy, the governments generally were reduced to the
Austrian model, and the political state of the peninsula, for
forty years, was scarcely better, if at all, than it had been
under the Spanish rule in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.
Germany, as divided as ever, under a federal constitution
which federated nothing else so much as the big and little
courts and their reactionary ideas, was profoundly depressed
in political spirit, while prospering materially and showing
notable signs of intellectual life.
France was not slow in finding that the restored Bourbons and
the restored émigrés had forgotten nothing and learned
nothing, in the twenty-five years of their exile. They put all
their strength into the turning back of the clock, trying to
make it strike again the hours in which the Revolution and
Napoleon had been so busy. It was futile work; but it sickened
and angered the nation none the less. After all the stress and
struggle it had gone through, there was a strong nation yet to
resist the Bourbonism brought back to power. It recovered from
the exhaustion of its wars with a marvellous quickness. The
millions of peasant land-owners, who were the greatest
creation of the Revolution, dug wealth from its soil with
untiring free arms, and soon made it the most prosperous land
in Europe. Through country and city, the ideas of the
Revolution were in the brains of the common people, while its
energies were in their brawn, and Bourbonism needed more
wisdom than it ever possessed to reconcile them to its
restoration.
Revolutions of 1820-1821.
It was not in France, however, but in Spain, that the first
rising against the restored order of things occurred.
Ferdinand VII., when released from his French imprisonment in
1814, was warmly received in Spain, and took the crown with
quite general consent. He accepted the constitution under
which the country had been governed since 1812, and made large
lying promises of a liberal rule. But when seated on the
throne, he suppressed the constitution, restored the
Inquisition, revived the monasteries, called back the expelled
Jesuits, and opened a deadly persecution of the liberals in
Spanish politics. No effective resistance to him was organized
until 1820, when a revolutionary movement took form which
forced the king, in March, to reestablish the constitution and
call different men to his council. Portugal, at the same time,
adopted a similar constitution, and the exiled king, John VI.,
returning now from Brazil, accepted it.
The revolution in Spain set fire to the discontent that had
smouldered in Italy. The latter broke forth, in the summer of
1820, at Naples, where the Bourbon king made no resistance to
a sudden revolt of soldiers and citizens, but yielded the
constitution they demanded at once. Sardinia followed, in the
next spring, with a rising of the Piedmontese, requiring
constitutional government. The king, Victor Emmanuel I., who
was very old, resigned the crown to his brother, Charles
Felix. The latter refused the demands of the
constitutionalists and called upon Austria for help.
{1097}
These outbreaks of the revolutionary spirit were alarming to
the sovereigns of the Holy Alliance and excited them to a
vigorous activity. They convened a Congress, first at Troppau,
in October, 1820, afterwards at Laybach, and finally at
Verona, to plan concerted action for the suppressing of the
popular movements of the time. As the result of these
conferences, the congenial duty of restoring absolutism in the
Two Sicilies, and of helping the King of Sardinia against his
subjects, was imposed upon Austria and willingly performed;
while the Bourbon court of France was solicited to put an end
to the bad example of constitutional government in Spain. Both
commissions were executed with fidelity and zeal. Italy was
flung down and fettered again; French troops occupied Spain
from 1823 until 1827. England, alone, protested against this
flagrant policing of Europe by the Holy Alliance. Canning, its
spirited minister, "called in the New World," as he described
his policy, "to redress the balance of the old," by
recognizing the independence of the Spanish colonies in
America, which, Cuba excepted, were now separated forever from
the crown of Spain. Brazil in like manner was cut loose from
the Portuguese crown, and assumed the constitution of an
empire, under Dom Pedro, the eldest son of John VI.
Greek War of Independence.
These stifled revolutions in western Europe failed to
discourage a more obstinate insurrection which began in the
East, among the Christian subjects of the Turks, in 1821. The
Ottoman government had been growing weaker and more vicious
for many years. The corrupted and turbulent Janissaries were
the masters of the empire, and a sultan who attempted, as
Selim III. (1789-1807) had done, to introduce reforms, was
put to death. Russia, under Alexander I., had been continuing
to gain ground at the expense of the Turks, and assuming more
and more of a patronage of the Christian subjects of the
Porte. There seems to be little doubt that the rising begun in
1821, which had its start in Moldavia, and its first leader in a
Greek, Ypsilanti, who had been an officer in the Russian
service, received encouragement from the Czar. But Alexander
turned his back on it when the Greeks sprang to arms and
seriously appealed to Europe for help in a war of national
independence. The Congress of Verona condemned the Greek
rising, in common with that of Spain. Again, England alone
showed sympathy, but did nothing as a government, and left the
struggling Greeks to such help as they might win from
individual friends. Lord Byron, with others, went to Greece,
carrying money and arms; and, generally, these volunteers lost
much of their ardor in the Greek cause when they came into
close contact with its native supporters. But the Greeks,
however lacking in high qualities, made an obstinate fight,
and held their ground against the Turks, until the feeling of
sympathy with them had grown too strong in England and in
France for the governments of those countries to be heedless
of it. Moreover, in Russia, Alexander I. had been succeeded
(1825) by the aggressive Nicholas, who had not patience to
wait for the slow crumbling of the Ottoman power, but was
determined to break it as summarily as he could. He joined
France and England, therefore, in an alliance and in a naval
demonstration against the Turks (1827), which had its result
in the battle of Navarino. The allies of Nicholas went no
farther; but he pursued the undertaking, in a war which lasted
until the autumn of 1829. Turkey at the end of it conceded the
independence of Greece, and practically that of Wallachia and
Moldavia. In 1830, a conference at London established the
Greek kingdom, and in 1833 a Bavarian prince, Otho I., was
settled on the throne.
Revolutions of 1830.
Before this result was reached, revolution in western Europe,
arrested in 1821-23, had broken out afresh. Bourbonism had
become unendurable to France. Charles X., who succeeded his
brother Louis XVIII; in 1824, showed not only a more arbitrary
temper, but a disposition more deferential to the Church than
his predecessor. He was fond of the Jesuits, whom his subjects
very commonly distrusted and disliked. He attempted to put
shackles on the press, and when elections to the chamber of
deputies went repeatedly against the government, he undertook
practically to alter the suffrage by ordinances of his own. A
revolution seemed then to be the only remedy that was open to
the nation, and it was adopted in July, 1830, the veteran
Lafayette taking the lead. Charles X. was driven to
abdication, and left France for England. The crown was
transferred to Louis Philippe, of the Orleans branch of the
Bourbon family,--son of the Philip Égalité who joined the
Jacobins in the Revolution.
The July Revolution in France proved a signal for more
outbreaks in other parts of Europe than had followed the
Spanish rising of ten years before.
Belgium broke away from the union with Holland, which had
never satisfied its people, and, after some struggle, won
recognized independence, as a new kingdom, with Leopold of
Saxe Coburg raised to the throne.
Russian Poland, bearing the name of a constitutional kingdom
since 1815, but having the Czar for its king and the Czar's
brother for viceroy, found no lighter oppression than before,
and made a hopeless, brave attempt to escape from its bonds.
The revolt was put down with unmerciful severity, and
thousands of the hapless patriots went to exile in Siberia.
In Germany, there were numerous demonstrations in the smaller
states, which succeeded more or less in extorting
constitutional concessions; but there was no revolutionary
movement on a larger scale.
Italy remained quiet in both the north and the south, where
disturbances had arisen before; but commotions occurred in the
Papal states, and in Modena and Parma, which required the arms
of Austria to suppress.
In England, the agitations of the continent hastened forward a
revolution which went far beyond all other popular movements
of the time in the lasting importance of its effects, and
which exhibited in their first great triumph the peaceful
forces of the Platform and the Press.
{1098}
England under the last two Georges.
But we have given little attention to affairs in Great Britain
during the past half century or more, and need to glance
backward.
Under the third of the Georges, there was distinctly a check
given to the political progress which England had been making
since the Revolution of 1688. The wilfulness of the king
fairly broke down, for a considerable period, the system of
responsible cabinet government which had been taking shape and
root under the two earlier Hanoverians, and ministers became
again, for a time, mere mouthpieces of the royal will. The
rupture with the American colonies, and the unsuccessful war
which ended in their independence, brought in another
influence, adverse, for the time being, to popular claims in
government. For it was not King George, alone, nor Lord North,
nor any small Tory faction, that prosecuted and upheld the
attempt to make the colonists in America submissive to
"taxation without representation." The English nation at large
approved the war; English national sentiment was hostile to
the Americans in their independent attitude, and the
Whigs--the liberals then in English politics--were a
discredited and weakened party for many years because of their
leaning to the American side of the questions in dispute.
Following close upon the American war, came the French
Revolution, which frightened into Toryism great numbers of
people who did not by nature belong there. In England, as
everywhere else, the reaction lasted long, and government was
more arbitrary and repressive than it could possibly have
continued to be under different circumstances.
Meantime extraordinary social changes had taken place, which
tended to mark more strongly the petrifying of things in the
political world. The great age of mechanical invention had
been fully opened. Machines had begun to do the work of human
hands in every industry, and steam had begun to move the
machines. The organization of labor, too, had assumed a new
phase. The factory system had arisen; and with it had appeared
a new growth of cities and towns. Production was accelerated;
wealth was accumulating more rapidly, and the distribution of
wealth was following different lines. The English middle class
was rising fast as a money-power and was gathering the
increased energies of the kingdom into its hands.
Parliamentary Reform in England.
But while the tendency of social changes had been to increase
vastly the importance of this powerful middle class, the
political conditions had actually diminished its weight in
public affairs. In Parliament, it had no adequate
representation. The old boroughs, which sent members to the
House of Commons as they had sent them for generations before,
no longer contained a respectable fraction of the "commons of
England," supposed to be represented in the House, and those
who voted in the boroughs were not at all the better class of
the new England of the nineteenth century. Great numbers of
the boroughs were mere private estates, and the few votes
polled in them were cast by tenants who elected their
landlords' nominees. On the other hand, the large cities and
the numerous towns of recent growth had either no
representation in Parliament, or they had equal representation
with the "rotten boroughs" which cast two or three or
half-a-dozen votes.
That the commons of England, with all the gain of substantial
strength they had been making in the last half of the
eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth,
endured this travesty of popular representation so long as
until 1832, is proof of the potency of the conservatism which
the French Revolution induced. The subject of parliamentary
reform had been now and then discussed since Chatham's time;
but Toryism had always been able to thrust it aside and bring
the discussion to naught. At last there came the day when the
question would no longer be put down. The agitations of 1830,
combined with a very serious depression of industry and trade,
produced a state of feeling which could not be defied. King and
Parliament yielded to the public demand, and the First Reform
Bill was passed. It widened the suffrage and amended very
considerably the inequities of the parliamentary
representation; but both reforms have been carried much
farther since, by two later bills.
Repeal of the English Corn Laws.
The reform of Parliament soon brought a broader spirit into
legislation. Its finest fruits began to ripen about 1838, when
an agitation for the repeal of the foolish and wicked English
"corn-laws" was opened by Cobden and Bright. In the day of the
"rotten boroughs," when the landlords controlled Parliament,
they imagined that they had "protected" the farming interest,
and secured higher rents to themselves, by laying heavy duties
on the importation of foreign bread-stuffs. A famous "sliding
scale" of such duties had been invented, which raised the
duties when prices in the home market dropped, and lowered
them proportionately when home prices rose. Thus the consumers
were always deprived, as much as possible, of any cheapening
of their bread which bountiful Nature might offer, and paid a
heavy tax to increase the gains of the owners and cultivators
of land.
Now that other "interests" besides the agricultural had a
voice in Parliament, and had become very strong, they began to
cry out against this iniquity, and demand that the "corn laws"
be done away with. The famous "anti-corn-law league,"
organized mainly by the exertions of Richard Cobden, conducted
an agitation of the question which brought about the repeal of
the laws in 1846.
But the effect of the agitation did not end there. So thorough
and prolonged a discussion of the matter had enlightened the
English people upon the whole question between "protection"
and free trade. The manufacturers and mechanics, who had led
the movement against protective duties on food-stuffs, were
brought to see that they were handicapped more than protected
by duties on imports in their own departments of production.
So Cobden and his party continued their attacks on the theory
of "protection" until every vestige of it was cleared from the
English statute books.
The Revolutions of 1848.
Another year of revolutions throughout Europe came in 1848,
and the starting point of excitement was not, this time, at
Paris, but, strangely enough, in the Vatican, at Rome. Pius
IX. had been elected to the papal chair in 1846, and had
immediately rejoiced the hearts and raised the hopes of the
patriots in misgoverned Italy by his liberal measures of
reform and his promising words. The attitude of the Pope gave
encouragement to popular demonstrations in various Italian
states during the later part of 1847; and in January 1848 a
formidable rising occurred in Sicily, followed in February by
another in Naples. King Ferdinand II. was compelled to change
his ministers and to concede a constitution, which he did not
long respect.
{1099}
Lombardy was slow this time in being kindled; but when the
flame of revolution burst out it was very fierce. The
Austrians were driven first from Milan (March, 1848), and then
from city after city, until they seemed to be abandoning their
Italian possessions altogether. Venice asserted its republican
independence under the presidency of Daniel Manin. Charles
Albert, King of Sardinia, thought the time favorable for
recovering Lombardy to himself, and declared war against
Austria. The expulsion of the Austrians became the demand of
the entire peninsula, and even the Pope, the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, and the King of Naples were forced to join the
patriotic movement in appearance, though not with sincerity.
But the King of Sardinia brought ruin on the whole
undertaking, by sustaining a fatal defeat in battle at
Custozza, in July, 1848.
France had been for some time well prepared for revolt, and
was quick to be moved by the first whisper of it from Italy.
The short-lived popularity of Louis Philippe was a thing of
the past. There was widespread discontent with many things,
and especially with the limited suffrage. The French people
had the desire and the need of something like that grand
measure of electoral reform which England secured so
peacefully in 1832; but they could not reach it in the
peaceful way. The aptitude and the habit of handling and
directing the great forces of public opinion effectively in
such a situation were alike wanting among them. There was a
mixture, moreover, of social theories and dreams in their
political undertaking, which heated the movement and made it
more certainly explosive. The Parisian mob took arms and built
barricades on the 23d of February. The next day Louis Philippe
signed an abdication, and a week later he was an exile in
England. For the remainder of the year France was strangely
ruled: first by a self-constituted provisional government,
Lamartine at its head, which opened national workshops, and
attempted to give employment and pay to 125,000 enrolled
citizens in need; afterwards by a Constituent National
Assembly, and an Executive Commission, which found the
national workshops a devouring monster, difficult to control
and hard to destroy. Paris got rid of the shops in June, at
the cost of a battle which lasted four days, and in which more
than 8,000 people were wounded or slain. In November a
republican constitution, framed by the Assembly, was adopted,
and on the 10th of December Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, son of
Louis Bonaparte, once King of Holland, and of Hortense
Beauharnais, daughter of the Empress Josephine, was elected
President of the Republic by an enormous popular vote.
The revolutionary shock of 1848 was felt in Germany soon after
the fall of the monarchy in France. In March there was rioting
in Berlin and a collision with the troops, which alarmed the
king so seriously that he yielded promises to almost every
demand. Similar risings in other capitals had about the same
success. At Vienna, the outbreak was more violent and drove
both Metternich and the Emperor from the city. In the first
flush of these popular triumphs there came about a most
hopeful-looking election of a Germanic National Assembly,
representative of all Germany, and gathered at Frankfort, on
the invitation of the Diet, for a revision of the constitution
of the Confederation. But the Assembly contained more learned
scholars than practical statesmen, and its constitutional work
was wasted labor. A Constituent Assembly elected in Prussia
accomplished no more, and was dispersed in the end without
resistance; but the king granted a constitution of his own
framing. The revolutionary movement in Germany left its
effects, in a general loosening of the bonds of harsh
government, a general broadening of political ideas, a final
breaking of the Metternich influence, even in Austria; but it
passed over the existing institutions of the much-divided
country with a very light touch.
In Hungary the revolution, stimulated by the eloquence of
Kossuth, was carried to the pitch of serious war. The
Hungarians had resolved to be an independent nation, and in
the struggle which ensued they approached very near the
attainment of their desire; but Russia came to the help of the
Hapsburgs, and the armies of the two despotisms combined were
more than the Hungarians could resist. Their revolt was
abandoned in August, 1849, and Kossuth, with other leaders,
escaped through Turkish territory to other lands.
The suppression of the Hungarian revolt was followed by a
complete restoration of the despotism and domination of the
Austrians in Italy. Charles Albert, of Sardinia, had taken
courage from the struggle in Hungary and had renewed
hostilities in March, 1849. But, again, he was crushingly
defeated, at Novara, and resigned, in despair, the crown to
his son, Victor Emmanuel II. Venice, which had resisted a long
siege with heroic constancy, capitulated in August of the same
year. The whole of Lombardy and Venetia was bowed once more
under the merciless tyranny of the Austrians, and savage
revenges were taken upon the patriots who failed to escape.
Rome, whence the Pope--no longer a patron of liberal
politics--had fled, and where a republic had been once more
set up, with Garibaldi and Mazzini in its constituent
assembly, was besieged and taken, and the republic overturned,
by troops sent from republican France. The Neapolitan king
restored his atrocious absolutism without help, by measures of
the greatest brutality.
A civil war in Switzerland, which occurred simultaneously with
the political collisions in surrounding countries, is hardly
to be classed with them. It was rather a religious conflict,
between the Roman Catholics and their opponents. The Catholic
cantons, united in a League, called the Sonderbund, were
defeated in the war; the Jesuits were expelled from
Switzerland in consequence, and, in September, 1848, a new
constitution for the confederacy was adopted.
{1100}
The Second Empire in France.
The election of Louis Napoleon to the Presidency of the French
Republic was ominous of a disposition among the people to
bring back a Napoleonic regime, with all the falsities that it
might imply. He so construed the vote which elected him, and
does not seem to have been mistaken. Having surrounded himself
with unprincipled adventurers, and employed three years of his
presidency in preparations for the attempt, he executed a coup
d' état on the 2d of December, dispersing the National
Assembly, arresting influential republicans, and submitting to
popular vote a new constitution which prolonged his presidency
to ten years. This was but the first step. A year later he
secured a "plébiscite" which made him hereditary Emperor of
the French. The new Empire--the Second Empire in France--was
more vulgar, more false, more fraudulent, more swarmingly a
nest of self-seeking and dishonest adventurers, than the First
had been, and with nothing of the saving genius that was in
the First. It rotted for eighteen years, and then it fell,
France with it.
The Crimean War.
A certain respectability was lent to this second Napoleonic
Empire by the alliance of England with it in 1854, against
Russia. The Czar, Nicholas, had determined to defy resistance
in Europe to his designs against the Turks. He first
endeavored to persuade England to join him in dividing the
possessions of "the sick man," as he described the Ottoman,
and, that proposal being declined, he opened on his own
account a quarrel with the Porte. France and England joined
forces in assisting the Turks, and the little kingdom of
Sardinia, from motives of far-seeing policy, came into the
alliance. The principal campaign of the war was fought in the
Crimea, and its notable incident was the long siege of
Sebastopol, which the Russians defended until September, 1855.
An armistice was concluded the following January, and the
terms of peace were settled at a general conference of powers
in Paris the next March. The results of the war were a check
to Russia, but an improvement of the condition of the Sultan's
Christian subjects. Moldavia and Wallachia were soon
afterwards united under the name of Roumania, paying tribute
to the Porte, but otherwise independent.
Liberation and Unification of Italy.
The part taken by Sardinia in the Crimean War gave that
kingdom a standing in European politics which had never been
recognized before. It was a measure of sagacious policy due to
the able statesman, Count Cavour, who had become the trusted
minister of Victor Emmanuel, the Sardinian king. The king and
his minister were agreed in one aim--the unification of Italy
under the headship of the House of Savoy. By her participation
in the war with Russia, Sardinia won a position which enabled
her to claim and secure admission to the Congress of Paris,
among the greater powers. At that conference, Count Cavour
found an opportunity to direct attention to the deplorable
state of affairs in Italy, under the Austrian rule and
influence. No action by the Congress was taken; but the
Italian question was raised in importance at once by the
discussion of it, and Italy was rallied to the side of
Sardinia as the necessary head of any practicable movement
toward liberation. More than that: France was moved to
sympathy with the Italian cause, and Louis Napoleon was led to
believe that his throne would be strengthened by espousing it.
He encouraged Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, therefore, in an
attitude toward Austria which resulted in war (1859), and when
the Sardinians were attacked he went to their assistance with
a powerful force. At Magenta and Solferino the Austrians were
decisively beaten, and the French emperor then abruptly closed
the war, making a treaty which ceded Lombardy alone to
Sardinia, leaving Venetia still under the oppressor, and the
remainder of Italy unchanged in its state. For payment of the
service he had rendered, Louis Napoleon exacted Savoy and
Nice, and Victor Emmanuel was compelled to part with the
original seat of his House.
There was bitter disappointment among the Italian patriots
over the meagerness of the fruit yielded by the splendid
victories of Magenta and Solferino. Despite the treaty of
Villafranca, they were determined to have more, and they did.
Tuscany, Parma, Modena and Romagna demanded annexation to
Sardinia, and, after a plébiscite, they were received (March,
1860) into the kingdom and represented in its parliament. In
the Two Sicilies there was an intense longing for deliverance
from the brutalities of the Neapolitan Bourbons. Victor
Emmanuel could not venture an attack upon the rotten kingdom,
for fear of resentments in France and elsewhere. But the
adventurous soldier, Garibaldi, now took on himself the task
of completing the liberation of Italy. With an army of
volunteers, he first swept the Neapolitans out of Sicily, and
then took Naples itself, within the space of four months,
between May and September, 1860. The whole dominion was
annexed to what now became the Kingdom of Italy, and which
embraced the entire peninsula except Rome, garrisoned for the
Pope by French troops, and Venetia, still held in the clutches
of Austria. In 1862, Garibaldi raised volunteers for an attack
on Rome; but the unwise movement was suppressed by Victor
Emmanuel. Two years later, the King of Italy brought about an
agreement with the French emperor to withdraw his garrison
from Rome, and, after that had been done, the annexation of
Rome to the Italian kingdom was a mere question of time. It
came about in 1870, after the fall of Louis Napoleon, and
Victor Emmanuel transferred his capital to the Eternal City.
The Pope's domain was then limited to the precincts of the
Vatican.
The Austro-Prussian War.
The unification of Italy was the first of a remarkable series
of nationalizing movements which have been the most
significant feature of the history of the last half of the
nineteenth century. The next of these movements to begin was
in Germany--the much divided country of one peculiarly
homogeneous and identical race. Influences tending toward
unification had been acting on the Germans since Prussia rose
to superiority in the north. By the middle of the century, the
educated, military Prussia that was founded after 1806 had
become a power capable of great things in capable hands; and
the capable hands received it. In 1861, William I. succeeded
his brother as king; in 1862, Otto von Bismarck became his
prime minister. It was a remarkable combination of qualities
and talents, and remarkable results came from it.
{1101}
In 1864, Prussia and Austria acted together in taking
Schleswig and Holstein, as German states, from Denmark. The
next year they quarreled over the administration of the
duchies. In 1866, they fought, and Austria was entirely
vanquished in a "seven weeks war." The superiority of Prussia,
organized by her great military administrator and soldier,
Moltke, was overpowering. Her rival was left completely at her
mercy. But Bismarck and his king were wisely magnanimous. They
refrained from inflicting on the Austrians a humiliation that
would rankle and keep enmities alive. They foresaw the need of
future friendship between the two powers of central Europe, as
against Russia on the one side and France on the other, and
they shaped their policy to secure it. It sufficed them to
have put Austria out of the German circle, forever; to have
ended the false relation in which the Hapsburgs--rulers of an
essentially Slavonic and Magyar dominion--had stood towards
Germany so long.
Prussia now dominated the surrounding German states so
commandingly that the mode and the time of their unification
may be said to have been within her own control. Hanover,
Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, Schleswig-Holstein, and Frankfort were
incorporated in the Prussian kingdom at once. Saxony and the
other states of the north were enveloped in a North German
Confederation, with the King of Prussia for its hereditary
president and commander of its forces. The states of southern
Germany were left unfederated for the time being, but bound
themselves by treaty to put their armies at the disposal of
Prussia. Thus Germany as a whole was already made practically
one power, under the control of King William and his great
minister.
Final Expulsion of Austria from Italy.
The same war which unified Germany carried forward the
nationalization of Italy another step. Victor Emmanuel had
shrewdly entered into an alliance with Prussia before the war
began, and attacked Austria in Venetia simultaneously with the
German attack on the Bohemian side. The Italians were beaten
at Custozza, and their navy was defeated in the Adriatic; but
the victorious Prussians exacted Venetia for them in the
settlement of peace, and Austria had no more footing in the
peninsula.
Austria-Hungary.
It is greatly to the credit of Austria, long blinded and
stupefied by the narcotic of absolutism, that the lessons of
the war of 1866 sank deep into her mind and produced a very
genuine enlightenment. The whole policy of the court of Vienna
was changed, and with it the constitution of the Empire. The
statesmen of Hungary were called into consultation with the
statesmen of Austria, and the outcome of their discussions was
an agreement which swept away the old Austria, holding Hungary
in subjection, and created in its place a new power--a federal
Austria-Hungary--equalized in its two principal parts, and
united under the same sovereign with distinct constitutions.
The Franco-German War.
The surprising triumph of Prussia in the Seven Weeks War stung
Louis Napoleon with a jealousy which he could not conceal. He
was incapable of perceiving what it signified,--of perfection
in the organization of the Prussian kingdom and of power in
its resources. He was under illusions as to the strength of
his own Empire. It had been honeycombed by the rascalities
that attended and surrounded him, and he did not know it. He
imagined France to be capable of putting a check on Prussian
aggrandizement; and he began very early after Sadowa to pursue
King William with demands which were tolerably certain to end
in war. When the war came, in July, 1870, it was by his own
declaration; yet Prussia was prepared for it and France was
not. In six weeks time from the declaration of war,--in one
month from the first action,--Napoleon himself was a prisoner
of war in the hands of the Germans, surrendered at Sedan, with
the whole army which he personally commanded; the Empire was in
collapse, and a provisional government had taken the direction
of affairs. On the 20th of September Paris was invested; on
the 28th of October Baznine, with an army of 150,000 men,
capitulated at Metz. A hopeless attempt to rally the nation to
fresh efforts of defence in the interior, on the Loire, was
valiantly made under the lead of Gambetta; but it was too
late. When the year closed, besieged Paris was at the verge of
starvation and all attempts to relieve the city had failed. On
the 28th of January, 1871, an armistice was sought and
obtained; on the 30th, Paris was surrendered and the Germans
entered it. The treaty of peace negotiated subsequently ceded
Alsace to Germany, with a fifth of Lorraine, and bound France
to pay a war indemnity of five milliards of francs.
The Paris Commune.
In February, 1871, the provisional "Government of National
Defense" gave way to a National Assembly, duly elected under
the provisions of the armistice, and an executive was
instituted at Bordeaux, under the presidency of M. Thiers.
Early in March, the German forces were withdrawn from Paris,
and control of the city was immediately seized by that
dangerous element--Jacobinical, or Red Republican, or
Communistic, as it may be variously described--which always
shows itself with promptitude and power in the French capital,
at disorderly times. The Commune was proclaimed, and the
national government was defied. From the 2d of April until the
28th of May Paris was again under siege, this time by forces
of the French government, fighting to overcome the
revolutionists within. The proceedings of the latter were more
wantonly destructive than those of the Terrorists of the
Revolution, and scarcely less sanguinary. The Commune was
suppressed in the end with great severity.
The Third French Republic.
M. Thiers held the presidency of the Third Republic in France
until 1873, when he resigned and was succeeded by Marshal
MacMahon. In 1875 the constitution which has since remained,
with some amendments, in force, was framed and adopted. In
1878 Marshal MacMahon gave place to M. Jules Grévy, and the
latter to M. Sadi Carnot in 1887. Republican government seems
to be firmly and permanently established in France at last.
The country is in a prosperous state, and nothing but its
passionate desire to recover Alsace and to avenge Sedan
appears threatening to its future.
{1102}
The new German Empire.
While the army of the Germans was still besieging Paris, and
King William and Prince Bismarck were at Versailles, in
January, 1871, the last act which completed the unification
and nationalization of Germany was performed. This was the
assumption of the title of Emperor by King William, in
response to the prayer of the princes of Germany and of the
North German Parliament. On the 16th of the following April, a
constitution for the German Empire was proclaimed.
The long and extraordinary reign of the Emperor William I. was
ended by his death in 1888. His son, Frederick III., was dying
at the time of an incurable disease, and survived his father
only three months. The son of Frederick III., William II.,
signalized the beginning of his reign by dismissing, after a
few months, the great minister, Count Bismarck, on whom his
strong grandfather had leaned, and who had wrought such
marvels of statesmanship and diplomacy for the German race.
What may lie at the end of the reign which had this
self-sufficient beginning is not to be foretold.
The Russo-Turkish War.
Since the Franco-German War of 1870-1871, the peace of Europe
has been broken but once by hostilities within the European
boundary. In 1875 a rising against the unendurable misrule of
the Turks began in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was imitated
the next year in Bulgaria. Servia and Montenegro declared war
against Turkey and were overcome. Russia then espoused the
cause of the struggling Slavs, and opened, in 1877, a most
formidable new attempt to crush the Ottoman power, and to
accomplish her coveted extension to the Mediterranean. From
May until the following January the storm of war raged
fiercely along the Balkans. The Turks fought stubbornly, but
they were beaten back, and nothing but a dangerous opposition
of feeling among the other powers in Europe stayed the hand of
the Czar from being laid upon Constantinople. The powers
required a settlement of the peace between Russia and Turkey
to be made by a general Congress, and it was held at Berlin in
June, 1878. Bulgaria was divided by the Congress into two
states, one tributary to the Turk, but freely governed, the
other subject to Turkey, but under a Christian governor. This
arrangement was set aside seven years later by a bloodless
revolution, which formed one Bulgaria in nominal relations of
dependence upon the Porte. This was the third important
nationalizing movement within a quarter of a century, and it
is likely to go farther in southeastern Europe, until it
settles, perhaps, "the Eastern question," so far as the
European side of it is concerned.
Bosnia and Herzegovina were given to Austria by the Congress
of Berlin; the independence of Roumania, Servia, and
Montenegro was made more complete; the island of Cyprus was
turned over to Great Britain for administration.
Spain in the last half Century.
A few words will tell sufficiently the story of Spain since
the successor of Joseph Bonaparte quitted the scene. Ferdinand
VII. died in 1833, and his infant daughter was proclaimed
queen, as Isabella II., with her mother, Christina, regent.
Isabella's title was disputed by Don Carlos, the late king's
brother, and a civil war between Carlists and Christinos went
on for years. When Isabella came of age she proved to be a
dissolute woman, with strong proclivities toward arbitrary
government. A liberal party, and even a republican party, had
been steadily gaining ground in Spain, and the queen placed
herself in conflict with it. In 1868 a revolution drove her
into France. The revolutionists offered the crown to a prince
distantly related to the royal family of Prussia. It was this
incident that gave Louis Napoleon a pretext for quarreling
with the King of Prussia in 1870 and declaring war. Declined
by the Hohenzollern prince, the Spanish crown was then offered
to Amadeo, son of the King of Italy, who accepted it, but
resigned it again in 1873, after a reign of two years, in
disgust with the factions which troubled him. Castelar, the
distinguished republican orator, then formed a republican
government which held the reins for a few months, but could
not establish order in the troubled land. The monarchy was
restored in December, 1874, by the coronation of Alfonso XII.,
son of the exiled Isabella. Since that time Spain has
preserved a tolerably peaceful and contented state.
England and Ireland.
In recent years, the part which Great Britain has taken in
Continental affairs has been slight; and, indeed, there has
been little in those affairs to bring about important
international relations. In domestic politics, a single series
of questions, concerning Ireland and the connection of Ireland
with the British part of the United Kingdom, has mastered the
field, overriding all others and compelling the statesmen of
the day to take them in hand. The sudden imperiousness of
these questions affords a peculiar manifestation of the
political conscience in nations which the nineteenth century
has wakened and set astir. Through all the prior centuries of
their subjection, the treatment of the Irish people by the
English was as cruel and as heedless of justice and right as
the treatment of Poles by Russians or of Greeks by Turks. They
were trebly oppressed: as conquered subjects of an alien race,
as religious enemies, as possible rivals in production and
trade. They were deprived of political and civil rights; they
were denied the ministrations of their priests; the better
employments and more honorable professions were closed to
them; the industries which promised prosperity to their
country were suppressed. A small minority of Protestant
colonists became the recognized nation, so far as a
nationality in Ireland was recognized at all. When Ireland was
said to have a Parliament, it was the Parliament of the
minority alone. No Catholic sat in it; no Catholic was
represented in it. When Irishmen were permitted to bear arms,
they were Protestant Irishmen only who formed the privileged
militia. Seven-tenths of the inhabitants of the island were
politically as non-existent as actual serfdom could have made
them. For the most part they were peasants and their state as
such scarcely above the condition of serfs. They owned no
land; their leases were insecure; the laws protected them in
the least possible degree; their landlords were mostly of the
hostile creed and race. No country in Europe showed conditions
better calculated to distress and degrade a people.
{1103}
This was the state of things in Ireland until nearly the end
of the eighteenth century. In 1782 legislative independence
was conceded; but the independent legislature was still the
Parliament in which Protestants sat alone. In 1793 Catholics
were admitted to the franchise; but seats in Parliament were
still denied to them and they must elect Protestants to
represent them. In 1800 the Act of Union, creating the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, extinguished the
Parliament at Dublin and provided for the introduction of
Irish peers and members to represent Irish constituencies in
the greater Parliament at London; but still no Catholic could
take a seat in either House. Not until 1829, after eighteen
years of the fierce agitation which Daniel O'Connell stirred
up, were Catholic disabilities entirely removed and the people
of that faith placed on an equal footing with Protestants in
political and civil rights. O'Connell's agitation was not for
Catholic emancipation alone, but for the repeal of the Act of
Union and the restoration of legislative independence and
national distinctness to Ireland. That desire has been hot in
the Irish heart from the day the Union was accomplished. After
O'Connell's death, there was quiet on the subject for a time.
The fearful famine of 1845-7 deadened all political feeling.
Then there was a recurrence of the passionate animosity to
British rule which had kindled unfortunate rebellions in 1798
and 1803. It produced the Fenian conspiracies, which ran their
course from about 1858 to 1867. But soon after that time Irish
nationalism resumed a more politic temper, and doubled the
energy of its efforts by confining them to peaceful and lawful
ways. The Home Rule movement, which began in 1873, was aimed
at the organization of a compact and well-guided Irish party
in Parliament, to press the demand for legislative
independence and to act with united weight on lines of Irish
policy carefully laid down. This Home Rule party soon acquired
a powerful leader in Mr. Charles Parnell, and was successful
in carrying questions of reform in Ireland to the forefront of
English politics.
Under the influence of its great leader, Mr. Gladstone, the
Liberal party had already, before the Home Rule party came
into the field, begun to adopt measures for the redress of
Irish wrongs. In 1869, the Irish branch of the Church of
England, calling itself the Church of Ireland, was
disestablished. The membership of that church was reckoned to
be one-tenth of the population; but it had been supported by
the taxation of the whole. The Catholics, the Presbyterians
and other dissenters were now released from this unjust
burden. In 1870, a Land Bill--the first of several, which
restrict the power of Irish landlords to oppress their
tenants, and which protect the latter, while opening
opportunities of land-ownership to them--was passed. The land
question became for a time more prominent than the Home Rule
question, and the party of Mr. Parnell was practically
absorbed in an Irish National Land League, formed to force
landlords to a reduction of rents. The methods of coercion
adopted brought the League into collision with the Liberal
Government, notwithstanding the general sympathy of the latter
with Irish complaints. For a time the Irish Nationalists went
into alliance with the English Conservatives; but in 1886 Mr.
Gladstone became convinced, and convinced the majority of his
party, that just and harmonious relations between Ireland and
Great Britain could never be established without the
concession of Home Rule to the former. A bill which he
introduced to that end was defeated in the House of Commons
and Mr. Gladstone resigned. In 1892 he was returned to power,
and in September of the following year he carried in the House
of Commons a bill for the transferring of Irish legislation to
a distinct Parliament at Dublin. It was defeated, however, in
the House of Lords, and the question now rests in an unsettled
state. Mr. Gladstone's retirement from the premiership and
from the leadership of his party, which occurred in March,
1894, may affect the prospects of the measure; but the English
Liberals are committed to its principle, and it appears to be
certain that the Irish question will attain some solution
within no very long time.
Conclusion.
The beginning of the year 1894, when this is written, finds
Europe at peace, as it has been for a number of years. But the
peace is not of friendship, nor of honorable confidence, nor
of good will. The greater nations are lying on their arms, so
to speak, watching one another with strained eyes and with
jealous hearts. France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Russia, are
marshaling armies in the season of peace that, not many years
ago, would have seemed monstrous for war. Exactions of
military service and taxation for military expenditure are
pressed upon their people to the point of last endurance. The
preparation for battle is so vast in its scale, so unceasing,
so increasing, so far in the lead over all other efforts among
men, that it seems like a new affirmation of belief that war
is the natural order of the world.
And yet, the dread of war is greater in the civilized world
than ever before. The interests and influences that work for
peace are more powerful than at any former time. The wealth
which war threatens, the commerce which it interrupts, the
industry which it disturbs, the intelligence which it offends,
the humanity which it shocks, the Christianity which it
grieves, grow stronger to resist it, year by year. The
statesman and the diplomatist are under checks of
responsibility which a generation no older than Palmerston's
never felt. The arbitrator and the tribunal of arbitration
have become familiar within a quarter of a century. The spirit
of the age opposes war with rising earnestness and increasing
force; while the circumstance and fact of the time seem
arranged for it as the chief business of mankind. It is a
singular and a critical situation; the outcome from it is
impenetrably hidden.
Within itself, too, each nation is troubled with hostilities
that the world has not known before. Democracy in politics is
bringing in, as was inevitable, democracy in the whole social
system; and the period of adjustment to it, which we are
passing through, could not fail to be a period of trial and of
many dangers. The Anarchist, the Nihilist, the Socialist in
his many variations--what are they going to do in the time
that lies before us?
Europe, at the present stage of its history, is in the thick
of many questions; and so we leave it.
{1104}
EURYMEDON, Battles of the (B. C. 466).
See ATHENS: B. C. 470-466.
EUSKALDUNAC.
See BASQUES.
EUTAW SPRINGS, Battle of(1781).
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780-1781.
EUTHYNI, The.
See LOGISTÆ.
EUTYCHIAN HERESY.
See NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY.
EUXINE, The.
Euxinus Pontus, or Pontus Euxinus, the Black Sea,
as named by the Greeks.
EVACUATION DAY.
The anniversary of the evacuation of New York by
the British, Nov. 25, 1783.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1783 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
EVANGELICAL UNION OF GERMANY, The.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1608-1618.
EVER VICTORIOUS ARMY, The.
See CHINA: A. D. 1850-1864.
EVESHAM, Battle of (1265).
The battle which finished the civil war in England known as
the Barons' War. It was fought Aug. 3, 1265, and Earl Simon de
Montfort, the soul of the popular cause, was slain, with most
of his followers. Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I.,
commanded the royal forces.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.
EVICTIONS, Irish.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1886.
EXARCHS OF RAVENNA.
See ROME: A. D. 554-800.
EXARCHS OF THE DIOCESE.
See PRIMATES.
EXCHEQUER.--EXCHEQUER ROLLS.--EXCHEQUER TALLIES.
"The Exchequer of the Norman kings was the court in which the
whole financial business of the country was transacted, and as
the whole administration of justice, and even the military
organisation, was dependent upon the fiscal officers, the
whole framework of society may be said to have passed annually
under its review. It derived its name from the chequered cloth
which covered the table at which the accounts were taken, a
name which suggested to the spectator the idea of a game at
chess between the receiver and the payer, the treasurer and
the sheriff. ... The record of the business was preserved in
three great rolls; one kept by the Treasurer, another by the
Chancellor, and a third by an officer nominated by the king,
who registered the matters of legal and special importance.
The rolls of the Treasurer and Chancellor were duplicates;
that of the former was called from its shape the great roll of
the Pipe, and that of the latter the roll of the Chancery. These
documents are mostly still in existence. The Pipe Rolls are
complete from the second year of Henry II. and the
Chancellor's Rolls nearly so. Of the preceding period only one
roll, that of the thirty-first year of Henry I., is preserved,
and this with Domesday book is the most valuable store of
information which exists for the administrative history of the
age. The financial reports were made to the barons by the
sheriffs of the counties. At Easter and Michælmas each of
these magistrates produced his own accounts and paid in to the
Exchequer such an instalment or proffer as he could afford,
retaining in hand sufficient money for current expenses. In
token of receipt a tally was made; a long piece of wood in
which a number of notches were cut, marking the pounds,
shillings, and pence received; this stick was then split down
the middle, each half contained exactly the same number of
notches, and no alteration could of course be made without
certain detection. ... The fire which destroyed the old Houses
of Parliament is said to have originated in the burning of the
old Exchequer tallies."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 11, section 126.
"The wooden 'tallies' on which a large notch represented
£1,000, and smaller notches other sums, while a halfpenny was
denoted by a small round hole, were actually in use at the
Exchequer until the year 1824."--
Sir J. Lubbock,
Preface to Hall's "Antiquities and
Curiosities of the Exchequer."
ALSO IN: E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages,
book 1, number 5.
See, also, CURIA REGIS and CHESS.
EXCHEQUER, Chancellor of the.
In the reign of Henry III., of England, "was created the
office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, to whom the Exchequer
seal was entrusted, and who with the Treasurer took part in
the equitable jurisdiction of the Exchequer, although not in
the common law jurisdiction of the barons, which extended
itself as the legal fictions of pleading brought common pleas
into this court."
W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15, section 237.
EXCLUSION BILL, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1679-1681.
EXCOMMUNICATIONS AND INTERDICTS.
"Excommunication, whatever opinions may be entertained as to
its religious efficacy, was originally nothing more in
appearance than the exercise of a right which every society
claims, the expulsion of refractory members from its body. No
direct temporal disadvantages attended this penalty for
several ages; but as it was the most severe of spiritual
censures, and tended to exclude the object of it, not only
from a participation in religious rites, but in a considerable
degree from the intercourse of Christian society, it was used
sparingly and upon the gravest occasions. Gradually, as the
church became more powerful and more imperious,
excommunications were issued upon every provocation, rather as
a weapon of ecclesiastical warfare than with any regard to its
original intention. ... Princes who felt the inadequacy of
their own laws to secure obedience called in the assistance of
more formidable sanctions. Several capitularies of Charlemagne
denounce the penalty of excommunication against incendiaries
or deserters from the army. Charles the Bald procured similar
censures against his revolted vassals. Thus the boundary
between temporal and spiritual offences grew every day less
distinct; and the clergy were encouraged to fresh
encroachments, as they discovered the secret of rendering them
successful. ... The support due to church censures by temporal
judges is vaguely declared in the capitularies of Pepin and
Charlemagne. It became in later ages a more established
principle in France and England, and, I presume, in other
countries. By our common law an excommunicated person is
incapable of being a witness or of bringing an action; and he
may be detained in prison until he obtains absolution. By the
Establishments of St. Louis, his estate or person might be
attached by the magistrate. These actual penalties were
attended by marks of abhorrence and ignominy still more
calculated to make an impression on ordinary minds. They were
to be shunned, like men infected with leprosy, by their
servants, their friends, and their families. ...
{1105}
But as excommunication, which attacked only one and perhaps a
hardened sinner, was not always efficacious, the church had
recourse to a more comprehensive punishment. For the offence
of a nobleman she put a county, for that of a prince his
entire kingdom, under an interdict or suspension of religious
offices. No stretch of her tyranny was perhaps so outrageous
as this. During an interdict the churches were closed, the
bells silent, the dead unburied, no rite but those of baptism
and extreme unction performed. The penalty fell upon those who
had neither partaken nor could have prevented the offence; and
the offence was often but a private dispute, in which the
pride of a pope or bishop had been wounded. Interdicts were so
rare before the time of Gregory VII., that some have referred
them to him as their author; instances may however be found of
an earlier date."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 7, part 1.
ALSO IN:
M. Gosselin,
The Power of the Pope in the Middle Ages,
part 2, chapter 1, article 3.
H. C. Lea,
Studies in Church History,
part 3.
P. Schaff,
History of the Christian Church,
volume 4, chapter 8, section 86.
EXECUTIVE SESSIONS.
See CONGRESS OF THE UNITED SESSIONS.
EXEGETÆ, The.
A board of three persons in ancient Athens "to whom
application might be made in all matters relating to sacred
law, and also, probably, with regard to the significance of
the Diosemia, or celestial phenomena and other signs by which
future events were foretold."
G. F. Schömann,
Antiquities of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapter 3.
EXETER, Origin of.
"Isca Damnoniorum, Caer Wisc, Exanceaster, Exeter, keeping
essentially the same name under all changes, stands
distinguished as the one great English city which has, in a
more marked way than any other, kept its unbroken being and
its unbroken position throughout all ages. The City on the
Exe, in all ages and in all tongues keeping its name as the
City on the Exe, allows of an easy definition. ... It is the
one city [of England] in which we can feel sure that human
habitation and city life have never ceased from the days of
the early Cæsars to our own." At the Norman conquest, Exeter
did not submit to William until after a siege of 18 days, in
1068.
E. A. Freeman,
Exeter,
chapters 1-2.
EXILARCH, The.
See JEWS: 7TH CENTURY.
EXODUS FROM EGYPT, The.
See JEWS: THE ROUTE OF THE EXODUS.
EYLAU, Battle of (1807).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1807.
EYRE, Governor, and the Jamaica insurrection.
See JAMAICA: A. D. 1865.
EYSTEIN I., King of Norway, A. D. 1116-1122.
Eystein II., 1155--1157.
EZZELINO, OR ECCELINO DI ROMANO,
The tyranny of, and the crusade against.
See VERONA: A. D. 1236-1259.
F.
FABIAN POLICY.-FABIAN TACTICS.
The policy pursued by Q. Fabius Maximus, the Roman Dictator,
called "the Cunctator" or Lingerer, in his campaigns against
Hannibal.
See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.
FACTORY LEGISLATION, English.
"During the 17th and 18th centuries, when the skill of the
workmen had greatly improved, and the productiveness of labour
had increased, various methods were resorted to for the
purpose of prolonging the working day. The noontide nap was
first dispensed with, then other intervals of rest were
curtailed, and ultimately artificial light was introduced,
which had the effect of abolishing the difference between the
short days of winter and the long days of summer, thus
equalising, the working day throughout the year. The opening
of the 19th century was signalised by a new cry, namely, for a
reduction in the hours of labour; this was in consequence of
the introduction of female and child labour into the
factories, and the deterioration of the workers as a result of
excessive overwork. ... The overwork of the young, and
particularly the excessive hours in the factories, became such
crying evils that in 1801 the first Act was passed to restrict
the hours of labour for apprentices, who were prohibited from
working more than 12 hours a day, between six A. M. and nine
P. M., and that provision should be made for teaching them to
read and write, and other educational exercises. This Act
further provided that the mills should be whitewashed at least
once a year; and that doors and windows should be made to
admit fresh air. This Act was followed by a series of
commissions and committees of inquiry, the result being that
it was several times amended. The details of the evidence
given before the several commissions and committees of inquiry
are sickening in the extreme; the medical testimony was
unanimous in its verdict that the children were physically
ruined by overwork; those who escaped with their lives were so
crippled and maimed that they were unable to maintain
themselves in after life, and became paupers. It was proven
that out of 4,000 who entered the factory before they were 30
years of age, only 600 were to be found in the mills after
that age. By Sir Robert Peel's Bill in 1819 it was proposed to
limit the hours to 11 per day with one and a half for meals,
for those under 16 years of age. But the mill-owners
prophesied the ruin of the manufacturers of the country--they
could not compete with the foreign markets, it was an
interference with the freedom of labour, the spare time given
would be spent in debauchery and riot, and that if passed,
other trades would require the same provisions. The Bill was
defeated, and the hours fixed at 72 per week; the justices,
that is to say the manufacturers, were entrusted with the
enforcement of the law. In 1825 a new law was passed defining
the time when breakfast and dinner was to be taken, and fixing
the time to half an hour for the first repast, and a full hour
for dinner; the traditional term of apprentices was dropped
and the modern classification of children and young persons
was substituted, and children were once more prohibited from
working more than 12 hours a day. But every means was adopted
to evade the law. ... After thousands of petitions, and
numerous angry debates in Parliament, the Act of 1833 was
passed, which limited the working hours of children to 48
hours per week, and provided that each child should have a
certain amount of schooling, and with it factory inspectors
were appointed to enforce the law.
{1106}
But the law was not to come into operation until March 1,
1836, during which time it had to be explained and defended in
one session, amended in a second, and made binding in a third.
After several Royal Commissions and inquiries by select
committees, this Act has been eight times amended, until the
working hours of children are now limited to six per day, and
for young persons and women to 56 per week; these provisions
with certain modifications are now extended to workshops, and
the whole law is being consolidated and amended. ... The whole
series of the Factory Acts, dating from 42 George III., c. 73,
to the 37 and 38 Victoria 1874, forms a code of legislation,
in regard to working people, unexampled in any age and
unequalled in any country in the world. . . . Outside
Parliament efforts have been constantly made to further reduce
the working hours."
G. Howell,
The Conflicts of Capital and Labour,
pages 298-301.
"The continental governments, of course, have been obliged to
make regulations covering kindred subjects, but rarely have
they kept pace with English legislation. America has enacted
progressive laws so far as the condition of factory workers
has warranted. It should be remembered that the abuses which
crept into the system in England never existed in this country
in any such degree as we know they did in the old country. Yet
there are few States in America where manufactures predominate
or hold an important position in which law has not stepped in
and restricted either the hours of labor, or the conditions of
labor, and insisted upon the education of factory children,
although the laws are usually silent as to children of
agricultural laborers. It is is not wholly in the passage of
purely factory acts that the factory system has influenced the
legislation of the world. England may have suffered
temporarily from the effects of some of her factory
legislation, and the recent reduction of the hours of labor to
nine and one-half per day, less than in any other country, has
had the effect of placing her works at a disadvantage; but, in
the long run, England will be the gainer on account of all the
work she has done in the way of legislative restrictions upon
labor. In this she has changed her whole policy. Formerly
trade must be restricted and labor allowed to demoralize
itself under the specious plea of being free; now, trade must
be free and labor restricted in the interests of society,
which means in the interest of good morals. The factory system
has not only wrought this change, but has compelled the
economists to recognize the distinction between commodities
and services. There has been greater and greater freedom of
contract in respect to commodities, but the contracts which
involve labor have become more and more completely under the
authority and supervision of the State. 'Seventy-five years
ago scarcely a single law existed in any country for
regulating the contract for services in the interest of the
laboring classes. At the same time the contract for
commodities was everywhere subject to minute and incessant
regulations' [Hon. F. A. Walker]. Factory legislation in
England, as elsewhere, has had for its chief object the
regulation of the labor of children and women; but its scope
has constantly increased by successive and progressive
amendments until they have attempted to secure the physical
and moral well-being of the working-man in all trades, and to
give him every condition of salubrity and of personal safety
in the workshops. The excellent effect of factory legislation
has been made manifest throughout the whole of Great Britain.
'Physically, the factory child can bear fair comparison with
the child brought up in the fields,' and, intellectually,
progress is far greater with the former than with the latter.
Public opinion, struck by these results, has demanded the
extension of protective measures for children to every kind of
industrial labor, until parliament has brought under the
influence of these laws the most powerful industries. To carry
the factory regulations and those relative to schooling into
effect, England has an efficient corps of factory inspectors.
The manufacturers of England are unanimous in acknowledging
that to the activity, to the sense of impartiality, displayed
by these inspectors, is due the fact that an entire
application of the law has been possible without individual
interests being thereby jeopardized to a very serious extent.
... In no other country is there so elaborate a code of
factory laws as the 'British factory and workshop act' of 1878
(41 Vict., chapter 16), it being an act consolidating all the
factory acts since Sir Robert Peel's act of 1802."
C. D. Wright,
Factory Legislation
(Tenth Census of the United States, volume 2).
ALSO IN:
First annual Report of the Factory Inspectors of
the State of New York, 1886, appendix.
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapters 22 and 27.
H. Martineau,
History of the Thirty Years' Peace,
volume 2, pages 512-515.
See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1832-1833.
FADDILEY, Battle of.
Fought successfully by the Britons with the West Saxons, on
the border of Cheshire, A. D. 583.
J. R. Green,
The Making of England,
page 206.
FAENZA, Battle of (A. D. 542).
See ROME: A. D. 535-553.
FÆSULÆ.
See FLORENCE, ORIGIN AND NAME.
FAGGING.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
ENGLAND.--THE GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
FAGGIOLA, Battle of (1425).
See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.
FAINÉANT KINGS.
See FRANKS: A. D. 511-752.
FAIR OAKS, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (MAY: VIRGINIA).
FAIRFAX AND THE PARLIAMENTARY ARMY.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JANUARY-APRIL),
and (JUNE); 1647 (APRIL-AUGUST);
1648 (NOVEMBER); 1649 (FEBRUARY).
FALAISE.
"The Castle [in Normandy] where legend fixes the birth of
William of Normandy, and where history fixes the famous homage
of William of Scotland, is a vast donjon of the eleventh or
twelfth century. One of the grandest of those massive square
keeps which I have already spoken of as distinguishing the
earliest military architecture of Normandy crowns the summit
of a precipitous rock, fronted by another mass of rock, wilder
still, on which the cannon of England were planted during
Henry's siege. To these rocks, these 'felsen,' the spot owes
its name of Falaise. ... Between these two rugged heights lies
a narrow dell. ... The den is crowded with mills and
tanneries, but the mills and tanneries of Falaise have their
share in the historic interest of the place. ... In every from
which the story has taken in history or legend, the mother of
the Conqueror appears as the daughter of a tanner of Falaise."
E. A. Freeman,
Norman Conquest,
chapter 8, section 1.
{1107}
FALAISE, Peace of (1175).
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1174-1189.
FALK LAWS, The.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1873-1887.
FALKIRK, Battles of (1298 and 1746).
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1290-1305;
and 1745-1746.
FAMAGOSTA: A. D. 1571. Taken by the Turks.
See TURKS: A. D. 1566-1571.
FAMILIA.
The slaves belonging to a master were collectively called
familia among the Romans.
E. Guhl and W. Koner,
Life of the Greeks and Romans,
section 100.
FAMILY COMPACT,
The First Bourbon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1733.
The Second.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER).
The Third.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (AUGUST).
FAMILY COMPACT IN CANADA, The.
See CANADA: A. D.1820-1837.
FAMINE, The Cotton.
See, ENGLAND: A. D. 1861-1865,
FAMINE, The Irish.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1845-1847.
FANARIOTS.
See PHANARIOTS.
FANEUIL HALL.
"The fame of Faneuil Hall [Boston, Mass.] is as wide as the
country itself. It has been called the 'Cradle of Liberty,'
because dedicated by that early apostle of freedom, James
Otis, to the cause of liberty, in a speech delivered in the
hall in March, 1763. ... Its walls have echoed to the voices
of the great departed in times gone by, and in every great
public exigency the people, with one accord, assembled
together to take counsel within its hallowed precincts. ...
The Old Market-house ... existing in Dock Square in 1734, was
demolished by a mob in 1736-37. There was contention among the
people as to whether they would be served at their houses in
the old way, or resort to fixed localities, and one set of
disputants took this summary method of settling the question.
... In 1740, the question of the Market-house being revived,
Peter Faneuil proposed to build one at his own cost on the
town's land in Dock Square, upon condition that the town
should legally authorize it, enact proper regulations, and
maintain it for the purpose named. Mr. Faneuil's noble offer
was courteously received, but such was the division of opinion
on the subject that it was accepted by a majority of only
seven votes, out of 727 persons voting. The building was
completed in September, 1742, and three days after, at a
meeting of citizens, the hall was formally accepted and a vote
of thanks passed to the donor. ... The town voted that the
hall should be called Faneuil Hall forever. ... The original
size of the building was 40 by 100 feet, just half the present
width; the hall would contain 1,000 persons. At the fire of
January 13, 1763, the whole interior was destroyed, but the
town voted to rebuild in March, and the State authorized a
lottery in aid of the design. The first meeting after the
rebuilding was held on the 14th March, 1763, when James Otis
delivered the dedicatory address. In 1806 the Hull was
enlarged in width to 80 feet, and by the addition of a third
story."
S. A. Drake,
Old Landmarks of Boston,
chapter 4.
FANNIAN LAW, The.
See ORCHIAN, FANNIAN, DIDIAN LAWS.
FARM.
See FERM.
FARMERS' ALLIANCE.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1877-1891.
FARMER'S LETTERS, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1767-1768.
FARNESE, Alexander, Duke of Parma, in the Netherlands.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581, to 1588-1593.
FARNESE, The House of.
See PARMA: A. D. 1545-1592.
FARRAGUT, Admiral David G.
Capture of New Orleans.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
Attack on Vicksburg.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (MAY-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
Victory in Mobile Bay.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D.1864 (AUGUST: ALABAMA).
FARSAKH, OR FARSANG, The.
See PARASANG.
FASCES.
See LICTORS.
FASTI.
"Dies Fasti were the days upon which the Courts of Justice [in
ancient Rome] were open, and legal business could be
transacted before the Praetor; the Dies Nefasti were those
upon which the Courts were closed. ... All days consecrated to
the worship of the Gods by sacrifices, feasts or games, were
named Festi. ... For nearly four centuries and a-half after
the foundation of the city the knowledge of the Calendar was
confined to the Pontifices alone. ... These secrets which
might be, and doubtless often were, employed for political
ends, were at length divulged in the year B. C. 314, by Cn.
Flavius, who drew up tables embracing all this
carefully-treasured information, and hung them up in the Forum
for the inspection of the public. From this time forward
documents of this description were known by the name of Fasti.
... These Fasti, in fact, corresponded very closely to a
modern Almanac. ... The Fasti just described have, to prevent
confusion, been called Calendaria, or Fasti Calendares, and
must be carefully distinguished from certain compositions also
named Fasti by the ancients. These were regular chronicles in
which were recorded each year the names of the Consuls and
other magistrates, together with the remarkable events, and
the days on which they occurred. The most important were the
Annales Maximi, kept by the Pontifex Maximus."
W. Ramsay,
Manual of Roman Antiquities,
chapter 11.
FATIMITE CALIPHS, The.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE: A. D. 908-1171;
Also, ASSASSINS.
FAVILA, King of Leon and the Asturias, or Oviedo, A. D. 737-739.
FEAST OF LIBERTY.
See GREECE: B. C. 479:
PERSIAN WARS.
PLATÆA.
FEAST OF REASON, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (NOVEMBER).
FEAST OF THE FEDERATION, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1791.
FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793-1794 (NOVEMBER-JUNE).
FECIALES.--FETIALES.
See FETIALES.
FEDELI.
See CATTANI.
FEDERAL CITY, The.
See WASHINGTON (CITY): A. D. 1791.
FEDERAL CONSTITUTION OF SWITZERLAND.
See CONSTITUTION OF THE SWISS CONFEDERATION.
{1108}
FEDERAL CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
See CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.--FEDERATIONS.
"Two requisites seem necessary to constitute a Federal
Government in ... its most perfect form. On the one hand, each
of the members of the Union must be wholly independent in
those matters which concern each member only. On the other
hand, all must be subject to a common power in those matters
which concern the whole body of members collectively. Thus
each member will fix for itself the laws of its criminal
jurisprudence, and even the details of its political
constitution. And it will do this, not as a matter of
privilege or concession from any higher power, but as a matter
of absolute right, by virtue of its inherent powers as an
independent commonwealth. But in all matters which concern the
general body, the sovereignty of the several members will
cease. Each member is perfectly independent within its own
sphere; but there is another sphere in which its independence,
or rather its separate existence, vanishes. It is invested
with every right of sovereignty on one class of subjects, but
there is another class of subjects on which it is as incapable
of separate political action as any province or city of a
monarchy or of an indivisible republic. ... Four Federal
Commonwealths ... stand out, in four different ages of the
world, as commanding, above all others, the attention of
students of political history. Of these four, one belongs to
what is usually known as 'ancient,' another to what is
commonly called 'mediæval' history; a third arose in the
period of transition between mediæval and modern history; the
creation of the fourth may have been witnessed by some few of
those who are still counted among living men, ... These four
Commonwealths are, First, the Achaian League [see GREECE: B.
C. 280-146] in the later days of Ancient Greece, whose most
flourishing period comes within the third century before our
era. Second, the Confederation of the Swiss Cantons [see
CONSTITUTION OF THE SWISS CONFEDERATION], which, with many
changes in its extent and constitution, has lasted from the
thirteenth century to our own day. Third, the Seven United
Provinces of the Netherlands [see NETHERLANDS: A. D.
1577-1581, and after], whose Union arose in the War of
Independence against Spain, and lasted, in a republican form,
till the war of the French Revolution. Fourth, the United
States of North America [see CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA], which formed a Federal Union after their revolt
from the British Crown under George the Third, and whose
destiny forms one of the most important, and certainly the
most interesting, of the political problems of our own time.
Of these four, three come sufficiently near to the full
realization of the Federal idea to be entitled to rank among
perfect Federal Governments. The Achaian League, and the
United States since the adoption of the present Constitution,
are indeed the most perfect developments of the Federal
principle which the world has ever seen. The Swiss
Confederation, in its origin a Union of the loosest kind, has
gradually drawn the Federal bond tighter and tighter, till,
within our own times, it has assumed a form which fairly
entitles it to rank beside Achaia and America. The claim of
the United Provinces is more doubtful; their union was at no
period of their republican being so close as that of Achaia,
America, and modern Switzerland."
E. A. Freeman,
History of Federal Government,
volume 1, pages 3-6.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Classification of Federal Governments.
"To the classification of federal governments publicists have
given great attention with unsatisfactory results. History
shows a great variety of forms, ranging from the lowest
possible organization, like that of the Amphictyonic Council
[see AMPHIKTYONIC COUNCIL] to the highly centralized and
powerful German Empire. Many writers deny that any fixed
boundaries can be described. The usual classification is,
however, into three divisions,--the Staatenstaat, or state
founded on states; the Staatenbund, or union of states--to
which the term Confederacy nearly corresponds; and the
Bundesstaat, or united state, which answers substantially to
the term federation as usually employed. The Staatenstaat is
defined to be a state in which the units are not individuals,
but states, and which, therefore, has no operation directly on
individuals, but deals with and legislates for its corporate
members; they preserve undisturbed their powers of government
over their own subjects. The usual example of a Staatenstaat
is the Holy Roman Empire [see ROMAN EMPIRE, THE HOLY]. This
conception ... is, however, illogical in theory, and never has
been carried out in practice. ... Historically, also, the
distinction is untenable. The Holy Roman Empire had courts,
taxes, and even subjects not connected with the states. In
theory it had superior claims upon all the individuals within
the Empire; in practice it abandoned control over the states.
The second category is better established. Jellinek says:
"When states form a permanent political alliance, of which
common defence is at the very least the purpose, with
permanent federal organs, there arises a Staatenbund.' This
form of government is distinguished from an alliance by the
fact that it has permanent federal organs; from a commercial
league by its political purpose; from a Bundesstaat by its
limited purpose. In other words, under Staatenbund are
included the weaker forms of true federal government, in which
there is independence from other powers, and, within the
purposes of the union, independence from the constituent
states. ... The Staatenbund form includes most of the federal
governments which have existed. The Greek confederations
(except perhaps the Lycian and Achæan) and all the mediæval
leagues were of this type: even the strong modern unions of
the United States, Germany, and Switzerland, have gone through
the Staatenbund stage in their earlier history. Between the
Staatenbund and the more highly developed form, the
Bundesstaat, no writer has described an accurate boundary.
There are certain governments, notably those of Canada,
Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, in which is found
an elaborate and powerful central organism, including federal
courts; to this organism is assigned all or nearly all the
common concerns of the nation; within its exclusive control
are war, foreign affairs, commerce, colonies, and national
finances; and there is an efficient power of enforcement
against states. Such governments undoubtedly are
Bundesstaaten."
A. B. Hart,
Introduction to the Study of Federal Government
(Harvard Historical Monographs, number 2),
chapter 1.
{1109}
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Greek Federations.
"Under the conditions of the Græco-Roman civic life there were
but two practicable methods of forming a great state and
diminishing the quantity of warfare. The one method was
conquest with incorporation, the other method was federation.
... Neither method was adopted by the Greeks in their day of
greatness. The Spartan method of extending its power was
conquest without incorporation: when Sparta conquered another
Greek city, she sent a harmost to govern it like a tyrant; in
other words she virtually enslaved the subject city. The
efforts of Athens tended more in the direction of a peaceful
federalism. In the great Delian confederacy [see GREECE: B. C.
478-477, and ATHENS: B. C. 466-454], which developed into the
maritime empire of Athens, the Ægean cities were treated as
allies rather than subjects. As regards their local affairs
they were in no way interfered with, and could they have been
represented in some kind of a federal council at Athens, the
course of Grecian history might have been wonderfully altered.
As it was, they were all deprived of one essential element of
sovereignty,--the power of controlling their own military
forces. ... In the century following the death of Alexander,
in the closing age of Hellenic independence, the federal idea
appears in a much more advanced stage of elaboration, though
in a part of Greece which had been held of little account in
the great days of Athens and Sparta. Between the Achaian
federation, framed in 274 B. C., and the United States of
America, there are some interesting points of resemblance
which have been elaborately discussed by Mr. Freeman, in his
'History of Federal Government.' About the same time the
Ætolian League [see ÆTOLIAN LEAGUE] came into prominence in
the north. Both these leagues were instances of true federal
government, and were not mere confederations; that is, the
central government acted directly upon all the citizens and
not merely upon the local governments. Each of these leagues
had for its chief executive officer a General elected for one
year, with powers similar to those of an American President.
In each the supreme assembly was a primary assembly at which
every citizen from every city of the league had a right to be
present, to speak, and to vote; but as a natural consequence
these assemblies shrank into comparatively aristocratic
bodies. In Ætolia, which was a group of mountain cantons
similar to Switzerland, the federal union was more complete
than in Achaia, which was a group of cities. ... In so far as
Greece contributed anything towards the formation of great and
pacific political aggregates, she did it through attempts at
federation. But in so low a state of political development as
that which prevailed throughout the Mediterranean world in
pre-Christian times, the more barbarous method of conquest
with incorporation was more likely to be successful on a great
scale. This was well illustrated in the history of Rome,--a civic
community of the same generic type with Sparta and Athens, but
presenting specific differences of the highest importance. ...
Rome early succeeded in freeing itself from that insuperable
prejudice which elsewhere prevented the ancient city from
admitting aliens to a share in its franchise. And in this
victory over primeval political ideas lay the whole secret of
Rome's mighty career."
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Mediæval Leagues in Germany.
"It is hardly too much to say that the Lombard League led
naturally to the leagues of German cities. The exhausting
efforts of the Hohenstaufen Emperors to secure dominion in
Italy compelled them to grant privileges to the cities in
Germany; the weaker emperors, who followed, bought support
with new charters and privileges. The inability of the Empire
to keep the peace or to protect commerce led speedily to the
formation of great unions of cities, usually commercial in
origin, but very soon becoming political forces of prime
importance. The first of these was the Rhenish League, formed
in 1254. The more important cities of the Rhine valley, from
Basle to Cologne, were the original members; but it eventually
had seventy members, including several princes and ruling
prelates. The league had Colloquia, or assemblies, at stated
intervals; but, beyond deciding upon a general policy, and the
assignment of military quotas, it had no legislative powers.
There was, however, a Kommission, or federal court, which
acted as arbiter in disputes between the members. The chief
political service of the league was to maintain peace during
the interregnum in the Empire (1256-1273). During the
fourteenth century it fell apart, and many of its members
joined the Hansa or Suabian League. ... In 1377 seventeen
Suabian cities, which had been mortgaged by the Emperor,
united to defend their liberties. They received many
accessions of German and Swiss cities; but in 1388 they were
overthrown by Leopold III. of Austria, and all combinations of
cities were forbidden. A federal government they cannot be
said to have possessed; but political, almost federal
relations continued during the fifteenth century. The similar
leagues of Frankfort and Wetterau were broken up about the
same time. Other leagues of cities and cantons were in a like
manner formed and dissolved,--among them the leagues of
Hauenstein and Burgundy; and there was a confederation in
Franche Comté, afterward French territory. All the mediæval
leagues thus far mentioned were defensive, and had no extended
relations beyond their own borders. The great Hanseatic League
[see HANSA TOWNS], organized as a commercial union, developed
into a political and international power, which negotiated and
made war on its own account with foreign and German
sovereigns; and which was for two centuries one of the leading
powers of Europe."
A. B. Hart,
Introduction to the Study of Federal Government
(Harvard Historical Monographs, number 2),
chapter 3.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Mediæval League of Lombardy.
When Frederick Barbarossa entered Italy for the fifth time in
1163, to enforce the despotic sovereignty over that country
which the German kings, as emperors, were then claiming (see
ITALY: A. D. 961-1039), a league of the Lombard cities was
formed to resist him. "Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso,
the most powerful towns of the Veronese marches, assembled
their consuls in congress, to consider of the means of putting
an end to a tyranny which overwhelmed them. The consuls of
these four towns pledged themselves by oath in the name of
their cities to give mutual support to each other in the
assertion of their former rights, and in the resolution to
reduce the imperial prerogatives to the point at which they
were fixed under the reign of Henry IV. Frederick, informed of
this association; returned hastily into Northern Italy, to put it
down ... but he soon perceived that the spirit of liberty had
made progress in the Ghibeline cities as well as in those of
the Guelphs. ...
{1110}
Obliged to bend before a people which he considered only as
revolted subjects, he soon renounced a contest so humiliating,
and returned to Germany, to levy an army more submissive to
him. Other and more pressing interests diverted his attention
from this object till the autumn of 1166. ... When Frederick,
in the month of October, 1166, descended the mountains of the
Grisons to enter Italy by the territory of Brescia, he marched
his army directly to Lodi, without permitting any act of
hostility on the way. At Lodi, he assembled, towards the end
of November, a diet of the kingdom of Italy, at which he
promised the Lombards to redress the grievances occasioned by
the abuses of power by his podestas, and to respect their just
liberties; ... to give greater weight to his negotiation, he
marched his army into Central Italy. ... The towns of the
Veronese marches, seeing the emperor and his army pass without
daring to attack them, became bolder: they assembled a new
diet, in the beginning of April, at the convent of Pontida,
between Milan and Bergamo. The consuls of Cremona, of Bergamo,
of Brescia, of Mantua and Ferrara met there, and joined those
of the marches. The union of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, for
the common liberty, was hailed with universal joy. The
deputies of the Cremonese, who had lent their aid to the
destruction of Milan, seconded those of the Milanese villages
in imploring aid of the confederated towns to rebuild the city
of Milan. This confederation was called the League of Lombardy.
The consuls took the oath, and their constituents afterwards
repeated it, that every Lombard should unite for the recovery
of the common liberty; that the league for this purpose should
last twenty years; and, finally, that they should aid each
other in repairing in common any damage experienced in this
sacred cause, by any one member of the confederation:
extending even to the past this contract for reciprocal
security, the league resolved to rebuild Milan. ... Lodi was
soon afterwards compelled, by force of arms, to take the oath
to the league; while the towns of Venice, Placentia, Parma,
Modena, and Bologna voluntarily and gladly joined the
association."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Italian Republics,
chapter 2.
In 1226 the League was revived
or renewed against Frederick II.
See ITALY: A. D. 1183-1250.
"Milan and Bologna took the lead, and were followed by
Piacenza, Verona, Brescia, Faenza, Mantua, Vercelli, Lodi,
Bergamo, Turin, Alessandria, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso. ...
Nothing could be more unlike, than the First and the Second
Lombard Leagues, that of 1167, formed against Frederick the
First after the most cruel provocation, was sanctioned by the
Pope, and had for its end the deliverance of Lombardy. That of
1226, formed against Frederick the Second, after no
provocation received, was discountenanced by the Pope, and
resulted in the frustration of the Crusade and in sowing the
germ of endless civil wars. This year is fixed upon by the
Brescian Chronicler as the beginning of 'those plaguy factions
of Guelf and Ghibelline, which were so engrained into the
minds of our forefathers, that they have handed them down as
an heir-loom to their posterity, never to come to an end.'"
T. L. Kington,
History of Frederick the Second,
volume 1, pages 265-266.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Modern Federations.
"A remarkable phenomenon of the last hundred years is the
impetus that has been given to the development of Federal
institutions. There are to-day contemporaneously existing no
less than eight distinct Federal Governments. First and
foremost is the United States of America, where we have an
example of the Federal Union in the most perfect form yet
attained. Then comes Switzerland, of less importance than the
United States of America, but most nearly approaching it in
perfection. Again we have the German Empire [see CONSTITUTION
OF GERMANY], that great factor in European politics, which is
truly a Federal Union, but a cumbrous one and full of
anomalies. Next in importance comes the Dominion of Canada
[see CONSTITUTION OF CANADA], which is the only example of a
country forming a Federal Union and at the same time a colony.
Lastly come the Argentine Republic, Mexico, and the States of
Colombia and Venezuela [see CONSTITUTIONS]. This is a very
remarkable list when we consider that never before the present
century did more than two Federal Unions ever coexist, and
that very rarely, and that even those unions were far from
satisfying the true requirements of Federation. Nor is this
all. Throughout the last hundred years we can mark a growing
tendency in countries that have adopted the Federal type of
Government to perfect that Federal type and make it more truly
Federal than before. In the United States of America, for
instance, the Constitution of 1789 was more truly Federal than
the Articles of Confederation, and certainly since the Civil
War we hear less of State Rights, and more of Union. It has
indeed been remarked that the citizens of the United States
have become fond of applying the words 'Nation' and 'National'
to themselves in a manner formerly unknown. We can mark the
same progress in Switzerland. Before 1789, Switzerland formed
a very loose system of Confederated States--in 1815, a
constitution more truly Federal was devised; in 1848, the
Federal Union was more firmly consolidated; and lastly, in
1874, such changes were made in the Constitution that
Switzerland now presents a very fairly perfect example of
Federal Government. In Germany we may trace a similar
movement. In 1815, the Germanic Confederation was formed; but
it was only a system of Confederated States, or what the
Germans call Staatenbund; but after various changes, amongst
others the exclusion of Austria in 1866, it became, in 1871, a
composite State or, in German language, a Bundestaat. Beyond
this, we have to note a further tendency to Federation. In the
year 1886, a Bill passed the Imperial Parliament to permit of
the formation of an Australasian Council for the purposes of
forming the Australasian Colonies into a Federation. Then we
hear of further aspirations for applying the Federal system,
as though there were some peculiar virtue or talismanic effect
about it which rendered it a panacea for all political troubles.
There has, also, been much talk about Imperial Federation.
Lastly, some people think they see a simple solution of the
Irish Question in the application of Federation, particularly
the Canadian form of it, to Ireland."
Federal Government
(Westminster Rev., May, 1888,
pages 573-574).
{1111}
"The federal is one of the oldest forms of government known,
and its adaptability to the largest as well as to the smallest
states is shown in all political formations of late years.
States in the New and in the Old World, all in their
aggregation, alike show ever a stronger tendency to adopt it.
Already all the central states of Europe are
federal--Switzerland, Germany, Austria [see AUSTRIA: A. D.
1866-1867, and 1866-1887]; and if ever the various Sclav
principalities in south-eastern Europe--the Serb, the
Albanian, the Rouman, the Bulgar, and the Czech--are to
combine, it will probably be (as Mr. Freeman so long ago as
1862 remarked) under a federal form,--though whether under
Russian or Austrian auspices, or neither, remains to be seen.
... In the German lands from early ages there has existed an
aggregation of tribes and states, some of them even of
non-German race, each of which preserved for domestic purposes
its own arrangements and laws, but was united with the rest
under one supreme head and central authority as regards its
relation to all external powers. Since 1871 all the states of
Germany 'form an eternal union for the protection of the realm
and the care of the welfare of the German people.' For
legislative purposes, under the Emperor as head, are the two
Houses of Assembly; first, the Upper House of the Federated
States, consisting of 62 members, who represent the individual
States, and thus as the guardian of State rights, answers very
closely to the Senate of the American Union, except that the
number of members coming from each state is not uniform, but
apportioned. ... Each German state has its own local
constitution and home rule for its internal affairs. Generally
there are two chambers, except in some of the smallest states,
the population of which does not much exceed in some cases
that of our larger towns. ... Since 1867 the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy has been a political Siamese twin, of which Austria
is the one body, and Hungary the other; the population of the
Austrian half is 24 millions, and that of Hungary about 16
millions. Each of the two has its own parliament; the
connecting link is the sovereign (whose civil list is raised
half by one and half by the other) and a common army, navy,
and diplomatic service, and another Over-parliament of 120
members, one-half chosen by the legislature of Hungary, and
the other half by the legislature of Austria (the Upper House
of each twin returns twenty, and the Lower of each forty
delegates from their own number, who thus form a kind of Joint
Committee of the Four Houses). The jurisdiction of this
Over-parliament is limited to foreign affairs and war. ... The
western or Austrian part of the twin ... is a federal
government in itself. ... Federated Austria consists of
seventeen distinct states. The German element constitutes 36
per cent. of the inhabitants of these, and the Sclav 57 per
cent. There are a few Magyars, Italians, and Roumanians. Each
of these seventeen states has its own provincial parliament of
one House, partly composed of ex-officio members (the bishops and
archbishops of the Latin and Greek Churches, and the
chancellors of the universities), but chiefly of
representatives chosen by all the inhabitants who pay direct
taxation. Some of these are elected by the landowners, others
by the towns, others by the trade-guilds and boards of
commerce; the representatives of the rural communes, however,
are elected by delegates, as in Prussia. They legislate
concerning all local matters, county taxation, land laws and
farming, education, public worship, and public works. ...
Turning next to the oldest federation in Europe, that of
Switzerland, which with various changes has survived from
1308, though its present constitution dates only from 1874, we
find it now embraces three nationalities--German, French,
Italian. The original nucleus of the State, however, was
German, and even now three-fourths of the population are
German. The twenty-two distinct states are federated under one
president elected annually, and the Federal Assembly of two
chambers. ... Each of the cantons is sovereign and
independent, and has its own local parliament, scarcely any
two being the same, but all based on universal suffrage. Each
canton has its own budget of revenue and expenditure, and its
own public debt."
J. N. Dalton,
The Federal States of the World
(Nineteenth Century, July, 1884).
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Canadian Federation.
"A convention of thirty-three representative men was held in
the autumn of 1864 in the historic city of Quebec, and after a
deliberation of several weeks the result was the unanimous
adoption of a set of seventy-two resolutions embodying the
terms and conditions on which the provinces through their
delegates agreed to a federal union in many respects similar
in its general features to that of the United States
federation, and in accordance with the principles of the
English constitution. These resolutions had to be laid before
the various legislatures and adopted in the shape of addresses
to the queen whose sanction was necessary to embody the wishes
of the provinces in an imperial statute. ... In the early part
of 1867 the imperial parliament, without a division, passed
the statute known as the 'British North America Act, 1867,'
which united in the first instance the province of Canada, now
divided into Ontario and Quebec, with Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick and made provisions for the coming in of the other
provinces of Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, British
Columbia, and the admission of Rupert's Land and the great
North-west. Between 1867 and 1873 the provinces just named,
with the exception of Newfoundland, which has persistently
remained out of the federation, became parts of the Dominion
and the vast Northwest Territory was at last acquired on terms
eminently satisfactory to Canada and a new province of great
promise formed out of that immense region, with a complete
system of parliamentary government. ... When the terms of the
Union came to be arranged between the provinces in 1864, their
conflicting interest had to be carefully considered and a system
adopted which would always enable the Dominion to expand its
limits and bring in new sections until it should embrace the
northern half of the continent, which, as we have just shown,
now constitutes the Dominion. It was soon found, after due
deliberation, that the most feasible plan was a confederation
resting on those principles which experience of the working of
the federation of the United States showed was likely to give
guarantees of elasticity and permanency. The maritime
provinces had been in the enjoyment of an excellent system of
laws and representative institutions for many years, and were
not willing to yield their local autonomy in its entirety. The
people of the province of Quebec, after experience of a union
that lasted from 1841 to 1867, saw decidedly great advantages
to themselves and their institutions in having a provincial
government under their own control. The people of Ontario
recognized equal advantages in having a measure of local
government, apart from French Canadian influences and
interference. The consequence was the adoption of the federal
system, which now, after twenty-six years' experience, we can
truly say appears on the whole well devised and equal to the
local and national requirements of the people."
J. G. Bourinot,
Federal Government in Canada
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, 7th Series,
numbers 10-13), lectures 1-2.
{1112}
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Britannic Federation, Proposed.
"The great change which has taken place in the public mind in
recent years upon the importance to the Empire of maintaining
the colonial connection found expression at a meeting held at
the Westminster Palace Hotel in July 1884, under the guidance
of the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, who occupied the chair. At
that meeting--which was attended by a large number of members
of Parliament of both parties, and representatives of the
colonies--it was moved by the Right Hon. W. H. Smith: 'That,
in order to secure the permanent unity of the Empire, some
form of federation is essential.' That resolution was seconded
by the Earl of Rosebery, and passed unanimously. In November
of the same year the Imperial Federation League was formed to
carry out the objects of that resolution; and the subject has
received considerable attention since. ... I believe all are
agreed that the leading objects of the Imperial Federation
League are to find means by which the colonies, the outlying
portions of the Empire, may have a certain voice and weight
and influence in reference to the foreign policy of this
country, in which they are all deeply interested, and
sometimes more deeply interested than the United Kingdom
itself. In the next place, that measures may be taken by which
all the power and weight and influence that these great
British communities in Australasia, in South Africa, and in
Canada possess shall be brought into operation for the
strengthening and defence of the Empire. The discussion of
these questions has led to a great deal of progress. We have
got rid of a number of fallacies that obtained in the minds of
a good many persons in relation to the means by which those
objects are to be attained. Most people have come to the
conclusion stated by Lord Rosebery at the Mansion House, that
a Parliamentary Federation, if practicable, is so remote, that
during the coming century it is not likely to make any very great
advance. We have also got rid of the fallacy that it was
practicable to have a common tariff throughout the Empire. It
is not, in my opinion, consistent with the constitution either
of England or of the autonomous colonies. The tariff of a
country must rest of necessity mainly with the Government of
the day, and involves such continual change and alteration as
to make uniformity impracticable. ... I regard the time as
near at hand when the great provinces of Australasia will be
confederated under one Government. ... When that has been done
it will be followed, I doubt not, at a very early day, by a
similar course on the part of South Africa, and then we shall
stand in the position of having three great dominions,
commonwealths, or realms, or whatever name is found most
desirable on the part of the people who adopt them--three
great British communities, each under one central and strong
Government. When that is accomplished, the measure which the
Marquis of Lorne has suggested, of having the representatives
of these colonies during the term of their office here in
London, practically Cabinet Ministers, will give to the
Government of England an opportunity of learning in the most
direct and complete manner the views and sentiments of each of
those great British communities in regard to all questions of
foreign policy affecting the colonies. I would suggest that
the representatives of those three great British communities
here in London should be leading members of the Cabinet of the
day of the country they represent, going out of office when
their Government is changed. In that way they would always
represent the country, and necessarily the views of the party
in power in Canada, in Australasia, and in South Africa. That
would involve no constitutional change; it would simply
require that whoever represented those dominions in London
should have a seat in their own Parliament, and be a member of
the Administration."
C. Tupper,
Federating the Empire (Nineteenth Century,
October, 1891).
"Recent expensive wars at the Cape, annexations of groups of
islands in the neighbourhood of Australia, the Fishery and
other questions that have arisen, and may arise, on the North
American continent, have all compelled us to take a review of
our responsibilities in connection with our Colonies and to
consider how far, in the event of trouble, we may rely upon
their assistance to adequately support the commercial
interests of our scattered Empire. It is remarkable that,
although the matters here indicated are slowly coming to the
surface, and have provoked discussion, they have not been
forced upon the public attention suddenly, or by any violent
injury or catastrophe. The review men are taking of our
position, and the debates as to how best we can make our
relationships of standing value, have been the natural outcome
of slowly developing causes and effects. Politicians belonging
to both of the great parties in the State have joined the
Federation League. The leaders have expressly declared that
they do not desire at the present moment to propound any
definite theories, or to push any premature scheme for closer
union of the Empire. The society has been formed for the
purpose of discussing any plans proposed for such objects. The
suggestions actually made have varied in importance from
comprehensive projects of universal commercial union and
common contributions for a world-wide military and naval
organization, to such a trivial proposal as the personal
recognition of distinguished colonists by a nomination to the
peerage."
The Marquis of Lorne,
Imperial Federation,
chapter 1.
{1113}
"Many schemes of federation have been propounded, and many
degrees of federal union are possible. Lord Rosebery has not
gone further, as yet, than the enunciation of a general
principle. 'The federation we aim at (he has said) is the
closest possible union of the various self-governing States
ruled by the British Crown, consistently with that free
development which is the birthright of British subjects all
over the world--the closest union in sympathy, in external
action, and in defence.' ... The representation of the
Colonies in the Privy Council has been viewed with favour,
both by statesmen and by theoretical writers. Earl Grey has
proposed the appointment of a Federal Committee, selected from
the Privy Council, to advise with the Secretary of State for
the Colonies. The idea thus shadowed forth has been worked out
with greater amplitude of detail by Mr. Creswell, in an essay to
which the prize offered by the London Chamber of Commerce was
awarded. 'The Imperial assembly which we want,' says Mr.
Creswell, 'must be an independent body, constitutional in its
origin, representative in its character, and supreme in its
decisions. Such a body we have already in existence in the
Privy Council. Its members are chosen, irrespective of party
considerations, from among the most eminent of those who have
done service to the State. To this body colonists of
distinguished public service could be elected. In constituting
the Imperial Committee of the Privy Council, representation
might be given to every part of the empire, in proportion to
the several contributions to expenditure for Imperial
defence.' The constitution of a great Council of the Empire,
with similar functions in relation to foreign affairs to those
which are exercised in the United States by a Committee of the
Senate, is a step for which public opinion is not yet
prepared. In the meanwhile the utmost consideration is being
paid at the Foreign Office to Colonial feelings and interests.
No commitments or engagements are taken which would not be
approved by Colonial opinion. Another proposal which has been
warmly advocated, especially by the Protectionists, is that
for a customs-union between the Mother-country and the
Colonies. It cannot be said that at the present time proposals
for a customs-union are ripe for settlement, or even for
discussion, at a conference of representatives from all parts
of the empire. The Mother-country has been committed for more
than a generation to the principle of Free-trade. By our
policy of free imports of food and raw materials we have so
cheapened production that we are able to compete successfully
with all comers in the neutral markets of the world. ... It
would be impossible to entertain the idea of a reversal of our
fiscal policy, in however restricted a sense, without careful and
exhaustive inquiry. ... Lord Rosebery has recently declared
that in his opinion it is impracticable to devise a scheme of
representation for the Colonies in the House of Commons and
House of Lords, or in the Privy Council. The scheme of an
Imperial customs-union, ably put forward by Mr. Hoffmeyer at
the last Colonial Conference, he equally rejects. Lord
Rosebery would limit the direct action of the Imperial
Government for the present to conferences, summoned at
frequent intervals. Our first conference was summoned by the
Government at the instance of the Imperial Federation League.
It was attended by men of the highest distinction in the
Colonies. Its deliberations were guided by Lord Knutsford with
admirable tact and judgment; it considered many important
questions of common interest to the different countries of the
empire; it arrived at several important decisions, and it
cleared the air of not a few doubts and delusions. The most
tangible, the most important, and the most satisfactory result
of that conference was the recognition by the Australian
colonies of the necessity for making provision for the naval
defence of their own waters by means of ships, provided by the
Government of the United Kingdom, but maintained by the
Australian Governments. Lord Rosebery holds that the question
of Imperial Federation depends for the present on frequent
conferences. In his speech at the Mansion House he laid down
the conditions essential to the success of conferences in the
future. They must be held periodically and at stated
intervals. The Colonies must send the best men to represent
them. The Government of the Mother-country must invest these
periodical congresses with all the authority and splendour
which it is in their power to give. The task to be
accomplished will not be the production of statutes, but the
production of recommendations. Those who think that a congress
that only meets to report and recommend has but a neutral task
before it, have a very inadequate idea of the influence which
would be exercised by a conference representing a quarter of
the human race, and the immeasurable opulence and power that
have been garnered up by the past centuries of our history. If
we have these conferences, if they are allowed to discuss, as
they must be allowed to discuss, all topics which any parties
to these conferences should recommend to be discussed, Lord
Rosebery cannot apprehend that they would be wanting in
authority or in weight. Lord Salisbury, in his speeches
recently delivered in reply to the Earl of Dunraven in the
House of Lords, and in reply to the deputation of the Imperial
Federation League at the Foreign Office, has properly insisted
on the chief practical obstacle to a policy of frequent
conferences. Attendance at conferences involves grave
inconvenience to Colonial statesmen. ... In appealing to the
Imperial Federation League for some practical suggestions as
to the means by which the several parts of the British Empire
may be more closely knit together, Lord Salisbury threw out
some pregnant hints. To make a united empire both a Zollverein
and a Kriegsverein must be formed. In the existing state of
feeling in the Mother-country a Zollverein would be a serious
difficulty. The reasons have been already stated. A
Kriegsverein was, perhaps, more practicable, and certainly
more, urgent. The space which separates the Colonies from
possible enemies was becoming every year less and less a
protection. We may take concerted action for defence without
the necessity for constitutional changes which it would be
difficult to carry out."
Lord Brassey,
Imperial Federation: An English View
(Nineteenth Century, September., 1891).
"The late Mr. Forster launched under the high-sounding title
of the 'Imperial Federation League,' a scheme by which its
authors proposed to solve all the problems attending the
administration of our colonial empire. From first to last the
authors of this scheme have never condescended on particulars.
'Imperial federation,' we were always told, was the only
specific against the disintegration of the Empire, but as to
what this specific really was, no information was vouchsafed.
... It is very natural that the citizens of a vast but
fragmentary empire, whose territorial atoms (instead of
forming, like those of the United States, a 'ring-fence'
domain) are scattered over the surface of the globe, should
cast about for some artificial links to bind together the
colonies we have planted, and 'the thousand tribes nourished
on strange religions and lawless slaveries' which we have
gathered under our rule.
{1114}
This anxiety has been naturally augmented by a chronic
agitation for the abandonment of all colonies as expensive and
useless. For though there may be little to boast of in the
fact that Great Britain has in the course of less than three
centuries contrived by war, diplomacy, and adventure, to annex
about a fifth of the globe, it can hardly be expected that she
should relinquish without an effort even the nominal sway she
still holds over her colonial empire. Hence it comes to pass
that any scheme which seems to supply the needed links is
caught up by those who, possessing slight acquaintance with
the past history or the present aspirations of our colonists,
are simply looking out for some new contrivance by which they
may hope that an enduring bond of union may be provided.
'Imperial federation' is the last new 'notion' which has
cropped up in pursuance of this object. ... Some clue ... to
its objects and aims may be gained by a reference to the
earliest exposition by Mr. Forster of his motives contained in
his answer five years ago to the question, 'Why was the League
formed at all?' 'For this reason,' says Mr. Forster, 'because
in giving self-government to our colonies we have introduced a
principle which must eventually shake off from Great Britain,
Greater Britain, and divide it into separate states, which
must, in short, dissolve the union unless counteracting
measures be taken to preserve it.' Believing, as we do, that
it has only been by conceding to our larger groups of colonies
absolute powers of self-government that we have retained them
at all, and that the secret of our protracted empire lies in
the fact of this abandonment of central arbitrary power, the
retention of which has caused the collapse of all the European
empires which preceded us in the path of colonisation, we are
bound to enter our emphatic protest against an assumption so
utterly erroneous as that propounded by Mr. Forster. So far
from believing that the permanent union of the British Empire
is to be secured by 'measures which may counteract the
workings of colonial self-government,' we are convinced that
the only safety for our Empire lies in the unfettered action
of that self-government which we have ourselves granted to our
colonies. It would almost seem that for Lord Rosebery and his
fellow workers the history of the colonial empires of
Portugal, Spain, Holland, and France had been written in vain.
For if we ask why these colonial empires have dwindled and
decayed, the answer is simply because that self-government
which is the life of British colonies was never granted to
their dependencies. There was a time when one hundred and
fifty sovereign princes paid tribute to the treasury of
Lisbon. For two hundred years, more than half the South
American continent was an appanage of Spain. Ceylon, the Cape,
Guiana, and a vast cluster of trade factories in the East were
at the close of the seventeenth century colonies of Holland;
while half North America, comprising the vast and fertile
valleys of the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, and the Ohio,
obeyed, a little more than a century ago, the sceptre of
France. Neither Portugal, nor Spain, nor Holland, nor France,
has lacked able rulers or statesmen, but the colonial empire
of all these states has crumbled and decayed. The exceptional
position of Great Britain in this respect can only be ascribed
to the relinquishment of all the advantages, political and
commercial, ordinarily presumed to result to dominant states
from the possession of dependencies. ... The romantic dreams
of the Imperial Federation League were in fact dissipated
beforehand by the irrevocable grant of independent
legislatures to all our most important colonies, and Lord
Rosebery may rest assured that, charm he never so wisely, they
will not listen to his blandishments at the cost of one iota
of the political privileges already conferred on them."
Imperial Federation
(Edinburgh Review, July, 1889).
"'Britannic Confederation' is defined to be an union of 'the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British North
America, 'British South Africa, and Australasia.' The West
Indies and one or two other British Dependencies seem here to
be shut out; but, at any rate, with this definition we at
least know where we are. The terms of the union we are not
told; but, as the word 'confederation' is used, I conceive
that they are meant to be strictly federal. That is to say,
first of all, the Parliament of the United Kingdom will give
up its right to legislate for British North America, British
South Africa, and Australasia. Then the United Kingdom,
British North America, British South Africa and Australasia
will enter into a federal relation with one another. They may
enter either as single members (States or Cantons) 'or as
groups of members. That is, Great Britain and Ireland might
enter as a single State of the Confederation, or England,
Scotland, Ireland, Wales--or possibly smaller divisions
again--might enter as separate States. Or Great Britain,
Australia, Canada, &c., might enter as themselves Leagues,
members of a greater League, as in the old state of things in
Graubünden. I am not arguing for or against any of these
arrangements. I am only stating them as possible. But whatever
the units are to be--Great Britain and Australia, England and
Victoria, or anything larger or smaller--if the confederation
is to be a real one, each State must keep some powers to
itself, and must yield some powers to a central body. That
Central body, in which all the States must be represented in
some way or other, will naturally deal with all international
matters, all matters that concern the Britannic Confederation
as a whole. The legislatures of Great Britain and Australia,
England and Victoria, or whatever the units fixed on may be,
will deal only with the internal affairs of those several
cantons. Now such a scheme as this is theoretically possible.
That is, it involves no contradiction in terms, as the talk
about Imperial Federation does. It is purely federal; there is
nothing 'imperial' about it. It is simply applying to certain
political communities a process which has been actually gone
through by certain other political communities. It is
proposing to reconstruct a certain political constitution
after the model of certain other political constitutions which
are in actual working. It is therefore something better than
mere talk and theory. But, because it is theoretically
possible, it does not follow that it is practically possible,
that is, that it is possible in this particular case. ... Of
the federations existing at this time the two chief are
Switzerland and the United States of America. They differ in
this point, that one is very large and the other very small;
they agree in this, that the territory of both is continuous.
But the proposed Britannic Confederation will be scattered,
scattered over every part of the world.
{1115}
I know of no example in any age of a scattered confederation,
a scattered Bundesstaat. The Hanse Towns were not a
Bundesstaat; they were hardly a Staatenbund. Of the probable
working of such a body as that which is now proposed the
experience of history can teach us nothing; we can only guess
what may be likely. The Britannic Confederation will have its
federal congress sitting somewhere, perhaps at Westminster,
perhaps at Melbourne, perhaps at some Washington called
specially into being at some point more central than either.
... For a while their representatives will think it grand to
sit at Westminster; presently, as the spirit of equality
grows, they are not unlikely to ask for some more central
place; they may even refuse to stir out of their own
territory. That is to say, they will find that the sentiment
of national unity, which they undoubtedly have in no small
measure, needs some physical and some political basis to stand
on. It is hard to believe that States which are united only by
a sentiment, which have so much, both political and physical,
to keep them asunder, will be kept together for ever by a
sentiment only. And we must further remember that that
sentiment is a sentiment for the mother-country, and not for
one another. ... Canada and Australia care a great deal for
Great Britain; we may doubt whether, apart from Great Britain,
Canada and Australia care very much for one another. There may
be American States which care yet less for one another; but in
their case mere continuity produces a crowd of interests and
relations common to all. We may doubt whether the
confederation of States so distant as the existing colonies of
Great Britain, whether the bringing them into closer relations
with one another as well as with Great Britain, will at all tend
to the advance of a common national unity among them. We may
doubt whether it will not be likely to bring out some hidden
tendencies to disunion among them. ... In the scattered
confederation all questions and parties are likely to be
local. It is hard to see what will be the materials for the
formation of great national parties among such scattered
elements."
E. A. Freeman,
The Physical and Political Bases of National Unity
(Britannic Confederation, edited by A. S. White).
"I have the greatest respect for the aspirations of the
Imperial Federationists, and myself most earnestly desire the
moral unity of our race and its partnership in achievement and
grandeur. But an attempt at formal Federation, such as is now
proposed, would in the first place exclude the people of the
United States, who form the largest portion of the
English-speaking race, and in the second place it would split
us all to pieces. It would, I am persuaded, call into play
centrifugal forces against which the centripetal forces could
not contend for an hour. What interests of the class with
which a Federal Parliament would deal have Australia and
Canada in common? What enemy has either of them whom the other
would be inclined to fight? Australia, it seems, looks forward
to a struggle with the Chinese for ascendency in that quarter
of the globe. Canada cares no more about a struggle between
the Australians and the Chinese at the other extremity of the
globe than the Australians would care about a dispute between
Canada and her neighbours in the United States respecting
Canadian boundaries or the Fisheries Question. The
circumstances of the two groups of colonies, to which their
policy must conform, are totally different. Australia lies in
an ocean by herself: Canada is territorially interlocked and
commercially bound up, as well as socially almost fused, with
the great mass of English-speaking population which occupies
the larger portion of her continent. Australia again is
entirely British. Canada has in her midst a great block of
French population, constituting a distinct nationality, which
instead of being absorbed is daily growing in intensity; and
she would practically be unable to take part in any enterprise
or support any policy, especially any policy entailing an
increase of taxation, to which the French Canadians were
opposed. Of getting Canada to contribute out of her own
resources to wars or to the maintenance of armaments, for the
objects of British diplomacy in Europe or in the East, no one
who knows the Canadians can imagine that there would be the
slightest hope. The very suggestion, at the time of the Soudan
Expedition, called forth emphatic protests on all sides. The
only results of an experiment in formal Federation, I repeat,
would be repudiation of Federal demands, estrangement and
dissolution."
Goldwin Smith,
Straining the Silken Thread
(Macmillan's Magazine. August, 1888).
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
European Federation.
"While it is obvious that Imperial Federation of the British
Empire would cover many of the defects in our relationship
with the colonies, it is equally apparent that it is open to
the fatal objection of merely making us a more formidable
factor in the field of international anarchy. Suppose the
colonies undertook to share equitably the great cost of
imperial defence in the present state of things throughout
Europe--and that is a very large assumption--England would be
entirely dependent, in case of war, for the supply of food on
the fleet, any accident to which would place us at the enemy's
mercy. Even without actual hostilities, however, our
additional strength would cause another increase of foreign
armaments to meet the case of war with us. This process has
taken place invariably on the increase of armaments of any
European state, and may be taken to be as certain as that the
sun will rise to-morrow. But all the benefits accruing from
Imperial Federation may be secured by European Federation,
plus a reduction of military liability, which Imperial
Federation would not only not reduce, but increase. There is
nothing to prevent the self-governing colonies from joining in
a European Federation, and thus enlarging the basis of that
institution enormously, and cutting off in a corresponding
degree the chance of an outbreak of violence in another
direction, which could not fail to have serious consequences
to the colonies at any rate."
C. D. Farquharson,
Federation, the Polity of the Future
(Westminster Review, December, 1891),
pages 602-603.
----------FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: End----------
FEDERALIST, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.
FEDERALISTS; The party of the.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792;
also 1812; and 1814 (DECEMBER): THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.
FEDS.--CONFEDS.
See BOYS IN BLUE.
FEE.
See FEUDALISM.
FEHDERECHT.
The right of private warfare, or diffidation,
exercised in mediæval Germany.
See LANDDFRIEDE.
{1116}
FEHRBELLIN, Battle of (1675).
See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1640-1688;
and SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1644-1697.
FEIS OF TARA.
See TARA.
FELICIAN HERESY.
See ADOPTIANISM.
FELIX V., Pope, A. D. 1439-1449
Elected by the Council of Basle.
FENIAN MOVEMENT, The.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867;
and CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.
FENIAN: Origin of the Name.
An Irish poem of the ninth century called the Duan Eireannach,
or Poem of Ireland, preserves a mythical story of the origin
of the Irish people, according to which they sprang from one
Fenius Farsaidh who came out of Scythia. Nel, or Niul, the son
of Fenius, travelled into Egypt and married Scota, a daughter
of Forann (Pharaoh). "Niul had a son named Gaedhuil Glas, or
Green Gael; and we are told that it is from him the Irish are
called Gaedhil (Gael) or Gadelians, while from his mother is
derived the name of Scoti, or Scots, and from Fenius that of
Feni or Fenians."
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
page 10.
From this legend was derived the name of the Fenian
Brotherhood, organized in Ireland and America for the
liberation of the former from British rule, and which played a
disturbing but unsuccessful part in Irish affairs from about
1865 to 1871.
FEODORE.
See THEODORE.
FEODUM.
See FEUDALISM.
FEOF.
See FEUDALISM.
FEORM FULTUM.
See FERM.
FERDINAND,
King of Portugal, A. D. 1367-1383.
Ferdinand 1., Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary and
Bohemia, 1835-1848.
Ferdinand I.,
Germanic Emperor, 1558-1564;
Archduke of Austria,
and King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1526-1564;
King of the Romans, 1531-1558.
Ferdinand I., King of Aragon and Sicily, 1412-1416.
Ferdinand I.,
King of Castile, 1035-1065;
King of Leon, 1037-1065.
Ferdinand I., King of Naples, 1458-1494.
Ferdinand II., Germanic Emperor and King of Bohemia and
Hungary, 1619-1637.
Ferdinand II.,
King of Aragon, 1479-1516;
V. of Castile (King-Consort of Isabella of Castile and
Regent), 1474-1516;
II. of Sicily, 1479-1516; and III. of Naples, 1503-1516.
Ferdinand II., King of Leon, 1157-1188.
Ferdinand II., King of Naples, 1495-1496.
Ferdinand II., called Bomba,
King of the Two Sicilies, 1830-1859.
Ferdinand III., Germanic Emperor, and King of Hungary and
Bohemia, 1637-1657.
Ferdinand III.,
King of Castile, 1217-1230;
King of Leon and Castile, united, 1230-1252.
Ferdinand IV., King of Leon and Castile, 1295-1312.
Ferdinand IV.,
King of Naples,
and I. of the Two Sicilies, 1759-1806;
and 1815-1825.
Ferdinand VI., King of Spain, 1746-1759.
Ferdinand VII., King of Spain, 1808; and 1814-1833.
FERIÆ.
See LUDI.
FERM.--FIRMA.--FARM.
"A sort of composition for all the profits arising to the king
[in England, Norman period] from his ancient claims on the
land and from the judicial proceedings of the shire-moot; the
rent of detached pieces of demesne land, the remnants of the
ancient folk-land; the payments due from corporate bodies and
individuals for the primitive gifts, the offerings made in
kind, or the hospitality--the feorm-fultum--which the kings
had a right to exact from their subjects, and which were
before the time of Domesday generally commuted for money; the
fines, or a portion of the fines, paid in the ordinary process
of the county courts, and other small miscellaneous incidents.
These had been, soon after the composition of Domesday,
estimated at a fixed sum, which was regarded as a sort of rent
or composition at which the county was let to the sheriff and
recorded in the 'Rotulus Exactorious'; for this, under the
name of ferm, he answered annually; if his receipts were in
excess, he retained the balance as his lawful profit, the
wages of his service; if the proceeds fell below the ferm, he
had to pay the difference from his own purse. ... The farm,
ferm, or firma, the rent or composition for the ancient
feorm-fultum, or provision payable in kind to the Anglo-Saxon
kings. The history of the word in its French form would be
interesting. The use of the word for a pecuniary payment is
traced long before the Norman Conquest."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 11, section 126, and note.
FERNANDO.
See FERDINAND.
FEROZESHUR, Battle of (1845)
See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.
FERRARA: The House of Este.
See ESTE.
FERRARA: A. D. 1275.
Sovereignty of the Pope confirmed by Rodolph of Hapsburg.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.
FERRARA: A. D. 1597.
Annexation to the states of the Church.
End of the house of Este.
Decay of the city and duchy.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1597.
FERRARA: A. D. 1797.
Joined to the Cispadine Republic.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).
----------FERRARA: End----------
FERRY BRIDGE, Battle of (1461).
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471,
FETIALES.--FECIALES.
"The duties of the feciales, or fetiales [among the Romans].
extended over every branch of international law. They gave
advice on all matters of peace or war, and the conclusion of
treaties and alliances. ... They fulfilled the same functions
as heralds, and, as such, were frequently entrusted with
important communications. They were also sent on regular
embassies. To them was entrusted the reception and
entertainment of foreign envoys. They were required to decide
on the justice of a war about to commence, and to proclaim and
consecrate it according to certain established formalities.
... The College of Feciales consisted of nearly twenty
members, with a president, who was called Pater Patratus,
because it was necessary that he should have both father and
children living, that he might be supposed to take greater
interest in the welfare of the State, and look backwards as
well as forwards. ... The name of Feciales ... still existed
under the emperors, as well as that of Pater Patratus, though
only as a title of honour, while the institution itself was
for ever annihilated; and, after the reign of Tiberius, we
cannot find any trace of it."
E. C. G. Murray,
Embassies and Foreign Courts,
pages 8-10.
See, also, AUGURS.
{1117}
FEUDAL TENURES.
"After the feudal system of tenure had been fully established,
all lands were held subject to certain additional obligations,
which were due either to the King (not as sovereign, but as
feudal lord) from the original grantees, called
tenants-in-chief (tenentes in capite), or to the
tenants-in-chief themselves from their under tenants. Of these
obligations the most honourable was that of knight-service.
This was the tenure by which the King granted out fiefs to his
followers, and by which they in turn provided for their own
military retainers. The lands of the bishops and dignified
ecclesiastics, and of most of the religious foundations, were
also held by this tenure. A few exceptions only were made in
favour of lands which had been immemorially held in
frankalmoign, or free-alms. On the grant of a fief, the tenant
was publicly invested with the land by a symbolical or actual
delivery, termed livery of seisin. He then did homage, so
called from the words used in the ceremony: 'Je deveigne votre
homme' ['I become your man']. ... In the case of a sub-tenant
(vavassor), his oath of fealty was guarded by a reservation of
the faith due to his sovereign lord the King. For every
portion of land of the annual value of £20, which constituted
a knight's fee [in England], the tenant was bound, whenever
required, to render the services of a knight properly armed
and accoutred, to serve in the field forty days at his own
expense. ... Tenure by knight-service was also subject to
several other incidents of a burdensome character. ... There
was a species of tenancy in chief by Grand Serjeanty, ...
whereby the tenant was bound, instead of serving the King
generally in his wars, to do some special service in his own
proper person, as to carry the King's banner or lance, or to
be his champion, butler, or other officer at his coronation.
... Grants of land were also made by the King to his inferior
followers and personal attendants, to be held by meaner
services. ... Hence, probably, arose tenure by Petit
Serjeanty, though later on we find that term restricted to
tenure 'in capite' by the service of rendering yearly some
implement of war to the King. ... Tenure in Free Socage (which
still subsists under the modern denomination of Freehold, and
may be regarded as the representative of the primitive alodial
ownership) denotes, in its most general and extensive
signification, a tenure by any certain and determinate
service, as to pay a fixed money rent, or to plough the lord's
land for a fixed number of days in the year. ... Tenure in
Burgage was a kind of town socage. It applied to tenements in
any ancient borough, held by the burgesses, of the King or
other lord, by fixed rents or services. ... This tenure, which
still subsists, is subject to a variety of local customs, the
most remarkable of which is that of borough-English, by which
the burgage tenement descends to the youngest instead of to
the eldest son. Gavelkind is almost confined to the county of
Kent. ... The lands are held by suit of court and fealty, a
service in its nature certain. The tenant in Gavelkind
retained many of the properties of alodial ownership: his
lands were devisable by will; in case of intestacy they
descended to all his sons equally; they were not liable to
escheat for felony ... and they could be aliened by the tenant
at the age of fifteen. Below Free Socage was the tenure in
Villeinage, by which the agricultural labourers, both free and
servile, held the land which was to them in lieu of money
wages."
T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
pages 58-65.
FEUDALISM.
"Feudalism, the comprehensive idea which includes the whole
governmental policy of the French kingdom, was of distinctly
Frank growth. The principle which underlies it may be
universal; but the historic development of it with which the
constitutional history of Europe is concerned may be traced
step by step under Frank influence, from its first appearance
on the conquered soil of Roman Gaul to its full development in
the jurisprudence of the Middle Ages. In the form which it has
reached at the Norman Conquest, it may be described as a
complete organisation of society through the medium of land
tenure, in which from the king down to the lowest landowner
all are bound together by obligation of service and defence:
the lord to protect his vassal, the vassal to do service to
his lord; the defence and service being based on and regulated
by the nature and extent of the land held by the one of the
other. In those states which have reached the territorial
stage of development, the rights of defence and service are
supplemented by the right of jurisdiction. The lord judges as
well as defends his vassal; the vassal does suit as well as
service to his lord. In states in which feudal government has
reached its utmost growth, the political, financial, judicial,
every branch of public administration, is regulated by the
same conditions. The central authority is a mere shadow of a
name. This institution had grown up from two great
sources--the beneficium, and the practice of
commendation,--and had been specially fostered on Gallic soil
by the existence of a subject population which admitted of any
amount of extension in the methods of dependence. The
beneficiary system originated partly in gifts of land made by
the kings out of their own estates to their kinsmen and
servants, with a special undertaking to be faithful; partly in
the surrender by landowners of their estates to churches or
powerful men, to be received back again and held by them as
tenants for rent or service. By the latter arrangement the
weaker man obtained the protection of the stronger, and he who
felt himself insecure placed his title under the defence of
the church. By the practice of commendation, on the other
hand, the inferior put himself under the personal care of a
lord, but without altering his title or divesting himself of
his right to his estate; he became a vassal and did homage.
... The union of the beneficiary tie with that of commendation
completed the idea of feudal obligation; the two-fold hold on
the land, that of the lord and that of the vassal, was
supplemented by the two-fold engagement, that of the lord to
defend, and that of the vassal to be faithful. A third
ingredient was supplied by the grants of immunity by which in
the Frank empire, as in England, the possession of land was
united with the right of judicature: the dwellers on a feudal
property were placed under the tribunal of the lord, and the
rights which had belonged to the nation or to its chosen head
were devolved upon the receiver of a fief. The rapid spread of
the system thus originated, and the assimilation of all other
tenures to it, may be regarded as the work of the tenth
century; but as early as A. D. 877 Charles the Bald recognised
the hereditary character of all benefices; and from that year
the growth of strictly feudal jurisprudence may be held to
date. The system testifies to the country and causes of its
birth.
{1118}
The beneficium is partly of Roman, partly of German origin.
... Commendation on the other hand may have had a Gallic or
Celtic origin, and an analogy only with the Roman clientship.
... The word feudum, fief, or fee, is derived from the German
word for cattle (Gothic 'faihu'; Old High German 'fihu'; Old
Saxon 'fehu'; Anglo-Saxon 'feoh'); the secondary meaning being
goods, especially money: hence property in general. The letter
d is perhaps a mere insertion for sound's sake; but it
has been interpreted as part of a second root, od, also
meaning property, in which case the first syllable has a third
meaning, that of fee or reward, and the whole word means
property given by way of reward for service. But this is
improbable. ... The word feodum is not found earlier than the
close of the ninth century."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 9, section 93, and notes (volume 1).
"The regular machinery and systematic establishment of feuds,
in fact, may be considered as almost confined to the dominions
of Charlemagne, and to those countries which afterwards
derived it from thence. In England it can hardly be thought to
have existed in a complete state, before the Conquest.
Scotland, it is supposed, borrowed it soon after from her
neighbour. The Lombards of Benevento had introduced feudal
customs into the Neapolitan provinces, which the Norman
conquerors afterwards perfected. Feudal tenures were so
general in the kingdom of Aragon, that I reckon it among the
monarchies which were founded upon that basis. Charlemagne's
empire, it must be remembered, extended as far as the Ebro.
But in Castile and Portugal they were very rare, and certainly
could produce no political effect. Benefices for life were
sometimes granted in the kingdoms of Denmark and Bohemia.
Neither of these, however, nor Sweden, nor Hungary, come under
the description of countries influenced by the feudal system."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 2.
"Hardly any point in the whole history of European
institutions has been the subject of so violent controversy as
this of the origin of Feudalism. It was formerly supposed that
Feudalism was only a somewhat more developed form of the
ancient Germanic 'following' transplanted to Roman soil, but a
more critical examination of the documents of the early period
soon showed that there was more to it than this. It became
evident that Feudalism was not so simple as had at first
appeared. ... When, however, scholars had come to see this,
they then found themselves at variance upon the details of the
process by which the popular monarchical arrangements of the
early Franks were converted into the aristocratic forms of the
later Feudalism. While they agreed upon the essential fact
that the Germans, at the time of their emergence from their
original seats and their occupation of the Roman lands, were
not mere wandering groups of freebooters, as the earlier
school had represented them, but well-organized nations, with
a very distinct sense of political organization, they found
themselves hopelessly divided on the question how this
national life had, in the course of time, come to assume forms
so very different from those of the primitive German. The
first person to represent what we may call the modern view of
the feudal system was Georg Waitz, in the first edition of his
History of the German Constitution, in the years 1844-47.
Waitz presented the thing as a gradual growth during several
centuries, the various elements of which it was composed
growing up side by side without definite chronological
sequence. This view was met by Paul Roth in his History of the
Institution of the Benefice, in the year 1850. He maintained that
royal benefices were unknown to the Merovingian Franks, and
that they were an innovation of the earliest Carolingians.
They were, so he believed, made possible by a grand
confiscation of the lands of the Church, not by Charles
Martel, as the earlier writers had believed, but by his sons,
Pippin and Karlmann. The first book of Roth was followed in
the year 1863 by another on Feudalism and the Relation of the
Subject to the State, (Feudalität und Unterthanenverband), in
which he attempted to show that the direct subjection of the
individual to the government was not a strange idea to the
early German, but that it pervaded all forms of Germanic life
down to the Carolingian times, and that therefore the feudal
relation was a something entirely new, a break in the practice
of the Germans. In the years 1880-1885 appeared a new edition
of Waitz's History of the German Constitution, in which, after
acknowledging the great services rendered by Roth to the cause of
learning, he declares himself unable to give up his former
point of view, and brings new evidence in support of it. Thus
for more than thirty years this question has been before the
world of scholars, and may be regarded as being quite as far
from a settlement as ever."
E. Emerton,
An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages,
page 236 (foot-note).
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
History of Civilization:
Second Course, lecture 2.
See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 987-1327.
FEUILLANTS, Club and Party of the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1790, and 1791 (OCTOBER).
FEZ:
Founding of the city and kingdom.
See EDRISITES.
FIANNA EIRINN.
The ancient militia of Erin,
famous in old Irish romance and song.
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
volume 1, chapter 7.
FIDENÆ.
An ancient city on the left bank of the Tiber, only five miles
from Rome, originally Latin, but afterwards containing a mixed
Latin and Etruscan population. It was at war with Rome until
the latter destroyed it, B. C. 426.
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 15.
FIEFS.
See FEUDAL TENURES;
and FEUDALISM.
FIELD OF LIES, The.
Ludwig, or Louis, the Pious, son and successor of Charlemagne,
was a man of gentle character, and good intentions--too
amiable and too honest in his virtues for the commanding of a
great empire in times so rude. He lost the control of his
state, and his family, alike. His own sons headed a succession
of revolts against his authority. The second of these
insurrections occurred in the year 833. Father and sons
confronted one another with hostile armies, on the plain of
Rothfeld, not far from Colmar in Alsace. Intrigue instead of
battle settled the controversy, for the time being. The
adherents of the old emperor were all enticed away from him,
and he found himself wholly deserted and alone. To signify the
treacherous methods by which this defection was brought about,
the "Rothfeld" (Red-field) on which it occurred received the
name of "Lügenfeld," or Field of Lies.
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
The French under the Carlovingians;
translated by Bellingham, chapter 7.
{1119}
FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD, The.
The place of the famous meeting of Henry VIII. of England with
Francis I. of France, which took place in the summer of 1520
[see FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523], is notable in history, from the
magnificence of the preparations made for it, as The Field of
the Cloth of Gold. It was at Guisnes, or between Guisnes and
Arde, near Calais (then English territory). "Guisnes and its
castle offered little attraction, and if possible less
accommodation, to the gay throng now to be gathered within its
walls. ... But on the castle green, within the limits of a few
weeks, and in the face of great difficulties, the English
artists of that day contrived a summer palace, more like a
vision of romance, the creation of some fairy dream (if the
accounts of eye-witnesses of all classes may be trusted), than
the dull every-day reality of clay-born bricks and mortar. No
'palace of art' in these beclouded climates of the West ever
so truly deserved its name. ... The palace was an exact square
of 328 feet. It was pierced on every side with oriel windows
and clerestories curiously glazed, the mullions and posts of
which were overlaid with gold. An embattled gate, ornamented
on both sides with statues representing men in various
attitudes of war, and flanked by an embattled tower, guarded
the entrance. From this gate to the entrance of the palace
arose in long ascent a sloping daïs or hall-pace, along which
were grouped 'images of sore and terrible countenances,' in
armour of argentine or bright metal. At the entrance, under an
embowed landing place, facing the great doors, stood 'antique'
(classical) figures girt with olive branches. The passages,
the roofs of the galleries from place to place and from
chamber to chamber, were ceiled and covered with white silk,
fluted and embowed with silken hanging of divers colours and
braided cloths, 'which showed like bullions of fine burnished
gold.' The roofs of the chambers were studded with roses, set
in lozenges, and diapered on a ground of fine gold. Panels
enriched with antique carving and gilt bosses covered the
spaces between the windows; whilst all along the corridors and
from every window hung tapestry of silk and gold, embroidered
with figures. ... To the palace was attached a spacious
chapel, still more sumptuously adorned. Its altars were hung
with cloth of gold tissue embroidered with pearls; cloth of
gold covered the walls and desks. ... Outside the palace gate,
on the greensward, stood a gilt fountain, of antique
workmanship, with a statue of Bacchus 'birlying the wine.'
Three runlets, fed by secret conduits hid beneath the earth,
spouted claret, hypocras, and water into as many silver cups,
to quench the thirst of all comers. ... In long array, in the
plain beyond, 2,800 tents stretched their white canvas before
the eyes of the spectator, gay with the pennons, badges, and
devices of the various occupants; whilst miscellaneous
followers, in tens of thousands, attracted by profit or the
novelty of the scene, camped on the grass and filled the
surrounding slopes, in spite of the severity of
provost-marshal and reiterated threats of mutilation and
chastisement. ... From the 4th of June, when Henry first
entered Guisnes, the festivities continued with unabated
splendour for twenty days. ... The two kings parted on the
best of terms, as the world thought."
J. S. Brewer,
Reign of Henry VIII.,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
Lady Jackson,
The Court of France in the 16th Century,
volume 1, chapters 11-12.
Miss Pardoe,
The Court and Reign of Francis I.,
volume 1, chapter 14.
FIESCO, Conspiracy of.
See GENOA: A. D. 1528-1559.
FIESOLE.
See FLORENCE: ORIGIN AND NAME.
FIFTEEN, The (Jacobite Rebellion),
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1715.
FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1869-1870.
FIFTH MONARCHY MEN.
One of the most extremely fanatical of the politico-religious
sects or factions which rose in England during the
commonwealth and the Protectoral reign of Cromwell, was that
of the so-called Fifth Monarchy Men, of whom Major-General
Harrison was the chief. Their belief is thus described by
Carlyle: "The common mode of treating Universal History, ...
not yet entirely fallen obsolete in this country, though it
has been abandoned with much ridicule everywhere else for half
a century now, was to group the Aggregate Transactions of the
Human Species into Four Monarchies: the Assyrian Monarchy of
Nebuchadnezzar and Company; the Persian of Cyrus and ditto;
the Greek of Alexander; and lastly the Roman. These I think
were they; but am no great authority on the subject. Under the
dregs of this last, or Roman Empire, which is maintained yet by
express name in Germany, 'Das heilige Römische Reich,' we poor
moderns still live. But now say Major-General Harrison and a
number of men, founding on Bible Prophecies, Now shall be a
Fifth Monarchy, by far the blessedest and the only real
one,--the Monarchy of Jesus Christ, his Saints reigning for
Him here on Earth,--if not He himself, which is probable or
possible,--for a thousand years, &c., &c.--O Heavens, there
are tears for human destiny; and immortal Hope itself is
beautiful because it is steeped in Sorrow, and foolish Desire
lies vanquished under its feet! They who merely laugh at
Harrison take but a small portion of his meaning with them."
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 8, speech 2.
The Fifth Monarchy fanaticism, sternly repressed by Oliver
Cromwell, gave some signs of turbulence during Richard
Cromwell's protectorate, and broke out in a mad way the year
after the Restoration. The attempted insurrection in London
was headed by one Venner, and was called Venner's
Insurrection. It was easily put down. "It came as the expiring
flash of a fanatical creed, which had blended itself with
Puritanism, greatly to the detriment of the latter; and, dying
out rather slowly, it left behind the quiet element of
Millenarianism."
J. Stoughton,
History of Religion in England,
volume 3, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
volume 5, page 16.
"FIFTY-FOUR FORTY OR FIGHT."
See OREGON: A. D. 1844-1846.
FILI.
A class of poets among the early Irish, who practiced
originally certain rites of incantation. Their art was called
Filidecht. "The bards, who recited poems and stories, formed
at first a distinct branch from the Fili. According as the
true Filidecht fell into desuetude, and the Fili became simply
a poet, the two orders practically coalesced and the names
Fili and bard became synonymous. ... In Pagan times and during
the Middle Ages the Irish bards, like the Gaulish ones,
accompanied their recitation of poems on a stringed instrument
called a crut. ... The bard was therefore to the Fili, or
poet, what the Jogler was to the Troubadour."
W. K. Sullivan,
Article, Celtic Literature,
Encyclopedia Brittanica.
{1120}
FILIBUSTER.
"The difference between a filibuster and a freebooter is one
of ends rather than of means. Some authorities say that the
words have a common etymology; but others, including
Charlevoix, maintain that the filibuster derived his name from
his original occupation, that of a cruiser in a 'flibote,' or
'Vly-boat,' first used on the river Vly, in Holland. Yet
another writer says that the name was first given to the
gallant followers of Dominique de Gourgues, who sailed from
Finisterre, or Finibuster, in France, on the famous expedition
against Fort Caroline in 1567 [see FLORIDA: A. D. 1567-1568].
The name, whatever its origin, was long current in the Spanish
as 'filibustero' before it became adopted into the English. So
adopted, it has been used to describe a type of adventurer who
occupied a curious place in American history during the decade
from 1850 to 1860."
J. J. Roche,
The Story of the Filibusters,
chapter 1.
See, also,
AMERICA: A: D. 1639-1700.
FILIBUSTERING EXPEDITIONS OF LOPEZ AND WALKER.
See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860;
and NICARAGUA: A. D. 1855-1860.
FILIOQUE CONTROVERSY, The.
"The Council of Toledo, held under King Reccared, A. D. 589,
at which the Visigothic Church of Spain formally abjured
Arianism and adopted the orthodox faith, put forth a version
of the great creed of Nicæa in which they had interpolated an
additional clause, which stated that the Holy Ghost proceeded
from the Father 'and from the Son' (Filioque). Under what
influence the council took upon itself to make an addition to
the creed of the universal Church is unknown. It is probable
that the motive of the addition was to make a stronger protest
against the Arian denial of the co-equal Godhead of the Son.
The Spanish Church naturally took a special interest in the
addition it had made to the symbol of Nicæa, and sustained it
in subsequent councils. ... The Frankish Church seems to have
early adopted it from their Spanish neighbours. ... The
question was brought before a council held at Aix in A. D.
809. ... The council formally approved of the addition to the
creed, and Charles [Charlemagne] sent two bishops and the
abbot of Corbie to Rome to request the pope's concurrence in
the decision. Leo, at a conference with the envoys, expressed
his agreement with the doctrine, but strongly opposed its
insertion into the creed. ... Notwithstanding the pope's
protest, the addition was adopted throughout the Frankish
Empire. When the Emperor Henry V. was crowned at Rome, A. D.
1014, he induced Pope Benedict VIII. to allow the creed with
the filioque to be chanted after the Gospel at High Mass; so
it came to be generally used in Rome; and at length Pope
Nicholas I. insisted on its adoption throughout the West. At a
later period the controversy was revived, and it became the
ostensible ground of the final breach (A. D. 1054) between the
Churches of the West and those of the East."
E. L. Cutts,
Charlemagne,
chapter 23.
"The Filioque controversy relates to the eternal procession of
the Holy Spirit, and is a continuation of the trinitarian
controversies of the Nicene age. It marks the chief and almost
the only important dogmatic difference between the Greek and
Latin churches, ... and has occasioned, deepened, and
perpetuated the greatest schism in Christendom. The single
word Filioque keeps the oldest, largest and most nearly
related churches divided since the ninth century, and still
forbids a reunion."
P. Schaff,
History of the Christian Church,
volume 4, chapter 11, section 107.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Howard,
The Schism between the Oriental and Western Churches.
See, CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 330-1054.
FILIPPO MARIA, Duke of Milan, A. D. 1412-1447.
FILLMORE, Millard.
Vice-Presidential Election.
Succession to the Presidency.
Administration.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848 to 1852.
FINÉ, The.
A clan or sept division of the tribe in ancient Ireland.
FINGALL.
See NORMANS.
NORTHMEN: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES;
also, IRELAND: 9TH-10TH CENTURIES.
FINLAND: A. D. 1808-1810.
Conquest by and peculiar annexation to Russia.
Constitutional independence of the Finnish grand
duchy confirmed by the Czar.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1807-1810.
FINN GALLS.
See IRELAND: 9TH-10TH CENTURIES.
FINNS.
See HUNGARIANS.
FIODH-INIS.
See IRELAND, THE NAME.
FIRBOLGS, The.
One of the races to which Irish legend ascribes the settlement
of Ireland; said to have come from Thrace.
See NEMEDIANS,
and IRELAND: THE PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS.
FIRE LANDS, The.
See OHIO: A. D. 1786-1796.
FIRMA.
See FERM.
FIRST CONSUL OF FRANCE, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
FIRST EMPIRE (FRENCH), The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805, to 1815.
FIRST-FRUITS.
See ANNATES.
FIRST REPUBLIC (FRENCH), The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER), to 1804-1805.
FISCALINI.
See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: FRANCE.
FISCUS, The.
"The treasury of the senate [in the early period of the Roman
empire] retained the old republican name of the ærarium; that
of the emperor was denominated the fiscus, a term which
ordinarily signified the private property of an individual.
Hence the notion rapidly grew up, that the provincial
resources constituted the emperor's private purse, and when in
process of time the control of the senate over the taxes gave
way to their direct administration by the emperor himself, the
national treasury received the designation of fiscus, and the
idea of the empire being nothing else than Cæsar's patrimony
became fixed ineradicably in men's minds."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 32.
FISHER, Fort, The capture of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864-1865
(DECEMBER-JANUARY: NORTH CAROLINA).
FISHERIES, North American: A. D. 1501-1578.
The Portuguese, Norman, Breton and Basque fishermen on the
Newfoundland Banks.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.
{1121}
FISHERIES: A. D. 1610-1655.
Growth of the English interest.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1610-1655.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1620.
Monopoly granted to the Council for New England.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620-1623.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1660-1688.
The French gain their footing in Newfoundland.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1660-1688.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1713.
Newfoundland relinquished to England, with fishing rights
reserved to France, by the Treaty of Utrecht.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1713.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1720-1745.
French interests protected by the fortification of Louisbourg.
See CAPE BRETON: A. D. 1720-1745.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1748.
St. Pierre and Michelon islands on the Newfoundland coast
ceded to France.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1763.
Rights secured to France on the island of Newfoundland and in
the Gulf of St. Lawrence by the Treaty of Paris.
Articles V. and VI. of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which
transferred Canada and all its islands from France to England,
are in the following language:
"The subjects of France shall have the liberty of fishing and
drying, on a part of the coasts of the island of Newfoundland,
such as it is specified in the 13th Article of the Treaty of
Utrecht; which article is renewed and confirmed by the present
treaty (except what relates to the island of Cape Breton, as
well as to the other islands and coasts, in the mouth and in
the gulph of St. Laurence): and his Britannic majesty consents
to leave to the subjects of the most Christian king the
liberty of fishing in the gulph of St. Laurence, on condition
that the subjects of France do not exercise the said fishery,
but at the distance of three leagues from all the coasts
belonging to Great Britain, as well those of the continent, as
those of the islands situated in the said gulph of St.
Laurence. And as to what relates to the fishery on the coasts
of the island of Cape Breton out of the said gulph, the
subjects of the most Christian king shall not be permitted to
exercise the said fishery, but at the distance of 15 leagues
from the coasts of the island of Cape Breton; and the fishery
on the coasts of Nova Scotia or Acadia, and everywhere else
out of the said gulph, shall remain on the foot of former
treaties.
Article VI. The King of Great Britain cedes the islands of St.
Peter and Miquelon, in full right, to his most Christian
majesty, to serve as a shelter to the French fishermen: and
his said most Christian majesty engages not to fortify the
said islands; to erect no buildings upon them, but merely for
the convenience of the fishery; and to keep upon them a guard
of 50 men only for the police."
Text of the Treaty (Parliamentary History,
volume 15, page 1295).
FISHERIES: A. D. 1778.
French fishery rights recognized in the treaty between France
and the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (FEBRUARY).
FISHERIES: A. D. 1783.
Rights secured to the United States by the Treaty of Paris.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (SEPTEMBER).
FISHERIES: A. D. 1814-1818.
Disputed rights of American fishermen after the War of 1812.
Silence of the Treaty of Ghent.
The Convention of 1818.
Under the Treaty of Paris (1783) "we claimed that the liberty
which was secured to the inhabitants of the United States to
take fish on the coasts of Newfoundland, under the limitation
of not drying or curing the same on that island, and also on
the other coasts, bays, and creeks, together with the limited
rights of drying or curing fish on the coasts of Nova Scotia,
Magdalen Islands, and Labrador, were not created or conferred
by that treaty, but were simply recognized by it as already
existing. They had been enjoyed before the Revolution by the
Americans in common with other subjects of Great Britain, and
had, indeed, been conquered, from the French chiefly, through
the valor and sacrifices of the colonies of New England and
New York. The treaty was therefore considered analogous to a
deed of partition. It defined the boundaries between the two
countries and all the rights and privileges belonging to them.
We insisted that the article respecting fisheries was
therefore to be regarded as identical with the possession of
land or the demarcation of boundary. We also claimed that the
treaty, being one that recognized independence, conceded
territory, and defined boundaries, belonged to that class
which is permanent in its nature and is not affected by
subsequent suspension of friendly relations. The English,
however, insisted that this treaty was not a unity; that while
some of its provisions were permanent, other stipulations were
temporary and could be abrogated, and that, in fact, they were
abrogated by the war of 1812; that the very difference of the
language used showed that while the rights of deep-sea fishing
were permanent, the liberties of fishing were created and
conferred by that treaty, and had therefore been taken away by
the war. These were the two opposite views of the respective
governments at the conferences which ended in the treaty of
Ghent, of 1814." No compromise appearing to be practicable,
the commissioners agreed, at length, to drop the subject from
consideration. "For that reason the treaty of Ghent is
entirely silent as to the fishery question.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER).
In consequence of conflicts arising between our fishermen and
the British authorities, our point of view was very strongly
maintained by Mr. Adams in his correspondence with the British
Foreign Office, and finally, on October 20, 1818, Mr. Rush,
then our minister at London, assisted by Mr. Gallatin,
succeeded in signing a treaty, which among other things
settled our rights and privileges by the first article, as
follows: ... 'It is agreed between the high contracting
parties that the inhabitants of the said United States shall
have forever, in common with the subjects of his Britannic
Majesty, the liberty of taking fish of any kind on that part
of the southern coast of Newfoundland which extends from Cape
Ray to the Rameau Islands; on the western and northern coasts
of Newfoundland from the said Cape Ray to the Qurpon Islands;
on the shores of the Magdalen Islands, and also on the coasts,
bays, harbors, and creeks from Mont Joly, on the southern
coast of Labrador, to and through the straits of Belle Isle,
and thence northwardly indefinitely along the coast. And that
the American fishermen shall have liberty forever to dry and
cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbors, and creeks in
the southern part of Newfoundland herein-before described, and
of the coasts of Labrador; but as soon as the same, or any
portion thereof, shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for
said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such portion, so
settled, without previous agreement for such purpose with the
inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground.
{1122}
And the United States hereby renounces forever any liberty
heretofore enjoyed, claimed by the inhabitants thereof to
take, dry, or cure fish on or within three marine miles of any
of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors of his Britannic
Majesty's dominions in America not included in the
above-mentioned limits. Provided, however, That the American
fishermen shall be permitted to enter such bays or harbors for
the purpose of shelter, of repairing damages therein, of
purchasing wood, and obtaining water, and for no other purpose
whatever. But they shall be under such restrictions as shall
be necessary to prevent their taking, drying, or curing fish
therein, or in any other manner whatever abusing the
privileges hereby secured to them.' The American
plenipotentiaries evidently labored to obtain as extensive a
district of territory as possible for in-shore fishing, and
were willing to give up privileges, then apparently of small
amount, but now much more important, than of using other bays
and harbors for shelter and kindred purposes. For that reason
they acquiesced in omitting the word 'bait' in the first
sentence of the proviso after water.' ... The power of
obtaining bait for use in the deep-sea fisheries is one which
our fishermen were afterward very anxious to secure. But the
mackerel fisheries in those waters did not begin until several
years later. The only contention then was about the cod
fisheries."
E. Schuyler,
American Diplomacy,
chapter 8.
Treaties and Conventions between the United States
and other Powers (edition of 1889), pages 415-418.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1854-1866.
Privileges defined under the Canadian Reciprocity Treaty.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES AND CANADA):
A. D. 1854-1866.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1871.
Reciprocal privileges adjusted between Great Britain and the
United States by the Treaty of Washington.
See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1871.
FISHERIES: A. D. 1877-1888.
The Halifax award.
Termination of the Fishery articles of the Treaty of
Washington.
The rejected Treaty of 1888.
In accordance with the terms of articles 22 and 23 of the
Treaty of Washington (see ALABAMA CLAIMS: A.. D. 1871), a
Commission appointed to award compensation to Great Britain
for the superior value of the fishery privileges conceded to
the citizens of the United States by that treaty, met at
Halifax on the 5th of June, 1877. The United States was
represented on the Commission by Hon. E. H. Kellogg, of
Massachusetts, and Great Britain by Sir Alexander F. Gault, of
Canada. The two governments having failed to agree in the
selection of the third Commissioner, the latter was named, as
the Treaty provided, by the Austrian Ambassador at London, who
designated M. Maurice Delfosse, Belgian Minister at
Washington. The award was made November 27, 1877, when, "by a
vote of two to one, the Commissioners decided that the United
States was to pay $5,500,000 for the use of the fishing
privileges for 12 years. The decision produced profound
astonishment in the United States." Dissatisfaction with the
Halifax award, and generally with the main provisions of the
Treaty of Washington relating to the fisheries, was so great
in the United States that, when, in 1878, Congress
appropriated money for the payment of the award, it inserted
in the bill a clause to the effect that "Articles 18 and 21 of
the Treaty between the United States and Great Britain
concluded on the 8th of May, 1871, ought to be terminated at
the earliest period consistent with the provisions of Article
33 of the same Treaty." "It is a curious fact that during the
time intervening between the signing of the treaty of
Washington and the Halifax award an almost complete change
took place in the character of the fisheries. The method of
taking mackerel was completely revolutionized by the
introduction of the purse-seine, by means of which vast
quantities of the fish were captured far out in the open sea
by enclosing them in huge nets. ... This change in the method
of fishing brought about a change in the fishing grounds. ...
The result of this change was very greatly to diminish the
value of the North-eastern Fisheries to the United States
fishermen." On the 1st of July, 1883, "in pursuance of
instructions from Congress, the President gave the required
notice of the desire of the United States to terminate the
Fishery Articles of the Treaty of Washington, which
consequently came to an end the 1st of July, 1885. The
termination of the treaty fell in the midst of the fishing
season, and, at the suggestion of the British Minister,
Secretary Bayard entered into a temporary arrangement whereby
the American fishermen were allowed the privileges of the
treaty during the remainder of the season, with the
understanding that the President should bring the question
before Congress at its next session and recommend a joint
Commission by the Governments of the United States and Great
Britain." This was done; but Congress disapproved the
recommendation. The question of rights under former treaties,
especially that of 1818, remained open, and became a subject
of much irritation between the United States and the
neighboring British American provinces. The local regulations
of the latter were enforced with stringency and harshness
against American fishermen; the latter solicited and procured
retaliatory legislation from Congress. To end this
unsatisfactory state of affairs, a treaty was negotiated at
Washington in February, 1888, by Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary
of State, William L. Putnam and James B. Angell,
plenipotentiaries on the part of the United States, and Joseph
Chamberlain, M. P., Sir L. S. Sackville West and Sir Charles
Tupper, plenipotentiaries on the part of Great Britain, which
treaty was approved by the President and sent to the Senate,
but rejected by that body on the 21st of August, by a negative
vote of 30, against 27 in its favor.
C. B. Elliott,
The United States and the North-eastern Fisheries,
pages 79-100.
ALSO IN:
E. Schuyler,
American Diplomacy,
chapter 8.
J. H. De Ricci,
The Fisheries Dispute (1888).
Annual Cyclopedia,
volume 13 (1888), pages 217-226.
Annual Report of United States Commission of Fish and
Fisheries for 1886.
Correspondence relative to proposed Fisheries Treaty
(Senate Ex. Doc., Number 113, 50th Congress, 1st Session).
Documents and Proceedings of Halifax Commission (H. R. Ex.
Doc., Number 89, 45th. Congress, 2d Session).
----------FISHERIES: End----------
FISHER'S HILL, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: VIRGINIA).
FISHING CREEK, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862
(JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE).
{1123}
FITCH, John, and the beginnings of steam navigation.
See STEAM NAVIGATION.
FITZGERALD'S (LORD THOMAS) REBELLION IN IRELAND.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1535-1553.
FIVE ARTICLES OF PERTH, The.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1618.
FIVE BLOODS, The.
See IRELAND; 13TH-14TH CENTURIES.
FIVE BOROUGHS, The.
A confederation of towns occupied by the Danes in England,
including Derby, Lincoln, Leicester, Nottingham and Stamford,
which played a part in the events of the tenth and eleventh
centuries. It afterwards became Seven Boroughs by addition of
York and Chester.
FIVE FORKS, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865
(MARCH-APRIL: VIRGINIA).
FIVE HUNDRED, The French Council of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).
FIVE HUNDRED AT ATHENS, The.
See ATHENS: B. C. 510-507.
FIVE MEMBERS, King Charles' attempt against the.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (JANUARY).
FIVE MILE ACT, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1662-1665.
FIVE NATIONS OF INDIANS, The.
The five original tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy,--the
Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas,--were
commonly called by the English the Five Nations. Subsequently,
in 1715, a sixth tribe, the Tuscaroras, belonging to the same
stock, was admitted to the confederacy, and its members were
then known as the Six Nations.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY, and IROQUOIS
TRIBES OF THE SOUTH.
FIVE THOUSAND, The
See ATHENS: B. C. 413-411.
FIVE YEARS' TRUCE, The.
The hostilities between Athens and Sparta which preceded the
Peloponnesian War, being opened by the battle of Tanagra, B.
C. 457, were suspended B. C. 451, by a truce called the Five
Years' Truce, arranged through the influence of the
soldier-statesman Cimon.
Thucydides,
History,
book 1, section 112.
ALSO IN:
E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 3, chapter 2.
FLAGELLANTS.
"Although the Church's forgiveness for sin might now [14th
century] be easily obtained in other ways: Still Flagellation
was not only greatly admired among the religious, but was also
held in such high estimation by the common people, that in
case of any calamity or plague, they thought they could
propitiate the supposed wrath of God in no more effectual
manner than by scourging, and processions of scourgers; just
as though the Church's ordinary means of atonement were
insufficient for extraordinary cases. A decided mistrust of
the Church's intercession, and the clergy who dispensed it,
prevailed among the societies of Flagellants; roused to action
by the plague that past over from Asia into Europe in the year
1348, and spread devastation everywhere, ever since the
beginning of the year 1349 they diffused themselves from the
Hungarian frontier over the whole of Germany, and found
entrance even into the neighbouring countries. ... They
practised this penance according to a fixed rule, without the
co-operation of the clergy, under the guidance of Masters,
Magistri, and made no secret of the fact, that they held the
Church's way of salvation in much lower estimation than the
penance by the scourge. Clement VI. put an end to the public
processions of Flagellants, which were already widely
prevalent: but penance by the scourge was only thus forced
into concealment. In Thuringia, Conrad Schmidt, one of their
masters, gave the form of a connected system of heretical
doctrine to their dislike of the Church. ... Thus there now
rose heretical Flagellants, called also by the common name of
Beghards; they existed down to the time of the Reformation,
especially in Thuringia, as an heretical sect very dangerous
to the Church. This warning example, as well as the mistrust
natural to the Hierarchy of all spiritual impulses which did
not originate from itself, decided the destiny of the later
societies of Flagellants. When the Whitemen (Bianchi) [see
WHITE PENITENTS], scourging themselves as they went, descended
from the Alps into Italy, they were received almost everywhere
with enthusiasm by the clergy and the people; but in the Papal
territory death was prepared for their leader, and the rest
accordingly dispersed themselves."
J. C. L. Gieseler,
Compendium of Ecclesiastical History,
section 123 (volume 4).
"Divided into companies of male and female devotees, under a
leader and two masters, they stripped themselves naked to the
waist, and publicly scourged themselves, or each other, till
their shoulders were covered with blood. This expiatory
ceremony was repeated every morning and afternoon for
thirty-three days, equal in number to the years which Christ
is thought to have lived upon earth; after which they returned
to their former employments, cleansed from sin by the baptism
of blood.' The flagellants appeared first in Hungary; but
missionary societies were soon formed, and they hastened to
impart the knowledge of the new gospel to foreign nations.
They spread with rapidity over Poland, Germany and the Low
Countries. From France they were excluded at the request of
the pope, who had issued a severe constitution against them;
but a colony reached England, and landed in London, to the
number of 120 men and women. ... The missionaries made not a
single proselyte."
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 4, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
W. M. Cooper,
Flagellation and the Flagellants.
G. Waddington,
History of the Church,
note appendix to chapter 23.
FLAMENS.--FLAMINES.
"The pontifices, like several other priestly brotherhoods [of
ancient Rome] ... had sacrificial priests (flamines) attached
to them, whose name was derived from 'flare' (to blow the
fire). The number of flamines attached to the pontifices was
fifteen, the three highest of whom, ... viz., the Flamen
Dialis, Martialis, and Quirinalis, were always chosen from old
patrician families. ... Free from all civil duties, the Flamen
Dialis, with his wife and children, exclusively devoted
himself to the service of the deity. His house ... lay on the
Palatine hill. His marriage was dissoluble by death only; he
was not allowed to take an oath, mount a horse, or look at an
army. He was forbidden to remain a night away from his house,
and his hand touched nothing unclean, for which reason he
never approached a corpse or a burial-place. ... In the
daytime the Flamen Dialis was not allowed to take off his
head-dress, and he was obliged to resign his office in case it
fell off by accident. In his belt he carried the sacrificial
knife, and in his hand he held a rod, in order to keep off the
people on his way to the sacrifice. For the same purpose he
was preceded by a lictor, who compelled everybody on the way
to lay down his work, the flamen not being allowed to see the
business of daily life."
E. Guhl and W. Koner,
Life of the Greeks and Romans,
section 103.
See AUGURS.
{1124}
FLAMINIAN WAY.
See ROME: B. C. 295-191.
FLAMINIUS, The defeat of.
See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.
FLANDERS: A. D. 863.
Creation of the County.
Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, of France (not yet
called France), and a twice widowed queen of England, though
hardly yet out of her girlhood (she had wedded Ethelwulf and
Ethelbald, father and son, in succession), took a mate, at
last, more to her liking, by a runaway match with one of her
father's foresters, named Baudouin, or Baldwin, Bras-de-fer.
This was in 862. King Charles, in his wrath, caused the
impudent forester to be outlawed and excommunicated, both; but
after a year of intercession and mediation he forgave the pair
and established them in a suitable fief. Baudouin was made
Count or Marquis of Flanders. "Previously to Baudouin's era,
Flanders or 'Flandria' is a designation belonging, as learned
men conjecture, to a Gau or Pagus, afterwards known as the
Franc de Bruges, and noticed only in a single charter.
Popularly, the name of Flanders had obtained with respect to a
much larger surrounding Belgic country. ... The name of
'Flanders' was thus given to the wide, and in a degree
indefinite tract, of which the Forester Baudouin and his
predecessors had the official range or care. According to the
idiom of the Middle Ages, the term 'Forest' did not exactly
convey the idea which the word now suggests, not being applied
exclusively to wood-land, but to any wild and unreclaimed
region. ... Any etymology of the name of Flamingia, or
Flanders, which we can guess at, seems intended to designate
that the land was so called from being half-drowned.
Thirty-five inundations, which afflicted the country at
various intervals from the tenth to the sixteenth century,
have entirely altered the coast-line; and the interior
features of the country, though less affected, have been much
changed by the diversions which the river-courses have
sustained. ... Whatever had been the original amplitude of the
districts over which Baudouin had any control or authority,
the boundaries were now enlarged and defined. Kneeling before
Charles-le-Chauve, placing his hands between the hands of the
Sovereign, he received his 'honour':--the Forester of Flanders
was created Count or Marquis. All the countries between the
Scheldt, the Somme and the sea, became his benefice; so that
only a narrow and contested tract divided Baudouin's Flanders
from Normandy. According to an antient nomenclature, ten
counties, to wit, Theerenburch, Arras, Boulogne, Guisnes,
Saint-Paul, Hesdin, Blandemont, Bruges, Harlebec, and Tournay,
were comprehended in the noble grant which Baudouin obtained
from his father-in-law."
Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and of England,
book 1, chapter 4.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1096.
The Crusade of Count Robert.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1201-1204.
The diverted Crusade of Count Baldwin and the imperial crown
he won at Constantinople.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1201-1203;
and BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1204-1205.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1214.
Humbled at the battle of Bouvines.
See BOUVINES.
FLANDERS: 13th Century.
The industry, commerce and wealth of the Flemings.
"In the 13th century, Flanders was the most populous and the
richest country in Europe. She owed the fact to the briskness
of her manufacturing and commercial undertakings, not only
amongst her neighbours, but throughout Southern and Eastern
Europe. ... Cloth, and all manner of woolen stuffs, were the
principal articles of Flemish production, and it was chiefly
from England that Flanders drew her supply of wool, the raw
material of her industry. Thence arose between the two
countries commercial relations which could not fail to acquire
political importance. As early as the middle of the 12th
century, several Flemish towns formed a society for founding
in England a commercial exchange, which obtained great
privileges, and, under the name of the Flemish hanse of
London, reached rapid development. The merchants of Bruges had
taken the initiative in it; but soon all the towns of
Flanders--and Flanders was covered with towns--Ghent, Lille,
Ypres, Courtrai, Furnes, Alost, St. Omer, and Douai, entered
the confederation, and made unity as well as extension of
liberties in respect of Flemish commerce the object of their
joint efforts. Their prosperity became celebrated; and its
celebrity gave it increase. It was a burgher of Bruges who was
governor of the hanse of London, and he was called the Count
of the Hanse. The fair of Bruges, held in the month of May,
brought together traders from the whole world. 'Thither came
for exchange,' says the most modern and most enlightened
historian of Flanders (Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, 'Histoire
de Flandre,' t. ii., page 300), 'the produce of the North and
the South, the riches collected in the pilgrimages to
Novgorod, and those brought over by the caravans from
Samarcand and Bagdad, the pitch of Norway and the oils of
Andalusia, the furs of Russia and the dates from the Atlas,
the metals of Hungary and Bohemia, the figs of Granada, the
honey of Portugal, the wax of Morocco, and the spice of Egypt;
whereby, says an ancient manuscript, no land is to be compared
in merchandise to the land of Flanders.' ... So much
prosperity made the Counts of Flanders very puissant lords.
'Marguerite II., called "the Black," Countess of Flanders and
Hainault, from 1244 to 1280, was extremely rich,' says a
chronicler, 'not only in lands, but in furniture, jewels, and
money; ... insomuch that she kept up the state of queen rather
than countess.' Nearly all the Flemish towns were strongly
organised communes, in which prosperity had won liberty, and
which became before long small republics, sufficiently
powerful not only for the defence of their municipal rights
against the Counts of Flanders, their lords, but for offering
an armed resistance to such of the sovereigns their neighbours
as attempted to conquer them or to trammel them in their
commercial relations, or to draw upon their wealth by forced
contributions or by plunder."
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 18.
ALSO IN:
J. Hutton,
James and Philip Van Arteveld,
part 1, chapter 2.
{1125}
FLANDERS: A. D. 1299-1304.
The war with Philip the Fair.
As the Flemings advanced in wealth and consequence, the feudal
dependence of their country upon the French crown grew
increasingly irksome and oppressive to them, and their
attitude towards France became one of confirmed hostility. At
the same time, they were drawn to a friendly leaning towards
England by common commercial interests. This showed itself
decisively on the occasion of the quarrel that arose (A. D.
1295) between Philip IV., called the Fair, and Edward I. of
England, concerning the rule of the latter in Aquitaine or
Guienne. The French king found allies in Scotland; the English
king found allies in Flanders. An alliance of marriage, in
fact, had been arranged to take place between king Edward and
the daughter of Guy de Dampierre, count of Flanders; but
Philip contrived treacherously to get possession of the
persons of the count and his daughter and imprisoned them both
at Paris, declaring the states of the count to be forfeited.
In 1299 the two kings settled their quarrel and abandoned
their allies on both sides--Scotland to the tender mercies of
Edward, and Flanders to the vengeance of the malignant king
Philip the Fair. The territory of the Flemings was annexed to
the crown of France, and Jacques de Châtillon, uncle of the
queen, was appointed governor. Before two years had passed the
impatient Flemings were in furious revolt. The insurrection
began at Bruges, May 18, 1302, and more than 3,000 Frenchmen
in that city were massacred in the first rage of the
insurgents. This massacre was called the Bruges Matins. A
French army entered Flanders to put down the rising and was
confronted at Courtrai (July 11, A. D. 1302) by the Flemish
militia. The latter were led by young Guy of Dampierre and, a
few knights, who dismounted to fight on equal terms with their
fellows. "About 20,000 militia, armed only with pikes, which
they employed also as implements of husbandry, resolved to
abide the onset of 8,000 Knights of gentle blood, 10,000
archers, and 30,000 foot-soldiers, animated by the presence
and directed by the military skill of Robert Count of Artois,
and of Raoul de Nesle, Constable of France. Courtrai was the
object of attack, and the Flemings, anxious for its safety,
arranged themselves on a plain before the town, covered in
front by a canal." An altercation which occurred between the
two French commanders led to the making of a blind and furious
charge on the part of the French horsemen, ignorant and
heedless of the canal, into which they plunged, horses and
riders together, in one inextricable mass, and where, in their
helplessness, they were slain without scruple by the Flemings.
"Philip had lost his most experienced Generals, and the flower
of his troops; but his obstinacy was unbending." In repeated
campaigns during the next two years, Philip strove hard to
retrieve the disaster of Courtrai. He succeeded, at last (A.
D. 1304), in achieving, with the help of the Genoese, a naval
victory in the Zuruck-Zee, followed by a victory, personally
his own, at Mons-en-Puelle, in September of the same year.
Then, finding the Flemings as dauntlessly ready as ever to
renew the fight, he gave up to their obstinacy and
acknowledged the independence of the county. A treaty was
signed, in which "the independence of Flanders was
acknowledged under its Count, Robert de Bethune (the eldest
son of Guy de Dampierre), who, together with his brothers and
all the other Flemish prisoners, was to be restored to
liberty. The Flemings, on the other hand, consented to
surrender those districts beyond the Lys in which the French
language was vernacularly spoken; and to this territory were
added the cities of Douai, Lille, and their dependencies. They
engaged, moreover, to furnish by instalments 200,000 livres in
order to cover the expenses which Philip had incurred by their
invasion."
E. Smedley,
History of France,
part 1, chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
J. Hutton,
James and Philip Van Arteveld,
part 1, chapters 2-3.
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 5, chapter 2.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1314.
Dishonesty of Philip of France.
Philip was one of the most treacherous of princes, and his
treaty with the Flemings did not secure them against him. "The
Flemings, who had paid the whole of the money stipulated by
the treaty of 1305, demanded the restitution of that part of
Flanders which had been given up as a pledge; but Philippe
refused to restore it on the plea that it had been given to
him absolutely and not conditionally. He commenced hostilities
[A. D. 1314] by seizing upon the counties of Nevers and
Réthel, belonging to the count of Flanders and his eldest son,
who replied by laying siege to Lille." Philippe was making
great exertions to raise money for a vigorous prosecution of
the war, when he died suddenly, Nov. 25, 1314, as the result
of an accident in hunting.
T. Wright,
History of France,
volume 1, book 2, chapter 2.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1328.
The Battle of Cassel.
The first act of Philip of Valois, King of France, after his
coronation in 1328, was to take up the cause of his cousin,
Louis de Nevers, Count of Flanders, who had been driven from
his territories by the independent burghers of Bruges, Ypres,
and other cities, and who had left to him no town save Ghent,
in which he dared to appear. The French king "gathered a great
host of feudal lords, who rejoiced in the thought of Flemish
spoil, and marched to Arras, and thence onwards into Flanders.
He pitched his tent under the hill of Cassel, 'with the
fairest and greatest host in the world' around him. The
Flemish, under Claus Dennequin, lay on the hill-top: thence
they came down all unawares in three columns on the French
camp in the evening, and surprised the King at supper and all
but took him. The French soon recovered from the surprise;
'for God would not consent that lords should be discomfitted
by such riffraff': they slew the Flemish Captain Dennequin,
and of the rest but few escaped; 'for they deigned not to
flee,' so stubborn were those despised weavers of Flanders.
This little battle, with its great carnage of Flemish,
sufficed to lay all Flanders at the feet of its count."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
book 4, chapter 1.
"Sixteen thousand Flemings had marched to the attack in three
divisions. Three heaps of slain were counted on the morrow in
the French lines, amounting altogether to 13,000 corpses; and
it is said that Louis ... inflicted death upon 10,000 more of
the rebels."
E. Smedley,
History of France,
part 1, chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
Froissart (Johnes),
Chronicles,
book 1, chapters 21-22.
{1126}
FLANDERS: A. D. 1335-1337.
The revolt under Jacques Van Arteveld.
The alliance with England.
The most important measure by which Edward III. of England
prepared himself for the invasion of France, as a claimant of
the French crown [See FRANCE: A. D. 1328-1339] was the
securing of an alliance with the Flemish burghers. This was
made easy for him by his enemies. "The Flemings happened to
have a count who was wholly French--Louis de Nevers--who was
only count through the battle of Cassel and the humiliation of
his country, and who resided at Paris, at the court of
Philippe de Valois. Without consulting his subjects, he
ordered a general arrest of all the English throughout
Flanders; on which Edward had all the Flemings in England
arrested. The commerce, which was the life-blood of each
country, was thus suddenly broken off. To attack the English
through Guyenne and Flanders was to wound them in their most
sensible parts, to deprive them of cloth and wine. They sold
their wool at Bruges, in order to buy wine at Bordeaux. On the
other hand, without English wool, the Flemings were at a
stand-still. Edward prohibited the exportation of wool,
reduced Flanders to despair, and forced her to fling herself
into his arms. At first, a crowd of Flemish workmen emigrated
into England, whither they were allured at any cost, and by
every kind of flattery and caress. ... I take it that the
English character has been seriously modified by these
emigrations, which went on during the whole of the fourteenth
century. Previously, we find no indications of that patient
industry which now distinguishes the English. By endeavouring
to separate Flanders and England the French king only
stimulated Flemish emigration, and laid the foundation of
England's manufactures. Meanwhile, Flanders did not resign
herself. The towns burst into insurrection. They had long
hated the count, either because he supported the country
against the monopoly of the towns, or because he admitted the
foreigners, the Frenchmen, to a share of their commerce. The
men of Ghent, who undoubtedly repented of having withheld
their aid from those of Ypres and of Bruges at the battle of
Cassel, chose, in 1337, as their leader, the brewer,
Jacquemart Artaveld. Supported by the guilds, and, in
particular, by the fullers and clothiers, Artaveld organized a
vigorous tyranny. He assembled at Ghent the men of the three
great cities, 'and showed them that they could not live
without the king of England; for all Flanders depended on
cloth-making, and, without wool, one could not make cloth;
therefore he recommended them to keep the English king their
friend.'"
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 6, chapter 1.
ALSO IN
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 20.
J. Hutton,
James and Philip Van Altevelde,
part 3.
J. Froissart,
Chronicles
(Johnes's translation),
book 1, chapter 29.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1345.
The end of Jacques Van Artaveld.
"Jacob von Artaveld, the citizen of Ghent that was so much
attached to the king of England, still maintained the same
despotic power over all Flanders. He had promised the king of
England, that he would give him the inheritance of Flanders,
invest his son the prince of Wales with it, and make it a
duchy instead of an earldom. Upon which account the king was,
at this period, about St. John the Baptist's day, 1345, come
to Sluys, with a numerous attendance of barons and knights. He
had brought the prince of Wales with him, in order that Jacob
von Artaveld's promises might be realized. The king remained
on board his fleet in the harbour of Sluys, where he kept his
court. His friends in Flanders came thither to see and visit
him; and there were many conferences between the king and
Jacob Von Artaveld on one side, and the councils from the
different capital towns on the other, relative to the
agreement before mentioned. ... When on his return he [Van
Artaveld] came to Ghent about midday, the townsmen who were
informed of the hour he was expected, had assembled in the
street that he was to pass through; as soon as they saw him,
they began to murmur, and put their heads close together,
saying, 'Here comes one who is too much the master, and wants
to order in Flanders according to his will and pleasure, which
must not be longer borne.' With this they had also spread a
rumour through the town, that Jacob von Artaveld had collected
all the revenues of Flanders, for nine years and more. ... Of
this great treasure he had sent part into England. This
information inflamed those of Ghent with rage; and, as he was
riding up the streets, he perceived that there was something
in agitation against him; for those who were wont to salute
him very respectfully, now turned their backs, and went into
their houses. He began therefore to suspect all was not as
usual; and as soon as he had dismounted, and entered his
hotel, he ordered the doors and windows to be shut and
fastened. Scarcely had his servants done this, when the street
which he inhabited was filled from one end to the other with
all sorts of people, but especially by the lowest of the
mechanics. His mansion was surrounded on every side, attacked
and broken into by force. Those within did all they could to
defend it, and killed and wounded many: but at last they could
not hold out against such vigorous attacks, for three parts of
the town were there. When Jacob von Artaveld saw what efforts
were making, and how hardly he was pushed, he came to a
window; and, with his head uncovered, began to use humble and
fine language. ... When Jacob von Artaveld saw that he could
not appease or calm them, he shut the window, and intended
getting out of his house the back way, to take shelter in a
church adjoining; but his hotel was already broke into on that
side, and upwards of four hundred were there calling out for him.
At last he was seized by them, and slain without mercy: his
death-stroke was given him by a sadler, called Thomas Denys.
In this manner did Jacob von Artaveld end his days, who in his
time had been complete master of Flanders. Poor men first
raised him, and wicked men slew him."
J. Froissart (Johnes),
Chronicles,
book 1, chapter 115 (volume 1).
{1127}
FLANDERS: A. D. 1379-1381.
The revolt of the White Hoods.
"We will ... speak of the war in Flanders, which began about
this time [A. D. 1379]. The people were very murderous and
cruel, and multitudes were slain or driven out of the country.
The country itself was so much ruined, that it was said a
hundred years would not restore it to the situation it was in
before the war. Before the commencement of these wars in
Flanders, the country was so fertile, and everything in such
abundance, that it was marvellous to see; and the inhabitants
of the principal towns lived in very grand state. You must
know that this war originated in the pride and hatred that
several of the chief towns bore to each other: those of Ghent
against Bruges, and others, in like manner, vying with each
other through envy. However, this could not have created a war
without the consent of their lord, the earl of Flanders, who
was so much loved and feared that no one dared anger him." It
is in these words that the old court chronicler, Froissart,
begins his fully detailed and graphic narrative of the
miserable years, from 1379 to 1384, during which the communes
of Flanders were at war with one another and at war with their
worthless and oppressive count, Luis de Maele. The picturesque
chronicle is colored with the prejudices of Froissart against
the Flemish burghers and in favor of their lord; but no one
can doubt that the always turbulent citizens were jealous of
rights which the always rapacious lord never ceased to
encroach upon. As Froissart tells the story, the outbreak of
war began with an attempt on the part of the men of Bruges, to
dig a canal which would divert the waters of the river Lys.
When those of Ghent had news of this unfriendly undertaking,
they took counsel of one John Yoens, or John Lyon, a burgher
of much cunning, who had formerly been in favor with the
count, but whom his enemies had supplanted. "When he [John
Lyon] was prevailed on to speak, he said: 'Gentlemen, if you
wish to risk this business, and put an end to it, you must
renew an ancient custom that formerly subsisted in the town of
Ghent: I mean, you must first put on white-hoods, and choose a
leader, to whom everyone may look, and rally at his signal.'
This harangue was eagerly listened to, and they all cried out,
'We will have it so, we will have it so! now let us put on
white-hoods.' White-hoods were directly made, and given out to
those among them who loved war better than peace, and had
nothing to lose. John Lyon was elected chief of the White
Hoods. He very willingly accepted of this office, to avenge
himself on his enemies, to embroil the towns of Ghent and
Bruges with each other and with the earl their lord. He was
ordered, as their chief, to march against the pioneers and
diggers from Bruges, and had with him 200 such people as
preferred rioting to quiet."
Froissart (Johnes),
Chronicles,
book 2, chapters 36-102.
When the White Hoods had driven the ditchers of Bruges from
their canal, they returned to Ghent, but not to disband.
Presently the jealous count required them to lay aside the
peculiar badge of their association, which they declined to
do. Then Count Louis sent his bailiff into Ghent with 200
horsemen, to arrest John Lyon, and some others of his band.
The White Hoods rallied, slew the bailiff and drove his posse
from the town; after which unmistakable deed Ghent and the
count were distinctly at war. The city of the White Hoods took
prompt measures to secure the alliance and support of its
neighbors. Some nine or ten thousand of its citizens marched
to Bruges, and partly by persuasion, partly by force, partly
by the help of the popular party in the town, they effected a
treaty of friendship and alliance--which did not endure,
however, very long. Courtray, Damme, Ypres and other cities
joined the league and it soon presented a formidable array.
Oudenarde, strongly fortified, by the count, became the key of
the situation, and was besieged by the citizen-militia. In the
midst of the siege, the Duke of Burgundy, son-in-law of the
count, made successful efforts to bring about a peace
(December 1379). "The count promised to forget the past and
return to his residence in Ghent. This peace, however, was of
short duration; and the count, after passing only two or three
days in Ghent, alleged some cause of dissatisfaction and
returned to Lille, to recommence hostilities, in the course of
which, with the assistance of the richer citizens, he made
himself master of Bruges. Another peace was signed in the
August of 1380, which was no more durable than the former, and
the count reduced Ypres; and, at the head of an army of 60,000
men, laid siege to Ghent itself, the chief and soul of the
popular confederacy, in the month of September. But the
citizens of Ghent defended themselves so well that he was
obliged to raise the siege in the middle of November, and
agree to a truce. This truce also was broken by the count's
party, the war renewed in the beginning of the year 1381, and
the men of Ghent experienced a disastrous defeat in the battle
of Nevelle towards the middle of May. It was a war of
extermination, and was carried on with extreme ferocity. ...
Ghent itself, now closely blockaded by the count's troops, was
only saved by the great qualities of Philip Van Artevelde [son
of Jacques Van Arteveld, of the revolution of 1337], who, by a
sort of peaceful revolution, was placed at the head of affairs
[January 25, 1381]. The victory of Beverholt, in which the
count was defeated with great slaughter, and only escaped with
difficulty, made the town of Ghent again master of Flanders."
T. Wright,
History of France,
book 2, chapter 8.
ALSO IN
J. Hutton,
James and Philip Van Arteveld,
chapters 14-16.
W. C. Taylor,
Revolutions, Insurrections and Conspiracies of Europe,
volume 2, chapters 7-9.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1382.
The rebellion crushed.
By the marriage of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, to the daughter
and heiress of the Count of Flanders, that powerful French
prince had become interested in the suppression of the revolt
of the Flemish burghers and the restoration of the count to
his lordship. His nephew, the young king of France, Charles
VI., was easily persuaded to undertake a campaign to that end,
and an army of considerable magnitude was personally led
northwards by the monarch of fourteen years. "The object of
the expedition was not only to restore to the Count of
Flanders his authority, but to punish the turbulent commons,
who stirred up those of France to imitate their example.
Froissart avows it to have been a war between the commons and
the aristocracy. The Flemings were commanded by Artaveldt, son
of the famous brewer, the ally of Edward III. The town of Ghent
had been reduced to the extreme of distress and famine by the
count and the people of Bruges, who supported him. Artaveldt
led the people of Ghent in a forlorn hope against Bruges,
defeated the army of the count, and broke into the rival town,
which he took and plundered. After this disaster, the count
had recourse to France. The passage of the river Lys, which
defended Flanders, was courageously undertaken, and effected
with some hazard by the French.
{1128}
The Flemings were rather dispirited by this first success:
nevertheless, they assembled their forces; and the two armies
of French knights and Flemish citizens met at Rosebecque [or
Roosebeck], between Ypres and Courtray. The 27th of November,
1382, was the day of battle. Artaveldt had stationed his army
on a height, to await the attack of the French, but their
impatience forced him to commence. Forming his troops into one
solid square, Artaveldt led them against the French centre.
Froissart compares their charge to the headlong rush of a wild
boar. It broke the opposite line, penetrating into its ranks:
but the wings of the French turned upon the flank of the
Flemings, which, not having the advantage of a charge or
impulse, were beaten by the French men at arms. Pressed upon
one another, the Flemings had not room to fight: they were
hemmed in, surrounded, and slaughtered: no quarter was asked
or given; nearly 30,000 perished. The 9,000 Ghentois that had
marched under their banner were counted, to a man, amongst the
slain: Artaveldt, their general, was among the foremost who
had fallen. Charles ordered his body to be hung upon a tree.
It was at Courtray, very near to the field where this battle
was fought, that Robert of Artois, with a French army, had
perished beneath the swords of the Flemings, nearly a century
previous. The gilded spurs of the French knights still adorned
the walls of the cathedral of Courtray. The victory of Rosebecque
in the eyes of Charles had not sufficiently repaid the former
defeat: the town of Courtray was pillaged and burnt; its
famous clock was removed to Dijon, and formed the third wonder
of this kind in France, Paris and Sens alone possessing
similar ornaments. The battle of Rosebecque proved more
unfortunate for the communes of France than for those of
Flanders. Ghent, notwithstanding her loss of 9,000 slain, did
not yield to the conqueror, but held out the war for two years
longer; and did not finally submit until the Duke of Burgundy,
at the death of their count, guaranteed to the burghers the
full enjoyment of their privileges. The king avenged himself
on the mutinous city of Paris; entered it as a conqueror; took
the chains from the streets and unhinged the gates: one hundred
of the citizens were sent to the scaffold; the property of the
rich was confiscated; and all the ancient and most onerous
taxes, the gabelle, the duty on sales, as well as that of
entry, were declared by royal ordinance to be established
anew. The principal towns of the kingdom were visited with the
same punishments and exactions. The victory of Rosebecque
overthrew the commons of France, which were crushed under the
feet of the young monarch and his nobles."
E. E. Crowe,
History of France,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN
Sir J. Froissart (Johnes),
Chronicles,
book 2, chapters 111-130.
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 7, chapter 1 (volume 2).
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 23 (volume 3).
FLANDERS: A. D. 1383.
The Bishop of Norwich's Crusade.
The crushing defeat of the Flemings at Roosebeke produced
alarm in England, where the triumph of the French was quickly
felt to be threatening. "English merchants were expelled from
Bruges, and their property was confiscated. Calais even was in
danger. The French were at Dunkirk and Gravelines, and might
by a sudden dash on Calais drive the English out." There had
been aid from England promised to Van Artevelde, but the
promise had only helped on the ruin of the Ghent patriot by
misleading him. No help had come when he needed it. Now, when
it was too late, the English bestirred themselves. For some
months there had been on foot among them a Crusade, which Pope
Urban VI. had proclaimed against the supporters of the rival
Pope Clement VII.--the "Schismatics." France took the side of
the latter and was counted among the Schismatics. Accordingly,
Pope Urban's Crusade, so far as the English people could be moved
to engage in it, was now directed against the French in
Flanders. It was led by the Bishop of Norwich, who succeeded
in rousing a very considerable degree of enthusiasm in the
country for the movement, despite the earnest opposition of
Wyclif and his followers. The crusading army assembled at
Calais in the spring of 1383, professedly for a campaign in
France; but the Bishop found excuses for leading it into
Flanders. Gravelines was first attacked, carried by storm, and
its male defenders slaughtered to a man. An army of French and
Flemings, encountered near Dunkirk, was routed, with fearful
carnage, and the whole coast, including Dunkirk, fell into the
hands of the English. Then they laid siege to Ypres, and there
their disasters began. The city held out with stubbornness
from the 9th of June until the 10th of August, when the
baffled besiegers--repulsed in a last desperate assault which
they had made on the 8th--marched away. "Ypres might rejoice,
but the disasters of the long siege proved final. Her stately
faubourgs were not rebuilt, and she has never again taken her
former rank among the cities of Flanders." In September a
powerful French army entered Flanders, and the English
crusaders could do nothing but retreat before it, giving up
Cassel (which the French burned), then Bergues, then
Bourbourg, after a siege, and, finally, setting fire to
Gravelines and abandoning that place. "Gravelines was utterly
destroyed, but the French soon began to rebuild it. It was
repeopled from the surrounding country, and fortified strongly
as a menace to Calais." The Crusaders returned to England
"'dripping with blood and disgracing their country. Blessed be
God who confounds the proud,' says one sharp critic, who
appears to have been a monk of Canterbury."
G. M. Wrong,
The Crusade of MCCCLXXXIII.
ALSO IN
Sir J. Froissart, (Johnes),
Chronicles
book 2, chapters 130-145 (volumes 1-2).
FLANDERS: A. D. 1383
Joined to the Dominions of the Duke of Burgundy.
"Charles V. [of France] had formed the design of obtaining
Flanders for his brother Philip, Duke of Burgundy, afterwards
known as Philip the Bold--by marrying him to Margaret
[daughter and heiress of Louis de Maele, count of Flanders].
To gain the good will of the Communes, he engaged to restore
the three bailiwicks of Lille, Douai, and Orchies as a
substitute for the 10,000 livres a year promised to Louis de
Maele and his successors in 1351, as well as the towns of
Peronne, Crèvecœur, Arleux and Château-Chinon, assigned to him
in 1358. ... On the 13th May, 1369, the 'Lion of Flanders'
once more floated, after an interval of half a century, over
the walls of Lille, Douai, and Orchies, and at the same time
Flemish garrisons marched into St. Omer, Aire, Bethune and
Hesdin. The marriage ceremony took place at Ghent on the 19th
of June." The Duke of Burgundy waited fourteen years for the
heritage of his wife. In January, 1383, Count Louis died, and
Flanders was added to the great and growing dominion of the
new Burgundian house.
J. Hutton,
James and Philip van Arteveld,
chapters 14 and 18.
See BURGUNDY (THE FRENCH DUKEDOM): A. D. 1364.
{1129}
FLANDERS: A. D. 1451-1453.
Revolt against the Burgundian Gabelle.
See GHENT: A. D. 1451-1453.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1477.
Severance from Burgundy.
Transference to the Austrian House by marriage of Mary of
Burgundy.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1477.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1482-1488.
Resistance to Maximilian.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1482-1493.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1494-1588.
The Austro-Spanish sovereignty and its oppressions.
The great revolt and its failure in the Flemish provinces.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1494-1519, and after.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1529.
Pretensions of the king of France to Suzerainty resigned.
See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1539-1540.
The unsupported revolt of Ghent.
See GHENT: A. D. 1539-1540.
FLANDERS: A. D. 1594-1884.
Later history.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1594-1609, to 1830-1884.
----------FLANDERS: End----------
FLATHEAD INDIANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: FLATHEADS.
FLAVIA CÆSARIENSIS.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 323-337.
FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATRE, The.
See COLOSSEUM.
FLAVIAN FAMILY, The.
"We have designated the second period of the [Roman] Empire by
the name of the Flavian family--the family of Vespasian [Titus
Flavius Vespasian]. The nine Emperors who were successively
invested with the purple, in the space of the 123 years from
his accession, were not all, however, of Flavian race, even by
the rites of adoption, which in Rome was become a second
nature; but the respect of the world for the virtues of
Flavius Vespasian induced them all to assume his name, and
most of them showed themselves worthy of such an affiliation.
Vespasian had been invested with the purple at Alexandria, on
the 1st of July, A. D. 69; he died in 79. His two sons reigned
in succession after him; Titus, from 79 to 81; Domitian, from 81
to 96. The latter having been assassinated, Nerva, then an old
man, was raised to the throne by the Senate (A. D. 96-98). He
adopted Trajan (98-117); who adopted Adrian (117-138). Adrian
adopted Antoninus Pius (138-161); who adopted Marcus Aurelius
(161-180); and Commodus succeeded his father, Marcus Aurelius
(180-192). No period in history presents such a succession of
good and great men upon any throne: two monsters, Domitian and
Commodus, interrupt and terminate it."
J. C. L. Sismondi,
Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 2.
FLEETWOOD, OR BRANDY STATION, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JUNE: VIRGINIA).
FLEIX, The Peace of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1578-1580.
FLEMINGS.--FLEMISH.
See FLANDERS.
FLEMISH GUILDS.
See GUILDS OF FLANDERS.
FLEURUS, Battle of (1622).
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1621-1633.
FLEURUS, Battle of (1690).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690.
FLEURUS, Battle of (1794).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).
FLODDEN, Battle of (A. D. 1513).
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1513.
FLORALIA, The.
See LUDI.
FLORÉAL, The month.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER).
FLORENCE:
Origin and Name:
"Fæsulre was situated on a hill above Florence. Florentine
traditions call it the metropolis of Florence, which would
accordingly be a colony of Fæsulre; but a statement in
Machiavelli and others describes Florence as a colony of
Sulla, and this statement must have been derived from some
local chronicle. Fæsulre was no doubt an ancient Etruscan
town, probably one of the twelve. It was taken in the war of
Sulla [B. C. 82-81]. ... My conjecture is, that Sulla not only
built a strong fort on the top of the hill of Fæsulre, but
also the new colony of Florentia below, and gave to it the
'ager Fæsulanus.'"
B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on Ancient Ethnography and Geography.
volume 2, page 228.
"We can reasonably suppose that the ancient trading nations
may have pushed their small craft up the Arno to the present
site of Florence, and thus have gained a more immediate
communication with the flourishing city of Fiesole than they
could through other ports of Etruria, from whatever race its
people might have sprung. Admitting the high antiquity of
Fiesole, the imagined work of Atlas, and the tomb of his
celestial daughter, we may easily believe that a market was
from very early times established in the plain, where both by
land and water the rural produce could be brought for sale
without ascending the steep on which that city stood. Such
arrangements would naturally result from the common course of
events, and a more convenient spot could scarcely be found
than the present site of Florence, to which the Arno is still
navigable by boats from its mouth, and at that time perhaps by
two branches. ... 'There were,' says Villani, 'inhabitants
round San Giovanni, because the people of Fiesole held their
market there one day in the week, and it was called the Field
of Mars, the ancient name: however it was always, from the
first, the market of the Fiesolines, and thus it was called
before Florence existed.'
{1130}
And again: 'The Pæetor Florinus, with a Roman army, encamped
beyond the Arno towards Fiesole and had two small villages
there, ... where the people of Fiesole one day in the week
held a general market with the neighbouring towns and
villages. ... On the site of this camp, as we are also assured
by Villani, was erected the city of Florence, after the
capture of Fiesole by Pompey, Cæsar, and Martius; but Leonardo
Aretino, following Malespini, asserts that it was the work of
Sylla's legions, who were already in possession of Fiesole.
... The variety of opinions almost equals the number of
authors. ... It may be reasonably concluded that Florence,
springing originally from Fiesole, finally rose to the rank of
a Roman colony and the seat of provincial government; a
miniature of Rome, with its Campus Martius, its Capitol,
Forum, temple of Mars, aqueducts, baths, theatre and
amphitheatre, all erected in imitation of the 'Eternal City;'
for vestiges of all these are still existing either in name or
substance. The name of Florence is as dark as its origin, and
a thousand derivations have confused the brains of
antiquarians and their readers without much enlightening them,
while the beautiful Giagiolo or Iris, the city's emblem, still
clings to her old grey walls, as if to assert its right to be
considered as the genuine source of her poetic appellation.
From the profusion of these flowers that formerly decorated
the meads between the rivers Mugnone and Arno, has sprung one
of the most popular opinions on the subject; for a white plant
of the same species having shown itself amongst the rising
fabrics, the incident was poetically seized upon and the Lily
then first assumed its station in the crimson banner of
Florence."
H. E. Napier,
Florentine History,
book 1, chapter 1.
FLORENCE: A. D. 406.
Siege by Radagaisus.
Deliverance by Stilicho.
See ROME: A. D. 404-408.
FLORENCE: 12th Century.
Acquisition of republican independence.
"There is ... an assertion by Villani, that Florence contained
twenty-two thousand fighting men, without counting the old men
and children,' about the middle of the sixth century; and
modern statisticians have based on this statement an estimate
which would make the population of the city at that period
about sixty-one thousand. There are reasons too for believing
that very little difference in the population took place
during several centuries after that time. Then came the sudden
increase arising from the destruction, more or less entire, of
Fiesole, and the incorporation of its inhabitants with those
of the newer city, which led to the building of the second
walls. ... An estimate taking the inhabitants of the city at
something between seventy and eighty thousand at the period
respecting which we are inquiring [beginning of the 12th
century] would in all probability be not very wide of the
mark. The government of the city was at that time lodged in
the hands of magistrates exercising both legislative and
administrative authority, called Consuls, assisted by a senate
composed of a hundred citizens of worth--buoni uomini. These
Consuls 'guided everything, and governed the city, and decided
causes, and administered justice.' They remained in office for
one year. How long this form of government had been
established in Florence is uncertain. It was not in existence
in the year 897; but it was in activity in 1102. From 1138 we
have a nearly complete roll of the names of the consuls for
each year down to 1219. ... The first recorded deeds of the
young community thus governed, and beginning to feel conscious
and proud of its increasing strength, were characteristic
enough of the tone of opinion and sentiment which prevailed
within its walls, and of the career on which it was entering.
'In the year 1107,' says Malispini, 'the city of Florence
being much increased, the Florentines, wishing to extend their
territory, determined to make war against any castle or
fortress which would not be obedient to them. And in that year
they took by force Monte Orlando, which belonged to certain
gentlemen who would not be obedient to the city. And they were
defeated, and the castle was destroyed.' These 'gentlemen,' so
styled by the civic historian who thus curtly records the
destruction of their home, in contradistinction to the
citizens who by no means considered themselves such, were the
descendants or representatives of those knights and captains,
mostly of German race, to whom the Emperors had made grants of
the soil according to the feudal practice and system. They
held directly of the Empire, and in no wise owed allegiance or
obedience of any sort to the community of Florence. But they
occupied almost all the country around the rising city; and
the citizens' wanted to extend their territory.' Besides,
these territorial lords were, as has been said, gentlemen, and
lived as such, stopping wayfarers on the highways, levying tolls
in the neighbourhood of their strongholds, and in many ways
making themselves disagreeable neighbours to peaceable folks.
... The next incident on the record, however, would seem to
show that peaceful townsfolk as well as marauding nobles were
liable to be overrun by the car of manifest destiny, if they
came in the way of it. 'In the same year,' says the curt old
historian, 'the men of Prato rebelled against the Florentines;
wherefore they went out in battle against it, and took it by
siege and destroyed it.' Prato rebelled against Florence! It
is a very singular statement; for there is not the shadow of a
pretence put forward, or the smallest ground for imagining
that Florence had or could have claimed any sort of suzerainty
over Prato. ... The territorial nobles, however, who held
castles in the district around Florence were the principal
objects of the early prowess of the citizens; and of course
offence against them was offence against the Emperor. ... In
1113, accordingly, we find an Imperial vicar residing in
Tuscany at St. Miniato; not the convent-topped hill of that
name in the immediate neighbourhood of Florence, but a little
mountain city of the same name, overlooking the lower
Valdarno, about half way between Florence and Pisa. ... There
the Imperial Vicars perched themselves hawk-like, with their
Imperial troops, and swooped down from time to time to
chastise and bring back such cities of the plain as too
audaciously set at naught the authority of the Emperor. And
really these upstart Florentines were taking the bit between
their teeth, and going on in a way that no Imperial Vicar
could tolerate. ... So the indignant cry of the harried Counts
Cadolingi, and of several other nobles holding of the Empire,
whose houses had been burned over their heads by these
audacious citizens, went up to the ears of 'Messer Ruberto,'
the Vicar, in San Miniato.
{1131}
Whereupon that noble knight, indignant at the wrong done to
his fellow nobles, as well as at the offence against the
authority of his master the Emperor, forthwith put lance in
rest, called out his men, and descended from his mountain
fortress to take summary vengeance on the audacious city. On
his way thither he had to pass through that very gorge where
the castle of Monte Orlando had stood, and under the ruins of
the house from which the noble vassals of the Empire had been
harried. ... There were the leathern-jerkined citizens on the
very scene of their late misdeed, come out to oppose the
further progress of the Emperor's Vicar and his soldiers. And
there, as the historian writes, with curiously impassible
brevity, 'the said Messer Ruberto was discomfited and killed.'
And nothing further is heard of him, or of any after
consequences resulting from the deed. Learned legal
antiquaries insist much on the fact, that the independence of
Florence and the other Communes was never 'recognised' by the
Emperors; and they are no doubt perfectly accurate in saying
so. One would think, however, that that unlucky Vicar of
theirs, Messer Ruberto, must have 'recognised' the fact,
though somewhat tardily."
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 1, chapter 1 (volume 1).
Countess Matilda, the famous friend of Pope Gregory VII.,
whose wide dominion included Tuscany, died in 1115,
bequeathing her vast possessions to the Church.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1077-1102.
"In reality she was only entitled thus to bequeath her
allodial lands, the remainder being imperial fiefs. But as it
was not always easy to distinguish between the two sorts, and
the popes were naturally anxious to get as much as they could,
a fresh source of contention was added to the constant
quarrels between the Empire and the Church. 'Henry IV.
immediately despatched a representative into Tuscany, who
under the title of Marchio, Judex, or Praeses, was to govern
the Marquisate in his name.' 'Nobody,' says Professor Villari,
'could legally dispute his right to do this: but the
opposition of the Pope, the attitude of the towns which now
considered themselves independent and the universal confusion
rendered the Marquis's authority illusory. The imperial
representatives had no choice but to put themselves at the
head of the feudal nobility of the contado and unite it into a
Germanic party hostile to the cities. In the documents of the
period the members of this party are continually described as
Teutonici.' By throwing herself in this juncture on the side
of the Pope, and thus becoming the declared opponent of the
empire and the feudal lords, Florence practically proclaimed
her independence. The grandi, having the same interests with
the working classes, identified themselves with these; became
their leaders, their consuls in fact if not yet in name. Thus
was the consular commune born, or, rather, thus did it
recognize itself on reaching manhood; for born, in reality, it
had already been for some time, only so quietly and
unconsciously that nobody had marked its origin or, until now,
its growth. The first direct consequence of this
self-recognition was that the rulers were chosen out of a
larger number of families. As long as Matilda had chosen the
officers to whom the government of the town was entrusted, the
Uberti and a few others who formed their clan, their kinsmen, and
their connections had been selected, to the exclusion of the
mass of the citizens. Now more people were admitted to a share
in the administration: the offices were of shorter duration,
and out of those selected to govern each family had its turn.
But those who had formerly been privileged--the Uberti and
others of the same tendencies and influence--were necessarily
discontented with this state of things, and there are
indications in Villani of burnings and of tumults such as
later, when the era of faction fights had fairly begun, so
often desolated the streets of Florence."
B. Duffy,
The Tuscan Republics,
chapter 6.
See ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1215-1250.
The beginning, the causes and the meaning of the strife of the
Guelfs and Ghibellines.
Nearly from the beginning of the 13th century, all Italy, and
Florence more than other Italian communities, became
distracted and convulsed by a contest of raging factions. "The
main distinction was that between Ghibellines and Guelphs--two
names in their origin far removed from Italy. They were first
heard in Germany in 1140, when at Winsberg in Suabia a battle
was fought between two contending claimants of the Empire; the
one, Conrad of Hohenstauffen, Duke of Franconia, chose for his
battle-cry 'Waiblingen,' the name of his patrimonial castle in
Würtemburg; the other, Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, chose
his own family name of 'Welf,' or 'Wölf.' Conrad proved
victorious, and his kindred to the fourth ensuing generation
occupied the imperial throne; yet both war-cries survived the
contest which gave them birth, lingering on in Germany as
equivalents of Imperialist and anti-Imperialist. By a process
perfectly clear to philologists, they were modified in Italy
into the forms Ghibellino and Guelfo; and the Popes being
there the great opponents of the Emperors, an Italian Guelph
was a Papalist. The cities were mainly Guelph; the nobles most
frequently Ghibelline. A private feud had been the means of
involving Florence in the contest."
M. F. Rossetti,
A Shadow of Dante,
chapter 3.
"The Florentines kept themselves united till the year 1215,
rendering obedience to the ruling power, and anxious only to
preserve their own safety. But, as the diseases which attack
our bodies are more dangerous and mortal in proportion as they
are delayed, so Florence, though late to take part in the
sects of Italy, was afterwards the more afflicted by them. The
cause of her first division is well known, having been
recorded by Dante and many other writers; I shall, however,
briefly notice it. Amongst the most powerful families of
Florence were the Buondelmonti and the Uberti; next to these
were the Amidei and the Donati. Of the Donati family there was
a rich widow who had a daughter of exquisite beauty, for whom, in
her own mind, she had fixed upon Buondelmonti, a young
gentleman, the head of the Buondelmonti family, as her
husband; but either from negligence, or because she thought it
might be accomplished at any time, she had not made known her
intention, when it happened that the cavalier betrothed
himself to a maiden of the Amidei family. This grieved the
Donati widow exceedingly; but she hoped, with her daughter's
beauty, to disturb the arrangement before the celebration of
the marriage; and from an upper apartment, seeing Buondelmonti
approach her house alone, she descended, and as he was passing
she said to him, 'I am glad to learn you have chosen a wife,
although I had reserved my daughter for you'; and, pushing the
door open, presented her to his view.
{1132}
The cavalier, seeing the beauty of the girl, ... became
inflamed with such an ardent desire to possess her, that, not
thinking of the promise given, or the injury he committed in
breaking it, or of the evils which his breach of faith might
bring upon himself, said, 'Since you have reserved her for me,
I should be very ungrateful indeed to refuse her, being yet at
liberty to choose'; and without any delay married her. As soon
as the fact became known, the Amidei and the Uberti, whose
families were allied, were filled with rage," and some of
them, lying in wait for him, assassinated him as he was riding
through the streets. "This murder divided the whole city; one
party espousing the cause of the Buondelmonti, the other that
of the Uberti; and ... they contended with each other for many
years, without one being able to destroy the other. Florence
continued in these troubles till the time of Frederick II.,
who, being king of Naples, endeavoured to strengthen himself
against the church; and, to give greater stability to his
power in Tuscany, favoured the Uberti and their followers,
who, with his assistance, expelled the Buondelmonti; thus our
city, as all the rest of Italy had long time been, became
divided into Guelphs and Ghibellines."
N. Machiavelli,
History of Florence,
book 2, chapter 1.
"Speaking generally, the Ghibellines were the party of the
emperor, and the Guelphs the party of the Pope; the
Ghibellines were on the side of authority, or sometimes of
oppression, the Guelphs were on the side of liberty and
self-government. Again, the Ghibellines were the supporters of
an universal empire of which Italy was to be the head, the
Guelphs were on the side of national life and national
individuality. ... If these definitions could be considered as
exhaustive, there would be little doubt as to the side to
which our sympathies should be given. ... We should ... expect
all patriots to be Guelphs, and the Ghibelline party to be
composed of men who were too spiritless to resist despotic
power, or too selfish to surrender it. But, on the other hand,
we must never forget that Dante was a Ghibelline."
O. Browning,
Guelphs and Ghibellines,
chapter 2.
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1215.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.
The wars of a generation of the Guelfs and Ghibellines.
In 1248, the Ghibellines, at the instigation of Frederick II.,
and with help from his German soldiery, expelled the Guelfs
from the city, after desperate fighting for several days, and
destroyed the mansions of their chiefs, to the number of 38.
In 1250 there was a rising of the people--of the under-stratum
which the cleavage of parties hardly penetrated--and a popular
constitution of government was brought into force. At the same
time, the high towers, which were the strongholds of the
contending nobles, were thrown down. An attempt was then made
by the leaders of the people to restore peace between the
Ghibellines and the Guelfs, but the effort was vain; whereupon
the Guelfs (in January, 1251) came back to the city, and the
Ghibellines were either driven away or were shut up in their
city castles, to which they had retired when the people rose.
In 1258 the restless Ghibellines plotted with Manfred, King of
the Two Sicilies, to regain possession of Florence. The plot
was discovered, and the enraged people drove the last
lingerers of the faction from their midst and pulled down
their palaces. The great palace of the Uberti family, most
obnoxious of all, was not only razed, but a decree was made
that no building should ever stand again on its accursed site.
The exiled Ghibellines took refuge at Siena, and there plotted
again with King Manfred, who sent troops to aid them. The
Florentines did not wait to be attacked, but marched out to
meet them on Sienese territory, and suffered a terrible defeat
at Montaperti (September 4, 1260), in the battle that Dante
refers to, "which coloured the river Arbia red." "'On that
day,' says Villani, ... 'was broken and destroyed the old
popular government of Florence, which had existed for ten
years with so great power and dignity, and had won so many
victories.' Few events have ever left a more endurable
impression on the memory of a people than this great battle
between two cities and parties animated both of them by the
most unquenchable hatred. The memory of that day has lasted
through 600 years, more freshly perhaps in Siena than in
Florence." As a natural consequence of their defeat at
Montaperti, the Guelfs were again forced to fly into exile
from Florence, and this expatriation included a large number
of even the commoner people. "So thorough had been the defeat,
so complete the Ghibelline ascendency resulting from it, that
in every city the same scene on a lesser scale was taking
place. Many of the smaller towns, which had always been Guelph
in their sympathies, were now subjected to Ghibelline
despotism. One refuge alone remained in Tuscany--Lucca. ...
And thither the whole body of the expatriated Guelphs betook
themselves. ... The Ghibellines entered Florence in triumph on
the 16th of September, three days after their enemies had left
it. ... The city seemed like a desert. The gates were standing
open and unguarded; the streets were empty; the comparatively
few inhabitants who remained, almost entirely of the lowest
class of the populace, were shut up in their obscure
dwellings, or were on their knees in the churches. And what
was worse, the conquerors did not come back alone. They had
invited a foreign despot to restore order;" and so King
Manfred's general, Giordano da Anglona, established Count
Guido Novello in Florence as Manfred's vicar. "All the
constitutional authorities established by the people, and the
whole frame-work of the former government, were destroyed, and
the city was ruled entirely by direction transmitted from the
King's Sicilian court." There were serious proposals, even,
that Florence itself should be destroyed, and the saving of
the noble city from that untimely fate is credited to one
patriotic noble, of the Uberti family, who withstood the
proposition, alone. "The Ghibelline army marched on Lucca, and
had not much more difficulty in reducing that city. The
government was put into Ghibelline hands, and Lucca became a
Ghibelline city like all the rest of Tuscany. The Lucchese
were not required by the victors to turn their own Guelphs out
of the city. But it was imperatively insisted on that every
Guelph not a native citizen should be thrust forth from the
gates." The unfortunate Florentines, thus made homeless again,
now found shelter at Bologna, and presently helped their friends
at Modena and Reggio to overcome the Ghibellines in those
cities and recover control. But for five years their condition
was one of wretchedness. Then Charles of Anjou was brought
into Italy (1265) by the Pope, to snatch the crown of the Two
Sicilies from King Manfred, and succeeded in his undertaking.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1250-1268.
{1133}
The prop of the Ghibellines was broken. Guido Novello and his
troopers rode away from Florence; 800 French horsemen, sent by
the new Angevine king, under Guy de Montfort, took their
places; the Guelfs swarmed in again--the Ghibellines swarmed
out; the popular constitution was restored, with new features
more popular than before. In 1273 there was a great attempt
made by Pope Gregory X. in person, to reconcile the factions
in Florence; but it had so little success that the Holy Father
left the city in disgust and pronounced it under interdict for
three years. In 1278 the attempt was renewed with somewhat
better success. "'And now, says Villani, 'the Ghibellines were
at liberty to return to Florence, they and their families. ...
And the said Ghibellines had back again their goods and
possessions; except that certain of the leading families were
ordered, for the safety of the city, to remain for a certain
time beyond the boundaries of the Florentine territory.' In
fact, little more is heard henceforward of the Ghibellines as
a faction within the walls of Florence. The old name, as a
rallying cry for the Tory or Imperialist party, was still
raised here and there in Tuscany; and Pisa still called
herself Ghibelline. But the stream of progress had run past
them and left them stranded."
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 1, chapters 4-5,
and book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).
ALSO IN
N. Machiavelli,
Florentine Histories,
book 1.
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Italian Republics,
chapter 4.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1250-1293.
Development of the popular constitution of the Commonwealth.
When it became clear that the republic was to rule itself
henceforth untrammelled by imperial interference, the people
[in 1250] divided themselves into six districts, and chose for
each district two Ancients, who administered the government in
concert with the Potestà and the Captain of the People. The
Ancients were a relic of the old Roman municipal organization.
... The body of the citizens, or the popolo, were ultimately
sovereigns in the State. Assembled under the banners of their
several companies, they formed a parlamento for delegating
their own power to each successive government. Their
representatives, again, arranged in two councils, called the
Council of the People and the Council of the Commune, under
the presidency of the Captain of the People and the Potestà,
ratified the measures which had previously been proposed and
carried by the executive authority or signoria. Under this
simple State system the Florentines placed themselves at the
head of the Tuscan League, fought the battles of the Church,
asserted their sovereignty by issuing the golden florin of the
republic, and flourished until 1266. In that year an important
change was effected in the Constitution. The whole population
of Florence consisted, on the one hand, of nobles or Grandi,
as they were called in Tuscany, and on the other hand of
working people. The latter, divided into traders and
handicraftsmen, were distributed in guilds called Arti; and at
that time there were seven Greater and five Lesser Arti, the most
influential of all being the Guild of the Wool Merchants.
These guilds had their halls for meeting, their colleges of
chief officers, their heads, called Consoli or Priors, and
their flags. In 1266 it was decided that the administration of
the commonwealth should be placed simply and wholly in the
hands of the Arti, and the Priors of these industrial
companies became the lords or Signory of Florence. No
inhabitant of the city who had not enrolled himself as a
craftsman in one of the guilds could exercise any function of
burghership. To be scioperato, or without industry, was to be
without power, without rank or place of honour in the State.
The revolution which placed the Arts at the head of the
republic had the practical effect of excluding the Grandi
altogether from the government. ... In 1293, after the
Ghibellines had been defeated in the great battle of
Campaldino, a series of severe enactments, called the
Ordinances of Justice, were decreed against the unruly Grandi.
All civic rights were taken from them; the severest penalties
were attached to their slightest infringement of municipal
law; their titles to land were limited; the privilege of
living within the city walls was allowed them only under
galling restrictions; and last not least, a supreme
magistrate, named the Gonfalonier of Justice, was created for
the special purpose of watching them and carrying out the
penal code against them. Henceforward Florence was governed
exclusively by merchants and artisans. The Grandi hastened to
enroll themselves in the guilds, exchanging their former
titles and dignities for the solid privilege of burghership.
The exact parallel to this industrial constitution for a
commonwealth, carrying on wars with emperors and princes,
holding haughty captains in its pay, and dictating laws to
subject cities, cannot, I think, be elsewhere found in
history. It is as unique as the Florence of Dante and Giotto
is unique."
J. A. Symonds,
Florence and the Medici
(Sketches and Studies in Italy, chapter 5).
ALSO IN
C. Balbo,
Life and Times of Dante,
volume 1, Introduction.
A. Von Reumont,
Lorenzo de Medici,
book 1, chapter 1.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1284-1293.
War with Pisa.
See PISA: A. D. 1063-1293.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1289.
The victory of Campaldino, and the jealousy among its heroes.
In 1289 the Ghibellines of Arezzo having expelled the Guelfs
from that city, the Florentines made war in the cause of the
latter and won a great victory at Campaldino. This "raised the
renown and the military spirit of the Guelf party, for the
fame of the battle was very great; the hosts contained the
choicest chivalry of either side, armed and appointed with
emulous splendour. The fighting was hard, there was brilliant
and conspicuous gallantry, and the victory was complete. It
sealed Guelf ascendency. The Ghibelline warrior-bishop of
Arezzo fell, with three of the Uberti, and other Ghibelline
chiefs. ... In this battle the Guelf leaders had won great
glory. The hero of the day was the proudest, handsomest,
craftiest, most winning, most ambitious, most unscrupulous
Guelf noble in Florence--one of a family who inherited the
spirit and recklessness of the proscribed Uberti, and did not
refuse the popular epithet of 'Malefami'--Corso Donati.
{1134}
He did not come back from the field of Campaldino, where he
had won the battle by disobeying orders, with any increased
disposition to yield to rivals, or court the populace, or
respect other men's rights. Those rivals, too--and they also
had fought gallantly in the post of honour at Campaldino--were
such as he hated from his soul--rivals whom he despised, and
who yet were too strong for him [the family of the Cerchi].
His blood was ancient, they were upstarts; he was a soldier,
they were traders; he was poor, they the richest men in
Florence. ... They had crossed him in marriages, bargains,
inheritances. ... The glories of Campaldino were not as oil on
these troubled waters. The conquerors flouted each other all
the more fiercely in the streets on their return, and
ill-treated the lower people with less scruple."
R. W. Church,
Dante and Other Essays,
pages 27-31.
ALSO IN
C. Balbo,
Life and Times of Dante,
part 1, chapter 6 (volume 1).
FLORENCE: A. D. 1295-1300.
New factions in the city, and Dante's relations to them.
The Bianchi and the Neri (Whites and Blacks).
Among the Nobles "who resisted the oppression of the people,
Corso Donati must have been the chief, but he did not at first
come forward; with one of his usual stratagems, however, he
was the cause of a new revolution [January, 1295], which drove
Giano della Bella, the leader of the people, from the city.
... Notwithstanding the fall of Giano, the Nobles did not
return into power. He was succeeded as a popular leader by one
much his inferior, one Pecora, surnamed, from his trade, the
Butcher. New disputes arose between the nobles and the people,
and between the upper and lower ranks of the people itself.
Villani tells us that, in the year 1295, 'many families, who
were neither tyrannical nor powerful, withdrew from the order
of the nobles, and enrolled themselves among the people,
diminishing the power of the nobles and increasing that of the
people.' Dante must have been precisely one of those nobles 'who
were neither tyrannical nor powerful;' and ... it is certain
that he was among those who passed over from their own order
to that of the Popolani, by being matriculated in one of the
Arts. In a register from 1297 to 1300, of the Art of the
physicians and druggists, the fifth of the seven major Arts,
he is found matriculated in these words: 'Dante d'Aldighiero
degli Aldighieri poeta fiorentino.' ... Dante, by this means,
obtained office under the popular government. ... The new
factions that arose in Florence, in almost all Tuscany, and in
some of the cities in other parts of Italy, were merely
subdivisions of the Guelf party; merely what, in time, happens
to every faction after a period of prosperity, a division of
the ultras and of the moderates, or of those who hold more or
less extravagant views. ... All this happened to the Guelf
party in a very few years, and the Neri and Bianchi, the names
'Of the two divisions of that party, which had arisen in 1300,
were no longer mentioned ten years afterwards, but were again
lost in the primitive appellations of Guelfs and Ghibellines.
Thus this episode would possess little interest, and would be
scarcely mentioned in the history of Italy, or even of
Florence, had not the name of our sublime Poet been involved
in it; and, after his love, it is the most important
circumstance of his life, and the one to which he most
frequently alludes in his Commedia. It thus becomes a subject
worthy of history. ... Florentine historians attribute Corso
Donati's hatred towards Vieri de Cerchi to envy. ... This envy
arose to such a height between Dante's neighbours in Florence
that he has rendered it immortal. 'Through envy,' says
Villani, 'the citizens began to divide into factions, and one
of the principal feuds began in the Sesto dello Scandalo, near
the gate of St. Pietro, between the families of the Cerchi and
the Donati [from which latter family came Dante's wife]. ...
Messer Vieri was the head of the House of the Cerchi, and he
and his house were powerful in affairs, possessing a numerous
kindred; they were very rich merchants, for their company was
one of the greatest in the world.'" The state of animosity
between these two families "was existing in Florence in the
beginning of 1300, when it was increased by another rather
similar family quarrel that had arisen in Pistoia. . . .
'There was in Pistoia a family which amounted to more than 100
men capable of bearing arms; it was not of great antiquity,
but was powerful, wealthy, and numerous; it was descended from
one Cancellieri Notaio, and from him they had preserved
Cancellieri as their family name. From the children of the two
wives of this man were descended the 107 men of arms that have
been enumerated; one of the wives having been named Madonna
Bianca, her descendants were called Cancellieri Bianchi (White
Cancellieri); and the descendants of the other wife, in
opposition, were called Cancellieri Neri (Black
Cancellieri).'" Between these two branches of the family of
the Cancellieri there arose, some time near the end of the
thirteenth century, an implacable feud. "Florence ...
exercised a supremacy over Pistoia ... and fearing that these
internal dissensions might do injury to the Guelf party, she
took upon herself the lordship or supremacy of that city. The
principal Cancellieri, both Bianchi and Neri, were banished to
Florence itself; 'the Neri took up their abode in the house of
the Frescobaldi, beyond the Arno; the Bianchi at the house of
the Cerchi, in the Garbo, from being connected with them by
kindred. But as one sick sheep infects another, and is
injurious to the flock, so this cursed seed of discord, that
had departed from Pistoia and had now entered Florence,
corrupted all the Florentines, and divided them into two
parties.' ... The Cerchi, formerly called the Forest party
(parte selvaggia), now assumed the name of Bianchi; and those
who followed the Donati were now called Neri. ... 'There sided
with [the Bianchi, says Villani] the families of the Popolani
and petty artisans, and all the Ghibellines, whether Nobles or
Popolani.' ... Thus the usual position in which the two
parties stood was altered; for hitherto the Nobles had almost
always been Ghibellines, and the Popolani Guelfs; but now, if
the Popolani were not Ghibellines, they were at least not such
strong Guelfs as the nobles. Sometimes these parties are
referred to as White Guelfs and Black Guelfs."
C. Balbo,
Life and Times of Dante,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN
H. E. Napier,
Florentine History,
book 1, chapter 14 (volume l).
N. Machiavelli,
The Florentine Histories,
book 2.
{1135}
FLORENCE: A. D. 1301-1313.
Triumph of the Neri.
Banishment of Dante and his party.
Downfall and death of Corso Donati.
"In the year 1301, a serious affray took place between the two
parties [the Bianchi and the Neri]; the whole city was in
arms; the law, and the authority of the Signoria, among whom
was the poet Dante Alighieri, was set at naught by the great
men of each side, while the best citizens looked on with fear
and trembling. The Donati, fearing that unaided they would not
be a match for their adversaries, proposed that they should
put themselves under a ruler of the family of the king of
France. Such a direct attack on the independence of the state
was not to be borne by the Signoria, among whom the poet had
great influence. At his instigation they armed the populace,
and with their assistance compelled the heads of the
contending parties to lay down their arms, and sent into exile
Messer Donati and others who had proposed the calling in of
foreigners. A sentence of banishment was also pronounced
against the most violent men of the party of the Bianchi, most
of whom, however, were allowed, under various pretences, to
return to their country. The party of the Donati in their
exile carried on those intrigues which they had commenced
while at home. They derived considerable assistance from the
king of France's brother, Charles of Valois, whom Pope
Boniface had brought into Italy. That prince managed, by means
of promises, which he subsequently violated, to get admission
for himself, together with several of the Neri, and the legate
of the pope, into Florence. He then produced letters,
generally suspected to be forgeries, charging the leaders of
the Bianchi with conspiracy. The popularity of the accused
party had already been on the wane, and after a violent
tumult, the chief men among them, including Dante, were
obliged to leave the city; their goods were confiscated, and
their houses destroyed. ... From this time Corso Donati, the
head of the faction of the Neri, became the chief man at
Florence. The accounts of its state at this period, taken from
the most credible historians, warrant us in thinking that the
severe invectives of Dante are not to be ascribed merely to
indignation or resentment at the harsh treatment he had
received. ... The city was rent by more violent dissensions
than ever. There were now three distinct sources of
contention--the jealousy between the people and the nobles,
the disputes between the Bianchi and the Neri, and those
between the Ghibellines and the Guelfs. It was in vain that
the legate of Pope Benedict, a man of great piety, went
thither for the sake of trying to restore order. The
inhabitants showed how little they respected him by exhibiting
a scandalous representation of hell on the river Arno; and,
after renewing his efforts without success, he cursed the city
and departed [1302]. The reign of Corso Donati ended like that
of most of those who have succeeded to power by popular violence.
Six years after the banishment of his adversaries he was
suspected, not without reason, of endeavouring to make himself
independent of constitutional restraints. The Signori declared
him guilty of rebellion. After a protracted resistance he made
his escape from the city, but was pursued and taken at Rovesca
[1308]. When he was led captive by those among whom his
authority had lately been paramount, he threw himself under
his horse, and, after having been dragged some distance, he
was dispatched by one of the captors. ... The party that had
been raised by Corso Donati continued to hold the chief power
at Florence even after the death of their chief. The exiled
faction, in the words of one of their leaders, ... had not
learned the art of returning to their country as well as their
adversaries. Four years after the events alluded to, the
Emperor, Henry VII., made some negotiations in their favour,
which but imperfectly succeeded. The Florentines, however,
were awed when he approached their city at the head of his
army; and in the extremity of their danger they implored the
assistance of King Robert of Naples, and made him Lord of
their city for the space of five years. The Emperor's
mysterious death [August 24, 1313], at Buonconvento freed them
from their alarm."
W. P. Urquhart,
Life and Times of Francesco Sforza,
book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1).
ALSO IN
Mrs. Oliphant,
The Makers of Florence,
chapter 2.
B. Duffy,
The Tuscan Republics,
chapter 12.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1310-1313.
Resistance to the Emperor, Henry VII.
Siege by the imperial army.
See ITALY: A. D, 1310-1313,
FLORENCE: A. D. 1313-1328.
Wars with Pisa and with Castruccio Castracani, of Lucca.
Disastrous battles of Montecatini and Altopascio.
See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1336-1338.
Alliance with Venice against Mastino della Scala.
See VERONA: A. D. 1260-1338.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1341-1343.
Defeat by the Pisans before Lucca.
The brief tyranny of the Duke of Athens.
In 1341, Mastino della Scala, of Verona, who had become master
of Lucca in 1335 by treachery, offered to sell that town to
the Florentines. The bargain was concluded; "but it appeared
to the Pisans the signal of their own servitude, for it cut
off all communication between them and the Ghibelines of
Lombardy. They immediately advanced their militia into the
Lucchese states to prevent the Florentines from taking
possession of the town; vanquished them in battle, on the 2d
of October, 1341, under the walls of Lucca; and, on the 6th of
July following, took possession of that city for themselves.
The people of Florence attributed this train of disasters to
the incapacity of their magistrates. ... At this period,
Gauttier [Walter] de Brienne, duke of Athens, a French noble,
but born in Greece, passed through Florence on his way from
Naples to France; The duchy of Athens had remained in his
family from the conquest of Constantinople till it was taken
from his father in 1312. ... It was for this man the
Florentines, after their defeat at Lucca, took a sudden fancy.
... On the 1st of August, 1342, they obliged the signoria to
confer on him the title of captain of justice, and to give him
the command of their militia." A month later, the duke, by his
arts, had worked such a ferment among the lower classes of the
population that they "proclaimed him sovereign lord of
Florence for his life, forced the public palace, drove from it
the gonfalonier and the priori, and installed him there in
their place. ... Happily, Florence was not ripe for slavery:
ten months sufficed for the duke of Athens to draw from it
400,000 golden florins, which he sent either to France or
Naples; but ten months sufficed also to undeceive all parties
who had placed any confidence in him," and by a universal
rising, in July, 1343, he was driven from the city.
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Italian Republics,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 3, chapter 4 (volume 2).
{1136}
FLORENCE: 14th Century.
Industrial Prosperity of the City.
"John Villani has given us an ample and precise account of the
state of Florence in the earlier part of the 14th century. The
revenue of the Republic amounted to 300,000 florins, a sum
which, allowing for the depreciation of the precious metals,
was at least equivalent to 600,000 pounds sterling; a larger
sum than England and Ireland, two centuries ago, yielded
annually to Elizabeth--a larger sum than, according to any
computation which we have seen, the Grand Duke of Tuscany now
derives from a territory of much greater extent. The
manufacture of wool alone employed 200 factories and 30,000
workmen. The cloth annually produced sold, at an average, for
1,200,000 florins; a sum fairly equal, in exchangeable value,
to two millions and a half of our money. Four hundred thousand
florins were annually coined. Eighty banks conducted the
commercial operations, not of Florence only, but of all
Europe. The transactions of these establishments were
sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise even the
contemporaries of the Barings and the Rothschilds. Two houses
advanced to Edward the Third of England upwards of 300,000
marks, at a time when the mark contained more silver than 50
shillings of the present day, and when the value of silver was
more than quadruple of what it now is. The city and its
environs contained 170,000 inhabitants. In the various schools
about 10,000 children were taught to read; 1,200 studied
arithmetic; 600 received a learned education. The progress of
elegant literature and of the fine arts was proportioned to
that of the public prosperity. ... Early in the 14th century
came forth the Divine Comedy, beyond comparison the greatest
work of imagination which had appeared since the poems of
Homer. The following generation produced indeed no second
Dante: but it was eminently distinguished by general
intellectual activity. The study of the Latin writers had
never been wholly neglected in Italy. But Petrarch introduced
a more profound, liberal, and elegant scholarship; and
communicated to his countrymen that enthusiasm for the
literature, the history, and the antiquities of Rome, which
divided his own heart with a frigid mistress and a more frigid
Muse. Boccaccio turned their attention to the more sublime and
graceful models of Greece."
Lord Macaulay,
Machiavelli
(Essays, volume 1).
FLORENCE: A. D. 1348.
The Plague.
"In the year then of our Lord 1348, there happened at
Florence, the finest city in all Italy, a most terrible
plague; which, whether owing to the influence of the planets,
or that it was sent from God as a just punishment for our
sins, had broken out some years before in the Levant, and
after passing from place to place, and making incredible havoc
all the way, had now reached the west. There, spite of all the
means that art and human foresight could suggest, such as
keeping the city clear from filth, the exclusion of all
suspected persons, and the publication of copious instructions
for the preservation of health; and notwithstanding manifold
humble supplications offered to God in processions and
otherwise; it began to show itself in the spring of the
aforesaid year, in a sad and wonderful manner. Unlike what had
been seen in the east, where bleeding from the nose is the
fatal prognostic, here there appeared certain tumours in the
groin or under the armpits, some as big as a small apple,
others as an egg; and afterwards purple spots in most parts of
the body; in some cases large and but few in number, in others
smaller and more numerous--both sorts the usual messengers of
death. To the cure of this malady, neither medical knowledge
nor the power of drugs was of any effect. ... Nearly all died
the third day from the first appearance of the symptoms, some
sooner, some later, without any fever or other accessory
symptoms. What gave the more virulence to this plague, was
that, by being communicated from the sick to the hale, it
spread daily, like fire when it comes in contact with large
masses of combustibles. Nor was it caught only by conversing
with, or coming near the sick, but even by touching their
clothes, or anything that they had before touched. ... These
facts, and others of the like sort, occasioned various fears
and devices amongst those who survived, all tending to the
same uncharitable and cruel end; which was, to avoid the sick,
and everything that had been near them, expecting by that
means to save themselves. And some holding it best to live
temperately, and to avoid excesses of all kinds, made parties,
and shut themselves up from the rest of the world. ... Others
maintained free living to be a better preservative, and would
baulk no passion or appetite they wished to gratify, drinking
and revelling incessantly from tavern to tavern, or in private
houses (which were frequently found deserted by the owners,
and therefore common to everyone), yet strenuously avoiding,
with all this brutal indulgence, to come near the infected.
And such, at that time, was the public distress, that the
laws, human and divine, were no more regarded; for the
officers to put them in force being either dead, sick, or in
want of persons to assist them, everyone did just as he
pleased. ... I pass over the little regard that citizens and
relations showed to each other; for their terror was such that
a brother even fled from a brother, a wife from her husband,
and, what is more uncommon, a parent from his own child. ...
Such was the cruelty of Heaven, and perhaps of men, that
between March and July following, according to authentic
reckonings, upwards of 100,000 souls perished in the city
only; whereas, before that calamity, it was not supposed to
have continued so many inhabitants. What magnificent
dwellings, what noble palaces, were then depopulated to the
last inhabitant!"
G. Boccaccio,
The Decameron,
introd.
See, also, BLACK DEATH.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1358.
The captains of the Guelf Party and the "Ammoniti."
"The magistracy called the 'Capitani di Parte Guelfa,'--the
Captains of the Guelph party,--was instituted in the year
1267; and it was remarked, when the institution of it was
recorded, that the conception of a magistracy avowedly formed
to govern a community, not only by the authority of, but in
the interest of one section only of its members, was an
extraordinary proof of the unfitness of the Florentines for
self-government, and a forewarning of the infallible certainty
that the attempt to rule the Commonwealth on such principles
would come to a bad ending. In the year 1358, a little less
than a century after the first establishment of this strange
magistracy, it began to develop the mischievous capabilities
inherent in the nature of it, in a very alarming manner. ...
{1137}
In 1358 this magistracy consisted of four members. ... These
men, 'born,' says Ammirato, 'for the public ruin, under
pretext of zeal for the Guelph cause' ... caused a law to be
passed, according to which any citizen or Florentine subject
who had ever held, or should thereafter hold, any office in
the Commonwealth, might be either openly or secretly accused
before the tribunal of the Captains of the Guelph Party of
being Ghibelline, or not genuine Guelph. If the accusation was
supported by six witnesses worthy of belief, the accused might
be condemned to death or to fine at the discretion of the
Captains. ... It will be readily conceived that the passing of
such a law, in a city bristling with party hatreds and feuds,
was the signal for the commencement of a reign of terror." The
citizens proscribed were "said to be 'admonished'; and the
condemnations were called 'admonitions'; and henceforward for
many years the 'ammonizioni' [or 'ammoniti'] play a large part
in the domestic history and political struggles of Florence."
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 3, chapter 7 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
H. E. Napier,
Florentine History,
chapter 23 (volume 2).
FLORENCE: A. D. 1359-1391.
The Free Company of Sir John Hawkwood and the wars with Pisa,
with Milan, and with the Pope.
See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1375-1378.
War with the Pope in support of the oppressed States of the
Church.
The Eight Saints of War.
A terrible excommunication.
In 1375, the Florentines became engaged in war with Pope
Gregory XI., supporting a revolt of the States of the Church,
which were heavily oppressed by the representatives of their
papal sovereign
See PAPACY: A. D. 1352-1378.
"Nevertheless, so profoundly reverenced was the church that
even the sound of war against a pope appeared to many little
less than blasphemy: numbers opposed on this pretence, but
really from party motives alone." But "a general council
assembled and declared the cause of liberty paramount to every
other consideration; the war was affirmed to be rather against
the injustice and tyranny of foreign governors than the church
itself. ... All the ecclesiastical cities then groaning under
French oppression were to be invited to revolt and boldly
achieve their independence. These spirited resolutions were
instantly executed, and on the 8th of August 1375 Alessandro
de' Bardi [and seven other citizens] ... were formed into a
supreme council of war called 'Gli Otto della Guerra'; and
afterwards, from their able conduct, 'Gli Otto Santi della
Guerra' [The Eight Saints of War]; armed with the concentrated
power of the whole Florentine nation in what regarded war." A
terrible sentence of excommunication was launched against the
Florentines by the Pope. "Their souls were solemnly condemned
to the pains of hell; fire and water were interdicted; their
persons and property outlawed in every Christian land, and
they were finally declared lawful prey for all who chose to
sell, plunder, or kill them as though they were mere slaves or
infidels."
H. E. Napier,
Florentine History,
book 1, chapter 26 (volume 2).
FLORENCE: A. D. 1378-1427.
Complete democratizing of the commonwealth.
The Tumult of the Ciompi.
First appearance of the Medici in Florentine history.
Though the reign of the Duke of Athens lasted rather less than
a year, "it bore important fruits; for the tyrant, seeking to
support himself upon the favour of the common people, gave
political power to the Lesser Arts at the expense of the
Greater, and confused the old State-system by enlarging the
democracy. The net result of these events for Florence was,
first, that the city became habituated to rancorous
party-strife, involving exiles and proscriptions, and,
secondly, that it lost its primitive social hierarchy of
classes. ... Civil strife now declared itself as a conflict
between labour and capital. The members of the Lesser Arts,
craftsmen who plied trades subordinate to those of the Greater
Arts, rose up against their social and political superiors,
demanding a larger share in the government, a more equal
distribution of profits, higher wages, and privileges that
should place them on an absolute equality with the wealthy
merchants. It was in the year 1378 that the proletariate broke
out into rebellion. Previous events had prepared the way for
this revolt. First of all, the republic had been democratised
through the destruction of the Grandi and through the popular
policy pursued to gain his own ends by the Duke of Athens.
Secondly, society had been shaken to its very foundation by
the great plague of 1348 ... nor had 30 years sufficed to
restore their relative position to grades and ranks confounded
by an overwhelming calamity. ... Rising in a mass to claim
their privileges, the artisans ejected the Signory from the
Public Palace, and for awhile Florence was at the mercy of the
mob. It is worthy of notice that the Medici, whose name is
scarcely known before this epoch, now come for one moment to
the front. Salvestro de' Medici was Gonfalonier of Justice at
the time when the tumult first broke out. He followed the
faction of the handicraftsmen, and became the hero of the day.
I cannot discover that he did more than extend a sort of
passive protection to their cause. Yet there is no doubt that
the attachment of the working classes to the house of Medici
dates from this period. The rebellion of 1378 is known in
Florentine history as the Tumult of the Ciompi. The name
Ciompi strictly means the Wool-Carders. One set of operatives
in the city, and that the largest, gave its title to the whole
body of the labourers. For some months these craftsmen
governed the republic, appointing their own Signory and
passing laws in their own interest; but, as is usual, the
proletariate found itself incapable of sustained government.
The ambition and discontent of the Ciompi foamed themselves
away, and industrious workingmen began to see that trade was
languishing and credit on the wane. By their own act at last
they restored the government to the Priors of the Greater
Arti. Still the movement had not been without grave
consequences. It completed the levelling of classes, which had
been steadily advancing from the first in Florence. After the
Ciompi riot there was no longer not only any distinction
between noble and burgher, but the distinction between greater
and lesser guilds was practically swept away. ... The proper
political conditions had been formed for unscrupulous
adventurers. Florence had become a democracy without social
organisation. ... The time was come for the Albizzi to attempt
an oligarchy, and for the Medici to begin the enslavement of the
State.
{1138}
The Constitution of Florence offered many points of weakness
to the attacks of such intriguers. In the first place it was
in its origin not a political but an industrial
organisation--a simple group of guilds invested with the
sovereign authority. ... It had no permanent head, like the
Doge of Venice, no fixed senate like the Venetian Grand
Council; its chief magistrates, the Signory, were elected for
short periods of two months, and their mode of election was
open to the gravest criticism. Supposed to be chosen by lot,
they were really selected from lists drawn up by the factions
in power from time to time. These factions contrived to
exclude the names of all but their adherents from the bags, or
'borse,' in which the burghers eligible for election had to be
inscribed. Furthermore, it was not possible for this shifting
Signory to conduct affairs requiring sustained effort and
secret deliberation; therefore recourse was being continually
had to dictatorial Commissions. The people, summoned in
parliament upon the Great Square, were asked to confer
plenipotentiary authority upon a committee called Balia [see
BALIA OF FLORENCE], who proceeded to do what they chose in the
State; and who retained power after the emergency for which
they were created passed away. ... It was through these [and
other specified] defects that the democracy merged gradually
into a despotism. The art of the Medici consisted in a
scientific comprehension of these very imperfections, a
methodic use of them for their own purposes, and a steady
opposition to any attempts made to substitute a stricter
system. ... Florence, in the middle of the 14th century, was a
vast beehive of industry. Distinctions of rank among burghers,
qualified to vote and hold office, were theoretically unknown.
Highly educated men, of more than princely wealth, spent their
time in shops and counting-houses, and trained their sons to
follow trades. Military service at this period was abandoned
by the citizens; they preferred to pay mercenary troops for
the conduct of their wars. Nor was there, as in Venice, any
outlet for their energies upon the seas. Florence had no navy,
no great port--she only kept a small fleet for the protection
of her commerce. Thus the vigour of the commonwealth was
concentrated on itself; while the influence of citizens,
through their affiliated trading-houses, correspondents, and
agents, extended like a network over Europe. ... Accordingly
we find that out of the very bosom of the people a new
plutocratic aristocracy begins to rise. ... These nobles of
the purse obtained the name of 'Popolani Nobili'; and it was
they who now began to play at high stakes for the supreme
power. ... The opening of the second half of the 14th century
had been signalised by the feuds of two great houses, both
risen from the people. These were the Albizzi and the Ricci."
The Albizzi triumphed, in the conflict of the two houses, and
became all-powerful for a time in Florence; but the wars with
the Visconti, of Milan, in which they engaged the city, made
necessary a heavy burden of taxation, which they rendered more
grievous by distributing it unfairly. "This imprudent
financial policy began the ruin of the Albizzi. It caused a
clamour in the city for a new system of more just taxation,
which was too powerful to be resisted. The voice of the people
made itself loudly heard; and with the people on this occasion
sided Giovanni de' Medici. This was in 1427. It is here that
the Medici appear upon that memorable scene where in the
future they are to play the first part. Giovanni de' Medici
did not belong to the same branch of his family as the
Salvestro who favoured the people at the time of the Ciompi
Tumult. But he adopted the same popular policy. To his sons
Cosimo and Lorenzo he bequeathed on his death-bed the rule
that they should invariably adhere to the cause of the
multitude, found their influence on that, and avoid the arts
of factious and ambitious leaders."
J. A. Symonds,
Florence and the Medici
(Sketches and Studies in Italy, chapter 5).
ALSO IN:
A. von Reumont,
Lorenzo de' Medici,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume l).
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
books 4-5 (volume 2).
FLORENCE: A. D. 1390-1402.
War with Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan.
"Already in 1386, the growing power of Giangaleazzo Visconti,
the tenth duke of Milan of that family, began to give umbrage,
not only to all the sovereign princes: his neighbours, but
also to Florence [see MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447]. ... Florence
... had cause enough to feel uneasy at the progress of such a
man in his career of successful invasion and
usurpation;--Florence, no more specially than other of the
free towns around her, save that Florence seems always to have
thought that she had more to lose from the loss of her liberty
than any of the other cities ... and felt always called upon to
take upon herself the duty of standing forward as the champion
and supporter of the principles of republicanism and free
government. ... The Pope, Urban VI., added another element of
disturbance to the condition of Italy. For in his anxiety to
recover sundry cities mainly in Umbria and Romagna ... he was
exceedingly unscrupulous of means, and might at any moment be
found allying himself with the enemies of free government and
of the old Guelph cause in Italy. Venice, also, having most
improvidently and unwisely allied herself with Visconti,
constituted another element of danger, and an additional cause
of uneasiness and watchfulness to the Florentine government.
In the spring of 1388, therefore, a board of ten, 'Dieci di
Balia,' was elected for the general management of 'all those
measures concerning war and peace which should be adopted by
the entire Florentine people.'" The first war with Visconti
was declared by the republic in May, 1390, and was so
successfully conducted for the Florentines by Sir John
Hawkwood that it terminated in a treaty signed January 26,
1392, which bound the Duke of Milan not to meddle in any way
with the affairs of Tuscany. For ten years this agreement
seems to have been tolerably well adhered to; but in 1402 the
rapacious Duke entered upon new encroachments, which forced
the Florentines to take up arms again. Their only allies were
Bologna and Padua (or Francesco Carrara of Padua), and the
armies of the three states were defeated in a terribly bloody
battle fought near Bologna on the 26th of June. "Bologna fell
into the hands of Visconti. Great was the dismay and terror in
Florence when the news ... reached the city. It was neither
more nor less than the fall, as the historian says, of the
fortress which was the bulwark of Florence. Now she lay
absolutely open to the invader." But the invader did not come.
He was stricken with the plague and died, in September, and
Florence and Italy were saved from the tyranny which he had
seemed able to extend over the whole.
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 4, chapters 4-5 (volume 2).
{1139}
FLORENCE: 14th-15th Centuries.
Commercial enterprise, industrial energy,
wealth and culture of the city.
"During the 14th and 15th centuries Florentine wealth
increased in an extraordinary degree. Earlier generations had
compelled the powerful barons of the district to live in the
city; and even yet the exercise of the rights of citizenship
was dependent on having a residence there. The influx of
outsiders was, however, much more owing to the attractions
offered by the city, whether in business, profession, or
pleasure, than to compulsion. ... The situation of the city is
not favorable to the natural growth of commerce, especially
under the conditions which preceded the building of railroads.
At a considerable distance from the sea, on a river navigable
only for very small craft, and surrounded by hills which
rendered difficult the construction of good roads,--the fact
that the city did prosper so marvellously is in itself proof
of the remarkable energy and ability of its people. They
needed above all things a sea-port, and to obtain a good one
they waged some of their most exhausting wars. Their principal
wealth, however, came through their financial operations,
which extended throughout Europe, and penetrated even to
Morocco and the Orient. Their manufactures also, especially of
wool and silk, brought in enormous returns, and made not only
the fortunes but also, in one famous case at least, the name
of the families engaged in them. Their superiority over the
rest of Christendom in these pursuits was but one side of that
remarkable, universal talent which is the most astonishing
feature of the Florentine life of that age. With the hardihood
of youth, they were not only ready but eager to engage in new
enterprises, whether at home or abroad. ... As a result of
their energy and ability, riches poured into their coffers,--a
mighty stream of gold, in the use of which they showed so much
judgment, that the after world has feasted to our day, and for
centuries to come, will probably continue to feast without
satiety on the good things which they caused to be made, and
left behind them. Of all the legacies for which we have to
thank Florence, none are so well known and so universally
recognized as the treasures of art created by her sons, many
of which yet remain within her walls, the marvel and delight
of all who behold them. As the Florentines were ready to try
experiments in politics, manufactures, and commerce, so also
in all branches of the fine arts they tried experiments, left
the old, beaten paths of their forefathers, and created
something original, useful, and beautiful for themselves.
Christian art from the time of the Roman Empire to Cimabue had
made comparatively little progress; but a son of the
Florentine fields was to start a revolution which should lead
to the production of some of the most marvellous works which
have proceeded from the hand of man. The idea that the fine
arts are more successfully cultivated under the patronage of
princes than under republican rule is very widespread, and is
occasionally accepted almost as a dogma; but the history of
Athens and of Florence teaches us without any doubt that the
two most artistic epochs in the history of the world have had
their rise in republics. ... Some writers, dazzled by the
splendors of the Medici, entirely lose sight of the fact that
both Dante and Petrarch were dead before the Medici were even
heard of, and that the greatest works, at least in
architecture, were all begun long before they were leaders in
Florentine affairs. That family did much, yes very much, for
the advancement of art and letters; but they did not do all or
nearly all that was done in Florence. ... Though civil discord
and foreign war were very frequent, Florentine life is
nevertheless an illustration rather of what Herbert Spencer
calls the commercial stage of civilization, than of the
war-like period. Her citizens were above all things merchants,
and were generally much more willing to pay to avoid a war than
to conduct one. They strove for glory, not in feats of arms,
but in literary contests and in peaceful emulation in the
encouragement of learning and the fine arts."
W. B. Scaife,
Florentine Life during the Renaissance,
pages 16-19.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1405-1406.
Purchase and conquest of Pisa.
See ITALY: A. D. 1402-1406.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1409-1411.
League against and war with Ladislas, King of Naples.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1386-1414.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1423-1447.
War with the Duke of Milan.
League with Venice, Naples, and other States.
See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1433-1464.
The ascendancy of Cosimo de' Medici.
In 1433, Cosmo, or Cosimo de' Medici, the son of Giovanni de'
Medici, was the recognized leader of the opposition to the
oligarchy controlled by Rinaldo de' Albizzi. Cosmo inherited
from his father a large fortune and a business as a merchant
and banker which he maintained and increased. "He lived
splendidly; he was a great supporter of all literary men, and
spent and distributed his great wealth amongst his fellow
citizens. He was courteous and liberal, and was looked upon
with almost unbounded respect and affection by a large party
in the state. Rinaldo was bent upon his ruin, and in 1433,
when he had a Signoria devoted to his party, he cited Cosmo
before the Council, and shut him up in a tower of the Public
Palace. Great excitement was caused by this violent step, and
two days after the Signoria held a parliament of the people.
The great bell of the city was tolled, and the people gathered
round the Palace. Then the gates of the Palace were thrown
open, and the Signoria, the Colleges of Arts, and the
Gonfaloniere came forth, and asked the people if they would
have a Balia. So a Balia was appointed, the names being
proposed by the Signoria, to decide on the fate of Cosmo. At
first it was proposed to kill him, but he was only banished,
much against the will of Rinaldo, who knew that, if he lived,
he would some day come back again. The next year the Signoria
was favourable to him; another Balia was appointed; the party
of the Albizzi was banished, and Cosmo was recalled. He was
received with a greeting such as men give to a conqueror, and
was hailed as the 'Father of his Country.' This triumphant
return gave the Medici a power in the Republic which they
never afterwards lost. The banished party fled to the court of
the Duke of Milan, and stirred him up to war against the city."
W. Hunt,
History of Italy,
chapter 6, section 5.
{1140}
"Cosimo de' Medici did not content himself with rendering his
old opponents harmless; he took care also that none of his
adherents should become too powerful and dangerous to him.
Therefore, remarks Francesco Guicciardini, he retained the
Signoria, as well as the taxes, in his hand, in order to be
able to promote or oppress individuals at will. In other
things the citizens enjoyed greater freedom and acted more
according to their own pleasure than later, in the days of his
grandson, for he let the reins hang loose if he was only sure
of his own position. It was just in this that his great art
lay, to guide things according to his will, and yet to make
his partisans believe that he shared his authority with them.
... 'It is well known' remarks [Guicciardini] ... 'how much
nobility and wealth were destroyed by Cosimo and his
descendants by taxation. The Medici never allowed a fixed
method and legal distribution, but always reserved to
themselves the power of bearing heavily upon individuals
according to their pleasure. ... He [Cosimo] maintained great
reserve in his whole manner of life. For a quarter of a
century he was the almost absolute director of the State, but
he never assumed the show of his dignity. ... The ruler of the
Florentine State remained citizen, agriculturist, and
merchant. In his appearance and bearing there was nothing
which distinguished him from others. ... He ruled the money
market, not only in Italy, but throughout Europe. He had banks
in all the western countries, and his experience and the
excellent memory which never failed him, with his strong love
of order, enabled him to guide everything from Florence, which
he never quitted after 1438." The death of Cosimo occurred on
the 1st day of August, 1464.
A. von Reumont,
Lorenzo de' Medici,
book. 1, chapters 6 and 8 (volume 1).
"The last troubled days of the Florentine democracy had not
proved quite unproductive of art. It was the time of Giotto's
undisputed sway. Many works of which the 15th century gets the
glory because it finished them were ordered and begun amidst
the confusion and terrible agitation of the demagogy. ...
Under the oligarchy, in the relative calm that came with
oppression, a taste for art as well as for letters began to
develop in Florence as elsewhere." But "Cosimo de' Medicis had
rare good fortune. In his time, and under his rule, capricious
chance united at Florence talents as numerous as they were
diverse--the universal Brunelleschi, the polished and elegant
Ghiberti, the rough and powerful Donatello, the suave
Angelico, the masculine Masaccio. ... Cosimo lived long enough
to see the collapse of the admirable talent which flourished
upon the banks of the Arno, and soon spread throughout Italy,
and to feel the void left by it. It is true his grandson saw a
new harvest, but as inferior to that which preceded it, as it
was to that which followed it."
F. T. Perrens,
History of Florence, 1434-1531,
book 1, chapter 6.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1450-1454.
Alliance with Francesco Sforza, of Milan, and war with
Venice, Naples, Savoy, and other States.
See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1458-1469.
Lucas Pitti, and the building of the Pitti Palace.
Piero de' Medici and the five agents of his tyranny.
Until 1455, Cosmo de' Medici shared the government of Florence
in some degree with Neri Capponi, an able statesman, who had
taken an eminent part in public affairs for many years--during
the domination of the Albizzi, as well as afterwards.
"When Neri Capponi died, the council refused to call a new
parliament to replace the balia, whose power expired on the
1st of July, 1455. ... The election of the signoria was again
made fairly by lot, ... the contributions were again equitably
apportioned,--the tribunals ceased to listen to the
recommendations of those who, till then, had made a traffic of
distributive justice." This recovery of freedom in Florence
was enjoyed for about three years; but when, in 1458, Lucas
Pitti, "rich, powerful, and bold," was named gonfalonier,
Cosmo conspired with him to reimpose the yoke. "Pitti
assembled the parliament; but not till he had filled all the
avenues of the public square with soldiers or armed peasants.
The people, menaced and trembling within this circle,
consented to name a new balia, more violent and tyrannical
than any of the preceding. It was composed of 352 persons, to
whom was delegated all the power of the republic. They exiled
a great number of the citizens who had shown the most
attachment to liberty, and they even put some to death." When,
in 1463, Cosmo's second son, Giovanni, on whom his hopes were
centered, died, Lucas Pitti "looked on himself henceforth as
the only chief of the state. It was about this time that he
undertook the building of that magnificent palace which now
[1832] forms the residence of the grand-dukes. The republican
equality was not only offended by the splendour of this regal
dwelling; but the construction of it afforded Pitti an
occasion for marking his contempt of liberty and the laws. He
made of this building an asylum for all fugitives from
justice, whom no public officer dared pursue when once he
[they?] took part in the labour. At the same time individuals,
as well as communities, who would obtain some favour from the
republic, knew that the only means of being heard was to offer
Lucas Pitti some precious wood or marble to be employed in the
construction of his palace. When Cosmo de' Medici died, at his
country-house of Careggi, on the 1st of August, 1464, Lucas
Pitti felt himself released from the control imposed by the
virtue and moderation of that great citizen. ... His [Cosmo's]
son, Pietro de' Medici, then 48 years of age, supposed that he
should succeed to the administration of the republic, as he
had succeeded to the wealth of his father, by hereditary
right: but the state of his health did not admit of his
attending regularly to business, or of his inspiring his
rivals with much fear. To diminish the weight of affairs which
oppressed him, he resolved on withdrawing a part of his immense
fortune from commerce; recalling all his loans made in
partnership with other merchants; and laying out this money in
land. But this unexpected demand of considerable capital
occasioned a fatal shock to the commerce of Florence; at the
same time that it alienated all the debtors of the house of
Medici, and deprived it of much of its popularity. The death
of Sforza, also, which took place on the 8th of March, 1466,
deprived the Medicean party of its firmest support abroad. ...
The friends of liberty at Florence soon perceived that Lucas
Pitti and Pietro de' Medici no longer agreed together; and
they recovered courage when the latter proposed to the council
the calling of a parliament, in order to renew the balia, the
power of which expired on the 1st of September, 1465; his
proposition was rejected.
{1141}
The magistracy began again to be drawn by lot from among the
members of the party victorious in 1434. This return of
liberty, however, was but of short duration. Pitti and Medici
were reconciled: they agreed to call a parliament, and to
direct it in concert; to intimidate it, they surrounded it
with foreign troops. But Medici, on the nomination of the
balia, on the 2d of September, 1466, found means of admitting
his own partisans only, and excluding all those of Lucas
Pitti. The citizens who had shown any zeal for liberty were
all exiled. ... Lucas Pitti ruined himself in building his
palace. His talents were judged to bear no proportion to his
ambition: the friends of liberty, as well as those of Medici,
equally detested him; and he remained deprived of all power in
a city which he had so largely contributed to enslave. Italy
became filled with Florentine emigrants: every revolution,
even every convocation of parliament, was followed by the
exile of many citizens. ... At Florence, the citizens who
escaped proscription trembled to see despotism established in
their republic; but the lower orders were in general
contented, and made no attempt to second Bartolomeo Coleoni,
when he entered Tuscany, in 1467, at the head of the
Florentine emigrants, who had taken him into their pay.
Commerce prospered; manufactures were carried on with great
activity; high wages supported in comfort all who lived by
their labour; and the Medici entertained them with shows and
festivals, keeping them in a sort of perpetual carnival,
amidst which the people soon lost all thought of liberty.
Pietro de' Medici was always in too bad a state of health to
exercise in person the sovereignty he had usurped over his
country; he left it to five or six citizens, who reigned in
his name. ... They not only transacted all business, but
appropriated to themselves all the profit; they sold their
influence and credit; they gratified their cupidity or their
vengeance; but they took care not to act in their own names,
or to pledge their own responsibility; they left that to the
house of Medici. Pietro, during the latter months of his life,
perceived the disorder and corruption of his agents. He was
afflicted to see his memory thus stained, and he addressed
them the severest reprimands; he even entered into
correspondence with the emigrants, whom he thought of
recalling, when he died, on the 2d of December, 1469. His two
sons, Lorenzo and Giuliano, the elder of whom was not 21 years
of age, ... given up to all the pleasures of their age, had
yet no ambition. The power of the state remained in the hands
of the five citizens who had exercised it under Pietro."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Italian Republics,
chapter 11.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1469-1492.
The conspiracy of the Pazzi.
The government of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
The death of liberty.
The golden age of letters and art.
"Lorenzo inherited his grandfather's political sagacity and
far surpassed him in talent and literary culture. In many
respects too he was a very different man. Cosimo never left
his business office; Lorenzo neglected it, and had so little
commercial aptitude that he was obliged to retire from
business, in order not to lose his abundant patrimony. Cosimo
was frugal in his personal expenses and lent freely to others;
Lorenzo loved splendid living, and thus gained the title of
the Magnificent; he spent immoderately for the advancement of
literary men; he gave himself up to dissipation which ruined
his health and shortened his days. His manner of living
reduced him to such straits, that he had to sell some of his
possessions and obtain money from his friends. Nor did this
suffice; for he even meddled with the public money, a thing
that had never happened in Cosimo's time. Very often, in his
greed of unlawful gain, he had the Florentine armies paid by
his own bank; he also appropriated the sums collected in the
Monte Comune or treasury of the public debt, and those in the
Monte delle Fanciulle where were marriage portions accumulated
by private savings--money hitherto held sacred by all.
Stimulated by the same greed, he, in the year 1472 joined the
Florentine contractors for the wealthy alum mines of Volterra,
at the moment in which that city was on the verge of rebellion
in order to free itself from a contract which it deemed
unjust. And Lorenzo, with the weight of his authority, pushed
matters to such a point that war broke out, soon to be
followed by a most cruel sack of the unhappy city, a very
unusual event in Tuscany. For all this he was universally
blamed. But he was excessively haughty and cared for no man;
he would tolerate no equals, would be first in
everything--even in games. He interfered in all matters, even
in private concerns and in marriages: nothing could take place
without his consent. In overthrowing the powerful and exalting
men of low condition, he showed none of the care and
precaution so uniformly observed by Cosimo. It is not then
surprising if his enemies increased so fast that the
formidable conspiracy of the Pazzi broke out on the 26th April
1478. In this plot, hatched in the Vatican itself where Sixtus
IV. was Lorenzo's determined enemy, many of the mightiest
Florentine families took part. In the cathedral, at the moment
of the elevation of the Host, the conspirators' daggers were
unsheathed. Giuliano dei Medici was stabbed to death, but
Lorenzo defended himself with his sword and saved his own
life. The tumult was so great that it seemed as though the
walls of the church were shaken. The populace rose to the cry
of 'Palle! Palle!' the Medici watchword, and the enemies of
the Medici were slaughtered in the streets or hung from the
windows of the Palazzo Veechio. There, among others, were seen
the dangling corpses of Archbishop Salviati and of Francesco
Pazzi, who in their last struggles had gripped each other with
their teeth and remained thus for some time. More than seventy
persons perished on that day, and Lorenzo, taking advantage of
the opportunity, pushed matters to extremity by his
confiscations, banishments, and sentences of death. Thereby
his power would have been infinitely increased if Pope Sixtus
IV., blinded by rage, had not been induced to excommunicate
Florence, and make war against it, in conjunction with
Ferdinand of Aragon. On this Lorenzo, without losing a moment,
went straight to Naples, and made the king understand how much
better it served his interests that Florence should have but
one ruler instead of a republican government, always liable to
change and certainly never friendly to Naples. So he returned
with peace re-established and boundless authority and
popularity. Now indeed he might have called himself lord of
the city, and it must have seemed easy to him to destroy the
republican government altogether.
{1142}
With his pride and ambition it is certain that he had an
intense desire to stand on the same level with the other
princes and tyrants of Italy; the more so as at that moment
success seemed entirely within his grasp. But Lorenzo showed
that his political shrewdness was not to be blinded by
prosperity, and knowing Florence well, he remained firm to the
traditional policy of his house, that of dominating the
Republic, while apparently respecting it. He was well
determined to render his power solid and durable; but to that
end he had recourse to a most ingenious reform, by means of
which, without abandoning the old road, he thoroughly
succeeded in his object. In place of the usual five-yearly
Balia, he instituted, in 1480, the Council of Seventy, which
renewed itself and was like a permanent Balia with still wider
power. This, composed of men entirely devoted to his cause,
secured the government to him forever. By this Council, say
the chroniclers of the time, liberty was wholly buried and
undone, but certainly the most important affairs of the State
were carried on in it by intelligent and cultivated men, who
largely promoted its material prosperity. Florence still
called itself a republic, nominally the old institutions were
still in existence, but all this seemed and was nothing but an
empty mockery. Lorenzo, absolute lord of all, might certainly be
called a tyrant, surrounded by lackeys and courtiers. ... Yet
he dazzled all men by the splendour of his rule, so that
[Guicciardini] observes, that though Lorenzo was a tyrant, 'it
would be impossible to imagine a better and more pleasing
tyrant.' Industry, commerce, public works had all received a
mighty impulse. In no city in the world had the civil equality
of modern States reached the degree to which it had attained
not merely in Florence itself, but in its whole territory and
throughout all Tuscany. Administration and secular justice
proceeded regularly enough in ordinary cases, crime was
diminished, and, above all, literary culture had become a
substantial element of the new State. Learned men were
employed in public offices, and from Florence spread a light
that illuminated the world. ... But Lorenzo's policy could
found nothing that was permanent. Unrivalled as a model of
sagacity and prudence, it promoted in Florence the development
of all the new elements of which modern society was to be the
outcome, without succeeding in fusing them together; for his
was a policy of equivocation and deceit, directed by a man of
much genius, who had no higher aim than his own interest and
that of his family, to which he never hesitated to sacrifice
the interests of his people."
P. Villari,
Machiavelli and his Times,
chapter 2, section 2 (volume 1).
"The state of Florence at this period was very remarkable. The
most independent and tumultuous of towns was spellbound under
the sway of Lorenzo de' Medici, the grandson of Cosimo who
built San Marco; and scarcely seemed even to recollect its
freedom, so absorbed was it in the present advantages
conferred by 'a strong government,' and solaced by shows,
entertainments, festivals, pomp, and display of all kinds. It
was the very height of that classic revival so famous in the
later history of the world, and the higher classes of society,
having shaken themselves apart with graceful contempt from the
lower, had begun to frame their lives according to a pagan
model, leaving the other and much bigger half of the world to
pursue its superstitions undisturbed. Florence was as near a
pagan city as it was possible for its rulers to make it. Its
intellectual existence was entirely given up to the past; its
days were spent in that worship of antiquity which has no
power of discrimination, and deifies not only the wisdom but
the trivialities of its golden epoch. Lorenzo reigned in the
midst of a lettered crowd of classic parasites and flatterers,
writing poems which his courtiers found better than
Alighieri's, and surrounding himself with those eloquent
slaves who make a prince's name more famous than arms or
victories, and who have still left a prejudice in the minds of
all literature-loving people in favour of their patron. A man
of superb health and physical power, who can give himself up
to debauch all night without interfering with his power of
working all day, and whose mind is so versatile that he can
sack a town one morning and discourse upon the beauties of
Plato the next, and weave joyous ballads through both
occupations--gives his flatterers reason when they applaud
him. The few righteous men in the city, the citizens who still
thought of Florence above all, kept apart, overwhelmed by the
tide which ran in favour of that leading citizen of Florence,
who had gained the control of the once high-spirited and
freedom-loving people. Society had never been more dissolute,
more selfish, or more utterly deprived of any higher aim.
Barren scholarship, busy over grammatical questions, and
elegant philosophy, snipping and piecing its logical systems,
formed the top dressing to that half-brutal,
half-superstitious ignorance which in such communities is the
general portion of the poor. The dilettante world dreamed
hazily of a restoration of the worship of the pagan gods;
Cardinal Bembo bade his friend beware of reading St. Paul's
epistles, lest their barbarous style should corrupt his taste;
and even such a man as Pico della Mirandola declared the
'Divina Commedia' to be inferior to the 'Canti
Carnascialeschi' of Lorenzo de' Medici. ... Thus limited
intellectually, the age of Lorenzo was still more hopeless
morally, full of debauchery, cruelty, and corruption,
violating oaths, betraying trusts, believing in nothing but
Greek manuscripts, coins, and statues, caring for nothing but
pleasure. This was the world in which Savonarola found
himself."
Mrs. Oliphant,
The Makers of Florence,
chapter 9.
"Terrible municipal enmities had produced so much evil as to
relax ancient republican energy. After so much destruction
repose was necessary. To antique sobriety and gravity succeed
love of pleasure and the quest of luxury. The belligerent
class of great nobles were expelled and the energetic class of
artisans crushed. Bourgeois rulers were to rule, and to rule
tranquilly. Like the Medicis, their chiefs, they manufacture,
trade, bank and make fortunes in order to expend them in
intellectual fashion. War no longer fastens its cares upon
them, as formerly, with a bitter and tragic grasp; they manage
it through the paid bands of condottieri, and these as cunning
traffickers, reduce it to cavalcades; when they slaughter each
other it is by mistake; historians cite battles in which
three, and sometimes only one soldier remains on the field.
Diplomacy takes the place of force, and the mind expands as
character weakens. Through this mitigation of war and through
the establishment of principalities or of local tyrannies, it
seems that Italy, like the great European monarchies, had just
attained to its equilibrium.
{1143}
Peace is partially established and the useful arts germinate
in all directions upon an improved social soil like a good
harvest on a cleared and well-ploughed field. The peasant is
no longer a serf of the glebe, but a metayer; he nominates his
own municipal magistrates, possesses arms and a communal
treasury; he lives in enclosed bourgs, the houses of which,
built of stone and cement, are large, convenient, and often
elegant. Near Florence he erects walls, and near Lucca he
constructs turf terraces in order to favor cultivation.
Lombardy has its irrigations and rotation of crops; entire
districts, now so many deserts around Lombardy and Rome, are
still inhabited and richly productive. In the upper class the
bourgeois and the noble labor since the chiefs of Florence are
hereditary bankers and commercial interests are not
endangered. Marble quarries are worked at Carrara, and foundry
fires are lighted in the Maremmes. We find in the cities
manufactories of silk, glass, paper, books, flax, wool and
hemp; Italy alone produces as much as all Europe and furnishes
to it all its luxuries. Thus diffused commerce and industry
are not servile occupations tending to narrow or debase the
mind. A great merchant is a pacific general, whose mind
expands in contact with men and things. Like a military
chieftain he organizes expeditions and enterprises and makes
discoveries. ... The Medicis possess sixteen banking-houses in
Europe; they bind together through their business Russia and
Spain, Scotland and Syria; they possess mines of alum
throughout Italy, paying to the Pope for one of them a hundred
thousand florins per annum; they entertain at their court
representatives of all the powers of Europe and become the
councillors and moderators of all Italy. In a small state like
Florence, and in a country without a national army like Italy,
such an influence becomes ascendant in and through itself; a
control over private fortunes leads to a management of the
public funds, and without striking a blow or using violence, a
private individual finds himself director of the state. ...
These banking magistrates are liberal as well as capable. In
thirty-seven years the ancestors of Lorenzo expend six hundred
and sixty thousand florins in works of charity and of public
utility. Lorenzo himself is a citizen of the antique stamp,
almost a Pericles, capable of rushing into the arms of his
enemy, the king of Naples, in order to avert, through personal
seductions and eloquence, a war which menaces the safety of
his country. His private fortune is a sort of public treasury,
and his palace a second hotel-de-ville. He entertains the
learned, aids them with his purse, makes friends of them,
corresponds with them, defrays the expenses of editions of
their works, purchases manuscripts, statues and medals,
patronizes promising young artists, opens to them his gardens,
his collections, his house and his table, and with that
cordial familiarity and that openness, sincerity and
simplicity of heart which place the protected on a footing of
equality with the protector as man to man and not as an
inferior in relation to a superior. This is the representative
man whom his contemporaries all accept as the accomplished man of
the century, no longer a Farinata or an Alighieri of ancient
Florence, a spirit rigid, exalted and militant to its utmost
capacity, but a balanced, moderate and cultivated genius, one
who, through the genial sway of his serene and beneficent
intellect, binds up into one sheaf all talents and all
beauties. It is a pleasure to see them expanding around him.
On the one hand writers are restoring and, on the other,
constructing. From the time of Petrarch Greek and Latin
manuscripts are sought for, and now they are to be exhumed in
the convents of Italy, Switzerland, Germany and France. They
are deciphered and restored with the aid of the savants of
Constantinople. A decade of Livy or a treatise by Cicero, is a
precious gift solicited by princes; some learned man passes
ten years of travel in ransacking distant libraries in order
to find a lost book of Tacitus, while the sixteen authors
rescued from oblivion by the Poggios are counted as so many
titles to immortal fame. ... Style again becomes noble and at
the same time clear, and the health, joy and serenity diffused
through antique life re-enters the human mind with the
harmonious proportions of language and the measured graces of
diction. From refined language they pass to vulgar language,
and the Italian is born by the side of the Latin. ... Here in
the restored paganism, shines out Epicurean gaiety, a
determination to enjoy at any and all hours, and that instinct
for pleasure which a grave philosophy and political sobriety
had thus far tempered and restrained. With Pulci, Berni,
Bibiena, Ariosto, Bandelli, Aretino, and so many others, we
soon see the advent of voluptuous debauchery and open
skepticism, and later a cynical unbounded licentiousness.
These joyous and refined civilizations based on a worship of
pleasure and intellectuality--Greece of the fourth century,
Provence of the twelfth, and Italy of the sixteenth--were not
enduring. Man in these lacks some checks. After sudden
outbursts of genius and creativeness he wanders away in the
direction of license and egotism; the degenerate artist and
thinker makes room for the sophist and the dilettant. But in
this transient brilliancy his beauty was charming. ... It is
in this world, again become pagan, that painting revives, and
the new tastes she is to gratify show beforehand the road she
is to follow; henceforth she is to decorate the houses of rich
merchants who love antiquity and who desire to live daintily."
H. Taine, Italy,
Florence and Venice,
book 3, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
A. von Reumont,
Lorenzo de' Medici.
W. Roscoe,
Life of Lorenzo de' Medici.
F. T. Perrens,
History of Florence, 1434-1531,
book 2, chapters 2-6.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1490-1498.
The preaching of Savonarola.
The coming of Charles VII. of France,
and expulsion of the Medici.
The great religious revival and Christianization of
the Commonwealth.
Conflict with the Church and fall of Savonarola.
Girolamo, or Jerome Savonarola, a Dominican monk, born at
Ferrara in 1452, educated to be a physician, but led by early
disgust with the world to renounce his intended profession and
give himself to the religious life, was sent to the convent of
St. Mark, in Florence, in 1490, when he had reached the age of
37. "He began his career as a reader and lecturer, and his
lectures, though only intended for novices, drew a large
audience. He then lectured in the garden of the cloister,
under a large rosebush, where many intellectual men came from
the city to hear him.
{1144}
At length he began to preach in the Church of St. Mark's, and
his subject was the Apocalypse, out of which he predicted the
restoration of the Church in Italy, which he declared God
would bring about by a severe visitation. Its influence upon
his hearers was overpowering; there was no room in the church
for the brethren; his fame spread abroad, and he was next
appointed to preach the sermons in the cathedral. ... Amid the
luxurious, æsthetic, semi-pagan life of Florence, in the ears
of the rich citizens, the licentious youth, the learned
Platonists, he denounced the revival of paganism, the
corruptions of the Church; the ignorance and consequent
slavery of the people, and declared that God would visit Italy
with some terrible punishment, and that it would soon come. He
spoke severe words about the priests, declared to the people
that the Scriptures were the only guides to salvation; that
salvation did not come from external works, as the Church
taught, but from faith in Christ, from giving up the heart to
Him, and if He forgave sin, there was no need for any other
absolution. Scarcely had he been a year in Florence when he
was made prior of the monastery. There was a custom in vogue,
a relic of the old times, for every new prior to go to the
king or ruler and ask his favour. This homage was then due to
Lorenzo di Medici, but Savonarola declared he would never
submit to it, saying--'From whom have I received my office,
from God or Lorenzo? Let us pray for grace to the Highest.'
Lorenzo passed over this slight, being anxious to acquire the
friendship of one whom he clearly saw would exert great
influence over the Florentines. Burlamachi, his contemporary
biographer, tells us that Lorenzo tried all kinds of plans to
win the friendship of Savonarola: he attended the church of
St. Mark; listened to his sermons; gave large sums of money to
him for the poor; loitered in the garden to attract his
attention--but with little success. Savonarola treated him
with respect, gave his money away to the poor, but avoided him
and denounced him. Another plan was tried: five distinguished men
waited on Savonarola, and begged him to spare such elevated
persons in his sermons, to treat more of generalities; and not
to foretell the future. They received a prophetic answer: 'Go
tell your master, Lorenzo, to repent of his sins, or God will
punish him and his. Does he threaten me with banishment? Well,
I am but a stranger, and he is the first citizen in Florence,
but let him know that I shall remain and he must soon depart!'
What happened shortly after caused the people to begin to
regard Savonarola as a prophet, and won him that terrible fame
which caused his downfall. ... Lorenzo died on the 8th April,
1492, and from that time Savonarola becomes more prominent. He
directed his exertions to the accomplishment of three
objects--the reformation of his monastery, the reformation of
the Florentine State, and the reformation of the Church. He
changed the whole character of his monastery. ... Then he
proceeded to State matters, and in this step we come to the
problem of his life--was he a prophet or a fanatic? Let the
facts speak for themselves. Lorenzo was succeeded by his son
Pietro, who was vastly inferior to his father in learning and
statesmanship. His only idea appears to have been a desire to
unite Florence and Naples into one principality; this created
for him many enemies, and men began to fancy that the great
house of Medici would terminate with him. So, it appears,
thought Savonarola, and announced the fact at first privately
amongst his friends; in a short time, however, he began to
prophecy their downfall publicly. During the years 1492 and
1494, he was actively engaged in preaching. In Advent of the
former year, he began his thirteen sermons upon Noah's Ark. In
1493 he preached the Lent sermons at Bologna, and upon his return
he began preaching in the cathedral. In these sermons he
predicted the approaching fall of the State to the
astonishment of all his hearers, who had not the slightest
apprehension of danger: 'The Lord has declared that His sword
shall come upon the land swiftly and soon.' This was the
burden of a sermon preached on Advent Sunday, 1492. At the
close of 1493, and as the new year approached, he spoke out
more plainly and definitely. He declared that one should come
over the Alps who was called, like Cyrus, of whom Jeremiah
wrote; and he should, sword in hand, wreak vengeance upon the
tyrants of Italy. ... His preaching had always exerted a
marvellous influence upon people, as we shall hereafter note,
but they could not understand the cause of these predictions.
The city was at peace; gay and joyous as usual, and no fear
was entertained; but towards the end of the year came the
fulfilment. Charles VIII., King of France, called into Italy
by Duke Ludovico of Milan, came over the Alps with an immense
army, took Naples, and advanced on Florence. The expulsion of
the Medici from Florence soon followed: Pietro, being
captured, signed an agreement to deliver up all his
strongholds to Charles VIII., and to pay him 200,000 ducats.
See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.
The utmost indignation seized the Florentines when they heard
of this treaty. The Signori sent heralds to Charles, to
negotiate for milder terms, and their chief was Savonarola,
who addressed the King like a prophet, begged him to take pity
on Italy, and save her. His words had the desired effect.
Charles made more easy terms, and left it to the Florentine
people to settle their own State. In the meantime Pietro
returned, but he found Florence in the greatest
excitement--the royal palace was closed; stones were thrown at
him; he summoned his guards, but the people took to arms, and
he was compelled to fly to his brothers Giovanni and Giuliano.
The Signori declared them to be traitors, and set a price upon
their heads. Their palace and its treasures fell into the hands
of the people. The friends of the Medici, however, were not
all extinct; and as a discussion arose which was likely to
lead to a struggle, Savonarola summoned the people to meet
under the dome of St. Mark. ... In fact, the formation of the
new State fell upon Savonarola, for the people looked up to
him as an inspired prophet. He proposed that 3,200 citizens
should form themselves into a general council. Then they drew
lots for a third part, who for six months were to act together
as an executive body and represent the general council,
another one-third for the next three months, and so on; so
that every citizen had his turn in the council every eighteen
months. They ultimately found it convenient to reduce the
number to 80--in fact, Savonarola's Democracy was rapidly
becoming oligarchic. Each of these 80 representatives was to
be 40 years of age; they voted with black and white beans, six
being a legal majority.
{1145}
But the Chief of the State was to be Christ; He was to be the
new monarch. His next step was to induce them to proclaim a
general amnesty, in which he succeeded only through vigorously
preaching to them that forgiveness was sweeter than
vengeance--that freedom and peace were more loving than strife
and hatred. ... He was now at the height of his power; his
voice ruled the State; he is the only instance in Europe of a
monk openly leading a republic. The people regarded him as
something more than human: they knew of his nights spent in
prayer; of his long fasts; of his unbounded charity. ... Few
preachers ever exerted such influence upon the minds of
crowds, such a vitalizing influence; he changed the whole
character of Florentine society. Libertines abandoned their
vices; the theatres and taverns were empty; there was no card
playing, nor dice throwing; the love of fasting grew so
general, that meat could not be sold; the city of Florence was
God's city, and its government a Theocracy. There was a custom in
Florence, during Carnival time, for the children to go from
house to house and bid people give up their cherished
pleasures; and so great was the enthusiasm at this period that
people gave up their cards, their dice and backgammon boards,
the ladies their perfumed waters, veils, paint-pots, false
hair, musical instruments, harps, lutes, licentious tales,
especially those of Boccaccio, dream books, romances, and
popular songs. All this booty was gathered together in a heap
in the market place, the people assembled, the Signori took
their places, and children clothed in white, with olive
branches on their heads, received from them the burning
torches, and set fire to the pile amid the blast of trumpets
and chant of psalms, which were continued till the whole was
consumed. ... His fame had now reached other countries;
foreigners visited Florence solely for the purpose of seeing
and hearing him. The Sultan of Turkey allowed his sermons to
be translated and circulated in his dominions. But in the
midst of his prosperity his enemies were not idle: as he
progressed their jealousy increased: his preaching displeased
them, terrified them, and amongst these the most bitter and
virulent were the young sons of the upper classes: they called
his followers 'howlers' (piagnoni), and so raged against him
that they gained the name, now immortalised in history, of the
Arrabiati (the furies): this party was increased by the old
friends of the Medici, who called him a rebel and leader of
the lower classes. Dolfo Spini, a young man of position and
wealth, commanded this party, and used every effort to destroy
the reputation of Savonarola, to incite the people against him,
and to ruin him. They bore the name of 'Compagnacci'; they
wrote satires about the Piagnoni; they circulated slanders
about the monk who was making Florence the laughing stock of
Europe: but Savonarola went on his way indifferent to the
signs already manifesting themselves amongst his countrymen,
ever most sensitive to ridicule. He also strove to reform the
Church: he delineated the Apostolic Church as a model upon
which he would build up that of Florence. ... By this time,
the intelligence of his doings, and the gist of his preaching
and writing, which had been carefully transmitted to Rome by
his enemies, began to attract the attention of the Pope,
Alexander VI., who tried what had frequently proved an
infallible remedy, and offered Savonarola a Cardinal's hat,
which he at once refused. He was then invited to Rome, but
thought it prudent to excuse himself. When the controversy
between him and the Pope appeared to approach a crisis,
Savonarola took a step which somewhat hurried the catastrophe.
He wrote to the Kings of France and Spain, and the Emperor of
Germany, to call a General Council to take into consideration
the Reform of the Church. One of these letters reached the
Pope, through a spy of Duke Ludovico Moro, of Milan, whom
Savonarola had denounced. The result was the issue of a Breve
(October, 1496), which forbade him to preach. The Pope then
ordered the Congregation of St. Mark to be broken up and
amalgamated with another. For a time Savonarola, at the advice
of his friends, remained quiet; but at this last step, to
break up the institution he had established, he was aroused to
action. He denounced Rome as the source of all the poison
which was undermining the constitution of the Church; declared
that its evil fame stunk in men's nostrils. The Pope then
applied to the Signori to deliver up this enemy of the Church,
but to no purpose. The Franciscans were ordered to preach
against him, but they made no impression. Then came the last
thunderbolt: a Bann was issued (12th May, 1497), which was
announced by the Franciscans. During the time of his
suspension and his excommunication, many things happened which
tended to his downfall, although his friends gathered round him,
the rapid change of ministry brought in turn friends of the
Medici to the helm; they introduced the young, Compagnacci
into the Council, and gradually his enemies were increasing in
the Government to a strong party." The fickle Florentine mob
now took sides with them against the monk whom it had recently
adored, and on the 7th of April, 1498, in the midst of a
raging tumult, Savonarola was taken into custody by the
Signori of the city. With the assent of the Pope, he was
subjected seven times to torture upon the rack, to force from
him a recantation of all that he had taught and preached, and
on the 23d of May he was hanged and burned, in company with
two of his disciples.
O. T. Hill,
Introduction to Savonarola's "Triumph of the Cross."
ALSO IN:
P. Villari,
History of Savonarola and his times.
Mrs. Oliphant,
The Makers of Florence.
H. H. Milman,
Savonarola, Erasmus, and other Essays.
George Eliot,
Romola.
H. Grimm,
Life of Michael Angelo,
volume 1, chapters 3-4.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1494-1509.
The French deliverance of Pisa and the long war of reconquest.
See PISA: A. D. 1404-1509.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1498-1500.
Threatened by the Medici, on one side,
and Cæsar Borgia on the other.
A new division of parties.
"After the death of Savonarola things changed with such a
degree of rapidity that the Arrabbiati had not time to
consider in what manner they could restrict the government;
but they soon became convinced that the only salvation for the
Republic was to adopt the course which had been recommended by
the Friar. Piero and Giuliano dei Medici were in fact already
in the neighbourhood of Florence, supported by a powerful
Venetian army. It became, therefore, absolutely necessary for
the Arrabbiati to unite with the Piagnoni, in order to defend
themselves against so many dangers and so many enemies.
{1146}
By great good fortune, the Duke of Milan, from jealousy of the
Venetians, came to their assistance to ward off the danger;
but who could trust to his friendship--who could place any
reliance on his fidelity? As to Alexander Borgia, he who had
held out such great hopes, and had made so many promises, in
order to get Savonarola put to death, no sooner was his object
attained than he gave full sway to his unbridled passions. It
seemed as if the death of the poor Friar had released both the
Pope and his son, Duke Valentino, from all restraints upon
their lusts and ambition. The Pope formed intimate alliances
with Turks and Jews, a thing hitherto unheard of. He, in one
year, set up twelve cardinals' hats for sale. The history of
the incests and murders of the family of Borgia is too well
known to render it necessary for us to enter into any detailed
account of them here. The great object of the Pope was to form
a State for his son in the Romagna; and so great was the
ambition of Duke Valentino, that he contemplated extending his
power over the whole of Italy, Tuscany being the first part he
meant to seize upon. With that view he was always endeavouring
to create new dangers to the Republic; at one time he caused
Arezzo to rise against it; at another time he threatened to
bring back Piero de' Medici; and he was continually ravaging
their territory. The consequence was, that the Florentines
were obliged to grant him an annual subsidy of 36,000 ducats,
under the name of condotta (military pay); but even that did
not restrain him from every now and then, under various
pretexts, overrunning and laying waste their territory. Thus
did Alexander Borgia fulfil those promises to the Republic by
which they had been induced to murder Savonarola. The
Arrabbiati were at length convinced that to defend themselves
against the Medici and Borgia, their only course was to
cultivate the alliance with France, and unite in good faith
with the Piagnoni. Thus they completely adopted the line of
policy which Savonarola had advised; and the consequence was,
that their affairs got order and their exertions were attended
with a success far beyond what could have been anticipated."
P. Villari,
History of Savonarola and of his Times,
volume 2, conclusion.
"A new division of parties may be said to have taken place
under the three denominations of 'Palleschi' [a name derived
from the watchword of the Mediceans, 'palle, palle,' which
alluded to the well-known balls in the coat of arms of the
Medici family], 'Ottimati,' and 'Popolani.' The first ... were
for the Medici and themselves. ... The 'Ottomati' were in
eager search for a sort of visionary government where a few of
the noblest blood, the most illustrious connexions and the
greatest riches, were to rule Florence without any regard to
the Medici. ... The Popolani, who formed the great majority,
loved civic liberty, therefore were constantly watching the
Medici and other potent and ambitious men."
H. E. Napier,
Florentine History,
book. 2, chapter 8 (volume 4).
FLORENCE: A. D. 1502-1569.
Ten years under Piero Soderini.
Restoration of the Medici and their second expulsion.
Siege of the city by the imperial army.
Final surrender to Medicean tyranny.
Creation of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
"In 1502, it was decreed that the Gonfalonier should hold
office for life--should be in fact a Doge. To this important
post of permanent president Piero Soderini was appointed; and
in his hands were placed the chief affairs of the republic.
... During the ten years which elapsed between 1502 and 1512,
Piero Soderini administered Florence with an outward show of
great prosperity. He regained Pisa, and maintained an
honourable foreign policy in the midst of the wars stirred up
by the League of Cambray. Meanwhile the young princes of the
house of Medici had grown to manhood in exile. The Cardinal
Giovanni was 37 in 1512. His brother Giuliano was 33. Both of
these men were better fitted than their brother Piero to fight
the battles of the family. Giovanni, in particular, had
inherited no small portion of the Medicean craft. During the
troubled reign of Julius II. he kept very quiet, cementing his
connection with powerful men in Rome, but making no effort to
regain his hold on Florence. Now the moment for striking a
decisive blow had come. After the battle of Ravenna in 1512,
the French were driven out of Italy, and the Sforzas returned
to Milan [see ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513]; the Spanish troops,
under the Viceroy Cardona, remained masters of the country.
Following the camp of these Spaniards, Giovanni de' Medici
entered Tuscany in August, and caused the restoration of the
Medici to be announced in Florence. The people, assembled by
Soderini, resolved to resist to the uttermost. ... Yet their
courage failed on August 29th, when news reached them of the
capture and the sack of Prato. Prato is a sunny little city a
few miles distant from the walls of Florence, famous for the
beauty of its women, the richness of its gardens, and the
grace of its buildings. Into this gem of cities the savage
soldiery of Spain marched in the bright autumnal weather, and
turned the paradise into a hell. It is even now impossible to
read of what they did in Prato without shuddering. Cruelty and
lust, sordid greed for gold, and cold delight in bloodshed,
could go no further. Giovanni de' Medici, by nature mild and
voluptuous, averse to violence of all kinds, had to smile
approval, while the Spanish Viceroy knocked thus with mailed
hand for him at the door of Florence. The Florentines were
paralysed with terror. They deposed Soderini and received the
Medici. Giovanni and Giuliano entered their devastated palace
in the Via Larga, abolished the Grand Council, and dealt with
the republic as they listed. ... It is not likely that they
would have succeeded in maintaining their authority--for they
were poor and ill-supported by friends outside the
city--except for one most lucky circumstance: that was the
election of Giovanni de' Medici to the Papacy in 1513. The
creation of Leo X. spread satisfaction throughout Italy. ...
Florence shared in the general rejoicing. ... It seemed as
though the Republic, swayed by him, might make herself the
first city in Italy, and restore the glories of her Guelf
ascendency upon the platform of Renaissance statecraft. There
was now no overt opposition to the Medici in Florence. How to
govern the city from Rome, and how to advance the fortunes of
his brother Giuliano and his nephew Lorenzo (Piero's son, a
young man of 21), occupied the Pope's most serious attention.
For Lorenzo, Leo obtained the Duchy of Urbino and the hand of
a French princess. Giuliano was named Gonfalonier of the
Church. He also received the French title of Duke of Nemours
and the hand of Filiberta, Princess of Savoy. ...
{1147}
Giulio, the Pope's bastard cousin, was made cardinal. ... To
Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the titular head of the family, was
committed the government of Florence. ... Florence now for the
first time saw a regular court established in her midst, with
a prince, who, though he bore a foreign title, was in fact her
master. The joyous days of Lorenzo the Magnificent returned.
... But this prosperity was no less brief than it was
brilliant. A few years sufficed to sweep off all the chiefs of
the great house. Giuliano died in 1516, leaving only a bastard
son, Ippolito. Lorenzo died in 1519, leaving a bastard son,
Alessandro, and a daughter, six days old, who lived to be the
Queen of France. Leo died in 1521. There remained now no
legitimate male descendants from the stock of Cosimo. The
honours and pretensions of the Medici devolved upon three
bastards,--on the Cardinal Giulio, and the two boys,
Alessandro and Ippolito. Of these, Alessandro was a mulatto,
his mother having been a Moorish slave in the Palace of
Urbino; and whether his father was Giulio, or Giuliano, or a
base groom, was not known for certain. To such extremities
were the Medici reduced. ... Giulio de' Medici was left in
1521 to administer the State of Florence single-handed. He was
archbishop, and he resided in the city, holding it with the
grasp of an absolute ruler. ... In 1523, the Pope, Adrian VI.,
expired after a short papacy, from which he gained no honour
and Italy no profit. Giulio hurried to Rome, and, by the
clever use of his large influence, caused himself to be
elected with the title of Clement VII." Then followed the
strife of France and Spain--of Francis I. and Charles V.--for
the possession of Italy, and the barbarous sack of Rome in
1527.
See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527, 1527, and 1527-1529.
"When the Florentines knew what was happening in Rome, they
rose and forced the Cardinal Passerini [whom the Pope had
appointed to act as his vicegerent in the government of
Florence] to depart with the Medicean bastards from the city.
... The whole male population was enrolled in a militia. The
Grand Council was reformed, and the republic was restored upon
the basis of 1495. Niccolo Capponi was elected Gonfalonier.
The name of Christ was again registered as chief of the
commonwealth--to such an extent did the memory of Savonarola
still sway the popular imagination. The new State hastened to
form an alliance with France, and Malatesta Baglioni was
chosen as military Commander-in-Chief. Meanwhile the city
armed itself for siege--Michel Angelo Buonarroti and
Francesco da San Gallo undertaking the construction of new
forts and ramparts. These measures were adopted with sudden
decision, because it was soon known that Clement had made
peace with the Emperor, and that the army which had sacked
Rome was going to be marched on Florence. ... On September 4
[1529], the Prince of Orange appeared before the walls, and
opened the memorable siege. It lasted eight months, at the end
of which time, betrayed by their generals, divided among
themselves, and worn out with delays, the Florentines
capitulated. ... The long yoke of the Medici had undermined
the character of the Florentines. This, their last glorious
struggle for liberty, was but a flash in the pan--a final
flare up of the dying lamp. ... What remains of Florentine
history may be briefly told. Clement, now the undisputed
arbiter of power and honour in the city, chose Alessandro de'
Medici to be prince. Alessandro was created Duke of Cività di
Penna, and married to a natural daughter of Charles V.
Ippolito was made a cardinal." Ippolito was subsequently
poisoned by Alessandro, and Alessandro was murdered by another
kinsman, who suffered assassination in his turn. "When
Alessandro was killed in 1539, Clement had himself been dead
five years. Thus the whole posterity of Cosimo de' Medici,
with the exception of Catherine, Queen of France [daughter of
Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the son of Piero de' Medici], was
utterly extinguished. But the Medici had struck root so firmly
in the State, and had so remodelled it upon the type of
tyranny, that the Florentines were no longer able to do
without them. The chiefs of the Ottimati selected Cosimo," a
descendant from Lorenzo, brother of the Cosimo who founded the
power of the House. "He it was who obtained [1569] the title
of Grand Duke of Tuscany from the Pope--a title confirmed by
the Emperor, fortified by Austrian alliances, and transmitted
through his heirs to the present century."
J. A. Symonds,
Sketches and studies in Italy,
chapter 5 (Florence and the Medici).
ALSO IN:
H. Grimm,
Life of Michael Angelo,
chapters 8-15 (volumes 1-2).
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 9, chapter 10, book 10 (volume 4).
H. E. Napier,
Florentine History,
volumes 4-5.
W. Roscoe,
Life and Pontificate of Leo X,
chapters 9-23 (volumes 1-2).
P. Villari,
Machiavelli and his Times,
volumes 3-4.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1803.
Becomes the capital of the kingdom of Etruria.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.
FLORENCE: A. D. 1865.
Made temporarily the capital of the kingdom of Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866.
----------FLORENCE: End----------
FLORIANUS, Roman Emperor, A. D. 276.
FLORIDA: The aboriginal inhabitants.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: APALACHES;
MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY; SEMINOLES; TIMUQUANAN FAMILY.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1512.
Discovery and Naming by Ponce de Leon.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1512.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1528-1542.
The expeditions of Narvaez and Hernando de Soto.
Wide Spanish application of the name Florida.
"The voyages of Garay [1519-1523] and Vasquez de Ayllon
[1520-1526] threw new light on the discoveries of Ponce, and
the general outline of the coasts of Florida became known to
the Spaniards. Meanwhile, Cortes had conquered Mexico, and the
fame of that iniquitous but magnificent exploit rang through
all Spain. Many an impatient cavalier burned to achieve a
kindred fortune. To the excited fancy of the Spaniards the
unknown land of Florida seemed the seat of surpassing wealth,
and Pamphilo de Narvaez essayed to possess himself of its
fancied treasures. Landing on its shores [1528], and
proclaiming destruction to the Indians unless they
acknowledged the sovereignty of the Pope and the Emperor, he
advanced into the forests with 300 men. Nothing could exceed
their sufferings. Nowhere could they find the gold they came
to seek. The village of Appalache, where they hoped to gain a
rich booty, offered nothing but a few mean wigwams. The horses
gave out and the famished soldiers fed upon their flesh.
{1148}
The men sickened, and the Indians unceasingly harassed their
march. At length, after 280 leagues of wandering, they found
themselves on the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico, and
desperately put to sea in such crazy boats as their skill and
means could construct. Cold, disease, famine, thirst, and the
fury of the waves, melted them away. Narvaez himself perished,
and of his wretched followers no more than four escaped,
reaching by land, after years of vicissitude, the Christian
settlements of New Spain. ... Cabeça de Vaca was one of the
four who escaped, and, after living for years among the tribes
of Mississippi, crossed the River Mississippi near Memphis,
journeyed westward by the waters of the Arkansas and Red River
to New Mexico and Chihuahua, thence to Cinaloa on the Gulf of
California, and thence to Mexico. The narrative is one of the
most remarkable of the early relations. ... The interior of
the vast country then comprehended under the name of Florida
still remained unexplored. ... Hernando de Soto ... companion
of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru ... asked and obtained
permission [1537] to conquer Florida. While this design was in
agitation, Cabeça de Vaca, one of those who had survived the
expedition of Narvaez, appeared in Spain, and for purposes of
his own spread abroad the mischievous falsehood that Florida
was the richest country yet discovered. De Soto's plans were
embraced with enthusiasm. Nobles and gentlemen contended for
the privilege of joining his standard; and, setting sail with
an ample armament, he landed [May, 1539] at the Bay of
Espiritu Santo, now Tampa Bay, in Florida, with 620 chosen
men, a band as gallant and well appointed, as eager in purpose
and audacious in hope, as ever trod the shores of the New
World. ... The adventurers began their march. Their story has
been often told. For month after month and year after year,
the procession of priests and cavaliers, cross-bowmen,
arquebusiers, and Indian captives laden with the baggage,
still wandered on through wild and boundless wastes, lured
hither and thither by the ignis-fatuus of their hopes. They
traversed great portions of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi,
everywhere inflicting and enduring misery, but never
approaching their phantom El Dorado. At length, in the third
year of their journeying, they reached the banks of the
Mississippi, 132 years before its second [or third?] discovery
by Marquette. ... The Spaniards crossed over at a point above
the mouth of the Arkansas. They advanced westward, but found
no treasures,--nothing indeed but hardships, and an Indian
enemy, furious, writes one of their officers, 'as mad dogs.'
They heard of a country towards the north where maize could
not be cultivated because the vast herds of wild cattle
devoured it. They penetrated so far that they entered the
range of the roving prairie-tribes. ... Finding neither gold
nor the South Sea, for both of which they had hoped, they
returned to the banks of the Mississippi. De Soto ... fell
into deep dejection, followed by an attack of fever, and soon
after died miserably [May 21, 1542]. To preserve his body from
the Indians his followers sunk it at midnight in the river,
and the sullen waters of the Mississippi buried his ambition
and his hopes. The adventurers were now, with few exceptions,
disgusted with the enterprise, and longed only to escape from
the scene of their miseries. After a vain attempt to reach
Mexico by land, they again turned back to the Mississippi, and
labored, with all the resources which their desperate
necessity could suggest, to construct vessels in which they
might make their way to some Christian settlement. ... Seven
brigantines were finished and launched; and, trusting their
lives on board these frail vessels, they descended the
Mississippi, running the gauntlet between hostile tribes who
fiercely attacked them. Reaching the Gulf, though not without
the loss of eleven of their number, they made sail for the
Spanish settlement on the River Panuco, where they arrived
safely, and where the inhabitants met them with a cordial
welcome. Three hundred and eleven men thus escaped with life,
leaving behind them the bones of their comrades, strewn
broadcast through the wilderness. De Soto's fate proved an
insufficient warning, for those were still found who begged a
fresh commission for the conquest of Florida; but the Emperor
would not hear them. A more pacific enterprise was undertaken
by Cancello [or Cancer], a Dominican monk, who with several
brother-ecclesiastics undertook to convert the natives to the
true faith, but was murdered in the attempt. ... Not a
Spaniard had yet gained foothold in Florida. That name, as the
Spaniards of that day understood it, comprehended the whole
country extending from the Atlantic on the east to the
longitude of New Mexico on the west, and from the Gulf of
Mexico and the River of Palms indefinitely northward towards
the polar Sea. This vast territory was claimed by Spain in
right of the discoveries of Columbus, the grant of the Pope,
and the various expeditions mentioned above. England claimed
it in light of the discoveries of Cabot, while France could
advance no better title than might be derived from the voyage
of Verrazano and vague traditions of earlier visits of Breton
adventurers."
F. Parkman,
Pioneers of France in the New World,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
T. Irving,
Conquest of Florida by De Soto.
Discovery and Conquest of Terra Florida;
written by a Gentleman of Elvas (Hakluyt Society).
J. W. Monette,
Discovery and Settlement of the Mississippi Valley,
chapters 1-4.
J. G. Shea,
Ancient Florida (Narrative and Critical
History of America,
volume 2, chapter 4).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1562-1563.
First colonizing attempt of the French Huguenots.
About the middle of the 16th century, certain of the
Protestants of France began to turn their thoughts to the New
World as a possible place of refuge from the persecutions they
were suffering at home. "Some of the French sea-ports became
strong-holds of the Huguenots. Their most prominent supporter,
Coligny, was high admiral of France. These Huguenots looked
toward the new countries as the proper field in which to
secure a retreat from persecution, and to found a new
religious commonwealth. Probably many of the French
'corsarios' following the track of the Portuguese and
Spaniards to the West Indies and the coasts of Brazil, were
Huguenots. ... The first scheme for a Protestant colony in the
new world was suggested by Admiral Coligny in 1554, and intended
for the coast of Brazil, to which an expedition, under Durand
de Villegagnon, was sent with ships and colonists. This
expedition arrived at the Bay of Rio de Janeiro in 1555,
and founded there the first European settlement.
{1149}
It was followed the next year by another expedition. But the
whole enterprise came to an end by divisions among the
colonists, occasioned by the treacherous, despotic, and cruel
proceedings of its commander, a reputed Catholic. The colony
was finally subverted by the Portuguese, who, in 1560, sent
out an armament against it, and took possession of the Bay of
Rio de Janeiro. ... After the unfortunate end of the French
enterprise to South America, Admiral Coligny, who may be
styled the Raleigh of France, turned his attention to the
eastern shores of North America; the whole of which had become
known in France from the voyage of Verrazano, and the French
expeditions to Canada and the Banks of Newfoundland." In
February, 1562, an expedition, fitted out by Coligny, sailed
from Havre de Grace, under Jean Ribault, with Réné de
Laudonnière forming one of the company. Ribault arrived on the
Florida coast in the neighborhood of the present harbor of St.
Augustine, and thence sailed north. "At last, in about 32° 30'
North he found an excellent broad and deep harbor, which he
named Port Royal, which probably is the present Broad River,
or Port Royal entrance. ... He found this port and the
surrounding country so advantageous and of such 'singular
beauty,' that he resolved to leave here a part of his men in a
small fort. ... A pillar with the arms of France was therefore
erected, and a fort constructed, furnished with cannon,
ammunition, and provisions, and named 'Charlesfort.' Thirty
volunteers were placed in it, and it became the second
European settlement ever attempted upon the east coast of the
United States. Its position was probably not far from the site
of the present town of Beaufort, on Port Royal River. Having
accomplished this, and made a certain captain, Albert de la
Pieria, 'a soldier of great experience,' commander of
Charlesfort, he took leave of his countrymen, and left Port
Royal on the 11th day of June," arriving in France on the 20th
of July. "On his arrival in France, Ribault found the country
in a state of great commotion. The civil war between the
Huguenots and the Catholics was raging, and neither the king
nor the admiral had time to listen to Ribault's solicitations,
to send relief to the settlers left in 'French Florida.' Those
colonists remained, therefore, during the remainder of 1562,
and the following winter, without assistance from France; and
after many trials and sufferings, they were at last forced, in
1563, to abandon their settlement and the new country." Having
constructed a ship, with great difficulty, they put to sea;
but suffered horribly on the tedious voyage, from want of food
and water, until they were rescued by an English vessel and
taken to England.
J. G. Kohl,
History of the Discovery of Maine
(Maine Historical Society Collection,
2d series, volume 1), chapter 11.
ALSO IN:
F. Parkman,
Pioneers of France in the New World,
chapter 3.
Father Charlevoix,
History of New France;
translated by J. G. Shea,
book 3 (volume 1).
T. E. V. Smith,
Villegaignon
(American Society of Church History, volume 3).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1564-1565.
The second Huguenot colony, and the cry in Spain against it.
"After the treacherous peace between Charles IX. and the
Huguenots, Coligny renewed his solicitations for the
colonization of Florida. The king gave consent; in 1564 three
ships were conceded for the service; and Laudonnière, who, in
the former voyage, had been upon the American coast, a man of
great intelligence, though a seaman rather than a soldier, was
appointed to lead forth the colony. ... A voyage of 60 days
brought the fleet, by the way of the Canaries and the
Antilles, to the shores of Florida in June. The harbor of Port
Royal, rendered gloomy by recollections of misery, was
avoided; and, after searching the coast, and discovering
places which were so full of amenity that melancholy itself
could not but change its humor as it gazed, the followers of
Calvin planted themselves on the banks of the river May [now
called the St. John's], near St. John's bluff. They sung a
psalm of thanksgiving, and gathered courage from acts of
devotion. The fort now erected was called Carolina. ... The
French were hospitably welcomed by the natives; a monument,
bearing the arms of France, was crowned with laurels, and its
base encircled with baskets of corn. What need is there of
minutely relating the simple manners of the red men, the
dissensions of rival tribes, the largesses offered to the
strangers to secure their protection or their alliance, the
improvident prodigality with which careless soldiers wasted
the supplies of food; the certain approach of scarcity; the
gifts and the tribute levied from the Indians by entreaty,
menace or force? By degrees the confidence of the red men was
exhausted; they had welcomed powerful guests, who promised to
become their benefactors, and who now robbed their humble
granaries. But the worst evil in the new settlement was the
character of the emigrants. Though patriotism and religious
enthusiasm had prompted the expedition, the inferior class of
the colonists was a motley group of dissolute men. Mutinies
were frequent. The men were mad with the passion for sudden
wealth; and in December a party, under the pretence of
desiring to escape from famine, compelled Laudonnière to sign
an order permitting their embarkation for New Spain. No sooner
were they possessed of this apparent sanction of the chief
than they began a career of piracy against the Spaniards. The
act of crime and temerity was soon avenged. The pirate vessel
was taken, and most of the men disposed of as prisoners or
slaves. The few that escaped in a boat sought shelter at Fort
Carolina, where Laudonnière sentenced the ringleaders to
death. During these events the scarcity became extreme; and
the friendship of the natives was forfeited by unprofitable
severity. March of 1565 was gone, and there were no supplies
from France; April passed away, and the expected recruits had
not arrived; May brought nothing to sustain the hopes of the
exiles, and they resolved to attempt a return to Europe. In
August, Sir John Hawkins, the slave merchant, arrived from the
West Indies. He came fresh from the sale of a cargo of
Africans, whom he had kidnapped with signal ruthlessness; and
he now displayed the most generous sympathy, not only
furnishing a liberal supply of provisions, but relinquishing a
vessel from his own fleet. The colony was on the point of
embarking when sails were descried. Ribault had arrived to
assume the command, bringing with him supplies of every kind,
emigrants with their families, garden-seeds, implements of
husbandry, and the various kinds of domestic animals. The
French, now wild with joy, seemed about to acquire a home, and
Calvinism to become fixed in the inviting regions of Florida.
{1150}
But Spain had never abandoned her claim to that territory,
where, if she had not planted colonies, she had buried many
hundreds of her bravest sons. ... There had appeared at the
Spanish court a commander well fitted for reckless acts. Pedro
Melendez [or Menendez] de Aviles ... had acquired wealth in
Spanish America, which was no school of benevolence, and his
conduct there had provoked an inquiry, which, after a long
arrest, ended in his conviction. ... Philip II. suggested the
conquest and colonization of Florida; and in May, 1565, a
compact was framed and confirmed by which Melendez, who
desired an opportunity to retrieve his honor, was constituted
the hereditary governor of a territory of almost unlimited
extent. On his part he stipulated, at his own cost, in the
following May, to invade Florida with 500 men; to complete its
conquest within three years; to explore its currents and
channels, the dangers of its coasts, and the depth of its
havens; to establish a colony of at least 500 persons, of whom
100 should be married men; with 12 ecclesiastics, besides four
Jesuits. ... Meantime, news arrived, as the French writers
assert through the treachery of the court of France, that the
Huguenots had made a plantation in Florida, and that Ribault
was preparing to set sail with re-enforcements. The cry was
raised that the heretics must be extirpated; and Melendez
readily obtained the forces which he required."
G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(author's last revision), part 1, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
G. R. Fairbanks,
History of Florida,
chapters 7-8.
W. G. Simms,
History of South Carolina,
book 1.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1565.
The Spanish capture of Fort Caroline and
massacre of the Huguenots.
Founding of St. Augustine.
"The expedition under Menendez consisted of an army of 2,600
soldiers and officers. He sailed straight for Florida,
intending to attack Fort Caroline with no delay. In fact he
sighted the mouth of the port [Sept. 4, 1565] two months after
starting; but, considering the position occupied by the French
ships, he judged it prudent to defer the attack, and make it,
if possible, from the land. A council of war was held in Fort
Caroline, presided over by Ribaut. Laudonnière proposed that,
while Ribaut held the fort with the ships, he, with his old
soldiers, who knew the country well, aided by the Floridans as
auxiliaries, should engage the Spaniards in the woods, and
harass them by perpetual combats in labyrinths to which they
were wholly unaccustomed. The advice was good, but it was not
followed. Ribaut proposed to follow the Spanish fleet with his
own--lighter and more easily handled--fall on the enemy when
the soldiers were all disembarked, and, after taking and
burning the ships, to attack the army. In the face of
remonstrances from all the officers, he persisted in this
project. Disaster followed the attempt. A violent gale arose.
The French ships were wrecked upon the Floridan coast; the men
lost their arms, their powder, and their clothes; they escaped
with their bare lives. There was no longer the question of
conquering the Spaniards, but of saving themselves. The
garrison of Caroline consisted of 150 soldiers, of whom 40
were sick. The rest of the colony was composed of sick and
wounded Protestant ministers, workmen, royal commissioners,'
and so forth. Laudonnière was in command. They awaited the
attack for several days, yet the Spaniards came not. They were
wading miserably through the marshes in the forests, under
tropical rains, discouraged, and out of heart." But when, at
length, the exhausted and despairing Spaniards, toiling
through the marshes, from St. Augustine, where they had landed
and established their settlement, reached the French fort
(Sept. 20), "there was actually no watch on the ramparts.
Three companies of Spaniards simultaneously rushed from the
forest, and attacked the fortress on the south, the west and
the south-west. There was but little resistance from the
surprised garrison. There was hardly time to grasp a sword.
About 20 escaped by flight, including the Captain,
Laudonnière; the rest were every one massacred. None were
spared except women and children under fifteen; and, in the
first rage of the onslaught, even these were murdered with the
rest. There still lay in the port three ships, commanded by
Jacques Ribaut, brother [son] of the unfortunate Governor. One
of these was quickly sent to the bottom by the cannon of the
fort; the other two cut their cables, and slipped out of reach
into the roadstead, where they lay, waiting for a favourable
wind, for three days. They picked up the fugitives who had
been wandering half-starved in the woods, and then set sail
from this unlucky land. ... There remained, however, the
little army, under Ribaut, which had lost most of its arms in
the wreck, and was now wandering along the Floridan shore."
When Ribaut and his men reached Fort Caroline and saw the
Spanish flag flying, they turned and retreated southward. Not
many days later, they were intercepted by Menendez, near St.
Augustine, to which post he had returned. The first party of
the French who came up, 200 in number, and who were in a
starving state, surrendered to the Spaniard, and laid down
their arms. "They were brought across the river in small
companies, and their hands tied behind their backs. On
landing, they were asked if they were Catholics. Eight out of
the 200 professed allegiance to that religion; the rest were
all Protestants.' Menendez traced out a line on the ground
with his cane. The prisoners were marched up one by one to the
line; on reaching it, they were stabbed. Next day, Ribaut
arrived with the rest of the army. The same pourparlers began.
But this time a blacker treachery was adopted." An officer,
sent by Menendez, pledged his honor to the French that the
lives of all should be spared if they laid down their arms.
"It is not clear how many of the French accepted the
conditions. A certain number refused them, and escaped into
the woods. What is certain is, that Ribaut, with nearly all
his men, were tied back to back, four together. Those who said
they were Catholics, were set on one side; the rest were all
massacred as they stood. ... Outside the circle of the
slaughtered and the slaughterers stood the priest, Mendoza,
encouraging, approving, exhorting the butchers."
W. Besant,
Gaspard de Coligny,
chapter 7.
The long dispatch in which Menendez reported his fiendish work
to the Spanish king has been brought to light in the archives
at Seville, and there is this endorsement on it, in the
hand-writing of Philip II.: "Say to him that, as to those he
has killed, he has done well; and as to those he has saved,
they shall be sent to the galleys."
F. Parkman,
Pioneers of France in the New World,
chapters 7-8.
{1151}
ALSO IN:
C. W. Baird,
History of the Huguenot Emigration to America,
volume 1, introduction.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1567-1568.
The vengeance of Dominic de Gourgues.
"As might have been expected, all attempts to rouse the French
court into demanding redress were vain. Spain, above all other
nations, knew the arts by which a corrupt court might be
swayed, and the same intrigues which, fifty years later, sent
Raleigh to the block and well-nigh ended the young colony of
Virginia, now kept France quiet. But though the court refused
to move, an avenger was not wanting. Dominic de Gourgues had
already known as a prisoner of war the horrors of the Spanish
galleys. Whether he was a Huguenot is uncertain. Happily in
France, as the history of that and all later ages proved, the
religion of the Catholic did not necessarily deaden the
feelings of the patriot. Seldom has there been a deed of more
reckless daring than that which Dominic de Gourgues now
undertook. With the proceeds of his patrimony he bought three
small ships, manned by eighty sailors and a hundred
men-at-arms. He then obtained a commission as a slaver on the
coast of Guinea, and in the summer of 1567 set sail. With
these paltry resources he aimed at overthrowing a settlement
which had already destroyed a force of twenty times his
number, and which might have been strengthened in the
interval. ... To the mass of his followers he did not reveal
the true secret of his voyage till he had reached the West
Indies. Then he disclosed his real purpose. His men were of
the same spirit as their leader. Desperate though the
enterprise seemed, De Gourgues' only difficulty was to
restrain his followers from undue haste. Happily for their
attempt, they had allies on whom they had not reckoned. The
fickle savages had at first welcomed the Spaniards, but the
tyranny of the new comers soon wrought a change, and the
Spaniards in Florida, like the Spaniards in every part of the
New World, were looked on as hateful tyrants. So when De
Gourgues landed he at once found a ready body of allies. ...
Three days were spent in making ready, and then De Gourgues,
with a hundred and sixty of his own men and his Indian allies,
marched against the enemy. In spite of the hostility of the
Indians, the Spaniards seem to have taken no precaution
against a sudden attack. Menendez himself had left the colony.
The Spanish force was divided between three forts, and no proper
precautions were taken for keeping up the communications
between them. Each was successively seized, the garrison slain
or made prisoners, and, as each fort fell, those in the next
could only make vague guesses as to the extent of the danger.
Even when divided into three the Spanish force outnumbered
that of De Gourgues, and savages with bows and arrows would
have counted for little against men with fire arms and behind
walls. But after the downfall of the first fort a panic seemed
to seize the Spaniards, and the French achieved an almost
bloodless victory. After the death of Ribault and his
followers nothing could be looked for but merciless
retaliation, and De Gourgues copied the severity, though not
the perfidy of his enemies. The very details of Menendez' act
were imitated, and the trees on which the prisoners were hung
bore the inscription: 'Not as Spaniards, but as traitors,
robbers, and murderers.' Five weeks later De Gourgues anchored
under the walls of Rochelle. ... His attack did not wholly
extirpate the Spanish power in Florida. Menendez received the
blessing of the Pope as a chosen instrument for the conversion
of the Indians, returned to America and restored his
settlement. As before, he soon made the Indians his deadly
enemies. The Spanish settlement held on, but it was not till
two centuries later that its existence made itself remembered
by one brief but glorious episode in the history of the
English colonies."
J. A. Doyle,
The English in America: Virginia, &c.,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
W. W. Dewhurst,
History of St. Augustine, Florida,
chapter 9.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1628.
Claimed by France, and placed, with New France, under the
control of the Company of the Hundred Associates.
See CANADA: A. D. 1616-1628.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1629.
Claimed in part by England and embraced in the Carolina grant
to Sir Robert Heath.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1680.
Attack on the English of Carolina.
See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1680.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1702.
Adjustment of western boundary with the French of Louisiana.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1740.
Unsuccessful attack on St. Augustine by the English of Georgia
and Carolina.
See GEORGIA: A. D. 1738-1743.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (February).
Ceded to Great Britain by Spain in the Treaty of Paris.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (July).
Possession taken by the English.
"When, in July [1763], possession was taken of Florida, its
inhabitants, of every age and sex, men, women, children, and
servants, numbered but 3,000; and, of these, the men were
nearly all in the pay of the Catholic king. The possession of
it had cost him nearly $230,000 annually; and now it was
accepted by England as a compensation for Havana. Most of the
people, receiving from the Spanish treasury indemnity for
their losses, had migrated to Cuba, taking with them the bones
of their saints and the ashes of their distinguished dead. The
western province of Florida extended to the Mississippi, on
the line of latitude of 31°. On the 20th of October, the
French surrendered the post of Mobile, with its brick fort,
which was fast crumbling to ruins. A month later, the slight
stockade at Tombigbee, in the west of the Chocta country, was
delivered up. In a congress of the Catawbas, Cherokees,
Creeks, Chicasas, and Choctas, held on the 10th of November,
at Augusta, the governors of Virginia and the colonies south
of it were present, and the peace with the Indians of the
South and South-west was ratified."
G. Bancroft,
History of the United States
(Author's last revision.),
volume 3, page 64.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (October).
English provinces, East and West, constituted by the King's
proclamation.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA: A. D. 1763.
{1152}
FLORIDA: A. D. 1779-1781.
Reconquest of West Florida by the Spanish commander at New
Orleans.
"In the summer of 1779 Spain had declared war against Great
Britain. Galvez [the Spanish commander at New Orleans]
discovered that the British were planning the surprise of New
Orleans, and, under cover of preparations for defense, made
haste to take the offensive. Four days before the time he had
appointed to move, a hurricane destroyed a large number of
houses in the town, and spread ruin to crops and, dwellings up
and down the 'coast,' and sunk his gun flotilla. ... Repairing
his disasters as best he could, and hastening his ostensibly
defensive preparations, he marched, on the 22d of August,
1779, against the British forts on the Mississippi. His ...
little army of 1,434 men was without tents, other military
furniture, or a single engineer. The gun fleet followed in the
river abreast of their line of march along its shores,
carrying one 24-pounder, five 18-pounders, and four
4-pounders. With this force, in the space of about three
weeks, Fort Bute on bayou Manchac, Baton Rouge and Fort
Panmure. 8 vessels, 556 regulars, and a number of sailors,
militia-men, and free blacks, fell into the hands of the
Spaniards. The next year, 1780, re-enforced from Havana,
Galvez again left New Orleans by way of the Balize with 2,000
men, regulars, militia, and free blacks, and on the 15th of
March took Fort Charlotte on Mobile river. Galvez next
conceived the much larger project of taking Pensacola. Failing
to secure re-enforcements from Havana by writing for them, he
sailed to that place in October, to make his application in
person, intending to move with them directly on the enemy.
After many delays and disappointments he succeeded, and early
in March, 1781, appeared before Pensacola with a ship of the
line, two frigates, and transports containing 1,400 soldiers
well furnished with artillery and ammunition. Here he was
joined by such troops as could be spared from Mobile, and by
Don Estevan Mirò from New Orleans, at the head of the
Louisiana forces, and on the afternoon of the 16th of March,
though practically unsupported by the naval fleet, until
dishonor was staring its jealous commanders in the face, moved
under hot fire, through a passage of great peril, and took up
a besieging position. ... It is only necessary to state that,
on the 9th of May, 1781, Pensacola, with a garrison of 800
men, and the whole of West Florida, were surrendered to
Galvez. Louisiana had heretofore been included under one
domination with Cuba, but now one of the several rewards
bestowed upon her governor was the captain-generalship of
Louisiana and West Florida."
G. E. Waring, Jr., and G. W. Cable,
History of New Orleans
(United States Tenth Census, volume 19).
ALSO IN:
C. Gayarré,
History of Louisiana: Spanish Domination,
chapter 3.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1783-1787.
The question of boundaries between Spain and the United
States, and the question of the navigation of the Mississippi.
"By the treaty of 1783 between Great Britain on the one part
and the United States and her allies, France and Spain, on the
other, Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the
colonies, and recognized as a part of their southern boundary
a line drawn due east from a point in the Mississippi River,
in latitude 31° north, to the middle of the Appalachicola; and
at the same time she ceded to Spain by a separate agreement
the two Floridas, but without defining their northern
boundaries. This omission gave rise to a dispute between Spain
and the United States as to their respective limits. On the
part of Spain it was contended that by the act of Great
Britain, of 1764, the northern boundary of West Florida had
been fixed at the line running due east from the mouth of the
Yazoo to the Chattahoochee, and that all south of that line
had been ceded to her; whilst on the other hand, the United
States as strenuously maintained that the act fixing and
enlarging the limits of West Florida was superseded by the
recent treaty, which extended their southern boundary to the
31st degree of north latitude, a hundred and ten miles further
south than the line claimed by Spain. Spain, however, had
possession of the disputed territory by right of conquest, and
evidently had no intention of giving it up. She strengthened
her garrisons at Baton Rouge and Natchez, and built a fort at
Vicksburg, and subsequently one at New Madrid, on the Missouri
side of the Mississippi, just below the mouth of the Ohio; and
of the latter she made a port of entry where vessels from the
Ohio were obliged to land and declare their cargoes. She even
denied the right of the United States to the region between
the Mississippi and the Alleghany Mountains, which had been
ceded to them by Great Britain, on the ground that the
conquests made by Governor Galvez, of West Florida, and by Don
Eugenio Pierre, of Fort St. Joseph, 'near the sources of the
Illinois,' had vested the title to all this country in her;
and she insisted that what she did not own was possessed by
the Indians, and could not therefore belong to the United
States. Even as late as 1795, she claimed to have bought from
the Chickasaws the bluffs which bear their name, and which are
situated on the east bank of the Mississippi some distance
north of the most northerly boundary ever assigned by Great
Britain to West Florida. Here, then, was cause for 'a very
pretty quarrel,' and to add to the ill feeling which grew out
of it, Spain denied the right of the people of the United
States to the 'free navigation of the Mississippi,'--a right
which had been conceded to them by Great Britain with all the
formalities with which she had received it from France. ...
What was needed to make the right of any value to the people
of the Ohio valley was the additional right to take their
produce into a Spanish port, New Orleans, and either sell it
then and there, or else store it, subject to certain
conditions, until such time as it suited them to transfer it
to sea-going vessels. This right Spain would not concede; and
as the people of the Ohio valley were determined to have it,
cost what it might, it brought on a series of intrigues
between the Spanish governors of Louisiana and certain
influential citizens west of the Alleghanies which threatened
the stability of the American Union almost before it was
formed."
L. Carr,
Missouri,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
E. Schuyler,
American Diplomacy,
chapter 6.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813.
Continued occupation of West Florida by the Spaniards.
Revolt of the inhabitants.
Possession taken by the Americans from the Mississippi to the
Perdido.
"The success of the French in Spain, and the probability of
that kingdom being obliged to succumb, had given occasion to
revolutionary movements in several of the Spanish American
provinces. This example ... had been followed also in that
portion of the Spanish province of West Florida bordering on
the Mississippi. The inhabitants, most of whom were of British
or American birth, had seized the fort at Baton Rouge, had met
in convention, and had proclaimed themselves independent,
adopting a single star for their flag, the same symbol
afterward assumed by the republic of Texas.
{1153}
Some struggles took place between the adherents of the Spanish
connection and these revolutionists, who were also threatened
with attack from Mobile, still held by a Spanish garrison. In
this emergency they applied, through Holmes, governor of the
Mississippi Territory, for aid and recognition by the United
States. ... The president, however, preferred to issue a
proclamation, taking possession of the east bank of the
Mississippi, occupation of which, under the Louisiana treaty,
had been so long delayed, not, it was said, from any defect of
title, but out of conciliatory views toward Spain. ...
Claiborne, governor of the Orleans Territory, then at
Washington, was dispatched post-haste to take possession." The
following January Congress passed an act in secret session
"authorizing the president to take possession as well of East
as of West Florida, under any arrangement which had been or
might be entered into with the local authorities; or, in case
of any attempted occupation by any foreign government, to take
and to maintain possession by force. Previously to the passage
of this act, the occupation of the east bank of the
Mississippi had been already completed by Governor Claiborne;
not, however, without some show of resistance. ... Captain
Gaines presently appeared before Mobile with a small
detachment of American regulars, and demanded its surrender.
Colonel Cushing soon arrived from New Orleans with several
gun-boats, artillery, and a body of troops. The boats were
permitted to ascend the river toward Fort Stoddard without
opposition. But the Spanish commandant refused to give up
Mobile, and no attempt was made to compel him." By an act of
Congress passed in April, 1812, "that part of Florida recently
taken possession of, as far east as Pearl River, was annexed to
the new state [of Louisiana]. The remaining territory, as far
as the Perdido, though Mobile still remained in the hands of
the Spaniards, was annexed, by another act, to the Mississippi
Territory." A year later, in April, 1813, General Wilkinson
was instructed to take possession of Mobile, and to occupy all
the territory claimed, to the Perdido, which he accordingly
did, without bloodshed.
R. Hildreth,
History of the United States, 2d series,
chapters 23, 24, 26 (volume 3).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.
The fugitive negroes and the first Seminole War.
Jackson's campaign.
"The tranquillity of Monroe's administration was soon
seriously threatened by the renewal of trouble with the
Southern Indians [the Seminoles, and the refugee Creeks]. ...
The origin of the difficulty was twofold: first, the injustice
which has always marked the treatment of Indian tribes whose
lands were coveted by the whites; and secondly, the revival of
the old grievance, that Florida was a refuge for the fugitive
slaves of Georgia and South Carolina. ... The Seminoles had
never withheld a welcome to the Georgia negro who preferred
their wild freedom to the lash of an overseer on a cotton or
rice plantation. The Georgians could never forget that the
grand-children of their grandfathers' fugitive slaves were
roaming about the Everglades of Florida. ... So long as there
were Seminoles in Florida, and so long as Florida belonged to
Spain, just so long would the negroes of Georgia find an
asylum in Florida with the Seminoles. ... A war with the
Indians of Florida, therefore, was always literally and
emphatically a slave-hunt. A reclamation for fugitives was
always repulsed by the Seminoles and the Spaniards, and, as
they could be redeemed in no other way, Georgia was always
urging the Federal Government to war."
W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay,
Popular History of the United States,
volume 4, chapter 10.
During the War of 1812-14, the English, who were permitted by
Spain to make use of Florida with considerable freedom, and
who received no little assistance from the refugee negroes and
Creek Indians, "had built a fort on the Appalachicola River,
about 15 miles from its mouth, and had collected there an
immense amount of arms and ammunition. ... When the war ended,
the English left the arms and ammunition in the fort. The
negroes seized the fort, and it became known as the 'Negro
Fort.' The authorities of the United States sent General
Gaines to the Florida frontier with troops, to establish peace
on the border. The Negro Fort was a source of anxiety both to
the military authorities and to the slave-owners of Georgia,"
and a pretext was soon found--whether valid or not seems
uncertain--for attacking it. "A hot shot penetrated one of the
magazines, and the whole fort was blown to pieces, July 27, 1816.
There were 300 negro men, women and children, and 20 Choctaws
in the fort; 270 were killed. Only three came out unhurt, and
these were killed by the allied Indians. ... During 1817 there
were frequent collisions on the frontiers between Whites and
Indians. ... On the 20th of November, General Gaines sent a
force of 250 men to Fowltown, the headquarters of the chief of
the 'Redsticks,' or hostile Creeks. They approached the town
in the early morning, and were fired on. An engagement
followed. The town was taken and burned. ... The Indians of
that section, after this, began general hostilities, attacked
the boats which were ascending the Appalachicola, and
massacred the persons in them. ... In December, on receipt of
intelligence of the battle at Fowltown and the attack on the
boats, Jackson was ordered to take command in Georgia. He
wrote to President Monroe: 'Let it be signified to me through
any channel (say Mr. J. Rhea) that the possession of the
Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty
days it will be accomplished.' Much was afterwards made to
depend on this letter. Monroe was ill when it reached
Washington, and he did not see or read it until a year
afterwards, when some reference was made to it. Jackson
construed the orders which he received from Calhoun with
reference to this letter. ... He certainly supposed, however,
that he had the secret concurrence of the administration in
conquering Florida. ... He advanced through Georgia with great
haste and was on the Florida frontier in March, 1818. He ...
immediately advanced to St. Mark's, which place he captured.
On his way down the Appalachicola he found the Indians and
negroes at work in the fields, and unconscious of any
impending attack. Some of them fled to St. Mark's. His theory,
in which he supposed that he was supported by the
administration, was that he was to pursue the Indians until he
caught them, wherever they might go; that he was to respect
Spanish rights as far as he could consistently with that
purpose; and that the excuse for his proceedings was that
Spain could not police her own territory, or restrain the
Indians.
{1154}
Jackson's proceedings were based on two positive but arbitrary
assumptions: (1) That the Indians got aid and encouragement
from St. Mark's and Pensacola. (This the Spaniards always
denied, but perhaps a third assumption of Jackson might be
mentioned: that the word of a Spanish official was of no
value.) (2) That Great Britain kept paid emissaries employed
in Florida to stir up trouble for the United States. This
latter assumption was a matter of profound belief generally in
the United States." Acting upon it with no hesitation, Jackson
caused a Scotch trader named Arbuthnot, whom he found at St.
Mark's, and an English ex-lieutenant of marines, Ambrister by
name, who was taken prisoner among the Seminoles, to be
condemned by court martial and executed, although no
substantial evidence of their being in any way answerable for
Indian hostilities was adduced. "It was as a mere incident of
his homeward march that Jackson turned aside and captured
Pensacola, May 24, 1818, because he was told that some Indians
had taken refuge there. He deposed the Spanish government, set
up a new one, and established a garrison. He then continued
his march homewards. "Jackson's performances in Florida were
the cause of grave perplexities to his government, which
finally determined "that Pensacola and St. Mark's should be
restored to Spain, but that Jackson's course should be
approved and defended on the grounds that he pursued his enemy
to his refuge, and that Spain could not do the duty which
devolved on her."
W. G. Sumner,
Andrew Jackson as a public man,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
J. Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson,
volume 2, chapters 31-39.
J. R. Giddings,
The Exiles of Florida,
chapters 1-4.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1819-1821.
Cession by Spain to the United States.
"Jackson's vigorous proceedings in Florida would seem not to
have been without effect. Pending the discussion in Congress
on his conduct, the Spanish minister, under new instructions
from home, signed a treaty for the cession of Florida, in
extinction of the various American claims, for the
satisfaction of which the United States agreed to pay to the
claimants $5,000,000. The Louisiana boundary, as fixed by this
treaty, was a compromise between the respective offers
heretofore made, though leaning a good deal to the American
side: the Sabine to the 32d degree of north latitude; thence a
north meridian line to the Red River; the course of that river
to the 100th degree of longitude east [? west] from Greenwich;
thence north by that meridian to the Arkansas; up that river
to its head, and to the 42d degree of north latitude; and
along that degree to the Pacific. This treaty was immediately
ratified by the Senate," but it was not until February, 1821,
that the ratification of the Spanish government was received.
R. Hildreth,
History of the United States,
2d series, chapters 31-32 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
J. T. Morse,
John Quincy Adams,
pages 109-125.
Treaties and Conventions between the United States and
other countries (edition of 1880), pages 1016-1022.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1835-1843.
The Second Seminole War.
"The conflict with the Seminoles was one of the legacies left
by Jackson to Van Buren; it lasted as long as the
Revolutionary War, cost thirty millions of dollars, and
baffled the efforts of several generals and numerous troops,
who had previously shown themselves equal to any in the world.
... As is usually the case in Indian wars there had been wrong
done by each side; but in this instance we were the more to
blame, although the Indians themselves were far from being
merely harmless and suffering innocents. The Seminoles were
being deprived of their lands in pursuance of the general
policy of removing all the Indians [to] west of the
Mississippi. They had agreed to go, under pressure, and
influenced, probably, by fraudulent representations; but they
declined to fulfill their agreement. If they had been treated
wisely and firmly they might probably have been allowed to
remain without serious injury to the surrounding whites. But
no such treatment was attempted, and as a result we were
plunged in one of the most harassing Indian wars we ever
waged. In their gloomy, tangled swamps, and among the unknown
and untrodden recesses of the everglades, the Indians found a
secure asylum; and they issued from their haunts to burn and
ravage almost all the settled parts of Florida, fairly
depopulating five counties. ... The great Seminole leader,
Osceola, was captured only by deliberate treachery and breach
of faith on our part, and the Indians were worn out rather
than conquered. This was partly owing to their remarkable
capacities as bush-fighters, but infinitely more to the nature
of their territory. Our troops generally fought with great
bravery; but there is very little else in the struggle, either
as regards its origin or the manner in which it was carried
on, to which an American can look back with any satisfaction."
T. Roosevelt,
Life of Thomas H. Benton,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
J. R. Giddings,
The Exiles of Florida,
chapters 7-21.
J. T. Sprague,
The Florida War.
See also,
AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SEMINOLES.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1845.
Admission into the Union.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845.
FLORIDA: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY).
Secession from the Union.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1862 (February-April).
Temporary Union conquests and occupation.
Discouragement of Unionists.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: GEORGIA--FLORIDA).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1864.
Unsuccessful National attempt to occupy the State.
Battle of Olustee.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: FLORIDA).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1865 (JULY).
Provisional government set up under President Johnson's plan
of Reconstruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY).
FLORIDA: A. D. 1865-1868.
Reconstruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY), and after, to 1868-1870.
----------FLORIDA: End----------
FLORIN, The.
"The Republic of Florence, in the year 1252, coined its golden
florin, of 24 carats fine, and of the weight of one drachm. It
placed the value under the guarantee of publicity, and of
commercial good faith; and that coin remained unaltered, as
the standard for all other values, as long as the republic
itself endured."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Italian Republics,
chapter 4.
FLOTA, The.
See PERU: A. D. 1550-1816.
FLOYD, JOHN B., Treachery of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (DECEMBER).
FLUSHING: A. D. 1807.
Ceded to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).
{1155}
FLUSHING: A. D. 1809.
Taken and abandoned by the English.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1809 (JULY-DECEMBER).
FOCKSHANI, Battle of (1789).
See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.
FODHLA.
See IRELAND: THE NAME.
FŒDERATI OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
The bodies of barbarians who were taken in the military
service of the Roman empire, during the period of its decline,
serving "under their hereditary chiefs, using the arms which
were proper to them, from preserving their language, their
manners and their customs, were designated by the name of
frederati" (confederates or allies).
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
The French under the Merovingians,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
T. Hodgkin, The dynasty of Theodosius,
chapter 4.
FOIX, Rise of the Counts of.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1032.
FOIX, The house in Navarre.
See NAVARRE: A. D. 1442-1521.
FOLCLAND.--FOLKLAND.
Public land, among the early English. "It comprised the whole
area that was not at the original allotment assigned to
individuals or communities, and that was not subsequently
divided into estates of bookland [bocland]. The folkland was
the standing treasury of the country; no alienation of any
part of it could be made without the consent of the national
council; but it might be allowed to individuals to hold
portions of it subject to rents and other services to the
state."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 5, section 36.
The theory here stated is questioned by Prof. Vinogradoff, who
says: "I venture to suggest that folkland need not mean the
land owned by the people. Bookland is land that is held by
bookright; folkland is land that is held by folkright. The
folkland is what our scholars have called ethel, and alod, and
family-land, and yrfeland; it is land held under the old
restrictive common-law, the law which keeps land in families,
as contrasted with land which is held under a book, under a
'privilegium,' modelled on Roman precedents, expressed in
Latin words, armed with ecclesiastical sanctions, and making
for free alienation and individualism."
P. Vinogradoff,
Folkland
(English History Rev., January, 1893).
ALSO IN:
J. M. Kemble,
The Saxons in England,
book 1, chapter 11.
See, also, ALOD.
FOLIGNO, Treaty of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY).
FOLKLAND.
See FOLCLAND.
FOLKMOOT.
See HUNDRED:
also SHIRE;
also WITENAGEMOT;
also TOWNSHIP AND TOWN-MEETING, THE NEW ENGLAND.
FOLKTHING.--FOLKETING, The.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES
(DENMARK--ICELAND): A. D. 1849-1874.
FOLKUNGAS, The.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1018-1397.
FOMORIANS, OR FORMORIANS, The.
A people mentioned in Irish legends as sea-rovers. Mr.
Sullivan, in his article on "Celtic Literature" in the
Encyclopædia Britannica advances the opinion that the Romans
were the people alluded to; but the general view is quite
different.
See IRELAND: THE PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS;
also, NEMEDIANS.
FONTAINE FRANĆAISE, Battle of (1595).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.
FONTAINEBLEAU: A. D. 1812-1814.
Residence of the captive Pope.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
FONTAINEBLEAU,
Treaties of (1807).
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807,
and SPAIN: A. D.1807-1808.
FONTAINEBLEAU,
Treaties of (1814).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (MARCH-APRIL).
FONTAINEBLEAU DECREE, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810.
FONTARABIA, Siege and Battle (1638).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1637-1640.
FONTENAILLES, OR FONTENAY,
Battle of, A. D. 841.
In the civil war between the three grandsons of Charlemagne,
which resulted in the partition of his empire and the definite
separation of Germany and France, the decisive battle was
fought, June 25, 841, at Fontenailles, or Fontenay
(Fontanetum), near Auxerre. It was one of the fiercest and
bloodiest fights of mediæval times, and 80,000 men are said to
have died on the field.
Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England,
book 1, chapter 2.
See FRANKS (CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE): A. D. 814-962.
FONTENOY, Battle of(1745).
See NETHERLANDS (AUSTRIAN PROVINCES): A. D. 1745.
FOOT, The Roman.
"The unit of lineal measure [with the Romans] was the Pes,
which occupied the same place in the Roman system as the Foot
does in our own. According to the most accurate researches,
the Pes was equal to, about 11.64 inches imperial measure, or
.97 of an English foot. The Pes being supposed to represent
the length of the foot in a well proportioned man, various
divisions and multiples of the Pes were named after standards
derived from the human frame. Thus: Pes=16 Digiti, i. e.
finger-breadths, [or] 4 Palmi, i. e. hand-breadths;
Sesquipes=l cubitus, i. e. length from elbow to extremity of
middle finger. The Pes was also divided into 12 Pollices, i.
e. thumb-joint-lengths, otherwise called Unciae (whence our
word 'inch')."
W. Ramsay,
Manual of Roman Antiquity,
chapter 13.
FOOTE, Commodore.
Gun-boat campaign on the western rivers.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE);
(MARCH-APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
FORBACH, OR SPICHERN, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST).
FORCE BILL, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1871 (APRIL).
FORESTS, Charter of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.
FORLI, Battle of (1423).
See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.
FORMORIANS.
See FOMORIANS.
FORMOSUS, Pope, A. D. 891-896.
FORNUOVA, Battle of (1495).
See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.
FORT EDWARD.--FORT ERIE.--FORT FISHER, ETC.
See EDWARD, FORT; ERIE, FORT, ETC.
FORTRENN, Men of.
A Pictish people who figure in early Scottish history, and
whom Mr. Rhys derives from the tribe known to the Romans as
Verturiones. The western part of Fife was embraced in their
kingdom.
J. Rhys,
Celtic Britain,
pages 158-159.
FORTUNATE ISLANDS.
See CANARY ISLANDS, DISCOVERY OF.
{1156}
FORTY-FIVE, The.
The Jacobite rebellion of 1745 is often referred to as "the
Forty-five."
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1745.
FORTY-SHILLING FREEHOLDERS.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.
FORUM, The Julian, and its extensions.
"From the entrance of the Suburra branched out the long
streets which penetrated the hollows between the Quirinal,
Viminal, and Esquiline to the gates pierced in the mound of
Servius. It was in this direction that Cæsar effected the
first extension of the Forum, by converting the site of
certain streets into an open space which he surrounded with
arcades, and in the centre of which he erected his temple of
Venus. By the side of the Julian Forum, or perhaps in its
rear, Augustus constructed a still ampler inclosure, which he
adorned with the temple of Mars the Avenger. Succeeding
emperors ... continued to work out the same idea, till the
Argiletum on the one hand, and the saddle of the Capitoline
and Quirinal, excavated for the purpose, on the other, were
both occupied by these constructions, the dwellings of the
populace being swept away before them; and a space running
nearly parallel to the length of the Roman Forum, and
exceeding it in size, was thus devoted to public use,
extending from the pillar of Trajan to the basilica of
Constantine."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 40.
FORUM BOARIUM AND VELABRUM OF ANCIENT ROME, The.
"The Velabrum, the Forum Boarium, the Vicus Tuscus, and the
Circus Maximus are names rich in reminiscences of the romantic
youth and warlike manhood of the Roman people. The earliest
dawn of Roman history begins with the union of the Capitoline
and Palatine hills into one city. In those far-distant times,
however, no population was settled in the Velabrum or Circus
valley; for, as we have seen, until the drainage was
permanently provided for by the cloacæ, these districts were
uninhabited swamps; and the name Velabrum itself is said to
have been derived from the boats used in crossing from one
hill to the other. Perhaps such may not have been the case
with the Forum Boarium, which lay between the Velabrum and the
river. ... The limits of the Forum Boarium can be clearly
defined. It was separated from the Velabrum at the Arch of the
Goldsmiths. ... On the south-eastern side the Carceres of the
Circus, and the adjoining temple on the site of S. Maria in
Cosmedin, bounded the district, on the western the Tiber, and
on the north western the wall of Servius. ... The immediate
neighbourhood of the river, the Forum, the Campus Martius, and
the Palace of the Cæsars would naturally render this quarter
one of the most crowded thoroughfares of Rome. ... The Forum
itself, which gave the name to the district, was probably an
open space surrounded by shops and public buildings, like the
Forum Romanum, but on a smaller scale. In the centre stood the
bronze figure of a bull, brought from Ægina, either as a
symbol of the trade in cattle to which the place owed its
name, or, as Tacitus observes, to mark the supposed spot
whence the plough of Romulus, drawn by a bull and a cow, first
started in tracing out the Palatine pomœrium."
R. Burn,
Rome and the Campagna,
chapter 12.
FORUM GALLORUM, Battle of (B. C. 43).
See ROME: B. C. 44-42.
FORUM JULII.
A Roman colony and naval station (modern Frejus) founded on
the Mediterranean coast of Gaul by Augustus.
FORUM ROMANUM, The.
"The older Forum, or Forum Romanum, as it was called, to
distinguish it from the later Fora, which were named after
their respective builders [Forum of Julius Cæsar, of Augustus,
of Nerva, of Vespasian, of Trajan, etc.], was an open space of
an oblong shape, which extended in a south-easterly direction
from near the depression or intermontium between the two
summits of the Capitoline hill to a point opposite the still
extant temple of Antoninus and Faustina. ... Round this
confined space were grouped the most important buildings of
Republican Rome."
R. Burn,
Rome and the Campagna,
chapter 6, part 1.
"Forum, in the literal sense of the word merely a marketplace,
derives its name 'á ferendo,' (from bringing, getting,
purchasing). ... Narrow is the arena on which so great a drama
was enacted in the Republican and Imperial City! the
ascertainable measurements of this region, according to good
authorities, being 671 English feet in the extreme length; 202
in the extreme breadth, and 117 feet at the narrower, the
south-eastern, side. A wildly picturesque marshy vale,
overshadowed by primæval forests, and shut in by rugged
heights, was that low ground between the Palatine and
Capitoline hills when the 'Roma Quadrata,' ascribed to
Romulus, was founded about seven centuries and a half before
our era. After the wars and finally confirmed alliance between
Romans and Sabines ... the colonists agreed to unite under the
same government, and to surround the two cities and two hills
with a wider cincture of fortifying walls than those the still
extant ruins of which are before us on the Palatine. Now was
the swampy waste rendered serviceable for civic purposes; the
forest was cut down; the stagnant marshes were drained, the
clayey hollows filled up; the wild valley became the appointed
arena for popular assemblage; though Dionysius tells us it was
for some time on a spot sacred to Vulcan (the 'Vulcanale'),
probably a terrace on the slope of the Palatine overlooking
the Forum, that the people used to meet for political affairs,
elections, etc. During many ages there were, it appears, no
habitations save on the hills. ... The Forum, as an enclosed
public place amidst buildings, and surrounded by graceful
porticos, may be said to have owed its origin to Tarquinius
Priscus, between the years 616 and 578 B. C. That king (Livius
tells us) was the first who erected porticos around this area,
and also divided the ground into lots, where private citizens
might build for their own uses. Booths, probably wooden (the
'tabernæ veteres'), were the first rude description of shops
here seen. ... Uncertain is the original place of the 'Rostra
Veteres'--the ancient tribunal for orators. No permanent
tribunal for such purpose is known to have been placed in the
Forum till the year of the city 417. ... In the year 336 B.
C., the Romans having gained a naval victory over the
citizens' of Antium, several of those enemies' ships were
burnt, others transported to the Roman docks, and the bronzed
prows of the latter were used to decorate a pulpit, now raised
for public speaking, probably near the centre of the Forum."
C. I. Hemans,
Historic and Monumental Rome,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
R. Lanciani,
Ancient Rome,
pages 75-82.
{1157}
FORUM TREBONII, Battle of (A. D. 251).
See GOTHS, FIRST INVASIONS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
FOSI, The.
See CHAUCI.
FOSSA.
See CASTRA.
FOSSE, The.
One of the great Roman roads in Britain, which ran from
Lincoln southwestwardly into Cornwall.
See ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.
FOSTAT.
The original name of Cairo, Egypt, signifying "the
Encampment."
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 640-646.
FOTHERINGAY CASTLE, Mary Stuart's execution at.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568;
and ENGLAND: A. D. 1585-1587.
FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, Ponce de Leon's quest of the.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1512.
FOUR HUNDRED AND FIVE THOUSAND AT ATHENS.
See ATHENS: B. C. 413-411.
FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS, The.
See ATHENS: B. C. 594.
FOUR MASTERS, The.
Four Irish antiquaries of 17th century, who compiled the mixed
collection of legend and history called the "Annals of the
Kingdom of Ireland," are commonly known as the Four Masters.
They were Michael O'Clery, a lay brother of the order of St.
Francis; Conaire O'Clery, brother of Michael; Cucogry or
Peregrine O'Clery, head of the Tirconnell sept of the
O'Clerys, to which Michael and Conaire belonged; and Ferfeasa
O'Mulconry, of whom nothing is known, except that he was a
native of the county of Roscommon. The "Annals" of the Four
Masters have been translated into English from the Irish
tongue by John O'Donovan.
J. O'Donovan,
Introduction to Annals of the Kingdom of
Ireland by the Four Masters.
FOUR MILE STRIP, Cession of the.
See PONTIAC'S WAR.
FOURMIGNY, Battle of (1449).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453.
FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1865-1866 (DECEMBER-APRIL);
1866 (JUNE);
1866-1867 (OCTOBER-MARCH).
FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT:
The enforcement of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1871 (APRIL).
----------FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT: End----------
FOURTH OF JULY.
The anniversary of the adoption of the American Declaration of
Independence.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JULY).
FOWEY, Essex's surrender at.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).
FOWLTOWN, Battle of (1817).
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.
FOX AND NORTH COALITION, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1782; 1783;
and 1783-1787.
FOX INDIANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY,
and SACS, &c.
For an account of the massacre of Fox Indians
at Detroit in 1712,
See CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.
For an account of the Black Hawk War,
See ILLINOIS: A.. D. 1832.
FRANCE:
Gallic and Roman.
See GAUL. A. D. 481-843.
FRANCE:
Under the Franks, to the division of the Empire of
Charlemagne.
See FRANKS.
FRANCE: A. D. 841-911.
Ravages and settlements of the Northmen.
See NORMANS: A. D. 841 to 876-911.
FRANCE: 9th Century.
Introduction of the modern name.
At the time of the division of the empire of Charlemagne
between his three grand-sons, which was made a definite and
lasting political separation by the Treaty of Verdun, A. D.
843, "the people of the West [western Europe] had come to be
divided, with more and more distinctness, into two classes,
those composed of Franks and Germans, who still adhered to the
Teutonic dialects, and those, composed of Franks,
Gallo-Romans, and Aquitanians, who used the Romance dialects,
or the patois which had grown out of a corrupted Latin. The
former clung to the name of Germans, while the latter, not to
lose all share in the glory of the Frankish name, began to
call themselves Franci, and their country Francia Nova, or New
France. ... Francia was the Latin name of Frankenland, and had
long before been applied to the dominions of the Franks on
both sides of the Rhine. Their country was then divided into
East and West Francia; but in the time of Karl the Great
[Charlemagne] and Ludwig Pious, we find the monk of St. Gall
using the terms Francia Nova, in opposition to the Francia,
'quæ dicitur antiqua.'"
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
chapter 18, with note.
"As for the mere name of Francia, like other names of the
kind, it shifted its geographical use according to the
wanderings of the people from whom it was derived. After many
such changes of meaning, it gradually settled down as the name
for those parts of Germany and Gaul where it still abides.
There are the Teutonic or Austrian [or Austrasian] Francia,
part of which still keeps the name of Franken or Franconia,
and the Romance or Neustrian Francia, which by various
annexations has grown into modern France."
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
volume 1, page 121.
"As late as the reign of Frederick Barbarossa, the name of
Frank was still used, and used too with an air of triumph, as
equivalent to the name of German. The Kings and kingdoms of
this age had indeed no fixed titles, because all were still
looked on as mere portions of the great Frankish realm.
Another step has now been taken towards the creation of modern
France; but the older state of things has not yet wholly
passed away. Germany has no definite name; for a long time it
is 'Francia Orientalis,' 'Francia Teutonica'; then it becomes
'Regnum Teutonicum,' 'Regnum Teutonicorum.' But it is equally
clear that, within the limits of that Western or Latin France,
Francia and Francus were fast getting their modern meanings of
France and Frenchmen, as distinguished from Frank or German."
E. A. Freeman,
The Franks and the Gauls
(Historical Essays, 1st series, number 7).
{1158}
FRANCE: A. D. 843.
The kingdom of Charles the Bald.
The first actual kingdom of France (Francia Nova--Francia
Occidentalis), was formed in the partition of the empire of
Charlemagne between his three grandsons, by the Treaty of
Verdun, A. D. 843. It was assigned to Charles, called "the
Bald," and comprised the Neustria of the older Frank
divisions, together with Aquitaine. It "had for its eastern
boundary, the Meuse, the Saône and the Rhone; which,
nevertheless, can only be understood of the Upper Meuse, since
Brabant was certainly not comprised in it"; and it extended
southwards beyond the Pyrenees to the Ebro.
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 1, part 1, footnote.
"Charles and his successors have some claim to be accounted
French. They rule over a large part of France, and are cut
away from their older connexion with Germany. Still, in
reality they are Germans and Franks. They speak German, they
yearn after the old imperial name, they have no national
feeling at all. On the other hand, the great lords of
Neustria, as it used to be called, are ready to move in that
direction, and to take the first steps towards a new national
life. They cease to look back to the Rhine, and occupy
themselves in a continual struggle with their kings. Feudal
power is founded, and with it the claims of the bishops rise
to their highest point. But we have not yet come to a kingdom
of France. ... It was no proper French kingdom; but a dying
branch of the Empire of Charles the Great. ... Charles the
Bald, entering on his part of the Caroling Empire, found three
large districts which refused to recognise him. These were
Aquitaine, whose king was Pippin II.; Septimania, in the hands
of Bernard; and Brittany under Nominoë. He attempted to reduce
them; but Brittany and Septimania defied him, while over
Aquitaine he was little more than a nominal suzerain."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
volume 1, book 2, part 2, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 6, section 1.
See, also,
FRANKS (CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE): A. D. 814-962.
----------------------------------------
A Logical Outline of French History
(Red) Physical or material.
(Blue) Ethnologilcal.
(Green) Social and political.
(Brown) Intellectual, moral and religious.
(Black) Foreign.
IN WHICH THE DOMINANT CONDITIONS AND
INFLUENCES ARE DISTINGUISHED BY COLORS.
The country known anciently as Gaul, and in modern times as
France, is distinguished by no physical characteristics that
will go far towards explaining its history. Lying within the
middle degrees of the northern temperate zone, greatly
diversified in its superficial features, and varied in the
qualities of its soil, it represents a fair average of the
more favorable conditions of human life.
The Gauls.
The inhabitants of the land when the Romans subdued it were a
Celtic people, belonging to the race which has survived to the
present day with least admixture or modification in the
Bretons, the Welsh, the Celtic Irish and the Highland Scotch.
The peculiar traits of the race in mind and temper are so
visible in French history as to show that the nation has never
ceased to be essentially Gallic in blood.
B. C. 51-A. D. 406; Roman Gaul.
Under the control and the teaching of Rome for four centuries
and a half, the Gauls were perfected in her civilization and
corrupted by the vices of her decay.
5th Century; Frank Conquest.
When the invasion of Teutonic barbarism broke the barrier of
the Rhine, they were easily but not quickly overwhelmed, and
sank under a conquest more complete than that from Rome had
been; since the whole body of the conquerors came to dwell
within the land, and to be neighbors and masters, at once. For
the most part, these invaders preferred country to town, and
carved estates for themselves in all the districts that were
fertile and fair. The Gallo-Romans, or Romanized Gauls, were
left to more freedom in their cities than outside; but their
cities were blighted in industry and in trade by the common
ruin around them. In the rural districts, few liberties or
rights were preserved for the subjugated race.
Feudalism.
The form of society which the German conquerors brought with
them into Gaul was broken by the change of circumstance, quite
as much as the form of society which they overthrew. The camp
gave place to the castle; the wandering war-chief acquired the
firmer superiority of a great land-proprietor and lord; his
warriors slipped in station from free followers to dependents,
in divers degrees; the greater chiefs won the title of kings;
the fiercer kings destroyed their rivals; and four or five
centuries shaped, by slow processes that are traceable,
indistinctly, the military structure of society called Feudal,
which organized lawlessness with picturesque and destructive
effects.
A. D. 481-752. Merovingian monarchy.
A. D. 768-814. Empire of Charlemagne.
All authority withered, except the spiritual authority of the
Church, which steadily grew. The royalty that had thrived for
a time upon the distribution of lands, dignities and powers,
lost prestige when it had expended the domains at its
disposal, and when offices and estates were clutched in
hereditary possession. Before it actually expired, there arose
a family of remarkable men--great in four successive
generations--who put its crown upon their own heads and made
it powerful again. The last and greatest of these expanded the
Frank kingdom into a new Roman Empire; but the energy of the
achievement was wholly his own, and his empire fell to pieces
when he died.
A. D. 987. Kingdom of Hugh Capet.
11th-12th centuries. Enfranchisement of the Communes.
In the part which became France, royalty dwindled once more;
the great dukes and counts nominally subject to it, in the
feudal sense, renewed and increased their power; until one of
their number took the throne, and bequeathed it to his heirs.
This new line of kings won back by degrees the ascendancy of
the crown. The small actual dominion, surrounding Paris, with
which they began, was widened slowly by the strong,
authoritative arm. They made themselves, in rude fashion, the
champions of order and law. They took the people of the towns
into alliance with them; for the towns were beginning to
catch the spirit of the free cities of Italy, and the sturdy
temper of the Flemish burghers, and to assume the name of
"communes," or commons, casting off the feudal yoke that had
been laid upon them. The kings lent their countenance to the
communes, and the communes strengthened the hands of the
kings. Between them and much helped by the stir of the
Crusades, they loosened the roots of feudalism, until its
decay set in. The king's courts and the king's officers pushed
their jurisdiction into a widening realm, until the king's
authority had become supreme, in fact as well as in name.
Even the measureless misery of a hundred years of war with
English kings brought power, in the end, to the crown, by
weakening the greater lords, and by bringing into existence a
fixed military force.
A. D. 1337-1453. Hundred Years War.
Happy accidents, shrewd marriages, and cunning intrigues
gathered the great dukedoms, one by one, into the royal
domain, and the solidarity of modern France was attained.
16th-17th centuries. Aggrandisement of the Monarchy.
But People and King stood no longer side by side. The league
of King and Commons against the Lords had proved less happy
than the alliance in England of Commons and Lords against the
King. Royalty emerged from the patient struggle alone in
possession of sovereign power. It had used the communes and
then abused them, breaking their charters--their
liberties--their courage--their hopes--and widening the
distance between class and class. The "estates" of the realm
became a memory and a name. During five hundred years, while
the Parliament of England grew in majesty and might, the
States-General of France were assembled but thirteen times.
The Court.
When royalty, at last, invented the fatal enchantments of a
"Court," then the blighting of all other powers was soon
complete. It drew within its spell, from all the provinces of
France, their nobles, their men of genius, their aspiring
spirits, and assembled them to corrupt and debase them
together--to make them its pensioners and hirelings, its
sycophants, its jesters, its knaves.
Suppression of the Huguenots.
Neither Renaissance nor Reformation could undo the spell.
Ideas from the one and a great faith from the other joined in
league for the liberty of both, and the thoughtful among the
people were rallied to them with craving eagerness. But
bigotry and frivolity ruled the Court, and the Court proved
stronger than France. Freedom of conscience, and every species
of freedom with it, were destroyed; by massacre, by civil war,
by oppressive government, by banishment, by corrupting bribes.
18th century. The "Ancien Régime."
And always the grandeur of the monarchy increased; its rule
grew more absolute; its Court sucked the life-blood of the
State more remorselessly. The People starved, that the King
might be magnificent; they perished in a thousand battles,
that his name might be "glorious;" they went into exile,
carrying away the arts of France, that the piety of the King
might not be shocked by their heresies. But always, too, there
was growing in the world, around France and in France, a
knowledge,--an understanding,--a modern spirit,--that rebelled
against these infamies.
A. D. 1789-1799. Revolution.
A. D. 1799-1815. Napoleon.
In due time there came an end. Court, and King, and Church,
and all that even seemed to be a part of the evil old regime,
were whirled into a red gulf of Revolution and disappeared.
The people, unused to Liberty, were made drunken by it, and
went mad. In breaking the gyves of feudalism they broke every
other restraint, and wrecked society in all its forms. Then,
in the stupor of their debauch, they gave themselves to a new
despot--mean, conscienceless, detestable, but transcendent in
the genius and the energy of his selfishness--who devoured
them like a dragon, in the hunger of his insatiate ambition,
and persuaded them to be proud of their fate.
A. D. 1815-1830. Bourbon Restoration.
A. D. 1830-1848. Louis Phillippe
A. D. 1848-1851. Second Republic.
A. D. 1852-1870. Second Empire.
A. D. 1870-. Third Republic.
Europe suppressed the intolerable adventurer, and France, for
three-fourths of a century since, has been under an
apprenticeship of experience, slowly learning the art of
self-government by constitutional modes. Two monarchies, one
republic, and a sham empire are the spoiled samples of her
work. A third republic, now in hand, is promising better
success. It rests with seeming stability on the support of the
great class of peasant landowners, which the very miseries of her
misgoverned past have created for France. Trained to pinching
frugality by the hard conditions of the old regime; unspoiled
by any ruinous philanthropy, like that of the English
poor-laws; stimulated to land-buying by opportunities which
came, first, from the impoverishment of extravagant nobles,
and, later, from revolutionary confiscations; encouraged to
the same acquisition by favorable laws of transfer and equal
inheritance,--the landowning peasants of France constitute a
Class powerful in numbers, invincible in conservatism, an
profoundly interested in the preservation of social order.
--------End: A Logical Outline of French History-----------
FRANCE: A. D. 861.
Origin of the duchy and of the house of Capet.
In 861, Charles the Bald, king of that part of the dismembered
empire of Charlemagne which grew into the kingdom of France,
was struggling with many difficulties: defending himself
against the hostile ambition of his brother, Louis the German;
striving to establish his authority in Brittany and Aquitaine;
harried and harassed by Norse pirates; surrounded by domestic
treachery and feudal restiveness. All of his many foes were
more or less in league against him, and the soul of their
combination appears to have been a certain bold adventurer--a
stranger of uncertain origin, a Saxon, as some say--who bore
the name of Robert the Strong. In this alien enemy, King
Charles, who never lacked shrewdness, discovered a possible
friend. He opened negotiations with Robert the Strong, and a
bargain was soon made which transferred the sword and the
energy of the potent mercenary to the service of the king.
"Soon after, a Placitum or Great Council was held at
Compiègne. In this assembly, and by the assent of the
Optimates, the Seine and its islands, and that most important
island Paris, and all the country between Seine and Loire,
were granted to Robert, the Duchy of France, though not yet so
called, moreover the Angevine Marches, or County of
Outre-Maine, all to be held by Robert-le-Fort as barriers
against Northmen and Bretons, and by which cessions the realm
was to be defended. Only a portion of this dominion owned the
obedience of Charles: the Bretons were in their own country,
the Northmen in the country they were making their own; the
grant therefore was a license to Robert to win as much as he
could, and to keep his acquisitions should he succeed. ...
Robert kept the Northmen in check, yet only by incessant
exertion. He inured the future kings of France, his two young
sons, Eudes and Robert, to the tug of war, making them his
companions in his enterprises. The banks of the Loire were
particularly guarded by him, for here the principal attacks
were directed." Robert the Strong fought valiantly, as he had
contracted to do, for five years, or more, and then, in an
unlucky battle with the Danes, one summer day in 866, he fell.
"Thus died the first of the Capets." All the honors and
possessions which he had received from the king were then
transferred, not to his sons, but to one Hugh, Count of
Burgundy, who became also Duke or Marquis of France and Count
of Anjou. Twenty years later, however, the older son of
Robert, Eudes, turns up in history again as Count of Paris,
and nothing is known of the means by which the family, soon to
become royal, had recovered its footing and its importance.
Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and England,
book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 877-987.
The end of the Carolingian monarchy and the rise of the
Capetian.
Charles the Bald died in 877 and was succeeded by his son
Louis, called "the Stammerer," who reigned only two years. His
two sons, Louis and Carloman, were joint kings for a short
space, struggling with the Northmen and losing the provinces
out of which Duke Boson of Provence, brother-in-law of Charles
the Bald, formed the kingdom of Arles. Louis died in 882 and
Carloman two years afterwards; thereupon Charles, surnamed
"the Fat," king of Lombardy and Germany, and also emperor
(nephew of Charles the Bald), became likewise king of France,
and briefly reunited under his feebly handled sceptre the
greater part of the old empire of Charlemagne: When he died,
in 888, a party of the nobles, tired of his race, met and
elected Count Eudes (or Odo), the valiant Count of Paris, who
had just defended his city with obstinate courage against the
Northmen, to be their king. The sovereignty of Eudes was not
acknowledged by the nation at large. His opponents found a
Carling to set up against him, in the person of the boy
Charles,--youngest son of Louis "the Stammerer," born after
his father's death,--who appears in history as Charles "the
Simple." Eudes, after some years of war, gave up to Charles a
small domain, between the Seine and the Meuse, acknowledged
his feudal superiority and agreed that the whole kingdom
should be surrendered to him on his (Eudes') death. In
accordance with this agreement, Charles the Simple became sole
king in 898, when Eudes died, and the country which
acknowledged his nominal sovereignty fell into a more
distracted state than ever. The Northmen established
themselves in permanent occupation of the country on the lower
Seine, and Charles, in 911, made a formal cession of it to
their duke, Rollo, thus creating the great duchy of Normandy.
In 922 the nobles grew once more disgusted with the feebleness
of their king and crowned Duke Robert, brother of the late king
Eudes, driving Charles into his stronghold of Laon. The
Normans came to Charles' help and his rival Robert was killed
in a battle.
{1159}
But Charles was defeated, was inveigled into the hands of one
of the rebel Lords.--Herbert of Venmandois--and kept a
prisoner until he died, in 929. One Rodolf of Burgundy had
been chosen king, meantime, and reigned until his death, in
936. Then legitimacy triumphed again, and a young son of
Charles the Simple, who had been reared in England, was sent
for and crowned. This king--Louis IV.--his son, Lothair, and
his grandson, Louis V., kept possession of the shaking throne
for half-a-century; but their actual kingdom was much of the
time reduced to little more than the royal city of Laon and
its immediate territories. When Louis died, in 987, leaving no
nearer heir than his uncle, Charles, Duke of Lorraine, there
was no longer any serious attempt to keep up the Carolingian
line. Hugh, Duke of France--whose grandfather Robert, and
whose grand-uncle Eudes had been crowned kings, before him,
and whose father, "Hugh the Great," had been the king-maker of
the period since--was now called to the throne and settled
himself firmly in the seat which a long line of his
descendants would hold. He was known as Hugh Capet to his
contemporaries, and it is thought that he got the name from
his wearing of the hood, cap, or cape of St. Martin--he being
the abbot of St. Martin at Tours, in addition to his other
high dignities.
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
volume 1, book 2, part 2, chapter 5;
book 3, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and England,
book 1, chapter 5 (volume l).
C. F. Keary,
The Vikings in Western Christendom,
chapters 11 and 13-15.
See, also, LAON.
FRANCE: A. D. 987.
Accession of Hugh Capet.
The kingdom of the early Capetians.
"On the accession of the third race [the Capetians], France,
properly so called, only comprised the territory between the
Somme and the Loire; it was bounded by the counties of
Flanders and Vermandois on the north; by Normandy and Brittany
on the west; by the Champagne on the east; by the duchy of
Aquitaine on the south. The territory within these bounds was
the duchy of France, the patrimonial possession of the Capets,
and constituted the royal domain. The great fiefs of the
crown, in addition to the duchy of France, were the duchy of
Normandy, the duchy of Burgundy, nearly the whole of Flanders,
formed into a county, the county of Champagne, the duchy of
Aquitaine, and the county of Toulouse. ... The sovereigns of
these various states were the great vassals of the crown and
peers of France; Lorraine and a portion of Flanders were
dependent on the Germanic crown, while Brittany was a fief of
the duchy of Normandy. ... The county of Barcelona beyond the
Alps was also one of the great fiefs of the crown of France."
E. de Bonnechose,
History of France: second epoch,
book 1, chapter 2.
"With the exception of the Spanish March and of part of
Flanders, all these states have long been fully incorporated
with the French monarchy. But we must remember that, under the
earlier French Kings, the connexion of most of these provinces
with their nominal suzerain was even looser than the connexion
of the German princes after the Peace of Westphalia with the
Viennese Emperors. A great French Duke was as independent
within his own dominions as an Elector of Saxony or Bavaria,
and there were no common institutions, no Diet or assembly of
any kind, to bring him into contact either with his liege lord
or with his fellow-vassals. Aquitaine and Toulouse ... seem
almost to have forgotten that there was any King of the French
at all, or at all events that they had anything to do with him.
They did not often even pay him the compliment of waging war
upon him, a mode of recognition of his existence which was
constantly indulged in by their brethren of Normandy and
Flanders."
E. A. Freeman,
The Franks and the Gauls
(Historical Essays, 1st series, number 7).
"When France was detached from the Empire in the ninth
century, of all three imperial regions she was the one which
seemed least likely to form a nation. There was no unity in
the country west of the Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Rhone.
Various principalities, duchies, or counties were here formed,
but each of them was divided into secular fiefs and
ecclesiastical territories. Over these fiefs and territories
the authority of the duke or the count, which was supposed to
represent that of the king, was exercised only in case these
seigneurs had sufficient power, derived from their own
personal estates. Destitute of domains and almost starving,
the king, in official documents, asked what means he might
find on which to live with some degree of decency. From time
to time, amid this chaos, he discussed the theory of his
authority. He was a lean and solemn phantom, straying about
among living men who were very rude and energetic. The phantom
kept constantly growing leaner, but royalty did not vanish.
People were accustomed to its existence, and the men of those
days could not conceive of a revolution. By the election of
Hugh Capet, in 987, royalty became a reality, because the
king, as Duke of Francia, had lands, money, and followers. It
would be out of place to seek a plan of conduct and a
methodical line of policy in the actions of the Capetians, for
they employed simultaneously every sort of expedient. During
more than three centuries they had male offspring; thus the
chief merit of the dynasty was that it endured. As always
happens, out of the practice developed a law; and this happy
accident produced a lawful hereditary succession, which was a
great element of strength. Moreover the king had a whole
arsenal of rights: old rights of Carolingian royalty,
preserving, the remembrance of imperial power, which the study
of the Roman law was soon to resuscitate, transforming these
apparitions into formidable realities; old rights conferred by
the coronation, which were impossible to define, and hence
incontestable; and rights of suzerainty, newer and more real,
which were definitely determined and codified as feudalism
developed and which, joined to the other rights mentioned
above, made the king proprietor of France. These are the
elements that Capetian royalty contributed to the play of
fortuitous circumstances."
E. Lavisse,
General View of the Political History of Europe,
chapter 3.
See, also, TWELVE PEERS OF FRANCE.
{1160}
FRANCE: A. D. 987-1327.
The Feudal Period.
"The period in the history of France, of which we are about to
write, began with the consecration of Hugues Capet, at Reims,
the 3rd of July, 987, but it is a period which would but
improperly take its name from the Capetians; for throughout
this time royalty was, as it were, annihilated in France; the
social bond was broken, and the country which extends from the
Rhine to the Pyrenees, and from the English Channel to the
Gulf of Lyon, was governed by a confederation of princes
rarely under the influence of a common will, and united only
by the Feudal System. While France was confederated under
feudal administration, the legislative power was suspended.
Hugues Capet and his successors, until the accession of St.
Louis, had not the right of making laws; the nation had no
diet, no regularly constituted assemblies whose authority it
acknowledged. The Feudal System, tacitly adopted, and
developed by custom, was solely acknowledged by the numerous
sovereigns who divided the provinces among themselves. It
replaced the social bond, the monarch, and the legislator. ...
The period ... is therefore like a long interregnum, during
which the royal authority was suspended, although the name of
king was always preserved. He who bore this title in the midst
of a republic of princes was only distinguished from them by
some honorary prerogative, and he exercised over them scarcely
any authority. Until very near the end of the 11th century,
these princes were scarcely less numerous than the castles
which covered France. No authority was acknowledged at a
distance, and every fortress gave its lord rank among the
sovereigns. The conquest of England by the Normans broke the
equilibrium between the feudal lords; one of the confederate
princes, become a king in 1066, gradually extended, until
1179, his domination over more than half of France; and
although it was not he who bore the title of king of the
French, it may be imagined that in time the rest of the
country would also pass under his yoke. Philip the August and
his son, during the forty-six last years of the same period,
reconquered almost all the fiefs which the English kings had
united, brought the other great vassals back to obedience, and
changed the feudal confederation which had ruled France into a
monarchy, which incorporated the Feudal System in its
constitution."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
France Under the Feudal System
(translated by W. Bellingham), chapter 1.
"The feudal period, that is, the period when the feudal system
was the dominant fact of our country, ... is comprehended
between Hugh Capet and Philippe de Valois, that is, it
embraces the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. ... At the end of
the 10th century, royalty and the commons were not visible, or
at all events scarcely visible. At the commencement of the
14th century, royalty was the head of the state, the commons
were the body of the nation. The two forces to which the
feudal system was to succumb had then attained, not, indeed,
their entire development, but a decided preponderance. ...
With the 14th century, the character of war changed. Then
began the foreign wars; no longer a vassal against suzerain,
or vassal against vassal, but nation against nation,
government against government. On the accession of Philippe de
Valois, the great wars between the French and the English
broke out--the claims of the kings of England, not upon any
particular fief, but upon the whole land, and upon the throne
of France--and they continued up to Louis XI. They were no
longer feudal, but national wars; a certain proof that the
feudal period stopped at this limit, that another society had
already commenced."
F. P. Guizot,
History of Civilization,
2d course, lecture 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 996.
Accession of King Robert II.
FRANCE: A. D. 1031.
Accession of King Henry I.
FRANCE: A. D. 1060.
Accession of King Philip I.
FRANCE: A. D. 1070-1125.
Enfranchisement of Communes.
"The establishment of the commune of Mans, towards the year
1070, was not a fact, isolated, and without respect to what
passed in the rest of France; it was, on the contrary, a
symptom of the great revolution which was working in the
opinions, the manners, and the condition of the mass of the
people; a symptom which, bearing a certain date, must serve to
establish the epoch of a crowd of analogous efforts made in
the other towns of France. History has not preserved the
memory of these different efforts, but it has shown us the
results. During the two following centuries, the cities ceased
not to obtain charters, to found or secure by legitimate
authority, the immunities and franchises which constituted the
communal rights. ... All, or nearly all had, however, already
conquered liberty; they had experienced how advantageous it
was to be governed by themselves, and the high price which
they put upon the favor they solicited, bears witness to their
experience. The enfranchisement of the communes is almost
universally reported in the ... reign ... of Louis the Fat;
and the honor of this great revolution, which created the
third estate [tiers-état], and liberty in France, has been
given either to the generosity or the wise policy of that
prince. There is doubtless some truth in this opinion, since
we find in France no communal charter anterior to the reign of
Louis VI., and he is also the first king who was seen to ally
himself with the burgesses, to make war on the nobility.
However, the idea which is formed of this event, when one
attributes it to the act of the monarch's will, or the effect
of his system, is completely erroneous. The French people owed
whatever degree of liberty it enjoyed in the middle ages, to
its own valor; it acquired it as liberty must always be
acquired, at the sword's point; it profitted by the divisions,
the imprudence, the weakness, or the crimes of its lords, lay
or ecclesiastic, to seize it from and in spite of them. ...
The origin of every commune was, as indicated by the different
names by which they are designated, a communion, a conjuration,
or confederation, of the inhabitants of a town who were
mutually engaged to defend each other. The first act of the
commune was the occupation of a tower in which was set up a
clock or belfry; and the first clause of the oath of all the
communers, was to repair in arms, when the bell sounded, at
the place assigned them, to defend each other. From this first
engagement resulted that of submitting to magistrates named by
the communers: it was the mayors, echevins, and juries, in
northern France, and consuls or syndics in southern France, to
whom the consent of all abandoned the sole right of directing
the common efforts. Thus the militia was first created; the
magistracy came afterwards. ... The reign of Phillip I. had
been but a long anarchy. During those forty-eight years the
royal government had not existed, and no other had
efficaciously taken its place. At the same time, greatly
differing from the other feudal monarchies, all legislative
power was suspended in France. There were no diets like those
of the kingdoms of Germany and Italy, no parliament like that
of England, no cortes like those of Spain, no field of March
like that of the antient Frankish kings, no assemblages, in
fine, which bound by their acts the great vassals and their
subjects, and which could submit them to common laws.
{1161}
The French had not desired a participation in the sovereignty
which they could only acquire by sacrificing their
independence. Thus, two great vassals, or the subjects of two
great vassals, could scarcely believe themselves compatriots.
... The anarchy which was found in the great state of the
French monarchy, because all the relations between the king
and the count were relaxed, was found also in the petty state
of the county of Paris, or of the duchy of France; for the
lords and barons of the crown's domains no better obeyed or
respected more the prerogatives of their lord, than the great
vassals those of the suzerain. The anarchy was complete, the
disorder seemed carried to its height, and never had the
social bond in France been nearer to being broken: yet never
had France made so real a progress as during these forty-eight
years. Phillip, at his death, left his son quite another
people to that which he had received from his father: the most
active monarch would never have done so much for France as she
had without him done for herself during his sleep. The towns
were more numerous, more populous, more opulent, and more
industrious; property had acquired a security unknown in the
preceding centuries; justice was distributed between equals,
and by equals; and the liberty of the burgesses, conquered by
arms, was defended with energy."
J. C. L. S. de Sismondi,
France under the Feudal System,
chapters 9 and 12.
"Liberty ... was to have its beginning in the towns, in the
towns of the centre of France, which were to be called
privileged towns, or communes, and which would either receive
or extort their franchises. ... All coveted a few franchises
or privileges, and offered to purchase them; for, needy and
wretched as they were, poor artisans, smiths and weavers,
suffered to cluster for shelter at the foot of a castle, or
fugitive serfs crowding round a church, they could manage to
find money; and men of this stamp were the founders of our
liberties. They willingly starved themselves to procure the
means of purchase; and king and barons rivalled each other in
selling charters which fetched so high a price. This
revolution took place all over the kingdom under a thousand
different forms, and with but little disturbance; so that it
has only attracted notice with regard to some towns of the
Oise and the Somme, which, placed in less favorable
circumstances, and belonging to two different lords, one a
layman, the other ecclesiastical, resorted to the king for a
solemn guarantee of concessions often violated, and maintained
a precarious liberty at the cost of several centuries of civil
war. To these towns the name of communes has been more
particularly applied; and the wars they had to wage form a
slight but dramatic incident in this great revolution, which
was operating silently and under different forms in all the
towns of the north of France. 'Twas in brave and choleric
Picardy, whose commons had so soundly beaten the Normans--in
the country of Calvin, and of so many other revolutionary
spirits--that these explosions took place. Noyon, Beauvais,
Laon, three ecclesiastical lordships, were the first communes;
to these may be added St. Quentin. Here the Church had laid
the foundations of a powerful democracy. ... The king has been
said to be the founder of the communes; but the reverse is
rather the truth: it is the communes that established the
king. Without them, he could not have beaten off the Normans;
and these conquerors of England and the Two Sicilies would
probably have conquered France. It was the communes, or, to
use a more general and exact term, the bourgeoisies, which,
under the banner of the saint of the parish, enforced the
common peace between the Oise and the Loire; while the king,
on horseback, bore in front the banner of the abbey of St.
Denys."
M. Michelet,
History of France,
book 4, chapter 4.
See, also, COMMUNES.
The following comments on the passages quoted above are made
by a good authority: "The general view taken of this subject
of the enfranchisement of the communes by historians who wrote
at the middle of the century is now being seriously modified.
The studies of Luchaire have shown, I think, that such
statements as Sismondi's, which attribute everything to the
people, are exaggerations. 'Liberty,' as it existed in the
communes, was only corporate or aristocratic privilege. As for
the national assemblages, there were great councils held, such
as those which existed under the Norman monarchs in England,
and they issued the 'assizes,' which was a common form of
legislation in the Middle Ages. It was not, of course,
legislation, in its modern sense. Michelet is quite too
flowery, poetical, democratic, to be safely followed."
FRANCE: A. D. 1096.
Departure of the First Crusaders.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099.
FRANCE: A. D. 1100.
The extent of the kingdom.
"When Louis [VI.] was adopted by his father in 1100, the crown
had as its own domain only the county of Paris, Hurepoix, the
Gatinais, the Orléanis, half the county of Sens, the French
Vexin, and Bourges, together with some ill-defined rights over
the episcopal cities of Rheims, Beauvais, Laon, Noyon,
Soissons, Amiens. And even within these narrow limits the
royal power was but thinly spread over the surface. The barons
in their castles were in fact independent, and oppressed the
merchants and poor folk as they would. The king had also
acknowledged rights of suzerainty over Champagne, Burgundy,
Normandy, Brittany, Flanders, and Boulogne; but, in most
cases, the only obedience the feudal lords stooped to was that
of duly performing the act of homage to the king on first
succession to a fief. He also claimed suzerainty, which was
not conceded, over the South of France; over Provence and
Lorraine he did not even put forth a claim of lordship."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
volume 1, book 3, chapter 5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1101.
Disastrous Crusade of French princes and knights.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1101-1102.
FRANCE: A. D. 1106-1119.
War with Henry I. of England and Normandy.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1087-1135.
{1162}
FRANCE: A. D. 1108-1180.
The reigns of Louis VI., Louis VII. and
accession of Philip II.
Gain and loss of Aquitaine.
"Louis VI., or 'the Fat' was the first able man whom the line
of Hugh Capet had produced since it mounted the throne. He
made the first attempt at curbing the nobles, assisted by
Suger, the Abbot of St. Denys. The only possibility of doing
this was to obtain the aid of one party of nobles against
another; and when any unusually flagrant offence had been
committed, Louis called together the nobles, bishops, and
abbots of his domain, and obtained their consent and
assistance in making war on the guilty man, and overthrowing
his castle, thus, in some degree, lessening the sense of utter
impunity which had caused so many violences and such savage
recklessness. He also permitted a few of the cities to
purchase the right of self-government. ... The royal authority
had begun to be respected by 1137, when Louis VI. died, having
just effected the marriage of his son, Louis VII., with
Eleanor, the heiress of the Dukes of Aquitaine--thus hoping to
make the crown really more powerful than the great princes who
owed it homage. At this time lived the great St. Bernard,
Abbot of Clairvaux, who had a wonderful influence over men's
minds. ... Bernard roused the young king Louis VII., to go on
the second crusade [see CRUSADES: A. D. 1147-1149], which was
undertaken by the Emperor and the other princes of Europe to
relieve the distress of the kingdom of Palestine. ... Though
Louis did reach Palestine, it was with weakened forces; he
could effect nothing by his campaign, and Eleanor, who had
accompanied him, seems to have been entirely corrupted by the
evil habits of the Franks settled in the East. Soon after his
return, Louis dissolved his marriage; and Eleanor became the
wife of Henry, Count of Anjou, who soon after inherited the
kingdom of England as our Henry II., as well as the duchy of
Normandy, and betrothed his third son to the heiress of
Brittany [see AQUITAINE: A. D. 1137-1152]. Eleanor's marriage
seemed to undo all that Louis VI. had done in raising the
royal power; for Henry completely overshadowed Louis, whose
only resource was in feeble endeavours to take part against
him in his many family quarrels. The whole reign of Louis the
Young, the title that adhered to him on account of his simple,
childish nature, is only a record of weakness and disaster,
till he died in 1180. ... Powerful in fact as Henry II. was,
it was his gathering so large a part of France under his rule
which was, in the end, to build up the greatness of the French
kings. What had held them in check was the existence of the
great fiefs or provinces, each with its own line of dukes or
counts, and all practically independent of the king. But now
nearly all the provinces of southern and western France were
gathered into the hand of a single ruler; and though he was a
Frenchman in blood, yet, as he was King of England, this ruler
seemed to his French subjects no Frenchman, but a foreigner.
They began therefore to look to the French king to free them
from a foreign ruler; and the son of Louis VII., called Philip
Augustus, was ready to take advantage of their disposition."
C. M. Yonge,
History of France
(History Primers), chapter 1, sections 6-7.
FRANCE: A. D. 1180-1224.
The kingdom extended by Philip Augustus.
Normandy, Maine and Anjou recovered from the English kings.
"Louis VII. ascended the throne [A. D. 1137] with better
prospects than his father. He had married Eleanor, heiress of
the great duchy of Guienne [or Aquitaine]. But this union,
which promised an immense accession of strength to the crown,
was rendered unhappy by the levities of that princess.
Repudiated by Louis, who felt rather as a husband than a king,
Eleanor immediately married Henry II. of England, who, already
inheriting Normandy from his mother and Anjou from Ins father,
became possessed of more than one-half of France, and an
over-match for Louis, even if the great vassals of the crown
had been always ready to maintain its supremacy. One might
venture perhaps to conjecture that the sceptre of France would
eventually have passed from the Capets to the Plantagenets, if
the vexatious quarrel with Becket at one time, and the
successive rebellions fomented by Louis at a later period, had
not embarrassed the great talents and ambitious spirit of
Henry. But the scene quite changed when Philip Augustus, son
of Louis VII., came upon the stage [A. D. 1180]. No prince
comparable to him in systematic ambition and military
enterprise had reigned in France since Charlemagne. From his
reign the French monarchy dates the recovery of its lustre. He
wrested from the count of Flanders the Vermandois (that part
of Picardy which borders on the Isle of France and Champagne),
and, subsequently, the County of Artois. But the most
important conquests of Philip were obtained against the kings
of England. Even Richard I., with all his prowess, lost ground
in struggling against an adversary not less active, and more
politic, than himself: But when John not only took possession
of his brother's dominions, but confirmed his usurpation by
the murder, as was very probably surmised, of the heir,
Philip, artfully taking advantage of the general indignation,
summoned him as his vassal to the court of his peers. John
demanded a safe-conduct. Willingly, said Philip; let him come
unmolested. And return? inquired the English envoy. If the
judgment of his peers permit him, replied the king. By all the
saints of France, he exclaimed, when further pressed, he shall
not return unless acquitted. The bishop of Ely still
remonstrated that the duke of Normandy could not come without
the king of England; nor would the barons of that country
permit their sovereign to run the risk of death or
imprisonment. What of that, my lord bishop? cried Philip. It
is well known that my vassal the duke of Normandy acquired
England by force. But if a subject obtains any accession of
dignity, shall his paramount lord therefore lose his rights?
... John, not appearing at his summons, was declared guilty of
felony, and his fiefs confiscated. The execution of this
sentence was not intrusted to a dilatory arm. Philip poured
his troops into Normandy, and took town after town, while the
king of England, infatuated by his own wickedness and
cowardice, made hardly an attempt at defence. In two years
[A. D. 1203-1204] Normandy, Maine, and Anjou were
irrecoverably lost. Poitou and Guienne resisted longer; but
the conquest of the first was completed [A. D. 1224] by Louis
VIII., successor of Philip."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 1, part 1.
ALSO IN:
K. Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings,
volume 2, chapter 9.
See, also,
ENGLAND: A. D. 1205;
and ANJOU: A. D. 1206-1442.
FRANCE: A. D. 1188-1190.
Crusade of Philip Augustus.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192.
FRANCE: A. D. 1201-1203.
The Fifth Crusade, and its diversion against Constantinople.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1201-1203.
A. D. 1209-1229.
The Albigensian wars and their effects.
See ALBIGENSES.
FRANCE: A. D. 1212.
The Children's Crusade.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1212.
FRANCE: A. D. 1214.
Nationalizing effects of the Battle of Bouvines.
See BOUVINES.
FRANCE: A. D. 1223.
Accession of King Louis VIII.
{1163}
FRANCE: A. D. 1226-1270.
Reign and character of Louis IX. (Saint Louis).
His great civilizing work and influence.
"Of the forty-four years of St. Louis' reign, nearly fifteen,
with a long interval of separation, pertained to the
government of Queen Blanche of Castille, rather than that of
the king her son. Louis, at his accession in 1226, was only
eleven; and he remained a minor up to the age of twenty-one,
in 1236, for the time of majority in the case of royalty was
not yet specially and rigorously fixed. During those ten years
Queen Blanche governed France; not at all, as is commonly
asserted, with the official title of regent, but simply as
guardian of the king her son. With a good sense really
admirable in a person so proud and ambitious, she saw that
official power was ill suited to her woman's condition, and
would weaken rather than strengthen her; and she screened
herself from view behind her son. He it was who, in [1236],
wrote to the great vassals bidding them to his consecration;
he it was who reigned and commanded; and his name alone
appeared on royal decrees and on treaties. It was not until
twenty-two years had passed, in 1248, that Louis, on starting
for the crusade, officially delegated to his mother the kingly
authority, and that Blanche, during her son's absence, really
governed with the title of regent. ... During the first period
of his government, and so long as her son's minority lasted,
Queen Blanche had to grapple with intrigues, plots,
insurrections, and open war; and, what was still worse for
her, with the insults and calumnies of the crown's great
vassals, burning to seize once more, under a woman's
government, the independence and power which had been
effectually disputed with them by Philip Augustus. Blanche
resisted their attempts, at one time with open and persevering
energy, at another dexterously with all the tact, address, and
allurements of a woman. Though she was now forty years of age
she was beautiful, elegant, attractive, full of resources and
of grace. ... The malcontents spread the most odious scandals
about her. ... Neither in the events nor in the writings of
the period is it easy to find anything which can authorize the
accusations made by the foes of Queen Blanche. ... She
continued her resistance to the pretensions and machinations
of the crown's great vassals, whether foes or lovers, and she
carried forward, in the face and in the teeth of all, the
extension of the domains and the power of the kingship. We
observe in her no prompting of enthusiasm, of sympathetic
charitableness, or of religious scrupulousness; that is, none
of those grand moral impulses which are characteristic of
Christian piety and which were predominant in St. Louis.
Blanche was essentially politic and concerned with her
temporal interests and successes; and it was not from her
teaching or her example that her son imbibed those sublime and
disinterested feelings which stamped him the most original and
the rarest on the roll of glorious kings. What St. Louis really
owed to his mother, and it was a great deal, was the steady
triumph which, whether by arms or by negotiation, Blanche
gained over the great vassals, and the preponderance which,
amidst the struggles of the feudal system, she secured for the
kingship of her son in his minority. ... When Louis reached
his majority, his entrance upon personal exercise of the
kingly power produced no change in the conduct of public
affairs. ... The kingship of the son was a continuance of the
mother's government. Louis persisted in struggling for the
preponderance of the crown against the great vassals;
succeeded in taming Peter Mauclerc, the turbulent count of
Brittany; wrung from Theobald IV., count of Champagne, the
rights of suzerainty in the countships of Chartres, Blois, and
Sancerre, and the viscountship of Châteaudun; and purchased
the fertile countship of Mâcon from its possessor. It was
almost always by pacific procedure, by negotiations ably
conducted, and conventions faithfully executed, that he
accomplished these increments of the kingly domain; and when
he made war on any of the great vassals, he engaged therein
only on their provocation, to maintain the rights or honour of
his crown, and he used victory with as much moderation as he
had shown before entering upon the struggle. ... When war was
not either a necessity or a duty, this brave and brilliant
knight, from sheer equity and goodness of heart, loved peace
rather than war. The successes he had gained in his campaign
of 1242 [against the count of La Marche and Henry III., of
England, whose mother had become the wife of La Marche] were
not for him the first step in an endless career of glory and
conquest; he was anxious only to consolidate them whilst
securing, in Western Europe, for the dominions of his
adversaries as well as for his own, the benefits of peace. He
entered into negotiations, successively, with the count of la
Marche, the king of England, the count of Toulouse, the king
of Aragon, and the various princes and great feudal lords who
had been more or less engaged in the war; and in January,
1243, says the latest and most enlightened of his biographers
[M. Felix Faure], 'the treaty of Lorris marked the end of
feudal troubles for the whole duration of St. Louis' reign. He
drew his sword no more, save only against the enemies of the
Christian faith and Christian civilization, the Mussulmans.'"
G. Masson,
Saint Louis and the Thirteenth Century,
pages 44-56.
"St. Louis ... by this war of 1242 finished those contests for
the crown with its vassals which had been going on since the
time of his ancestor, Louis the Fat. But it was not by warfare
that he was to aid in breaking down the strongholds of
feudalism. The vassals might have been beaten time and again,
and yet the spirit of feudalism, still surviving, would have
raised up new champions to contend against the crown. St.
Louis struck at the spirit of the Middle Age, and therein
insured the downfall of its forms and whole embodiment. He
fought the last battles against feudalism, because, by a surer
means than battling, he took, and unconsciously, the
life-blood from the opposition to the royal authority.
Unconsciously, we say; he did not look on the old order of
things as evil, and try to introduce a better; he did not
selfishly contend for the extension of his own power; he was
neither a great reformer, nor a (so-called) wise king. He
undermined feudalism, because he hated injustice; he warred
with the Middle Age, because he could not tolerate its
disregard of human rights; and he paved the way for
Philip-le-bel's struggle with the papacy, because he looked
upon religion and the church as instruments for man's
salvation, not as tools for worldly aggrandizement.
{1164}
He is, perhaps, the only monarch on record who failed in most
of what he undertook of active enterprise, who was under the
control of the prejudices of his age, who was a true
conservative, who never dreamed of effecting great social
changes,--and who yet, by his mere virtues, his sense of duty,
his power of conscience, made the mightiest and most vital
reforms. One of these reforms was the abolition of the trial
by combat. ... It is not our purpose to follow Louis either in
his first or second crusade. If the great work of his life was
not to be done by fighting at home, still less was it to be
accomplished by battles in Egypt or Tunis. His mission was
other and greater than he dreamed of, and his service to
Christendom was wholly unlike that which he proposed to
himself. ... In November, 1244, he took the cross; but it was
June of 1248 before he was able to leave Paris to embark upon
his cherished undertaking. ...
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1248-1254.
On the fifth of June, 1249, he landed in Egypt, which was
to be conquered before Palestine could be safely attacked. On
the seventh of June, Damietta was entered, and there the
French slept and feasted, wasting time, strength, and money,
until the twentieth of the following November. Then came the
march southward; the encampment upon the Nile; the terrors of
the Greek fire; the skirmishes which covered the plain with
dead; the air heavy with putridity and pestilence; the putrid
water; the fish fat with the flesh of the dead; sickness,
weakness, retreat, defeat, captivity. On the sixth of April,
1250, Louis and his followers were prisoners to the
Mussulmans; Louis might have saved himself, but would not quit
his followers; he had been faithful thus far, and would be
till death. ... On the eighth of May, 1250, Louis was a
freeman, and it was not until the twenty-fifth of April, 1254,
that he set sail to return to his native shores, where
Blanche, who had been regent during his absence, had some
months since yielded up her breath. On the seventh of
September, he entered Paris, sad and worn. ... And scarce had
he landed, before he began that course of legislation which
continued until once more he embarked upon the crusade. ... In
his first legislative action, Louis proposed to himself these
objects,--to put an end to judicial partiality, to prevent
needless and oppressive imprisonment for debt, to stop
unfounded criminal prosecutions, and to mitigate the horrors
of legalized torture. In connection with these general topics,
he made laws to bear oppressively upon the Jews, to punish
prostitution and gambling, and to diminish intemperance. And
it is worthy of remark, that this last point was to be
attained by forbidding innkeepers to sell to any others than
travellers,--a measure now (six hundred years later) under
discussion in some parts of our Union, with a view to the same
end. But the wish which this rare monarch had to recompense
all who had been wronged by himself and forefathers was the
uppermost wish of his soul. He felt that to do justice himself
was the surest way to make others willing to do it. Commissioners
were sent into every province of the kingdom to examine each
alleged case of royal injustice, and with power in most
instances to make instant restitution. He himself went forth
to hear and judge in the neighborhood of his capital, and as
far north as Normandy. ... As he grew yet older, the spirit of
generosity grew stronger daily in his bosom. He would have no
hand in the affairs of Europe, save to act, wherever he could,
as peacemaker. Many occasions occurred where all urged him to
profit by power and a show of right, a naked legal title, to
possess himself of valuable fiefs; but Louis shook his head
sorrowfully and sternly, and did as his inmost soul told him
the law of God directed. ... There had been for some reigns
back a growing disposition to refer certain questions to the
king's tribunals, as being regal, not baronial, questions.
Louis the Ninth gave to this disposition distinct form and
value, and, under the influence of the baron-hating legists,
he so ordained, in conformity with the Roman law, that, under
given circumstances, almost any case might be referred to his
tribunal. This, of course, gave to the king's judgment-seat
and to him more of influence than any other step ever taken
had done. It was, in substance, an appeal of the people from
the nobles to the king, and it threw at once the balance of
power into the royal hands. ... It became necessary to make
the occasional sitting of the king's council or parliament,
which exercised certain judicial functions, permanent; and to
change its composition, by diminishing the feudal and
increasing the legal or legist element. Thus everywhere, in
the barons' courts, the king's court, and the central
parliament, the Roman, legal, organized element began to
predominate over the German, feudal, barbaric tendencies, and
the foundation-stones of modern society were laid. But the
just soul of Louis and the prejudices of his Romanized
counsellors were not arrayed against the old Teutonic
barbarism alone, with its endless private wars and judicial
duels; they stood equally opposed to the extravagant claims of
the Roman hierarchy. ... The first calm, deliberate,
consistent opposition to the centralizing power of the great
see was that offered by its truest friend and most honest
ally, Louis of France. From 1260 to 1268, step by step was
taken by the defender of the liberties of the Gallican church,
until, in the year last named, he published his 'Pragmatic
Sanction' [see below], his response, by advice of his wise
men, to the voice of the nation, the Magna Charta of the
freedom of the church of France, upon whose vague articles,
the champions of that freedom could write commentaries, and
found claims, innumerable. ... But the legislation of Louis
did not stop with antagonism to the feudal system and to the
unauthorized claims of the church; it provided for another
great grievance of the Middle Age, that lying and unequal
system of coinage which was a poison to honest industry and
commercial intercourse. ... And now the great work of Louis
was completed; the barons were conquered, the people
protected, quiet prevailed through the kingdom, the national
church was secured in her liberties. The invalid of Egypt, the
sojourner of Syria, had realized his dreams and purposes of
good to his own subjects, and once again the early vision of
his manhood, the recovery of Palestine, haunted his slumbering
and his waking hours. ... On the sixteenth of March, 1270, he
left Paris for the seashore; on the first of July, he sailed
from France. The sad, sad story of this his last earthly doing
need not be here repeated."
See CRUSADES: A.. D. 1270-1271.
Saint Louis of France
(North American Review, April, 1846).
On the part performed by Louis IX. in the founding of
absolutism in France,
See PARLIAMENT OF PARIS.
{1165}
FRANCE: A. D. 1252.
The Crusading movement of the Pastors.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1252.
FRANCE: A. D. 1266.
Acquisition of the kingdom of Naples or the Two Sicilies by
Charles of Anjou, the king's brother.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1250-1268.
FRANCE: A. D. 1268.
The Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis.
Assertion of the rights of the Gallican Church.
"The continual usurpations of the popes produced the
celebrated Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis [about A.. D.
1268]. This edict, the authority of which, though probably
without cause, has been sometimes disputed, contains three
important provisions; namely, that all prelates and other
patrons shall enjoy their full rights as to the collation of
benefices, according to the canons; that churches shall
possess freely their rights of election; and that no tax or
pecuniary exaction shall be levied by the pope, without
consent of the king and of the national church. We do not
find, however, that the French government acted up to the
spirit of this ordinance."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 7, part 2.
"This Edict appeared either during the last year of Clement
IV., ... or during the vacancy in the Pontificate. ... It
became the barrier against which the encroachments of the
ecclesiastical power were destined to break; nor was it swept
away till a stronger barrier had arisen in the unlimited power
of the French crown." It "became a great Charter of
Independence to the Gallican Church."
H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 11, chapter 4 (volume 5).
FRANCE: A. D. 1270-1285.
The sons of St. Louis.
Origin of the Houses of Valois and Bourbon.
St. Louis left several sons, the elder of whom succeeded him
as Philippe III., and his youngest son was Robert, Count of
Clermont and Lord of Bourbon, the ancestor of all the branches
of the House of Bourbon. Philippe III. died in 1285, when he
was succeeded by his son, Philippe IV. A younger son, Charles,
Count of Valois, was the ancestor of the Valois branch of the
royal family.
FRANCE: A. D. 1285-1314.
Reign of Philip IV.
His conflict with the Pope and his destruction of the
Templars.
Philippe IV., called "le Bel" (the Handsome), came to the
throne on the death of his father, Philippe "le Hardi," in
1285. He was presently involved in war with Edward I. of
England, who crossed to Flanders in 1297, intending to invade
France, but was recalled by the revolt in Scotland, under
Wallace, and peace was made in 1303. The Flemings, who had
provoked Philippe by their alliance with the English, were
thus left to suffer his resentment. They bore themselves
valiantly in a war which lasted several years, and inflicted
upon the knights of France a fearful defeat at Courtrai, in
1302. In the end, the French king substantially failed in his
designs upon Flanders.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1299-1304.
"It is probable that this long struggle would have been still
protracted, but for a general quarrel which had sprung up some
time before its close, between the French king and Pope
Boniface VIII., concerning the [taxation of the clergy and
the] right of nomination to vacant bishoprics within the
dominions of Philippe. The latter, on seeing Bernard Saissetti
thrust into the Bishopric of Pamiers by the pontiff's sole
authority, caused the Bishop to be arrested by night, and,
after subjecting him to various indignities, consigned him to
prison on a charge of treason, heresy, and blasphemy. Boniface
remonstrated against this outrage and violence in a bull known
in history, by its opening words 'Ausculta, fili,' in which he
asserted his power 'over nations and kingdoms, to root out and
to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to
plant,' and concluded by informing Philippe that he had
summoned all the superior clergy of France to an assembly at
Rome on the 1st of the following November, in order to
deliberate on the remedies for such abuses as those of which
the king had been guilty. Philippe, by no means intimidated by
this measure, convoked a full and early assembly of the three
estates of his kingdom, to decide upon the conduct of him whom
the orthodox, up to that time, had been in the habit of deeming
infallible. This (10th April 1302) was the first meeting of a
Parliament, properly so called, in France. ... The chambers
unanimously approved and applauded the conduct of the king,
and resolved to maintain the honour of the crown and the
nation from foreign insult or domination; and to mark their
decision more conclusively, they concurred with the sovereign
in prohibiting the clergy from attending the Pope's summons to
Rome. The papal bull was burned as publicly as possible. ...
The Pope, alarmed at these novel and bold proceedings, sought
instantly to avert their consequences by soothing
explanations; but Philippe would not now be turned aside from
his course. He summoned a convocation of the Gallican
prelates, in which by the mouth of William de Nogaret, his
chancellor, he represented the occupier of St. Peter's chair
as the father of lies and an evil-doer; and he demanded the
seizure of this pseudo-pope, and his imprisonment until he
could be brought before a legitimate tribunal to receive the
punishment due to his numerous crimes. Boniface now declared
that the French king was excommunicated, and cited him by his
confessor to appear in the papal court at Rome within three
months, to make submission and atonement for his contumacy.
... While this unseemly quarrel ... seemed to be growing
interminable in its complexities, the daring of a few men
opened a shorter path to its end than could have been
anticipated. William of Nogaret associating to him Sciarra
Colonna, a noble Roman, who, having been driven from his
native city by Boniface and subjected to various hardships,
had found refuge in Paris, passed, with a train of three
hundred horsemen, and a much larger body of picked infantry,
secretly into Italy, with the intention of surprising the Pope
at his summer residence in his native town of Anagni. ... The
papal palace was captured after a feeble resistance, and the
cardinals and personal attendants of the Pontiff fled for
their lives. ... The Condottieri ... dragged the Pope from his
throne, and conveying him into the street, mounted him upon a
lean horse without saddle or bridle, with his head to the
animal's tail, and thus conducted him in a sort of pilgrimage
through the town. He was then consigned prisoner to one of the
chambers of his palace and placed under guard; while the body
of his captors dispersed themselves through the splendid
apartments in eager pursuit of plunder. Three days were thus
occupied; but at the end of that time the ... people of Anagni
... took arms in behalf of their fellow-townsman and spiritual
father, and falling upon the French while still indulging in
the licence of the sack, drove Nogaret and Colonna from their
quarters, and either expelled or massacred the whole of their
followers."
{1166}
The Pope returned to Rome in so great a rage that his reason
gave way, and soon afterwards he was found dead in his bed.
"The scandal of these proceedings throughout Christendom was
immense; and Philippe adopted every precaution to avert evil
consequences from himself by paying court to Benedict XI. who
succeeded to the tiara. This Pope, however, though he for some
time temporised, could not be long deaf to the loud voices of
the clergy which called for punishment upon the oppressors of
the church. Ere he had reigned nine months he found himself
compelled to excommunicate the plunderers of Anagni; and a few
days afterwards he perished, under circumstances which leave
little doubt of his having been poisoned. ... The king of
France profitted largely by the crime; since, besides gaining
time for the subsidence of excitement, he was subsequently
enabled, by his intrigues, to procure the election of a person
pledged not only to grant him absolution for all past
offences, but to stigmatise the memory of Boniface, to restore
the deposed Colonna to his honours and estates, to nominate
several French ecclesiastics to the college of cardinals, and
to grant to the king the tenths of the Gallican church for a
term of five years. The pontiff who thus seems to have been
the first of his race to lower the pretensions of his office,
was Bertrand de Goth, originally a private gentleman of
Bazadors, and subsequently promoted to the Archiepiscopal See
of Bordeaux. He assumed the title of Clement V., and after
receiving investiture at Lyons, fixed the apostolic residence
at Avignon, where it continued, under successive occupants,
for a period, the length of which caused it to be denominated
by the Italians the Babylonian captivity. This quarrel
settled, Philippe engaged in another undertaking, the
safe-conduct of which required all his skill and
unscrupulousness. This important enterprise was no less than
the destruction and plunder of the military order of Knights
Templars. ... Public discontent ... had, by a variety of
circumstances, been excited throughout the realm. Among the
number of exactions, the coin had been debased to meet the
exigencies of the state, and this obstructing the operations
of commerce, and inflicting wrongs to a greater or less extent
upon all classes, everyone loudly complained of injustice,
robbery and oppression, and in the end several tumults
occurred, in which the residence of the king himself was
attacked, and the whole population were with difficulty
restrained from insurrection. In Burgundy, Champagne, Artois
and Forez, indeed, the nobles, and burgess class having for
the first time made common cause of their grievances, spoke
openly of revolt against the royal authority, unless the
administration should be reformed, and equity be substituted
in the king's courts for the frauds, extortions and
malversations, which prevailed. The sudden death of
Philippe--owing to a fall from his horse while hunting the
wild boar in the forest of Fontainebleau--on the 29th of
November, 1314, delivered the people from their tyrant, and
the crown from the consequences of a general rebellion. Pope
Clement, the king's firm friend, had gone to his last account
on the 20th of the preceding April. Louis X., le Hutin (the
Quarrelsome), ascended the throne at the mature age of
twenty-five."
G. M. Bussey and T. Gaspey,
Pictorial History of France,
volume 1, chapter 4.
See, also, PAPACY: A.D. 1294-1348,
and TEMPLARS: A.D. 1307-1314.
FRANCE: A. D. 1314-1328.
Louis X., Philip V., Charles IV.
Feudal reaction.
Philip-le-Bel died in 1314. "With the accession of his son,
Louis X., so well surnamed Hutin (disorder, tumult), comes a
violent reaction of the feudal, local, provincial spirit,
which seeks to dash in pieces the still feeble fabric of
unity, demands dismemberment, and claims chaos. The Duke of
Brittany arrogates the right of judgment without appeal; so
does the exchequer of Rouen. Amiens will not have the king's
sergeants subpœna before the barons, or his provosts remove
any prisoner from the town's jurisdiction. Burgundy and Nevers
require the king to respect the privileges of feudal justice.
... The common demand of the barons is that the king shall
renounce all intermeddling with their men. ... The young
monarch grants and signs all; there are only three points to
which he demurs, and which he seeks to defer. The Burgundian
barons contest with him the jurisdiction over the rivers,
roads, and consecrated places. The nobles of Champagne doubt
the king's right to lead them to war out of their own
province. Those of Amiens, with true Picard impetuosity,
require without any circumlocution, that all gentlemen may war
upon each other, and not enter into securities, but ride, go,
come, and be armed for war, and pay forfeit to one another.
... The king's reply to these absurd and insolent demands is
merely: 'We will order examination of the registers of my lord
St. Louis, and give to the said nobles two trustworthy
persons, to be nominated by our council, to verify and inquire
diligently into the truth of the said article.' The reply was
adroit enough. The general cry was for a return to the good
customs of St. Louis: it being forgotten that St. Louis had
done his utmost to put a stop to private wars. But by thus
invoking the name of St. Louis, they meant to express their
wish for the old feudal independence--for the opposite of the
quasi-legal, the venal, and pettifogging government of
Philippe-le-Bel. The barons set about destroying, bit by bit,
all the changes introduced by the late king. But they could
not believe him dead so long as there survived his Alter Ego,
his mayor of the palace, Enguerrand de Marigny, who, in the
latter years of his reign, had been coadjutor and rector of
the kingdom, and who had allowed his statue to be raised in
the palace by the side of the king's. His real name was Le
Portier; but along with the estates he bought the name of
Marigny. ... It was in the Temple, in the very spot where
Marigny had installed his master for the spoliation of the
Templars, that the young king Louis repaired to hear the
solemn accusation brought against him. His accuser was
Philippe-le-Bel's brother, the violent Charles of Valois, a
busy man, of mediocre abilities, who put himself at the head
of the barons. ... To effect his destruction, Charles of
Valois had recourse to the grand accusation of the day, which
none could surmount.
{1167}
It was discovered, or presumed, that Marigny's wife or sister,
in order to effect his acquittal, or bewitch the king, had
caused one Jacques de Lor to make certain small figures: 'The
said Jacques, thrown into prison, hangs himself in despair,
and then his wife, and Enguerrand's sisters are thrown into
prison, and Enguerrand himself, condemned before the knights
... is hung at Paris on the thieves' gibbet.' ... Marigny's
best vengeance was that the crown, so strong in his care, sank
after him into the most deplorable weakness. Louis-le-Hutin,
needing money for the Flemish war, treated as equal with
equal, with the city of Paris. The nobles of Champagne and
Picardy hastened to take advantage of the right of private war
which they had just reacquired, and made war on the countess of
Artois, without troubling themselves about the judgment
rendered by the king, who had awarded this fief to her. All
the barons had resumed the privilege of coining; Charles of
Valois, the king's uncle, setting them the example. But
instead of coining for their own domains only, conformably to
the ordinances of Philippe-le-Hardi and Philippe-le-Bel, they
minted coin by wholesale, and gave it currency throughout the
kingdom. On this, the king had perforce to arouse himself, and
return to the administration of Marigny and of
Philippe-le-Bel. He denounced the coinage of the barons,
(November the 19th, 1315;) ordained that it should pass
current on their own lands only; and fixed the value of the
royal coin relatively to thirteen different coinages, which
thirty-one bishops or barons had the right of minting on their
own territories. In St. Louis's time, eighty nobles had enjoyed
this right. The young feudal king, humanized by the want of
money, did not disdain to treat with serfs and with Jews. ...
It is curious to see the son of Philippe-le-Bel admitting
serfs to liberty [see SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: FRANCE]; but it is
trouble lost. The merchant vainly swells his voice and
enlarges on the worth of his merchandise; the poor serfs will
have none of it. Had they buried in the ground some bad piece
of money, they took care not to dig it up to buy a bit of
parchment. In vain does the king wax wroth at seeing them dull
to the value of the boon offered. At last, he directs the
commissioners deputed to superintend the enfranchisement, to
value the property of such serfs as preferred 'remaining in
the sorriness (chétiveté) of slavery,' and to tax them 'as
sufficiently and to such extent as the condition and wealth of
the individuals may conveniently allow, and as the necessity of
our war requires.' But with all this it is a grand spectacle
to see proclamation made from the throne itself of the
imprescriptible right of every man to liberty. The serfs do
not buy this right, but they will remember both the royal
lesson, and the dangerous appeal to which it instigates
against the barons. The short and obscure reign of
Philippe-le-Long [Philip V., 1316-1322] is scarcely less
important as regards the public law of France, than even that
of Philippe-le-Bel. In the first place, his accession to the
throne decides a great question. As Louis Hutin left his queen
pregnant, his brother Philippe is regent and guardian of the
future infant. This child dies soon after its birth, and
Philippe proclaims himself king to the prejudice of a daughter
of his brother's; a step which was the more surprising from
the fact that Philippe-le-Bel had maintained the right of
female succession in regard to Franche-Comté and Artois. The
barons were desirous that daughters should be excluded from
inheriting fiefs, but that they should succeed to the throne
of France; and their chief, Charles of Valois, favored his
grand-niece against his nephew Philippe. Philippe assembled
the States, and gained his cause, which, at bottom, was good,
by absurd reasons. He alleged in his favor the old German law
of the Franks, which excluded daughters from the Salic land;
and maintained that the crown of France was too noble a fief
to fall into hands used to the distaff ('pour tomber en
quenouille')--a feudal argument, the effect of which was to
ruin feudality. ... By thus rejecting the right of the
daughters at the very moment it was gradually triumphing over
the fiefs, the crown acquired its character of receiving
always without ever giving; and a bold revocation, at this
time, of an donations made since St. Louis's day, seems to
contain the principle of the inalienableness of the royal
domain. Unfortunately, the feudal spirit which resumed
strength under the Valois in favor of private wars, led to
fatal creations of appanages, and founded, to the advantage of
the different branches of the royal family, a princely
feudality as embarrassing to Charles VI. and Louis XI., as the
other had been to Philippe-le-Bel. This contested succession
and disaffection of the barons force Philippe-le-Long into the
paths of Philippe-le-Bel. He flatters the cities, Paris, and,
above all, the University,--the grand power of Paris. He
causes his barons to take the oath of fidelity to him, in
presence of the masters of the university, and with their
approval. He wishes his good cities to be provided with
armories; their citizens to keep their arms in a sure place;
and appoints them a captain in each bailiwick or district,
(March the 12th, 1316). ... Praiseworthy beginnings of order
and of government brought no relief to the sufferings of the
people. During the reign of Louis Hutin, a horrible mortality
had swept off, it was said, the third of the population of the
North. The Flemish war had exhausted the last resources of the
country. ... Men's imaginations becoming excited, a great
movement took place among the people. As in the days of St.
Louis, a multitude of poor people, of peasants, of shepherds
or pastoureaux, as they were called, flock together and say
that they seek to go beyond the sea, that they are destined to
recover the Holy Land. ... They wended their way towards the
South, everywhere massacring the Jews; whom the king's
officers vainly tried to protect. At last, troops were got
together at Toulouse, who fell upon the Pastoureaux, and
hanging them up by twenties and thirties the rest dispersed.
... Philippe-le-Long ... was seized with fever in the course
of the same year, (A. D. 1321,) in the month of August,
without his physicians being able to guess its cause. He
languished five months, and died. ... His brother Charles
[Charles IV., 1322-1328] succeeded him, without bestowing a
thought more on the rights of Philippe's daughter; than
Philippe had done to those of Louis's daughter. The period of
Charles's reign is as barren of facts with regard to France,
as it is rich in them respecting Germany, England, and
Flanders. The Flemings imprison their count. The Germans are
divided between Frederick of Austria and Lewis of Bavaria, who
takes his rival prisoner at Muhldorf. In the midst of the
universal divisions, France seems strong from the circumstance
of its being one. Charles-le-Bel interferes in favor of the
count of Flanders.
{1168}
He attempts, with the pope's aid, to make himself emperor; and
his sister, Isabella, makes herself actual queen of England by
the murder of Edward II. ... Charles-le-Bel ... died almost at
the same time as Edward, leaving only a daughter; so that he
was succeeded by a cousin of his. All that fine family of
princes who had sat near their father at the Council of Vienne
was extinct. In the popular belief, the curses of Boniface had
taken effect. ... This memorable epoch, which depresses
England so low, and in proportion, raises France so high,
presents, nevertheless, in the two countries two analogous
events: In England, the barons have overthrown Edward II. In
France, the feudal party places on the throne the feudal
branch of the Valois."
J. Michelet,
History of France,
books 5-6 (volume l).
See, also, VALOIS, THE HOUSE OF.
FRANCE: A. D. 1314-1347.
The king's control of the Papacy in its contest with the
emperor.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1314-1347.
FRANCE: A. D. 1328.
The extent of the royal domain.
The great vassals.
The possessions of foreign princes in France.
On the accession of the House of Valois to the French throne,
in the person of Philip VI. (A. D. 1328), the royal domain had
acquired a great increase of extent. In the two centuries
since Philip I. it had gained, "by conquest, by confiscation,
or by inheritance, Berry, or the Viscounty of Bourges,
Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Valois, Vermandois, the
counties of Auvergne, and Boulogne, a part of Champagne and
Brie, Lyonnais, Angoumois, Marche, nearly the whole of
Languedoc, and, lastly, the kingdom of Navarre, which
belonging in her own right to queen Jeanne, mother of the last
three Capetians [Jeanne, heiress of the kingdom of Navarre and
of the counties of Champagne and Brie, was married to Philip
IV., and was the mother of Louis X., Philip V. and Charles
IV.], Charles IV. united with the crown. But the custom among
the kings of giving apanages or estates to the princes of
their house detached afresh from the domain a great part of
the reunited territories, and created powerful princely
houses, of which the chiefs often made themselves formidable
to the monarchs. Among these great houses of the Capetian
race, the most formidable were: the house of Burgundy, which
traced back to king Robert; the house of Dreux, issue of a son
of Louis the Big, and which added by a marriage the duchy of
Brittany to the county of that name; the house of Anjou, issue
of Charles, brother of Saint Louis, which was united in 1290
with that of Valois; the house of Bourbon, descending from
Robert, Count of Clermont, sixth son of Saint Louis; and the
house of Alençon, which traced back to Philip III., and
possessed the duchy of Alençon and Perche. Besides these great
princely houses of Capetian stock, which owed their grandeur
and their origin to their apanages, there were many others
which held considerable rank in France, and of which the
possessions were transmissible to women; while the apanages
were all masculine fiefs. The most powerful of these houses
were those of Flanders, Penthièvre, Châtillon, Montmorency,
Brienne, Coucy, Vendôme, Auvergne, Foix, and Armagnac. The
vast possessions of the two last houses were in the country of
the Langue d'Oc. The counts of Foix were also masters of
Bearn, and those of Armagnac possessed Fezensac, Rouergue, and
other large seigniories. Many foreign princes, besides, had
possessions in France at the accession of the Valois. The king
of England was lord of Ponthieu, of Aunis, of Saintonge, and
of the duchy of Aquitaine; the king of Navarre was count of
Evreux, and possessor of many other towns in Normandy; the
king of Majorca was proprietor of the seigniory of
Montpellier; the duke of Lorraine, vassal of the German
empire, paid homage to the king of France for many fiefs that
he held in Champagne; and, lastly, the Pope possessed the
county Venaissin, detached from Provence."
E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 1, page 224.
FRANCE: A. D. 1328.
Accession of King Philip VI.
FRANCE: A. D. 1328.
The splendor of the Monarchy on the eve of the calamitous
wars.
"Indisputably, the king of France [Philip VI., or Philip de
Valois] was at this moment [A. D. 1328] a great king. He had
just reinstated Flanders in its state of dependence on him.
The king of England had done him homage for his French
provinces. His cousins reigned at Naples and in Hungary. He
was protector of the king of Scotland. He was surrounded by a
court of kings--by those of Navarre, Majorca, Bohemia; and
the Scottish monarch was often one of the circle. The famous
John of Bohemia, of the house of Luxembourg, and father to the
emperor Charles IV., declared that he could not live out of
Paris, 'the most chivalrous residence in the world.' He
fluttered over all Europe, but ever returned to the court of
the great king of France--where was kept up one constant
festival, where jousts and tournaments ever went on, and the
romances of chivalry, king Arthur and the round table, were
realized."
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 6, chapter 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1328-1339.
The claim of Edward III. of England to the French crown.
"History tells us that Philip, king of France, surnamed the
Fair, had three sons, beside his beautiful daughter Isabella,
married to the king of England [Edward II.]. These three sons
were very handsome. The eldest, Lewis, king of Navarre during
the lifetime of his father, was called Lewis Hutin [Louis X.];
the second was named Philip the Great, or the Long [Philip
V.]; and the third, Charles [Charles IV.]. All these were
kings of France, after their father Philip, by legitimate
succession, one after the other, without having by marriage
any male heirs; yet, on the death of the last king, Charles,
the twelve peers and barons of France did not give the kingdom
to Isabella, the sister, who was queen of England, because
they said and maintained, and still do insist, that the
kingdom of France is so noble that it ought not to go to a
woman; consequently neither to Isabella, nor to her son, the
king of England [Edward III.]; for they hold that the son of a
woman cannot claim any right of succession, where that woman
has none herself. For these reasons the twelve peers and
barons of France unanimously gave the kingdom of France to the
lord Philip of Valois, nephew to king Philip, and thus put
aside the queen of England, who was sister to Charles, the
late king of France, and her son. Thus, as it seemed to many
people, the succession went out of the right line; which has
been the occasion of the most destructive wars and
devastations of countries, as well in France as elsewhere, as
you will learn hereafter; the real object of this history
being to relate the great enterprises and deeds of arms
achieved in these wars, for from the time of good Charlemagne,
king of France, never were such feats performed."
J. Froissart, Chronicles (Johnes'),
book 1, chapter 4.
France in 1154 At the Accession of Henry II. (Anjou)
Showing how he Acquired his fiefs in France.
Acquired By Henry From Matilda.
Acquired By Henry From His Father Goeffrey Of Anjou.
Acquired By Henry From His Wife Eleanor Of Aquitaine
French Crown Lands
Other Vassal Lands.
------------------
France in 1180
At The Accession Of Philip Augustus
Showing The Lands Acquired By The Crown During His Reign.
Crown Lands At Accession Of Philip
Acquired During His Reign Form Angevins
Acquired During His Reign From Other Vassals
Angevin Lands (1223)
Other Vassal Lands
------------------
France at the death of Philip IV (The Fair) 1314
------------------
France at the Peace of Bretigny
-------End: Maps of France----------------
{1169}
"From the moment of Charles IV.'s death [A. D. 1328], Edward
III. of England buoyed himself up with a notion of his title
to the crown of France, in right of his mother Isabel, sister
to the three last kings. We can have no hesitation in
condemning the injustice of this pretension. Whether the Salic
law were or were not valid, no advantage could be gained by
Edward. Even if he could forget the express or tacit decision
of all France, there stood in his way Jane, the daughter of
Louis X., three [daughters] of Philip the Long, and one of
Charles the Fair. Aware of this, Edward set up a distinction,
that, although females were excluded from succession, the same
rule did not apply to their male issue; and thus, though his
mother Isabel could not herself become queen of France, she
might transmit a title to him. But this was contrary to the
commonest rules of inheritance; and if it could have been
regarded at all, Jane had a son, afterwards the famous king of
Navarre [Charles the Bad], who stood one degree nearer to the
crown than Edward. It is asserted in some French authorities
that Edward preferred a claim to the regency immediately after
the decease of Charles the Fair, and that the States-General,
or at least the peers of France, adjudged that dignity to
Philip de Valois. Whether this be true or not, it is clear
that he entertained projects of recovering his right as early,
though his youth and the embarrassed circumstances of his
government threw insuperable obstacles in the way of their
execution. He did liege homage, therefore, to Philip for
Guienne, and for several years, while the affairs of Scotland
engrossed his attention, gave no signs of meditating a more
magnificent enterprise. As he advanced in manhood, and felt
the consciousness of his strength, his early designs grew
mature, and produced a series of the most important and
interesting revolutions in the fortunes of France."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 1, part l.
See, also, SALIC LAW: APPLICATION TO THE
REGAL SUCCESSION IN FRANCE.
FRANCE: A. D. 1337-1360.
The beginning of the "Hundred Years War."
It was not until 1337 that Edward III. felt prepared to assert
formally his claim to the French crown and to assume the title
of King of France. In July of the following year he began
undertakings to enforce his pretended right, by crossing with
a considerable force to the continent. He wintered at Antwerp,
concerting measures with the Flemings, who had espoused his
cause, and arranging an alliance with the emperor-king of
Germany, whose name bore more weight than his arms. In 1339 a
formal declaration of hostilities was made and the long
war--the Hundred Years War, as it has been called--of English
kings for the sovereignty of France, began. "This great war
may well be divided into five periods. The first ends with the
Peace of Bretigny in 1360 (A. D. 1337-1360), and includes the
great days of Crécy [1346] and Poitiers [1356], as well as the
taking of Calais: the second runs to the death of Charles the
Wise in 1380; these are the days of Du Guesclin and the
English reverses: the third begins with the renewal of the war
under Henry V. of England, and ends with the Regency of the
Duke of Bedford at Paris, including the field of Azincourt
[1415] and the Treaty of Troyes (A. D. 1415-1422): the fourth
is the epoch of Jeanne Darc and ends with the second
establishment of the English at Paris (A. D. 1428-1431): and
the fifth and last runs on to the final expulsion of the
English after the Battle of Castillon in 1453. Thus, though it
is not uncommonly called the Hundred Years War, the struggle
really extended over a period of a hundred and sixteen years."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
book 4, chapters 1-7.
"No war had broken out in Europe, since the fall of the Roman
Empire, so memorable as that of Edward III. and his successors
against France, whether we consider its duration, its object,
or the magnitude and variety of its events. It was a struggle
of one hundred and twenty years, interrupted but once by a
regular pacification, where the most ancient and extensive
dominion in the civilised world was the prize, twice lost and
twice recovered in the conflict. ... There is, indeed, ample
room for national exultation at the names of Crecy, Poitiers
and Azincourt. So great was the disparity of numbers upon
those famous days, that we cannot, with the French historians,
attribute the discomfiture of their hosts merely to mistaken
tactics and too impetuous valour. ... These victories, and the
qualities that secured them, must chiefly be ascribed to the
freedom of our constitution, and to the superior condition of
the people. Not the nobility of England, not the feudal
tenants, won the battles of Crecy and Poitiers; for these were
fully matched in the ranks of France; but the yeomen who drew
the bow with strong and steady arms, accustomed to use it in
their native fields, and rendered fearless by personal
competence and civil freedom. ... Yet the glorious termination
to which Edward was enabled, at least for a time, to bring the
contest, was rather the work of fortune than of valour and
prudence. Until the battle of Poitiers [A. D. 1356] he had
made no progress towards the conquest of France. That country
was too vast, and his army too small, for such a revolution.
The victory of Crecy gave him nothing but Calais. ... But at
Poitiers he obtained the greatest of prizes, by taking
prisoner the king of France. Not only the love of freedom
tempted that prince to ransom himself by the utmost
sacrifices, but his captivity left France defenceless and
seemed to annihilate the monarchy itself. ... There is no
affliction which did not fall upon France during this
miserable period. ... Subdued by these misfortunes, though
Edward had made but slight progress towards the conquest of
the country, the regent of France, afterwards Charles V.,
submitted to the peace of Bretigni [A. D. 1360]. By this
treaty, not to mention less important articles, all Guienne,
Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge, the Limousin, and the Angoumois,
as well as Calais, and the county of Ponthieu, were ceded in
full sovereignty to Edward; a price abundantly compensating
his renunciation of the title of France, which was the sole
concession stipulated in return."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 1, part 2.
ALSO IN:
J. Froissart,
Chronicles (Johnes' translation),
book 1, chapters 1-212.
W. Longman, History of Edward III.,
volume 1, chapters 6-22.
F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France,
chapter 20.
D. F. Jamison,
Life and Times of Bertrand du Guesclin,
volume 1, chapters 4-10.
See, also, POITIERS, BATTLE OF.
{1170}
FRANCE: A. D. 1347-1348.
The Black Plague.
"Epochs of moral depression are those, too, of great motality.
... In the last years of Philippe de Valois' reign, the
depopulation was rapid. The misery and physical suffering
which prevailed were insufficient to account for it; for they
had not reached the extreme at which they subsequently
arrived. Yet, to adduce but one instance, the population of a
single town, Narbonne, fell off in the space of four or five
years from the year 1399, by 500 families. Upon this too tardy
diminution of the human race followed extermination,--the great
black plague, or pestilence, which at once heaped up mountains
of dead throughout Christendom. It began in Provence, in the
year 1347, on All Saints' Day, continued sixteen months, and
carried off two-thirds of the inhabitants. The same wholesale
destruction befell Languedoc. At Montpellier, out of twelve
consuls, ten died. At Narbonne, 30,000 persons perished. In
several places, there remained only a tithe of the
inhabitants. All that the careless Froissart says of this
fearful visitation, and that only incidentally, is--'For at
this time there prevailed throughout the world generally a
disease called epidemy, which destroyed a third of its
inhabitants.' This pestilence did not break out in the north
of the kingdom until August, 1348, where it first showed
itself at Paris and St. Denys. So fearful were its ravages at
Paris, that, according to some, 800, according to others, 500,
daily sank under it. ... As there was neither famine at the time
nor want of food, but, on the contrary great abundance, this
plague was said to proceed from infection of the air and of
the springs. The Jews were again charged with this, and the
people cruelly fell upon them."
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 6, chapter 1.
See BLACK DEATH.
FRANCE: A. D. 1350.
Accession of King John II.
FRANCE: A. D. 1356-1358.
The States-General and Etienne Marcel.
"The disaster of Poitiers [1356] excited in the minds of the
people a sentiment of national grief, mixed with indignation
and scorn at the nobility who had fled before an army so
inferior in number. Those nobles who passed through the cities
and towns on their return from the battle were pursued with
imprecations and outrages. The Parisian bourgeoisie, animated
with enthusiasm and courage, took upon itself at all risks the
charge of its own defense; whilst, the eldest son of the king,
a youth of only nineteen, who had been one of the first to
fly, assumed the government as lieutenant of his father. It
was at the summons of this prince that the states assembled
again at Paris before the time which they had appointed. The
same deputies returned to the number of 800, of whom 400 were
of the bourgeoisie; and the work of reform, rudely sketched in
the preceding session, was resumed under the same influence,
with an enthusiasm which partook of the character of
revolutionary impulse. The assembly commenced by concentrating
its action in a committee of twenty-four members,
deliberating, as far as appears, without distinction of
orders; it then intimated its resolutions under the form of
petitions, which were as follow: The authority of the states
declared supreme in all affairs of administration and finance,
the impeachment of all the counsellors of the king, the
dismissal in a body of the officers of justice, and the
creation of a council of reformers taken from the three
orders; lastly, the prohibition to conclude any truce without
the assent of the three states, and the right on their part to
re-assemble at their own will without a royal summons. The
lieutenant of the king, Charles Duke of Normandy, exerted in
vain the resources of a precocious ability to escape these
imperious demands: he was compelled to yield everything. The
States governed in his name; but dissension, springing from
the mutual jealousy of the different orders, was soon
introduced into their body. The preponderating influence of
the bourgeois appeared intolerable to the nobles, who, in
consequence, deserted the assembly and retired home. The
deputies of the clergy remained longer at their posts, but
they also withdrew at last; and, under the name of the
States-General, none remained but the representatives of the
cities, alone charged with all the responsibilities of the
reform and the affairs of the kingdom. Bowing to a necessity
of central action, they submitted of their own accord to the
deputation of Paris; and soon, by the tendency of
circumstances, and in consequence of the hostile attitude of
the Regent, the question of supremacy of the states became a
Parisian question, subject to the chances of a popular émeute
and the guardianship of the municipal power. At this point
appears a man whose character has grown into historical
importance in our days from our greater facilities of
understanding it, Etienne [Stephen] Marcel, 'prévôt des
marchands'--that is to say, mayor of the municipality of
Paris. This échevin of the 14th century, by a remarkable
anticipation, designed and attempted things which seem to
belong only to recent revolutions. Social unity, and
administrative uniformity; political rights, co-extensive and
equal with civil rights; the principle of public authority
transferred from the crown to the nation; the States-General
changed, under the influence of the third order, into a
national representation; the will of the people admitted as
sovereign in the presence of the depositary of the royal
power; the influence of Paris over the provinces, as the head
of opinion and centre of the general movement; the democratic
dictatorship, and the influence of terror exercised in the
name of the common weal; new colours assumed and carried as a
sign of patriotic union and symbol of reform; the transference
of royalty itself from one branch of the family to the other,
with a view to the cause of reform and the interest of the
people--such were the circumstances and the scenes which have
given to our own as well as the preceding century their
political character. It is strange to find the whole of it
comprised in the three years over which the name of the Prévôt
Marcel predominates. His short and stormy career was, as it
were, a premature attempt at the grand designs of Providence,
and the mirror of the bloody changes of fortune through which
those designs were destined to advance to their accomplishment
under the impulse of human passions. Marcel lived and died for
an idea--that of hastening on, by the force of the masses, the
work of gradual equalisation commenced by the kings
themselves; but it was his misfortune and his crime to be
unrelenting in carrying out his convictions. To the
impetuosity of a tribune who did not shrink even from murder
he added the talent of organization; he left in the grand
city, which he had ruled with a stern and absolute sway,
powerful institutions, noble works, and a name which two
centuries afterwards his descendants bore with pride as a
title of nobility."
A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers Etat,
volume 1, chapter 2.
See, also,
STATES-GENERAL OF FRANCE IN THE 14th CENTURY.
{1171}
FRANCE: A. D. 1358.
The insurrection of the Jacquerie.
"The miseries of France weighed more and more heavily on the
peasantry; and none regarded them. They stood apart from the
cities, knowing little of them; the nobles despised them and
robbed them of their substance or their labour. ... At last
the peasantry (May, 1358), weary of their woes, rose up to
work their own revenge and ruin. They began in the Beauvais
country and there fell on the nobles, attacking and destroying
castles, and slaying their inmates: it was the old unvarying
story. They made themselves a kind of king, a man of Clermont
in the Beauvoisin, named William Callet. Froissart imagines
that the name 'Jacques Bonhomme' meant a particular person, a
leader in these risings. Froissart however had no accurate
knowledge of the peasant and his ways. Jacques Bonhomme was
the common nickname, the 'Giles' or 'Hodge' of France, the
name of the peasant generally; and from it such risings as
this of 1358 came to be called the 'Jacquerie,' or the
disturbances of the 'Jacques.' The nobles were soon out
against them, and the whole land was full of anarchy. Princes
and nobles, angry peasants with their 'iron shod sticks and
knives,' free-lances, English bands of pillagers, all made up
a scene of utter confusion: 'cultivation ceased, commerce
ceased, security was at an end.' The burghers of Paris and
Meaux sent a force to help the peasants, who were besieging
the fortress at Meaux, held by the nobles; these were suddenly
attacked and routed by the Captal de Buch and the Count de Foix,
'then on their return from Prussia.' The King of Navarre also
fell on them, took by stratagem their leader Callet, tortured
and hanged him. In six weeks the fire was quenched in blood."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
chapter 2, section 3.
"Froissard relates the horrible details of the Jacquerie with
the same placid interest which characterises his descriptions
of battles, tournaments, and the pageantry of chivalry. The
charm and brilliancy of his narrative have long popularised
his injustice and his errors, which are self-apparent when
compared with the authors and chroniclers of his time. ... The
chronicles contemporary of the Jacquerie confine themselves to
a few words on the subject, although, with the exception of
the Continuator of Nangis, they were all hostile to the cause
of the peasants. The private and local documents on the
subject say very little more. The Continuator of Nangis has
drawn his information from various sources. He takes care to
state that he has witnessed almost all he relates. After
describing the sufferings of the peasants, he adds that the
laws of justice authorised them to rise in revolt against the
nobles of France. His respected testimony reduces the
insurrection to comparatively small proportions. The hundred
thousand Jacques of Froissard are reduced to something like
five or six thousand men, a number much more probable when it
is considered that the insurrection remained a purely local
one, and that, in consequence of the ravages we have
mentioned, the whole open country had lost about two-thirds of
its inhabitants. He states very clearly that the peasants
killed indiscriminately, and without pity, men and children,
but he does not say anything of those details of atrocity
related by Froissard. He only alludes once to a report of some
outrages offered to some noble ladies; he speaks of it as a
vague rumour. He describes the insurgents, after the first
explosion of their vindictive fury, as pausing--amazed at
their own boldness, and terrified at their own crimes, and the
nobles, recovering from their terror, taking immediate
advantage of this sudden torpor and paralysis--assembling and
slaughtering all, innocent and guilty, burning houses and
villages. If we turn to other writers contemporary with the
Jacquerie, we find that Louvet, author of the 'History of the
District of Beauvais,' does not say much on the subject, and
evinces also a sympathy for the peasants: the paucity of his
remarks on a subject represented by Froissard as a gigantic,
bloody tragedy, raises legitimate doubts as to the veracity of
the latter. There is another authority on the events of that
period, which may be considered as more weighty, in
consequence of its ecclesiastical character; it is the
'cartulaire,' or journal of the Abbot of Beauvais. ... There
is no trace in it of the horror and indescribable terror ...
[the rising] must have inspired if the peasants had committed
the atrocities attributed to them by the feudal historian,
Froissard. On the contrary, the vengeance of the peasants
falls into the shade, as it were, in contrast with the
merciless reaction of the nobles, along with the sanguinary
oppression of the English. The writer of the 'Abbey of
Beauvais,' and the anonymous monk, 'Continuator of Nangis,'
concur with each other in their account of the Jacquerie.
Their judgments are similar, and they manifest the same
moderation. Their opinions, moreover, are confirmed by a
higher authority, a testimony that must be considered as
indisputable, namely, the letters of amnesty of the Regent of
France, which are all preserved; they bear the date of 10th
August 1358, and refer to all the acts committed on the
occasion of the Jacquerie. In these he proves himself more
severe upon the reaction of the nobles than on the revolt of
the peasants. ... There is not the slightest allusion to the
monstrosities related by Froissard, which the Regent could not
have failed to stigmatise, as he is well known for having
entertained an unscrupulous hatred to any popular movement, or
any claims of the people. The manner, on the contrary, in
which the Jacquerie are represented in this official document,
is full of signification; it represents the men of the open
country assembling spontaneously in various localities, in
order to deliberate on the means of resisting the English, and
suddenly, as with a mutual agreement, turning fiercely on the
nobles, who were the real cause of their misery, and of the
disgrace of France, on the days of Crecy and Poitiers. ... It
has also been forgotten that many citizens took an active part
in the Jacquerie. The great chronicles of France state that
the majority were peasants, labouring people, but that there
were also among them citizens, and even gentlemen, who, no
doubt, were impelled by personal hatred and vengeance. Many
rich men joined the peasants, and became their leaders. The
bourgeoisie, in its struggles with royalty, could not refuse
to take advantage of such a diversion; and Beauvais, Senlis,
Amiens, Paris, and Meaux accepted the Jacquerie. Moreover,
almost all the poorer classes of the cities sympathised with
the revolted peasants.
{1172}
The Jacquerie broke out on the 21st of May 1358, and not in
November 1357, as erroneously stated by Froissard, in the
districts around Beauvais and Clermont-sur-Oise. The peasants,
merely armed with pikes, sticks, fragments of their ploughs,
rushed on their masters, murdered their families, and burned
down their castles. The country comprised between Beauvais and
Melun was the principal scene of this war of extermination.
... The Jacquerie had commenced on the 21st of May. On the 9th
of June ... it was already terminated. It was, therefore, in
reality, an insurrection of less than three weeks' duration.
The reprisals of the nobles had already commenced on the 9th
of June, and continued through the whole of July, and the
greater part of August. Froissard states that the Jacquerie
lasted over six weeks, thus comprising in his reckoning three
weeks of the ferocious vengeance of the nobles, and casting on
Jacques Bonhomme the responsibility of the massacres of which
he had been the victim, as well as those he had committed in
his furious despair."
Prof. De Vericour,
The Jacquerie
(Royal Historical Society, Transactions, volume 1).
ALSO IN:
Sir J. Froissart,
Chronicles
(Johnes' translation),
book 1, chapter 181.
FRANCE: A. D. 1360-1380.
English conquests recovered.
The Peace of Bretigny brought little peace to France or little
diminution of the troubles of the kingdom. In some respects
there was a change for the worse introduced. The armies which
had ravaged the country dissolved into plundering bands which
afflicted it even more. Great numbers of mercenaries from both
sides were set free, who gathered into Free Companies, as they
were called, under leaders of fit recklessness and valor, and
swarmed over the land, warring on all prosperity and all the
peaceful industries of the time, seeking booty wherever it
might be found.
See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.
Civil war, too, was kept alive by the intrigues and
conspiracies of the Navarrese king, Charles the Bad; and war
in Brittany, over a disputed succession to the dukedom, was
actually stipulated for, by French and English, in their
treaty of general peace. But when the chivalric but hapless
King John died, in 1364, the new king, Charles V., who had
been regent during his captivity, developed an unexpected
capacity for government. He brought to the front the famous
Breton warrior Du Guesclin-rough, ignorant, unchivalric--but a
fighter of the first order in his hard-fighting day. He
contrived with adroitness to rid France, mostly, of the Free
Companies, by sending them, with Du Guesclin at their head,
into Spain, where they drove Peter the Cruel from the throne
of Castile, and fought the English, who undertook, wickedly
and foolishly, to sustain him. The Black Prince won a great
battle, at Najara or Navarette (A. D. 1367), took Du Guesclin
prisoner and restored the cruel Pedro to his throne. But it
was a victory fatal to English interests in France. Half the
army of the English prince perished of a pestilent fever
before he led it back to Aquitaine, and he himself was marked
for early death by the same malady. He had been made duke of
Aquitaine, or Guienne, and held the government of the country.
The war in Spain proved expensive; he taxed his Gascon and
Aquitanian subjects heavily. He was ill, irritable, and
treated them harshly. Discontent became widely spread, and the
king of France subtly stirred it up until he felt prepared to
make use of it in actual war. At last, in 1368, he challenged
a rupture of the Peace of Bretigny by summoning King Edward,
as his vassal, to answer complaints from Aquitaine. In April
of the next year he formally declared war and opened
hostilities the same day. His cunning policy was not to fight,
but to waste and wear the enemy out. Its wisdom was well-proved
by the result. Day by day the English lost ground; the footing
they had gained in France was found to be everywhere insecure.
The dying Black Prince achieved one hideous triumph at
Limoges, where he fouled his brilliant fame by a monstrous
massacre; and thence he was carried home to end his days in
England. In 1376 he died, and one year later his father, King
Edward, followed him to the grave, and a child of eleven
(Richard II.) came to the English throne. But the same
calamity befell France in 1380, when Charles the Wise died,
leaving an heir to the throne only twelve years of age. In
both kingdoms the minority of the sovereign gave rise to
factious intrigues and distracting feuds. The war went on at
intervals, with frequent truces and armistices, and with
little result beyond the animosities which it kept alive. But
the English possessions, by this time, had been reduced to
Calais and Guines, with some small parts of Aquitaine
adjoining the cities of Bordeaux and Bayonne. And thus, it may
be said, the situation was prolonged through a generation,
until Henry V. of England resumed afresh the undertaking of
Edward III.
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 22.
ALSO IN:
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 6, chapter 4.
T. Wright,
History of France,
book 2, chapter 6.
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 9.
D. F. Jamison,
Life and Times of Du Guesclin.
Froissart, Chronicles
(Johnes' translation),
book 1.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1366-1369.
FRANCE: A. D. 1364.
Accession of King Charles V.
FRANCE: A. D. 1378.
Acquisitions in the Rhone valley legal conferred by the
Emperor.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1127-1378.
FRANCE: A. D. 1380.
Accession of King Charles VI.
FRANCE: A. D. 1380-1415.
The reign of the Dukes.
The civil war of Armagnacs and Burgundians.
"Charles VI. had arrived at the age of eleven years and some
months when his father died [A. D. 1380]. His three paternal
uncles, the Dukes of Anjou, Berry, and Burgundy, and his
maternal uncle, the Duke of Bourbon, disputed among themselves
concerning his guardianship and the regency. They agreed to
emancipate the young King immediately after his coronation,
which was to take place during the year, and the regency was
to remain until that period in the hands of the eldest, the
Duke of Anjou." But the Duke of Anjou was soon afterwards
lured into Italy by the fatal gift of a claim to the crown of
Naples [see ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389.], and perished in striving
to realize it. The surviving uncles misgoverned the country
between them until 1389, when the young king was persuaded to
throw off their yoke. The nation rejoiced for three years in
the experience and the prospect of administrative reforms; but
suddenly, in July, 1392, the young king became demented, and
"then commenced the third and fatal epoch of that disastrous
reign. The faction of the dukes again seized power," but only
to waste and afflict the kingdom by dissensions among
themselves.
{1173}
The number of the rival dukes was now increased by the
addition of the Duke of Orleans, brother of the king, who
showed himself as ruthless and rapacious as any. "Charles was
still considered to be reigning; each one sought in turn to
get possession of him, and each one watched his lucid moments
in order to stand well in power. His flashes of reason were
still more melancholy than his fits of delirium. Incapable of
attending to his affairs, or of having a will of his own,
always subservient to the dominant party, he appeared to
employ his few glimmerings of reason only in sanctioning the
most tyrannical acts and the most odious abuses. It was in
this manner that the kingdom of France was governed during
twenty-eight years." In 1404, the Duke of Burgundy, Philip
the Bold, having died, the Duke of Orleans acquired supreme
authority and exercised it most oppressively. But the new Duke
of Burgundy, John the Fearless, made his appearance on the
scene ere long, arriving from his county of Flanders with an
army and threatening civil war. Terms of peace, however, were
arranged between the two dukes and an apparent reconciliation
took place. On the very next day the Duke of Orleans was
assassinated (A. D. 1407), and the Duke of Burgundy openly
proclaimed his instigation of the deed. Out of that
treacherous murder sprang a war of factions so deadly that
France was delivered by it to foreign conquest, and destroyed,
we may say, for the time being, as a nation. The elder of the
young princes of Orleans, sons of the murdered duke, had
married a daughter of Count Bernard of Armagnac, and Count
Bernard became the leader of the party which supported them
and sought to avenge them, as against the Duke of Burgundy and
his party. Hence the former acquired the name of Armagnacs;
the latter were called Burgundians. Armagnac led an army of
Gascons [A. D. 1410] and threatened Paris, "where John the
Fearless caressed the vilest populace. Burgundy relied on the
name of the king, whom he held in his power, and armed in the
capital a corps of one hundred young butchers or
horse-knackers, who, from John Caboche, their chief, took the
name of Cabochiens. A frightful war, interrupted by truces
violated on both sides, commenced between the party of
Armagnac and that of Burgundy. Both sides appealed to the
English, and sold France to them. The Armagnacs pillaged and
ravaged the environs of Paris with unheard of cruelties, while
the Cabochiens caused the capital they defended to tremble.
The States-General, convoked for the first time for thirty
years, were dumb--without courage and without strength. The
Parliament was silent, the university made itself the organ of
the populace, and the butchers made the laws. They pillaged,
imprisoned and slaughtered with impunity, according to their
savage fury, and found judges to condemn their victims. ...
The reaction broke out at last. Tired of so many atrocities,
the bourgeoisie took up arms, and shook off the yoke of the
horse-knackers. The Dauphin was delivered by them. He mounted
on horseback, and, at the head of the militia, went to the
Hôtel de Ville, from which place he drove out Caboche and his
brigands. The counter revolution was established. Burgundy
departed, and the power passed to the Armagnacs. The princes
re-entered Paris, and King Charles took up the oriflamme (the
royal standard of France), to make war against John the
Fearless, whose instrument he had been a short time before.
His army was victorious. Burgundy submitted, and the treaty of
Arras [A. D. 1415] suspended the war, but not the executions and
the ravages. Henry V., King of England, judged this a
propitious moment to descend upon France, which had not a
vessel to oppose the invaders."
E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 1, pages 266-279.
ALSO IN:
E. de Monstrelet,
Chronicles (Johnes' translation),
volume 1, book 1, chapters 1-140.
T. Wright,
History of France,
book 2, chapters 8-9.
FRANCE: A. D. 1383.
Pope Urban's Crusade against the Schismatics.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1383.
FRANCE: A. D. 1396.
The sovereignty of Genoa surrendered to the king.
See GENOA: A. D. 1381-1422.
FRANCE: A. D. 1415.
The Hundred Years War renewed by Henry V. of England.
"When Henry V. resolved to recover what he claimed as the
inheritance of his predecessors, he had to begin, it may be
said, the work of conquest over again. Allies, however, he
had, whose assistance he was to find very useful. The dynasty
of De Montfort had been established in possession of the
dukedom of Britanny in a great measure by English help, and
though the relations between the two countries had not been
invariably friendly since that time, the sense of this
obligation, and, still more powerfully, a jealous fear of the
French king, inclined Britanny to the English alliance. The
Dukes of Burgundy, though they had no such motives of
gratitude towards England, felt a far stronger hostility
towards France. The feud between the rival factions which went
by the names of Burgundians and Armagnacs had now been raging
for several years; and though the attitude of the Burgundians
varied--at the great struggle of Agincourt they were allies,
though lukewarm and even doubtful allies, of the French--they
ultimately ranked themselves decidedly on Henry's side. In
1414, then, Henry formally demanded, as the heir of Isabella,
mother of his great-grandfather Edward, the crown of France.
This claim the French princes wholly refused to consider.
Henry then moderated his demands so far, at least, as to allow
Charles to remain in nominal possession of his kingdom; but
... France was to cede to England, no longer as a feudal
superior making a grant to a vassal, but in full sovereignty,
the provinces of Normandy, Maine, and Anjou, together with all
that was comprised in the ancient duchy of Aquitaine. Half,
too, of Provence was claimed, and the arrears of the ransom of
King John, amounting to 1,200,000 crowns, were also to be
paid. Finally, the French king was to give his youngest
daughter, Katharine, in marriage to Henry, with a portion of
2,000,000 crowns. The French ministers offered, in answer, to
yield the duchy of Aquitaine, comprising the provinces of
Anjou, Gascony, Guienne, Poitou, and to give the hand of the
princess Katharine with a dowry of 600,000 crowns.
"Negotiations went on through several months, with small
chance of success, while Henry prepared for war. His
preparations were completed in the summer of 1415, and on the
11th of August in that year he set sail from Southampton, with
an army of 6,000 men-at-arms and 24,000 archers, very
completely equipped, and accompanied with cannon and other
engines of war.
{1174}
Landing in the estuary of the Seine, the invaders first
captured the important Norman seaport of Harfleur, after a
siege of a month, and expelled the inhabitants from the town.
It was an important acquisition; but it had cost the English
heavily. They were ill-supplied with food; they had suffered
from much rain; 2,000 had died of an epidemic of dysentery.
The army was in no condition for a forward movement. "The
safest course would now have been to return at once; and this
seems to have been pressed upon the king by the majority of
his counsellors. But this prudent advice did not approve
itself to Henry's adventurous temper. ... He determined ... to
make what may be called a military parade to Calais. This
involved a march of not less than 150 miles through a hostile
country, a dangerous, and, but that one who cherishes such
designs as Henry's must make a reputation for daring, a
useless operation; but the king's determined will overcame all
opposition." Leaving a strong garrison at Harfleur, Henry set
out upon his march. Arrived at the Somme, his further progress
was disputed, and he was forced to make a long detour before
he could effect a crossing of the river. On the 24th of
October, he encountered the French army, strongly posted at
the village of Azincour or Agincourt, barring the road to
Calais; and there, on the morning of the 25th, after a night
of drenching rain, the great battle, which shines with so
dazzling a glory in English history, was fought. There seems
to be no doubt that the English were greatly outnumbered by
the French--according to Monstrelet they were but one to six;
but the masses on the French side were unskilfully handled and
no advantage was got from them. The deadly shafts of the
terrible English archers built such a rampart of corpses in
their front that it actually sheltered them from the charge of
the French cavalry. "Everywhere the French were routed, slain,
or taken. The victory of the English was complete. ... The
French loss was enormous. Monstrelet gives a long list of the
chief princes and nobles who fell on that fatal field. ... We
are disposed to trust his estimate, which, including princes,
knights and men-at-arms of every degree, he puts at 10,000.
... Only 1,600 are said to have been 'of low degree.' ... The
number of knights and gentlemen taken prisoners was 1,500.
Among them were Charles, Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of
Bourbon, both princes of the blood-royal. ... Brilliant as was
the victory which Henry had won at Agincourt, it had, it may
be said, no immediate results. ... The army resumed its
interrupted march to Calais, which was about forty miles
distant. At Calais a council of war was held, and the
resolution to return to England unanimously taken. A few days
were allowed for refreshment, and about the middle of November
the army embarked."
A. J. Church,
Henry the Fifth,
chapters 6-10.
ALSO IN:
E. de Monstrelet,
Chronicles (Johnes' translation),
volume 1, book 1, chapters 140-149.
J. E. Tyler,
Henry of Monmouth,
chapters 19-23.
G M. Towle,
History of Henry V.,
chapters 7-8.
Lord Brougham,
History of England and France
under the House of Lancaster.
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History:
second series, chapters 24-26.
FRANCE: A. D. 1415-1419.
Massacre of Armagnacs.
The murder of the Duke of Burgundy.
"The captivity of so many princes of the blood as had been
taken prisoner at Agincourt might have seemed likely at least
to remove some of the elements of discord; but it so happened
that the captives were the most moderate and least ambitious
men. The gentle, poetical Duke of Orleans, the good Duke of
Bourbon, and the patriotic and gallant Arthur de Richemont,
had been taken, while the savage Duke of Burgundy and the
violent Gascon Count of Armagnac, Constable of France,
remained at the head of their hostile factions. ... The Count
d'Armagnac now reigned supreme; no prince of the blood came to
the councils, and the king and dauphin were absolutely in his
hands. ... The Duke of Burgundy was, however, advancing with
his forces, and the Parisians were always far more inclined to
him than to the other party. ... For a whole day's ride round
the environs of the city, every farmhouse had been sacked or
burnt. Indeed, it was said in Paris a man had only to be
called a Burgundian, or anywhere else in the Isle of France an
Armagnac, to be instantly put to death. All the soldiers who
had been posted to guard Normandy and Picardy against the
English were recalled to defend Paris against the Duke of
Burgundy; and Henry V. could have found no more favourable
moment for a second expedition." The English king took
advantage of his opportunity and landed in Normandy August 1,
1417, finding nobody to oppose him in the field. The factions
were employed too busily in cutting each other's throats,--
especially after the Burgundians had regained possession of
Paris, which they did in the following spring. Thereupon the
Parisian mob rose and ferociously massacred all the partisans
of Armagnac, while the Burgundians looked and approved. "The
prison was forced; Armagnac himself was dragged out and slain
in the court. ... The court of each prison became a
slaughter-house; the prisoners were called down one by one,
and there murdered, till the assassins were up to their ankles
in blood. The women were as savage as the men, and dragged the
corpses about the streets in derision. The prison slaughter
had but given a passion for further carnage; and the murderers
broke open the houses in search of Armagnacs, killing not only
men, but women, children, and even new-born babes, to whom in
their diabolical frenzy they refused baptism, as being little
Armagnacs. The massacre lasted from four o'clock on Sunday
morning to ten o'clock on Monday. Some say that 3,000
perished, others 1,600, and the Duke of Burgundy's servants
reported the numbers as only 400." Meantime Henry V. was
besieging Rouen, and starving Paris by cutting off the
supplies for which it depended on the Seine. In August there
was another rising of the Parisian mob and another massacre.
In January, 1419, Rouen surrendered, and attempts at peace
followed, both parties making a truce with the English
invader. The imperious demands of King Henry finally impelled
the two French factions to draw together and to make a common
cause of the deliverance of the kingdom. At least that was the
profession with which the Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy
met, in July, and went through the forms of a reconciliation.
Perhaps there were treacherous intentions on both sides. On
one side the treachery was consummated a month later
(September 10, 1419), when, a second meeting between Duke John
the Fearless and the Dauphin taking place at the Bridge of
Montereau, the Duke was basely assassinated in the Dauphin's
presence.
{1175}
This murder, by which the Armagnacs, who controlled the young
Dauphin, hoped to break their rivals down, only kindled afresh
the passions which were destroying France and delivering it an
easy prey to foreign conquest.
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
second series, chapters 28-29.
ALSO IN:
E. de Monstrelet,
Chronicles (Johnes' translation),
volume 1, book 1, chapters 150-211.
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 9, chapter 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1417-1422.
Burgundy's revenge.
Henry the Fifth's triumph.
Two kings in Paris.
The Treaty of Troyes.
Death of Henry.
"Whilst civil war was ... penetrating to the very core of the
kingship, foreign war was making its way again into the
kingdom. Henry V., after the battle of Agincourt, had returned
to London, and had left his army to repose and reorganize
after its sufferings and its losses. It was not until eighteen
months afterwards, on the 1st of August, 1417, that he landed
at Touques, not far from Honfleur, with fresh troops, and
resumed his campaign in France. Between 1417 and 1419 he
successively laid siege to nearly all the towns of importance
in Normandy, to Caen, Bayeux, Falaise, Evreux, Coutances,
Laigle, St. Lô, Cherbourg, &c., &c. Some he occupied after a
short resistance, others were sold to him by their governors;
but when, in the month of July, 1418, he undertook the siege
of Rouen, he encountered there a long and serious struggle.
Rouen had at that time, it is said, a population of 150,000
souls, which was animated by ardent patriotism. The Rouennese,
on the approach of the English, had repaired their gates,
their ramparts, and their moats; had demanded reinforcements
from the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy; and had
ordered every person incapable of bearing arms or procuring
provisions for ten months to leave the city. Twelve thousand
old men, women and children were thus expelled, and died
either round the place or whilst roving in misery over the
neighbouring country. ... Fifteen thousand men of
city-militia, 4,000 regular soldiers, 300 spearmen and as many
archers from Paris, and it is not quite known how many
men-at-arms sent by the Duke of Burgundy, defended Rouen for
more than five months amidst all the usual sufferings of
strictly-besieged cities." On the 13th of January, 1419, the
town was surrendered. "It was 215 years since Philip Augustus
had won Rouen by conquest from John Lackland, King of
England." After this great success there were truces brought
about between all parties, and much negotiation, which came to
nothing--except the treacherous murder of the Duke of
Burgundy, as related above. Then the situation changed. The
son and successor of the murdered duke, afterwards known as
Philip the Good, took sides, at once, with the English king
and committed himself to a war of revenge, indifferent to the
fate of France. "On the 17th of October [1419] was opened at
Arras a congress between the plenipotentiaries of England and
those of Burgundy. On the 20th of November a special truce was
granted to the Parisians, whilst Henry V., in concert with
Duke Philip of Burgundy, was prosecuting the war against the
dauphin. On the 2d of December the bases were laid of an
agreement between the English and the Burgundians. The
preliminaries of the treaty, which was drawn up in accordance
with these bases, were signed on the 9th of April, 1420, by
King Charles VI. [now controlled by the Burgundians], and on
the 20th communicated at Paris by the chancellor of France to
the parliament." On the 20th of May following, the treaty,
definitive and complete, was signed by Henry V. and
promulgated at Troyes. By this treaty of Troyes, Princess
Catherine, daughter of the King of France, was given in
marriage to King Henry; Charles VI. was guaranteed his
possession of the French crown while he lived; on his death,
"the crown and kingdom of France, with all their rights and
appurtenances," were solemnly conveyed to Henry V. of England
and his heirs, forever. "The revulsion against the treaty of
Troyes was real and serious, even in the very heart of the
party attached to the Duke of Burgundy. He was obliged to lay
upon several of his servants formal injunctions to swear to
this peace, which seemed to them treason. ... In the duchy of
Burgundy the majority of the towns refused to take the oath to
the King of England. The most decisive and the most helpful
proof of this awakening of national feeling was the ease
experienced by the dauphin, who was one day to be Charles
VII., in maintaining the war which, after the treaty of
Troyes, was, in his father's and his mother's name, made upon
him by the King of England and the Duke of Burgundy. This war
lasted more than three years. Several towns, amongst others,
Melun, Crotoy, Meaux, and St. Riquier, offered an obstinate
resistance to the attacks of the English and Burgundians. ...
It was in Perche, Anjou, Maine, on the banks of the Loire, and
in Southern France, that the dauphin found most of his
enterprising and devoted partisans. The sojourn made by Henry
V. at Paris, in December, 1420, with his wife, Queen
Catherine, King Charles VI., Queen Isabel, and the Duke of
Burgundy, was not, in spite of galas and acclamations, a
substantial and durable success for him. ... Towards the end
of August, 1422, Henry V. fell ill; and, too stout-hearted to
delude himself as to his condition, he ... had himself removed
to Vincennes, called his councillors about him, and gave them
his last royal instructions. ... He expired on the 31st of
August, 1422, at the age of thirty-four."
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 23.
At Paris, "the two sovereigns [Henry V. and Charles VI.] kept
distinct courts. That of Henry was by far the most splendidly
equipped and numerously attended of the two. He was the rising
sun, and all men looked to him. All offices of trust and
profit were at his disposal, and the nobles and gentlemen of
France flocked into his ante-chambers."
A. J. Church,
Henry the Fifth,
chapter 15.
ALSO IN:
E. de Monstrelet,
Chronicles (Johnes' translation),
volume 1, book 1, chapters 171-264.
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 9, chapters 2-3.
FRANCE: A. D. 1422.
Accession of King Charles VII.
{1176}
FRANCE: A. D. 1429-1431.
The Mission of the Maid.
"France divided--two kings, two regencies, two armies, two
governments, two nations, two nobilities, two systems of
justice--met face to face: father, son, mother, uncles,
nephews, citizens, and strangers, fought for the right, the
soil, the throne, the cities, the spoil and the blood of the
nation. The King of England died at Vincennes [August 31,
1422], and was shortly followed [October 22] by Charles VI.,
father of the twelve children of Isabel, leaving the kingdom
to the stranger and to ruin. The Duke of Bedford insolently
took possession of the Regency in the name of England, pursued
the handful of nobles who wished to remain French with the
dauphin, defeated them at the battle of Verneuil [August
17,1424], and exiled the queen, who had become a burden to the
government after having been an instrument of usurpation. He
then concentrated the armies of England, France and Burgundy
round Orleans, which was defended by some thousands of the
partisans of the dauphin, and which comprised almost all that
remained of the kingdom of France. The land was everywhere
ravaged by the passing and repassing of these bands--sometimes
friends, sometimes enemies--driving each other on, wave after
wave, like the billows of the Atlantic; ravaging crops,
burning towns, dispersing, robbing, and ill-treating the
population. In this disorganization of the country, the young
dauphin, sometimes awakened by the complaints of his people,
at others absorbed in the pleasures natural to his age, was
making love to Agnes Sorel in the castle of Loches. ... Such
was the state of the nation when Providence showed it a savior
in a child." The child was Jeanne D'Arc, or Joan of Arc,
better known in history as the Maid of Orleans,--daughter of a
peasant who tilled his own few acres at the village of
Domrémy, in Upper Lorraine. Of the visions of the pious young
maiden--of the voices she heard--of the conviction which came
upon her that she was called by God to deliver her
country--and of the enthusiasm of faith with which she went
about her mission until all people bent to her as the
messenger and minister of God--the story is a familiar one to
all. In April, 1429, Joan was sent by the king, from Blois,
with 10,000 or 12,000 men, to the succour of Orleans, where
Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, was in command. She reformed
the army, purged it of all vile followers, and raised its
confidence to that frenzied pitch which nothing can resist. On
the 8th of May the English abandoned the siege and Orleans was
saved. "Joan wasted no time in vain triumphs. She brought back
the victorious army to the dauphin, to assist him in
reconquering city after city of his kingdom. The dauphin and
the queens received her as the messenger of God, who had found
and recovered the lost keys of the kingdom. 'I have only
another year,' she remarked, with a sad presentiment, which
seemed to indicate that her victory led to the scaffold; 'I
must therefore set to work at once.' She begged the dauphin to
go and be crowned at Rheims, although that city and the
intermediate provinces were still in the power of the
Burgundians, Flemings, and English." Counsellors and generals
opposed; but the sublime faith of the Maid overcame all
opposition and all difficulties. The king's route to Rheims
was rapidly cleared of his enemies. At Patay (June 18, 1429)
the English suffered a heavy defeat and their famous soldier,
Lord Talbot, was taken prisoner. Troyes, Chalons and Rheims
opened their gates. "The Duke of Bedford, the regent, remained
trembling in Paris. 'All our misfortunes,' he wrote to the
Cardinal of Winchester, 'are owing to a young witch, who, by
her sorcery, has restored the courage of the French.' ... The
king was crowned [July 17, 1429], and Joan's mission was
accomplished. 'Noble king,' said she, embracing his knees in
the Cathedral after the coronation, 'now is accomplished the
will of God, which commanded me to bring you to this city of
Rheims to receive your holy unction--now that you at last are
king, and that the kingdom of France is yours.' ... From that
moment a great depression, and a fatal hesitation seem to have
come over her. The king, the people, and the army, to whom she
had given victory, wished her to remain always their
prophetess, their guide, and their enduring miracle. But she
was now only a weak woman, lost amid courts and camps, and she
felt her weakness beneath her armor. Her heart alone remained
courageous, but had ceased to be inspired." She urged an
attack on Paris (Sept. 8, 1429) and experienced her first
failure, being grievously wounded in the assault. The
following spring, Compiègne being besieged, she entered the
town to take part in the defence. The same evening (May 24,
1430) she led a sortie which was repulsed, and she was taken
prisoner in the retreat. Some think she was betrayed by the
commandant of the town, who ordered the raising of the
drawbridge just as her horse was being spurred upon it. Once
in the hands of her enemies, the doom of the unfortunate Maid
was sealed. Sir Lionel de Ligny, her captor, gave his prisoner
to the count of Luxembourg, who yielded her to the Duke of
Burgundy, who surrendered her to the English, who delivered
her to the Inquisition, by which she was tried, condemned and
burned to death, at Rouen, as a witch (May 30, 1431). "It was
a complex crime, in which each party got rid of
responsibility, but in which the accusation rests with Paris
[the University of Paris was foremost among the pursuers of
the wonderful Maid], the cowardice with Luxembourg, the
sentence with the Inquisition, the blame and punishment with
England, and the disgrace and ingratitude with France. This
bartering about Joan by her enemies, of whom the fiercest were
her countrymen, had lasted six months. ... During these six
months, the influence of this goddess of war upon the troops
of Charles VII.--her spirit, which still guided the camp and
council of the king--the patriotic, though superstitious,
veneration of the people, which her captivity only
doubled,--and, lastly, the absence of the Duke of Burgundy,
... all these causes had brought reverse after reverse upon
the English, and a series of successes to Charles VII. Joan,
although absent, triumphed everywhere."
A. de Lamartine,
Memoirs of Celebrated Characters: Joan of Arc.
"It seems natural to ask what steps the King of France had
taken ... to avert her doom. If ever there had been a
sovereign indebted to a subject, that sovereign was Charles
VII., that subject Joan of Arc. ... Yet, no sooner was she
captive than she seems forgotten. We hear nothing of any
attempt at rescue, of any proposal for ransom; neither the
most common protest against her trial, nor the faintest threat
of reprisals; nay, not even after her death, one single
expression of regret! Charles continued to slumber in his
delicious retreats beyond the Loire, engrossed by dames of a
very different character from Joan's, and careless of the
heroine to whom his security in that indolence was due. Her
memory on the other hand was long endeared to the French
people, and long did they continue to cherish a romantic hope
that she might still survive.
{1177}
So strong was this feeling, that in the year 1436 advantage
was taken of it by a female imposter, who pretended to be Joan
of Arc escaped from her captivity. She fixed her abode at
Metz, and soon afterwards married a knight of good family, the
Sire des Armoises. Strange to say, it appears from a contemporary
chronicle, that Joan's two surviving brothers acknowledged
this woman as their sister. Stranger still, other records
prove that she made two visits to Orleans, one before and one
after her marriage, and on each occasion was hailed as the
heroine returned. ... The brothers of Joan of Arc might
possibly have hopes of profit by the fraud; but how the people
of Orleans, who had seen her so closely, who had fought side
by side with her in the siege, could be deceived as to the
person, we cannot understand, nor yet what motive they could
have in deceiving. The interest which Joan of Arc inspires at
the present day extends even to the house where she dwelt, and
to the family from which she sprung. Her father died of grief
at the tidings of her execution; her mother long survived it,
but fell into great distress. Twenty years afterwards we find
her in receipt of a pension from the city of Orleans; three
francs a month; 'to help her to live.' Joan's brothers and
their issue took, the name of Du Lis from the Lily of France,
which the King had assigned as their arms. ... It will be easy
to trace the true character of Joan. ... Nowhere do modern
annals display a character more pure--more generous--more
humble amidst fancied visions and undoubted victories--more
free from all taint of selfishness--more akin to the champions
and martyrs of old times. All this is no more than justice and
love of truth would require us to say. But when we find some
French historians, transported by an enthusiasm almost equal
to that of Joan herself, represent her us filling the part of
a general or statesman--as skilful in leading armies, or
directing councils--we must withhold our faith. Such skill,
indeed, from a country girl, without either education or
experience, would be, had she really possessed it, scarcely
less supernatural than the visions which she claimed. But the
facts are far otherwise. In affairs of state, Joan's voice was
never heard; in affairs of war, all her proposals will be
found to resolve themselves into two--either to rush headlong
upon the enemy, often in the very point where he was
strongest, or to offer frequent and public prayers to the
Almighty. We are not aware of any single instance in which her
military suggestions were not these, or nearly akin to these.
... Of Joan's person no authentic resemblance now remains. A
statue to her memory had been raised upon the bridge at
Orleans, at the sole charge ... of the matrons and maids of
that city: this probably preserved some degree of likeness,
but unfortunately perished in the religious wars of the
sixteenth century. There is no portrait extant; the two
earliest engravings are of 1606 and 1612, and they greatly
differ."
Lord Mahon,
Historical Essays,
pages 53-57.
"A few days before her death, when urged to resume her woman's
dress, she said: 'When I shall have accomplished that for
which I was sent from God, I will take the dress of a woman.'
Yet, in one sense her mission did end at Rheims. The faith of
the people still followed her, but her enemies--not the
English, but those in the heart of the court of Charles--began
to be too powerful for her. We may, indeed, conceive what a
hoard of envy and malice was gathering in the hearts of those
hardened politicians at seeing themselves superseded by a
peasant girl. They, accustomed to dark and tortuous ways,
could not comprehend or coalesce with the divine simplicity of
her designs and means. A successful intrigue was formed
against her. It was resolved to keep her still in the camp as
a name and a figure, but to take from her all power, all voice
in the direction of affairs. So accordingly it was done. ...
Her ways and habits during the year she was in arms are
attested by a multitude of witnesses. Dunois and the Duke of
Alençon bear testimony to what they term her extraordinary
talents for war, and to her perfect fearlessness in action;
but in all other things she was the most simple of creatures.
She wept when she first saw men slain in battle, to think that
they should have died without confession. She wept at the
abominable epithets which the English heaped upon her; but she
was without a trace of vindictiveness. 'Ah, Glacidas, Glacidas!'
she said to Sir William Glasdale at Orleans, 'you have called
me foul names; but I have pity upon your soul and the souls of
your men. Surrender to the King of Heaven!' And she was once
seen, resting the head of a wounded Englishman on her lap,
comforting and consoling him. In her diet she was abstemious
in the extreme, rarely eating until evening, and then for the
most part, only of bread and water sometimes mixed with wine.
In the field she slept in her armour, but when she came into a
city she always sought out some honourable matron, under whose
protection she placed herself; and there is wonderful evidence
of the atmosphere of purity which she diffused around her, her
very presence banishing from men's hearts all evil thoughts
and wishes. Her conversation, when it was not of the war, was
entirely of religion. She confessed often, and received
communion twice in the week. 'And it was her custom,' says
Dunois, 'at twilight every day, to retire to the church and
make the bells be rung for half an hour, and she gathered the
mendicant religious who followed the King's army, and made
them sing an antiphon of the Blessed Mother of God.' From
presumption, as from superstition, she was entirely free. When
women brought her crosses and chaplets to bless, she said:
'How can I bless them? Your own blessing would be as good as
mine.'"
J. O'Hagan,
Joan of Arc,
pages 61-66.
"What is to be thought of her? What is to be thought of the
poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine,
that--like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests
of Judea--rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety,
out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral
solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more
perilous station at the right hand of kings? The Hebrew boy
inaugurated his patriotic mission by an act, by a victorious
act, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of
Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw
her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no
pretender; but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the
voices of all who saw them from a station of good-will, both
were found true and loyal to any promises involved in their
first acts. Enemies it was that made the difference between
their subsequent fortunes.
{1178}
The boy rose to a splendour, and a noonday prosperity, both
personal and public, that rang through the records of his
people, and became a by-word amongst his posterity for a
thousand years, until the sceptre was departing from Judah.
The poor, forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself
from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. ...
This pure creature--pure from every suspicion of even a
visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in senses more
obvious--never once did this holy child, as regarded herself,
relax from her belief in the darkness that was travelling to
meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her
death; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of
the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end on every road
pouring into Rouen as to a coronation, the surging smoke, the
volleying flames, the hostile faces all around, the pitying
eye that lurked but here and there, until nature and
imperishable truth broke loose from artificial
restraints;--these might not be apparent through the mists of
the hurrying future. But the voice that called her to death,
that she heard for ever."
T. De Quincey,
Joan of Arc (Collected Writings, volume 5).
A discussion of doubts that have been raised concerning the
death of Joan at the stake will be found in
Octave Delepierre's
Historical Difficulties and Contested Events,
chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 10.
E. de Monstrelet,
Chronicles (Johnes' translation),
book 2, chapters 57-105.
H. Parr,
Life and Death of Joan of Arc.
J. Tuckey,
Joan of Arc.
Mrs. A. E. Bray,
Joan of Arc.
FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453.
The English expelled.
"In Joan of Arc the English certainly destroyed the cause of
their late reverses. But the impulse had been given, and the
crime of base vengeance could not stay it. Fortune declared
every where and in every way against them. In vain was Henry
VI. brought to Paris, crowned at Notre Dame, and made to
exercise all the functions of royalty in court and parliament.
The duke of Burgundy, disgusted with the English, became at
last reconciled to Charles; who spared no sacrifice to win the
support of so powerful a subject. The amplest possible amends
were made for the murder of the late duke. The towns beyond
the Somme were ceded to Burgundy, and the reigning duke [but
not his successors] was exempted from all homage towards the
king of France. Such was the famous treaty of Arras [September
21, 1435], which restored to Charles his throne, and deprived
the English of all hopes of retaining their conquests in the
kingdom. The crimes and misrule of the Orleans faction were
forgotten; popularity ebbed in favour of Charles. ... One of
the gates of Paris was betrayed by the citizens to the
constable and Dunois [April, 1436]. Willoughby, the governor,
was obliged to shut himself up in the Bastile with his
garrison, from whence they retired to Rouen. Charles VII.
entered his capital, after twenty years' exclusion from it, in
November, 1437. Thenceforward the war lost its serious
character. Charles was gradually established on his throne,
and the struggle between the two nations was feebly carried
on, broken merely by a few sieges and enterprises, mostly to
the disadvantage of the English. ... There had been frequent
endeavours and conferences towards a peace between the French
and English. The demands on either side proved irreconcilable.
A truce was however concluded, in 1444, which lasted four
years; it was sealed by the marriage of Henry VI. with
Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Réné, and granddaughter of
Louis, who had perished while leading an army to the conquest
of Naples. ... In 1449 the truce was allowed to expire. The
quarrels of York and Lancaster had commenced, and England was
unable to defend her foreign possessions. Normandy was
invaded. The gallant Talbot could not preserve Rouen with a
disaffected population, and Charles recovered without loss of
blood [1449] the second capital of his dominions. The only
blow struck by the English for the preservation of Normandy
was at Fourmigny near Bayeux. ... Normandy was for ever lost
to the English after this action or skirmish. The following
year Guyenne was invaded by the count de Dunois. He met with
no resistance. The great towns at that day had grown wealthy,
and their maxim was to avoid a siege at all hazards." Lord
Talbot was killed in an engagement at Castillon (1450), and
"with that hero expired the last hopes of his country in
regard to France. Guyenne was lost [A. D. 1453] as well as
Normandy, and Calais remained to England the only fruit of so
much blood spilt and so many victories achieved."
E. E. Crowe,
History of France,
volume 1, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 11.
E. de Monstrelet,
Chronicles (Johnes' translation),
book 2, chapter 109, book 3, chapter 65.
See, also,
AQUITAINE: A. D. 1360-1453.
FRANCE: A. D. 1438.
Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII.
Reforming decrees of the Council of Basel adopted for the
Gallican church.
After the rupture between the reforming Council of Basel and
Pope Eugenius IV. (see PAPACY: A. D. 1431-1448), Charles VII.
of France "determined to adopt in his own kingdom such of the
decrees of the Council as were for his advantage, seeing that
no opposition could be made by the Pope. Accordingly a Synod
was summoned at Bourges on May 1, 1438. The embassadors of
Pope and Council urged their respective causes. It was agreed
that the King should write to Pope and Council to stay their
hands in proceeding against one another; meanwhile, that the
reformation be not lost, some of the Basel decrees should be
maintained in France by royal authority. The results of the
synod's deliberation were laid before the King, and on July 7
were made binding as a pragmatic sanction on the French
Church. The Pragmatic Sanction enacted that General Councils
were to be held every ten years, and recognised the authority
of the Council of Basel. The Pope was no longer to reserve any
of the greater ecclesiastical appointments, but elections were
to be duly made by the rightful patrons. Grants to benefices
in expectancy, 'whence all agree that many evils arise,' were
to cease, as well as reservations. In all cathedral churches,
one prebend was to be given to a theologian who had studied
for ten years in a university, and who was to lecture or
preach at least once a week. Benefices were to be conferred in
future, one-third on graduates, two-thirds on deserving
clergy. Appeals to Rome, except for important causes, were
forbidden. The number of Cardinals was to be 24, each of the
age of 30 at least. Annates and first-fruits were no longer to
be paid to the Pope, but only the necessary legal fees on
institution. Regulations were made for greater reverence in
the conduct of Divine service; prayers were to be said by the
priest in an audible voice; mummeries in churches were
forbidden, and clerical concubinage was to be punished by
suspension for three months. Such were the chief reforms of
its own special grievances, which France wished to establish.
It was the first step in the assertion of the rights of
national Churches to arrange for themselves the details of
their own ecclesiastical organisation."
M. Creighton,
History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation,
book 3, chapter 9 (volume 2).
{1179}
FRANCE: A. D. 1447.
Origin of the claims of the house of Orleans to the duchy of
Milan.
See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.
FRANCE: A. D. 1453-1461.
The reconstructed kingdom.
The new plant of Absolutism.
"At the expulsion of the English, France emerged from the
chaos with an altered character and new features of
government. The royal authority and supreme jurisdiction of
the parliament were universally recognised. Yet there was a
tendency towards insubordination left among the great
nobility, arising in part from the remains of old feudal
privileges, but still more from that lax administration which,
in the convulsive struggles of the war, had been suffered to
prevail. In the south were some considerable vassals, the
houses of Foix, Albret, and Armagnac, who, on account of their
distance from the seat of empire, had always maintained a very
independent conduct. The dukes of Britany and Burgundy were of
a more formidable character, and might rather be ranked among
foreign powers than privileged subjects. The princes, too, of
the royal blood, who, during the late reign, had learned to
partake or contend for the management, were ill-inclined
towards Charles VII., himself jealous, from old recollections
of their ascendancy. They saw that the constitution was
verging rapidly towards an absolute monarchy, from the
direction of which they would studiously be excluded. This
apprehension gave rise to several attempts at rebellion during
the reign of Charles VII., and to the war, commonly entitled,
for the Public Weal ('du bien public'), under Louis XI. Among
the pretenses alleged by the revolters in each of these, the
injuries of the people were not forgotten; but from the people
they received small support. Weary of civil dissension, and
anxious for a strong government to secure them from
depredation, the French had no inducement to intrust even
their real grievances to a few malcontent princes, whose
regard for the common good they had much reason to distrust.
Every circumstance favoured Charles VII. and his son in the
attainment of arbitrary power. The country was pillaged by
military ruffians. Some of these had been led by the dauphin
to a war in Germany, but the remainder still infested the high
roads and villages. Charles established his companies of
ordonnance, the basis of the French regular army, in order to
protect the country from such depredators. They consisted of
about nine thousand soldiers, all cavalry, of whom fifteen
hundred were heavy-armed; a force not very considerable, but
the first, except mere body-guards, which had been raised in
any part of Europe as a national standing army. These troops
were paid out of the produce of a permanent tax, called the
taille; an innovation still more important than the former.
But the present benefit cheating the people, now prone to
submissive habits, little or no opposition was made, except in
Guienne, the inhabitants of which had speedy reason to regret
the mild government of England, and vainly endeavoured to
return to its protection. It was not long before the new
despotism exhibited itself in its harshest character. Louis
XI., son of Charles VII., who during his father's reign, had
been connected with the discontented princes, came to the
throne greatly endowed with those virtues and vices which
conspire to the success of a king."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 1, part 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1458-1461.
Renewed submission of Genoa to the King, and renewed revolt.
See GENOA: A. D. 1458-1464.
FRANCE: A. D. 1461.
Accession of King Louis XI.
Contemporary portrait of him by Commines.
"Of all the princes that I ever knew, the wisest and most
dexterous to extricate himself out of any danger or difficulty
in time of adversity, was our master King Louis XI. He was the
humblest in his conversation and habit, and the most painful
and indefatigable to win over any man to his side that he
thought capable of doing him either mischief or service:
though he was often refused, he would never give over a man
that he wished to gain, but still pressed and continued his
insinuations, promising him largely, and presenting him with
such sums and honours as he knew would gratify his ambition;
and for such as he had discarded in time of peace and
prosperity, he paid dear (when he had occasion for them) to
recover them again; but when he had once reconciled them, he
retained no enmity towards them for what had passed, but
employed them freely for the future. He was naturally kind and
indulgent to persons of mean estate, and hostile to all great
men who had no need of him. Never prince was so conversable,
nor so inquisitive as he, for his desire was to know everybody
he could; and indeed he knew all persons of any authority or
worth in England, Spain, Portugal and Italy, in the
territories of the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretagne, and among
his own subjects; and by those qualities he preserved the
crown upon his head, which was in much danger by the enemies
he had created to himself upon his accession to the throne.
But above all, his great bounty and liberality did him the
greatest service: and yet, as he behaved himself wisely in
time of distress, so when he thought himself a little out of
danger, though it were but by a truce, he would disoblige the
servants and officers of his court by mean and petty ways,
which were little to his advantage; and as for peace, he could
hardly endure the thoughts of it. He spoke slightingly of most
people, and rather before their faces, than behind their
backs, unless he was afraid of them, and of that sort there
were a great many, for he was naturally somewhat timorous.
When he had done himself any prejudice by his talk, or was
apprehensive he should do so, and wished to make amends, he
would say to the person whom he had disobliged, 'I am sensible
my tongue has done me a great deal of mischief; but, on the
other hand, it has sometimes done me much good; however, it is
but reason I should make some reparation for the injury.' And
he never used this kind of apologies to any person, but he
granted some favour to the person to whom he made it, and it
was always of considerable amount. It is certainly a great
blessing from God upon any prince to have experienced
adversity as well as prosperity, good as well as evil, and
especially if the good outweighs the evil, as it did in the
king our master.
{1180}
I am of opinion that the troubles he was involved in, in his
youth, when he fled from his father, and resided six years
together with Philip Duke of Burgundy, were of great service
to him; for there he learned to be complaisant to such as he
had occasion to use, which was no slight advantage of
adversity. As soon as he found himself a powerful and crowned
king, his mind was wholly bent upon revenge; but he quickly
found the inconvenience of this, repented by degrees of his
indiscretion, and made sufficient reparation for his folly and
error, by regaining those he had injured, as shall be related
hereafter. Besides, I am very confident that if his education
had not been different from the usual education of such nobles
as I have seen in France, he could not so easily have worked
himself out of his troubles; for they are brought up to
nothing but to make themselves ridiculous, both in their
clothes and discourse; they have no knowledge of letters; no
wise man is suffered to come near them, to improve their
understandings; they have governors who manage their business,
but they do nothing themselves."--Such is the account of Louis
XI. which Philip de Commines gives in one of the early
chapters of his delightful Memoirs. In a later chapter he
tells naively of the king's suspicions and fears, and of what
he suffered, at the end of his life, as the penalty of his
cruel and crafty dealings with his subjects: "Some five or six
months before his death, he began to suspect everybody,
especially those who were most capable and deserving of the
administration of affairs. He was afraid of his son, and
caused him to be kept close, so that no man saw or discoursed
with him, but by his special command. At last he grew
suspicious of his daughter, and of his son-in-law the Duke of
Bourbon, and required an account of what persons came to speak
with them at Plessis, and broke up a council which the Duke of
Bourbon was holding there, by his order. ... Behold, then, if
he had caused many to live under him in continual fear and
apprehension, whether it was not returned to him again; for of
whom could he be secure when he was afraid of his son-in-law,
his daughter, and his own son? I speak this not only of him,
but of all other princes who desire to be feared, that
vengeance never falls on them till they grow old, and then, as
a just penance, they are afraid of everybody themselves; and
what grief must it have been to this poor King to be tormented
with such terrors and passions? He was still attended by his
physician, Master James Coctier, to whom in five months' time
he had given fifty-four thousand crowns in ready money,
besides the bishopric of Amiens for his nephew, and other
great offices and estates for himself and his friends; yet
this doctor used him very roughly indeed; one would not have
given such outrageous language to one's servants as he gave
the King, who stood in such awe of him, that he durst not
forbid him his presence. It is true he complained of his
impudence afterwards, but he durst not change him as he had
done all the rest of his servants; because he had told him
after a most audacious manner one day, 'I know well that some
time or other you will dismiss me from court, as you have done
the rest; but be sure (and he confirmed it with a great oath)
you shall not live eight days after it'; with which expression
the King was so terrified, that ever after he did nothing but
flatter and bribe him, which must needs have been a great
mortification to a prince who had been humbly obeyed all his
life by so many good and brave men. The King had ordered
several cruel prisons to be made; some were cages of iron, and
some of wood, but all were covered with iron plates both
within and without, with terrible locks, about eight feet wide
and seven high; the first contriver of them was the Bishop of
Verdun, who was immediately put in the first of them that was
made, where he continued fourteen years. Many bitter curses he
has had since for his invention, and some from me as I lay in
one of them eight months together in the minority of our
present King. He also ordered heavy and terrible fetters to be
made in Germany, and particularly a certain ring for the feet,
which was extremely hard to be opened, and fitted like an iron
collar, with a thick weighty chain, and a great globe of iron
at the end of it, most unreasonably heavy, which engines were
called the King's Nets. ... As in his time this barbarous
variety of prisons was invented, so before he died he himself
was in greater torment, and more terrible apprehension than
those whom he had imprisoned; which I look upon as a great
mercy towards him, and as it part of his purgatory; and I have
mentioned it here to show that there is no person, of what
station or dignity soever, but suffers some time or other,
either publicly or privately, especially if he has caused
other people to suffer. The King, towards the latter end of
his days, caused his castle of Plessis-les-Tours to be
encompassed with great bars of iron in the form of thick
grating, and at the four corners of the house four
sparrow-nests of iron, strong, massy, and thick, were built.
The grates were without the wall on the other side of the
ditch, and sank to the bottom. Several spikes of iron were
fastened into the wall, set as thick by one another as was
possible, and each furnished with three or four points. He
likewise placed ten bow-men in the ditches, to shoot at any
man that durst approach the castle before the opening of the
gates; and he ordered they should lie in the ditches, but
retire to the sparrow-nests upon occasion. He was sensible
enough that this fortification was too weak to keep out an
army, or any great body of men, but he had no fear of such an
attack; his great apprehension was, that some of the nobility
of his kingdom, having intelligence within, might attempt to
make themselves masters of the castle by night. ... Is it
possible then to keep a prince (with any regard to his
quality) in a closer prison than he kept himself? The cages
which were made for other people were about eight feet square;
and he (though so great a monarch) had but a small court of
the castle to walk in, and seldom made use of that, but
generally kept himself in the gallery, out of which he went
into the chambers on his way to mass, but never passed through
the court. ... I have not recorded these things merely to
represent our master as a suspicious and mistrustful prince;
but to show, that by the patience which he expressed in his
sufferings (like those which he inflicted on other people),
they may be looked upon, in my judgment, as a punishment which
our Lord inflicted upon him in this world, in order to deal
more mercifully with him in the next, as well in regard to
those things before-mentioned as to the distempers of his
body, which were great and painful, and much dreaded by him
before they came upon him; and, likewise, that those princes
who may be his successors, may learn by his example to be more
tender and indulgent to their subjects, and less severe in
their punishments than our master had been: although I will
not censure him, or say I ever saw a better prince; for though
he oppressed his subjects himself he would never see them
injured by anybody else."
Philip de Commines,
Memoirs,
book 1, chapter 10,
and book 6, chapter 11.
{1181}
FRANCE: A. D. 1461-1468.
The character and reign of Louis XI.
The League of the Public Weal.
"Except St. Louis, he [Louis XI.] was the first, as, indeed
(with the solitary exception of Louis Philippe), he is still
the only king of France whose mind was ever prepared for the
duties of that high station by any course of severe and
systematic study. Before he ascended the throne of his
ancestors he had profoundly meditated the great Italian
authors, and the institutions and maxims of the Italian
republics. From those lessons he had derived a low esteem of
his fellowmen, and especially of those among them upon whom
wealth, and rank, and power had descended as an hereditary
birthright. ... He clearly understood, and pursued with
inflexible steadfastness of purpose the elevation of his
country and the grandeur of his own royal house and lineage;
but he pursued them with a torpid imagination, a cold heart,
and a ruthless will. He regarded mankind as a physiologist
contemplates the living subjects of his science, or as a
chess-player surveys the pieces on his board. ... It has been
said of Louis XI., that the appearance of the men of the
Revolution of 1789 first made him intelligible. ... Louis was
the first of the terrible Ideologists of France--of that class
of men who, to enthrone an idolized idea, will offer whole
hecatombs of human sacrifices at the shrine of their idol. The
Idea of Louis was that of levelling all powers in the state,
in order that the administration of the affairs, the
possession of the wealth, and the enjoyment of the honours of
his kingdom might be grasped by himself and his successors as
their solitary and unrivalled dominion. ... Before his
accession to the throne, all the great fiefs into which France
had been divided under the earlier Capetian kings had, with
the exception of Bretagne, been either annexed to the royal
domain, or reduced to a state of dependence on the crown. But,
under the name of Apanages, these ancient divisions of the
kingdom into separate principalities had reappeared. The
territorial feudalism of the Middle Ages seemed to be reviving
in the persons of the younger branches of the royal house. The
Dukes of Burgundy had thus become the rulers of a state [see
BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467] which, under the government of more
politic princes, might readily, in fulfillment of their
desires, have attained the rank of an independent kingdom. The
Duke of Bretagne, still asserting the peculiar privileges of
his duchy, was rather an ally than a subject of the king of
France. Charles, Duke of Berri, the brother of Louis, aspired
to the possession of the same advantages. And these three
great territorial potentates, in alliance with the Duc de
Bourbon and the Comte de St. Pol, the brothers-in-law of Louis
and of his queen, united together to form that confederacy
against him to which they gave the very inappropriate title of
La Ligue du Bien Public. It was, however, a title which
recognized the growing strength of the Tiers Étât, and of that
public opinion to which the Tiers Étât at once gave utterance
and imparted authority. Selfish ambition was thus compelled to
assume the mask of patriotism. The princes veiled their
insatiable appetite for their own personal advantages under
the popular and plausible demands of administrative
reforms--of the reduction of imposts--of the government of
the people by their representatives--and, consequently, of the
convocation of the States-General. To these pretensions Louis
was unable to make any effectual resistance." An indecisive
but bloody battle was fought at Montlehery, near Paris (July
16, 1465), from which both armies retreated with every
appearance of defeat. The capital was besieged ineffectually
for some weeks by the League; then the king yielded, or seemed
to do so, and the Treaty of Conflans was signed. "He assented,
in terms at least, to all the demands of his antagonists. He
granted to the Duke of Berri the duchy of Normandy as an
apanage transmissible in perpetuity to his male heirs. ... The
confederates then laid down their arms. The wily monarch bided
his time. He had bestowed on them advantages which he well
knew would destroy their popularity and so subvert the basis
of their power, and which he also knew the state of public
opinion would not allow them to retain. To wrest those
advantages from their hands, it was only necessary to comply
with their last stipulation, and to convene the
States-General. They met accordingly, at Tours, on the 6th of
April, 1468." As Louis had anticipated--or, rather, as he had
planned--the States-General cancelled the grant of Normandy to
the Duke of Berri (which the king had been able already to
recover possession of, owing to quarrels between the dukes of
Berri and Brittany) and, generally, took away from the princes
of the League nearly all that they had extorted in the Treaty
of Conflans. On the express invitation of the king they
appointed a commission to reform abuses in the
government--which commission "attempted little and effected
nothing"--and, then, having assisted the cunning king to
overcome his threatening nobles, the States-General were
dissolved, to meet no more while Louis XI. occupied the
throne. In a desperate situation he had used the dangerous
weapon against his enemies with effect; he was too prudent to
draw it from the sheath a second time.
Sir J. Stephen,
Lectures on the History of France,
lecture 11.
"The career of Louis XI. presents a curious problem. How could
a ruler whose morality fell below that of Jonathan Wild yet
achieve some of the greatest permanent results of patriotic
statesmanship, and be esteemed not only by himself but by so
calm an observer as Commines the model of kingly virtue? As to
Louis's moral character and principles, or want of principle,
not a doubt can be entertained. To say he committed the acts
of a villain is to fall far short of the truth. ... He
possessed a kind of religious belief, but it was a species of
religion which a respectable heathen would have scorned. He
attempted to bribe heaven, or rather the saints, just as he
attempted to win over his Swiss allies--that is, by gifts of
money. ... Yet this man, who was daunted by no cruelty, and
who could be bound by no oath save one, did work which all
statesmen must admire, and which French patriots must
fervently approve.
{1182}
He was the creator of modern France. When he came to the
throne it seemed more than likely that an utterly selfish and
treacherous nobility would tear the country in pieces. The
English still threatened to repeat the horrors of their
invasions. The House of Burgundy overbalanced the power of the
crown, and stimulated lawlessness throughout the whole
country. The peasantry were miserably oppressed, and the
middle classes could not prosper for want of that rule of law
which is the first requisite for civilization. When Louis
died, the existence of France and the power of the French
crown was secured: 'He had extended the frontiers of his
kingdom; Picardy, Provence, Burgundy, Anjou, Maine, Roussillon
had been compelled to acknowledge the immediate authority of
the crown.' He had crushed the feudal oligarchy; he had seen
his most dangerous enemy destroyed by the resistance of the
Swiss; he had baffled the attempt to construct a state which
would have imperilled the national existence of France; he had
put an end to all risk of English invasion; and he left France
the most powerful country in Europe. Her internal government
was no doubt oppressive, but, at any rate, it secured the rule
of law; and his schemes for her benefit were still unfinished.
He died regretting that he could not carry out his plans for
the reform of the law and for the protection of commerce; and,
in the opinion of Commines, if God had granted him the grace
of living five or six years more, he would greatly have
benefited his realm. He died commending his soul to the
intercession of the Virgin, and the last words caught from his
lips were: 'Lord, in thee have I trusted; let me never be
confounded.' Nor should this be taken as the expression of
hopeless self-delusion or gratuitous hypocrisy. In the opinion
of Commines, uttered after the king's death, 'he was more
wise, more liberal, and more virtuous in all things than any
contemporary sovereign.' The expressions of Commines were, it
may be said, but the echo of the low moral tone of the age.
This, no doubt, is true; but the fact that the age did not
condemn acts which, taken alone, seem to argue the utmost
depravity, still needs explanation. The matter is the more
worthy of consideration because Louis represents, though in an
exaggerated form, the vices and virtues of a special body of
rulers. He was the incarnation, so to speak, of kingcraft. The
word and the idea it represents have now become out of date,
but for about two centuries--say, roughly, from the middle of
the seventeenth century--the idea of a great king was that of
a monarch who ruled by means of cunning, intrigue, and
disregard of ordinary moral rules. We here come across the
fact which explains both the career and the reputation of
Louis and of others, such as Henry VII. of England, who were
masters of kingcraft. The universal feeling of the time,
shared by subjects no less than by rulers, was that a king was
not bound by the rules of morality, and especially by the
rules of honesty, which bind other men. Until you realize this
fact, nothing is more incomprehensible than the adulation
lavished by men such as Bacon or Casaubon on a ruler such as
James I. ... The real puzzle is to ascertain how this feeling
that kings were above the moral law came into existence. The
facts of history afford the necessary explanation. When the
modern European world was falling into shape the one thing
required for national prosperity was the growth of a power
which might check the disorders of the feudal nobility, and
secure for the mass of the people the blessings of an orderly
government. The only power which, in most cases, could achieve
this end, was the crown. In England the monarchs put an end to
the wars of the nobility. In France the growth of the monarchy
secured not only internal quiet, but protection from external
invasion. In these and in other cases the interest of the
crown and the interest of the people became for a time
identical. ... Acts which would have seemed villainous when
done to promote a purely private interest, became mere devices
of statesmanship when performed in the interest of the public.
The maxims that the king can do no wrong, and that the safety
of the people is the highest law, blended together in the
minds of ambitious rulers. The result was the production of
men like Louis XI."
A. V. Dicey,
Willert's Louis XI.
(The Nation, December 7, 1876).
"A careful examination of the reign of Louis the Eleventh has
particularly impressed upon me one fact, that the ends for
which he toiled and sinned throughout his whole life were
attained at last rather by circumstances than by his labours.
The supreme object of all his schemes was to crush that most
formidable of all his foes, Burgundy. And yet had Charles
confined his ambition within reasonable limits, had he
possessed an ordinary share of statecraft, and, above all,
could he have controlled those fiery passions, which drove him
to the verge of madness, he would have won the game quite
easily. Louis lacked one of the essential qualities of
statecraft--patience; and was wholly destitute of that
necessity of ambition--boldness. An irritable restlessness
was one of the salient points of his character. His courtiers
and attendants were ever intriguing to embroil him in war,
'because,' says Comines, 'the nature of the King was such,
that unless he was at war with some foreign prince, he would
certainly find some quarrel or other at home with his
servants, domestics, or officers, for his mind must be always
working.' His mood was ever changing, and he was by turns
confiding, suspicious, avaricious, prodigal, audacious, and
timid. He frequently nullified his most crafty schemes by
impatience for the result. He would sow the seed with the
utmost care, but he could not wait for the fructification. In
this he was false to the practice of those Italian statesmen
who were avowedly his models. It was this irritable
restlessness which brought down upon him the hatred of all
classes, from the noble to the serf; for we find him at one
time cunningly bidding for popularity, and immediately
afterwards destroying all he had gained by some rash and
inconsiderate act. His extreme timidity hampered the execution
of all his plans. He had not even the boldness of the coward
who will fight when all the strength is on his own side.
Constantly at war, during a reign of twenty-two years there
were fought but two battles, Montlehéry and Guingette, both of
which, strange to say, were undecided, and both of which were
fought against his will and counsel. ... He left France larger
by one-fourth than he had inherited it; but out of the five
provinces which he acquired, Provence was bequeathed him,
Roussillon was pawned to him by the usurping King of Navarre,
and Burgundy was won for him by the Swiss. His triumphs were
much more the result of fortune than the efforts of his own
genius."
Louis the Eleventh
(Temple Bar, volume 46, pages 523-524).
ALSO IN:
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 13.
P. F. Willert,
The Reign of Louis XI.
J. F. Kirk,
History of Charles the Bold,
book 1, chapters 4-6.
P. de Commines,
Memoirs,
book 1.
E. de Monstrelet,
Chronicles
(Johnes' translation),
book 3, chapters 99-153.
{1183}
FRANCE: A. D. 1467-1477.
The troubles of Louis XI. with Charles the Bold, of Burgundy.
Death of the Duke and Louis' acquisition of Burgundy.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467-1468, to 1477.
FRANCE: A. D. 1483.
The kingdom as left by Louis XI.
Louis XI., who died Aug. 30, A. D. 1483, "had joined to the
crown Berry, the apanage of his brother, Provence, the duchy
of Burgundy, Anjou, Maine, Ponthieu, the counties of Auxerre,
of Mâcon, Charolais, the Free County, Artois, Marche,
Armagnac, Cerdagne, and Roussilon. ... The seven latter
provinces did not yet remain irrevocably united with France:
one part was given anew in apanage, and the other part
restored to foreign sovereigns, and only returned one by one
to the crown of France. ... The principal work of Louis XI.
was the abasement of the second feudality, which had raised
itself on the ruins of the first, and which, without him,
would have replunged France into anarchy. The chiefs of that
feudality were, however, more formidable, since, for the most
part, they belonged to the blood royal of France. Their
powerful houses, which possessed at the accession of that
prince a considerable part of the kingdom, were those of
Orleans, Anjou, Burgundy, and Bourbon. They found themselves
much weakened at his death, and dispossessed in great part, as
we have seen in the history of the reign, by confiscations,
treaties, gifts or heritages. By the side of these houses,
which issued from that of France, there were others whose
power extended still, at this period, in the limits of France
proper, over vast domains. Those of Luxembourg and La Mark
possessed great wealth upon the frontier of the north; that of
Vaudemont had inherited Lorraine and the duchy of Bar; the
house of La Tour was powerful in Auvergne; in the south the
houses of Foix and Albert ruled, the first in the valley of
Ariége, the second between the Adour and the Pyrenees. In the
west the house of Brittany had guarded its independence; but
the moment approached when this beautiful province was to be
forever united with the crown. Lastly, two foreign sovereigns
held possessions in France; the Pope had Avignon and the
county Venaissin; and the Duke of Savoy possessed, between the
Rhone and the Saône, Bugey and Valromey. The time was still
distant when the royal authority would be seen freely
exercised through every territory comprised in the natural
limits of the kingdom. But Louis XI. did much to attain this
aim, and after him no princely or vassal house was powerful
enough to resist the crown by its own forces, and to put the
throne in peril."
E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 1, pages 315-318,
and foot-note.
FRANCE: A. D. 1483.
Accession of King Charles VIII.
FRANCE: A. D. 1485-1487.
The League of the Princes.
Charles VIII., son and successor of Louis XI., came to the
throne at the age of thirteen, on the death of his father in
1483. His eldest sister, Anne, married to the Lord of Beaujeu,
made herself practically regent of the kingdom, by sheer
ability and force of character; and ruled during the minority,
pursuing the lines of her father's policy. The princes of the
blood-royal, with the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon at their
head, formed a league against her. They were supported by many
nobles, including Philip de Commines, the Count of Dunois and
the Prince of Orange. They also received aid from the Duke of
Brittany, and from Maximilian of Austria, who now controlled
the Netherlands. Anne's general, La Trémouille, defeated the
league in a decisive battle (A. D. 1487) near St. Aubin du
Cormier, where the Duke of Orleans, the Prince of Orange, and
many nobles and knights were made prisoners. The Duke and the
Prince were sent to Anne, who shut them up in strong places,
while most of their companions were summarily executed.
E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 1, book 3, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
ch. 26.
FRANCE: A. D. 1491.
Brittany, the last of the great fiefs, united to the crown.
The end of the Feudal System.
See BRITTANY: A. D. 1491.
FRANCE: A. D. 1492-1515.
The reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII.
Their Italian Expeditions and Wars.
The effects on France.
Beginning of the Renaissance.
Louis XI. was succeeded by his son, Charles VIII., a boy of
thirteen years, whose elder sister Anne governed the kingdom
ably until he came of age. She dealt firmly with a rebellion
of the nobles and suppressed it. She frustrated an intended
marriage of Anne of Brittany with Maximilian of Austria, which
would have drawn the last of the great semi-independent fiefs
into a dangerous relationship, and she made Charles instead of
his rival the husband of the Breton heiress. When Charles, who
had little intelligence, assumed the government, he was
excited with dreams of making good the pretensions of the
Second House of Anjou to the Kingdom of Naples. Those
pretensions, which had been bequeathed to Louis XI., and which
Charles VIII. had now inherited, had the following origin: "In
the eleventh century, Robert Guiscard, of the Norman family of
Hauteville, at the head of a band of adventurers, took
possession of Sicily and South Italy, then in a state of
complete anarchy. Roger, the son of Robert, founded the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies under the Pope's suzerainty. In
1189 the Guiscard family became extinct, whereupon the German
Emperor laid claim to the kingdom in right of his wife
Constance, daughter of one of the Norman kings. The Roman
Pontiffs, dreading such powerful neighbours, were adverse to
the arrangement, and in 1254 King Conrad, being succeeded by
his son Conradin, still a minor, furnished a pretext for
bestowing the crown of the Two Sicilies on Charles d' Anjou,
brother of St. Louis. Manfred, guardian of the boy Conradin,
and a natural son of the Emperor Frederick II., raised an army
against Charles d' Anjou, but was defeated, and fell in the
encounter of 1266. Two years later, Prince Conradin was
cruelly beheaded in Naples. Before his death, however, he made
a will, by which he invested Peter III. of Aragon, son-in-law
of Manfred, with full power over the Two Sicilies, exhorting
him to avenge his death [see ITALY: A. D. 1250-1268].
{1184}
This bequest was the origin of the rivalry between the houses
of Aragon and Anjou, a rivalry which developed into open
antagonism when the island of Sicily was given up to Peter of
Aragon and his descendants, while Charles d' Anjou still held
Naples for himself and his heirs [see ITALY: A. D. 1282-1300].
In 1435 Joan II., Queen of Naples, bequeathed her estates to
Alfonso V. of Aragon, surnamed the Magnanimous, to the
exclusion of Louis III. of Anjou. After a long and bloody
struggle, Alfonso succeeded in driving the Anjou dynasty out
of Naples [see ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389, and 1386-1414]. Louis
III. was the last representative of this once-powerful family.
He returned to France, survived his defeat two-and-twenty
years, and by his will left all his rights to the Count of
Maine, his nephew, who, on his death, transferred them to
Louis XI. The wily Louis was not tempted to claim this
worthless legacy. His successor, Charles VIII., less
matter-of-fact, and more romantic, was beguiled into a series
of brilliant, though sterile, expeditions, disastrous to
national interests, neglecting the Flemish provinces, the
liege vassals of France, and thoroughly French at heart.
Charles VIII. put himself at the head of his nobles, made a
triumphal entry into Naples and returned without having gained
an inch of territory [see ITALY: A. D. 1492-1494, and 1494-1496].
De Commines judges the whole affair a mystery; it was,
in fact, one of those dazzling and chivalrous adventures with
which the French delighted to astonish Europe. Louis XII.,
like Charles VIII. [whom he succeeded in 1498], proclaimed his
right to Naples, and also to the Duchy of Milan, inherited
from his grandmother, Valentine de Visconti. These pretended
rights were more than doubtful. The Emperor Wenceslas, on
conferring the duchy on the Viscontis, excluded women from the
inheritance, and both Louis XI. and Charles VIII. recognised
the validity of the Salic law in Milan by concluding an
alliance with the Sforzas. The seventeen years of Louis XII.'s
reign was absorbed in these Italian wars, in which the French
invariably began by victory, and as invariably ended in
defeat. The League of Cambrai, the Battles of Agnadel,
Ravenna, Novara, the Treaties of Grenada and Blois, are the
principal episodes of this unlucky campaign."
C. Coignet,
Francis the First and His Times,
chapter 3.
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500.
"The warriors of France came back from Italy with the wonders
of the South on their lips and her treasures in their hands.
They brought with them books and paintings, they brought with
them armour inlaid with gold and silver, tapestries enriched
with precious metals, embroidered clothing, and even household
furniture. Distributed by many hands in many different places,
each precious thing became a separate centre of initiative
power. The châteaux of the country nobles boasted the
treasures which had fallen to the share of their lords at
Genoa or at Naples; and the great women of the court were
eager to divide the spoil. The contagion spread rapidly. Even
in the most fantastic moment of Gothic inspiration, the French
artist gave evidence that his right hand obeyed a national
instinct for order, for balance, for completeness, and that
his eye preferred, in obedience to a national predilection,
the most refined harmonies of colour. Step by step he had been
feeling his way; now, the broken link of tradition was again
made fast; the workmen of Paris and the workmen of Athens
joined hands, united by the genius of Italy. It must not,
however, be supposed that no intercourse had previously
existed between France and Italy. The roads by Narbonne and
Lyons were worn by many feet. The artists of Tours and
Poitiers, the artists of Paris and Dijon, were alike familiar
with the path to Rome. But an intercourse, hitherto
restricted, was rendered by the wars of Charles VIII. all but
universal. ... Cruelly as the Italians had suffered at the
hands of Charles VIII. they still looked to France for help;
they knew that though they had been injured they had not been
betrayed. But the weak and generous impulses of Charles VIII.
found no place in the councils of his successors. ... The doom
of Italy was pronounced. Substantially the compact was this.
Aided by Borgia, the French were to destroy the free cities of
the north, and in return France was to aid Borgia in breaking
the power of the independent nobles who yet resisted Papal
aggression in the south. In July 1499 the work began. At first
the Italians failed to realise what had taken place. When the
French army entered the Milanese territory the inhabitants
fraternised with the troops, Milan, Genoa, Pavia opened their
gates with joy. But in a few months the course of events, in
the south, aroused a dread anxiety. There, Borgia, under the
protection of the French king, and with the assistance of the
French arms, was triumphantly glutting his brutal rage and
lust, whilst Frenchmen were forced to look on helpless and
indignant. Milan, justly terrified, made an attempt to throw
herself on the mercy of her old ruler. To no purpose. Louis
went back over the Alps, leaving a strong hand and a strong
garrison in Milan, and dragging with him the unfortunate Louis
Sforza, a miserable proof of the final destruction of the most
brilliant court of Upper Italy. ... By the campaign of 1507,
the work, thus begun, was consummated. The ancient spirit of
independence still lingered in Genoa, and Venice was not yet
crushed. There were still fresh laurels to be won. In this
Holy War the Pope and the Emperor willingly joined forces with
France. ... The deathblow was first given to Genoa. She was
forced, Marot tells us, 'la corde au coul, la glaive sous la
gorge, implorer la clémence de ce prince.' Venice was next
traitorously surprised and irreparably injured. Having thus
brilliantly achieved the task of first destroying the lettered
courts, and next the free cities of Italy, Louis died,
bequeathing to François I. the shame of fighting out a
hopeless struggle for supremacy against allies who, no longer
needing help, had combined to drive the French from the field.
There was, indeed, one other duty to be performed. The
shattered remains of Italian civilisation might be collected,
and Paris might receive the men whom Italy could no longer
employ. The French returned to France empty of honour, gorged
with plunder, satiated with rape and rapine, boasting of
cities sacked, and garrisons put to the sword. They had sucked
the lifeblood of Italy, but her death brought new life to
France. The impetus thus acquired by art and letters coincided
with a change in political and social constitutions. The
gradual process of centralisation which had begun with Louis
XI. transformed the life of the whole nation. ... The royal
court began to take proportions hitherto unknown.
{1185}
It gradually became a centre which gathered together the rich,
the learned, and the skilled. Artists, who had previously been
limited in training, isolated in life, and narrowed in
activity by the rigid conservative action of the great guilds
and corporations, were thus brought into immediate contact
with the best culture of their day. For the Humanists did not
form a class apart, and their example incited those with whom
they lived to effort after attainments as varied as their own,
whilst the Court made a rallying point for all, which gave a
sense of countenance and protection even to those who might
never hope to enter it. ... Emancipation of the individual is
the watchword of the sixteenth century; to the artist it
brought relief from the trammels of a caste thraldom, and the
ceaseless efforts of the Humanists find an answer even in the
new forms seen slowly breaking through the sheath of Gothic
art."
Mrs. Mark Pattison,
The Renaissance of Art in France,
volume 1, chapter 1.
FRANCE: 16th Century.
Renaissance and Reformation.
"The first point of difference to be noted between the
Renaissance in France and the Renaissance in Italy is one of
time. Roughly speaking it may be said that France was a
hundred years behind Italy. ... But if the French Renaissance
was a later and less rapid growth, it was infinitely hardier.
The Renaissance literature in Italy was succeeded by a long
period of darkness, which remained unbroken, save by fitful
gleams of light, till the days of Alfieri. The Renaissance
literature in France was the prelude to a literature, which,
for vigour, variety, and average excellence, has in modern
times rarely, if ever, been surpassed. The reason for this
superiority on the part of France, for the fact that the
Renaissance produced there more abiding and more far-reaching
results, may be ascribed partly to the natural law that
precocious and rapid growths are always less hardy than later
and more gradual ones, partly to the character of the French
nation, to its being at once more intellectual and less
imaginative than the Italian, and therefore more influenced by
the spirit of free inquiry than by the worship of beauty;
partly to the greater unity and vitality of its political
life, but in a large measure to the fact that in France the
Renaissance came hand in hand with the Reformation. ... We
must look upon the Reformation as but a fresh development of
the Renaissance movement, as the result of the spirit of free
inquiry carried into theology, as a revolt against the
authority of the Roman Church. Now the Renaissance in Italy
preceded the Reformation by more than a century. There is no
trace in it of any desire to criticise the received theology.
... In France on the other hand the new learning and the new
religion, Greek and heresy, became almost controvertible
terms. Lefèvre d' Étaples, the doyen of French humanists,
translated the New Testament into French in 1524: the
Estiennes, the Hebrew scholar François Vatable, Turnèbe,
Ramus, the great surgeon Ambroise Paré, the artists Bernard
Palissy and Jean Goujon were all avowed protestants; while
Clement Marot, Budé, and above all Rabelais, for a time at
least, looked on the reformation with more or less favour. In
fact so long as the movement appeared to them merely as a
revolt against the narrowness and illiberality of monastic
theology, as an assertion of the freedom of the human
intellect, the men of letters and culture with hardly an
exception joined hands with the reformers. It was only when
they found that it implied a moral as well as an intellectual
regeneration, that it began to wear for some of them a less
congenial aspect. This close connexion between the Reformation
and the revival of learning was, on the whole, a great gain to
France. It was not as in Germany, where the stronger growth of
the Reformation completely choked the other. In France they
met on almost equal terms, and the result was that the whole
movement was thereby strengthened and elevated both
intellectually and morally. ... French humanism can boast of a
long roll of names honourable not only for their high
attainments, but also for their integrity and purity of life.
Robert Estienne, Turnèbe, Ramus, Cujas, the Chancellor de
l'Hôpital, Estienne Pasquier, Thou, are men whom any country
would be proud to claim for her sons. And as with the
humanists, so it was with the Renaissance generally in France.
On the whole it was a manly and intelligent movement. ... The
literature of the French Renaissance, though in point of form
it is far below that of the Italian Renaissance, in manliness
and vigour and hopefulness is far superior to it. It is in
short a literature, not of maturity, but of promise. One has
only to compare its greatest name, Rabelais, with the greatest
name of the Italian Renaissance, Ariosto, to see the
difference. How formless! how crude! how gross! how full of
cumbersome details and wearisome repetitions is Rabelais! How
limpid! how harmonious is Ariosto! what perfection of style,
what delicacy of touch! He never wearies us, he never offends
our taste. And yet one rises from the reading of Rabelais with
a feeling of buoyant cheerfulness, while Ariosto in spite of
his wit and gaiety is inexpressibly depressing. The reason is
that the one bids us hope, the other bids us despair; the one
believes in truth and goodness and in the future of the human
race, the other believes in nothing but the pleasures of the
senses, which come and go like many-coloured bubbles and leave
behind them a boundless ennui. Rabelais and Ariosto are true
types of the Renaissance as it appeared in their respective
countries."
A. Tilley,
The Literature of the French Renaissance,
chapter 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1501-1504.
Treaty of Louis XII. with Ferdinand of Aragon for the
partition of Naples.
French and Spanish conquest.
Quarrel of the confederates, and war.
The Spaniards in possession of the Neapolitan domain.
See ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504.
FRANCE: A. D. 1504.
Norman and Breton fishermen on the Newfoundland banks.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.
FRANCE: A. D. 1504-1506.
The treaties of Blois, with Ferdinand and Maximilian, and the
abrogation of them.
Relinquishment of claims on Naples.
See ITALY: A. D. 1504-1506.
FRANCE: A. D. 1507.
Revolt and subjugation of Genoa.
See GENOA: A. D. 1500-1507.
FRANCE: A. D. 1508-1509.
The League of Cambrai against Venice.
See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.
FRANCE: A. D. 1510-1513.
The breaking up of the League of Cambrai.
The Holy League formed by Pope Julius II. against Louis XII.
The French expelled from Milan and all Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.
{1186}
FRANCE: A. D. 1513-1515.
English invasion under Henry VIII.
The Battle of the Spurs.
Marriage of Louis XII. with Mary of England.
The King's death.
Accession of Francis I.
"The long preparations of Henry VIII. of England for the
invasion of France [in pursuance of the 'Holy League' against
Louis XII., formed by Pope Julius II. and renewed by Leo
X.,--see ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513] being completed, that king,
in the summer of 1513, landed at Calais, whither a great part
of his army had already been transported. The offer of 100,000
golden crowns easily persuaded the Emperor to promise his
assistance, at the head of a body of Swiss and Germans. But at
the moment Henry was about to penetrate into France, he
received the excuses of Maximilian, who, notwithstanding a
large advance received from England, found himself unable to
levy the promised succours. Nothing disheartened by this
breach of faith, the King of England had already advanced into
Artois; when the Emperor, attended by a few German nobles,
appeared in the English camp, and was cordially welcomed by
Henry, who duly appreciated his military skill and local
knowledge. A valuable accession of strength was also obtained
by the junction of a large body of Swiss, who, encouraged by
the victory of Novara, had already crossed the Jura, and now
marched to the seat of war. The poverty of the Emperor
degraded him to the rank of a mercenary of England; and Henry
consented to grant him the daily allowance of 100 crowns for
his table. But humiliating as this compact was to Maximilian,
the King of England reaped great benefit from his presence. A
promiscuous multitude of Germans had flocked to the English
camp, in hopes of partaking in the spoil; and the arrival of
their valiant Emperor excited a burst of enthusiasm. The siege
of Terouenne was formed: but the bravery of the besieged
baffled the efforts of the allies; and a month elapsed, during
which the English sustained severe loss from frequent and
successful sorties. By the advice of the Emperor, Henry
resolved to risk a battle with the French, and the plain of
Guinegate was once more the field of conflict [August 18,
1513]. This spot, where Maximilian had formerly struck terror
into the legions of Louis XI., now became the scene of a rapid
and undisputed victory. The French were surprised by the
allies, and gave way to a sudden panic; and the shameful
flight of the cavalry abandoned the bravest of their leaders
to the hands of their enemies. The Duke of Longueville, La
Palisse, Imbercourt, and the renowned Chevalier Bayard, were
made prisoners; and the ridicule of the conquerors
commemorated the inglorious flight by designating the rout as
the Battle of the Spurs. The capture of Terouenne immediately
followed; and the fall of Tournay soon afterwards opened a
splendid prospect to the King of England. Meanwhile the safety
of France was threatened in another quarter. A large body of
Swiss, levied in the name of Maximilian but paid with the gold
of the Pope, burst into Burgundy; and Dijon was with difficulty
saved from capture. From this danger, however, France was
extricated by the dexterous negotiation of Trémouille; and the
Swiss were induced to withdraw. ... Louis now became seriously
desirous of peace. He made overtures to the Pope, and was
received into favour upon consenting to renounce the Council
of Pisa. He conciliated the Kings of Aragon and England by
proposals of marriage; he offered his second daughter Renée to
the young Charles of Spain; and his second Queen, Anne of
Bretainy, being now dead, he proposed to unite himself with
Mary of England, the favourite sister of Henry. ... But though
peace was made upon this footing, the former of the projected
marriages never took place: the latter; however, was
magnificently solemnized, and proved fatal to Louis. The
amorous King forgot his advanced age in the arms of his young
and beautiful bride; his constitution gave way under the
protracted festivities consequent on his nuptials; and on the
1st of January, 1515, Louis XII. was snatched from his adoring
people, in his 53d year. He was succeeded by his kinsman and
son-in-law, Francis, Count of Angoulême, who stood next in
hereditary succession, and was reputed one of the most
accomplished princes that ever mounted the throne of France."
Sir R. Comyn,
History of the Western Empire,
chapter 38 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
J. S. Brewer,
The Reign of Henry VIII.,
chapter 1.
L. von Ranke,
History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations
from 1494 to 1514,
book 2, chapter 4, sections 7-8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1515.
Accession of Francis I.
His invasion of Italy.
The Battle of Marignano.
"François I. was in his 21st year when he ascended the throne
of France. His education in all manly accomplishments was
perfect, and ... he manifested ... an intelligence which had
been carefully cultivated. ... Unfortunately his moral
qualities had been profoundly corrupted by the example of his
mother, Louise of Savoy, a clever and ambitious woman, but
selfish, unscrupulous, and above all shamelessly licentious.
Louise had been an object of jealousy to Anne of Britany, who
had always kept her in the shade, and she now snatched eagerly
at the prospect of enjoying power and perhaps of reigning in
the name of her son, whose love for his mother led him to
allow her to exercise an influence which was often fatal to
the interests of his kingdom. ... Charles duke of Bourbon, who
was notoriously the favoured lover of Louise, was appointed to
the office of constable, which had remained vacant since 1488;
and one of her favourite ministers, Antoine Duprat, first
president of the parliament of Paris, was entrusted with the
seals. Both were men of great capacity; but the first was
remarkable for his pride, and the latter for his moral
depravity. The first cares of the new king of France were to
prepare for war. ... Unfortunately for his country, François
I. shared in the infatuation which had dragged his
predecessors into the wars in Italy; and all these warlike
preparations were designed for the reconquest of Milan. He had
already intimated his design by assuming at his coronation the
titles of king of France and duke of Milan. ... He entered
into an alliance with Charles of Austria, prince of Castile,
who had now reached his majority and assumed the government of
the Netherlands. ... A treaty between these two princes,
concluded on the 24th of March, 1515, guaranteed to each party
not only the estates they held or which might subsequently
descend to them, but even their conquests. ... The republic of
Venice and the king of England renewed the alliances into
which they had entered with the late king, but Ferdinand of
Aragon refused even to prolong the truce unless the whole of
Italy were included in it, and he entered into a separate
alliance with the emperor, the duke of Milan, and the Swiss,
to oppose the designs of the French king.
{1187}
The efforts of François I. to gain over the Swiss had been
defeated by the influence of the cardinal of Sion. Yet the
pope, Leo X., hesitated, and avoided compromising himself with
either party. In the course of the month of July [1515], the
most formidable army which had yet been led from France into
Italy was assembled in the district between Grenoble and
Embrun, and the king, after entrusting the regency to his
mother, Louise, with unlimited powers, proceeded to place
himself at its head."
T. Wright,
History of France,
book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).
"The passes in Italy had already been occupied by the Swiss
under their captain general Galeazzo Visconti. Galeazzo makes
their number not more than 6,000. ... They were posted at
Susa, commanding the two roads from Mont Cenis and Geneva, by
one of which the French must pass or abandon their artillery.
In this perplexity it was proposed by Triulcio to force a
lower passage across the Cottian Alps leading to Saluzzo. The
attempt was attended with almost insurmountable difficulties.
... But the French troops with wonderful spirits and alacrity
... were not to be baffled. They dropped their artillery by
cables from steep to steep; down one range of mountains and up
another, until five days had been spent in this perilous
enterprise, and they found themselves safe in the plains of
Saluzzo. Happily the Swiss, secure in their position at Susa,
had never dreamed of the possibility of such a passage. ...
Prosper Colonna, who commanded in Italy for the Pope, was
sitting down to his comfortable dinner at Villa Franca, when a
scout covered with dust dashed into his apartment announcing
that the French had crossed the Alps. The next minute the town
was filled with the advanced guard, under the Sieur
d'Ymbercourt and the celebrated Bayard. The Swiss at Susa had
still the advantage of position, and might have hindered the
passage of the main body of the French; but they had no horse
to transport their artillery, were badly led, and evidently
divided in their councils. They retired upon Novara," and to
Milan, intending to effect a junction with the viceroy of
Naples, who advanced to Cremona. On the morning of the 13th of
September, Cardinal Scheimer harangued the Swiss and urged
them to attack the French in their camp, which was at
Marignano, or Melignano, twelve miles away. His fatal advice
was acted on with excitement and haste. "The day was hot and
dusty. The advanced guard of the French was under the command
of the Constable of Bourbon, whose vigilance defeated any
advantage the Swiss might otherwise have gained by the
suddenness and rapidity of their movements. At nine o'clock in
the morning, as Bourbon was sitting down at table, a scout,
dripping with water, made his appearance. He had left Milan
only a few hours before, had waded the canals, and came to
announce the approach of the enemy. ... The Swiss came on
apace; they had disencumbered themselves of their hats and
caps, and thrown off their shoes, the better to fight without
slipping. They made a dash at the French artillery, and were
foiled after hard fighting. ... It was an autumnal afternoon;
the sun had gone down; dust and night-fall separated and
confused the combatants. The French trumpets sounded a
retreat; both, armies crouched down in the darkness within
cast of a tennis-ball of each other. ... Where they fought,
there each man laid down to rest when darkness came on, within
hand-grip of his foe." The next morning, "the autumnal mist
crawled slowly away, and once more exposed the combatants to
each other's view. The advantage of the ground was on the side
of the French. They were drawn up in a valley protected by a
ditch full of water. Though the Swiss had taken no refreshment
that night, they renewed the fight with unimpaired animosity
and vigour. ... Francis, surrounded by a body of mounted
gentlemen, performed prodigies of valour. The night had given
him opportunity for the better arrangement of his troops; and
as the day wore on, and the sun grew hot, the Swiss, though
'marvellously deliberate, brave, and obstinate,' began to give
way. The arrival of the Venetian general, D'Alviano, with
fresh troops, made the French victory complete. But the Swiss
retreated inch by inch with the greatest deliberation,
carrying off their great guns on their shoulders. ... The
French were too exhausted to follow. And their victory had
cost them dear; for the Swiss, with peculiar hatred to the
French gentry and the lance-knights, had shown no mercy. They
spared none, and made no prisoners. The glory of the battle
was great. ... The Swiss, the best troops in Europe, and
hitherto reckoned invincible ... had been the terror and
scourge of Italy, equally formidable to friend and foe, and
now their prestige was extinguished. But it was not in these
merely military aspects that the battle of Marignano was
important. No one who reads the French chronicles of the
times, can fail to perceive that it was a battle of opinions
and of classes even more than of nations; of a fierce and
rising democratical element, now rolled back for a short
season, only to display itself in another form against royalty
and nobility;--of the burgher classes against feudality. ... The
old romantic element, overlaid for a time by the political
convulsions of the last century, had once more gained the
ascendant. It was to blaze forth and revive, before it died
out entirely, in the Sydneys and Raleighs of Queen Elizabeth's
reign; it was to lighten up the glorious imagination of
Spenser before it faded into the dull prose of Puritan
divinity, and the cold grey dawn of inductive philosophy. But
its last great battle was the battle of Marignano."
J. S. Brewer,
The Reign of Henry VIII.,
volume 1, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
Miss Pardoe,
Court and Reign of Francis I.,
volume 1, chapters 6-7.
L. Larchey,
History of Bayard,
book 3, chapters 1-2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1515-1518.
Francis I. in possession of Milan.
His treaties with the Swiss and the Pope.
Nullification of the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII.
The Concordat of Bologna.
"On the 15th of September, the day after the battle [of
Marignano], the Swiss took the road back to their mountains.
Francis I. entered Milan in triumph. Maximilian Sforza took
refuge in the castle, and twenty days afterwards on the 4th of
October, surrendered, consenting to retire to France, with a
pension of 30,000 crowns, and the promise of being recommended
for a cardinal's hat, and almost consoled for his downfall 'by
the pleasure of being delivered from the insolence of the
Swiss, the exactions of the Emperor Maximilian, and the
rascalities of the Spaniards.' Fifteen years afterwards, in
June, 1530, he died in oblivion at Paris.
{1188}
Francis I. regained possession of all Milaness, adding
thereto, with the pope's consent, the duchies of Parma and
Piacenza, which had been detached from it. ... Two treaties,
one of November 7, 1515, and the other of November 29, 1516,
re-established not only peace, but perpetual alliance, between
the King of France and the thirteen Swiss Cantons, with
stipulated conditions in detail. Whilst these negotiations
were in progress, Francis I. and Leo X., by a treaty published
at Viterbo, on the 13th of October, proclaimed their hearty
reconciliation. The pope guaranteed to Francis I. the duchy of
Milan, restored to him those of Parma and Piacenza, and
recalled his troops which were still serving against the
Venetians." At the same time, arrangements were made for a
personal meeting of the pope and the French king, which took
place at Bologna in December, 1515. "Francis did not attempt
to hide his design of reconquering the kingdom of Naples,
which Ferdinand the Catholic had wrongfully usurped, and he
demanded the pope's countenance. The pope did not care to
refuse, but he pointed out to the king that everything
foretold the very near death of King Ferdinand; and 'Your
Majesty,' said he, 'will then have a natural opportunity for
claiming your rights; and as for me, free, as I shall then be,
from my engagements with the King of Arragon in respect of the
crown of Naples, I shall find it easier to respond to your
majesty's wish.' The pope merely wanted to gain time. Francis,
putting aside for the moment the kingdom of Naples, spoke of
Charles VII.'s Pragmatic Sanction [see above: A. D. 1438], and
the necessity of putting an end to the difficulties which had
arisen on this subject between the court of Rome and the Kings
of France, his predecessors. 'As to that,' said the pope, 'I
could not grant what your predecessors demanded; but be not
uneasy; I have a compensation to propose to you which will
prove to you how dear your interests are to me.' The two
sovereigns had, without doubt, already come to an
understanding on this point, when, after a three days'
interview with Leo X., Francis I. returned to Milan, leaving
at Bologna, for the purpose of treating in detail the affair
of the Pragmatic Sanction, his chancellor, Duprat, who had
accompanied him during all this campaign as his adviser and
negotiator. ... The popes ... had all of them protested since
the days of Charles VII. against the Pragmatic Sanction as an
attack upon their rights, and had demanded its abolition. In
1461, Louis XI. ... had yielded for a moment to the demand of
Pope Pius II., whose countenance he desired to gain, and had
abrogated the Pragmatic; but, not having obtained what he
wanted thereby, and having met with strong opposition in the
Parliament of Paris to his concession, he had let it drop
without formally retracting it. ... This important edict,
then, was still vigorous in 1515, when Francis I., after his
victory at Melegnano and his reconciliation with the pope,
left Chancellor Duprat at Bologna to pursue the negotiation
reopened on that subject. The 'compensation,' of which Leo X.,
on redemanding the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction, had
given a peep to Francis I., could not fail to have charms for
a prince so little scrupulous, and for his still less
scrupulous chancellor. The pope proposed that the Pragmatic,
once for all abolished, should be replaced by a Concordat
between the two sovereigns, and that this Concordat, whilst
putting a stop to the election of the clergy by the faithful,
should transfer to the king the right of nomination to
bishoprics and other great ecclesiastical offices and
benefices, reserving to the pope the right of presentation of
prelates nominated by the king. This, considering the
condition of society and government in the 16th century, in
the absence of political and religious liberty, was to take
away from the church her own existence, and divide her between
two masters, without giving her, as regarded either of them,
any other guarantee of independence than the mere chance of
their dissensions and quarrels. ... Francis I. and his
chancellor saw in the proposed Concordat nothing but the great
increment of influence it secured to them, by making all the
dignitaries of the church suppliants at first and then clients
of the kingship. After some difficulties as to points of
detail, the Concordat was concluded and signed on the 18th of
August, 1516. Five months afterwards, on the 5th of February,
1517, the king repaired in person to Parliament, to which he
had summoned many prelates and doctors of the University. The
Chancellor explained the points of the Concordat. ... The king
ordered its registration, 'for the good of his kingdom and for
quittance of the promise he had given the pope.'" For more
than a year the Parliament of Paris resisted the royal order,
and it was not until the 22d of March, 1518, that it yielded
to the king's threats and proceeded to registration of the
Concordat, with forms and reservations "which were evidence of
compulsion. The other Parliaments of France followed with more
or less zeal ... the example shown by that of Paris. The
University was heartily disposed to push resistance farther
than had been done by Parliament."
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 28 (volume 4).
"The execution of the Concordat was vigorously contested for
years afterwards. Cathedrals and monastic chapters proceeded
to elect bishops and abbots under the provisions of the
Pragmatic Sanction; and every such case became a fresh source
of exasperation between the contending powers. ... But the
Parliament, though clamouring loudly for the 'Gallican
liberties,' and making a gallant stand for national
independence as against the usurpations of Rome, was unable to
maintain its ground against the overpowering despotism of the
Crown. The monarchical authority ultimately achieved a
complete triumph. In 1527 a peremptory royal ordinance
prohibited the courts of Parliament from taking further
cognisance of causes affecting elections to consistorial
benefices and conventual priories; and all such matters were
transferred to the sole jurisdiction of the Council of State.
After this the agitation against the Concordat gradually
subsided. But although, in virtue of its compulsory
registration by the Parliament, the Concordat became part of
the law of the land, it is certain that the Gallican Church
never accepted this flagrant invasion of its liberties."
W. H. Jervis,
History of the Church of France,
volume 1, pages 109-110.
{1189}
FRANCE: A. D. 1515-1547.
The institution of the Court.
Its baneful influence.
"Francis I. instituted the Court, and this had a decisive
influence upon the manners of the nobility. Those lords, whose
respect royalty had difficulty in keeping when they were at
their castles, having come to court, prostrated themselves
before the throne, and yielded obedience with their whole
hearts. A few words will describe this Court. The king lodged
and fed in his own large palace, which was fitted for the
purpose, the flower of the French nobility. Some of these
lords were in his service, under the title of officers of his
household--as chamberlains, purveyors, equerries, &c. Large
numbers of domestic offices were created solely as an excuse
for their presence. Others lived there, without duties, simply
as guests. All these, besides lodging and food, had often a
pension as well. A third class were given only a lodging, and
provided their own table; but all were amused and entertained
with various pleasures, at the expense of the king. Balls,
carousals, stately ceremonials, grand dinners, theatricals,
conversations inspired by the presence of fair women, constant
intercourse of all kinds, where each could choose for himself,
and where the refined and literary found a place as well as
the vain and profligate,--such was court life, a truly
different thing from the monotonous and brutal existence of
the feudal lord at his castle in the depths of his province.
So, from all sides, nobles flocked to court, to gratify both
the most refined tastes and the most degraded passions. Some
came hoping to make their fortune, a word from the king
sufficing to enrich a man; others came to gain a rank in the
army, a lucrative post in the finance department, an abbey, or
a bishopric. From the time kings held court, it became almost
a law, that nothing should be granted to a nobleman who lived
beyond its pale. Those lords who persisted in staying on their
own estates were supposed to rail against the administration, or,
as we of the present would express it, to be in opposition.
'They must indeed be men of gross minds who are not tempted by
the polish of the court; at all events it is very insolent in
them to show so little wish to see their sovereign, and enjoy
the honor of living under his roof.' Such was almost precisely
the opinion of the king in regard to the provincial nobility.
... Ambition drew the nobles to court; ambition, society, and
dissipation kept them there. To incur the displeasure of their
master, and be exiled from court was, first, to lose all hope
of advancement, and then to fall from paradise into purgatory.
It killed some people. But life was much more expensive at
court than in the castles. As in all society where each is
constantly in the presence of his neighbor, there was
unbounded rivalry as to who should be most brilliant, most
superb. The old revenues did not suffice, while, at the same
time, the inevitable result of the absence of the lords was to
decrease them. Whilst the expenses of the noblemen at Chambord
or Versailles were steadily on the increase, his intendant,
alone and unrestrained upon the estate, filled his own
pockets, and sent less money every quarter, so that, to keep
up the proper rank, the lord was forced to beg a pension from
the king. Low indeed was the downfall of the old pride and
feudal independence! The question was how to obtain these
pensions, ranks, offices, and favors of all kinds. The virtues
most prized and rewarded by the kings were not civic
virtues,--capacity, and services of value for the public
good; what pleased them was, naturally, devotion to their
person, blind obedience, flattery, and subservience."
P. Lacombe,
A Short History of the French People,
chapter 23.
FRANCE: A. D. 1516-1517.
Maximilian's attempt against Milan.
Diplomatic intrigues.
The Treaty of Noyon.
After Francis I. had taken possession of Milan, and while Pope
Leo X. was making professions of friendship to him at Bologna,
a scheme took shape among the French king's enemies for
depriving him of his conquest, and the pope was privy to it.
"Henry VIII. would not openly break the peace between England
and France, but he offered to supply Maximilian with Swiss
troops for an attack upon Milan. It was useless to send money
to Maximilian, who would have spent it on himself"; but troops
were hired for the emperor by the English agent, Pace, and "at
the beginning of March [1516] the joint army of Maximilian and
the Swiss assembled at Trent. On March 24 they were within a
few miles of Milan, and their success seemed sure, when
suddenly Maximilian found that his resources were exhausted
and refused to proceed; next day he withdrew his troops and
abandoned his allies. ... The expedition was a total failure;
yet English gold had not been spent in vain, as the Swiss were
prevented from entirely joining the French, and Francis I. was
reminded that his position in Italy was by no means secure.
Leo X., meanwhile, in the words of Pace, 'had played
marvellously with both hands in this enterprise.' ... England
was now the chief opponent of the ambitious schemes of France,
and aimed at bringing about a league with Maximilian, Charles
[who had just succeeded Ferdinand of Spain, deceased January
23, 1516], the Pope, and the Swiss. But Charles's ministers,
chief of whom was Croy, lord of Chievres, had a care above all
for the interests of Flanders, and so were greatly under the
influence of France. ... France and England entered into a
diplomatic warfare over the alliance with Charles. First,
England on April 19 recognised Charles as King of Spain,
Navarre, and the Two Sicilies; then Wolsey strove to make
peace between Venice and Maximilian as a first step towards
detaching Venice from its French alliance." On the other hand,
negotiations were secretly carried on and (August 13) "the
treaty of Noyon was concluded between Francis I. and Charles.
Charles was to marry Louise, the daughter of Francis I., an
infant of one year old, and receive as her dower the French
claims on Naples; Venice was to pay Maximilian 200,000 ducats
for Brescia and Verona; in case he refused this offer and
continued the war, Charles was at liberty to help his
grandfather, and Francis I. to help the Venetians, without any
breach of the peace now made between them. ... In spite of the
efforts of England, Francis I. was everywhere successful in
settling his difficulties. On November 29 a perpetual peace
was made at Friburg between France and the Swiss Cantons; on
December 3 the treaty of Noyon was renewed, and Maximilian was
included in its provisions. Peace was made between him and
Venice by the provision that Maximilian was to hand over
Verona to Charles, who in turn should give it up to the King
of France, who delivered it to the Venetians; Maximilian in
return received 100,000 ducats from Venice and as much from
France. The compact was duly carried out: 'On February 8,
1517,' wrote the Cardinal of Sion, 'Verona belonged to the
Emperor; on the 9th to the King Catholic; on the 15th to the
French; on the 17th to the Venetians.' Such was the end of the
wars that had arisen from the League of Cambrai. After a struggle
of eight years the powers that had confederated to destroy
Venice came together to restore her to her former place.
Venice might well exult in this reward of her long constancy,
her sacrifices and her disasters."
M. Creighton,
History of the Papacy, during the Period
of the Reformation,
book 5, chapter 19 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
J. S. Brewer,
The Reign of Henry VIII.,
chapters 4-6 (volume 1).
{1190}
FRANCE: A. D. 1519.
Candidacy of Francis I. for Imperial crown.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1519.
FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523.
Rivalry of Francis I. and Charles V.
The Emperor's successes in Italy and Navarre.
Milan again taken from France.
The wrongs and the treason of the Constable of Bourbon.
"With their candidature for the Imperial crown, burst forth
the inextinguishable rivalry between Francis I. and Charles V.
The former claimed Naples for himself and Navarre for Henry
d'Albret: the Emperor demanded the Milanese as a fief of the
Empire, and the Duchy of Burgundy. Their resources were about
equal. If the empire of Charles were more extensive the
kingdom of France was more compact. The Emperor's subjects
were richer, but his authority more circumscribed. The
reputation of the French cavalry was not inferior to that of
the Spanish infantry. Victory would belong to the one who
should win over the King of England to his side. ... Both gave
pensions to his Prime Minister, Cardinal Wolsey; they each asked
the hand of his daughter Mary, one for the dauphin, the other
for himself. Francis I. obtained from him an interview at
Calais, and forgetting that he wished to gain his favour,
eclipsed him by his elegance and magnificence [see FIELD OF
THE CLOTH OF GOLD]. Charles V., more adroit, had anticipated
this interview by visiting Henry VIII. in England. He had
secured Wolsey by giving him hopes of the tiara. ...
Everything succeeded with the Emperor. He gained Leo X. to his
side and thus obtained sufficient influence to raise his
tutor, Adrian of Utrecht, to the papacy [on the death of Leo,
Dec. 1, 1521]. The French penetrated into Spain, but arrived
too late to aid the rising there [in Navarre, 1521]. The
governor of the Milanese, Lautrec, who is said to have exiled
from Milan nearly half its inhabitants, was driven out of
Lombardy [and the Pope retook Parma and Placentia]. He met
with the same fate again in the following year: the Swiss, who
were ill-paid, asked either for dismissal or battle, and allowed
themselves to be beaten at La Bicoque [April 29, 1522]. The
money intended for the troops had been used for other purposes
by the Queen-mother, who hated Lautrec. At the moment when
Francis I. was thinking of re-entering Italy, an internal
enemy threw France into the utmost danger. Francis had given
mortal offence to the Constable of Bourbon, one of those who
had most contributed to the victory of Marignan. Charles,
Count of Montpensier and Dauphin of Auvergne, held by virtue
of his wife, a granddaughter of Louis XI., the Duchy of
Bourbon, and the counties of Clermont, La Marche and other
domains, which made him the first noble in the kingdom. On the
death of his wife, the Queen-mother, Louise of Savoy, who had
wanted to marry the Constable and had been refused by him,
resolved to ruin him. She disputed with him this rich
inheritance and obtained from her son that the property should
be provisionally sequestered. Bourbon, exasperated, resolved
to pass over to the Emperor (1523). Half a century earlier,
revolt did not mean disloyalty. The most accomplished knights
in France, Dunois and John of Calabria, had joined the 'League
for the public weal.' ... But now it was no question of a
revolt against the king; such a thing was impossible in France
at this time. It was a conspiracy against the very existence
of France that Bourbon was plotting with foreigners. He
promised Charles V. to attack Burgundy as soon as Francis I.
had crossed the Alps, and to rouse into revolt five provinces
of which he believed himself master; the kingdom of Provence
was to be re-established in his favour, and France,
partitioned between Spain and England, would have ceased to
exist as a nation. He was soon able to enjoy the reverses of
his country."
J. Michelet,
Summary of Modern History,
chapter 6.
"Henry VIII. and Charles V. were both ready to secure the
services of the ex-Constable. He decided in favour of Charles
as the more powerful of the two. ... These secret negotiations
were carried on in the spring of 1523, while Francis I.
(having sent a sufficient force to protect his northern
frontier) was preparing to make Italy the seat of war. With
this object the king ordered a rendezvous of the army at
Lyons, in the beginning of September, and having arranged to
pass through Moulins on his way to join the forces, called
upon the Constable to meet him there and to proceed with him
to Lyons. Already vague rumours of an understanding between
the Emperor and Bourbon had reached Francis, who gave no
credence to them; but on his way M. de Brézé, Seneschal of
Normandy, attached to the Court of Louise of Savoy, sent such
precise details of the affair by two Norman gentlemen in the
Constable's service that doubt was no longer possible."
Francis accordingly entered Moulins with a considerable force,
and went straight to Bourbon, who feigned illness. The
Constable stoutly denied to the king all the charges which the
latter revealed to him, and Francis, who was strongly urged to
order his arrest, refused to do so. But a few days later, when
the king had gone forward to Lyons, Bourbon, pretending to
follow him, rode away to his strong castle of Chantelles, from
whence he wrote letters demanding the restitution of his
estates. As soon as his flight was known, Francis sent forces
to seize him; but the Constable, taking one companion with
him, made his way out of the kingdom in disguise. Escaping to
Italy, he was there placed in command of the imperial army.
C. Coignet,
Francis I. and his Times,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
Miss Pardoe,
The Court and Reign of Francis I.,
volume 1, chapters 14-19.
See, also, AUSTRIA: A. D. 1519-1555.
FRANCE: A. D. 1521.
Invasion of Navarre.
See NAVARRE: A. D. 1442-1521.
FRANCE: A. D. 1521-1525.
Beginning of the Protestant Reform movement.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535.
FRANCE: A. D. 1523-1524.
First undertakings in the New World.
Voyages of Verrazano.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1523-1524.
{1191}
FRANCE: A. D. 1523-1525.
The death of Bayard.
Second invasion of Italy by Francis I.
His defeat and capture at Pavia.
"Bonnivet, the personal enemy of Bourbon, was now entrusted
with the command of the French army. He marched without
opposition into the Milanese, and might have taken the capital
had he pushed on to its gates. Having by irresolution lost it,
he retreated to winter quarters behind the Tesino. The
operations of the English in Picardy, of the imperialists in
Champagne, and of the Spaniards near the Pyrenees, were
equally insignificant. The spring of 1524 brought on an
action, if the attack of one point can be called such, which
proved decisive for the time. Bonnivet advanced rashly beyond
the Tesino. The imperialists, commanded by four able generals,
Launoi, Pescara, Bourbon, and Sforza, succeeded in almost
cutting off his retreat. They at the same time refused
Bonnivet's offer to engage. They hoped to weaken him by
famine. The Swiss first murmured against the distress
occasioned by want of precaution. They deserted across the
river; and Bonnivet, thus abandoned, was obliged to make a
precipitate and perilous retreat. A bridge was hastily flung
across the Sessia, near Romagnano; and Bonnivet, with his best
knights and gensdarmerie, undertook to defend the passage of
the rest of the army. The imperialists, led on by Bourbon,
made a furious attack. Bonnivet was wounded, and he gave his
place to Bayard, who, never entrusted with a high command, was
always chosen for that of a forlorn hope. The brave Vandenesse
was soon killed; and Bayard himself received a gun-shot
through the reins. The gallant chevalier, feeling his wound
mortal, caused himself to be placed in a sitting posture
beneath a tree, his face to the enemy, and his sword fixed in
guise of a cross before him. The constable Bourbon, who led
the imperialists, soon came up to the dying Bayard, and
expressed his compassion. 'Weep not for me,' said the
chevalier, 'but for thyself. I die in performing my duty; thou
art betraying thine.' Nothing marks more strongly the great
rise, the sudden sacro-sanctity of the royal authority in
those days, than the general horror which the treason of
Bourbon excited. ... The fact is, that this sudden horror of
treason was owing, in a great measure, to the revived study of
the classics, in which treason to one's country is universally
mentioned as an impiety and a crime of the deepest dye.
Feudality, with all its oaths, had no such horror of treason.
... Bonnivet had evacuated Italy after this defeat at
Romagnano. Bourbon's animosity stimulated him to push his
advantage. He urged the emperor to invade France, and
recommended the Bourbonnais and his own patrimonial provinces
as those most advisable to invade. Bourbon wanted to raise his
friends in insurrection against Francis; but Charles descried
selfishness in this scheme of Bourbon, and directed Pescara to
march with the constable into the south of France and lay
siege to Marseilles. ... Marseilles made an obstinate
resistance," and the siege was ineffectual. "Francis, in the
meantime, alarmed by the invasion, had assembled an army. He
burned to employ it, and avenge the late affront. The king of
England, occupied with the Scotch, gave him respite in the
north; and he resolved to employ this by marching, late as the
season was, into Italy. His generals, who by this time were
sick of warring beyond the Alps, opposed the design; but not
even the death of his queen, Claude, could stop Francis. He
passed Mount Cenis; marched upon Milan, whose population was
spiritless and broken by the plague, and took it without
resistance. It was then mooted whether Lodi or Pavia should be
besieged. The latter, imprudently, as it is said, was
preferred. It was at this time that Pope Clement VII., of the
house of Medici, who had lately succeeded Adrian, made the
most zealous efforts to restore peace between the monarchies.
He found Charles and his generals arrogant and unwilling to
treat. The French, said they, must on no account be allowed a
footing in Italy. Clement, impelled by pique towards the
emperor, or generosity to Francis, at once abandoned the
prudent policy of his predecessors, and formed a league with
the French king, to whom, after all, he brought no accession
of force. This step proved afterwards fatal to the city of
Rome. The siege of Pavia was formed about the middle of
October [1524]. Antonio de Leyva, an experienced officer,
supported by veteran troops, commanded in the town. The
fortifications were strong, and were likely to hold for a
considerable time. By the month of January the French had made
no progress; and the impatient Francis despatched a
considerable portion of his army for the invasion of Naples,
hearing that the country was drained of troops. This was a
gross blunder, which Pescara observing, forbore to send any
force to oppose the expedition. He knew that the fate of Italy
would be decided before Pavia. Bourbon, in the mean time,
disgusted with the jealousies and tardiness of the imperial
generals, employed the winter in raising an army of
lansquenets on his own account. From the duke of Savoy he
procured funds; and early in the year 1525 the constable
joined Pescara at Lodi with a fresh army of 12,000
mercenaries. They had, besides, some 7,000 foot, and not more
than 1,500 horse. With these they marched to the relief of
Pavia. Francis had a force to oppose to them, not only
inferior in numbers, but so harassed with a winter's siege,
that all the French generals of experience counselled a
retreat. Bonnivet and his young troop of courtiers were for
fighting; and the monarch hearkened to them. Pavia, to the
north of the river, was covered in great part by the chateau
and walled park of Mirabel. Adjoining this, and on a rising
ground, was the French camp, extending to the Tesino. Through
the camp, or through the park, lay the only ways by which the
imperialists could reach Pavia. The camp was strongly
entrenched and defended by artillery, except on the side of
the park of Mirabel, with which it communicated." On the night
of February 23, the imperialists made a breach in the park
wall, through which they pressed next morning, but were driven
back with heavy loss. "This was victory enough, could the
French king have been contented with it. But the impatient
Francis no sooner beheld his enemies in rout, than he was
eager to chase them in person, and complete the victory with
his good sword. He rushed forth from his entrenchments at the
head of his gensdarmerie, flinging himself between the enemy
and his own artillery, which was thus masked and rendered
useless. The imperialists rallied as soon as they found
themselves safe from the fire of the cannon," and the French
were overwhelmed. "The king ... behind a heap of slain,
defended himself valiantly; so beaten and shattered, so
begrimed with blood and dust, as to be scarcely
distinguishable, notwithstanding his conspicuous armour. He
had received several wounds, one in the forehead; and his
horse, struck with a ball in the head, reared, fell back, and
crushed him with his weight: still Francis rose, and laid
prostrate several of the enemies that rushed upon him." But
presently he was recognized and was persuaded to surrender his
sword to Lannoi, the viceroy of Naples. "Such was the signal
defeat that put an end to all French conquests and claims in
Italy."
E. E. Crowe,
History of France,
volume 1, chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
W. Robertson,
History of the Reign of Charles V.,
book 4 (volume 2).
J. S. Brewer,
Reign of Henry VIII.,
chapter 21 (volume 2).
H. G. Smith,
Romance of History,
chapter 6.
{1192}
FRANCE: A. D. 1525-1526.
The captivity of Francis I. and his deliberate perfidy in the
Treaty of Madrid.
The captive king of France was lodged in the castle at
Pizzighitone. "Instead of bearing his captivity with calmness
and fortitude, he chafed and fretted under the loss of his
wonted pleasures; at one moment he called for death to end his
woes, while at another he was ready to sign disastrous terms
of peace, meaning to break faith so soon as ever he might be
free again. ... France, at first stupefied by the mishap, soon
began to recover hope. The Regent, for all her vices and
faults, was proud and strong; she gathered what force she
could at Lyons, and looked round for help. ... Not only were
there anxieties at home, but the frontiers were also
threatened. On the side of Germany a popular movement ['the
Peasant War'], closely connected with the religious excitement
of the time, pushed a fierce and cruel rabble into Lorraine,
whence they proposed to enter France. But they were met by the
Duke of Guise and the Count of Vaudemont, his brother, at the
head of the garrisons of Burgundy and Champagne, and were
easily dispersed. It was thought that during these troubles
Lannoy would march his army, flushed with victory, from the Po
to the Rhone. ... But Lannoy had no money to pay his men, and
could not undertake so large a venture. Meanwhile negotiations
began between Charles V. and the King; the Emperor demanding,
as ransom, that Bourbon should be invested with Provence and
Dauphiny, joined to his own lands in Auvergne, and should
receive the title of king; and secondly that the Duchy of
Burgundy should be given over to the Emperor as the inheritor
of the lands and rights of Charles the Bold. But the King of
France would not listen for a moment. And now the King of
England and most of the Italian states, alarmed at the great
power of the Emperor, began to change sides. Henry VIII. came
first. He signed a treaty of neutrality with the Regent, in
which it was agreed that not even for the sake of the King's
deliverance should any part of France be torn from her. The
Italians joined in a league to restore the King to liberty,
and to secure the independence of Italy: and Turkey was called
on for help. ... The Emperor now felt that Francis was not in
secure keeping at Pizzighitone. ... He therefore gave orders
that Francis should at once be removed to Spain." The captive
king "was set ashore at Valencia, and received with wonderful
welcome: dances, festivals, entertainments of every kind,
served to relieve his captivity; it was like a restoration to
life! But this did not suit the views of the Emperor, who
wished to weary the King into giving up all thought of
resistance: he trusted to his impatient and frivolous
character; his mistake, as he found to his cost, lay in
thinking that a man of such character would keep his word. He
therefore had him removed from Valencia to Madrid, where he
was kept in close and galling confinement, in a high, dreary
chamber, where he could not even see out of the windows. This
had the desired effect. The King talked of abdicating; he fell
ill of ennui, and was like to die: but at last he could hold
out no longer, and abandoning all thought of honourable
action, agreed to shameful terms, consoling himself with a
private protest against the validity of the deed, as having
been done under compulsion."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
volume 2, book 2, chapter 5.
"By the Treaty of Madrid, signed January 14th, 1526, Francis
'restored' to the Emperor the Duchy of Burgundy, the county of
Charolais, and some other smaller fiefs, without reservation
of any feudal suzerainty, which was also abandoned with regard
to the counties of Flanders and Artois, the Emperor, however,
resigning the towns on the Somme, which had been held by
Charles the Bold. The French King also renounced his claims to
the kingdom of Naples, the Duchy of Milan, the county of Asti,
and the city of Genoa. He contracted an offensive and
defensive alliance with Charles, undertaking to attend him
with an army when he should repair to Rome to receive the
Imperial crown, and to accompany him in person whenever he
should march against the Turks or heretics. He withdrew his
protection from the King of Navarre, the Duke of Gelderland,
and the La Marcks; took upon himself the Emperor's debt to
England, and agreed to give his two eldest sons as hostages
for the execution of the treaty. Instead, however, of the
independent kingdom which Bourbon had expected, all that was
stipulated in his favour was a free pardon for him and his
adherents, and their restoration in their forfeited domains.
... The provisions of the above treaty Francis promised to
execute on the word and honour of a king, and by an oath sworn
with his hand upon the holy Gospels: yet only a few hours
before he was to sign this solemn act, he had called his
plenipotentiaries, together with some French nobles,
secretaries, and notaries, into his chamber, where, after
exacting from them an oath of secrecy, he entered into a long
discourse touching the Emperor's harshness towards him, and
signed a protest, declaring that, as the treaty he was about
to enter into had been extorted from him by force, it was null
and void from the beginning, and that he never intended to
execute it: thus, as a French writer has observed,
establishing by an authentic notarial act that he was going to
commit a perjury." Treaties have often been shamefully
violated, yet it would perhaps be impossible to parallel this
gross and deliberate perjury. In March, Francis was conducted
to the Spanish frontier, where, on a boat in mid-stream of the
Bidassoa, "he was exchanged for his two sons, Francis and
Henry, who were to remain in Spain, as hostages for the
execution of the treaty. The tears started to his eyes as he
embraced his children, but he consigned them without remorse
to a long and dreary exile." As speedily as possible after
regaining his liberty, Francis assembled the states of his
kingdom and procured from them a decision "that the King could
not alienate the patrimony of France, and that the oath which he
had taken in his captivity did not abrogate the still more
solemn one which had been administered to him at his
coronation." After which he deemed himself discharged from the
obligations of his treaty, and had no thought of surrendering
himself again a prisoner, as he was honourably bound to do.
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 2, chapter 5 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
A. B. Cochrane,
Francis I. in Captivity.
W. Robertson,
History of the Reign of Charles V.,
book 4 (volume 2).
C. Coignet,
Francis I. and his Times,
chapters 5-8.
{1193}
FRANCE: A. D. 1526-1527.
Holy League with Pope Clement VII. against Charles V.
Bourbon's attack on Rome.
See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527, and 1527.
FRANCE: A. D. 1527-1529.
New alliance against Charles V.
Early successes in Lombardy.
Disaster at Naples.
Genoa and all possessions in Italy lost.
The humiliating Peace of Cambrai.
See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.
FRANCE: A. D. 1529-1535.
Persecution of the Protestant Reformers and spread of their
doctrines.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535.
FRANCE: A. D. 1531.
Alliance with the Protestant princes of the German League of
Smalkalde.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1530-1532.
FRANCE: A. D. 1532.
Final reunion of Brittany with the crown.
See BRITTANY: A. D. 1532.
FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.
Treaty with the Pope.
Marriage of Prince Henry with Catherine de' Medici.
Renewed war with Charles V.
Alliance with the Turks.
Victory at Cerisoles.
Treaty of Crespy.
Increased persecution of Protestants.
Massacre of Waldenses.
War with England.
Death of Francis I.
"The 'ladies' peace' ... lasted up to 1536; incessantly
troubled, however, by far from pacific symptoms, proceedings
and preparations. In October, 1532, Francis I. had, at Calais,
an interview with Henry VIII., at which they contracted a
private alliance, and undertook 'to raise between them an army
of 80,000 men to resist the Turk.'" But when, in 1535, Charles
V. attacked the seat of the Barbary pirates, and took Tunis,
Francis "entered into negotiations with Soliman II., and
concluded a friendly treaty with him against what was called
'the common enemy.' Francis had been for some time preparing
to resume his projects of conquest in Italy; he had effected
an interview at Marseilles, in October, 1533, with Pope
Clement VII., who was almost at the point of death, and it was
there that the marriage of Prince Henry of France with
Catherine de' Medici [daughter of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and
granddaughter of Piero de' Medici] was settled. Astonishment was
expressed that the pope's niece had but a very moderate dowry.
'You don't see, then,' said Clement VII.'s ambassador, 'that
she brings France three jewels of great price, Genoa, Milan
and Naples?' When this language was reported at the court of
Charles V., it caused great irritation there. In 1536 all
these combustibles of war exploded; in the month of February,
a French army entered Piedmont, and occupied Turin; and, in
the month of July, Charles V. in person entered Provence at
the head of 50,000 men. Anne de Montmorency, having received
orders to defend southern France, began by laying it waste in
order that the enemy might not be able to live in it. ...
Montmorency made up his mind to defend, on the whole coast of
Provence, only Marseilles and Aries; he pulled down the
ramparts of the other towns, which were left exposed to the
enemy. For two months Charles V. prosecuted this campaign
without a fight, marching through the whole of Provence an
army which fatigue, shortness of provisions, sickness, and
ambuscades were decimating ingloriously. At last he decided
upon retreating. ... On returning from his sorry expedition,
Charles V. learned that those of his lieutenants whom he had
charged with the conduct of a similar invasion in the north of
France, in Picardy, had met with no greater success than he
himself in Provence." A truce for three months was soon
afterwards arranged, and in June, 1538, through the mediation
of Pope Paul III., a treaty was signed at Nice which extended
the truce to ten years. Next month the two sovereigns met at
Aigues-Mortes and exchanged many assurances of friendship."
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 28 (volume 4).
In August, 1539, a revolt at Ghent "called Charles V. into
Flanders; he was then in Spain, and his shortest route was
through France. He requested permission to cross the kingdom,
and obtained it, after having promised the Constable
Montmorency that he would give the investiture of Milan to the
second son of the King. His sojourn in France was a time of
expensive fêtes, and cost the treasury four millions; yet, in
the midst of his pleasures, the Emperor was not without
uneasiness. ... Francis, however, respected the rights of
hospitality; but Charles did not give to his son the
investiture of Milan. The King, indignant, exiled the
constable for having trusted the word of the Emperor without
exacting his signature, and avenged himself by strengthening
his alliance with the Turks, the most formidable enemies of
the empire. ... The hatred of the two monarchs was carried to
its height by these last events; they mutually outraged each
other by injurious libels, and submitted their differences to
the Pope. Paul III. refused to decide between them, and they
again took up arms [1542]. The King invaded Luxembourg, and
the Dauphin Rousillon; and while a third army in concert with
the Mussulmans besieged Nice [1542], the last asylum of the
dukes of Savoy, by land, the terrible Barbarossa, admiral of
Soliman, attacked it by sea. The town was taken, the castle
alone resisted, and the siege of it was raised. Barbarossa
consoled himself for this check by ravaging the coasts of
Italy, where he made 10,000 captives. The horror which he
inspired recoiled on Francis I., his ally, whose name became
odious in Italy and Germany. He was declared the enemy of the
empire, and the Diet raised against him an army of 24,000 men,
at the head of which Charles V. penetrated into Champagne,
while Henry VIII., coalescing with the Emperor, attacked
Picardy with 10,000 English. The battle of Cerisoles, a
complete victory, gained during the same year [April 14,1544],
in Piedmont, by Francis of Bourbon, Duke d'Enghien, against
Gast, general of the Imperial troops, did not stop this double
and formidable invasion. Charles V. advanced almost to
Château-Thierry. But discord reigned in his army; he ran short
of provisions, and could easily have been surrounded; he then
again promised Milan to the Duke of Orleans, the second son of
the King. This promise irritated the Dauphin Henry, who was
afraid to see his brother become the head of a house as
dangerous for France as had been that of Burgundy; he wished
to reject the offer of the Emperor and to cut off his retreat.
A rivalry among women, it is said, saved Charles V. ...
{1194}
The war was terminated almost immediately afterwards [1544] by
the treaty of Crespy in Valois. The Emperor promised his
daughter to the Duke of Orleans, with the Low Countries and
Franche-Comté, or one of his nieces, with Milan. Francis
restored to the Duke of Savoy the greater part of the places
that he held in Piedmont; he renounced all ulterior
pretensions to the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, and
likewise to the sovereignty of Flanders and Artois; Charles,
on his part, gave up the duchy of Burgundy. This treaty put an
end to the rivalry of the two sovereigns, which had
ensanguined Europe for 25 years. The death of the Duke of
Orleans freed the Emperor from dispossessing himself of Milan
or the Low Countries; he refused all compensation to the King,
but the peace was not broken. Francis I. profited by it to
redouble his severity with regard to the Protestants. A
population of many thousands of Waldenses, an unfortunate
remnant from the religious persecutions of the 13th century,
dwelt upon the confines of Provence, and the County Venaissin,
and a short time back had entered into communion with the
Calvinists. The King permitted John Mesnier, Baron d'Oppède,
first president of the Parliament of Aix, to execute [1546] a
sentence delivered against them five years previously by the
Parliament. John d'Oppède himself directed this frightful
execution. Twenty-two towns or villages were burned and
sacked; the inhabitants, surprised during the night, were
pursued among the rocks by the glare of the flames which
devoured their houses. The men perished by executions, but the
women were delivered over to terrible violences. At Cabrières,
the principal town of the canton, 700 men were murdered in
cold blood, and all the women were burnt; lastly, according to
the tenor of the sentence, the houses were rased, the woods cut
down, the trees in the gardens torn up, and in a short time
this country, so fertile and so thickly peopled, became a
desert and a waste. This dreadful massacre was one of the
principal causes of the religious wars which desolated France
for so long a time. ... The war continued between [Henry
VIII.] and Francis I. The English had taken Boulogne, and a
French fleet ravaged the coasts of England, after taking
possession of the Isle of Wight [1545]. Hostilities were
terminated by the treaty of Guines [1547], which the two kings
signed on the edge of their graves, and it was arranged that
Boulogne should be restored for the sum of 2,000,000 of gold
crowns. ... Henry VIII. and Francis I. died in the same year
[1547]."
E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 1, pages 363-367.
ALSO IN:
W. Robertson,
History of the Reign of Charles V.,
book 6-9 (volume 2).
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
chapters 20-23 (volume 4).
FRANCE: A. D. 1534-1535.
The voyages of Jacques Cartier and the taking
possession of Canada.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1534-1535.
FRANCE: A. D. 1534-1560.
Persecution of the Protestants.
Their organization.
Their numbers.
"Francis I. had long shrunk from persecution, but having once
begun he showed no further hesitation. During the remainder of
his reign and the whole of that of his son Henry II.
(1534-1559) the cruelty of the sufferings inflicted on the
Reformers increased with the number of the victims. At first
they were strangled and burnt, then burnt alive, then hung in
chains to roast over a slow fire. ... The Edict of
Chateaubriand (1551), taking away all right of appeal from
those convicted of heresy, was followed by an attempt to
introduce an Inquisition on the model of that of Spain, and
when this failed owing to the opposition of the lawyers, the
Edict of Compiègne (1557) denounced capital punishment against
all who in public or private professed any heterodox doctrine. It
is a commonplace that persecution avails nothing against the
truth--that the true Church springs from the blood of martyrs.
Yet the same cause which triumphed over persecution in France
was crushed by it in Spain and in the Walloon Netherlands. Was
it therefore not the truth? The fact would rather seem to be,
that there is no creed, no sect which cannot be extirpated by
force. But that it may prevail, persecution must be without
respect of persons, universal, continuous, protracted. Not one
of these conditions was fulfilled in France. The opinions of the
greater nobles and princes, and of those who were their
immediate followers, were not too narrowly scanned, nor was
the persecution equally severe at all times and in all places.
Some governors and judges and not a few of the higher clergy
inclined to toleration. ... The cheerful constancy of the
French martyrs was admirable. Men, women and children walked
to execution singing the psalms of Marot and the Song of
Simeon. This boldness confounded their enemies. Hawkers
distributed in every part of the country the books issued from
the press of Geneva and which it was a capital offence even to
possess. Preachers taught openly in the streets and
market-places. ... The increasing numbers of their converts
and the high position of some among them gave confidence to
the Protestants. Delegates from the reformed congregations of
France were on their way to Paris to take part in the
deliberations of the first national Synod on the very day
(April 2, 1559) when the peace of Cateau Cambresis was signed,
a peace which was to be the prelude to a vigorous and
concerted effort to root out heresy on the part of the kings
of France and Spain. The object of the meeting was twofold:
first to draw up a detailed profession of faith, which was
submitted to Calvin--there was, he said, little to add, less
to correct--secondly to determine the 'ecclesiastical
discipline' of the new Church. The ministers were to be chosen
by the elders and deacons, but approved by the whole
congregation. The affairs of each congregation were placed
under the control of the Consistory, a court composed of the
pastors, elders and deacons; more important matters were
reserved for the decision of the provincial 'colloques' or
synods, which were to meet twice a year, and in which each
church was represented by its pastor and at least one elder.
Above all was the national Synod also composed of the clergy
and of representative laymen. This organisation was thoroughly
representative and popular, the elected delegates of the
congregations, the elders and deacons, preponderated in all
the governing bodies, and all ministers and churches were
declared equal. The Reformed churches, which, although most
numerous in the South, spread over almost the whole country,
are said at this time to have counted some 400,000 members
(1559). These were of almost all classes, except perhaps the
lowest, although even among the peasantry there were some
martyrs for the faith."
{1195}
On the accession of Charles IX., in 1560, "a quarter of the
inhabitants of France were, it was said, included in the 2,500
reformed congregations. This is certainly an exaggeration, but
it is probable that the number of the Protestants was never
greater than during the first years of the reign of Charles
IX. ... The most probable estimate is that at the beginning of
the wars of religion the Huguenots with women and children
amounted to some 1,500,000 souls out of a population of
between fifteen and twenty millions. But in this minority were
included about one-fourth of the lesser nobility, the country
gentlemen, and a smaller proportion of the great nobles, the
majority of the better sort of townspeople in many of the most
important towns, such as Caen, Dieppe, Havre, Nantes, La
Rochelle, Nimes, Montpellier, Montauban, Châlons, Mâcon,
Lyons, Valence, Limoges and Grenoble, and an important
minority in other places, such as Rouen, Orleans, Bordeaux and
Toulouse. The Protestants were most numerous in the
South-west, in Poitou, in the Marche, Limousin, Angoumois and
Perigord, because in those districts, which were the seats of
long-established and flourishing manufactures, the middle
classes were most prosperous, intelligent and educated. It is
doubtful whether the Catholics were not in a large majority,
even where the superior position, intelligence and vigour of
the Huguenots gave them the upper hand. Only in some parts of
the South-west and of Dauphiny do the bulk of the population
appear to have been decidedly hostile to the old religion.
During the course of the Civil War the Protestants came to be
more and more concentrated in certain parts of the country, as
for instance between the Garonne and the Loire."
P. F. Willert,
Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots in France,
chapter 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1541-1543.
Jacques Cartier's last explorations in Canada.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1541-1603.
FRANCE: A. D. 1541-1564.
The rise and influence of Calvinism.
See GENEVA: A. D. 1536-1564.
FRANCE: A. D. 1547.
Accession of King Henry II.
FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.
The rise of the Guises.
Alliance with the German Protestants.
Wars with the emperor, and with Spain and England.
Acquisition of Les Trois Evêchés, and of Calais.
Unsuccessful campaign in Italy.
Battle and siege of St. Quentin.
Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis.
"The son of Francis I., who in 1547 ascended the throne under
the title of Henry II., was told by his dying father to beware
of the Guises. ... The Guises were a branch of the ducal House
of Lorraine, which, although the dukedom was a fief of the
German empire, had long stood in intimate relations with the
court and nobility of France. The founder of the family was
Claude, a younger son of René II., Duke of Lorraine, who,
being naturalised in France in 1505, rendered himself
conspicuous in the wars of Francis I., and was created first
Duke of Guise. He died in 1550, leaving five daughters and six
sons. His eldest daughter, Mary, became the wife of James V.
of Scotland, and mother of Mary Queen of Scots. The sons were
all men of extraordinary energy and ambition, and their united
influence was, for a number of years, more than a match for
that of the crown. Francis, second Duke of Guise, acquired,
while still a young man, extraordinary renown as a military
commander, by carrying out certain ambitious designs of France
on a neighbouring territory. ... As is well known, French
statesmen have for many centuries cherished the idea that the
natural boundary of France on the east is the Rhine, from its
mouth to its source, and thence along the crest of the Alps to
the Mediterranean. ... To begin the realisation of the idea,
advantage was taken of the war which broke out between the
Emperor Charles V. and his Protestant subjects in North
Germany [see GERMANY: A. D. 1546-1552]. Although the
Protestants of France were persecuted to the death, Henry II.,
with furtively ambitious designs, offered to defend the
Protestants of Germany against their own emperor; and entered
into an alliance in 1551 with Maurice of Saxony and other
princes, undertaking to send an army to their aid. As bases of
his operations, it was agreed that he might take temporary
military possession of Toul, Verdun, and Metz, three
bishoprics [forming a district called the Trois Évêchés], each
with a portion of territory lying within the area of the duchy
of Lorraine, but held as distinct fiefs of the German empire--
such, in fact, being fragments of Lothair's kingdom, which
fell to Germany, and had in no shape been incorporated with
France. It was stipulated that, in occupying these places, the
French were not to interfere with their old connection with
the empire. The confidence reposed in the French was
grievously abused. All the stipulations went for nothing. In
1552, French troops took possession of Toul and Verdun, also
of Nancy, the capital of Lorraine, treating the duchy,
generally, as a conquered country. Seeing this, Metz shut her
gates and trusted to her fortifications. To procure an
entrance and secure possession, there was a resort to
stratagems which afford a startling illustration of the tricks
that French nobles at that time could be guilty of in order to
gain their ends. The French commander, the Constable
Montmorency, begged to be allowed to pass through the town
with a few attendants, while his army made a wide circuit on
its route. The too credulous custodiers of the city opened the
gates, and, to their dismay, the whole French forces rushed
in, and began to rule in true despotic fashion. ... Thus was
Metz secured for France in a way which modern Frenchmen, we
should imagine, can hardly think of without shame. Germany,
however, did not relinquish this important fortress without a
struggle. Furious at its loss, the Emperor Charles V.
proceeded to besiege it with a large army. The defence was
undertaken by the Duke of Guise, assisted by a body of French
nobility. After an investment of four months, and a loss of
30,000 men, Charles was forced to raise the siege, January 1,
1553, all his attempts at the capture of the place being
effectually baffled."
W. Chambers,
France: its History and Revolutions,
chapter 6.
{1196}
"The war continued during the two following years; but both
parties were now growing weary of a contest in which neither
achieved any decisive superiority"; and the emperor, having
negotiated an armistice, resigned all his crowns to his son,
Philip II., and his brother Ferdinand (October, 1555).
"Meantime Pope Paul IV., who detested the Spaniards and longed
for the complete subversion of their power in the Peninsula,
entered into a league with the French king against Philip;
Francis of Guise was encouraged in his favorite project of
effecting a restoration of the crown of Naples to his own
family, as the descendants of René of Anjou; and in December,
1556, an army of 16,000 men, commanded by the Duke of Guise,
crossed the Alps, and, marching direct to Rome, prepared to
attack the Spanish viceroy of Naples, the celebrated Duke of
Alva. In April, 1557, Guise advanced into the Abruzzi, and
besieged Civitella; but here he encountered a determined
resistance, and, after sacrificing a great part of his troops,
found it necessary to abandon the attempt. He retreated toward
Rome, closely pursued by the Duke of Alva; and the result was
that the expedition totally failed. Before his army could
recover from the fatigues and losses of their fruitless
campaign, the French general was suddenly recalled by a
dispatch containing tidings of urgent importance from the
north of France. The Spanish army in the Netherlands,
commanded by the Duke of Savoy, having been joined by a body
of English auxiliaries under the Earl of Pembroke, had invaded
France and laid siege to St. Quentin. This place was badly
fortified, and defended by a feeble garrison under the Admiral
de Coligny. Montmorency advanced with the main army to
re-enforce it, and on the 10th of August rashly attacked the
Spaniards, who outnumbered his own troops in the proportion of
more than two to one, and inflicted on him a fatal and
irretrievable defeat. The loss of the French amounted,
according to most accounts, to 4,000 slain in the field, while
at least an equal number remained prisoners, including the
Constable himself. The road to Paris lay open to the victors.
... The Duke of Savoy was eager to advance; but the cautious
Philip, happily for France, rejected his advice, and ordered
him to press the siege of St. Quentin. That town made a
desperate resistance for more than a fortnight longer, and was
captured by storm on the 27th of August [1557]. ... Philip
took possession of a few other neighbouring fortresses, but
attempted no serious movement in prosecution of his victory.
... The Duke of Guise arrived from Italy early in October, to
the great joy of the king and the nation, and was immediately
created lieutenant-general of the kingdom, with powers of
almost unlimited extent. Be applied himself, with his utmost
ability and perseverance, to repair the late disasters; and
with such success, that in less than two months he was enabled
to assemble a fresh and well-appointed army at Compiègne.
Resolving to strike a vigorous blow before the enemy could
reappear in the field, he detached a division of his army to
make a feint in the direction of Luxemburg; and, rapidly
marching westward with the remainder, presented himself on the
1st of January, 1558, before the walls of Calais. ... The
French attack was a complete surprise; the two advanced forts
commanding the approaches to the town were bombarded, and
surrendered on the 3d of January; three days later the castle
was carried by assault; and on the 8th, the governor, Lord
Wentworth, was forced to capitulate. ... Guines, no longer
tenable after the fall of Calais, shared the same fate on the
21st of January; and thus, within the short space of three
weeks, were the last remnants of her ancient dominion on the
Continent snatched from the grasp of England--possessions
which she had held for upward of 200 years. ... This
remarkable exploit, so flattering to the national pride,
created universal enthusiasm in France, and carried to the
highest pitch the reputation and popularity of Guise. From
this moment his influence became paramount; and the marriage
of the dauphin to the Queen of Scots, which was solemnised on
the 24th of April, 1558, seemed to exalt the house of Lorraine
to a still more towering pinnacle of greatness. It was
stipulated by a secret article of the marriage-contract that
the sovereignty of Scotland should be transferred to France,
and that the two crowns should remain united forever, in case
of the decease of Mary without issue. Toward the end of the
year negotiations were opened with a view to peace." They were
interrupted, however, in November, 1558, by the death of Queen
Mary of England, wife of Philip of Spain. "When the congress
reassembled at Le Cateau-Cambresis, in February, 1559, the
Spanish ministers no longer maintained the interests of
England; and Elizabeth, thus abandoned, agreed to an
arrangement which virtually ceded Calais to France, though
with such nominal qualifications as satisfied the
sensitiveness of the national honour. Calais was to be
restored to the English at the end of eight years, with a
penalty, in case of failure, of 500,000 crowns. At the same
time, if any hostile proceedings should take place on the part
of England against France within the period specified, the queen
was to forego all claim to the fulfillment of the article."
The treaty between France and England was signed April 2,
1559, and that between France and Spain the following day. By
the latter, "the two monarchs mutually restored their
conquests in Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Picardy, and Artois;
France abandoned Savoy and Piedmont, with the exception of
Turin and four other fortresses [restoring Philibert Emanuel,
Duke of Savoy, to his dominions--see SAVOY AND PIEDMONT: A. D.
1559-1580]; she evacuated Tuscany, Corsica, and Montferrat,
and yielded up no less than 189 towns or fortresses in various
parts of Europe. By way of compensation, Henry preserved the
district of the 'Trois Évêchés'--Toul, Metz, and Verdun--and
made the all-important acquisition of Calais. This
pacification was sealed, according to custom, by
marriages"--Henry's daughter Elizabeth to Philip of Spain, and
his sister Marguerite to the Duke of Savoy. In a tournament, at
Paris, which celebrated these marriages, Henry received an
injury from the lance of Montgomery, captain of his Scottish
guards, which caused his death eleven days afterwards--July
10, 1559.
W. H. Jervis,
Student's History of France,
chapter 15.
ALSO IN:
J. L. Motley,
The Rise of the Dutch Republic,
part 1, chapters 2-3 (volume l).
Lady Jackson,
The Court of France in the 16th Century,
volume 2, chapters 9-20.
L. von Ranke,
Civil Wars and Monarchy in France,
16th and 17th Centuries, chapter 6 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1548.
Marriage of Antoine de Bourbon to Jeanne d'Albret, heiress of
Navarre.
See NAVARRE: A. D. 1528-1563.
FRANCE: A. D. 1552.
Alliance with the Turks.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1528-1570.
FRANCE: A. D. 1554-1565.
Huguenot attempts at colonization in Brazil and in Florida,
and their fate.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1562-1563; 1564-1565;
1565, and 1567-1568.
FRANCE: A. D. 1558-1559.
Aid given to revolt in Corsica.
See GENOA: A. D. 1528-1559.
FRANCE: A. D. 1559.
Accession of King Francis. II.
{1197}
FRANCE: A. D. 1559-1561.
Francis II., Charles IX., the Guises and Catharine de' Medici.
The Conspiracy of Amboise.
Rapid spread and organization of Protestantism.
Rise of the Huguenot party.
Disputed origin of its name.
Henry II. "had been married from political motives to the
niece of Clement VII., Catharine de Medici. This ambitious
woman came to France conscious that the marriage was a
political one, mentally a stranger to her husband; and such
she always remained. This placed her from the first in a false
position. The King was influenced by anyone rather than by his
wife; and a by no means charming mistress, Diana of Poitiers,
played her part by the side of and above the Queen. ...
Immediately after the death of her husband, in 1559, she
[Catharine] greedily grasped at power. The young King, Francis
II., was of age when he entered his fourteenth year. There
could therefore be no legal regency, though there might be an
actual one, for a weakly monarch of sixteen was still
incompetent to govern. But she was thwarted in her first grasp
at power. Under Francis I., a family [the Guises--see above]
previously unknown in French history had begun to play a
prominent part. ... The brothers succeeded in bringing about a
political marriage which promised to throw the King, who was
mentally a child, entirely into their hands. Their sister Mary
had been married to James V. of Scotland, whose crown was then
rather an insignificant one, but was now beginning to gain
importance. The issue of this marriage was a charming girl,
who was destined for the King's wife. She was betrothed to him
without his consent when still a child. The young Queen was
Mary Stuart. Her misfortunes, her beauty, and her connection
with European history, have made her a historical personage,
more conspicuous indeed for what she suffered than for what
she did; her real importance is not commensurate with the
position she occupies. This, then, was the position of the
brothers Guise at court. The King was the husband of their
niece; both were children in age and mind, and therefore
doubly required guidance. The brothers, Francis and Charles,
had the government entirely in their hands; the Duke managed
the army, the Cardinal the finances and foreign affairs. Two
such leaders were the mayors of the palace. The whole
constitution of the court reminds us of the 'rois fainéants'
and the office of major-domo under the Carlovingians. Thus,
just when Catharine was about to take advantage of a
favourable moment, she saw herself once more eclipsed and
thrust aside, and that by insolent upstarts of whom one thing
only was certain, that they possessed unusual talents, and
that their consciences were elastic in the choice of means. It
was not only from Catharine that the supremacy of the Guises
met with violent opposition, but also from Protestantism, the
importance of which was greatly increasing in France. ... In
the time of Henry II., in spite of all the edicts and
executions, Protestantism had made great progress. ... In the
spring of 1559, interdicted Protestantism had secretly
reviewed its congregations, and at the first national synod
drawn up a confession of faith and a constitution for the new
Church. Preachers and elders had appeared from every part of
France, and their eighty articles of 28th May, 1559, have
become the code of laws of French Protestantism. The
Calvinistic principle of the Congregational Church, with
choice of its own minister, deacons, and elders; a consistory
which maintained strict discipline in matters of faith and
morals ... was established upon French soil, and was
afterwards publicly accepted by the whole party. The more
adherents this party gained in the upper circles, the bolder
was its attitude; there was, indeed, no end to the executions,
or to the edicts against heresy, but a spirit of opposition,
previously unknown, had gradually gained ground. Prisoners
were set free, the condemned were rescued from the hands of
the executioners on the way to the scaffold, and a plan was
devised among the numerous fugitives in foreign lands for
producing a turn in the course of events by violent means. La
Rénaudie, a reformed nobleman from Perigord, who had sworn
vengeance on the Guises for the execution of his brother, had,
with a number of other persons of his own way of thinking,
formed a plan for attacking the Guises, carrying off the King,
and placing him under the guardianship of the Bourbon agnates.
... The project was betrayed; the Guises succeeded in placing
the King in security in the Castle of Amboise; a number of the
conspirators were seized, another troop overpowered and
dispersed on their attack upon the castle, on the 17th of
March, 1560; some were killed, some taken prisoners and at
once executed. It was then discovered, or pretended, that the
youngest of the Bourbon princes [see BOURBON, HOUSE OF], Louis
of Condé, was implicated in the conspiracy [known as the
Conspiracy or Tumult of Amboise]. ... The Guises now ventured,
in contempt of French historical traditions, to imprison this
prince of the blood, this agnate of the reigning house; to
summon him before an arbitrary tribunal of partisans, and to
condemn him to death. ... This affair kept all France in
suspense. All the nobles, although strongly infected with
Huguenot ideas, were on Condé's side; even those who condemned
his religious opinions made his cause their own. They justly
thought that if he fell none of them would be safe. In the
midst of this ferment, destiny interposed. On the 5th of
December, 1560, Francis II. died suddenly, and a complete
change took place. His death put an end to a net-work of
intrigues, which aimed at knocking the rebellion, political
and religious, on the head. ... During this confusion one
individual had been watching the course of events with the
eagerness of a beast ready to seize on its prey. Catharine of
Medici was convinced that the time of her dominion had at
length arrived. ... Francis II. was scarcely dead when she
seized upon the person and the power of Charles IX. He was a
boy of ten years old, not more promising than his eldest
brother, sickly and weakly like all the sons of Henry II.,
more attached to his mother than the others, and he had been
neglected by the Guises. ... One of her first acts was to
liberate Condé; this was a decided step towards reconciliation
with the Bourbons and the Protestants. The whole situation was
all at once changed. The court was ruled by Catharine; her
feverish thirst for power was satisfied. The Guises and their
adherents were, indeed, permitted to remain in their offices
and posts of honour, in order not fatally to offend them; but
their supremacy was destroyed, and the new power was based
upon the Queen's understanding with the heads of the Huguenot
party."
L. Häusser,
The Period of the Reformation, 1517 to 1648,
chapter 25.
{1198}
"The recent commotion had disclosed the existence of a body of
malcontents, in part religious, in part also political,
scattered over the whole kingdom and of unascertained numbers.
To its adherents the name of Huguenots was now for the first
time given. What the origin of this celebrated appellation
was, it is now perhaps impossible to discover. ... It has been
traced back to the name of the Eidgenossen or 'confederates,'
under which the party of freedom figured in Geneva when the
authority of the bishop and duke was overthrown; or to the
'Roy Huguet,' or 'Huguon,' a hobgoblin supposed to haunt the
vicinity of Tours, to whom the superstitious attributed the
nocturnal assemblies of the Protestants; or to the gate 'du
roy Huguon' of the same city, near which those gatherings were
wont to be made. Some of their enemies maintained the former
existence of a diminutive coin known as a 'huguenot,' and
asserted that the appellation, as applied to the reformed,
arose from their 'not being worth a huguenot,' or farthing;
And some of their friends, with equal confidence and no less
improbability, declared that it was invented because the
adherents of the house of Guise secretly put forward claims
upon the crown of France in behalf of that house as descended
from Charlemagne, whereas the Protestants loyally upheld the
rights of the Valois sprung from Hugh Capet. In the diversity
of contradictory statements, we may perhaps be excused if we
suspend our judgment. ... Not a week had passed after the
conspiracy of Amboise before the word was in everybody's
mouth. Few knew or cared whence it arose. A powerful party,
whatever name it might bear, had sprung up, as it were, in a
night. ... No feature of the rise of the Reformation in France
is more remarkable than the sudden impulse which it received
during the last year or two of Henry II.'s life, and
especially within the brief limits of the reign of his eldest
son. ... There was not a corner of the kingdom where the
number of incipient Protestant churches was not considerable.
Provence alone contained 60, whose delegates this year met in
a synod at the blood-stained village of Mérindol. In large
tracts of country the Huguenots had become so numerous that
they were no longer able or disposed to conceal their
religious sentiments, nor content to celebrate their rites in
private or nocturnal assemblies. This was particularly the
case in Normandy, in Languedoc, and on the banks of the
Rhone."
H. M. Baird,
History of the Rise of the Huguenots,
book 1, chapter 10 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
4th series, chapter 29.
FRANCE: A. D. 1560.
Accession of King Charles IX.
FRANCE: A. D. 1560-1563.
Changed policy of Catharine de' Medici.
Delusive favors to the Huguenots.
The Guises and the Catholics again ascendant.
The massacre of Vassy.
Outbreak of civil war.
Battle of Dreux.
Assassination of Guise.
Peace and the Edict of Amboise.
"Catherine de Medici, now regent, thought it wisest to abandon
the policy which had till then prevailed under the influence
of the Guises, and while she confirmed the Lorraine princes in
the important offices they held, she named, on the other hand,
Antoine de Bourbon [king of Navarre] lieutenant-general of the
kingdom, and took Michel de l'Hôpital as her chief adviser.
... Chancellor de l'Hôpital, like the Regent, aimed at the
destruction of the parties which were rending the kingdom
asunder; but his political programme was that of an honest man
and a true liberal. A wise system of religious toleration and
of administrative reform would, he thought, restore peace and
satisfy all true Frenchmen. 'Let us,' he said, 'do away with
the diabolical party-names which cause so many
seditions--Lutherans, Huguenots, and Papists; let us not alter
the name of Christians.' ... The edicts of Saint Germain and
of January (1562) were favourable to the Huguenots. Religious
meetings were allowed in rural districts; all penalties
previously decreed against Dissenters were suspended on
condition that the old faith should not be interfered with:
finally, the Huguenot divines, with Theodore de Bèze at their
head, were invited to meet the Roman Catholic prelates and
theologians in a conference (colloque) at Poissy, near Paris.
Theodore de Bèze, the faithful associate and coadjutor of
Calvin in the great work of the Reformation, both at Geneva
and in France, is justly and universally regarded as the
historian of the early Huguenots. ... The speech he delivered
at the opening of the colloque is an eloquent plea for liberty
and mutual forbearance. Unfortunately, the conciliatory
measures he proposed satisfied no one."
G. Masson,
The Huguenots,
chapter 2.
"The edict of January ... gave permission to Protestants to
hold meetings for public worship outside the towns, and placed
their meetings under the protection of the law. ... The
Parliament of Paris refused to register the edict until after
repeated orders from the Queen-mother. The Parliament of Dijon
refused to register it. ... The Parliament of Aix refused.
Next, Antoine de Navarre, bribed by a promise of the
restoration of the Spanish part of his little kingdom,
announced that the colloquy of Poissy had converted him,
dismissed Beza and the reformed preachers, sent Jeanne back to
Beárn, demanded the dismissal of the Chatillons from the
court, and invited the Duke of Guise and his brother, the
Cardinal, who were at their château of Joinville, to return to
Paris. Then occurred--it was only six weeks after the Edict
of January--the massacre of Vassy. Nine hundred out of
3,000--the population of that little town--were Protestants.
Rejoicing in the permission granted them by the new law, they
were assembled on the Sunday morning, in a barn outside the
town, for the purpose of public service. The Duke of Guise and
the Cardinal, with their armed escort of gentlemen and
soldiers, riding on their way to Paris, heard the bells which
summoned the people, and asked what they meant. Being told
that it was a Huguenot 'prêche,' the Duke swore that he would
Huguenot them to some purpose. He rode straight to the barn
and entered the place, threatening to murder them all. The
people relying on the law, barred the doors. Then the massacre
began. The soldiers burst open the feeble barrier, and began
to fire among the perfectly unarmed and inoffensive people.
Sixty-four were killed--men, women, and children; 200 were
wounded. This was the signal for war. Condé, on the
intelligence, immediately retired from the court to Meaux,
whence he issued a proclamation calling on all the Protestants
of the country to take up arms. Coligny was at Chatillon,
whither Catharine addressed him letter after letter, urging
upon him, in ambiguous terms, the defence of the King.
{1199}
It seems, though this is obscure, that at one time Condé might
have seized the royal family and held them. But if he had the
opportunity, he neglected it, and the chance never came again.
Henceforward, however, we hear no more talk about Catharine
becoming a Protestant. That pretence will serve her no more.
Before the clash of arms, there was silence for a space. Men
waited till the last man in France who had not spoken should
declare himself. The Huguenots looked to the Admiral, and not
to Condé. It was on him that the real responsibility lay of
declaring civil war. It was a responsibility from which the
strongest man might shrink. ... The Admiral having once made
up his mind, hesitated no longer, and, with a heavy heart, set
off the next day to join Condé. He wrote to Catharine that he
took up arms, not against the King, but against those who held
him captive. He wrote also to his old uncle, the Constable
[Montmorency]. ... The Constable replied. There was no
bitterness between uncle and nephew. The former was fighting
to prevent the 'universal ruin' of his country, and for his
'petits maitres,' the boys, the sons of his old friend, Henry
II. Montmorency joined the Guises in perfect loyalty, and with
the firm conviction that it was the right thing for him to do.
The Chatillon fought in the name of law and justice, and to
prevent the universal massacre of his people. ... Then the
first civil war began with a gallant exploit--the taking of
Orleans [April 1562]. Condé rode into it at the head of 2,000
cavalry, all shouting like schoolboys, and racing for six
miles who should get into the city first. They pillaged the
churches, and turned out the Catholics. 'Those who were that
day turned outside the city wept catholicly that they were
dispossessed of the magazines of the finest wines in France.'
Truly a dire misfortune, for the Catholics to lose all the
best claret districts! Orleans taken, the Huguenots proceeded
to issue protestations and manifestoes, in all of which the
hand of the Admiral is visible. They are not fighting against
the King, who is a prisoner; the war was begun by the Guises.
... They might have added, truly enough, that Condé and the
Admiral held in their hands letters from Catharine, urging
them to carry on the contest for the sake of the young King.
The fall of Orleans was quickly followed by that of Rouen,
Tours, Blois, Bourges, Vienne, Valence, and Montauban. The
civil war was fairly begun. The party was now well organized.
Condé was commander-in-chief by right of his birth; Coligny
was real leader by right of his reputation and wisdom. It was
by him that a Solemn League and Covenant was drawn up, to be
signed by everyone of the Calvinist chiefs. These were,
besides Condé and the Chatillons, La Rochefoucauld, ...
Coligny's nephew and Condé's brother-in-law--he was the
greatest seigneur in Poitou; Rohan, from Dauphine, who was
Condé's cousin; the Prince of Porcian, who was the husband of
Condé's niece. Each of these lords came with a following
worthy of his name. Montgomery, who had slain Henry II.,
brought his Normans; Genlis, the Picards. ... With Andelot
came a troop of Bretons; with the Count de Grammont came 6,000
Gascons. Good news poured in every day. Not only Rouen, but
Havre, Caen, and Dieppe submitted in the North. Angers and
Nantes followed. The road was open in the end for bringing
troops from Germany. The country in the southwest was
altogether in their hands. Meantime, the enemy were not idle.
They began with massacres. In Paris they murdered 800
Huguenots in that first summer of the war. From every side
fugitives poured into Orleans, which became the city of
refuge. There were massacres at Amiens, Senlis, Cahors,
Toulouse, Angoulême--everywhere. Coligny advised a march upon
Paris, where, he urged, the Guises had but a rabble at their
command. His counsels when war was once commenced, were always
for vigorous measures. Condé preferred to wait. Andelot was
sent to Germany, where he raised 3,000 horse. Calvin
despatched letters in every direction, urging on the churches
and the Protestant princes to send help to France. Many of
Coligny's old soldiers of St. Quentin came to fight under his
banner. Elizabeth of England offered to send an army if Calais
were restored; when she saw that no Frenchman would give up
that place again, she still sent men and money, though with
grudging spirit. At length both armies took the field. The
Duke of Guise had under him 8,000 men; Condé 7,000. They
advanced, and met at the little town of Vassodun, where a
conference was held between the Queen-mother and Navarre on
the one hand, and Condé and Coligny on the other. Catharine
proposed that all the chiefs of both sides--Guise, the
Cardinal de Lorraine, St. Andre, Montmorency, Navarre, Condé,
and the Chatillon brothers--should all alike go into voluntary
exile. Condé was nearly persuaded to accept this absurd
proposal. Another conference was held at Taley. These
conferences were only delays. An attempt was made by Catharine
to entrap Condé, which was defeated by the Admiral's prompt
rescue. The Parliament of Paris issued a decree commanding all
Romanists in every parish to rise in arms at the sound of the
bell and to slay every Huguenot. It was said that 50,000 were
thus murdered. No doubt the numbers were grossly exaggerated.
... These cruelties naturally provoked retaliation. ... An
English army occupied Havre. English troops set out for Rouen.
Some few managed to get within the walls. The town was taken
by the Catholics [October 25, 1562], and, for eight days,
plundered. Needless to say that Guise hanged every Huguenot he
could find. Here the King of Navarre was killed. The loss of
Rouen, together with other disasters, greatly discouraged the
Huguenots. Their spirits rose, however, when news came that
Andelot, with 4,000 reiters, was on his way to join them. He
brought them in safety across France, being himself carried in
a litter, sick with ague and fever. The Huguenots advanced
upon Paris, but did not attack the city. At Dreux [December
19, 1562], they met the army of Guise. Protestant historians
endeavor to show that the battle was drawn. In fact both sides
sustained immense losses. St. André was killed, Montmorency
and Condé were taken prisoners. Yet Coligny had to retire from
the field--his rival had outgeneralled him. It was
characteristic of Coligny that he never lost heart. ... With
his German cavalry, a handful of his own infantry, and a small
troop of English soldiers, Coligny swept over nearly the whole
of Normandy. It is true that Guise was not there to oppose
him. Every thing looked well. He was arranging for a 'splendid
alliance' with England, when news came which stayed his hand.
{1200}
Guise marched southwards to Orleans. ... There was in Orleans
a young Huguenot soldier named Jean Poltrot de Méré. He was a
fanatic. ... He waited for an opportunity, worked himself into
the good graces of the Duke, and then shot him with three
balls, in the shoulder. Guise died three days later. ... Then
a peace was signed [and ratified by the Edict of Amboise,
March 19, 1563]. Condé, won over and seduced by the sirens of
the Court, signed it. It was a humiliating and disastrous
peace. Huguenots were to be considered loyal subjects; foreign
soldiers should be sent out of the country; churches and
temples should be restored to their original uses; the suburbs
of one town in every bailiwick, were to be used for Protestant
worship (this was a great reduction on the Edict of January,
which allowed the suburbs of every town); and the nobility and
gentry were to hold worship in their own houses after their
own opinions. The Admiral was furious at this weakness. 'You
have ruined,' he said to Condé, 'more churches by one stroke
of the pen than the enemy could have done in ten years of
war.'"
W. Besant,
Gaspard de Coligny.
chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
Duc d' Aumale,
History of the Princes de Condé,
book 1, chapter 3 (volume l).
E. Bersier,
Earlier Life of Coligny,
chapter 21-26.
FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1564.
Recovery of Havre from the English.
The Treaty of Troyes.
Under the terms on which the Huguenot leaders procured help
from Elizabeth, the English queen held Havre, and refused to
restore it until after the restoration of Calais to England,
and the repayment of a loan of 140,000 crowns. The Huguenots,
having now made peace with their Catholic fellow countrymen,
were not prepared to fulfill the English contract, according
to Elizabeth's claims, but demanded that Havre should be given
up. The Queen refusing, both the parties, lately in arms
against each other, joined forces, and laid siege to Havre so
vigorously that it was surrendered to them on the 28th of
July, 1563. Peace with England was concluded in the April
following, by a treaty negotiated at Troyes, and the Queen
lost all her rights over Calais.
Duc d'Aumale,
History of the Princes of Condé,
volume 1, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
J. A. Froude,
History of England: Reign of Elizabeth,
chapters 6 and 8 (volume 1-2).
FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.
The conference at Bayonne.
Outbreak of the Second Civil War.
Battle of St. Denis.
Peace of Longjumeau.
The Third Civil War.
Huguenot rally at La Rochelle.
Appearance of the Queen of Navarre.
Battle of Jarnac.
Death of Condé.
Henry of Navarre chosen to command.
Battle of Moncontour.
Peace of St. Germain.
The religious peace established under the Edict of Amboise
lasted four years. "Not that the Huguenots enjoyed during
these years anything like security or repose. The repeated
abridgment even of those narrow liberties conferred by the
Edict of Amboise, and the frequent outbreaks of popular hatred
in which numbers of them perished, kept them in perpetual
alarm. Still more alarming was the meeting at Bayonne [of
Catherine de' Medici, the young king, her son, and the Duke of
Alva, representing Philip II. of Spain] in the summer of 1565.
... Amid the Court festivities which took place, it was known
that there had been many secret meetings between Alva,
Catherine, and, Charles. The darkest suspicions as to their
objects and results spread over France. It was generally
believed--falsely, as from Alva's letters it now appears--that
a simultaneous extermination of all heretics in the French and
Spanish dominions had been agreed upon. To anticipate this
stroke, Coligni proposed that the person of the King should be
seized upon. The Court, but slenderly guarded, was then at
Monceaux. The project had almost succeeded. Some time,
however, was lost. The Court got warning and fled to Meaux.
Six thousand Swiss arrived, and by a rapid march carried the
King to Paris. After such a failure, nothing was left to the
Huguenots but the chances of a second civil war. Condé entered
boldly on the campaign. Though he had with him but 1,500 horse
and 1,200 infantry, he marched to Paris, and offered battle to
the royal troops beneath its walls. The Constable
[Montmorency], who had 18,000 men at his command, accepted the
challenge, and on the 10th of November 1567, the battle of St.
Denis was fought. ... Neither party could well claim the
victory, as both retired from the field. The royal army had to
mourn the loss that day of its aged and gallant commander, the
Constable. Condé renewed next day the challenge, which was not
accepted. The winter months were spent by the Huguenots in
effecting a junction with some German auxiliaries, and in the
spring they appeared in such force upon the field that, on the
23d March 1568, the Peace of Longjumeau was ratified, which
re-established, free from all modifications and restrictions,
the Edict of Amboise. It was evident from the first that this
treaty was not intended to be kept; that it had been entered
into by the government solely to gain time, and to scatter the
ranks of the Huguenots. Coligni sought Condé at his château of
Noyers in Burgundy. He had scarcely arrived when secret
intelligence was given them of a plot upon their lives. They
had barely time to fly, making many a singular escape by the
way, and reaching Rochelle, which from this time became the
head-quarters of the Huguenots, on the 15th September 1568.
During the first two religious wars ... the seat of war was so
remote from her dominions that the Queen of Navarre [Jeanne
d'Albret,--see NAVARRE: A.D. 1528-1563] had satisfied herself
with opening her country as an asylum for those Huguenots
driven thither out of the southern counties of France. But
when she heard that Condé and Coligni ... were on their way to
Rochelle, to raise there once more the Protestant banner,
convinced that the French Court meditated nothing short of the
extermination of the Huguenots, she determined openly to cast
in her lot with her co-religionists, and to give them all the
help she could. Dexterously deceiving Montluc, who had
received instructions to watch her movements, and to seize
upon her person if she showed any intention of leaving her own
dominions, after a flight as precipitous and almost as
perilous as that of Condé and Coligni, she reached Rochelle on
the 29th September, ten days after their arrival. This town,
for nearly a century the citadel of Protestantism in France,
having by its own unaided power freed itself from the English
dominion [in the period between 1368 and 1380] had had
extraordinary municipal privileges bestowed on it in
return--among others, that of an entirely independent
jurisdiction, both civil and military.
{1201}
Like so many of the great commercial marts of Europe, in which
the spirit of freedom was cherished, it had early welcomed the
teaching of the Reformers, and at the time now before us
nearly the whole of its inhabitants were Huguenots. ... About
the very time that the Queen of Navarre entered Rochelle a
royal edict appeared, prohibiting, under pain of death, the
exercise of any other than the Roman Catholic religion in
France, imposing upon all the observance of its rites and
ceremonies; and banishing from the realm all preachers of the
doctrine of Calvin, fifteen days only being allowed them to
quit the kingdom. It was by the sword that this stern edict
was to be enforced or rescinded. Two powerful armies of nearly
equal strength mustered speedily. One was nominally under the
command of the Duke of Anjou, but really led by Tavannes,
Biron, Brissac, and the young Duke of Guise, the last burning
to emulate the military glory of his father; the other under
the command of Condé and Coligni. The two armies were close
upon one another; their generals desired to bring them into
action; they were more than once actually in each other's
presence; but the unprecedented inclemency of the weather
prevented an engagement, and at last, without coming into
collision, both had to retire to winter quarters. The delay
was fatal to the Huguenots." In the following spring (March
13, 1569), while their forces were still scattered and
unprepared, they were forced into battle with the
better-generaled Royalists, at Jarnac, and were grievously
defeated. Condé, wounded and taken prisoner, was treated at
first with respect by the officers who received his sword. But
"Montesquiou, captain of the Swiss Guard of the Duke of Anjou,
galloped up to the spot, and, hearing who the prisoner was,
deliberately levelled his pistol at him and shot him through
the head. The Duke passed no censure on his officer, and
expressed no regret at his deed. The grossest indignities were
afterwards, by his orders, heaped upon the dead body of the
slain. The defeat of Jarnac, and still more the death of
Condé, threw the Huguenot army into despair. ... The utter
dissolution of the army seemed at hand. The Admiral sent a
messenger to the Queen of Navarre at Rochelle, entreating her
to come to the camp. She was already on her way. On arrival,
and after a short consultation with the Admiral, the army was
drawn up to receive her. She rode along the ranks--her son
Henry on one side, the son of the deceased Condé on the
other." Then she addressed to the troops an inspiring speech,
concluding with these heroic words: "Soldiers, I offer you
everything I have to give,--my dominions, my treasures, my
life, and, what is dearer to me than all, my children. I make
here solemn oath before you all--I swear to defend to my last
sigh the holy cause which now unites us." "The soldiers
crowded around the Queen, and unanimously, as if by sudden
impulse, hailed young Henry of Navarre as their future
general. The Admiral and La Rochefoucauld were the first to
swear fidelity to the Prince; then came the inferior officers
and the whole assembled soldiery; and it was thus that, in his
fifteenth year, the Prince of Béarn was inaugurated as
general-in-chief of the army of the Huguenots." In June the
Huguenot army effected a junction at St. Yriex with a division
of German auxiliaries, led by the Duc de Deux-Ponts, and
including among its chiefs the Prince of Orange and his
brother Louis of Nassau. They attacked the Duke of Anjou at La
Roche-Abeille and gained a slight advantage; but wasted their
strength during the summer, contrary to the advice of the
Admiral Coligny, in besieging Poitiers. The Duke of Anjou
approached with a superior army, and, again in opposition to
the judgment of Coligny, the Huguenots encountered him at
Moncontour (October 3, 1569), where they suffered the worst of
their defeats, leaving 5,000 dead and wounded on the field.
Meanwhile a French army had entered Navarre, had taken the
capital and spread destruction everywhere through the small
kingdom; but the Queen sent Count de Montgomery to rally her
people, and the invaders were driven out. Coligny and Prince
Henry wintered their troops in the far south, then moved
rapidly northwards in the spring, up the valley of the Rhone,
across the Cevennes, through Burgundy, approaching the Loire,
and were met by the Marshal de Cosse at Arnay-le-Duc, where
Henry of Navarre won his first success in arms--Coligny being
ill. Though it was but a partial victory it brought about a
breathing time of peace. "This happened in the end of June,
and on the 8th of August [1570] the Peace of St.
Germain-en-Laye was signed, and France had two full years of
quiet."
W. Hanna,
The Wars of the Huguenots,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
Duc d'Aumale,
History of the Princes de Condé,
book 1, chapter 4-5 (volume 1-2).
M. W. Freer,
Life of Jeanne d'Albret,
chapters 8-10.
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos of English History,
5th series, chapter 8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1570-1572.
Coligny at court and his influence with the King.
Projected war with Spain.
The desperate step of Catharine de' Medici, and its
consequence in the plot of Massacre.
"After the Peace of 1570, it appeared as if a complete change
of policy was about to take place. The Queen pretended to be
friendly with the Protestants; her relations with the
ambitious Guises were distant and cold, and the project of
uniting the Houses of Bourbon and Valois by marriage [the
marriage of Henry of Navarre with the king's sister,
Marguerite] really looked as if she was in earnest. The most
distinguished leader of the Huguenot party was the Admiral
Caspar de Coligny. It is quite refreshing at this doleful
period to meet with such a character. He was a nobleman of the
old French school and of the best stamp; lived upon his estates
with his family, his little court, his retainers and subjects,
in ancient patriarchal style, and on the best terms, and
regularly went with them to the Protestant worship and the
communion; a man of unblemished morality and strict
Calvinistic views of life. Whatever this man said or did was
the result of his inmost convictions; his life was the
impersonation of his views and thoughts. In the late turbulent
times he had become an important person as leader and
organizer of the Protestant armies. At his call, thousands of
noblemen and soldiers took up arms, and they submitted under
his command to very strict discipline. He could not boast of
having won many battles, but he was famous for having kept his
resources together after repeated defeats, and for rising up
stronger than before after every lost engagement. ... Now that
peace was made, 'why,' he asked, 'excite further dissensions
for the benefit of our common enemies? Let us direct our
undivided forces against the real enemy of France--against
Spain, who stirs up intrigues in our civil, wars. Let us crush
this power, which condemns us to ignominious dependence.'
{1202}
The war against Spain was Coligny's project. It was the idea
of a good Huguenot, for it was directed against the most
blindly fanatical and dangerous foe of the new doctrines; but
it was also that of a good Frenchman, for a victory over Spain
would increase the power of France in the direction of
Burgundy. ... From September, 1571, Coligny was at court. On
his first arrival he was heartily welcomed by the King,
embraced by Catharine, and loaded with honours and favours by
both. I am not of opinion that this was a deeply laid scheme
to entrap the guileless hero, the more easily to ruin him.
Catharine's ideas did not extend so far. Still less do I
believe that the young King was trained to play the part of a
hypocrite, and regarded Coligny as a victim to be cherished
until the fête day. I think, rather, that Catharine, in her
changeableness and hatred of the Guises, was now really
disposed to make peace with the Protestants, and that the
young King was for the time impressed by this superior
personage. No youthful mind is so degraded as to be entirely
inaccessible to such influence. ... I believe that the first
and only happy day in the life of this unfortunate monarch was
when he met Coligny, who raised him above the degradation of
vulgar life; and I believe further, that this relation was the
main cause of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. A new influence
was threatening to surround the King and to take deep root,
which Catharine, her son Henry of Anjou, and the strict
Catholic party, must do their utmost to avert; and it was
quite in accordance with the King's weak character to allow
the man to be murdered whom he had just called 'Father.' ...
It appears that about the middle of the year [1572] the matter
[of war with Spain and help to the revolting Netherlands] was
as good as decided. The King willingly acceded to Coligny's
plan ... [and] privately gave considerable sums for the
support of the Flemish patriots, for the equipment of an army
of 4,000 men, composed of Catholics and Protestants, who
marched towards Mons, to succour Louis of Nassau. When in July
this army was beaten, and the majority of the Huguenots were
in despair, Coligny succeeded in persuading the King to equip
a fresh and still larger army; but the opposition then
bestirred itself. ...The Queen ... had been absent, with her
married daughter in Lorraine, and on her return she found
everything changed; the Guises without influence, herself
thrust on one side. Under the impression of the latest events
in Flanders, which made it likely that the war with Spain
would be ruinous, she hastened to the King, told him with
floods of tears that it would be his ruin; that the Huguenots,
through Coligny, had stolen the King's confidence,
unfortunately for himself and the country. She made some
impression upon him, but it did not last long, and thoughts of
war gained the upper hand again. The idea now (August, 1572),
must have been matured in Catharine's mind of venturing on a
desperate step, in order to save her supremacy and influence.
... The idea ripened in her mind of getting rid of Coligny by
assassination. ... Entirely of one mind with her son Henry,
she turned to the Guises, with whom she was at enmity when
they were in power, but friendly when they were of no more
consequence than herself. They breathed vengeance against the
Calvinists, and were ready at once to avenge the murder of
Francis of Guise by a murderous attack upon Coligny. An
assassin was hired, and established in a house belonging to
the Guises, near Coligny's dwelling, and as he came out of the
palace, on the 22nd of August, a shot was fired at him, which
wounded but did not kill him. Had Coligny died of his wound,
Catharine would have been content. ... But Coligny did not
die; the Huguenots defiantly demanded vengeance on the
well-known instigator of the deed; their threats reached the
Queen and Prince Henry of Anjou, and the personal fascination
which Coligny had exercised over King Charles appeared rather
to increase than to diminish. Thus doubtless arose, during the
anxious hours after the failure of the assassination, the idea of
an act of violence on a large scale, which should strike a
blow at Coligny and his friends before they had time for
revenge. It certainly had not been in preparation for months,
not even since the time that Coligny had been at Court; it was
conceived in the agony of these hours."
L. Hausser,
The Period of the Reformation,
chapter 27.
ALSO IN:
J. L. Motley,
The Rise of the Dutch Republic,
part 3, chapters 6-7 (volume 2).
L. von Ranke,
Civil Wars and Monarchy in France,
chapter 15.
FRANCE: A. D. 1572 (August).
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day.
"With some proofs, forged or real, in her hand that he was in
personal danger, the Queen Mother [August 24] presented
herself to her son. She told him that at the moment she was
speaking the Huguenots were arming. Sixteen thousand of them
intended to assemble in the morning, seize the palace, destroy
herself, the Duke of Anjou, and the Catholic noblemen, and
carry off Charles. The conspiracy, she said, extended through
France. The chiefs of the congregations were waiting for a
signal from Coligny to rise in every province and town. The
Catholics had discovered the plot, and did not mean to sit
still to be murdered. If the King refused to act with them,
they would choose another leader; and whatever happened he
would be himself destroyed. Unable to say that the story could
not be true, Charles looked enquiringly at Tavannas and De
Nevers, and they both confirmed the Queen Mother's words.
Shaking his incredulity with reminders of Amboise and Meaux,
Catherine went on to say that one man was the cause of all the
troubles in the realm. The Admiral aspired to rule all France,
and she--she admitted, with Anjou and the Guises, had
conspired to kill him to save the King and the country. She
dropped all disguise. The King, she said, must now assist them
or all would be lost. ... Charles was a weak, passionate boy,
alone in the dark conclave of iniquity. He stormed, raved,
wept, implored, spoke of his honour, his plighted word; swore
at one moment that the Admiral should not be touched, then
prayed them to try other means. But clear, cold and venomous,
Catherine told him it was too late. If there was a judicial
enquiry, the Guises would shield themselves by telling all
that they knew. They would betray her; they would betray his
brother; and, fairly or unfairly, they would not spare
himself. ... For an hour and a half the King continued to
struggle. 'You refuse, then,' Catherine said at last. ... 'Is
it that you are afraid, Sire?' she hissed in his ear. 'By
God's death,' he cried, springing to his feet, 'since you will
kill the Admiral, kill them all.
{1203}
Kill all the Huguenots in France, that none may be left to
reproach me. Mort Dieu! Kill them all.' He dashed out of the
cabinet. A list of those who were to die was instantly drawn
up. Navarre and Condé were first included; but Catherine
prudently reflected that to kill the Bourbons would make the
Guises too strong. Five or six names were added to the
Admiral's, and these Catherine afterwards asserted were all
that it was intended should suffer. ... Night had now fallen.
Guise and Aumale were still lurking in the city, and came with
the Duke of Montpensier at Catherine's summons. The persons
who were to be killed were in different parts of the town.
Each took charge of a district. Montpensier promised to see to
the Palace; Guise and his uncle undertook the Admiral; and below
these, the word went out to the leaders of the already
organised sections, who had been disappointed once, but whose
hour was now come. The Catholics were to recognise one another
in the confusion by a white handkerchief on the left arm and a
white cross in their caps. The Royal Guard, Catholics to a
man, were instruments ready made for the work. Guise assembled
the officers: he told them that the Huguenots were preparing
to rise, and that the King had ordered their instant
punishment. The officers asked no questions, and desired no
better service. The business was to begin at dawn. The signal
would be the tolling of the great bell at the Palace of
Justice, and the first death was to be Coligny's. The soldiers
stole to their posts. Twelve hundred lay along the Seine,
between the river and the Hotel de Ville; other companies
watched at the Louvre. As the darkness waned, the Queen Mother
went down to the gate. The stillness of the dawn was broken by
an accidental pistol-shot. Her heart sank, and she sent off a
messenger to tell Guise to pause. But it was too late. A
minute later the bell boomed out, and the massacre of St.
Bartholomew had commenced." The assassins broke into the
Admiral's dwelling and killed him as he lay wounded in bed.
"The window was open. 'Is it done?' cried Guise from the court
below, 'is it done? Fling him out that we may see him.' Still
breathing, the Admiral was hurled upon the pavement. The
Bastard of Angoulême wiped the blood from his face to be sure
of his identity, and then, kicking him as he lay, shouted, 'So
far well. Courage, my brave boys! now for the rest.' One of
the Duc de Nevers's people hacked off the head. A rope was
knotted about the ankles, and the corpse
was dragged out into the street amidst the howling crowd.
Teligny, ... Rochefoucault, and the rest of the Admiral's
friends who lodged in the neighbourhood were disposed of in
the same way, and so complete was the surprise that there was
not the most faint attempt at resistance. Montpensier had been
no less successful in the Louvre. The staircases were all
beset. The retinues of the King of Navarre and the Prince had
been lodged in the palace at Charles's particular desire.
Their names were called over, and as they descended unarmed
into the quadrangle they were hewn in pieces. There, in heaps,
they fell below the Royal window, under the eyes of the
miserable King, who was forced forward between his mother and
his brother that he might be seen as the accomplice of the
massacre. Most of the victims were killed upon the spot. Some
fled wounded up the stairs, and were slaughtered in the
presence of the Princesses. ... By seven o'clock the work
which Guise and his immediate friends had undertaken was
finished with but one failure. The Count Montgomery and the
Vidame of Chartres ... escaped to England. The mob meanwhile
was in full enjoyment. ... While dukes and lords were killing
at the Louvre, the bands of the sections imitated them with
more than success; men, women, and even children, striving
which should be the first in the pious work of murder. All
Catholic Paris was at the business, and every Huguenot
household had neighbours to know and denounce them. Through
street and lane and quay and causeway, the air rang with yells
and curses, pistol-shots and crashing windows; the roadways
were strewed with mangled bodies, the doors were blocked by
the dead and dying. From garret, closet, roof, or stable,
crouching creatures were torn shrieking out, and stabbed and
hacked at; boys practised their hands by strangling babies in
their cradles, and headless bodies were trailed along the
trottoirs. ... Towards midday some of the quieter people
attempted to restore order. A party of the town police made
their way to the palace. Charles caught eagerly at their
offers of service, and bade them do their utmost to put the
people down; but it was all in vain. The soldiers, maddened
with plunder and blood, could not be brought to assist, and
without them nothing could be done. All that afternoon and
night, and the next day and the day after, the horrible scenes
continued, till the flames burnt down at last for want of
fuel. The number who perished in Paris was computed variously
from 2,000 to 10,000. In this, as in all such instances, the
lowest estimate is probably the nearest to the truth. The
massacre was completed--completed in Paris--only, as it
proved, to be continued elsewhere. ... On the 24th, while the
havoc was at its height, circulars went round to the provinces
that a quarrel had broken out between the Houses of Guise and
Coligny; that the Admiral and many more had been unfortunately
killed, and that the King himself had been in danger through
his efforts to control the people. The governors of the
different towns were commanded to repress at once any symptoms
of disorder which might show themselves, and particularly to
allow no injury to be done to the Huguenots." But Guise, when
he learned of these circulars, which threw upon him the odium
of the massacre, forced the King to recall them. "The story of
the Huguenot conspiracy was revived. ... The Protestants of
the provinces, finding themselves denounced from the throne,
were likely instantly to take arms to defend themselves.
Couriers were therefore despatched with second orders that
they should be dealt with as they had been dealt with at
Paris; and at Lyons, Orleans, Rouen, Bordeaux, Toulon, Meaux,
in half the towns and villages of France, the bloody drama was
played once again. The King, thrown out into the hideous
torrent of blood, became drunk with frenzy, and let slaughter
have its way, till even Guise himself affected to be shocked,
and interposed to put an end to it; not, however, till,
according to the belief of the times, 100,000 men, women and
children had been miserably murdered. ... The number again may
be hoped to have been prodigiously exaggerated; with all large
figures, when unsupported by exact statistics, it is safe to
divide at least by ten."
J. A. Froude,
History of England: Reign of Elizabeth,
chapter 23 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
H. White,
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew,
chapters 12-14.
Duke of Sully,
Memoirs,
book 1.
G. P. Fisher,
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew
(New Englander, January, 1880).
{1204}
FRANCE: A. D. 1572 (August-October).
The king's avowal of responsibility for the Massacre, and
celebration of his "victory."
Rejoicings at Rome and Madrid.
General horror of Europe.
The effects in France.
Changed character of the Protestant party.
"On the morning of the 26th of August, Charles IX. went to
hold a 'bed of justice' in the parliament, carrying with him
the king of Navarre, and he then openly avowed that the
massacre had been perpetrated by his orders, made ... excuse
for it, grounded on a pretended conspiracy of the Huguenots
against his person, and then directed the parliament to
commence judicial proceedings against Coligni and his
accomplices, dead or alive, on the charge of high treason. The
parliament obeyed, and, after a process of two months, which
was a mere tissue of falsehoods, they not only found all the
dead guilty, but they included in the sentence two of the
principal men who had escaped--the old captain Briquemaut,
and Arnaud de Cavaignes. ... Both were hanged at the Place de
Grève, in the presence of the king, who compelled the king of
Navarre also to be a witness of their execution. Having once
assumed the responsibility of the massacre of the protestants,
Charles IX. began to glory in the deed. On the 27th of August,
he went with the whole court to Montfaucon, to contemplate the
mutilated remains of the admiral. ... Next day, a grand
jubilee procession was headed by the king in celebration of
his so-called victory. ... The 'victory' was also celebrated
by two medals. ... Nevertheless, the minds of Charles and his
mother were evidently ill at ease, and their misgivings as to
the effect which would be produced at foreign courts by the
news of these proceedings are very evident in the varying and
often contradictory orders which they dispatched into the
provinces. ... The news of these terrible events caused an
extreme agitation in all the courts throughout Christian
Europe. Philip of Spain, informed of the massacres by a letter
from the king and the queen-mother, written on the 29th of
August, replied by warm congratulations and expressions of
joy. The cardinal of Lorraine, who was ... at Rome, gave a
reward of 1,000 écus of gold to the courier who brought the
despatches, and the news was celebrated at Rome by the firing
of the cannons of the castle of St. Angelo, and by the
lighting of bon-fires in the streets. The pope (Gregory XIII.)
and the sacred college went in grand procession to the
churches to offer their thanks to God. ... Not content with
these demonstrations, the pope caused a medal to be struck.
... Gregory dispatched immediately to the court of France the
legate Fabio d'Orsini, with a commission to congratulate the
king and his mother for the vigour they had shown in the
repression of heresy, to demand the reception in France of the
council of Trent, and the establishment of the Inquisition.
... But the papal legate found the court of France in a
different temper from that which he anticipated. Catherine,
alarmed at the effect which these great outrages had produced
on the protestant sovereigns, found it necessary to give him
private intimations that the congratulations of the pontiff
were untimely, and could not be publicly accepted. ... The
policy of the French court at home was no less distasteful to
the papal legate than its relations abroad. The old edicts
against the public exercise of the protestant worship were
gradually revived, and the Huguenots were deprived of the
offices which they had obtained during the short period of
toleration, but strict orders were sent round to forbid any
further massacres, with threats of punishment against those
who had already offended. On the 8th of October, the king
published a declaration, inviting such of the protestants as
had quitted the kingdom in consequence of the massacres to
return, and promising them safety; but this was soon followed
by letters to the governors of the provinces, directing them
to exhort the Huguenot gentry and others to conform to the
catholic faith, and declaring that he would tolerate only one
religion in his kingdom. Many, believing that the protestant
cause was entirely ruined in France, complied, and this
defection was encouraged by the example of the two princes of
Bourbon [Henry, now king of Navarre, his mother, Jeanne
d'Albret, having died June 9, 1572, and Henry, the young
prince of Condé], who, after some weeks of violent resistance,
submitted at the end of September, and, at least in outward
form, became catholics. It has been remarked that the massacre
of St. Bartholomew's-day produced an entire change in the
character of the protestant party in France. The Huguenots had
hitherto been entirely ruled by their aristocracy, who took
the lead and direction in every movement; but now the great
mass of the protestant nobility had perished or deserted the
cause, and from this moment the latter depended for support
upon the inhabitants of some of the great towns and upon the
un-noble class of the people; and with this change it took a
more popular character, in some cases showing even a tendency
to republicanism. In the towns where the protestants were
strong enough to offer serious resistance, such as La
Rochelle, Nimes, Sancerre, and Montauban, the richer burghers,
and a part at least of the municipal officers, were in favour
of submission, and they were restrained only by the resolution
and devotion of the less wealthy portion of the population."
T. Wright,
History of France,
book 3, chapter 7 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
H. M. Baird,
History of the Rise of the Huguenots,
chapter 19 (volume 2).
A. de Montor,
Lives and Times of the Roman Pontiffs,
volume 1, pages 810-812.
{1205}
FRANCE: A. D. 1572-1573.
The Fourth Religious War.
Siege and successful defence of La Rochelle.
A favorable peace.
"The two Reformer-princes, Henry of Navarre and Henry de
Condé, attended mass on the 29th of September, and, on the 3d
of October, wrote to the pope, deploring their errors and
giving hopes of their conversion. Far away from Paris, in the
mountains of the Pyrenees and of Languedoc, in the towns where
the Reformers were numerous and confident ... the spirit of
resistance carried the day. An assembly, meeting at Milhau,
drew up a provisional ordinance for the government of the
Reformed church, 'until it please God, who has the hearts of
kings in His keeping, to change that of King Charles IX. and
restore the state of France to good order, or to raise up such
neighboring prince as is manifest marked out, by his virtue
and by distinguishing signs, for to be the liberator of this
poor afflicted people.' In November, 1572, the fourth
religious war broke out. The siege of La Rochelle was its only
important event. Charles IX. and his councillors exerted
themselves in vain to avoid it. There was everything to
disquiet them in this enterprise: so sudden a revival of the
religious war after the grand blow they had just struck, the
passionate energy manifested by the Protestants in asylum at
La Rochelle, and the help they had been led to hope for from
Queen Elizabeth, whom England would never have forgiven for
indifference in this cause. ... The king heard that one of the
bravest Protestant chiefs, La Noue, 'Ironarm,' had retired to
Mons with Prince Louis of Nassau. The Duke of Longueville ...
induced him to go to Paris. The king received him with great
favor ... and pressed him to go to La Rochelle and prevail
upon the inhabitants to keep the peace. ... La Noue at last
consented, and repaired, about the end of November, 1572, to a
village close by La Rochelle, whither it was arranged that
deputies from the town would come and confer with him. ...
After hearing him, the senate rejected the pacific overtures
made to them by La Noue. 'We have no mind [they said] to treat
specially and for ourselves alone; our cause is that of God
and of all the churches of France; we will accept nothing but
what shall seem proper to all our brethren.'" They then
offered to trust themselves under La Noue's command,
notwithstanding the commission by which he was acting for the
king. "La Noue did not hesitate; he became, under the
authority of the mayor, Jacques Henri, the military head of La
Rochelle, whither Charles IX. had sent him to make peace. The
king authorized him to accept this singular position. La Noue
conducted himself so honorably in it, and everybody was so
convinced of his good faith as well as bravery, that for three
months he commanded inside La Rochelle, and superintended the
preparations for defence, all the while trying to make the
chances of peace prevail. At the end of February, 1573, he
recognized the impossibility of his double commission, and he
went away from La Rochelle, leaving the place in better
condition than that in which he had found it, without either
king or Rochellese considering that they had any right to
complain of him. Biron first and then the Duke of Anjou in
person took the command of the siege. They brought up, it is
said, 40,000 men and 60 pieces of artillery. The Rochellese,
for defensive strength, had but 22 companies of refugees or
inhabitants, making in all 3,100 men. The siege lasted from
the 26th of February to the 13th of June, 1573; six assaults
were made on the place. ... La Rochelle was saved. Charles IX.
was more and more desirous of peace; his brother, the Duke of
Anjou, had just been elected King of Poland; Charles IX. was
anxious for him to leave France and go to take possession of
his new kingdom. Thanks to these complications, the peace of
La Rochelle was signed on the 6th of July, 1573. Liberty of
creed and worship was recognized in the three towns of La
Rochelle, Montauban, and Nimes. They were not obliged to
receive any royal garrison, on condition of giving hostages to
be kept by the king for two years. Liberty of worship throughout
the extent of their jurisdiction continued to be recognized in
the case of lords high-justiciary. Everywhere else the
Reformers had promises of not being persecuted for their
creed, under the obligation of never holding an assembly of
more than ten persons at a time. These were the most favorable
conditions they had yet obtained. Certainly this was not what
Charles IX, had calculated upon when he consented to the
massacre of the Protestants."
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 33.
FRANCE: A. D. 1573-1576.
Escape of Condé and Navarre.
Death of Charles IX.
Accession of Henry III.
The Fifth Civil War.
Navarre's repudiation of Catholicism.
The Peace of Monseur.
The King's mignons and the nation's disgust.
"Catherine ... had the address to procure the crown of Poland
for the son of her predilection, Henry duke of Anjou. She had
lavished her wealth upon the electors for this purpose. No
sooner was the point gained than she regretted it. The health
of Charles was now manifestly on the decline, and Catherine
would fain have retained Henry; but the jealousy of the king
forbade. After conducting the duke on his way to Poland the
court returned to St. Germain, and Charles sunk, without hope
or consolation, on his couch of sickness. Even here he was not
allowed to repose. The young king of Navarre formed a project
of escape with the prince of Condé. The duc d' Alençon,
youngest brother of the king, joined in it. ... The vigilance
of the queen-mother discovered the enterprise, which, for her
own purposes, she magnified into a serious plot. Charles was
informed that a huguenot army was coming to surprise him, and
he was obliged to be removed into a litter, in order to
escape. ... Condé was the only prince that succeeded in making
his escape. The king of Navarre and the duc d' Alençon were
imprisoned." The young king of Navarre "had already succeeded
by his address, his frankness, and high character, in rallying
to his interests the most honourable of the noblesse, who
dreaded at once the perfidious Catherine and her children; who
had renounced their good opinion of young Guise after the day
of St. Bartholomew; and who, at the same time professing
Catholicism, were averse to huguenot principles and zeal. This
party, called the Politiques, professed to follow the middle
or neutral course, which at one time had been that of
Catherine of Medicis; but she had long since deserted it, and
had joined in all the sanguinary and extreme measures of her
son and of the Guises. Hence she was especially odious to the
new and moderate party of the Politiques, among whom the
family of Montmorency held the lead. Catherine feared their
interference at the moment of the king's death, whilst his
successor was absent in a remote kingdom; and she swelled the
project of the princes' escape into a serious conspiracy, in
order to be mistress of those whom she feared. ... In this
state of the court Charles IX. expired on the 30th of May,
1574, after having nominated the queen-mother to be regent
during his successor's absence. ... The career of the new king
[Henry III.], while duke of Anjou, had been glorious. Raised
to the command of armies at the age of 15, he displayed
extreme courage as well as generalship.
{1206}
He had defeated the veteran leader of the protestants at
Jarnac and at Moncontour; and the fame of his exploits had
contributed to place him on the elective throne of Poland,
which he now occupied. Auguring from his past life, a
brilliant epoch might be anticipated; and yet we enter upon
the most contemptible reign, perhaps, in the annals of France.
... Henry was obliged to run away by stealth from his Polish
subjects [see POLAND: A. D. 1574-1590]. When overtaken by one
of the nobles of that kingdom, the monarch, instead of
pleading his natural anxiety to visit France and secure his
inheritance, excused himself by drawing forth the portrait of
his mistress, ... and declared that it was love which hastened
his return. At Vienna, however, Henry forgot both crown and
mistress amidst the feasts that were given him; and he turned
aside to Venice, to enjoy a similar reception from that rich
republic. ... The hostile parties were in the meantime arming.
The Politiques, or neutral catholics, for the first time
showed themselves in the field. They demanded the freedom of
Cossé and of Montmorency, and at length formed a treaty of
alliance with the Huguenots. Henry, after indulging in the
ceremony of being crowned, was obliged to lead an army into
the field. Sieges were undertaken on both sides, and what is
called the fifth civil war raged openly. It became more
serious when the king's brother joined it. This was the duke
of Alençon, a vain and fickle personage, of whom it pleased
the king to become jealous. Alençon fled and joined the
malcontents. The reformers, however, waited but languidly.
Both parties were without active and zealous leaders; and the
only notable event of this war was a skirmish in Champagne
[the battle of Dormans, in which both sides lost heavily],
where the duke of Guise received a slight wound in the cheek.
From hence came his surname of 'Le Balafré.'" In February,
1576, the king of Navarre made his escape from court. "He bent
his course towards Guienne, and at Niort publicly avowed his
adherence to the reformed religion, declaring that force alone
had made him conform to the mass. It was about this time that
the king, in lieu of leading an army against the malcontents,
despatched the queen-mother, with her gay and licentious
court, to win back his brother. She succeeded, though not
without making large concessions [in a treaty called the
'Peace of Monsieur']. The duke of Alençon obtained Anjou, and
other provinces in appanage, and henceforth was styled duke of
Anjou. More favourable terms were granted to the Huguenots:
they were allowed ten towns of surety in lieu of six, and the
appointment of a certain number of judges in the parliament.
Such weakness in Henry disgusted the body of the catholics;
and the private habits of his life contributed still more, if
possible, than his public measures, to render him
contemptible. He was continually surrounded by a set of young
and idle favourites, whose affectation it was to unite
ferocity with frivolity. The king showed them such tender
affection as he might evince towards woman; they even had the
unblushing impudence to adopt feminine habits of dress; and
the monarch passed his time in adorning them and himself with
robes and ear-rings. ... The indescribable tastes and
amusements of Henry and his mignons, as his favourites were
called, ... raised up throughout the nation one universal cry
of abhorrence and contempt."
E. E. Crowe,
History of France,
chapters 8-9 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
Lady Jackson,
The Last of the Valois,
volume 2, chapters 2-6.
S. Menzies,
Royal Favourites,
volume 1, chapter 5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1576-1585.
The rise of the League.
Its secret objects and aims.
Its alliance with Philip II. of Spain.
The Pope's Bull against Navarre and Condé.
"The famous association known as the 'Catholic League' or
'Holy Union,' took its rise from the strangely indulgent terms
granted to the Huguenots by the 'Peace of Monsieur,' in April,
1576. Four years had scarcely elapsed since the bloodstained
Eve of St. Bartholomew. It had been hoped that by means of
that execrable crime the Reformation would have been finally
crushed and extinguished in France; but instead of this, a
treaty was concluded with the heretics, which placed them in a
more favourable situation than they had ever occupied before.
... It was regarded by the majority of Catholics as a wicked
and cowardly betrayal of their most sacred interests. They
ascribed it to its true source, namely, the hopeless
incapacity of the reigning monarch, Henry III.; a prince whose
monstrous vices and gross misgovernment were destined to
reduce France to a state of disorganization bordering on
national ruin. The idea of a general confederation of
Catholics for the defence of the Faith against the inroads of
heresy had been suggested by the Cardinal of Lorraine during
the Council of Trent, and had been favourably entertained at
the Court of Rome. The Duke of Guise was to have been placed
at the head of this alliance; but his sudden death changed the
face of affairs, and the project fell into abeyance. The
Cardinal of Lorraine was now no more; he died at Avignon, at
the age of 50, in December, 1574. ... Henry, the third Duke of
Guise, inherited in their fullest extent the ambition, the
religious ardour, the lofty political aspirations, the
enterprising spirit, the personal popularity, of his
predecessors. The League of 1576 was conceived entirely in his
interest. He was the leader naturally pointed out for such a
movement;--a movement which, although its ulterior objects
were at first studiously concealed, aimed in reality at
substituting the family of Lorraine for that of Valois on the
throne of France. The designs of the confederates, as set
forth in the original manifesto which was circulated for
signature, seemed at first sight highly commendable, both with
regard to religion and politics. According to this document, the
Union was formed for three great purposes: to uphold the
Catholic Church; to suppress heresy; and to maintain the
honour, the authority and prerogatives of the Most Christian
king and his successors. On closer examination, however,
expressions were detected which hinted at less constitutional
projects. ... Their secret aims became incontestably manifest
soon afterwards, when one of their confidential agents, an
advocate named David, happened to die suddenly on his return
from Rome, and his papers fell into the hands of the
Huguenots, who immediately made them public. ... A change of
dynasty in France was the avowed object of the scheme thus
disclosed. It set forth, in substance, that the Capetian
monarchs were usurpers,--the throne belonging rightfully to
the house of Lorraine as the lineal descendants of
Charlemagne. ...
{1207}
The Duke of Guise, with the advice and permission of the Pope,
was to imprison Henry for the rest of his days in a monastery,
after the example of his ancestor Pepin when he dethroned the
Merovingian Childeric. Lastly, the heir of the Carlovingians
was to be proclaimed King of France; and, on assuming the
crown, was to make such arrangements with his Holiness as
would secure the complete recognition of the sovereignty of
the Vicar of Christ, by abrogating for ever the so-called
'liberties of the Gallican Church.' ... This revolutionary
plot ... unhappily, was viewed with cordial sympathy, and
supported with enthusiastic zeal, by many of the prelates, and
a large majority of the parochial clergy, of France. ... The
death of the Duke of Anjou, presumptive heir to the throne, in
1584, determined the League to immediate action. In the event
of the king's dying without issue, which was most
probable,--the crown would now devolve upon Henry of Bourbon
[the King of Navarre], the acknowledged leader of the
Huguenots. ... In January, 1585, the chiefs of the League
signed a secret treaty at Joinville with the King of Spain, by
which the contracting parties made common cause for the
extirpation of all sects and heresies in France and the
Netherlands, and for excluding from the French throne princes
who were heretics, or who 'treated heretics with public
impunity.' ... Liberal supplies of men and money were to be
furnished to the insurgents by Philip from the moment that war
should break out. ... The Leaguers lost no time in seeking for
their enterprise the all-important sanction of the Holy See.
For this purpose they despatched as their envoy to Rome a
Jesuit named Claude Matthieu. ... The Jesuit fraternity in
France had embraced with passionate ardour the anti-royalist
cause. ... His Holiness [Gregory XIII.], however, was cautious
and reserved. He expressed in general terms his consent to the
project of taking up arms against the heretics, and granted a
plenary indulgence to those who should aid in the holy work.
But he declined to countenance the deposition of the king by
violence. ... At length, however [September 9, 1585], Sixtus
was persuaded to fulminate a bull against the King of Navarre
and the Prince of Condé, in which ... both culprits, together
with their heirs and posterity were pronounced for ever
incapable of succeeding to the throne of France or any other
dignity; their subjects and vassals were released from their
oath of homage, and forbidden to obey them."
W. H. Jervis,
History of the Church of France,
volume 1, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
Civil Wars and Monarchy in France,
chapter 21.
FRANCE: A. D. 1577-1578.
Rapid spread of the League.
The Sixth Civil War and the Peace of Bergerac.
Anjou in the Netherlands.
The League "spread like lightning over the whole face of
France; Condé could find no footing in Picardy or even in
Poitou; Henry of Navarre was refused entrance into Bordeaux
itself; the heads of the League, the family-party of the Dukes
of Guise, Mayenne and Nemours, seemed to carry all before
them; the weak King leant towards them; the Queen Mother,
intriguing ever, succeeded in separating Anjou from the
Politiques, and began to seduce Damville. She hoped once more
to isolate the Huguenots and to use the League to weaken and
depress them. ... The Court and the League seemed to be in
perfect harmony, the King ... in a way, subscribed to the
League, though the twelve articles were considerably modified
before they were shown to him. ... The Leaguers had succeeded
in making war [called the Sixth Civil War--1577], and winning
some successes: but on their heels came the Court with fresh
negotiations for peace. The heart's desire of the King was to
crush the stubborn Huguenots and to destroy the moderates, but
he was afraid to act; and so it came about that, though Anjou
was won away from them, and compromised on the other side, and
though Damville also deserted them, and though the whole party
was in the utmost disorder and seemed likely to disperse,
still the Court offered them such terms that in the end they
seemed to have even recovered ground. Under the walls of
Montpellier, Damville, the King's general, and Chatillon, the
Admiral's son, at the head of the Huguenots, were actually
manœuvring to begin a battle, when La Noue came up bearing
tidings of peace, and at the imminent risk of being shot
placed himself between the two armies, and stayed their
uplifted hands. It was the Peace of Bergerac [confirmed by the
Edict of Poitiers--Sept. 17, 1577], another ineffectual truce,
which once more granted in the main what that of Chastenoy [or
the 'Peace of Monseur'] had already promised: it is needless
to say that the League would have none of it; and
partisan-warfare, almost objectless, however oppressive to the
country, went on without a break: the land was overrun by
adventurers and bandits, sure sign of political death. Nothing
could be more brutalising or more brutal: but the savage
traits of civil war are less revolting than the ghastly
revelries of the Court. All the chiefs were alike--neither the
King, nor Henry of Navarre, nor Anjou, nor even the strict
Catholic Guise, disdained to wallow in debauch." Having
quarreled with his brother, the King, "Anjou fled, in the
beginning of 1578, to Angers, where, finding that there was a
prospect of amusement in the Netherlands, he turned his back
on the high Catholics, and renewed friendship with the
Huguenot chiefs. He was invited to come to the rescue of the
distressed Calvinists in their struggle against Philip, and
appeared in the Netherlands in July 1578."
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581, and 1581-1584.
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
volume 2, pages 370-373.
FRANCE: A. D. 1578-1580.
Treaty of Nérac.
The Seventh Civil War, known as the War of the Lovers.
The Peace of Fleix.
"The King, instead of availing himself of this interval of
repose [after the Peace of Bergerac] to fortify himself
against his enemies, only sank deeper and deeper into vice and
infamy. ... The court resembled at once a slaughter-house and
a brothel, although, amid all this corruption, the King was
the slave of monks and Jesuits whom he implicitly obeyed. It
was about this time (December 1578) that he instituted the
military order of the Holy Ghost, that of St. Michael having
fallen into contempt through being prostituted to unworthy
objects. Meanwhile the Guises were using every effort to
rekindle the war, which Catherine, on the other hand, was
endeavouring to prevent. With this view she travelled, in
August, into the southern provinces, and had an interview with
Henry of Navarre at Nérac, bringing with her Henry's wife, her
daughter Margaret; a circumstance, however, which did not add
to the pleasure of their meeting.
{1208}
Henry received the ladies coldly, and they retired into
Languedoc, where they passed the remainder of the year.
Nevertheless the negotiations were sedulously pursued; for a
peace with the Hugonots was, at this time, indispensable to
the Court. ... In February 1579, a secret treaty was signed at
Nérac, by which the concessions granted to the Protestants by
the peace of Bergerac were much extended. ... Catherine spent
nearly the whole of the year 1579 in the south, endeavouring
to avert a renewal of the war by her intrigues, rather than by
a faithful observance of the peace. But the King of Navarre
saw through her Italian artifices, and was prepared to summon
his friends and captains at the shortest notice. The
hostilities which he foresaw were not long in breaking out,
and in a way that would seem impossible in any other country
than France. When the King of Navarre fled from Court in 1576,
he expressed his indifference for two things he had left
behind, the mass and his wife; Margaret, the heroine of a
thousand amours, was equally indifferent, and though they now
contrived to cohabit together, it was because each connived at
the infidelities of the other. Henry was in love with
Mademoiselle Fosseuse, a girl of fourteen, while Margaret had
taken for her gallant the young Viscount of Turenne, who had
lately turned Hugonot. ... The Duke of Anjou being at this
time disposed to renew his connection with the Hugonots,
Margaret served as the medium of communication between her
brother and her husband; while Henry III., with a view to
interrupt this good understanding, wrote to the king of
Navarre to acquaint him of the intrigues of his wife with
Turenne. Henry was neither surprised nor afflicted at this
intelligence; but he laid the letter before the guilty
parties, who both denied the charge, and Henry affected to
believe their protestations. The ladies of the Court of Nérac
were indignant at this act of Henry III., 'the enemy of
women'; they pressed their lovers to renew hostilities against
that discourteous monarch; Anjou added his instances to those
of the ladies; and in 1580 ensued the war called from its
origin 'la guerre des amoureux,' or war of the lovers: the
seventh of what are sometimes styled the wars of 'religion'!
The Prince of Condé, who lived on bad terms with his cousin,
had already taken the field on his own account, and in
November 1579 had seized on the little town of La Fère in
Picardy. In the spring of 1580 the Protestant chiefs in the
south unfurled their banners. The King of Navarre laid the
foundation of his military fame by the bravery he displayed at
the capture of Cahors; but on the whole the movement proved a
failure. Henry III. had no fewer than three armies in the
field, which were generally victorious, and the King of
Navarre found himself menaced in his capital of Nérac by
Marshal Biron. But Henry III., for fear of the Guises, did not
wish to press the Hugonots too hard, and at length accepted
the proffered mediation of the Duke of Anjou, who was at this
time anxious to enter on the protectorate offered to him by
the Flemings. Anjou set off for the south, accompanied by his
mother and her 'flying squadron' [of seductive nymphs];
conferences were opened at the castle of Fleix in Périgord,
and on November 26th 1580 a treaty was concluded which was
almost a literal renewal of that of Bergerac. Thus an
equivocal peace, or rather truce, was re-established, which
proved of some duration."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 3, chapter 8 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
Duc d'Aumale,
History of the Princes de Condé,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 2).
FRANCE: A. D. 1584-1589.
Henry of Navarre heir apparent to the throne.
Fresh hostility of the League.
The Edict of Nemours.
The Pope's Brutum Fulmen.
War of the Three Henrys.
Battle of Coutras.
The Day of Barricades at Paris.
Assassination of Guise.
Assassination of Henry III.
"The Duc d'Anjou ... died in 1584; Henri III. was a worn-out
and feeble invalid; the reports of the doctors and the known
virtue of the Queen forbad the hope of direct heirs. The King
of Navarre was the eldest of the legitimate male descendants
of Hugues Capet and of Saint-Louis [see BOURBON, HOUSE OF].
But on the one hand he was a relapsed heretic; on the other,
his relationship to the King was so distant that he could
never have been served heir to him in any civil suit. This
last objection was of small account; the stringent rules which
govern decisions in private affairs cannot be made applicable
to matters affecting the tranquillity and well-being of
nations. ... His religion was the only pretext on which
Navarre could be excluded. France was, and wished to remain,
Catholic; she could not submit to a Protestant King. The
managers of the League understood that this very wide-spread
and even strongly cherished feeling might some day become a
powerful lever, but that, in order to use it, it was very
needful for them to avoid offending the national amour-propre;
and they thought that they had succeeded in finding the means
of effecting their object. Next to Navarre, the eldest of the
Royal House was his uncle the Cardinal de Bourbon; the Guises
acknowledged him as heir to the throne and first Prince of the
Blood, under the protection of the Pope and of the King of
Spain. ... The feeble-minded old man, whom no one respected,
was a mere phantom, and could offer no serious resistance,
when it should be convenient to set him aside. ... In every
class throughout the nation the majority were anxious to
maintain at once French unity and Catholic unity, disliking
the Reformation, but equally opposed to ultramontane
pretensions and to Spanish ambition. ... But ... this great
party, already named the 'parti politique,' hung loosely
together without a leader, and without a policy. For the
present it was paralyzed by the contempt in which the King was
held; while the dislike which was entertained for the
religious opinions of the rightful heir to the throne seemed
to deprive it of all hope for the future. Henry III. stood in
need of the assistance of the King of Navarre; he would
willingly have cleared away the obstacle which kept them
apart, and he made an overture with a view to bring back that
Prince to the Catholic religion. But these efforts could not
be successful. The change of creed on the part of the Béarnais
was to be a satisfaction offered to France, the pledge of a
fresh agreement between the nation and his race, and not a
concession to the threats of enemies. He was not an
unbeliever; still less was he a hypocrite; but he was placed
between two fanatical parties, and repelled by the excesses of
both; so he doubted, honestly doubted, and as his religious
indecision was no secret, his conversion at the time of which
we are now speaking would have been ascribed to the worst
motives."
{1209}
As it was, he found it necessary to quiet disturbing rumors
with regard to the proposals of the King by permitting a plain
account of what had occurred to be made public. "Henry III.,
having no other answer to make to this publication, which
justified all the complaints of the Catholics, replied to it
by the treaty of Nemours and by the edict of July [1585].
These two acts annulled all the edicts in favour of
toleration; and placed at the disposal of the League all the
resources and all the forces of the monarchy." Soon afterwards
the Pope issued against Navarre and Condé his bull of
excommunication. By this "the Pontiff did not deprive the
Bourbons of a single friend, and did not give the slightest
fresh ardour to their opponents; but he produced a powerful
reaction among a portion of the clergy, among the magistracy,
among all the Royalists; wounded the national sensibility,
consolidated that union between the two Princes which he
wished to break off, and rallied the whole of the Reformed
party round their leaders. The Protestant pamphleteers replied
with no less vehemence, and gave to the Pontiff's bull that
name of 'Brutum fulmen' by which it is still known. ... Still
the sentence launched from the Vatican had had one very
decided result--it had fired the train of powder; war broke
out at once."
Duc d'Aumale,
History of the Princes of Condé,
book 2, chapter 1.
"The war, called from the three leading actors in it [Henry of
Valois, Henry of Navarre, and Henry of Guise] the War of the
Three Henrys, now opened in earnest. Seven powerful armies
were marshalled on the part of the King of France and the
League. The Huguenots were weak in numbers, but strong in the
quality of their troops. An immense body of German 'Reiter'
had been enrolled to act as an auxiliary force, and for some
time had been hovering on the frontiers. Hearing that at last
they had entered France, Henry of Navarre set out from
Rochelle to effect a junction with them. The Duke of Joyeuse,
one of the French King's chief favourites, who had the charge
of the army that occupied the midland counties, resolved to
prevent their junction. By a rapid movement he succeeded in
crossing the line of Henry's march and forcing him into
action. The two armies came in front of each other on a plain
near the village of Coutras, on the 19th of October, 1587. The
Royalist army numbered from 10,000 to 12,000, the Huguenot
from 6,000 to 7,000--the usual disparity in numbers; but
Henry's skilful disposition did more than compensate for his
numerical inferiority. ... The struggle lasted but an hour,
yet within that hour the Catholic army lost 3,000 men, more
than 400 of whom were members of the first families in the
kingdom; 3,000 men were made prisoners. Not more than a third
part of their entire army escaped. The Huguenots lost only
about 200 men. ... Before night fell he [Navarre] wrote a few
lines to the French King, which run thus: 'Sire, my Lord and
Brother,--Thank God, I have beaten your enemies and your
army.' It was but too true that the poor King's worst enemies
were to be found in the very armies that were marshalled in
his name."
W. Hanna,
The Wars of the Huguenots,
chapter 6.
"The victory [at Coutras] had only a moral effect. Henry lost
time by going to lay at the feet of the Countess of Grammont
the flags taken from the enemy. Meantime the Duke of Guise,
north of the Loire, triumphed over the Germans under the Baron
of Dohna at Vimory, near Montargis, and again near Auneau
(1587). Henry III. was unskilful enough to leave to his rival
the glory of driving them out of the country. Henry III.
re-entered Paris. As he passed along, the populace cried out,
'Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands';
and a few days after, the Sorbonne decided that 'the
government could be taken out of the hands of princes who were
found incapable.' Henry III., alarmed, forbade the Duke of
Guise to come to Paris, and quartered in the faubourgs 4,000
Swiss and several companies of the guards. The Sixteen [chiefs
of sixteen sections of Paris, who controlled the League in
that city] feared that all was over; they summoned the
'Balafré' and he came [May 9, 1588]. Cries of 'Hosannah to the
Son of David!' resounded throughout Paris, and followed him to
the Louvre. ... The king and the chief of the League fortified
themselves, one in the Louvre, the other in the Hotel Guise.
Negotiations were carried on for two days. On the morning of
the 11th the duke, well attended, returned to the Louvre, and
in loud tones demanded of the king that he should send away
his counsellors, establish the Inquisition, and push to the
utmost the war against the heretics. That evening the king
ordered the companies of the city guards to hold several
positions, and the next morning he introduced into the city
the Swiss and 2,000 men of the French guards. But the city
guards failed him. In two hours all Paris was under arms, all
the streets were rendered impassable, and the advancing
barricades soon reached the positions occupied by the troops
[whence the insurrection became known as 'the Day of
Barricades']. At this juncture Guise came out of his hôtel,
dressed in a white doublet, with a small cane in his hand;
saved the Swiss, who were on the point of being massacred,
sent them back to the king with insulting scorn, and quieted
everything as if by magic. He demanded the office of
lieutenant-general of the kingdom for himself, the convocation
of the States at Paris, the forfeiture of the Bourbons, and,
for his friends, provincial governments and all the other
offices. The queen-mother debated these conditions for three
hours. During this time the attack was suspended, and Henry
III. was thus enabled to leave the Louvre and make his escape.
The Duke of Guise had made a mistake; but if he did not have
the king, he had Paris. There was now a king of Paris and a
king of France; negotiations were carried on, and to the
astonishment of all, Henry III. at length granted what two
months before he had refused in front of the barricades. He
swore that he would not lay down his arms until the heretics
were entirely exterminated; declared that any non-Catholic
prince forfeited his rights to the throne, appointed the Duke
of Guise lieutenant-general, and convoked the States at Blois
[October, 1588]. The States of Blois were composed entirely of
Leaguers," and were wholly controlled by the Duke of Guise.
The latter despised the king too much to give heed to repeated
warnings which he received of a plot against his life.
{1210}
Summoned to a private interview in the royal cabinet, at an
early hour on the morning of the 23d of December, he did not
hesitate to present himself, boldly, alone, and was murdered
as he entered, by eight of the king's body-guard, whom Henry
III. had personally ordered to commit the crime. "Killing the
Duke of Guise was not killing the League. At the news of his
death Paris was stunned for a moment; then its fury broke
forth. ... The Sorbonne decreed 'that the French people were
set free from the oath of allegiance taken to Henry III.' ...
Henry III. had gained nothing by the murder; ... but he had
helped the fortunes of the king of Navarre, into whose arms he
was forced to cast himself. ... The junction of the Protestant
and the royal armies under the same standard completely
changed the nature of the war. It was no longer feudal
Protestantism, but the democratic League, which threatened
royalty; monarchy entered into a struggle with the Catholic
masses in revolt against it. Henry III. called together, at
Tours, his useless Parliament, and issued a manifesto against
Mayenne and the chiefs of the League. Henry of Navarre carried
on the war energetically. In two months he was master of the
territory between the Loire and the Seine, and 15,000 Swiss
and lanzknechts joined him. On the evening of July 30th, 1589,
the two kings, with 40,000 men, appeared before Paris. The
Parisians could see the long line of the enemies' fires
gleaming in a vast semi-circle on the left bank of the Seine.
The king of Navarre established his headquarters at Meudon;
Henry III. at Saint-Cloud. The great city was astounded; the
people had lost energy; but the fury was concentrated in the
hearts of the chiefs and in the depths of the cloisters. ...
The arm of a fanatic became the instrument of the general
fury, and put into practice the doctrine of tyrannicide more
than once asserted in the schools and the pulpit. The assault
was to be made on August 2d. On the morning of the previous
day a young friar from the convent of the Dominicans, Jacques
Clément, came out from Paris," obtained access to the king by
means of a forged letter, and stabbed him in the abdomen,
being, himself, slain on the spot by the royal guards. Henry
III. "died the same night, and with him the race of Valois
became extinct. The aged Catherine de' Medici had died six
months before."
V. Duruy,
History of France (abridged),
chapter 45.
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
Civil Wars and Monarchy in France,
16th and 17th Centuries, chapters 22-25.
W. S. Browning,
History of the Huguenots,
chapters 35-42.
FRANCE: A. D. 1585.
Proffered sovereignty of the United Netherlands declined by
Henry III.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1585-1586.
FRANCE: A. D. 1589-1590.
Henry of Navarre as Henry IV. of France.
His retreat to Normandy.
The battles at Arques.
Battle of Ivry.
"On being made aware that all hope was over, this King [Henry
III.], whose life had been passed in folly, vanity and
sensuality ... prepared for death like a patriot king and a
martyr. He summoned his nobles to his bedside, and told them
that his only regret in dying was that he left the kingdom in
disorder, and as the best mode of remedying the evil he
recommended them to recognize the King of Navarre, to whom the
kingdom belonged of right; making no account of the religious
difference, because that king, with his sincere and earnest
nature, must finally return to the bosom of the Church. Then
turning to Henry, he solemnly warned him: 'Cousin,' he said,
'I assure you that you will never be King of France if you do
not become Catholic, and if you do not make your peace with
the Church.' Directly afterwards he breathed his last,
reciting the 'Miserere.' This account is substantially
confirmed by Perefixe. According to Sully, Henry, hearing that
the King had been stabbed, started for St. Cloud, attended by
Sully, but did not arrive till he was dead; and D'Aubigny
says: 'When the King of Navarre entered the chamber where the
body was lying, he saw amidst the howlings some pulling their
hats down upon their brows, or throwing them on the ground,
clenching their fists, plotting, clasping each other's hands,
making vows and promises.' ... Henry's situation was
embarrassing in the extreme, for only a small number of the
Catholic nobles gave in an unqualified adhesion: a powerful
body met and dictated the conditions upon which alone they
would consent to his being proclaimed King of France: the two
first being that within six months he would cause himself to
be instructed in the Holy Catholic Apostolic Faith; and that
during this interval he would nominate no Huguenot to offices
of State. He replied that he was no bigot, and would readily
seek instruction in the tenets of the Romish faith, but
declined pledging himself to any description of exclusion or
intolerance. M. Guadet computes that nine-tenths of his French
subjects were Catholic, and the temper of the majority may be
inferred from what was taking place in Paris, where the news
of the late King's death was the signal for the most unseemly
rejoicing. ... Far from being in a condition to reduce the
refractory Parisians, Henry was obliged to abandon the siege,
and retire towards Normandy, where the expected succours from
England might most easily reach him. Sully says that this
retreat was equally necessary for the safety of his person and
the success of his affairs. He was temporarily abandoned by
several of the Huguenot leaders, who, serving at their own
expense, were obliged from time to time to go home to recruit
their finances and their followers. Others were made lukewarm
by the prospect of his becoming Catholic; so that he was no
longer served with enthusiasm by either party; and when, after
making the best arrangements in his power, he entered
Normandy, he had with him only 3,000 French foot, two
regiments of Swiss and 1,200 horse; with which, after being
joined by the Due de Montpensier with 200 gentlemen and 1,500
foot, he drew near to Rouen, relying on a secret understanding
within the walls which might give him possession of the place.
Whilst preparations were making for the siege, sure
intelligence was brought that the Duc de Mayenne was seeking
him with an army exceeding 30,000; but, resolved to make head
against them till the last extremity, Henry entrenched himself
before Arques, which was only accessible by a causeway." A series
of engagements ensued, beginning September 15, 1589; but
finding that he could not dislodge his antagonist, Mayenne
withdrew after some ten days of fighting, moving his army
towards Picardy and leaving the road to Paris open. "Being too
weak to recommence the siege or to occupy the city if taken by
assault, Henry resolved to give the Parisians a sample of what
they might expect if they persevered in their contumacy, and
gave orders for attacking all the suburbs at once.
{1211}
They were taken and sacked. Davila states that the plunder was
so abundant that the whole camp was wonderfully relieved and
sustained." From this attack on the Parisian suburbs, Henry
proceeded to Tours, where he held his court for a time. Early
in March, 1590, he laid siege to Dreux. "The Duc de Mayenne,
reinforced by Spanish troops from the Low Countries under
Count Egmont, left Paris to effect a diversion, and somewhat
unexpectedly found himself compelled to accept the battle
which was eagerly pressed upon him. This was the renowned
battle of Ivry. The armies presented much the same contrast as
at Coutras. The numerical superiority on one side, the
Catholic, was more than compensated by the quality of the
troops on the other. Henry's soldiers, as described by De
Thou, were armed to the teeth. 'They displayed neither scarf
nor decoration, but their accoutrements inspired grim terror.
The army of the Duc, on the contrary, was magnificent in
equipment. The officers wore bright-coloured scarves, while
gold glittered upon their helmets and lances.' The two armies
were confronted on the 13th of March, 1590, but it was getting
dark before the dispositions were completed, and the battle
was deferred till the following morning. The King passed the
night like Henry V. at Agincourt, and took only a short rest
in the open air on the field. ... At daybreak he mounted his
horse, and rode from rank to rank, pausing from time to time
to utter a brief exhortation or encouragement. Prayers were
offered up by the Huguenot ministers at the head of each
division, and the bishop [Perefixe] gives the concluding words
of that in which Divine aid was invoked by the King: 'But,
Lord, if it has pleased Thee to dispose otherwise, or Thou
seest that I ought to be one of those kings whom Thou
punishest in Thy wrath, grant that I may be this day the
victim of Thy Holy will: so order it that my death may deliver
France from the calamities of war, and that my blood be the
last shed in this quarrel.' Then, putting on his helmet with
the white plume, before closing the vizor, he addressed the
collected leaders:--'My friends, if you share my fortune this
day, I also share yours. I am resolved to conquer or to die
with you. Keep your ranks firmly, I beg; if the heat of the
combat compels you to quit them, think always of the rally; it
is the gaining of the battle. You will make it between the
three trees which you see there [pointing to three pear-trees
on an eminence], and if you lose your ensigns, pennons and
banners, do not lose sight of my white plume: you will find it
always on the road of honour and victory.' It so chanced that his
white plume was the actual rallying-point at the most critical
moment. ... His standard-bearer fell: a page bearing a white
pennon was struck down at his side; and the rumour was
beginning to spread that he himself was killed, when the sight
of his bay horse and white plume, with the animating sound of
his voice, gave fresh courage to all around and brought the
bravest of his followers to the front. The result is told in
one of his own missives. After stating that the battle began
between 11 and 12, he continues: 'In less than an hour, after
having discharged all their anger in two or three charges
which they made and sustained, all their cavalry began to
shift for themselves, abandoning their infantry, which was
very numerous. Seeing which, their Swiss appealed to my pity
and surrendered--colonels, captains, soldiers, and colours.
The lansquenets and French had no time to form this
resolution, for more than 1,200 were cut to pieces, and the
rest dispersed into the woods at the mercy of the peasants.'
He urged on the pursuers, crying 'Spare the French, and down
with the foreigners.' ... Instead of pushing on towards Paris,
which it was thought would have opened its gates to a
conqueror in the flush of victory, Henry lingered at Mantes,
where he improvised a Court, which his female favourites were
summoned to attend."
Henry IV. of France
(Quarterly Review, October, 1879).
ALSO IN:
H. M. Baird,
The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre,
chapter 11 (volume 2).
Duke of Sully,
Memoirs,
book 3 (volume l).
G. P. R. James,
Life of Henry IV.,
books 11-12 (volume 2).
FRANCE: A. D. 1590.
The siege of Paris and its horrors.
Relief at the hands of the Spaniards under Parma.
Readiness of the League to give the crown to Philip II.
"The king, yielding to the councils of Biron and other
catholics, declined attacking the capital, and preferred
waiting the slow, and in his circumstances eminently
hazardous, operations of a regular siege. ... Whatever may
have been the cause of the delay, it is certain that the
golden fruit of victory was not plucked, and that although the
confederate army had rapidly dissolved, in consequence of
their defeat, the king's own forces manifested as little
cohesion. And now began that slow and painful siege, the
details of which are as terrible, but as universally known, as
those of any chapters in the blood-stained history of the
century. Henry seized upon the towns guarding the rivers Seine
and Marne, twin nurses of Paris. By controlling the course of
those streams as well as that of the Yonne and Oise--
especially by taking firm possession of Lagny on the Marne,
whence a bridge led from the Isle of France to the Brie
country--great thoroughfare of wine and corn--and of Corbeil
at the junction of the little river Essonne with the Seine--it
was easy in that age to stop the vital circulation of the
imperial city. By midsummer, Paris, unquestionably the first
city of Europe at that day, was in extremities. ... Rarely
have men at any epoch defended their fatherland against
foreign oppression with more heroism than that which was
manifested by the Parisians of 1590 in resisting religious
toleration, and in obeying a foreign and priestly despotism.
Men, women, and children cheerfully laid down their lives by
thousands in order that the papal legate and the king of Spain
might trample upon that legitimate sovereign of France who was
one day to become the idol of Paris and of the whole kingdom.
A census taken at the beginning of the siege had showed a
population of 200,000 souls, with a sufficiency of provisions,
it was thought, to last one month. But before the terrible
summer was over--so completely had the city been invested--the
bushel of wheat was worth 360 crowns. ... The flesh of horses,
asses, dogs, cats, rats, had become rare luxuries. There was
nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly, but sermons. And the
priests and monks of every order went daily about the streets,
preaching fortitude in that great resistance to heresy. ...
Trustworthy eye-witnesses of those dreadful days have placed
the number of the dead during the summer at 30,000. ...
{1212}
The hideous details of the most dreadful sieges recorded in
ancient or modern times were now reproduced in Paris. ... The
priests ... persuaded the populace that it was far more
righteous to kill their own children, if they had no food to
give them, than to obtain food by recognizing a heretic king.
It was related, too, and believed, that in some instances
mothers had salted the bodies of their dead children and fed
upon them, day by day, until the hideous repast would no
longer support their own life. ... The bones of the dead were
taken in considerable quantities from the cemeteries, ground
into flour, baked into bread, and consumed. It was called
Madame Montpensier's cake, because the duchess earnestly
proclaimed its merits to the poor Parisians. 'She was never
known to taste it herself, however,' bitterly observed one who
lived in Paris through that horrible summer. She was right to
abstain, for all who ate of it died. ... Lansquenets and other
soldiers, mad with hunger and rage, when they could no longer
find dogs to feed on, chased children through the streets, and
were known in several instances to kill and devour them on the
spot. ... Such then was the condition of Paris during that
memorable summer of tortures. What now were its hopes of
deliverance out of this Gehenna? The trust of Frenchmen was in
Philip of Spain, whose legions, under command of the great
Italian chieftain [Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, commander
of the Spanish forces in the Netherlands], were daily longed
for to save them from rendering obedience to their lawful
prince. For even the king of straw--the imprisoned cardinal
[Cardinal de Bourbon, whom the League had proclaimed king,
under the title of Charles X., on the death of Henry
III.]--was now dead, and there was not even the effigy of any
other sovereign than Henry of Bourbon to claim authority in
France. Mayenne, in the course of long interviews with the
Duke of Parma at Condé and Brussels, had expressed his desire
to see Philip king of France, and had promised his best
efforts to bring about such a result." Parma, who was
struggling hard with the obstinate revolt in the Netherlands,
having few troops and little money to pay them with, received
orders from his Spanish master to relieve Paris and conquer
France. He obeyed the command to the best of his abilities. He
left the Netherlands at the beginning of August, with 12,000
foot and 3,000 horse; effected a junction with Mayenne at
Meaux, ten leagues from Paris, on the 22d, and the united
armies--5,000 cavalry and 18,000 foot--arrived at Chelles on
the last day of summer. "The two great captains of the age had
at last met face to face. ... The scientific duel which was
now to take place was likely to task the genius and to bring
into full display the peculiar powers and defects of the two."
The winner in the duel was the Duke of Parma, who foiled
Henry's attempts to bring him to battle, while he captured
Lagny under the king's eyes. "The bridges of Charenton and St.
Maur now fell into Farnese's hands without a contest. In an
incredibly short space of time provisions and munitions were
poured into the starving city, 2,000 boat-loads arriving in a
single day. Paris was relieved. Alexander had made his
demonstration and solved the problem. ... The king was now in
worse plight than ever. His army fliers, cheated of their
battle, and having neither food nor forage, rode off by
hundreds every day." He made one last attempt, by a midnight
assault on the city, but it failed. Then he followed the
Spaniards--whom Parma led back to the Netherlands early in
November--but could not bring about a battle or gain any
important advantage. But Paris, without the genius of
Alexander Farnese in its defence, was soon reduced to as
complete a blockade as before. Lagny was recovered by the
besieging royalists, the Seine and the Marne were again
fast-locked, and the rebellious capital deprived of supplies.
J. L. Motley,
History of the United Netherlands,
chapter 23 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
M. W. Freer,
History of the Reign of Henry IV.,
book 1.
C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
chapter 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1591-1593.
The siege of Rouen and Parma's second interference.
General advancement of Henry's cause.
Restiveness of the Catholics.
The King's abjuration of Protestantism.
"It seemed as if Henri IV. had undertaken the work of
Penelope. After each success, fresh difficulties arose to
render it fruitless. ... Now it was the Swiss who refused to
go on without their pay; or Elizabeth who exacted seaports in
return for fresh supplies; or the Catholics who demanded the
conversion of the King; or the Protestants who complained of
not being protected. Depressed spirits had to be cheered, some
to be satisfied, others to be reassured or restrained, allies
to be managed, and all to be done with very little money and
without any sacrifice of the national interests. Henri was
equal to all, both to war and to diplomacy, to great concerns
and to small. ... His pen was as active as his sword. The
collection of his letters is full of the most charming notes.
... Public opinion, which was already influential and
thirsting for news, was not neglected. Every two or three
months a little publication entitled 'A Discourse,' or 'An
Authentic Narrative,' or 'Account of all that has occurred in
the King's Army,' was circulated widely. ... Thus it was that
by means of activity, patience, and tact, Henri V. was enabled
to retrieve his fortunes and to rally his party; so that by
the end of the year 1591, he found himself in a position to
undertake an important operation. ... The King laid siege to
Rouen in December, 1591. He was at the head of the most
splendid army he had ever commanded; it numbered upwards of
25,000 men. This was not too great a number; for the
fortifications were strong, the garrison numerous, well
commanded by Villars, and warmly supported by the townspeople.
The siege had lasted for some months when the King learned
that Mayenne had at last made the Duke of Parma to understand
the necessity of saving Rouen at all hazards. Thirty thousand
Spanish and French Leaguers had just arrived on the Somme.
Rouen, however, was at the last gasp; Henri could not make up
his mind to throw away the fruits of so much toil and trouble;
he left all his infantry under the walls, under the command of
Biron, and marched off with his splendid cavalry." He attacked
the enemy imprudently, near Aumale, February 5, met with a
repulse, was wounded and just missed being taken prisoner in a
precipitate retreat. But both armies were half paralyzed at this
time by dissensions among their chiefs.
{1213}
That of the Leaguers fell back to the Somme; but in April it
approached Rouen again, and Parma was able, despite all
Henri's efforts, to enter the town. This last check to the
King "was the signal for a general desertion. Henri, left with
only a small corps of regular troops and a few gentlemen, was
obliged to retire rapidly upon Pont de l'Arche. The Duke of
Parma did not follow him. Always vigilant, he wished before
everything to establish himself on the Lower Seine, and laid
siege to Caudebec, which was not likely to detain him long.
But he received during that operation a severe wound, which
compelled him to hand over the command to Mayenne." The
incompetence of the latter soon lost all the advantages which
Parma had gained. Henri's supporters rallied around him again
almost as quickly as they had dispersed. "The Leaguers were
pushed back upon the Seine and confined in the heart of the
Pays de Caux. They were without provisions; Mayenne was at his
wits' end; he had to resort for suggestions and for orders to
the bed of suffering on which the Duke of Parma was held down
by his wound." The great Italian soldier, dying though he was,
as the event soon proved, directed operations which baffled
the keen watchfulness and penetration of his antagonist, and
extricated his army without giving to Henri the chance for
battle which he sought. The Spanish army retired to Flemish
territory. In the meantime, Henri's cause was being advanced
in the northeast of his kingdom by the skill and valor of
Turenne, then beginning his great career, and experiencing
vicissitudes in the southeast, where Lesdiguières was
contending with the mercenaries of the Pope and the Duke of
Savoy, as well as with his countrymen of the League. He had
defeated them with awful slaughter at Pontcharra, September
19, 1591, and he carried the war next year into the
territories of the Duke of Savoy, seeking help from the
Italian Waldenses which he does not seem to have obtained.
"Nevertheless the king had still some formidable obstacles to
overcome. Three years had run their course since he had
promised to become instructed in the Catholic religion, and
there were no signs as yet that he was preparing to fulfil
this undertaking. The position in which he found himself, and
the importance and activity of his military operations, had
hitherto been a sufficient explanation of his delay. But the
war had now changed its character. The King had gained
brilliant successes. There was no longer any large army in the
field against him. Nothing seemed to be now in the way to
hinder him from fulfilling his promise. And yet he always
evaded it. He had to keep on good terms with Elizabeth and the
Protestants; he wished to make his abjuration the occasion for
an agreement with the Court of Rome, which took no steps to
smooth over his difficulties; and lastly, he shrank from
taking a step which is always painful when it is not the fruit
of honest conviction. This indecision doubled the ardour of
his enemies, prevented fresh adhesions, discouraged and
divided his old followers. ... A third party, composed of
bishops and Royalist noblemen, drew around the cousins of
Henri IV., the Cardinal de Vendôme and the Comte de Soissons.
... The avowed object of this third party was to raise one of
these two Princes to the throne, if the Head of their House
did not forthwith enter the bosom of the Catholic Church. And
finally, the deputies of the cities and provinces who had been
called to Paris by Mayenne were assembling there for the
election of a king. 'The Satire of Ménippée' has handed down
the States of the League to immortal ridicule; but however
decried that assembly has been, and deserved to be, 'it
decided the conversion of Henri IV.: he does not attempt in
his despatches to deny this. ... In order to take away every
excuse for such an election, he entered at once into
conference with the Catholic theologians. After some very
serious discussion, much deeper than a certain saying which
has become a proverb [that 'Paris is certainly worth a Mass']
would seem to imply, he abjured the Protestant religion on the
25th of July, 1593, before the Archbishop of Bourges. The
League had received its death-blow."
Duc d'Aumale,
History of the Princes de Condé,
book 2, chapter 2 (volume 2).
"The news of the abjuration produced in the minds of honest
men, far and near, the most painful impression. Politicians
might applaud an act intended to conciliate the favor of the
great majority of the nation, and extol the astuteness of the
king in choosing the most opportune moment for his change of
religion--the moment when he would secure the support of the
Roman Catholics, fatigued by the length of the war and too
eager for peace to question very closely the sincerity of the
king's motives, without forfeiting the support of the
Huguenots. But men of conscience, judging Henry's conduct by a
standard of morality immutable and eternal, passed a severe
sentence of condemnation upon the most flagrant instance of a
betrayal of moral convictions which the age had known."
H. M. Baird,
The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre,
chapter 13 (volume 2).
"What the future history of France would have been if Henry
had clung to his integrity, is known only to the Omniscient;
but, with the annals of France in our hands, we have no
difficulty in perceiving that the day of his impious, because
pretended conversion, was among the 'dies nefasti' of his
country. It restored peace indeed to that bleeding land, and
it gave to himself an undisputed reign of seventeen years; but
he found them years replete with cares and terrors, and
disgraced by many shameful vices, and at last abruptly
terminated by the dagger of an assassin. It rescued France,
indeed, from the evils of a disputed succession, but it
consigned her to two centuries of despotism and misgovernment.
It transmitted the crown, indeed, to seven in succession of
the posterity of Henry; but of them one died on the scaffold,
three were deposed by insurrections of their subjects, one has
left a name pursued by unmitigated and undying infamy, and
another lived and died in a monastic melancholy, the feeble
slave of his own minister."
Sir J. Stephen,
Lectures on the History of France,
lecture 16.
ALSO IN:
P. F. Willert,
Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots of France,
chapters 5-6.
{1214}
FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.
Henry's winning of Paris.
The first attempt upon his life.
Expulsion of Jesuits from Paris.
War with Spain.
The Peace of Vervins.
"A truce of three months had been agreed upon [August 1,
1593], during which many nobles and several important towns
made their submissions to the King. Many, however, still held
out for the League, and among them Paris, as well as Rheims,
by ancient usage the city appropriated to the coronation of
the kings of France. Henry IV. deemed that ceremony
indispensable to sanctify his cause in the eyes of the people,
and he therefore caused it to be performed at Chartres by the
bishop of that place, February 27th 1594. But he could hardly
look upon himself as King of France so long as Paris remained
in the hands of a faction which disputed his right, and he
therefore strained every nerve to get possession of that
capital. ... As he wished to get possession of the city
without bloodshed, he determined to attempt it by corrupting
the commandant. This was Charles de Cossé, Count of Brissac.
... Henry promised Brissac, as the price of his admission into
Paris, the sum of 200,000 crowns and an annual pension of
20,000, together with the governments of Corbeil and Mantes,
and the continuance to him of his marshal's bâton. To the
Parisians was offered an amnesty from which only criminals
were to be excepted; the confirmation of all their privileges;
and the prohibition of the Protestant worship within a radius
of ten leagues. ... Before daybreak on the morning of the 22nd
March 1594 Brissac opened the gates of Paris to Henry's
troops, who took possession of the city without resistance,
except at one of the Spanish guard-houses, where a few
soldiers were killed. When all appeared quiet, Henry himself
entered, and was astonished at being greeted with joyous
cheers. ... He gave manifold proofs of forbearance and good
temper, fulfilled all the conditions of his agreement, and
allowed the Spaniards [4,000] to withdraw unmolested." In May,
1594, Henry laid siege to Laon, which surrendered in August.
"Its' example was soon followed by Chateau Thierry, Amiens,
Cambrai and Noyon. The success of the King induced the Duke of
Lorraine and the Duke of Guise to make their peace with him." In
November, an attempt to kill the King was made by a young man
named Jean Chatel, who confessed that he attended the schools
of the Jesuits. "All the members of that order were arrested,
and their papers examined. One of them, named Jean Guignard,
on whom was found a treatise approving the murder of Henry
III., and maintaining that his successor deserved a like fate,
was condemned to the gallows: and the remainder of the order
were banished from Paris, January 8th 1595, as corrupters of
youth and enemies of the state. This example, however, was
followed only by a few of the provincial cities. The
irritation caused by this event seems to have precipitated
Henry IV. into a step which he had been some time meditating:
a declaration of war against his ancient and most bitter enemy
Philip II. (January 17th 1595). The King of Spain, whom the
want of money had prevented from giving the League much
assistance during the two preceding years, was stung into fury
by this challenge; and he immediately ordered Don Fernando de
Velasco, constable of Castile, to join Mayenne in Franche
Comté with 10,000 men. Velasco, however, was no great captain,
and little of importance was done. The only action worth
mentioning is an affair of cavalry at Fontaine Française (June
6th 1595), in which Henry displayed his usual bravery, or
rather rashness, but came off victorious. He then overran
nearly all Franche Comté without meeting with any impediment
from Velasco, but retired at the instance of the Swiss, who
entreated him to respect the neutrality of that province.
Meanwhile Henry had made advances to Mayenne, who was
disgusted with Velasco and the Spaniards, and on the 25th
September Mayenne, in the name of the League, signed with the
King a truce of three months, with a view to regulate the
conditions of future submission. An event had already occurred
which placed Henry in a much more favourable position with his
Roman Catholic subjects; he had succeeded [September, 1595] in
effecting his reconciliation with the Pope. ... The war on the
northern frontiers had not been going on so favourably for the
King." In January, 1595, "Philip II. ordered the Spaniard
Fuentés, who, till the arrival of Albert [the Archduke],
conducted the government of the Netherlands, to invade the
north of France; and Fuentés ... having left Mondragone with
sufficient forces to keep Prince Maurice in check, set off
with 15,000 men, with the design of recovering Cambrai.
Catelet and Doullens yielded to his arms; Ham was betrayed to
him by the treachery of the governor, and in August Fuentés
sat down before Cambrai. ... The Duke of Anjou had made over
that place to his mother, Catherine de'Medici, who had
appointed Balagni to be governor of it. During the civil wars
of France, Balagni had established himself there as a little
independent sovereign, and called himself Prince of Cambrai;
but after the discomfiture of the League he had been compelled
to declare himself, and had acknowledged his allegiance to the
King of France. His extortion and tyranny having rendered him
detested by the inhabitants, they ... delivered Cambrai to the
Spaniards, October 2nd. Fuentés then returned into the
Netherlands. ... The Cardinal Archduke Albert arrived at
Brussels in February 1596, when Fuentés resigned his command.
... Henry IV. had been engaged since the winter in the siege
of La Fère, a little town in a strong situation at the
junction of the Serre and Oise. He had received reinforcements
from England as well as from Germany and Holland. ... Albert
marched to Valenciennes with about 20,000 men, with the avowed
intention of relieving La Fère; but instead of attempting that
enterprise, he despatched De Rosne, a French renegade ... with
the greater part of the forces, to surprise Calais; and that
important place was taken by assault, April 17th, before Henry
could arrive for its defence. La Fère surrendered May 22nd;
and Henry then marched with his army towards the coast of
Picardy, where he endeavoured, but in vain, to provoke the
Spaniards to give him battle. After fortifying Calais and
Ardres, Albert withdrew again into the Netherlands. ...
Elizabeth, alarmed at the occupation by the Spaniards of a
port which afforded such facilities for the invasion of
England, soon afterwards concluded another offensive and
defensive alliance with Henry IV. (May 24th), in which the
contracting parties pledged themselves to make no separate
peace or truce with Philip II." The Dutch joined in this
treaty; but the Protestant princes of Germany refused to
become parties to it. "The treaty, however, had little
effect." Early in 1597, the Spaniards dealt Henry an alarming
blow, by surprising and capturing the city of Amiens, gaining
access to it by an ingenious stratagem. But Henry recovered
the place in September, after a vigorous siege. He also put
down a rising, under the Duke de Mercœur, in Brittany,
defeating the rebels at Dinan, while his lieutenant,
Lesdiguières, in the southeast, invaded Savoy once more,
taking Maurienne, and paralyzing the hostile designs of its
Duke.
{1215}
The malignant Spanish king, suffering and near his end,
discouraged and tired of the war, now sought to make peace.
Both the Dutch and the English refused to treat with him; but
Henry IV., notwithstanding the pledges given in 1596 to his
allies, entered into negotiations which resulted in the Treaty
of Vervins, signed May 2, 1598. "By the Peace of Vervins the
Spaniards restored to France Calais, Ardres, Doullens, La
Capelle, and Le Câtelet in Picardy, and Blavet (port Louis) in
Brittany, of all their conquests retaining only the citadel of
Cambrai. The rest of the conditions were referred to the
treaty of Câteau-Cambresis, which Henry had stipulated should
form the basis of the negotiations. The Duke of Savoy was
included in the peace." While this important treaty was
pending, in April, 1598, Henry quieted the anxieties of his
Huguenot subjects by the famous Edict of Nantes.
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 3, chapters 10-11 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
Lady Jackson,
The First of the Bourbons,
volume 1, chapters 14-18,
and volume 2, chapters 1-7.
J. L. Motley,
History of the United Netherlands,
chapters 29-35 (volume 3).
R. Watson,
History of the Reign of Philip II.,
books 23-24.
FRANCE: A. D. 1598-1599.
The Edict of Nantes.
For the purpose of receiving the submission of the Duke of
Mercœur and the Breton insurgents, the king proceeded down the
Loire, and "reached the capital of Brittany, the commercial
city of Nantes, on the 11th of April, 1598. Two days later he
signed the edict which has come to be known as the Edict of
Nantes [and which had been under discussion for some months
with representatives of a Protestant assembly in session at
Châtellerault]. ... The Edict of Nantes is a long and somewhat
complicated document. Besides the edict proper, contained in
95 public articles, there is a further series of 56 'secret'
articles, and a 'brevet' or patent of the king, all of which
were signed on the 13th of April; and these documents are
supplemented by a second set of 23 'secret' articles, dated on
the last day of the same month. The first of these four papers
is expressly declared to be a 'perpetual and irrevocable
edict.' ... Our chief concern being with the fortunes of the
Huguenots, the provisions for the re-establishment of the
Roman Catholic worship, wherever in the course of the events
of the last 30 years that worship had been interfered with or
banished, need not claim our attention. For the benefit of the
Protestants the cardinal concession was liberty to dwell
anywhere in the royal dominions, without being subjected to
inquiry, vexed, molested, or constrained to do anything
contrary to their conscience. As respects public worship,
while perfect equality was not established, the dispositions
were such as to bring it within the power of a Protestant in
any part of the kingdom to meet his fellow-believers for the
holiest of acts, at least from time to time. To every
Protestant nobleman enjoying that extensive authority known as
'haute justice,' and to noblemen in Normandy distinguished as
possessors of 'fiefs de haubert,' the permission was granted
to have religious services on all occasions and for all comers
at their principal residence, as well as on other lands
whenever they themselves were present. Noblemen of inferior
jurisdiction were allowed to have worship on their estates,
but only for themselves and their families. In addition to
these seigniorial rights, the Protestant 'people' received
considerable accessions to the cities where they might meet
for public religious purposes. The exercise of their worship
was authorized in all cities and places where such worship had
been held on several occasions in the years 1596 and 1597, up
to the month of August; and in all places in which worship had
been, or ought to have been, established in accordance with
the Edict of 1577 [the edict of Poitiers--see above: A. D.
1577-1578], as interpreted by the Conference of Nérac and the
Peace of Fleix [see above: A. D. 1578-1580]. But in addition
to these, a fresh gift of a second city in every bailiwick and
sénéchaussée of the kingdom greatly increased the facilities
enjoyed by the scattered Huguenots for reaching the assemblies
of their fellow-believers. ... Scholars of both religions were
to be admitted without distinction of religion to all
universities, colleges, and schools throughout France. The
same impartiality was to extend to the reception of the sick
in the hospitals, and to the poor in the provision made for
their relief. More than this, the Protestants were permitted
to establish schools of their own in all places where their
worship was authorized. ... The scandal and inhumanity
exhibited in the refusal of burial to the Protestant dead, as
well in the disinterment of such bodies as had been placed in
consecrated ground, was henceforth precluded by the assignment
of portions of the public cemeteries or of new cemeteries of
their own to the Protestants. The civil equality of the
Protestants was assured by an article which declared them to
be admissible to all public positions, dignities, offices, and
charges, and forbade any other examination into their
qualifications, conduct, and morals than those to which their
Roman Catholic brethren were subjected. ... Provision was made
for the establishment of a 'chamber of the edict,' as it was
styled, in the Parliament of Paris, with six Protestants among
its sixteen counsellors, to take cognizance of cases in which
Protestants were concerned. A similar chamber was promised in
each of the parliaments of Rouen and Rennes. In Southern
France three 'chambres mi-parties' were either continued or
created, with an equal number of Roman Catholic and Protestant
judges." In the "brevet" or patent which accompanied the
edict, the king made a secret provision of 45,000 crowns
annually from the royal treasury, which was understood to be
for the support of Protestant ministers, although that purpose
was concealed. In the second series of secret articles, the
Protestants were authorized to retain possession for eight
years of the "cautionary cities" which they held under former
treaties, and provision was made for paying the garrisons.
"Such are the main features of a law whose enactment marks an
important epoch in the history of jurisprudence. ... The Edict
of Nantes was not at once presented to the parliaments; nor
was it, indeed, until early in the following year that the
Parliament of Paris formally entered the document upon its
registers. ... There were obstacles from many different
quarters to be overcome. The clergy, the parliaments, the
university, raised up difficulty after difficulty." But the
masterful will of the king bore down all opposition, and the
Edict was finally accepted as the law of the land. "On the
17th of March [1599] Henry took steps for its complete
execution throughout France, by the appointment of
commissioners--a nobleman and a magistrate from each province
--to attend to the work."
H. M. Baird,
The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre,
chapter 14 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
5th series, chapter 36.
{1216}
The full text of the Edict of Nantes will be found in the
following named works:
C. Weiss,
History of French Protestant Refugees,
volume 2, appendix.
A. Maury,
Memoirs of a Huguenot Family
(J. Fontaine), appendix.
FRANCE: A. D. 1599-1610.
Invasion of Savoy.
Acquisition of the Department of Aisne.
Ten years of peace and prosperity.
The great works of Henry IV.
His foreign policy.
His assassination.
"One thing only the peace of Vervins left unsettled. In the
preceding troubles a small Italian appanage, the Marquisate of
Saluces, had been seized by Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy,
and remained still in his possession. The right of France to
it was not disputed, did not admit indeed of dispute; but the
Duke was unwilling to part with what constituted one of the
keys of Italy. He came to Paris in December 1599 to negotiate
the affair in person," but employed his opportunity to
intrigue with certain disaffected nobles, including the Duke
of Biron, marshal of France and governor of Burgundy. "Wearied
with delays, whose object was transparent, Henry at last had
recourse to arms. Savoy was speedily overrun with French
troops, and its chief strongholds taken. Spain was not
prepared to back her ally, and the affair terminated by
Henry's accepting in lieu of the Marquisate that part of Savoy
which now constitutes the Department of Aisne in France."
Biron, whom the King tried hard to save by repeated warnings
which were not heeded, paid the penalty of his treasonable
schemes at last by losing his head. "The ten years from 1600
to 1610 were years of tranquillity, and gave to Henry the
opportunity he had so ardently longed for of restoring and
regenerating France." He applied his energies and his active
mind to the reorganization of the disordered finances of the
kingdom, to the improvement of agriculture, to the
multiplication of industries, to the extending of commerce. He
gave the first impulse to silk culture and silk manufacture in
France; he founded the great Gobelin manufactory of tapestry
at Paris; he built roads and bridges, and encouraged canal
projects; he began the creation of a navy; he promoted the
colonization of Canada. "It was, however, in the domain of
foreign politics that Henry exhibited the acuteness and
comprehensiveness of his genius, and his marvellous powers of
contrivance, combination, execution. ... The great political
project, to the maturing of which Henry IV. devoted his
untiring energies for the last years of his life, was the
bringing of the ... half of Europe into close political
alliance, and arming it against the house of Austria, and
striking when the fit time came, such a blow at the ambition
and intolerance of that house that it might never be able to
recover. After innumerable negotiations ... he had succeeded
in forming a coalition of twenty separate States, embracing
England, the United Provinces, Denmark, Sweden, Northern
Germany, Switzerland. At last the time for action came. The
Duke of Cleves died, 25th March 1609. The succession was
disputed. One of the claimants of the Dukedom was supported by
the Emperor, another by the Protestant Princes of Germany [see
GERMANY: A. D. 1608-1618]. The contest about a small German
Duchy presented the opportunity for bringing into action that
alliance which Henry had planned and perfected. In the great
military movements that were projected he was himself to take
the lead. Four French armies, numbering 100,000, were to be
launched against the great enemy of European liberty. One of
these Henry was to command; even our young Prince of Wales was
to bring 6,000 English with him, and make his first essay in arms
under the French King. By the end of April, 1610, 35,000 men
and 50 pieces of cannon had assembled at Chalons. The 20th May
was fixed as the day on which Henry was to place himself at
its head." But on the 16th of May (1610) he was struck down by
the hand of an assassin (François Ravaillac), and the whole
combination fell to pieces.
W. Hanna,
The Wars of the Huguenots,
chapter 8.
"The Emperor, the King of Spain, the Queen of France, the Duke
d'Epernon, the Jesuits, were all in turn suspected of having
instigated the crime, because they all profited by it; but the
assassin declared that he had no accomplices. ... He believed
that the King was at heart a Huguenot, and thought that in
ridding France of this monarch he was rendering a great
service to his country."
A. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 1, page 450.
ALSO IN:
M. W. Freer,
The Last Decade of a Glorious Reign.
Duke of Sully,
Memoirs,
volumes 2-5.
Sir N. W. Wraxall,
History of France, 1574-1610,
volume 5, chapter 7-8, and volume 6.
FRANCE: A. D. 1603-1605.
First settlements in Acadia.
See CANADA: A. D. 1603-1605;
and 1606-1608.
FRANCE: A. D. 1605-1616.
Champlain's explorations and settlements in the Valley of the
St. Lawrence.
See CANADA: A. D. 1608-1611; 1611-1616; 1616-1628.
FRANCE: A. D. 1610.
Accession of King Louis XIII.
FRANCE: A. D. 1610-1619.
The regency of Marie de Medicis.
The reign of favorites and the riot of factions.
Distractions of the kingdom.
The rise of Richelieu.
"After the death of Henry IV. it was seen how much the power,
credit, manners, and spirit of a nation frequently depend upon
a single man. This prince had by a vigorous, yet gentle
administration, kept all orders of the state in union, lulled
all factions to sleep, maintained peace between the two
religions, and kept his people in plenty. He held the balance
of Europe in his hands by his alliance, his riches, and his
arms. All these advantages were lost in the very first year of
the regency of his widow, Mary of Medicis [whom Henry had
married in 1600, the pope granting a divorce from his first
wife, Margaret of Valois]. ... Mary of Medicis ... appointed
regent [during the minority of her son, Louis XIII.], though
not mistress of the kingdom, lavished in making of creatures
all that Henry the Great had amassed to render his nation
powerful. The army he had raised to carry the war into Germany
was disbanded, the princes he had taken under his protection
were abandoned. Charles Emanuel, duke of Savoy, the new ally
of Henry IV., was obliged to ask pardon of Philip III. of
Spain for having entered into a treaty with the French king,
and sent his son to Madrid to implore the mercy of the Spanish
court, and to humble himself as a subject in his father's name.
{1217}
The princes of Germany, whom Henry had protected with an army
of 40,000 men, now found themselves almost without assistance.
The state lost all its credit abroad, and was distracted at
home. The princes of the blood and the great nobles filled
France with factions, as in the times of Francis II., Charles
IX. and Henry III., and as afterwards, during the minority of
Lewis XIV. At length [1614] an assembly of the general estates
was called at Paris, the last that was held in France [prior
to the States General which assembled on the eve of the
Revolution of 1789]. ... The result of this assembly was the
laying open all the grievances of the kingdom, without being
able to redress one. France remained in confusion, and
governed by one Concini, a Florentine, who rose to be marechal
of France without ever having drawn a sword, and prime
minister without knowing anything of the laws. It was
sufficient that he was a foreigner for the princes to be
displeased with him. Mary of Medicis was in a very unhappy
situation, for she could not share her authority with the
prince of Condé, chief of the malcontents, without being
deprived of it altogether; nor trust it in the hands of
Concini, without displeasing the whole kingdom. Henry prince
of Condé, father of the great Condé, and son to him who had
gained the battle of Coutras in conjunction with Henry IV.,
put himself at the head of a party, and took up arms. The
court made a dissembled peace with him; and afterwards clapt
him up in the Bastile. This had been the fate of his father
and grandfather, and was afterwards that of his son. His
confinement encreased the number of the male contents. The
Guises, who had formerly been implacable enemies to the Condé
family, now joined with them. The duke of Vendome, son to
Henry IV., the duke of Nevers, of the house of Gonzaga, the
marechal de Bouillon, and all the rest of the male contents,
fortified themselves in the provinces, protesting that they
continued true to their king, and made war only against the
prime minister. Concini, marechal d'Anere, secure of the queen
regent's protection, braved them all. He raised 7,000 men at
his own expense, to support the royal authority. ... A young
man of whom he had not the least apprehension, and who was a
stranger like himself, caused his ruin, and all the
misfortunes of Mary of Medicis. Charles Albert of Luines, born
in the county of Avignon, had, with his two brothers, been
taken into the number of gentlemen in ordinary to the king,
and the companions of his education. He had insinuated himself
into the good graces and confidence of the young monarch, by his
dexterity in bird-catching. It was never supposed that these
childish amusements would end in a bloody revolution. The
marechal d'Ancre had given him the government of Amboise,
thinking by that to make him his creature; but this young man
conceived the design of murdering his benefactor, banishing
the queen, and governing himself; all which he accomplished
without meeting with any obstacle. He soon found means of
persuading the king that he was capable of reigning alone,
though he was not then quite 17 years old, and told him that
the queen-mother and Concini kept him in confinement. The
young king, to whom in his childhood they had given the name
of Just, consented to the murder of his prime minister; the
marquis of Vitri, captain of the king's guards, du Hallier his
brother, Persan, and others, were sent to dispatch him, who,
finding him in the court of the Louvre, shot him dead with
their pistols [April 24, 1617]: upon this they cried out,
'Vive le roi', as if they had gained a battle, and Lewis
XIII., appearing at a window, cried out, 'Now I am king.' The
queen-mother had her guards taken from her, and was confined
to her own apartment, and afterwards banished to Blois. The
place of marechal of France, held by Concini, was given to the
marquis of Vitri, his murderer." Concini's wife, Eleanor
Galigai, was tried on a charge of sorcery and burned, "and the
king's favourite, Luines, had the confiscated estates. This
unfortunate Galigai was the first promoter of cardinal
Richelieu's fortune; while he was yet very young, and called
the abbot of Chillon, she procured him the bishopric of Luçon,
and at length got him made secretary of state in 1616. He was
involved in the disgrace of his protectors, and ... was now
banished ... to a little priory at the farther end of Anjou.
... The duke of Epernon, who had caused the queen to be
declared regent, went to the castle of Blois [February 22,
1619], whither she had been banished, and carried her to his
estate in Angoulême, like a sovereign who rescues his ally.
This was manifestly an act of high treason; but a crime that
was approved by the whole kingdom." The king presently "sought
an opportunity of reconciliation with his mother, and entered
into a treaty with the duke of Epernon, as between prince and
prince. ... But the treaty of reconciliation was hardly signed
when it was broken again; this was the true spirit of the
times. New parties took up arms in favour of the queen, and
always to oppose the duke of Luines, as before it had been to
oppose the marechal d'Ancre, but never against the king. Every
favourite at that time drew after him a civil war. Lewis and
his mother in fact made war upon each other. Mary was in Anjou
at the head of a small army against her son; they engaged each
other on the bridge of Cé, and the kingdom was on the point of
ruin. This confusion made the fortune of the famous Richelieu.
He was comptroller of the queen-mother's household, and had
supplanted all that princess's confidants, as he afterwards
did all the king's ministers. His pliable temper and bold
disposition must necessarily have acquired for him the first
rank everywhere, or have proved his ruin. He brought about the
accommodation between the mother and son; and a nomination to
the purple, which the queen asked of the king for him, was the
reward of his services. The duke of Epernon was the first to
lay down arms without making any demands, whilst the rest made
the king pay them for having taken up arms against him. The
queen-mother and the king her son had an interview at Brisac,
where they embraced with a flood of tears, only to quarrel
again more violently than ever. The weakness, intrigues, and
divisions of the court spread anarchy through the kingdom. All
the internal defects with which the state had for a long time
been attacked were now encreased, and those which Henry IV.
had removed were revived anew."
Voltaire, Ancient and Modern History,
chapter 145
(works translated by Smollett, volume 5).
ALSO IN:
C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
volume 1, chapters 5-6.
A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers État in France,
volume 1, chapter 7.
S. Menzies,
Royal Favourites,
volume 1, chapter 9.
{1218}
FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622.
Renewed jealousy of the Huguenots.
Their formidable organization and its political pretensions.
Restoration of Catholicism in Navarre and Béarn.
Their incorporation with France.
The Huguenot revolt.
Treaty of Montpelier.
"The Huguenot question had become a very serious one, and the
bigotry of some of the Catholics found its opportunity in the
insubordination of many of the Protestants. The Huguenots had
undoubtedly many minor causes for discontent. ... But on the
whole the government and the majority of the people were
willing to carry out in good faith the provisions of the edict
of Nantes. The Protestants, within the limits there laid down,
could have worshipped after their own conscience, free from
persecution and subject to little molestation. It was,
perhaps, all that could be expected in a country where the
mass of the population were Catholic, and where religious
fanaticism had recently supported the League and fostered the
wars of religion. But the Protestant party seem to have
desired a separate political power, which almost justifies the
charge made against them, that they sought to establish a
state within a state, or even to form a separate republic.
Their territorial position afforded a certain facility for
such endeavors. In the northern provinces their numbers were
insignificant. They were found chiefly in the southwestern
provinces--Poitou, Saintonge, Guienne, Provence, and
Languedoc,--while in Béarn and Navarre they constituted the
great majority of the population, and they held for their
protection a large number of strongly fortified cities. ...
Though there is nothing to show that a plan for a separate
republic was seriously considered, the Huguenots had adopted
an organization which naturally excited the jealousy and
ill-will of the general government. They had long maintained a
system of provincial and general synods for the regulation of
their faith and discipline. ... The assembly which met at
Saumur immediately after Henry's death, had carried still
further the organization of the members of their faith. From
consistories composed of the pastors and certain of the laity,
delegates were chosen who formed local consistories. These
again chose delegates who met in provincial synods, and from
them delegates were sent to the national synod, or general
assembly of the church. Here not only matters of faith, but of
state, were regulated, and the general assembly finally
assumed to declare war, levy taxes, choose generals, and act
both as a convocation and a parliament. The assembly of Saumur
added a system of division into eight great circles, covering
the territory where the Protestants were sufficiently numerous
to be important. All but two of these were south of the Loire.
They were subsequently organized as military departments, each
under the command of some great nobleman. ... The Huguenots
had also shown a willingness to assist those who were in arms
against the state, had joined Condé, and contemplated a union
with Mary de Medici in the brief insurrection of 1620. A
question had now arisen which was regarded by the majority of
the party as one of vital importance. The edict of Nantes,
which granted privileges to the Huguenots, had granted also to
the Catholics the right to the public profession of their
religion in all parts of France. This had formerly been
prohibited in Navarre and Béarn, and the population of those
provinces had become very largely Protestant. The Catholic
clergy had long petitioned the king to enforce the rights
which they claimed the edict gave them in Béarn, and to compel
also a restitution of some portion of the property, formerly
held by their church, which had been taken by Jeanne d'Albret,
and the revenues of which the Huguenot clergy still assumed to
appropriate entirely to themselves. On July 25, 1617, Louis
finally issued an edict directing the free exercise of the
Catholic worship in Béarn and the restitution to the clergy of
the property that had been taken from them. The edict met with
bitter opposition in Béarn and from all the Huguenot party.
The Protestants were as unwilling to allow the rites of the
Catholic Church in a province which they controlled, as the
Catholics to suffer a Huguenot conventicle within the walls of
Paris. The persecutions which the Huguenots suffered
distressed them less than the toleration which they were
obliged to grant. ... In the wars of religion the Huguenots
had been controlled, not always wisely or unselfishly, by the
nobles who had espoused their faith, but these were slowly
drifting back to Catholicism. ... The Condés were already
Catholics. Lesdiguières was only waiting till the bribe for
his conversion should be sufficiently glittering. [He was
received into the Church and was made Constable of France in
July, 1622.] Bouillon's religion was but a catch-weight in his
political intrigues. The grandson of Coligni was soon to
receive a marshal's baton for consenting to a peace which was
disastrous to his party. Sully, Rohan, Soubise, and La Force
still remained; but La Force's zeal moderated when he also was
made a marshal, and one hundred years later Rohans and the
descendants of Sully wore cardinal's hats. The party, slowly
deserted by the great nobles, came more under the leadership
of the clergy ... and under their guidance the party now
assumed a political activity which brought on the siege of La
Rochelle and which made possible the revocation of the edict
of Nantes. Béarn was not only strongly Protestant, but it
claimed, with Navarre, to form no part of France, and to be
governed only by its own laws. Its States met and declared
their local rights were violated by the king's edict; the
Parliament of Pau refused to register it, and it was not
enforced in the province. ... The disturbances caused by Mary
de Medici had delayed any steps for the enforcement of the
edict, but these troubles were ended by the peace of
Ponts-de-Cé in 1620. ... In October, 1620, Louis led his army
in Béarn, removed various Huguenot officials, and
reëstablished the Catholic clergy. ... On October 20th, an
edict was issued by which Navarre and Béarn were declared to
be united to France, and a parliament was established for the
two provinces on the same model as the other parliaments of
the kingdom. ... A general assembly of Protestants,
sympathizing with their brethren of these provinces, was
called for November 26, 1620, at La Rochelle. The king
declared those guilty of high treason who should join in that
meeting. ... The meeting was held in defiance of the
prohibition, and it was there resolved to take up arms. ...
The assembly proceeded in all respects like the legislative
body of a separate state.
{1219}
The king prepared for the war with vigor. ... He now led his
forces into southern France, and after some minor engagements
he laid siege to Montauban. A three months' siege resulted
disastrously; the campaign closed, and the king returned to
Paris. The encouragement that the Huguenots drew from this
success proved very brief. The king's armies proceeded again
into the south of France in 1622, and met only an irregular
and inefficient opposition. ... Chatillon and La Force each
made a separate peace, and each was rewarded by the baton of
marshal from the king and by charges of treachery from his
associates. ... The siege of Montpelier led to the peace
called by that name, but on terms that were unfavorable to the
Huguenots. They abandoned all the fortified cities which they
had held for their security except La Rochelle and Montauban;
no assemblies could meet without permission of the king,
except the local synods for ecclesiastical matters alone, and
the interests of Béarn and Navarre were abandoned. In return
the edict of Nantes was again confirmed, and their religious
privileges left undisturbed. Rohan accepted 800,000 livres for
his expenses and governments, and the king agreed that the
Fort of St. Louis, which had been built to overawe the
turbulence of La Rochelle, should be dismantled. La Rochelle,
the great Huguenot stronghold, continued hostilities for some
time longer, but at last it made terms. The party was fast
losing its power and its overthrow could be easily foretold.
La Rochelle was now the only place capable of making a
formidable resistance. ... In the meantime the career of
Luines reached its end." He had taken the great office of
Constable to himself, incurring much ridicule thereby. "The
exposures of the campaign and its disasters had worn upon him;
a fever attacked him at the little town of Monheur, and on
December 14, 1621, he died."
J. B. Perkins,
France under Mazarin, with a Review of the
Administration of Richelieu,
chapter 3 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
W. S. Browning,
History of the Huguenots,
chapters 54-56.
FRANCE: A. D. 1621.
Claims in North America conflicting with England.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.
FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
Richelieu in power.
His combinations against the Austro-Spanish ascendancy.
The Valtelline War.
Huguenots again in revolt.
The second Treaty of Montpelier.
Treaty of Monzon with Spain.
"The King was once more without a guide, without a favourite,
but his fate was upon him. A few months more of uncertain
drifting and he will fall into the hands of the greatest
politician France has ever seen, Cardinal Richelieu; under his
hand the King will be effaced, his cold disposition and narrow
intelligence will accept and be convinced by the grandeur of
his master's views; convinced, he will obey, and we shall
enter on the period in which the disruptive forces in France
will be coerced, and the elements of freedom and
constitutional life stamped down; while patriotism, and a firm
belief in the destinies of the nation will be fostered and
grow strong; France will assert her high place in Europe.
Richelieu, who had already in 1622 received the Cardinal's
hat, entered the King's Council on the
29th of April, 1624. ...
[Transcriber's note: The date printed is "19/29th of
April". Wikipedia gives the date as "appointed to the royal
council of ministers on 29 April 1624, (Lodge & Ketcham,
1903, p. 85.)".]
La Vieuville, under whose patronage he had been brought
forward, welcomed him into the Cabinet. ... But La Vieuville
was not fitted by nature for the chief place; he was rash,
violent, unpopular and corrupt. He soon had to give place to
Richelieu, henceforth the virtual head of the Council. La
Vieuville, thus supplanted, had been the first to reverse the
ruinous Spanish policy of the Court; ... he had promised help
to the Dutch, to Mansfield, to the Elector Frederick; in a
word, his policy had been the forecast of that of the
Cardinal, who owed his rise to him, and now stepped nimbly
over his head into his place. England had declared war on
Spain: France joined England in renewing the old offensive and
defensive alliance with the Dutch, England promising men and
France money. ... The Austro-Spanish power had greatly
increased during these years: its successes had enabled it to
knit together all the provinces which owed it allegiance. The
Palatinate and the Lower Rhine secured their connexion with
the Spanish Netherlands, as we may now begin to call them, and
threatened the very existence of the Dutch: the Valtelline
forts [commanding the valley east of Lake Como, from which one
pass communicates with the Engadine and the Grisons, and
another with the Tyrol] ... were the roadway between the
Spanish power at Milan and the Austrians on the Danube and in
the Tyrol. Richelieu now resolved to attack this threatening
combination at both critical points. In the North he did not
propose to interfere in arms: there others should fight, and
France support them with quiet subsidies and good will. He
pressed matters on with the English, the Dutch, the North
German Princes; he negotiated with Maximilian of Bavaria and
the League, hoping to keep the South German Princes clear of
the Imperial policy. ... The French ambassador at Copenhagen,
well supported by the English envoy, Sir Robert Anstruther, at
this time organised a Northern League, headed by Christian IV.
of Denmark [see GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626]. ... The Lutheran
Princes, alarmed at the threatening aspect of affairs, were
beginning to think that they had made a mistake in leaving the
Palatinate to be conquered; and turned a more willing ear to
the French and English proposals for this Northern League. ...
By 1625 the Cardinal's plans in the North seemed to be going
well: the North-Saxon Princes, though with little heart and
much difference of opinion, specially in the cities, had
accepted Christian IV. as their leader; and the progress of
the Spaniards in the United Provinces was checked. In the
other point to which Richelieu's attention was directed,
matters had gone still better. [The inhabitants of the
Valtelline were mostly Catholics and Italians. They had long
been subject to the Protestant Grisons or Graubunden. In 1620
they had risen in revolt, massacred the Protestants of the
valley, and formed an independent republic, supported by the
Spaniards and Austrians. Spanish and German troops occupied
the four strong Valtelline forts, and controlled the important
passes above referred to. The Grisons resisted and secured the
support of Savoy, Venice and finally France. In 1623 an
agreement had been reached, to hand over the Valtelline forts
to the pope, in deposit, until some terms could be settled.
But in 1625 this agreement had not been carried out, and
Richelieu took the affair in hand.] ...
{1220}
Richelieu, never attacking in full face if he could carry his
point by a side-attack, allied himself with Charles Emmanuel,
Duke of Savoy, and with Venice; he easily persuaded the
Savoyard to threaten Genoa, the port by which Spain could
penetrate into Italy, and her financial mainstay. Meanwhile,
the Marquis of Cœuvres had been sent to Switzerland, and, late
in 1624, had persuaded the Cantons to arm for the recovery of
the Valtelline; then, heading a small army of Swiss and
French, he had marched into the Grisons. The upper districts
held by the Austrians revolted: the three Leagues declared
their freedom, the Austrian troops hastily withdrew. Cœuvres
at once secured the Tyrolese passes, and descending from the
Engadine by Poschiavo, entered the Valtelline: in a few weeks
the Papal and Spanish troops were swept out of the whole
valley, abandoning all their forts, though the French general
had no siege-artillery with which to reduce them. ... Early in
1625, the Valtelline being secured to the Grisons and French,
the aged Lesdiguières was sent forward to undertake the rest
of the plan, the reduction of Genoa. But just as things were
going well for the party in Europe opposed to Spain and
Austria, an unlucky outburst of Huguenot dissatisfaction
marred all: Soubise in the heart of winter had seized the Isle
of Ré, and had captured in Blavet harbour on the Breton coast
six royal ships; he failed however to take the castle which
commanded the place, and was himself blockaded, escaping only
with heavy loss. Thence he seized the Isle of Oléron: in May
the Huguenots were in revolt in Upper Languedoc, Querci, and
the Cevennes, led by Rohan on land, and Soubise by sea. Their
rash outbreak [provoked by alleged breaches of the treaty of
Montpelier, especially in the failure of the king to demolish
Fort Louis at La Rochelle] came opportunely to the aid of the
distressed Austrian power, their true enemy. Although very
many of the Huguenots stood aloof and refused to embarrass the
government, still enough revolted to cause great uneasiness.
The war in the Ligurian mountains was not pushed on with
vigour; for Richelieu could not now think of carrying out the
large plans which, by his own account, he had already formed,
for the erection of an independent Italy. ... He was for the
present content to menace Genoa, without a serious siege. At
this time James I. of England died, and the marriage of the
young king [Charles I.] with Henriette Marie was pushed on. In
May Buckingham went to Paris to carry her over to England; he
tried in vain to persuade Richelieu to couple the Palatinate
with the Valtelline question. ... After this the tide of
affairs turned sharply against the Cardinal; while Tilly with
the troops of the Catholic League, and Wallenstein, the new
general of the Emperor, who begins at this moment his brief
and marvellous career, easily kept in check the Danes and
their halfhearted German allies, Lesdiguières and the Duke of
Savoy were forced by the Austrians and Spaniards to give up
all thoughts of success in the Genoese country, and the French
were even threatened in Piedmont and the Valtelline. But the old
Constable of France was worthy of his ancient fame; he drove
the Duke of Feria out of Piedmont, and in the Valtelline the
Spaniards only succeeded in securing the fortress of Riva.
Richelieu felt that the war was more than France could bear,
harassed as she was within and without. ... He was determined
to free his hands in Italy, to leave the war to work itself
out in Germany, and to bring the Huguenots to reason. ... The
joint fleets of, Soubise and of La Rochelle had driven back
the king's ships, and had taken Ré and Oléron; but in their
attempt to force an entrance into the harbour of La Rochelle
they were defeated by Montmorency, who now commanded the royal
fleet: the islands were retaken, and the Huguenots sued for
peace. It must be remembered that the bulk of them did not
agree with the Rochellois, and were quiet through this time.
Early in 1626 the treaty of Montpellier granted a hollow peace
on tolerable terms to the reformed churches; and soon after ...
peace was signed with Spain at Monzon in May, 1626. All was
done so silently that the interested parties, Savoy, the
Venetians, the Grisons, knew nothing of it till all was
settled: on Buckingham ... the news fell like a thunderclap.
... The Valtelline remained under the Grisons, with guarantees
for Catholic worship; France and Spain would jointly see that
the inhabitants of the valleys were fairly treated: the Pope
was entrusted with the duty of razing the fortresses: Genoa
and Savoy were ordered to make peace. It was a treacherous
affair; and Richelieu comes out of it but ill. We are bound,
however, to remember ... the desperate straits into which the
Cardinal had come. ... He did but fall back in order to make
that wonderful leap forward which changed the whole face of
European politics."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
book 4, chapters 3 and 4 (volumes 2-3).
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapters 40-41.
J. B. Perkins,
France under Mazarin [and Richelieu],
volume 1, chapters 4-5.
G. Masson,
Richelieu,
chapter 5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1627-1628:
War with England, and Huguenot revolt.
Richelieu's siege and capture of La Rochelle.
His great example of magnanimity and toleration.
The end of political Huguenotism.
"Richelieu now found himself dragged into a war against his
will, and that with the very power with which, for the
furtherance of his other designs, he most desired to continue
at peace. James I. of England had been as unable to live
except under the dominion of a favourite as Louis. Charles ...
had the same unfortunate weakness; and the Duke of Buckingham,
who had long been paramount at the court of the father,
retained the same mischievous influence at that of the son.
... In passing through France in 1623 he [Buckingham] had been
presented to the queen [Anne of Austria], and had presumed to
address her in the language of love. When sent to Paris to
conduct the young Princess Henrietta Maria to England, he had
repeated this conduct. ... There had been some little
unpleasantness between the two Courts shortly after the
marriage ... owing to the imprudence of Henrietta," who
paraded her Popery too much in the eyes of Protestant England;
and there was talk of a renewed treaty, which Buckingham
sought to make the pretext for another visit to Paris. But his
motives were understood; Louis "refused to receive him as an
ambassador, and Buckingham, full of disappointed rage,
instigated the Duke de Soubise, who was still in London, to
rouse the Huguenots to a fresh outbreak, promising to send an
English fleet to Rochelle to assist them. Rochelle was at this
time the general head-quarters not only of the Huguenots, but
of all those who, on any account, were discontented with the
Government. ...
{1221}
Soubise ... embraced the duke's offer with eagerness; and in
July, 1627, without any previous declaration of war, an
English fleet, with 16,000 men on board, suddenly appeared off
Rochelle, and prepared to attack the Isle of Rhé. The
Rochellois were very unwilling to co-operate with it"; but
they were persuaded, "against their judgment, to connect
themselves with what each, individually, felt to be a
desperate enterprise; and Richelieu, to whom the prospect thus
afforded him of having a fair pretence for crushing the
Huguenot party made amends for the disappointment of being
wantonly dragged into a war with England, gladly received the
intelligence that Rochelle was in rebellion. At first the Duke
d'Anjou was sent down to command the army, Louis being
detained in Paris by illness; but by October he had recovered,
his fondness for military operations revived, and he hastened
to the scene of action, accompanied by Richelieu, whose early
education had been of a military kind. ... He at once threw
across reinforcements into the Isle of Rhé, where M. Thoiras
was holding out a fort known as St. Martin with great
resolution, though it was unfinished and incompletely armed.
In the beginning of November, Buckingham raised the siege, and
returned home, leaving guns, standards and prisoners behind
him; and Richelieu, anticipating a renewal of the attack the
next year ... undertook a work designed at once to baffle
foreign enemies and to place the city at his mercy. Along the
whole front of the port he began to construct a vast wall ...
having only one small opening in the centre which was
commanded by small batteries. The work was commenced in
November, 1627; and, in spite of a rather severe winter, was
carried on with such ceaseless diligence, under the
superintending eye of the cardinal himself, that before the
return of spring a great portion of it was completed. ...
When, in May, 1628, the British fleet, under Lord Denbigh, the
brother-in-law of Buckingham, returned to the attack, they
found it unassailable, and returned without striking a blow."
C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
volume 1, chapter 7.
"Richelieu ... was his own engineer, general, admiral,
prime-minister. While he urged on the army to work upon the
dike, he organized a French navy, and in due time brought it
around to that coast and anchored it so as to guard the dike
and be guarded by it. Yet, daring as all this work was, it was
but the smallest part of his work. Richelieu found that his
officers were cheating his soldiers in their pay and
disheartening them; in face of the enemy he had to reorganize
the army and to create a new military system. ... He found,
also, as he afterward said, that he had to conquer not only
the Kings of England and Spain, but also the King of France.
At the most critical moment of the siege Louis deserted
him,--went back to Paris,--allowed courtiers to fill him with
suspicions. Not only Richelieu's place, but his life, was in
danger, and he well knew it; yet he never left his dike and
siege-works, but wrought on steadily until they were done; and
then the King, of his own will, in very shame, broke away from
his courtiers, and went back to his master. And now a Royal
Herald summoned the people of La Rochelle to surrender. But
they were not yet half conquered. Even when they had seen two
English fleets, sent to aid them, driven back from Richelieu's
dike, they still held out manfully. ... They were reduced to
feed on their horses,--then on bits of filthy
shell-fish,--then on stewed leather. They died in multitudes.
Guiton, the Mayor, kept a dagger on the city council-table to
stab any man who should speak of surrender. ... But at last
even Guiton had to yield. After the siege had lasted more than
a year, after 5,000 were found remaining out of 15,000, after
a mother had been seen to feed her child with her own blood,
the Cardinal's policy became too strong for him. The people
yielded [October 27, 1628], and Richelieu entered the city as
master. And now the victorious statesman showed a greatness of
soul to which all the rest of his life was as nothing. ... All
Europe ... looked for a retribution more terrible than any in
history. Richelieu allowed nothing of the sort. He destroyed
the old franchises of the city, for they were incompatible
with that royal authority which he so earnestly strove to
build. But this was all. He took no vengeance,--he allowed the
Protestants to worship as before,--he took many of them into
the public service,--and to Guiton he showed marks of
respect. He stretched forth that strong arm of his over the
city, and warded off all harm. ... For his leniency Richelieu
received the titles of Pope of the Protestants and Patriarch
of the Atheists. But he had gained the first great object of
his policy, and he would not abuse it: he had crushed the
political power of the Huguenots forever."
A. D. White,
The Statesmanship of Richelieu
(Atlantic Monthly, May, 1862).
"Whatever the benefit to France of this great feat, the
locality was permanently ruined. Two hundred and fifty years
after the event the Poitevin peasant is fanatic and
superstitious as the Bretons themselves. Catholic Rochelle is
still to be seen, with almost one-third less inhabitants
to-day than it had in 1627. The cardinal's dyke is still
there, but the insects have seized on the city. A plague of
white ants, imported from India, have fastened on its
timbers."
R. Heath,
The Reformation in France,
volume 1, book 2, chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603 to 1642,
chapters 56, 59-60, and 65.
FRANCE: A. D. 1627-1631.
War with Spain, Savoy and the Empire over the succession to
the duchy of Mantua.
Successes of Richelieu.
See ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.
FRANCE: A. D. 1628.
New France placed under the Company of the Hundred Associates.
See CANADA: A. D. 1616-1628.
FRANCE: A. D. 1628-1632.
Loss and recovery of New France.
See CANADA: A. D. 1628-1635.
FRANCE: A. D. 1630-1632.
The Day of Dupes, and after.
On the return of Richelieu and the king from their Italian
expedition, in the beginning of August, 1630, "both the
monarch and his minister had passed in safety through a whole
tract infected with the plague; but, shortly after their
arrival at Lyons, Louis XIII. fell ill, and in a few days his
physicians pronounced his case hopeless. It was now that all
the hatred which his power had caused to hide its head, rose
up openly against Richelieu; and the two queens [Marie de
Medicis, the queen-mother, and Anne of Austria, the king's
wife], united only in their enmity towards the minister, never
quitted the bedside of the king but to form and cement the
party which was intended to work the cardinal's
destruction as soon as the monarch should be no more. ...
{1222}
The bold and the rash joined the faction of the queens; and
the prudent waited with wise doubt till they saw the result
they hoped for. Happy was it for those who did conceal their
feelings; for suddenly the internal abscess, which had nearly
reduced the king to the tomb, broke, passed away, and in a
very few days he appeared perfectly convalescent. Richelieu
might now have triumphed securely; ... but he acted more
prudently. He remembered that the queen-mother, the great
mover of the cabal against him, had formerly been his
benefactress; and though probably his gratitude was of no very
sensitive nature, yet he was wise enough to affect a virtue
that he did not possess, and to suffer the offence to be given
by her. ... At Paris [after the return of the court] ... the
queen-mother herself, unable to restrain any longer the
violent passions that struggled in her bosom, seemed resolved
to keep no terms with the cardinal." At an interview with him,
in the king's presence, "the queen forgot the dignity of her
station and the softness of her sex, and, in language more fit
for the markets than the court, called him rogue, and traitor,
and perturber of the public peace; and, turning to the king,
she endeavoured to persuade him that Richelieu wished to take
the crown from his head, in order to place it on that of the
count de Soissons. Had Richelieu been as sure of the king's
firmness as he was of his regard, this would have been exactly
the conduct which he could have desired the queen to hold; but
he knew Louis to be weak and timid, and easily ruled by those
who took a tone of authority towards him; and when at length
he retired at the command of the monarch ... he seems to have
been so uncertain how the whole would end, that he ordered his
papers and most valuable effects to be secured, and
preparations to be made for immediate departure. All these
proceedings had been watched by the courtiers: Richelieu had
been seen to quit the queen's cabinet troubled and gloomy, his
niece in tears; and, some time after, the king himself
followed in a state of excessive agitation, and ... left Paris
for Versailles without seeing his minister. The whole court
thought the rule of Richelieu at an end, and the saloons of
the Luxembourg were crowded with eager nobles ready to worship
the rising authority of the queen-mother." But the king, when he
reached Versailles, sent this message to his minister: "'Tell
the cardinal de Richelieu that he has a good master, and bid
him come hither to me without delay.' Richelieu felt that the
real power of France was still in his hands; and setting off
for Versailles, he found Louis full of expressions of regard
and confidence. Rumours every moment reached Versailles of the
immense concourse that was flocking to pay court to the
queen-mother: the king found himself nearly deserted, and all
that Richelieu had said of her ambition was confirmed in the
monarch's mind; while his natural good sense told him that a
minister who depended solely upon him, and who under him
exercised the greatest power in the realm, was not likely to
wish his fall. ... In the mean time, the news of these ...
events spread to Paris: the halls of the Luxembourg, which the
day before had been crowded to suffocation, were instantly
deserted; and the queen-mother found herself abandoned by all
those fawning sycophants whose confidence and disappointment
procured for the day of St. Martin, 1630, the title in French
history of The Day of Dupes."
G. P. R. James,
Eminent Foreign Statesmen,
volume 2, pages 88-92.
The ultimate outcome of The Day of Dupes was the flight of
Marie de Medicis, who spent the remainder of her life in the
Netherlands and in England; the trial and execution of Marshal
de Marillac; the imprisonment or exile and disgrace of
Bassompierre and other nobles; a senseless revolt, headed by
Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the king's brother, which was crushed
in one battle at Castlenaudari, September 1, 1632, and which
brought the Duke de Montmorency to the block.
C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
volume 1, chapters 7-8.
ALSO IN:
M. W. Freer,
Married Life of Anne of Austria,
volume 1, chapter 4.
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos of English History, 6th series,
chapter 20.
Miss Pardoe,
Life of Marie de Medicis,
book 3, chapters 7-13 (volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1631.
Treaty and negotiations with Gustavus Adolphus in Germany.
Promotion of the Protestant Union.
See GERMANY: A.D. 1631 (JANUARY);
1631-1632; and 1632-1634.
FRANCE: A. D. 1632-1641.
War in Lorraine.
Occupation and possession of the duchy.
See LORRAINE: A. D. 1624-1663.
FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1638.
Campaigns on the Flemish frontier.
Invasion by the Spaniards.
Paris in Peril.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638.
FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1639.
Active participation in the Thirty Years War.
Treaties with the Germans, Swedes, and Dutch.
Campaigns of Duke Bernhard in Lorraine, Alsace and
Franche-Comté.
The fruit gathered by Richelieu.
Alsace secured.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.
FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1642.
The war in northern Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.
FRANCE: A. D. 1637-1642.
The war in Spain.
Revolt of Catalonia.
Siege and capture of Perpignan.
Conquest of Roussillon.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1637-1640, and 1640-1642.
FRANCE: A. D. 1640-1645.
Campaigns in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645, and 1643-1644.
FRANCE: A. D. 1641-1642.
The conspiracies of Count de Soissons and Cinq Mars.
Extinction of the Principality of Sedan.
"There were revolts in various quarters to resist [the yoke of
Richelieu], but they were quelled with uniform success. Once,
and once only, the fate of the Cardinal seemed finally sealed.
The Count de Soissons, a prince of the blood, headed the
discontented gentry in open war in 1641, and established the
headquarters of revolt in the town of Sedan. The Empire and
Spain came to his support with promises and money. Twelve
thousand men were under his orders, all influenced with rage
against Richelieu, and determined to deliver the king from his
degrading tutelage. Richelieu was taken unprepared; but delay
would have been ruin. He sent the Marshal Chatillon to the
borders of Sedan, to watch the proceedings of the
confederates, and requested the king to summon fresh troops
and go down to the scene of war. While his obedient Majesty
was busied in the commission, Chatillon advanced too far.
Soissons assaulted him near the banks of the Meuse, at a place
called Marfée, and gave him a total and irremediable
overthrow. The cavalry on the royalist side retreated at an
early part of the fight, and forced their way through the
infantry, not without strong suspicions of collusion with
their opponents."
{1223}
Paris itself was in dismay. The King and Cardinal expected to
hear every hour of the advance of the rebels; but no step was
taken. It was found, when the hurry of battle was over, that
Soissons was among the slain. The force of the expedition was
in that one man; and the defeat was as useful to the Cardinal
as a victory would have been. The malcontents had no leaders
of sufficient rank and authority to keep the inferiors in
check; for the scaffold had thinned the ranks of the great
hereditary chiefs, and no man could take his first open move
against the Court without imminent risk to his head. Great
men, indeed, were rising into fame, but of a totally different
character from their predecessors. Their minds were cast in a
monarchical mould from their earliest years. ... From this
time subserviency to the king became a sign of noble birth.
... Richelieu has the boast, if boast it can be called, of
having crushed out the last spark of popular independence and
patrician pride. ... One more effort was made [1642] to shake
off the trammels of the hated Cardinal. A conspiracy was
entered into to deliver the land by the old Roman method of
putting the tyrant to death; and the curious part of the
design is, that it was formed almost in presence of the king.
His favourite friend, young Cinq Mars, son of the Marshal
d'Effiat, his brother Gaston of Orleans, and his kinsman the
Duke de Bouillon, who were round his person at all hours of
the day, were the chief agents of the perilous undertaking.
Others, and with them de Thou, the son of the great French
historian, entered into the plan, but wished the assassination
to be left out. They would arrest and imprison him; but this
was evidently not enough. While Richelieu lived, no man could
be safe, though the Cardinal were in the deepest dungeon of
the Bastile. Death, however, was busy with their victim,
without their aid. He was sinking under some deep but
partially-concealed illness when the threads of the plot came
into his skilful hands. He made the last use of his strength
and intelligence in unravelling [it] and punishing the rebels,
as he called them, against the king's authority. The paltry
and perfidious Gaston was as usual penitent and pardoned, but
on Cinq Mars and de Thou the vengeance of the law and the
Cardinal had its full force. The triumphant but failing
minister reclined in a state barge upon the Rhone, towing his
prisoners behind him to certain death. On their arrival at
Lyons the process was short and fatal. The young men were
executed together, and the account of their behaviour at the
block is one of the most affecting narratives in the annals of
France."
J. White,
History of France,
chapter 12.
The Duke de Bouillon, implicated in both these
conspiracies--that of the Count de Soissons and that of Cinq
Mars--saved his life on the latter occasion by surrendering to
the crown the sovereignty of Sedan, which belonged to him, and
which had been the headquarters of the Soissons revolt. This
small independent principality--the town and a little
territory around it--had formerly been in the possession of
the powerful and troublesome family of La Marck, the last
heiress of whom brought it, together with the Duchy of
Bouillon, into the family of La Tour d'Auvergne. The Prince
and Duke who lost it was the second of that family who bore
the titles. He was the elder brother of the great soldier,
Turenne. The Principality of Sedan was extinguished from that
time.
T. O. Cockayne,
Life of Turenne.
ALSO IN:
W. Robson,
Life of Richelieu,
chapters 11-12.
M. W. Freer,
Married Life of Anne of Austria,
volume 2, chapter 3.
Miss Pardoe,
Life of Marie de Medicis,
book 3, chapter 13 (volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1642-1643.
The death of Richelieu and of Louis XIII.
Regency of Anne of Austria.
Cardinal Mazarin and the party of the Importants.
The victory at Rocroi.
Cardinal Richelieu died on the 4th of December, 1642. "He was
dead, but his work survived him. On the very evening of the 3d
of December, Louis XIII. called to his council Cardinal
Mazarin [whom Richelieu had commended to him]. ... Scarcely
had the most powerful kings yielded up their last breath when
their wishes had been at once forgotten: Cardinal Richelieu
still governed in his grave." But now, after two and a half
centuries, "the castle of Richelieu is well-nigh destroyed;
his family, after falling into poverty, is extinct; the
Palais-Cardinal [his splendid residence, which he built, and
which he gave to the crown] has assumed the name of the
Palais-Royal; and pure monarchy, the aim of all his efforts
and the work of his whole life, has been swept away by the
blast of revolution. Of the cardinal there remains nothing but
the great memory of his power and of the services he rendered his
country. ... Richelieu had no conception of that noblest
ambition on which a human soul can feed, that of governing a
free country, but he was one of the greatest, the most
effective, and the boldest, as well as the most prudent
servants that France ever had." Louis XIII. survived his great
minister less than half a year, dying May 14, 1643. He had
never had confidence in Anne of Austria, his wife, and had
provided, by a declaration which she had signed and sworn to,
for a council (which included Mazarin) to control the queen's
regency during the minority of their son, Louis XIV. But the
queen contrived very soon to break from this obligation, and
she made Cardinal Mazarin her one counsellor and supreme
minister. "Continuing to humor all parties, and displaying
foresight and prudence, the new minister was even now master.
Louis XIII., without any personal liking, had been faithful to
Richelieu to the death. With different feelings, Anne of Austria
was to testify the same constancy towards Mazarin. A stroke of
fortune came at the very first to strengthen the regent's
position. Since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, the
Spaniards, but recently overwhelmed at the close of 1642, had
recovered courage and boldness; new counsels prevailed at the
court of Philip IV., who had dismissed Olivarez; the House of
Austria vigorously resumed the offensive; at the moment of
Louis XIII.'s death, Don Francisco de Mello, governor of the
Low Countries, had just invaded French territory by way of the
Ardennes, and laid siege to Rocroi, on the 12th of May [1643].
The French army was commanded by the young Duke of Enghien
[afterwards known as the Great Condé], the prince of Condé's
son, scarcely 22 years old; Louis XIII. had given him as his
lieutenant and director the veteran Marshal de l'Hôpital; and
the latter feared to give battle.
{1224}
The Duke of Enghien, who 'was dying with impatience to enter
the enemy's country, resolved to accomplish by address what he
could not carry by authority. He opened his heart to Gassion
alone. As he [Gassion, one of the boldest of Condé's officers]
was a man who saw nothing but what was easy even in the most
dangerous deeds, he had very soon brought matters to the point
that the prince desired. Marshal de l'Hôpital found himself
imperceptibly so near the Spaniards that it was impossible for
him any longer to hinder an engagement.' ... The army was in
front of Rocroi, and out of the dangerous defile which led to
the place, without any idea on the part of the marshal and the
army that Louis XIII. was dead. The Duke of Enghien, who had
received the news, had kept it secret. He had merely said in
the tone of a master 'that he meant to fight, and would answer
for the issue.'" The battle, which was fought May 19, 1643,
resulted in the destruction, almost total, of the Spanish
army. Of 18,000 men who formed its infantry, nearly 9,000 were
killed and 7,000 were made prisoners. The whole of the Spanish
artillery and 300 of their standards fell into the hands of
the victors, who lost, according to their own reports, only
2,000 men, killed and wounded. "'The prince was a born
captain,' said Cardinal de Retz. And all France said so with
him on hearing of the victory of Rocroi. The delight was all
the keener in the queen's circle, because the house of Condé
openly supported Cardinal Mazarin, bitterly attacked as he was
by the Importants [a court faction or party so called, which
was made up of 'those meddlers of the court at whose head
marched the Duke of Beaufort, all puffed up with the
confidence lately shown to him by her Majesty,' and all
expecting to count importantly among the queen's favorites],
who accused him of reviving the tyranny of Richelieu. ... And,
indeed, on pretext offered by a feminine quarrel [August,
1643] between the young Duchess of Longueville, daughter of
the prince of Condé, and the Duchess of Montbazon, the Duke of
Beaufort and some of his friends resolved to assassinate the
cardinal. The attempt was a failure, but the Duke of Beaufort,
who was arrested on the 2d of September, was taken to the
castle of Vincennes. Madame de Chevreuse, recently returned
[after being exiled by Richelieu] to court, where she would
fain have exacted from the queen the reward for her services
and her past sufferings, was sent into exile, as well as the
Duke of Vendôme. Madame d'Hautefort, but lately summoned by
Anne of Austria to be near her, was soon involved in the same
disgrace. ... The party of the Importants was dead, and the
power of Cardinal Mazarin seemed to be firmly established. 'It
was not the thing just then for any decent man to be on bad
terms with the court,' says Cardinal de Retz."
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapters 41-43.
"Cardinal Richelieu was not so much a minister, in the precise
sense of the word, as a person invested with the whole power
of the crown. His preponderating influence in the council
suspended the exercise of the hereditary power, without which
the monarchy must cease to exist; and it seems as if that may
have taken place in order that the social progress, violently
arrested since the last reign, might resume its course at the
instigation of a kind of dictator, whose spirit was free from
the influences which the interest of family and dynasty
exercises over the characters of kings. By a strange
concurrence of circumstances, it happened that the weak
prince, whose destiny it was to lend his name to the reign of
the great minister, had in his character, his instincts, his
good or bad qualities, all that could supply the requirements
of such a post. Louis XIII., who had a mind without energy but
not without intelligence, could not live without a master; after
having possessed and lost many, he took and kept the one, who
he found was capable of conducting France to the point, which
he himself had a faint glimpse of, and to which he vaguely
aspired in his melancholy reveries. ... In his attempts at
innovation, Richelieu, as simple minister, much surpassed the
great king who had preceded him, in boldness. He undertook to
accelerate the movement towards civil unity and equality so
much, and to carry it so far, that hereafter it should be
impossible to recede. ... The work of Louis XI. had been
nearly lost in the depth of the troubles of the sixteenth
century; and that of Henry IV. was compromised by fifteen
years of disorder and weakness. To save it from perishing,
three things were necessary: that the high nobility should be
constrained to obedience to the king and to the law; that
Protestantism should cease to be an armed party in the State;
that France should be able to choose her allies freely in
behalf of her own interest and in that of European
independence. On this triple object the king-minister employed
his powerful intellect, his indefatigable activity, ardent
passions, and an heroic strength of mind. His daily life was a
desperate struggle against the nobles, the royal family, the
supreme courts, against all that existed of high institutions,
and corporations established in the country. For the purpose
of reducing all to the same level of submission and order, he
raised the royal power above the ties of family and the tie of
precedent; he isolated it in its sphere as a pure idea, the
living idea of the public safety and the national interest.
... He was as destitute of mercy as he was of fear, and
trampled under foot the respect due to judicial forms and
usages. He had sentences of death pronounced by commissioners
of his own selection: at the very foot of the throne he struck
the enemies of the public interest, and at the same time of
his own fortune, and confounded his personal hatreds with the
vengeance of the State. No one can say whether or not there
was deceit in that assurance of conscience which he manifested
in his last moments: God alone could look into the depth of
his mind. We who have gathered the fruit of his labours and of
his patriotic devotion at a distance of time--we can only bow,
before that man of revolution, by whom the ways which led to
our present state of society were prepared. But something sad
is still attached to his glory: he sacrificed everything to
the success of his undertaking; he stifled within himself and
crushed down in some noble spirits the eternal principles of
morality and humanity. When we look at the great things which
he achieved, we admire him with gratitude; we would, but we
cannot, love his character."
A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers État
or Third Estate in France, chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
V. Cousin,
Secret History of the French Court under
Richelieu and Mazarin,
chapters 3-4.
V. Cousin,
The Youth of Madame de Longueville.
Lord Mahon,
Life of Louis, Prince of Condé,
chapter 1.
Cardinal de Retz,
Memoirs,
books 1-2.
M'lle de Montpensier,
Memoirs,
chapter 2-3.
{1225}
FRANCE: A. D. 1643.
Accession of Louis XIV.
FRANCE: A. D. 1643.
Enghien's (Condé's) campaign on the Moselle.
Siege and capture of Thionville.
"On the 20th of May ... Enghien made his triumphal entry into
Rocroy. He allowed his troops to repose for two days, and then
it was towards Guise that he directed his steps. He soon heard
that Don Francisco de Melo had taken shelter at Phillipeville,
that he was trying to rally his cavalry, but that of all his
infantry not above 2,000 men remained to him, and they
disarmed and nearly naked. No army any longer protected
Flanders, and the youthful courage of Enghien already
meditated its conquest. But the Court, which had expected to
sustain war in its own provinces, was not prepared to carry it
into foreign countries. It became necessary to give up all
idea of an invasion of Maritime Flanders and the siege of
Dunkirk, with which Enghien had at first flattered himself.
Then finding that the Spaniards had drawn off their troops
from the fortifications on the Moselle, Enghien proposed to
march thither, and take possession of them. ... Although this
project was very inferior to his first, its greatness
surprised the Council of Ministers: they at first refused
their consent, but the Duke insisted--and what could they
refuse to the victor of Rocroy? Thionville was at that time
considered to be one of the best fortresses in Europe. On
arriving before its walls, after a seven days' march, Enghien
... established his lines, erected bridges, raised redoubts,
and opened a double line of trenches on the 25th of June. The
French were several times repulsed, but always rallied; and
everywhere the presence of Enghien either prevented or
repaired the disorder. ... The obstinate resistance of the
garrison obliged the French to have recourse to mines, which,
by assiduous labor, they pushed forward under the interior of
the town. Then Enghien, wishing to spare bloodshed, sent a
flag of truce to the governor, and allowed him a safe conduct
to visit the state of the works. This visit convinced the
Spaniards of the impossibility of defending themselves any
longer. ... They evacuated the town on the 22d of August.
Thionville was then little more than a heap of ruins and
ashes. ... By this conquest Enghien soon became master of the
whole course of the Moselle down to the gates of Trèves.
Sierch alone ventured to resist him, but was reduced in 24
hours. Then, disposing his army in autumn quarters, he set off
for Paris."
Lord Mahon,
Life of Louis, Prince of Condé,
chapter 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1644-1646.
Campaigns in Catalonia.
The failures at Lerida.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1644-1646.
FRANCE: A. D. 1645-1648.
Campaigns in Flanders.
Capture of Dunkirk.
Loss of the Dutch alliance.
Conde's victory at Lens.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1634-1646; 1646-1648; 1647-1648.
FRANCE: A. D. 1646-1648.
The last campaigns of the Thirty Years War.
Turenne and the Swedes in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1646-1648.
FRANCE: A. D. 1646-1654.
Hostility to the Pope.
Siege of Orbitello.
Attempts to take advantage of the insurrection in Naples.
See ITALY: A. D. 1646-1654.
FRANCE: A. D. 1647-1648.
Conflict between Court and Parliament.
The question of the Paulette.
Events leading to the First Fronde.
"The war was conducted with alternate success and failure, but
with an unintermitted waste of the public revenue; and while
Guébriant, Turenne, and Condé were maintaining the military
renown of France, D'Emery, the superintendent of finance, was
struggling with the far severer difficulty of raising her ways
and means to the level of her expenditure. The internal
history of the first five years of the regency is
thenceforward a record of the contest between the court and
the Parliament of Paris; between the court, promulgating
edicts to replenish the exhausted treasury, and the
Parliament, remonstrating in angry addresses against the
acceptance of them." Of the four sovereign courts which had
their seat at that time in the Palais de Justice of Paris, and
of which the Parliament was the most considerable--the other
three being the Chamber 'des Comptes,' the Cour des Aides, and
the Grand Conseil--the counselors or stipendiary judges held
their offices for life. "But, in virtue of the law called
Paulette [named from Paulet, its originator, in the reign of
Henry IV.] ... they also held them as an inheritance
transmissible to their descendants. The Paulette ... was a
royal ordinance which imposed an annual tax on the stipend of
every judge. It was usually passed for a term of nine years
only. If the judge died during that term, his heir was
entitled to succeed to the vacant office. But if the death of
the judge happened when the Paulette was not in force, his
heir had no such right. Consequently, the renewal of the tax
was always welcome to the stipendiary counselors of the
sovereign courts; and, by refusing or delaying to renew it,
the king could always exercise a powerful influence over them.
In April, 1647, the Paulette had expired, and the queen-mother
proposed the revival of it. But, to relieve the necessities of
the treasury, she also proposed to increase the annual per
centage which it imposed on the stipends of the counselors of
the Chamber 'des Comptes,' of the Cour des Aides, and of the
Grand Conseil. To concert measures of resistance to the
contemplated innovation, those counselors held a meeting in
the Great Hall of St. Louis; and at their request the
Parliament, though not personally and directly interested in
the change, joined their assembly." The queen sarcastically
replied to their remonstrances that the "king would not only
withdraw his proposal for an increase in the rate of the
annual tax on their stipends, but would even graciously
relieve them from that burden altogether. ... Exasperated by
the threatened loss of the heritable tenure of their offices,
and still more offended by the sarcastic terms in which that
menace was conveyed, the judges assembled in the hall of St.
Louis with increased zeal, and harangued there with yet more
indignant eloquence. Four different times the queen
interdicted their meetings, and four different times they
answered her by renewed resolutions for the continuance of
them. She threatened severe punishments, and they replied by
remonstrances. A direct collision of authority had thus
occurred, and it behooved either party to look well to their
steps." The queen began to adopt a conciliatory manner. "But
the associated magistrates derived new boldness from the
lowered tone and apparent fears of the government.
{1226}
Soaring at once above the humble topic on which they had
hitherto been engaged into the region of general politics,
they passed at a step from the question of the Paulette to a
review of all the public grievances under which their fellow
subjects were labouring. After having wrought during four
successive days in this inexhaustible mine of eloquence, they
at length, on the 30th of June, 1648, commenced the adoption
of a series of resolutions, which, by the 24th of July, had
amounted in number to 27, and which may be said to have laid
the basis of a constitutional revolution. ... Important as
these resolutions were in themselves, they were still more
important as the assertion, by the associated magistrates, of
the right to originate laws affecting all the general
interests of the commonwealth. In fact, a new power in the
state had suddenly sprung into existence. ... That was an age
in which the minds of men, in every part of Europe, had been
rudely awakened to the extent to which the unconstitutional
encroachments of popular bodies might be carried. Charles I.
was at that time a prisoner in the hands of the English
Parliament. Louis XIV. was a boy, unripe for an encounter with
any similar antagonists. ... The queen-mother, therefore,
resolved to spare no concessions by which the disaffected
magistracy might be conciliated. D'Emery was sacrificed to
their displeasure; the renewal of the Paulette on its ancient
terms was offered to them; some of the grievances of which
they complained were immediately redressed; and the young king
appeared before them in person, to promise his assent to their
other demands. In return, he stipulated only for the cessation
of their combined meetings, and for their desisting from the
further promulgation of arrêts, to which they ascribed the
force and authority of law. But the authors of this hasty
revolution were no longer masters of the spirits whom they had
summoned to their aid. ... With increasing audacity,
therefore, they persevered in defying the royal power, and in
requiring from all Frenchmen implicit submission to their own.
Advancing from one step to another, they adopted, on the 28th
of August, 1648, an arrêt in direct conflict with a recent
proclamation of the king, and ordered the prosecution of three
persons for the offense of presuming to lend him money. At
that moment their debates were interrupted by shouts and
discharges of cannon, announcing the great victory of Condé at
Lens. During the four following days religious festivals and
public rejoicings suspended their sittings. But in those four
days, the court had arranged their measures for a coup d'état.
As the Parliament retired from Notre Dame, where they had
attended at a solemn thanksgiving for the triumph of the arms
of France, they observed that the soldiery still stood to the
posts which, in honour of that ceremonial, had been assigned
to them in different quarters of the city. Under the
protection of that force, one of the presidents of the Chamber
'des Enquêtes,' and De Broussel, the chief of the
parliamentary agitators, were arrested and consigned to
different prisons, while three of their colleagues were exiled
to remote distances from the capital. At the tidings of this
violence, the Parisian populace were seized with a
characteristic paroxysm of fury. ... In less than three hours,
Paris had become an entrenched camp. ... They dictated their
own terms. The exiles were recalled and the prisoners
released. ... Then, at the bidding of the Parliament, the
people laid aside their weapons, threw down the barricades,
re-opened their shops, and resumed the common business of life
as quietly as if nothing had occurred. ... It was, however, a
short-lived triumph. The queen, her son, and Mazarin effected
their escape to St. Germains; and there, by the mediation of
Condé and of Gaston, duke of Orleans, the uncle of the king, a
peace was negotiated. The treaty of St. Germains was regarded
by the court with shame, and by the Parliament with
exultation." Fresh quarrels over it soon arose. "Condé was a
great soldier, but an unskillful and impatient peacemaker. By
his advice and aid, the queen-mother and the king once more
retired to St. Germains, and commanded the immediate
adjournment of the Parliament from Paris to Montargis. To
their remonstrances against that order they could obtain no
answer, except that if their obedience to it should be any
longer deferred, an army of 25,000 men would immediately lay,
siege to the city. War was thus declared."
Sir J. Stephen,
Lectures on the History of France,
lecture 21.
ALSO IN:
Cardinal De Retz,
Memoirs,
book 2 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1648.
The Peace of Westphalia.
Acquisition of Alsace, etc.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
FRANCE: A. D. 1649.
The First Fronde.
Doubtful origin of the name.
Siege of Paris by Condé.
Dishonorable conduct of Turenne.
Deserted by his army.
The Peace of Reuil.
"The very name of this movement is obscure, and it is only
certain that it was adopted in jest, from a child's game. It
was fitting that the struggle which became only a mischievous
burlesque on a revolution should be named from the sport of
gamins and school-boys. Fronde is the name of a sling, and the
boys of the street used this weapon in their mimic contests.
How it came to be applied to the opponents of the government
is uncertain. Some claimed it was because the members of the
Parliament, like the young frondeurs, hurled their weapons at
Mazarin, but were ready to fly when the officers of the police
appeared. Others said the term had been used by chance by some
counsellor, and had been adopted by the writers of epigrams
and mazarinades. However derived, it was not ill applied."
J. B. Perkins,
France Under Mazarin,
chapter 9 (volume 1).
"Paul de Gondi, Coadjutor of Paris [Coadjutor, that is, of the
Archbishop of Paris, who was his uncle], famous afterwards
under the name of Cardinal de Retz, placed himself at the head
of the revolution. ... The Prince of Conti, brother of Condé,
the Duke of Longueville, the Duke of Beaufort, and the Duke of
Bouillon adopted the party of the coadjutor and the
parliament. Generals were chosen for an army with which to
resist the court. Although taxes levied by Mazarin had been
resisted, taxes were freely paid to raise troops--12,000 men
were raised; Condé [commanding for the queen] had 8,000
soldiers. These he threw around Paris, and invested 100,000
burgesses, and threatened to starve the town. The citizens,
adorned with feathers and ribbons, made sorties occasionally,
but their manœuvres were the subject of scorn by the soldiers.
... As Voltaire says, the tone of the civil discords which
afflicted England at the same time mark well the difference
between the national characters.
{1227}
The English had thrown into their civil war a balanced fury
and a mournful determination. ... The French on the other hand
threw themselves into their civil strife with caprice,
laughter, dissolution and debauchery. Women were the leaders
of factions--love made and broke cabals. The Duchess of
Longueville urged Turenne, only a short time back appointed
Marshal of France, to encourage his army to revolt, which he
was commanding for his king. Nothing can justify Turenne's
action in this matter. Had he laid down his command and taken
the side of his brother [the Duke de Bouillon], on account of
his family grievance [the loss of the principality of
Sedan--see above, A. D. 1641-1642], the feudal spirit which in
those days held affection for family higher than affection for
country, might have excused him; but, while in the service of
a sovereign and intrusted with the command of an army, to
endeavour to lead his troops over to the enemy can be regarded
as nothing short of the work of a traitor. He himself pleads
as his apology that Condé was starving the population of Paris
by the investment. ... As it was he sacrificed his honour, and
allowed his fair fame to be tarnished for the sake of a
worthless woman who secretly jeered at his passion, and cared
nothing for his heart, but merely for his sword for her own
worldly advantage. As it was he endeavoured to persuade his
army to declare for the parliament, and purposed taking it
into Champagne, and marching for the relief of the capital;
but the treachery of the marshal was no match for the subtlety
of the cardinal. Before Turenne issued his declaration to his
troops the colonels of his regiment had already been tampered
with. The cardinal's emissaries had promised them pensions,
and distributed £800,000 among the officers and soldiers. This
was a decisive argument for mercenaries, who taught Turenne by
forsaking him that mercenary services can only be commanded by
money. D'Erlach had also stood firm. The regiments of Turenne,
six German regiments, called by d'Erlach, marched one night to
join him at Brisach. Three regiments of infantry threw
themselves under the guns of Philipsburg. Only a small force
was left to Turenne, who, finding the blow he intended
hopeless, sent the troops still with him to join d'Erlach at
Brisach, and retired himself with fifteen or twenty of his
friends to Heilbron, thence to Holland, where he awaited the
termination of the civil war. The news of the abandonment of
Turenne was received with despair at Paris, with wild joy at
St. Germain. His banishment, however, was not long. The
leaders of the parliament became aware that the princes of the
Fronde were trying to obtain foreign assistance to overturn
the monarchy; that their generals were negotiating a treaty
with Spain. They felt that order, peace, and the independence
of parliament, which would in this case become dependent upon
the nobility, was in danger. They took the patriotic
resolution quickly to act of their own accord. A conference
had been opened between the parliament and the Court. Peace
was concluded at Reuil, which, notwithstanding the
remonstrances of Conti [brother of Condé, the family being
divided in the First Fronde], Bouillon, and the other nobles
of the Fronde, was accepted by the whole parliament. Peace was
proclaimed in Paris to the discontent of the populace. ...
Turenne, on the conclusion of the treaty of Reuil, embarked in
Zeeland, landed at Dieppe, and posted to Paris."
H. M. Hozier,
Turenne,
chapter 6.
"After the signing of the peace, the Château of St. Germain
became the resort of many Frondeurs; the Duchess de
Longueville, the Prince of Conti, and nearly all the other
chiefs of the party, hastened to pay their respects to the
Queen. She received everybody without bitterness, some even
with friendship; and the Minister on his part affected much
general good-will. ... One of the first effects of the peace
between the parties was a reconciliation in the House of
Condé. The Princess Dowager employed herself with zeal and
success in reestablishing harmony between her children. Condé,
who despised his brother too much to hate him, readily agreed
to a reconciliation with him. As to his sister, he had always
felt for her great affection and confidence, and she no less
for him: these sentiments were revived at their very first
interview at Ruel, and he not only gave her back his
friendship, but began to enter into her views, and even to be
guided by her counsels. The Prince's policy was to make
Royalty powerful and respected, but not absolute. He said
publicly that he had done what he ought in upholding Mazarin,
because he had promised to do so: but for the future, if
things took a different line, he should not be bound by the
past. ... A prey to a thousand conflicting feelings, and
discontented with everybody, and perhaps with himself, he took
the resolution of retiring for several months to his
government in Burgundy. On returning from Dijon in the month
of August, the Prince found the Queen and the Cardinal at
Compiègne, and very much dejected. ... He ... pressed her to
return to Paris with her Minister, answering for Mazarin's
safety, at the risk of his own head. ... Their entry into
Paris took place a few days after."
Lord Mahon,
Life of Louis, Prince of Condé,
chapter 3-4.
ALSO IN:
Guy Joli,
Memoirs,
volume 1.
Cardinal De Retz,
Memoirs,
book 2.
Miss Pardoe,
Louis XIV.,
chapters 9-11.
FRANCE: A. D. 1650-1651.
The New Fronde, or the Petits Maitres.
Its alliance with Spain and defeat at Rethel.
Revolt, siege and reduction of Bordeaux.
"Faction, laid asleep for one night, woke again fresh and
vigorous next morning. There was a Parliamentary party, a De
Retz party, and a Condé party, and each party plotted and
schemed unceasingly to discredit the others and to evoke
popular feeling against all except itself. ... Neither of the
leaders, each pretending fear of assassination, ever stirred
abroad unless in the company of 400 or 500 gentlemen, thus
holding the city in hourly peril of an 'émeute.' Condé's
arrogance and insolence becoming at last totally unbearable,
the Court proceeded to the bold measure of arresting him. New
combinations: De Retz and Orleans coalesce once more; De Retz
coquets with Mazarin and is promised a cardinal's hat. Wily
Mazarin strongly supports De Retz's nomination in public, and
privately urges every member of the council to vote against it
and to beseech the Queen to refuse the dignity. It was
refused; upon which De Retz turned his energies upon a general
union of parties for the purpose of effecting the release of
Condé and the overthrow of the minister.'
De Retz and the Fronde
(Temple Bar, volume 38, pages 535-536).
{1228}
Condé, his brother Conti, and his brother-in-law Longueville,
were arrested and conducted to Vincennes on the 18th of
January, 1650. "This was the second crisis of the sedition.
The old Fronde had expired; its leaders had sold themselves to
the Court; but in its place sprang up the New Fronde, called
also, from the affected airs of its leaders, the Petits
Maîtres. The beautiful Duchess of Longueville was the soul of
it, aided by her admirer, Marsillac, afterwards Duke de la
Rochefoucauld, and by the Duke of Bouillon. On the arrest of
her husband and her brother, the duchess had fled to Holland,
and afterwards to Stenai; where she and Bouillon's brother,
Turenne, who styled himself the 'King's Lieutenant-General for
the liberation of the Princes,' entered into negotiations with
the Archduke Leopold. Bouillon himself had retired into
Guienne, which province was alienated from the Court because
Mazarine maintained as its governor the detested Epernon. In
July Bouillon and his allies publicly received a Spanish envoy
at Bordeaux. Condé's wife and infant son had been received in
that city with enthusiasm. But on the approach of Mazarine
with the royal army, the inhabitants of Guienne, alarmed for
their vintage, now approaching maturity, showed signs of
submission; after a short siege Bordeaux surrendered, on
condition of an amnesty, in which Bouillon and La
Rochefoucauld were included; and the Princess of Condé was
permitted to retire (October 1st 1650). In the north, the
Frondeurs, with their Spanish allies, seemed at first more
successful. In the summer Leopold had entered Champagne,
penetrated to Ferté Milon, and some of his marauding parties
had even reached Dammartin. Turenne tried to persuade the
Archduke to march to Vincennes and liberate the princes; but
while he was hesitating, Gaston transferred the captives to
Marcoussis, whence they were soon after conveyed to Havre.
Leopold and Turenne, after a vain attempt to rouse the
Parisians, retreated to the Meuse and laid siege to Mouzon.
The Cardinal himself, like his master Richelieu, now assumed
the character of a general. Uniting with his troops in the
north the army of Guienne, he took up his quarters at Rethel,
which had been captured by Du Plessis Praslin. Hence he
ordered an attack to be made on the Spaniards. In the battle
which ensued, these were entirely defeated, many of their
principal officers were captured, and even Turenne himself
narrowly escaped the same fate (December 15th 1650). The
Cardinal's elation was unbounded. It was a great thing to have
defeated Turenne, and though the victory was Du Plessis',
Mazarine assumed all the credit of it. His head began to turn.
He forgot that he owed his success to the leaders of the old
Fronde, and especially to the Coadjutor; he neglected his
promises to that intriguing prelate, though Gondi plainly
declared that he must either be a prince of the Church or the
head of a faction. Mazarine was also imprudent enough to
offend the Parliament; and he compared them with that sitting
at London--which indeed was doing them too much honour. The
Coadjutor went over to the party of the princes, dragging with
him the feeble-minded Orleans, who had himself been insulted
by the Queen. Thus was produced a third phase of this singular
sedition--the union of the old Fronde with the new. The
Parliament now clamoured for the liberation of the princes. As
the Queen hesitated, Gaston bluntly declared that the
dismissal of Mazarine was necessary to the restoration of
peace; while the Parliament added to their former demand
another for the Cardinal's banishment. Mazarine saw his
mistake and endeavoured to rectify it. He hastened to Havre in
order to liberate the princes in person, and claim the merit
of a spontaneous act. But it was too late; it was plain that
he was acting only by constraint. The princes were conducted
back in triumph to Paris by a large retinue sent to escort
them. On February 25th 1651, their innocence was established
by a royal declaration, and they were restored to all their
dignities and charges. Mazarine, meanwhile, who saw that for
the present the game was lost, retired into exile; first into
Bouillon, and afterwards to Brühl on the Rhine, where the
Elector of Cologne offered him an asylum. From this place he
corresponded with the Queen, and continued to direct her
counsels. The anarchy and confusion that had ensued in France
were such as promised him a speedy return."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 5, chapter 1 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
T. Wright,
History of France,
book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2).
Miss Pardoe,
Louis XIV. and the Court of France,
volume 1, chapter 13-15.
FRANCE: A. D. 1651-1652.
The loss of Catalonia.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1648-1652.
FRANCE: A. D. 1651-1653.
The arrogance of Condé and his renewal of civil war.
The King's majority proclaimed.
General changing of sides.
Battle of Porte St. Antoine and massacre of
the Hôtel de Ville.
End of the Fronde.
Condé in the service of Spain.
"The liberated captives were received with every demonstration
of joy by all Paris and the Frondeurs, including the Duke of
Orleans. The Queen, melancholy, and perhaps really ill, lay in
bed to receive their visit of cold ceremony; but the Duke of
Orleans gave them a grand supper, and there was universal joy
at being rid of Mazarin. ... There was a promise to assemble
the States General, while Condé thought himself governing the
kingdom, and as usual his arrogance gave offence in various
quarters. One article in the compact which had gained his
liberty was that the Prince of Conti should marry Mademoiselle
de Chevreuse, but this alliance offended the pride of the
elder brother, and he broke the marriage off hastily and
haughtily. Madame de Chevreuse, much offended, repented of the
aid she had given, went over to the Queen's party, and took
with her the coadjutor, who was devoted to the rejected
daughter, and could always sway the mob of Paris. So many
persons had thus come to desert the cause of the Prince that
Anne of Austria thought of again arresting him." Condé,
supposing himself in danger, fled from the city on the 6th of
July, and "went to his château of St. Maur, where his family
and friends joined him; and he held a kind of court. Queen and
Parliament both sent entreaties to him to return, but he
disdained them all, and made the condition of his return the
dismissal of the secretaries whom Mazarin had left. The Queen,
most unwillingly, made them retire, and Condé did return for a
short time; but he was haughtier than ever, and openly
complained of Mazarin's influence, making every preparation
for a civil war. Strangely violent scenes took place," between
the Prince and the Coadjutor and their respective adherents;
and presently the Prince "quitted Paris, went to Chantilly,
and decided on war.
{1229}
Mazarin wrote to the Queen that the most prudent course would
be to ally herself with the Parliament to crush the Princes.
After they should have been put down the Parliament would be
easily dealt with. She acted on this advice. The elections for
the States General were beginning, but in order to quash them,
and cancel all her promises, the Queen decided on proclaiming
the majority of the King, and thus the close of her own
regency. It was of course a farce, since he had only just
entered his fourteenth year, and his mother still conducted
the Government; but it made a new beginning, and was an
occasion for stirring up the loyalty of the people. ... Condé
was unwilling to begin a civil war, and was only driven into
it by his sister's persuasions and those of his friends.
'Remember,' he said, 'if I once draw the sword, I shall be the
last to return it to the scabbard.' On the other side, Anne of
Austria said, 'Monsieur le Prince shall perish, or I will.'
From Montrond, Condé directed his forces to take possession of
the cities in Guyenne, and he afterwards proceeded to
Bordeaux. On the other hand, Mazarin repaired to Sedan, and
contrived to raise an army in the frontier cities, with which
he marched to join the King and Queen at Poitiers. War was
raging again, still as the Fronde, though there had been a
general change of sides, the Parliament being now for the
Court, and the Princes against it, the Duke of Orleans in a
state of selfish agitation between the two. Learning that the
royal army was advancing to his own appanage of Orleans, and
fearing that the city might open its gates to them, he sent
off his daughter, Mademoiselle [de Montpensier], to keep the
citizens to what he called their duty to himself. She went
with only two ladies and her servants ... and found the gates
closed against her." The persevering Mademoiselle succeeded,
however, in gaining admission to the town, despite the orders
of the magistrates, and she kept out of it the soldiers of
both factions in the war. But her own inclinations were
strongly towards Condé and his side. "She went out to a little
inn to hold a council with the Dukes of Beaufort and Nemours,
and had to mediate between them in a violent quarrel. ...
Indeed, Condé's party were ill-agreed; he had even quarreled
with his sister, and she had broken with De la Rochefoucauld!
The Duke de Bouillon and his brother Turenne were now on the
Queen's side, and the command of the royal army was conferred
on the Viscount. Condé, with only eight persons, dashed across
France, to take the command of the army over which Beaufort and
Nemours were disputing. The very morning after he arrived,
Turenne saw by the disposition of the troops who must be
opposed to him. 'M. le Prince is come,' he said. They were the
two greatest captains of the age, and they fought almost in
sight of the King and Queen at Bleneau. But though there were
skirmishes [including, at the outset, the serious defeat of a
division of the royal forces under Hocquincourt], no decisive
engagement took place. It was a struggle of manœuvres, and in
this Condé had the disadvantage. ... Week after week the two
armies ... watched one another, till at last Condé was driven
up to the walls of Paris, and there the gates were closed
against both armies. Condé was at St. Cloud, whence, on the
2nd of July [1652], he endeavoured to lead his army round to
Charenton at the confluence of the Seine and the Loire; but
when he came in front of the Porte St. Antoine, he found that
a battle was inevitable and that he was caught in a trap,
where, unless he could escape through the city, his
destruction was inevitable. He barricaded the three streets
that met there, heaping up his baggage as a protection, and
his friends within, many of them wives of gentlemen in his
army, saw the situation with despair." The only one who had
energy to act was Mademoiselle. She extorted from her
hesitating father an order, by virtue of which she persuaded
the magistrates of the city, not only to open the gates to
Condé, but to send 2,000 men to the Faubourg St. Antoine.
"Mademoiselle now repaired to the top of the great square
tower of the Bastille, whence she could see the terrible
conflict carried on in the three suburban streets which
converged at the Porte St. Antoine." Seeing an opportunity to
turn the cannon of the Bastille on the pursuing troops, she
did so with effect. "Turenne was obliged to draw back, and at
last Condé brought his army into the city, where they encamped
in the open space of the Pré des Clercs. ... Condé unworthily
requited the hospitality wrung from the city. He was resolved
to overcome the neutrality of the Parliament, and, in concert
with Beaufort, instigated the mob to violence. Many soldiers
were disguised as artizans, and mingled with the rabble, when,
on the 4th of July, he went to the Hotel de Ville, ostensibly
to thank, the magistrates, but really to demand their support
against the Crown. These loyal men, however, by a majority of
votes, decided on a petition to the King to return without
Mazarin. On this Condé exclaimed publicly, 'These gentlemen
will do nothing for us. They are Mazarinists. Treat them as
you please.' Then he retired to the Luxembourg with Gaston,
while Beaufort let loose the mob. The Hotel de Ville was
stormed, the rabble poured in at doors and windows, while the
disguised soldiers fired from the opposite houses, and the
magistrates were threatened and pursued on all sides. They had
one advantage, that they knew their way through the intricate
passages and the mob did not. The first who got out rushed to
the Luxembourg to entreat the Duke and Prince to stop the
massacre; but Monsieur only whistled and beat his tattoo, and
Condé said he knew nothing about sedition. Nor would Beaufort
interfere till the disturbance had lasted many hours; but
after all many more of the rabble were killed than of the
magistrates. It was the last remarkable scene in the strange
drama of the Fronde. The Parliament suspended its sittings,
and the King transferred it to Pontoise, whither Molé and all
the other Presidents proceeded, leaving Paris in disguise.
This last ferocious proceeding of Condé's, though he tried to
disavow it, had shocked and alienated everyone, and he soon
after fell sick of a violent fever. Meanwhile, his castle of
Montrond was taken after a year's siege, Nemours was killed in
a duel by the Duke of Beaufort, and the party was falling to
pieces. ... Mazarin saw the opportunity, and again left the
Court for the German frontier. This was all that was wanting
to bring back the malcontents. Condé offered to make terms,
but was haughtily answered that it was no time for
negotiation, but for submission. Upon this, he proceeded to
the Low Countries, and offered his sword to the Spaniards.
{1230}
The King entered Paris in state and held a bed of justice, in
which he proclaimed an amnesty, excepting from it Condé and
Conti, and some others of their party, and forbidding the
Parliament to interfere in State affairs. The Coadjutor, who
had become a Cardinal, was arrested, and imprisoned until he
made his escape, dislocating his shoulder in his fall from the
window, but finally reaching Rome, where he lived till the
Fronde was forgotten, but never becoming Archbishop of Paris.
... When all was quiet, Mazarin returned, in February, 1653,
without the slightest opposition, and thus ended the Fronde,
in the entire triumph of the Crown. ... The misery, distress
and disease caused by these wars of the Fronde were
unspeakable. There was nothing to eat in the provinces where
they had raged but roots, rotten fruit, and bread made of
bran. ... Le misère de la Fronde' was long a proverbial
expression in France."
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
chapter 15.
ALSO IN:
Lord Mahon,
Life of Condé,
chapters 8-9.
G. P. R. James,
Life and Times of Louis XIV.,
chapters 11-12.
Cardinal de Retz,
Memoirs,
books 3-4 (volumes 2-3).
M'lle de Montpensier,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 11-17.
FRANCE: A. D. 1652.
Loss of Gravelines and Dunkirk.
Spanish invasion of Picardy.
"In the spring of 1652, the Spanish forces, under the command
of the archduke had undertaken the siege of Gravelines, which
was obliged to capitulate on the 18th of May. The archduke
next undertook the siege of Dunkirk, but, at the earnest
desire of the princes, he merely blockaded the place, and sent
Fuensaldaña with about 14,000 men into Picardy to their
assistance. ... The court, in great alarm, sought first a
retreat in Normandy, but the Duke of Longueville, who still
held the government of that province, refused to receive
Mazarin. The fears of the court were not lessened by this
proceeding, and it was even proposed to carry the king to
Lyons; but the wiser counsels of Turenne finally prevailed,
and it was resolved to establish the army at Compiègne, and
lodge the court at Pontoise. Fuensaldaña forced the passage of
the Oise at Chauni, and then joined the duke of Lorraine at
Fismes, on the 29th of July, when their joint forces amounted
to full 20,000 men, while Turenne had not more than 11,000 to
oppose to them. But the Spaniards were, as usual, only
pursuing a selfish policy, and Fuensaldaña, in pursuance of
the archduke's orders, left a body of 3,000 cavalry to
reinforce the duke of Lorraine, and returned with the rest of
his troops to assist in the siege of Dunkirk," which soon
surrendered to his arms.
T. Wright,
History of France,
volume 2, page 89.
FRANCE: A. D. 1652-1653.
Last phase of the Fronde at Bordeaux.
Attempted revolution by the Society of the Ormée.
See BORDEAUX: A. D. 1652-1653.
FRANCE: A. D. 1653-1656.
Condé's campaigns against his own country, in the service of
Spain.
"Condé, unfortunately for his fame, made no attempts at
reconciliation, and retired to the Spaniards--an enemy of his
country! He captured several small places on the [Flemish]
frontier, and hoped to return in spring victorious. A few days
after the entry into Paris, Turenne set out to oppose him;
and, retaking some towns, had the satisfaction, of compelling
him to seek winter quarters beyond the limits of France. ...
Condé persuaded the Spanish to bring 30,000 men into the field
for the next campaign: Turenne and La Ferté had but 13,000. To
paralyze the plans of the enemy, the Viscount proposed, and
his proposal was allowed, to be always threatening their rear
and communications; to occupy posts they would not dare to
attack, and so to avoid fighting, at the same time hindering
them from all important undertakings. He began by throwing
himself between two corps of their army, at the point where
they expected to effect a junction; and in the eight or nine
days thus gained, he recovered Rhétel, without which it would
have been, as he declares himself, impossible to defend
Picardy and Champagne. Rhétel, so much an object of anxiety,
was taken in three days. Baffled in their original purposes,
and at a loss, the Spanish expected a large convoy from
Cambray, escorted by 3,000 horse. Turenne got news of this,
and, posting himself near Peronne to intercept it, drove it
back to Cambray [August 11, 1653]. There Condé and Fuensaldaña
turned upon him; but he took up a position, which they watched
for three or four days, and there defied their attack. They
refused the challenge. Thence the enemy drew off," with
designs on Guise, which Turenne frustrated. "Condé then laid
siege to Rocroi, where his own first glory had been gained;
and this place is so hemmed in by woods and defiles, that the
relief of it was impossible. But Turenne compensated for the
loss of it by the equally valuable recapture, of Mouson. Thus
the whole year was spent in marches and countermarches, in
gains and losses, which had no influence on events. By this
time the malcontents were so prostrate that Condé's brother,
the Prince de Conti, and his sister, the Duchesse de
Longueville, made their peace with the court. ... The year
1654 opened with the siege of Stenay by the young king in
person, who was carried thither by Mazarin, to overawe Condé's
governor with the royal name and majesty. That officer was
more true to his trust than to his allegiance, and Stenay cost
a siege. ... Condé could do no better than imitate Turenne's
policy of the previous year, and besiege Arras as an
equivalent for Stenay; to which end he mustered 32,000 men.
Arras was a town of some value. Condé had caught it at
disadvantage; the governor, Mondejeu ... was put on his
defence with 2,500 foot and 100 horse. To reinforce this
slender garrison was the first care of Turenne. ... Mazarin
was anxious for Arras, and offered Turenne to break up the
siege of Stenay, for the sake of reinforcing the army of
relief. This proposal the Viscount declined. He must have been
very confident of his own capacity; for he could collect only
14,000 men to hover around the enemy's camp. ... He proposed
no attempt upon the intrenchments till he had the aid of the
troops from Stenay ... ; but he disposed his parties around so
as to prevent the enemy's convoys from reaching them." Stenay
surrendered on the 6th of August, and Turenne, with
reinforcements from its besiegers, attacked the Spanish lines
at Arras on the night of the 24th, with complete success. The
Spaniards raised the siege and retreated to Cambray, leaving
3,000 prisoners and 63 pieces of cannon in the hands of the
French. "The capture of Quesnoy and Binches filled up the rest
of the year; the places were weak and the garrisons feeble.
{1231}
Nor did the next season, 1655, offer anything of interest.
Turenne reduced Landrecies, Condé, and Guislain, while his
active opponent was sometimes foiled by his precautions, and
sometimes baffled by the absurd behaviour of the Spanish
authorities. ... The great event of 1656 was the siege of
Valenciennes. This place ... was invested by Turenne about the
middle of June: but hardly had his camp been intrenched before
he repented of his undertaking. The Scheldt flows through the
town, and by reservoirs and sluices was flooded at the will of
the enemy. Turenne's camp was largely inundated. ... He had
overestimated his means: so great was the circle of his
circumvallation that he had not men enough to guard it
adequately, when Condé and the Spanish appeared with 20,000
men to the relief of the place." They broke through his lines
and forced him to retreat, with a heavy loss of prisoners
taken. "The Viscount retrieved his credit by the bold stand he
made after the defeat."
T. O. Cockayne,
Life of Marshal Turenne,
pages 58-69.
ALSO IN:
Lord Mahon,
Life of Condé,
chapter 10.
J. B. Perkins,
France under Mazarin,
chapters 16-17 (volume 2).
FRANCE: A. D. 1653-1660.
First persecution of the Jansenists.
See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS.
FRANCE: A. D. 1655-1658.
Alliance with the English Commonwealth against Spain.
The taking of Dunkirk for England and Gravelines for France.
End of the war.
"Mazarin was now bent upon an enterprise which, if successful,
must finish the war. A deadly blow would be struck at the
strength of Spain if Dunkirk, Mardyck, and Gravelines--the
possession of which was of vital importance to her
communication with Flanders, as well as enabling her to ruin
French commerce on that coast--could be wrested from her. For
this the cooperation of some maritime power was necessary, and
Mazarin determined at all costs to secure England. With
Cromwell, the only diplomatist by whose astuteness he
confessed himself baffled, he had been negotiating since 1651.
... At length on November 3, 1655, a treaty was signed at
Westminster, based upon freedom of commerce and an engagement
that neither country should assist the enemies or rebels of
the other; Mazarin consented to expel Charles II., James, and
twenty named royalists from France. Cromwell similarly agreed
to dismiss from England the emissaries of Condé. But Mazarin
was soon anxious for a more effectual bond. ... Cromwell had
equally good reasons for drawing closer to France, for Spain
was preparing actively to assist Charles II. French and
English interests thus coinciding, an alliance was signed at
Paris on March 23, 1657
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1655-1658.
Gravelines and Dunkirk were to be at once besieged both by
land and sea. England was to send 6,000 men to assist the
French army. Gravelines was to become French and Dunkirk
English; should the former fall first it was to be held by
England until Dunkirk too was taken. ... The alliance was not
a moment too soon. The campaign of 1657 had opened
disastrously. The tide was however turned by the arrival of
the English contingent. Montmédy was immediately besieged, and
capitulated on August 4. The effect was again to make Mazarin
hang back from further effort, since it seemed possible now to
make peace with Spain, and thereby avoid an English occupation
of Dunkirk. But Cromwell would stand no trifling, and his
threats were so clear that Mazarin determined to act loyally
and without delay. On September 30, Turenne laid siege to
Mardyck, which protected Dunkirk, and took it in four days. It
was at once handed over to the English." In the spring of 1658
the siege of Dunkirk was begun. The Spaniards, under Don John
of Austria and Condé, attempting to relieve the place, were
defeated (June 13) in the battle of the Dunes, by Turenne and
Cromwell's Ironsides (see ENGLAND: A. D.1655-1658). "Dunkirk
immediately surrendered, and on the 25th was in Cromwell's
possession. Two months later Gravelines also fell. A short and
brilliant campaign followed, in which Don John and Condé, shut
up in Brussels and Tournai respectively, were compelled to
remain inactive while fortress after fortress fell into French
hands. A few days after the fall of Gravelines Cromwell died;
but Mazarin was now near his goal. Utterly defeated on her own
soil, beaten, too, by the Portuguese at Elvas, and threatened
in Milan, her army ruined, her treasury bankrupt, without a
single ally in Europe, Spain stood at last powerless before
him."
O. Airy,
The English Restoration and Louis XIV.,
chapter 6.
FRANCE: A. D. 1657.
Candidacy of Louis XIV. for the imperial crown.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1705.
FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.
The treaty of the Pyrenees.
Marriage of Louis XIV. to the Spanish Infanta.
"The Spaniards could struggle no longer: they sued for peace.
Things were prepared for it on every hand: Spain was
desperate; matters far from settled or safe in France; in
England the Protector's death had come very opportunely for
Mazarin; the strong man was no longer there to hold the
balance between the European powers. Questions as to a Spanish
marriage and the Spanish succession had been before men since
1648; the Spaniards had disliked the match, thinking that in
the end it must subject them to France. But things were
changed; Philip IV. now had an heir, so that the nations might
hope to remain under two distinct crowns; moreover, the needs
of Spain were far greater than in 1648, while the demands of
France were less. So negociation between Mazarin and Louis de
Haro on the little Isle of Pheasants in the Bidassoa, under
the very shadow of the Pyrenees, went on prosperously; even
the proposal that Louis XIV. should espouse the Infanta of
Spain, Maria Theresa, was at last agreed to at Madrid. The
only remaining difficulty arose from" the fact that the young
King, Louis XIV., had fallen in love with Maria Mancini,
Cardinal Mazarin's niece, and wished to marry her. "The King
at last abandoned his youthful and pure passion, and signed
the Treaty of the Pyrenees [concluded November 7, 1659],
condemning himself to a marriage of state, which exalted high
the dignity of the French Crown, only to plunge it in the end
into the troubles and disasters of the Succession War. The
treaty of peace begins with articles on trade and navigation:
then follow cessions, restitutions, and exchanges of
territories.
{1232}
1. On the Northern frontier Spain ceded all she had in Artois,
with exception of Aire and S. Omer; in Flanders itself France
got Gravelines and its outer defences. In Hainault she became
mistress of the important towns, Landrecies, Quesnoy, and
Avesnes, and also strengthened her position by some exchanges:
in Luxemburg she retained Thionville, Montmédy, and several
lesser places; so that over her whole northern border France
advanced her frontier along a line answering to her old
limits. ... In return she restored to Spain several of her
latest conquests in Flanders: Ypres, Oudenarde, Dixmüden,
Furnes, and other cities. In Condé's country France recovered
Rocroy, Le Câtelet and Linchamp, occupied by the Prince's
soldiers; and so secured the safety and defences of Champagne
and Paris.
2. More to the East, the Duke of Lorraine, having submitted
with such good grace as might be, was reinstated in his Duchy.
... But France received her price here also, the Duchy of Bar,
the County of Clermont on the edge of Champagne, Stenay, Dun,
Jametz, Moyenvic, became hers. The fortifications of Nancy
were to be rased for ever; the Duke of Lorraine bound himself
to peace, and agreed to give France free passage to the
Bishopricks and Alsace. This was the more necessary, because
Franche-Comté, the other highway into Alsace, was left to the
Spaniards, and such places in it as were in the King's hands
were restored to them. Far out in Germany Louis XIV. replaced
Jülich in the hands of the Duke of Neuberg; and that element
of controversy, the germ or pretext of these long wars, was
extinct for ever. On the Savoyard border France retained
Pinerolo, with all the means and temptations of offence which
it involved: she restored to the Duke her other conquests
within his territories, and to the Spaniards whatever she held
in Lombardy; she also honourably obtained an amnesty for those
subjects of Spain, Neapolitans or Catalans, who had sided with
France. Lastly, the Pyrenees became the final, as it was the
natural, boundary between the two Latin kingdoms. ...
Roussillon and Conflans became French: all French conquests to
the south of the Pyrenees were restored to Spain. The Spanish
King renounced all claims on Alsace or Breisach: on the other
hand the submission of the great Condé was accepted; he was
restored to all his domains; his son, the young Duke of
Enghien, being made Grand Master of France, and he himself
appointed Governor of Burgundy and Bresse: his friends and
followers were included in the amnesty. Some lesser
stipulations, with a view to the peace of Europe, for the
settlement of the differences between Spain and Portugal,
between the Dukes of Savoy and Mantua, between the Catholic
and the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, and an agreement to
help forward peace between the Northern Courts, worthily close
this great document, this weighty appendix to the Treaties of
Westphalia. A separate act, as was fitting, regulated all
questions bearing on the great marriage. It contains a solemn
renunciation, intended to bar for ever the union of the two
Crowns under one sceptre, or the absorption into France of
Flanders, Burgundy, or Charolais. It was a renunciation which,
as Mazarin foresaw long before, would never hold firm against
the temptations and exigencies of time. The King's marriage
with the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain did not take place
till the next year, by which time Mazarin's work in life
seemed well nigh over; racked with gout, he had little
enjoyment of his triumphs. ... He betook himself to the
arrangement of his own affairs: his physicians giving him,
early in 1661, no hopes of recovery. ... These things
arranged, the Cardinal resigned himself to die 'with a
serenity more philosophic than Christian'; and passed away on
the 8th of March, 1661."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
book 4, chapter 8 (volume 3).
"The Treaty of the Pyrenees, which completed the great work of
pacification that had commenced at Munster, is justly
celebrated as having put an end to such bitter and useless
animosities. But, it is more famous, as having introduced a
new æra in European politics. In its provisions all the
leading events of a century to come had their origin--the wars
which terminated with the Treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle,
Nimeguen, and Ryswick, and that concerning the Spanish
succession. So great an epoch in history has the Pyrenean
Treaty been accounted by politicians, that Lord Bolingbroke
was of opinion, 'That the only part of history necessary to be
thoroughly studied, goes no farther back than this treaty,
since, from that period, a new set of motives and principles
have prevailed all over Europe.'"
J. Dunlop,
Memoirs of Spain during the Reigns of
Philip IV. and Charles II., volume 1.
chapter 11.
FRANCE: A. D. 1660-1688.
A footing gained in Newfoundland.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1660-1688.
FRANCE: A. D. 1661.
Personal assumption of the government by Louis XIV.
The extraordinary characteristics of the reign of the Grand
Monarch, now begun.
On the death of Mazarin Louis XIV., then twenty-three years
old, announced to his council his intention of taking the
government solely upon himself. His ministers were
henceforward to receive instructions from him in person; there
was to be no premier at their head. The reign which then began
"was the culminating epoch in the history of the French
Monarchy. What the age of Pericles was in the history of the
Athenian Democracy, what the age of the Scipios was in the
history of the Roman Republic, that was the reign of Louis
XIV. in the history of the old Monarchy of France. ... It is
not only the most conspicuous reign in the history of
France--it is the most conspicuous reign in the history of
Monarchy in general. Of the very many kings whom history
mentions, who have striven to exalt the monarchical principle,
none of them achieved a success remotely comparable to his. ...
They may have ruled over wider dominions, but they never
attained the exceptional position of power and prestige which
he enjoyed for more than half a century. They never were
obeyed so submissively at home, nor so dreaded, and even
respected, abroad. For Louis XIV. carried off that last reward
of complete success, that he for a time silenced even envy,
and turned it into admiration. We who can examine with cold
scrutiny the make and composition of this Colossus of a French
Monarchy; who can perceive how much the brass and clay in it
exceeded the gold; who know how it afterwards fell with a
resounding ruin, the last echoes of which have scarcely died
away, have difficulty in realising the fascination it
exercised upon contemporaries who witnessed its first setting
up. Louis XIV.'s reign was the very triumph of commonplace
greatness, of external magnificence and success, such as the
vulgar among mankind can best and most sincerely appreciate.
... His qualities were on the surface, visible and
comprehensible to all. ...
{1233}
He was indefatigably industrious: worked on an average eight
hours a day for fifty-four years; had, great tenacity of will;
that kind of solid judgment which comes of slowness of brain,
and withal a most majestic port and great dignity of manners.
He had also as much kindliness of nature as the very great can
be expected to have. ... He must have had great original
fineness of tact, though it was in the end nearly extinguished
by adulation and incense. His court was an extraordinary
creation, and the greatest thing he achieved. He made it the
microcosm of all that was most brilliant and prominent in
France. Every order of merit was invited there, and received
courteous welcome. To no circumstance did he so much owe his
enduring popularity. By its means he impressed into his
service that galaxy of great writers, the first and the last
classic authors of France, whose calm and serene lustre will
for ever illumine the epoch of his existence. It may even be
admitted that his share in that lustre was not so accidental
and undeserved as certain king-haters have supposed. That
subtle critic, M. Ste. Beuve, thinks he can trace a marked
rise even in Bossuet's style from the moment he became a
courtier of Louis XIV. The king brought men together, placed
them in a position where they were induced and urged to bring
their talents to a focus. His Court was alternately a
high-bred gala and a stately university. ... But Louis XIV.'s
reign has better titles than the adulations of courtiers and
the eulogies of wits and poets to the attention of posterity.
It marks one of the most memorable epochs in the annals of
mankind. It stretches across history like a great
mountain-range, separating ancient France from the France of
modern times. On the farther slope are Catholicism and
feudalism in their various stages of splendour and decay--the
France of crusade and chivalry, of St. Louis and Bayard. On
the hither side are free-thought, industry, and
centralization--the France of Voltaire, Turgot and Condorcet.
When Louis came to the throne, the Thirty Years' War still
wanted six years of its end, and the heat of theological
strife was at its intensest glow. When he died, the religious
temperature had cooled nearly to freezing-point, and a new
vegetation of science and positive inquiry was overspreading
the world. This amounts to saying that his reign covers the
greatest epoch of mental transition through which the human
mind has hitherto passed, excepting the transition we are
witnessing in the day which now is. We need but recall the
names of the writers and thinkers who arose during Louis
XIV.'s reign, and shed their seminal ideas broadcast upon the
air, to realise how full a period it was, both of birth and
decay; of the passing away of the old and the uprising of the
new forms of thought. To mention only the greatest;--the
following are among the chiefs who helped to transform the
mental fabric of Europe in the age of Louis XIV.:--Descartes,
Newton, Leibnitz, Locke, Boyle. ... But the chief interest
which the reign of Louis XIV. offers to the student of history
has yet to be mentioned. It was the great turning-point in the
history of the French people. The triumph, of the Monarchical
principle was so complete under him, independence and
self-reliance were so effectually crushed, both in localities
and individuals, that a permanent bent was given to the
national mind--a habit of looking to the Government for all
action and initiative permanently established. Before the
reign of Louis XIV. it was a question which might fairly be
considered undecided, whether the country would be able or
not, willing or not, to co-operate with its rulers in the work
of the Government and the reform of abuses. On more than one
occasion such co-operation did not seem entirely impossible or
improbable. ... After the reign of Louis' XIV. such
co-operation of the ruler and the ruled became impossible. The
Government of France had become a machine depending upon the
action of a single spring. Spontaneity in the population at
large was extinct, and whatever there was to do must be done
by the central authority. As long as the Government could
correct abuses it was well; if it ceased to be equal to this
task they must go uncorrected. When at last the reform of
secular and gigantic abuses presented itself with imperious
urgency, the alternative before the Monarchy was either to
carry the reform with a high hand, or perish in the failure to
do so. We know how signal the failure was, and could not help
being, under the circumstances; and through having placed the
Monarchy between these alternatives, it is no paradox to say
that Louis XIV. was one of the most direct ancestors of the
Great Revolution."
J. C. Morison,
The Reign of Louis XIV.
(Fortnightly Review, March, 1874).
ALSO IN:
J. I. von Döllinger,
The Policy of Louis XIV.
(Studies in European History, chapter 11).
FRANCE: A. D. 1661-1680.
Revived and growing persecution of the Huguenots.
"One of the King's first acts, on assuming the supreme control
of affairs at the death of Mazarin, was significant, of his
future policy with regard to the Huguenots. Among the
representatives of the various public bodies who came to
tender him their congratulations, there appeared a deputation
of Protestant ministers, headed by their president Vignole;
but the King refused to receive them, and directed that they
should be ordered to leave Paris forthwith. Louis was not slow
to follow up this intimation by measures of a more positive
kind, for he had been carefully taught to hate Protestantism;
and, now that he possessed unrestrained power, he flattered
himself with the idea of compelling the Huguenots to abandon
their convictions and adopt his own. His minister Louvois
wrote to the governors throughout the provinces that 'his
majesty will not suffer any person in his kingdom but those
who are of his religion.' ... A series of edicts was
accordingly published with the object of carrying the King's
purposes into effect. The conferences of the Protestants were
declared to be suppressed. Though worship was still permitted
in their churches, the singing of psalms in private dwellings
was declared to be forbidden. ... Protestant children were
invited to declare themselves against the religion of their
parents. Boys of fourteen and girls of twelve years old might,
on embracing Roman Catholicism, become enfranchised and
entirely free from parental control. ... The Huguenots were
again debarred from holding public offices, though a few, such
as Marshal Turenne and Admiral Duquesne, who were Protestants,
broke through this barrier by the splendor of their services
to the state. In some provinces, the exclusion was so severe
that a profession of the Roman Catholic faith was required
from simple artisans. ...
{1234}
Colbert, while, he lived, endeavored to restrain the King, and
to abate these intolerable persecutions. ... He took the
opportunity of cautioning the King lest the measures he was
enforcing might tend, if carried out, to the impoverishment of
France and the aggrandizement of her rivals. ... But all
Colbert's expostulations were in vain; the Jesuits were
stronger than he was, and the King was in their hands;
besides, Colbert's power was on the decline. ... In 1666 the
queen-mother died, leaving to her son, as her last bequest,
that he should suppress and exterminate heresy within his
dominions. ... The Bishop of Meaux exhorted him to press on in
the path his sainted mother had pointed out to him. ... The
Huguenots had already taken alarm at the renewal of the
persecution, and such of them as could readily dispose of
their property and goods were beginning to leave the kingdom
in considerable numbers for the purpose of establishing
themselves in foreign countries. To prevent this, the King
issued an edict forbidding French subjects from proceeding
abroad without express permission, under penalty of
confiscation of their goods and property. This was followed by
a succession of severe measures for the conversion or
extirpation of such of the Protestants--in numbers about a
million and a half--as had not by this time contrived to make
their escape from the kingdom. The kidnapping of Protestant
children was actively set on foot by the agents of the Roman
Catholic priests, and their parents were subjected to heavy
penalties if they ventured to complain. Orders were issued to
pull down the Protestant places of worship, and as many as
eighty were shortly destroyed in one diocese. ... Protestants
were forbidden to print books without the authority of
magistrates of the Romish communion. Protestant teachers were
interdicted from teaching children any thing more than
reading, writing, and arithmetic. ... Protestants were only
allowed to bury their dead at daybreak or at nightfall. They
were prohibited from singing psalms on land or on water, in
workshops or in dwellings. If a priestly procession passed one
of their churches while the psalms were being sung, they must
stop instantly on pain of the fine or imprisonment of the
officiating minister. In short, from the pettiest annoyance to
the most exasperating cruelty, nothing was wanting on the part
of the 'Most Christian King' and his abettors."
S. Smiles,
The Huguenots,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
A. Maury,
Memoirs of a Huguenot Family (Fontaine),
chapters 4-7.
W. S. Browning,
History of the Huguenots,
chapters 59-60.
FRANCE: A. D. 1661-1683.
The administration of Colbert.
His economic system and its results.
"With Colbert the spirit of the great Cardinal came back to
power. Born at Reims on the 29th of August, 1619, Colbert was
educated by the Jesuits, and at the early age of nineteen
entered the War Office, in which department Le Tellier, a
connection of his family by marriage, filled the post of
Under-Secretary of State. From the first Colbert distinguished
himself by his abnormal powers of work, by his extraordinary
zeal in the public service, and by an equal devotion to his
own interests. His Jesuit training showed fruit in his
dealings with all those who, like Le Tellier or Mazarin, could
be of use to him on his road to power, whilst the old
tradition of his Scotch blood is favoured by a certain
'dourness' of character which rendered him in general
difficult of access. His marvellous strength of brain,
seconded by rare powers of endurance, enabled him to work
habitually fourteen hours a day to enter into every detail of
every branch of the administration, whilst at the same time he
never lost sight of that noble project of universal reform
which he had conceived, and which embraced both Church and
State. ... Qualified in every way for the work of
administration, absolutely indifferent to popularity, Colbert
seemed destined by nature to lead the final charge against the
surviving forces of the feudal system. After the troubles of
the Fronde had died away and the death of Mazarin had left
Louis XIV. a king in deed as well as in name, these forces of
the past were personified by Fouquet, and the duel between
Fouquet and Colbert was the dramatic close of a struggle
predestined to end in the complete triumph of absolutism. The
magnificent and brilliant Fouquet, who for years past had
taken advantage of his position as 'Surintendant des Finances'
to lavish the resources of the State on his private pleasures,
was plainly marked out as the object of Colbert's hostility.
... On the losing side were ranged all the spendthrift princes
and facile beauties of the Court, all the greedy recipients of
Fouquet's ostentatious bounties. He had reckoned that the
greatest names in France would be compromised by his fall, and
that by their danger his own safety was assured. He had
reckoned without Colbert; he had reckoned without that power
which had been steadily growing throughout all vicissitudes of
fate during the last two generations, and which was now
centred in the King. No stranger turn of fortune can be
pictured than that which, on the threshold of the modern era,
linked the nobles of France in their last struggle for
independence with the fortunes of a rapacious and fraudulent
financier, nor can anything be more suggestive of the
character of the coming epoch than the sight of this last
battle fought, not in the field of arms, but before a court of
law. To Colbert, the fall of Fouquet was but the necessary
preliminary to that reform of every branch of the
administration which had been ripening in his mind ever since
he had entered the public service. To bring the financial
situation into order, it was necessary first to call Fouquet
to account. ... The fall of the chief offender, Fouquet,
having been brought about, it was easy to force all those who
had been guilty of similar malversations on a minor scale to
run the gauntlet of the High Commission. Restitution and
confiscation became the order of the day, and when the Chamber
of Justice was finally dissolved in 1669, far beyond any
advantage which might be reckoned to the Treasury from these
sources was the gain to the nation in the general sense of
security and confidence. It was felt that the days of
wholesale dishonesty and embezzlement were at an end. ...
Colbert went forward from this moment without hesitation,
devoting his whole energies to the gigantic task of re-shaping
the whole internal economy of France. ... Backed by despotic
power, his achievements in these directions have to an
incredible extent determined the destinies of modern industry,
and have given origin to the whole system of modern
administration, not only in France, but throughout Europe.
{1235}
In the teeth of a lavish expenditure which he was utterly
unable to check, once and again did Colbert succeed in
establishing a financial equilibrium when the fortunes of
France seemed desperate. ... He aimed ... at the fostering of
home production by an elaborate system of protection, whilst
at the same time the markets of other countries were to be
forced open and flooded with French goods. Any attempt on the
part of a weaker power to imitate his own policy, such for
instance as that made in the papal states by Alexander VII.
and Clement IX., was instantly repressed with a high hand. ...
His leading idea was to lower all export dues on national
produce and manufactures, and, whilst diminishing import
duties on such raw materials as were required for French
manufactures, to raise them until they became prohibitive on
all foreign goods.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1664-1667 (FRANCE).
The success of the tariff of 1664 misled Colbert. That tariff
was a splendidly statesmanlike attempt to put an end to the
conflict and confusion of the duties, dues, and customs then
existing in the different provinces and ports of France, and
it was in effect a tariff calculated for purely fiscal
purposes. Far other were the considerations embodied in the
tariff of 1667, which led to the Dutch and English wars, and
which, having been enacted in the supposed interests of home
industry, eventually stimulated production in other countries.
... If, however, the industrial policy of Colbert cannot be
said to have realised his expectations, since it neither
brought about a great increase in the number of home
manufactures nor succeeded in securing a larger share of
foreign trade, there is not a doubt that, in spite even of the
disastrous wars which it provoked, it powerfully contributed,
on the whole, to place France in the front rank as a
commercial nation. ... The pitiless and despotic Louvois, who
had succeeded his father, Colbert's old patron Le Tellier, as
Secretary of State for War, played on the imperious vanity of
King Louis, and engaged him in wars big and little, which in
most cases wanted even the shade of a pretext. ... All the
zeal of the great Minister's strict economy could only stay
for a while the sure approach of national distress. ... When
Colbert died, on 6th September, 1683, the misery of France,
exhausted by oppressive taxation, and depopulated by armies
kept constantly on foot, cried out against the Minister who,
rather than fall from power, had lent himself to measures
which he heartily condemned. For the moment men forgot how
numerous were the benefits which he had conferred ... and
remembered only the harshness with which he had dealt justice
and stinted mercy. Yet order reigned where, before his advent,
all had been corruption and confusion; the navy of France had
been created, her colonies fostered, her forests saved from
destruction; justice and the authority of the law had been
carried into the darkest corners of the land; religious
toleration, socially if not politically, had been advocated;
whilst the encroachments of the Church had been more or less
steadfastly opposed. To the material prosperity of the
nation--even after we have made all possible deductions for
the evils arising from an exaggerated system of protection--an
immense and enduring impulse had been given; and although it
is true that, with the death of Colbert, many parts of his
splendid scheme fell to the ground, yet it must be confessed
that the spirit in which it was originated and improved still
animates France."
Lady Dilke,
France under Colbert
(Fortnightly Rev., February, 1886).
ALSO IN:
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 1, chapters 1-7.
See, also, TAILLE AND GABELLE.
FRANCE: A. D. 1662.
The purchase of Dunkirk from Charles II.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1662.
FRANCE: A. D. 1663-1674.
New France made a Royal Province.
The French West India Company.
See CANADA: A. D. 1663-1674.
FRANCE: A. D. 1664.
Aid given to Austria against the Turks.
The victory of St. Gothard.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1660-1664.
FRANCE: A. D. 1664-1666.
War with the piratical Barbary States.
The Jijeli expedition.
Treaties with Tunis and Algiers.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1664-1684.
FRANCE: A. D. 1664-1690.
The building of Versailles.
See VERSAILLES.
FRANCE: A. D. 1665.
The Great Days of Auvergne.
"We must read the curious account of the Great Days of
Auvergne, written by Fléchier in his youth, if we would form
an idea of the barbarism in which certain provinces of France
were still plunged, in the midst of the brilliant civilization
of the 17th century, and would know how a large number of
those seigniors, who showed themselves so gallant and tender
in the boudoirs of Paris, lived on their estates, in the midst
of their subjects: we might imagine ourselves in the midst of
feudalism. A moment bewildered by the hammer of the great
demolisher [Richelieu], which had battered down so many
Chateaux, the mountain squires of Auvergne, Limousin, Marche
and Forez had resumed their habits under the feeble government
of Mazarin. Protected by their remoteness from Paris and the
parliament, and by the nature of the country they inhabited,
they intimidated or gained over the subaltern judges, and
committed with impunity every species of violence and
exaction. A single feature will enable us to comprehend the
state of these provinces. There were still, in the remoter
parts of Auvergne, seigniors who claimed to use the wedding
right (droit de jambage), or, at the least, to sell exemption
from this right at a high price to bridegrooms. Serfhood of
the glebe still existed in some districts. August 31, 1665, a
royal declaration, for which ample and noble reasons were
given, ordered the holding of a jurisdiction or court
'commonly called the Great Days,' in the city of Clermont, for
Auvergne, Bourbonnais, Nivernais, Forez, Beaujolais, Lyonnais,
Combrailles, Marche, and Berry. A president of parliament, a
master of requests, sixteen councillors, an attorney-general,
and a deputy procurator-general, were designated to hold these
extraordinary assizes. Their powers were almost absolute. They
were to judge without appeal all civil and criminal cases, to
punish the 'abuses and delinquencies of officers of the said
districts,' to reform bad usages, as well in the style of
procedure as in the preparation and expedition of trials, and
to try all criminal cases first. It was enjoined on bailiffs,
seneschals, their lieutenants and all other judges, to give
constant information of all kinds of crimes, in order to
prepare matter for the Great Days. A second declaration
ordered that a posse should be put into the houses of the
contumacious, that the chateaux where the least resistance was
made to the law should be razed; and forbade, under penalty of
death, the contumacious to be received or assisted.
{1236}
The publication of the royal edicts, and the prompt arrival of
Messieurs of the Great Days at Clermont, produced an
extraordinary commotion in all those regions. The people
welcomed the Parisian magistrates as liberators, and a
remarkable monument of their joy has been preserved, the
popular song or Christmas hymn of the Great Days. Terror, on
the contrary, hovered over the châteaux; a multitude of
noblemen left the province, and France, or concealed
themselves in the mountains; others endeavored to conciliate
their peasants. ... The Great Days at least did with vigor
what it was their mission to do: neither dignities, nor
titles, nor high connections preserved the guilty. ... The
Court of Great Days was not content with punishing evil; it
undertook to prevent its return by wise regulations: first,
against the abuses of seigniorial courts; second, against the
vexations of seigniors on account of feudal service due them;
third, concerning the mode and abbreviation of trials; and
lastly, concerning the reformation of the clergy, who had no
less need of being reformed than the nobility. The Great Days
were brought to a close after three months of assizes (end of
October, 1665--end of January, 1666), and their recollection
was consecrated by a medal."
H. Martin,
History of France: The Age of Louis XIV:,
volume 1, chapter 2.
FRANCE: A. D.1665-1670.
The East India Company.
See INDIA: A. D. 1665-1743.
FRANCE: A. D. 1666.
Alliance with Holland against England.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1665-1666.
FRANCE: A. D. 1667.
The War of the Queen's Rights.
Conquests in the Spanish Netherlands.
See NETHERLANDS (SPANISH PROVINCES): A. D. 1667.
FRANCE: A. D. 1668.
The king's conquests in Flanders checked by the Triple
Alliance.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1668.
FRANCE: A. D. 1670.
The secret treaty of Dover.
The buying of the English king.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1668-1670.
FRANCE: A. D. 1672-1678.
War with Holland and the Austro-Spanish Coalition.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1672-1714;
and NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674,
and 1674-1678.
FRANCE: A. D. 1673-1682.
Discovery and exploration of the Mississippi
by Marquette and La Salle.
Possession taken of Louisiana.
See CANADA: A. D. 1634-1673, and 1669-1687.
FRANCE: A. D. 1678-1679.
The Peace of Nimeguen.
See NIMEGUEN. PEACE OF.
FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1681.
Complete absorption of Les Trois-Evêchés and Alsace.
Assumption of entire sovereignty by Louis XIV.
Encroachments of the Chambers of Reannexation.
The seizure of Strasburg.
"The Lorraine Trois-Evêchés, recovered by France from the Holy
Roman Empire, had remained in an equivocal position, as to
public law, during nearly a century, between their old and new
ties: the treaty of Westphalia had cut the knot by the formal
renunciation of the Empire to all rights over these countries;
difficulties nevertheless still subsisted relative to the
fiefs and the pendencies of Trois-Evêchés possessed by members
of the Empire. Alsace, in its turn, from the treaty of
Westphalia to the peace of Nimeguen, had offered analogous and
still greater difficulties, this province of Teutonic tongue
not having accepted the annexation to France as easily as the
Walloon province of Trois-Evêchés, and the treaty of
Westphalia presenting two contradictory clauses, one of which
ceded to France all the rights of the Emperor and the Empire,
and the other of which reserved the 'immediateness' of the
lords and the ten cities of the prefecture of Alsace towards
the Empire. ...
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
At last, on the complaints carried to the Germanic Diet by the
ten Alsacian cities, joined by the German feudatories of
Trois-Evêchés, Louis, who was then very conciliatory towards
the Diet, consented to take for arbiters the King of Sweden
and some princes and towns of Germany (1665). The arbitration
was protracted for more than six years. In the beginning of
1672, the arbiters rendered an ambiguous decision which
decided nothing and satisfied no one. War with Holland broke
out meanwhile and changed all the relations of France with
Germany. ... Louis XIV. disarmed or took military occupation
of the ten cities and silenced all opposition. ... In the
conferences of Nimeguen, the representatives of the Emperor
and the Empire endeavored to return to the 'immediateness,'
but the King would not listen to a renewal of the arbitration,
and declared all debate superfluous. 'Not only,' said the
French plenipotentiaries, 'ought the King to exercise, as in
fact he does exercise, sovereign domain over the ten cities,
but he might also extend it over Strasburg, for the treaty of
Münster furnishes to this city no special title guaranteeing
its independence better than that of the other cities.' It was
the first time that Louis had disclosed this bold claim,
resting on an inaccurate assertion. The Imperialists,
terrified, yielded as regarded the ten cities, and Alsace was
not called in question in the treaty of Nimeguen. Only the
Imperialists protested, by a separate act, against the
conclusions which might be drawn from this omission. The ten
cities submitted and took to the King an oath of fidelity,
without reservation towards the Empire; their submission was
celebrated by a medal bearing the device: 'Alsatia in
provinciam reducta' (1680). The treaty of Nimeguen was
followed by divers measures destined to win the Alsacian
population. ... This wise policy bore its fruits, and Alsace,
tranquillized, gave no more cause of anxiety to the French
government. France was thenceforth complete mistress of the
possessions which had been ceded to her by the Empire; this
was only the first part of the work; the point in question now
was, to complete these possessions by joining to them their
natural appendages which the Empire had not alienated. The
boundaries of Lower Alsace and the Messin district were ill
defined, encroached upon, entangled, on the Rhine, on the
Sarre, and in the Vosges, by the fiefs of a host of petty
princes and German nobles. This could not be called a
frontier. Besides, in the very heart of Alsace, the great city
of Strasburg preserved its independence towards France and its
connection with the Empire. A pacific method was invented to
proceed to aggrandizements which it would seem could only be
demanded by arms; a pacific method, provided that France could
count on the weakness and irresolution of her neighbors; this
was to investigate and revendicate everything which, by any
title and at any epoch whatsoever, had been dependent on
Alsace and Trois-Evêchés.
{1237}
We may comprehend whither this would lead, thanks to the
complications of the feudal epoch; and it was not even
designed to stop at the feudal system, but to go back to the
times of the Frankish kings! Chambers of 'reannexation' were
therefore instituted, in 1679, in the Parliament of Metz, and
in the sovereign council of Alsace, with a mission which their
title sufficiently indicated. ... Among the nobles summoned,
figured the Elector of Treves, for Oberstein, Falkenburg,
etc.; the Landgrave of Hesse, for divers fiefs; the Elector
Palatine, for Seltz and the canton situated between the Lauter
and the Keich (Hogenbach, Germersheim, etc.); another prince
palatine for the county of Veldentz: the Bishop of Speyer, for
a part of his bishopric; the city of Strasburg, for the
domains which it possessed beyond the Rhine (Wasselonne and
Marlenheim); lastly, the King of Sweden, for the duchy of
Deux-Ponts or Zweibrücken, a territory of considerable extent
and of irregular form, which intersected the cis-Rhenish
Palatinate. ... By divers decrees rendered in March, August,
and October, 1680, the sovereign council of Alsace adjudged to
the King the sovereignty of all the Alsacian seigniories. The
nobles and inhabitants were summoned to swear fidelity to the
King, and the nobles were required to recognize the sovereign
council as judge in last resort. The chamber of Metz acted on
a still larger scale than the chamber of Breisach. April 12,
1680, it united to Trois-Evêchés more than 80 fiefs, the
Lorraine marquisate of Pont-à-Mousson, the principality of
Salm, the counties of Saarbourg and Veldentz, the seigniories
of Sarrebourg, Bitche, Homburg, etc. The foundation of the new
town of Sarre-Louis and the fortification of Bitche
consolidated this new frontier; and not only was the course of
the Sarre secured to France, but France, crossing the Sarre,
encroached deeply on the Palatinate and the Electorate of
Treves, posted herself on the Nahe and the Blies, and threw,
as an advance-guard, on a peninsula of the Moselle, the
fortress of Mont-Royal, half-way from Treves to Coblentz, on
the territories of the county of Veldentz. The parliament of
Franche-Comté, newly French as it was, zealously followed the
example of the two neighboring courts. There was also a
frontier to round towards the Jura. ... The Duke of Würtemberg
was required to swear allegiance to the King for his county of
Montbéliard. ... The acquisitions made were trifling compared
with those which remained to be made. He [Louis XIV.] was not
sure of the Rhine, not sure of Alsace, so long as he had not
Strasburg, the great city always ready to throw upon the
French bank of the river the armies of the Empire. France had
long aimed at this conquest. As soon as she possessed Metz she
had dreamed of Strasburg. ... Though the King and Louvois had
prevented Créqui from besieging the place during the war, it
was because they counted on surprising it after peace. This
great enterprise was most ably manœuvred." The members of the
regency of the city were gained over, one by one. "The
Imperial troops had evacuated the city pursuant to the treaty
of Nimeguen; the magistrates dismissed 1,200 Swiss which the
city had in its pay; then, on the threatening demands of the
French, they demolished anew Fort Kehl, which they had rebuilt
since its destruction by Créqui. When the fruit seemed ripe,
Louis stretched out his hand to gather it. In the latter part
of September, 1681, the garrisons of Lorraine, Franche-Comté,
and Alsace put themselves in motion. ... The 28th, 35,000 men
were found assembled before the city; Baron de Montclar, who
commanded this army, informed the magistrates that 'the
sovereign chamber of Breisach having adjudged to the king the
sovereignty of all Alsace, of which Strasburg was a member,
his Majesty desired that they should recognize him as their
sovereign lord, and receive a garrison." On the 30th the
capitulation of the city was signed; on the 23d of October the
King entered Strasburg in person and was received as its
sovereign.
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 1, chapter 7.
FRANCE: A. D. 1680.
Imprisonment of the "Man in the Iron Mask."
See IRON MASK.
FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1684.
Threatening relations with the Turks.
War with the Barbary States.
Destructive bombardment of Algiers.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1664-1684.
FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1698.
Climax of the persecution of the Huguenots.
The Dragonnades.
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
The great exodus of French Protestants and the consequent
national loss.
"Love and war suspended for a considerable time" the ambition
of the king to extinguish heresy in his dominions and
establish uniformity of religious worship; "but when Louis
became satiated at once with glory and pleasure, and when
Madame de Maintenon, the Duke de Beauvilliers, the Duke de
Montausier, Bossuet, the Archbishop of Rheims, the Chancellor
Letellier, and all the religious portion of the court, began
to direct his now unoccupied and scrupulous mind to the
interests of religion, Louis XIV. returned to his plans with
renewed ardor. From bribery they proceeded to compulsion.
Missionaries, escorted by dragoons, spread themselves at the
instigation of Bossuet, and even of Fénelon, over the western,
southern and eastern provinces, and particularly in those
districts throughout which Protestantism, more firmly rooted
among a more tenacious people, had as yet resisted all
attempts at conversion by preaching. ... Children from above
seven years of age were authorized to abjure legally the
religion of their fathers. The houses of those parents who
refused to deliver up their sons and daughters were invaded
and laid under contributions by the royal troops. The
expropriation of their homes, and the tearing asunder of
families, compelled the people to fly from persecution. The
king, uneasy at this growing depopulation, pronounced the
punishment of the galleys against those who sought liberty in
flight; he also ordered the confiscation of all the lands and
houses which were sold by those proprietors who were preparing
to quit the kingdom. ... Very soon the proscription was
organized en masse: all the cavalry in the kingdom, who, on
account of the peace, were unemployed, were placed at the
disposal of the preachers and bishops, to uphold their
missions [known as the dragonnades] with the sabre. ...
Bossuet approved of these persecutions. Religious and
political faith, in his eyes, justified their necessity. His
correspondence is full of evidence, while his actions prove
that he was an accomplice: even his eloquence ... overflowed
with approbation of, and enthusiasm for, these oppressions of
the soul and terrors of heresy."
A. de Lamartine,
Memoirs of Celebrated Characters,
volume 3: Bossuet.
{1238}
"The heroism of conviction, it has been truly said, was now
displayed, not in resistance, but, if the paradox may be
admitted, in flight. The outflow was for the moment arrested
at the remonstrance of Colbert, now for the last time listened
to in the royal councils, and by reason of the sympathy
aroused by the fugitives in England: but not before 3,000
families had left the country. The retirement and death of the
great minister were the signal for revived action, wherever an
assembly of Huguenots larger than usual might warrant or
colour a suspicion of rebellion. In such excuses, not as yet
an avowed crusade, the troopers of the duke de Noailles were
called in at Grenoble, Bourdeaux, and Nimes. Full forty
churches were demolished in 1683, more than a hundred in 1684.
But the system of military missions was not organized until in
1685 the defence of the Spanish frontier offered the
opportunity for a final subjugation of the Huguenots of Bearn.
The dragonnade passed through the land like a pestilence. From
Guienne to Dauphine, from Poitou to Upper Languedoc, no place
was spared. Then it pervaded the southeast country, about the
Cevennes and Provence, and ravaged Lyons and the Pays de Gex.
In the end, the whole of the north was assailed, and the
failing edict of Nantes was annulled on the 1st of October.
The sombre mind of Madame de Maintenon had postulated the
Recall as a preliminary to the marriage which the king had
already conceded. On the 21st of the month the great church at
Charenton was doomed; and on the 22nd the 'unadvised and
precipitate' Edict of Revocation was registered in the Chambre
des Vacations. ... The year 1685 is fitly identified with the
depopulation of France. And yet, with a blindness that appears
to us incredible, the government refused to believe in the
desire or the possibility of escape. The penalties attached to
capture on the road,--the galleys or the nunnery,--the
vigilant watch at the frontier, the frigates cruising by every
coast, all these difficulties seem to have persuaded Louvois
that few would persist in risking flight. What these measures
actually effected was doubtless to diminish the exodus, but in
no marked degree. At length, it came to be thought that the
emigration was due to its prohibition, as though the Huguenots
must do a thing from mere perverseness. The watch was relaxed,
and a result unlooked for issued. It was the signal of the
greatest of the emigrations, that of 1688. ... In the
statistical question [as to the total number of the Huguenot
exiles from France after the revocation of the edict of
Nantes] it is impossible to arrive at a certain result; and
the range which calculation or conjecture has allowed to
successive historians may make one pause before attempting a
dogmatic solution. Basnage, a year after the Recall, reckoned
the emigrants above 150,000: next year Jurieu raised the total
above 200,000. Writing later Basnage found between 300,000 and
400,000; and the estimate has been accepted by Sismondi.
Lastly Voltaire, followed in our own day by Hase, counted
500,000. These are a few of the sober calculations, and their
mean will perhaps supply the ultimate figure. I need only
mention, among impossible guesses, that of Limiers, which
raises the account to 800,000, because it has been taken up by
the Prussian statesman Von Dohm. ... The only historian who
professes to have pursued the enquiry in exact detail is
Capefigue; and from his minute scrutiny of the cartons des
généralités, as prepared in the closing years of the 17th
century, he obtains a computation of 225,000 or 230,000. Such
a result must be accepted as the absolute minimum; for it was
the plain interest of the intendants who drew up the returns,
to put all the facts which revealed the folly of the king's
action at the lowest cipher. And allowing the accuracy of
Capefigue's work, there are other reasons for increasing his
total. ... We cannot set the emigration at a lower fraction
than one-fifth of the total Huguenot society. If the body
numbered two millions, the outflow will be 400,000. If this
appear an extreme estimate, it must be remembered that
one-fifth is also extreme on the other side. Reducing the
former aggregate to 1,500,000, it will be clearly within the
bounds of moderation to leave the total exodus a range between
300,000 and 350,000. How are we to distribute this immense
aggregation? Holland certainly claims near 100,000; England,
with Ireland and America, probably 80,000. Switzerland must
have received 25,000; and Germany, including Brandenburg,
thrice that number. The remainder will be made up from the
north of Europe, and from the exiles whom commerce or other
causes carried in isolated households elsewhere, and of whom
no record is preserved to us. ... The tale then of the
emigrants was above 300,000. It follows to ask what was the
material loss involved in their exodus. Caveirac is again the
lowest in his estimate: he will not grant the export of more
than 250,000 livres. He might have learnt from Count d'Avaux
himself, that those least likely to magnify the sum confessed
that by the very year of the Recall twenty million livres had
gone out of the country; and it is certain that the wealthier
merchants deferred their departure in order to carry as much
as they could with them. Two hundred and fifty traders are
said to have quitted Rouen in 1687 and 1688. Probably the
actual amount was very far in excess of these twenty millions:
and a calculation is cited by Macpherson which even affirms
that every individual refugee in England brought with him on
an average money or effects to the value of £60. ... It will
be needless to add many statistics of the injury caused by
their withdrawal from France. Two great instances are typical
of the rest. Lyons which had employed 18,000 silk-looms had
but 4,000 remaining by the end of the century. Tours with the
same interest had had 800 mills, 80,000 looms, and perhaps
4,000 work-people. Of its 3,000 ribbon-factories only sixty
remained: Equally significant was the ruin of the woollen
trade of Poitou. Little was left of the drugget-manufacture of
Coulonges and Châtaigneraie, or of the industry in serges and
bombazines at Thouars; and the export traffic between
Châtaigneraie and Canada, by way of La Rochelle, was in the
last year of the century absolutely extinct."
R. L. Poole,
History of the Huguenots of the Dispersion,
chapters 3 and 15.
ALSO IN:
C. Weiss,
History of the French Protestant Refugees.
N. Peyrat,
The Pastors in the Wilderness,
volume 1, chapters 5-7.
A. Maury,
Memoirs of a Huguenot Family
(Fontaine), chapters 4-9.
J. I. von Döllinger,
Studies in European History,
chapters 11-12.
C. W. Baird,
History of the Huguenot Emigration to America,
chapters 4-8 (volumes 1-2).
FRANCE: A. D. 1686.
Claims upon the Palatinate.
Formation of the League of Augsburg.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1686.
{1239}
FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690.
War of the League of Augsburg.
The second devastation of the Palatinate.
"The interference of Lewis in Ireland on behalf of James [the
Second, the dethroned Stuart king] caused William [prince of
Orange, now King of England] to mature his plans for a great
Continental confederacy against France. On May 12, 1689,
William, as Stadtholder of the United Provinces, had entered
into an offensive and defensive alliance with the Emperor
against Lewis. On May 17, as King of England, he declared war
against France; and on December 30 joined the alliance between
the Emperor and the Dutch. His example was followed on June 6,
1690, by the King of Spain, and on October 20 of the same year
by Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy. This confederation was
called the 'Grand Alliance.' Its main object was declared to
be to curb the power and ambition of Lewis XIV.; to force him
to surrender his conquests, and to confine his territories to
the limits agreed upon between him and the Emperor at the
treaty of Westphalia (1648), and between France and Spain at
the treaty of the Pyrenees (1659). The League of Augsburg,
which William had with so much trouble brought about, had now
successfully developed into the Grand Alliance."
E. Hale,
The Fall of the Stuarts and Western Europe,
chapter 14, section 5.
"The work at which William had toiled indefatigably during
many gloomy and anxious years was at length accomplished. The
great coalition was formed. It was plain that a desperate
conflict was at hand. The oppressor of Europe would have to
defend himself against England allied with Charles the Second
King of Spain, with the Emperor Leopold, and with the Germanic
and Batavian federations, and was likely to have no ally
except the Sultan, who was waging war against the House of
Austria on the Danube. Lewis had, towards the close of the
preceding year, taken his enemies at a disadvantage, and had
struck the first blow before they were prepared to parry it.
But that blow, though heavy, was not aimed at the part where
it might have been mortal. Had hostilities been commenced on
the Batavian frontier, William and his army would probably
have been detained on the continent, and James might have
continued to govern England. Happily, Lewis, under an
infatuation which many pious Protestants confidently ascribed
to the righteous judgment of God, had neglected the point on
which the fate of the whole civilised world depended, and had
made a great display of power, promptitude, and energy, in a
quarter where the most splendid achievements could produce
nothing more than an illumination and a Te Deum. A French army
under the command of Marshal Duras had invaded the Palatinate
and some of the neighbouring principalities. But this
expedition, though it had been completely successful, and
though the skill and vigour with which it had been conducted
had excited general admiration, could not perceptibly affect
the event of the tremendous struggle which was approaching.
France would soon be attacked on every side. It would be
impossible for Duras long to retain possession of the
provinces which he had surprised and overrun. An atrocious
thought rose in the mind of Louvois, who, in military affairs,
had the chief sway at Versailles. ... The ironhearted
statesman submitted his plan, probably with much management
and with some disguise, to Lewis; and Lewis, in an evil hour
for his fame, assented. Duras received orders to turn one of
the fairest regions of Europe into a wilderness. Fifteen years
had elapsed since Turenne had ravaged part of that fine
country. But the ravages committed by Turenne, though they
have left a deep stain on his glory, were mere sport in
comparison with the horrors of this second devastation. The
French commander announced to near half a million of human
beings that he granted them three days of grace, and that,
within that time, they must shift for themselves. Soon the
roads and fields, which then lay deep in snow, were blackened
by innumerable multitudes of men, women, and children flying
from their homes. Many died of cold and hunger: but enough
survived to fill the streets of all the cities of Europe with
lean and squalid beggars, who had once been thriving farmers
and shopkeepers. Meanwhile the work of destruction began. The
flames went up from every marketplace, every hamlet, every
parish church, every country seat, within the devoted
provinces. The fields where the corn had been sown were
ploughed up. The orchards were hewn down. No promise of a
harvest was left on the fertile plains near what had once been
Frankenthal. Not a vine, not an almond tree, was to be seen on
the slopes of the sunny hills round what had once been
Heidelberg. No respect was shown to palaces, to temples, to
monasteries, to infirmaries, to beautiful works of art, to
monuments of the illustrious dead. The far-famed castle of the
Elector Palatine was turned into a heap of ruins. The
adjoining hospital was sacked. The provisions, the medicines,
the pallets on which the sick lay, were destroyed. The very
stones on which Manheim had been built were flung into the
Rhine. The magnificent Cathedral of Spires perished, and with
it the marble sepulchres of eight Cæsars. The coffins were
broken open. The ashes were scattered to the winds. Treves,
with its fair bridge, its Roman baths and amphitheatre, its
venerable churches, convents, and colleges, was doomed to the
same fate. But, before this last crime had been perpetrated,
Lewis was recalled to a better mind by the execrations of all
the neighbouring nations, by the silence and confusion of his
flatterers, and by the expostulations of his wife. ... He
relented; and Treves was spared. In truth he could hardly fail
to perceive that he had committed a great error. The
devastation of the Palatinate, while it had not in any
sensible degree lessened the power of his enemies, had
inflamed their animosity, and had furnished them with
inexhaustible matter for invective. The cry of vengeance rose
on every side. Whatever scruple either branch of the House of
Austria might have felt about coalescing with Protestants was
completely removed."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 11.
ALSO IN:
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.
(translated by M. L. Booth), volume 2, chapter 2.
S. A. Dunham,
History of the German Empire,
book 3, chapter 3 (volume. 3).
See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690.
FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1691.
Aid to James II. in Ireland.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.
{1240}
FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1691.
Campaigns in the Netherlands and in Savoy.
"Our limits will not permit us to describe at any length the
war between Louis XIV. and the Grand Alliance, which lasted
till the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, but only to note some of
the chief incidents of the different campaigns. The
Imperialists had, in 1689, notwithstanding the efforts it was
still necessary to make against the Turks, brought an army of
80,000 men into the field, which was divided into three bodies
under the command of the Duke of Lorraine, the Elector of
Bavaria, and the Elector of Brandenburg; while the Prince of
Waldeck, in the Netherlands, was at the head of a large Dutch
and Spanish force, composed, however, in great part of German
mercenaries. In this quarter, Marshal d'Humières was opposed
to Waldeck, while Duras commanded the French army on the
Rhine. In the south, the Duke of Noailles maintained a French
force in Catalonia. Nothing of much importance was done this
year; but on the whole the war went in favour of the
imperialists, who succeeded in recovering Mentz and Bonn.
1690: This year, Marshal d'Humières was superseded by the Duke
of Luxembourg, who infused more vigour into the French
operations. ... Catinat was sent this year into Dauphiné to
watch the movements of the Duke of Savoy, who was suspected by
the French Court, and not without reason, of favouring the
Grand Alliance. The extravagant demands of Louis, who required
Victor Amadeus to unite his troops with the army of Catinat,
and to admit a French garrison into Vercelli, Verrua, and even
the citadel of Turin itself, till a general peace should be
effected, caused the Duke to enter into treaties with Spain
and the Emperor, June 3d and 4th; and on October 20th, he
joined the Grand Alliance by a treaty concluded at the Hague
with England and the States-General. This last step was taken
by Victor Amadeus in consequence of his reverses. He had
sustained from Catinat in the battle of Staffarda (August
17th) a defeat which only the skill of a youthful general, his
cousin the Prince Eugene, had saved from becoming a total
rout. As the fruits of this victory, Catinat occupied Saluzzo,
Susa, and all the country from the Alps to the Tanaro. During
these operations another French division had reduced, without
much resistance, the whole of Savoy, except the fortress of
Montmélian. The only other event of importance during this
campaign was the decisive victory gained by Luxembourg over
Prince Waldeck at Fleurus, July 1st. The captured standards,
more than a hundred in number, which Luxembourg sent to Paris
on this occasion, obtained for him the name of the 'Tapassier
de Notre Dame.' Luxembourg was, however, prevented from
following up his victory by the orders of Louvois, who forbade
him to lay siege to Namur or Charleroi. Thus, in this
campaign, France maintained her preponderance on land as well
as at sea by the victory off Beachy Head. ...
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1690.
The Imperialists had this year lost one of their best leaders
by the death of the Duke of Lorraine (April). He was succeeded
as commander-in-chief by Maximilian Emanuel, Elector of
Bavaria; but nothing of importance took place upon the Rhine.
1691: The campaign of this year was singularly barren of
events, though both the French and English kings took a
personal part in it. In March, Louis and Luxembourg, laid
siege to Mons, the capital of Hainault, which surrendered in
less than three weeks. King William, who was in the
neighbourhood, could not muster sufficient troops to venture
on its relief. Nothing further of importance was done in this
quarter, and the campaign in Germany was equally a blank. On
the side of Piedmont, Catinat took Nice, but, being confronted
by superior numbers, was forced to evacuate Piedmont; though,
by way of compensation, he completed the conquest of Savoy by
the capture of Montmélian. Noailles gained some trifling
successes in Spain; and the celebrated French corsair, Jean
Bart, distinguished himself by his enterprises at sea. One of
the most remarkable events of the year was a domestic
occurrence, the death of Louvois."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 5, chapter 5 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 44 (volume 5).
FRANCE: A. D. 1692.
The taking of Namur and the victory of Steinkirk, or
Steenkerke.
Never perhaps in the whole course of his unresting life were
the energies of William [of Orange] more severely taxed, and
never did his great moral and intellectual qualities shine
forth with a brighter lustre, than in the years 1692-93.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1692.
The great victory of La Hogue and the destruction of the
flower of the French fleet did, it is true, relieve England of
any immediate dread either of insurrection or invasion, and so
far the prospect before him acquired a slight improvement
towards the summer of 1692. But this was the only gleam of
light in the horizon. ... The great coalition of Powers which
he had succeeded in forming to resist the ambition of Louis
was never nearer dissolution than in the spring of 1692. The
Scandinavian states, who had held aloof from it from the
first, were now rapidly changing the benevolence of their
neutrality into something not easily distinguishable from its
reverse. The new Pope Innocent XII. showed himself far less
amicably disposed towards William than his two predecessors.
The decrepitude of Spain and the arrogant self-will of Austria
were displaying themselves more conspicuously than ever. Savoy
was ruled by a duke who was more than half suspected of being
a traitor. ... William did succeed in saving the league from
dissolution, and in getting their armies once more into the
field. But not, unfortunately, to any purpose. The campaign of
the present year was destined to repeat the errors of the
last, and these errors were to be paid for at a heavier cost.
... The French king was bent upon the capture of the great
stronghold of Namur, and the enemy, as in the case of Mons,
were too slow in their movements and too ineffective in their
dispositions to prevent it. Marching to the assault of the
doomed city, with a magnificence of courtly pageantry which
had never before been witnessed in warfare, Louis sat down
before Namur, and in eight days its faint-hearted governor,
the nominee of the Spanish viceroy of the Netherlands,
surrendered at discretion. Having accomplished, or rather
having graciously condescended to witness the accomplishment
of this feat of arms, Louis returned to Versailles, leaving
his army under the command of Luxembourg. The fall of Namur
was a severe blow to the hopes of William, but yet worse
disasters were in store for him. He was now pitted against one
who enjoyed the reputation of the greatest general of the age,
and William, a fair but by no means brilliant strategist, was
unequal to the contest with his accomplished adversary.
{1241}
Luxembourg lay at Steinkirk, and William approaching him from
a place named Lambeque, opened his attack upon him by a
well-conceived surprise which promised at first to throw the
French army into complete disorder. Luxembourg's resource and
energy, however, were equal to the emergency. He rallied and
steadied his troops with astonishing speed, and the nature of
the ground preventing the allies from advancing as rapidly as
they had expected, they found the enemy in a posture to
receive them. The British forces were in the front, commanded
by Count Solmes, the division of Mackay, a name now honourable
for many generations in the annals of continental, no less
than of Scottish, warfare, leading the way. These heroes, for
so, though as yet untried soldiers, they approved themselves,
were to have been supported by Count Solmes with a strong body
of cavalry and infantry, but at the critical moment he failed
them miserably, and his failure decided the fortunes of the
day. ... The division was practically annihilated. Its five
regiments, 'Cutt's, Mackay's, Angus's, Graham's, and Leven's,
all,' as Corporal Trim relates pathetically, cut to pieces,
and so had the English Life-guards been too, had it not been
for some regiments on the right, who marched up boldly to
their relief, and, received the enemy's fire in their faces,
before anyone of their own platoons discharged a musket.'
Bitter was the resentment in the English army at the desertion
of these gallant troops by Count de Solmes, and William gave
vent to one of his rare outbursts of anger at the sight. We
have it indeed on the authority above quoted--unimpeachable as
first-hand tradition, for Sterne had heard the story of these
wars at the knees of an eye-witness of and actor in them--that
the King 'would not suffer the Count to come into his presence
for many months after.' The destruction of Mackay's division
had indeed decided the issue of the struggle. Luxembourg's
army was being rapidly strengthened by reinforcements from
that of Boufflers, and there was nothing for it but retreat.
The loss on both sides had been great, but the moral effect of
the victory was still greater. William's reputation for
generalship, perhaps unduly raised by his recent exploits in
Ireland, underwent a serious decline."
H. D. Traill,
William the Third,
chapter 10.
On the Rhine and on the Spanish frontier nothing of importance
occurred during 1692. The Duke of Savoy gained some advantages
on his side and invaded Dauphiny, without any material result.
The invasion called into action a young heroine, Mademoiselle
de La Tour-du-Pin, whose portrait has a place at Saint-Denis
by the side of that of Jeanne D'Arc.
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 2, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
W. H. Torriano,
William the Third,
chapter 20.
FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (July).
The Battle of Neerwinden, or Landen.
"Lewis had determined not to make any advance towards a
reconciliation with the new government of England till the
whole strength of his realm had been put forth in one more
effort. A mighty effort in truth it was, but too exhausting to
be repeated. He made an immense display of force at once on
the Pyrenees and on the Alps, on the Rhine and on the Meuse,
in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean. That nothing might
be wanting which could excite the martial ardour of a nation
eminently high-spirited, he instituted, a few days before he
left his palace for the camp, a new military order of
knighthood, and placed it under the protection of his own
sainted ancestor and patron. The cross of Saint Lewis shone on
the breasts of the gentlemen who had been conspicuous in the
trenches before Mons and Namur, and on the fields of Fleurus
and Steinkirk. ... On the 18th of May Lewis left Versailles.
Early in June he was under the walls of Namur. The Princesses,
who had accompanied him, held their court within the fortress. He
took under his immediate command the army of Boufflers, which
was encamped at Gembloux. Little more than a mile off lay the
army of Luxemburg. The force collected in that neighbourhood
under the French lilies did not amount to less than 120,000
men. Lewis had flattered himself that he should be able to
repeat in 1693 the stratagem by which Mons had been taken in
1691 and Namur in 1692; and he had determined that either
Liege or Brussels should be his prey. But William had this
year been able to assemble in good time a force, inferior
indeed to that which was opposed to him, but still formidable.
With this force he took his post near Louvain, on the road
between the two threatened cities, and watched every movement
of the enemy. ... Just at this conjuncture Lewis announced his
intention to return instantly to Versailles, and to send the
Dauphin and Boufflers, with part of the army which was
assembled near Namur, to join Marshal Lorges who commanded in
the Palatinate. Luxemburg was thunderstruck. He expostulated
boldly and earnestly. Never, he said, was such an opportunity
thrown away. ... The Marshal reasoned: he implored: he went on
his knees: but all was vain; and he quitted the royal presence
in the deepest dejection. Lewis left the camp a week after he
had joined it, and never afterwards made war in person. ...
Though the French army in the Netherlands had been weakened by
the departure of the forces commanded by the Dauphin and
Boufflers, and though the allied army was daily strengthened
by the arrival of fresh troops, Luxemburg still had a
superiority of force; and that superiority he increased by an
adroit stratagem." He succeeded by a feint in inducing William
to detach 20,000 men from his army and to send them to Liege.
He then moved suddenly upon the camp of the allies, with
80,000 men, and found but 50,000 to oppose him. "It was still
in the [English] King's power, by a hasty retreat, to put
between his army and the enemy the narrow, but deep, waters of
the Gette, which had lately been swollen by rains. But the
site which he occupied was strong; and it could easily be made
still stronger. He set all his troops to work. Ditches were
dug, mounds thrown up, palisades fixed in the earth. In a few
hours the ground wore a new aspect; and the King trusted that
he should be able to repel the attack even of a force greatly
outnumbering his own. ... On the left flank, the village of
Romsdorff rose close to the little stream of Landen, from
which the English have named the disastrous day. On the right
was the village of Neerwinden. Both villages were, after the
fashion of the Low Countries, surrounded by moats and fences.
"Notwithstanding the strength of the position held by the
allies, and the valor with which they defended it, they were
driven out of Neerwinden [July 29]--but only after the
shattered village had been five times taken and retaken--and
across the Gette, in confusion and with heavy loss.
{1242}
"The French were victorious: but they had bought their victory
dear. More then 10,000 of the best troops of Lewis had fallen.
Neerwinden was a spectacle at which the oldest soldiers stood
aghast. The streets were piled breast high with corpses. Among
the slain were some great lords and some renowned warriors.
... The region, renowned as the battle field, through many
ages, of the greatest powers of Europe, has seen only two more
terrible days, the day of Malplaquet and the day of Waterloo.
... There was no pursuit, though the sun was still high in the
heaven when William crossed the Gette. The conquerors were so
much exhausted by marching and fighting that they could
scarcely move. ... A very short delay was enough for William.
... Three weeks after his defeat he held a review a few miles
from Brussels. The number of men under arms was greater than
on the morning of the bloody day of Landen: their appearance
was soldierlike; and their spirit seemed unbroken. William now
wrote to Heinsius that the worst was over. 'The crisis,' he
said, 'has been a terrible one. Thank God that it has ended
thus.' He did not, however, think it prudent to try at that
time the event of another pitched field. He therefore suffered
the French to besiege and take Charleroi; and this was the
only advantage which they derived from the most sanguinary
battle fought in Europe during the seventeenth century."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 20 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
G. Burnet,
History of My Own Time,
book 5 (1693), volume 4.
Duc de Saint-Simon,
Memoirs (translated by St. John),
volume 1, chapter 4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (October).
Defeat of the Duke of Savoy at Marsaglia.
"The great efforts made by Louis in the north prevented him
from strengthening the army of Catinat sufficiently to act
with energy against the Savoyard prince, and it was determined
to restrict the campaign of 1693 to the defensive on the part
of France. The forces of the duke had in the meantime been
reinforced from Germany, and he opened the campaign with a
brilliant and successful movement against Pignerol. ... He is
said to have entertained hopes of carrying the war in that one
campaign to the very gates of Lyons; but the successes which
inspired him with such expectations alarmed the court of
France, and Louis detached in haste a large body of cavalry to
reinforce Catinat. That general marched at once to fight the Duke
of Savoy, who, presuming on his strength, suffered the French
to pour out from the valley of Suza into the plain of
Piedmont, abandoned the heights, and was consequently defeated
at Marsaglia on the 4th of October. Catinat, however, could not
profit by his victory; he was too ill supplied in every
respect to undertake the siege of Coni, and the state of the
French armies at this time marks as plainly that Louvois was
dead, as the state of the finances speaks the loss of
Colbert."
G. P. R. James,
Life and Times of Louis XIV.,
volume 2, chapter 11.
FRANCE: A. D. 1694.
Campaigns without battles.
Operations at sea.
In 1694, King William was "in a position to keep an army afoot
in the Netherlands stronger than any had hitherto been. It was
reckoned at 31,800 horse, including a corps of dragoons, and
58,000 foot; so great a force had never been seen within the
memory of man. All the best-known generals, who had hitherto
taken part in the wars of western Europe, were gathered round
him with their troops. The French army, with which the
Dauphin, but not the King, was present, was not much smaller;
it was once more led by Marshal Luxembourg. These two hosts
lay over against one another in their camps for a couple of
months; neither offered battle to the other. ... This campaign
is notable in the annals of the art of war for the skill with
which each force pursued or evaded the other; but the results
were limited to the recovery by the allies of that unimportant
place, Huy. William had thought himself fortunate in having
come out of the previous campaign without disaster: in this
campaign the French were proud to have held their lines in
presence of a superior force. On the coast also the French
were successful in repelling a most vehement and perilous
attack. They had been warned that the English were going to
fall on Brest, and Vauban was sent down there in haste to
organise the defence; and in this he was thoroughly
successful. When the English landed on the coast in Camaret
Bay (for the fort of that name had first to be taken) they
were saluted by two batteries, which they had never detected,
and which were so well placed that every shot told, and the
grape-shot wounded almost every man who had ventured ashore.
The gallant General, Talmash, was also hit, and ere long died
of his wounds. The English fleet, which had come to bombard
Brest, was itself bombarded from the walls. But though this
great effort failed, the English fleet still held the mastery
of the Channel: it also blockaded the northern coast of
France. After Brest it attacked Dieppe, laying it almost
entirely in ashes; thence it sailed to Havre, and St. Malo, to
Calais, and Dunkirk. This was of great use in the conduct of
the war. King William observes that had not the coasts been
kept in a state of alarm, all the forces detained there for
defensive purposes would have been thrown on the Netherlands.
... But the most important result of the maritime war lay on
another side. In May, 1694, Noailles pushed into Catalonia,
supported by Tourville, who lay at anchor with the fleet in
the Bay of Rosas. ... It was of incalculable importance to
Spain to be in alliance with the maritime powers. Strengthened
by a Dutch fleet and some Spanish ships, Admiral Russell now
appeared in the Mediterranean. He secured Barcelona from the
French, who would never have been kept out of the city by the
Spaniards alone. The approach of the English fleet had at this
time the greatest influence in keeping the Duke of Savoy
staunch to the confederation. In Germany the rise of the house
of Hanover to the Electoral dignity had now caused most
unpleasant complications. A shoal of German princes, headed by
the King of Denmark, as a Prince of the Empire, and offended
by the preference shown to Hanover, inclined, if not to
alliance with France, at least to neutrality. ... We can have
no conception, and in this place we cannot possibly
investigate, with what unbroken watchfulness King William,
supported by Heinsius, looked after the German and the
Northern courts, so as to keep their irritation from reacting
on the course of the great war. ... When the French, in June,
1694, crossed the Rhine, meaning, as they boasted with true
Gallic arrogance, soon to dip their swords in the Danube, they
found the Prince of Baden so well prepared, and posted so
strongly near Wisloch, that they did not venture to attack
him. ... The general result is this: neither side was as yet
really superior to the other: but the French power was
everywhere checked and held within bounds by the arms and
influence of William III."
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 20, chapter 6 (volume 5).
{1243}
FRANCE: A. D. 1695-1696.
The end of the War of the League of Augsburg.
Loss of Namur.
Terms with Savoy.
The Peace of Ryswick.
"Military and naval efforts were relaxed on all sides: on the
Rhine the Prince of Baden and the Marechal de Lorges, both ill
in health, did little but observe each other; and though the
Duke of Savoy made himself master of Casal on the 11th July,
1695, no other military event of any consequence took place on
the side of Italy, where Louis entered into negotiations with
the duke, and succeeded, in the following year, in detaching
him from the league of Augsburg. As the price of his defection
the whole of his territories were to be restored to him, with
the exception of Suza, Nice, and Montmeillan, which were
promised to be delivered also on the signature of a general
peace. Money was added to render the consent of a needy prince
more ready. ... The duke promised to obtain from the emperor a
pledge that Italy should be considered as neutral ground, and
if the allies refused such a pledge, then to join the forces
of Savoy to those of France, and give a free passage to the
French through his dominions. In consequence of this treaty
... he applied to the emperor for a recognition of the
neutrality of Italy, and was refused. He then hastened, with a
facility which distinguished him through life, to abandon his
friends and join his enemies, and within one month was
generalissimo for the emperor in Italy fighting against
France, and generalissimo for the King of France in Italy
fighting against the emperor. Previous to this change,
however, the King of England opened the campaign of 1695 in
the Netherlands by the siege of Namur. The death of Luxemburg
had placed the French army of Flanders under the command of
the incapable Marshal Villeroi: and William, feeling that his
enemy was no longer to be much respected, assumed at once the
offensive. He concealed his design upon Namur under a variety
of manœuvres which kept the French generals in suspense; and,
then leaving the Prince of Vaudemont to protect the principal
Spanish towns in Flanders, he collected his troops suddenly;
and while the Duke of Bavaria invested Namur, he covered the
operations of the siege with a considerable force. Villeroi
now determined to attack the Prince of Vaudemont, but twice
suffered him to escape: and then, after having apparently
hesitated for some time how to drive or draw the King of
England from the attack upon Namur, he resolved to bombard the
city of Brussels, never pretending to besiege it, but alleging
as his motive for a proceeding which was merely destructive,
the bombardment of the maritime towns of France by the
English. During three days he continued to fire upon the city,
ruining a great part thereof, and then withdrew to witness the
surrender of the citadel of Namur on the 2nd September, the
town itself having capitulated on the 4th of the preceding
month. As some compensation, though but a poor one, for the
loss of Namur, and the disgrace of the French arms in
suffering such a city to be captured in the presence of 80,000
men, Montal took Dixmude and Deynse in the course of June. ...
The only after-event of any importance which occurred in
Flanders during this war, was the capture of Ath by the
French, in the year 1697, while negotiations for peace were
going on with activity at Ryswick. ... Regular communications
regarding peace having been once established, Ryswick, near
the Hague, was appointed for the meeting of plenipotentiaries;
and Harlay, Torci, and Callières appeared at that place as
representatives of Louis. The articles which had been formerly
sketched out at Utrecht formed the base of the treaties now
agreed upon; and Louis yielded far more than could have been
expected from one so proud and so successful."
G. P. R. James,
Life and Times of Louis XIV.,
volume 2, chapter 11.
ALSO IN:
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 3, chapter 5.
Sir J. Dalrymple,
Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland,
part 3, book 4 (volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1697 (April).
The sacking of Carthagena.
See CARTHAGENA: A. D. 1697.
FRANCE: A. D. 1697.
The Peace of Ryswick.
"The Congress for the treaty or series of treaties that was to
terminate the great European war, which had now lasted for
upwards of nine years, was held at Ryswick, a château near the
Hague. The conferences were opened in May, 1697. Among the
countries represented were Sweden, Austria, France, Spain,
England, Holland, Denmark and the various States of the German
Empire. The treaties were signed, in severalty, between the
different States, except Austria, in September and October,
1697, and with the Emperor, in November. The principal
features of the treaty were, as between France and Spain,
that, the former country was to deliver to Spain Barcelona,
and other places in Catalonia; also various places which
France had taken in the Spanish Netherlands, during the war,
including Luxembourg and its Duchy, Charleroi, Mons and
Courtrai. Various others were excepted, to be retained by
France, as dependencies of French possessions. The principal
stipulations of the treaty, as between France and Great
Britain, were that France formally recognized William III. as
lawful king of Great Britain, and agreed not to trouble him in
the possession of his dominions, and not to assist his
enemies, directly or indirectly. This article had particular
relation to the partisans of the exiled Stuart king, then
living in France. By another article, all places taken by
either country in America, during the war, were to be
relinquished, and the Principality of Orange and its estates
situated in the south of France were to be restored to
William. In the treaty with Holland, certain possessions in
the East Indies were to be restored to the Dutch East India
Company: and important articles of commerce were appended,
among which the principle was laid down that free ships should
make free goods, not contraband of war. By the treaty with the
Emperor and the German States, the Treaties of Westphalia and
Nymeguen were recognized as the basis of the Treaty of
Ryswick, with such exceptions only as were to be provided in
the latter treaty. France also was to give up all territory
she had occupied or controlled before or during the war under
the name of 'reunions,' outside of Alsace, but the Roman
Catholic religion was to be preserved in Alsace as it then
existed.
{1244}
This concession by France included among other places
Freiburg, Brisach, and Treves; and certain restitutions were
to be made by France, in favor of Spire, the Electors of
Treves, and Brandenburg and the Palatinate; also, others in
favor of certain of the smaller German Princes. The city of
Strasburg, in return, was formally ceded to France, ... and
the important fort of Kehl was yielded to the Empire. The
navigation of the Rhine was to be free to all persons. The
Duke of Lorraine was to be restored to his possessions with
such exceptions as were provided in the treaty. By the terms
of this treaty, a more advantageous peace was given to Spain
than she had any expectation of. ... Not only were the places
taken in Spain, including the numerous fortified places in
Catalonia, yielded up, but also, with some exceptions, those
in the Spanish Netherlands, and also the important territory
of Luxembourg; some places were even yielded to Spain that
France had gained under former treaties."
J. W. Gerard,
The Peace of Utrecht,
chapter 4.
"The restitutions and cessions [from France to Germany]
comprised Treves, Germersheim, Deux-Ponts, Veldentz,
Montbéliard, Kehl, Freiburg, Breisach, Philippsburg, the
Emperor and the Empire ceding in exchange Strasbourg to the
King of France in complete sovereignty. ... Louis XIV. had
consented somewhat to relax the rigor of the treaty of
Nimeguen towards the heir of the Duchy of Lorraine, nephew of
the Emperor by his mother; he restored to the young Duke
Leopold his inheritance in the condition in which Charles IV.
had possessed it before the French conquest of 1670; that is
to say, he restored Nancy, allowing only the ramparts of the
Old Town to remain, and razing all the rest of the
fortifications without the power of restoring them; he kept
Marsal, an interior place calculated to hold Lorraine in
check, and also Sarre-Louis, a frontier-place which separated
Lorraine from the Germanic provinces; he restored Bitche and
Homburg dismantled, without power to reestablish them, and
kept Longwy in exchange for a domain of similar value in one
of the Trois-Evêchés; finally, he no longer demanded, as at
Nimeguen, four great strategic routes through Lorraine, and
consented that the passage should always be open to his
troops. The House of Lorraine was thus reestablished in its
estates after twenty-seven years of exile."
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 2, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 20, chapter 11 (volume 5).
See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1692-1697;
and NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1694-1697.
FRANCE: A. D. 1698-1712.
The colonization of Louisiana.
Broad claims to the whole valley of the Mississippi.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.
FRANCE: A. D. 1700.
Bequest of the Spanish crown to a French royal prince.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700.
FRANCE: A. D. 1701-1702.
Provocation of the Second Grand Alliance
and War of the Spanish Succession.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702,
and ENGLAND: A. D. 1701-1702.
FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1710.
The Camisard rising of the French Protestant's in the
Cévennes.
"The movement known as the War of the Camisards is an episode
of the history of Protestantism in France which, though rarely
studied in detail and perhaps but partially understood, was
not devoid of significance. When it occurred, in the summer of
1702, a period of little less than 17 years had elapsed since
Louis XIV., by his edict of Fontainebleau, October, 1685,
solemnly revoked the great and fundamental law enacted by his
grandfather, Henry IV., for the protection of the adherents of
the Reformed faith, known in history as the Edict of Nantes.
During the whole of that period the Protestants had submitted,
with scarcely an attempt at armed resistance, to the
proscription of their tenets: ... The majority, unable to
escape from the land of oppression, remained at home ...
nearly all of them cherishing the confident hope that the
king's delusion would be short-lived, and that the edict under
which they and their ancestors had lived for three generations
would, before long, be restored to them with the greater part,
if not the whole, of its beneficent provisions. Meanwhile, all
the Protestant ministers having been expelled from France by
the same law that prohibited the expatriation of any of the
laity, the people of the Reformed faith found themselves
destitute of the spiritual food they craved. True, the new
legislation affected to regard that faith as dead, and
designated all the former adherents of Protestantism, without
distinction, as the 'New Converts,' 'Nouveaux Convertis.' And,
in point of fact, the great majority had so far yielded to the
terrible pressure of the violent measures brought to bear upon
them ... that they had consented to sign a promise to be
're-united' to the Roman Catholic Church, or had gone at least
once to mass. But they were still Protestants at heart. ...
Under these circumstances, feeling more than ever the need of
religious comfort, now that remorse arose for a weak betrayal
of conscientious conviction, the proscribed Protestants,
especially in the south of France, began to meet clandestinely
for divine worship in such retired places as seemed most
likely to escape the notice of their vigilant enemies. ... It
was not strange that in so exceptional a situation, a phase of
religious life and feeling equally exceptional should manifest
itself. I refer to that appearance of prophetic inspiration
which attracted to the province of Vivarais and to the
Cévennes Mountains the attention of all Europe. ...
Historically ... the influence of the prophets of the Cévennes
was an important factor in the Protestant problem of the end
of the 17th and the commencement of the 18th centuries. ...
Various methods were adopted to put an end to the prophets
with their prophecies, which were for the most part
denunciatory of Rome as Antichrist and foreshadowed the
approaching fall of the papacy. But this form of enthusiasm
had struck a deep root and it was hard to eradicate it.
Imprisonment, in convent or jail, was the most common
punishment, especially in the case of women. Not infrequently
to imprisonment was, added corporal chastisement, and the
prophets, male and female, were flogged until they might be
regarded as fully cured of their delusion. ... But no
utterances of prophets, however fervid and impassioned, would
have sufficed to occasion an uprising of the inhabitants of
the Cévennes Mountains, had it not been for the virulent
persecution to which the latter found themselves exposed at
the hands of the provincial authorities directly instigated
thereto by the clergy of the established church.
{1245}
For it must be noticed that a large part of the population of
the Cévennes was still Protestant, and made no concealment of
the fact, even though the king's ministers affected to call
them 'New Catholics,' or 'New Converts.' The region over which
the Camisard war extended with more or less violence comprised
six episcopal dioceses, which, in 1698, had an aggregate
population of about two-thirds of a million of souls. Of these
souls, though Protestantism had been dead in the eye of the
law for 13 years, fully one-fourth were still Protestant. ...
The war may be said to have begun on the 24th of July, 1702,
when the Abbé du Chayla, a noted persecutor, was killed in his
house, at Pont de Montvert, by a band of 40 or 50 of the
'Nouveaux Convertis,' whom he had driven to desperation by his
cruelty to their fellow believers. If we regard its
termination to be the submission of Jean Cavalier, the most
picturesque, in the month of May, 1704, the war lasted a
little less than two years. But, although the French
government had succeeded, rather by craft than by force, in
getting rid of the most formidable of its opponents ... it was
not until five or six years later--that is, until 1709 or
1710--that ... comparative peace was finally restored. ...
During the first months of the insurrection the exploits of
the malcontents were confined to deeds of destruction
accomplished by companies of venturesome men, who almost
everywhere eluded the pursuit of the enemy by their superior
knowledge of the intricacies of the mountain woods and paths.
The track of these companies could easily be made out; for it
was marked by the destruction of vicarages and rectories, by
the smoke of burned churches, too often by the corpses of
slain priests. The perpetrators of these acts of violence soon
won for themselves some special designations, to distinguish
them from the more passive Protestants who remained in their
homes, taking no open part in the struggle. ... About the
close of 1702, however, or the first months of 1703, a new
word was coined for the fresh emergency, and the armed
Protestants received the appellation under which they have
passed into history--the Camisards. Passing by all the strange
and fanciful derivations of the word which seem to have no
claim upon our notice, unless it be their evident absurdity,
we have no difficulty in connecting it with those nocturnal
expeditions which were styled 'Camisades'; because the
warriors who took advantage of the darkness of the night to
ride out and explore or force the enemy's entrenchments,
sometimes threw over their armor a shirt that might enable
them to recognize each other. Others will have it that, though
the name was derived from the same article of apparel--the
'camisa' or shirt--it was applied to the Cévenol bands for
another reason, namely," that when they found opportunities,
they carried off clean linen from the villages and left their
soiled garments in exchange. The final overthrow of the
Camisards "was not accomplished without the employment of
100,000 troops, certainly far more than ten times the total
number ever brought into the field by the Camisards. ... Not
less than three officers of the highest grade in the service,
marshals of France, were successively appointed to put down a
revolt which it might have been expected a simple colonel
could suffice to quell--M. de Broglie being succeeded by the
Marshal de Montrevel, the Marshal de Montrevel by the Marshal
de Villars, and the Marshal de Villars by the Marshal de
Berwick."
H. M. Baird,
The Camisard Uprising
(Papers of the American Society of Church History,
volume 2, pages 13-34).
ALSO IN:
Mrs. Bray,
The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cevennes.
N. Peyrat,
The Pastors in the Wilderness.
S. Smiles,
The Huguenots in France after the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes, chapters 5-8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1711.
The War of the Spanish Succession in America
(called Queen Anne's War).
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710;
and CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.
FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1713.
The War of the Spanish Succession in Europe.
See
ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713;
SPAIN: A.D. 1702, to 1707-1710;
GERMANY: A. D. 1702, to 1706-1711;
NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704, to 1710-1712.
FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1715.
Renewed Jesuitical persecution of the Jansenists.
The odious Bull Unigenitus and its tyrannical enforcement.
See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715.
A. D. 1710.
The War of the Spanish Succession: Misery of the nation.
Overtures for Peace.
Conferences at Gertruydenberg.
"France was still reduced to extreme and abject wretchedness.
Her finances were ruined. Her people were half starving.
Marlborough declared that in the villages through which he
passed in the summer of 1710, at least half the inhabitants
had perished since the beginning of the preceding winter, and
the rest looked as if they had come out of their graves. All
the old dreams of French conquests in the Spanish Netherlands,
in Italy, and in Germany were dispelled, and the French
generals were now struggling desperately and skilfully to
defend their own frontier. ... In 1710, while the Whig
ministry [in England] was still in power, but at a time when
it was manifestly tottering to its fall, Lewis had made one
more attempt to obtain peace by the most ample concessions.
The conferences were held at the Dutch fortress of
Gertruydenberg. Lewis declared himself ready to accept the
conditions exacted as preliminaries of peace in the preceding
year, with the exception of the article compelling Philip
within two months to cede the Spanish throne. He consented, in
the course of the negotiations, to grant to the Dutch nearly
all the fortresses of the French and Spanish Netherlands,
including among others Ypres, Tournay, Lille, Furnes, and even
Valenciennes, to cede Alsace to the Duke of Lorraine, to destroy
the fortifications of Dunkirk, and those on the Rhine from
Bale to Philipsburg. The main difficulty was on the question
of the Spanish succession. ... The French troops had already
been recalled from Spain, and Lewis consented to recognise the
Archduke as the sovereign, to engage to give no more
assistance to his grandchild, to place four cautionary towns
in the hands of the Dutch as a pledge for the fulfilment of
the treaty, and even to pay a subsidy to the allies for the
continuance of the war against Philip. The allies, however,
insisted that he should join with them in driving his grandson
by force of arms from Spain, and on this article the
negotiations were broken off."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 1.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.
{1246}
FRANCE: A. D. 1713-1714.
Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession.
The Peace of Utrecht and the Treaty of Rastadt.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
FRANCE: A. D. 1714.
The desertion of the Catalans.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1714.
FRANCE: A. D. 1715.
Death of Louis XIV.
The character of his reign.
Louis XIV. died September 1, 1715, at the age of 77 years,
having reigned 72 years. "Richelieu, and after him Mazarin,
governing as if they had been dictators of a republic, had
extinguished, if I may use the expression, their personality
in the idea and service of the state. Possessing only the
exercise of authority, they both conducted themselves as
responsible agents towards the sovereign and before the
judgment of the country; while Louis XIV., combining the
exercise with the right, considered himself exempted from all
rule but that of his own will, and acknowledged no
responsibility for his actions except to his own conscience.
It was this conviction of his universal power, a conviction
genuine and sincere, excluding both scruples and remorse,
which made him upset one after the other the twofold system
founded by Henry IV., of religious liberty at home, and abroad
of a national preponderance resting upon a generous protection
of the independence of states and European civilisation. At
the personal accession of Louis XIV., more than fifty years
had passed since France had pursued the work of her policy in
Europe, impartial towards the various communions of
Christians, the different forms of governments, and the
internal revolutions of the states. Although France was
catholic and monarchical, her alliances were, in the first
place, with the Protestant states of Germany and with
republican Holland; she had even made friendly terms with
regicide England. No other interest but that of the
well-understood development of the national resources had
weight in her councils, and directed the internal action of
her government. But all was changed by Louis XIV., and special
interests, the spawn of royal personality, of the principle of
the hereditary monarchy, or that of the state religion, were
admitted, soon to fly upward in the scale. Thence resulted the
overthrow of the system of the balance of power in Europe,
which might be justly called the French system, and the
abandonment of it for dreams of an universal monarchy, revived
after the example of Charles V. and Philip II. Thence a
succession of enterprises, formed in opposition to the policy
of the country, such as the war with Holland, the factions
made with a view to the Imperial crown, the support given to
James II. and the counter-revolution in England, the
acceptance of the throne of Spain for a son of France,
preserving his rights to the Crown. These causes of
misfortune, under which the kingdom was obliged to succumb,
all issued from the circumstance applauded by the nation and
conformable to the spirit of its tendencies, which, after
royalty had attained its highest degree of power under two
ministers, delivered it unlimited into the hands of a prince
endowed with qualities at once brilliant and solid, an object
of enthusiastic affection and legitimate admiration. When the
reign, which was to crown under such auspices the ascendant
march of the French monarchy, had falsified the unbounded
hopes which its commencement had excited; when in the midst of
fruitless victories and continually increasing reverses, the
people beheld progress in all the branches of public economy
changed into distress,--the ruin of the finances, industry,
and agriculture--the exhaustion of all the resources of the
country,--the impoverishment of all classes of the nation, the
dreadful misery of the population, they were seized with a
bitter disappointment of spirit, which took the place of the
enthusiasm of their confidence and love."
A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers
État or Third Estate in France,
chapter 9.
FRANCE: A. D. 1715.
Accession of King Louis XV.
FRANCE: A. D. 1715-1723.
State of the kingdom at the death of Louis XIV.
The minority of Louis XV. and Regency of the Duke of Orleans.
"Louis XIV. ... left France excessively exhausted. The State
was ruined, and seemed to have no resource but bankruptcy.
This trouble seemed especially imminent in 1715, after the
war, during which the government had been obliged to borrow at
400 per cent., to create new taxes, to spend in advance the
revenue of two years, and to increase the public debt to 2,400
millions. The acquisition of two provinces (Flanders,
Franche-Comté) and a few cities (Strassburg, Landau, and
Dunkirk) was no compensation for such terrible poverty.
Succeeding generations have remembered only the numerous
victories, Europe defied, France for twenty years
preponderant, and the incomparable splendor of the court of
Versailles, with its marvels of letters and arts, which have
given to the 17th century the name of the age of Louis XIV. It
is for history to show the price which France has paid for her
king's vain attempts abroad to rule over Europe, and at home
to enslave the wills and consciences of men. ... The weight of
the authority of Louis XIV. had been crushing during his last
years. When the nation felt it lifted, it breathed more
freely; the court and the city burst into disrespectful
demonstrations of joy; the very coffin of the great king was
insulted. The new king [Louis XV., great-grandson of Louis
XIV.] was five years old. Who was to govern? Louis XIV. had
indeed left a will, but he had not deceived himself with
regard to the value of it. 'As soon as I am dead, it will be
disregarded; I know too well what became of the will of the
king, my father!' As after the death of Henry IV. and Louis
XIII. there was a moment of feudal reaction; but the decline
of the nobility may be measured by the successive weakening of
its efforts in each case. Under Mary de'Medici it was still able
to make a civil war; under Anne of Austria it produced the
Fronde; after Louis XIV. it only produced memorials. The Duke
of Saint-Simon desired that the first prince of the blood,
Philip of Orleans, to whom the will left only a shadow of
power, should demand the regency from the dukes and peers, as
heirs and representatives of the ancient grand vassals. But
the Duke of Orleans convoked Parliament in order to break down
the posthumous despotism of the old king, feigning that the
king had committed the government to his hands. The regency,
with the right to appoint the council of regency as he would,
was conferred upon him, and the command of the royal household
was taken from the Duke of Maine [one of the bastard sons of
Louis XIV.], who yielded this important prerogative only after
a violent altercation.
{1247}
As a reward for the services of his two allies, the Duke of
Orleans called the high nobility into affairs, by substituting
for the ministries six councils; in which they occupied almost
all the places, and accorded to Parliament the right of
remonstrance. But two years had hardly passed when the
ministries were re-established, and the Parliament again
condemned to silence. It was plain that neither nobility nor
Parliament were to be the heirs of the absolute monarchy. ...
Debauchery had, until then, kept within certain limits;
cynicism of manners as well as of thought was now adopted
openly. The regent set the example. There had never been seen
such frivolity of conduct nor such licentious wit as that
exhibited in the wild meetings of the roués of the Duke of
Orleans. There had been formerly but one salon in France, that
of the king; a thousand were now open to a society which, no
longer occupied with religious questions, or with war, or the
grave futilities of etiquette, felt that pleasure and change
were necessities. ... Louis XV. attained his majority February
13, 1723, being then 13 years old. This terminated the regency
of the Duke of Orleans. But the king was still to remain a
long time under tutelage; the duke, in order to retain the
power after resigning the regency, had in advance given
[Cardinal] Dubois the title of prime minister. At the death of
the wretched Dubois he took the office himself, but held it
only four months, dying of apoplexy in December, 1723."
V. Duruy,
History of France,
chapters 52 and 55.
ALSO IN:
W. C. Taylor,
Memoirs of the House of Orleans,
volume 1, chapters 11-17,
and volume 2, chapters 1-3.
F. Rocquain,
The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution,
chapter 1.
J. B. Perkins,
France under the Regency.
FRANCE: A. D. 1717-1719.
The Triple Alliance.
The Quadruple Alliance.
War with Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725;
also, ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.
FRANCE: A. D. 1717-1720.
John Law and his Mississippi Scheme.
"When the Regent Orleans assumed the government of France, he
found its affairs in frightful confusion. The public debt was
three hundred millions; putting the debt on one side, the
expenditure was only just covered by the revenue. St. Simon
advised him to declare a national bankruptcy. De Noailles,
less scrupulous, proposed to debase the coinage. ... In such
desperate circumstances, it was no wonder that the regent was
ready to catch eagerly at any prospect of success. A remedy
was proposed to him by the famous John Law of Lauriston. This
new light of finance had gambled in, and been banished from,
half the courts of Europe; he had figured in the English 'Hue
and Cry,' as 'a very tall, black, lean man, well-shaped, above
six feet high, large pock-holes in his face, big-nosed, speaks
broad and loud.' He was a big, masterful, bullying man, one of
keen intellect as well; the hero of a hundred romantic
stories. ... He studied finance at Amsterdam, then the great
school of commerce, and offered his services and the 'system'
which he had invented, first to Godolphin, when that nobleman
was at the head of affairs in England, then to Victor Amadeus,
duke of Savoy, then to Louis XIV., who, as the story goes,
refused any credit to a heretic. He invented a new combination
at cards, which became the despair of all the croupiers in
Europe; so successful was this last invention, that he arrived
for the second time at Versailles, in the early days of the
regency, with upwards of £120,000 at his disposal, and a copy
of his 'system' in his pocket. ... There was a dash of daring
in the scheme which suited well with the regent's peculiar
turn of mind; it was gambling on a gigantic scale. ...
Besides, the scheme was plausible and to a certain point
correct. The regent, with all his faults, was too clever a man
not to recognize the genius which gleamed in Law's dark eyes.
Law showed that the trade and commerce of every country was
crippled by the want of a circulating medium; specie was not
to be had in sufficient quantities; paper, backed by the
credit of the state, was the grand secret. He adduced the
examples of Great Britain, of Genoa, and of Amsterdam to prove
the advantage of a paper currency; he proposed to institute a
bank, to be called the 'Bank of France,' and to issue notes
guaranteed by the government and secured on the crown lands,
exchangeable at sight for specie, and receivable in payment of
taxes; the bank was to be conducted in the king's name, and to
be managed by commissioners appointed by the States-General.
The scheme of Law was based on principles which are now
admitted as economical axioms; the danger lay in the enormous
extent to which it was intended to push the scheme. ... While
the bank was in the hands of Law himself, it appears to have
been managed with consummate skill; the notes bore some
proportion to the amount of available specie; they contained a
promise to pay in silver of the same standard and weight as
that which existed at the time. A large dividend was declared;
then the regent stepped in. The name of the bank was changed
to that of the Royal Bank of France, the promise to pay in
silver of a certain weight and standard was dropped, and a
promise substituted to pay 'in silver coin.' This omission, on
the part of a prince who had already resorted to the expedient
of debasing the currency, was ominous, and did much to shake
public confidence; the intelligence that in the first year of
the new bank 1,000,000,000 of livres were fabricated, was not
calculated to restore it. But these trifles were forgotten in
the mad excitement which followed. Law had long been
elaborating a scheme which is for ever associated with his
name, and beside which the Bank of France sank into
insignificance. In 1717, the year before the bank had been
adopted by the regent, the billets d'état of 500 livres each
were worth about 160 livres in the market. Law, with the
assent of the regent, proposed to establish a company which
should engross all the trade of the kingdom, and all the
revenues of the crown, should carry on the business of
merchants in every part of the world, and monopolize the
farming of the taxes and the coining of money; the stock was
to be divided into 200,000 shares of 500 livres each. The
regent nearly marred the scheme at starting by inserting a
proviso that the depreciated billets d'état were to be
received at par in payment for the new stock, on which four
per cent. was guaranteed by the State." Law's company was
formed, under the name of the Company of the West, and
obtained for the basis of its operations a monopoly of the
trade of that vast territory of France in the valley of the
Mississippi which bore the name of Louisiana. The same
monopoly had been held for five years by one Crozat, who now
resigned it because he found it unprofitable; but the fact
received little attention.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1717-1718.
{1248}
"Louisiana was described as a paradise. ... Shareholders in
the company were told that they would enjoy the monopoly of
trade throughout French North America, and the produce of a
country rich in every kind of mineral wealth. Billets d'état
were restored to their nominal value; stock in the Mississippi
scheme was sold at fabulous prices; ingots of gold, which were
declared to have come from the mines of St. Barbe, were taken
with great pomp to the mint; 6,000 of the poor of Paris were
sent out as miners, and provided with tools to work in the new
diggings. New issues of shares were made; first 50,000, then
50,000 more; both at an enormous premium. The jobbers of the
rue Quincampoix found ordinary language inadequate to express
their delight: they invented a new slang for the occasion, and
called the new shares 'les filles,' and, 'les petites filles,'
respectively. Paris was divided between the 'Anti-system' party
who opposed Law, and the Mississippians who supported him. The
State borrowed from the company fifteen hundred millions;
government paid its creditors in warrants on the company. To
meet them, Law issued 100,000 new shares; which came out at a
premium of 1,000 per cent. The Mississippians went mad with
joy--they invented another new slang phrase; the 'cinq cents'
eclipsed the filles and the petites filles in favour. The
gates of Law's hotel had to be guarded by a detachment of
archers; the cashiers were mobbed in their bureaux; applicants
for shares sat in the ante-rooms; a select body slept for
several nights on the stairs; gentlemen disguised themselves
in Law's livery to obtain access to the great man. ... By this
time the charter of the company of Senegal had been merged in
the bank, which also became sole farmer of the tobacco duties;
the East India Company had been abolished, and the exclusive
privilege of trading to the East Indies, China, and the South
Seas, together with all the possessions of Colbert's company
were transferred to Law. The bank now assumed the style of the
Company of the Indies. Before the year [1719] was out the
regent had transferred to it the exclusive privilege of the
mint, and the contract of all the great farms. Almost every
branch of industry in France, its trade, its revenue, its
police, were now in the hands of Law. Every fresh privilege
was followed by a new issue of shares. ... The shares of 500
franks were now worth 10,000. The rue Quincampoix became
impassable, and an army of stockjobbers camped in tents in the
Place Vendome. ... The excitement spread to England [where the
South Sea Bubble was inflated by the madness of the hour].
See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.
... Law's system and the South Sea scheme both went down
together. Both were calculated to last so long, and so long
only, as universal confidence existed; when it began to be
whispered that those in the secret were realizing their
profits and getting out of the impending ruin, the whole
edifice came down with a crash. ... No sooner was it evident
that the system was about to break down, than Law, the only
man who could at least have mitigated the blow, was banished."
Viscount Bury,
Exodus of the Western Nations,
volume 2, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
C. Mackay,
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions,
volume 1, chapter 1.
A. Thiers,
The Mississippi Bubble.
W. C. Taylor,
Memoirs of the House of Orleans,
volume 2, chapter 2.
C. Gayarre,
History of Louisiana, second series,
lecture 1.
Duke de Saint-Simon,
Memoirs:
abridged translation by St. John, volume 3, chapter 25,
and volume 4, chapters 4, and 13-15.
FRANCE: A. D. 1720.
The fortifying of Louisbourg.
See CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1720-1745.
FRANCE: A. D. 1723-1774.
Character and reign of Louis XV.
The King's mistresses and their courtiers
who conducted the government.
State and feeling of the nation.
After the death of the Duke of Orleans, "a short period of
about two years and a-half comprehends the administration of
the Duke of Bourbon, or rather of his mistress, la Marquise de
Prie. Fleury [Cardinal] then appears on the stage, and dies in
1743. He was, therefore, minister of France for seventeen
years. On his death, the king (Louis XV.) undertook to be his
own prime minister; an unpromising experiment for a country at
any time. In this instance the result was only that the king's
mistress, Madame de Chateauroux, became the ruler of France,
and soon after Madame de Pompadour, another mistress, whose
reign was prolonged from 1745 to 1768. Different courtiers and
prelates were seen to hold the first offices of the state
during this apparent premiership of the monarch. The ladies
seem to have chosen or tolerated Cardinal Tençin, Argençon,
Orsy, Mauripaux, and Amelot, who, with the Dukes Noailles and
Richelieu, succeeded to Fleury. Afterwards, we have Argençon
and Machault, and then come the most celebrated of the
ministers or favourites of Madame de Pompadour, the Abbé de
Bemis and the Duc de Choiseul. The last is the most
distinguished minister after Fleury. He continued in favour
from 1758, not only to 1763, when Madame de Pompadour died,
but for a few years after. He was at length disgraced by la
Comtesse Dubarri, who had become the king's mistress soon
after the death of Madame de Pompadour, and remained so,
nearly to the death of the monarch himself, in 1774."
W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
lecture 3.
"The regency of the Duke of Orleans lasted only eight years,
but it was not without a considerable effect upon the
destinies of the country. It was a break in the political and
the religious traditions of the reign of Louis XIV. The new
activity imparted to business during this period was an event
of equal importance. Nothing is more erroneous than to suppose
that constantly increasing misery at last excited revolt
against the government and the institutions of the old regime.
The Revolution in France at the close of the eighteenth
century was possible, not because the condition of the people
had grown worse, but because it had become better. The
material development of that country, during the fifty years
that preceded the convocation of the States General, had no
parallel in its past history. Neither the weight of taxation,
nor the extravagance of the court, nor the bankruptcy of the
government, checked an increase in wealth that made France in
1789 seem like a different land from France in 1715. The lot
of large classes was still miserable, the burden of taxation
upon a large part of the population was still grievous, there
were sections where Arthur Young could truly say that he found
only poverty and privileges, but the country as a whole was
more prosperous than Germany or Spain; it was far more
prosperous than it had been under Louis XIV. ...
{1249}
Such an improvement in material conditions necessitated both
social and political changes. ... But while social conditions
had altered, political institutions remained unchanged. New
wine had been poured in, but the old bottles were still used.
Tailles and corvées were no more severe in the eighteenth than
in the fifteenth century, but they were more odious. A feudal
privilege, which had then been accepted as a part of the law
of nature, was now regarded as contrary to nature. ... A
demand for social equality, for the abolition of privileges
and immunities by which any class profited at the expense of
others, was fostered by economical changes. It received an
additional impetus from the writings of theorists,
philosophers, and political reformers. The influence of
literature in France during the eighteenth century was
important, yet it is possible to overestimate it. The seed of
political and social change was shown by the writers of the
period, but the soil was already prepared to receive it. ...
The course of events, the conduct of their rulers, prepared
the minds of the French people for political change, and
accounted for the influence which literature acquired. The
doctrines of philosophers found easy access to the hearts of a
people with whom reverence for royalty and a tranquil
acceptance of an established government had been succeeded by
contempt for the king and hatred for the regime under which
they lived. We can trace this change of sentiment during the
reign of Louis XV. The popular affection which encircled his
cradle accompanied him when he had grown to be a man. ... Few
events are more noticeable in the history of the age than the
extraordinary expressions of grief and affection that were
excited by the illness of Louis XV. in 1744. ... A preacher
hailed him as Louis the well beloved, and all the nation
adopted the title. 'What have I done to be so loved?' the king
himself asked. Certainly he had done nothing, but the
explanation was correctly given. 'Louis XV. is dear to his
people, without having done anything for them, because the
French are, of all nations, most inclined to love their king.'
This affection, the result of centuries of fidelity and zeal
for monarchical institutions, and for the sovereigns by whom
they were personified, was wholly destroyed by Louis's
subsequent career. The vices to which he became addicted were
those which arouse feelings not only of reprehension, but of
loathing. They excited both aversion and contempt. The
administration of the country was as despicable as the
character of the sovereign. Under Louis XIV. there had been
suffering and there had been disaster, but France had always
preserved a commanding position in Europe. ... But now defeat
and dishonor were the fate of a people alike powerful and
proud. ... The low profligacy into which the king had sunk,
the nullity of his character, the turpitude of his mistress,
the weakness of his administration, the failure of all his
plans, went far toward destroying the feelings of loyalty that
had so long existed in the hearts of the French people. Some
curious figures mark the decline in the estimation in which
the king was held. In 1744, six thousand masses were said at
Nôtre Dame for the restoration of Louis XV. to health; in
1757, after the attempted assassination by Damiens, there were
six hundred; when the king actually lay dying, in 1774, there
were only three. The fall from six thousand to three measures
the decline in the affection and respect of the French people
for their sovereign. It was with a public whose sentiments had
thus altered that the new philosophy found acceptance."
J. B. Perkins,
France under the Regency,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
F. Rocquain,
The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution,
chapters 2-8.
J. Murray,
French Finance and Financiers under Louis XV.
FRANCE: A. D. 1725.
The alliance of Hanover.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.
FRANCE: A. D. 1727-1731.
Ineffectual congress at Soissons.
The Treaty of Seville, with Spain and England.
The Second Treaty of Vienna.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.
FRANCE: A. D. 1733.
The First Family Compact of the Bourbons (France and Spain).
"The two lines of the house of Bourbon [in France and in
Spain] once more became in the highest degree prominent. ...
As early as November 1733 a Family Compact (the first of the
series) was concluded between them, in which they contemplated
the possibility of a war against England, but without waiting
for it entered into an agreement against the maritime
supremacy of that power. ... The commercial privileges granted
to the English in the Peace of Utrecht seemed to both courts
to be intolerable."
L. von Ranke,
History of England,
book 22, chapter 4 (volume 5).
"It is hardly too much to say that the Family Compact of 1733,
though even yet not generally known to exist, is the most
important document of the middle period of the 18th century
and the most indispensable to history. If that period seems to
us confused, if we lose ourselves in the medley of its
wars--war of the Polish election, war of Jenkins's ears, war
of the Austrian succession, colonial war of 1756--the simple
reason is that we do not know this treaty, which furnishes the
clue. From it we may learn that in this period, as in that of
Louis XIV. and in that of Napoleon, Europe struggled against
the ambitious and deliberately laid design of an ascendant
power, with this difference, that those aggressors were
manifest to all the world and their aims not difficult to
understand, whereas this aggression proceeded by ambuscade,
and, being the aggression not of a single state but of an
alliance, and a secret alliance, did not become clearly
manifest to Europe even when it had to a considerable extent
attained its objects. ... The first two articles define the
nature of the alliance, that it involves a mutual guarantee of
all possessions, and has for its object, first, the honour,
glory, and interests of both powers, and, secondly, their
defence against all damage, vexation, and prejudice that may
threaten them." The first declared object of the Compact is to
secure the position of Don Carlos, the Infant of Spain,
afterwards Charles III., in Italy, and "to obtain for him the
succession in Tuscany, protecting him against any attack that
may be attempted by the Emperor or by England. Next, France
undertakes to 'aid Spain with all her forces by land or sea,
if Spain should suspend England's enjoyment of commerce and
her other advantages, and England out of revenge should resort
to hostilities and insults in the dominions and states of the
crown of Spain, whether within or outside of Europe.'"
{1250}
Further articles provide for the making of efforts to induce
Great Britain to restore Gibraltar to Spain; set forth "that
the foreign policy of both states is to be guided exclusively
by the interests of the house"; denounce the Austrian
Pragmatic as "opposed to the security of the house of
Bourbon." "The King of France engages to send 32,000 infantry
and 8,000 cavalry into Italy, and to maintain other armies on
his other frontiers; also to have a squadron ready at Toulon,
either to join the Spanish fleet or to act separately, and
another squadron at Brest, 'to keep the English in fear and
jealousy'; also, in case of war with England breaking out, to
commission the largest possible number of privateers. Spain
also promises a fixed number of troops. The 11th and 12th
articles lay the foundation of a close commercial alliance to
be formed between France and Spain. Article 13 runs as
follows:--'His Catholic majesty, recognising all the abuses
which have been introduced into commerce, chiefly by the
British nation, in the eradication of which the French and
Spanish nations are equally interested, has determined to
bring everything back within rule and into agreement with the
letter of treaties'"--to which end the two kings make common
cause. "Finally the 14th article provides that the present
treaty shall remain profoundly secret as long as the
contracting parties shall judge it agreeable to their
interests, and shall be regarded from this day as an eternal
and irrevocable Family Compact. ... Here is the explanation of
the war which furnished the immediate occasion of the first
Compact, a war most misleadingly named from the Polish
election which afforded an ostensible pretext for it, and
deserving better to be called the Bourbon invasion of Italy.
Here too is sketched out the course which was afterwards taken
by the Bourbon courts in the matter of the Pragmatic Sanction.
Thirdly, here most manifestly is the explanation of that war
of Jenkins's ears, which we have a habit of representing as
forced upon Spain by English commercial cupidity, but which
appears here as deliberately planned in concert by the Bourbon
courts in order to eradicate the 'abuses which have been
allowed to creep into trade.'"
J. R. Seeley,
The House of Bourbon
(English History Review, January, 1886).
ALSO IN:
J. McCarthy,
History of the Four Georges,
chapter 22 (volume 2).
FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.
War with Austria, in Germany and Italy.
Final acquisition of Lorraine.
Naples and Sicily transferred to Spain.
In the war with Austria which was brought about by the
question of the Polish succession (see POLAND: A. D.
1732-1733), the French "struck at the Rhine and at Italy,
while the other powers looked on unmoved; Spain watching her
moment, at which she might safely interfere for her own
interests in Italy. The army of the Rhine, which reached
Strasburg in autumn 1733, was commanded by Marshal Berwick,
who had been called away from eight years of happy and
charming leisure at Fitz-James. With him served for the first
time in the French army their one great general of the coming
age, and he too a foreigner, Maurice, son of Augustus II. of
Poland and the lovely Countess of Königsmark. ... He is best
known to us as Marshal Saxe. It was too late to accomplish
much in 1733, and the French had to content themselves with
the capture of Kehl: in the winter the Imperialists
constructed strong lines at Ettlingen, a little place not far
from Carlsruhe, between Kehl, which the French held, and
Philipsburg, at which they were aiming. In the spring of 1734
French preparations were slow and feeble: a new power had
sprung up at Paris in the person of Belle-Isle, Fouquet's
grandson, who had much of the persuasive ambition of his
grandfather. He was full of schemes, and induced the aged
Fleury to believe him to be the coming genius of French
generalship; the careful views of Marshal Berwick suited ill
his soaring spirit; he wanted to march headlong into Saxony
and Bohemia. Berwick would not allow so reckless a scheme to
be adopted; still Belle-Isle, as lieutenant-general with an
almost independent command, was sent to besiege Trarbach on
the Moselle, an operation which delayed the French advance on
the Rhine. At last, however, Berwick moved forwards. By
skilful arrangements he neutralised the Ettlingen lines, and
without a battle forced the Germans to abandon them. Their
army withdrew to Heilbronn, where it was joined by Prince
Eugene. Berwick, freed from their immediate presence, and
having a great preponderance in force, at once sat down before
Philipsburg. There, on the 12th of June, as he visited the
trenches, he was struck by a ball and fell dead. So passed
away the last but one of the great generals of Louis XIV.:
France never again saw his like till the genius of the
Revolution evoked a new race of heroes. It was thought at
first that Berwick's death, like Turenne's, would end the
campaign, and that the French army must get back across the
Rhine. The position seemed critical, Philipsburg in front, and
Prince Eugene watching without. The Princes of the Empire,
however, had not put out any strength in this war, regarding
it chiefly as an Austrian affair; and the Marquis d'Asfeld,
who took the command of the French forces, was able to hold
on, and in July to reduce the great fortress of Philipsburg.
Therewith the campaign of the Rhine closed. In Italy things
had been carried on with more vigour and variety. The veteran
Villars, now 81 years old, was in command, under
Charles-Emmanuel, King of Sardinia. ... Villars found it quite
easy to occupy all the Milanese: farther he could not go; for
Charles-Emmanuel, after the manner of his family, at once
began to deal behind his back with the Imperialists and the
campaign dragged. The old Marshal, little brooking
interference and delay, for he still was full of fire, threw
up his command, and started for France: on the way he was
seized with illness at Turin, and died there five days after
Berwick had been killed at Philipsburg. With them the long
series of the generals of Louis XIV. comes to an end. Coigny
and the Duke de Broglie succeeded to the command. Not far from
Parma they fought a murderous battle with the Austrians, hotly
contested, and a Cadmean victory for the French: it arrested
their forward movement, and two months were spent in enforced
idleness. In September 1734 the Imperialists inflicted a heavy
check on the French at the Secchia; afterwards however
emboldened by this success, they fought a pitched battle at
Guastalla, in which, after a fierce struggle, the French
remained masters of the field. Their losses, the advanced time
of the year, and the uncertainty as to the King of Sardinia's
movements and intentions, rendered the rest of the campaign
unimportant.
{1251}
As however the Imperialists, in order to make head against the
French in the valley of the Po, had drawn all their available
force out of the Neapolitan territory, the Spaniards were able
to slip in behind them, and to secure that great prize. Don
Carlos landed at Naples and was received with transports of
joy: the Austrians were defeated at Bitonto; the Spaniards
then crossed into Sicily, which also welcomed them gladly; the
two kingdoms passed willingly under the rule of the Spaniards.
In 1735 Austria made advances in the direction of peace; for
the French had stirred up their old friend the Turk, who, in
order to save Poland, proposed to invade Hungary. Fleury, no
lover of war, and aware that England's neutrality could not
last forever, was not unwilling to treat: a Congress at Vienna
followed, and before the end of 1735 peace again reigned in
Europe. The terms of the Treaty of Vienna (3 October 1735)
were very favourable to France. Austria ceded Naples and
Sicily, Elba, and the States degli Presidii to Spain, to be
erected into a separate kingdom for Don Carlos: France
obtained Lorraine and Bar, which were given to Stanislaus
Leczinski on condition that he should renounce all claim to
the Polish Crown; they were to be governed by him under French
administration: Francis Stephen the former Duke obtained, as
an indemnity, the reversion of Tuscany, which fell to him in
the following year. Parma and Piacenza returned to the
Emperor, who also obtained from France a guarantee of the
Pragmatic Sanction. Thus France at last got firm hold of the
much-desired Lorraine country, though it was not absolutely
united to her till the death of Stanislaus in 1766."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
book 6, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 52 (volume 6).
FRANCE: A. D. 1738-1740.
The Question of the Austrian Succession.
Guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, and 1740.
FRANCE: A. D. 1740-1741.
Beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession.
Seizure of Silesia by Frederick the Great.
French responsibility for the war.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741;
and 1741 (APRIL-MAY), (MAY-JUNE).
FRANCE: A. D. 1741-1743.
The War of the Austrian Succession in Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743;
and AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741, to 1743.
FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (October).
The Second Family Compact of the Bourbon kings.
"France and Spain signed a secret treaty of perpetual alliance
at Fontainebleau, October 25th, 1743. The treaty is remarkable
as the precursor of the celebrated Family Compact between the
French and Spanish Bourbons. The Spaniards, indeed, call it
the Second Family Compact, the first being the Treaty of
November 7th, 1733, of which, with regard to colonial affairs,
it was a renewal. But this treaty had a more special reference
to Italy. Louis XV. engaged to declare war against Sardinia,
and to aid Spain in conquering the Milanese. Philip V.
transferred his claims to that duchy to his son, the Infant
Don Philip, who was also to be put in possession of Parma and
Piacenza. All the possessions ceded by France to the King of
Sardinia, by the Treaty of Utrecht, were to be again wrested
from him. A public alliance was to be formed, to which the
Emperor Charles VII. was to accede; whose states, and even
something more, were to be recovered for him. Under certain
circumstances war was to be declared against England; in which
case France was to assist in the recovery of Gibraltar, and
also, if possible, of Minorca. The new colony of Georgia was
to be destroyed, the Asiento withdrawn from England, &c."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 6, chapter 4 (volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1743-1752.
Struggle of French and English for supremacy in India.
See INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752.
FRANCE: A. D. 1744-1745.
The War of the Austrian Succession in America.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744, and 1745.
A. D. 1741-1747.
War of the Austrian Succession in Italy,
Germany and the Netherlands.
See ITALY: A. D. 1744, to 1746-1747;
AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743-1744;
and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1745, and 1746-1747.
FRANCE: A. D. 1748 (October).
Termination and results of the War of the Austrian Succession.
See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: A. D. 1748;
and NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748.
FRANCE: A. D. 1748-1754.
Active measures in America to fortify possession of the Ohio
valley and the West.
See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.
FRANCE: A. D. 1749-1755.
Unsettled boundary disputes in America.
Preludes of the last contest with England for dominion in the
New World.
See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755;
CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753;
OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.
FRANCE: A. D. 1755.
Causes and provocations of the Seven Years War.
See GERMANY: A.D. 1755-1756;
and ENGLAND: A. D. 1754-1755.
FRANCE: A. D. 1755.
Naval reverse on the Newfoundland coast.
See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (JUNE).
FRANCE: A. D. 1755-1762.
The Seven Years War: Campaigns in America.
See CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753, to 1760;
NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755, and 1755;
OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, and 1755;
CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.
FRANCE: A. D. 1756 (May).
The Seven Years War: Minorca wrested from England.
See MINORCA: A. D. 1756.
FRANCE: A. D. 1757-1762.
The Seven Years War: Campaigns in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER),
to 1759 (APRIL-AUGUST); 1760; and 1761-1762.
FRANCE: A. D. 1758-1761.
The Seven Years War: Loss of footing and influence in India.
Count Lally's failure.
See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.
FRANCE: A. D. 1760.
The Seven Years War: The surrender of Canada.
See CANADA: A. D. 1760.
FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (August).
The Third Family Compact of the Bourbon kings.
"On the 15th of August [1761] ... Grimaldi [Spanish ambassador
at the French court] and Choiseul [the ruling minister, at the
time, in France] signed the celebrated Family Compact. By this
treaty the Kings of France and Spain agreed for the future to
consider every Power as their enemy which might become the
enemy of either, and to guarantee the respective dominions in
all parts of the world which they might possess at the next
conclusion of peace. Mutual succours by sea and land were
stipulated, and no proposal of peace to their common enemies
was to be made, nor negotiation entered upon, unless by common
consent. The subjects of each residing in the European
dominions of the other were to enjoy the same commercial
privileges as the natives.
{1252}
Moreover, the King of Spain stipulated the accession of his
son, the King of Naples, to this alliance; but it was agreed
that no prince or potentate, except of the House of Bourbon,
should ever be admitted to its participation. Besides this
treaty, which in its words at least applied only to future and
contingent wars, and which was intended to be ultimately
published, there was also signed on the same day a special and
secret convention. This imported, that in case England and
France should still be engaged in hostilities on the 1st of
May 1762 Spain should on that day declare war against England,
and that France should at the same period restore Minorca to
Spain. ... Not only the terms but the existence of a Family
Compact were for some time kept scrupulously secret. Mr.
Stanley, however, gleaned some information from the scattered
hints of the Duke de Choiseul, and these were confirmed to
Pitt from several other quarters." As the result of the Family
Compact, England declared war against Spain on the 4th of
January, 1762. Pitt had gone out of office in October because
his colleagues and the King would not then consent to a
declaration of war against the Spanish Bourbons.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1763.
The force of circumstances soon brought them to the measure.
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 37 (volume 4).
FRANCE: A. D. 1761-1764.
Proceedings against the Jesuits.
Their expulsion from the kingdom.
See JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.
FRANCE: A. D. 1763.
The end and results of the Seven Years War.
The Peace of Paris.
America lost, nothing gained.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR: A. D. 1763.
FRANCE: A. D. 1763.
Rights in the North American fisheries secured by the Treaty
of Paris.
See FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1763.
FRANCE: A. D. 1768.
Acquisition of Corsica.
See CORSICA: A. D. 1729-1769.
FRANCE: A. D. 1774-1788.
The Court and Government of Louis XV!., his inheritance of
troubles, his vacillations, his helpless ministers.
Turgot, Necker, Calonne, Brienne.
Blind selfishness of the privileged orders.
The Assembly of Notables.
The Parliament of Paris.
"Louis XVI., an equitable prince, moderate in his
propensities, carelessly educated, but naturally of a good
disposition, ascended the throne [May 11, 1774] at a very
early age. He called to his side an old courtier, and
consigned to him the care of his kingdom; and divided his
confidence between Maurepas and the Queen, an Austrian
princess [Marie Antoinette], young, lively, and amiable, who
possessed a complete ascendency over him. Maurepas and the
Queen were not good friends. The King, sometimes giving way to
his minister, at others to his consort, began at an early
period the long career of his vacillations. ... The public
voice, which was loudly expressed, called for Turgot, one of
the class of economists, an honest, virtuous man, endowed with
firmness of character, a slow genius, but obstinate and
profound. Convinced of his probity, delighted with his plans
of reform, Louis XVI. frequently repeated: 'There are none
besides myself and Turgot who are friends of the people.'
Turgot's reforms were thwarted by the opposition of the
highest orders in the state, who were interested in
maintaining all kinds of abuses, which the austere minister
proposed to suppress. Louis XVI. dismissed him [1776] with
regret. During his whole life, which was only a long
martyrdom, he had the mortification to discern what was right,
to wish it sincerely, but to lack the energy requisite for
carrying it into execution. The King, placed between the
court, the parliaments, and the people, exposed to intrigues
and to suggestions of all sorts, repeatedly changed his
ministers. Yielding once more to the public voice, and to the
necessity for reform, he summoned to the finance department
Necker, a native of Geneva, who had amassed wealth as a
banker, a partisan and disciple of Colbert, as Turgot was of
Sully; an economical and upright financier, but a vain man,
fond of setting himself up for arbitrator in everything. ...
Necker re-established order in the finances, and found means
to defray the heavy expenses of the American war. ... But it
required something more than financial artifices to put an end
to the embarrassments of the exchequer, and he had recourse to
reform. He found the higher orders not less adverse to him
than they had been to Turgot; the parliaments, apprised of his
plans, combined against him, and obliged him to retire [1781].
The conviction of the existence of abuses was universal;
everybody admitted it. ... The courtiers, who derived
advantage from these abuses, would have been glad to see an
end put to the embarrassments of the exchequer, but without
its costing them a single sacrifice. ... The parliaments also
talked of the interests of the people, loudly insisted on the
sufferings of the poor, and yet opposed the equalization of
the taxes, as well as the abolition of the remains of feudal
barbarism. All talked of the public weal, few desired it; and
the people, not yet knowing who were its true friends,
applauded all those who resisted power, its most obvious
enemy. By the removal of Turgot and Necker, the state of
affairs was not changed: the distress of the treasury remained
the same. ... An intrigue brought forward M. de Calonne [in
1783, after brief careers in office of M. de Fleury and M.
d'Ormesson]. ... Calonne, clever, brilliant, fertile in
resources, relied upon his genius, upon fortune, and upon men,
and awaited the future with the most extraordinary apathy. ...
That future which had been counted upon now approached: it
became necessary at length to adopt decisive measures. It was
impossible to burden the people with fresh imposts, and yet
the coffers were empty. There was but one remedy which could
be applied; that was to reduce the expenses by the suppression
of grants; and if this expedient should not suffice, to extend
the taxes to a greater number of contributors, that is, to the
nobility and clergy. These plans, attempted successively by
Turgot and Necker, and resumed by Calonne, appeared to the
latter not at all likely to succeed, unless the consent of the
privileged classes themselves could be obtained. Calonne,
therefore, proposed to collect them together in an assembly,
to be called the Assembly of the Notables, in order to lay his
plans before them, and to gain their consent either by address or
by conviction. The assembly [which met February 22, 1787] was
composed of distinguished members of the nobility, clergy, and
magistracy, of a great number of masters of requests and some
magistrates of the provinces. ... Very warm discussions
ensued." The Notables at length "promised to sanction the
plans of Calonne, but on condition that a minister more moral
and more deserving of confidence should be appointed to carry
them into execution."
{1253}
Calonne, consequently, was dismissed, and replaced by M. de
Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse. "The Notables, bound by the
promises which they had made, readily consented to all that
they had at first refused: land-tax, stamp-duty, suppression
of the gratuitous services of vassals ('corvées'), provincial
assemblies, were all cheerfully granted. ... Had M. de Brienne
known how to profit by the advantages of his position; had he
actively proceeded with the execution of the measures assented
to by the Notables; had he submitted them all at once and
without delay to the parliament, at the instant when the
adhesion of the higher orders seemed to be wrung from
them--all would probably have been over; the parliament,
pressed on all sides, would have consented to everything. ...
Nothing of the kind, however, was done. By imprudent delays
occasion was furnished for relapses; the edicts were submitted
only one after another; the parliament had time to discuss, to
gain courage, and to recover from the sort of surprise by
which the Notables had been taken. It registered, after long
discussions, the edict enacting the second abolition of the
'corvées,' and another permitting the free exportation of
corn. Its animosity was particularly directed against the
land-tax; but it feared lest by a refusal it should enlighten
the public, and show that its opposition was entirely selfish.
It hesitated, when it was spared this embarrassment by the
simultaneous presentation of the edict on the stamp-duty and
the land-tax, and especially by opening the deliberations with
the former. The parliament had thus an opportunity of refusing
the first without entering into explanations respecting the
second; and, in attacking the stamp-duty, which affected the
majority of the payers of taxes, it seemed to defend the
interest of the public. At a sitting which was attended by the
peers, it denounced the abuses, the profligacy, and the
prodigality of the court, and demanded statements of
expenditure. A councillor, punning upon the 'états'
(statements) exclaimed ... --'It is not statements, but
States-General that we want.' ... The utterance of a single
word presented an unexpected direction to the public mind: it
was repeated by every mouth, and States-General were loudly
demanded."
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 1, pages 17-21.
"There is no doubt that the French administrative body, at the
time when Louis XVI. began to reign, was corrupt and
self-seeking. In the management of the finances and of the
army, illegitimate profits were made. But this was not the
worst evil from which the public service was suffering. France
was in fact governed by what in modern times is called 'a
ring.' The members of such an organization pretend to serve
the sovereign, or the public, and in some measure actually do
so; but their rewards are determined by intrigue and favor,
and are entirely disproportionate to their services. They
generally prefer jobbery to direct stealing, and will spend a
million of the state's money in a needless undertaking, in
order to divert a few thousands into their own pockets. They
hold together against all the world, while trying to
circumvent each other. Such a ring in old France was the
court. By such a ring will every country be governed, where
the sovereign who possesses the political power is weak in
moral character or careless of the public interest; whether
that sovereign be a monarch, a chamber, or the mass of the
people. Louis XVI., king of France and of Navarre, was more
dull than stupid, and weaker in will than in intellect. ... He
was ... thoroughly conscientious, and had a high sense of the
responsibility of his great calling. He was not indolent,
although heavy, and his courage, which was sorely tested, was
never broken. With these virtues he might have made a good
king, had he possessed firmness of will enough to support a
good minister, or to adhere to a good policy. But such
strength had not been given him. Totally incapable of standing
by himself, he leant successively, or simultaneously, on his
aunt, his wife, his ministers, his courtiers, as ready to
change his policy as his adviser. Yet it was part of his
weakness to be unwilling to believe himself under the guidance
of any particular person; he set a high value on his own
authority, and was inordinately jealous of it. No one,
therefore, could acquire a permanent influence. Thus a
well-meaning man became the worst of sovereigns. ... Louis XV.
had been led by his mistresses; Louis XVI. was turned about by
the last person who happened to speak to him. The courtiers,
in their turn, were swayed by their feelings, or their
interests. They formed parties and combinations, and intrigued
for or against each other. They made bargains, they gave and
took bribes. In all these intrigues, bribes, and bargains, the
court ladies had a great share. They were as corrupt as the
men, and as frivolous. It is probable that in no government
did women ever exercise so great an influence. The factions
into which the court was divided tended to group themselves
round certain rich and influential families. Such were the
Noailles, an ambitious and powerful house, with which
Lafayette was connected by marriage; the Broglies, one of whom
had held the thread of the secret diplomacy which Louis XV.
had carried on behind the backs of his acknowledged ministers;
the Polignacs, new people, creatures of Queen Marie
Antoinette; the Rohans, through the influence of whose great
name an unworthy member of the family was to rise to high
dignity in the church and the state, and then to cast a deep
shadow on the darkening popularity of that ill-starred
princess. Such families as these formed an upper class among
nobles. ... It is not easy, in looking at the French
government in the eighteenth century, to decide where the
working administration ended, and where the useless court that
answered no real purpose began. ... There was the department of
hunting and that of buildings, a separate one for royal
journeys, one for the guard, another for police, yet another
for ceremonies. There were five hundred officers 'of the
mouth,' table-bearers distinct from chair-bearers. There were
tradesmen, from apothecaries and armorers at one end of the
list to saddle-makers, tailors and violinists at the other. ...
The military and civil households of the king and of the
royal family are said to have consisted of about fifteen
thousand souls, and to have cost forty-five million francs per
annum. The holders of many of the places served but three
months apiece out of every year, so that four officers and
four salaries were required, instead of one. With such a
system as this we cannot wonder that the men who administered
the French government were generally incapable and
self-seeking. Most of them were politicians rather than
administrators, and cared more for their places than for their
country. Of the few conscientious and patriotic men who
obtained power, the greater number lost it very speedily."
E. J. Lowell,
The Eve of the French Revolution,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
F. Rocquain,
The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution,
chapters 9-11.
Mme. de Stael,
Considerations on the Principal Events
of the French Revolution,
chapters 3-10 (volume 1).
J. Necker,
On the French Revolution,
part. 1, section 1 (volume 1).
Condorcet,
Life of Turgot,
chapters 5-6.
L. Say,
Turgot,
chapters 5-7.
C. D. Yonge,
Life of Marie Antoinette,
chapters 8-21.
{1254}
FRANCE: A. D. 1778 (February).
Treaty with the United States of America.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1778,
and 1778 (FEBRUARY).
FRANCE: A. D. 1780 (July).
Fresh aid to the United States of America.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (July).
FRANCE: A. D. 1782.
Disastrous naval defeat by Rodney.
Unsuccessful siege of Gibraltar.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1780-1782.
FRANCE: A. D. 1782.
The negotiation of Peace between Great Britain and the United
States of America.
Dissatisfaction of the French minister.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782 (SEPTEMBER),
and (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).
FRANCE: A. D. 1784-1785.
The affair of the Diamond Necklace.
The chief actor in the affair of the diamond necklace, which
caused a great scandal and smirched the queen's name, was an
adventuress who called herself the Comtesse de Lamotte, and
claimed descent from Henry II., but who had been half servant,
half companion, to a lady of quality, and had picked up a
useful acquaintance with the manners and the gossip of court
society. "Madame de Lamotte's original patroness had a
visiting acquaintance with the Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan,
and in her company her protégée learned to know him also.
Prince Louis, who had helped to receive Marie Antoinette at
Strasburg, had been the French ambassador at Vienna, where he
had disgusted and incensed Maria Theresa by his worldliness,
profligacy, and arrogance. She had at last procured his
withdrawal, and her letters expressing a positive terror lest
he should come near Marie Antoinette and acquire an influence
over her, were not without their effect. He was not allowed to
appear at Court, and for ten long years fretted and fumed
under a sense of the royal displeasure. ... He was now a man
bordering on fifty, grey-headed, rosy, 'pursy,' with nothing
save his blue blood and the great offices which he disgraced
to recommend him. Madame de Lamotte, hovering about Paris and
Versailles, where she had lodgings in La Belle Inage, tried to
make her own of backstairs gossip, and picked up a hint or
two. Suddenly a great idea struck her, founded on the history
of a magnificent necklace dangled before bright eyes, over
which many an excitable imagination gloated. The Queen had a
court jeweller, Bœhmer, who had formerly been jeweller to the
King of Saxony at Dresden. ... For a period of years he had
been collecting and assorting the stones which should form an
incomparable necklace, in row upon row, pendants and tassels
of lustrous diamonds, till the price reached the royal pitch
of from eighty to ninety thousand pounds English money. This
costly 'collar,' according to rumour, was ... meant, in the
beginning, for the Comtesse du Barry. In the end, it ... was
offered with confidence to the Queen. ... She declined to
buy--she had enough diamonds. ... There was nothing for it but
that Bœhmer should 'hawk' his necklace in every Court of
Europe, without success, till the German declared himself
ruined, and passionately protested that, if the Queen would
not buy the diamonds, there was no resource for him save to
throw himself into the Seine. But there was a resource,
unhappily for Bœhmer, unhappily for all concerned, most so for
the poor Queen. Madame de Lamotte, in keeping up her
acquaintance with Prince Louis de Rohan, began to hint darkly
that there might be ways of winning the royal favour. She
threw out cunning words about the degree of importance and
trust to which she had attained in the highest quarters at
Versailles; about the emptiness of the Queen's exchequer, with
consequent difficulties in the discharge of her charities;
about the secret royal desire for the famous necklace, which
the King would not enable Marie Antoinette to obtain. The
blinded and besotted Cardinal drank in these insinuations. The
black art was called in to deepen his convictions. In an age
when many men, especially many churchmen, believed in nothing,
in spite of their professions, naturally they were given over
to believe a lie. Cagliostro, astrologer and modern magician,
was flourishing in Paris, and by circles and signs he promised
the priest, De Rohan, progress in the only suit he had at
heart. Still the dupe was not so infatuated as to require no
proof of the validity of these momentous implications, and
proof was not wanting; notes were handed to him, to be
afterwards shown to Bœhmer, graciously acknowledging his
devotion, and authorising him to buy for the Queen the diamond
necklace. These notes were apparently written in the Queen's
hand (that school-girl's scrawl of which Maria Theresa was
wont to complain); but they were signed 'Marie Antoinette de
France,' a signature which so great a man as the Cardinal
ought to have known was never employed by the Queen, for the
very good reason that the termination 'de France' belonged to
the children and not to the wife of the sovereign. Even a
further assurance that all was right was granted. The
Cardinal, trembling in a fever of hope and expectation, was
told that a private interview with the Queen would be
vouchsafed to him at midnight in the Park of Versailles. At
the appointed hour, on the night of the 28th of July, 1784, De
Rohan, in a blue greatcoat and slouched hat, was stationed,
amidst shrouding, sultry darkness, in the neighbourhood of the
palace. Madame de Lamotte, in a black domino, hovered near to
give the signal of the Queen's approach. The whisper was
given, 'In the Hornbeam Arbour,' and the Cardinal hurried to
the spot, where he could dimly descry a tall lady in white,
with chestnut hair, blue eyes, and a commanding air, if he
could really have seen all these well-known attributes. He
knelt, but before he could do more than mutter a word of
homage and gratitude, the black domino was at his side again
with another vehement whisper, 'On vient' (They come).
{1255}
The lady in white dropped a rose, with the significant words,
'Vous savez ce que cela veut dire' (You know what that means),
and vanished before the 'Vite, vite' ('Quick, quick ') of the
black domino, for the sound of approaching footsteps was
supposed to indicate the approach of Madame and the Comtesse
d'Artois, and the Cardinal, in his turn, had to flee from
detection. What more could be required to convince a man of
the good faith of the lady. ... Bœhmer received a hint that he
might sell his necklace, through the Prince Cardinal Louis de
Rohan, to one of the great ones of the earth, who was to
remain in obscurity. The jeweller drew out his terms--sixteen
hundred thousand livres, to be paid in five equal instalments
over a year and a-half--to which he and Prince Louis affixed
their signatures. This paper Madame de Lamotte carried to
Versailles, and brought it back with the words written on the
margin, 'Bon Marie Antoinette de France.' In the meantime,
Bœhmer, the better to keep the secret, gave out that he had
sold the necklace to the Grand Turk for his favourite Sultana.
The necklace was, in fact, delivered to Prince Louis and by
him entrusted to Madame Lamotte, from whose hands it passed
--not into the Queen's. Having been taken to pieces, it was
sent in all haste out of the kingdom, while the Cardinal,
according to his own account, was still played with. ... It
goes without saying that no payment, except a small offer of
interest on the thirty thousand, was forthcoming. The Cardinal
and Bœhmer were betrayed into wrath, dismay, and despair.
Bœhmer took it upon him to apply, in respectful terms, to her
Majesty for payment; and when she said the whole thing was a
mistake, the man must be mad, and caused her words to be
written to him, he sought an interview with Madame Campan, the
first woman of the bedchamber, at her house at Crespy, where
he had been dining, and in the gardens there, in the middle of
a thunder-shower, astounded her with his version of the story.
... The Cardinal was taken to the Bastille. More arrests
followed, including those of Madame de Lamotte, staying
quietly in her house at Bar-sur-Aube, and the girl Gay
d'Oliva, an unhappy girl, tall and fair haired, taken from the
streets of Paris, and brought to the park of Versailles to
personate the Queen. It was said the Queen wept passionately
over the scandal--well she might. The court in which the case
was tried might prove the forgery, as in fact it did, though
not in the way she expected; but every Court in Europe would
ring with the story, and she had made deadly enemies, if not
of the Church itself, of the great houses of De Rohan, De
Soubise, De Guéménée, De Marsan, and their multitude of
allies. The process lasted nine months, and every exertion was
made for the deliverance of the princely culprit. ... The
result of the trial was that, though the Queen's signature was
declared false, Madame de Lamotte was sentenced to be whipped,
branded, and imprisoned for life, her husband was condemned to
the galleys, and a man called Villette de Retaux, who was the
actual fabricator of the Queen's handwriting, was sentenced to
be banished for life. The Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan was
fully acquitted, with permission to publish what defence he
chose to write of his conduct. When he left the court, he was
escorted by great crowds, hurrahing over his acquittal,
because it was supposed to cover the Court with
mortification."
Sarah Tytler,
Marie Antoinette,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
T. Carlyle,
The Diamond Necklace
(Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, volume 5).
H. Vizetelly,
The Story of the Diamond Necklace.
FRANCE: A. D. 1787-1789.
Struggle of the Crown with the Parliament of Paris.
The demand for a meeting of the States-General yielded to.
Double representation of the Third Estate conceded.
The make-up of the States-General as elected by the three
Estates.
Banished to Troyes (August, 1787), in consequence of its
refusal to register two edicts relating to the stamp-duty and
the land-tax, the Parliament of Paris "grew weary of exile,
and the minister recalled it on condition that the two edicts
should be passed. But this was only a suspension of
hostilities; the necessities of the crown soon rendered the
struggle more obstinate and violent. The minister had to make
fresh applications for money; his existence depended on the
issue of several successive loans to the amount of
440,000,000. It was necessary to obtain the enrolment of them.
Brienne, expecting opposition from the parliament, procured
the enrolment of this edict, by a 'bed of justice,' and to
conciliate the magistracy and public opinion, the protestants
were restored to their rights in the same sitting, and Louis
XVI. promised an annual publication of the state of finances,
and the convocation of the states-general before the end of
five years. But these concessions were no longer sufficient:
parliament refused the enrolment, and rose against the
ministerial tyranny. Some of its members, among others the
duke of Orleans, were banished. Parliament protested by a
decree against 'lettres de cachet,' and required the recall of
its members. This decree was annulled by the king, and
confirmed by parliament. The warfare increased. The magistracy
of Paris was supported by all the magistracy of France, and
encouraged by public opinion. It proclaimed the rights of the
nation, and its own incompetence in matters of taxation; and,
become liberal from interest, and rendered generous by
oppression, it exclaimed against arbitrary imprisonment, and
demanded regularly convoked states-general. After this act of
courage, it decreed the irremovability of its members, and the
incompetence of any who might usurp their functions. This bold
manifesto was followed by the arrest of two members,
d'Eprémenil and Goislard, by the reform of the body, and the
establishment of a plenary court. Brienne understood that the
opposition of the parliament was systematic, that it would be
renewed on every fresh demand for subsidies, or on the
authorization of every loan. Exile was but a momentary remedy,
which suspended opposition, without destroying it. He then
projected the reduction of this body to judicial functions.
... All the magistracy of France was exiled on the same day,
in order that the new judicial organization might take place.
The keeper of the seals deprived the Parliament of Paris of
its political attributes, to invest with them a plenary court,
ministerially composed, and reduced its judicial competence in
favour of bailiwicks, the jurisdiction of which he extended.
Public opinion was indignant; the Châtelet protested, the
provinces rose, and the plenary court could neither be formed
nor act. Disturbances broke out in Dauphiné, Brittany,
Provence, Flanders, Languédoc, and Béarn; the ministry,
instead of the regular opposition of parliament, had to
encounter one much more animated and factious.
{1256}
The nobility, the third estate, the provincial states, and
even the clergy, took part in it. Brienne, pressed for money,
had called together an extraordinary assembly of the clergy,
who immediately made an address to the king, demanding the
abolition of his plenary court, and the recall of the
states-general: they alone could thenceforth repair the
disordered state of the finances, secure the national debt,
and terminate these disputes for power. ... Obtaining neither
taxes nor loans, unable to make use of the plenary court, and
not wishing to recall the parliaments, Brienne, as a last
resource, promised the convocation of the states-general. By
this means he hastened his ruin. ... He succumbed on the 25th
August, 1788. The cause of his fall was a suspension of the
payment of the interest on the debt, which was the
commencement of bankruptcy. This minister has been the most
blamed because he came last. Inheriting the faults, the
embarrassments of past times, he had to struggle with the
difficulties of his position with inefficient means. He tried
intrigue and oppression; he banished, suspended, disorganized
parliament; everything was an obstacle to him, nothing aided
him. After a long struggle, he sank under lassitude and
weakness; I dare not say from incapacity, for had he been far
stronger and more skilful, had he been a Richelieu or a Sully,
he would still have fallen. It no longer appertained to anyone
arbitrarily to raise money or to oppress the people. ... The
states-general had become the only means of government, and
the last resource of the throne. They had been eagerly
demanded by parliament and the peers of the kingdom, on the
13th of July, 1787; by the states of Dauphiné, in the assembly
of Vizille; by the clergy in its assembly at Paris. The
provincial states had prepared the public mind for them; and
the notables were their precursors. The king after having, on
the 18th of December, 1787, promised their convocation in five
years, on the 8th of August, 1788, fixed the opening for the
1st of May, 1789. Necker was recalled, parliament
re-established, the plenary court abolished, the bailiwicks
destroyed, and the provinces satisfied; and the new minister
prepared everything for the election of deputies and the
holding of the states. At this epoch a great change took place
in the opposition, which till then had been unanimous. Under
Brienne, the ministry had encountered opposition from all the
various bodies of the state, because it had sought to oppress
them. Under Necker, it met with resistance from the same
bodies, which desired power for themselves and oppression for
the people. From being despotic, it had become national, and
it still had them all equally against it. Parliament had
maintained a struggle for authority, and not for the public
welfare; and the nobility had united with the third estate,
rather against the government than in favour of the people.
Each of these bodies had demanded the states-general: the
parliament, in the hope of ruling them as it had done in 1614;
and the nobility, in the hope of regaining its lost influence.
Accordingly, the magistracy proposed as a model for the
states-general of 1789, the form of that of 1614, and public
opinion abandoned it; the nobility refused its consent to the
double representation of the third estate, and a division
broke out between these two orders. This double representation
was required by the intellect of the age, the necessity of
reform, and by the importance which the third estate had
acquired. It had already been admitted into the the provincial
assemblies. ... Opinion became daily more decided, and Necker
wishing, yet fearing, to satisfy it, and desirous of
conciliating all orders, of obtaining general approbation,
convoked a second assembly of notables on the 6th of November,
1788, to deliberate on the composition of the states-general,
and the election of its members. ... Necker, having been
unable to make the notables adopt the [double] representation
of the third estate, caused it to be adopted by the council.
The royal declaration of the 27th of November decreed, that
the deputies in the states-general should amount to at least a
thousand, and that the deputies of the third estate should be
equal in number to the deputies of the nobility and clergy
together. Necker moreover obtained the admission of the curés
into the order of the clergy, and of protestants into that of
the third estate. The district assemblies were convoked for
the elections; every one exerted himself to secure the
nomination of members of his own party, and to draw up
manifestoes setting forth his views. Parliament had but little
influence in the elections, and the court none at all. The
nobility selected a few popular deputies, but for the most
part devoted to the interests of their order, and as much
opposed to the third estate as to the oligarchy of the great
families of the court. The clergy nominated bishops and abbés
attached to privilege, and cures favourable to the popular
cause, which was their own; lastly, the third estate selected
men enlightened, firm and unanimous in their wishes. The
deputation of the nobility was comprised of 242 gentlemen, and
28 members of the parliament; that of the clergy, of 48
archbishops or bishops, 35 abbés or deans, and 208 curés; and
that of the communes, of two ecclesiastics, 12 noblemen, 18
magistrates of towns, 200 county members, 212 barristers, 16
physicians, and 216 merchants and agriculturists. The opening
of the states-general was fixed for the 5th of May, 1789."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
introd.
ALSO IN:
W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
lecture 6 (volume 1).
J. Necker,
On the French Revolution,
part 1, section 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789.
The condition of the people on the eve of the great
Revolution.
The sources and causes of its destructive fury.
"In 1789 three classes of persons, the Clergy, the Nobles, and
the King occupied the most prominent position in the State,
with all the advantages which it comports; namely, authority,
property, honors, or, at the very least, privileges,
immunities, favors, pensions, preferences, and the like. ...
The privileged classes number about 270,000 persons,
comprising of the nobility 140,000 and of the clergy 130,000.
This makes from 25,000 to 30,000 noble families; 23,000 monks
in 2,500 monasteries, and 37,000 nuns in 1,500 convents, and
60,000 curates and vicars in as many churches and chapels.
Should the reader desire a more distinct impression of them,
he may imagine on each square league of territory, and to each
thousand of inhabitants, one noble family in its weathercock
mansion, in each village a curate and his church, and, every
six or seven leagues, a conventual body of men or of women. ...
{1257}
A fifth of the soil belongs to the crown and the communes, a
fifth to the third estate, a fifth to the rural population, a
fifth to the nobles and a fifth to the clergy. Accordingly, if
we deduct the public lands, the privileged classes own one
half of the kingdom. This large portion, moreover, is at the
same time the richest, for it comprises almost all the large
and handsome buildings, the palaces, castles, convents, and
cathedrals, and almost all the valuable movable property. ...
Such is the total or partial exemption from taxation. The
tax-collectors halt in their presence, because the king well
knows that feudal property has the same origin as his own; if
royalty is one privilege seigniory is another; the king
himself is simply the most privileged among the privileged.
... After the assaults of 450 years, taxation, the, first of
fiscal instrumentalities, the most burdensome of all, leaves
feudal property almost intact. ... The privileged person
avoids or repels taxation, not merely because it despoils him,
but because it belittles him; it is a mark of plebeian
condition, that is to say, of former servitude, and he resists
the fisc as much through pride as through interest. ... La
Bruyère wrote, just a century before 1789, 'Certain
savage-looking beings, male and female, are seen in the
country, black, livid and sunburnt, and belonging to the soil
which they dig and grub with invincible stubbornness. They
seem capable of articulation, and, when they stand erect they
display human lineaments. They are, in fact, men. They retire
at night into their dens, where they live on black bread,
water and roots. They spare other human beings the trouble of
sowing, ploughing and harvesting, and thus should not be in
want of the bread they have planted.' They continue in want of
it during 25 years after this, and die in herds. I estimate
that in 1715 more than one-third of the population, six
millions, perish with hunger and of destitution. The picture,
accordingly, for the first quarter of the century preceding
the Revolution, far from being overdrawn, is the reverse; we
shall see that, during more than half a century, up to the
death of Louis XV., it is exact; perhaps, instead of weakening
any of its points, they should be strengthened. . . .
Undoubtedly the government under Louis XVI. is milder; the
intendants are more humane, the administration is less rigid,
the 'taille' becomes less unequal, and the 'corvée' is less
onerous through its transformation, in short, misery has
diminished, and yet this is greater than human nature can
bear. Examine administrative correspondence for the last
thirty years preceding the Revolution. Countless statements
reveal excessive suffering, even when not terminating in fury.
Life to a man of the lower class, to an artisan, or workman,
subsisting on the labor of his own hands, is evidently
precarious; he obtains simply enough to keep him from
starvation and he does not always get that. Here, in four
districts, 'the inhabitants live only on buckwheat,' and for
five years, the apple crop having failed, they drink only
water. There, in a country of vineyards, 'the vine-dressers
each year are reduced, for the most part, to begging their
bread during the dull season.' ... In a remote canton the
peasants cut the grain still green and dry it in the oven,
because they are too hungry to wait. ... Between 1750 and
1760, the idlers who eat suppers begin to regard with
compassion and alarm the laborers who go without dinners. Why
are the latter so impoverished, and by what chance, on a soil
as rich as that of France, do those lack bread who grow the
grain? In the first place, many farms remain uncultivated,
and, what is worse, many are deserted. According to the best
observers 'one-quarter of the soil is absolutely lying waste.
... Hundreds and hundreds of arpents of heath and moor form
extensive deserts.' ... This is not sterility but decadence.
The régime invented by Louis XIV. has produced its effect; the
soil for a century past is reverting back to a wild state. ... In
the second place, cultivation, when it does take place, is
carried on according to mediæval modes. Arthur Young, in 1789,
considers that French agriculture has not progressed beyond
that of the 10th century. Except in Flanders and on the plains
of Alsace, the fields lie fallow one year out of three and
oftentimes one year out of two. The implements are poor; there
are no ploughs made of iron; in many places the plough of
Virgil's time is still in use. ... Arthur Young shows that in
France those who lived on field labor, and they constituted
the great majority, are 76 per cent. less comfortable than the
same laborers in England, while they are 76 per cent. less
well fed and well clothed, besides being worse treated in
sickness and in health. The result is that, in seven-eighths
of the kingdom, there are no farmers but simply métayers.
['The poor people,' says Arthur Young, 'who cultivate the soil
here are métayers, that is, men who hire the land without ability
to stock it; the proprietor is forced to provide cattle and
seed, and he and his tenants divide the product.'] ... Misery
begets bitterness in a man; but ownership coupled with misery
renders him still more bitter"; and, strange as it appears,
the acquisition of land by the French peasants, in small
holdings, went on steadily during the 18th century, despite
the want and suffering which were so universal. "The fact is
almost incredible, but it is nevertheless true. We can only
explain it by the character of the French peasant, by his
sobriety, his tenacity, his rigor with himself, his
dissimulation, his hereditary passion for property and
especially for that of the soil. He had lived on privations
and economized sou after sou. ... Towards 1760, one-quarter of
the soil is said to have already passed into the hands of
agriculturists. ... The small cultivator, however, in becoming
a possessor of the soil assumed its charges. Simply as
day-laborer, and with his arms alone, he was only partially
affected by the taxes; 'where there is nothing the king loses
his dues.' But now, vainly is he poor and declaring himself
still poorer; the fisc has a hold on him and on every portion
of his new possessions. ... In 1715, the 'taille' [see TAILLE
AND GABELLE] and the poll-tax, which he alone pays, or nearly
alone, amounts to 66,000,000 livres, the amount is 93,000,000
in 1759 and 110,000,000 in 1789. ... 'I am miserable because
too much is taken from me. Too much is taken from me because
not enough is taken from the privileged. Not only do the
privileged force me to pay in their place, but, again, they
previously deduct from my earnings their ecclesiastical and
feudal dues. When, out of my income of 100 francs, I have
parted with 53 francs, and more, to the collector, I am
obliged again to give 14 francs to the seignior, also more
than 14 for tithes, and, out of the remaining 18 or 19 francs,
I have additionally to satisfy the excise-men.
{1258}
I alone, a poor man, pay two governments, one, the old
government [the seigniorial government of the feudal regime],
local and now absent, useless, inconvenient and humiliating,
and active only through annoyances, exemptions and taxes; and
the other [the royal government], recent, centralized,
everywhere present, which, taking upon itself all functions,
has vast needs and makes my meagre shoulders support its
enormous weight.' These, in precise terms, are the vague ideas
beginning to ferment in the popular brain and encountered on
every page of the records of the States-General. ... The
privileged wrought their own destruction. ... At their head,
the king, creating France by devoting himself to her as if his
own property, ended by sacrificing her as if his own property;
the public purse is his private purse, while passions, vanities,
personal weaknesses, luxurious habits, family solicitudes, the
intrigues of a mistress and the caprices of a wife, govern a
state of 26,000,000 men with an arbitrariness, a heedlessness,
a prodigality, an unskilfulness, an absence of consistency,
that would scarcely be overlooked in the management of a
private domain. The king and the privileged excel in one
direction, in good-breeding, in good taste, in fashion, in the
talent for self-display and in entertaining, in the gift of
graceful conversation, in finesse and in gayety, in the art of
converting life into a brilliant and ingenious festivity. ...
Through the habit, perfection and sway of polished intercourse
they stamped on the French intellect a classic form, which,
combined with recent scientific acquisitions, produced the
philosophy of the 18th century, the ill-repute of tradition,
the ambition of recasting all human institutions according to
the sole dictates of reason, the appliance of mathematical
methods to politics and morals, the catechism of the rights of
man, and other dogmas of anarchical and despotic character in
the 'Contrat Social.'--Once this chimera is born they welcome
it as a drawing-room fancy; they use the little monster as a
plaything, as yet innocent and decked with ribbons like a
pastoral lambkin; they never dream of it becoming a raging,
formidable brute; they nourish it, and caress it, and then,
opening their doors, they let it descend into the
streets.--Here, amongst a middle class which the government
has rendered ill-disposed by compromising its fortunes, which
the privileged have offended by restricting its ambition,
which is wounded by inequality through injured self-esteem,
the revolutionary theory gains rapid accessions, a sudden
asperity, and, in a few years, it finds itself undisputed
master of public opinion.--At this moment, and at its summons,
another colossal monster rises up, a monster with millions of
heads, a blind, startled animal, an entire people pressed
down, exasperated and suddenly loosed against the government
whose exactions have despoiled it, against the privileged
whose rights have reduced it to starvation."
H. A. Taine,
The Ancient Régime,
book 1, chapters 1, 2,
and book 5, chapters 1, 2, 5.
"When the facts of history are fully and impartially set
forth, the wonder is rather that sane men put up with the
chaotic imbecility, the hideous injustices, the shameless
scandals, of the 'Ancien Regime,' in the earlier half of the
century, many years before the political 'Philosophes' wrote a
line,--why the Revolution did not break out in 1754 or 1757,
as it was on the brink of doing, instead of being delayed, by
the patient endurance of the people, for another generation.
It can hardly be doubted that the Revolution of '89 owed many
of its worst features to the violence of a populace degraded
to the level of the beasts by the effect of the institutions
under which they herded together and starved; and that the
work of reconstruction which it attempted was to carry into
practice the speculations of Mably and of Rousseau. But, just
as little, does it seem open to question that, neither the
writhings of the dregs of the populace in their misery, nor
the speculative demonstrations of the Philosophers, would have
come to much, except for the revolutionary movement which had
been going on ever since the beginning of the century. The
deeper source of this lay in the just and profound griefs of
at least 95 per cent. of the population, comprising all its
most valuable elements, from the agricultural peasants to the
merchants and the men of letters and science, against the
system by which they were crushed, or annoyed, whichever way
they turned. But the surface current was impelled by the
official defenders of the 'Ancien Régime' themselves. It was
the Court, the Church, the Parliaments, and, above all, the
Jesuits, acting in the interests of the despotism of the
Papacy, who, in the first half of the 18th century,
effectually undermined all respect for authority, whether
civil or religious, and justified the worst that was or could
be said by the 'Philosophes' later on."
See
PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715;
and JESUITS: A.D. 1761-1767.
Prof. T. H. Huxley,
Introduction to F. Rocquain's
"The Revolutionary Spirit preceding
the French Revolution"
"I took part in the opening of the States-General, and, in
spite of the pomp with which the royal power was still
surrounded, I there saw the passing away of the old regime.
The regime which preceded '89, should, it seems to me, be
considered from a two-fold aspect: the one, the general
condition of the country, and the other, the relations
existing between the government and the country. With regard
to the former, I firmly believe that, from the earliest days
of the monarchy, France had at no period been happier than she
was then. She had not felt the effects of any great misfortune
since the crash which followed Law's system. The long lasting
ministry of Cardinal de Fleury, doubtless inglorious, but wise
and circumspect, had made good the losses and lightened the
burdens imposed at the end of the reign of Louis XV. If, since
that time, several wars undertaken with little skill, and
waged with still less, had compromised the honor of her arms
and the reputation of her government; if they had even thrown
her finances into a somewhat alarming state of disorder, it is
but fair to say that the confusion resulting therefrom had
merely affected the fortune of a few creditors, and had not
tapped the sources of public prosperity; on the contrary, what
is styled the public administration had made constant
progress. If, on the one hand, the state had not been able to
boast of any great ministers, on the other, the provinces
could show many highly enlightened and clever intendants.
Roads had been opened connecting numerous points, and had been
greatly improved in all directions. It should not be forgotten
that these benefits are principally due to the reign of Louis
XV. Their most important result had been a progressive
improvement in the condition of agriculture.
{1259}
The reign of Louis XVI. had continued favoring this wise
policy, which had not been interrupted by the, maritime war
undertaken on behalf of American independence. Many
cotton-mills had sprung, up, while considerable progress had
been made in the manufacture of printed cotton fabrics, and of
steel, and in the preparing of skins. ... I saw the splendors
of the Empire. Since the Restoration I see daily new fortunes
spring up and consolidate themselves; still nothing so far
has, in my eyes, equalled the splendor of Paris during the
years which elapsed between 1783 and 1789. ... Far be it from
me to shut my eyes to the reality of the public prosperity
which we are now [1822] enjoying. I am cognizant of the
improvement in the condition of the country districts, and I
am aware of the fact that all that rests on this solid
foundation, even though its appearance may be somewhat more
humble, is much to be preferred to a grander exterior that
might hide a less assured solidity. I do not seek to disparage
the present time--far from it. I am ready to admit the
advantages which have accrued, in many respects, as the
results of the Revolution; as, for instance, the partition of
landed property, so often assailed, and which, so long as it
does not go beyond certain limits, tends to increase wealth,
by introducing into many families a well-being hitherto
unknown to them. But, nevertheless, when I question my reason
and my conscience as to the possible future of the France of
1789, if the Revolution had not burst, if the ten years of
destruction to which it gave birth had not weighed heavily
upon that beautiful country ... I am convinced that France, at
the time I am writing, would be richer and stronger than she
is to-day."
Chancellor Pasquier,
Memoirs,
pages 44-47.
"In the spring of 1789 who could have foreseen the bloody
catastrophe? Everything was tinged with hopefulness; the world
was dreaming of the Golden Age. ... Despite the previous
disorders, and seeds of discord contained in certain cahiers,
the prevailing sentiment was confidence. ... The people
everywhere hailed with enthusiasm the new era which was
dawning. With a firm king, with a statesman who knew what he
wished, and was determined to accomplish it, this confidence
would have been an incomparable force. With a feeble prince
like Louis XVI., with an irresolute minister like Necker, it
was an appalling danger. The public, inflamed by the anarchy
that had preceded the convocation of the States, disposed,
through its inexperience, to accept all Utopias, and impelled
by its peculiar character to desire their immediate
realization, naturally grew more exacting in proportion as
they were promised more, and more impatient and irritable as
their hopes became livelier and appeared better founded. In
the midst of this general satisfaction there was but one dark
spot,--the queen. The cheers which greeted the king were
silent before his wife. Calumny had done its work; and all the
nobles from the provinces, the country curates, the citizens
of the small towns, came from the confines of France imbued
with the most contemptible prejudices against this unfortunate
princess. Pamphlets, poured out against her by malicious
enemies; vague and mysterious rumours, circulated everywhere,
repeated in whispers, without giving any clew to their
source,--the more dangerous because indefinite, and the more
readily believed because infamous and absurd,--had so often
reiterated that the queen was author of all the evil, that the
world had come to regard her as the cause of the deficit, and
the only serious obstacle to certain efficacious reforms. 'The
queen pillages on all sides; she even sends money, it is said,
to her brother, the emperor,' wrote a priest of Maine, in his
parochial register, in 1781; and he attributed the motive of
the reunion of the Notables to these supposed depredations.
If, in 1781, such reports had penetrated to the remotest parts
of the country, and found credence with such enlightened men
as the Curé Boucher, one can judge what it must have been two
years later, when the convocation of the States-General had
inflamed the minds of the people. If the States should
encounter any inevitable obstacle in their path; if certain
imprudent promises should be unfulfilled; if promised reforms
should fail,--public resentment and ill-will, always on the
alert, would be sure to blame Marie Antoinette; they would
impute to her all the evil done, and all the good left undone.
The symptoms of this distrust were manifest at the outset.
'The deputies of the Third Estate,' Madame Campan observes,
'arrived at Versailles with the strongest prejudice against
the court. The evil sayings in Paris never failed to be spread
through the provinces: they believed that the king indulged in
the pleasures of the table to a most shameful excess; they
were persuaded that the queen exhausted the State treasury to
gratify her inordinate love of luxury; almost all wished to
visit Little Trianon. As the extreme simplicity of this
pleasure-house did not correspond with their ideas, they
insisted on being shown even the smallest closets, saying that
richly furnished apartments were being concealed from them.
Finally they designated one, which according to their account
was ornamented with diamonds, and twisted columns studded with
sapphires and rubies. The queen was amused at these mad
fancies, and told the king of them.'"
M. de la Rocheterie,
Life of Marie Antoinette,
volume 2, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
A. de Tocqueville,
On the State of Society
in France before the Revolution.
A. Young,
Travels in France, 1787-89.
R. H. Dabney,
Causes of the French Revolution.
E. J. Lowell,
The Eve of the French Revolution.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (May).
Meeting of the States-General.
Conflict between the three Estates.
The question of three Houses or one.
"The opening of the States-general was fixed for the 5th of
May, 1789, and Versailles was chosen as the place of their
meetings. On the 4th, half Paris poured into that town to see
the court and the deputies marching in procession to the
solemn religious ceremony, which was to inaugurate the
important epoch. ... On the following day, the States-general,
to the number of 1,200 persons, assembled in the spacious and
richly decorated 'salle des menus plaisirs.' The King
appeared, surrounded by his family, with all the magnificence
of the ancient court, and was greeted by the enthusiastic
applause of the deputies and spectators." The king made a
speech, followed by Barentin, the keeper of the great seal,
and by Necker. The latter "could not prevail upon himself to
avow to the Assembly the real state of affairs. He announced
an annual deficit of 56,000,000 francs, and thereby confused
the mind of the public, which, since the meeting of the
Notables, had always been discussing a deficit of from
120,000,000 to 140,000,000.
{1260}
He was quite right in assuming that those 56,000,000 might be
covered by economy in the expenditure; but it was both
irritating and untrue, when he, on this ground, denied the
necessity of summoning the States-general, and called their
convocation a free act of royal favour. ... The balance of
income and expenditure might, indeed, easily be restored in
the future, but the deficit of former years had been
heedlessly allowed to accumulate, and by no one more than by
Necker himself. A floating debt of 550,000,000 had to be
faced--in other words, therefore, more than a whole year's
income had been expended in advance. ... The real deficit of
the year, therefore, at the lowest calculation, amounted to
more than 200,000,000, or nearly half the annual income. ...
These facts, then, were concealed, and thus the ministry was
necessarily placed in a false position towards the
States-general; the continuance of the former abuses was
perpetuated, or a violent catastrophe made inevitable. ... For
the moment the matter was not discussed. Everything yielded to
the importance of the constitutional question--whether the
three orders should deliberate in common or apart--whether
there should be one single representative body, or independent
corporations. This point was mooted at once in its full extent
on the question, whether the validity of the elections should
be scrutinised by each order separately, or by the whole
Assembly. We need not here enter into the question of right;
but of this there can be no doubt, that the government, which
virtually created the States-general afresh [since there had
been no national meeting of the Estates since the
States-general of 1614-see above: A. D. 1610-1619], had the
formal right to convoke them either in one way or the other,
as it thought fit. ... They [the government] infinitely
lowered their own influence and dignity by leaving a most
important constitutional question to the decision and the
wrangling of the three orders; and they frustrated their own
practical objects, by not decidedly declaring for the union of
the orders in one assembly. Every important measure of reform,
which had in view the improvement of the material and
financial condition of the country, would have been mutilated
by the clergy and rejected by the nobles. This was
sufficiently proved by the 'cahiers' of the electors ['written
instructions given by the electors to the deputies']. The
States themselves had to undertake what the government had
neglected. That which the government might have freely and
legally commanded, now led to violent revolution. But there
was no choice left; the commons would not tolerate the
continuance of the privileged orders; and the state could not
tolerate them if it did not wish to perish. The commons, who
on this point were unanimous, considered the system of a
single Assembly as a matter of course. They took care not to
constitute themselves as 'tiers état,' but remained passive,
and declared that they would wait until the Assembly should be
constituted as a whole. Thus slowly and cautiously did they
enter on their career. ... Indisputably the most important and
influential among them was Count Mirabeau, the representative
of the town of Aix in Provence, a violent opponent of
feudalism, and a restless participator in all the recent
popular commotions. He would have been better able than any
man to stimulate the Assembly to vigorous action; but even he
hesitated, and kept back his associates from taking any
violent steps, because he feared that the inconsistency and
inexperience of the majority would bring ruin on the state.
... It was only very gradually that the 'tiers état' began to
negotiate with the other orders. The nobles shewed themselves
haughty, dogmatical, and aggressive; and the clergy cautious,
unctuous, and tenacious. They tried the efficacy of general
conferences; but as no progress was found to have been made
after three weeks, they gave up their consultations on the
25th of May. The impatience of the public, and the necessities
of the treasury, continually increased; the government,
therefore, once more intervened, and Necker was called upon to
propose a compromise," which was coldly rejected by the
nobles, who "declared that they had long ago finished their
scrutiny, and constituted themselves as a separate order. They
thus spared the commons the dreaded honour of being the first
to break with the crown. The conferences were again closed on
the 9th of June. The leaders of the commons now saw that they
must either succumb to the nobility, or force the other orders
to submission."
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution.,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
lecture 8 (volume 1).
Prince de Talleyrand,
Memoirs,
part 1 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (June).
The Third Estate seizes the reins, proclaims itself the
National Assembly, and assumes sovereign powers.
The passionate excitement of Paris.
Dismissal of Necker.
Rising of the mob.
"At last ... on the proposal of Sieyès [the Abbé, deputy for
Paris] and amid a storm of frantic excitement, the Third
Estate alone voted themselves 'the National Assembly,' invited
the other two orders to join them, and pushing their
pretensions to sovereignty to the highest point, declared that
the existing taxes, not having been consented to by the
nation, were all illegal. The National Assembly, however,
allowed them to be levied till its separation, after which
they were to cease if not formally regranted. This great
revolution was effected on June 17, and it at once placed the
Third Order in a totally new relation both to the other orders
and to the Crown. There were speedy signs of yielding among
some members of the privileged orders, and a fierce wave of
excitement supported the change. Malouet strongly urged that
the proper course was to dissolve the Assembly and to appeal
to the constituencies, but Necker declined, and a feeble and
ineffectual effort of the King to accomplish a reunion, and at
the same time to overawe the Third Order, precipitated the
Revolution. The King announced his intention of holding a
royal session on June 22, and he summoned the three orders to
meet him. It was his design to direct them to unite in order
to deliberate in common on matters of common interest, and to
regain the royal initiative by laying down the lines of a new
constitution. ... On Saturday, the 20th, however, the course
of events was interrupted by the famous scene in the tennis
court. Troops had lately been pouring to an alarming extent
into Paris, and exciting much suspicion in the popular party,
and the Government very injudiciously selected for the royal
session on the following Monday the hall in which the Third
Order assembled. The hall was being prepared for the occasion,
and therefore no meeting could be held.
{1261}
The members, ignorant of the fact, went to their chamber and
were repelled by soldiers. Furious at the insult, they
adjourned to the neighbouring tennis court [Jeu-de-Paume]. A
suspicion that the King meant to dissolve them was abroad, and
they resolved to resist such an attempt. With lifted hands and
in a transport of genuine, if somewhat theatrical enthusiasm,
they swore that they would never separate 'till the
constitution of the kingdom and the regeneration of public
order were established on a solid basis.' ... One single
member, Martin d'Auche, refused his assent. The Third Estate
had thus virtually assumed the sole legislative authority in
France, and like the Long Parliament in England had denied the
King's power to dissolve them. ... Owing to the dissension
that had arisen, the royal session was postponed till the
23rd, but on the preceding day the National Assembly met in a
church, and its session was a very important one, for on this
occasion a great body of the clergy formally joined it. One
hundred and forty-eight members of the clergy, of whom 134
were curés, had now given their adhesion. Two of the nobles,
separating from their colleagues, took the same course. Next
day the royal session was held. The project adopted in the
council differed so much from that of Necker that this
minister refused to give it the sanction of his presence.
Instead of commanding the three orders to deliberate together
in the common interest, it was determined in the revised
project that the King should merely invite them to do so. ...
It was ... determined to withdraw altogether from the common
deliberation 'the form of the constitution to be given to the
coming States-General,' and to recognise fully the essential
distinction of the three orders as political bodies, though
they might, with the approval of the Sovereign, deliberate in
common. Necker had proposed ... that the King should
decisively, and of his own authority, abolish all privileges
of taxation, but in the amended article the King only
undertook to give his sanction to this measure on condition of
the two orders renouncing their privileges. On the other hand,
the King announced to the Assembly a long series of articles
of reform which would have made France a thoroughly
constitutional country, and have swept away nearly all the
great abuses in its government. ... He annulled the
proceedings of June 17, by which the Third Estate alone
declared itself the Legislature of France. He reminded the
Assembly that none of its proceedings could acquire the force
of law without his assent, and he asserted his sole right as
French Sovereign to the command of the army and police. He
concluded by directing the three orders to withdraw and to
meet next day to consider his proposals. The King, with the
nobles and the majority of the clergy, at once withdrew, but
the Third Order defiantly remained. It was evident that the
attempt to conciliate, and the attempt to assert the royal
authority, had both failed. The Assembly proclaimed itself
inviolable. It confirmed the decrees which the King had
annulled. Sieyès declared, in words which excited a transport
of enthusiasm, that what the Assembly was yesterday it still
was to-day; and two days later, the triumph of the Assembly
became still more evident by the adhesion of 47 of the
nobility. After this defection the King saw the hopelessness
of resistance, and on the 27th he ordered the remainder of the
nobles to take the same course. ... In the mean time the real
rulers of the country were coming rapidly to the surface. ...
Groups of local agitators and of the scum of the Paris mob
began to overawe the representatives of the nation, and to
direct the course of its policy. Troops were poured into
Paris, but their presence was an excitement without being a
protection, for day after day it became more evident that
their discipline was gone, and that they shared the sympathies
and the passions of the mob. ... At the same time famine grew
daily more intense, and the mobs more passionate and more
formidable. The dismissal of Necker on the evening of July 11
was the spark which produced the conflagration that had long
been preparing. Next day Paris flew to arms. The troops with
few exceptions abandoned the King."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 20 (volume 5).
ALSO IN:
E. Dumont,
Recollections of Mirabeau,
chapters 4-5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (July).
The mob in arms.
Anarchy in Paris.
The taking of the Bastille.
"On the 12th of July, near noon, on the news of the dismissal
of Necker, a cry of rage arises in the Palais-Royal; Camille
Desmoulins, mounted on a table, announces that the Court
meditates 'a St. Bartholomew of patriots.' The crowd embrace
him, adopt the green cockade which he has proposed, and oblige
the dancing-saloons and theatres to close in sign of mourning:
they hurry off to the residence of Curtius [a plaster-cast
master], and take the busts of the Duke of Orleans and of
Necker and carry them about in triumph. Meanwhile, the
dragoons of the Prince de Lambesc, drawn up on the Place
Louis-Quinze, find a barricade of chairs at the entrance of
the Tuilleries, and are greeted with a shower of stones and
bottles. Elsewhere, on the Boulevard, before the Hôtel
Montmorency, some of the French Guards, escaped from their
barracks, fired on a loyal detachment of the 'Royal Allemand.'
The tocsin is sounding on all sides, the shops where arms are
sold are pillaged, and the Hôtel-de-Ville is invaded; 15 or 16
well-disposed electors, who meet there, order the districts to
be assembled and armed.--The new sovereign, the people in arms
and in the street, has declared himself. The dregs of society
at once come to the surface. During the night between the 12th
and 13th of July, 'all the barriers, from the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, besides those of
the Faubourgs Saint-Marcel and Saint-Jacques, are forced and
set on fire.' There is no longer an 'octroi'; the city is
without a revenue just at the moment when it is obliged to
make the heaviest expenditures. ... 'During this fearful
night, the bourgeoisie kept themselves shut up, each trembling
at home for himself and those belonging to him.' On the following
day, the 13th, the capital appears to be given up to bandits
and the lowest of the low. ... During these two days and
nights, says Bailly, 'Paris ran the risk of being pillaged,
and was only saved from the marauders by the national guard.'
... Fortunately the militia organized itself, and the
principal inhabitants and gentlemen enrol themselves; 48,000
men are formed into battalions and companies; the bourgeoisie
buy guns of the vagabonds for three livres apiece, and sabres
or pistols for twelve sous. At last, some of the offenders are
hung on the spot, and others disarmed, and the insurrection again
becomes political.
{1262}
But, whatever its object, it remains always wild, because it
is in the hands of the populace. ... There is no leader, no
management. The electors who have converted themselves into
the representatives of Paris seem to command the crowd, but it
is the crowd which commands them. One of them, Legrand, to
save the Hôtel-de-Ville, has no other resource but to send for
six barrels of gun-powder, and to declare to the assailants
that he is about to blow everything into the air. The
commandant whom they themselves have chosen, M. de Salles, has
twenty bayonets at his breast during a quarter of an hour,
and, more than once, the whole committee is near being
massacred. Let the reader imagine, on the premises where the
discussions are going on, and petitions are being made, 'a
concourse of 1,500 men pressed by 100,000 others who are
forcing an entrance,' the wainscoting cracking, the benches
upset one over another ... a tumult such as to bring to mind
'the day of judgment,' the death-shrieks, songs, yells, and
'people beside themselves, for the most part not knowing where
they are nor what they want.' Each district is also a petty
centre, while the Palais-Royal is the main centre. ... One
wave gathers here and another there, their strategy consists
in pushing and in being pushed. Yet, their entrance is
effected only because they are let in. If they get into the
Invalides it is owing to the connivance of the soldiers.--At
the Bastille, firearms are discharged from ten in the morning
to five in the evening against walls 40 feet high and 30 feet
thick, and it is by chance that one of their shots reaches an
'invalide' on the towers. They are treated the same as
children whom one wishes to hurt as little as possible. The
governor, on the first summons to surrender, orders the cannon
to be withdrawn from the embrasures; he makes the garrison swear
not to fire if it is not attacked; he invites the first of the
deputations to lunch; he allows the messenger dispatched from
the Hôtel-de-Ville to inspect the fortress; he receives
several discharges without returning them, and lets the first
bridge be carried without firing a shot. When, at length, he
does fire, it is at the last extremity, to defend the second
bridge, and after having notified the assailants that he is
going to do so. ... The people, in turn, are infatuated with
the novel sensations of attack and resistance, with the smell
of gunpowder, with the excitement of the contest; all they can
think of doing is to rush against the mass of stone, their
expedients being on a level with their tactics: A brewer
fancies that he can set fire to this block of masonry by
pumping over it spikenard and poppy-seed oil mixed with
phosphorus. A young carpenter, who has some archæological
notions, proposes to construct a catapult. Some of them think
that they have seized the governor's daughter, and want to
burn her in order to make the father surrender. Others set
fire to a projecting mass of buildings filled with straw, and
thus close up the passage. 'The Bastille was not taken by main
force,' says the brave Elie, one of the combatants; 'it was
surrendered before even it was attacked,' by capitulation, on
the promise that no harm should be done to anybody. The
garrison, being perfectly secure, had no longer the heart to
fire on human beings while themselves risking nothing, and, on
the other hand, they were unnerved by the sight of the immense
crowd. Eight or nine hundred men only were concerned in the
attack, most of them workmen or shopkeepers belonging to the
faubourg, tailors, wheelwrights, mercers, and wine-dealers,
mixed with the French Guards. The Place de la Bastille,
however, and all the streets in the vicinity, were crowded
with the curious who came to witness the sight; 'among them,'
says a witness, 'were a number of fashionable women of very
good appearance, who had left their carriages at some
distance.' To the 120 men of the garrison, looking down from
their parapets, it seemed as though all Paris had come out
against them. It is they, also, who lower the drawbridge and
introduce the enemy; everybody has lost his head, the besieged
as well as the besiegers, the latter more completely because
they are intoxicated with the sense of victory. Scarcely have
they entered when they begin the work of destruction, and the
latest arrivals shoot at random those that come earlier; 'each
one fires without heeding where or on whom his shot tells.'
Sudden omnipotence and the liberty to kill are a wine too
strong for human nature. ... Elie, who is the first to enter
the fortress, Cholat, Hulin, the brave fellows who are in
advance, the French Guards who are cognizant of the laws of
war, try to keep their word of honour; but the crowd pressing
on behind them know not whom to strike, and they strike at
random. They spare the Swiss soldiers who have fired on them,
and who, in their blue smocks, seem to them to be prisoners;
on the other hand, by way of compensation, they fall furiously
on the 'invalides' who opened the gates to them; the man who
prevented the governor from blowing up the fortress has his
wrist severed by the blow of a sabre, is twice pierced with a
sword and is hung, and the hand which had saved one of the
districts of Paris is promenaded through the streets in
triumph. The officers are dragged along and five of them are
killed, with three soldiers, on the spot, or on the way." M.
de Launay, the governor, after receiving many wounds, while
being dragged to the Hotel-de-Ville, was finally killed by
bayonet thrusts, and his head, cut from his body, was
placarded and borne through the streets upon a pitchfork.
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).
"I was present at the taking of the Bastille. What has been
styled the fight was not serious, for there was absolutely no
resistance shown. Within the hold's walls were neither
provisions nor ammunition. It was not even necessary to invest
it. The regiment of gardes françaises which had led the
attack, presented itself under the walls on the rue Saint
Antoine side, opposite the main entrance, which was barred by
a drawbridge. There was a discharge of a few musket shots, to
which no reply was made, and then four or five discharges from
the cannon. It has been claimed that the latter broke the
chains of the drawbridge. I did not notice this, and yet I was
standing close to the point of attack. What I did see plainly
was the action of the soldiers, invalides, or others, grouped
on the platform of the high tower, holding their muskets stock
in the air, and expressing by all means employed under similar
circumstances their desire of surrendering. The result of this
so-called victory, which brought down so many favors on the
heads of the so-called victors, is well-known. The truth is,
that this great fight did not for a moment frighten the
numerous spectators who had flocked to witness its result.
Among them were many women of fashion, who, in order to be
closer to the scene, had left their carriages some distance
away."
Chancellor Pasquier,
Memoirs,
pages 55-56.
ALSO IN:
D. Bingham,
The Bastille,
volume 2, chapters 9-12.
R. A. Davenport,
History of the Bastile,
chapter 12.
J. Claretie,
Camille Desmoulins and his Wife,
chapter 1, section 4.
{1263}
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (July).
Practical surrender of authority by the king.
Organization of the National Guard with Lafayette in command.
Disorder and riot in the provinces.
Hunger in the capital.
The murder of Foulon and Berthier.
"The next morning the taking of the Bastille bore its intended
fruit. Marshal de Broglie, who had found, instead of a loyal
army, only disaffected regiments which had joined or were
preparing to join the mob, sent in his resignation. ... The
king, deserted by his army, his authority now quite gone, had
no means of restoring order except through the Assembly. He
begged that body to undertake the work, promising to recall
the dismissed ministers. ... The power of the king had now
passed from him to the National Assembly. But that numerous
body of men, absorbed in interminable discussions on abstract
ideas, was totally incapable of applying its power to the
government of the country. The electors at the Hotel de Ville,
on the 15th of July, resolved that there must be a mayor to
direct the affairs of Paris, and a National Guard to preserve
order. Dangers threatened from every quarter. When the
question arose as to who should fill these offices, Moreau de
Saint Méry, the president of the electors, pointed to the bust
of Lafayette, which had been sent as a gift to the city of
Paris by the State of Virginia, in 1784. The gesture was
immediately understood, and Lafayette was chosen by
acclamation. Not less unanimous was the choice of Bailly for
mayor. Lafayette was now taken from the Assembly to assume the
more active employment of commanding the National Guard. While
the Assembly pursued the destruction of the old order and the
erection of a new, Lafayette, at the age of 82, became the
chief depositary of executive power. ... Throughout France,
the deepest interest was exhibited in passing events. ... The
victory of the Assembly over the king and aristocracy led the
people of the provinces to believe that their cause was
already won. A general demoralization ensued." After the
taking of the Bastille, "the example of rebellion thus set was
speedily followed. Rioting and lawlessness soon prevailed
everywhere, increased and imbittered by the scarcity of food.
In the towns, bread riots became continual, and the
custom-houses, the means of collecting the exorbitant taxes,
were destroyed. In the rural districts, châteaux were to be
seen burning on all sides. The towers in which were preserved
the titles and documents which gave to the nobleman his
oppressive rights were carried by storm and their contents
scattered. Law and authority were fast becoming synonymous
with tyranny; the word 'liberty,' now in every mouth, had no
other signification than license. Into Paris slunk hordes of
gaunt foot-pads from all over France; attracted by the
prospect of disorder and pillage. ... From such circumstances
naturally arose the National Guard. "The king had been asked,
on the 13th, by a deputation from the Assembly, "to confide
the care of the city to a militia," and had declined. The
military organization of citizens was then undertaken by the
electors at the Hotel de Ville, without his consent, and its
commander designated without his appointment. "The king was
obliged to confirm this choice, and he was thus deprived even
of the merit of naming the chief officer of the guard whose
existence had been forced upon him." On the 17th the king was
persuaded to visit the city, for the effect which his personal
presence would have, it was thought, upon the anxious and
excited public mind. Lafayette had worked with energy to
prepare his National Guard for the difficult duty of
preserving order and protecting the royal visitor on the
occasion. "So intense was the excitement and the
insurrectionary spirit of the time, so uncertain were the
boundaries between rascality and revolutionary zeal, that it
was difficult to establish the fact that the new guard was
created to preserve order and not to fight the king and
pillage the aristocracy. The great armed mob, now in process
of organization, had to be treated with great tact, lest it
should refuse to submit to authority in any shape." But short
as the time was, Lafayette succeeded in giving to the
powerless monarch a safe and orderly reception. "The king made
his will and took the sacraments before leaving Versailles,
for ... doubts were entertained that he would live to return."
He was met at the gates of Paris by the new mayor, Bailly, and
escorted through a double line of National Guards to the Hotel
de Ville. There he was obliged to fix on his hat the national
cockade, just brought into use, and to confirm the
appointments of Lafayette and Bailly. "Louis XVI. then
returned to Versailles, on the whole pleased, as the day had
been less unpleasant than had been expected. But the
compulsory acceptation of the cockade and the nominations
meant nothing less than the extinction of his authority. ...
Lafayette recruited his army from the bourgeois class, for the
good reason that, in the fever then raging for uncontrolled
freedom, that class was the only one from which the proper
material could be taken. The importance of order was impressed
on the bourgeois by the fact that they had, shops and houses
which they did not wish to see pillaged. ... The necessity for
strict police measures was soon to be terribly illustrated.
For a week past a large crowd composed of starving workmen,
country beggars, and army deserters, had thronged the streets,
angrily demanding food. The city was extremely short of
provisions, and it was impossible to satisfy the demands made
upon it. ... On July 22, an old man named Foulon, It member of
the late ministry, who had long been the object of public
dislike, and was now detested because it was rumored that he
said that 'the people might eat' grass,' was arrested in the
country, and brought to the Hotel de Ville, followed by a mob
who demanded his immediate judgment." Lafayette exerted vainly
his whole influence and his whole authority to protect the
wretched old man until he could be lodged in prison. The mob
tore its victim from his very hands and destroyed him on the
spot. The next day, Foulon's son-in-law, Berthier, the
Intendant of Paris, was arrested in the country, and the
tragedy was re-enacted. "Shocked by these murders and
disgusted by his own inability to prevent them, Lafayette sent
his resignation to the electors, and for some time persisted
in his refusal to resume his office. But no other man could be
found in Paris equally fitted for the place; so that on the
personal solicitation of the electors and a deputation from
the 60 districts of the city, he again took command."
B. Tuckerman,
Life of General Lafayette,
volume 1, chapters 9-10.
ALSO IN:
J. Michelet,
Historical View of the French
Revolution, book 2, chapters 1-2.
{1264}
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (July-August).
Cause and character of the "Emigration."
"Everything, or nearly everything, was done by the party
opposed to the Revolution in the excitement of the moment;
nothing was the result of reasoning. Who, for instance,
reasoned out the emigration? It has oftentimes been asked how
so extraordinary a resolution came to be taken; how it had
entered the minds of men gifted with a certain amount of sense
that there was any advantage to be derived from abandoning all
the posts where they could still exercise power; of giving
over to the enemy the regiments they commanded, the localities
over which they had control; of delivering up completely to
the teachings of the opposite party the peasantry, over whom,
in a goodly number of provinces, a valuable influence might be
exerted, and among whom they still had many friends; and all
this, to return for the purpose of conquering, at the sword's
point, positions, a number of which at least could be held
without a fight. No doubt it has been offered as an objection,
that the peasantry set fire to châteaux, that soldiers
mutinied against their officers. This was not the case at the
time of what has been called the first emigration, and, at any
rate, such doings were not general; but does danger constitute
sufficient cause for abandoning an important post? ... What is
the answer to all this? Merely what follows. The voluntary
going into exile of nearly the whole nobility of France, of
many magistrates who were never to unsheath a sword, and
lastly, of a large number of women and children,--this
resolve, without a precedent in history, was not conceived and
determined upon as a State measure; chance brought it about. A
few, in the first instance, followed the princes who had been
obliged, on the 14th of July, to seek safety out of France,
and others followed them. At first, it was merely in the
nature of a pleasant excursion. Outside of France, they might
freely enjoy saying and believing anything and everything. ...
The wealthiest were the first to incur the expense of this
trip, and a few brilliant and amiable women of the Court
circle did their share to render most attractive the sojourn
in a number of foreign towns close to the frontier. Gradually
the number of these small gatherings increased, and it was
then that the idea arose of deriving advantage from them. It
occurred to the minds of a few men in the entourage of the
Comte d'Artois, and whose moving spirit was M. de Calonne,
that it would be an easy matter for them to create a kingdom
for their sovereign outside of France, and that if they could
not in this fashion succeed in giving him provinces to reign
over, he would at least reign over subjects, and that this
would serve to give him a standing in the eyes of foreign
powers, and determine them to espouse his cause. ... Thus in
'89, '90, and '91, there were a few who were compelled to fly
from actual danger; a small number were led away by a genuine
feeling of enthusiasm; many felt themselves bound to leave,
owing to a point of honor which they obeyed without reasoning
it out; the mass thought it was the fashion, and that it
looked well; all, or almost all, were carried away by
expectations encouraged by the wildest of letters, and by the
plotting of a few ambitious folk, who were under the
impression that they were building up their fortunes."
Chancellor Pasquier,
Memoirs,
pages 64-66.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (August).
The Night of Sacrifices.
The sweeping out of Feudalism.
"What was the Assembly doing at this period, when Paris was
waiting in expectation, and the capture of the Bastille was
being imitated all over France; when châteaux were burning,
and nobles flying into exile; when there was positive civil
war in many a district, and anarchy in every province? Why,
the Assembly was discussing whether or not the new
constitution of France should be prefaced by a Declaration of
the Rights of Man. In the discussion of this extremely
important question were wasted the precious days which
followed July 17. ... The complacency of these theorists was
rudely shaken on August 4, when Salomon read to the Assembly
the report of the Comité des Recherches, or Committee of
Researches, on the state of France. A terrible report it was.
Châteaux burning here and there; millers hung; tax-gatherers
drowned; the warehouses and depots of the gabelle burnt;
everywhere rioting, and nowhere peace. ... Among those who
listened to the clear and forcible report of Salomon were
certain of the young liberal noblesse who had just been dining
with the Duc de la Roehefoucauld-Liancourt, a wise and
enlightened nobleman. At their head was the Vicomte de
Noailles, a young man of thirty-three, who had distinguished
himself at the head of his regiment under his cousin,
Lafayette, in America. ... The Vicomte de Noailles was the
first to rush to the tribune. 'What is the cause of the evil
which is agitating the provinces?' he cried; and then he
showed that it arose from the uncertainty under which the
people dwelt, as to whether or not the old feudal bonds under
which they had so long lived and laboured were to be
perpetuated or abolished, and concluded an impassioned speech
by proposing to abolish them at once. One after another the
young liberal noblemen, and then certain deputies of the tiers
état, followed him with fresh sacrifices. First the old feudal
rights were abolished; then the rights of the dovecote and the
game laws; then the old copyhold services; then the tithes
paid to the Church, in spite of a protest from Siéyès; then
the rights of certain cities over their immediate suburbs and
rural districts were sacrificed; and the contention during
that feverish night was rather to remember something or other
to sacrifice than to suggest the expediency of maintaining
anything which was established. In its generosity the Assembly
even gave away what did not belong to it. The old dues paid to
the pope were abolished, and it was even declared that the
territory of Avignon, which had belonged to the pope since the
Middle Ages, should be united to France if it liked; and the
sitting closed with a unanimous decree that a statue should be
erected to Louis XVI., 'the restorer of French liberty.' Well
might Mirabeau define the night of August 4 as a mere 'orgie.'
... Noble indeed were the intentions of the deputies. ...
{1265}
Yet the results of this night of sacrifices were bad rather
than good. As Mirabeau pointed out, the people of France were
told that all the feudal rights, dues, and tithes had been
abolished that evening, but they were not told at the same
time that there must be taxes and other burdens to take their
place. It was of no use to issue a provisional order that all
rights, dues, and taxes remained in force for the present,
because the poor peasant would refuse to pay what was illegal,
and would not understand the political necessity of supporting
the revenue. ... This ill-considered mass of resolutions was
what was thrown in the face of France in a state of anarchy to
restore it to a state of order."
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 1, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers, History of the French Revolution,
(American edition), volume 1, pages 81-84.
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (August-October).
Constitution-making and the Rights of Man.
The first emigration of nobles.
Famine in Paris.
Rumors of an intended flight of the King.
"One may look upon the peculiarity of the Assembly as being a
singular faith in the power of ideas. That was its greatness.
It firmly believed that truth shaped into laws would be
invincible. Two months--such was the calculation--would
suffice to construct the constitution. That constitution by
its omnipotent virtue would convince all men and bend them to
its authority, and the revolution would be completed. Such was
the faith of the National Assembly. The attitude of the people
was so menacing that many of the courtiers fled. Thus
commenced the first emigration. ... As if the minds of men
were not sufficiently agitated, there now were heard cries of
a great conspiracy of the aristocrats. The papers announced
that a plot had been discovered which was to have delivered
Brest to the English. Brest, the naval arsenal, wherein France
for whole centuries had expended her millions and her labours:
this given up to England! England would once more overrun France!
... It was amidst these cries of alarm--with on one hand the
emigration of the nobility, on the other the hunger of a
maddened people; with here an irresolute aristocracy, startled
at the audacity of the 'canaille,' and there a resolute
Assembly, prepared, at the hazard of their lives, to work out
the liberty of France; amidst reports of famine, of
insurrections, and wild disorders of all sorts, that we find
the National Assembly debating upon the rights of man,
discussing every article with metaphysical quibbling and
wearisome fluency, and, having finally settled each article,
making their famous Declaration. This Declaration, which was
solemnly adopted by the Assembly, on the 18th of August, was
the product of a whole century of philosophical speculation,
fixed and reduced to formulas, and bearing unmistakeable
traces of Rousseau. It declared the original equality of
mankind, and that the ends of social union are liberty,
property, security, and resistance to oppression. It declared
that sovereignty resides in the nation, from whence all power
emanates; that freedom consists in doing everything which does
not injure another; that law is the expression of the general
will; that public burdens should be borne by all the members
of the state in proportion to their fortunes; that the
elective franchise should be extended to all; that the
exercise of natural rights has no other limit than their
interference with the rights of others; that no man should be
persecuted for his religious opinions, provided he conform to
the laws and do not disturb the religion of the state; that
all men have the right of quitting the state in which they
were born, and of choosing another country, by renouncing
their rights of citizenship; that the liberty of the press is
the foremost support of public liberty, and the law should
maintain it, at the same time punishing those who abuse it by
distributing seditious discourses, or calumnies against
individuals." Having adopted its Declaration of the rights of
man, the Assembly proceeded to the drawing up of a
constitution which should embody the principles of the
Declaration, and soon found itself in passionate debate upon
the relations to be established between the national
legislature and the king. Should the king retain a veto upon
legislation? Should he have any voice in the making of laws?
"The lovers of England and the English constitution all voted
in favour of the veto. Even Mirabeau was for it." Robespierre,
just coming into notice, bore a prominent part in the
opposition. "The majority of the Assembly shared Robespierre's
views; and the King's counselors were at length forced to
propose a compromise in the shape of a suspensive veto;
namely, that the King should not have the absolute right of
preventing any law, but only the right of suspending it for
two, four, or six years. ... It was carried by a large
majority." Meantime, in Paris, "vast and incalculable was the
misery: crowds of peruke-makers, tailors, and shoemakers, were
wont to assemble at the Louvre and in the Champs Elysées,
demanding things impossible to be granted; demanding that the
old regulations should be maintained, and that new ones should
be made; demanding that the rate of daily wages should be
fixed; demanding ... that all the Savoyards in the country
should be sent away, and only Frenchmen employed. The bakers'
shops were besieged, as early as five o'clock in the morning,
by hungry crowds who had to stand 'en queue'; happy when they
had money to purchase miserable bread, even in this
uncomfortable manner. ... Paris was living at the mercy of
chance: its subsistence dependent on some arrival or other:
dependent on a convoy from Beauce, or a boat from Corbeuil.
The city, at immense sacrifices, was obliged to lower the
price of bread: the consequence was that the population for
more than ten leagues round came to procure provisions at
Paris. The uncertainty of the morrow augmented the
difficulties. Everybody stored up, and concealed provisions.
The administration sent in every direction, and bought up
flour, by fair means, or by foul. It often happened that at
midnight there was but half the flour necessary for the
morning market. Provisioning Paris was a kind of war. The
National Guard was sent to protect each arrival; or to secure
certain purchases by force of arms. Speculators were afraid;
farmers would not thrash any longer; neither would the miller
grind. 'I used to see,' says Bailly, 'good tradesmen, mercers
and goldsmiths, praying to be admitted among the beggars
employed at Montmartre, in digging the ground.' Then came
fearful whispers of the King's intention to fly to Metz. What
will become of us if the King should fly? He must not fly; we
will have him here; here amongst us in Paris! This produced
the famous insurrection of women ... on the 5th October."
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapter 9.
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 1, chapters 3-4 (volume 1).
{1266}
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (October).
The Insurrection of Women.
Their march to Versailles.
"A thought, or dim raw-material of a thought, was fermenting
all night [October 4-5], universally in the female head, and
might explode. In squalid garret, on Monday morning Maternity
awakes, to hear children weeping for bread. Maternity must
forth to the streets, to the herb-markets and Bakers'-queues;
meets there with hunger-stricken Maternity, sympathetic,
exasperative. O we unhappy women! But, instead of
Bakers'-queues, why not to Aristocrats' palaces, the root of
the matter? Allons! Let us assemble. To the Hôtel-de-Ville; to
Versailles; to the Lanterne! In one of the Guard houses of the
Quartier Saint-Eustache, 'a young woman' seizes a drum,--for
how shall National Guards give fire on women, on a young
woman? The young woman seizes the drum; sets forth, beating
it, 'uttering cries relative to the dearth of grains.'
Descend, O mothers; descend, ye Judiths, to food and
revenge!--All women gather and go; crowds storm all stairs,
force out all women: the female Insurrectionary Force,
according to Camille, resembles the English Naval one; there
is a universal 'Press of women.' Robust Dames of the Halle,
slim Mantua-makers, assiduous, risen with the dawn; ancient
Virginity tripping to matins; the Housemaid, with early broom;
all must go. Rouse ye, O, women; the laggard men will not act;
they say, we ourselves may act! And so, like snowbreak from
the mountains, for every staircase is a melted brook, it
storms; tumultuous, wild-shrilling, towards the
Hôtel-de-Ville. Tumultuous; with or without drum-music: for
the Faubourg Saint-Antoine also has tucked-up its gown; and
with besom-staves, fire-irons, and even rusty pistols (void of
ammunition), is flowing on. Sound of it flies, with a velocity
of sound, to the utmost Barriers. By seven o'clock, on this
raw October morning, fifth of the month, the Townhall will see
wonders. ... Grand it was, says Camille, to see so many
Judiths, from eight to ten thousand of them in all, rushing
out to search into the root of the matter! Not unfrightful it
must have been; ludicro-terrific, and most unmanageable. At
such hour the overwatched Three Hundred are not yet stirring:
none but some Clerks, a company of National Guards; and M. de
Gouvion, the Major-general. Gouvion has fought in America for
the cause of civil Liberty; a man of no inconsiderable heart,
but deficient in head. He is, for the moment, in his back
apartment; assuaging Usher Maillard, the Bastille-sergeant,
who has come, as too many do, with 'representations.' The
assuagement is still incomplete when our Judiths arrive. The
National Guards form on the outer stairs, with levelled
bayonets; the ten thousand Judiths press up, resistless; with
obtestations, with outspread hands,--merely to speak to the
Mayor. The rear forces them; nay from male hands in the rear,
stones already fly: the National Guard must do one of two
things; sweep the Place de Greve with cannon, or else open to
right and left. They open: the living deluge rushes in.
Through all rooms and cabinets, upwards to the topmost belfry:
ravenous; seeking arms, seeking Mayors, seeking justice;--
while, again, the better-dressed speak kindly to the Clerks;
point out the misery of these poor women; also their ailments,
some even of an interesting sort. Poor M. de Gouvion is
shiftless in this extremity;--a man shiftless, perturbed: who
will one day commit suicide. How happy for him that Usher
Maillard the shifty was there, at the moment, though making
representations! Fly back, thou shifty Maillard: seek the
Bastille Company; and O return fast with it; above all, with
thy own shifty head! For, behold, the Judiths can find no
Mayor or Municipal; scarcely, in the topmost belfry, can they
find poor Abbé Lefèvre the Powder-distributor. Him, for want
of a better, they suspend there: in the pale morning light;
over the top of all Paris, which swims in one's failing
eyes:--a horrible end? Nay the rope broke, as French ropes
often did; or else an Amazon cut it. Abbe Lefèvre falls, some
twenty feet, rattling among the leads; and lives long years
after, though always with 'a tremblement in the limbs.' And
now doors fly under hatchets; the Judiths have broken the
Armory; have seized guns and cannons, three money-bags,
paper-heaps; torches flare: in few minutes, our brave
Hôtel-de-Ville, which dates from the Fourth Henry, will, with
all that it holds, be in flames! In flames, truly,--were it
not that Usher Maillard, swift of foot, shifty of head, has
returned! Maillard, of his own motion,--for Gouvion or the
rest would not even sanction him,--snatches a drum: descends
the Porch-stairs, ran-tan, beating sharp, with loud rolls, his
Rogues'-march: To Versailles! Allons; à Versailles! As men
beat on kettle or warming-pan, when angry she-bees, or say,
flying desperate wasps, are to be hived; and the desperate
insects hear it, and cluster round it,--simply as round a
guidance, where there was none: so now these Menads round
shifty Maillard, Riding-Usher of the Châtelet. The axe pauses
uplifted; Abbé Lefèvre is left half-hanged: from the belfry
downwards all vomits itself. What rub-a-dub is that? Stanislas
Maillard, Bastille hero, will lead us to Versailles? Joy to
thee, Maillard; blessed art thou above Riding-Ushers! Away,
then, away! The seized cannon are yoked with seized
cart-horses: brown-locked Demoiselle Théroigne, with pike and
helmet, sits there as gunneress. ... Maillard (for his drum
still rolls) is, by heaven-rending acclamation, admitted
General. Maillard hastens the languid march. ... And now
Maillard has his Menads in the Champs Elysées (Fields
Tartarean rather); and the Hôtel-de-Ville has suffered
comparatively nothing. ... Great Maillard! A small nucleus of
Order is round his drum; but his outskirts fluctuate like the
mad Ocean: for Rascality male and female is flowing in on him,
from the four winds: guidance there is none but in his single
head and two drum-sticks. ... On the Elysian Fields there is
pause and fluctuation; but, for Maillard, no return. He
persuades his Menads, clamorous for arms and the Arsenal, that
no arms are in the Arsenal; that an unarmed attitude, and
petition to a National Assembly, will be the best: he hastily
nominates or sanctions generalesses, captains of tens and
fifties;--and so, in loosest-flowing order, to the rhythm of
some 'eight drums' (having laid aside his own), with the
Bastille Volunteers bringing up his rear, once more takes the
road. Chaillot, which will promptly yield baked loaves, is not
plundered; nor are the Sèvres Potteries broken. ... The press of
women still continues, for it is the cause of all Eve's
Daughters, mothers that are, or that ought to be. No
carriage-lady, were it with never such hysterics, but must
dismount, in the mud roads, in her silk shoes, and walk. In
this manner, amid wild October weather, they, a wild unwinged
stork-flight, through the astonished country wend their way."
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 1, book 7, chapters 4-5.
{1267}
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (October).
The mob of men at Versailles, with Lafayette
and the National Guard.
The king and royal family brought to Paris.
Before the memorable 5th day of October closed, the movement
of the women upon Versailles was followed by an outpouring, in
the same direction, of the masculine mob of Paris, headed by
the National Guard. "The commander, Lafayette, opposed their
departure a long time, but in vain; neither his efforts nor
his popularity could overcome the obstinacy of the people. For
seven hours he harangued and retained them. At length,
impatient at this delay, rejecting his advice, they prepared
to set forward without him; when, feeling that it was now his
duty to conduct as it had previously been to restrain them, he
obtained his authorisation from the corporation, and gave the
word for departure about seven in the evening. "Meantime the
army of the amazons had arrived at Versailles, and excited the
terrors of the court. "The troops of Versailles flew to arms
and surrounded the château, but the intentions of the women
were not hostile. Maillard, their leader, had recommended them
to appear as suppliants, and in that attitude they presented
their complaints successively to the assembly and to the king.
Accordingly, the first hours of this turbulent evening were
sufficiently calm. Yet it was impossible but that causes of
hostility should arise between an excited mob and the
household troops, the objects of so much irritation. The
latter were stationed in the court of the château opposite the
national guard and the Flanders regiment. The space between
was filled by women and volunteers of the Bastille. In the
midst of the confusion, necessarily arising from such a
juxtaposition, a scuffle arose; this was the signal for
disorder and conflict. An officer of the guards struck a
Parisian soldier with his sabre, and was in turn shot in the
arm. The national guards sided against the household troops;
the conflict became warm, and would have been sanguinary, but
for the darkness, the bad weather, and the orders given to the
household troops, first to cease firing and then to retire.
... During this tumult, the court was in consternation; the
flight of the king was suggested, and carriages prepared; a
piquet of the national guard saw them at the gate of the
orangery, and having made them go back, closed the gate:
moreover, the king, either ignorant of the designs of the
court, or conceiving them impracticable, refused to escape.
Fears were mingled with his pacific intentions, when he
hesitated to repel the aggression or to take flight.
Conquered, he apprehended the fate of Charles I. of England;
absent, he feared that the duke of Orleans would obtain the
lieutenancy of the kingdom. But, in the meantime, the rain,
fatigue, and the inaction of the household troops, lessened
the fury of the multitude, and Lafayette arrived at the head
of the Parisian army. His presence restored security to the
court, and the replies of the king to the deputation from
Paris satisfied the multitude and the army. In a short time,
Lafayette's activity, the good sense and discipline of the
Parisian guard, restored order everywhere. Tranquillity
returned. The crowd of women and volunteers, overcome by
fatigue, gradually dispersed, and some of the national guard
were entrusted with the defence of the château, while others
were lodged with their companions in arms at Versailles. The
royal family, re-assured after the anxiety and fear of this
painful night, retired to rest about two o'clock in the
morning. Towards five, Lafayette, having visited the outposts
which had been confided to his care, and finding the watch
well kept, the town calm, and the crowds dispersed or
sleeping, also took a few moments repose. About six, however,
some men of the lower class, more enthusiastic than the rest,
and awake sooner than they, prowled round the château. Finding
a gate open, they informed their companions, and entered.
Unfortunately, the interior posts had been entrusted to the
household guards, and refused to the Parisian army. This fatal
refusal caused all the misfortunes of the night. The interior
guard had not even been increased; the gates scarcely visited,
and the watch kept as negligently as on ordinary occasions. These
men, excited by all the passions that had brought them to
Versailles, perceiving one of the household troops at a
window, began to insult him. He fired, and wounded one of
them. They then rushed on the household troops, who defended
the château breast to breast, and sacrificed themselves
heroically. One of them had time to warn the queen, whom the
assailants particularly threatened; and, half dressed, she ran
for refuge to the king. The tumult and danger were extreme in
the château. Lafayette, apprised of the invasion of the royal
residence, mounted his horse, and rode hastily to the scene of
danger. On the square he met some of the household troops
surrounded by an infuriated mob, who were on the point of
killing them. He threw himself among them, called some French
guards who were near, and, having rescued the household troops
and dispersed their assailants, he hurried to the château. He
found it already secured by the grenadiers of the French
guard, who, at the first noise of the tumult, had hastened and
protected the household troops from the fury of the Parisians.
But the scene was not over; the crowd assembled again in the
marble court under the king's balcony, loudly called for him,
and he appeared. They required his departure for Paris; he
promised to repair thither with his family, and this promise
was received with general applause. The queen was resolved, to
accompany him; but the prejudice against her was so strong
that the journey was not without danger; it was necessary to
reconcile her with the multitude. Lafayette proposed to her to
accompany him to the balcony; after some hesitation, she
consented. They appeared on it together, and to communicate by
a sign with the tumultuous crowd, to conquer its animosity, and
awaken its enthusiasm, Lafayette respectfully kissed the
queen's hand; the crowd responded with acclamations. It now
remained to make peace between them and the household troops.
Lafayette advanced with one of these, placed his own
tricoloured cockade on his hat, and embraced him before the
people, who shouted 'Vivent les gardes-du-corps!' Thus
terminated this scene; the royal family set out for Paris,
escorted by the army and its guards mixed with it."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
B. Tuckerman,
Life of Lafayette,
volume 1, chapter 11.
{1268}
FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1791.
The new constitution.
Appropriation and sale of Church property.
Issue of Assignats.
Abolition of titles of honor.
Civil constitution of the clergy.
The Feast of the Federation.
The Émigrés on the border and their conduct.
"The king was henceforth at the mercy of the mob. Deprived of
his guards, and at a distance from his army, he was in the
centre of the revolution; and surrounded by an excited and
hungry populace. He was followed to Paris by the Assembly;
and, for the present, was protected from further outrages by
Lafayette and the national guards. Mirabeau, who was now in
secret communication with the court, warned the king of his
danger, in the midst of the revolutionary capital. 'The mob of
Paris,' he said, 'will scourge the corpses of the king and
queen.' He saw no hope of safety for them, or for the State,
but in their withdrawal from this pressing danger, to
Fontainebleau or Rouen, and in a strong government, supported
by the Assembly, pursuing liberal measures, and quelling
anarchy. His counsels were frustrated by events; and the
revolution had advanced too far to be controlled by this
secret and suspected adviser of the king. Meanwhile, the
Assembly was busy with further schemes of revolution and
desperate finance. France was divided into departments: the
property of the Church was appropriated to meet the urgent
necessities of the State; the disastrous assignats were
issued: the subjection of the clergy to the civil power was
decreed: the Parliaments were superseded, and the judicature
of the country was reconstituted, upon a popular basis: titles
of honour, orders of knighthood, armorial bearings--even
liveries--were abolished: the army was reorganised, and the
privileges of birth were made to yield to service and
seniority. All Frenchmen were henceforth equal, as 'citoyens':
and their new privileges were wildly celebrated by the
planting of trees of liberty. The monarchy was still
recognised, but it stood alone, in the midst of revolution."
Sir T. E. May,
Democracy in Europe,
chapter 13 (volume 2).
"The monarchy was continued and liberally endowed; but it was
shorn of most of its ancient prerogatives, and reduced to a
very feeble Executive; and while it obtained a perilous veto
on the resolutions and acts of the Legislature, it was
separated from that power, and placed in opposition to it, by
the exclusion of the Ministers of the Crown from seats and
votes in the National Assembly. The Legislature was composed
of a Legislative Assembly, formed of a single Chamber alone,
in theory supreme, and almost absolute; but, as we have seen,
it was liable to come in conflict with the Crown, and it had
less authority than might be supposed, for it was elected by a
vote not truly popular, and subordinate powers were allowed to
possess a very large part of the rights of Sovereignty which
it ought to have divided with the King. This last portion of
the scheme was very striking, and was the one, too, that most
caused alarm among distant political observers. Too great
centralization having been one of the chief complaints against
the ancient Monarchy, this evil was met with a radical reform.
... The towns received extraordinary powers; their
municipalities had complete control over the National Guards
to be elected in them, and possessed many other functions of
Government; and Paris, by these means, became almost a
separate Commonwealth, independent of the State, and directing
a vast military force. The same system was applied to the
country; every Department was formed into petty divisions,
each with its National Guards, and a considerable share of
what is usually the power of the government. ... Burke's
saying was strictly correct, 'that France was split into
thousands of Republics, with Paris predominating and queen of
all.' With respect to other institutions of the State, the
appointment of nearly all civil functionaries, judicial and
otherwise, was taken from the Crown, and abandoned to a like
popular election; and the same principle was also applied to
the great and venerable institution of the Church, already
deprived of its vast estates, though the election of bishops
and priests by their flocks interfered directly with Roman
Catholic discipline, and probably, too, with religious dogma.
... Notwithstanding the opposition of Necker, who, though
hardly a statesman, understood finance, it was resolved to
sell the lands of the Church to procure funds for the
necessities of the State; and the deficit, which was
increasing rapidly, was met by an inconvertible currency of
paper, secured on the lands to be sold. This expedient ... was
carried out with injudicious recklessness. The Assignats, as
the new notes were called, seemed a mine of inexhaustible
wealth, and they were issued in quantities which, from the
first moment, disturbed the relations of life and commerce,
though they created a show of brisk trade for a time. In
matters of taxation the Assembly, too, exceeded the bounds of
reason and justice; exemptions previously enjoyed by the rich
were now indirectly extended to the poor; wealthy owners of
land were too heavily burdened, while the populace of the
towns went scot free. ... Very large sums, also, belonging to
the State, were advanced to the Commune of Paris, now rising
into formidable power. ... The funds so obtained were lavishly
squandered in giving relief to the poor of the capital in the
most improvident ways--in buying bread dear and reselling it
cheap, and in finding fanciful employment for artizans out of
work. The result, of course, was to attract to Paris many
thousands of the lowest class of rabble, and to add them to
the scum of the city. ... On the first anniversary [July 14,
1790] of the fall of the Bastille, and before the Constitution
had been finished ... a great national holiday [called the Feast
of the Federation] was kept; and, amidst multitudes of
applauding spectators, deputations from every Department in
France, headed by the authorities of the thronging capital,
defiled in procession to the broad space known as the Field of
Mars, along the banks of the Seine. An immense amphitheatre
had been constructed [converting the plain into a valley, by
the labor of many thousands, in a single week], and decorated
with extraordinary pomp; and here, in the presence of a
splendid Court, of the National Assembly, and of the
municipalities of the realm, and in the sight of a great
assemblage surging to and fro with throbbing excitement, the
King took an oath that he would faithfully respect the order
of things that was being established, while incense streamed
from high-raised altars, and the ranks of 70,000 National
Guards burst into loud cheers and triumphant music; and even
the Queen, sharing in the passion of the hour, and radiant
with beauty, lifted up in her arms the young child who was to
be the future chief of a disenthralled and regenerate people.
...
{1269}
The following week was gay with those brilliant displays which
Paris knows how to arrange so well; flowery arches covered the
site of the Bastille, fountains ran wine, and the night blazed
with fire; and the far-extending influence of France was
attested by enthusiastic deputations of 'friends of liberty'
from many parts of Europe, hailing the dawn of an era of
freedom and peace. The work, however, of the National Assembly
developed some of its effects ere long. The abolition of
titles of honor filled up the measure of the anger of the
Nobles; the confiscation of the property of the Church, above
all, the law as to the election of priests, known as the Civil
Constitution of the Clergy, shocked all religious or
superstitious minds. ... The emigration of the Nobles, which
had become very general from the 5th and 6th of October, went
on in daily augmenting numbers; and, in a short time, the
frontiers were edged with bands of exiles breathing vengeance
and hatred. In many districts the priests denounced as
sacrilege, what had been done to the Church, divided the
peasantry, and preached a crusade against what they called the
atheist towns; and angry mutinies broke out in the Army, which
left behind savage and relentless feelings. The relations
between the King and the Assembly, too, became strained, if
not hostile, at every turn of affairs, to the detriment of
anything like good government; and while Louis sunk into a
mere puppet, the Assembly, controlled in a great measure by
demagogues and the pampered mobs of Paris, felt authority
gradually slipping from it." To all the many destructive and
revolutionary influences at work was now added "the pitiful
conduct of those best known by the still dishonorable name of
'Émigrés.' In a few months the great majority of the
aristocracy of France had fled the kingdom, abandoned the
throne around which they had stood, breathing maledictions
against a contemptuous Nation, as arrogant as ever in the
impotence of want, and thinking only of a counter-revolution
that would cover the natal soil with blood. ... Their utter
want of patriotism and of sound feeling made thousands believe
that the state of society which had bred such creatures ought
to be swept away."
W. O'C. Morris,
The French Revolution and First Empire,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
H. Van Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 1, chapter 5, and book 2, chapters 3-5.
M'me de Stael,
Considerations on the French Revolution,
part 2, chapters 12-19 (volume l).
E. Burke,
Reflections on the Revolution in France.
A. F. Bertrand de Moleville,
Annals of the French Revolution,
part 1, chapters 22-35 (volumes 2-3).
Duchess de Tourzell,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 3-11.
W. H. Jervis,
The Gallican Church and the Revolution.,
chapters 1-4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1790.
The rise of the Clubs.
Jacobins, Cordeliers, Feuillants, Club Monarchique, and Club
of '89.
"Every party sought to gain the people; it was courted as
sovereign. After attempting to influence it by religion,
another means was employed, that of the clubs. At that period,
clubs were private assemblies, in which the measures of
government, the business of the state, and the decrees of the
assembly, were discussed; their deliberations had no
authority, but they exercised a certain influence. The first
club owed its origin to the Breton deputies, who already met
together at Versailles to consider the course of proceeding
they should take. When the national representatives were
transferred from Versailles to Paris, the Breton deputies and
those of the assembly who were of their views held their
sittings in the old convent of the Jacobins, which
subsequently gave its name to their meetings. It did not at
first cease to be a preparatory assembly, but as all things
increase in time, the Jacobin Club did not confine itself to
influencing the assembly; it sought also to influence the
municipality and the people, and received as associates
members of the municipality and common citizens. Its
organization became more regular, its action more powerful;
its sittings were regularly reported in the papers; it created
branch clubs in the provinces, and raised by the side of legal
power another power which first counselled and then conducted
it. The Jacobin Club, as it lost its primitive character and
became a popular assembly, had been forsaken by part of its
founders. The latter established another society on the plan
of the old one, under the name of the Club of '89. Siéyes,
Chapelier, Lafayette, La Rochefoucauld, directed it, as Lameth
and Barnave directed that of the Jacobins. Mirabeau belonged
to both, and by both was equally courted. These clubs, of
which the one prevailed in the assembly, and the other amongst
the people, were attached to the new order of things, though
in different degrees. The aristocracy sought to attack the
revolution with its own arms; it opened royalist clubs to
oppose the popular clubs. That first established, under the
name of the Club des Impartiaux, could not last because it
addressed itself to no class opinion. Reappearing under the
name of the Club Monarchique, it included among its members
all those whose views it represented. It sought to render
itself popular with the lower classes, and distributed bread;
but, far from accepting its overtures, the people considered
such establishments as a counter-revolutionary movement. It
disturbed their sittings, and obliged them several times to
change their place of meeting. At length, the municipal
authority found itself obliged, in January, 1791, to close
this club, which had been the cause of several riots."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 3.
"At the end of 1790 the number of Jacobin Clubs was 200, many
of which--like the one in Marseilles--contained more than a
thousand members. Their organization extended through the
whole kingdom, and every impulse given at the centre in Paris
was felt at the extremities. ... It was far indeed from
embracing the majority of adult Frenchmen, but even at that
time it had undoubtedly become--by means of its strict
unity--the greatest power in the kingdom."
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 1, chapter 5 (volume 1).
"This Jacobin Club soon divided itself into three other clubs:
first, that party which looked upon the Jacobins as lukewarm
patriots left it, and constituted themselves into the Club of
the Cordeliers, where Danton's voice of thunder made the halls
ring; and Camille Desmoulins' light, glancing wit played with
momentous subjects. The other party, which looked upon the
Jacobins as too fierce, constituted itself into the 'Club of
1789; friends of the monarchic constitution;' and afterwards
named Feuillant's Club, because it met in the Feuillant
Convent. Lafayette was their chief; supported by the
'respectable' patriots. These clubs generated many others, and
the provinces imitated them."
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapter 10.
{1270}
"The Cordeliers were a Parisian club; the Jacobins an immense
association extending throughout France. But Paris would stir
and rise at the fury of the Cordeliers; and Paris being once
in motion, the political revolutionists were absolutely
obliged to follow. Individuality was very powerful among the
Cordeliers. Their journalists, Marat, Desmoulins, Fréron,
Robert, Hébert and Fabre d'Églantine, wrote each for himself.
Danton, the omnipotent orator, would never write; but, by way
of compensation, Marat and Desmoulins, who stammered or
lisped, used principally to write, and seldom spoke. ... The
Cordeliers formed a sort of tribe, all living in the
neighbourhood of the club."
J. Michelet,
Historical View of the French Revolution,
book 4, chapters 7 and 5.
ALSO IN:
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 2, book 1, chapter 5.
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 4 (volume 2).
FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791.
Revolution at Avignon.
Reunion of the old Papal province with France decreed.
"The old residence of the Popes [Avignon] remained until the
year 1789 under the papal government, which, from its
distance, exercised its authority with great mildness, and
left the towns and villages of the country in the enjoyment of
a great degree of independence. The general condition of the
population was, however, much the same as in the neighbouring
districts of France--agitation in the towns and misery in the
country. It is not surprising, therefore, that the commotion
of August 4th should extend itself among the subjects of the
Holy see. Here, too, castles were burned, black mail levied on
the monasteries, tithes and feudal rights abolished. The city
of Avignon soon became the centre of a political agitation,
whose first object was to throw off the papal yoke, and then
to unite the country with France. ... In June, 1790, the
people of Avignon tore down the papal arms, and the Town
Council sent a message to Paris, that Avignon wished to be
united to France." Some French regiments were sent to the city
to maintain order; but "the greater part of them deserted, and
marched out with the Democrats of the town to take and sack
the little town of Cavaillon, which remained faithful to the
Pope. From this time forward civil war raged without
intermission. ... The Constituent Assembly, on the 14th of
September, 1791, decreed the reunion of the country with
France. Before the new government could assert its authority,
fresh and more dreadful atrocities had taken place," ending
with the fiendish massacre of 110 prisoners, held by a band of
ruffians who had taken possession of the papal castle.
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 3, chapter 2 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791.
The oath of the clergy.
First movements toward the European coalition
against French democracy.
Death of Mirabeau.
The King's flight and arrest at Varennes.
Rise of a Republican Party.
"By a decree of November 27th, 1790, the Assembly required the
clergy to take an oath of fidelity to the nation, the law and
the king, and to maintain the constitution. This oath they
were to take within a week, on pain of deprivation. The King,
before assenting to this measure, wished to procure the
consent of the Pope, but was persuaded not to wait for it, and
gave his sanction, December 3rd. ... Of 300 prelates and
priests, who had seats in the Assembly, those who sat on the
right unanimously refused to take the oath, while those who
sat on the left anticipated the day appointed for that
purpose. Out of 138 archbishops and bishops, only four
consented to swear, Talleyrand, Loménie de Brienne (now
Archbishop of Sens), the Bishop of Orleans, and the Bishop of
Viviers. The oath was also refused by the great majority of
the curés and vicars, amounting, it is said, to 50,000. Hence
arose the distinction of 'prêtres sermentés' and
'insermentés,' or sworn and non-juring priests. The brief of
Pius VI., forbidding the oath, was burnt at the Palais Royal,
as well as a mannikin representing the Pope himself in his
pontificals. Many of the deprived ecclesiastics refused to
vacate their functions, declared their successors intruders
and the sacraments they administered null, and excommunicated
all who recognised and obeyed them. Louis XVI., whose
religious feelings were very strong, was perhaps more hurt by
these attacks upon the Church than even by those directed
against his own prerogative. The death of Mirabeau, April 2nd
1791, was a great loss to the King, though it may well be
doubted whether his exertions could have saved the monarchy.
He fell a victim to his profligate habits, assisted probably
by the violent exertions he had recently made in the Assembly.
... He was honoured with a sumptuous funeral at the public
expense, to which, says a contemporary historian, nothing but
grief was wanting. In fact, to most of the members of the
Assembly, eclipsed by his splendid talents and overawed by his
reckless audacity, his death was a relief. ... After
Mirabeau's death, Duport, Barnave, and Lameth reigned supreme
in the Assembly, and Robespierre became more prominent. The
King had now begun to fix his hopes on foreign intervention.
The injuries inflicted by the decrees of the Assembly on
August 4th 1789, on several princes of the Empire, through
their possessions in Alsace, Franche Comté, and Lorraine,
might afford a pretext for a rupture between the German
Confederation and France. ... The German prelates, injured by
the Civil Constitution of the clergy, were among the first to
complain. By this act the Elector of Mentz was deprived of his
metropolitan rights over the bishoprics of Strasburg and
Spires; the Elector of Trèves of those over Metz, Toul,
Verdun, Nanci and St. Diez. The Bishops of Strasburg and Bale
lost their diocesan rights in Alsace. Some of these princes
and nobles had called upon the Emperor and the German body in
January 1790, for protection against the arbitrary acts of the
National Assembly. This appeal had been favourably
entertained, both by the Emperor Joseph II. and by the King of
Prussia; and though the Assembly offered suitable indemnities,
they were haughtily refused. ... The Spanish and Italian
Bourbons were naturally inclined to support their relative,
Louis XVI. ... The King of Sardinia, connected by
intermarriages with the French Bourbons, had also family
interests to maintain. Catherine II. of Russia had witnessed,
with humiliation and alarm, the fruits of the philosophy which
she had patronised, and was opposed to the new order of things
in France. ...
{1271}
All the materials existed for an extensive coalition against
French democracy. In this posture of affairs the Count
d'Artois, accompanied by Calonne, who served him as a sort of
minister, and by the Count de Durfort, who had been despatched
from the French Court, had a conference with the Emperor, now
Leopold II., at Mantua, in May 1791, in which it was agreed
that, towards the following July, Austria should march 35,000
men towards the frontiers of Flanders; the German Circles
15,000 towards Alsace; the Swiss 15,000 towards the Lyonnais;
the King of Sardinia 15,000 towards Dauphiné; while Spain was
to hold 20,000 in readiness in Catalonia. This agreement, for
there was not, as some writers have supposed, any formal
treaty, was drawn up by Calonne, and amended with the
Emperor's own hand. But the large force to be thus assembled
was intended only as a threatening demonstration, and
hostilities were not to be actually commenced without the
sanction of a congress. ... The King's situation had now
become intolerably irksome. He was, to all intents and
purposes, a prisoner at Paris. A trip, which he wished to make
to St. Cloud during the Easter of 1791, was denounced at the
Jacobin Club as a pretext for flight; and when he attempted to
leave the Tuileries, April 18th, the tocsin was rung, his
carriage was surrounded by the mob, and he was compelled to
return to the palace. ... A few days after ... the leaders of
the Revolution, who appear to have suspected his negociations
abroad, exacted that he should address a circular to his
ambassadors at foreign courts, in which he entirely approved
the Revolution, assumed the title of 'Restorer of French
liberty,' and utterly repudiated the notion that he was not
free and master of his actions." But the King immediately
nullified the circular by despatching secret agents with
letters "in which he notified that any sanction he might give
to the decrees of the Assembly was to be reputed null; that
his pretended approval of the constitution was to be
interpreted in an opposite sense, and that the more strongly
he should seem to adhere to it, the more he should desire to
be liberated from the captivity in which he was held. Louis
soon after resolved on his unfortunate flight to the army of
the Marquis de Bouillé at Montmédy. ... Having, after some
hair-breadth escapes, succeeded in quitting Paris in a
travelling berlin, June 20th, they [the King, Queen, and
family] reached St. Menehould in safety. But here the King was
recognised by Drouet, the son of the postmaster, who, mounting
his horse, pursued the royal fugitives to Varennes, raised an
alarm, and caused them to be captured when they already
thought themselves out of danger. In consequence of their
being rather later than was expected, the military
preparations that had been made for their protection entirely
failed. The news of the King's flight filled Paris with
consternation. The Assembly assumed all the executive power of
the Government, and when the news of the King's arrest
arrived, they despatched Barnave, Latour, Maubourg and Pétion
to conduct him and his family back to Paris. ... Notices had
been posted up in Paris, that those who applauded the King
should be horsewhipped, and that those who insulted him should
be hanged; hence he was received on entering the capital with
a dead silence. The streets, however, were traversed without
accident to the Tuileries, but as the royal party were
alighting, a rush was made upon them by some ruffians, and
they were with difficulty saved from injury. The King's
brother, the count of Provence, who had fled at the same time
by a different route, escaped safely to Brussels. This time
the King's intention to fly could not be denied; he had,
indeed, himself proclaimed it, by sending to the Assembly a
manifest, in which he explained his reasons for it, declared
that he did not intend to quit the kingdom, expressed his
desire to restore liberty and establish a constitution, but
annulled all that he had done during the last two years. ...
The King, after his return, was provisionally suspended from
his functions by a decree of the Assembly, June 25th. Guards
were placed over him and the Queen; the gardens of the
Tuileries assumed the appearance of a camp; sentinels were
stationed on the roof of the Palace, and even in the Queen's
bedchamber. ... From the period of the King's flight to
Varennes must be dated the first decided appearance of a
republican party in France. During his absence the Assembly
had been virtually sovereign, and hence men took occasion to
say, 'You see the public peace has been maintained, affairs
have gone on, in the usual way in the King's absence.' The
chief advocates of a republic were Brissot, Condorcet, and the
recently-established club of the Cordeliers. ... The
arch-democrat, Thomas Payne, who was now at Paris, also
endeavoured to excite the populace against the King. The
Jacobin Club had not yet gone this length; they were for
bringing Louis XVI. to trial and deposing him, but for
maintaining the monarchy."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapters 2-3 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
J. Michelet,
Historical View of the French Revolution,
book 4, chapters 8-14.
M'me Campan,
Memoirs of Marie Antoinette,
volume 2, chapters 5-7.
Marquis de Bouillé,
Memoirs,
chapters 8-11.
Duchess de Tourzel,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapter 12.
A. B. Cochrane,
Francis I., and other Historical Studies,
volume 2 (The Flight of Varennes).
FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (July-September).
Attitude of Foreign Powers.
Coolness of Austria towards the Émigrés.
The Declaration of Pilnitz.
Completion of the Constitution.
Restoration of the King.
Tumult in the Champs de Mars.
Dissolution of the Constituent National Assembly.
"On the 27th of July, Prince Reuss presented a memorial [from
the Court of Austria] to the Court of Berlin, in which the
Emperor explained at length his views of a European Concert.
It was drawn up, throughout, in Leopold's usual cautious and
circumspect manner. ... In case an armed intervention should
appear necessary--they would take into consideration the
future constitution of France; but in doing so they were to
renounce, in honour of the great cause in which they were
engaged, all views of selfish aggrandizement. We see what a
small part the desire for war played in the drawing up of this
far-seeing plan. The document repeatedly urged that no step
ought to be taken without the concurrence of all the Powers,
and especially of England; and as England's decided aversion
to every kind of interference was well known, this stipulation
alone was sufficient to stamp upon the whole scheme, the
character of a harmless demonstration."
{1272}
At the same time Catharine II. of Russia, released from war
with the Turks, and bent upon the destruction of Poland,
desired "to implicate the Emperor as inextricably as possible
in the French quarrel, in order to deprive Poland of its most
powerful protector; she therefore entered with the greatest
zeal into the negociations for the support of Louis XVI. Her
old opponent, the brilliant King Gustavus of Sweden, declared
his readiness--on receipt of a large subsidy from Russia--to
conduct a Swedish army by sea to the coast of Flanders, and
thence, under the guidance of Bouillé, against Paris. ... But,
of course, every word he uttered was only an additional
warning to Leopold to keep the peace. ... Under these
circumstances he [the Emperor] was most disagreeably surprised
on the 20th of August, a few days before his departure for
Pillnitz, by the sudden and entirely unannounced and
unexpected arrival in Vienna of the Count d'Artois. It was not
possible to refuse to see him, but Leopold made no secret to
him of the real position of affairs. ... He asked permission
to accompany the Emperor to Pillnitz, which the latter, with
cool politeness, said that he had no scruple in granting, but
that even there no change of policy would take place. ...
Filled with such sentiments, the Emperor Leopold set out for
the conference with his new ally; and the King of Prussia came
to meet him with entirely accordant views. ... The
representations of d'Artois, therefore, made just as little
impression at Pillnitz, as they had done, a week before, at
Vienna. ... On the 27th, d'Artois received the joint answer of
the two Sovereigns, the tone and purport of which clearly
testified to the sentiments of its authors. ... The Emperor
and King gave their sanction to the peaceable residence of
individual Émigrés in their States, but declared that no armed
preparations would be allowed before the conclusion of an
agreement between the European Powers. To this rejection the
two Monarchs added a proposal of their own--contained in a
joint declaration--in which they spoke of the restoration of
order and monarchy in France as a question of the greatest
importance to the whole of Europe. They signified their
intention of inviting the coöperation of all the European
Powers. ... But as it was well ascertained that England would
take no part, the expressions they chose were really
equivalent to a declaration of non-intervention, and were
evidently made use of by Leopold solely to intimidate the
Parisian democrats. ... Thus ended the conference of Pillnitz,
after the two Monarchs had agreed to protect the constitution
of the Empire, to encourage the Elector of Saxony to accept
the crown of Poland, and to afford each other friendly aid in
every quarter. The statement, therefore, which has been a
thousand times repeated, that the first coalition for an
attack on the French Revolution was formed on this occasion,
has been shown to be utterly without foundation. As soon as
the faintest gleam of a reconciliation between Louis and the
National Assembly appeared, the cause of the Emigrés was
abandoned by the German Courts."
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 2, chapter 6. (volume l).
At Paris, meantime, "the commissioners charged to make their
report on the affair of Varennes presented it on the 16th of
July. In the journey, they said, there was nothing culpable;
and even if there were, the King was inviolable. Dethronement
could not result from it, since the King had not staid away
long enough, and had not resisted the summons of the
legislative body. Robespierre, Buzot, and Pétion repeated all
the well known arguments against the inviolability. Duport,
Barnave, and Salles answered them, and it was at length
resolved that the King could not be brought to trial on
account of his flight. ... No sooner was this resolution
passed than Robespierre rose, and protested strongly against
it, in the name of humanity. On the evening preceding this
decision, a great tumult had taken place at the Jacobins. A
petition to the Assembly was there drawn up, praying it to
declare that the King was deposed as a perfidious traitor to
his oaths, and that it would seek to supply his place by all
the constitutional means. It was resolved that this petition
should be carried on the following day to the Champ de Mars,
where everyone might sign it on the altar of the country. Next
day, it was accordingly carried to the place agreed upon, and
the crowd of the seditious was reinforced by that of the
curious, who wished to be spectators of the event. At this
moment the decree was passed, so that it was now too late to
petition. Lafayette arrived, broke down the barricades already
erected, was threatened and even fired at, but ... at length
prevailed on the populace to retire. ... But the tumult was
soon renewed. Two invalids, who happened to be, nobody knows
for what purpose, under the altar of the country, were
murdered, and then the uproar became unbounded. The Assembly
sent for the municipality, and charged it to preserve public
order. Bailly repaired to the Champ de Mars, ordered the red
flag to be unfurled, and, by virtue of martial law, summoned
the seditious to retire. ... Lafayette at first ordered a few
shots to be fired in the air: the crowd quitted the altar of
the country, but soon rallied. Thus driven to extremity, he
gave the word, 'Fire!' The first discharge killed some of the
rioters. Their number has been exaggerated. Some have reduced
it to 30, others have raised it to 400, and others to several
thousand. The last statement was believed at the moment, and
the consternation became general. ... Lafayette and Bailly
were vehemently reproached for the proceedings in the Champ de
Mars; but both of them, considering it their duty to observe
the law, and to risk popularity and life in its execution,
felt neither regret nor fear for what they had done. The
factions were overawed by the energy which they displayed. ...
About this time the Assembly came to a determination which has
since been censured, but the result of which did not prove so
mischievous as it has been supposed. It decreed that none of
its members should be re-elected. Robespierre was the proposer
of this resolution, and it was attributed to the envy which he
felt against his colleagues, among whom he had not shone. ...
The new Assembly was thus deprived of men whose enthusiasm was
somewhat abated, and whose legislative science was matured by
an experience of three years. ... The constitution was ...
completed with some haste, and submitted to the King for his
acceptance. From that moment his freedom was restored to him;
or, if that expression be objected to, the strict watch kept
over the palace ceased. ... After a certain number of days he
declared that he accepted the constitution. ... He repaired to
the Assembly, where he was received as in the most brilliant
times. Lafayette, who never forgot to repair the inevitable
evils of political troubles, proposed a general amnesty for
all acts connected with the Revolution, which was proclaimed
amidst shouts of joy, and the prisons were instantly thrown
open. At length, on the 30th of September [1791], Thouret, the
last president, declared that the Constituent Assembly had
terminated its sittings."
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 1, pages 186-193.
ALSO IN:
M'me de Stael,
Considerations on the French Revolution,
part 2, chapters 22-23, and part 3, chapters 1-2.
H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 1., and appendix 1.
{1273}
FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (August).
Insurrection of slaves in San Domingo.
See HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803.
FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (September).
Removal of all disabilities from the Jews.
See JEWS: A. D. 1791.
FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (October).
The meeting of the Legislative Assembly.
Its party divisions.
The Girondists and their leaders.
The Mountain.
"The most glorious destiny was predicted for the Constitution,
yet it did not live a twelve month; the Assembly that was to
apply it was but a transition between the Constitutional
Monarchy and the Republic. It was because the Revolution
partook much more of a social than of a political overthrow.
The Constitution had done all it could for the political part,
but the social fabric remained to be reformed; the ancient
privileged classes had been scotched, but not killed. ... The
new Legislative Assembly [which met October 1, its members
having been elected before the dissolution of the Constituent
Assembly] was composed of 745 deputies, mostly chosen from the
middle classes and devoted to the Revolution; those of the
Right and Extreme Right going by the name of Feuillants, those
of the Left and Extreme Left by the name of Jacobins. The
Right was composed of Constitutionalists, who counted on the
support of the National Guard and departmental authorities.
Their ideas of the Revolution were embodied in the
Constitution. ... They kept up some relations with the Court
by means of Barnave and the Lameths, but their pillar outside
the Assembly, their trusty counsellor, seems to have been
Lafayette. ... The Left was composed of men resolved at all
risks to further the Revolution, even at the expense of the
Constitution. They intended to go as far as a Republic, only
they lacked common unity of views, and did not form a compact
body. ... They reckoned among their numbers Vergniaud, Guadet,
and Gensonné, deputies of the Gironde [the Bordeaux region, on
the Garonne], powerful and vehement orators, and from whom
their party afterwards took the name of 'Girondins'; also
Brissot [de Warville] (born 1754), a talented journalist, who
had drawn up the petition for the King's deposition; and
Condorcet (born 1743), an ultra-liberal, but a brilliant
philosopher. Their leader outside the Assembly was Pétion
(born 1753), a cold, calculating, and dissembling Republican,
enjoying great popularity with the masses. The Extreme Left,
occupying in small numbers the raised seats in the Assembly,
from which circumstance they afterwards took the name of 'the
Mountain,' were auxiliaries of the 'Girondins' in their
attempts to further a Revolution which should be entirely in
the interest of the people. Their inspirers outside the
Assembly were Robespierre (born 1759), who controlled the club
of the Jacobins by his dogmatic rigorism and fame for
integrity; and Danton (born 1759), surnamed the Mirabeau of
the 'Breechless' (Sansculottes), a bold and daring spirit, who
swayed the new club of the Cordeliers. The Centre was composed
of nonentities, their moderation was inspired by fear, hence
they nearly always voted with the Left."
H. Van Laun,
The French Revolutionary Epoch,
book 1, chapter 2, section 3 (volume 1).
"The department of the Gironde had given birth to a new
political party in the twelve citizens who formed its
deputies. ... The names (obscure and unknown up to this
period), of Ducos, Guadet, Lafond-Ladebat, Grangeneuve,
Gensonné, Vergniaud, were about to rise into notice and renown
with the storms and disasters of their country; they were the
men who were destined to give that impulse to the Revolution
that had hitherto remained in doubt and indecision, before
which it still trembled with apprehension, and which was to
precipitate it into a republic. Why was this impulse fated to
have birth in the department of the Gironde and not in Paris?
Nought but conjectures can be offered on this subject. ...
Bordeaux was a commercial city, and commerce, which requires
liberty through interest, at last desires it through a love of
freedom. Bordeaux was the great commercial link between
America and France, and their constant intercourse with
America had communicated to the Gironde their love for free
institutions. Moreover Bordeaux ... was the birthplace of
Montaigne and Montesquieu, those two great republicans of the
French school."
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
book 4, section 1 (volume 1).
"In the new National Assembly there was only one powerful and
active party--that of the Gironde. ... When we use the term
'parties' in reference to this Assembly, nothing more is meant
by it than small groups of from 12 to 20 persons, who bore the
sway in the rostra and in the Committees, and who alternately
carried with them the aimless crowd of Deputies. It is true,
indeed, that at the commencement of their session, 130
Deputies entered their names among the Jacobins, and about 200
among the Feuillants, but this had no lasting influence on the
divisions, and the majority wavered under the influence of
temporary motives. The party which was regarded as the 'Right'
had no opportunity for action, but saw themselves, from the
very first, obliged to assume an attitude of defence. ...
Outside the Chamber the beau ideal of this party,--General
Lafayette,--declared himself in favour of an American Senate,
but without any of the energy of real conviction. As he had
defended the Monarchy solely from a sense of duty, while all
the feelings of his heart were inclined towards a Republic, so
now, though he acknowledged the necessity of an upper Chamber,
the existing Constitution appeared to him to possess a more
ideal beauty. He never attained, on this point, either to
clear ideas or decided actions; and it was at this period that
he resigned his command of the National guard in Paris, and
retired for a while to his estate in Auvergne. ... The
Girondist Deputies ... were distinguished among the new
members of the Assembly by personal dignity, regular
education, and natural ability; and were, moreover, as ardent
in their radicalism as any Parisian demagogue. They
consequently soon became the darlings of all those zealous
patriots for whom the Cordeliers were too dirty and the
Feuillants too luke warm.
{1274}
External advantages are not without their weight, even in the
most terrible political crises, and the Girondists owe to the
magic of their eloquence, and especially to that of Vergniaud,
an enduring fame, which neither their principles nor their
deeds would have earned for them. ... The representatives of
Bordeaux had never occupied a leading position in the
Girondist party, to which they had given its name. The real
leadership of the Gironde fell singularly enough into the
hands of an obscure writer, a political lady, and a priest who
carried on his operations behind the scenes. It was their
hands that overthrew the throne of the Capets, and spread
revolution over Europe. ... The writer in this trio was
Brissot, who on the 16th of July had wished to proclaim the
Republic, and who now represented the capital in the National
Assembly, as a constitutional member. ... While Brissot shaped
the foreign policy of the Girondist party, its home affairs
were directed by Marie Jeanne Roland, wife of the quondam
Inspector of Factories at Lyons, with whom she had come the
year before to Paris, and immediately thrown herself into the
whirlpool of political life. As early as the year 1789, she
had written to a friend, that the National Assembly must
demand two illustrious heads, or all would be lost. ... She
was ... 36 years old, not beautiful, but interesting,
enthusiastic and indefatigable; with noble aims, but incapable
of discerning the narrow line which separates right from
wrong. ... When warned by a friend of the unruly nature of the
Parisian mob, she replied, that bloodhounds were after all
indispensable for starting the game. ... A less conspicuous,
but not less important, part in this association, was played
by the Abbé Sieyès. He did what neither Brissot nor Mad.
Roland could have done by furnishing his party with a
comprehensive and prospective plan of operations. ... Their
only clearly defined objects were to possess themselves of the
reins of government, to carry on the Revolution, and to
destroy the Monarchy by every weapon within their reach."
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 4, (volume 2).
See, also, below.
FRANCE: A. D. 1791-1792.
Growth and spread of anarchy and civil war.
Activity of the Emigrés and the ejected priests.
Decrees against them vetoed by the King.
The Girondists in control of the government.
War with the German powers forced on by them.
"It was an ominous proof of the little confidence felt by
serious men in the permanence of the new Constitution, that
the funds fell when the King signed it. All the chief
municipal posts in Paris were passing into the hands of
Republicans, and when Bailly, in November, ceased to be Mayor
of Paris, he was succeeded in that great office by Pétion, a
vehement and intolerant Jacobin. Lafayette had resigned the
command of the National Guard, which was then divided under
six commanders, and it could no longer be counted on to
support the cause of order. Over a great part of France there
was a total insecurity of life and property, such as had
perhaps never before existed in a civilised country, except in
times of foreign invasion or successful rebellion. Almost all
the towns in the south--Marseilles, Toulon, Nîmes, Arles,
Avignon, Montpellier, Carpentras, Aix, Montauban--were centres
of Republicanism, brigandage, or anarchy. The massacres of
Jourdain at Avignon, in October, are conspicuous even among
the horrors of the Revolution. Caen in the following month was
convulsed by a savage and bloody civil war. The civil
constitution of the clergy having been condemned by the Pope,
produced an open schism, and crowds of ejected priests were
exciting the religious fanaticism of the peasantry. In some
districts in the south, the war between Catholic and
Protestant was raging as fiercely as in the 17th century,
while in Brittany, and especially in La Vendée, there were all
the signs of a great popular insurrection against the new
Government. Society seemed almost in dissolution, and there
was scarcely a department in which law was observed and
property secure. The price of corn, at the same time, was
rising fast under the influence of a bad harvest in the south,
aggravated by the want of specie, the depreciation of paper
money, and the enormously increased difficulties of transport.
The peasantry were combining to refuse the paper money. It was
falling rapidly in value. ... In the mean time the stream of
emigrants continued unabated, and it included the great body
of the officers of the army who had been driven from the
regiments by their own soldiers. ... At Brussels, Worms, and
Coblentz, emigrants were forming armed organisations."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th century,
chapter 21 (volume 5).
"The revolution was threatened by two dangerous enemies, the
emigrants, who were urging on a foreign invasion, and the
non-juring bishops and priests who were doing all in their
power to excite domestic rebellion. The latter were really the
more dangerous. ... The Girondists clamoured for repressive
measures. On the 30th of October it was decreed that the count
of Provence, unless he returned within two months, should
forfeit all rights to the regency. On the 9th of November an
edict threatened the emigrants with confiscation and death
unless they returned to their allegiance before the end of the
year. On the 29th of November came the attack upon the
non-jurors. They were called upon to take the oath within
eight days, when lists were to be drawn up of those who
refused; these were then to forfeit their pensions, and if any
disturbance took place in their district they were to be
removed from it, or if their complicity were proved they were
to be imprisoned for two years. The king accepted the decree
against his brother, but he opposed his veto to the other two.
The Girondists and Jacobins eagerly seized the opportunity for
a new attack upon the monarchy. ... Throughout the winter
attention was devoted almost exclusively to foreign affairs.
It has been seen that the emperor was really eager for peace,
and that as long as he remained in that mood there was little
risk of any other prince taking the initiative. At the same
time it must be acknowledged that Leopold's tone towards the
French government was often too haughty and menacing to be
conciliatory, and also that the open preparations of the
emigrants in neighbouring states constituted an insult if not
a danger to France. The Girondists, the most susceptible of
men, only expressed the national sentiment in dwelling upon
this with bitterness, and in calling for vengeance. At the
same time they had conceived the definite idea that their own
supremacy could best be obtained and secured by forcing on a
foreign war.
{1275}
This was expressly avowed by Brissot, who took the lead of the
party in this matter. Robespierre, on the other hand, partly
through temperament and partly through jealousy of his
brilliant rivals, was inclined to the maintenance of peace.
But on this point the Feuillants were agreed with the Gironde,
and so a vast majority was formed to force the unwilling king
and ministers into war. The first great step was taken when
Duportail, who had charge of military affairs, was replaced by
Narbonne, a Feuillant. Louis XVI. was compelled to issue a
note (14 December, 1791) to the emperor and to the archbishop
of Trier to the effect that if the military force of the
emigrants were not disbanded by the 15th of January
hostilities would be commenced against the elector. The latter
at once ordered the cessation of the military preparations,
but the emigrants not only refused to obey but actually
insulted the French envoy. Leopold expressed his desire for
peace, but at the same time declared that any attack on the
electorate of Trier would be regarded as an act of hostility
to the empire. These answers were unsatisfactory, and Narbonne
collected three armies on the frontiers, under the command of
Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Luckner, and amounting together to
about 150,000 men. On the 25th of January an explicit
declaration was demanded from the emperor, with a threat that
war would be declared unless a satisfactory answer was
received by the 4th of March. Leopold II. saw all his hopes of
maintaining peace in western Europe gradually disappearing,
and was compelled to bestir himself. ... On the 7th of
February he finally concluded a treaty with the king of
Prussia. ... On the 1st of March, while still hoping to avoid
a quarrel, Leopold II. died of a sudden illness, and with him
perished the last possibility of peace. His son and successor,
Francis II., who was now 24, had neither his father's ability
nor his experience, and he was naturally more easily swayed by
the anti-revolutionary spirit. ... The Girondists combined all
their efforts for an attack upon the minister of foreign
affairs, Delessart, whom they accused of truckling to the
enemies of the nation. Delessart was committed to prison, and
his colleagues at once resigned. The Gironde now came into
office. The ministry of home affairs was given to Roland; of
war to Servan; of finance to Clavière. Dumouriez obtained the
foreign department, Duranthon that of justice, and Lacoste the
marine. Its enemies called it 'the ministry of the
Sansculottes.' ... On the 20th of April [1792] Louis XVI.
appeared in the assembly and read with trembling voice a
declaration of war against the king of Hungary and Bohemia."
R. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 22, section 20-21.
The sincere desire of the Emperor Leopold II. to avoid war
with France, and the restraining influence over the King of
Prussia which he exercised up to the time when Catherine II.
of Russia overcame it by the Polish temptation, are set forth
by H. von Sybel in passages quoted elsewhere.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1791-1792.
ALSO IN:
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
books 6-14 (volume l).
A. F. Bertrand de Moleville,
Annals of the French Revolution,
part 2. chapters 1-14 (volume 5-6).
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the Eighteenth Century,
5th period, 2d division, chapter 1 (volume 6).
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (April).
Fête to the Soldiers of Chateauvieux.
See LIBERTY CAP.
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (April-July).
Opening of the war with Austria and Prussia.
French reverses.
"Hostilities followed close upon the declaration of war. At
this time the forces destined to come into collision were
posted as follows: Austria had 40,000 men in Belgium, and
25,000 on the Rhine. These numbers might easily have been
increased to 80,000, but the Emperor of Austria did no more
than collect 7,000 or 8,000 around Brisgau, and some 20,000
more around Rastadt. The Prussians, now bound into a close
alliance with Austria, had still a great distance to traverse
from their base to the theatre of war, and could not hope to
undertake active operations for a long time to come. France,
on the other hand, had already three strong armies in the
field. The Army of the North, under General Rochambeau, nearly
50,000 strong, held the frontier from Philippeville to
Dunkirk; General Lafayette commanded a second army of about
the same strength in observation from Philippeville to the
Lauter; and a third army of 40,000 men, under Marshal Luckner,
watched the course of the Rhine from Lauterbourg to the
confines of Switzerland. The French forces were strong,
however, on paper only. The French army had been mined, as it
seemed, by the Revolution, and had fallen almost to pieces.
The wholesale emigration of the aristocrats had robbed it of
its commissioned officers, the old experienced leaders whom
the men were accustomed to follow and obey. Again, the passion
for political discussion, and the new notions of universal
equality had fostered a dangerous spirit of license in the
ranks. ... While the regular regiments of the old
establishment were thus demoralised, the new levies were still
but imperfectly organised, and the whole army was unfit to
take the field. It was badly equipped, without transport, and
without those useful administrative services which are
indispensable for mobility and efficiency. Moreover, the
prestige of the French arms was at its lowest ebb. A long and
enervating peace had followed since the last great war, in
which the French armies had endured only failure and
ignominious defeat. It is not strange, then, that the foes
whom France had so confidently challenged, counted upon an
easy triumph over the revolutionary troops. The earliest
operations fully confirmed these anticipations. ... France
after the declaration of war had at once assumed the
initiative, and proceeded to invade Belgium. Here the Duke
Albert of Saxe-Teschen, who commanded the Imperialist forces,
held his forces concentrated in three principal corps: one
covered the line from the sea to Tournay; the second was at
Leuze; the third and weakest at Mons. The total of these
troops rose to barely 40,000, and Mons, the most important
point in the general line of defence, was the least strongly
held. All able strategist gathering together 30,000 men from
each of the French armies of the Centre and North, would have
struck at Mons with all his strength, cut Duke Albert's
communications with the Rhine, turned his inner flank, and
rolled him up into the sea. But no great genius as yet
directed the military energies of France. ... By Dumouriez's
advice, the French armies were ordered to advance against the
Austrians by several lines. Four columns of invasion were to
enter Belgium; one was to follow the sea coast, the second to
march on Tournay, the third to move from Valenciennes on Mons,
and the fourth, under Lafayette, on Givet or Namur.
{1276}
Each, according to the success it might achieve, was to
reinforce the next nearest to it, and all, finally, were to
converge on Brussels. At the very outset, however, the French
encountered the most ludicrous reverses. Their columns fled in
disorder directly they came within sight of the enemy.
Lafayette alone continued his march boldly towards Namur; but
he was soon compelled to retire by the news of the hasty
flight of the columns north of him. The French troops had
proved as worthless as their leaders were incapable; whole
brigades turned tail, crying that they were betrayed, casting
away their weapons as they ran, and displaying the most abject
cowardice and terror. Not strangely, after this pitiful
exhibition, the Austrians--all Europe, indeed--held the
military power of France in the utmost contempt. ... But now
the national danger stirred France to its inmost depths.
French spirit was thoroughly roused. The country rose as one
man, determined to offer a steadfast, stubborn front to its
foes. Stout-hearted leaders, full of boundless energy and
enthusiasm, summoned all the resources of the nation to stem
and roll back the tide of invasion. Immediate steps were taken
to put the defeated and disgraced armies of the frontier upon
a new footing. Lafayette replaced Rochambeau, with charge from
Longwy to the sea, his main body about Sedan; Luckner took the
line from the Moselle to the Swiss mountains, with
head-quarters at Metz. A third general, destined to come
speedily to the front, also joined the army as Lafayette's
lieutenant. This was Dumouriez, who, wearied and baffled by
Parisian politics, sought the freedom of the field."
A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapter 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (June-August).
The King's dismissal of Girondist ministers.
Mob demonstration of June 20.
Lafayette in Paris.
His failure.
The Country declared to be in Danger.
Gathering of volunteers in Paris.
Brunswick's manifesto.
Mob attack on the Tuileries, August 10.
Massacre of the Swiss.
"Servan, the minister of war, proposed the formation of an
armed camp for the protection of Paris. Much opposition was,
however, raised to the project, and the Assembly decreed (June
6) that 20,000 volunteers, recruited in the departments,
should meet at Paris to take part in the celebration of a
federal festival on July 14, the third anniversary of the fall
of the Bastille. The real object of those who supported the
decree was to have a force at Paris with which to maintain
mastery over the city should the Allies penetrate into the
interior. Louis left the decree unsanctioned, as he had the
one directed against nonjurors. The agitators of the sections
sought to get up an armed demonstration against this exercise
of the King's constitutional prerogative. Though armed
demonstrations were illegal, the municipality offered but a
perfunctory and half-hearted resistance. ... Louis, irritated
at the pressure put on him by Roland, Clavière, and Servan, to
sanction the two decrees, dismissed the three ministers from
office (June 13). Dumouriez, who had quarreled with his
colleagues, supported the King in taking this step, but in
face of the hostility of the Assembly himself resigned office
(June 15). Three days later a letter from Lafayette was read
in the Assembly. The general denounced the Jacobins as the
authors of all disorders, called on the Assembly to maintain
the prerogatives of the crown, and intimated that his army
would not submit to see the constitution violated (June 18).
Possibly the dismissal of the ministers and the writing of
this letter were measures concerted between the King and
Lafayette. In any case the King's motive was to excite
division between the constitutionalists and the Girondists, so
as to weaken the national defence. The dismissal of the ministers
was, however, regarded by the Girondists as a proof of the
truth of their worst suspicions, and no measures were taken to
prevent an execution of the project of making an armed, and
therefore illegal, demonstration against the royal policy. On
June 20, thousands of persons, carrying pikes or whatever
weapon came to hand, and accompanied by several battalions of
the national guard, marched from St. Antoine to the hall of
the Assembly. A deputation read an address demanding the
recall of the ministers. Afterwards the whole of the
procession, men, women and children, dancing, singing, and
carrying emblems, defiled through the chamber. Instigated by
their leaders they broke into the Tuileries. The King, who
took his stand on a window seat, was mobbed for four hours. To
please his unwelcome visitors, he put on his head a red cap,
such as was now commonly worn at the Jacobins as an emblem of
liberty, in imitation of that which was once worn by the
emancipated Roman slave. He declared his intention to observe
the constitution, but neither insult nor menace could prevail
on him to promise his sanction to the two decrees. The Queen,
separated from the King, sat behind a table on which she
placed the Dauphin, exposed to the gaze and taunts of the
crowds which slowly traversed the palace apartments. At last,
but not before night, the mob left the Tuileries without doing
further harm, and order was again restored. This insurrection
and the slackness, if not connivance, of the municipal
authorities, excited a widespread feeling of indignation
amongst constitutionalists. Lafayette came to Paris, and at
the bar of the Assembly demanded in person what he had before
demanded by letter (June 28). With him, as with other former
members of the constituent Assembly, it was a point of honour
to shield the persons of the King and Queen from harm. Various
projects for their removal from Paris were formed, but policy
and sentiment alike forbade Marie Antoinette to take advantage
of them. ... The one gleam of light on the horizon of this
unhappy Queen was the advance of the Allies. 'Better die,' she
one day bitterly exclaimed, 'than be saved by Lafayette and
the constitutionalists.' There was, no doubt, a possibility of
the Allies reaching Paris that summer, but this enormously
increased the danger of the internal situation. ... To rouse
the nation to a sense of peril the Assembly [July 11] caused
public proclamation to be made in every municipality that the
country was in danger. The appeal was responded to with
enthusiasm, and within six weeks more than 60,000 volunteers
enlisted. The Duke of Brunswick, the commander-in-chief of the
allied forces, published a manifesto, drawn up by the
emigrants. If the authors of this astounding proclamation had
deliberately intended to serve the purpose of those Frenchmen
who were bent on kindling zeal for the war, they could not
have done anything more likely to serve their purpose.
{1277}
The powers required the country to submit unconditionally to
Louis's mercy. All who offered resistance were to be treated
as rebels to their King, and Paris was to suffer military
execution if any harm befell the royal family. ... Meanwhile,
a second insurrection, which had for its object the King's
deposition, was in preparation. The Assembly, after declaring
the country in danger, had authorised the sections of Paris,
as well as the administrative authorities throughout France,
to meet at any moment. The sections had, in consequence, been
able to render themselves entirely independent of the
municipality. In each of the sectional or primary assemblies
from 700 to 3,000 active citizens had the right to vote, but
few cared to attend, and thus it constantly happened that a
small active minority spoke and acted in the name of an
apathetic constitutional majority. Thousands of volunteers
passed through Paris on their way to the frontier, some of
whom were purposely retained to take part in the insurrection.
The municipality of Marseilles, at the request of Barbaroux, a
young friend of the Rolands, sent up a band of 500 men, who
first sung in Paris the verses celebrated as the
'Marseillaise' [see MARSEILLAISE]. The danger was the greater
since every section had its own cannon and a special body of
cannoneers, who nearly to a man were on the side of the
revolutionists. The terrified and oscillating Assembly made no
attempt to suppress agitation, but acquitted (August 8)
Lafayette, by 406 against 280 votes, of a charge of treason
made against him by the left, on the ground that he had sought
to intimidate the Legislature. This vote was regarded as
tantamount to a refusal to pass sentence of deposition on
Louis. On the following night the insurrection began. Its
centre was in the Faubourg of St. Antoine, and it was
organised by but a small number of men. Mandat, the
commander-in-chief of the national guard, was an energetic
constitutionalist, who had taken well-concerted measures for
the defence of the Tuileries. But the unscrupulousness of the
conspirators was more than a match for his zeal. Soon after
midnight commissioners from 28 sections met together at the
Hotel de Ville, and forced the Council-General of the
Municipality to summon Mandat before it, and to send out
orders to the officers of the guard in contradiction to those
previously given. Mandat, unaware of what was passing, obeyed
the summons, and on his arrival was arrested and murdered.
After this the commissioners dispersed the lawful council and
usurped its place. At the Tuileries were about 950 Swiss and
more than 4,000 national guards. Early in the morning the
first bands of insurgents appeared. On the fidelity of the
national guards it was impossible to rely; and the royal
family, attended by a small escort, left the palace, and
sought refuge with the Assembly [which held its sessions in
the old Riding-School of the Tuileries, not far from the
palace, at one side of the gardens]. Before their departure
orders had been given to the Swiss to repel force by force,
and soon the sound of firing spread alarm through Paris. The
King sent the Swiss instructions to retire, which they
punctually obeyed. One column, passing through the Tuileries
gardens, was shot down almost to a man. The rest reached the
Assembly in safety, but several were afterwards massacred on
their way to prison. For 24 hours the most frightful anarchy
prevailed. Numerous murders were committed in the streets. The
assailants, some hundreds of whom had perished, sacked the
palace, and killed all the men whom they found there."
B. M. Gardiner,
The French Revolution,
chapter 5.
"Terror and fury ruled the hour. The Swiss, pressed on from
without, paralysed from within, have ceased to shoot; but not
to be shot. What shall they do? Desperate is the moment.
Shelter or instant death: yet How, Where? One party flies out
by the Rue de l'Echelle; is destroyed utterly, 'en entier.' A
second, by the other side, throws itself into the Garden;
'hurrying across a keen fusillade'; rushes suppliant into the
National Assembly; finds pity and refuge in the back benches
there. The third, and largest, darts out in column, 300
strong, towards the Champs Elysées: 'Ah, could we but reach
Courbevoye, where other Swiss are!' Wo! see, in such fusillade
the column 'soon breaks itself by diversity of opinion,' into
distracted segments, this way and that;--to escape in holes,
to die fighting from street to street. The firing and
murdering will not cease: not yet for long. The red Porters of
Hotels are shot at, be they 'Suisse' by nature, or Suisse only
in name. The very Firemen, who pump and labour on that smoking
Carrousel [which the mob had fired]; are shot at; why should
the Carrousel not burn? Some Swiss take refuge in private
houses; find that mercy too does still dwell in the heart of
man. The brave Marseillese are merciful, late so wroth; and
labour to save. ... But the most are butchered, and even
mangled. Fifty (some say Fourscore) were marched as prisoners,
by National Guards, to the Hôtel-de-Ville: the ferocious
people bursts through on them, in the Place-de-Greve;
massacres them to the last man. 'O Peuple, envy of the
universe!' Peuple, in mad Gaelic effervescence! Surely few
things in the history of carnage are painfuler. What
ineffaceable red streak, flickering so sad in the memory, is
that, of this poor column of red Swiss, 'breaking itself in
the confusion of opinions'; dispersing, into blackness and
death! Honour to you, brave men; honourable pity, through long
times! Not martyrs were ye; and yet almost more. He was no
King of yours, this Louis; and he forsook you like a King of
shreds and patches: ye were but sold to him for some poor
sixpence a-day; yet would ye work for your wages, keep your
plighted word: The work now was to die; and ye did it. Honour
to you, O Kinsmen; and may the old Deutsch 'Biederkeit' and'
Tapferkeit,' and Valour which is Worth and Truth, be they
Swiss, be they Saxon, fail in no age!"
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 2, book 6, chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 1, pages 266-330.
Madame Campan,
Memoirs of Marie Antoinette,
volume 2, chapters 9-10.
J. Claretie,
Camille Desmoulins and his Wife,
chapter 3, sections 4-5.
A. F. Bertrand de Moleville,
Annals of the French Revolution,
part 2, chapters 18-28 (volumes 6-7).
Duchess de Tourzel,
Memoirs,
volume 2, chapters 8-10.
Count M. Dumas,
Memoirs,
chapter 4 (volume 1).
{1278}
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August).
Power seized by the insurrectionary Commune of Paris.
Dethronement and imprisonment of the King.
Conflict between the Girondins of the Assembly and the
Jacobins of the Commune.
Alarm at the advance of the Prussians.
The searching of the city for suspects.
Arrest of 3,000.
"While the Swiss were being murdered, the Legislative Assembly
were informed that a deputation wished to enter. At the head
of this deputation appeared Huguenin, who announced that a new
municipality for Paris had been formed, and that the old one
had resigned. This was, indeed, the fact. On the departure of
Santerre the commissioners of the sections had given orders to
the legitimate council-general of the municipality to resign,
and the council-general, startled by the events which were
passing, consented. The commissioners then called themselves
the new municipality, and proceeded, as municipal officers, to
send a deputation to the Assembly. The deputation almost
ordered that the Assembly should immediately declare the
king's dethronement, and, in the presence of the unfortunate
monarch himself, Vergniaud mounted the tribune, and proposed,
on behalf of the Committee of Twenty-one, that the French
people should be invited to elect a National Convention to
draw up a new Constitution, and that the chief of the
executive power, as he called the king, should be
provisionally suspended from his functions until the new
Convention had pronounced what measures should be adopted to
establish a new government and the reign of liberty and
equality. The motion was carried, and was countersigned by one
of the king's ministers, De Joly; and thus the old monarchy of
the Bourbons in France came to an end. But the Assembly had
not yet completed its work. The ministry was dismissed, as not
having the confidence of the people, and the Minister of War,
d'Abancourt, was ordered to be tried by the court at Orleans
for treason, in having brought the Swiss Guards to Paris. The
Assembly then prepared to elect new ministers. Roland,
Clavière, and Servan were recalled by acclamation to their
former posts. ... Danton was elected Minister of Justice by
222 votes against 60; Gaspard Monge, the great mathematician,
was elected Minister of Marine, on the nomination of
Condorcet; and Lebrun-Tondu, a friend of Brissot and
Dumouriez, and a former abbé, to the department of Foreign
Affairs. At the bidding of the self-elected municipality of
Paris the king had been suspended, and a new ministry
inaugurated, and this new municipality, which, it must be
remembered, only represented 28 sections of Paris, next
proceeded to send its decrees all over France. It was joined
on this very day by some of the extreme men who hoped through
its means to force a republic on France--notably by Camille
Desmoulins and Dubois-Dubais; and on the 11th it was still
further reinforced by the presence of Robespierre,
Billaud-Varenne, and Marat. The Legislative Assembly had
become a mere instrument in the hands of the Committee of
Twenty-one [a committee specially charged with watchfulness
over the safety of the public, and which foreshadowed the
later famous Committee of Public Safety]. The majority of the
deputies either left Paris, or, if they belonged to the right,
hid themselves, while those of the left had to obey every
order of their leaders, and left the transaction of temporary
business to the Committee of Twenty-one. This committee
practically ruled France for forty days, until the meeting of
the Convention; the Assembly always accepted its propositions
and sent the deputies it nominated on important missions; its
only rival was the insurrectionary commune, and the
internecine warfare between the Jacobins and the Girondins was
foreshadowed in the struggle between this Commune and the
Committee of Twenty-one. For, while the extreme Jacobins
filled the new Commune of Paris, the Committee of Twenty-one
consisted of Girondins and Feuillants, Brissot was its
president, Vergniaud its reporter, and Gensonné, Condorcet,
Lasource, Guadet, Lacépède, Lacuèe, Pastoret, Muraire, Delmas,
and Guyton-Morveau were amongst its members. On the evening of
August 10 the Assembly decreed that the difference between
active and passive citizens should be abolished, and that
every Frenchman of the age of 25 should have a vote for the
Convention. ... The last sight the king might have seen on the
night of August 10 was his palace of the Tuileries in flames,
where, for mischief, fire had been set to the stables. It
spread from building to building, and the Assembly only took
steps to check it when it threatened to spread to the houses
of the Rue Saint Honoré. ... On the day after this terrible
night the king was informed that rooms had been found for him
in the Convent of the Feuillants; and to four monastic cells,
which had not been inhabited since the dissolution of the
monastery two years before, the royal family was led, and
round them was placed a strong guard. Yet they were no more
prisoners in the Convent of the Feuillants than they had been
in the splendid palace of the Tuileries. ... The king's
nominal authority was annihilated; but though the course of
events left him a prisoner, it cannot be said that his
influence was diminished, for he had none left to diminish. It
was to the Girondins, rather than to the king, that the
results of August 10 brought unpleasant surprises. ... The
real power had gone to the Commune of Paris, and this was very
clearly perceived by Robespierre and by Marat. ... Though
Marat was received with the loudest cheers by the
insurrectionary commune, Robespierre was the man who really
became its leader. He had long expected the shock which had
just taken place, and had prepared himself for the crisis. The
first requisition was, of course, for a Convention. This had
been granted on the very first day. The second demand of the
Commune was the safe custody of the king, so that he should
not be able to escape to the army. This was conceded by the
Assembly on August 12, when they ordered that the king and
royal family should be taken to the old tower of the Temple,
and there strictly guarded under the superintendence of the
insurrectionary commune. Lafayette's sudden flight greatly
strengthened the position of the Commune of Paris. ...
Relieved from the fear of Lafayette's turning against them,
both the Girondins in the Legislative Assembly and the
Jacobins in the insurrectionary commune turned to the pursuit
of their own special plans, and naturally soon came into
violent collision. ... The Girondins were, above all things,
men of ideas; the Jacobins, above all things, practical men:
and of the issue of a struggle between them there could be
little doubt, though, at this period the Girondins had the
advantage of the best position. On August 15 the final blow
was struck at the unfortunate Feuillants, or
Constitutionalists. The last ministers of the king, as well
Duport du Tertre, Bertrand de Moleville, and Duportail, were
all ordered to be arrested, with Barnave and Charles de
Lameth. The Assembly followed up this action by establishing
the special tribunal of August 17, which held its first
sitting on the same evening at the Hotel de Ville.
{1279}
Robespierre was elected president, and refused the office. ...
The new tribunal was too slow to satisfy the leaders of the
Commune of Paris, for its first prisoner, Laporte, the old
intendant of the civil list, was not judged until August 21,
and then acquitted. This news made the Commune lose all
patience, and they determined to urge the Assembly to more
energetic measures. Under the pressure of the Commune the
Assembly took vigorous measures indeed. All the leaders of the
émigrés were sequestrated; all ecclesiastics who would not
take the oath were to be transported to French Guiana, and it
was decreed that the National Guard should enlist every man,
whether an active or a passive citizen. Much of this vigour on
the part of the Assembly was due, not only to the pressure of
the Commune, but to the rapid advance of the Prussians. ...
The Assembly ... decreed that an army of 30,000 men should be
raised in Paris, and that every man who had a musket issued to
him should be punished with death if he did not march at once.
... On August 28, on the motion of Danton, now Minister of
Justice, a general search for arms and suspects was ordered.
The gates of the city were closed on August 30; every street
was ordered to be illuminated; bodies of national guards
entered each house and searched it from top to bottom. Barely
1,000 muskets were seized, but more than 8,000 prisoners were
taken and shut up, not only in the prisons, but in all the
largest convents of Paris, which were turned into houses of
detention. Who should be arrested as a suspect depended
entirely on the municipal officer who happened to examine the
house, and these men acted under the orders of a special
committee established by the Commune, at the head of which sat
Marat. ... The residents in Paris at the time of the
Revolution seem to have been more struck by this
house-to-house visitation than by many other events which were
far more horrible."
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 2, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
Grace D. Elliot,
Journal of My Life during the French Revolution,
chapter 4.
Gouverneur Morris,
Life and Correspondence.,
edited by Sparks, volume 2, pages 203-217.
G. Long,
France and its Revolutions,
chapter 29.
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August).
Lafayette's unsuccessful resistance to the Jacobins.
His withdrawal from France.
"The news of the 10th of August was carried to Lafayette by
one of his own officers who happened to be in Paris on
business. He learned that the throne was overturned and the
Assembly in subjection, but he could not believe that the
cause of the constitutional monarchy was abandoned without a
struggle. He announced to the army the events that had taken
place, and conjured the men to remain true to the king and
constitution. The commissioners despatched by the Commune of
Paris to announce to the different armies the change of
government and to exact oaths of fidelity to it soon arrived
at Sedan within Lafayette's command. The general had them
brought before the municipality of Sedan and interrogated
regarding their mission. Convinced, from their own account,
that they were the agents of a faction which had unlawfully
seized upon power, he ordered their arrest and had them
imprisoned. Lafayette's moral influence in the army and the
country was still so great that the Jacobins knew that they
must either destroy him or win him over to their side. The
latter course was preferred. ... The imprisoned commissioners,
therefore, requested a private conference with Lafayette, and
offered him, on the part of their superiors in Paris, whatever
executive power he desired in the new government. It is
needless to say that Lafayette, whose sole aim was to
establish liberty in his country, refused to entertain the
idea of associating himself with the despotism of the mob. He
caused his own soldiers to renew their oath of fidelity to the
king, and communicated with Luckner on the situation. ...
Meanwhile, emissaries from the Commune were sent to Sedan to
influence the soldiers by bribes and threats to renounce their
loyalty to their commander. All the other armies and provinces
to which commissioners had been sent had received them and
taken the new oaths. Lafayette found himself alone in his
resistance. His attitude acquired, every day, more the
appearance of rebellion against authorities recognized by the
rest of France. New commissioners arrived, bringing with them
his dismissal from command. The army was wavering between
attachment to their general and obedience to government. On
the 19th of August, the Jacobins, seeing that they could not
win him over, caused the Assembly to declare him a traitor.
Lafayette had now to take an immediate resolution. France had
declared for the Paris Commune. The constitutional monarchy
was irretrievably destroyed. For the general to dispute with
his appointed successor the command of the army was to provoke
further disorders in a cause that had ceased to be that of the
nation and become only his own. Three possible courses
remained open to him,--to accept the Jacobin overtures and
become a part of their bloody despotism; to continue his
resistance and give his head to the guillotine; to leave the
country. He resolved to seek an asylum in a neutral territory
with the hope, as he himself somewhat naively expressed it,
'some day to be again of service to liberty and to France.'
Lafayette made every preparation for the safety of his troops,
placing them under the orders of Luckner until the arrival of
Dumouriez, the new general in command. He publicly
acknowledged responsibility for the arrest of the
commissioners and the defiance of Sedan to the Commune, in
order that the municipal officers who had supported him might
escape punishment. He included in his party his
staff-officers, whose association with him would have
subjected them to the fury of the Commune, and some others who
had also been declared traitors on account of obedience to his
orders. He then made his way to Bouillon, on the extreme
frontier. There, dismissing the escort, and sending back final
orders for the security of the army, he rode with his
companions into a foreign land."
B. Tuckerman,
Life of Lafayette,
volume 2, chapter 3.
{1280}
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August-September).
The September Massacres in the Paris prisons.
The house-to-house search for suspects was carried on during
the night of August 29 and the following day. "The next
morning, at daybreak, the Mairie, the sections, the ancient
prisons of Paris, and the convents that had been converted
into prisons, were crowded with prisoners. They were summarily
interrogated, and half of them, the victims of error or
precipitation, were set at liberty, or claimed by their
sections. The remainder were distributed in the prisons of the
Abbaye Saint Germain, the Conciergerie, the Châtelet, La
Force, the Luxembourg, and the ancient monasteries of the
Bernardins, Saint Firmin, and the Carmes; Bicêtre and the
Salpêtrière also opened their gates to receive fresh inmates.
The three days that followed this night were employed by the
commissaries in making a selection of the prisoners. Already
their death was projected. ... "We must purge the prisons, and
leave no traitors behind us when we hasten to the frontiers.'
Such was the cry put into the mouth of the people by Marat and
Danton. Such was the attitude of Danton on the brink of these
crimes. As for the part of Robespierre, it was the same as in
all these crises--on the debate concerning war, on the 20th of
June, and on the 10th of August. He did not act, he blamed;
but he left the event to itself, and when once accomplished he
accepted it as a progressive step of the Revolution. ... On
Sunday, the 2d of September, at three o'clock in the
afternoon, the signal for the massacre was given by one of
those accidents that seem so perfectly the effect of chance.
Five coaches, each containing six priests, started from the
Hôtel-de-Ville to the prison of the Abbaye ... escorted by
weak detachments of Avignonnais and Marseillais, armed with
pikes and sabers. ... Groups of men, women and children
insulted them as they passed, and their escort joined in the
invective threats and outrages of the populace. ... The
émeute, increasing in number at every step across the Rue
Dauphine, was met by another mob, that blocked up the
Carrefour Bussy, where municipal officers received enrolments
in the open air. The carriages stopped; and a man, forcing his
way through the escort, sprung on the step of the first
carriage, plunged his saber twice into the body of one of the
priests, and displayed it reeking with blood: the people
uttered a cry of horror. 'This frightens you, cowards!' said
the assassin, with a smile of disdain; 'You must accustom
yourselves to look on death.' With these [words] he again
plunged his saber into the carriage and continued to strike.
... The coaches slowly moved on, and the assassin, passing
from one to the other, and clinging with one hand to the door,
stabbed at random at all he could reach; while the assassins
of Avignon, who formed part of their escort, plunged their
bayonets into the interior; and the pikes, pointed against the
windows, prevented any of the priests from leaping into the
street. The long line of carriages moving slowly on, and
leaving a bloody trace behind them, the despairing cries and
gestures of the priests, the ferocious shouts of their
butchers, the yells of applause of the populace, announced
from a distance their arrival to the prisoners of the Abbaye.
The cortège stopped at the door of the prison, and the
soldiers of the escort dragged out by the feet eight dead
bodies. The priests who had escaped, or who were only wounded,
precipitated themselves into the prison; four of them were
seized and massacred on the threshold. ... The prisoners ...
cooped up in the Abbaye heard this prelude to murder at their
gates. ... The internal wickets were closed on them, and they
received orders to return to their chambers, as if to answer
the muster-roll. A fearful spectacle was visible in the outer
court: the last wicket opening into it had been transformed
into a tribunal; and around a large table--covered with
papers, writing materials, the registers of the prisons,
glasses, bottles, pistols, sabers, and pipes--were seated
twelve judges, whose gloomy features and athletic proportions
stamped them men of toil, debauch or blood. Their attire was
that of the laboring classes. ... Two or three of them
attracted attention by the whiteness of their hands and the
elegance of their shape; and that betrayed the presence of men
of intellect, purposely mingled with these men of action to
guide them. A man in a gray coat, a saber at his side, pen in
his hand, and whose inflexible features seemed as though they
were petrified, was seated at the center of the table, and
presided over the tribunal. This was the Huissier Maillard,
the idol of the mobs of the Faubourg Saint Marceau ... an
actor in the days of October, the 20th of June, and the 10th
of August. ... He had just returned from the Carmes, where he
had organized the massacre. It was not chance that had brought
him to the Abbaye at the precise moment of the arrival of the
prisoners, and with the prison registers in his hand. He had
received, the previous evening, the secret orders of Marat,
through the members of the Comité de Surveillance. Danton had
sent for the registers to the prison, and gone through them;
and Maillard was shown those he was to acquit and condemn. If
the prisoner was acquitted, Maillard said, 'Let this gentleman
be set at liberty'; if condemned, a voice said, 'A la Force.'
At these words the outer door opened, and the prisoner fell
dead as he crossed the threshold. The massacre commenced with
the Swiss, of whom there were 150 at the Abbaye, officers and
soldiers. ... They fell, one after another, like sheep in a
slaughter-house. The tumbrils were not sufficient to carry
away the corpses, and they were piled up on each side of the
court to make room for the rest to die: their commander, Major
Reding, was the last to fall. ... After the Swiss, the king's
guards, imprisoned in the Abbaye, were judged en masse. ...
Their massacre lasted a long time, for the people, excited by
what they had drank--brandy mingled with gun-powder-and
intoxicated by the sight of blood, prolonged their tortures.
... The whole night was scarcely enough to slay and strip
them."
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
book 25 (volume 2).
"To moral intoxication is added physical intoxication, wine in
profusion, bumpers at every pause, revelry over corpses. ...
They dance ... and sing the 'carmagnole'; they arouse the
people of the quarter 'to amuse them,' and that they may have
their share of 'the fine fête.' Benches are arranged for
'gentlemen' and others for 'ladies': the latter, with greater
curiosity, are additionally anxious to contemplate at their
ease 'the aristocrats' already slain; consequently, lights are
required, and one is placed on the breast of each corpse.
Meanwhile, slaughter continues, and is carried to perfection.
A butcher at the Abbaye complains that 'the aristocrats die
too quick, and that those only who strike first have the
pleasure of it'; henceforth they are to be struck with the
backs of the swords only, and made to run between two rows of
their butchers, like soldiers formerly running a gauntlet. ...
{1281}
All the unfettered instincts that live in the lowest depths of
the heart start from the human abyss at once, not alone the
heinous instincts with their fangs, but likewise the foulest
with their slaver, while both packs fall furiously on women
whose noble or infamous repute brings them before the world;
on Madame de Lamballe, the Queen's friend; on Madame Desrues,
widow of the famous prisoner; on the flower-girl of the
Palais-Royal, who, two years before, had mutilated her lover,
a French guardsman, in a fit of jealousy. Ferocity here is
associated with lubricity to add profanation to torture, while
life is attacked through attacks on modesty. In Madame de
Lamballe, killed too quickly, the libidinous butchers could
only outrage a corpse, but for the widow, and especially the
flower-girl, they imagine the same as a Nero the fire-circle
of the Iroquois. ... At La Force, Madame de Lamballe is cut to
pieces. I cannot transcribe what Charlot, the hair-dresser,
did with her head. I merely state that another wretch, in the
Rue Saint-Antoine, bore off her heart and 'ate it.' They kill
and they drink, and drink and kill again. ... As the prisons
are to be cleaned out, it is as well to clean them all out,
and do it at once. After the Swiss, priests, the aristocrats,
and the 'white-skin gentlemen,' there remain convicts and
those confined through the ordinary channels of justice,
robbers, assassins, and those sentenced to the galleys in the
Conciergerie, in the Châtelet, and in the Tour St. Bernard,
with branded women, vagabonds, old beggars and boys confined
in Bicêtre and the Salpétrière. They are good for nothing,
cost something to feed, and, probably, cherish evil designs.
... This time, as the job is more foul, the broom is wielded
by fouler hands. ... At the Salpétrière, 'all the bullies of
Paris, former spies, ... libertines, the rascals of France and
all Europe, prepare beforehand for the operation,' and rape
alternates with massacre. ... At Bicêtre, however, it is crude
butchery, the carnivorous instinct alone satisfying itself.
Among other prisoners are 43 youths of the lowest class, from
17 to 19 years of age, placed there for correction by their
parents, or by those to whom they are bound. ... These the
band falls on, beating them to death with clubs. ... There are
six days and five nights of uninterrupted butchery, 171
murders at the Abbaye, 169 at La Force, 223 at the Châtelet,
328 at the Conciergerie, 73 at the Tour-Saint-Bernard, 120 at
the Carmelites, 79 at Saint-Firmin, 170 at Bicêtre, 35 at the
Salpétrière; among the dead, 250 priests, 3 bishops or
archbishops, general officers, magistrates, one former
minister, one royal princess, belonging to the best names in
France, and, on the other side, one negro, several low class
women, young scape-graces, convicts, and poor old men. ...
Fournier, Lazowski, and Bécard, the chiefs of robbers and
assassins, return from Orleans with 1,500 cut-throats. On the
way they kill M. de Brissac, M. de Lessart, and 42 others
accused of 'lèse-nation,' whom they arrested from their
judges' hands, and then, by way of surplus, 'following the
example of Paris,' 21 prisoners taken from the Versailles
prisons. At Paris the Minister of Justice thanks them, the
Commune congratulates them, and the sections feast them and
embrace them. ... All the journals approve, palliate, or keep
silent; nobody dares offer resistance. Property as well as
lives belong to whoever wants to take them. ... Like a man
struck on the head with a mallet, Paris, felled to the ground,
lets things go; the authors of the massacre have fully
attained their ends. The faction has fast hold of power, and
will maintain its hold. Neither in the Legislative Assembly
nor in the Convention will the aims of the Girondists be
successful against its tenacious usurpation. ... The Jacobins,
through sudden terror, have maintained their illegal
authority; through a prolongation of terror they are going to
establish their legal authority. A forced suffrage is going to
put them in office at the Hotel-de-Ville, in the tribunals, in
the National Guard, in the sections, and in the various
administrations."
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 4, chapter 9 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution,
(American edition.), volume 1, pages 350-368.
Sergent Marceau,
Reminiscences of a Regicide,
chapter 9.
A. Dobson,
The Princess de Lamballe
("Four Frenchwomen," chapter 3).
The Reign of Terror: A collection of Authentic
Narratives, volume 2.
J. B. Cléry,
Journal of Occurrences at the Temple.
Despatches of Earl Gower,
pages 225-229.
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (September-November).
Meeting of the National Convention.
Abolition of royalty.
Proclamation of the Republic.
Adoption of the Era of the Republic.
Establishment of absolute equality.
The losing struggle of the Girondists with the Jacobins of the
Mountain.
"It was in the midst of these horrors [of the September
massacres] that the Legislative Assembly approached its
termination. ... The National Convention began [September 22]
under darker auspices. ... The great and inert mass of the
people were disposed, as in all commotions, to range
themselves on the victorious side. The sections of Paris,
under the influence of Robespierre and Marat, returned the
most revolutionary deputies; those of most other towns
followed their example. The Jacobins, with their affiliated
clubs, on this occasion exercised an overwhelming influence
over all France. ... At Paris, where the elections took place
on the 2d September, amidst all the excitement and horrors of
the massacres in the prisons, the violent leaders of the
municipality, who had organized the revolt of August 10th,
exercised an irresistible sway over the citizens. Robespierre
and Danton were the first named, amidst unanimous shouts of
applause; after them Camille Desmoulins, Tallien, Osselin,
Freron, Anacharsis Clootz, Fabre d'Eglantine, David, the
celebrated painter, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud Varennes,
Legendre, Panis, Sergent, almost all implicated in the
massacres in the prisons, were also chosen. To these was added
the Duke of Orleans, who had abdicated his titles, and was
called Philippe Égalité. ... The most conservative part of the
new Assembly were the Girondists who had overturned the
throne. From the first opening of the Convention, the
Girondists occupied the right, and the Jacobins the seats on
the summit of the left; whence their designation of 'The
Mountain' was derived. The former had the majority of votes,
the greater part of the departments having returned men of
comparatively moderate principles. But the latter possessed a
great advantage, in having on their side all the members of
the city of Paris, who ruled the mob, ... and in being
supported by the municipality, which had already grown into a
ruling power in the state, and had become the great centre of
the democratic party.
{1282}
A neutral body, composed of those members whose principles
were not yet declared, was called the Plain, or, Marais; it
ranged itself with the Girondists, until terror compelled its
members to coalesce with the victorious side. ... The two
rival parties mutually indulged in recriminations, in order to
influence the public mind. The Jacobins incessantly reproached
the Girondists with desiring to dissolve the Republic; to
establish three-and-twenty separate democratic states, held
together, like the American provinces, by a mere federal
union. ... Nothing more was requisite to render them in the
highest degree unpopular in Paris, the very existence of which
depended on its remaining, through all the phases of government,
the seat of the ruling power. The Girondists retorted upon
their adversaries charges better founded, but not so likely to
inflame the populace. They reproached them with endeavouring
to establish in the municipality of Paris a power superior to
the legislature of all France, with overawing the
deliberations of the Convention by menacing petitions, or the
open display of brute force; and secretly preparing for their
favourite leaders, Danton, Robespierre, and Marat, a
triumvirate of power, which would speedily extinguish all the
freedom which had been acquired. The first part of the
accusation was well-founded even then; of the last, time soon
afforded an ample confirmation. The Convention met at first in
one of the halls of the Tuileries, but immediately adjourned
to the Salle du Ménage, where its subsequent sittings were
held. Its first step was, on the motion of the Abbé Gregoire,
and amidst unanimous transports, to declare Royalty abolished
in France, and to proclaim a republic; and by another decree
it was ordered, that the old calendar taken from the year of
Christ's birth should be abandoned, and that all public acts
should be dated from the first year of the French republic.
This era began on the 22d September 1792. [See, also, below:
A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER).] ... A still more democratic
constitution than that framed by the Constituent and
Legislative Assemblies was at the same time established. All
the requisites for election to any office whatever were, on
the motion of the Duke of Orleans, abolished. It was no longer
necessary to select judges from legal men, nor magistrates
from the class of proprietors. All persons, in whatever rank,
were declared eligible to every situation; and the right of
voting in the primary assemblies was conferred on every man
above the age of 21 years. Absolute equality, in its literal
sense, was universally established. Universal suffrage was the
basis on which government rested." The leaders of the
Girondists soon opened attacks upon Robespierre and Marat,
accusing the former of aspiring to a dictatorship, and also
holding him responsible, with Marat and Danton, for the
September massacres; but Louvet and others who made the attack
were feebly supported by their party. Louvet "repeatedly
appealed to Pétion, Vergniaud, and the other leaders, to
support his statements; but they had not the firmness boldly
to state the truth. Had they testified a fourth part of what
they knew, the accusation must have been instantly voted, and
the tyrant crushed at once. As it was, Robespierre, fearful of
its effects, demanded eight days to prepare for his defence.
In the interval, the whole machinery of terror was put in
force. The Jacobins thundered out accusations against the
intrepid accuser, and all the leaders of the Mountain were
indefatigable in their efforts to strike fear into their
opponents. ... By degrees the impression cooled, fear resumed
its sway, and the accused mounted the tribune at the end of
the week with the air of a victor. ... It was now evident that
the Girondists were no match for their terrible adversaries.
The men of action on their side, Louvet, Barbaroux, and
Lanjuinais, in vain strove to rouse them to the necessity of
vigorous measures in contending with such enemies. Their
constant reply was, that they would not be the first to
commence the shedding of blood. Their whole vigour manifested
itself in declamation, their whole wisdom in abstract
discussion. They had now become humane in intention, and
moderate in counsel, though they were far from having been so
in the earlier stages of the Revolution. ... They were too
honourable to believe in the wickedness of their opponents,
too scrupulous to adopt the measures requisite to disarm, too
destitute of moral courage to be able to crush them. ... The
Jacobins ... while they were daily strengthening and
increasing the armed force of the sections at the command of
the municipality, ... strenuously resisted the slightest
approach towards the establishment of any guard or civic force
for the defence of the Convention. ... Aware of their weakness
from this cause, the Girondists brought forward a proposal for
an armed guard for the Convention. The populace was
immediately put in motion," and the overawed Convention
abandoned the measure. "In the midst of these vehement
passions, laws still more stringent and sanguinary were passed
against the priests and emigrants. ... First, it was decreed
that every Frenchman taken with arms in his hands against
France should be punished with death; and soon after, that
'the French emigrants are forever banished from the territory
of France, and those who return shall be punished with death.'
A third decree directed that all their property, movable and
immovable, should be confiscated to the service of the state.
These decrees were rigidly executed: and though almost
unnoticed amidst the bloody deeds which at the same period
stained the Revolution, ultimately produced the most lasting
and irremediable effects. At length the prostration of the
Assembly before the armed sections of Paris had become so
excessive, that Buzot and Barbaroux, the most intrepid of the
Girondists, brought forward two measures which, if they could
have been carried, would have emancipated the legislature from
this odious thraldom. Buzot proposed to establish a guard,
specially for the protection of the Convention, drawn from
young men chosen from the different departments. Barbaroux at
the same time brought forward four decrees. ... By the first,
the capital was to cease to be the seat of the legislature,
when it lost its claim to their presence by failing to protect
them from insult. By the second, the troops of the Fédérés and
the national cavalry were to be charged, along with the armed
sections, with the protection of the legislature. By the
third, the Convention was to constitute itself into a court of
justice, for the trial of all conspirators against its
authority. By the fourth, the Convention suspended the
municipality of Paris. ... The Jacobins skilfully availed
themselves of these impotent manifestations of distrust, to
give additional currency to the report that the Girondists
intended to transport the seat of government to the southern
provinces. This rumour rapidly gained ground with the
populace, and augmented their dislike at the ministry. ... All
these preliminary struggles were essays of strength by the two
parties, prior to the grand question which was now destined to
attract the eyes of Europe and the world. This was the trial
of Louis XVI."
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe,
chapter 8 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapter 16.
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
books 29-31.
C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
chapter 43 (volume 4).
J. Moore,
Journal in France, 1792,
volume 2.
{1283}
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (September-December).
The war on the northern frontier.
Battle of Valmy.
Retreat of the invading army.
Custine in Germany and Dumouriez in the Netherlands.
Annexation of Savoy and Nice.
The Decree of December 15.
Proclamation of a republican crusade.
"The defence of France rested on General Dumouriez. ...
Happily for France the slow advance of the Prussian general
permitted Dumouriez to occupy the difficult country of the
Argonnes, where, while waiting for his reinforcements, he was
able for some time to hold the invaders in check. At length
Brunswick made his way past the defile which Dumouriez had
chosen for his first line of defence; but it was only to find
the French posted in such strength on his flank that any
further advance would imperil his own army. If the advance was
to be continued, Dumouriez must be dislodged. Accordingly, on
the 20th of September, Brunswick, facing half-round from his
line of march, directed his artillery against the hills of
Valmy, where Kellermann and the French left were encamped. The
cannonade continued for some hours, but it was followed by no
general attack. Already, before a blow had been struck, the
German forces were wasting away with disease. ... The King of
Prussia began to listen to the proposals of peace which were
sent to him by Dumouriez. A week spent in negotiations served
only to strengthen the French and to aggravate the scarcity
and sickness within the German camp. Dissensions broke out
between the Prussian and Austrian commanders; a retreat was
ordered; and, to the astonishment of Europe, the veteran
forces of Brunswick fell back before the mutinous soldiery and
unknown generals of the Revolution. ... In the meantime the
Legislative Assembly had decreed its own dissolution ... and
had ordered the election of representatives to frame a
constitution for France. ... The Girondins, who had been the
party of extremes in the Legislative Assembly, were the party
of moderation and order in the Convention. ... Monarchy was
abolished, and France declared a Republic (September 21).
Office continued in the hands of the Gironde; but the
vehement, uncompromising spirit of their rivals, the so-called
party of the Mountain, quickly made itself felt in all the
relations of France to foreign powers. The intention of
conquest might still be as sincerely disavowed as it had been
five months before; but were the converts to liberty to be
denied the right of uniting themselves to the French people by
their own free will? ... The scruples which had lately
condemned all annexation of territory vanished in that orgy of
patriotism which followed the expulsion of the invader and the
discovery that the Revolution was already a power in other
lands than France. ... Along the entire frontier, from Dunkirk
to the Maritime Alps, France nowhere touched a strong united, and
independent people; and along this entire frontier, except in
the country opposite Alsace, the armed proselytism of the
French Revolution proved a greater force than the influences
on which the existing order of things depended. In the Low
Countries, in the Principalities of the Rhine, in Switzerland,
in Savoy, in Piedmont itself, the doctrines of the Revolution
were welcomed by a more or less numerous class, and the armies
of France appeared for a moment as the missionaries of liberty
and right rather than as an invading enemy. No sooner had
Brunswick been brought to a stand by Dumouriez at Valmy than a
French division under Custine crossed the Alsatian frontier
and advanced upon Spires, where Brunswick had left large
stores of war. The garrison was defeated in an encounter
outside the town; Spires and Worms surrendered to Custine. In
the neighbouring fortress of Mainz, the key to western
Germany, Custine's advance was watched with anxious
satisfaction by a republican party among the inhabitants, from
whom the French general learnt that he had only to appear
before the city to become its master. ... At the news of the
capture of Spires, the Archbishop retired into the interior of
Germany, leaving the administration to a board of
ecclesiastics and officials, who published a manifesto calling
upon their 'beloved brethren' the citizens to defend
themselves to the last extremity, and then followed their
master's example. A council of war declared the city to be
untenable; and, before Custine had brought up a single
siege-gun, the garrison capitulated, and the French were
welcomed into Mainz by the partisans of the Republic (October
20). ... Although the mass of the inhabitants held aloof, a
Republic was finally proclaimed, and incorporated with the
Republic of France. The success of Custine's raid into Germany
did not divert the Convention from the design of attacking
Austria in the Netherlands, which Dumouriez had from the first
pressed upon the Government. It was not three years since the
Netherlands had been in full revolt against the Emperor
Joseph. ... Thus the ground was everywhere prepared for a
French occupation. Dumouriez crossed the frontier. The border
fortresses no longer existed: and after a single battle won by
the French at Jemappes on the 6th November, the Austrians,
finding the population universally hostile, abandoned the
Netherlands without a struggle. The victory of Jemappes, the
first pitched battle won by the Republic, excited an outburst
of revolutionary fervour in the Convention which deeply
affected the relations of France to Great Britain, hitherto a
neutral spectator of the war. A decree was passed for the
publication of a manifesto in all languages, declaring that
the French nation offered its alliance to all peoples who
wished to recover their freedom, and charging the generals of
the Republic to give their protection to all persons who had
suffered or might suffer in the cause of liberty. (November
19.) A week later Savoy and Nice were annexed to France, the
population of Savoy having almost unanimously declared in
favour of France on the outbreak of war between France and
Sardinia.
{1284}
On the 15th December the Convention proclaimed that a system
of social and political revolution was henceforth to accompany
every movement of its armies on foreign soil. 'In every
country that shall be occupied by the armies of the French
Republic'--such was the substance of the Decree of December
15th--'the generals shall announce the abolition of all
existing authorities; of nobility, of serfage, of every feudal
right and every monopoly; they shall proclaim the sovereignty
of the people. ... The French nation will treat as enemies any
people which, refusing liberty and equality, desires to
preserve its prince and privileged castes, or to make any
accommodation with them.' This singular announcement of a new
crusade caused the Government of Great Britain to arm."
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 1.
E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
book 1, chapters 3-5 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A.D. 1792 (November-December).
Charges against the King.
Jacobin clamor for his condemnation.
The contest in Convention.
"There were, without a doubt, in this conjuncture, a great
number of Mountaineers who, on this occasion, acted with the
greatest sincerity, and only as republicans, in whose eyes
Louis XVI. appeared guilty with respect to the revolution; and
a dethroned king was dangerous to a young democracy. But this
party would have been more clement, had it not had to ruin the
Gironde at the same time with Louis XVI. ... Party motives and
popular animosities combined against this unfortunate prince.
Those who, two months before, would have repelled the idea of
exposing him to any other punishment than that of
dethronement, were stupefied; so quickly does man lose in
moments of crisis the right to defend his opinions! ... After
the 10th of August, there were found in the offices of the
civil list documents which proved the secret correspondence of
Louis XVI. with the discontented princes, with the emigration,
and with Europe. In a report, drawn up at the command of the
legislative assembly, he was accused of intending to betray
the state and overthrow the revolution. He was accused of
having written, on the 16th April, 1791, to the bishop of
Clermont, that if he regained his power he would restore the
former government, and the clergy to the state in which they
previously were; of having afterwards proposed war, merely to
hasten the approach of his deliverers; ... of having been on
terms with his brothers, whom his public measures had
discountenanced; and, lastly, of having constantly opposed the
revolution. Fresh documents were soon brought forward in
support of this accusation. In the Tuileries, behind a panel
in the wainscot, there was a hole wrought in the wall, and
closed by an iron door. This secret closet was pointed out by
the minister, Roland, and there were discovered proofs of all
the conspiracies and intrigues of the court against the
revolution; projects with the popular leaders to strengthen
the constitutional power of the king, to restore the ancient
regime and the aristocrats; the manœuvres of Talon, the
arrangements with Mirabeau, the propositions accepted by
Bouillé, under the constituent assembly, and some new plots
under the legislative assembly. This discovery increased the
exasperation against Louis XVI. Mirabeau's bust was broken by
the Jacobins, and the convention covered the one which stood
in the hall where it held its sittings. For some time there
had been a question in the assembly as to the trial of this
prince, who, having been dethroned, could no longer be
proceeded against. There was no tribunal empowered to
pronounce his sentence, no punishment which could be inflicted
on him: accordingly, they plunged into false interpretations
of the inviolability granted to Louis XVI., in order to
condemn him legally. ... The committee of legislation,
commissioned to draw up a report on the question as to whether
Louis XVI. could be tried, and whether he could be tried by
the convention, decided in the affirmative. ... The discussion
commenced on the 13th of November, six days after the report
of the committee. ... This violent party [the Mountain], who
wished to substitute a coup d'etat for a sentence, to follow
no law, no form, but to strike Louis XVI. like a conquered
prisoner, by making hostilities even survive victory, had but
a very feeble majority in the convention; but without, it was
strongly supported by the Jacobins and the commune.
Notwithstanding the terror which it already inspired, its
murderous suggestions were repelled by the convention; and the
partisans of inviolability, in their turn, courageously
asserted reasons of public interest at the same time as rules
of justice and humanity. They maintained that the same men
could not be judges and legislators, the jury and the
accusers. ... In a political view, they showed the
consequences of the king's condemnation, as it would affect
the anarchical party of the kingdom, rendering it still more
insolent; and with regard to Europe, whose still neutral
powers it would induce to join the coalition against the
republic. But Robespierre, who during this long debate
displayed a daring and perseverance that presaged his power,
appeared at the tribune to support Saint Just, to reproach the
convention with involving in doubt what the insurrection had
decided, and with restoring, by sympathy and the publicity of
a defence, the fallen royalist party. 'The assembly,' said
Robespierre, 'has involuntarily been led far away from the
real question. Here we have nothing to do with trial: Louis is
not an accused man; you are not judges, you are, and can only
be statesmen. You have no sentence to pronounce for or against
a man, but you are called on to adopt a measure of public
safety; to perform an act of national precaution. A dethroned
king is only fit for two purposes, to disturb the tranquillity
of the state, and shake its freedom, or to strengthen one or
the other of them. Louis was king; the republic is founded;
the famous question you are discussing is decided in these few
words. Louis cannot be tried; he is already tried, he is
condemned, or the republic is not absolved.' He required that
the convention should declare Louis XVI. a traitor towards the
French, criminal towards humanity, and sentence him at once to
death, by virtue of the insurrection. The Mountaineers, by
these extreme propositions, by the popularity they attained
without, rendered condemnation in a measure inevitable. By
gaining an extraordinary advance on the other parties, it
obliged them to follow it, though at a distance. The majority
of the convention, composed in a large part of Girondists, who
dared not pronounce Louis XVI. inviolable, and of the Plain,
decided, on Pétion's proposition, against the opinion of the
fanatical Mountaineers and against that of the partisans of
inviolability, that Louis XVI. should be tried by the
convention. Robert Lindet then made, in the name of the
commission of the twenty-one, his report respecting Louis XVI.
The arraignment, setting forth the offences imputed to him,
was drawn up, and the convention summoned the prisoner to its
bar."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapter 17.
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
books 32-33 (volume 2).
A. de Beauchesne,
Louis XVII.: His Life, his Suffering, his Death,
book 9.
{1285}
FRANCE: A. D. 1792-1793 (December-January).
The King's Trial and death sentence.
"On December 11, the ill-fated monarch, taken from his prison
to his former palace, appeared at the bar of his republican
judges, was received in silence and with covered heads, and
answered interrogatories addressed to him as 'Louis Capet,'
though with an air of deference. His passive constancy touched
many hearts. ... On the 26th the advocates of the King made an
eloquent defence for their discrowned client, and Louis added,
in a few simple words, that the 'blood of the 10th of August
should not be laid to his charge.' The debates in the Assembly
now began, and it soon became evident that the Jacobin faction
were making the question the means to further their objects,
and to hold up their opponents to popular hatred. They
clamored for immediate vengeance on the tyrant, declared that
the Republic could not be safe until the Court was smitten on
its head, and a great example had been given to Europe, and
denounced as reactionary and as concealed royalists all who
resisted the demands of patriotism. These ferocious invectives
were aided by the expedients so often employed with success,
and the capital and its mobs were arrayed to intimidate any
deputies who hesitated in the 'cause of the Nation.' The
Moderates, on the other hand, were divided in mind; a
majority, perhaps, condemning the King, but also wishing to
spare his life: and the Gironde leaders, halting between their
convictions, their feelings, their desires, and their fears,
shrank from a courageous and resolute course. The result was
such as usually follows when energy and will encounter
indecision. On January 14 [the 15th, according to Thiers and
others], 1793, the Convention declared Louis XVI. guilty, and
on the following day [the speaking and voting lasted through
the night of the 16th and the day after it] sentence of
immediate death was pronounced by a majority of one [but the
minority, in this view, included 26 votes that were cast for
death but in favor of a postponement of the penalty, on
grounds of political expediency], proposals for a respite and
an appeal to the people having been rejected at the critical
moment. The votes had been taken after a solemn call of the
deputies at a sitting protracted for days; and the spectacle
of the vast dim hall, of the shadowy figures of the awestruck
judges meting out the fate of their former Sovereign, and tier
upon tier of half-seen faces, looking, as in a theatre, on the
drama below, and breaking out into discordant clamor, made a
fearful impression on many eye-witnesses. One vote excited a
sensation of disgust even among the most ruthless chiefs of
the Mountain, though it was remarked that many of the
abandoned women who crowded the galleries shrieked
approbation. The Duke of Orleans, whose Jacobin professions
had caused him to be returned for Paris, with a voice in which
effrontery mingled with terror, pronounced for the immediate
execution of his kinsman. The minister of justice--Danton had
resigned--announced on the 20th the sentence to the King. The
captive received the message calmly, asked for three days to
get ready to die (a request, however, at once refused), and
prayed that he might see his family and have a confessor."
W. O'C. Morris,
The French Revolution, and First Empire,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 2, pages 44-72.
A. F. Bertrand de Moleville,
Private Memoirs, relative to the last year of Louis XVI.,
chapters 39-40.
J. B. Cléry,
Journal of Occurrences at the Temple.
FRANCE: A. D. 1792-1793 (December-February).
Determination to incorporate the Austrian Netherlands and to
attack Holland.
Pitt's unavailing struggle for peace.
England driven to arms.
War with the Maritime Powers declared by the French.
"Since the beginning of December, the French government had
contracted their far-reaching schemes within definite limits.
They were compelled to give up the hope of revolutionizing the
German Empire and establishing a Republic in the British
Islands; but they were all the more determined in the resolve
to subject the countries which had hitherto been occupied in
the name of freedom, to the rule of France. This object was
more especially pursued in Belgium by Danton and three other
deputies, who were sent as Commissioners of the Convention to
that country on the 30th of November. They were directed to
enquire into the condition of the Provinces, and to consider
Dumouriez's complaints against Pache [the Minister at War] and
the Committee formed to purchase supplies for the army."
Danton became resolute in the determination to incorporate
Belgium and pressed the project inexorably. "It was a matter
of course that England would interpose both by word and deed
directly France prepared to take possession of Belgium. ...
England had guaranteed the possession of Belgium to the
Emperor in 1790--and the closing of the Scheldt to the Dutch,
and its political position in Holland to the House of Orange
in 1788. Under an imperative sense of her own interests, she
had struggled to prevent the French from gaining a footing in
Antwerp and Ostend. Prudence, fidelity to treaties, the
retrospect of the past and the hopes of the future--all called
loudly upon her not to allow the balance of Europe to be
disturbed, and least of all in Belgium."
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 5, chapter 5 (volume 2).
"The French Government resolved to attack Holland, and ordered
its generals to enforce by arms the opening of the Scheldt. To
do this was to force England into war. Public opinion was
already pressing every day harder upon Pitt [see ENGLAND: A.
D. 1793-1796]. ... Across the Channel his moderation was only
taken for fear. ... The rejection of his last offers indeed
made a contest inevitable. Both sides ceased from diplomatic
communications, and in February 1793 France issued her
Declaration of War."
J. R. Green,
History of the English People,
book 9, chapter 4 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 22 (volume 6).
Earl Stanhope,
Life of Pitt,
chapter 16 (volume 2).
Despatches of Earl Gower,
page 256-309.
{1286}
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (January).
The execution of the king.
"To this conclusion, then, hast thou come, O hapless Louis!
The Son of Sixty Kings is to die on the Scaffold by form of
Law. Under Sixty Kings this same form of law, form of Society,
has been fashioning itself together these thousand years; and
has become, one way and other, a most strange Machine. Surely,
if needful, it is also frightful, this Machine: dead, blind:
not what it should be: which with swift stroke, or by cold
slow torture, has wasted the lives and souls of innumerable
men. And behold now a King himself or say rather Kinghood in
his person, is to expire here in cruel tortures;--like a
Phalaris shut in the belly of his own red-heated Brazen Bull!
It is ever so; and thou shouldst know it, O haughty tyrannous
man: injustice breeds injustice: curses and falsehoods do
verily return 'always home,' wide as they may wander. Innocent
Louis bears the sins of many generations: he too experiences
that man's tribunal is not in this Earth: that if he had no
higher one, it were not well with him. A King dying by such
violence appeals impressively to the imagination; as the like
must do, and ought to do. And yet at bottom it is not the King
dying, but the man! Kingship is a coat: the grand loss is of
the skin. The man from whom you take his Life, to him can the
whole combined world do more? ... A Confessor has come; Abbé
Edgeworth, of Irish extraction, whom the King knew by good
report, has come promptly on this solemn mission. Leave the
Earth alone, then, thou hapless King; it with its malice will
go its way, thou also canst go thine. A hard scene yet
remains: the parting with our loved ones. Kind hearts,
environed in the same grim peril with us; to be left here! Let
the reader look with the eyes of Valet Cléry through these
glass-doors, where also the Municipality watches: and see the
cruelest of scenes: 'At half-past eight, the door of the
ante-room opened: the Queen appeared first, leading her Son by
the hand: then Madame Royale and Madame Elizabeth: they all
flung themselves into the arms of the King. Silence reigned
for some minutes; interrupted only by sobs.' ... For nearly
two hours this agony lasts; then they tear themselves asunder.
'Promise that you will see us on the morrow.' He promises:
--Ah yes, yes: yet once; and go now, ye loved ones: cry to God
for yourselves and met!--It was a hard scene, but it is over.
He will not see them on the morrow. The Queen in passing
through the ante-room, glanced at the Cerberus Municipals;
and, with woman's vehemence, said through her tears, 'Vous
étes tous des scélérats.' King Louis slept sound, till five in
the morning, when Cléry, as he had been ordered, awoke him.
Cléry dressed his hair: while this went forward, Louis took a
ring from his watch, and kept trying it on his finger: it was
his wedding-ring, which he is now to return to the Queen as a
mute farewell. At half-past six, he took the Sacrament, and
continued in devotion, and conference with Abbé Edgeworth. He
will not see his family: it were too hard to bear. At eight
the Municipals enter: the King gives them his Will, and
messages and effects; which they, at first, brutally refuse to
take charge of: he gives them a roll of gold pieces, a hundred
and twenty-five louis; these are to be returned to
Malesherbes, who had lent them. At nine, Santerre says the
hour is come. The King begs yet to retire for three minutes.
At the end of three minutes, Santerre again says the hour is
come. 'Stamping on the ground with his right-foot, Louis
answers: Partons, Let us go.'--How the rolling of those drums
comes in, through the Temple bastions and bulwarks, on the
heart of a queenly wife; soon to be a widow! He is gone, then,
and has not seen us? ... At the Temple Gate were some faint
cries, perhaps from voices of pitiful women: Grace! Grace!
Through the rest of the streets there is silence as of the
grave. No man not armed is allowed to be there: the armed, did
any even pity, dare not express it, each man overawed by all
his neighbours. All windows are down, none seen looking
through them. All shops are shut. No wheel-carriage rolls,
this morning, in these streets but one only. 80,000 armed men
stand ranked, like armed statues of men; cannons bristle,
cannoneers with match burning, but no word or movement: it is
as a city enchanted into silence and stone: one carriage with
its escort, slowly rumbling, is the only sound. Louis reads,
in his Book of Devotion, the Prayers of the Dying: clatter of
this death-march falls sharp on the ear, in the great silence;
but the thought would fain struggle heavenward, and forget the
Earth. As the clock strikes ten, behold the Place de la
Revolution, once Place de Louis Quinze: the Guillotine,
mounted near the old Pedestal where once stood the Statue of
that Louis! Far round, all bristles with cannons and armed
men: spectators crowding in the rear; D'Orléans Egalité there
in cabriolet. ... Heedless of all Louis reads his Prayers of
the Dying; not till five minutes yet has he finished: then the
Carriage opens. What temper he is in? Ten different witnesses
will give ten different accounts of it. He is in the collision
of all tempers; arrived now at the black Mahlstrom and descent
of Death: in sorrow, in indignation, in resignation struggling
to be resigned. 'Take care of M. Edgeworth,' he straitly
charges the Lieutenant who is sitting with them: then they two
descend. The drums are beating: 'Taisez-vous, Silence!' he
cries 'in a terrible voice, d'une voix terrible.' He mounts
the scaffold, not without delay; he is in puce coat, breeches
of gray, white stockings. He strips off the coat; stands
disclosed in a sleeve-waistcoat of white flannel. The
executioners approach to bind him: he spurns, resists; Abbé
Edgeworth has to remind him how the Saviour, in whom men
trust, submitted to be bound. His hands are tied, his head
bare; the fatal moment is come. He advances to the edge of the
Scaffold, 'his face very red,' and says: 'Frenchmen, I die
innocent: it is from the Scaffold and near appearing before
God that I tell you so. I pardon my enemies; I desire that
France--' A General on horseback, Santerre or another, prances
out with uplifted hand: 'Tambours!' The drums drown the voice.
'Executioners, do your duty!' The Executioners, desperate lest
themselves be murdered (for Santerre and his Armed Ranks will
strike, if they do not), seize the hapless Louis: six of them
desperate, him singly desperate, struggling there; and bind
him to their plank. Abbé Edgeworth, stooping, bespeaks him:
'Son of Saint Louis, ascend to Heaven.' The Axe clanks down; a
King's Life is shorn away. It is Monday the 21st of January
1793. He was aged 38 years four months and 28 days.
{1287}
Executioner Samson shows the Head: fierce shouts of Vive la
République rises, and swells; caps raised on bayonets, hats
waving: students of the College of Four Nations take it up, on
the far Quais; fling it over Paris. D'Orléans drives off in
his cabriolet: the Townhall Councillors rub their hands,
saying, 'It is done, It is done.' ... In the coffee-houses
that evening, says Prudhomme, Patriot shook hands with Patriot
in a more cordial manner than usual. Not till some days after,
according to Mercier, did public men see what a grave thing it
was. A grave thing it indisputably is; and will have
consequences. ... At home this Killing of a King has divided
all friends; and abroad it has united all enemies. Fraternity
of Peoples, Revolutionary Propagandism; Atheism, Regicide;
total destruction of social order in this world! All Kings,
and lovers of Kings, and haters of Anarchy, rank in coalition;
as in a war for life."
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, book 2, chapter 8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (February-April).
Increasing anarchy.
Degradation of manners.
Formation of the terrible Revolutionary Tribunal.
Treacherous designs of Dumouriez.
His invasion of Holland.
His defeat at Neerwinden and retreat.
His flight to the enemy.
"While the French were ... throwing down the gauntlet to all
Europe, their own country seemed sinking into anarchical
dissolution. Paris was filled with tumult, insurrection and
robbery. At the denunciations of Marat against 'forestallers,'
the shops were entered by the mob, who carried off articles at
their own prices, and sometimes without paying at all. The
populace was agitated by the harangues of low itinerant
demagogues. Rough and brutal manners were affected, and all
the courtesies of life abolished. The revolutionary leaders
adopted a dress called the 'carmagnole,' consisting of
enormous black pantaloons, a short jacket, a three-coloured
waistcoat, and a Jacobite wig of short black hair, a terrible
moustache, the 'bonnet rouge,' and an enormous sabre. [The
name Carmagnole was also given to a tune and a dance; it is
supposed to have borne originally some reference not now
understood to Carmagnola in Piedmont.] Moderate persons of no
strong political opinions were denounced as 'suspected,' and
their crime stigmatised by the newly coined word of
'moderantisme.' The variations of popular feeling were
recorded like the heat of the weather, or the rising of a
flood. The principal articles in the journals were entitled
'Thermometer of the Public Mind;' the Jacobins talked of ...
being 'up to the level.' Many of the provinces were in a
disturbed state. A movement had been organising in Brittany
ever since 1791, but the death of the Marquis de la Rouarie,
its principal leader, had for the present suspended it. A more
formidable insurrection was preparing in La Vendée. ... It was
in the midst of these disturbances, aggravated by a suspicion
of General Dumouriez's treachery, which we shall presently
have to relate, that the terrible court known as the
Revolutionary Tribunal was established. It was first formally
proposed in the Convention March 9th, by Carrier, the
miscreant afterwards notorious by his massacres at Nantes,
urged by Cambacérès on the 10th, and completed that very night
at the instance of Danton, who rushed to the tribune, insisted
that the Assembly should not separate, till the new Court had
been organised. ... The extraordinary tribunal of August 1792
had not been found to work fast enough, and it was now
superseded by this new one, which became in fact only a method
of massacring under the form of law. The Revolutionary
Tribunal was designed to take cognisance of all
counter-revolutionary attempts, of all attacks upon liberty,
equality, the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, the
internal and external safety of the State. A commission of six
members of the Convention was to examine and report upon the
cases to be brought before it, to draw up and present the acts
of accusation. The tribunal was to be composed of a jury to
decide upon the facts, five judges to apply the law, a public
accuser, and two substitutes; from its sentence there was no
appeal. Meanwhile Dumouriez had returned to the army, very
dissatisfied that he had failed in his attempts to save the
King and baffle the Jacobins. He had formed the design of
invading Holland, dissolving the Revolutionary Committee in
that country, annulling the decree of December 15th, offering
neutrality to the English, a suspension of arms to the
Austrians, reuniting the Belgian and Batavian republics, and
proposing to France a re-union with them. In case of refusal,
he designed to march upon Paris, dissolve the Convention,
extinguish Jacobinism; in short, to play the part of Monk in
England. This plan was confided to four persons only, among
whom Danton is said to have been one. ... Dumouriez, having
directed General Miranda to lay siege to Maestricht, left
Antwerp for Holland, February 22nd, and by March 4th had
seized Breda, Klundert and Gertruydenberg. Austria, at the
instance of England, had pushed forward 112,000 men under
Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg. Clairfait, with his army, at
this time occupied Berghem, where he was separated from the
French only by the little river Roer and the fortress of
Juliers. Coburg, having joined Clairfait, March 1st, crossed
the Roer, defeated the French under Dampierre at Altenhoven,
and thus compelled Miranda to raise the siege of Maestricht,
and retire towards Tongres. Aix-la-Chapelle was entered by the
Austrians after a smart contest, and the French compelled to
retreat upon Liege, while the divisions under Stengel and
Neuilly, being cut off by this movement, were thrown back into
Limburg. The Austrians then crossed the Meuse, and took Liege,
March 6th. Dumouriez was now compelled to concentrate his
forces at Louvain. From this place he wrote a threatening
letter to the Convention, March 11th, denouncing the
proceedings of the ministry, the acts of oppression committed
in Belgium, and the decree of December 15th. This letter threw
the Committee of General Defence into consternation. It was
resolved to keep it secret, and Danton and Lacroix set off for
Dumouriez's camp, to try what they could do with him, but
found him inflexible. His proceedings had already unmasked his
designs. At Antwerp he had ordered the Jacobin Club to be
closed, and the members to be imprisoned, at Brussels he had
dissolved the legion of 'sans-culottes.' Dumouriez was
defeated by Prince Coburg at Neerwinden, March 18th, and again
on the 22nd at Louvain. In a secret interview with the
Austrian Colonel Mack, a day or two after, at Ath, he
announced to that officer his intention to march on Paris and
establish a constitutional monarchy, but nothing was said as
to who was to wear the crown.
{1288}
The Austrians were to support Dumouriez's advance upon Paris,
but not to show themselves except in case of need, and he was
to have the command of what Austrian troops he might select.
The French now continued their retreat, which, in consequence
of these negociations, was unmolested. The Archduke Charles
and Prince Coburg entered Brussels March 25th, and the Dutch
towns were shortly after retaken. When Dumouriez arrived with
his van at Courtrai, he was met by three emissaries of the
Jacobins, sent apparently to sound him. He bluntly told them
that his design was to save France, whether they called him
Cæsar, Cromwell or Monk, denounced the Convention as an
assembly of tyrants, said that he despised their decrees. ...
At St. Amand he was met by Beurnonville, then minister of war,
who was to supersede him in the command, and by four
commissaries despatched by the Convention." Dumouriez arrested
these, delivered them to Clairfait, and they were sent to
Maestricht. "The allies were so sanguine that Dumouriez's
defection would put an end to the Revolution, that Lord
Auckland and Count Stahremberg, the Austrian minister, looking
upon the dissolution and flight of the Convention as certain,
addressed a joint note to the States-General, requesting them
not to shelter such members of it as had taken any part in the
condemnation of Louis XVI. But Dumouriez's army was not with
him. On the road to Condé he was fired on by a body of
volunteers and compelled to fly for his life (April 4th)." The
day following he abandoned his army and went over to the
Austrian quarters at Tournay, with a few companions, thus
ending his political and military career. "The situation of
France at this time seemed almost desperate. The army of the
North was completely disorganised through the treachery of
Dumouriez; the armies of the Rhine and Moselle were
retreating; those of the Alps and Italy were expecting an
attack; on the eastern side of the Pyrenees the troops were
without artillery, without generals, almost without bread,
while on the western side the Spaniards were advancing towards
Bayonne. Brest, Cherbourg, the coasts of Brittany, were
threatened by the English. The ocean ports contained only six
ships of the line ready for sea, and the Mediterranean fleet
was being repaired at Toulon. But the energy of the
revolutionary leaders was equal to the occasion."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapter 5 (volume 4).
ALSO IN
A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapter 5.
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 1-2.
C. MacFarlane,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, chapter 11.
FRANCE: A. D: 1793 (March-April).
The insurrection in La Vendee.
"Ever since the abolition of royalty and the constitution of
1790, that is, since the 10th of August, a condemnatory and
threatening silence had prevailed in Normandy. Bretagne
exhibited still more hostile sentiments, and the people there
were engrossed by fondness for the priests and the gentry.
Nearer to the banks of the Loire, this attachment amounted to
insurrection; and lastly, on the left bank of that river, in
the Bocage, Le Loroux, and La Vendée, the insurrection was
complete, and large armies of ten and twenty thousand men were
already in the field. ... It was particularly on this left
bank, in Anjou, and Upper and Lower Poitou, that the famous
war of La Vendée had broken out. It was in this part of France
that the influence of time was least felt, and that it had
produced least change in the ancient manners. The feudal
system had there acquired a truly patriarchal character; and
the Revolution, instead of operating a beneficial reform in
the country, had shocked the most kindly habits and been
received as a persecution. The Bocage and the Marais
constitute a singular country, which it is necessary to
describe, in order to convey an idea of the manners of the
population, and the kind of society that was formed there.
Setting out from Nantes and Saumur and proceeding from the
Loire to the sands of Olonne, Lucon, Fontenay, and Niort, you
meet with an unequal undulating soil, intersected by ravines
and crossed by a multitude of hedges, which serve to fence in
each field, and which have on this account obtained for the
country the name of the Bocage. As you approach the sea the
ground declines, till it terminates in salt marshes, and is
everywhere cut up by a multitude of small canals, which render
access almost impossible. This is what is called the Marais.
The only abundant produce in this country is pasturage,
consequently cattle are plentiful. The peasants there grew
only just sufficient corn for their own consumption, and
employed the produce of their herds and flocks as a medium of
exchange. It is well known that no people are more simple than
those subsisting by this kind of industry. Few great towns had
been built in these parts. They contained only large villages
of two or three thousand souls. Between the two high-roads
leading, the one from Tours to Poitiers, and the other from
Nantes to La Rochelle, extended a tract thirty leagues in
breadth, where there were none but cross-roads leading to
villages and hamlets. The country was divided into a great
number of small farms paying a rent of from five to six
hundred francs, each let to a single family, which divided the
produce of the cattle with the proprietor of the land. From
this division of farms, the seigneurs had to treat with each
family, and kept up a continual and easy intercourse with
them. The simplest mode of life prevailed in the mansions of
the gentry: they were fond of the chase, on account of the
abundance of game; the gentry and the peasants hunted
together, and they were all celebrated for their skill and
vigour. The priests, men of extraordinary purity of character,
exercised there a truly paternal ministry. ... When the
Revolution, so beneficent in other quarters, reached this
country, with its iron level, it produced profound agitation.
It had been well if it could have made an exception there, but
that was impossible. ... When the removal of the non-juring
priests deprived the peasants of the ministers in whom they
had confidence, they were vehemently exasperated, and, as in
Bretagne, they ran into the woods and travelled to a
considerable distance to attend the ceremonies of a worship,
the only true one in their estimation. From that moment a
violent hatred was kindled in their souls, and the priests
neglected no means of fanning the flames. The 10th of August
drove several Poitevin nobles back to their estates; the 21st
of January estranged them, and they communicated their
indignation to those about them. They did not conspire,
however, as some have conceived.
{1289}
The known dispositions of the country had incited men who were
strangers to it to frame plans of conspiracy. One had been
hatched in Bretagne, but none was formed in the Bocage; there
was no concerted plan there; the people suffered themselves to
be driven to extremity. At length, the levy of 300,000 men
excited in the month of March a general insurrection. ...
Obliged to take arms, they chose rather to fight against the
republic than for it. Nearly about the same time, that is, at
the beginning of March, the drawing was the occasion of an
insurrection in the Upper Bocage and in the Marais. On the
10th of March, the drawing was to take place at St. Florent,
near Ancenis, in Anjou. The young men refused to draw. The
guard endeavoured to force them to comply. The military
commandant ordered a piece of cannon to be pointed and fired
at the mutineers. They dashed forward with their bludgeons,
made themselves masters of the piece, disarmed the guard, and
were, at the same time, not a little astonished at their own
temerity. A carrier, named Cathelineau, a man highly esteemed
in that part of the country, possessing great bravery and
powers of persuasion, quitting his farm on hearing the
tidings, hastened to join them, rallied them, roused their
courage, and gave some consistency to the insurrection by his
skill in keeping it up. The very same day he resolved to
attack a republican post consisting of eighty men. The
peasants followed him with their bludgeons and their muskets.
After a first volley, every shot of which told, because they
were excellent marksmen, they rushed upon the post, disarmed
it, and made themselves master of the position. Next day,
Cathelineau proceeded to Chemillé, which he likewise took, in
spite of 200 republicans and three pieces of cannon. A
gamekeeper at the château of Maulevrier, named Stofflet, and a
young peasant of the village of Chanzeau, had on their part
collected a band of peasants. These came and joined
Cathelineau, who conceived the daring design of attacking
Chollet, the most considerable town in the country, the chief
place of a district, and guarded by 500 republicans. ... The
victorious band of Cathelineau entered Chollet, seized all the
arms that it could find, and made cartridges out of the
charges of the cannon. It was always in this manner that the
Vendeans procured ammunition. ... Another much more general
revolt had broken out in the Marais and the department of La
Vendée. At Machecoul and Challans, the recruiting was the
occasion of a universal insurrection. ... Three hundred
republicans were shot by parties of 20 or 30. ...In the
department of La Vendée, that is, to the south of the theatre
of this war, the insurrection assumed still more consistence.
The national guards of Fontenay, having set out on their march
for Chantonnay, were repulsed and beaten. Chantonnay was
plundered. General Verteuil, who commanded the 11th military
division, on receiving intelligence of this defeat, dispatched
General Marcé with 1,200 men, partly troops of the line, and
partly national guards. The rebels who were met at St.
Vincent, were repulsed. General Marcé had time to add 1,200
more men and nine pieces of cannon to his little army. In
marching upon St. Fulgent, he again fell in with the Vendeans
in a valley and stopped to restore a bridge which they had
destroyed. About four in the afternoon of the 18th of March,
the Vendeans, taking the initiative, advanced and attacked him
... and made themselves masters of the artillery, the
ammunition, and the arms, which the soldiers threw away that
they might be the lighter in their flight. These more
important successes in the department of La Vendée properly so
called, procured for the insurgents the name of Vendeans,
which they afterwards retained, though the war was far more
active out of La Vendée. The pillage committed by them in the
Marais caused them to be called brigands, though the greater
number did not deserve that appellation. The insurrection
extended into the Marais from the environs of Nantes to Les
Sables, and into Anjou and Poitou, as far as the environs of
Vihiers and Parthenay. ... Easter recalled all the insurgents
to their homes, from which they never would stay away long. To
them a war was a sort of sporting excursion of several days;
they carried with them a sufficient quantity of bread for the
time, and then returned to inflame their neighbours by the
accounts which they gave. Places of meeting were appointed for
the month of April. The insurrection was then general and
extended over the whole surface of the country. It might be
comprised in a line which, commencing at Nantes, would pass
through Pornic, the Isle of Noirmoutiers, Les Sables, Luçon,
Fontenay, Niort, and Parthenay, and return by Airvault,
Thouar, Doué, and St. Florent, to the Loire. The insurrection,
begun by men who were not superior to the peasants whom they
commanded, excepting by their natural qualities, was soon
continued by men of a higher rank. The peasants went to the
mansions and forced the nobles to put themselves at their
head. The whole Marais insisted on being commanded by
Charette. ... In the Bocage, the peasants applied to Messrs.
de Bonchamps, d'Elbée, and de Laroche-Jacquelein, and forced
them from their mansions to place them at their head." These
gentlemen were afterwards joined by M. de Lescure, a cousin of
Henri de Laroche-Jacquelin.
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 2, pages 146-152.
ALSO IN
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe,
chapter 12, (volume 3).
Marquise de Larochejaquelein,
Memoirs.
Henri Larochejaquelein and the War in La Vendée,
(Chambers Miscellany, volume 2).
L. I. Guiney,
Monsieur Henri
(de La Rochejaquelein.)
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (March-June).
Vigorous measures of the Revolutionary government.
The Committee of Public Safety.
The final struggle of Jacobins and Girondins.
The fall of the Girondins.
The news of the defeat of Dumouriez at Neerwinden, which
reached Paris on the 21st, "brought about two important
measures. Jean Debry, on behalf of the Diplomatic Committee,
proposed that all strangers should be expelled from France
within eight days who could not give a good reason for their
residence, and on the same evening the Committee of General
Defence was reorganized and placed on another footing. This
committee had come into existence in January, 1793. It
originally consisted of 21 members, who were not directly
elected by the Convention, but were chosen from the seven most
important committees.
{1290}
But now, after the news of Neerwinden, a powerful committee
was directly elected. It consisted of 24 members, and the
first committee contained nine Girondins, nine deputies of the
Plain, and six Jacobins, including every representative man in
the Convention. ... The new Committee was given the greatest
powers, and after first proposing to the Convention that the
penalty of death should be decreed against every emigre over
fourteen, and to everyone who protected an emigre, it proposed
that Dumouriez should be summoned to the bar of the
Convention." Early in April, news of the desertion of
Dumouriez and the retreat of Custine, "made the Convention
decide on yet further measures to strengthen the executive.
Marat, who, like Danton and Robespierre, was statesman enough
to perceive the need of strengthening the executive, proposed
that enlarged powers should be given to the committees; and
Isnard, as the reporter of the Committee of General Defence,
proposed the establishment of a smaller committee of nine,
with supreme and unlimited executive powers--a proposal which
was warmly supported by every statesman in the Convention. ...
It is noticeable that every measure which strengthened the
terror when it was finally established was decreed while the
Girondins could command a majority in: the Convention, and
that it was a Girondin, Isnard, who proposed the immense
powers of the Committee of Public Safety [Comité de Salut
Public]. Upon April 6 Isnard brought up a decree defining the
powers of the new committee. It was to consist of nine
deputies; to confer in secret; to have supreme executive
power, and authority to spend certain sums of' money without
accounting for them, and it was to present a weekly report to
the Convention. These immense powers were granted under the
pressure of news from the frontier, and it was obvious that it
would not be long before such a powerful executive could
conquer the independence of the Convention. Isnard's proposals
were opposed by Buzot, but decreed; and on April 7 the first
Committee of Public Safety was elected. It consisted of the
following members:--Barère, Delmas, Bréard, Cambon, Danton,
Guyton-Morveau, Treilhard, Lacroix, and Robert Lindet. The
very first proposal of the new committee was that it should
appoint three representatives with every army from among the
deputies of the Convention, with unlimited powers, who were to
report to the committee itself. This motion was followed by a
very statesmanlike one from Danton. He perceived the folly of
the decree of November 18, which declared universal war
against all kings. ... On his proposition the fatal decree ...
was withdrawn, and it was made possible for France again to
enter into the comity of European nations. It is very obvious
that it was the foreign war which had developed the progress
of the Revolution with such astonishing rapidity in France. It
was Brunswick's manifesto which mainly caused the attack on
the Tuileries on August 10; it was the surrender of Verdun
which directly caused the massacres of September. It was the
battle of Neerwinden which established the Revolutionary
Tribunal, and that defeat and the desertion of Dumouriez which
brought about the establishment of the Committee of Public
Safety. The Girondins were chiefly responsible for the great
war, and its first result was to destroy them as a party. ...
Their early influence over the deputies of the Plain rested on
a belief in their statesmanlike powers, but as time went on
that influence steadily diminished. It was in vain for Danton
to attempt to make peace in the Convention; bitter words on
both sides had left too strong an impression ever to be
effaced. The Jacobin leaders despised the Girondins; the
Girondins hated the Jacobins for having won away power from
them. The Jacobins formed a small but very united body, of
which every member knew its own mind; they were determined to
carry on the Republic at all costs, and to destroy the
Girondins as quickly as they could. ... The desertion of
Dumouriez had caused strong measures to be taken by the
Convention, ... and all parties had concurred. ... But as soon
as these important measures had been taken, which the majority
of the Convention believed would enable France once more to
free her frontiers from the invaders, the Girondins and
Jacobins turned upon each other with redoubled ardour, and the
death-struggle between them recommenced. The Girondins
reopened the struggle with an attack upon Marat. Few steps
could have been more foolish, for Marat, though in many ways a
real statesman, had from the exaggeration of his language
never obtained the influence in the Convention to which his
abilities entitled him. ... But he remained the idol of the
people of Paris, and in attacking him the Girondins
exasperated the people of Paris in the person of their beloved
journalist. On April 11 Guadet read a placard in the
Convention, which Marat had posted on the walls of Paris, full
of his usual libellous abuse of the Girondins. It was referred
to the Committee of Legislation with other writings of Marat,"
and two days later, on the report of the Committee, it was
voted by the Convention (half of its members being absent),
that Marat should be sent before the Tribunal for trial. This
called out immediate demonstrations from Marat's Parisian
admirers. "On April 15, in the name of 35 sections of Paris,
Pache and Hébert demanded the expulsion from the Convention of
22 of the leading Girondists as 'disturbers of the public peace,'
including Brissot, Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Buzot,
Barbaroux, Louvet, Petion, and Lanjuinais. ... On April 22 the
trial of Marat took place. He was unanimously acquitted, although
most of the judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal sympathized
with the Girondins. ... The acquittal of Marat was a fearful
blow to the Girondin party; they had in no way discredited the
Jacobins, and had only made themselves unpopular in Paris. ...
The Commune of Paris steadily organized the more advanced
republicans of the city for an open attack upon the Girondins.
... Throughout the month of May, preparations for the final
struggle went on; it was recognized by both parties that they
must appeal to force, and arrangements for appealing to force
were made as openly for the coup d'état of May 31 as they had
been for that of August 10. On the one side, the Commune of
Paris steadily concentrated its armed strength and formed its
plan of action; on the other, the leading Girondins met daily
at the house of Valazé, and prepared to move decrees in the
Convention.'" But the Girondins were still divided among
themselves.
{1291}
Some wished to appeal to the provinces, against Paris, which
meant civil war; others opposed this as unpatriotic. On the
31st of May, and on the two days following, the Commune of
Paris called out its mob to execute the determined coup
d'état. On the last of these three days (June 2), the
Convention surrounded, imprisoned and terrorized by armed
ruffians, led by Henriot, lately appointed Commander of the
National Guard, submissively decreed that the proscribed
Girondin deputies, with others, to the number altogether of
31, should be placed under arrest in their own houses. This
"left the members of the Mountain predominant in the
Convention. The deputies of the Marsh or Plain were now docile
to the voice of the Jacobin leaders," whose supremacy was now
without dispute. On the preceding day, an attempt had been
made, on the order of the Commune, to arrest M. Roland and two
others of the ministers. Roland escaped, but Madame Roland,
the more important Girondist leader, was taken and consigned
to the Abbaye.
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 2, chapters 7-8.
ALSO IN
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 4, chapter 13.
W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
lecture 37 (volume 2).
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 7, chapters 1-3 (volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (March-September).
Formation of the great European Coalition against
Revolutionary France.
The seeds of dissension and weakness in it.
"The impression made at St. Petersburg by the execution of
Louis was fully as vivid as at London: already it was evident
that these two capitals were the centres of the great contest
which was approaching. ... An intimate and confidential
correspondence immediately commenced between Count Woronzoff,
the Russian ambassador at London, and Lord Grenville, the
British secretary of state for foreign affairs, which
terminated in a treaty between the powers, signed in London on
the 25th of March. By this convention, which laid the basis of
the grand alliance which afterwards brought the war to a
glorious termination, it was provided that the two powers
should 'employ their respective forces, as far as
circumstances shall permit, in carrying on the just and
necessary war in which they find themselves engaged against
France; and they reciprocally engage not to lay down their
arms without restitution of all the conquests which may have
been made upon either of the respective powers, or upon such
other states or allies to whom, by common consent, they shall
extend the benefit of this treaty.' ... Shortly after [April
25], a similar convention was entered into between Great
Britain and Sardinia, by which the latter power was to receive
an annual subsidy of £200,000 during the whole continuance of
the war, and the former to keep on foot an army of 50,000 men;
and the English government engaged to procure for it entire
restitution of its dominions as they stood at the commencement
of the war. By another convention, with the cabinet of Madrid,
signed at Aranjuez on the 25th of May, they engaged not to
make peace till they had obtained full restitution for the
Spaniards 'of all places, towns, and territories which
belonged to them at the commencement of the war, and which the
enemy may have taken during its continuance.' A similar treaty
was entered into with the court of the Two Sicilies, and with
Prussia [July 12 and 14], in which the clauses, prohibiting
all exportation to France, and preventing the trade of
neutrals with it, were the same as in the Russian treaty.
Treaties of the same tenor were concluded in the course of the
summer with the Emperor of Germany [August 30], and the King
of Portugal [September 26]. Thus was all Europe arrayed in a
great league against Republican France, and thus did the
regicides of that country, as the first fruits of their cruel
triumph, find themselves excluded from the pale of civilized
nations. ... But while all Europe thus resounded with the note
of military preparation against France, Russia had other and
more interested designs in view. Amidst the general
consternation at the triumphs of the French republicans,
Catharine conceived that she would be permitted to pursue,
without molestation, her ambitious designs against Poland [See
POLAND: A. D. 1793-1796]. She constantly represented the
disturbances in that kingdom as the fruit of revolutionary
propagandism, which it was indispensable to crush in the first
instance. ... The ambitious views of Prussia were also ...
strongly turned in the same direction. ... Nor was it only the
ambitious projects of Russia and Prussia against the
independence of Poland which already gave ground for gloomy
augury as to the issue of the war. Its issue was more
immediately affected by the jealousy of Austria and Prussia,
which now broke out in the most undisguised manner, and
occasioned such a division of the allied forces as effectually
prevented any cordial or effective co-operation continuing to
exist between them. The Prussian cabinet, mortified at the
lead which the Imperial generals took in the common
operations, insisted upon the formation of two independent
German armies; one composed of Prussians, the other of
Austrians, to one or other of which the forces of all the
minor states should be joined: those of Saxony, Hanover, and
Hesse being grouped around the standards of Prussia; those of
Bavaria, Wirtemburg, Swabia, the Palatinate, and Franconia,
following the double-headed eagles of Austria. By this means,
all unity of action between the two grand allied armies was
broken up. ... Prince Cobourg was appointed generalissimo of
the allied Armies from the Rhine to the German ocean." In
April, a corps of 20,000 English had been landed in Holland,
"under the command of the Duke of York, and being united to
10,000 Hanoverians and Hessians, formed a total of 30,000 men
in British pay." Holland, as an ally of England, was already
in the Coalition, the French having declared war, in February,
against the two maritime powers, simultaneously.
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe,
chapter 13 (volume 4).
ALSO IN
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 3.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (April-August):
Minister Genet in America.
Washington's proclamation of neutrality.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.
{1292}
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (June).
Flight of most of the Girondists.
Their appeal to the country.
Insurrection in the provinces.
The rising at Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Toulon.
Progress of the Vendean revolt.
"After this day [of the events which culminated on the 2d of
June, but which are commonly referred to as being of 'the 31st
of May,' when they began], when the people made no other use
of their power than to display and to exercise the pressure of
Paris over the representation, they separated without
committing any excess. ... La Montaigne caused the committees
to be reinstated on the morrow, with the exception of that of
public safety. They threw into the majority their most decided
members. ... They deposed those ministers suspected of
attachment to the' conquered; sent commissioners into the
doubtful departments; annulled the project of the constitution
proposed by the Girondists; and charged the committee of
safety to draw up in eight days a project for the constitution
entirely democratical. They pressed forward the recruiting and
armament of the revolutionary army--that levy of patriotism en
masse. They decreed a forced loan of a million upon the rich.
They sent one after the other, accused upon accused, to the
revolutionary tribunal. Their sittings were no longer
deliberation, but cursory motions, decreed on the instant by
acclamation, and sent immediately to the different committees
for execution. They stripped the executive power of the little
independence and responsibility it heretofore retained.
Continually called into the bosom of their committees,
ministers became no more than the passive executors of the
measures they decreed. From this day, also, discussion was at
an end; action was all. The disappearance of the Girondists
deprived the Revolution of its voice. Eloquence was proscribed
with Vergniaud, with the exception of those few days when the
great party chiefs, Danton and Robespierre, spoke, not to
refute opinions, but to intimate their will, and promulgate
their orders. The Assemblies became almost mute. A dead
silence reigned henceforth in the Convention. In the meanwhile
the 22 Girondists [excepting Vergniaud, Gensonné, Ducos,
Tonfrède, and a few others, who remained under the decree of
arrest, facing all consequences], the members of the
Commission of Twelve, and a certain number of their friends,
warned of their danger by this first blow of ostracism, fled
into their departments, and hurried to protest against the
mutilation of the country. ... Robespierre, Danton, the
Committee of Public Safety, and even the people themselves,
seemed to shut their eyes to these evasions, as if desirous to
be rid of victims whom it would pain them to strike. Buzot,
Barbaroux, Guadet, Louvet, Salles, Pétion, Bergoing, Lesage,
Cressy, Kervélégan and Lanjuinais, threw themselves into
Normandy; and after having traversed it, inciting all the
departments between Paris and the Ocean, established at Caen
the focus and centre of insurrection against the tyranny of
Paris. They gave themselves the name of the Central Assembly
of Resistance to Oppression. Biroteau and Chasset had arrived
at Lyons. The armed sections of this town were agitated with
contrary and already bloody commotion [the Jacobin
municipality having been overthrown, after hard fighting, and
its chief, Chalier, put to death]. Brissot fled to Moulins,
Robaut St. Etienne to Nismes. Grangeneuve, sent by Vergniaud,
Tonfrède, and Ducos, to Bordeaux, raised troops ready to march
upon the capital. Toulouse followed the same impulse of
resistance to Paris. The departments of the west were on fire,
and rejoiced to see the republic, torn into contending
factions, offer them the aid of one of the two parties for the
restoration of royalty. The mountainous centre of France ...
was agitated. ... Marseilles enrolled 10,000 men at the voice
of Rebecqui and the young friends of Barbaroux. They
imprisoned the commissioners of the Convention, Roux and
Antiboul. Royalty, always brooding in the south, insensibly
transformed this movement of patriotism into a monarchical
insurrection. Rebecqui, in despair ... at seeing loyalty avail
itself of the rising in the south, escaped remorse by suicide,
throwing himself into the sea. Lyons and Bordeaux likewise
imprisoned the envoys of the Convention as Maratists. The
first columns of the combined army of the departments began to
move in all directions; 6,000 Marseillais were already at
Avignon, ready to reascend the Rhone, and form a junction with
the insurgents of Nismes and of Lyons. Brittany and Normandy
uniting, concentrated their first forces at Evreux."
A de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
book 43 (volume 3).
The royalists of the west, "during this almost general rising
of the departments, continued to extend their enterprises.
After their first victories, the Vendeans seized on Bressure,
Argenton, and Thouars. Entirely masters of their own country,
they proposed getting possession of the frontiers, and
opening the way to revolutionary France, as well as
communications with England. On the 6th of June, the Vendean
army, composed of 40,000 men, under Cathelineau, Lescure,
Stofflet, and La Rochejacquelin, marched on Saumur, which it
took by storm. It then prepared to attack and capture Nantes,
to secure the possession of its own country, and become
masters of the course of the Loire. Cathelineau, at the head
of the Vendean troops, left a garrison in Saumur, took
Angers, crossed the Loire, pretended to advance upon Tours
and Lemans, and then rapidly threw himself upon Nantes, which
he attacked on the right bank, while Charette was to attack
it on the left."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (June-October).
The new Jacobin Constitution postponed.
Concentration of power in the Committee of Public Safety.
The irresistible machine of revolutionary government.
"It was while affairs were in this critical condition that the
Mountain undertook the sole conduct of the government in
France. They had hitherto resisted all attempts of the
Girondists to establish a new constitution in place of that of
1791. They now undertook the work themselves, and in four days
drew up a constitution, as simple as it was democratic, which
was issued on the 24th of June. Every citizen of the age of 21
could vote directly in the election of deputies, who were
chosen for a year at a time and were to sit in a single
assembly. The assembly had the sole power of making laws, but
a period was fixed during which the constituents could protest
against its enactments. The executive power was entrusted to
24 men, who were chosen by the assembly from candidates
nominated by electors chosen by the original voters. Twelve
out of the 24 were to be renewed every six months. But this
constitution was intended merely to satisfy the departments,
and was never put into practice. The condition of France
required a greater concentration of power, and this was
supplied by the Committee of Public Safety.
{1293}
Ever since the 6th of April the original members of the
Committee had been re-elected, but on the 10th of July its
composition was changed. Danton ceased to be a member, and
Barère was joined by Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon,
Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, and, in a short time,
Carnot. These men became the absolute rulers of France. The
Committee had no difficulty in carrying their measures in the
Convention, from which the opposition party had disappeared.
All the state obligations were rendered uniform and inscribed
in 'the great book of the national debt.' The treasury was
filled by a compulsory loan from the rich. Every income
between 1,000 and 10,000 francs had to pay ten per cent., and
every excess over 10,000 francs had to be contributed in its
entirety for one year. To recruit the army a levee en masse
was decreed. 'The young men shall go to war; the married men
shall forge arms and transport supplies; the wives shall make
tents and clothes and serve in the hospitals; the children
shall tear old linen into lint; the aged shall resort to the
public places to excite the courage of the warriors and hatred
against kings.' Nor were measures neglected against domestic
enemies. On the 6th of September a revolutionary army,
consisting of 6,000 men and 1,200 artillery men, was placed at
the disposal of the Committee to carry out its orders
throughout France. On the 17th the famous 'law of the
suspects' was carried. Under the term 'suspect' were included
all those who by words, acts or writings had shown themselves
in favour of monarchy or of federalism, the relatives of the
emigrants, etc., and they were to be imprisoned until the
peace. As the people were in danger of famine, a maximum
price, already established for corn, was decreed for all
necessaries; if a merchant gave up his trade he became a
suspect, and the hoarding of provisions was punished by death.
On the 10th of October the Convention definitely transferred
its powers to the Committee, by subjecting all officials to
its authority and by postponing the trial of the new
constitution until the peace."
R. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 23, section 11.
The Committee of Public Safety--the "Revolutionary
Government," as Danton had named it, on the 2d of August, when
he demanded the fearful powers that were given to
it--"disposed of all the national forces; it appointed and
dismissed the ministers, generals, Representatives on Mission,
the judges and juries of the Revolutionary Tribunal. The
latter instrument became its strong arm; it was, in fact, a
court martial worked by civil magistrates. By its agents it
directed the departments and armies, the political situation
without and within, striking down at the same time the rebels
within and the enemies without: for, together with the
constitution were, of course, suspended the municipal laws and
the political machinery of the communes; and thus cities and
villages hitherto indifferent or opposed to the Revolution
were republicanized. By the Tribunal it disposed of the
persons of individuals; by requisition and the law of maximum
(with which we are going to be better acquainted) it disposed
of their fortunes. It can, indeed, be said that the whole of
France was placed in a state of siege; but that was the price
of its salvation. ... But Danton has committed, a great
mistake,--one that he and especially France, will come to rue.
He has declined to become a member of the Revolutionary
Government, which has been established on his motion. 'It is
my firm resolve not to be a member of such a government,' he
had said. In other words, he has declined re-election as a
member of the Committee de Salut Public, now it has been
erected into a dictatorship. He unfortunately lacked all
ambition. ... When afterwards, on September 8, one Gaston
tells the Convention, 'Danton has a mighty revolutionary head.
No one understands so well as he to execute what he himself
proposes. I therefore move that he be added to the
Revolutionary Government, in spite of his protest,' and it is
so unanimously ordered, he again peremptorily declines. 'No, I
will not be a member; but as a spy on it I intend to work.' A
most fateful resignation! for while he still for a short time
continues to exercise his old influence on the government,
both from the outside, in his own person, and inside the
Committee, in the person of Hérault de Sechelles, selected in
his place, he very soon loses ground more and more,--so much
so even that Hérault, his friend, is 'put in quarantine,' as
was said in the Committee. And very natural. A statesman
cannot have power when he shirks responsibility, and without
power he soon loses all influence with the multitude. Those
who now succeed him in power are Robespierre, Barère,
Billaud-Varennes, and Carnot,--the two last very good working
members, good men of the second rank, but after Danton not a
single man is left fit to be leader."
L. Gronlund,
Ça Ira! or Danton in the French Revolution,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 2.
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution.
volume 2, chapter 9.
H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 1, and appendix 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July).
The assassination of Marat.
"Amongst those who had placed faith in the Girondists and
their ideals was a young woman of Normandy, Charlotte Corday.
... When the mob of Paris rose and drove with insult from the
Convention those who in her eyes were the heroic defenders of
the universal principles of truth and justice, she bitterly
resented the wrong that had been done, not only to the men
themselves, but to that France of which she regarded them as
the true representatives. Owing to Marat's persistent cry for
a dictatorship and for shedding of blood, it was he who, in
the departments, was accounted especially responsible both for
the expulsion of the Girondists and for the tyranny which now
began to weigh as heavily upon the whole country as it had
long weighed upon the capital. Incapable as all then were of
comprehending the causes which had brought about the fall of
the Girondists, Charlotte Corday imagined that by putting an
end to this man's life, she could also put an end to the
system of government which he advocated. Informing her friends
that she wished to visit England, she left Caen and travelled
in the diligence to Paris. On her arrival she purchased a
knife, and afterwards obtained entrance into Marat's house on
the pretext that she brought news which she desired to
communicate to him. She knew that he would be eager to obtain
intelligence of the movements of the Girondist deputies still
in Normandy. Marat was ill at the time, and in a bath when
Charlotte Corday was admitted.
{1294}
She gave him the names of the deputies who were at Caen. 'In a
few days,' he said, as he wrote them hastily down, 'I will
have them all guillotined in Paris.' As she heard these words
she plunged the knife into his body and killed him on the
spot. The cry uttered by the murdered man was heard, and
Charlotte, who did not attempt to escape, was captured and
conveyed to prison amid the murmurs of an angry crowd. It had
been from the first her intention to sacrifice her life for
the cause of her country, and, glorying in her deed, she met
death with stoical indifference. 'I killed one man,' she said,
when brought before the revolutionary court, 'in order to save
the lives of 100,000 others.' ... His [Marat's] murder brought
about contrary results to those which the woman who ignorantly
and rashly had flung away her life hoped by the sacrifice to
effect. ... He was regarded as a martyr by no small portion of
the working population of Paris. ... His murder excited
indignation beyond the comparatively narrow circle of those
who took an active part in political life, while at the same
time it added a new impulse to the growing cry for blood."
B. M. Gardiner,
The French Revolution,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN
C. Mac Farlane,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, chapter 13.
J. Michelet,
Women of the French Revolution,
chapter 18-19.
Mrs. R. K. Van Alstine,
Charlotte Corday.
A. Dobson,
Four French Women,
chapter 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July-December).
The civil war.
Sieges of Lyons and Toulon.
Submission of Caen, Marseilles and Bordeaux.
Crushing of the Vendeans.
"The insurgents in Calvados [Normandy] were easily suppressed;
at the very first skirmish at Vernon [July 13], the insurgent
troops fled. Wimpfen endeavoured to rally them in vain. The
moderate class, those who had taken up the defence of the
Girondists, displayed little ardour or activity. When the
constitution was accepted by the other departments, it saw the
opportunity for admitting that it had been in error, when it
thought it was taking arms against a mere factious minority.
This retractation was made at Caen, which had been the
headquarters of the revolt. The Mountain commissioners did not
sully this first victory with executions. General Carteaux on
the other hand, marched at the head of some troops against the
sectionary army of the south; he defeated its force, pursued
it to Marseilles, entered the town [August 23] after it, and
Provence would have been brought into subjection like
Calvados, if the royalists, who had taken refuge at Toulon,
after their defeat, had not called in the English to their
aid, and placed in their hands this key to France. Admiral
Hood entered the town in the name of Louis XVII., whom he
proclaimed king, disarmed the fleet, sent for 8,000 Spaniards
by sea, occupied the surrounding forts, and forced Carteaux,
who was advancing against Toulon, to fall back on Marseilles.
Notwithstanding this check, the conventionalists succeeded in
isolating the insurrection, and this was a great point. The
Mountain commissioners had made their entry into the rebel
capitals; Robert Lindet into Caen; Tallien into Bordeaux;
Barras and Fréron into Marseilles. Only two towns remained to
be taken Toulon and Lyons. A simultaneous attack from the
south, west, and centre was no longer apprehended, and in the
interior the enemy was only on the defensive. Lyons was
besieged by Kellermann, general of the army of the Alps; three
corps pressed the town on all sides. The veteran soldiers of
the Alps, the revolutionary battalions and the newly levied
troops, reinforced the besiegers every day. The people of
Lyons defended themselves with all the courage of despair. At
first, they relied on the assistance of the insurgents of the
south; but these having been repulsed by Carteaux, the
Lyonnese placed their last hope in the army of Piedmont, which
attempted a diversion in their favour, but was beaten by
Kellermann. Pressed still more energetically, they saw their
first position carried. Famine began to be felt, and courage
forsook them. The royalist leaders, convinced of the inutility
of longer resistance, left the town, and the republican army
entered the walls [October 9], where they awaited the orders
of the convention. A few months after, Toulon itself [in the
siege of which Napoleon Bonaparte commanded the artillery],
defended by veteran troops and formidable fortifications, fell
into the power of the republicans. The battalions of the army
of Italy, reinforced by those which the taking of Lyons left
disposable, pressed the place closely. After repeated attacks
and prodigies of skill and valour, they made themselves
masters of it, and the capture of Toulon finished what that of
Lyons had begun [December 19]. Everywhere the convention was
victorious. The Vendeans had failed in their attempt upon
Nantes, after having lost many men, and their
general-in-chief, Cathelineau. This attack put an end to the
aggressive and previously promising movement of the Vendean
insurrection. The royalists repassed the Loire, abandoned
Saumur, and resumed their former cantonments. They were,
however, still formidable; and the republicans, who pursued
them, were again beaten in La Vendée. General Biron, who had
succeeded General Berruyer, unsuccessfully continued the war
with small bodies of troops; his moderation and defective
system of attack caused him to be replaced by Canclaux and
Rossignol, who were not more fortunate than he. There were two
leaders, two armies, and two centres of operation; ... The
committee of public safety soon remedied this, by appointing
one sole general-in-chief, Lechelle, and by introducing war on
a large scale into La Vendée. This new method, aided by the
garrison of Mayence, consisting of 17,000 veterans, who,
relieved from operations against the coalesced powers after
the capitulation, were employed in the interior, entirely
changed the face of the war. The royalists underwent four
consecutive defeats, two at Châtillon, two at Cholet [the last
being October 17]. Lescure, Bonchamps, and d'Elbée were
mortally wounded: and the insurgents, completely beaten in
Upper Vendée, and fearing that they should be exterminated if
they took refuge in Lower Vendée, determined to leave their
country to the number of 80,000 persons. This emigration
through Brittany, which they hoped to arouse to insurrection,
became fatal to them. Repulsed before Granville, utterly
routed at Mons [Le Mans, December 12], they were destroyed at
Savenay [December 23], and barely a few thousand men, the
wreck of this vast emigration, returned to Vendée. These
disasters, irreparable for the royalist cause, the taking of
their land of Noir-moutiers from Charette, the dispersion of
the troops of that leader, the death of Laroche jacquelin,
rendered the republicans masters of the country.
{1295}
The committee of public safety, thinking, not without reason,
that its enemies were beaten but not subjugated, adopted a
terrible system of extermination to prevent them from rising
again. General Thurreau surrounded Vendée with sixteen
entrenched camps; twelve movable columns, called the infernal
columns, overran the country in every direction, sword and
fire in hand, scoured the woods, dispersed the assemblies, and
diffused terror throughout this unhappy country."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 8.
ALSO IN
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 2, pages 328-335,
and 398-410.
Marchioness de Larochejaquelain,
Memoirs.
A. des Echerolles,
Early Life,
volume 1, chapters 5-7.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (July-December).
Progress of the war of the Coalition.
Dissensions among the Allies.
Unsuccessful siege of Dunkirk.
French Victories of Hondschotten and Wattignies.
Operations on the Rhine and elsewhere.
"The civil war in which France for a moment appeared engulfed
was soon confined to a few narrowing centres. What, in the
meantime, had been the achievements of the mighty Coalition of
banded Europe? Success, that might have been great, was
attained on the Alpine and Pyrenean frontiers; and had the
Piedmontese and Spaniards been well led they could have
overrun Provence and Rousillon, and made the insurrection of
the South fatal. But here, as elsewhere, the Allies did
little; and, though defeated in almost every encounter, the
republican levies held their ground against enemies who
nowhere advanced. It was, however, in the North and the
North-east that the real prize of victory was placed; and no
doubt can exist that had unanimity in the councils of the
Coalition prevailed, or had a great commander been in its
camp, Paris might have been captured without difficulty, and
the Revolution been summarily put down. But the Austrians, the
Prussians, and the English, were divided in mind; they had no
General capable of rising above the most ordinary routine of
war; and the result was that the allied armies advanced
tardily on an immense front, each leader thinking of his own
plans only, and no one venturing to press forward boldly, or
to pass the fortresses on the hostile frontiers, though
obstacles like these could be of little use without the aid of
powerful forces in the field. In this manner half the summer
was lost in besieging Mayence, Valenciennes, and Condé; and
when, after the fall of these places [July-August], an attempt
was made to invade Picardy, dissensions between the Allies
broke out, and the British contingent was detached to besiege
Dunkirk, while the Austrians lingered in French Flanders,
intent on enlarging by conquest Belgium, at that period an
Austrian Province. Time was thus gained for the French armies,
which, though they had made an honorable resistance, had been
obliged to fall back at all points, and were in no condition
to oppose their enemy; and the French army in the North,
though driven nearly to the Somme, within a few marches of the
capital, was allowed an opportunity to recruit its strength,
and was not, as it might have been easily, destroyed. A part
of the hastily raised levies was now incorporated in its
ranks; and as these were largely composed of seasoned men from
the old army of the Bourbon Monarchy, and from the volunteers
of Valmy and Jemmapes, a respectable force was before long
mustered. At the peremptory command of the Jacobin Government,
this was at once directed against the invaders, who did not
know what an invasion meant. The Duke of York, assailed with
vigor and skill, was compelled to raise the siege of Dunkirk
[by the French victory at Hondschotten, September 8]; and, to
the astonishment of Europe, the divided forces of the halting
and irresolute Coalition began to recede before the enemies,
who saw victory yielded to them, and who, feeble soldiers as
they often were, were nevertheless fired by ardent patriotism.
As the autumn closed the trembling balance of fortune inclined
decidedly on the side of the Republic. The French recruits,
hurried to the frontier in masses, became gradually better
soldiers, under the influence of increasing success. Carnot, a
man of great but overrated powers, took the general direction
of military affairs; and though his strategy was not sound, it
was much better than the imbecility of his foes. At the same
time, the Generals of the fallen Monarchy having disappeared,
or, for the most part, failed, brilliant names began to emerge
from the ranks, and to lead the suddenly raised armies; and
though worthless selections were not seldom made, more than
one private and sergeant gave proof of capacity of no common
order. Terror certainly added strength to patriotism, for
thousands were driven to the camp by force, and death was the
usual penalty of a defeated chief; but it was not the less a
great national movement, and high honor is justly due to a
people which, in a situation that might have seemed hopeless,
made such heroic: and noble efforts, even though it triumphed
through the weakness of its foe. Owing to a happy inspiration
of Carnot, a detachment was rapidly marched from the Rhine,
where the Prussians remained in complete inaction; and with
this reinforcement Jourdan gained a victory at Wattignies
[October 16] over the Austrians, and opened the way into the
Low Countries. At the close of the year the youthful Hoche,
once a corporal, but a man of genius, who had given studious
hours to the theory of war, divided Brunswick from the
Austrian Würmser by a daring and able march through the
Vosges; and the baffled Allies were driven out of Alsace, the
borders of which they had just invaded. By these operations
the great Northern frontier, the really vulnerable part of
France, was almost freed from the invaders' presence; and,
though less was achieved on the Southern frontier, the enemies
of the Republic began to lose courage."
W. O'C. Morris,
The French Revolution,
chapter 6.
"The Prussians had remained wholly inactive for two months
after the fall of Mayence, contenting themselves with watching
the French in their lines at Weissenburg. Wearied at length by
the torpor of his opponents, Moreau assumed the initiative,
and attacked the Prussian corps at Pirmasens. This bold
attempt was repulsed (September 14) with the loss of 4,000
men; but it was not till a month later (October 13) that the
Allies resumed the offensive, when the Weissenburg lines were
stormed by a mixed force of Austrians and Prussians, and the
French fled in confusion almost to Strasburg. But this
important advantage led to no results, though the defeat of
the Republican movement was hailed by a royalist movement in
Alsace.
{1296}
The Austrians, immovable in their plans of conquest, refused
to occupy Strasburg in the name of Louis XVII.; and the
unfortunate royalists, abandoned to Republican vengeance, were
indiscriminately consigned to the guillotine by a decree of
the Convention, while the confederate army was occupied in the
siege of Landau. But the lukewarmness of the Prussians had now
become so evident, that it was only by the most vehement
remonstrances of the Austrian cabinet that they were prevented
from seceding altogether from the league; and the Republicans,
taking advantage of the disunion of their enemies, again
attacked the Allies (December 26), who were routed and driven
over the Rhine [abandoning the siege of Landau]; while the
victors, following up their success, retook Spires, and
advanced to the gates of Mannheim. The operations in the
Pyrenees and on the side of Savoy, during this campaign, led
to no important results. On the western extremity of the
Pyrenees, the Spaniards [had] entered France in the middle of
April, routed their opponents in several encounters, and drove
them into St. Jean Pied-de-Poet. An invasion of Roussillon, at
the same time, was equally successful; and the Spaniards
maintained themselves in the province till the end of the
year, taking the fortresses of Bellegarde and Collioure, and
routing two armies which attempted to dislodge them, at Truellas
(September 22) and Boulon (December 7). An attempt of the
Sardinians to expel the French from their conquests in Savoy
was less fortunate; and, at the close of the campaign, both
parties remained in their former position."
A. Alison,
Epitome of History of Europe,
pages 58-59 (chapter 13,
volume 4 of complete work).
ALSO IN:
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 8, chapter 2 (volume 3).
E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
volume 1, chapters 9-11.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (August).
Emancipation in San Domingo proclaimed.
See HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (September-December).
The "Reign of Terror" becomes the "Order of the Day."
Trial and execution of Marie Antoinette, Madame Roland, and
the Girondists.
"On the 16th of September, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine
surrounded the Hôtel de Ville, clamoring for 'Bread.' Hébert
and Chaumette appeased the mob by vociferous harangues against
rich men and monopolists, and by promising to raise a
revolutionary army with orders to scour the country, empty the
granaries, and put the grain within reach of the people. 'The
next thing will he a guillotine for the monopolists,' added
Hébert. This had been demanded by memorials from the most
ultra provincial Jacobins. The next day the Convention
witnessed the terrible reaction of this scene. At the opening
of the session Merlin de Douai proposed and carried a vote for
the division of the revolutionary tribunal into four sections,
in order to remedy the dilatoriness complained of by
Robespierre and the Jacobins. The municipality soon arrived,
followed by a great crowd; Chaumette, in a furious harangue,
demanded a revolutionary army with a travelling guillotine.
The ferocious Billaud-Varennes declared that this was not
enough, and that all suspected persons must be arrested
immediately. Danton interposed with the powerful eloquence of
his palmy days; he approved of an immediate decree for the
formation of a revolutionary army, but made no mention of the
guillotine. ... Danton's words were impetuous, but his ideas
were politic and deliberate. His motions were carried, amid
general acclamation. But the violent propositions of
Billaud-Varennes and others were also carried. The decree
forbidding domiciliary visits and night arrests, which had
been due to the Girondists, was revoked. A deputation from the
Jacobins and the sections demanded the indictment of the
'monster' Brissot with his accomplices, Vergniaud, Gensonné,
and other 'miscreants.' 'Lawgivers,' said the spokesman of the
deputation, 'let the Reign of Terror be the order of the day!'
Barère, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety,
obtained the passage of a decree organizing an armed force to
restrain counter-revolutionists and protect supplies. Fear led
him to unite with the most violent, and to adopt the great
motto of the Paris Commune, 'Let the Reign of Terror be the
order of the day!' 'The royalists are conspiring,' he said;
'they want blood. Well they shall have that of the
conspirators, of the Brissots and Marie Antoinettes!' The
association of these two names shows what frenzy prevailed in
the minds of the people. The next day September 6, two of the
most formidable Jacobins, the cold, implacable
Billaud-Varennes and the fiery Collot d'Herbois, were added to
the Committee of Public Safety. Danton persisted in his
refusal to return to it. This proves how mistaken the
Girondists had been in accusing him of aspiring to the
dictatorship. He kept aloof from the Committee chiefly because
he knew that they were lost, and did not wish to contribute to
their fall. Before leaving the ministry Garat had tried to
prevent the Girondists from being brought to trial; upon
making known his wish to Robespierre and Danton, he found
Robespierre implacable, while Danton, with tears coursing down
his rugged cheeks replied, 'I cannot save them!' ... On the 10th
of October Saint-Just, in the name of the Committee of Public
Safety, read to the Assembly an important report upon the
situation of the Republic. It was violent and menacing to
others beside the enemies of the Mountain; Hébert and his gang
might well tremble. He inveighed not only against those who
were plundering the government, but against the whole
administration. ... Saint-Just's report had been preceded on
the 3d of October by a report from the new Committee of Public
Safety, concluding with the indictment of 40 deputies; 39 were
Girondists or friends of the Gironde; the fortieth was the
ex-Duke of Orleans. Twenty-one of these 39 were now in the
hands of their enemies, and of these 21 only 9 belonged to
the first deputies indicted on the 2d of June; the remainder
had left Paris hoping to organize outside resistance, and had
been declared outlawed. The deputies subsequently added to
this number were members of the Right who had signed protests
against the violation of the national representation on that
fatal day. ... It was decided at the same session to bring the
40 deputies, together with Marie Antoinette, to trial. The
Jacobins and the commune had long been demanding the trial of
the unhappy queen, and were raising loud clamors over the
plots for her deliverance.
{1297}
She might perhaps have escaped from the Temple if she would
have consented to leave her children. During July a sorrow
equal to that of the 21st of January had been inflicted on
her; she had been separated from her young son under the
pretence that she treated him like a king, and was bringing
him up to make 'a tyrant of him.' The child was placed in
another part of the Temple, and his education was intrusted to
a vulgar and brutal shoemaker, named Simon. Nevertheless the
fate of Marie Antoinette at this epoch was still doubtful;
neither the Committee of Public Safety nor the ministry
desired her death. While Lebrun, the friend of the Girondists,
was minister of foreign affairs, a project had been formed
which would have saved her life. Danton knew of it and aided
it. ... This plan was a negotiation with Venice, Tuscany, and
Naples, the three Italian States yet neutral, who were to
pledge themselves to maintain their wavering neutrality, in
consideration of a guaranty of the safety of Marie Antoinette
and her family. Two diplomatic agents who afterwards held high
posts in France, Marat and Sémonville, were intrusted with
this affair. As they were crossing from Switzerland into
Italy, they were arrested, in violation of the law of nations,
upon the neutral territory of the Grisons by an Austrian
detachment (July 25). ... At tidings of the arrest of the
French envoys, Marie Antoinette was separated from her
daughter and sister-in-law Elizabeth, and transferred to the
Conciergerie. On the 14th of October she appeared before the
revolutionary tribunal. To the accusation of the public
prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, made up of calumnies against
her private life, and for the most part well-founded
imputations against her political conduct, she opposed a
plausible defence, which effaced as far as possible her part
in the late government. ... The following questions were put
to the jurors: 'Has Marie Antoinette aided in movements
designed to assist the foreign enemies of the Republic to open
French territory to them and to facilitate the progress of
their arms? Has she taken part in a conspiracy tending to
incite civil war?' The answer was in the affirmative, and the
sentence of death was passed on her. The decisive portions
which we now possess of the queen's correspondence with
Austria had not then been made public; but enough was known to
leave no doubt of her guilt, which had the same moral excuses
as that of her husband. ... She met death [October 16] with
courage and resignation. The populace who had hated her so
much did not insult her last moments. ... A week after the
queen's death the Girondists were summoned before the
revolutionary tribunal. Brissot and Lasource alone had tried
to escape this bloody ordeal, and to stir up resistance
against it in the South. Vergniaud, Gensonné, and Valazé
remained unshaken in their resolve to await trial. Gensonné,
who had been placed in the keeping of a Swiss whose life he
had saved on the 10th of August, and who had become a
gendarme, might have escaped, but he refused to profit by this
man's gratitude. ... The act of indictment drawn up by the
ex-Feuillant Amar was only a repetition of the monstrous
calumnies which had circulated through the clubs and the
journals. Brissot was accused of having ruined the colonies by
advocating the liberation of slaves, and of having drawn
foreign arms upon France by declaring war on kings. The whole
trial corresponded to this beginning. ... On the 29th the
Jacobins appeared at the bar of the Convention, and called for
a decree giving the jurors of the revolutionary tribunal the
right to bring the proceedings to a close as soon as they
believed themselves sufficiently enlightened. Robespierre and
Barère supported the Jacobin demand. Upon Robespierre's motion
it was decreed that after three days' proceedings, the jurors
might declare themselves ready to render their verdict. The
next day the jurors availed themselves of their privilege, and
declared themselves sufficiently informed, although they had
not heard the evidence for acquittal, neither the accused nor
their counsel having been allowed to plead their cause.
Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Valazé, Bishop Fauchet, Ducos,
Boyer-Fonfrède, Lasource, and their friends were declared
guilty of having conspired against the unity and
indivisibility of the Republic, and against the liberty and
safety of the French people. ... Danton, who had not been an
accomplice in their death, had retired to his mother's home at
Arcis-sur-Aube, that he might not be a witness thereof. The
condemned were brought back to hear their sentence. The
greater part of them rose up with a common impulse, and cried,
'We are innocent! People, they are deceiving you!' The crowd
remained motionless and silent. ... At midnight they partook
of a last repast, passing the rest of the night in converse
about their native land, their remnant of life being cheered
by news of victory and pleasant sallies from young Ducos, who
might have escaped, but preferred to share his friend
Fonfréde's fate. Vergniaud had been given a subtle poison by
Condorcet, but threw it away, choosing to die with his
companions. One of his noble utterances gives us the key to
his life. 'Others sought to consummate the Revolution by
terror; I would accomplish it by love.' Next day, October 31,
at noon, the prisoners were led forth, and as the five carts
containing them left the Conciergerie, they struck up the
national hymn ... and shouts of 'Long live the Republic.' The
sounds died away as their number decreased, but did not cease
until the last of the 21 mounted the fatal platform. ... The
murderers of the Girondists were not likely to spare the
illustrious woman who was at once the inspiration and the
honor of that party, and the very same day Madame Roland who
had been for five months a prisoner at St. Pelagie and the
Abbaye, was transferred to the Conciergerie. Hébert and his
followers had long clamored for her head. During her captivity
she wrote her Memoirs, which unfortunately have not been
preserved complete; no other souvenir of the Revolution equals
this, although it is not always reliable, for Madame Roland
had feminine weaknesses of intellect, despite her masculine
strength of soul; she was prejudiced against all who disagreed
with her, and regarded caution and compromise with a noble but
impolitic scorn. ... The 18th Brumaire (November 10), she was
summoned before the revolutionary tribunal; when she left her
cell, clad in white, her dark hair, floating loosely over her
shoulders, a smile on her lips and her face sparkling with
life and animation. ...
{1298}
She was condemned in advance, not being allowed a word in her
own defence, and was declared guilty of being an author or
accomplice 'of a monstrous conspiracy against the unity and
indivisibility of the Republic.' She heard her sentence
calmly, saying to the judges: 'You deem me worthy the fate of
the great men you have murdered. I will try to display the
same courage on the scaffold.' She was taken directly to the
Place de la Revolution, a man condemned for treason being
placed in the same cart, who was overwhelmed with terror. She
passed the mournful journey in soothing him, and on reaching
the scaffold bid him mount first, that his sufferings might
not be prolonged. As she took her place in turn, her eye fell
on a colossal statue of Liberty, erected August 10, 1793. 'O
Liberty,' she cried, 'what crimes are committed in thy name!'
Some say that she said, 'O Liberty, how they have deceived
thee!' Thus died the noblest woman in history since the
incomparable Joan, who saved France! ... The bloody tribunal
never paused; famous men of every party succeeded each other
at the fatal bar, the ex-Duke of Orleans among them, but four
days earlier than Madame Roland. ... The day after Madame
Roland's trial began that of the venerable Bailli, ex-mayor of
Paris and ex-president of the Constituent Assembly, a man who
played a great part early in the Revolution, but faded out of
sight with the constituent power."
Henry Martin,
Popular History of France, 1789-1877,
volume 1, chapter 16.
ALSO IN
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
chapters 46-52 (volume 3).
C. D. Yonge,
Life of Marie Antoinette,
chapter 39.
Madame Campan,
Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette,
volume 2, conclusion.
S. Marceau,
Reminiscences of a Regicide,
chapter 11.
Count Beugnot,
Life,
volume 1, chapter 6.
Lord R. Gower,
Last Days of Marie Antoinette.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (October).
Life in Paris during the Reign of Terror.
Gaiety in the Prisons.
The Tricoteuses, or knitting women.
Revolutionary costumes and modes of speech.
The guillotine as plaything and ornament.
"By the end of October, 1793, the Committee of General
Security had mastered Paris, and established the Reign of
Terror there by means of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and could
answer to the Great Committee of Public Safety for the
tranquillity of the capital. There were no more riots; men
were afraid even to express their opinions, much less to
quarrel about them; the system of denunciation made Paris into
a hive of unpaid spies, and ordinary crimes, pocket-picking
and the like, vanished as if by magic. Yet it must not be
supposed that Paris was gloomy or dull; on the contrary, the
vast majority of citizens seemed glad to have an excuse to
avoid politics, of which they had had a surfeit during the
last four years, and to turn their thoughts to the literary
side of their favourite journals, to the theatres, and to art.
... The dull places of Paris were the Revolutionary
Committees, the Jacobin Club, the Convention, the Hôtel de
Brienne, where the Committee of General Security sat, and the
Pavillon de l'Egalité, formerly the Pavillon de Flore, in the
Tuileries, where the Great Committee of Public Safety
laboured. ... Elsewhere men were lighthearted and gay,
following their usual avocations, and busy in their pursuit of
pleasure or of gain. It is most essential to grasp the fact
that there was no particular difference, for the vast majority
of the population, in living in Paris during the Reign of
Terror and at other times. The imagination of posterity,
steeped in tales of the tumbrils bearing their burden to the
guillotine, and of similar stories of horror, has conceived a
ghastly picture of life at that extraordinary period, and it
is only after living for months amongst the journals, memoirs,
and letters of the time that one can realize the fact that to
the average Parisian the necessity of getting his dinner or
his evening's amusement remained the paramount thought of his
daily life. ... Strange to say, nowhere was life more happy
and gay than in the prisons of Paris, where the inmates lived
in the constant expectation that the haphazard chance of being
brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal and condemned to
death might befall them at any moment. ... A little more must
be said about the market-women, the tricoteuses, or
knitting-women of infamous memory. These market-women had been
treated as heroines ever since their march to Versailles in
October, 1789. ... They formed their societies after the
fashion of the Jacobin Club, presided over by Renée Audu,
Agnès Lefevre, Marie Louise Bouju, and Rose Lacombe, and went
about the streets of Paris insulting respectably dressed
people, and hounding on the sans-culottes to deeds of
atrocity. These Mænads were encouraged by Marat, and played an
important part in the street history of Paris, up to the Reign
of Terror, when their power was suddenly taken from them. On
May 21, 1793, they were excluded by a decree from the
galleries of the Convention; on May 26 they were forbidden to
form part of any political assembly; and when they appealed
from the Convention to the Commune of Paris, Chaumette
abruptly told them 'that the Republic had no need of Joans of
Arc.' Thus deprived of active participation in politics, the
market-women became the tricoteuses, or knitting-women, who
used to take their seats in the Place de la Revolution, and
watch the guillotine as they knitted. Their active power for
good or harm was gone. ... Life during the Terror in Paris ...
differed in little things, in little affectations of liberty
and equality, which are amusing to study. The fashions of
dress everywhere betrayed the new order of things. A few men,
such as Robespierre, might still go about with powdered hair
and in knee-breeches, but the ordinary male costume of the
time was designed to contrast in every way with the costume of
a dandy of the 'ancien régime.' Instead of breeches, the
fashion was to wear trousers; instead of shoes, top-boots; and
instead of shaving, the young Parisian prided himself on letting
his moustache grow. In female costume a different motive was
at work. Only David's art disciples ventured to imitate the
male apparel of ancient Greece and Rome, but such imitation
became the fashion among women. Waists disappeared; and
instead of stiffened skirts and narrow bodices, women wore
short loose robes, which they fancied resembled Greek chitons;
sandals took the place of high-heeled shoes; and the hair,
instead of being worked up into elaborate edifices, was
allowed to flow down freely. For ornaments, gun-metal and
steel took the place of gold, silver and precious stones. ...
The favourite design was the guillotine.
{1299}
Little guillotines were worn as brooches, as earrings and as
clasps, and the women of the time simply followed the fashion
without realizing what it meant. Indeed, the worship of the
guillotine was one of the most curious features of the epoch.
Children had toy guillotines given them; models were made to
cut off imitation heads, when wine or sweet syrup flowed in
place of blood; and hymns were written to La Sainte
Guillotine, and jokes made upon it, as the 'national razor.'
... It is well known that the desire to emphasize the
abolition of titles was followed by the abolition of the terms
'Monsieur' and 'Madame,' and that their places were taken by
'Citizen' and 'Citizeness;' and also how the use of the second
person plural was dropped, and it was considered a sign of a
good republican to tutoyer everyone, that is, to call them
'thou' and 'thee.' ... The Reign of Terror in Paris seems to
us an age of unique experiences, a time unparalleled in the
history of the world; yet to the great majority of
contemporaries it did not appear so; they lived their ordinary
lives, and it was only in exceptional cases that the serenity
of their days was interrupted, or that their minds were
exercised by anything more than the necessity of earning their
daily bread."
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 2, chapter 10.
ALSO IN
J. Michelet,
Women of the French Revolution,
chapters 20-30.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (October).
The new republican calendar.
"Before the year ended the legislators of Paris voted that
there was no God, and destroyed or altered nearly everything
that had any reference to Christianity. Robespierre, who would
have stopped short at deism, and who would have preserved the
external decencies, was overruled and intimidated by Hébert
and his frowsy crew, who had either crept into the governing
committees or had otherwise made themselves a power in the
state. ... All popular journalists, patriots, and public
bodies, had begun dating 'First Year of Liberty,' or 'First
Year of the Republic;' and the old calendar had come to be
considered as superstitious and slavish, as an abomination in
the highest degree disgraceful to free and enlightened
Frenchmen. Various petitions for a change had been presented;
and at length the Convention had employed the mathematicians
Romme and Monge, and the astronomer Laplace, to make a new
republican calendar for the new era. These three philosophers,
aided by Fabre d'Eglantine, who, as a poet, furnished the
names, soon finished their work, which was sanctioned by the
Convention and decreed into universal use as early as the 5th
of October. It divided the year into four equal seasons, and
twelve equal months of 30 days each. The five odd days which
remained were to be festivals, and to bear the name of
'Sansculottides.' ... One of these five days was to be
consecrated to Genius, one to Industry, the third to Fine
Actions, the fourth to Rewards, the fifth to Opinion. ... In
leap-years, when there would be six days to dispose of, the
last of those days or Sansculottides was to be consecrated to
the Revolution, and to be observed in all times with all
possible solemnity. The months were divided into three
decades, or portions of ten days each, and, instead of the
Christian sabbath, once in seven days, the décadi, or tenth
day, was to be the day of rest. ... The decimal method of
calculation ... was to preside over all divisions: thus,
instead of our twenty-four hours to the day, and sixty minutes
to the hour, the day was divided into ten parts, and the tenth
was to be subdivided by tens and again by tens to the minutest
division of time. New dials were ordered to mark the time in
this new way, but, before they were finished, it was found
that the people were puzzled and perplexed by this last
alteration, and therefore this part of the calendar was
adjourned for a year, and the hours, minutes and seconds were
left as they were. As the republic commenced on the 21st of
September close on the [autumnal] equinox, the republican year
was made to commence at that season. The first month in the
year (Fabre d'Eglantine being god-father to them all) was
called Vendémiaire, or the vintage month, the second Brumaire,
or the foggy month, the third Frimaire, or the frosty month.
These were the three autumn months. Nivôse, Pluviôse, and
Ventôse, or the snowy, rainy and windy, were the three winter
months. Germinal, Floreal, and Prairial, or the bud month, the
flower month, and the meadow month, formed the spring season.
Messidor, Thermidor and Fructidor, or reaping month, heat
month, and fruit month, made the summer, and completed the
republican year. In more ways than one all this was calculated
for the meridian of Paris, and could suit no other physical or
moral climate. ... But the strangest thing about this
republican calendar was its duration. It lasted till the 1st
of January, 1806."
C. Mac Farlane,
The French Revolution,
volume 4, volume 3.
The Republican Calendar for the Year Two of the Republic
(September 22, 1793-Sept. 21, 1794) is synchronized with the
Gregorian Calendar as follows:
1 Vendémiaire = September 22;
1 Brumaire = October 22;
1 Frimaire = November 21;
1 Nivôse = December 21;
1 Pluviôse = January 20;
1 Ventôse = February 19;
1 Germinal = March 21;
1 Floreal = April 20;
1 Prairial = May 20;
1 Messidor = June 19;
1 Thermidor = July 19;
1 Fructidor= August 18;
1st to 5th Sansculottides = September 17-21.
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 2, appendix 12.
ALSO IN
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 2, pages 364-365.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (November).
Abandonment of Christianity.
The Worship of Reason instituted.
"The earliest steps towards a public abandonment of
Christianity appear to have been taken by Fouché, the future
minister of Police, and Duke of Otranto. ... He published at
Nevers (October 10, 1793) a decree" ordaining that "no forms
of religious worship be practised except within their
respective temples;" that "ministers of religion are
forbidden, under pain of imprisonment, to wear their official
costumes in any other places besides their temples;" and that
the inscription, "Death is an eternal sleep," should be placed
over the entrance to the cemetery. "This decree was reported
to the municipality of Paris by Chaumette, the fanatical
procureur of the Commune, and was warmly applauded. ... The
atheistical cabal of which he was the leader (his chief
associates being the infamous Hébert, the Prussian baron
Anacharsis Clootz, and Chabot, a renegade priest), now judged
that public feeling was ripe for an avowed and combined
onslaught on the profession of Christianity. ... They decreed
that on the 10th of November the 'Worship of Reason' should be
inaugurated at Notre Dame.
{1300}
On that day the venerable cathedral was profaned by a series
of sacrilegious outrages unparalleled in the history of
Christendom. A temple dedicated to 'Philosophy' was erected on
a platform in the middle of the choir. A motley procession of
citizens of both sexes, headed by the constituted authorities,
advanced towards it; on their approach, the Goddess of Reason,
impersonated by Mademoiselle Maillard, a well known figurante
of the opera, took her seat upon a grassy throne in front of
the temple; a hymn, composed in her honour by the poet
Chenier, was sung by a body of young girls dressed in white
and bedecked with flowers; and the multitude bowed the knee
before her in profound adoration. It was the 'abomination of
desolation sitting in the holy place.' At the close of this
grotesque ceremony the whole cortège proceeded to the hall of
the Convention, carrying with them their 'goddess,' who was
borne aloft in a chair of state on the shoulders of four men.
Having deposited her in front of the president, Chaumette
harangued the Assembly. ... He proceeded to demand that the
ci-devant metropolitical church should henceforth be the
temple of Reason and Liberty; which proposition was
immediately adopted. The 'goddess' was then conducted to the
president, and he and other officers of the House saluted her
with the 'fraternal kiss,' amid thunders of applause. After
this, upon the motion of Thuriot, the Convention in a body
joined the mass of the people, and marched in their company to
the temple of Reason, to witness a repetition of the impieties
above described. These demonstrations were zealously imitated
in the other churches of the capital. ... The interior of St.
Eustache was transformed into a 'guinguette,' or place of low
public entertainment. ... At St. Gervais a ball was given in
the chapel of the Virgin. In other churches theatrical
spectacles took place. ... Representatives of the people
thought it no shame to quit their curule chairs in order to
dance the 'carmagnole' with abandoned women in the streets
attired in sacerdotal garments. On Sunday, the 17th of
November, all the parish churches of Paris were closed by
authority, with three exceptions. ... Chaumette, at a sitting
of the Commune on the 26th of November, called for further
measures for the extermination of every vestige of Christian
worship;" and the Council of the Commune, on his demand,
ordered the closing of all churches and temples, of every
religious denomination; made priests and ministers of religion
responsible for any troubles that might arise from religious
opinions, and commanded the arrest as a "suspect" of any
person who should ask for the reopening of a church. "The
example set by Paris, at this melancholy period, was
faithfully repeated, if not surpassed in atrocity, throughout
the provinces. Religion was proscribed, churches closed,
Christian ordinances interdicted; the dreary gloom of
atheistical despotism overspread the land. ... These infamies
were too monstrous to be tolerated for any length of time. ...
Robespierre, who had marked the symptoms of a coming reaction,
boldly seized the opportunity, and denounced without mercy the
hypocritical faction which disputed his own march towards
absolute dictatorship."
W. H. Jervis,
The Gallican Church and the Revolution,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
book 52 (volume 3).
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
book 5, chapter 4 (volume 3).
E. de Pressense,
Religion and the Reign of Terror,
book 2, chapter 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1793-1794 (October-April).
The Terror in the Provinces.
Republican vengeance at Lyons, Marseilles, Toulon,
Bordeaux, Nantes.
Fusillades and Noyades.
"The insurgents of Lyons, Marseilles, Toulon, and Bordeaux,
were punished with pitiless severity. Lyons had revolted, and
the convention decreed [October 12] the destruction of the
city, the confiscation of the property of the rich, for the
benefit of the patriots, and the punishment of the insurgents
by martial law. Couthon, a commissioner well tried in cruelty,
hesitated to carry into execution this monstrous decree, and
was superseded by Collot d'Herbois and Fouché. Thousands of
workmen were employed in the work of destruction: whole
streets fell under their pickaxes: the prisons were gorged:
the guillotine was too slow for revolutionary vengeance, and
crowds of prisoners were shot, in murderous 'mitraillades.'
... At Marseilles, 12,000 of the richest citizens fled from
the vengeance of the revolutionists, and their property was
confiscated, and plundered. When Toulon fell before the
strategy of Bonaparte, the savage vengeance and cruelty of the
conquerors were indulged without restraint. ... The dockyard
labourers were put to the sword: gangs of prisoners were
brought out and executed by fusillades: the guillotine also
claimed its victims: the sans-culottes rioted in confiscation
and plunder. At Bordeaux, Tallien threw 15,000 citizens into
prison. Hundreds fell under the guillotine; and the
possessions and property of the rich were offered up to
outrage and robbery. But all these atrocities were far
surpassed in La Vendee. ... The barbarities of warfare were
yet surpassed by the vengeance of the conquerors, when the
insurrection was, at last, overcome. At Nantes, the monster
Carrier outstripped his rivals in cruelty and insatiable
thirst for blood. Not contented with wholesale mitraillades,
he designed that masterpiece of cruelty, the noyades; and
thousands of men, women and children who escaped the muskets
of the rabble soldiery were deliberately drowned in the waters
of the Loire. In four months, his victims reached 15,000. At
Angers, and other towns in La Vendee, these hideous noyades
were added to the terrors of the guillotine and the
fusillades."
Sir T. E. May,
Democracy in Europe,
chapter 14.
"One begins to be sick of 'death vomited in great floods.'
Nevertheless, hearest thou not, O Reader (for the sound
reaches through centuries), in the dead December and January
nights, over Nantes Town,--confused noises, as of musketry and
tumult, as of rage and lamentation; mingling with the
everlasting moan of the Loire waters there? Nantes Town is
sunk in sleep; but Représentant Carrier is not sleeping, the
wool-capped Company of Marat is not sleeping. Why unmoors that
flatbottomed craft, that 'gabarre'; about eleven at night;
with Ninety Priests under hatches? They are going to Belle
Isle? In the middle of the Loire stream, on signal given, the
gabarre is scuttled; she sinks with all her cargo. 'Sentence
of Deportation,' writes Carrier, 'was executed vertically.'
The Ninety Priests, with their gabarre-coffin, lie deep! It is
the first of the Noyades [November 16], what we may call
'Drownages' of Carrier; which have become famous forever.
{1301}
Guillotining there was at Nantes, till the Headsman sank worn
out: then fusillading 'in the Plain of Saint-Mauve;' little
children fusilladed, and women with children at the breast;
children and women, by the hundred and twenty; and by the five
hundred, so hot is La Véndee: till the very Jacobins grew
sick, and all but the Company of Marat cried, Hold! Wherefore
now we have got Noyading; and on the 24th night of Frostarious
year 2, which is 14th of December 1793, we have a second
Noyade; consisting of '138 persons.' Or why waste a gabarre,
sinking it with them? Fling them out; fling them out, with
their hands tied: pour a continual hail of lead over all the
space, till the last struggler of them be sunk! Unsound
sleepers of Nantes, and the Sea-Villages there-abouts, hear
the musketry amid the night-winds; wonder what the meaning of
it is. And women were in that gabarre; whom the Red Nightcaps
were stripping naked; who begged, in their agony, that their
smocks might not be stript from them. And young children were
thrown in, their mothers vainly pleading: 'Wolflings,'
answered the Company of Marat, 'who would grow to be wolves.'
By degrees, daylight itself witnesses Noyades: women and men
are tied together, feet and feet, hands and hands; and flung
in: this they call Mariage Républicain, Republican Marriage.
Cruel is the panther of the woods, the she-bear bereaved of
her whelps: but there is in man a hatred crueler than that.
Dumb, out of suffering now, as pale swollen corpses, the
victims tumble confusedly seaward along the Loire stream; the
tide rolling them back: clouds of ravens darken the River;
wolves prowl on the shoal-places: Carrier writes, 'Quel
torrent révolutionnaire, What a torrent of Revolution!' For
the man is rabid; and the Time is rabid. These are the Noyades
of Carrier; twenty-five by the tale, for what is done in
darkness comes to be investigated in sunlight: not to be
forgotten for centuries. ... Men are all rabid; as the Time
is. Representative Lebon, at Arras, dashes his sword into the
blood flowing from the Guillotine; exclaims, 'How I like it!'
Mothers, they say, by his orders, have to stand by while the
Guillotine devours their children: a band of music is
stationed near; and, at the fall of every head, strikes up its
'Ça-ira.'"
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, book 5, chapter 3.
ALSO IN
H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 2, chapter 11.
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 5, chapter 1, section 9 (volume 3).
Horrors of the Prison of Arras
("The Reign of Terror: A Collection of Authentic
Narratives," volume 2).
Duchesse de Duras,
Prison Journals during the French Revolution
A. des Echerolles,
Early Life,
volume 1, chapters 7-13, and volume 2, chapter l.
See, also, FRANCE: 1794 (JUNE-JULY).
FRANCE: A. D. 1793-1794 (November-June).
The factions of the Mountain devour one another.
Destruction of the Hebertists.
Danton and his followers brought to the knife.
Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety.
The Feast of the Supreme Being.
"Robespierre was unutterably outraged by the proceedings of
the atheists. They perplexed him as a politician intent upon
order, and they afflicted him sorely as an ardent disciple of
the Savoyard Vicar. Hébert, however, was so strong that it
needed some courage to attack him, nor did Robespierre dare to
withstand him to the face. But he did not flinch from making
an energetic assault upon atheism and the excesses of its
partisans. His admirers usually count his speech of the 21st
of November one of the most admirable of his oratorical
successes. ... 'Atheism [he said] is aristocratic. The idea of
a great being who watches over oppressed innocence and
punishes triumphant crime is essentially the idea of the
people. This is the sentiment of Europe and the Universe; it
is the sentiment of the French nation. That people is attached
neither to priests, nor to superstitions, nor to ceremonies;
it is attached only to worship in itself, or in other words to
the idea of an incomprehensible Power, the terror of
wrong-doers, the stay and comfort of virtue, to which it
delights to render words of homage that are all so many
anathemas against injustice and triumphant crime.' This is
Robespierre's favourite attitude, the priest posing as
statesman. ... Danton followed practically the same line,
though saying much less about it. 'If Greece,' he said in the
Convention, 'had its Olympian games, France too shall
solemnize her sans-culottid days. ... If we have not honoured
the priest of error and fanaticism, neither do we wish to
honour the priest of incredulity: we wish to serve the people.
I demand that there shall be an end of these anti-religious
masquerades in the Convention.' There was an end of the
masquerading, but the Hébertists still kept their ground.
Danton, Robespierre, and the Committee were all equally
impotent against them for some months longer. The
revolutionary force had been too strong to be resisted by any
government since the Paris insurgents had carried both king
and assembly in triumph from Versailles in the October of
1789. It was now too strong for those who had begun to strive
with all their might to build a new government out of the
agencies that had shattered the old to pieces. For some months
the battle which had been opened by Robespierre's remonstrance
against atheistic intolerance, degenerated into a series of
masked skirmishes. ... Collot D'Herbois had come back in hot
haste from Lyons. ... Carrier was recalled from Nantes. ...
The presence of these men of blood gave new courage and
resolution to the Hébertists. Though the alliance was
informal, yet as against Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and the
rest of the Indulgents, as well as against Robespierre, they
made common cause. Camille Desmoulins attacked Hébert in
successive numbers of a journal ['Le Vieux Cordelier'] that is
perhaps the one truly literary monument of this stage of the
revolution. Hébert retaliated by impugning the patriotism of
Desmoulins in the Club, and the unfortunate wit,
notwithstanding the efforts of Robespierre on his behalf, was
for a while turned out of the sacred precincts. ... Even
Danton himself was attacked (December, 1793) and the integrity
of his patriotism brought into question. Robespierre made an
energetic defence of his great rival in the hierarchy of
revolution. ... Robespierre, in whom spasmodical courage and
timidity ruled by rapid turns, began to suspect that he had
been premature; and a convenient illness, which some supposed
to have been feigned, excused his withdrawal for some weeks
from a scene where he felt that he could no longer see clear.
We cannot doubt that both he and Danton were perfectly assured
that the anarchic party must unavoidably roll headlong into the
abyss.
{1302}
But the hour of doom was uncertain. To make a mistake in the
right moment, to hurry the crisis, was instant death.
Robespierre was a more adroit calculator than Danton. ... His
absence during the final crisis of the anarchic party allowed
events to ripen, without committing him to that initiative in
dangerous action which he had dreaded on the 10th of August,
as he dreaded it on every other decisive day of this burning
time. The party of the Commune became more and more daring in
their invectives against the Convention and the Committees. At
length they proclaimed open insurrection. But Paris was cold,
and opinion was divided. In the night of the 13th of March,
Hébert, Chaumette, Clootz, were arrested. The next day
Robespierre recovered sufficiently to appear at the Jacobin
Club. He joined his colleagues of the Committee of Public
Safety in striking the blow. On the 24th of March the
Ultra-Revolutionist leaders were beheaded. The first bloody
breach in the Jacobin ranks was speedily followed by the
second. The Right wing of the opposition to the Committee soon
followed the Left down the ways to dusty death, and the
execution of the Anarchists only preceded by a week the arrest
of the Moderates. When the seizure of Danton had once before
been discussed in the Committee, Robespierre resisted the
proposal violently. We have already seen how he defended
Danton at the Jacobin Club. ... What produced this sudden
tack? ... His acquiescence in the ruin of Danton is
intelligible enough on the grounds of selfish policy. The
Committee [of Public Safety] hated Danton for the good reason
that he had openly attacked them, and his cry for clemency was
an inflammatory and dangerous protest against their system.
Now Robespierre, rightly or wrongly, had made up his mind that
the Committee was the instrument by which, and which only, he
could work out his own vague schemes of power and
reconstruction. And, in any case, how could he resist the
Committee? ... All goes to show that Robespierre was really
moved by nothing more than his invariable dread of being left
behind, of finding himself on the weaker side, of not seeming
practical and political enough. And having made up his mind
that the stronger party was bent on the destruction of the
Dantonists, he became fiercer than Billaud himself. ... Danton
had gone, as he often did, to his native village of
Arcis-sur-Aube, to seek repose and a little clearness of sight
in the night that wrapped him about. He was devoid of personal
ambition; he never had any humour for mere factious struggles.
... It is not clear that he could have done anything. The
balance of force, after the suppression of the Hébertists, was
irretrievably against him, as calculation had already revealed to
Robespierre. ... After the arrest, and on the proceedings to
obtain the assent of the Convention to the trial of Danton and
others of its members, one only of their friends had the
courage to rise and demand that they should be heard at the
bar. Robespierre burst out in cold rage; he asked whether they
had undergone so many heroic sacrifices, counting among them
these acts of 'painful severity,' only to fall under the yoke
of a band of domineering intriguers; and he cried out
impatiently that they would brook no claim of privilege, and
suffer no rotten idol. The word was felicitously chosen, for
the Convention dreaded to have its independence suspected, and
it dreaded this all the more because at this time its
independence did not really exist. The vote against Danton was
unanimous, and the fact that it was so is the deepest stain on
the fame of this assembly. On the afternoon of the 16th
Germinal (April 5, 1794), Paris in amazement and some
stupefaction saw the once dreaded Titan of the Mountain fast
bound in the tumbril, and faring towards the sharp-clanging
knife [with Camille Desmoulins and others]. 'I leave it all in
a frightful welter,' Danton is reported to have said. 'Not a
man of them has an idea of government. Robespierre will follow
me; he is dragged down by me. Ah, better be a poor fisherman
than meddle with the governing of men!' ... After the fall of
the anarchists and the death of Danton, the relations between
Robespierre and the Committees underwent a change. He, who had
hitherto been on the side of government, became in turn an
agency of opposition. He did this in the interest of ultimate
stability, but the difference between the new position and the
old is that he now distinctly associated the idea of a stable
republic with the ascendency of his own religious conceptions.
... The base of Robespierre's scheme of social reconstruction
now came clearly into view; and what a base! An official
Supreme Being and a regulated Terror. ... How can we speak
with decent patience of a man who seriously thought that he
should conciliate the conservative and theological elements of
the society at his feet, by such an odious opera-piece as the
Feast of the Supreme Being. This was designed as a triumphant
ripost to the Feast of Reason, which Chaumette and his friends
had celebrated in the winter. ... Robespierre persuaded the
Convention to decree an official recognition of the Supreme
Being, and to attend a commemorative festival in honour of
their mystic patron. He contrived to be chosen president for
the decade in which the festival would fall. When the day came
(20th Prairial, June 8, 1794), he clothed himself with more
than even his usual care. As he looked out from the windows of
the Tuileries upon the jubilant crowd in the gardens, he was
intoxicated with enthusiasm. 'O Nature,' he cried, 'how
sublime thy power, how full of delight! How tyrants must grow
pale at the idea of such a festival as this!' In pontifical
pride he walked at the head of the procession, with flowers
and wheat-ears in his hand, to the sound of chants and
symphonies and choruses of maidens. On the first of the great
basins in the gardens, David, the artist, had devised an
allegorical structure for which an inauspicious doom was
prepared. Atheism, a statue of life size, was throned in the
midst of an amiable group of human Vices, with Madness by her
side, and Wisdom menacing them with lofty wrath. Great are the
perils of symbolism. Robespierre applied a torch to Atheism, but
alas, the wind was hostile, or else Atheism and Madness were
damp. They obstinately resisted the torch, and it was hapless
Wisdom who took fire. ... The whole mummery was pagan. ... It
stands as the most disgusting and contemptible anachronism in
history."
J. Morley,
Robespierre
(Critical Miscellanies, Second Series).
ALSO IN
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, book 6.
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapters 19-20.
L. Gronlund,
Ça ira: or Danton in the French Revolution,
chapter 6.
J. Claretie,
Camille Desmoulins and his Wife,
chapters 5-6.
{1303}
FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (March-July).
Withdrawal of Prussia from the European Coalition as an ally,
to become a mercenary.
Successes of the Republic.
Conquest of the Austrian Netherlands.
Advance to the Rhine.
Loss of Corsica.
Naval defeat off Ushant.
"While the alliance of the Great Powers was on the point of
dissolution from selfishness and jealousy, the French, with an
energy and determination, which, considering their
unparalleled difficulties, were truly heroic, had assembled
armies numbering nearly a million of men. The aggregate of the
allied forces did not much exceed 300,000. The campaign on the
Dutch and Flemish frontiers of France was planned at Vienna,
but had nearly been disconcerted at the outset by the refusal
of the Duke of York to serve under General Clairfait. ... The
Emperor settled the difficulty by signifying his intention to
take the command in person. Thus one incompetent prince who
knew little, was to be commanded by another incompetent prince
who knew nothing, about war; and the success of a great
enterprise was made subservient to considerations of punctilio
and etiquette. The main object of the Austrian plan was to
complete the reduction of the frontier fortresses by the
capture of Landrecy on the Sambre, and then to advance through
the plains of Picardy on Paris;--a plan which might have been
feasible the year before. ... The King of Prussia formally
withdrew from the alliance [March 13]; but condescended to
assume the character of a mercenary. In the spring of the
year, by a treaty with the English Government, his Prussian
Majesty undertook to furnish 62,000 men for a year, in
consideration of the sum of £1,800,000, of which Holland, by a
separate convention, engaged to supply somewhat less than a
fourth part. The organisation of the French army was effected
under the direction of Carnot. ... The policy of terror was
nevertheless applied to the administration of the army.
Custine and Houchard, who had commanded the last campaign, ...
were sent to the scaffold, because the arms of the republic
had failed to achieve a complete triumph under their
direction. ... Pichegru, the officer now selected to lead the
hosts of France, went forth to assume his command with the
knife of the executioner suspended over his head. His orders
were to expel the invaders from the soil and strongholds of
the republic, and to reconquer Belgium. The first step towards
the fulfilment of this commission was the recovery of the
three great frontier towns, Condé, Valenciennes, and Quesnoy.
The siege of Quesnoy was immediately formed; and Pichegru,
informed of or anticipating the plans of the Allies, disposed
a large force in front of Cambray, to intercept the operations
of ... the allied army upon Landrecy. ... On the 17th
[of April] a great action was fought in which the allies
obtained a success, sufficient to enable them to press the
siege of Landrecy. ... Pichegru, a few days after [April 26,
at the redoubts of Troisville] sustained a signal repulse from
the British, in an attempt to raise the siege of Landrecy; but
by a rapid and daring movement, he improved his defeat, and
seized the important post of Moucron. The results were, that
Clairfait was forced to fall back on Tournay; Courtray and
Menin surrendered to the French; and thus the right flanks of
the Allies were exposed. Landrecy, which, about the same time,
fell into the hands of the Allies, was but a poor compensation
for the reverses in West Flanders. The Duke of York, at the
urgent instance of the Emperor, marched to the relief of
Clairfait; but, in the meantime, the Austrian general, being
hard pressed, was compelled to fall back upon a position which
would enable him for a time to cover Bruges, Ghent, and
Ostend. The English had also to sustain a vigorous attack near
Tournay; but the enemy were defeated with the loss of 4,000
men. It now became necessary to risk a general action to save
Flanders, by cutting off that division of the French army
which had outflanked the Allies. By bad management and want of
concert this movement, which had been contrived by Colonel
Mack, the chief military adviser of the Emperor, was wholly
defeated [at Tourcoign, May 18]. ... The French took 1,500
prisoners and 60 pieces of cannon. A thousand English soldiers
lay dead on the field, and the Duke [of York] himself escaped
with difficulty. Four days after, Pichegru having collected a
great force, amounting, it has been stated, to 100,000 men,
made a grand attack upon the allied army [at Pont Achin]. ...
The battle raged from five in the morning until nine at night,
and was at length determined by the bayonet. ... In consequence
of this check, Pichegru fell back upon Lisle." It was after
this repulse that "the French executive, on the flimsy
pretence of a supposed attempt to assassinate Robespierre,
instigated by the British Government, procured a decree from
the Convention, that no English or Hanoverian prisoners should
be made. In reply to this atrocious edict, the Duke of York
issued a general order, enjoining forbearance to the troops
under his command. Most of the French generals ... refused to
become assassins. ... The decree was carried into execution in
a few instances only. ... The Allies gained no military
advantage by the action of Pont Achin on the 22nd of May. ...
The Emperor ... abandoned the army and retired to Vienna. He
left some orders and proclamations behind him, to which nobody
thought it worth while to pay any attention. On the 5th of June,
Pichegru invested Ypres, which Clairfait made two attempts to
retain, but without success. The place surrendered on the
17th; Clairfait retreated to Ghent; Walmoden abandoned Bruges;
and the Duke of York, forced to quit his position at Tournay,
encamped near Oudenarde. It was now determined by the Prince
of Coburg, who resumed the chief command after the departure
of the Emperor, to risk the fate of Belgium on a general
action, which was fought at Fleurus on the 26th of June. The
Austrians, after a desperate struggle, were defeated at all
points by the French army of the Sambre under Jourdan.
Charleroi having surrendered to the French ... and the Duke of
York being forced to retreat, any further attempt to save the
Netherlands was hopeless. Ostend and Mons, Ghent, Tournay, and
Oudenarde, were successively evacuated; and the French were
established at Brussels. When it was too late, the English
army was reinforced. ... It now only remained for the French
to recapture the fortresses on their own frontier which had
been taken from them in the last campaign. ...
{1304}
Landrecy ... fell without a struggle. Quesnoy ... made a
gallant [but vain] resistance. ... Valenciennes and Condé ...
opened their gates. ... The victorious armies of the Republic
were thus prepared for the conquest of Holland. ... The Prince
of Orange made an appeal to the patriotism of his countrymen;
but the republicans preferred the ascendancy of their faction
to the liberties of their country. ... The other military
operation's of the year, in which England was engaged, do not
require prolonged notice. The Corsicans, under the guidance of
their veteran chief, Paoli, ... sought the aid of England to
throw off the French yoke, and offered in return allegiance of
his countrymen to the British Crown. ... A small force was
despatched, and, after a series of petty operations, Corsica
was occupied by British troops, and proclaimed a part of the
British dominions. An expedition on a greater scale was sent
to the West Indies. Martinique, St. Lucie and Guadaloupe were
easily taken; but the large island of St. Domingo, relieved by
a timely arrival of succours from France, offered a formidable
[and successful] resistance. ... The campaign on the Rhine was
undertaken by the Allies under auspices ill calculated to
inspire confidence, or even hope. The King of Prussia, not
content with abandoning the cause, had done everything in his
power to thwart and defeat the operations of the Allies. ...
On the 22d of May, the Austrians crossed the Rhine and
attacked the French in their intrenchments without success. On
the same day, the Prussians defeated a division of the Republican
army [at Kaiserslautern], and advanced their head-quarters to
Deux-Ponts. Content with this achievement, the German armies
remained inactive for several weeks, when the French, having
obtained reinforcements, attacked the whole line of the German
posts. ... Before the end of the year the Allies were in full
retreat, and the Republicans in their turn had become the
invaders of Germany. They occupied the Electorate of Treves,
and they captured the important fort of Mannheim. Mentz also
was placed under a close blockade. ... At sea, England
maintained her ancient reputation. The French had made great
exertions to fit out a fleet, and 26 ships of the line were
assembled in the port of Brest," for the protecting of a
merchant fleet, laden with much needed food-supplies, expected
from America. Lord Howe, with an English fleet of 25 ships of
the line, was on the watch for the Brest fleet when it put to
sea. On the 1st of June he sighted and attacked it off Ushant,
performing the celebrated manœuvre of breaking the enemy's
line. Seven of the French ships were taken, one was sunk
during the battle, and 18, much crippled, escaped. The victory
caused great exultation in England, but it was fruitless, for
the American convoy was brought safely into Brest.
W. Massey,
History of England during the reign of George III.,
chapter 35 (volume 3).
ALSO IN
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 16 (volume 4).
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 3.
Capt. A. T. Mahan,
Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution
and Empire, chapter 8 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (June-July).
The monstrous Law of the 22d Prairial.
The climax of the Reign of Terror.
A summary of its horrors.
"On the day of the Feast of the Supreme Being, the guillotine
was concealed in the folds of rich hangings. It was the 20th
of Prairial. Two days later Couthon proposed to the Convention
the memorable Law of the 22d Prairial [June 10]. Robespierre
was the draftsman, and the text of it still remains in his own
writing. This monstrous law is simply the complete abrogation
of all law. Of all laws ever passed in the world it is the
most nakedly iniquitous. ... After the probity and good
judgment of the tribunal, the two cardinal guarantees in state
trials are accurate definition, and proof. The offence must be
capable of precise description, and the proof against an
offender must conform to strict rule. The Law of Prairial
violently infringed all three of these essential conditions of
judicial equity. First, the number of the jury who had power
to convict was reduced. Second, treason was made to consist in
such vague and infinitely elastic kinds of action as inspiring
discouragement, misleading opinion, depraving manners,
corrupting patriots, abusing the principles of the Revolution
by perfidious applications. Third, proof was to lie in the
conscience of the jury; there was an end of preliminary
inquiry, of witnesses in defence, and of counsel for the
accused. Any kind of testimony was evidence, whether material
or moral, verbal or written, if it was of a kind 'likely to
gain the assent of a man of reasonable mind.' Now, what was
Robespierre's motive in devising this infernal instrument? ...
To us the answer seems clear. We know what was the general aim
in Robespierre's mind at this point in the history of the
Revolution. His brother Augustin was then the representative
of the Convention with the army of Italy, and General
Bonaparte was on terms of close intimacy with him. Bonaparte
said long afterwards ... that he saw long letters from
Maximilian to Augustin Robespierre, all blaming the
Conventional Commissioners [sent to the provinces]--Tallien,
Fouché, Barras, Collot, and the rest--for the horrors they
perpetrated, and accusing them of ruining the Revolution by
their atrocities. Again, there is abundant testimony that
Robespierre did his best to induce the Committee of Public
Safety to bring those odious malefactors to justice. The text
of the Law ... discloses the same object. The vague phrases of
depraving manners and applying revolutionary principles
perfidiously, were exactly calculated to smite the band of
violent men whose conduct was to Robespierre the scandal of
the Revolution. And there was a curious clause in the law as
originally presented, which deprived the Convention of the
right of preventing measures against its own members.
Robespierre's general design in short was to effect a further
purgation of the Convention. ... If Robespierre's design was
what we believe it to have been, the result was a ghastly
failure. The Committee of Public Safety would not consent to
apply his law against the men for whom he had specially
designed it. The frightful weapon which he had forged was
seized by the Committee of General Security, and Paris was
plunged into the fearful days of the Great Terror. The number
of persons put to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal before
the Law of Prairial had been comparatively moderate. From the
creation of the Tribunal in April 1793, down to the execution
of the Hébertists in March 1794, the number of persons
condemned to death was 505.
{1305}
From the death of the Hébertists down to the death of
Robespierre, the number of the condemned was 2,158. One-half
of the entire number of victims, namely, 1,356, were
guillotined after the Law of Prairial. ... A man was informed
against; he was seized in his bed at five in the morning; at
seven he was taken to the Conciergerie; at nine he received
information of the charge against him; at ten he went into the
dock; by two in the afternoon he was condemned; by four his
head lay in the executioner's basket."
J. Morley,
Robespierre
(Critical Miscellanies: Second Series).
"Single indictments comprehended 20 or 30 people taken
promiscuously--great noblemen from Paris, day labourers from
Marseilles, sailors from Brest, peasants from Alsace--who were
accused of conspiring together to destroy the Republic. All
examination, discussion, and evidence were dispensed with; the
names of the victims were hardly read out to the jury, and it
happened, more than once, that the son was mistaken for the
father--an entirely innocent person for the one really
charged--and sent to the guillotine. The judges urged the jury
to pass sentences of death, with loud threats; members of the
Government committees attended daily, and applauded the bloody
verdicts with ribald jests. On this spot at least the strife
of parties was hushed."
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 10, chapter 1 (volume 4).
"The first murders committed in 1793 proceeded from a real
irritation caused by danger. Such perils had now ceased; the
republic was victorious; people now slaughtered not from
indignation, but from the atrocious habit which they had
contracted. ... According to the law, the testimony of
witnesses was to be dispensed with only when there existed
material or moral proofs; nevertheless no witnesses were
called, as it was alleged that proofs of this kind existed in
every case. The jurors did not take the trouble to retire to
the consultation room. They gave their opinions before the
audience, and sentence was immediately pronounced. The accused
had scarcely time to rise and to mention their names. One day,
there was a prisoner whose name was not upon the list of the
accused, and who said to the Court, 'I am not accused; my name
is not on your list.' 'What signifies that?' said Fouquier,
'give it quick!' He gave it, and was sent to the scaffold like
the others. ... The most extraordinary blunders were
committed. ... More than once victims were called long after
they had perished. There were hundreds of acts of accusation
quite ready, to which there was nothing to add but the
designation of the individuals. ... The printing-office was
contiguous to the hall of the tribunal: the forms were kept
standing, the title, the motives, were ready composed; there
was nothing but the names to be added. These were handed
through a small loop-hole to the overseer. Thousands of copies
were immediately worked off and plunged families into mourning
and struck terror into the prisons. The hawkers came to sell
the bulletin of the tribunal under the prisoners' windows,
crying, 'Here are the names of those who have gained prizes in
the lottery of St. Guillotine.' The accused were executed on
the breaking up of the court, or at latest on the morrow, if
the day was too far advanced. Ever since the passing of the
Law of the 22d of Prairial, victims perished at the rate of 50
or 60 a day. 'That goes well,' said Fouquier-Tinville; 'heads
fall like tiles:' and he added, 'It must go better still next
decade; I must have 450 at least.'"
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 3, pages 63-66.
"One hundred and seventy-eight tribunals, of which 40 are
ambulatory, pronounce in every part of the territory sentences
of death which are immediately executed on the spot. Between
April 6, 1793, and Thermidor 9, year II. [July 27, 1794], that
of Paris has 2,625 persons guillotined, while the provincial
judges do as much work as the Paris judges. In the small town
of Orange alone, they guillotine 331 persons. In the single
town of Arras they have 299 men and 93 women guillotined. At
Nantes, the revolutionary tribunals and military committees
have, on the average, 100 persons a day guillotined, or shot,
in all 1971. In the city of Lyons the revolutionary committee
admit 1684 executions, while Cadillot, one of Robespierre's
correspondents, advises him of 6,000.--The statement of these
murders is not complete, but 17,000 have been enumerated. ...
Even excepting those who had died fighting or who, taken with
arms in their hands, were shot down or sabred on the spot,
there were 10,000 persons slaughtered without trial in the
province of Anjou alone. ... It is estimated that, in the
eleven western departments, the dead of both sexes and of all
ages exceeded 400,000.--Considering the programme and
principles of the Jacobin sect, this is no great number; they
might have killed a good many more. But time was wanting;
during their short reign they did what they could with the
instrument in their hands. Look at their machine. ...
Organised March 30 and April 6,1793, the Revolutionary
Committees and the Revolutionary Tribunal had but seventeen
months in which to do their work. They did not drive ahead
with all their might until after the fall of the Girondists,
and especially after September, 1793, that is to say for a
period of eleven months. Its loose wheels were not screwed up
and the whole was not in running order under the impulse of
the central motor until after December, 1793, that is to say
during eight months. Perfected by the Law of Prairial 22, it
works for the past two months faster and better than before.
... Baudot and Jean Bon St. Andre, Carrier, Antonelle and
Guffroy had already estimated the lives to be taken at several
millions, and, according to Collot d'Herbois, who had a lively
imagination, 'the political perspiration should go on freely,
and not stop until from twelve to fifteen million Frenchmen
had been destroyed.'"
H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 8, chapter 1 (volume 3).
ALSO IN
W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
Lectures 39-42 (volume 2).
Abbé Dumesnil,
Recollections of the Reign of Terror.
Count Beugnot,
Life,
volume 1, chapters 7-8.
J. Wilson,
The Reign of Terror and its Secret Police
(Studies in Modern Mind, etc.), chapter 7.
The Reign of Terror:
A collection of authentic narratives,
2 volumes.
{1306}
FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (July).
The Fall of Robespierre.
End of the Reign of Terror.
Robespierre "was already feeling himself unequal to the task
laid upon him. He said himself on one occasion: 'I was not
made to rule, I was made to combat the enemies of the
Revolution;' and so the possession of supreme power produced
in him no feeling of exultation. On the contrary, it preyed
upon his spirits, and made him fancy himself the object of
universal hatred. A guard now slept nightly at his house, and
followed him in all his walks. Two pistols lay ever at his
side. He would not eat food till some one else had tasted from
the dish. His jealous fears were awakened by every sign of
popularity in another. Even the successes of his generals
filled him with anxiety, lest they should raise up dangerous
rivals. He had, indeed ... grounds enough for anxiety. In the
Committee of Public Safety every member, except St. Just and
Couthon, viewed him with hatred and suspicion. Carnot resented
his interferences. The Terrorists were contemptuous of his
religious festivals, and disliked his decided supremacy. The
friends of Mercy saw with indignation that the number of
victims was increasing. The friends of Disorder found
themselves restrained, and were bored by his long speeches
about virtue and simplicity of life. He was hated for what was
good and for what was evil in his government; and meanwhile
the national distress was growing, and the cry of starvation
was heard louder than ever. Fortunately there was a splendid
harvest in 1794; but before it was gathered in Robespierre had
fallen. A somewhat frivolous incident did much to discredit
him. A certain old woman named Catherine Théot, living in an
obscure part of Paris, had taken to seeing visions. Some of
the Terrorists produced a paper, purporting to be written by
her, and declaring that Robespierre was the Messiah. The paper
was a forgery, but it served to cover Robespierre with
ridicule, and to rouse in him a fierce determination to
suppress those whom he considered his enemies in the Committee
and the Convention. For some time he had taken little part in
the proceedings of either of these bodies. His reliance was
chiefly on the Jacobin Club, the reorganized Commune, and the
National Guards, still under the command of Henriot. But on
July 26th [8th Thermidor] Robespierre came to the Convention
and delivered one of his most elaborate speeches, maintaining
that the affairs of France had been mismanaged; that the army
had been allowed to become dangerously independent; that the
Government must be strengthened and simplified; and that
traitors must be punished. He made no definite proposals, and
did not name his intended victims. The real meaning of the
speech was evidently that he ought to be made Dictator, but
that in order to obtain his end, it was necessary to conceal
the use he meant to make of his power. The members of the
Convention naturally felt that some of themselves were aimed
at. Few felt themselves safe; but Robespierre's dominance had
become so established that no one ventured at first to
criticize. It was proposed, and carried unanimously, that the
speech should be printed and circulated throughout France.
Then at length a deputy named Cambon rose to answer
Robespierre's attacks on the recent management of the
finances. Finding himself favourably listened to, he went on
to attack Robespierre himself. Other members of the hitherto
docile Convention now took courage; and it was decided that
the speech should be referred to the Committees before it was
printed. The crisis was now at hand. Robespierre went down as
usual to the Jacobin Club, where he was received with the
usual enthusiasm. The members swore to die with their leader,
or to suppress his enemies. On the following day [9th
Thermidor] St. Just attacked Billaud and Collot. Billaud
[followed and supported by Tallien] replied by asserting that
on the previous night the Jacobins had pledged themselves to
massacre the deputies. Then the storm burst. A cry of horror
and indignation arose; and as Billaud proceeded to give
details of the alleged conspiracy, shouts of 'Down with the
tyrant!' began to rise from the benches. Robespierre vainly
strove to obtain a hearing. He rushed about the chamber,
appealing to the several groups. As he went up to the higher
benches on the Left, he was met with the cry, 'Back, tyrant,
the shade of Danton repels you!' and when he sought shelter
among the deputies on the Right, and actually sat down in
their midst, they indignantly exclaimed, 'Wretch, that was
Vergniaud's seat!' Baited on all sides, his attempts to speak
became shrieks, which were scarcely audible, however, amid the
shouts and interruptions that rose from all the groups. His
voice grew hoarser ... till at length it failed him
altogether. Then one of the Mountain cried, 'The blood of
Danton chokes him!' Amid a scene of indescribable excitement
and uproar, a decree was passed that Robespierre and some of
his leading followers should be arrested. They were seized by
the officers of the Convention, and hurried off to different
prisons; so that, in case of a rescue, only one of them might
be released. There was room enough for fear. The Commune
organized an insurrection, as soon as they heard what the
Convention had done; and by a sudden attack the prisoners were
all delivered from the hands of their guards. Both parties now
hastily gathered armed forces. Those of the municipality were
by far the most numerous, and Henriot confidently ordered them
to advance. But the men refused to obey. The Sections mostly
declared for the Convention, and thus by an unexpected
reaction the Robespierian leaders found themselves almost
deserted. A detachment of soldiers forced their way into the
room where the small band of fanatics were drawing up a
Proclamation. A pistol was fired; and no one knows with
certainty whether Robespierre attempted suicide, or was shot
by one of his opponents. At any rate his jaw was fractured,
and he was laid out, a ghastly spectacle, on an adjacent
table. The room was soon crowded. Some spat at the prostrate
form. Others stabbed him with their knives. Soon he was
dragged [along with Couthon, St. Just, Henriot, and others]
before the Tribunal which he himself had instituted. The,
necessary formalities were hurried through, and the mangled
body was borne to the guillotine, where what remained to him
of life was quickly extinguished. Then, from the crowd, a man
stepped quickly up to the blood-stained corpse, and uttered
over him the words, 'Yes, Robespierre, there is a God!'"
J. E. Symes.
The French Revolution,
chapter 13.
{1307}
"Samson's work done, there bursts forth shout on shout of
applause. Shout, which prolongs itself not only over Paris,
but over France, but over Europe, and down to this generation.
Deservedly, and also undeservedly. O unhappiest Advocate of
Arras, wert thou worse than other Advocates? Stricter man,
according to his Formula, to his Credo and his Cant, of
probities, benevolences, pleasures-of-virtue, and suchlike,
lived not in that age. A man fitted, in some luckier settled
age, to have become one of those incorruptible barren
Pattern-Figures, and have had marble-tablets and
funeral-sermons. His poor landlord, the Cabinet-maker in the
Rue Saint-Honorè, loved him; his Brother died for him. May God
be merciful to him and to us! This is the end of the Reign of
Terror; new glorious Revolution named 'of Thermidor'; of
Thermidor 9th, year 2; which being interpreted into old
slave-style means 27th of July, 1794."
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
book 6, chapter 7 (volume 3).
"He [Robespierre] had qualities, it is true, which we must
respect; he was honest, sincere, self-denying and consistent.
But he was cowardly, relentless, pedantic, unloving, intensely
vain and morbidly envious. ... He has not left the legacy to
mankind of one grand thought, nor the example of one generous
and exalted action."
G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre.
Conclusion.
"The ninth of Thermidor is one of the great epochs in the
history of Europe. It is true that the three members of the
Committee of Public Safety [Billaud, Collot, and Barère],
who triumphed were by no means better men than the three
[Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just], who fell. Indeed, we are
inclined to think that of these six statesmen the least bad
were Robespierre and St. Just, whose cruelty was the effect of
sincere fanaticism operating on narrow understandings and
acrimonious tempers. The worst of the six was, beyond all
doubt, Barère, who had no faith in any part of the system
which he upheld by persecution."
Lord Macaulay,
Barère's Memoirs
(Essays, volume 5).
ALSO IN
G. Everitt,
Guillotine the Great,
chapter 2.
J. W. Croker,
Robespierre (Quarterly Review,
September, 1835, volume 34).
W. Chambers,
Robespierre
(Chambers' Edin. Journal, 1852).
FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (July-April).
Reaction against the Reign of Terror.
The Thermidorians and the Jeunesse Doree.
End of the Jacobin Club.
Insurrection of Germinal 12.
Fall of the Montagnards.
The White Terror in the Provinces.
"On the morning of the 10th of Thermidor all the people who
lived near the prisons of Paris crowded on the roofs of their
houses and cried, 'All is over! Robespierre is dead!' The
thousands of prisoners, who had believed themselves doomed to
death, imagined themselves rescued from the tomb. Many were
set free the same day, and all the rest regained hope and
confidence. Their feeling of deliverance was shared throughout
France. The Reign of Terror had become a sort of nightmare
that stifled the nation, and the Reign of Terror and
Robespierre were identical in the sight of the great majority.
... The Convention presented a strange aspect. Party remnants
were united in the coalition party called the 'Thermidorians.'
Many of the Mountaineers and of those who had been fiercest in
their missions presently took seats with the Right or Centre;
and the periodic change of Committees, so long contested, was
determined upon. Lots were drawn, and Barère, Lindet, and
Prieur went out; Carnot, indispensable in the war, was
re-elected until the coming spring; Billaud and Collot,
feeling out of place in the new order of things, resigned.
Danton's friends now prevailed; but, alas! the Dantonists were
not Danton."
H. Martin,
Popular History of France from the First Revolution,
chapter 22 (volume l).
"The Reign of Terror was practically over, but the
ground-swell which follows a storm continued for some time
longer. Twenty-one victims suffered on the same day with
Robespierre, 70 on the next; altogether 114 were condemned and
executed in the three days which followed his death. ... A
strong reaction against the 'Terreur' now set in. Upwards of
10,000 'suspects' were set free, and Robespierre's law of the
22 Prairial was abolished. Fréron, a leading Thermidorien,
organized a band of young men who called themselves the
Jeunesse Dorée [gilded youth], or Muscadins, and chiefly
frequented the Palais Royal. They wore a ridiculous dress, 'a
la Victime' [large cravat, black or green collar, and crape
around the arm, signifying relationship to some of the victims
of the revolutionary tribunal.--Thiers], and devoted
themselves to punishing the Jacobins. They had their hymn, 'Le
réveil du Peuple.' which they sang about the street, often
coming into collision with the sans-culottes shouting the
Marseillaise. On the 11th of November the Muscadins broke open
the hall of the celebrated club, turned out the members, and
shut it up for ever. ... The committees of Salut Public and
Sureté Générale were entirely remodelled and their powers much
restrained; also the Revolutionary Tribunal was reorganized on
the lines advocated by Camille Desmoulins in his proposal for
a Comité de Clémence--which cost him his life. Carrier and
Lebon suffered death for their atrocious conduct in La Vendée
and [Arras]; 73 members who had protested against the arrest
of the Girondins were recalled, and the survivors of the
leading Girondists, Louvet, Lanjuinais, Isnard,
Larévillière-Lépeaux and others, 22 in number, were restored
to their seats in the Convention."
Sergent Marceau,
Reminiscences of a Regicide,
part 2, chapter 12.
"Billaud, Collot, and other marked Terrorists, already
denounced in the Convention by Danton's friends, felt that
danger was every day drawing nearer to themselves. Their fate
was to all appearance sealed by the readmission to the
Convention (December 8) of the 73 deputies of the right,
imprisoned in 1793 for signing protests against the expulsion
of the Girondists. By the return of these deputies the
complexion of the Assembly was entirely altered. ... They now
sought to undo the work of the Convention since the
insurrection by which their party had been overwhelmed. They
demanded that confiscated property should be restored to the
relatives of persons condemned by the revolutionary courts;
that emigrants who had fled in consequence of Terrorist
persecutions should be allowed to return; that those deputies
proscribed on June 2,1793, who yet survived, should be
recalled to their seats. The Mountain, as a body, violently
opposed even the discussion of such questions. The
Thermidorians split into two divisions. Some in alarm rejoined
the Mountain; while others, headed by Tallien and Fréron,
sought their safety by coalescing with the returned members of
the right. A committee was appointed to report on accusations
brought against Collot, Billaud, Barère, and Vadier (December
27, 1794). In a few weeks the survivors of the proscribed
deputies entered the Convention amidst applause (March 8,
1795). ... There was at this time great misery prevalent in
Paris, and imminent peril of insurrection.
{1308}
After Robespierre's fall, maximum prices were no longer
observed, and assignats were only accepted in payment of goods
at their real value compared with coin. The result was a rapid
rise in prices, so that in December prices were double what
they had been in July, and were continuing to rise in
proportion as assignats decreased in value. ... The maximum
laws, already a dead letter, were repealed (December 24). The
abolition of maximum prices and requisitions increased the
already lavish expenditure of the Government, which, to meet
the deficit in its revenues, had no resource but to create
more assignats, and the faster these were issued the faster
they fell in value and the higher prices rose. In July 1794,
they had been worth 34 per cent. of their nominal value. In
December they were worth 22 per cent., and in May 1795 they
were worth only 7 per cent. ... At this time a pound of bread
cost eight shillings, of rice thirteen, of sugar seventeen,
and other articles were all proportionately dear. It is
literally true that more than half the population of Paris was
only kept alive by occasional distributions of meat and other
articles at low prices, and the daily distribution of bread at
three half-pence a pound. In February, however, this source of
relief threatened to fail. ... On April 1, or Germinal 12,
bread riots, begun by women, broke out in every section. Bands
collected and forced their way into the Convention, shouting
for bread, but offering no violence to the deputies. ... The
crowd was already dispersing when forces arrived from the
sections and cleared the House. The insurrection was a
spontaneous rising for bread, without method or combination.
The Terrorists had sought, but vainly, to obtain direction of
it. Had they succeeded, the Mountain would have had an
opportunity of proscribing the right. Their failure gave the
right the opportunity of proscribing the left. The
transportation to Cayenne of Billaud, Collot, Barère, and
Vadier was decreed, and the arrest of fifteen other
Montagnards, accused without proof, in several cases without
probability, of having been accomplices of the insurgents. ...
The insurrection of Germinal 12 gave increased strength to the
party of reaction. The Convention, in dread of the Terrorists,
was compelled to look to it for support. ... In the
departments famine, disorder, and crime prevailed, as well as
in Paris. ... From the first the reaction proceeded in the
departments with a more rapid step and in bolder form than in
Paris. ... In the departments of the south-east, where the
Royalists had always possessed a strong following, emigrants
of all descriptions readily made their way back; and here the
opponents of the Republic, instigated by a desire for
vengeance, or merely by party spirit, commenced a reaction
stained by crimes as atrocious as any committed during the
course of the revolution. Young men belonging to the upper and
middle classes were organised in bands bearing the names of
companies of Jesus and companies of the Sun, and first at
Lyons, then at Aix, Toulon, Marseilles, and other towns, they
broke into the prisons and murdered their inmates without
distinction of age or sex. Besides the Terrorist and the
Jacobin, neither the Republican nor the purchaser of State
lands was safe from their knives; and in the country numerous
isolated murders were committed. This lawless and brutal
movement, called the White Terror in distinction to the Red
Terror preceding Thermidor 9, was suffered for weeks to run
its course unchecked, and counted its victims by many
hundreds, spreading over the whole of Provence, besides the
departments of Rhone, Gard, Loire, Ain, and Jura."
B. M. Gardiner,
The French Revolution,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution (American edition),
volume 3, pages 109-136; 149-175; 193-225.
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 12, chapters 1-3.
J. Mallet du Pan,
Memoirs and Correspondence,
volume 2, chapters 5.
A. des Echerolles,
Early Life,
volume 2, chapter 8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (October-May).
Subjugation of Holland.
Overthrow of the Stadtholdership.
Establishment of the Batavian Republic.
Peace of Basle with Prussia.
Successes on the Spanish and Italian frontiers.
Crumbling of the Coalition.
"Pichegru having taken Bois le Duc, October 9th, the Duke of
York retreated to the Ar, and thence beyond the Waal. Venloo
fell October 27th, Maestricht November 4th, and the capture of
Nimeguen on the 9th, which the English abandoned after the
fall of Maestricht, opened to the French the road into
Holland. The Duke of York resigned the command to General
Walmoden, December 2nd, and returned into England. His
departure showed that the English government had abandoned all
hope of saving Holland. It had, indeed, consented that the
States-General should propose terms of accommodation to the
French; and two Dutch envoys had been despatched to Paris to
offer to the Committee of Public Welfare the recognition by
their government of the French Republic, and the payment of
200,000,000 florins within a year. But the Committee,
suspecting that these offers were made only with the view of
gaining time, paid no attention to them. The French were
repulsed in their first attempt to cross the Waal by General
Duncan with 8,000 English; but a severe frost enabled them to
pass over on the ice, January 11th, 1795. Nothing but a
victory could now save Holland. But Walmoden, instead of
concentrating his troops for the purpose of giving battle,
retreated over the Yssel, and finally over the Ems into
Westphalia, whence the troops were carried to England by sea
from Bremen. ... General Alvinzi, who held the Rhine between
Emmerich and Arnheim, having retired upon Wesel, Pichegru had
only to advance. On entering Holland, he called upon the
patriots to rise, and his occupation of the Dutch towns was
immediately followed by a revolution. The Prince of Orange,
the hereditary Stadtholder, embarked for England, January
19th, on which day Pichegru's advanced columns entered
Amsterdam. Next day the Dutch fleet, frozen up in the Texel,
was captured by the French hussars. Before the end of January
the reduction of Holland had been completed, and a provincial
[provisional?] government established at the Hague. The
States-General, assembled February 24th, 1795, having
received, through French influence, a new infusion of the
patriot party, pronounced the abolition of the Stadtholderate,
proclaimed the sovereignty of the people and the establishment
of the Batavian Republic. A treaty of Peace with France
followed, May 16th, and an-offensive alliance against all
enemies whatsoever till the end of the war, and against
England for ever.
{1309}
The sea and land forces to be provided by the Dutch were to
serve under French commanders. Thus the new republic became a
mere dependency of France. Dutch Flanders, the district on the
left bank of the Hondt, Maestricht, Venloo, were retained by
the French as a just indemnity for the expenses of the war, on
which account the Dutch were also to pay 100,000,000 florins;
but they were to receive, at the general peace, an equivalent
for the ceded territories. By secret articles, the Dutch were
to lend the French seven ships of war, to support a French
army of 25,000 men, &c. Over and above the requisitions of the
treaty, they were also called upon to reclothe the French
troops, and to furnish them with provisions. In short, though
the Dutch patriots had 'fraternised' with the French, and
received them with open arms, they were treated little better
than a conquered people. Secret negotiations had been for some
time going on between France and Prussia for a peace. ...
Frederick William II., ... satisfied with his acquisitions in
Poland, to which the English and Dutch subsidies had helped
him, ... abandoned himself to his voluptuous habits," and made
overtures to the French. "Perhaps not the least influential
among Frederick William's motives, was the refusal of the
maritime Powers any longer to subsidise him for doing nothing.
... The Peace of Basle, between the French Republic and the
King of Prussia, was signed April 5th 1795. The French troops
were allowed to continue the occupation of the Rhenish
provinces on the left bank. An article, that neither party
should permit troops of the enemies of either to pass over its
territories, was calculated to embarrass the Austrians. France
agreed to accept the mediation of Prussia for princes of the
Empire. ... Prussia should engage in no hostile enterprise
against Holland, or any other country occupied by French
troops; while the French agreed not to push their enterprises
in Germany beyond a certain line of demarcation, including the
Circles of Westphalia, Higher and Lower Saxony; Franconia, and
that part of the two Circles of the Rhine situate on the right
bank of the Main. ... Thus the King of Prussia, originally the
most ardent promoter of the Coalition, was one of the first to
desert it. By signing the Peace of Basle, he sacrificed
Holland, facilitated the invasion of the Empire by the French,
and thus prepared the ruin of the ancient German
constitution." In the meantime the French had been pushing war
with success on their Spanish frontier, recovering the ground
which they had lost in the early part of 1794. In the eastern
Pyrenees, Dugommier "retook Bellegarde in September, the last
position held by the Spaniards in France, and by the battle of
the Montagne Noire, which lasted from November 17th to the
20th, opened the way into Catalonia. But at the beginning of
this battle Dugommier was killed. Figuières surrendered
November 24th, through the influence of the French democratic
propaganda. On the west, Moncey captured St. Sebastian and
Fuentarabia in August, and was preparing to attack Pampeluna,
when terrible storms ... compelled him to retreat on the
Bidassoa, and closed the campaign in that quarter. On the side
of Piedmont, the French, after some reverses, succeeded in
making themselves masters of Mont Cenis and the passes of the
Maritime Alps, thus holding the keys of Italy; but the
Government, content with this success, ventured not at present
to undertake the invasion of that country." The King of
Sardinia, Victor Amadeus, remained faithful to his engagements
with Austria, although the French tempted him with an offer of
the Milanese, "and the exchange of the island of Sardinia for
territory more conveniently situated. With the Grand Duke of
Tuscany they were more successful. ... On February 9th 1795, a
treaty was signed by which the Grand Duke revoked his adhesion
to the Coalition. ... Thus Ferdinand was the first to desert
the Emperor, his brother. The example of Tuscany was followed
by the Regent of Sweden."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapter 7 (volume 4).
ALSO IN
C. M. Davies,
History of Holland,
part 4, chapter 3 (volume 3).
L. P. Segur,
History of the Reign of Frederick William II. of Prussia,
volume 3.
FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1796.
Brigandage in La Vendée.
Chouannerie in Brittany.
The Disastrous Quiberon expedition.
End of the Vendean War.
"Since the defeat at Savenay, the Vendée was no longer the
scene of grand operations, but of brigandage and atrocities
without result. The peasants, though detesting the Revolution,
were anxious for peace; but, as there were still two chiefs,
Charette and Stoffiet, in the field, who hated each other,
this wish could scarcely be gratified. General Thurieu, sent
by the former Revolutionary Committee, had but increased this
detestation by allowing pillage and incendiarism. After the
death of Robespierre he was replaced by General Clancaux, who
had orders to employ more conciliatory measures. The defeat of
the rebel troops at Savenay, and their subsequent dispersion,
had led to a kind of guerilla warfare throughout the whole of
Brittany, known by the name of Chouannerie. ['A poor peasant,
named Jean Cottereau, had distinguished himself in this
movement above all his companions, and his family bore the
name of Chouans (Chat-huans) or night-owls. ... The name of
Chouan passed from him to all the insurgents of Bretagne,
although he himself never led more than a few hundred
peasants, who obeyed him, as they said, out of friendship.']
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 4, page 238.
The Chouans attacked the public conveyances, infested the high
roads, murdered isolated bands of soldiers and functionaries.
Their chiefs were Scepeaux, Bourmont, Cadoudal, but especially
Puisaye ... formerly general of the Girondins, and who wanted
to raise a more formidable insurrection than had hitherto been
organised. Against them was sent Hoche [September, 1794], who
accustomed his soldiers to pacify rather than destroy, and
taught them to respect the habits, but above all the religion,
of the inhabitants. After some difficult negotiations with
Charette peace was concluded (15th February), but the
suppression of the Chouans was more difficult still, and Hoche
... displayed in this ungrateful mission all the talents and
humanity for which he was ever celebrated. Puisaye himself was
in England, having obtained Pitt's promise of a fleet and an
army, but his aide-de-camp concluded in his absence a treaty
similar to that of Charette. ... Stoffiet surrendered the
last.
{1310}
Not much dependence could be placed on either of these
pacifications, Charette himself having confessed in a letter
to the Count de Provence that they were but a trap for the
Republicans; but they proved useful, nevertheless, by
accustoming the country to peace." This deceptive state of
peace came to an end early in the summer of 1795. "The
conspiracy organised in London by Puisaye, assisted and
subsidised by Pitt, ... fitted out a fleet, which harassed the
French naval squadron, and then set sail for Brittany, where
the expedition made itself master of the peninsula of Quiberon
and the fort Penthièvre (27th June). The Brittany peasants,
suspicious of the Vendeans and hating the English, did not
respond to the call for revolt, and occasioned a loss of time
to the invaders, of which Hoche took advantage to bring
together his troops and to march on Quiberon, where he
defeated the vanguard of the émigrés, and surrounded them in
the peninsula. Puisaye [who had, it is said, about 10,000 men,
émigrés and Chouans] attempted to crush Hoche by an attack in
the rear, but was eventually out-manœuvred, Fort Penthièvre
was scaled during the night, and the émigrés were routed;
whilst the English squadron was caught in a hurricane and
could not come to their assistance, save with one ship, which
fired indiscriminately on friend and foe alike. Most of the
Royalists rushed into the sea, where nearly all of them
perished. Scarcely a thousand men remained, and these fought
heroically. It is said that a promise was given to them that
if they surrendered their lives should be spared, and,
accordingly, 711 laid down their arms (21st July). By order of
the Convention ... these 711 émigrés were shot. ... From his
camp at Belleville, Charette, one of the insurgent generals,
responded to this execution by the massacre of 2,000
Republican prisoners." In the following October another
expedition of Royalists, fitted out in England under the
auspices of Pitt, "landed at the Ile Dieu ... a small island
about eight miles from the mainland of Poitou, and was
composed of 2,500 men, who were destined to be the nucleus of
several regiments; it also had on board a large store of arms,
ammunition, and the Count d'Artois. Charette, named general
commander of the Catholic forces, was awaiting him with 10,000
men. The whole of the Vendée was ready to rise the moment the
prince touched French soil, but frivolous and undecided, he
waited six weeks in idleness, endeavouring to obtain from
England his recall. Hoche, to whom the command of the
Republican forces had been entrusted, took advantage of this
delay to cut off Charette from his communications, while he
held Stoffiet and the rest of the Brittany chiefs in check,
and occupied the coast with 30,000 men. The Count d'Artois,
whom Pitt would not recall, entreated the English commander to
set sail for England (December 17th, 1795), and the latter,
unable to manage his fleet on a coast without shelter,
complied with his request, leaving the prince on his arrival
to the deserved contempt of even his own partisans. Charette
in despair attempted another rising, hoping to be seconded by
Stofflet, but he was beaten on all sides by Hoche. This
general, who combined the astuteness of the statesman with the
valour of the soldier, succeeded in a short time in pacifying
the country by his generous but firm behaviour towards the
inhabitants. Charette, tracked from shelter to shelter, was
finally compelled to surrender, brought to Nantes, and shot
(March 24th). The same lot had befallen Stofflet a month
before at Angers. After these events Hoche led his troops into
Brittany, where he succeeded in putting an end to the
'Chouannerie.' The west returned to its normal condition."
H. Van Laun,
The French Revolutionary Epoch,
book 2, chapter 2, and book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 3, pages 144-145; 188-193;
230-240; 281-305; 343-345; 358-363; 384-389.
FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (April).
The question of the Constitution.
Insurrection of the 1st Prairial and its failure.
Disarming of the Faubourgs.
End of Sansculottism.
Bourgeoisie dominant again.
"The events of the 12th of Germinal decided nothing. The
faubourgs had been repulsed, but not conquered. ... After so
many questions decided against the democratists, there still
remained one of the utmost importance--the constitution. On
this depended the ascendancy of the multitude or of the
bourgeoisie. The supporters of the revolutionary government
then fell back on the democratic constitution of '93, which
presented to them the means of resuming the authority they had
lost. Their opponents, on the other hand, endeavoured to
replace it by a constitution which would secure all the
advantage to them, by concentrating the government a little
more, and giving it to the middle class. For a month, both
parties were preparing for this last contest. The constitution
of 1793, having been sanctioned by the people, enjoyed a great
prestige. It was accordingly attacked with infinite
precaution. At first its assailants engaged to carry it into
execution without restriction; next they appointed a
commission of eleven members to prepare the 'lois organiques'
which were to render it practicable; by and by, they ventured
to suggest objections to it on the ground that it distributed
power too loosely, and only recognised one assembly dependent
on the people, even in its measures of legislation. At last, a
sectionary deputation went so far as to term the constitution
of '93 a decemviral constitution, dictated by terror. All its
partisans, at once indignant and filled with fears, organized
an insurrection to maintain it. ... The conspirators, warned
by the failure of the risings of the 1st and 12th Germinal,
omitted nothing to make up for their want of direct object and
of organization. On the 1st Prairial (20th of May) in the name
of the people, insurgent for the purpose of obtaining bread
and their rights, they decreed the abolition of the
revolutionary government, the establishment of the democratic
constitution of '93, the dismissal and arrest of the members
of the existing government, the liberation of the patriots,
the convocation of the primary assemblies on the 25th
Prairial, the convocation of the legislative assembly,
destined to replace the convention, on the 25th Messidor, and
the suspension of all authority not emanating from the people.
They determined on forming a new municipality, to serve as a
common centre; to seize on the barriers, telegraph, cannon,
tocsins, drums, and not to rest till they had secured repose,
happiness, liberty, and means of subsistence for all the
French nation. They invited the artillery, gendarmes, horse
and foot soldiers, to join the banners of the people, and
marched on the convention. Meantime, the latter was
deliberating on the means of preventing the insurrection. ...
{1311}
The committees came in all haste to apprise it of its danger;
it immediately declared its sitting permanent, voted Paris
responsible for the safety of the representatives of the
republic, closed its doors, outlawed all the leaders of the
mob, summoned the citizens of the sections to arms, and
appointed as their leaders eight commissioners, among whom
were Legendre, Henri la Riviere, Kervelegan, &c. These
deputies had scarcely gone, when a loud noise was heard
without. An outer door had been forced, and numbers of women
rushed into the galleries, crying 'Bread and the constitution
of '93!' ... The galleries were ... cleared; but the
insurgents of the faubourgs soon reached the inner doors, and,
finding them closed, forced them with hatchets and hammers,
and then rushed in amidst the convention. The Hall now became
a field of battle. The veterans and gendarmes, to whom the
guard of the assembly was confided, cried 'To arms!' The
deputy Auguis, sword in hand, headed them, and succeeded in
repelling the assailants, and even made a few of them
prisoners. But the insurgents, more numerous, returned to the
charge, and again rushed into the house. The deputy Feraud
entered precipitately, pursued by the insurgents, who fired
some shots in the house. They took aim at Boissy d'Anglas, who
was occupying the president's chair. ... Feraud ran to the
tribune, to shield him with his body; he was struck at with
pikes and sabres, and fell dangerously wounded. The insurgents
dragged him into the lobby, and, mistaking him for Freron, cut
off his head and placed it on a pike. After this skirmish they
became masters of the Hall. Most of the deputies had taken
flight. There only remained the members of the Crête [the
'Crest'--a name now given to the remnant of the party of 'The
Mountain'] and Boissy d'Anglas, who, calm, his hat on,
heedless of threat and insult, protested in the name of the
convention against this popular violence. They held out to him
the bleeding head of Feraud; he bowed respectfully before it.
They tried to force him, by placing pikes at his breast, to
put the propositions of the insurgents to the vote; he
steadily and courageously refused. But the Crêtois, who
approved of the insurrection, took possession of the bureaux
and of the tribune, and decreed, amidst the applause of the
multitude, all the articles contained in the manifesto of the
insurrection." Meantime "the commissioners despatched to the
sections had quickly gathered them together. ... The aspect of
affairs then underwent a change; Legendre, Kervelagan, and
Auguis besieged the insurgents, in their turn, at the head of
the sectionaries," and drove them at last from the hall of the
convention. "The assembly again became complete; the sections
received a vote of thanks, and the deliberations were resumed.
All the measures adopted in the interim were annulled, and
fourteen representatives, to whom were afterwards joined
fourteen others, were arrested, for organizing the
insurrection or approving it in their speeches. It was then
midnight; at five in the morning the prisoners were already
six leagues from Paris. Despite this defeat, the Faubourgs did
not consider themselves beaten; and the next day they advanced
en masse with their cannon against the convention. The
sections, on their side, marched for its defence." But a
collision was averted by negotiations, and the insurgents
withdrew, "after having received an assurance that the
Convention would assiduously attend to the question of
provisions, and would soon publish the organic laws of the
constitution of '93. ... Six democratic Mountaineers, Goujon,
Bourbotte, Romme, Duroy, Duquesnoy, and Soubrany were brought
before a military commission ... and ... condemned to death.
They all stabbed themselves with the same knife, which was
transferred from one to the other, exclaiming, 'Vive la
République!' Romme, Goujon, and Duquesnoy were fortunate
enough to wound themselves fatally; the other three were
conducted to the scaffold in a dying state, but faced death
with serene countenances. Meantime, the Faubourgs, though
repelled on the 1st, and diverted from their object on the 2nd
of Prairial, still had the means of rising," and the
convention ordered them to be disarmed. "They were encompassed
by all the interior sections. After attempting to resist, they
yielded, giving up some of their leaders, their arms, and
artillery. ... The inferior class was entirely excluded from
the government of the state; the revolutionary committees
which formed its assemblies were destroyed; the cannoneers
forming its armed force were disarmed; the constitution of
'93, which was its code, was abolished; and here the rule of
the multitude terminated. ... From that period, the middle
class resumed the management of the revolution without, and
the assembly was as united under the Girondists as it had
been, after the 2nd of June, under the Mountaineers."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
Duchesse d'Abrantes,
Memoirs,
chapters 12-14 (volume l).
T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, book 7, chapters 4-6.
G. Long,
France and its Revolutions,
chapter 53.
FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (June-September).
Framing and adoption of the Constitution of the Year III.
Self-renewing decrees of the Convention.
Hostility in Paris to them.
Intrigues of the Royalists.
"The royalist party, beaten on the frontiers, and deserted by
the court of Spain, on which it placed most reliance, was now
obliged to confine itself to intrigues in the interior; and it
must be confessed that, at this moment, Paris offered a wide
field for such intrigues. The work of the constitution was
advancing; the time when the Convention was to resign its
powers, when France should meet to elect fresh
representatives, when a new Assembly should succeed that which
had so long reigned, was more favourable than any other for
counter-revolutionary manœuvres. The most vehement passions
were in agitation in the sections of Paris. The members of
them were not royalists, but they served the cause of royalty
without being aware of it. They had made a point of opposing
the Terrorists; they had animated themselves by the conflict;
they wished to persecute also; and they were exasperated
against the Convention, which would not permit this
persecution to be carried too far. They were always ready to
remember that Terror had sprung from its bosom; they demanded
of it a constitution and laws, and the end of the long
dictatorship which it had exercised. ... Behind this mass the
royalists concealed themselves. ... The constitution had been
presented by the commission of eleven. It was discussed during
the three months of Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor
[June-August], and was successively decreed with very little
alteration."
{1312}
The principal features of the constitution so framed, known as
the Constitution of the Year III., were the following: "A
Council, called 'The Council of the Five Hundred,' composed of
500 members, of, at least, thirty years of age, having
exclusively the right of proposing laws, one-third to be
renewed every year. A Council called 'The Council of the
Ancients,' composed of 250 members, of, at least, forty years
of age, all either widowers or married, having the sanction of
the laws, to be renewed also by one-third. An executive
Directory, composed of five members, deciding by a majority,
to be renewed annually by one-fifth, having responsible
ministers. ... The mode of nominating these powers was the
following: All the citizens of the age of twenty-one met of
right in primary assembly on every first day of the month of
Prairial, and nominated electoral assemblies. These electoral
assemblies met every 20th of Prairial, and nominated the two
Councils; and the two Councils nominated the Directory. ...
The judicial authority was committed to elective judges. ...
There were to be no communal assemblies, but municipal and
departmental administrations, composed of three, five, or more
members, according to the population: they were to be formed
by way of election. ... The press was entirely free. The
emigrants were banished for ever from the territory of the
republic; the national domains were irrevocably secured to the
purchasers; all religions were declared free, but were neither
acknowledged nor paid by the state. ... One important question
was started. The Constituent Assembly, from a parade of
disinterestedness, had excluded itself from the new
legislative body [the Legislative Assembly of 1791]; would the
Convention do the same?" The members of the Convention decided
this question in the negative, and "decreed, on the 5th of
Fructidor (August 22d), that the new legislative body should
be composed of two-thirds of the Convention, and that one new
third only should be elected. The question to be decided was,
whether the Convention should itself designate the two-thirds
to be retained, or whether it should leave that duty to the
electoral assemblies. After a tremendous dispute, it was
agreed on the 13th of Fructidor (August 30), that this choice
should be left to the electoral assemblies. It was decided
that the primary assemblies should meet on the 20th of
Fructidor (September 6th), to accept the constitution and the
two decrees of the 5th and the 13th of Fructidor. It was
likewise decided that, after giving their votes upon the
constitution and the decrees, the primary assemblies should
again meet and proceed forthwith, that is to say, in the year
III. (1795), to the elections for the 1st of Prairial in the
following year." The right of voting upon the constitution was
extended, by another decree, to the armies in the field. "No
sooner were these resolutions adopted, than the enemies of the
Convention, so numerous and so diverse, were deeply mortified
by them. ... The Convention, they said, was determined to
cling to power; ... it wished to retain by force a majority
composed of men who had covered France with scaffolds. ... All
the sections of Paris, excepting that of the Quinze-Vingts,
accepted the Constitution and rejected the decrees. The result
was not the same in the rest of France. ... On the 1st of
Vendémiaire, year IV. (September 23, 1795), the general result
of the votes was proclaimed. The constitution was accepted
almost unanimously, and the decrees by an immense majority of
the voters." The Convention now decreed that the new
legislative body should be elected in October and meet
November 6.
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 3, pages 305-315.
ALSO IN:
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 12, chapter 4 (volume 4).
H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 1, and appendix 3.
J. Mallet du Pan,
Memoirs and Correspondence,
volume 2, chapter 8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (June-December).
Death of the late King's son (Louis XVII.)
Treaty of Basle with Spain.
Acquisition of Spanish San Domingo.
Ineffectual campaign on the Rhine.
Victory at Loano.
"The Committees had formed great plans for the campaign of
1795; meaning to invade the territories of the allies, take
Mayence, and enter Southern Germany, go down into Italy, and
reach the very heart of Spain. But Carnot, Lindet, and Prieur
were no longer on the Committee, and their successors were not
their equals; army discipline was relaxed; a vulgar
reactionist had replaced Carnot in the war department and was
working ruin. ... The attack in Spain was to begin with the
Lower Pyrenees, by the capture of Pampeluna and a march upon
Castile, but famine and fever decimated the army of the
Western Pyrenees, and General Moncey was forced to postpone
all serious action till the summer. At the other end of the
Pyrenees, the French and Spaniards were fighting aimlessly at
the entry to Catalonia. The war was at a standstill; but the
negotiations went on between the two countries. The king of
Spain, as in honor bound, made the liberation of his young
kinsman, the son of Louis XVI., a condition of peace. This the
Republic would not grant, but the prisoner's death (June 8,
1795) removed the obstacle. The counter-revolutionists accused
the Committees of poisoning the child styled by the royalist
party Louis XVII. This charge was false; the poor little
prisoner died of scrofula, developed by inaction, ennui, and
the sufferings of a pitiless imprisonment, increased by the
cruel treatment of his jailers, a cobbler named Simon and his
wife. A rumor was also spread that the child was not dead, but
had been taken away and an impostor substituted, who had died.
Only one of the royal family now remained in the Temple, Louis
XVI.'s daughter, afterwards the Duchesse d'Angoulême. Spain
interceded for her, and she was exchanged. ... Peace with
Spain was also hastened by French successes beyond the
Pyrenees; General Marceau, being reinforced, took Vittoria and
Bilboa, and pushed on to the Ebro. On the 22d of July,
Barthelémi, the able French diplomatist, signed a treaty of
peace with Spain at Basle, restoring her Biscayan and
Catalonian provinces, and accepting Spanish mediation in favor
of the king of Naples, Duke of Parma, king of Portugal, and
'the other Italian powers,' including, though not mentioning,
the Pope; and Spain yielded her share of San Domingo, which
put a brighter face on French affairs in America. ...
Guadeloupe, Santa Lucia, and St. Eustache were restored to the
French. ... Spain soon made overtures for an alliance with
France, wishing to put down the English desire to rule the
seas; and, before the new treaty was signed, the army of the
Eastern Pyrenees was sent to reinforce the armies of the Alps
and Italy, who had only held their positions in the Apennines
and on the Ligurian coast against the Austrians and
Piedmontese by sheer force of will; but in the autumn of 1795
the face of affairs was changed.
{1313}
Now that Prussia had left the coalition, war on the Rhine went
on between France and Austria, sustained by the South German
States; France had to complete her mastery of the left bank by
taking Mayence and Luxembourg; and Austria's aim was to
dispute them with her. The French government charged Marceau
to besiege Mayence during the winter of 1794-95, but did not
furnish him the necessary resources, and, France not holding
the right bank, Kléber could only partially invest the town,
and both his soldiers and those blockading Luxembourg suffered
greatly from cold and privation. Early in March, 1795,
Pichegru was put in command of the armies of the Rhine and
Moselle, and Jourdan was ordered to support him on the left
(the Lower Rhine) with the army of Sambre-et-Meuse. Austria
took no advantage of the feeble state of the French troops,
and Luxembourg, one of the strongest posts in Europe,
receiving no help, surrendered (June 24) with 800 cannon and
huge store of provisions. The French now had the upper hand,
Pichegru and Jourdan commanding 160,000 men on the Rhine. One
of these men was upright and brave, but the other had treason
in his soul; though everybody admired Pichegru, 'the conqueror
of Holland.' ... In August, 1795, an agent of the Prince of
Condé, who was then at Brisgau, in the Black Forest, with his
corps of emigrants, offered Pichegru, who was in Alsace, the
title of Marshal of France and Governor of Alsace, the royal
castle of Chambord, a million down, an annuity of 200,000
livres, and a house in Paris, in the 'king's' name, thus
flattering at once his vanity and his greed. ... He was
checked by no scruples; utterly devoid of moral sense, he
hoped to gain his army by money and wine, and had no
discussion with the Prince of Condé save as to the manner of
his treason." In the end, Pichegru was not able to make his
treason as effective as he had bargained to do; but he
succeeded in spoiling the campaign of 1795 on the Rhine.
Jourdan crossed the river and took Dusseldorf, with 168
cannon, on the 6th of September, expecting a simultaneous
movement on the part of Pichegru, to occupy the enemy in the
latter's front. But Pichegru, though he took Mannheim, on the
18th of September, threw a corps of 10,000 men into the hands
of the Austrians, by placing it where it could be easily
overwhelmed, and permitted his opponent, Wurmser, to send
reinforcements to Clairfait, who forced Jourdan, in October,
to retreat across the Rhine. "Pichegru's perfidy had thwarted
a campaign which must have been decisive, and Jourdan's
retreat was followed by the enemy's offensive return to the
left bank [retaking Mannheim and raising the siege of
Mayence], and by reverses which would have been fatal had they
coincided with the outburst of royalist and reactionary plots
and insurrections in the West, and in Paris itself; but they
had luckily been stifled some time since, and as the
Convention concluded its career, the direction of the war
returned to the hands which guided it so well in 1793 and
1794."
H. Martin,
Popular History of France from the First Revolution,
chapter 24 (volume 1).
"The peace with Spain ... enabled the government to detach the
whole Pyrenean army to the support of General Scherer, who had
succeeded Kellermann in the command of the army of Italy. On
the 23d of November, the French attacked the Austrians in
their position at Loano, and, after a conflict of two days,
the enemy's centre was forced by Massena and Augereau, and the
Imperialists fled with the loss of 7,000 men, 80 guns, and all
their stores. But the season was too far advanced to prosecute
this success, and the victors took up winter quarters on the
ground they had occupied. ... The capture of the Cape of Good
Hope (September 16) by the British under Sir James Craig, was
the only other important event of this year."
Epitome of Alison's History of Europe,
sections 154 and 157
(chapter 18 of the complete work).
ALSO IN:
A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapter 13.
E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
book. 1, chapters 19-20 (volume l).
A. de Beauchesne,
Louis XVII.: His Life, his Sufferings, his Death.
FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (October-December).
The Insurrection of the 13th Vendemiare, put down by
Napoleon Bonaparte.
Dissolution of the National Convention.
Organization of the government of the Directory.
Licentiousness of the time.
"The Parisians ... proclaimed their hostility to the
Convention and its designs. The National Guard, consisting of
armed citizens, almost unanimously sided with the enemies of
the Convention; and it was openly proposed to march to the
Tuilleries, and compel a change of measures by force of arms.
The Convention perceiving their unpopularity and danger, began
to look about them anxiously for the means of defence. There
were in and near Paris 5,000 regular troops, on whom they
thought they might rely, and who of course contemned the
National Guard as only half soldiers. They had besides some
hundreds of artillery men; and they now organised what they
called 'the Sacred Band,' a body of 1,500 ruffians, the most
part of them old and tried instruments of Robespierre. With
these means they prepared to arrange a plan of defence; and it
was obvious that they did not want materials, provided they
could find a skilful and determined head. The insurgent
sections placed themselves under the command of Danican, an
old general of no great skill or reputation. The Convention
opposed to him Menou; and he marched at the head of a column
into the section Le Pelletier to disarm the National Guard of
that district--one of the wealthiest of the capital. The
National Guard were found drawn up in readiness to receive him
at the end of the Rue Vivienne; and Menou, becoming alarmed,
and hampered by the presence of some of the' Representatives
of the People,' entered into a parley, and retired without
having struck a blow. The Convention judged that Menou was not
master of nerves for such a crisis; and consulted eagerly
about a successor to his command. Barras, one of their number,
had happened to be present at Toulon and to have appreciated
the character of Buonaparte. He had, probably, been applied to
by Napoleon in his recent pursuit of employment. Deliberating
with Tallien and Carnot, his colleagues, he suddenly said, 'I
have the man whom you want; it is a little Corsican officer,
who will not stand upon ceremony.' These words decided the
fate of Napoleon and of France. Buonaparte had been in the
Odeon Theatre when the affair of Le Pelletier occurred, had
run out, and witnessed the result. He now happened to be in
the gallery, and heard the discussion concerning the conduct
of Menou.
{1314}
He was presently sent for, and asked his opinion as to that
officer's retreat. He explained what had happened, and how the
evil might have been avoided, in a manner which gave
satisfaction. He was desired to assume the command, and
arranged his plan of defence as well as the circumstances
might permit; for it was already late at night, and the
decisive assault on the Tuilleries was expected to take place
next morning. Buonaparte stated that the failure of the march
of Menou had been chiefly owing to the presence of the
'Representatives of the People,' and refused to accept the
command unless he received it free from all such interference.
They yielded: Barras was named commander-in-chief; and
Buonaparte second, with the virtual control. His first care
was to despatch Murat, then a major of chasseurs, to Sablons,
five miles off, where fifty great guns were posted. The
Sectionaries sent a stronger detachment for these cannon
immediately afterwards; and Murat, who passed them in the
dark, would have gone in vain had he received his orders but a
few minutes later. On the 4th of October (called in the
revolutionary almanac the 13th Vendemiaire) the affray
accordingly occurred. Thirty thousand National Guards advanced
about two P. M., by different streets, to the siege of the
palace: but its defence was now in far other hands than those
of Louis XVI. Buonaparte, having planted artillery on all the
bridges, had effectually secured the command of the river, and
the safety of the Tuilleries on one side. He had placed cannon
also at all the crossings of the streets by which the National
Guard could advance towards the other front; and having posted
his battalions in the garden of the Tuilleries and Place du
Carousel, he awaited the attack. The insurgents had no cannon;
and they came along the narrow streets of Paris in close and
heavy columns. When one party reached the church of St. Roche,
in the Rue St. Honoré, they found a body of Buonaparte's
troops drawn up there, with two cannons. It is disputed on
which side the firing began; but in an instant the artillery
swept the streets and lanes, scattering grape-shot among the
National Guards, and producing such confusion that they were
compelled to give way. The first shot was a signal for all the
batteries which Buonaparte had established; the quays of the
Seine, opposite to the Tuilleries, were commanded by his guns
below the palace and on the bridges. In less than an hour the
action was over. The insurgents fled in all directions,
leaving the streets covered with dead and wounded; the troops
of the Convention marched into the various sections, disarmed
the terrified inhabitants, and before nightfall everything was
quiet. This eminent service secured the triumph of the
Conventionalists. ... Within five days from the Day of the
Sections Buonaparte was named second in command of the army of
the interior; and shortly afterwards, Barras finding his
duties as Director sufficient to occupy his time, gave up the
command-in-chief of the same army to his 'little Corsican
officer.'"
J. G. Lockhart,
Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,
chapter 3.
The victory of the 13th Vendemiaire "enabled the Convention
immediately to devote its attention to the formation of the
Councils proposed by it, two-thirds of which were to consist
of its own members. The first third, which was freely elected,
had already been nominated by the Reactionary party. The
members of the Directory were chosen, and the deputies of the
Convention, believing that for their own interests the
regicides should be at the head of the Government, nominated
La Réveillère-Lepeaux, Sièyes, Rewbel, Le Tourneur, and
Barras. Sièyes refused to act, and Carnot was elected in his
place. Immediately after this, the Convention declared its
session at an end, after it had had three years of existence,
from the 21st September, 1792, to the 28th October, 1795 (4th
Brumaire, Year IV.). ... The Directors were all, with the
exception of Carnot, of moderate capacity, and concurred in
rendering their own position the more difficult. At this
period there was no element of order or good government in the
Republic; anarchy and uneasiness everywhere prevailed, famine
had become chronic, the troops were without clothes,
provisions or horses; the Convention had spent an immense
capital represented by assignats, and had sold almost half of
the Republican territory, belonging to the proscribed classes
...; the excessive degree of discredit to which paper money
had fallen, after the issue of thirty-eight thousand millions,
had destroyed all confidence and all legitimate commerce. ...
Such was the general poverty, that when the Directors entered
the palace which had been assigned to them as a dwelling, they
found no furniture there, and were compelled to borrow of the
porter a few straw chairs and a wooden table, on the latter of
which they drew up the decree by which they were appointed to
office. Their first care was to establish their power, and
they succeeded in doing this by frankly following at first the
rules laid down by the Constitution. In a short time industry
and commerce began to raise their heads, the supply of
provisions became tolerably abundant, and the clubs were
abandoned for the workshops and the fields. The Directory
exerted itself to revive agriculture, industry, and the arts,
re-established the public exhibitions, and founded primary,
central, and normal schools. ... This period was distinguished
by a great licentiousness in manners. The wealthy classes, who
had been so long forced into retirement by the Reign of
Terror, now gave themselves up to the pursuit of pleasure
without stint, and indulged in a course of unbridled luxury,
which was outwardly displayed in balls, festivities, rich
costumes and sumptuous equipages. Barras, who was a man of
pleasure, favoured this dangerous sign of the reaction, and
his palace soon became the rendezvous of the most frivolous
and corrupt society. In spite of this, however, the wealthy
classes were still the victims, under the government of the
Directory, of violent and spoliative measures."
E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 2. pages 270-273.
{1315}
FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (April-October).
Triple attack on Austria.
Bonaparte's first campaign in Italy.
Submission of Sardinia.
Armistice with Naples and the Pope.
Pillage of art treasures.
Hostile designs upon Venice.
Expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy.
Failure of the campaign beyond the Rhine.
"With the opening of the year 1796 the leading interest of
European history passes to a new scene. ... The Directory was
now able ... to throw its whole force into the struggle with
Austria. By the advice of Bonaparte a threefold movement was
undertaken against Vienna, by way of Lombardy, by the valley
of the Danube, and by the valley of the Main. General Jourdan,
in command of the army that had conquered the Netherlands, was
ordered to enter Germany by Frankfort; Moreau, a Breton
law-student in 1792, now one of the most skilful soldiers in
Europe, crossed the Rhine at Strasburg; Bonaparte himself,
drawing his scanty supplies along the coast-road from Nice,
faced the allied forces of Austria and Sardinia upon the
slopes of the Maritime Apennines, forty miles to the west of
Genoa. ... Bonaparte entered Italy proclaiming himself the
restorer of Italian freedom, but with the deliberate purpose
of using Italy as a means of recruiting the exhausted treasury
of France. His correspondence with the Directory exposes with
brazen frankness this well·considered system of plunder and
deceit, in which the general and the Government were cordially
at one. ... The campaign of 1796 commenced in April, in the
mountains above the coast-road connecting Nice and Genoa. ...
Bonaparte ... for four days ... reiterated his attacks at
Montenotte and at Millesimo, until he had forced his own army
into a position in the centre of the Allies [Austrians and
Piedmontese]; then, leaving a small force to watch the
Austrians, he threw the mass of his troops upon the
Piedmontese, and drove them back to within thirty miles of
Turin. The terror-stricken Government, anticipating an
outbreak in the capital itself, accepted an armistice from
Bonaparte at Cherasco (April 28). ... The armistice, which was
soon followed by a treaty of peace between France and
Sardinia, ceding Savoy to the Republic, left him free to
follow the Austrians, untroubled by the existence of some of
the strongest fortresses of Europe behind him. In the
negotiations with Sardinia, Bonaparte demanded the surrender
of the town of Valenza, as necessary to secure his passage
over the river Po. Having thus artfully led the Austrian
Beaulieu to concentrate his forces at this point, he suddenly
moved eastward along the southern bank of the river, and
crossed at Piacenza, 50 miles below the spot where Beaulieu
was awaiting him. ... The Austrian general, taken in the rear,
had no alternative but to abandon Milan and all the country
west of it, and to fall back upon the line of the Adda.
Bonaparte followed, and on the 10th of May attacked the
Austrians at Lodi. He himself stormed the bridge of Lodi at
the head of his Grenadiers. The battle was so disastrous to
the Austrians that they could risk no second engagement, and
retired upon Mantua and the line of the Mincio. Bonaparte now
made his triumphal entry into Milan (May 15). ... In return
for the gift of liberty, the Milanese were invited to offer to
their deliverers 20,000,000 francs, and a selection from the
paintings in their churches and galleries. The Dukes of Parma
and Modena, in return for an armistice, were required to hand
over forty of their best pictures, and a sum of money
proportioned to their revenues. The Dukes and the townspeople
paid their contributions with a good grace: the peasantry of
Lombardy, whose cattle were seized in order to supply an army
that marched without any stores of its own, rose in arms, and
threw themselves into Pavia, after killing all the French
soldiers who fell in their way. The revolt was instantly
suppressed, and the town of Pavia given up to pillage. ...
Instead of crossing the Apennines, Bonaparte advanced against
the Austrian positions upon the Mincio. ... A battle was
fought and lost by the Austrians at Borghetto. ... Beaulieu's
strength was exhausted; he could meet the enemy no more in the
field, and led his army out of Italy into the Tyrol, leaving
Mantua to be invested by the French. The first care of the
conqueror was to make Venice pay for the crime of possessing
territory intervening between the eastern and western extremes
of the Austrian district. Bonaparte affected to believe that
the Venetians had permitted Beaulieu to occupy Peschiera
before he seized upon Brescia himself. ... 'I have purposely
devised this rupture,' he wrote to the Directory (June 7th),
'in case you should wish to obtain five or six millions of
francs from Venice. If you have more decided intentions, I
think it would be well to keep up the quarrel.' The intention
referred to was the disgraceful project of sacrificing Venice
to Austria in return for the cession of the Netherlands. ...
The Austrians were fairly driven out of Lombardy, and
Bonaparte was now free to deal with Southern Italy. He
advanced into the States of the Church, and expelled the Papal
Legate from Bologna. Ferdinand of Naples ... asked for a
suspension of hostilities against his own kingdom ... and
Bonaparte granted the king an armistice on easy terms. The
Pope, in order to gain a few months' truce, had to permit the
occupation of Ferrara, Ravenna, and Ancona, and to recognise
the necessities, the learning, the taste, and the virtue of
his conquerors by a gift of 20,000,000 francs, 500
manuscripts, 100 pictures, and the busts of Marcus and Lucius
Brutus. ... Tuscany had indeed made peace with the French
Republic a year before, but ... while Bonaparte paid a
respectful visit to the Grand Duke at Florence, Murat
descended upon Leghorn, and seized upon everything that was
not removed before his approach. Once established in Leghorn,
the French declined to quit it. Mantua was meanwhile invested,
and thither Bonaparte returned. Towards the end of July an
Austrian relieving army, nearly double the strength of
Bonaparte's, descended from the Tyrol. It was divided into
three corps: one, under Quasdanovich, advanced by the road on
the west of Lake Garda; the others, under Wurmser, the
commander-in-chief, by the roads between the lake and the
river Adige. ... Bonaparte ... instantly broke up the siege of
Mantua, and withdrew from every position east of the river. On
the 30th July, Quasdanovich was attacked and checked at
Lonato. ... Wurmser, unaware of his colleague's repulse,
entered Mantua in triumph, and then set out, expecting to
envelop Bonaparte between two fires. But the French were ready
for his approach. Wurmser was stopped and defeated at
Castiglione (Aug. 3), while the western Austrian divisions
were still held in check at Lonato. ... In five days the skill
of Bonaparte and the unsparing exertions of his soldiery had
more than retrieved all that appeared to have been lost. The
Austrians retired into the Tyrol, leaving 15,000 prisoners in
the hands of the enemy. Bonaparte now prepared to force his
way into Germany by the Adige, in fulfilment of the original
plan of the campaign. In the first days of September he again
routed the Austrians, and gained possession of Roveredo and
Trent.
{1316}
Wurmser hereupon attempted to shut the French up in the
mountains by a movement southwards; but, while he operated
with insufficient forces between the Brenta and the Adige,
with a view of cutting Bonaparte off from Italy, he was
himself [defeated at Bassano, September 8, and] cut off from
Germany, and only escaped capture by throwing himself into
Mantua with the shattered remnant of his army. The road into
Germany through the Tyrol now lay open; but in the midst of
his victories Bonaparte learnt that the northern armies of
Moreau and Jourdan, with which he had intended to co-operate
in an attack upon Vienna, were in full retreat. Moreau's
advance into the valley of the Danube had, during the months
of July and August, been attended with unbroken military and
political success. The Archduke Charles, who was entrusted
with the defence of the Empire," fell back before Moreau, in
order to unite his forces with those of Wartensleben, who
commanded an army which confronted Jourdan. "The design of the
Archduke succeeded in the end, but it opened Germany to the
French for six weeks, and revealed how worthless was the
military constitution of the Empire, and how little the
Germans had to expect from one another. ... At length the
retreating movement of the Austrians stopped [and the Archduke
fought an indecisive battle with Moreau at Neresheim, August
11]. Leaving 30,000 men on the Lech to disguise his motions
from Moreau, Charles turned suddenly northwards from Neuberg
on the 17th August, met Wartensleben at Amberg, and attacked
Jourdan ... with greatly superior numbers. Jourdan was
defeated [September 3, at Würtzburg] and driven back in
confusion towards the Rhine. The issue of the campaign was
decided before Moreau heard of his colleague's danger. It only
remained for him to save his own army by a skilful retreat,"
in the course of which he defeated the Austrian general Latour
at Biberach, October 2, and fought two indecisive battles with
the Archduke, at Emmendingen, October 19, and at Huningen on
the 24th.
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapters 14-15.
General Jomini,
Life of Napoleon,
volume 1, chapter 2.
E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
book 1, chapter 22 (volume 1).
C. Adams,
Great Campaigns, 1796-1870,
chapter 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (September).
Evacuation of Corsica by the English.
Its reoccupation by the French.
"Corsica, which had been delivered to the English by Paoli,
and occupied by them as a fourth kingdom annexed to the crown
of the King of Great Britain, had just been evacuated by its
new masters. They had never succeeded in subduing the interior
of the island, frequent insurrections had kept them in
continual alarm, and free communication between the various
towns could only be effected by sea. The victories of the
French army in Italy, under the command of one of their
countrymen, had redoubled this internal ferment in Corsica,
and the English had decided on entirely abandoning their
conquest. In September 1796 they withdrew their troops, and
also removed from Corsica their chief partisans, such as
General Paoli, Pozzo di Borgo, Beraldi and others, who sought
an asylum in England. On the first intelligence of the English
preparations for evacuating the island, Buonaparte despatched
General Gentili thither at the head of two or three hundred
banished Corsicans, and with this little band Gentili took
possession of the principal strongholds. ... On the 5th
Frimaire, year V. (November 25, 1796), I received a decree of
the Executive Directory ... appointing me
Commissioner-Extraordinary of the Government in Corsica, and
ordering me to proceed thither at once."
Count Miot de Melito,
Memoirs,
chapter 4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (October).
Failure of peace negotiations with England.
Treaties with Naples and Genoa.
"It was France itself, more even than Italy, which was
succumbing under the victories in Italy, and was falling
rapidly under the military despotism of Bonaparte; while what
had begun as a mere war of defence was already becoming a war
of aggression against everybody. ... The more patriotic
members of the legislative bodies were opposed to what they
considered only a war of personal ambitions, and were desirous
of peace, and a considerable peace party was forming
throughout the country. The opportunity was taken by the
English government for making proposals for peace, and a
pass-port was obtained from the directory for lord Malmesbury,
who was sent to Paris as the English plenipotentiary. Lord
Malmesbury arrived in Paris on the 2nd of Brumaire (the 23rd
of October, 1796), and next day had his first interview with
the French minister Delacroix, who was chosen by the directory
to act as their representative. There was from the first an
evident want of cordiality and sincerity on the part of the
French government in this negotiation; and the demands they
made, and the political views entertained by them, were so
unreasonable, that, after it had dragged on slowly for about a
month, it ended without a result. The directory were secretly
making great preparations for the invasion of Ireland, and
they had hopes of making a separate and very advantageous
peace with Austria. Bonaparte had, during this time, become
uneasy on account of his position in Italy," and "urged the
directory to enter into negotiations with the different
Italian states in his rear, such as Naples, Rome, and Genoa,
and to form an offensive and defensive alliance with the king
of Sardinia, so that he might be able to raise reinforcements
in Italy. For this purpose he asked for authority to proclaim
the independence of Lombardy and of the states of Modena; so
that, by forming both into republics, he might create a
powerful French party, through which he might obtain both men
and provisions. The directory was not unwilling to second the
wishes of Bonaparte, and on the 19th of Vendemiaire (the 10th
of October) a peace was signed with Naples, which was followed
by a treaty with Genoa. This latter state paid two millions of
francs as an indemnity for the acts of hostility formerly
committed against France, and added two millions more as a
loan." The negotiation for an offensive alliance with Sardinia
failed, because the king demanded Lombardy.
T. Wright,
History of France,
volume 2, page 758.
ALSO IN:
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 27 (volume 7).
E. Burke,
Letters on a Regicide Peace.
{1317}
FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (October-April).
Bonaparte's continued victories in Italy.
His advance into Carinthia and the Tyrol.
Peace preliminaries of Leoben.
"The failure of the French invasion of Germany ... enabled the
Austrians to make a fresh effort for the relief of [Würmser]
in Mantua. 40,000 men under Alvinzi and 18,000 under
Davidowich entered Italy from the Tyrol and marched by
different routes towards Verona. Bonaparte had employed the
recent interlude in consolidating French influence in Italy.
Against the wishes of the Directors he dethroned the duke of
Modena, and formed his territories into the Cispadane
Republic. Then he tried to induce Piedmont and Venice to join
France, but both states preferred to retain their neutral
position. This was another of the charges which the general
was preparing against Venice. On the news of the Austrian
advance, Bonaparte marched against Alvinzi, and checked him at
Carmignano (6 November). But meanwhile Davidowich had taken
Trent and was approaching Rivoli. Bonaparte, in danger of
being surrounded, was compelled to give way, and retreated to
Verona, while Alvinzi followed him. Never was the French
position more critical, and nothing but a very bold move could
save them. With reckless courage Bonaparte attacked Alvinzi at
Arcola, and after three days' hard fighting [November 15-17,
on the dykes and causeways of a marshy region] won a complete
victory. He then forced Davidowich to retreat to the Tyrol.
The danger was averted, and the blockade of Mantua was
continued. But Austria, as if its resources were
inexhaustible, determined on a fourth effort in January, 1797.
Alvinzi was again entrusted with the command, while another
detachment under Provera advanced from Friuli. Bonaparte
collected all his forces, marched against Alvinzi, and crushed
him at Rivoli (15 January). But meanwhile Provera had reached
Mantua, where Bonaparte, by a forced march, overtook him, and
won another complete victory in the battle of La Favorita. The
fate of Mantua was at last decided, and the city surrendered
on the 2nd of February. With a generosity worthy of the glory
which he had obtained, Bonaparte allowed Würmser and the
garrison to march out with the honours of war. He now turned
to Romagna, occupied Bologna and terrified the Pope into
signing the treaty of Tolentino. The temporal power was
allowed to exist, but within very curtailed limits. Not only
Avignon, but the whole of Romagna, with Ancona, was
surrendered to France. Even these terms, harsh as they were,
were not so severe as the Directors had wished. But Bonaparte
was beginning to play his own game; he saw that Catholicism
was regaining ground in France, and he wished to make friends
on what might prove after all the winning side. Affairs in
Italy were now fairly settled: two republics, the Cisalpine in
Lombardy, and the Cispadane, which included Modena, Ferrara,
and Bologna, had been created to secure French influence in
Italy. ... The French had occupied the Venetian territory from
Bergamo to Verona, and had established close relations with
those classes who were dissatisfied with their exclusion from
political power. When the republic armed against the danger of
a revolt, Bonaparte treated it as another ground for that
quarrel which he artfully fomented for his own purposes. But
at present he had other objects more immediately pressing than
the oppression of Venice. Jourdan's army on the Rhine had been
entrusted to Hoche, whose ambition had long chafed at the want
of an opportunity, and who was burning to acquire glory by
retrieving the disasters of the last campaign. Bonaparte, on
the other hand, was eager to anticipate a possible rival, and
determined to hurry on his own invasion of Austria, in order
to keep the war and the negotiations in his own hands. The
task of meeting him was entrusted to the archduke Charles, who
had won such a brilliant reputation in 1796, but who was
placed at a great disadvantage to his opponent by having to
obey instructions from Vienna. The French carried all before
them, Joubert occupied Tyrol, Masséna forced the route to
Carinthia, and Bonaparte himself, after defeating the archduke
on the Tagliamento, occupied Trieste and Carniola. The French
now marched over the Alps, driving the Austrians before them.
At Leoben, which they reached on 7th April, they were less
than eighty miles from Vienna. Here Austrian envoys arrived to
open negotiations. They consented to surrender Belgium,
Lombardy, and the Rhine frontier, but they demanded
compensation in Bavaria. This demand Bonaparte refused, but
offered to compensate Austria at the expense of a neutral
state, Venice. The preliminaries of Leoben, signed on the 18th
April, gave to Austria, Istria, Dalmatia, and the Venetian
provinces between the Oglio, the Po, and the Adriatic. At this
moment, Hoche and Moreau, after overcoming the obstacles
interposed by a sluggish government, were crossing the Rhine
to bring their armies to bear against Austria. They had
already gained several successes when the unwelcome news
reached them from Leoben, and they had to retreat. Bonaparte
may have failed to extort the most extreme terms from Austria,
but he had at any rate kept both power and fame to himself."
R. Lodge,
English of Modern Europe,
chapter 23.
ALSO IN:
F. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon I.,
volume 1, chapters 5-7.
Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena,
volume 4, chapters 1-4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (December-January):
Hoche's expedition to Ireland.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1791-1798.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (February-October).
British naval victories of Cape St. Vincent and Camperdown.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1797.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (April-May).
The overthrow of Venice by Bonaparte.
When Napoleon, in March, entered upon his campaign against the
Archduke Charles, "the animosity existing between France and
Venice had ... attained a height that threatened an open
rupture between the two republics, and was, therefore, of some
advantage to Austria. The Signoria saw plainly what its fate
would be should the French prove victorious; but though they
had 12,000 or 15,000 Slavonian troops ready at hand, and
mostly assembled in the capital, they never ventured to use
them till the moment for acting was past. On the Terra Firma,
the citizens of Brescia and Bergamo had openly renounced the
authority of St. Mark, and espoused the cause of France; the
country people, on the other hand, were bitterly hostile to
the new Republicans. Oppressed by requisitions, plundered and
insulted by the troops, the peasants had slain straggling and
marauding French soldiers; the comrades of the sufferers had
retaliated, and an open revolt was more than once expected.
General Battaglia, the Venetian providatore, remonstrated
against the open violence practised on the subjects of Venice;
Buonaparte replied by accusing the government of partiality
for Austria, and went so far as to employ General Andrieux to
instigate the people to rise against the senate. The
Directory, however, desired him to pause, and not to 'drive
the Venetians to extremity, till the opportunity, should have
arrived for carrying into effect the future projects
entertained against that state.'
{1318}
Both parties were watching their time, but the craven watches
in vain, for he is struck down long before his time to strike
arrives." A month later, when Napoleon was believed to be
involved in difficulties in Carinthia and the Tyrol, Venice
"had thrown off the mask of neutrality; the tocsin had sounded
through the communes of the Terra Firma, and a body of troops
had joined the insurgents in the attack on the citadel of
Verona. Not only were the French assailed wherever they were
found in arms, but the very sick were inhumanly slain in the
hospitals by the infuriated peasantry; the principal massacre
took place at Verona on Easter Monday [April 17], and cast a
deep stain on the Venetian cause and character." But even
while these sinister events were in progress, Bonaparte had
made peace with the humiliated Austrians, and had signed the
preliminary treaty of Leoben, which promised to give Venice to
them in exchange for the Netherlands. And now, with all his
forces set free, he was prepared to crush the venerable
Republic, and make it subservient to his ambitious schemes. He
"refused to hear of any accommodation: and, unfortunately, the
base massacre of Verona blackened the Venetian cause so much
as almost to gloss over the unprincipled violence of their
adversaries. 'If you could offer me the treasures of Peru,'
said Napoleon to the terrified deputies who came to sue for
pardon and offer reparation, 'if you could cover your whole
dominions with gold, the atonement would be insufficient.
French blood has been treacherously shed, and the Lion of St.
Mark must bite the dust.' On the 3d of May he declared war
against the republic, and French troops immediately advanced
to the shores of the lagunes. Here, however, the waves of the
Adriatic arrested their progress, for they had not a single
boat at command, whereas the Venetians had a good fleet in the
harbour, and an army of 10,000 or 15,000 soldiers in the
capital: they only wanted the courage to use them. Instead of
fighting, however, they deliberated; and tried to purchase
safety by gold, instead of maintaining it by arms. Finding the
enemy relentless, the Great Council proposed to modify their
government,--to render it more democratic, in order to please
the French commander,--to lay their very institutions at the
feet of the conqueror; and, strange to say, only 21 patricians
out of 690 dissented from this act of national degradation.
The democratic party, supported by the intrigues of Vittelan,
the French secretary of legation, exerted themselves to the
utmost. The Slavonian troops were disbanded, or embarked for
Dalmatia; the fleet was dismantled, and the Senate were
rapidly divesting themselves of every privilege, when, on the
31st of May, a popular tumult broke out in the capital. The
Great Council were in deliberation when shots were fired
beneath the windows of the ducal palace. The trembling
senators thought that the rising was directed against them,
and that their lives were in danger, and hastened to divest
themselves of every remnant of power and authority at the very
moment when the populace were taking arms in their favour.
'Long live St. Mark, and down with foreign dominion!' was the
cry of the insurgents, but nothing could communicate one spark
of gallant fire to the Venetian aristocracy. In the midst of
the general confusion, while the adverse parties were firing
on each other, and the disbanded Slavonians threatening to
plunder the city, these unhappy legislators could only
delegate their power to a hastily assembled provisional
government, and then separate in shame and for ever. The
democratic government commenced their career in a manner as
dishonourable as that of the aristocracy had been closed."
They "immediately despatched the flotilla to bring over the
French troops. A brigade under Baraguai d'Hilliers soon landed
[May 15] at the place of St. Mark; and Venice, which had
braved the thunders of the Vatican, the power of the emperors,
and the arms of the Othmans, ... now sunk for ever, and
without striking one manly blow or firing one single shot for
honour and fame! Venice counted 1300 years of independence,
centuries of power and renown, and many also of greatness and
glory, but ended in a manner more dishonourable than any state
of which history makes mention. The French went through the
form of acknowledging the new democratic government, but
retained the power in their own hands. Heavy contributions
were levied, all the naval and military stores were taken
possession of, and the fleet, having conveyed French troops to
the Ionian islands, was sent to Toulon."
T. Mitchell,
Principal Campaigns in the Rise of Napoleon,
chapter 6 (Fraser's Magazine, April, 1846).
ALSO IN:
E. Flagg,
Venice: The City of the Sea,
part 1, chapters 1-4 (volume 1).
Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena,
volume 4, chapter 5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (May-October).
Napoleon's political work in Italy.
Creation of the Ligurian and Cisalpine Republics.
Dismemberment of the Graubunden.
The Peace of Campo-Formio.
Venice given over to Austria, and Lombardy and the Netherlands
taken away.
"The revolution in Venice was soon followed by another in
Genoa, also organised by the plots of the French minister
there, Faypoult. The Genoese had in general shown themselves
favourable to France; but there existed among the nobles an
anti-French party; the Senate, like that of Venice, was too
aristocratic to suit Bonaparte's or the Directory's notions;
and it was considered that Genoa, under a democratic
constitution, would be more subservient to French interests.
An insurrection, prepared by Faypoult, of some 700 or 800 of
the lowest class of Genoese, aided by Frenchmen and Lombards,
broke out on May 22nd, but was put down by the great mass of
the real Genoese people. Bonaparte, however, was determined to
effect his object. He directed a force of 12,000 men on Genoa,
and despatched Lavalette with a letter to the Doge. ...
Bonaparte's threats were attended by the same magical effects
at Genoa as had followed them at Venice. The Senate
immediately despatched three nobles to treat with him, and on
June 6th was concluded the Treaty of Montebello. The
Government of Genoa recognised by this treaty the sovereignty
of the people, confided the legislative power to two Councils,
one of 300, the other of 500 members, the executive power to a
Senate of twelve, presided over by the Doge. Meanwhile a
provisional government was to be established. By a secret
article a contribution of four millions, disguised under the
name of a loan, was imposed upon Genoa.
{1319}
Her obedience was recompensed with a considerable augmentation
of territory, and the incorporation of the districts known as
the 'imperial fiefs.' Such was the origin of the Ligurian
Republic. Austrian Lombardy, after its conquest, had also been
formed into the 'Lombard Republic'; but the Directory had not
recognised it, awaiting a final settlement of Italy through a
peace with Austria. Bonaparte, after taking possession of the
Duchy of Modena and the Legations, had, at first, thought of
erecting them into an independent state under the name of the
'Cispadane Republic'; but he afterwards changed his mind and
united these states with Lombardy under the title of the
Cisalpine Republic. He declared, in the name of the Directory,
the independence of this new republic, June 29th 1797;
reserving, however, the right of nominating, for the first
time, the members of the Government and of the legislative
body. The districts of the Valteline, Chiavenna, and Bormio,
subject to the Grison League, in which discontent and
disturbance had been excited by French agents, were united in
October to the new state; whose constitution was modelled on
that of the French Republic. Bonaparte was commissioned by the
Directory to negociate a definitive peace with Austria, and
conferences were opened for that purpose at Montebello,
Bonaparte's residence near Milan. The negociations were
chiefly managed by himself, and on the part of Austria by the
Marquis di Gallo, the Neapolitan ambassador at Vienna, and
Count Meerfeld. ... The negociations were protracted six
months, partly through Bonaparte's engagements in arranging
the affairs of the new Italian republics, but more especially
by divisions and feuds in the French Directory." The Peace of
Campo Formio was concluded October 17. "It derived this name
from its having been signed in a ruined castle situated in a
small village of that name near Udine; a place selected on
grounds of etiquette in preference to the residence of either
of the negociators. By this treaty the Emperor ceded the
Austrian Netherlands to France; abandoned to the Cisalpine
Republic, which he recognised, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema,
Peschiera, the town and fortress of Mantua with their
territories, and all that part of the former Venetian
possessions to the south and west of a line which, commencing
in the Tyrol, traversed the Lago di Garda, the left bank of
the Adige, but including Porto Legnago on the right bank, and
thence along the left bank of the Po to its mouth. France was
to possess the Ionian Islands, and all the Venetian
settlements in Albania below the Gulf of Lodrino; the French
Republic agreeing on its side that the Emperor should have
Istria, Dalmatia, the Venetian isles in the Adriatic, the
mouths of the Cattaro, the city of Venice, the Lagoons, and
all the former Venetian terra firma to the line before
described. The Emperor ceded the Breisgau to the Duke of
Modena, to be held on the same conditions as he had held the
Modenese. A congress composed of the plenipotentiaries of the
German Federation was to assemble immediately, to treat of a
peace between France and the Empire. To this patent treaty was
added another secret one, by the principal article of which
the Emperor consented that France should have the frontier of
the Rhine, except the Prussian possessions, and stipulated
that the Imperial troops should enter Venice on the same day
that the French entered Mentz. He also promised to use his
influence to obtain the accession of the Empire to this
arrangement; and if that body withheld its consent, to give it
no more assistance than his contingent. The navigation of the
Rhine to be declared free. If, at the peace with the Empire,
the French Republic should make any acquisitions in Germany,
the Emperor was to obtain an equivalent there, and vice versa.
The Dutch Stadtholder to have a territorial indemnity. To the
King of Prussia were to be restored his possessions on the
left bank of the Rhine, and he was consequently to have no new
acquisitions in Germany. Princes and States of the Empire,
damnified by this treaty, to obtain a suitable indemnity. ...
By the Treaty of Campo Formio was terminated not only the
Italian campaign, but also the first continental war of the
Revolution. The establishment of Bonaparte's prestige and
power by the former was a result still more momentous in its
consequences for Europe than the fall of Venice and the
revolutionising of Northern Italy."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapter 8 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 4, pages 214-225.
Sir W. Scott,
Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,
chapter 28.
Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena,
chapters 6-8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (September).
Conflict of the Directory and the two Councils.
The Revolutionary Coup d'État of the 18th of Fructidor.
Suppression of the Royalists and Moderates.
Practical overthrow of the Constitution.
"The inevitable dissension between the executive power and the
electoral power had already displayed itself at the conclusion
of the elections of the Year V. The elections were made for
the most part under the influence of the reactionary party,
which, whilst it refrained from conspiring for the overthrow
of the new Constitution, saw with terror that the executive
power was in the hands of men who had taken part in the
excesses and crimes of the Convention. Pichegru, whose
intrigues with the princes of the House of Bourbon were not
yet known, was enthusiastically made President of the Council
of Five Hundred, and Barbé-Marbois was made President of the
Ancients. Le Tourneur having become, by lot, the retiring
member of the Directory, Barthélemy, an upright and moderate
man, was chosen in his place. He, as well as his colleague,
Carnot, were opposed to violent measures; but they only formed
in the Directorate a minority which was powerless against the
Triumvirs Barras, Rewbel, and La Réveillère, who soon entered
upon a struggle with the two Councils. ... There were,
doubtless, amongst [their opponents] in the two Councils, some
Royalists, and ardent reactionists, who desired with all their
hearts the restoration of the Bourbons; but, according to the
very best testimony, the majority of the names which were
drawn from the electoral urn since the promulgation of the
Constitution of the Year III. were strangers to the Royalist
party. 'They did not desire,' to use the words of an eminent
and impartial historian of our own day [De Barante, 'Life of
Royer-Collard'], 'a counter-revolution, but the abolition of
the revolutionary laws which were still in force. They wished
for peace and true liberty, and the successive purification of
a Directorate which was the direct heir of the Convention. ...
But the Directorate was as much opposed to the Moderates as to
the Royalists.'
{1320}
It pretended to regard these two parties as one, and falsely
represented them as conspiring in common for the overthrow of
the Republic and the re-establishment of monarchy. ... If
there were few Royalists in the two Councils, there were also
few men determined to provoke on the part of the Directors a
recourse to violence against their colleagues. But as a great
number of their members had sat in the Convention, they
naturally feared a too complete reaction, and, affecting a
great zeal for the Constitution, they founded at the Hotel
Salm, under the name of the Constitutional Club, an
association which was widely opposed in its spirit and
tendency to that of the Hotel Clichy, in which were assembled
the most ardent members of the reactionary party [and hence
called Clichyans]. ... The Council of Five Hundred, on the
motion of a member of the Clichy Club, energetically demanded
that the Legislative power should have a share in determining
questions of peace or war. No general had exercised, in this
respect, a more arbitrary power than had Bonaparte, who had
negotiated of his own mere authority several treaties, and the
preliminaries of the peace of Campo Formio. He was offended at
these pretensions on the part of the Council of Five Hundred,
and entreated the Government to look to the army for support
against the Councils and the reactionary press. He even sent
to Paris, as a support to the policy of the Directors, General
Augereau, one of the bravest men of his army, but by no means
scrupulous as to the employment of violent means, and disposed
to regard the sword as the supreme argument in politics,
whether at home or abroad. The Directory gave him the command
of the military division of Paris. ... Henceforth a coup
d'état appeared inevitable. The Directors now marched some
regiments upon the capital, in defiance of a clause of the
Constitution which prohibited the presence of troops within a
distance of twelve leagues of Paris, unless in accordance with
a special law passed in or near Paris itself. The Councils
burst forth into reproaches and threats against the Directors,
to which the latter replied by fiery addresses to the armies,
and to the Councils themselves. It was in vain that the
Directors Carnot and Barthélemy endeavoured to quell the
rising storm; their three colleagues refused to listen to
them, and fixed the 18th Fructidor [September 4] for the
execution of their criminal projects. During the night
preceding that day, Augereau marched 12,000 men into Paris,
and in the morning these troops, under his own command,
supported by 40 pieces of cannon, surrounded the Tuileries, in
which the Councils held their sittings. The grenadiers of the
Councils' guard joined Augereau, who arrested with his own
hand the brave Ramel, who commanded that guard, and General
Pichegru, the President of the Council of Five Hundred. ...
The Directors ... published a letter written by Moreau, which
revealed Pichegru's treason; and at the same time nominated a
Committee for the purpose of watching over the public safety.
... Forty-two members of the Council of Five Hundred, eleven
members of that of the Ancients, and two of the Directors,
Carnot [who escaped, however, into Switzerland] and
Barthélemy, were condemned to be transported to the fatal
district of Sinnamari. ... The Directors also made the editors
of 35 journals the victims of their resentment. They had the
laws passed in favour of the priests and emigrants reversed,
and annulled the elections of 48 departments. Merlin de Douai
and François de Neufchâteau were chosen as successors to
Carnot and Barthélemy, who had been banished and proscribed by
their colleagues. That which took place on the 18th Fructidor
ruined the Constitutional and Moderate party, whilst it
resuscitated that of the Revolution."
E. de Bonnechose,
History of France, 4th period,
book 2, chapter 4 (volume 2).
"During these two days, Paris continued perfectly quiet. The
patriots of the fauxbourgs deemed the punishment of
transportation too mild. ... These groups, however, which were
far from numerous, disturbed not in the least the peace of
Paris. The sectionaries of Vendemiaire ... had no longer
sufficient energy to take up arms spontaneously. They suffered
the stroke of policy to be carried into effect without
opposition. For the rest, public opinion continued uncertain.
The sincere republicans clearly perceived that the royalist
faction had rendered an energetic measure inevitable, but they
deplored the violation of the laws and the intervention of the
military power. They almost doubted the culpability of the
conspirators on seeing such a man as Carnot mingled in their
ranks. They apprehended that hatred had too strongly
influenced the determinations of the Directory. Lastly, even,
though considering its determinations as necessary, they were
sad, and not without reason: for it became evident that that
constitution, on which they had placed all their hope, was not
the termination of our troubles and our discord. The mass of
the population submitted and detached itself much on that day
from political events. ... From that day, political zeal began
to cool. Such were the consequences of the stroke of policy
accomplished on the 18th of Fructidor. It has been asserted
that it had become useless at the moment when it was executed;
that the Directory, in frightening the royalist faction, had
already succeeded in overawing it; that, by persisting in this
stretch of power, it paved the way to military usurpation. ...
But ... the royalist faction ... on the junction of the new
third ... would infallibly have overturned everything, and
mastered the Directory. Civil war would then have ensued
between it and the armies. The Directory, in foreseeing this
movement and timely repressing it, prevented a civil war; and,
if it placed itself under the protection of the military, it
submitted to a melancholy but inevitable necessity."
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 4, pages 205-206.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1798 (December-May).
Revolutionary intrigues in Rome.
French troops in possession of the city.
Formation of the Roman Republic.
Removal of the Pope.
"At Rome a permanent conspiracy was established at the French
Embassy, where Joseph Bonaparte, as the ambassador of the
Republic, was the centre of a knot of conspirators. On the
28th of December, 1797, came the first open attempt at
insurrection. General Duphot, a hot-headed young man, one of
the military attaches of the French Embassy, put himself at
the head of a handful of the disaffected, and led them to the
attack of one of the posts of the pontifical troops. In the
ensuing skirmish a chance shot struck down the French general,
and the rabble which followed him dispersed in all directions.
It was just the opportunity for which the Directory had been
waiting in order to break the treaty of Tolentino and seize
upon Rome.
{1321}
Joseph Bonaparte left the city the morning after the émeute,
and a column of troops was immediately detached from his
brother's army in the north of Italy and ordered to march on
Rome. It consisted of General Berthier's division and 6,000
Poles under Dombrowski, and it received the ominous title of
l'armée vengeresse--the avenging army. As they advanced
through the Papal territory they met with no sympathy, no
assistance, from the inhabitants, who looked upon them as
invaders rather than deliverers. 'The army,' Berthier wrote to
Bonaparte, 'has met with nothing but the most profound
consternation in this country, without seeing one glimpse of
the spirit of independence; only one single patriot came to
me, and offered to set at liberty 2,000 convicts.' This
liberal offer of a re-inforcement of 2,000 scoundrels the
French general thought it better to decline. ... At length, on
the 10th of February, Berthier appeared before Rome. ...
Wishing to avoid a useless effusion of blood, Pius VI. ordered
the gates to be thrown open, contenting himself with
addressing, through the commandant of St. Angelo, a protest to
the French general, in which he declared that he yielded only
to overwhelming force. A few days after, a self-elected
deputation of Romans waited upon Berthier, to request him to
proclaim Rome a republic, under the protection of France. As
Berthier had been one of the most active agents in getting up
this deputation, he, of course, immediately yielded to their
request. The French general then demanded of the Pope that he
should formally resign his temporal power, and accept the new
order of things. His reply was the same as that of every Pope
of whom such a demand has been made: 'We cannot--we will not!'
In the midst of a violent thunder-storm he was torn from his
palace, forced into a carriage, and carried away to Viterbo,
and thence to Siena, where he was kept a prisoner for three
months. Rome was ruled by the iron hand of a military
governor. ... Meanwhile, alarmed at the rising in Italy, the
Directory were conveying the Pope to a French prison. ...
After a short stay at Grenoble he was transferred to the
fortress of Valence, where, broken down by the fatigues of his
journey, he died on August 19th, 1799, praying for his enemies
with his last breath."
Chevalier O'Clery.
History of the Italian Revolution,
chapter 2, section 1.
ALSO IN:
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 4.
J. Miley,
History of the Papal States,
book 8, chapter 3 (volume 3).
J. E. Darras,
History of the Catholic Church, 8th period,
chapter 6 (volume 4).
T. Roscoe,
Memoirs of Scipio de Ricci.
volume 2, chapter 4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1798 (December-September).
Invasion and subjugation of Switzerland.
Creation of the Helvetic Republic.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1792-1798.
FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1799.
Hostile attitude toward the United States.
The X, Y, Z correspondence.
Nearness of war.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1797-1799.
FRANCE: A. D. 1798 (May-August).
Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt.
His seizure of Malta.
Pursuit by the English fleet under Nelson.
The Battle of the Nile.
"The treaty of Campo Formio, by which Austria obtained terms
highly advantageous to her interests, dissolved the offensive
and defensive alliance of the continental powers, and left
England alone in arms. The humiliation of this country was to
be the last and the greatest achievement of French ambition.
... During the autumn and winter of this year [1797-8],
preparations for a great armament were proceeding at Toulon,
and other harbours in possession of the French. The army of
Italy, clamorous for a promised donation of 1,000,000,000
francs, which the Directory were unable to pay, had been
flattered by the title of the army of England, and appeased by
the prospect of the plunder of this country. But whatever
might be the view of the Directory, or the expectation of the
army, Bonaparte had no intention of undertaking an enterprise
so rash as a descent upon the coast of England, while the
fleets of England kept possession of the seas. There was
another quarter from which the British Empire might be menaced
with a better chance of success. India could never be secure
while Egypt and the great eastern port of the Mediterranean
were in the possession of one of the great maritime powers.
Egypt had been an object of French ambition since the time of
Louis XIV. ... It was for Egypt, therefore, that the great
armament of Toulon was destined. The project was not indeed
considered a very hopeful one at Paris; but such was the dread
and hatred of the ruling faction for the great military genius
which had sprung out of the anarchy of France, and of the
30,000 creditors whom they were unable to satisfy, that the
issue of the expedition which they most desired was, that it
might never return from the banks of the Nile. ... The fleet,
consisting of thirteen ships of the line, with several
frigates, smaller vessels, and transports conveying 28,000
picked troops, with the full equipment for every kind of
military service, set sail on the 14th of May. Attached to
this singular expedition, destined for the invasion of a
friendly country, and the destruction of an unoffending
people, was a staff of professors, furnished with books, maps,
and philosophical instruments for prosecuting scientific
researches in a land which, to a Christian and a philosopher,
was the most interesting portion of the globe. The great
armament commenced its career of rapine by seizing on the
important island of Malta. Under the shallow pretence of
taking in water for a squadron which had left its anchorage
only two days, a portion of the troops were landed, and, after
a show of resistance, the degenerate knights, who had already
been corrupted, surrendered Malta, Gozo, and Cumino, to the
French Republic. A great amount of treasure and of munitions
of war, besides the possession of the strongest place in the
Mediterranean, were thus acquired without loss or delay. A
conquest of such importance would have amply repaid and
justified the expedition, if no ulterior object had been
pursued. But Bonaparte suffered himself to be detained no more
than twenty-four hours by this achievement; and having left a
garrison of 4,000 men in the island, and established a form of
civil government, after the French pattern, he shaped his
course direct for Alexandria. On the 1st of July, the first
division of the French troops were landed at Marabou, a few
miles from the city. Aboukir and Rosetta, which commanded the
mouths of the Nile, were occupied without difficulty.
Alexandria itself was incapable of any effectual defence, and,
after a few skirmishes with the handful of Janissaries which
constituted the garrison, the French entered the place; and
for several hours the inhabitants were given up to an
indiscriminate massacre.
{1322}
Bonaparte pushed forward with his usual rapidity, undeterred
by the horrors of the sandy desert, and the sufferings of his
troops. After two victories over the Mamelukes, one of which
was obtained within sight of the Pyramids [and called the
Battle of the Pyramids], the French advanced to Cairo; and
such was the terror which they had inspired, that the capital
of Egypt was surrendered without a blow. Thus in three weeks
the country had been overrun. The invaders had nothing to fear
from the hostility of the people; a rich and fertile country,
the frontier of Asia, was in their possession; but, in order
to hold the possession secure, it was necessary to retain the
command of the sea. The English Government, on their side,
considered the capture of the Toulon armament an object of
paramount importance; and Earl St. Vincent, who was still
blockading the Spanish ports, was ordered to leave Cadiz, if
necessary, with his whole fleet, in search of the French; but
at all events, to detach a squadron, under Sir Horatio Nelson,
on that service. ... Nelson left Gibraltar on the 8th of May,
with three ships of the line, four frigates, and a sloop. ...
He was reinforced, on the 5th of June, with ten sail of the
line. His frigates had parted company with him on the 20th of
May, and never returned." Suspecting that Egypt was
Bonaparte's destination, he made sail for Alexandria, but
passed the French expedition, at night, on the way, arrived in
advance of it, and, thinking his surmise mistaken, steered
away for the Morea and thence to Naples. It was not until the
1st of August that he reached the Egyptian coast a second
time, and found the French fleet, of sixteen sail, "at anchor
in line of battle, in the Bay of Aboukir. Nelson, having
determined to fight whenever he came up with the enemy,
whether by day or by night, immediately made the signal for
action. Although the French fleet lay in an open roadstead,
they had taken up a position so strong as to justify their
belief that they could not be successfully attacked by a force
less than double their own. They lay close in shore, with a
large shoal in their rear; in the advance of their line was an
island, on which a formidable battery had been erected; and
their flanks were covered by numerous gun-boats. ... The
general action commenced at sunset, and continued throughout
the night until six o'clock the following morning, a period of
nearly twelve hours. But in less than two hours, five of the
enemy's ships had struck; and, soon after nine o'clock, the
sea and shore, for miles around, were illuminated by a fire
which burst from the decks of the 'Orient,' the French
flag-ship, of 120 guns. In about half an hour she blew up,
with an explosion so appalling that for some minutes the
action was suspended, as if by tacit consent. At this time the
French Admiral Brueys was dead, ... killed by a chain-shot
before the ship took fire. Nelson also had been carried below,
with a wound which was, at first, supposed to be mortal. He
had been struck in the head with a fragment of langridge shot,
which tore away a part of the scalp. ... At three o'clock in
the morning four more of the French ships were destroyed or
taken. There was then an interval of two hours, during which
hardly a shot was fired on either side. At ten minutes to
seven another ship of the line, after a feeble attempt at
resistance, hauled down her colours. The action was now over.
Of the thirteen French ships of the line, nine had been taken,
and two had been burnt." Two ships of the line and two
frigates escaped. "The British killed and wounded were 895.
The loss of the French, including prisoners, was 5,225. Such
was the great battle of the Nile."
W. Massey,
History of England during the Reign of George III.,
chapter 39 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
E. J. De La Gravière,
Sketches of the Last Naval War,
volume 1, part 3.
R. Southey,
Life of Nelson,
chapter 5.
Despatches and Letters of Lord Nelson,
volume 3.
Bonaparte,
Memoirs Dictated at St. Helena,
volume 2.
A. T. Mahan,
Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and
Empire,
chapter 9 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (August-April).
Arming against the Second European Coalition.
The conscription.
Overthrow of the Neapolitan kingdom.
Seizure of Piedmont.
Campaigns in Switzerland, Italy, and on the upper Danube.
Early successes and final reverses.
"The Porte declared war against the French, and, entered into
an alliance with Russia and England (12th August). A Russian
fleet sailed from Sebastopol, and blockaded the Ionian
Islands; the English vessels found every Turkish port open to
them, and gained possession of the Levant trade, to the
detriment of France. Thus the failure of the Egyptian
expedition delivered the Ottoman Empire into the hands of two
Powers, the one intent upon its dismemberment, the other eager
to make itself master of its commerce; it gave England the
supremacy in the Mediterranean; it inaugurated the appearance
of Russia in southern Europe; it was the signal for a second
coalition." Russia, "under Catherine, had but taken a nominal
part in the first coalition, being too much occupied with the
annihilation of Poland. ... But now Catherine was dead, Paul
I., her son and successor, took the émigrés in his pay,
offered the Pretender an asylum at Mittau, promised his
protection to the Congress at Rastadt, and fitted out 100,000
troops. Naples had been in a great ferment since the creation
of the Roman Republic. The nobles and middle classes, imbued
with French ideas, detested a Court sold to the English, and
presided over by the imbecile Ferdinand, who left the cares of
his government to his dissolute Queen. She hated the French,
and now solicited Tuscany and Piedmont to unite with her to
deliver Italy from the sway of these Republicans. The Austrian
Court, of which Bonaparte had been the conscious or
unconscious dupe, instead of disarming after the Treaty of
Campo-Formio, continued its armaments with redoubled vigour,
and now demanded indemnities, on the pretext that it had
suffered from the Republican system which the French
introduced into Switzerland and Italy. The Directory very
naturally refused to accede to this; and thereupon Austria
prepared for war, and endeavoured to drag Prussia and the
German Empire into it. ... But Frederick William's successor
and the princess of the empire declined to recommence
hostilities with France, of which they had reason to fear the
enmity, though at present she was scarcely able to resist a
second coalition. The French nation, in fact, was sincerely
eager for peace. ...
{1323}
Nevertheless, and though there was little unity amongst them,
the Councils and the Directory prepared their measures of
defence; they increased the revenue, by creating a tax on
doors and windows; they authorised the sale of national
property to the amount of 125,000,000 francs; and finally, on
the report of Jourdan, they passed the famous law of
conscription (5th September), which compelled every Frenchman
to serve in the army from the age of 20 to that of 25, the
first immediate levy to consist of 200,000 troops. When the
victory of the Nile became known at Naples the court was a
prey to frenzied excitement. Taxes had already been doubled, a
fifth of the population called to arms, the nobles and middle
classes were tortured into submission. And when the report
spread that the Russians were marching through Poland, it was
resolved to commence hostilities by attacking the Roman
Republic, and to rouse Piedmont and Tuscany to rebellion.
Forty thousand Neapolitans, scarcely provided with arms,
headed by the Austrian general Mack, made their way into the
Roman states, guarded only by 18,000 French troops, dispersed
between the two seas (12th November). Championnet, their
commander, abandoned Rome, took up a position on the Tiber,
near Civita-Castellana, and concentrated all his forces on
that point. The King of Naples entered Rome, while Mack went
to encounter Championnet. The latter beat him, routed or
captured the best of his troops, and compelled him to retire
in disorder to the Neapolitan territory. Championnet, now at
the head of 25,000 men, returned to Rome, previous to marching
on Naples, where the greatest disorder prevailed. At the news
of his approach the Court armed the lazzaroni, and fled with
its treasures to the English fleet, abandoning the town to
pillage and anarchy (20th December, 1798). Mack, seeing his
army deserting him, and his officers making common cause with
the Republicans, concluded an armistice with Championnet, but
his soldiers revolted and compelled him to seek safety in the
French camp. On Championnet's appearance before Naples, which
the lazzaroni defended with fury, a violent battle ensued,
lasting for three days; however, some of the citizens
delivered the fort of St. Elmo to the French, and then the mob
laid down its arms (23rd January, 1799). The Parthenopeian
Republic [so called from one of the ancient names of the city
of Naples] was immediately proclaimed, a provisional
government organised, the citizens formed themselves into a
National Guard, and the kingdom accepted the Revolution. The
demand of Championnet for a war contribution of 27,000,000
francs roused the Calabrians to revolt; anarchy prevailed
everywhere; commissioners were sent by the Directory to
re-establish order. The French general had them arrested, but
he was deposed and succeeded by Macdonald. In commencing its
aggression the court of Naples had counted on the aid of the
King of Sardinia and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. But Piedmont,
placed between three republics, was herself sharing the
Revolutionary ferment; the King, who had concluded an alliance
with Austria, proscribed the democrats, who, in their turn,
declared war against him by means of the Ligurian Republic,
whither they had fled. When Championnet was compelled to
evacuate Rome, the Directory, afraid that Sardinia would
harass the French rear, had ordered Joubert, commanding the
army of Italy, to occupy Piedmont. The Piedmontese troops
opened every place to the French, entered into their ranks,
and the King [December 8, 1798] was forced to give up all
claims to Piedmont, and to take refuge in Sardinia ...
[retaining the latter, but abdicating the sovereignty of
Piedmont]. Tuscany being also occupied by the Republican
troops, the moment war was declared against Austria, Italy was
virtually under French dominion. These events but increased
the enmity of the Coalition, which hurried its preparations,
while the Directory, cheered by its successes, resolved to
take the offensive on all points. ... In the present struggle,
however, the conditions of warfare were changed. The lines of
invasion were no longer, as formerly, short and isolated, but
stretched from the Zuyder Zee to the Gulf of Tarentum, open to
be attacked in Holland from the rear, and at Naples by the
English fleet. ... Seventy thousand troops, under the Archduke
Charles, occupied Bavaria; General Hotze occupied the
Vorarlberg with 25,000 men; Bellegarde was with 45,000 in the
Tyrol; and 70,000 guarded the line of the Adige, headed by
Marshal Kray. Eighty thousand Russians, in two equal
divisions, were on their way to join the Austrians. The
division under Suwarroff was to operate with Kray, that one
under Korsakoff with the Archduke. Finally, 40,000 English and
Russians were to land in Holland, and 20,000 English and
Sicilians in Naples. The Directory, instead of concentrating
its forces on the Adige and near the sources of the Danube,
divided them. Fifteen thousand troops were posted in Holland,
under Brune; 8,000 at Mayence, under Bernadotte; 40,000 from
Strasburg to Bâle, under Jourdan; 30,000 in Switzerland, under
Masséna; 50,000 on the Adige, under Schérer; 30,000 at Naples,
under Macdonald. These various divisions were in reality meant
to form but one army, of which Massena was the centre, Jourdan
and Schérer the wings, Brune and Macdonald the extremities. To
Massena was confided the principal operation, namely, to
possess himself of the central Alps, in order to isolate the
two imperial armies of the Adige and Danube and to neutralise
their efforts. The Coalition having hit upon the same plan as
the Directory, ordered the Austrians under Bellegarde to
invade the Grisons, while on the other side a division was to
descend into the Valteline." Masséna's right wing, under
Lecourbe, defeated Bellegarde, crossed the upper Rhine and
made its way to the Inn. Schérer also advanced by the
Valteline to the upper Adige and joined operations with
Lecourbe. "While these two generals were spreading terror in
the Tyrol, Masséna made himself master of the Rhine from its
sources to the lake of Constance, receiving but one check in
the fruitless siege of Feldkirch, a position he coveted in
order to be able to support with his right wing the army of
the Danube, or with his left that of Italy. This check
compelled Lecourbe and Dessoles to slacken their progress, and
the various events on the Danube and the Po necessitated their
recall in a short time. Jourdan had crossed the Rhine at Kehl,
Bâle, and Schaffhausen (1st March), penetrated into the defile
of the upper Danube, and reached the village of Ostrach, where
he was confronted by the Archduke Charles, who had passed the
Iller, and who, after a sanguinary battle [March 21],
compelled him to retreat upon Tutlingen. The tidings of
Masséna's success having reached Jourdan, he wished to support
it by marching to Stockach, the key to the roads of
Switzerland and Germany; but he was once more defeated (25th
March), and retreated, not into Switzerland, whence he could
have joined Masséna, but to the Rhine, which he imagined to be
threatened. ...
{1324}
In Italy the Directory had given orders to Schérer to force
the Adige, and to drive the Austrians over the Piave and the
Brenta." He attacked and carried the Austrian camp of
Pastrengo, near Rivoli, on the 25th of March, 1799, inflicting
a loss of 8,000 on the enemy; but on the 5th of April, when
moving to force the lower Adige, he was defeated by Kray at
Magnano. "Schérer lost his head, fled precipitately, and did
not stop until he had put a safe distance between himself and
the enemy. ... The army of Switzerland, under Masséna,
dispersed in the mountains, with both its flanks threatened,
had no other means of salvation than to fall back behind the
Rhine."
H. Van Laun,
The French Revolutionary Epoch,
book 3, chapter 1, section 2 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
R Southey,
Life of Nelson,
chapter 6 (volume 2).
A. Griffiths,
French Revolutionary Generals,
chapter 18.
A. Gallenga,
History of Piedmont,
volume 3, chapter 5.
P. Colletta,
History of the Kingdom of Naples,
book 3, chapter 2; book 4, chapter 1 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (August-August).
Bonaparte's organization of government in Egypt.
His advance into Syria and repulse at Acre.
His victory at Aboukir and return to France.
"On hearing of the battle of Aboukir [better known as 'the
battle of the Nile'], a solitary sigh escaped from Napoleon.
'To France,' said he, 'the fates have decreed the empire of
the land--to England that of the sea.' He endured this great
calamity with the equanimity of a masculine spirit. He gave
orders that the seamen landed at Alexandria should be formed
into a marine brigade, and thus gained a valuable addition to
his army; and proceeded himself to organise a system of
government, under which the great natural resources of the
country might be turned to the best advantage. ... He was
careful to advance no claim to the sovereignty of Egypt, but
asserted, that having rescued it from the Mameluke usurpation,
it remained for him to administer law and justice, until the
time should come for restoring the province to the dominion of
the Grand Seignior. He then established two councils,
consisting of natives, principally of Arab chiefs and Moslem
of the church and the law, by whose advice all measures were,
nominally, to be regulated. They formed of course a very
subservient senate. ... The virtuosi and artists in his train,
meanwhile, pursued with indefatigable energy their scientific
researches; they ransacked the monuments of Egypt, and laid
the foundation, at least, of all the wonderful discoveries
which have since been made concerning the knowledge, arts,
polity (and even language), of the ancient nation. Nor were
their objects merely those of curiosity. They, under the
General's direction, examined into the long-smothered traces
of many an ancient device for improving the agriculture of the
country. Canals that had been shut up for centuries were
reopened; the waters of the Nile flowed once more where they
had been guided by the skill of the Pharaohs or the Ptolemies.
Cultivation was extended; property secured; and it cannot be
doubted that the signal improvements since introduced in
Egypt, are attributable mainly to the wise example of the
French administration. ... In such labours Napoleon passed the
autumn of 1798. ... General Dessaix, meanwhile, had pursued
Mourad Bey into Upper Egypt, where the Mamelukes hardly made a
single stand against him, but contrived by the excellence of
their horses, and their familiarity with the deserts, to avoid
any total disruption of their forces. ... The General, during
this interval of repose, received no communication from the
French Government; but rumours now began to reach his quarters
which might well give him new anxieties. The report of another
rupture with Austria gradually met with more credence; and it
was before long placed beyond a doubt, that the Ottoman Porte,
instead of being tempted into any recognition of the French
establishment in Egypt, had declared war against the Republic,
and summoned all the strength of her empire to pour in
overwhelming numbers on the isolated army of Buonaparte. ...
The General despatched a trusty messenger into India, inviting
Tippoo Saib to inform him exactly of the condition of the
English army in that region, and signifying that Egypt was
only the first post in a march destined to surpass that of
Alexander! 'He spent whole days,' writes his secretary, 'in
lying flat on the ground stretched upon maps of Asia.' At
length the time for action came. Leaving 15,000 in and about
Cairo, the division of Dessaix in Upper Egypt, and garrisons
in the chief towns,--Buonaparte on the 11th of February 1799
marched for Syria at the head of 10,000 picked men, with the
intention of crushing the Turkish armament in that quarter,
before their chief force (which he now knew was assembling at
Rhodes) should have time to reach Egypt by sea. Traversing the
desert which divides Africa from Asia, he took possession of the
fortress El-Arish (February 15), whose garrison, after a
vigorous assault, capitulated on condition that they should be
permitted to retreat into Syria, pledging their parole not to
serve again during the war. Pursuing his march, he took Gazah
(that ancient city of the Philistines) without opposition; but
at Jaffa (the Joppa of holy writ), the Moslem made a resolute
defence. The walls were carried by storm, 3,000 Turks died
with arms in their hands, and the town was given up during
three hours to the fury of the French soldiery--who never, as
Napoleon confessed, availed themselves of the license of war
more savagely than on this occasion. A party of the
garrison--amounting, according to Buonaparte, to 1,200 men,
but stated by others as nearly 3,000 in number--held out for
some hours longer in the mosques and citadel; but at length,
seeing no chance of rescue, grounded their arms on the 7th of
March. ... On the 10th--three days after their surrender--the
prisoners were marched out of Jaffa, in the centre of a
battalion under General Bon. When they had reached the
sand-hills, at some distance from the town, they were divided
into small parties, and shot or bayoneted to a man. They, like
true fatalists, submitted in silence; and their bodies were
gathered together into a pyramid, where, after the lapse of
thirty years, their bones are still visible whitening the
sand. Such was the massacre of Jaffa, which will ever form one
of the darkest stains on the name of Napoleon. He admitted the
fact himself;--and justified it on the double plea, that he
could not afford soldiers to guard so many prisoners, and that
he could not grant them the benefit of their parole, because
they were the very men who had already been set free on such
terms at' El-Arish. ...
{1325}
Buonaparte had now ascertained that the Pacha of Syria,
Achmet-Djezzar, was at St. Jean D'Acre (so renowned in the
history of the crusades), and determined to defend that place
to extremity, with the forces which had already been assembled
for the invasion of Egypt. He in vain endeavoured to seduce
this ferocious chief from his allegiance to the Porte, by
holding out the hope of a separate independent government,
under the protection of France. The first of Napoleon's
messengers returned without an answer; the second was put to
death; and the army moved on Acre in all the zeal of revenge,
while the necessary apparatus of a siege was ordered to be
sent round by sea from Alexandria. Sir Sidney Smith was then
cruising in the Levant with two British ships of the line, the
Tigre and the Theseus; and, being informed by the Pacha of the
approaching storm, hastened to support him, in the defence of
Acre. Napoleon's vessels, conveying guns and stores from
Egypt, fell into his hands, and he appeared off the town two
days before the French army came in view of it. He had on
board his ship Colonel Philippeaux, a French royalist of great
talents (formerly Buonaparte's school-fellow at Brienne); and
the Pacha willingly permitted the English commodore and this
skilful ally to regulate for him, as far as was possible, the
plan of his defence. The loss of his own heavy artillery, and
the presence of two English ships, were inauspicious omens;
yet Buonaparte doubted not that the Turkish garrison would
shrink before his onset, and he instantly commenced the siege.
He opened his trenches on the 18th of March. 'On that little
town' said he to one of his generals, as they were standing
together on an eminence, which still bears the name of Richard
Cœur-de-Lion--'on yonder little town depends the fate of the
East. Behold the Key of Constantinople, or of India.' ...
Meanwhile a vast Mussulman army had been gathered among the
mountains of Samaria, and was preparing to descend upon Acre,
and attack the besiegers in concert with the garrison of
Djezzar. Junot, with his division, marched to encounter them,
and would have been overwhelmed by their numbers, had not
Napoleon himself followed and rescued him (April 8) at
Nazareth, where the splendid cavalry of the Orientals were, as
usual, unable to resist the solid squares and well-directed
musketry of the French. Kleber with another division, was in
like manner endangered, and in like manner rescued by the
general-in-chief at Mount Tabor (April 15). The Mussulmans
dispersed on all hands; and Napoleon, returning to his siege,
pressed it on with desperate assaults, day after day, in which
his best soldiers were thinned, before the united efforts of
Djezzar's gallantry, and the skill of his allies." On the 21st
of May, when the siege had been prosecuted for more than two
months, Napoleon commanded a final assault. "The plague had
some time before this appeared in the camp; every day the
ranks of his legions were thinned by this pestilence, as well
as by the weapons of the defenders of Acre. The hearts of all
men were quickly sinking. The Turkish fleet was at hand to
reinforce Djezzar; and upon the utter failure of the attack of
the 21st of May, Napoleon yielded to stern necessity, and
began his retreat upon Jaffa. ... The name of Jaffa was
already sufficiently stained; but fame speedily represented
Napoleon as having now made it the scene of another atrocity,
not less shocking than that of the massacre of the Turkish
prisoners. The accusation, which for many years made so much
noise throughout Europe, amounts to this: that on the 27th of
May, when it was necessary for Napoleon to pursue his march
from Jaffa for Egypt, a certain number of the plague-patients
in the hospital were found to be in a state that held out no
hope whatever of their recovery; that the general, being
unwilling to leave them to the tender mercies of the Turks,
conceived the notion of administering opium, and so procuring
for them at least a speedy and an easy death; and that a
number of men were accordingly taken off in this method by his
command. ... Whether the opium was really administered or
not--that the audacious proposal to that effect was made by
Napoleon, we have his own admission; and every reader must
form his opinion--as to the degree of guilt which attaches to
the fact of having meditated and designed the deed. ... The
march onwards was a continued scene of misery; for the wounded
and the sick were many, the heat oppressive, the thirst
intolerable; and the ferocious Djezzar was hard behind, and
the wild Arabs of the desert hovered round them on every side,
so that he who fell behind his company was sure to be slain.
... Having at length accomplished this perilous journey [June
14], Buonaparte repaired to his old head-quarters at Cairo,
and re-entered on his great functions as the establisher of a
new government in the state of Egypt. But he had not long
occupied himself thus, ere new rumours concerning the beys on
the Upper Nile, who seemed to have some strong and urgent
motive for endeavouring to force a passage downwards, began to
be mingled with, and by degrees explained by, tidings daily
repeated of some grand disembarkation of the Ottomans,
designed to have place in the neighbourhood of Alexandria.
Leaving Dessaix, therefore, once more in command at Cairo, he
himself descended the Nile, and travelled with all speed to
Alexandria, where he found his presence most necessary. For,
in effect, the great Turkish fleet had already run into the
bay of Aboukir; and an army of 18,000, having gained the
fortress, were there strengthening themselves, with the view
of awaiting the promised descent and junction of the
Mamelukes, and then, with overwhelming superiority of numbers,
advancing to Alexandria, and completing the ruin of the French
invaders. Buonaparte, reaching Alexandria on the evening of
the 24th of July, found his army already posted in the
neighbourhood of Aboukir, and prepared to anticipate the
attack of the Turks on the morrow. ... The Turkish outposts
were assaulted early next morning, and driven in with great
slaughter; but the French, when they advanced, came within the
range of the batteries and also of the shipping that lay close
by the shore, and were checked. Their retreat might have ended
in a route, but for the undisciplined eagerness with which the
Turks engaged in the task of spoiling and maiming those that
fell before them--thus giving to Murat the opportunity of
charging their main body in flank with his cavalry, at the
moment when the French infantry, profiting by their disordered
and scattered condition, and rallying under the eye of
Napoleon, forced a passage to the entrenchments. From that
moment the battle was a massacre. ... Six thousand surrendered
at discretion: 12,000 perished on the field or in the sea. ...
Napoleon once more returned to Cairo on the 9th of August; but
it was only to make some parting arrangements as to the
administration, civil and military; for, from the moment of
his victory at Aboukir, he had resolved to entrust Egypt to
other hands, and Admiral Gantheaume was already preparing in
secret the means of his removal to France."
J. G. Lockhart,
Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
Duke of Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 9-11.
Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena,
volume 2.
Letters from the army of Bonaparte in Egypt.
M. de Bourrienne,
Private Memoirs of Napoleon,
volume 1. chapter 15-23.
{1326}
FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (April-September).
Murder of the French envoys at Rastadt.
Disasters in North Italy.
Suwarroff's victories.
Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland and
capture of the Dutch Fleet.
"While the French armies were thus humiliated in the field,
the representatives of the republic at the congress of Rastadt
[where peace negotiations with the states of the empire had
been in progress for months] became the victims of a
sanguinary tragedy. As France had declared war against the
emperor [as sovereign of Austria], and not against the empire,
the congress had not necessarily been broken off; but the
representatives of the German states were withdrawn one after
another, until the successes of the Austrians rendered the
position of the French ministers no longer secure. At length
they received notice, from the nearest Austrian commander, to
depart within twenty-four hours; and the French
ministers--Jean Debry, Bonnier, and Roberjeot--left Rastadt
with their families and attendants late in the evening of the
8th of Floréal (the 28th of April). The night was very dark,
and they appear to have been apprehensive of danger. At a very
short distance from Rastadt they were surrounded by a troop of
Austrian hussars, who stopped the carriages, dragged the three
ministers out, and massacred them in the presence of their
wives and children. The hussars then plundered the carriages,
and took away, especially, all the papers. Fortunately for
Jean Debry, he had been stunned, but not mortally wounded; and
after the murderers were gone the cold air of the night
restored him to life. This crime was supposed to have been
perpetrated at the instigation of the imperial court, for
reasons which have not been very clearly explained; but the
representatives of the German states proclaimed loudly their
indignation. The reverses of the republican arms, and the
tragedy of Rastadt, were eagerly embraced by the opposition in
France as occasions for raising a violent outcry against the
directory. ... It was in the midst of this general
unpopularity of the directors that the elections of the year
VII. of the republic took place, and a great majority of the
patriots obtained admission to the councils, and thus
increased the numerical force of the opposition. ... The
directory had made great efforts to repair the reverses which
had marked the opening of the campaign. Jourdain had been
deprived of the command of the army of the Danube, which had
been placed, along with that of Switzerland, under the orders
of Masséna. The command of the army of Italy had been
transferred from Scherer to Moreau; and Macdonald had received
orders to withdraw his forces from Naples and the papal
states, in order to unite them with the army in Upper Italy.
The Russians under Suwarrow had now joined the Austrian army
in Italy; and this chief, who was in the height of his
reputation as a military leader, was made commander-in-chief
of the combined Austro-Russian forces, Melas commanding the
Austrians under him. Suwarrow advanced rapidly upon the Adda,
which protected the French lines; and, on the 8th of Floreal
(the 27th of April), forced the passage of that river in two
places, at Brivio and Trezzo, above and below the position
occupied by the division of Serrurier, which formed the French
left, and which was thus cut off from the rest of the army.
Moreau, who took the command of the French forces on the
evening of the same day, made a vain attempt to drive the
enemy back over the Adda at Trezzo, and thus recover his
communication with Serrurier; and that division was
surrounded, and, after a desperate resistance, obliged to lay
down its arms, with the exception of a small number of men who
made their way across the mountains into Piedmont. Victor's
division effected its retreat without much loss, and Moreau
concentrated his forces in the neighbourhood of Milan. This
disastrous engagement, which took place on the 9th of Floreal,
was known as the battle of Cassano. Moreau remained at Milan
two days to give the members of the government of the
Cisalpine republic, and all the Milanese families who were
politically compromised, time to make their escape in his
rear; after which he continued his retreat. ... He was allowed
to make this retreat without any serious interruption; for
Suwarrow, instead of pursuing him actively, lost his time at
Milan in celebrating the triumph of the anti-revolutionary
party." Moreau first "established his army in a strong
position at the confluence of the Tanaro and the Po, covered
by both rivers, and commanding all the roads to Genoa; so that
he could there, without great danger, wait the arrival of
Macdonald." But soon, finding his position made critical by a
general insurrection in Piedmont, he retired towards the
mountains of Genoa. "On the 6th of Prairial (the 25th of May),
Macdonald was at Florence; but he lost much time there; and it
was only towards the end of the republican month (the middle
of June), that he at length advanced into the plains of
Piacenza to form his junction with Moreau." On the Trebbia he
encountered Suwarrow's advance, under General Ott, and rashly
attacked it. Having forced back Ott's advanced guard, the
French suddenly found themselves confronted by Suwarrow
himself and the main body of his army. "Macdonald now resolved
to unite all his forces behind the Trebbia, and there risk a
battle; but he was anticipated by Suwarrow, who attacked him
next morning, and, after a very severe and sanguinary
engagement, the French were driven over the Trebbia. The
combat was continued next day, and ended again to the
disadvantage of the French; and their position had become so
critical, that Macdonald found it necessary to retreat upon
the river Nura, and to make his way round the Apennines to
Genoa. The French, closely pursued, experienced considerable
loss in their retreat, until Suwarrow, hearing Moreau's cannon
in his rear, discontinued the pursuit, in order to meet him."
Moreau routed Bellegarde, in Suwarrow's rear, and took 3,000
prisoners; but no further collision of importance occurred
during the next two months of the summer.
{1327}
"Suwarrow had been prevented by the orders of the Aulic
Council from following up with vigour his victory on the
Trebbia, and had been obliged to occupy himself with sieges
which employed with little advantage valuable time. Recruits
were reaching the French armies in Italy, and they were
restored to a state of greater efficiency. It was already the
month of Thermidor (the middle of July), and Moreau saw the
necessity of assuming the offensive and attacking the
Austro-Russians while they were occupied with the sieges; but
he was restrained by the orders of the directory to wait the
arrival of Joubert. The latter, who had just contracted an
advantageous marriage, by which the moderate party had hoped
to attach him to their cause, lost an entire month in the
celebration of his nuptial festivities, and only reached the
army of Italy in the middle of Thermidor (the beginning of
August), where he immediately succeeded Moreau in the command;
but he prevailed upon that able general to remain with him, at
least until after his first battle. The French army had taken
a good position in advance of Novi, and were preparing to act
against the enemy while he was still occupied in the sieges,
when news arrived that Alessandria and Mantua had surrendered,
and that Suwarrow was preparing to unite against them the
whole strength of his forces. Joubert immediately resolved to
fall back upon the Apennines, and there act upon the
defensive; but it was already too late, for Suwarrow had
advanced with such rapidity that he was forced to accept
battle in the position he occupied, which was a very strong
one. The battle began early in the morning of the 28th of
Thermidor (the 15th of August); and very early in the action
Joubert received a mortal wound from a ball which struck him
near the heart. The engagement continued with great fury
during the greater part of the day, but ended in the entire
defeat of the French, who retreated from the field of battle
in great confusion. The French lost about 10,000 men in killed
and wounded, and a great number of prisoners. The news of this
reverse was soon followed by disastrous intelligence from
another quarter. The English had prepared an expedition
against Holland, which was to be assisted by a detachment of
Russian troops. The English forces, under Abercromby, landed
near the mouth of the Helder in North Holland, on the 10th of
Fructidor (the 27th of August), and defeated the French and
Dutch republican army, commanded by Brune, in a decisive
engagement [at the English camp, established on a well-drained
morass, called the Zyp] on the 22nd of Fructidor (the 8th of
September). Brune retreated upon Amsterdam; and the Russian
contingent was thus enabled to effect its junction with the
English without opposition. As one of the first consequences
of this invasion, the English obtained possession of the whole
Dutch fleet, upon the assistance of which the French
government had counted in its designs against England. This
succession of ill news excited the revolutionary party to a
most unusual degree of violence."
T. Wright,
History of France,
book 6, chapters 22-23 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
H. Spalding,
Suvóroff,
chapters 7-8.
L. M. P. de Laverne,
Life of Field-Marshal Souvarof,
chapter 6.
E. Vehse,
Memoirs of the Court of Austria,
chapter 15, section 2 (volume 2).
J. Adolphus,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapter 108 (volume 7).
Gen. Sir H. Bunbury,
Narratives of the Great War with France,
pages 1-58.
FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (August-December).
Campaign in Switzerland.
Battle of Zurich.
Defeat of the Russians.
Suwarroff's retreat across the Alps.
Reverses in Italy, and on the Rhine.
Fall of the Parthenopean and Roman Republics.
Since the retreat of Massena in June, the Archduke Charles had
been watching the French on the Limmat and expecting the
arrival of Russian reinforcements under Korsakoff; "but the
Aulic Council, with unaccountable infatuation, ordered him at
this important juncture to repair with the bulk of his army to
the Rhine, leaving Switzerland to Korsakoff and the Russians.
Before these injudicious orders, however, could be carried
into effect, Massena had boldly assumed the offensive (August
14) by a false attack on Zurich, intended to mask the
operations of his right wing, which meanwhile, under Lecourbe,
was directed against the St. Gothard, in order to cut off the
communication between the allied forces in Switzerland and in
Italy. These attacks proved completely successful, ... a
French detachment ... seizing the St. Gothard, and
establishing itself at Airolo, on the southern declivity.
Lecourbe's left had meanwhile cleared the banks of the lake of
Zurich of the enemy, who were driven back into Glarus. To
obtain these brilliant successes on the right, Massena had
been obliged to weaken his left wing; and the Archduke, now
reinforced by 20, 000 Russians, attempted to avail himself of
this circumstance to force the passage of the Limmat, below
Zurich (August 16 and 17); but this enterprise, the success of
which might have altered the fate of the war, failed from the
defective construction of the pontoons; and the positive
orders of the Aulic Council forbade his remaining longer in
Switzerland. Accordingly, leaving 25,000 men under Hotze to
support Korsakoff, he marched for the Upper Rhine, where the
French, at his approach, abandoned the siege of Philipsburg,
and retired to Mannheim; but this important post, the defences
of which were imperfectly restored, was carried by a
coup-de-main (September 18), and the French driven with severe
loss over the Rhine. But this success was dearly bought by the
disasters in Switzerland, which followed the Archduke's
departure. It had been arranged that Suwarroff was to move
from Bellinzona (September 21), and after retaking the St.
Gothard combine with Korsakoff in a front attack on Massena,
while Hotze assailed him in flank. But Massena, who was now
the superior in numbers, determined to anticipate the arrival
of Suwarroff by striking a blow, for which the presumptuous
confidence of Korsakoff gave him increased facility. On the
evening of 24th September, the passage of the river was
surprised below Zurich, and the heights of Closter-Fahr
carried by storm; and, in the course of the next day,
Korsakoff, with his main army, was completely hemmed in at
Zurich by the superior generalship of the French commander,
who summoned the Russians to surrender. But the bravery shown
by Korsakoff in these desperate circumstances equalled his
former arrogance: on the 28th the Russian columns, issuing
from the town, forced their way with the courage of despair
through the surrounding masses of French, while a slender
rear-guard defended the ramparts of Zurich till the remainder
had extricated themselves.
{1328}
The town was at length entered, and a frightful carnage ensued
in the streets, in the midst of which the illustrious Lavater
was barbarously shot by a French soldier: while Korsakoff,
after losing 8,000 killed and wounded, 5,000 prisoners, 100
pieces of cannon, and all his ammunition, stores, and military
chest, succeeded in reaching Schaffhausen. The attack of Soult
above the lake (September 25) was equally triumphant. The
gallant Hotze, who commanded in that quarter, was killed in
the first encounter; and the Austrians, giving way in
consternation, were driven over the Thur, and at length over
the Rhine, with the loss of 20 guns and 3,000 prisoners.
Suwarroff in the meantime was gallantly performing his part of
the plan. On the 23d of September, the French posts at Airolo
and St. Gothard were carried, after a desperate resistance, by
the Russian main force, while their flank was turned by
Rosenberg; and Lecourbe, hastily retreating, broke down the
Devil's Bridge to check the advance of the enemy. A scene of
useless butchery followed, the two parties firing on each
other from the opposite brinks of the impassable abyss; but
the flank of the French was at length turned, the bridge
repaired, and the Russians, pressing on in triumph, joined the
Austrian division of Auffenberg, at Wasen, and repulsed the
French beyond Altdorf. But this was the limit of the old
marshal's success. After effecting with severe loss the
passage of the tremendous defiles and ridges of the
Schachenthal, between Altdorf and Mutten, he found that Linken
and Jellachich, who were to have moved from Coire to
co-operate with him, had again retreated on learning the
disaster at Zurich; and Suwarroff found himself in the midst
of the enemy, with Massena on one side and Molitor on the
other. With the utmost difficulty the veteran conqueror was
prevailed upon, for the first time in his life, to order a
retreat; which had become indispensable, and the heads of his
columns were turned towards Glarus and the Grisons. But though
the attack of Massena on their rear in the Muttenthal was
repulsed with the loss of 2,000 men, their onward route was
barred at Naefels by Molitor, who defied all the efforts of
Prince Bagrathion to dislodge him; and in the midst of a heavy
fall of snow, which obliterated the mountain paths, the
Russian army wound its way (October 5) in single file over the
rugged and sterile peaks of the Alps of Glarus. Numbers
perished of cold, or fell over the precipices; but nothing
could overcome the unconquerable spirit of the soldiers:
without fire or stores, and compelled to bivouac on the snow,
they still struggled on through incredible hardships, till the
dreadful march terminated (October 10) at Ilantz. Such was the
famous, passage of the Alps by Suwarroff. Korsakoff in the
meanwhile (October 1-7) had maintained a desperate conflict
near Constance, till the return of the Archduke checked the
efforts of the French; and the Allies, abandoning the St.
Gothard, and all the other posts they still held in
Switzerland, concentrated their forces on the Rhine, which
became the boundary of the two armies. ... In Italy, after the
disastrous battle of Novi, the Directory had given the
leadership of the armies, both of Italy and Savoy, to the
gallant Championnet, but he could muster only 54,000 troops
and 6,000 raw conscripts to oppose Melas, who had succeeded
Suwarroff in the command, and who had 68,000, besides his
garrisons and detachments. The proposition of Championnet had
been to fall back, with his army still entire, to the other
side of the Alps: but his orders were positive to attempt the
relief of Coni, then besieged by the Austrians; and after a
desultory warfare for several weeks, he commenced a decisive
movement for that purpose at the end of October, with 35,000
men. But before the different French columns could effect a
junction, they were separately assailed by Melas: the
divisions of Grenier and Victor were overwhelmed at Genola
(November 4), and defeated with the loss of 7,000 men; and
though St. Cyr repulsed the Imperialists (November 10) on the
plateau of Novi, Coni was left to its fate, and surrendered
with all its garrison (December 4). An epidemic disorder broke
out in the French army, to which Championnet himself, and
numerous soldiers, fell victims: the troops giving way to
despair, abandoned their standards by hundreds and returned to
France; and it was with difficulty that the eloquent
exhortations of St. Cyr succeeded in keeping together a
sufficient number to defend the Bochetta pass, in front of
Genoa, the loss of which would have entailed destruction on
the whole army. The discomfited Republicans were driven back
on their own frontiers; and, excepting Genoa, the tricolor
flag was everywhere expelled from Italy. At the same time the
campaign on the Rhine was drawing to a close. The army of
Massena was not strong enough to follow up the brilliant
success at Zurich, and the jealousies of the Austrians and
Russians, who mutually laid on each other the blame of the
late disasters, prevented their acting cordially in concert
against him. Suwarroff at length, in a fit of exasperation,
drew off his troops to winter quarters in Bavaria, and took no
further share in the war; and a fruitless attempt in November
against Philipsburg, by Lecourbe, who had been transferred to
the command on the lower Rhine, closed the operations in that
quarter."
Epitome of Alison's History of Europe,
sections 245-251
(chapter 28, volume 7 of complete work).
Meantime, the French had been entirely expelled from southern
Italy. On the withdrawal of Macdonald, with most of his army,
from Naples, "Cardinal Ruffo, a soldier, churchman, and
politician, put himself at the head of a numerous body of
insurgents, and commenced war against such French troops as
had been left in the south and in the middle of Italy. This
movement was actively supported by the British fleet. Lord
Nelson recovered Naples; Rome surrendered to Commodore
Trowbridge. Thus the Parthenopean and Roman republics were
extinguished forever. The royal family returned to Naples, and
that fine city and country were once more a kingdom. Rome, the
capital of the world, was occupied by Neapolitan troops."
Sir W. Scott,
Life of Napoleon,
chapter 38.
ALSO IN:
L. M. P. de Laverne,
Life of Souvarof,
chapter 6.
H. Spalding,
Suvoroff.
P. Colletta,
History of the Kingdom of Naples,
book 4, chapter 2 and book 5,
chapters 1-2 (volume 1).
T. J. Pettigrew,
Memoirs of Lord Nelson,
volume 1, chapters 8-9.
{1329}
FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (September-October).
Disastrous ending of the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland.
Capitulation of the Duke of York.
Dissolution of the Dutch East India Company.
"It is very obvious that the Duke of York was selected in an
unlucky hour to be the commander-in-chief of this
Anglo-Russian expedition, when we compare the time in which
Abercrombie was alone on the marshy promontory of the Helder
... with the subsequent period. On the 10th of September
Abercrombie successfully repulsed the attack of General Brune,
who had come for the purpose from Haarlem to Alkmar; on the
19th the Duke of York landed, and soon ruined everything. The
first division of the Russians had at length arrived on the
15th, under the command of General Herrmann, for whom it was
originally destined, although unhappily it afterwards came
into the hands of General Korsakoff. The duke therefore
thought he might venture on a general attack on the 19th. In
this attack Herrmann led the right wing, which was formed by
the Russians, and Abercrombie, with whom was the Prince of
Orange, the left, whilst the centre was left to the Duke of
York, the commander-in-chief. This decisive battle was fought
at Bergen, a place situated to the north of Alkmar. The
combined army was victorious on both wings; and Horn, on the
Zuyder Zee, was occupied; the Duke of York, who was only a
general for parades and reviews, merely indulged the centre
with a few manœuvres hither and thither. ... The Russians,
therefore, who were left alone in impassible marshes,
traversed by ditches, and unknown to their officers, lost many
men, and were at length surrounded, and even their general
taken prisoner. The duke concerned himself very little about
the Russians, and had long before prudently retired into his
trenches; and, as the Russians were lost, Abercrombie and the
Crown Prince were obliged to relinquish Horn." The incapacity
of the commander-in-chief held the army paralyzed during the
fortnight following, suffering from sickness and want, while
it would still have been practicable to push forward to South
Holland. "A series of bloody engagements took place from the
2nd till the 6th of October, and the object of the attack upon
the whole line of the French and Batavian army would have been
attained had Abercrombie alone commanded. The English and
Russians, who call this the battle of Alkmar, were
indisputably victorious in the engagements of the 2nd and 3rd
of October. They even drove the enemy before them to the
neighbourhood of Haarlem, after having taken possession of
Alkmar; but on the 6th, Brune, who owes his otherwise very
moderate military renown to this engagement alone, having
received a reinforcement of some thousands on the 4th and 5th,
renewed the battle. The fighting on this day took place at
Castricum, on a narrow strip of land between the sea and the
lake of Haarlem, a position favourable to the French. The
French report is, as usual, full of the boasts of a splendid
victory; the English, however, remained in possession of the
field, and did not retire to their trenches behind Alkmar and
to the marshes of Zyp till the 7th. ... In not more than eight
days afterwards, the want in the army and the anxiety of its
incapable commander-in-chief became so great, the number of
the sick increased so rapidly, and the fear of the
difficulties of embarkation in winter so grew and spread, that
the duke accepted the most shameful capitulation that had ever
been offered to an English general, except at Saratoga. This
capitulation, concluded on the 19th of October, was only
granted because the English, by destroying the dykes, had it
in their power to ruin the country."
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the Eighteenth Century,
volume 7, pages 149-151.
"For the failure in accomplishing the great objects of
emancipating Holland and restoring its legitimate ruler; for
the clamorous joy with which her enemies, foreign and
domestic, hailed the event; the government of Great Britain
had many consolations. ... The Dutch fleet, which, in the
hands of an enterprising enemy, might have been so injuriously
employed, was a capture of immense importance: if Holland was
ever to become a friend and ally, we had abundant means of
promoting her prosperity and re-establishing her greatness; if
an enemy, her means of injury and hopes of rivalship were
effectually suppressed. Her East-India Company, ... long the
rival of our own in power and prosperity, whose dividends in
some years had risen to the amount of 40 per cent., now
finally closed its career, making a paltry final payment in
part of the arrears of dividends for the present and three
preceding years."
J. Adolphus,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapter 109 (volume 7).
ALSO IN:
G. R. Gleig,
Life of General Sir R. Abercromby
(Eminent British Military Commanders, volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (November).
Return of Bonaparte from Egypt.
The first Napoleonic Coup d'État.
Revolution of the 18th Brumaire.
End of the First Republic.
Creation of the Consulate.
"When Bonaparte, by means of the bundle of papers which Sidney
Smith caused to find their way through the French lines,
learned the condition of affairs in Europe, there was but one
course consistent with his character for him to pursue. There
was nothing more to be done in Egypt; there was everything to
be done in France. If he were to lead his army back, even in
case he should, by some miracle, elude the eager eyes of Lord
Nelson, the act would be generally regarded as a confession of
disaster. If he were to remain with the army, he could, at
best, do nothing but pursue a purely defensive policy; and if
the army were to be overwhelmed, it was no part of Napoleonism
to be involved in the disaster. ... It would be far shrewder
to throw the responsibility of the future of Egypt on another,
and to transfer himself to the field that was fast ripening
for the coveted harvest. Of course Bonaparte, under such
circumstances, did not hesitate as to which course to pursue.
Robbing the army of such good officers as survived, he left it
in command of the only one who had dared to raise his voice in
opposition to the work of the 18th Fructidor ... the heroic
but indignant Kléber. Was there ever a more exquisite revenge?
... On the arrival of Bonaparte in Paris everything seemed
ready to his hand. ... The policy which, in the seizure of
Switzerland and the Papal States, he had taken pains to
inaugurate before his departure for Egypt had borne its
natural fruit. As never before in the history of Europe,
England, Holland, Russia, Austria, Naples, and even Turkey had
joined hands in a common cause, and as a natural consequence
the Directory had been defeated at every point. Nor was it
unnatural for the people to attribute all these disasters to
the inefficiency of the government. The Directory had really
fallen into general contempt, and at the new election on the
30th Prairial it had been practically overthrown.
{1330}
Rewbell, who by his influence had stood at the head of
affairs, had been obliged to give way," and Sieyès had been
put in his place. "By the side of this fantastic statesman ...
Barras had been retained, probably for no other reason than
that he was sure to be found with the majority, while the
other members, Gohier, Moulins, and Roger-Ducos were men from
whose supposed mediocrity no very decided opposition could be
anticipated. Thus the popular party was not only revenged for
the outrages of Fructidor, but it had also made up the new
Directory of men who seemed likely to be nothing but clay in
the hands of Bonaparte. ... The manner in which the General
was received can have left no possible doubt remaining in his
mind as to the strength of his hold on the hearts of the
people. It must have been apparent to all that he needed but
to declare himself, in order to secure a well-nigh unanimous
support and following of the masses. But with the political
leaders the case, for obvious reasons, was far different. ...
His popularity was so overwhelming, that in his enmity the
leaders could anticipate nothing but annihilation, in his
friendship nothing but insignificance. ... The member of the
government who, at the time, wielded most influence, was
Sieyès, a man to whom personally the General had so
unconquerable an aversion, that Josephine was accustomed to
refer to him as her husband's béte noir. It was evident that
Sieyès was the most formidable obstacle to the General's
advance." As a first movement, Bonaparte endeavored to bring
about the removal of Sieyès from the Directory and his own
election to the place. Failing this, his party attempted the
immediate creation of a dictatorship. When that, too, was
found impracticable, Sieyès was persuaded to a reconciliation
and alliance with the ambitious soldier, and the two, at a
meeting, planned the proceedings "which led to that dark day
in French history known as the 18th Brumaire [November 9,
1799]. It remained only to get absolute control of the
military forces, a task at that time in no way difficult. The
officers who had returned with Bonaparte from Egypt were
impatient to follow wherever their master might lead. Moreau,
who, since the death of Hoche, was regarded as standing next
to Bonaparte in military ability, was not reluctant to cast in
his lot with the others, and Macdonald as well as Serurier
soon followed his example. Bernadotte alone would yield to
neither flattery nor intimidation. ... While Bonaparte was
thus marshalling his forces in the Rue de la Victoire, the way
was opening in the Councils. A commission of the Ancients,
made up of the leading conspirators, had worked all night
drawing up the proposed articles, in order that in the morning
the Council might have nothing to do but to vote them. The
meeting was called for seven o'clock, and care was taken not
to notify those members whose opposition there was reason to
fear. ... The articles were adopted without discussion. Those
present voted, first, to remove the sessions of the Councils
from Paris to Saint Cloud (a privilege which the constitution
conferred upon the Ancients alone), thus putting them at once
beyond the power of influencing the populace and of standing
in the way of Bonaparte. They then passed a decree giving to
Bonaparte the command of the military forces, at the same time
inviting him to come to the Assembly for the purpose of taking
the oath of allegiance to the Constitution." Bonaparte
appeared, accordingly, before the Council; but instead of
taking an oath of allegiance to the constitution, he made a
speech which he closed by declaring: "We want a Republic
founded on true liberty and national representation. We will
have it, I swear; I swear it in my own name and that of my
companions in arms." "Thus the mockery of the oath-taking in
the Council of Ancients was accomplished. The General had now
a more difficult part to perform in the Council of Five
Hundred. As the meeting of the Assembly was not to occur until
twelve o'clock of the following day, Bonaparte made use of the
intervening time in posting his forces and in disposing of the
Directory. ... There was one locality in the city where it was
probable aggressive force would be required. The Luxembourg
was the seat of the Directory, and the Directory must at all
hazards be crushed. ... Bonaparte knew well how to turn all
such ignominious service to account. In close imitation of
that policy which had left Kleber in Egypt, he placed the
Luxembourg in charge of the only man in the nation who could
now be regarded as his rival for popular favor. Moreau fell
into the snare, and by so doing lost a popularity which he was
never afterwards able to regain. Having thus placed his
military forces, Bonaparte turned his attention to the
Directors. The resignations of Sieyès and of Roger-Ducos he
already had upon his table. It remained only to procure the
others. Barras, without warning, was confronted by Talleyrand
and Bruix, who asked him without circumlocution to resign his
office," which he did, after slight hesitation. Gohier and
Moulins were addressed by Bonaparte in person, but firmly
resisted his importunities and his threats. They were then
made prisoners by Moreau. "The night of the 18th passed in
comparative tranquillity. The fact that there was no organized
resistance is accounted for by Lanfrey with a single mournful
statement, that 'nothing of the kind could be expected of a
nation that had been decapitated. All the men of rank in
France for the previous ten years, either by character or
genius or virtue, had been mown down, first by the scaffolds
and proscriptions, next by war.'" On the morrow, the 19th of
Brumaire (November 10) the sitting of the two councils began
at two o'clock. In the Council of Five Hundred the partisans
of Bonaparte were less numerous than in that of the Ancients,
and a powerful indignation at the doings of the previous day
began quickly to show itself. In the midst of a warm debate
upon the resignation of Barras, which had just been received,
"the door was opened, and Bonaparte, surrounded by his
grenadiers, entered the hall. A burst of indignation at once
arose. Every member sprang to his feet. 'What is this?' they
cried, 'swords here! armed men! Away! we will have no dictator
here.' Then some of the deputies, bolder than the others,
surrounded Bonaparte and overwhelmed him with invectives. 'You
are violating the sanctity of the laws; what are you doing,
rash man?' exclaimed Bigonnet. 'Is it for this that you have
conquered?' demanded Destrem, advancing towards him. Others
seized him by the collar of his coat, and, shaking him
violently, reproached him with treason. This reception, though
the General had come with the purpose of intimidating the
Assembly, fairly overwhelmed him.
{1331}
Eye-witnesses declare that he turned pale, and fell fainting
into the arms of his soldiers, who drew him out of the hall."
His brother Lucien, who was President of the Council, showed
better nerve. By refusing to put motions that were made to
vote, and finally by resigning his office and quitting the
chair, he threw the Council into confusion. Then, appearing to
the troops outside, who supposed him to be still President of
the Council, he harangued them and summoned them to clear the
chamber. "The grenadiers poured into the hall. A last cry of
'Vive la République' was raised, and a moment later the hall
was empty. Thus the crime of the conspirators was consummated,
and the First French Republic was at an end. After this action
it remained only to put into the hands of Bonaparte the
semblance of regular authority. ... A phantom of the Council
of Five Hundred--Cornet, one of them, says 30 members--met in
the evening and voted the measures which had been previously
agreed upon by the conspirators. Bonaparte, Sieyès, and
Roger-Ducos were appointed provisional consuls; 57 members of
the Council who had been most prominent in their opposition
were excluded from their seats; a list of proscriptions was
prepared; two commissioners chosen from the assemblies were
appointed to assist the consuls in their work of organization;
and, finally, ... they adjourned the legislative body until
the 20th of February."
C. K. Adams,
Democracy and Monarchy in France,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon I.
A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 4, pages 407-430.
M. de Bourrienne,
Private Memoirs of Napoleon,
volume l, chapter 24-27.
Count Miot de Melito,
Memoirs,
chapter 9.
FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (November-December).
The constitution of the consulate.
Bonaparte as First Consul.
"During the three months which followed the 18th Brumaire,
approbation and expectation were general. A provisional
government had been appointed, composed of three consuls,
Bonaparte, Siéyes, and Roger-Ducos, with two legislative
commissioners, entrusted to prepare the constitution and a
definitive order of things. The consuls and the two
commissioners were installed on the 21st Brumaire. This
provisional government abolished the law respecting hostages
and compulsory loans; it permitted the return of the priests
proscribed since the 18th Fructidor; it released from prison
and sent out of the republic the emigrants who had been
ship-wrecked on the coast of Calais, and who for four years
were captives in France, and were exposed to the heavy
punishment of the emigrant army. All these measures were very
favourably received. But public opinion revolted at a
proscription put in force against the extreme republicans.
Thirty-six of them were sentenced to transportation to Guiana,
and twenty-one were put under serveillance in the department
of Charante-Inférieure, merely by a decree of the consuls on
the report of Fouché, minister of police. The public viewed
unfavourably all who attacked the government, but at the same
time it exclaimed against an act so arbitrary and unjust. The
consuls, accordingly, recoiled before their own act; they
first commuted transportation into surveillance, and soon
withdrew surveillance itself. It was not long before a rupture
broke out between the authors of the 18th Brumaire. During
their provisional authority it did not create much noise,
because it took place in the legislative commissions. The new
constitution was the cause of it. Siéyes and Bonaparte could
not agree on this subject: the former wished to institute
France, the latter to govern it as a master. ... Bonaparte
took part in the deliberations of the constituent committee,
with his instinct of power, he seized upon everything in the
ideas of Siéyes which was calculated to serve his projects,
and caused the rest to be rejected. ... On the 24th of
December, 1799 (Nivose, year VIII.), forty-five days after the
18th Brumaire, was published the constitution of the year
VIII.; it was composed of the wrecks of that of Siéyes, now
become a constitution of servitude."
F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 14.
"The new constitution was still republic in name and
appearance, but monarchical in fact, the latter concealed, by
the government being committed, not to the hand of one
individual, but of three. The three persons so fixed upon were
denominated consuls, and appointed for ten years;--one of
them, however, was really ruler, although he only obtained the
modest name of First Consul. The rights which Bonaparte caused
to be given to himself made all the rest nothing more than
mere deception. The First Consul was to invite the others
merely to consultation on affairs of state, whilst he himself,
either immediately or through the senate, was to appoint to
all places of trust and authority, to decide absolutely upon
questions of peace or war, and to be assisted by a council of
state. ... In order to cover and conceal the power of the
First Consul, especially in reference to the appointment of
persons to offices of trust and authority, a senate was
created, which neither belonged to the people nor to the
government, but immediately from the very beginning was an
assembly of courtiers and placemen, and at a later period
became the mere tool of every kind of despotism, by rendering
it easy to dispense with the legislative body. The senate
consisted of eighty members, a part of whom were to be
immediately nominated from the lists of notability, and the
senate to fill up its own body from persons submitted to them
by the First Consul, the tribunate, and the legislative body.
Each senator was to have a salary of 25,000 f.; their meetings
were not public, and their business very small. From the
national lists the senate was also to select consuls,
legislators, tribunes, and judges of the Court of Cassation.
Large lists were first presented to the communes, on which,
according to Roederer, there stood some 500,000 names, out of
which the communes selected 50,000 for the departmental lists,
from which again 5,000 were to be chosen for the national
list. From these 5,000 names, selected from the departmental
list, or from what was termed the national list, the senate
was afterwards to elect the members of the legislature and the
high officers of government. The legislature was to consist of
two chambers, the tribunate and the legislative body--the
former composed of 100, and the latter of 300 members. The
chambers had no power of taking the initiative, that is, they
were obliged to wait till bills were submitted to them, and
could of themselves originate nothing: they were, however,
permitted to express wishes of all kinds to the government.
Each bill (projet de loi) was introduced into the tribunate by
three members of the council of state, and there defended by
them, because the tribunate alone had the right of discussion,
whilst the mere power of saying Yea or Nay was conferred upon
the members of the legislative body.
{1332}
The tribunate, having accepted the bill, sent three of its
members, accompanied by the members from the council of state,
to defend the measure in the assembly of the legislative body.
Every year one-fifth of the members of the legislative body
was to retire from office, being, however, always re-eligible
as long as their names remained on the national list. The
sittings of the legislative body alone were public, because
they were only permitted to be silent listeners to the
addresses of the tribunes or councillors of state, and to
assent to, or dissent from, the proposed law. Not above 100
persons were, however, allowed to be present as auditors; the
sittings were not allowed to continue longer than four months;
both chambers, however, might be summoned to an extraordinary
sitting. ... When the constitution was ready to be brought
into operation, Sieyes terminated merely as he had begun, and
Bonaparte saw with pleasure that he showed himself both
contemptible and venal. He became a dumb senator, with a
yearly income of 25,000 f.; and obtained 800,000 f. from the
directorial treasury, whilst Roger Ducos was obliged to go
away contented with a douceur of 120,000 f.; and, last of all,
Sieyes condescended to accept from Bonaparte a present of the
national domain of Crosne, which he afterwards exchanged for
another estate. For colleagues in his new dignity Bonaparte
selected very able and skilful men, but wholly destitute of
all nobility of mind, and to whom it never once occurred to
offer him any opposition; these were Cambacérès and Lebrun.
The former, a celebrated lawyer, although formerly a vehement
Jacobin, impatiently waited till Bonaparte brought forth again
all the old plunder; and then, covered with orders, he
strutted up and down the Palais Royal like a peacock, and
exhibited himself as a show. Lebrun, who was afterwards
created a duke, at a later period distinguished himself by
being the first to revive the use of hair powder; in fact, he
was completely a child and partisan of the olden times,
although for a time he had played the part of a Girondist. ...
As early as the 25th and 26th of December the First Consul took
up his abode in the Tuileries. There the name of citizen
altogether disappeared, for the consul's wife caused herself
again to be addressed as Madame. Everything which concerned
the government now began to assume full activity, and the
adjourned legislative councils were summoned for the 1st of
January, in order that they might be dissolved."
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the Eighteenth Century,
volume 7, pages 189-192.
ALSO IN:
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon I.,
volume 1, chapters 13-14.
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and Empire,
books 1-2 (volume 1).
H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 2 and appendix 4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1800.
Convention with the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1800.
FRANCE: A. D. 1800 (January-June).
Affairs in Egypt.
The repudiated Treaty of El Arish.
Kléber's victory at Heliopolis.
His assassination.
"Affairs in Egypt had been on the whole unfavourable to the
French, since that army had lost the presence of the
commander-in-chief. Kléber, on whom the command devolved, was
discontented both at the unceremonious and sudden manner in
which the duty had been imposed upon him, and with the
scarcity of means left to support his defence. Perceiving
himself threatened by a large Turkish force, which was
collecting for the purpose of avenging the defeat of the
vizier at Aboukir, he became desirous of giving up a
settlement which he despaired of maintaining. He signed
accordingly a convention with the Turkish plenipotentiaries,
and Sir Sidney Smith on the part of the British [at El Arish,
January 28, 1800], by which it was provided that the French
should evacuate Egypt, and that Kléber and his army should be
transported to France in safety, without being molested by the
British fleet. When the British government received advice of
this convention they refused to ratify it, on the ground that
Sir Sidney Smith had exceeded his powers in entering into it.
The Earl of Elgin having been sent out as plenipotentiary to
the Porte, it was asserted that Sir Sidney's ministerial
powers were superseded by his appointment. ... The truth was
that the arrival of Kléber and his army in the south of
France, at the very moment when the successes of Suwarrow gave
strong hopes of making some impression on her frontier, might
have had a most material effect upon the events of the war.
... The treaty of El Arish was in consequence broken off.
Kléber, disappointed of this mode of extricating himself, had
recourse to arms. The Vizier Jousseff Pacha, having crossed
the Desert and entered Egypt, received a bloody and decisive
defeat from the French general, near the ruins of the ancient
city of Heliopolis, on the 20th of March, 1800 [following
which Kléber crushed with great slaughter a revolt that had
broken out in Cairo]. The measures which Kléber adopted after
this victory were well calculated to maintain the possession
of the country, and reconcile the inhabitants to the French
government. ... While busied in these measures, he was cut
short by the blow of an assassin. A fanatic Turk, called
Soliman Haleby, a native of Aleppo, imagined he was inspired
by Heaven to slay the enemy of the Prophet and the Grand
Seignior. He concealed himself in a cistern, and springing out
on Kléber when there was only one man in company with him,
stabbed him dead [June 14]. ... The Baron Menou, on whom the
command now devolved, was an inferior person to Kléber. ...
Menou altered for the worse several of the regulations of
Kléber, and, carrying into literal execution what Buonaparte
had only written and spoken of, he became an actual
Mahommedan."
Sir W. Scott,
Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,
chapter 40.
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and Empire,
book 5 (volume 1).
{1333}
FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (May-February).
Bonaparte's second Italian campaign.
The crossing of the Alps.
The Battle of Marengo.
Moreau in Germany.
Hohenlinden.
Austrian siege of Genoa.
"Preparations for the new campaign in spring were completed.
Moreau was made commander-in-chief of the army of the Rhine,
150,000 strong. The plan of the campaign was concerted between
the First Consul and Carnot, who had superseded Berthier as
Minister at War. The operations were conducted with the utmost
secrecy. Napoleon had determined to strike the decisive blow
against Austria in Italy, and to command there in person. By
an article in the Constitution the First Consul was forbidden
to take command of an army. To this interdiction he cheerfully
assented; but he evaded it, as soon as the occasion was ripe,
by giving the nominal command of the army of Italy to
Berthier. He began to collect troops at Dijon, which were, he
publicly announced, intended to advance upon Italy. They
consisted chiefly of conscripts and invalids, with a numerous
staff, and were called 'the army of reserve.' Meantime, while
caricatures of some ancient men with wooden legs and little
boys of twelve years old, entitled 'Bonaparte's Army of
Reserve,' were amusing the Austrian public, the real army of
Italy was formed in the heart of France, and was marching by
various roads towards Switzerland. ... The artillery was sent
piecemeal from different arsenals; the provisions necessary to
an army about to cross barren mountains were forwarded to
Geneva, embarked on the lake, and landed at Villeneuve, near
the entrance to the valley of the Simplon. The situation of
the French army in Italy had become critical. Massena had
thrown himself into Genoa with 12,000 men, and was enduring
all the rigours of a siege, pressed by 30,000 Austrians under
General Ott, seconded by the British fleet. Suchet, with the
remainder of the French army, about 10,000 strong, completely
cut off from communication with Massena, had concentrated his
forces on the Var, was maintaining an unequal contest with
Melas, the Austrian commander-in-chief, and strenuously
defending the French frontier. Napoleon's plan was to
transport his army across the Alps, plant himself in the rear
of the Austrians, intercept their communications, then
manœuvre so as to place his own army and that of Massena on
the Austrian right and left flanks respectively, cut off their
retreat, and finally give them battle at the decisive moment.
While all Europe imagined that the multifarious concerns of
the Government held the First Consul at Paris, he was
travelling at a rapid rate towards Geneva, accompanied only by
his secretary. He left Paris on the 6th of May, at two in the
morning, leaving Cambacérès to preside until his return, and
ordering Fouché to announce that he was about to review the
army at Dijon, and might possibly go as far as Geneva, but
would return in a fortnight. 'Should anything happen,' he
significantly added, 'I shall be back like a thunderbolt.' ...
On the 13th the First Consul reviewed the vanguard of his
army, commanded by General Lannes, at Lausanne. The whole army
consisted of nearly 70,000 men. Two columns, each of about
6,000 men, were put in motion, one under Tureau, the other
under Chabran, to take the routes of Mont Cenis and the Little
St. Bernard. A division consisting of 15,000 men, under
Moncey, detached from the army of the Rhine, was to march by
St. Gothard. Moreau kept the Austrian army of the Rhine, under
General Kray, on the defensive before Ulm [to which he had
forced his way in a series of important engagements, at Engen,
May 2, at Moeskirch, May 4, at Biberach, May 9, and at
Hochstadt, June 19], and held himself in readiness to cover
the operations of the First Consul in Italy. The main body of
the French army, in numbers about 40,000, nominally commanded
by Berthier, but in fact by the First Consul himself, marched
on the 15th from Lausanne to the village of St. Pierre, at the
foot of the Great St. Bernard, at which all trace of a
practicable road entirely ceased. General Marescot, the
engineer who had been sent forward from Geneva to reconnoitre,
reported the paths to be 'barely passable.' 'Set forward
immediately!' wrote Napoleon. Field forges were established at
St. Pierre to dismount the guns, the carriages and wheels were
slung on poles, and the ammunition-boxes carried by mules. A
number of trees were felled, then hollowed out, and the
pieces, being jammed into these rough cases, 100 soldiers were
attached to each and ordered to drag them up the steeps. ...
The whole army effected the passage of the Great St. Bernard
in three days."
R. H. Horne,
History of Napoleon Bonaparte,
chapter 18.
"From May 16 to May 19, the solitudes of the vast mountain
track echoed to the din and tumult of war, as the French
soldiery swept over its heights to reach the valley of the Po
and the plains of Lombardy. A hill fort, for a time, stopped
the daring invaders, but the obstacle was passed by an
ingenious stratagem; and before long Bonaparte, exulting in
hope, was marching from the verge of Piedmont on Milan, having
made a demonstration against Turin, in order to hide his real
purpose. By June 2 the whole French army, joined by the
reinforcement sent by Moreau, was in possession of the Lombard
capital, and threatened the line of its enemy's retreat, having
successfully accomplished the first part of the brilliant
design of its great leader. While Bonaparte was thus
descending from the Alps, the Austrian commander had been
pressing forward the siege of Genoa and his operations on the
Var. Masséna, however, stubbornly held out in Genoa; and
Suchet had defended the defiles of Provence with a weak force
with such marked skill that his adversary had made little
progress. When first informed of the terrible apparition of a
hostile army gathering upon his rear, Melas disbelieved what
he thought impossible; and when he could no longer discredit
what he heard, the movements by Mont Cenis and against Turin,
intended to perplex him, had made him hesitate. As soon,
however, as the real design of the First Consul was fully
revealed, the brave Austrian chief resolved to force his way
to the Adige at any cost; and, directing Ott to raise the
siege of Genoa, and leaving a subordinate to hold Suchet in
check, he began to draw his divided army together, in order to
make a desperate attack on the audacious foe upon his line of
retreat. Ott, however, delayed some days to receive the keys
of Genoa, which fell [June 4] after a defence memorable in the
annals of war; and, as the Austrian forces had been widely
scattered, it was June 12 [after a severe defeat at
Montebello, on the 9th, by Lannes] before 50,000 men were
assembled for an offensive movement round the well-known
fortresses of Alessandria. Meanwhile, the First Consul had
broken up from Milan; and, whether ill-informed of his enemy's
operations, or apprehensive that, after the fall of Genoa,
Melas would escape by a march southwards, he had advanced from
a strong position he had taken between the Ticino, the Adda,
and the Po, and had crossed the Scrivia into the plains of
Marengo, with forces disseminated far too widely. Melas boldly
seized the opportunity to escape from the weakened meshes of
the net thrown round him; and attacked Bonaparte on the
morning of June 14 with a vigor and energy which did him
honor.
{1334}
The battle raged confusedly for several hours; but the French
had begun to give way and fly, when the arrival of an isolated
division on the field [that of Desaix, who had been sent
southward by Bonaparte, and who turned back, on his own
responsibility, when he heard the sounds of battle] and the
unexpected charge of a small body of horsemen, suddenly
changed defeat into a brilliant victory. The importance was
then seen of the commanding position of Bonaparte on the rear
of his foe; the Austrian army, its retreat cut off, was
obliged to come to terms after a single reverse; and within a
few days an armistice was signed by which Italy to the Mincio
was restored to the French, and the disasters of 1799 were
effaced. ... While Italy had been regained at one stroke, the
campaign in Germany had progressed slowly; and though Moreau
was largely superior in force, he had met more than one check
near Ulm, on the Danube. The stand, however, made ably by
Kray, could not lessen the effects of Marengo; and Austria,
after that terrible reverse, endeavored to negotiate with the
dreaded conqueror. Bonaparte, however, following out a purpose
which he had already made a maxim of policy, and resolved if
possible to divide the Coalition, refused to treat with
Austria jointly with England, except on conditions known to be
futile; and after a pause of a few weeks hostilities were
resumed with increased energy. By this time, however, the
French armies had acquired largely preponderating strength;
and while Brune advanced victoriously to the Adige--the First
Consul had returned to the seat of government--Moreau in
Bavaria marched on the rivers which, descending from the Alps
to the Danube, form one of the bulwarks of the Austrian
Monarchy. He was attacked incautiously by the Archduke
John--the Archduke Charles, who ought to have been in command,
was in temporary disgrace at the Court--and soon afterwards
[December 3] he won a great battle at Hohenlinden, between the
Iser and the Inn, the success of the French being complete and
decisive, though the conduct of their chief has not escaped
criticism. This last disaster proved overwhelming, and Austria
and the States of the Empire were forced to submit to the
terms of Bonaparte. After a brief delay peace was made at
Luneville in February 1801."
W. O'C. Morris,
The French Revolution and First Empire,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
C. Botta,
Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon,
chapters 1-2.
Baron Jomini,
Life of Napoleon,
chapter 6 (volume l).
C. Adams,
Great Campaigns in Europe
from 1796 to 1870, chapter 2.
Duke de Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 19-20.
FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (June-February).
The King of Naples spared at the intercession of the Russian
Czar.
The Czar won away from the Coalition.
The Pope befriended.
"Replaced in his richest territories by the allies, the King
of Naples was bound by every tie to assist them in the
campaign of 1800. He accordingly sent an army into the march
of Ancona, under the command of Count Roger de Damas. ...
Undeterred by the battle of Marengo, the Count de Damas
marched against the French general Miollis, who commanded in
Tuscany, and sustained a defeat by him near Sienna. Retreat
became now necessary, the more especially as the armistice
which was entered into by General Melas deprived the
Neapolitans of any assistance from the Austrians, and rendered
their whole expedition utterly hopeless. They were not even
included by name in the armistice, and were thus left exposed
to the whole vengeance of the French. ... At this desperate
crisis, the Queen of the Two Sicilies took a resolution which
seemed almost as desperate, and could only have been adopted
by a woman of a bold and decisive character. She resolved,
notwithstanding the severity of the season, to repair in
person to the court of the Emperor Paul, and implore his
intercession with the First Consul, in behalf of her husband
and his territories." The Russian autocrat was more than ready
to accede to her request. Disgusted and enraged at the
discomfiture of Suwarrow in Switzerland, dissatisfied with the
conduct of Austria in that unfortunate campaign, and equally
dissatisfied with England in the joint invasion of the
Batavian republic, he made prompt preparations to quit the
coalition and to ally himself with the First Consul of France.
Bonaparte welcomed his overtures and gave them every
flattering encouragement, conceding instantly the grace which
he asked on behalf of the King and Queen of Naples. "The
respect paid by the First Consul to the wishes of Paul saved
for the present the royal family of Naples; but Murat [who
commanded the army sent to central and southern Italy],
nevertheless, made them experience a full portion of the
bitter cup which the vanquished are generally doomed to
swallow. General Damas was commanded in the haughtiest terms
to evacuate the Roman States, and not to presume to claim any
benefit from the armistice which had been extended to the
Austrians. At the same time, while the Neapolitans were thus
compelled hastily to evacuate the Roman territories, general
surprise was exhibited when, instead of marching to Rome, and
re-establishing the authority of the Roman Republic, Murat,
according to the orders which he had received from the First
Consul, carefully respected the territory of the Church, and
reinstalled the officers of the Pope in what had been long
termed the patrimony of St. Peter's. This unexpected turn of
circumstances originated in high policy on the part of
Buonaparte. ... Besides evacuating the Ecclesiastical States,
the Neapolitans were compelled by Murat to restore various
paintings, statues, and other objects of art, which they had,
in imitation of Buonaparte, taken forcibly from the
Romans,--so captivating is the influence of bad example. A
French army of about 18,000 men was to be quartered in
Calabria. ... The harbours of the Neapolitan dominions were of
course to be closed against the English. A cession of part of
the isle of Elba, and the relinquishment of all pretensions
upon Tuscany, summed up the sacrifices of the King of Naples
[stipulated in the treaty of Foligno, signed in February,
1801], who, considering how often he had braved Napoleon, had
great reason to thank the Emperor of Russia for his effectual
mediation."
Sir W. Scott,
Life of Napoleon,
chapter 38.
FRANCE: A. D. 1801 (February).
The Peace of Luneville.
The Rhine boundary confirmed.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.
FRANCE: A. D. 1801 (March).
Recovery of Louisiana from Spain.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.
FRANCE: A. D. 1801.
Expedition against the Blacks of Hayti.
See HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803.
{1335}
FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1802.
The import of the Peace of Luneville.
Bonaparte's preparations for conflict with England.
The Northern Maritime League.
English bombardment of Copenhagen and
summary crushing of the League.
Murder of the Russian Czar.
English expedition to Egypt.
Surrender of the French army.
Peace of Amiens.
"The treaty of Luneville was of far greater import than the
treaties which had ended the struggle of the first coalition.
... The significance then of the Peace of Luneville lay in
this, not only that it was the close of the earlier
revolutionary struggle for supremacy in Europe, the
abandonment by France of her effort to 'liberate the peoples,'
to force new institutions on the nations about her by sheer
dint of arms; but that it marked the concentration of all her
energies on a struggle with Britain for the supremacy of the
world. For England herself the event which accompanied it, the
sudden withdrawal of William Pitt from office, which took
place in the very month of the treaty, was hardly less
significant. ... The bulk of the old Ministry returned in a
few days to office with Mr. Addington at their head, and his
administration received the support of the whole Tory party in
Parliament. ... It was with anxiety that England found itself
guided by men like these. ... The country stood utterly alone;
while the peace of Luneville secured France from all hostility
on the Continent. ... To strike at England's wealth had been
among the projects of the Directory: it was now the dream of
the First Consul. It was in vain for England to produce, if he
shut her out of every market. Her carrying-trade must be
annihilated if he closed every port against her ships. It was
this gigantic project of a 'Continental System' that revealed
itself as soon as Buonaparte became finally master of France.
From France itself and its dependencies in Holland and the
Netherlands English trade was already excluded. But Italy also
was shut against her after the Peace of Luneville [and the
Treaty of Foligno with the King of Naples], and Spain not only
closed her own ports but forced Portugal to break with her
English ally. In the Baltic, Buonaparte was more active than
even in the Mediterranean. In a treaty with America, which was
destined to bring this power also in the end into his great
attack, he had formally recognized the rights of neutral
vessels which England was hourly disputing. ... The only
powers which now possessed naval resources were the powers of
the North. ... Both the Scandinavian states resented the
severity with which Britain enforced that right of search
which had brought about their armed neutrality at the close of
the American war; while Denmark was besides an old ally of
France; and her sympathies were still believed to be French.
The First Consul therefore had little trouble in enlisting
them in a league of Neutrals, which was in effect a
declaration of war against England, and which Prussia as
before showed herself ready to join. Russia indeed seemed
harder to gain." But Paul, the Czar, afraid of the opposition
of England to his designs upon Turkey, dissatisfied with the
operations of the coalition, and flattered by Bonaparte, gave
himself up to the influence of the latter. "It was to check
the action of Britain in the East that the Czar now turned to
the French Consul, and seconded his efforts for the formation
of a naval confederacy in the North, while his minister,
Rostopchin, planned a division of the Turkish Empire in Europe
between Russia and her allies. ... A squabble over Malta,
which had been blockaded since its capture by Buonaparte, and
which surrendered at last [September, 1800] to a British
fleet, but whose possession the Czar claimed as his own on the
ground of an alleged election as Grand Master of the Order of
St. John, served as a pretext for a quarrel with England; and
at the close of· 1800 Paul openly prepared for hostilities.
... The Danes, who throughout the year had been struggling to
evade the British right of search, at once joined this neutral
league, and were followed by Sweden in their course. ... But
dexterous as the combination was, it was shattered at a blow.
On the 1st of April, 1801, a British fleet of 18 men-of-war
[under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson second in command] forced
the passage of the Belt; appeared before Copenhagen, and at
once attacked the city and its fleet. In spite of a brave
resistance from the Danish batteries and gunboats six Danish
ships were taken, and the Crown Prince was forced to conclude
an armistice which enabled the English ships to enter the
Baltic. ... But their work was really over. The seizure of
English goods and the declaration of war had bitterly
irritated the Russian nobles, whose sole outlet for the sale
of the produce of their vast estates was thus closed to them;
and on the 24th of March, nine days before the battle of
Copenhagen, Paul fell in a midnight attack by conspirators in
his own palace. With Paul fell the Confederacy of the North.
... At the very moment of the attack on Copenhagen, a stroke
as effective wrecked his projects in the East. ... In March,
1801, a force of 15,000 men under General Abercrombie anchored
in Aboukir Bay. Deserted as they were by Buonaparte, the
French had firmly maintained their hold on Egypt. ... But
their army was foolishly scattered, and Abercrombie was able
to force a landing five days after his arrival on the coast.
The French however rapidly concentrated; and on the 21st of
March their general attacked the English army on the ground it
had won, with a force equal to its own. The battle [known as
the battle of Alexandria] was a stubborn one, and Abercrombie
fell mortally wounded ere its close; but after six hours'
fighting the French drew off with heavy loss; and their
retreat was followed by the investment of Alexandria and
Cairo. ... At the close of June the capitulation of the 13,000
soldiers who remained closed the French rule over Egypt."
Threatening preparations for an invasion of England were kept
up, and gunboats and flatboats collected at Boulogne, which
Nelson attacked unsuccessfully in August, 1801. "The First
Consul opened negotiations for peace at the close of 1801. His
offers were at once met by the English Government. ... The
negotiations which went on through the winter between England
and the three allied Powers of France, Spain, and the Dutch,
brought about in March, 1802, the Peace of Amiens." The treaty
secured "a pledge on the part of France to withdraw its forces
from Southern Italy, and to leave to themselves the republics
it had set up along its border in Holland, Switzerland, and
Piedmont. In exchange for this pledge, England recognized the
French government, restored all the colonies which they had
lost, save Ceylon and Trinidad, to France and its allies
[including the restoration to Holland of the Cape of Good Hope
and Dutch Guiana, and of Minorca and the citadel of Port Mahon
to Spain, while Turkey regained possession of Egypt],
acknowledged the Ionian Islands as a free republic, and
engaged to restore Malta within three months to its old
masters, the Knights of St. John."
J. R. Green,
History of the English People,
book 9, chapter 5 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
R. Southey,
Life of Nelson,
chapter 7 (volume 2).
J. Gifford,
Political Life of Pitt,
chapter 47 (volume 6).
C. Joyneville,
Life and Times of Alexander I.,
volume 1, chapter 4.
A. Rambaud,
History of Russia,
volume 2, chapter 11-12.
G. R. Gleig,
Life of General Sir R. Abercromby
(Eminent British Military Commanders, volume 3).
{1336}
FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1803.
Domestic measures of Bonaparte.
His Legion of Honor.
His wretched educational scheme.
He is made First Consul for life.
His whittling away of the Constitution.
Revolutions instigated and dictated in the Dutch,
Swiss, and Cisalpine Republics.
Bonaparte president of the Italian Republic.
"The concordat was succeeded by the emigrants' recall, which
resolution was presented and passed April 26. The
irrevocability of the sale of national property was again
established, and amnesty granted to all emigrants but the
leaders of armed forces, and some few whose offences were
specially grave. The property of emigrants remaining unsold
was restored, excepting forests, which Bonaparte reserved to
be gradually returned as bribes to great families. ... Two
important projects were presented to the Tribunal and
Legislative Corps, the Legion of Honor, and free schools. The
Convention awarded prizes to the troops for special acts of
daring, and the First Consul increased and arranged the
distribution, but that was not enough: he wanted a vast system
of rewards, adapted to excite amour propre, repay service, and
give him a new and potent means of influencing civilians as
well as soldiers. He therefore conceived the idea of the
Legion of Honor, embracing all kinds of service and title to
public distinction. ... But this plan for forming an order of
chivalry was contested even by the Council of State as
offensive to that equality which its members were to defend
[under the oath prescribed to the Legion], and as a renewal of
aristocracy. It only passed the Tribunal and Legislative Corps
by a very small majority, and this after the removal of so
many of the opposition party. The institution of the Legion of
Honor was specious, and, despite the opposition it met within
its early days, suits a people who love distinction, despite
their passion for equality, provided it be not hereditary. As
for the educational scheme, it was wretched, doing absolutely
nothing for the primary schools. The state had no share in it.
The Commune was to provide the buildings when the pupils could
pay a teacher, thus forsaking the plans of the great
assemblies. The wisest statesmen desired to sustain in an
improved form the central schools founded by the Convention;
but Bonaparte meant to substitute barracks to educate young
men for his service. ... He diminished scientific study;
suppressed history and philosophy, which were incompatible
with despotism; and completed his system of secondary
instruction by creating 6,000 scholarships, to be used as
means of influence, like the ribbon of the Legion of Honor.
... All his measures succeeded, and yet he was not content: he
wanted to extend his power. ... Cambacérès ... , when the
Amiens treaty was presented to the Tribunal and Legislature,
... proposed, through the president of the former, that the
Senate should be invited to give the First Consul some token
of national gratitude (May 6, 1802). ... The Senate only voted
to prolong the First Consul's power for ten years (May 8),
with but one protesting voice, that of Lanjuinais, who
denounced the flagrant usurpation that threatened the
Republic. This was the last echo of the Gironde ringing
through the tame assemblies of the Consulate. Bonaparte was
very angry, having expected more; but Cambacérès' calmed him
and suggested a mode of evading the question, namely, to reply
that an extension of power could only be granted by the
people, and then to make the Council of State dictate the
formula to be submitted to the people, substituting a life
consulate for ten years. This was accordingly done. ... The
Council of State even added the First Consul's right to name
his successor. This he thought premature and likely to make
trouble, and therefore erased it. ... Registers were opened at
the record offices and mayoralties to receive votes, and there
were three million and a half votes in the affirmative; a few
thousand only daring to refuse, and many abstaining from
voting. La Fayette registered a 'no' ... and sent the First
Consul a noble letter. ... La Fayette then ceased the
relations he had hitherto maintained with the First Consul
since his return to France. ... The Senate counted the popular
vote on the proposal they did not make, and carried the result
to the Tuileries in a body, August 8, 1802; and the result was
proclaimed in the form of a Senatus-Consultum, in these terms:
'The French people name and the Senate proclaim Napoleon
Bonaparte First Consul for life.' This was the first official
use of the prenomen Napoleon, which was soon, in conformity
with royal custom, to be substituted for the family name of
Bonaparte. ... The next day various modifications of the
Constitution were offered to the Council of State. ... The
Senate were given the right to interpret and complete the
Constitution, to dissolve the Legislature and Tribunal, and,
what was even more, to break the judgment of tribunals, thus
subordinating justice to policy. But these extravagant
prerogatives could only be used at the request of the
government, The Senate was limited to 120 members, 40 of whom
the First Consul was to elect. The Tribunal was reduced to 50
members, and condemned to discuss with closed doors, divided
into sections. ... Despotism concentrated more and more.
Bonaparte took back his refusal to choose his successor, and
now claimed that right. He also formed a civil list of six
millions. ... The Senate agreed to everything, and the
Senatus-Consultum was published August 5. ... The Republic was
now but a name; ... Early in 1808 things grew dark on the
English shore," and "the loss of San Domingo [to which
Bonaparte had sent an expedition at the beginning of 1801]
seemed inevitable [see HAYTI: A. D. 1682-1808]. While making
this expedition, doomed to so fatal an end, Bonaparte
continued his haughty policy on the European continent. By
article second of the Luneville treaty France and Austria
mutually guaranteed the independence of the Dutch, Swiss,
Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics, and their freedom in the
adoption of whatever form of government they saw fit to
choose.
{1337}
Bonaparte interpreted this article by substituting for
independence his own more or less direct rule in those
republics. ... During the negotiations preceding the Amiens
treaty he stirred up a revolution in Holland. That country had
a Directory and two Chambers, as in the French Constitution of
year III., and he wished to impose a new constitution on the
Chambers, putting them more into his power; they refused, and
he expelled them by means of the Directory, whom he had won
over to his side. The Dutch Directory, in this imitation of
November 9, was sustained by French troops, occupying Holland
under Augereau, now reconciled to Bonaparte (September, 1801).
The new Constitution was put to popular vote. A certain number
voted against it. The majority did not vote. Silence was taken
for consent, and the new Constitution was proclaimed October
17, 1801. ... The English government protested, but did not
resist. At the same time he [Bonaparte] imposed on the
Cisalpine republic, but without conflict or opposition, a
constitution even more anti-liberal than the French one of
year VIII.; the president who there replaced the First Consul
having supreme power. But who was to be that President? The
Cisalpines for an instant were simple enough to think that
they could choose an Italian: they decided on Count Melzi,
well known in the Milanese. They were soon undeceived, when
Bonaparte called Cisalpine delegates to Lyons in midwinter.
These delegates were landowners, scholars, and merchants, some
hundreds in number, and his agents explained to them that none
but Bonaparte 'was worthy to govern their republic or able to
maintain it.' They eagerly offered him the presidency, which
he accepted in lofty terms, and took Melzi for vice-president
(January 25, 1802). Italian patriots were consoled for this
subjection by the change of name from Cisalpine to Italian
Republic, which seemed to promise the unity of Italy.
Bonaparte threw out this hope, never meaning to gratify it.
... He acted as master in Switzerland as well as Italy and
Holland. Since Switzerland had ceased to be the scene of war,
she had been given over to agitation, fluctuating between
revolutionary democracy and the old aristocracy joined to the
retrograde democracy of the small Catholic cantons. Modern
democracy was at strife with itself. ... Bonaparte encouraged
the strife, that Switzerland might call him in as arbiter.
Suddenly, late in July, 1802, he withdrew his troops, which
had occupied Switzerland ever since 1798. Civil war broke out
at once; the smaller Catholic cantons and the aristocrats of
Berne and Zurich overthrew the government established at Berne
by the moderate democrats. The government retired to Lausanne,
and the country was thus divided. Bonaparte then announced
that he would not suffer a Swiss counter-revolution, and that
if the parties could not agree he must mediate between them.
He summoned the insurrectional powers of Berne to dissolve,
and invited all citizens who had held office in the central
Swiss government within three years, to meet at Paris and
confer with him, announcing that 30,000 men under General Ney
were ready to support his mediation. The democratic government
at Lausanne were willing to receive the French; the
aristocratic government at Berne, anxious to restore the
Austrians, appealed to European powers, who replied by
silence, England only protesting against French interference.
... Bonaparte responded to the English protest by so
extraordinary a letter that his charge d'Affaires at London
dared not communicate it verbatim. It said that, if England
succeeded in drawing the continental powers into her cause,
the result would be to force France to 'conquer Europe! Who
knows how long it would take the First-Consul to revive the
Empire of the West?' (October 23, 1802). ... There was slight
resistance to Ney's troops in Switzerland. All the politicians
of the new democracy and some of the aristocrats went to Paris
at the First Consul's summons. He did not treat their country
as he had Holland and Italy, but gave her, instead, a vain
show of institutions, a constitution imposing on the different
parties a specious compromise. ... Switzerland was dependent
on France in regard to general policy, and was bound to
furnish her with troops; but, at least, she administered her
own affairs (January, 1803)."
H. Martin,
Popular History of France from the First Revolution,
volume 2, chapters 8-9.
ALSO IN:
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 7, pages 286-302.
Mrs. L. Hug and R. Stead,
Story of Switzerland,
chapters 30-31.
C. Botta,
Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon,
chapter 3.
M. Bourrienne,
Private Memoirs of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapters 20-26.
Duchess D' Abrantes,
Memoirs of Napoleon,
volume 1, chapter 80.
Count M. Dumas,
Memoirs,
chapter 9 (volume 2).
H. A. Taine,
The Modern Regime,
volume 1, book 3, chapter 3.
FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1804.
The Civil Code and the Concordat.
"Four years of peace separated the Treaty of Luneville from
the next outbreak of war between France and any Continental
Power. They were years of the extension of French influence in
every neighbouring State; in France itself, years of the
consolidation of Bonaparte's power, and of the decline of
everything that checked his personal rule. ... Among the
institutions which date from this period, two, equally
associated with the name of Napoleon, have taken a prominent
place in history, the Civil Code and the Concordat. Since the
middle of the 18th century the codification of law had been
pursued with more or less success by almost every Government
in the western continent. The Constituent Assembly of 1789 had
ordered the statutes by which it superseded the variety of
local customs in France to be thus cast into a systematic
form. ... Bonaparte instinctively threw himself into a task so
congenial to his own systematizing spirit, and stimulated the
efforts of the best jurists in France by his own personal
interest and pride in the work of legislation. A Commission of
lawyers, appointed by the First Consul, presented the
successive chapters of a Civil Code to the Council of State.
In the discussions in the Council of State Bonaparte himself
took an active, though not always a beneficial, part. ... In
March, 1804, France received the Code which, with few
alterations, has formed from that time to the present the
basis of its civil rights. ... It is probable that a majority
of the inhabitants of Western Europe believe that Napoleon
actually invented the laws which bear his name. As a matter of
fact, the substance of these laws was fixed by the successive
Assemblies of the Revolution; and, in the final revision which
produced the Civil Code, Napoleon appears to have originated
neither more nor less than several of the members of his
Council whose names have long been forgotten.
{1338}
He is unquestionably entitled to the honour of a great
legislator, not, however, as one who, like Solon or like
Mahomet, himself created a new body of law. ... Four other
Codes, appearing at intervals from the year 1804 to the year
1810, embodied, in a corresponding form, the Law of Commerce,
the Criminal Law, and the Rules of Civil and of Criminal
Process. ... Far more distinctively the work of Napoleon
himself was the reconciliation with the Church of Rome
effected by the Concordat [July, 1801]. It was a restoration
of religion similar to that restoration of political order
which made the public service the engine of a single will. The
bishops and priests, whose appointment the Concordat
transferred from their congregations to the Government, were
as much instruments of the First Consul as his prefects and
his gensdarmes. ... An alliance with the Pope offered to
Bonaparte the means of supplanting the popular organisation of
the Constitutional Church by an imposing hierarchy, rigid in
its orthodoxy and unquestioning in its devotion to himself. In
return for the consecration of his own rule, Bonaparte did not
shrink from inviting the Pope to an exercise of authority such
as the Holy See had never even claimed in France. The whole of
the existing French Bishops, both the exiled non-jurors and
those of the Constitutional Church, were summoned to resign
their sees into the hands of the Pope; against all who refused
to do so sentence of deposition was pronounced by the Pontiff.
... The sees were reorganised, and filled up by nominees of the
First Consul. The position of the great body of the clergy was
substantially altered in its relation to the Bishops.
Episcopal power was made despotic, like all other powers in
France. ... In the greater cycle of religious change, the
Concordat of Bonaparte appears in another light. ... It
converted the Catholicism of France from a faith already far
more independent than that of Fénélon and Bossuet into the
Catholicism which in our day has outstripped the bigotry of
Spain and Austria in welcoming the dogma of Papal
infallibility."
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 5.
"It is ... easy, from the official reports which have been
preserved, to see what part the First Consul took in the
framing of the Civil Code. While we recognise that his
intervention was advantageous on some minor points, ... we
must say that his views on the subjects of legislation in
which this intervention was most conspicuous, were most often
inspired by suggestions of personal interest, or by political
considerations which ought to have no weight with the
legislator. ... Bonaparte came by degrees to consider himself
the principal creator of a collective work to which he
contributed little more than his name, and which probably
would have been much better if the suggestions of a man of
action and executive authority had not been blended with the
views, necessarily more disinterested, larger and more humane,
of the eminent jurisconsults whose glory he tried to usurp."
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and the Empire,
volume 1, books 12-14.
W. H. Jervis,
History of the Church of France,
volume 2, chapter 11.
J. E. Darras,
General History of the Catholic Church,
volume 4, pages 547-554.
The Code Napoleon, translated by Richards.
FRANCE: A. D. 1802.
Fourcroy's education law.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES,
FRANCE: A. D. 1565-1802.
FRANCE: A. D. 1802 (August-September).
Annexation of Piedmont, Parma, and the Isle of Elba.
A "flagrant act of the First Consul's at this time was the
seizure and annexation of Piedmont. Although that country was
reconquered by the Austro-Russian army in 1799, the-King of
Sardinia had not been restored when, by the battle of Marengo,
it came again into the possession of the French. Bonaparte
then united part of it to the Cisalpine Republic, and promised
to erect the rest into a separate State; but he afterwards
changed his mind; and by a decree of April 20th 1801, ordered
that Piedmont should form a military division of France. ...
Charles Emanuel, disgusted with the injustice and insults to
which he was exposed, having abdicated his throne in favour of
his brother Victor Emanuel, Duke of Aosta, June 4th 1802,
Bonaparte ... caused that part of Piedmont which had not been
united to the Italian Republic to be annexed to France, as the
27th Military Department, by a formal Senatus-Consulte of
September 11th 1802. A little after, October 11th, on the
death of Ferdinand de Bourbon, Duke of Parma, father of the
King of Etruria, that duchy was also seized by the rapacious
French Republic. The isle of Elba had also been united to
France by a Senatus-Consulte of August 26th."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapter 11 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
A. Gallenga,
History of Piedmont,
volume 3, chapter 5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1802-1803.
Complaints against the English press.
The Peltier trial.
The First Consul's rage.
War declared by Great Britain.
Detention of all the English in France, Italy, Switzerland and
the Netherlands.
Occupation of Hanover.
"Mr. Addington was wont to say in after years that the ink was
scarcely dry, after the signature of the treaty of Amiens,
when discontents arose which perilled the new peace. On the
24th of May [1802], M. Otto told Lord Glenbervie that if the
English press were not controlled from censuring Napoleon,
there must be a war to the death: and in the course of the
summer, six requisitions were formally made to the British
government, the purport of which was that the press must be
controlled; the royal emigrants sent to Warsaw; the island of
Jersey cleared of persons disaffected to the French
government; and all Frenchmen dismissed from Great Britain who
wore the decorations of the old monarchy. The reply was, that
the press was free in England; and that if any of the
emigrants broke the laws, they should be punished; but that
otherwise they could not be molested. The government, however,
used its influence in remonstrance with the editors of
newspapers which were abusive of the French. Cobbet was
pointed out by name by Napoleon, as a libeller who must be
punished; and Peltier, a royalist emigrant, who had published
some incentives to the assassination of the French ruler, or
prophecies which might at such a crisis be fairly regarded as
incentives. M. Peltier's object was to use his knowledge of
the tools of Napoleon, and his great political and literary
experience, in laying bare the character and policy of
Napoleon; and he began, in the summer of 1802, a journal, the
first number of which occasioned the demand for his
punishment.
{1339}
He was prosecuted by the Attorney-General, and defended by Sir
James Mackintosh, in a speech which was translated into nearly
all the languages of Europe, and universally considered one of
the most prodigious efforts of oratory ever listened to in any
age. The Attorney-General, Mr. Percival, declared in Court,
that he could hardly hope for an impartial decision from a
jury whose faculties had been so roused, dazzled and charmed.
... M. Peltier was found guilty; but the Attorney-General did
not call for judgment on the instant. War was then--at the
close of February [1808]--imminent; and the matter was
dropped. M: Peltier was regarded as a martyr, and, as far as
public opinion went, was rather rewarded than punished in
England. He was wont to say that he was tried in England and
punished in France. His property was confiscated by the
consular agents; and his only near relations, his aged father
and his sister, died at Nantes, through terror at his trial.
By this time the merchants of Great Britain were thoroughly
disgusted with France. Not only had Napoleon prevented all
commercial intercourse between the nations throughout the
year, but he had begun to, confiscate English merchant
vessels, driven by stress of weather into his ports. By this
time, too, the Minister's mind was made up as to the
impossibility of avoiding war. ... Napoleon had published
[January 30, 1803] a Report of an official agent of his,
Sebastiani, who had explored the Levant, striving as he went
to rouse the Mediterranean States to a desertion of England
and an alliance with France. He, reported of the British force
at Alexandria, and of the means of attack and defence there;
and his employer put forth this statement in the 'Moniteur,'
his own paper, while complaining of the insults of the English
press towards himself. Our ambassador at Paris, Lord
Whitworth, desired an explanation: and the reception of his
demand by the First Consul ... was characteristic. ... He sent
for Lord Whitworth to wait on him at nine in the morning of
the 18th; made him sit down; and then poured out his wrath 'in
the style of an Italian bully,' as the record has it: and the
term is not too strong; for he would not allow Lord Whitworth
to speak. The first impression was, that it was his design to
terrify England: but Talleyrand's anxiety to smooth matters
afterwards, and to explain away what his master had said,
shows that the ebullition was one of mere temper. And this was
presently confirmed by his behaviour to Lord Whitworth at a
levee, when the saloon was crowded with foreign ambassadors
and their suites, as well as with French courtiers. The whole
scene was set forth in the newspapers of every country.
Napoleon walked about, transported with passion: asked Lord
Whitworth if he did not know that a terrible storm had arisen
between the two governments; declared that England was a
violator of treaties; took to witness the foreigners present
that if England did not immediately surrender Malta, war was
declared; and condescended to appeal to them whether the right
was not on his side; and, when Lord Whitworth would have
replied, silenced him by a gesture, and observed that, Lady
Whitworth being out of health, her native air would be of
service to her; and she should, have it, sooner than she
expected.--After this, there could be little hope of peace in
the most sanguine mind. ... Lord Whitworth left Paris on the
12th of May; and at Dover met General Andreossi, on his way to
Paris. On the 16th, it became publicly known that war was
declared: and on the same day Admiral Cornwallis received
telegraphic orders which caused him to appear before Brest on
the 18th. On the 17th, an Order in Council, directing
reprisals, was issued; and with it the proclamation of an
embargo being laid on all French and Dutch ships in British
ports. ... On the next day, May 18th, 1803, the Declaration of
War was laid before parliament, and the feverish state, called
peace, which had lasted for one year and sixteen days, passed
into one of open hostility. The reason why the vessels of the
Dutch were to be seized with those of the French was that
Napoleon had filled Holland with French troops, and was
virtually master of the country. ... In July, the militia
force amounted to 173,000 men; and the deficiency was in
officers to command them. The minister proposed, in addition
to all the forces actually in existence, the formation of an
army of reserve, amounting to 50,000 men: and this was
presently agreed to. There was little that the parliament and
people of England would not have agreed to at this moment,
under the provocation of Napoleon's treatment of the English
in France. His first act was to order the detention, as
prisoners of war, of all the English then in the country,
between the ages of 18 and 60. The exasperation caused by this
cruel measure was all that he could have expected or desired.
Many were the young men thus doomed to lose, in wearing
expectation or despair, twelve of the best years of their
lives, cut off from family, profession, marriage,
citizenship--everything that young men most value. Many were
the parents separated for twelve long years from the young
creatures at home, whom they had left for a mere pleasure
trip: and many were the grey-haired fathers and mothers at
home who went down to the grave during those twelve years
without another sight of the son or daughter who was pining in
some small provincial town in France, without natural
occupation, and well nigh without hope. In June, the English
in Rouen were removed to the neighbourhood of Amiens; those in
Calais to, Lisle; those at Brussels to Valenciennes. Before
the month was out, all the English in Italy and Switzerland,
in addition to those in Holland, were made prisoners. How many
the whole amounted to does not appear to have been
ascertained: but it was believed at the time that there were
11,000 in France, and 1,800 in Holland. The first pretence was
that these travellers were detained as hostages for the prizes
which Napoleon accused us of taking before the regular
declaration of war; but when proposals were made for an
exchange, he sent a savage answer that he would keep his
prisoners till the end of the war. It is difficult to conceive
how there could be two opinions about the nature of the man
after this act. The naval captures of which Napoleon
complained, as made prior to a declaration of war, were of two
merchant Ships taken by English frigates: and we find notices
of such being brought into port on the 25th of May. Whether
they were captured before the 18th, there is no record that we
can find. ... On the sea, our successes seemed a matter of
course; but meantime a blow was struck at Great Britain, and
especially at her sovereign, which proved that the national
exasperation against France was even yet capable of increase.
{1340}
On the breaking out of the war; George III. issued a
proclamation, as Elector of Hanover, declaring to Germany that
the Germanic states had nothing to fear in regard to the new
hostilities, as he was entering into war as King of Great
Britain, and not as Elector of Hanover. Whatever military
preparations were going forward in Hanover were merely of a
defensive character. Napoleon, however, set such defence at
defiance. On the 13th of June, news arrived of the total
surrender of Hanover to the French. ... Government resolved to
declare the Elbe and the Weser, and all the ports of Western
Germany, in a state of blockade; as the French had now command
over all the intermediate rivers. It was calculated that this
would annoy and injure Napoleon effectually, as it would cause
the ruin of foreign merchants trading from the whole series of
ports. English merchants would suffer deeply; but it was
calculated that English capital and stock would hold out
longer than those of foreign merchants. Thus was the sickening
process of private ruin, as a check to public aggression,
entered upon, before war had been declared a month."
H. Martineau,
History of England, 1800-1815,
book l, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
M. de Bourrienne,
Private Memoirs of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapters 28-30.
Sir J. Mackintosh,
Speech in Defense of Jean Peltier
(Miscellaneous Works).
J. Ashton,
English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I.,
volume 1, chapters 24-87.
FRANCE: A. D. 1803 (April-May).
Sale or Louisiana to the United States of America.
See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1808;
and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1803.
FRANCE: A. D. 1803.
Loss of San Domingo, or Hayti.
See HAYTI: A. D. 1682-1803.
FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.
Royalist plots and Bonaparte's use or them.
The abduction and execution or the Duc d'Enghien.
The First Consul becomes Emperor.
His coronation by the Pope.
His acceptance of the crown or Italy.
Annexation of Genoa to France.
The rupture with England furnished Bonaparte "with the
occasion of throwing off the last disguise and openly
restoring monarchy. It was a step which required all his
audacity and cunning. He had crushed Jacobinism, but two great
parties remained. There was first the more moderate
republicanism, which might be called Girondism, and was widely
spread among all classes and particularly in the army.
Secondly, there was the old royalism, which after many years
of helpless weakness had revived since Brumaire. These two
parties, though hostile to each other, were forced into a sort
of alliance by the new attitude of Bonaparte, who was hurrying
France at once into a new revolution at home and into an abyss
of war abroad. England, too, after the rupture, favoured the
efforts of these parties. Royalism from England began to open
communications with moderate republicanism in France. Pichegru
acted for the former, and the great representative of the
latter was Moreau, who had helped to make Brumaire in the
tacit expectation probably of rising to the consulate in due
course when Bonaparte's term should have expired, and was
therefore hurt in his personal claims as well as in his
republican principles. Bonaparte watched the movement through
his ubiquitous police, and with characteristic strategy
determined not merely to defeat it but to make it his
stepping-stone to monarchy. He would ruin Moreau by fastening
on him the stigma of royalism; he would persuade France to
make him emperor in order to keep out the Bourbons. He
achieved this with the peculiar mastery which he always showed
in villainous intrigue. ... Pichegru [who had returned
secretly to France from England some time in January, 1804]
brought with him wilder partisans, such as Georges [Cadoudal]
the Chouan. No doubt Moreau would gladly have seen and gladly
have helped an insurrection against Bonaparte. ... But
Bonaparte succeeded in associating him with royalist schemes
and with schemes of assassination. Controlling the Senate, he
was able to suppress the jury; controlling every avenue of
publicity, he was able to suppress opinion; and the army,
Moreau's fortress, was won through its hatred of royalism. In
this way Bonaparte's last personal rival was removed. There
remained the royalists, and Bonaparte hoped to seize their
leader, the Comte d'Artois, who was expected, as the police
knew, soon to join Pichegru and Georges at Paris. What
Bonaparte would have done with him we may judge from the
course he took when the Comte did not come. On March 15, 1804,
the Duc d'Enghien, grandson of the Prince de Condé, residing
at Ettenheim in Baden, was seized at midnight by a party of
dragoons, brought to Paris, where he arrived on the 20th,
confined in the castle of Vincennes, brought before a military
commission at two o'clock the next morning, asked whether he had
not borne arms against the republic, which he acknowledged
himself to have done, conducted to a staircase above the moat,
and there shot and buried in the moat. ... That the Due
d'Enghien was innocent of the conspiracy, was nothing to the
purpose; the act was political, not judicial; accordingly he
was not even charged with complicity. That the execution would
strike horror into the cabinets, and perhaps bring about a new
Coalition, belonged to a class of considerations which at this
time Bonaparte systematically disregarded. This affair led
immediately to the thought of giving heredity to Bonaparte's
power. The thought seems to have commended itself irresistibly
even to strong republicans and to those who were most shocked
by the murder. To make Bonaparte's position more secure seemed
the only way of averting a new Reign of Terror or new
convulsions. He himself felt some embarrassment. Like
Cromwell, he was afraid of the republicanism of the army, and
heredity pure and simple brought him face to face with the
question of divorcing Josephine. To propitiate the army, he
chose from the titles suggested to him--consul, stadtholder,
&c.--that of emperor, undoubtedly the most accurate, and
having a sufficiently military sound. The other difficulty
after much furious dissension between the two families of
Bonaparte and Beauharnais, was evaded by giving Napoleon
himself (but none of his successors) a power of adoption, and
fixing the succession, in default of a direct heir, natural or
adoptive, first in Joseph and his descendants, then in Louis
and his descendants. Except abstaining from the regal title,
no attempt was made to conceal the abolition of republicanism.
... The change was made by the constituent power of the
Senate, and the Senatus-Consulte is dated May 18, 1804. The
title of Emperor had an ulterior meaning.
{1341}
Adopted at the moment when Napoleon began to feel himself
master both in Italy and Germany, it revived the memory of
Charles the Great. To himself it was the more satisfactory on
that account, and, strange to say, it gave satisfaction rather
than offence to the Head of the Holy Roman Empire, Francis II.
Since Joseph, the Habsburg Emperors had been tired of their
title, which, being elective, was precarious. They were
desirous of becoming hereditary emperors in Austria, and they
now took this title (though without as yet giving up the
other). Francis II. bartered his acknowledgement of Napoleon's
new title against Napoleon's acknowledgement of his own. It
required some impudence to condemn Moreau for royalism at the
very moment that his rival was re-establishing monarchy. Yet
his trial began on May 15th. The death of Pichegru, nominally
by suicide, on April 6th, had already furnished the rising
sultanism with its first dark mystery. Moreau was condemned to
two years' imprisonment, but was allowed to retire to the
United States."
J. R. Seeley,
Short History of Napoleon I.,
chapter 8, section 4.
C. C. Fauriel,
The Last Days of the Consulate.
Chancellor Pasquier, in his Memoirs, narrates the
circumstances of the seizure of the Duc d'Enghien at
considerable length, and says: "This is what really occurred,
according to what I have been told by those better situated to
know. A council was held on the 9th of March: It is almost
certain that previous to this council, which was a kind of
official affair, a more secret one had been held at the house
of Joseph Bonaparte. At the first council, to which were
convened only a few persons, all on a footing of family
intimacy, it was discussed by order of the First Consul, what
would be proper to do with a prince of the House of Bourbon,
in case one should have him in one's power, and the decision
reached was that if he was captured on French territory, one
had the right to take his life, but not otherwise. At the
council held on the 9th, and which was composed of the three
Consuls, the Chief Justice, the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
and M. Fouché, although the latter had not then resumed the
post of Minister of Police, the two men who expressed contrary
opinions were M. de Talleyrand and M. de Cambacérès. M. de
Talleyrand declared that the prince should be sent to his
death. M. Lebrun, the Third Consul, contented himself with
saying that such an event would have a terrible echo
throughout the world. M. de Cambacérès contended earnestly
that it would be sufficient to hold the prince as hostage for
the safety of the First Consul. The latter sided with M. de
Talleyrand, whose counsels then prevailed. The discussion was
a heated one, and when the meeting of the council was over, M.
de Cambacérès thought it his duty to make a last attempt, so
he followed Bonaparte into his study, and laid before him with
perhaps more strength than might be expected from his
character, the consequences of the deed he was about to
perpetrate, and the universal horror it would excite. ... He
spoke in vain. In the privacy of his study, Bonaparte
expressed himself even with greater violence than he had done
at the council. He answered that the death of the duke would
seem to the world but a just reprisal for what was being
attempted against him personally; that it was necessary to
teach the House of Bourbon that the blows struck with its
sanction were liable to recoil on its own head; that this was
the only way of compelling it to abstain from its dastardly
schemes, and lastly, that matters had gone too far to retrace
one's steps. M. de Talleyrand supplied this last argument."
Chancellor Pasquier,
Memoirs,
volume 1, pages 190-191.
"Bonaparte's accession to the Empire was proclaimed with the
greatest pomp, without waiting to inquire whether the people
approved of his promotion or otherwise. The proclamation was
coldly received, even by the populace, and excited little
enthusiasm. ... The Emperor was recognised by the soldiery
with more warmth. He visited the encampments at Boulogne,"
and, afterwards, "accompanied with his Empress, who bore her
honours both gracefully and meekly, visited Aix-la-Chapelle
and the frontiers of Germany. They received the
congratulations of all the powers of Europe, excepting
England, Russia, and Sweden, upon their new exaltation. ...
But the most splendid and public recognition of his new rank
was yet to be made, by the formal act of coronation, which,
therefore, Napoleon determined should take place with
circumstances of solemnity which had been beyond the reach of
any temporal prince, however powerful, for many ages. ...
Though Charlemagne had repaired to Rome to receive
inauguration from the hands of the Pontiff of that day,
Napoleon resolved that he who now owned the proud, and in
Protestant eyes profane, title of Vicar of Christ, should
travel to France to perform the coronation. ... The Pope, and
the cardinals whom he consulted, implored the illumination of
Heaven upon their councils; but it was the stern voice of
necessity which assured them that, except at the risk of
dividing the Church by a schism, they could not refuse to
comply with Buonaparte's requisition. The Pope left Rome on
the 5th November. ... On the 2d December [1804] the coronation
took place in the ancient cathedral of Notre Dame. ... The
crown having been blessed by the Pope, Napoleon took it from
the altar with his own hands, and placed it on his brows. He
then put the diadem on the head of his Empress, as if
determined to show that his authority was the child of his own
actions. ... The northern states of Italy had followed the
example of France through all her change of models. ... The
authorities of the Italian (late Cisalpine) Republic, had a
prescient guess of what was expected of them. A deputation
appeared at Paris to declare the absolute necessity which they
felt, that their government should assume a monarchical and
hereditary form. On the 17th March [1805], they obtained an
audience of the Emperor, to whom they intimated the unanimous
desire of their countrymen that Napoleon, founder of the
Italian Republic, should be monarch of the Italian Kingdom.
... Buonaparte granted the petition of the Italian States, and
... upon the 11th April, ... with his Empress, set off to go
through the form of coronation as King of Italy. ... The new
kingdom was, in all respects, modeled on the same plan with
the French Empire. An order, called 'of the Iron Crown,' was
established on the footing of that of the Legion of Honour. A
large French force was taken into Italian pay, and Eugene
Beauharnais, the son of Josephine by her former marriage, who
enjoyed and merited the confidence of his father-in-law, was
created viceroy, and appointed to represent, in that
character, the dignity of Napoleon. Napoleon did not leave
Italy without further extension of his empire. Genoa, once the
proud and the powerful, resigned her independence, and her
Doge presented to the Emperor a request that the Ligurian
Republic ... should be considered in future as a part of the
French nation."
Sir W. Scott,
Life of Napoleon,
chapter 48 (Paris edition, 1828).
{1342}
"Genoa and the Ligurian Republic were incorporated with
France, June 3d 1805. ... The Duchies of Parma and Piacenza,
which, together with Guastalla, had been already seized, were
declared dependencies of the French Empire by an imperial
decree of July 21st. The principality of Piombino was bestowed
on Napoleon's sister Eliza, wife of the Senator Bacciocchi,
but on conditions which retained it under the Emperor's
suzerainty: and the little state was increased by the addition
of the Republic of Lucca."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 1, chapter 11 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
C. Botta,
Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon,
chapters 3-4.
Memoirs dictated by Napoleon to his
Generals at St. Helena,
volume 6, pages 219-225.
J. Fouché,
Memoirs,
pages 260-274.
Count Miot de Melito,
Memoirs,
chapters 16-17.
W. Hazlitt,
Life of Napoleon,
chapters 38-34 (volume 2).
Madame de Rémusat,
Memoirs,
book 1, chapters 4-10 (volume 1).
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapters 9-10.
M. de Bourrienne,
Private Memoirs of Napoleon,
volume 3, chapters 1-12.
FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (January-April).
The Third European Coalition.
"In England Pitt returned to office in May, 1804, and this in
itself was an evil omen for France. He enjoyed the confidence,
not only of his own nation but of Europe, and he at once set
to work to resume the threads of that coalition of which
England had formerly directed the resources. Alexander I. of
Russia had begun to see through the designs of Napoleon; he
found that he had been duped in the joint mediation in
Germany, he resented the occupation of Hanover and he ordered
his court to put on mourning for the duke of Enghien. Before
long he broke off diplomatic relations with France (September
1804), and a Russian war was now only a question of time.
Austria was the power most closely affected by Napoleon's
assumption of the imperial title. ... While hastening to
acknowledge Napoleon, Austria was busied in military
preparations and began to resume its old connection with
England. Prussia was the power on which France was accustomed
to rely with implicit confidence. But the occupation of
Hanover and the interference with the commerce of the Elbe had
weakened Frederick William III.'s belief in the advantages of
a neutral policy, and, though he could not make up his mind to
definite action, he began to open negotiations with Russia in
view of a rupture with France. The fluctuations of Prussian
policy may be followed in the alternating influence of the two
ministers of foreign affairs, Haugwitz and Hardenberg.
Meanwhile Napoleon, ignorant or reckless of the growing
hostility of the great powers, continued his aggressions at
the expense of the lesser states. ... These acts gave the
final impulse to the hostile powers, and before Napoleon
quitted Italy the Coalition had been formed. On the 11th of
April, 1805, a final treaty was signed between Russia and
England. The two powers pledged themselves to form an European
league against France, to conclude no peace without mutual
consent, to settle disputed points in a congress at the end of
the war, and to form a federal tribunal for the maintenance of
the system which should, then be established. The immediate
objects of the allies were the abolition of French rule in
Italy, Holland, Switzerland, and Hanover; the restoration of
Piedmont to the king of Sardinia; the protection of Naples;
and the erection of a permanent barrier against France by the
union of Holland and Belgium under the House of Orange. The
coalition was at once joined by Gustavus IV. of Sweden, who
inherited his father's devotion to the cause of legitimate
monarchy, and who hoped to recover power in Pomerania.
Austria, terrified for its Italian possessions by Bonaparte's
evident intention to subdue the whole peninsula, was driven
into the league. Prussia, in spite of the attraction of
recovering honour and independence, refused to listen to the
solicitations of England and Russia, and adhered to its feeble
neutrality. Of the other German states Bavaria, Baden, and
Wurtemberg were allies of France. As far as effective
operations were concerned, the coalition consisted only of
Austria and Russia. Sweden and Naples, which had joined
secretly, could not make efforts on a great scale, and England
was as yet content with providing subsidies and the invaluable
services of its fleet. It was arranged that, one Austrian army
under the archduke Charles should invade Lombardy, while Mack,
with a second army and the aid of Russia, should occupy
Bavaria and advance upon the Rhine."
R. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 24, sections 13-15.
ALSO IN:
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 39 (volume 9).
FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (March-December).
Napoleon's plans and preparations for the invasion of England.
Nelson's long pursuit of the French fleets.
His victory and death at Trafalgar.
Napoleon's rapid march to the Danube.
Capitulation of Mack at Ulm.
The French in Vienna.
The great battle of Austerlitz.
"While the coalition was forming, and Napoleon seemed wantonly
to be insulting Europe and ignoring the danger of exciting
fresh enemies, he was in fact urging on with all rapidity his
schemes for the invasion of England, which he probably hoped
might be so successful as to paralyse all action on the part
of the European powers. The constantly repeated
representations of his naval officers had forced him, much
against his will, to believe that his descent upon England
would be impracticable unless secured by the presence of his
fleet. In spite of the general voice of those who knew the
condition of the French navy, he determined to act with his
fleet on the same principles as he would have acted with his
army; a gigantic combination of various squadrons was to be
effected, and a fleet great enough to destroy all hope of
opposition to sweep the Channel. For this purpose the 18 ships
of the line at Brest under Admiral Gantheaume, the squadron at
Rochefort under Villeneuve, and the Toulon fleet under
Latouche-Tréville, were to unite. The last mentioned admiral
was intrusted with the chief command. Sailing up the coast of
France, he was to liberate from their blockade the squadrons
of Rochefort and Brest, and with their combined fleets appear
before Boulogne. But Latouche-Tréville died, and Napoleon
intrusted his plans to Villeneuve.
{1343}
Those plans, all of them arranged without regard to the bad
condition of the French ships, or to the uncertainty of the
weather, were frequently changed; at one time Villeneuve from
Toulon, and Missiessy, his successor, at Rochefort, were to
proceed to the West Indies, drawing the English fleet thither;
then Gantheaume was to appear from Brest, throw troops into
Ireland, and thus cover the flotilla. At another time, all the
fleets were to assemble at the West Indies, and, joining with
the Spanish fleet at Ferrol, appear in the Straits of Calais.
To complete this last measure Villeneuve set sail from Toulon
on the 30th of March 1805, joined Gravina at Cadiz, and
reached Martinique on the 13th of May with 20 ships of the
line, and 7 frigates. His voyage was so slow that Missiessy
had returned from the West Indies to France, and the junction
failed. In hot pursuit of Villeneuve, Nelson, who had at
length found out his destination, had hurried. At Martinique
Gantheaume, with the Brest fleet, should have joined
Villeneuve; unfortunately for him, Admiral Cornwallis
blockaded his fleet. Villeneuve therefore had to return to
Europe alone, sailing for Ferrol to pick up a squadron of 15
ships. He was then, at the head of 35 ships, ordered to appear
before Brest, liberate Gantheaume, and appear in the Channel.
Back again in pursuit of him Nelson sailed, but supposed that
he would return to the Mediterranean and not to Ferrol; he
therefore again missed him; but as he had found means to
inform the English Government that Villeneuve was returning to
Europe, Calder, with a fleet of 15 ships, was sent to
intercept him. The fleets encountered off Cape Finisterre
[Northwest corner of Spain]. The French had 27 vessels, Calder
but 18, and after an indecisive battle, in which two Spanish
ships were taken, he was afraid to renew the engagement; and
Villeneuve was thus enabled to reach Ferrol in safety.
However, all the operations towards concentration had led to
absolutely nothing, and the English fleets, which the
movements towards the West Indies were to have decoyed from
the Channel, were either still off the coast of France or in
immediate pursuit of the fleet of Villeneuve. Nelson returned
to Gibralter, and as soon as he found out where Villeneuve
was, he joined his fleet to that of Cornwallis before Brest,
and himself returned to England. ... Meanwhile Villeneuve had
not been able to get ready for sea till the 11th of August.
... He was afraid to venture northwards, and with the full
approbation of his Spanish colleague Gravina, determined to
avail himself of a last alternative which Napoleon had
suggested, and sailed to Cadiz. This was a fatal blow to the
gigantic schemes of Napoleon. Up till the 22nd of August he
still believed that Villeneuve would make his appearance, and
in fact wrote to him that day at Brest, closing his letter
with the words, 'England is ours.' As the time for his great
stroke drew near he grew nervously anxious, constantly
watching the Channel for the approach of the fleet, and at
last, when his Minister of Marine, Decrès, told him that the
fleet had gone to Cadiz, he broke forth in bitter wrath
against both his Minister and Villeneuve, whom he accused of
the most shameful weakness. But Napoleon was not a man who let
his success be staked upon one plan alone. Though studiously
hiding from his people the existence of the coalition, and not
scrupling to have recourse to forged letters and fabricated
news for the purpose, he was fully aware of its existence. ...
Without much difficulty, therefore, he at once resigned his
great plans upon England, and directed his army towards the
eastern frontier."
J. F. Bright,
History of England, period 3,
pages 1261-1264.
"In the first days of September, 1805, Napoleon's great army
was in full march across France and Germany, to attain the
Danube. ... The Allies ... had projected four separate and
ill-combined attacks; the first on Hanover and Holland by a
Russian and British force; the second, on Lower Italy by a
similar body; the third, by a great Austrian army on Upper
Italy; and the fourth, by a United Austrian and Russian army,
moving across Southern Germany to the Rhine. ... By this time,
the Austrian Mack had drawn close to the Inn, in order to
compel Bavaria to join the Allies, and was even making his way
to the Iller, but his army was far distant from that of the
Russian chief, Kutusoff, and still further from that of
Buxhöwden, the one in Galicia, the other in Poland. ...
Napoleon had seized this position of affairs, with the
comprehensive knowledge of the theatre of war, and the skill
of arranging armies upon it, in which he has no equals among
modern captains. He opposed Masséna to the Archdukes, with a
much weaker force, confident that his great lieutenant could
hold them in check. He neglected the attacks from the North
Sea, and the South; but he resolved to strike down Mack, in
overwhelming strength, should he advance without his Russian
supports. ... The great mass of the Grand Army had reached the
Main and Rhine by the last week of September. The left wing,
joined by the Bavarian forces, and commanded by Bernadotte and
Marmont, had marched from Hanover and Holland, and was around
Würtzburg; the centre, the corps of Soult, and Davoust, moved
from the channel, was at Spire and Mannheim, and the right
wing, formed of the corps of Ney and Lannes, with the Imperial
Guard, and the horse of Murat, filled the region between
Carlsruhe and Strasburg, the extreme right under Augereau,
which had advanced from Brittany, being still behind but
drawing towards Huningen. By this time Mack was upon the
Iller, holding the fortress of Ulm on the upper Danube, and
extending his forces thence to Memmingen. ... By the first
days of October the great French masses ... were in full march
from the Rhine to the Main, across Würtemberg and the
Franconian plains; and cavalry filled the approaches to the
Black Forest, in order to deceive and perplex Mack. ... The
Danube ere long was reached and crossed, at Donauwörth,
Ingolstadt, and other points; and Napoleon already stood on
the rear of his enemy, interposing between him and Vienna, and
cut him off from the Russians, even now distant. The net was
quickly drawn round the ill-fated Mack. ... By the third week
of October, the Grand Army had encompassed the Austrians on
every side, and Napoleon held his quarry in his grasp. Mack
... had not the heart to strike a desperate stroke, and to
risk a battle; and he capitulated at Ulm on the 19th of
October. Two divisions of his army had contrived to break out;
but one was pursued and nearly destroyed by Murat, and the
other was compelled by Augereau to lay down its arms, as it
was on its way to the hills of the Tyrol. An army of 85,000
men had thus, so to speak, been well-nigh effaced; and not
20,000 had effected their escape. France meanwhile had met a
crushing disaster on the element which England had made her
own.
{1344}
We have seen how Villeneuve had put into Cadiz, afraid to face
the hostile fleets off Brest; and how this had baffled the
project of the descent. Napoleon was indignant with his
ill-fated admiral. ... At a hint of disgrace the susceptible
Frenchman made up his mind, at any risk, to fight. By this
time Nelson had left England, and was off Cadiz with a
powerful fleet; and he actually weakened his force by four
sail-of-the-line, in order to lure his adversary out. On the
20th of October, 1805, the allied fleet was in the open sea;
it had been declared at a council of war, that a lost battle
was almost certain, so bad was the condition of many of the
crews; but Villeneuve was bent on challenging Fate; and almost
courted defeat, in his despair. ... On the morning of the
21st, the allied fleet, 33 war ships, and a number of
frigates, was off Cape Trafalgar [25 miles west of Gibraltar
on the coast of Spain], making for the Straits. ... Nelson
advanced slowly against his doomed enemy, with 27 ships and
their attendant frigates; the famous signal floated from his
mast, 'England expects every man to do his duty'; and, at
about noon, Collingwood pierced Villeneuve's centre; nearly
destroying the Santa Anna with a single broadside. Ere long
Nelson had, broken Villeneuve's line, with the Victory,
causing frightful destruction; and as other British ships came
up by degrees they relieved the leading ships from the
pressure of their foes, and completed the ruin already begun.
At about one, Nelson met his death wound, struck by a shot
from the tops of the Redoutable. ... Pierced through and
through, the shattered allied centre was soon a collection of
captured wrecks. ... Only 11 ships out of 33 escaped; and the
burning Achille, like the Orient at the Nile, added to the
grandeur and horrors of an appalling scene. Villeneuve, who
had fought most honourably in the Bucentaure, was compelled to
strike his flag before the death of Nelson. The van of the
allies that had fled at Trafalgar, was soon afterwards
captured by a British squadron. Though dearly bought by the
death of Nelson, the victory may be compared to Lepanto; and
it blotted France out as a great Power on the ocean; Napoleon
... never tried afterwards to meet England at sea. ... His
success, at this moment, had been so wonderful, that what he
called 'the loss of a few ships at sea,' seemed a trifling and
passing rebuff of fortune. ... He had discomfitted the whole
plan of the Allies; and the failure of the attack on the main
scene of the theatre had caused all the secondary attacks to
fail. ... Napoleon, throwing out detachments to protect his
flanks, had entered Vienna on the 14th of November. ... The
House of Hapsburg and its chief had fled. ... Extraordinary as
his success had been, the position of the Emperor had, in a
few days, become grave. ... Napoleon had not one hundred
thousand men in hand--apart from the bodies that covered his
flanks--to make head against his converging enemies. Always
daring, however, he resolved to attack the Allies before they
could receive aid from Prussia; and he marched from Vienna
towards the close of November; having taken careful
precautions to guard his rear. ... By this time the Allies
were around Olmütz, the Archdukes were not many marches away,
and a Prussian army was nearly ready to move. Had the Russians
and Austrians fallen back from Olmütz and effected their
junction with the Archdukes, they could, therefore, have.
opposed the French with a force more than two-fold in numbers.
... But the folly and presumption which reigned among the young
nobles surrounding the Czar--Alexander was now at the head of
his army--brought on the Coalition deserved punishment, and
pedantry had its part in an immense disaster. The force of
Napoleon appeared small, his natural line of retreat was
exposed, and a theorist in the Austrian camp persuaded the
Czar and the Austrian Emperor, who was at the head of his
troops at Olmütz, to consent to a magnificent plan of
assailing Napoleon by the well-known method of Frederick the
Great, in the Seven Years' War, of turning his right wing, by
an attack made, in the oblique order, in great force, and of
cutting him off from his base at Vienna, and driving him,
routed, into, Bohemia. This grand project on paper, which
involved a march across the front of the hostile army within
reach of the greatest of masters of war, was hailed with
exultation. ... The Allies were soon in full march from
Olmütz, and preparations were made for the decisive movement
in the night of the 1st December, 1805. Napoleon had watched
the reckless false step being made by his foes with unfeigned
delight; 'that army is mine,' he proudly exclaimed. ... The
sun of Austerlitz rose on the 2nd, the light of victory often
invoked by Napoleon. ... The dawn of the winter's day revealed
three large columns, succeeded by a fourth at no great
distance, toiling through a tract of marshes and frozen lakes,
to outflank Napoleon's right on the Goldbach, the allied
centre, on the tableland of Prätzen, immediately before the
French front, having been dangerously weakened by this great
turning movement. The assailants were opposed by a small force
only, under Davoust, one of the best of the marshals. ... Ere
long Napoleon, who, like a beast of prey, had reserved his
strength until it was time to spring, launched Soult in force
against the Russian and Austrian centre, enfeebled by the
detachment against the French right and exposed to the whole
weight of Napoleon's attacks; and Prätzen was stormed after a
fierce struggle, in which Bernadotte gave the required aid to
Soult. The allied centre was thus rent asunder. Lannes
meanwhile had defeated the allied right. ... Napoleon now
turned with terrible energy and in overwhelming strength
against the four columns, that had assailed his right, but had
begun to retreat. His victorious centre was aided by his
right, now set free; the Russians and Austrians were struck
with panic, a horrible scene of destruction followed, the
flying troops were slain or captured in thousands; and
multitudes perished, engulfed in the lakes, the French
artillery shattering their icy surface. The rout was decisive,
complete, and appalling; about 80,000 of the Allies were
engaged; they lost all their guns and nearly half their
numbers, and the remains of their army were a worthless wreck.
Napoleon had only 60,000 men in the fight. ... The memorable
campaign of 1805 is, perhaps, the grandest of Napoleon's
exploits in war."
W. O'C. Morris,
Napoleon,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and Empire,
book 22 (volume 2).
R. Southey,
Life of Nelson,
chapters 8-9 (volume 2).
W. C. Russell,
Nelson and the Naval Supremacy of England,
chapters 17-20.
Lord Nelson,
Dispatches and Letters,
volumes 6-7.
Capt. E. J. de la Gravière,
Sketches of the last Naval War,
part 6 (volume 2).
C. Adams,
Great Campaigns in Europe, from 1796 to 1870,
chapter 3.
Baron de Marbot,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 20-23.
A. T. Mahan,
Influences of Sea Power upon the French Revolution,
chapters 15-16 (volume 2).
{1345}
FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (December-August).
The Peace of Presburg.
Humiliation of Austria.
Formation of the Confederation of the Rhine.
Extinction of the Holy Roman Empire.
The goading of Prussia to war.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806;
and 1806 (JANUARY-AUGUST).
FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (December-September).
Dethronement of the dynasty of Naples.
Bestowal of the crown upon Joseph Bonaparte.
The treaty of Presburg was "immediately followed by a measure
hitherto unprecedented in European history--the pronouncing a
sentence of dethronement against an independent, sovereign,
for no other cause than his having contemplated hostilities
against the French Emperor; On the 26th December [1805] a
menacing proclamation proceeded from Presburg ... which
evidently bore marks of Napoleon's composition, against the
house of Naples. The conqueror announced that Marshal St. Cyr
would advance by rapid strides to Naples, 'to punish the
treason of a criminal queen, and precipitate her from the
throne. We have pardoned that infatuated king, who thrice has
done everything to ruin himself. Shall we pardon him a fourth
time? ... No! The dynasty of Naples has ceased to reign--its
existence is incompatible with the repose of Europe and the
honour of my crown.' ... The ominous announcement, made from
the depths of Moravia, that the dynasty of Naples had ceased
to reign, was not long allowed to remain a dead letter.
Massena was busily employed, in January, in collecting his
forces in the centre of Italy, and before the end of that
month 50,000 men, under the command of Joseph Buonaparte, had
crossed the Pontifical States and entered the Neapolitan
territory in three columns, which marched on Gaeta, Capua, and
Itri. Resistance was impossible; the feeble Russian and
English forces which had disembarked to support the Italian
levies, finding the whole weight of the war likely to be
directed against them, withdrew to Sicily; the court,
thunderstruck by the menacing proclamation of 27th December,
speedily followed their example. ... In vain the intrepid
Queen Caroline, who still remained at Naples, armed the
lazzaroni, and sought to infuse into the troops a portion of
her own indomitable courage; she was seconded by none; Capua
opened its gates; Gaeta was invested; the Campagna filled with
the invaders; she, vanquished but not subdued, compelled to
yield to necessity, followed her timid consort to Sicily; and,
on the 15th February, Naples beheld its future sovereign,
Joseph Buonaparte, enter its walls. ... During the first
tumult of invasion, the peasantry of Calabria ... submitted to
the enemy. ... But the protraction of the siege of Gaeta,
which occupied Massena with the principal army of the French,
gave them time to recover from their consternation. ... A
general insurrection took place in the beginning of March, and
the peasants stood firm in more than one position; but they
were unable to withstand the shock of the veterans of France,
and in a decisive action in the plain of Campo-Tenese their
tumultuary levies, though 15,000 strong, were entirely
dispersed. The victorious Reynier penetrated even to Reggio,
and the standards of Napoleon waved on its towers, in sight of
the English videtts on the shores of Sicily. When hostilities
had subsided, Joseph repaired in person to the theatre of war.
... He received at Savigliano, the principal town of the
province, the decree, by which Napoleon created him king of
the two Sicilies. By so doing, however, he was declared not to
lose his contingent right of succession to the throne of
France; but the two crowns were never to be united."
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 40, section 150,
and chapter 42, sections 21-23,(volume 9).
"Joseph's tenure of his new dominion was yet incomplete. The
fortress of Gaeta still held out, ... and the British in
Sicily (who had already taken the Isle of Capri, close to the
capital) sent 5,000 men to their aid under Sir John Stuart,
who encountered at Maida (July 6) a French corps of 7.500,
under Reynier. The battle presented one of the rare instances
in which French and British troops have actually crossed
bayonets; but French enthusiasm sank before British
intrepidity, and the enemy were driven from the field with the
loss of half their number. The victory of Maida had a
prodigious moral effect in raising the spirits and
self-confidence of the British soldiery; but its immediate
results were less considerable. The French were indeed driven
from Calabria, but the fall of Gaeta (July 18th), after the
loss of its brave governor, the Prince of Hesse-Philipsthal,
released the main army under Massena: the British exposed to
be attacked by overwhelming numbers, re-embarked (September 5)
for Palermo, and the Calabrian insurrection was suppressed with
great bloodshed. But an amnesty was at length ... published by
Joseph, who devoted himself with great zeal and admirable
judgment to heal the wounds of his distracted kingdom."
Epitome of Alison's History of Europe,
section 398.
ALSO IN:
P. Colletta,
History of the Kingdom of Naples,
book 5, chapter 4, and book 6, chapters 1-3.
C. Botta,
Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon,
chapter 4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (January-October).
Napoleon's triumphant return to Paris.
Death of Pitt.
Peace negotiations with England.
King making and prince making by the Corsican Cæsar.
ON the 27th of December, the day after the signing of the
Treaty of Presburg, Napoleon left Vienna for Paris. "En route
for Paris he remained a week at Munich to be present at the
marriage of Eugene Beauharnais to the Princess Augusta,
daughter of the King of Bavaria. Josephine joined him, and the
whole time was passed in fêtes and rejoicings. On this
occasion he proclaimed Eugene his adopted son, and, in default
of issue of his own, his successor in the kingdom of Italy.
Accompanied by Josephine, Napoleon re-entered Paris on the
26th of January, 1806, amidst the most enthusiastic
acclamations. The national vanity was raised to the highest
pitch by the glory and extent of territory he had acquired.
The Senate at a solemn audience besought him to accept the
title of 'the Great'; and public rejoicings lasting many days
attested his popularity. An important political event in
England opened new views of security and peace to the empire,
William Pitt, the implacable enemy of the Revolution, had died
on the 23rd of January, at the early age of 47; and the
Government was entrusted to the hands of his great opponent,
Charles James Fox.
{1346}
The disastrous results of the war of which Pitt had been the
mainstay probably hastened his death. After the capitulation
of Ulm he never rallied. The well-known friendship of Fox for
Napoleon, added to his avowed principles, afforded the
strongest hopes that England and France were at length
destined to cement the peace of the world by entering into
friendly relations. Aided by Talleyrand, who earnestly
counselled peace, Napoleon made overtures to the English
Government through Lord Yarmouth, who was among the détenus.
He offered to yield the long-contested point of
Malta--consenting to the continued possession of that island,
the Cape of Good Hope, and other conquests in the East and
West Indies by Great Britain, and proposing generally that the
treaty should be conducted on the uti possidetis principle:
that is, allowing each party to retain whatever it had
acquired in the course of the war. Turkey acknowledged
Napoleon as Emperor and entered into amicable relations with
the French nation; and what was still more important, Russia
signed a treaty of peace in July, influenced by the pacific
inclinations of the English Minister. Napoleon resolved to
surround his throne with an order of nobles, and to place
members of his family on the thrones of the conquered
countries adjoining France in order that they might become
parts of his system and co-operate in his plans. Two decrees
of the 31st of March declared Joseph Bonaparte King of Naples,
and Murat Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves. Louis Bonaparte was
made King of Holland a few months afterwards, and Jerome King
of Westphalia in the following year. The Princess Pauline
received the principality of Guastalla, and Talleyrand,
Bernadotte, and Berthier those of Benevento, Ponte-Corvo, and
Neufchâtel. Fifteen dukedoms were created and bestowed on the
most distinguished statesmen and generals of the empire, each
with an income amounting to a fifteenth part of the revenue of
the province attached to it. These became grand fiefs of the
empire. Cambacérès and Lebrun were made Dukes of Parma and
Placenza; Savary, Duke of Rovigo; Junot, of Abrantes; Lannes,
of Montebello, &c. The manners of some of these Republican
soldiers were ill adapted to courtly forms, and afforded
amusement to the members of the ancient and legitimate order.
... Napoleon's desire to conciliate and form alliances with
the established dynasties and aristocracies of Europe kept
pace with his daring encroachments on their hitherto exclusive
dignity. Besides the marriage of Eugene Beauharnais to a
Princess of Bavaria, an alliance was concluded between the
hereditary Prince of Baden and Mademoiselle Stephanie
Beauharnais, a niece of the Empress. The old French noblesse
were also encouraged to appear at the Tuileries. During the
Emperor's visit at Munich the Republican calendar was
abolished and the usual mode of computing time restored in
France. ... The negotiations with England went on tardily, and
the news of Fox's alarming state of health excited the gravest
fears in the French Government. Lord Lauderdale arrived in
Paris, on the part of England, in the month of August; but
difficulties were continually started, and before anything was
decided the death of Fox gave the finishing blow to all hope
of peace. Lord Lauderdale demanded his passports and left
Paris in October. Napoleon wished to add Sicily to his
brother's new kingdom of Naples; but British ships were able
to protect the King and Queen of Naples in that insular
position, and the English Government refused to desert their
allies on this occasion or to consent to any compensation or
adjustment offered. On this point principally turned the
failure of the attempt at peace as far as can be discovered
from the account of the negotiations."
R. H. Horne,
History of Napoleon,
chapter 26.
ALSO IN:
Madame de Rémusat,
Memoirs,
chapters 16-21 (volume 2).
Duke of Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 1, part 2, chapters 18-21.
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapter 15.
FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (October).
The subjugation of Prussia at Jena.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER).
FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1807.
Napoleon's campaign against the Russians.
Eylau and Friedland.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1807;
and 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).
FRANCE: A.D. 1806-1810.
Commercial warfare with England.
British Orders in Council and Napoleon's Berlin and Milan
Decrees.
The "Continental System."
"As the war advanced, after the Peace of Amiens, the neutrals
became bolder and more aggressive. "American ships were
constantly arriving at Dutch and French ports with sugar,
coffee, and other productions of the French and Spanish West
Indies. And East India goods were imported by them into Spain,
Holland, and France. ... By the rivers and canals of Germany
and Flanders goods were floated into the warehouses of the
enemy, or circulated far the supply of his customers in
neutral countries. ... It was a general complaint, therefore,
that the enemy carried on colonial commerce under the neutral
flag, cheaply as well as safely; that he was enabled not only
to elude British hostilities, but to rival British merchants
and planters in the European markets; that by the same means
the hostile treasuries were filled with a copious stream of
revenue; and that by this licentious use of the neutral flag,
the enemy was enabled to employ his whole military marine for
purposes of offensive war, without being obliged to maintain a
squadron or a ship for the defence of his colonial ports. ...
Such complaints made against neutral states found a powerful
exposition in a work entitled 'War in Disguise and the Frauds
of the Neutral Flag,' supposed to have been written by Mr.
James Stephen, the real author of the orders in Council. The
British Government did not see its way at once to proceed in
the direction of prohibiting to neutral ships the colonial
trade, which they had enjoyed for a considerable time; but the
first step was taken to paralyse the resources of the enemy,
and to restrict the trade of neutrals, by the issue of an
order in Council in May 1806, declaring that all the coasts,
ports, and rivers from the Elbe to Brest should be considered
blockaded, though the only portion of those coasts rigorously
blockaded was that included between the Ostend and the mouth
of the Seine, in the ports of which preparations were made for
the invasion of England. The northern ports of Germany and
Holland were left partly open, and the navigation of the
Baltic altogether free. Napoleon, then in the zenith of his
power, saw, in this order in Council, a fresh act of
wantonness, and he met it by the issue of the Berlin decree of
November 21, 1806. In that document, remarkable for its
boldness and vigour, Napoleon charged England with having set
at nought the dictates of international law, with having made
prisoners of war of private individuals, and with having taken
the crews out of merchant ships.
{1347}
He charged this country with having captured private property
at sea extended to commercial parts the restrictions of
blockade applicable only to fortified places, declared as
blockaded places which were not invested by naval forces, and
abused the right of blockade in order to benefit her own trade
at the expense of the commerce of Continental states. He
asserted the right of combating the enemy with the same arms
used against himself, especially when such enemy ignored all
ideas of justice and every liberal sentiment which
civilisation imposes. He announced his resolution to apply to
England the same usages which she had established in her
maritime legislation. He laid dawn the principles which France
was resolved to act upon until England should recognise that
the rights of war are the same on land as on sea. ... And upon
these premises the decree ordered,
1st, That the British islands should be declared in a state
of blockade.
2nd, That all commerce and correspondence with the British
islands should be prohibited; and that letters addressed to
England or Englishmen, written in the English language,
should be detained and taken.
3rd, That every British subject found in a country occupied
by French troops, or by those of their allies, should be
made a prisoner of war.
4th, That all merchandise and property belonging to British
subjects should be deemed a good prize.
5th, That all commerce in English merchandise should be
prohibited, and that all merchandise belonging to England
or her colonies, and of British manufacture, should be
deemed a good prize. And
6th, That no vessel coming direct from England or her
colonies be allowed to enter any French port, or any port
subject to French authority; and that every vessel which,
by means of a false declaration, should evade such
regulations, should at once be captured.
The British Government lost no time in retaliating against
France far so bald a course; and, on January 7, 1807, an order
in Council was issued, which, after reference to the orders
issued by France, enjoined that no vessel should be allowed to
trade from one enemy's port to another, or from one port to
another of a French ally's coast shut against English vessels;
and ordered the commanders of the ships of war and privateers
to warn every neutral vessel coming from any such port, and
destined to another such port, to discontinue her voyage, and
that any vessel, after being so warned, which should be found
proceeding to another such port should be captured and
considered as lawful prize. This order in Council having
reached Napoleon at Warsaw, he immediately ordered the
confiscation of all English merchandise and colonial produce
found in the Hanseatic Towns. ... But Britain, in return, went
a step further, and, by order in Council of November 11, 1807,
declared all the ports and places of France, and those of her
allies, and of all countries where the English flag was
excluded, even though they were not at war with Britain,
should be placed under the same restrictions for commerce and
navigation as if they were blockaded, and consequently that
ships destined to those ports should be liable to the visit of
British cruisers at a British station, and there subjected to
a tax to be imposed by the British Parliament. Napoleon was at
Milan when this order in Council was issued, and forthwith, on
December 17, the famous decree appeared, by which he imposed
on neutrals just the contrary of what was prescribed to them
by England, and further declared that every vessel, of
whatever nation, that submitted to the order in Council of
November 11, should by that very act become denationalised,
considered as British property, and condemned as a good prize.
The decree placed the British islands in a state of blockade,
and ordered that every ship, of whatever nation, and with
whatever cargo, proceeding from English ports or English
colonies to countries occupied by English troops, or going to
England, should be a good prize. This England answered by the
order in Council of April 26, 1809, which revoked the order of
1807 as regards America, but confirmed the blockade of all the
parts of France and Holland, their colonies and dependencies.
And then France, still further incensed against England,
issued the tariff of Trianon, dated August 5, 1810, completed
by the decree of St. Cloud of September 12, and of
Fontainebleau of October 19, which went the length of ordering
the seizure and burning of all British goods found in France,
Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, and in every place occupied by
French troops. ... The princes of the Rhenish Confederation
hastened to execute it, same for the purpose of enriching
themselves by the wicked deed, same out of hatred towards the
English, and some to show their devotion towards their master.
From Carlsruhe to Munich, from Cassel to Dresden and Hamburg,
everywhere, bonfires were made of English goods. And so
exacting were the French that when Frankfort exhibited the
least hesitation in carrying out the decree, French troops
were sent to execute the order. By means such as these [known
as the Continental System of Napoleon] the commerce of the
world was greatly deranged, if not destroyed altogether, and
none suffered more from them than England herself."
L. Levi,
History of British Commerce,
part 2, chapter 4
(with appended text of Orders and Decrees).
"The object of the Orders in Council was ... twofold: to
embarrass France and Napoleon by the prohibition of direct
import and export trade, of all external commerce, which for
them could only be carried on by neutrals; and at the same
time to force into the Continent all the British products or
manufactures that it could take. ... The whole system was
then, and has since been, roundly abused as being in no sense
a military measure, but merely a gigantic exhibition of
commercial greed; but this simply begs the question. To win
her fight Great Britain was obliged not only to weaken
Napoleon, but to increase her own strength. The battle between
the sea and the land was to be fought out on Commerce. England
had no army wherewith to meet Napo lean; Napoleon had no navy
to cope with that of his enemy. As in the case of an
impregnable fortress, the only alternative for either of these
contestants was to reduce the other by starvation. On the
common frontier, the coast line, they met in a deadly strife
in which no weapon was drawn. The imperial soldiers were
turned into coast-guards-men to shut out Great Britain from
her markets; the British ships became revenue cutters to
prohibit the trade of France. The neutral carrier, pocketing
his pride, offered his service to either for pay, and the
other then regarded him as taking part in hostilities.
{1348}
The ministry, in the exigencies of debate, betrayed some lack
of definite conviction as to their precise aim. Sometimes the
Orders were justified as a military measure of retaliation;
sometimes the need of supporting British commerce as essential
to her life and to her naval strength was alleged; and, their,
opponents in either case taunted them with inconsistency.
Napoleon, with despotic simplicity, announced clearly his
purpose of ruining England through her trade, and the ministry
really needed no other arguments than his avowals. 'Salus
civitatis suprema lex.' To call the measures of either not
military, is as inaccurate as it would be to call the ancient
practice of circumvallation, unmilitary, because the only
weapon used for it was the spade. ... The Orders in Council
received various modifications, due largely to the importance
to Great Britain of the American market, which absorbed a
great part of her manufactures; but these modifications,
though sensibly lightening the burden upon neutrals and
introducing some changes of form, in no sense departed from
the spirit of the originals. The entire series was finally
withdrawn in June, 1812, but too late to avert the war with
the United States, which was declared in the same month.
Napoleon never revoked his Berlin and Milan decrees, although
by a trick he induced an over-eager President of the United
States to believe that he had done so. ... The true function
of Great Britain in this long struggle can scarcely be
recognized unless there be a clear appreciation of the fact
that a really great national movement, like the French
Revolution, or a really great military power under an
incomparable general, like the French Empire under Napoleon,
is not to be brought to terms by ordinary military successes,
which simply destroy the organized force opposed. ... If the
course of aggression which Bonaparte had inherited from the
Revolution was to continue, there were needed, not the
resources of the Continent only, but of the world. There was
needed also a diminution of ultimate resistance below the
stored-up aggressive strength of France; otherwise, however
procrastinated, the time must come when the latter should
fail. On both these points Great Britain withstood Napoleon.
She shut him off from the world, and by the same act prolonged
her own powers of endurance beyond his power of aggression.
This in the retrospect of history was the function of Great
Britain, in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period; and that
the successive ministries of Pitt and his followers pursued
the course best fitted, upon the whole, to discharge that
function, is their justification to posterity."
Capt. A. T. Mahan,
The Influence of Sea Power upon the
French Revolution and Empire,
chapters 18-19 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
H. Adams,
History of the United States,
volume 3, chapters 4 and 16,
and volume 4, chapter 4.
Lord Brougham,
Life and Times, by himself,
chapter 10 (volume 2).
See also:
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (February-September).
The Turkish alliance.
Ineffective attempts of England against Constantinople
and in Egypt.
See TURKS: A. D. 1806-1807.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (June-July).
The Treaties of Tilsit with Russia and Prussia.
The latter shorn of half her territory.
Formation of the kingdom of Westphalia.
Secret understandings between Napoleon and the Czar.
See GERMANY. A. D. 1807 (JUNE-JULY).
FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (July-December).
The seeming power and real weakness of Napoleon's empire.
"The dangers ... that lay hid under the new arrangement of the
map of Europe [by, the Treaty of Tilsit], and in the results
of French conquests, were as yet withdrawn from almost every
eye; and the power of Napoleon was now at its height, though
his empire was afterwards somewhat enlarged. ... If England
still stood in arms against it, she was without an avowed ally
on the Continent; and, drawing to itself the great Power of
the North, it appeared to threaten the civilized world with
that universal and settled domination which had not been seen
since the fall of Rome. The Sovereign of France from the
Scheldt to the Pyrenees, and of Italy from the Alps to the
Tiber, Napoleon held under his immediate sway the fairest and
most favored part of the Continent; and yet this was only the
seat and centre of that far-spreading and immense authority.
One of his brothers, Louis, governed the Batavian Republic,
converted into the kingdom of Holland; another, Joseph wore
the old Crown of Naples; and a third, Jerome, sat on the new
throne of Westphalia; and he had reduced Spain to a simple
dependency, while, with Austria humbled and Prussia crushed,
he was supreme in Germany from the Rhine to the Vistula,
through his confederate, subject, or allied States. This
enormous Empire, with its vassal appendages, rested on great
and victorious armies in possession of every point of vantage
from the Niemen to the Adige and the Garonne, and proved as
yet to be irresistible; and as Germany, Holland, Poland, and
Italy swelled the forces of France with large contingents, the
whole fabric of conquest seemed firmly cemented. Nor was the
Empire the mere creation of brute force and the spoil of the
sword; its author endeavoured, in some measure, to consolidate
it through better and more lasting influences. Napoleon,
indeed, suppressed the ideas of 1789 everywhere, but he
introduced his Code and large social reforms into most of the
vassal or allied States; he completed the work of destroying
Feudalism which the Revolution had daringly begun and he left
a permanent mark on the face of Europe, far beyond the limit
of Republican France, in innumerable monuments of material
splendour. ... Nor did the Empire at this time appear more
firmly established abroad than within the limits of the
dominant State which had become mistress of Continental
Europe. The prosperity of the greater part of France was
immense; the finances, fed by the contributions of war, seemed
overflowing and on the increase; and if sounds of discontent
were occasionally heard, they were lost in the universal
acclaim which greeted the author of the national greatness,
and the restorer of social order and welfare. ... In the
splendour and success of the Imperial era, the animosities and
divisions of the past disappeared, and France seemed to form a
united people. If, too, the cost of conquest was great, and
exacted a tribute of French blood, the military power of the
Empire shone with the brightest radiance of martial renown;
Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland could in part console
even thinned households. ...
{1349}
The magnificent public works with which Napoleon adorned this
part of his reign increased this sentiment of national
grandeur; it was now that the Madeleine raised its front, and
the Column, moulded from captured cannon; ... and Paris,
decked out with triumphal arches, with temples of glory, and
with stately streets, put on the aspect of ancient Rome,
gathering into her lap the gorgeous spoils of subjugated and
dependent races. ... Yet, notwithstanding its apparent
strength, this structure of conquest and domination was
essentially weak, and liable to decay. The work of the sword,
and of new-made power, it was in opposition to the nature of
things. ... The material and even social benefits conferred by
the Code, and reform of abuses, could not compensate
vanquished but martial races for the misery and disgrace of
subjection; and, apart from the commercial oppression [of the
Continental System, which destroyed commerce in order to do
injury to England], ... the exasperating pressure of French
officials, the exactions of the victorious French armies, and
the severities of the conscription introduced among them,
provoked discontent in the vassal States on which the yoke of
the Empire weighed. ... The prostration, too, of Austria and
Prussia ... had a direct tendency to make these powers forget
their old discords in common suffering, and to bring to an end
the internal divisions through which France had become supreme
in Germany. ... The triumphant policy of Tilsit contained the
germs of a Coalition against France more formidable than she
had yet experienced. At the same time, the real strength of
the instrument by which Napoleon maintained his power was
being gradually but surely impaired; the imperial armies were
more and more filled with raw conscripts and ill-affected
allies, as their size increased with the extension of his
rule; and the French element in them, on which alone reliance
could be placed in possible defeat, was being dissipated,
exhausted, and wasted. ... Nor was the Empire, within France
itself, free from elements of instability and decline. The
finances, well administered as they were, were so burdened by
the charges of war that they were only sustained by conquest;
and flourishing as their condition seemed, they had been often
cruelly strained of late, and were unable to bear the shock of
disaster. The seaports were beginning to suffer from the
policy adopted to subdue England. ... Meanwhile, the continual
demands on the youth of the nation for never-ceasing wars were
gradually telling on its military power; Napoleon, after
Eylau, had had recourse to the ruinous expedient of taking
beforehand the levies which the conscription raised; and
though complaints were as yet rare, the anticipation of the
resources of France, which filled the armies with feeble boys,
unequal to the hardships of a rude campaign, had been noticed
at home as well as abroad. Nor were the moral ills of this
splendid despotism less certain than its bad material results.
... The inevitable tendency of the Empire, even at the time of
its highest glory, was to lessen manliness and self-reliance,
to fetter and demoralize the human mind, and to weaken
whatever public virtue and mental independence France
possessed; and its authority had already begun to disclose
some of the harsher features of Cæsarian despotism."
W. O'C. Morris,
The French Revolution and First Empire,
chapter 12.
"Notwithstanding so many brilliant and specious appearances,
France did not possess either true prosperity or true
greatness. She was not really prosperous; for not only was
there no feeling of security, a necessary condition for the
welfare of nations, but all the evils produced by so many
years of war still weighed heavily on her. ... She was not
really great, for all her great men had either been banished
or put to silence. She could still point with pride to her
generals and soldiers, although the army, which, if brave as
ever, had gradually sunk from the worship of the country and
liberty to that of glory, and from the worship of glory to
that of riches, was corrupt and degenerate; but where were her
great citizens? Where were her great orators, her great
politicians, her great philosophers, her great writers of
every kind? Where, at least, were their descendants? All who
had shown a spark of genius or pride had been sacrificed for
the benefit of a single man. They had disappeared; some
crushed under the wheels of his chariot, others forced to live
obscurely in some unknown retreat, and, what was graver still,
their race seemed extinct. ... France was imprisoned, as it
were, in an iron net, and the issues were closed to all the
generous and ardent youth that had either intellectual or
moral activity."
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 3, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
H. A. Taine;
The Modern Regime,
book 1, chapter 2,
and book 3, chapter 3 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (September-November).
Forcible seizure of the Danish fleet by the English.
Frustration of Napoleon's plans.
Alliance with Denmark.
War with Sweden.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1807-1810.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807 (October-November).
French invasion and occupation of Portugal.
Flight of the royal family to Brazil.
Delusive treaty of partition with Spain.
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808.
Napoleon's alienation of Talleyrand and others.
Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Perigord, made Bishop of Autun
by King Louis XVI:, in 1789, and Prince of Benevento by
Napoleon, in 1806, had made his first appearance in public
life as one of the clerical deputies in the States-General of
1789, and had taken the popular side. He was the only bishop
having a benefice in France who took the new oath required of
the clergy, and he proposed the appropriation of church
property to the wants of the public treasury. He subsequently
consecrated the first French bishops appointed under the new
constitution, and was excommunicated therefor by the Pope. On
the approach of the Terror he escaped from France and took
refuge first in England, afterwards in the United States. In
1795 he was permitted to return to Paris, and he took an
important part in the revolution of the 18th Brumaire which
overthrew the Directory and made Napoleon First Consul. In the
new government he received the post of Minister of Foreign
Affairs, which he retained under the Empire, until 1807, when
he obtained permission to retire, with the title of
"vice-grand electeur." "M. de Talleyrand, the Empire once
established and fortunate, had attached himself to it with a
sort of enthusiasm. The poesy of victory, and the eloquence of
an exalted imagination, subdued for a time the usual
nonchalance and moderation of his character. He entered into
all Napoleon's plans for reconstituting an empire of the
Francs, and reviving the system of fiefs and feudal
dignitaries. ...
{1350}
'Any other system,' he said, 'but a military one, is in our
circumstances at present impossible. I am, then, for making
that system splendid, and compensating France for her liberty
by her grandeur.' The principality he enjoyed, though it by no
means satisfied him, was a link between him and the policy
under which he held it. ... But he had a strong instinct for
the practical; all governments, according to his theory, might
be made good, except an impossible one. A government depending
on constant success in difficult undertakings, at home and
abroad, was, according to his notions, impossible. This idea,
after the Peace of Tilsit, more or less haunted him. It made
him, in spite of himself, bitter against his chief--bitter at
first, more because he liked him than because he disliked him.
He would still have aided to save the Empire, but he was
irritated because he thought he saw the Empire drifting into a
system which would not admit of its being saved. A sentiment of
this kind, however, is as little likely to be pardoned by one
who is accustomed to consider that his will must be law, as a
sentiment of a more hostile nature. Napoleon began little by
little to hate the man for whom he had felt at one time a
predilection, and if he disliked anyone, he did that which it
is most dangerous to do, and most useless; that is, he wounded
his pride without diminishing his importance. It is true that
M. de Talleyrand never gave any visible sign of being
irritated. But few, whatever the philosophy with which they
forgive an injury, pardon an humiliation; and thus, stronger
and stronger grew by degrees that mutual dissatisfaction which
the one vented at times in furious reproaches, and the other
disguised under a studiously respectful indifference. This
carelessness as to the feelings of those whom it would have
been wiser not to offend, was one of the most fatal errors of
the conqueror. ... He had become at this time equally
indifferent to the hatred and affection of his adherents; and
... fancied that everything depended on his own merits, and
nothing on the merits of his agents. The victory of Wagram,
and the marriage with Marie-Louise, commenced, indeed, a new
era in his history. Fouché was dismissed, though not without
meriting a reprimand for his intrigues; and Talleyrand fell
into unequivocal disgrace, in some degree provoked by his
witticisms; whilst round these two men gathered a quiet and
observant opposition, descending with the clever adventurer to
the lowest classes, and ascending with the dissatisfied noble
to the highest. ... M. de Talleyrand's house then (the only
place, perhaps, open to all persons, where the government of
the day was treated without reserve) became a sort of
'rendezvous' for a circle which replied to a victory by a bon
mot, and confronted the borrowed ceremonies of a new court by
the natural graces and acknowledged fashions of an old one."
Sir H. L. Bulwer,
Historical Characters,
volume 1: Talleyrand, part 4, sections 9-10.
ALSO IN:
C. K. McHarg,
Life of Prince Talleyrand,
chapters 1-13.
Memoirs of Talleyrand,
volume 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808.
Napoleon's over-ingenious plottings in Spain
for the theft of the crown.
The popular rising.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1807-1808.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (November-February).
Napoleon in Italy.
His arbitrary changes in the Italian constitution.
His annexation of Tuscany to France.
His quarrel with the Pope and seizure of the Papal States.
"Napoleon ... set out for Italy, where great political changes
were in progress. Destined, like all the subordinate thrones
which surrounded the great nation, to share in the rapid
mutations which its government underwent, the kingdom of Italy
was soon called upon to accept a change in its constitution.
Napoleon, in consequence, suppressed the legislative body, and
substituted in its room a Senate, which was exclusively
intrusted with the power of submitting observations to
government on the public wants, and of superintending the
budget and public expenditure. As the members of this Senate
were nominated and paid by government; this last shadow of
representative institutions became a perfect mockery.
Nevertheless Napoleon was received with unbounded adulation by
all the towns of Italy; their deputies, who waited upon him at
Milan, vied with each other in elegant flattery. He was the
Redeemer of France, but the Creator of Italy: they had
supplicated heaven for his safety, for his victories; they
offered him the tribute of their eternal love and fidelity.
Napoleon received their adulation in the most gracious manner;
but he was careful not to lose sight of the main object of his
policy, the consolidation of his dominions, the rendering them
all dependent on his imperial crown, and the fostering of a
military spirit among his subjects. ... From Milan the Emperor
travelled by Verona and Padua to Venice; he there admired the
marble palaces, varied scenery, and gorgeous architecture of
the Queen of the Adriatic, which appeared to extraordinary
advantage amidst illuminations, fireworks, and rejoicings; and
returning to Milan, arranged, with an authoritative hand, all
the affairs of the peninsula. The discontent of Melzi, who
still retained a lingering partiality for the democratic
institutions which he had vainly hoped to see established in
his country, was stifled by the title of Duke of Lodi. Tuscany
was taken from the King of Etruria, on whom Napoleon had
settled it, and united to France by the title of the
department of Taro; while magnificent public works were set on
foot at Milan to dazzle the ardent imagination of the
Italians, and console them for the entire loss of their
national independence and civil liberty. The cathedral was
daily adorned with fresh works of sculpture; its exterior
decorated and restored to its original purity, while thousands
of pinnacles and statues rose on all sides, glittering in
spotless brilliancy in the blue vault of heaven. The Forum of
Buonaparte was rapidly advancing; the beautiful basso-relievos
of the arch of the Simplon already entranced the admiring gaze
of thousands; the roads of the Simplon and Mount Cenis were
kept in the finest order, and daily attracted fresh crowds of
strangers to the Italian plains. But in the midst of all this
external splendour, the remains of which still throw a halo
round the recollection of the French domination in Italy, the
finances of all the states were involved in hopeless
embarrassment, and suffering of the most grinding kind
pervaded all classes of the people. ... The encroachments thus
made on the Italian peninsula were not the only ones which
Napoleon effected, in consequence of the liberty to dispose of
western Europe acquired by him at the treaty of Tilsit. The
territory of the great nation was rounded also on the side of
Germany and Holland.
{1351}
On the 11th of November, the important town and territory of
Flushing were ceded to France by the King of Holland, who
obtained, in return, merely an elusory equivalent in East
Friesland. On the 21st of January following, a decree of the
senate united to the French empire, besides these places, the
important towns of Kehl Cassel, and Wesel, on the right bank
of the Rhine. Shortly after, the French troops, who had
already taken possession of the whole of Tuscany, in virtue of
the resignation forced upon the Queen of Etruria, invaded the
Roman territories, and made themselves masters of the ancient
capital of the world. They immediately occupied the castle of
St. Angelo, and the gates of the city, and entirely
dispossessed the papal troops [see PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814].
... France now, without disguise, assumed the right of
annexing neutral and independent states to its already
extensive dominions, by no other authority than the decree of
its own legislature."
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 51, sections 51-53 (volume 11).
ALSO IN:
C. Botta,
Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon,
chapter 5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1809.
The American embargo and non-intercourse laws.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809, and 1808.
FRANCE: A.D. 1808 (May-September).
Bestowal of the Spanish crown on Joseph Bonaparte.
The national revolt.
French reverses.
Flight of Joseph Bonaparte from Madrid.
Landing of British forces in the Peninsula.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).
FRANCE: A. D. 1808 (September-October).
Imperial conference and Treaty of Erfurt.
The assemblage of kings.
"Napoleon's relations with the Court of Russia, at one time
very formal, became far more amicable, according as Spanish
affairs grew complicated. After the capitulation of Baylen
they became positively affectionate. The Czar was too
clear-sighted not to understand the meaning of this gradation.
He quickly understood that the more difficulties Napoleon
might create for himself in Spain, the more would he be forced
to make concessions to Russia. ... The Russian alliance, which
at Tilsit had only been an arrangement to flatter Napoleon's
ambition, had now become a necessity to him. Each side felt
this; hence the two sovereigns were equally impatient to meet
again; the one to strengthen an alliance so indispensable to
the success of his plans, the other to derive from it all the
promised advantages. It was settled, therefore, that the
desired interview should take place at Erfurt towards the end
of September, 1808. ... The two Emperors met on the 27th of
September, on the road between Weimar and Erfurt. They
embraced each other with that air of perfect cordiality of
which kings alone possess the secret, especially when their
intention is rather to stifle than to embrace. They made their
entry into the town on horseback together, amidst an immense
concourse of people. Napoleon had wished by its magnificence
to render the reception worthy of the illustrious guests who
had agreed to meet at Erfurt. He had sent thither from the
storehouses of the crown, bronzes, porcelain, the richest
hangings, and the most sumptuous furniture. He desired that
the Comédie-Française should heighten the brilliant effects of
these fêtes by performing the chief masterpieces of our stage,
from 'Cinna' down to 'La Mort de César,' before this royal
audience. ... All the natural adherents of Napoleon hastened
to answer his appeal by flocking to Erfurt, for he did not
lose sight of his principal object, and his desire was to
appear before Europe surrounded by a court composed of kings.
In this cortege were to be seen those of Bavaria, of
Wurtemburg, of Saxony, of Westphalia, and Prince William of
Prussia; and beside these stars of first magnitude twinkled
the obscure Pleiades of the Rhenish Confederation. The
reunion, almost exclusively German, was meant to prove to
German idealists the vanity of their dreams. Were not all
present who had any weight in Germany from their power, rank,
or riches? Was it not even hinted that the Emperor of Austria
had implored the favour, without being able to obtain it, of
admission to the conferences of Erfurt? This report was most
improbable. ... The kings of intellect came in their turn to
bow down before Cæsar. Goethe and Wieland were presented to
Napoleon; they appeared at his court, and by their glory
adorned his triumph. German patriotism was severely tried at
Erfurt; but it may be said that of all its humiliations the
one which the Germans most deeply resented was that of
beholding their greatest literary genius decking himself out
with Napoleon's favours [the decoration of the Legion of
Honour, which Goethe accepted]. ... The theatrical effect
which Napoleon had in view in this solemn show at Erfurt
having once been produced, his principal object was attained,
for the political questions which remained for settlement with
Alexander could not raise any serious difficulty. In view of
the immediate and certain session of two such important
provinces as those of Wallachia and Moldavia, the Czar,
without much trouble, renounced that division of the Ottoman
Empire with which he had been tantalised for more than a year.
... He bound himself ... by the Treaty of Erfurt to continue his
co-operation with Napoleon in the war against England (Article
2), and, should it so befall, also against Austria (Article
10); but the affairs in Spain threw every attack upon England
into the background. ... The only very distinct engagement
which the treaty imposed on Alexander was the recognition of
the new order of things established by France in Spain.'"
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 3, chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
Prince Talleyrand,
Memoirs,
volume 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1808-1809.
Reverses in Portugal.
Napoleon in the field.
French victories resumed.
The check at Corunna.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (AUGUST-JANUARY).
FRANCE: A. D. 1809 (January-September).
Reopened war with Austria.
Napoleon's advance to Vienna.
His defeat at Aspern and victory at Wagram.
The Peace of Schönbrunn.
Fresh acquisitions of territory.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE),
and (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
FRANCE: A. D. 1809 (February-July).
Wellington's check to the French in Spain and Portugal.
His passage of the Douro.
Battle of Talavera.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
FRANCE: A. D. 1809 (May).
Annexation of the States of the Church.
Removal of the Pope to Savona.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
FRANCE: A. D. 1809 (December).
Withdrawal of the English from Spain into Portugal.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
{1352}
FRANCE: A. D. 1810 (February-December).
Annexations of territory to the empire.
Holland, the Hanse Towns, and the Valais in Switzerland.
Other reconstructions of the map of Germany.
"It was not till December 10th 1810 [after the abdication of
King Louis--see NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1806-1810] that
Holland was united to France by a formal senatus-consulte. By
the first article of the same law, the Hanse Towns [Hamburg,
Bremen, and Lubeck], the Duchy of Lauenburg, and the countries
situated between the North Sea and a line drawn from the
confluence of the Lippe with the Rhine to Halteren, from
Halteren to the Ems above Telgte, from the Ems to the
confluence of the Werra with the Weser, and from Stolzenau on
that river to the Elbe, above the confluence of the Stecknitz,
were at the same time incorporated with the French Empire. ...
The line described would include the northern part of
Westphalia and Hanover, and the duchy of Oldenburg. ... The
Duke of Oldenburg having appealed to the Emperor of Russia,
the head of his house, against this spoliation, Napoleon
offered to compensate him with the town and territory of
Erfurt and the lordship of Blankenheim, which had remained
under French administration since the Peace of Tilsit. But
this offer was at once rejected, and Alexander reserved, by a
formal protest, the rights of his relative. This annexation
was only the complement of other incorporations with the
French Empire during the year 1810. Early in the year, the
Electorate of Hanover had been annexed to the Kingdom of
Westphalia. On February 16th Napoleon had erected the Grand
Duchy of Frankfort, and presented it to the Prince Primate of
the Confederation of the Rhine, with a reversal in favour of
Eugene Beauharnais. On November 12th the Valais in Switzerland
was also annexed to France, with the view of securing the road
over the Simplon. Of all these annexations, that of the Hanse
Towns and the districts on the North Sea was the most
important, and one of the principal causes of the war that
ensued between France and Russia. These annexations were made
without the slightest negociation with any European cabinet,
and it would be superfluous to add, without even a pretext of
right, though the necessity of them from the war with England
was alleged as the motive."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapter 15, with foot-note (volume 4).
"'The English,' said Napoleon, 'have torn asunder the public
rights of Europe; a new order of things governs the universe.
Fresh guarantees having become necessary to me, the annexation
of the mouths of the Scheldt, of the Meuse, of the Rhine, of
the Ems, of the Weser, and of the Elbe to the Empire appears
to me to be the first and the most important. ... The
annexation of the Valais is the anticipated result of the
immense works that I have been making for the past ten years
in that part of the Alps.' And this was all. To justify such
violence he did not condescend to allege any pretext--to urge
forward opportunities that were too long in developing, or to
make trickery subserve the use of force--he consulted nothing
but his policy; in other words, his good pleasure. To take
possession of a country, it was sufficient that the country
suited him: he said so openly, as the simplest thing in the
world, and thought proper to add that these new usurpations
were but a beginning, the first, according to his own
expression, of those which seemed to him still necessary. And
it was Europe, discontented, humbled, driven wild by the
barbarous follies of the continental system, that he thus
defied, as though he wished at any cost to convince every one
that no amicable arrangement or conciliation was possible; and
that there was but one course for governments or men of spirit
to adopt, that of fighting unto death."
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 4, chapter 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812.
Continued hostile attitude towards
the United States of America.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1810-1812.
FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812.
The War in the Peninsula.
Wellington's Lines of Torres Vedras.
French retreat from Portugal.
English advance into Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1809-1810 (OCTOBER-SEPTEMBER),
and 1810-1812.
FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812.
Napoleon's divorce from Josephine and marriage to
Marie-Louise of Austria.
His rupture with the Czar and
preparations for war with Russia.
"Napoleon now revived the idea which he had often entertained
before, of allying himself with one of the great ruling
families. A compliant senate and a packed ecclesiastical
council pronounced his separation from Josephine Beauharnais,
who retired with a magnificent pension to Malmaison, where she
died. As previous marriage proposals to the Russian court had
not been cordially received, Napoleon now turned to Austria.
The matter was speedily arranged with Metternich, and in
March, 1810, the archduchess Maria Louisa arrived in France as
the emperor's wife. The great importance of the marriage was
that it broke the last links which bound Russia to France, and
thus overthrew the alliance of Tilsit. Alexander had been
exasperated by the addition of Western Galicia to the
grand-duchy of Warsaw, which he regarded as a step towards the
restoration of Poland, and therefore as a breach of the
engagement made at Tilsit. The annexation of Oldenburg, whose
duke was a relative of the Czar, was a distinct personal
insult. Alexander showed his irritation by formally deserting
the continental system, which was more ruinous to Russia than
to almost any other country, and by throwing his ports open to
British commerce (December 1810). ... The chief grievance to
Russia was the apparent intention of Napoleon to do something
for the Poles. The increase of the grand-duchy of Warsaw by
the treaty of Vienna was so annoying to Alexander, that he
began to meditate on the possibility of restoring Poland
himself, and making it a dependent kingdom for the Czar, in
the same way as Napoleon had treated Italy. He even went so
far as to sound the Poles on the subject; but he found that
they had not forgotten the three partitions of their country,
and that their sympathies were rather with France than with
Russia. At the same time Napoleon was convinced that until
Russia was subdued his empire was unsafe, and all hopes of
avenging himself upon England were at an end. All through the
year 1811 it was known that war was inevitable, but neither
power was in a hurry to take the initiative. Meanwhile the
various powers that retained nominal independence had to make
up their minds as to the policy they would pursue. For no
country was the decision harder than for Prussia. Neutrality
was out of the question, as the Prussian territories, lying
between the two combatants, must be occupied by one or the
other.
{1353}
The friends and former Colleagues of Stein were unanimous for
a Russian alliance and a desperate struggle for liberty. But
Hardenberg, who had become chancellor in 1810, was too prudent
to embark in a contest, which at the time was hopeless. The
Czar had not been so consistent in his policy as to be a very
desirable ally; and, even with Russian assistance, it was
certain that the Prussian frontiers could not be defended
against the French, who had already garrisons in the chief
fortresses. Hardenberg fully sympathised with the patriots,
but he sacrificed enthusiasm to prudence, and offered the
support of Prussia to France. The treaty was arranged on the
24th of February, 1812. Frederick William gave the French a
free passage through his territories, and undertook to furnish
20,000 men for service in the field, and as many more for
garrison duty. In return for this Napoleon guaranteed the
security of the Prussian kingdom as it stood, and held out the
prospect of additions to it. It was an unnatural and hollow
alliance, and was understood to be so by the Czar.
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and other friends of Stein resigned
their posts, and many Prussian officers entered the service of
the Czar. Austria, actuated by similar motives, adopted the same
policy, but with less reluctance. After this example had been
set by the two great powers, none of the lesser states of
Germany dared to disobey the peremptory orders of Napoleon.
But Turkey and Sweden, both of them old allies of France, were
at this crisis in the opposition. ... The Swedes were
threatened with starvation by Napoleon's stern command to
close their ports not only against English, but against all
German vessels. Bernadotte, who had just been adopted as the
heir of the childless Charles XIII.; determined to throw in
his lot with his new country, rather than with his old
commander. He had also hopes of compensating Sweden for the
loss of Finland by wresting Norway from the Danes, and this
would never be agreed to by France. Accordingly Sweden
prepared to support the cause of Alexander."
R. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 24, sections 88 and 41.
"Napoleon's Russian expedition should not be regarded as an
isolated freak of insane pride. He himself regarded it as the
unfortunate effect of a fatality, and he betrayed throughout
an unwonted reluctance and perplexity. 'The war must take
place,' he said, 'it lies in the nature of things.' That is,
it arose naturally, like the other Napoleonic wars, out of the
quarrel with England. Upon the Continental system he had
staked everything. He had united all Europe in the crusade
against England, and no state, least of all such a state as
Russia, could withdraw from the system without practically
joining England. Nevertheless, we may wonder that, if he felt
obliged to make war on Russia, he should have chosen to wage
it in the manner he did, by an overwhelming invasion. For an
ordinary war his resources were greatly superior to those of
Russia. A campaign on the Lithuanian frontier would no doubt
have been unfavourable to Alexander, and might have forced him
to concede the points at issue. Napoleon had already
experienced in Spain the danger of rousing national spirit. It
seems, however, that this lesson had been lost on him."
J. R. Seeley,
Short History of Napoleon,
chapter 5, section 3.
"Warnings and cautions were not ... wanting to him. He had
been at several different times informed of the desperate
plans of Russia and her savage resolve to destroy all around
him, provided he could be involved in the destruction of the
Empire. He was cautioned, with even more earnestness, of the
German conspiracies. Alquier transmitted to him from Stockholm
a significant remark of Alexander's: 'If the Emperor Napoleon
should experience a reverse, the whole of Germany will rise to
oppose his retreat, or to prevent the arrival of his
reinforcements.' His brother Jerome, who was still better
situated for knowing what was going on in Germany, informed
him, in the month of January, 1811, of the proposal that had
been made to him to enter into a secret league against France,
but the only thanks he received from Napoleon was reproach for
having encouraged such overtures by his equivocal conduct. ...
Marshal Davout and General Rapp transmitted him identically
the same information from Hamburg and Dantzig. But far from
encouraging such confidential communications, Napoleon was
irritated by them. ... 'I do not know why Rapp meddles in what
does not concern him [he wrote]. ... I beg you will not place
such rhapsodies under my eyes. My time is too precious to
waste on such twaddle.' ... In presence of such hallucination,
caused by pride and infatuation, we seem to hear Macbeth in
his delirium insulting the messengers who announced to him the
approach· of the enemy's armies."
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 4, chapter 6.
"That period ought to have been esteemed the happiest of
Napoleon's life. What more could the wildest ambition desire?
... All obeyed him. Nothing was wanting to make him happy!
Nothing, if he could be happy who possessed not a love of
justice. ... The being never existed who possessed ampler
means for promoting the happiness of mankind. Nothing was
required but justice and prudence. The nation expected these
from him, and granted him that unlimited confidence which he
afterwards so cruelly abused. ... Instead of considering with
calmness and moderation how he might best employ his vast
resources, he ruminated on projects beyond the power of man to
execute; forgetting what innumerable victims must be
sacrificed in the vain attempt. ... He aspired at universal
despotism, for no other reason than because a nation, isolated
from the continent and profiting by its happy situation, had
refused to submit to his intolerable·yoke. ... In the hope of
conquering that invincible enemy, he vainly endeavoured to
grasp the extremities of Europe. ... Misled by his rash and
hasty temper, he adopted a false line of politics, and
converted in the north, as he had done before in the south,
the most useful and powerful of his allies into a dangerous
enemy."
E. Labaume,
Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Russia,
part 1, book 1.
ALSO IN:
C. Joyneville,
Life and Times of Alexander I.,
volume 2, chapter 3.
Imbert de Saint Amand,
Memoirs of the Empress Marie Louise.
FRANCE: A. D. 1812 (June).
The captive Pope brought to Fontainebleau.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
FRANCE: A. D. 1812 (June-August).
Defeat by the English in Spain at Salamanca.
Abandonment of Madrid by King Joseph.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-AUGUST).
{1354}
FRANCE: A. D. 1812 (June-December).
Napoleon's Russian campaign.
The advance to Moscow.
The burning of the city.
The retreat and its horrors.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812.
FRANCE: A. D. 1812-1813 (December-March)
Napoleon's return from Russia.
His measures for creating a new army.
"Whilst Europe, agitated at once by hope, by fear, and by
hatred, was inquiring what had become of Napoleon, whether he
had perished or had been saved, he was crossing in a
sledge--accompanied by the Duke of Vicenza, the Grand Marshal
Duroc, Count Lobau, General Lefevre-Desnouettes, and the
Mameluke Rustan--the vast, plains of Lithuania, of Poland, and
of Saxony, concealed by thick furs; for if his name had been
imprudently uttered, or his countenance recognised, a tragical
catastrophe would have instantly ensued. The man who had so
greatly excited the admiration of nations, who was the object
of their ... superstition, would not at that moment have
escaped their fury. In two places only did he allow himself to
be known, Warsaw and Dresden. ... That he might not occasion
too great surprise, he caused himself to be preceded by an
officer with a few lines for the 'Moniteur,' saying that on
December 5 he had assembled his generals at Smorgoni, had
delegated the command to King Murat, only so long as military
operations were interrupted by the cold, that he had traversed
Warsaw and Dresden, and that he was about to arrive in Paris
to take in hand the affairs of the Empire. ... Napoleon
followed close on the steps of the officer who was to announce
his arrival. On December 18, at half-past 11 P. M., he entered
the Tuileries. ... On the next morning, the 19th, he received
the ministers and grandees of the court ... with extreme
hauteur, maintaining a tranquil but severe aspect, appearing
to expect explanations instead of affording them himself,
treating foreign affairs as of minor consequence, and those of
a domestic nature as of principal import, demanding some light
upon these last,--in short, questioning others in order to
avoid being questioned himself. ... On Sunday, the 20th of
December, the second day after his arrival, Napoleon received
the Senate, the Council of State, and the principal branches
of the administration," which severally addressed to him the
most fulsome flatteries and assurances of support. "After an
infuriated populace basely outraging vanquished princes,
nothing can be seen more melancholy than these great bodies
prostrating themselves at the feet of a power, bestowing upon
it a degree of admiration which increases with its errors,
speaking with ardour of their fidelity, already about to
expire, and swearing to die in its cause when they are on the
eve of hailing the accession of another. Happy are those
countries whose established Constitutions spare them these
humiliating spectacles!" As speedily as possible, Napoleon
applied himself to the recreation of his lost army, by
anticipating the conscription for 1814, and by making new
calls upon the classes which had already furnished their
contingents. All his measures were submissively sanctioned by
the obsequious Senate; but many murmurs of discontent were
heard among the people, and some movements of resistance
needed to be put down. "However, when the enlightened classes
of a country approve a measure, their support is extremely
efficacious. In France, all those classes perceiving that it
was necessary energetically to defend the country against a
foreign enemy, though the Government had been still more in
the wrong than they were, the levies were effected, and the
high functionaries, sustained by a moral acquiescence which
they had not always obtained, fulfilled their duty, though in
heart full of sad and sinister forebodings."
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and the Empire,
book 47 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
Duchess d'Abrantes, Memoirs of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapter 43.
FRANCE: A. D. 1812-1813.
Germanic rising against Napoleon.
War of Liberation.
Lützen.
Bautzen.
Dresden.
Leipsic.
The retreat of the French from beyond the Rhine.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813,
to 1813 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).
FRANCE: A. D. 1813 (February-March).
The new Concordat signed and retracted by the Pope.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
FRANCE: A. D. 1813 (June-November).
Defeat at Vittoria and in the Pyrenees.
Retreat from Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.
FRANCE: A. D. 1813 (November-December).
Dutch independence regained.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1813.
FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (January).
The Pope set free to return to Rome.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.
FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (January-March).
The allied invasion.
Napoleon's campaign of defense.
His cause lost.
Surrender of Paris.
"The battle of Leipzig was the overthrow of the French rule in
Germany; there only remained, as evidence of what they had
lost, 150,000 men, garrisons of the fortresses of the Vistula,
the Oder, and the Elbe. Each success of the allies had been
marked by the desertion of one of the peoples that had
furnished its contingent to the Grand Army of 1812: after
Prussia, Austria; at Leipzig the Saxons: the French had not
been able to regain the Rhine except by passing over the
bodies of the Bavarians at Hanau. Baden, Wurtemberg, Hesse,
and Darmstadt declared their defection at nearly the same
time; the sovereigns were still hesitating whether to separate
themselves from Napoleon, when their people and regiments,
worked upon by the German patriots, had already passed into
the allied camp. Jerome Bonaparte had again quitted Cassel;
Denmark found Itself forced to adhere to the Coalition.
Napoleon had retired to the left bank of the Rhine. Would
Alexander cross this natural frontier of revolutionary France?
'Convinced,' says M. Bogdanovitch, 'by the experience of many
years, that neither losses inflicted on Napoleon, nor treaties
concluded with him, could check his insatiable ambition,
Alexander would not stop at setting free the involuntary
allies of France, and resolved to pursue the war till he had
overthrown his enemy.' The allied sovereigns found themselves
reunited at Frankfort, and an immediate march to Paris was
discussed. Alexander, Stein. Blücher, Gneisenau, and all the
Prussians were on the side of decisive action. The Emperor
Francis and Metternich only desired Napoleon to be weakened,
as his downfall would expose Austria to another danger, the
preponderance of Russia on the Continent. Bernadotte insisted
on Napoleon's dethronement, with the ridiculous design of
appropriating the crown of France, traitor as he was to her
cause. England would have preferred a solid and immediate
peace to a war which would exhaust her in subsidies, and
augment her already enormous debt. These divergencies, these
hesitations, gave Napoleon time to strengthen his position.
{1355}
After Hanau, in the opinion of Ney, 'the allies might have
counted their stages to Paris.' Napoleon had re-opened the
negotiations. The relinquishment of Italy (when Murat on his
side negotiated the preservation of his kingdom of Naples), of
Holland, of Germany, and of Spain, and the confinement of
France between her natural boundaries of the Rhine and the
Alps; such were the 'Conditions of Frankfort.' Napoleon sent
an answer to Metternich, 'that he consented to the opening of
a congress at Mannheim: that the conclusion of a peace which
would insure the independence of all the nations of the earth
had always been the aim of his policy.' This reply seems
evasive, but could the proposals of the allies have been
serious? Encouraged by disloyal Frenchmen, they published the
declaration of Frankfort, by which they affirmed 'that they
did not make war with France, but against the preponderance
which Napoleon had long exercised beyond the limits of his
empire.' Deceitful assurance, too obvious snare, which could
only take in a nation weary of war, enervated by twenty-two
years of sterile victories, and at the end of its resources!
During this time Alexander, with the deputies of the Helvetian
Diet summoned at Frankfort, discussed the basis of a new Swiss
Confederation. Holland was already raised by the partisans of
the house of Orange, and entered by the Prussians. The
campaign of France began. Alexander issued at Freiburg a
proclamation to his troops. ... He refused to receive
Caulaincourt at Freiburg, declaring that he would only treat
in France. 'Let us spare the French negotiator the trouble of
the journey,' he said to Metternich. 'It does not seem to me a
matter of indifference to the allied sovereigns, whether the
peace with France is signed on this side of the Rhine, or on
the other, in the very heart of France. Such an historical
event is well worth a change of quarters.' Without counting
the armies of Italy and the Pyrenees, Napoleon had now a mere
handful of troops, 80,000 men, spread from Nimeguen to Bâle,
to resist 500,000 allies. The army of the North
(Wintzingerode) invaded Holland, Belgium, and the Rhenish
provinces; the army of Silesia (Blücher) crossed the Rhine
between Mannheim and Coblentz and entered Nancy; the army of
Bohemia (Schwartzenberg) passed through Switzerland, and
advanced on Troyes, where the Royalists demanded the
restoration of the Bourbons. Napoleon was still able to bar
for some time the way to his capital. He first attacked the
army of Silesia; he defeated the vanguard, the Russians of
Sacken, at St. Didier, and Blücher at Brienne; but at La
Rothière he encountered the formidable masses of the Silesian
and Bohemian armies, and after a fierce battle (1st February,
1814) had to fall back on Troyes. After this victory had
secured their junction, the two armies separated again, the
one to go down the Marne, the other the Seine, with the
intention of reuniting at Paris. Napoleon profited by this
mistake. He threw himself on the left flank of the army of
Silesia, near Champeaubert, where he dispersed the troops of
Olsoufief and Poltaratski, inflicting on them a loss of 2,500
men, and took the generals prisoners. At Montmirail, in spite
of the heroism of Zigrote and Lapoukhine, he defeated Sacken;
the Russians alone lost 2,800 men and five guns (11th
February). At Château Thierry, he defeated Sacken and York
reunited, and again the Russians lost 1,500 men and five guns.
At Vauchamp it was the turn of Blücher, who lost 2,000
Russians, 4,000 Prussians, and fifteen guns. The army of
Silesia was in terrible disorder. 'The peasants, exasperated
by the disorder inseparable from a retreat, and excited by
exaggerated rumours of French successes, took up arms, and
refused supplies. The soldiers suffered both from cold and
hunger, Champagne affording no wood for bivouac fires. When
the weather became milder, their shoes wore out, and the men,
obliged to make forced marches with bare feet, were carried by
hundreds into the hospitals of the country' (Bogdanovitch).
Whilst the army of Silesia retreated in disorder on the army
of the North, Napoleon, with 50,000 soldiers full of
enthusiasm, turned on that of Bohemia, crushed the Bavarians
and Russians at Mormans, the Wurtembergers at Montereau, the
Prussians at Méry: these Prussians made part of the army of
Blücher, who had detached a corps to hang on the rear of
Napoleon. This campaign made a profound impression on the
allies. Castlereagh expressed, in Alexander's presence, the
opinion that peace should be made before they were driven
across the Rhine. The military chiefs began to feel uneasy.
Sesslavine sent news from Joigny that Napoleon had 180,000 men
at Troyes. A general insurrection of the eastern provinces was
expected in the rear of the allies. It was the firmness of
Alexander which maintained the Coalition, it was the military
energy of Blücher which saved it. Soon after his disasters he
received reinforcements from the army of the North, and took
the offensive against the marshals; then, hearing of the
arrival of Napoleon at La Ferté Gaucher, he retreated in great
haste, finding an unexpected refuge at Soissons, which had
just been taken by the army of the North. At Craonne (March 7)
and at Laon (10th to 12th March), with 100,000 men against
80,000, and with strong positions, he managed to repulse all
the attacks of Napoleon. At Craonne, however, the Russian loss
amounted to 5,000 men, the third of their effective force. The
battle of Laon cost them 4,000 men. Meanwhile, De Saint
Priest, a general in Alexander's service, had taken Rheims by
assault, but was dislodged by Napoleon after a fierce
struggle, where the émigré commander was badly wounded, and
4,000 of his men were killed (13th, March). The Congress of
Châtillon-sur-Seine was opened on the 28th of February. Russia
was represented by Razoumovski and Nesselrode, Napoleon by
Caulaincourt, Austria by Stadion and Metternich. The
conditions proposed to Napoleon were the reduction of France
to its frontiers of 1792, and the right of the allies to
dispose, without reference to him, of the reconquered
countries. Germany was to be a confederation of independent
States, Italy to be divided into free States, Spain to be
restored to Ferdinand, and Holland to the house of Orange.
Leave France smaller than I found her? Never!' said Napoleon.
Alexander and the Prussians would not hear of a peace which
left Napoleon on the throne. Still, however, they negotiated.
Austria and England were both agreed not to push him to
extremities, and many times proposed to treat. After
Napoleon's great success against Blücher, Castlereagh declared
for peace. 'It would not be a peace,' cried the Emperor of
Russia; 'it would be a truce which would not allow us to
disarm one moment. I cannot come 400 leagues every day to your
assistance.
{1356}
No peace, as long as Napoleon is on the throne.' Napoleon, in
his turn, intoxicated by his success, enjoined Caulaincourt
only to treat on the basis of Frankfort--natural frontiers.
... As fortune returned· to the allies, the congress was
dissolved (19th of March). The Bourbon princes were already in
France; Louis XVIII. was on the point of being proclaimed.
Alexander, tired of seeing the armies of Bohemia and Silesia
fly in turn before thirty or forty thousand French, caused the
allies to adopt the fatal plan of a march on Paris, which was
executed in eight days. Blücher and Schwartzenberg united,
with 200,000 men, were to bear down all opposition on their
passage. The first act in the drama was the battle of
Arcissur-Aube, where the Russians took six guns from Napoleon.
The latter conceived a bold scheme, which perhaps might have
saved him if Paris could have resisted, but which was his
ruin. He threw himself on the rear of the allied army,
abandoning to them the route to Paris, but reckoning on
raising Eastern France, and cutting off their retreat to the
Rhine. The allies, uneasy for one moment, were reassured by an
intercepted letter of Napoleon's, and by the letters of the
Parisian royalists, which revealed to them the weakness of the
capital. 'Dare all!' writes Talleyrand to them. They, in their
turn, deceived Napoleon, by causing him to be followed by a
troop of cavalry, continued their march, defeated Marmont and
Mortier, crushed the National Guards of Pacthod (battle of La
Fère-Champenoise); and arrived in sight of Paris. Barclay de
Tolly, forming the centre, first attacked the plateau of
Romainville, defended by Marmont; on his left, the Prince of
Wurtemberg threatened Vincennes; and on his right, Blücher
deployed before Montmartre, which was defended by Mortier. The
heights of Chaumont and those of Montmartre were taken;
Marmont and Mortier with Moncey were thrown back on the
ramparts. Marmont obtained an armistice from Colonel Orlof, to
treat for the capitulation of Paris. King Joseph, the Empress
Marie-Louise, and all the Imperial Government had already fled
to the Loire. Paris was recommended to the generosity of the
allied monarchs'; the army could retire on the road to
Orleans. Such was the battle of Paris; it had cost, according
to M. Bogdanovitch, 8,400 men to the allies, and 4,000 to the
French (30th March). ... The allied troops maintained a
strict discipline, and were not quartered on the inhabitants.
Alexander had not come as a friend of the Bourbons--the
fiercest enemy of Napoleon, was least bitter against the
French; he intended leaving them the choice of their
government. He had not favoured any of the intrigues of the
émigrés, and had scornfully remarked to Jomini, 'What are the
Bourbons to me?'"
A. Rambaud,
History of Russia,
volume 2, chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
C. Joyneville,
Life and Times of Alexander I.,
volume 3, chapter 1.
M. de Beauchamp,
Narrative of the Invasions of France, 1814-15.
Duke de Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 3, part 2, chapters 20-32.
J. Philippart,
Campaign in Germany and France, 1818,
volume 1, pages 279 and after, and volume 2.
FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (January-May).
Desertion of Napoleon by Murat.
Murat's treaty with the allies.
French evacuation of Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1814.
FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (February-April).
Reverses in the south.
Wellington's invasion.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.
FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (March-April).
Friendly reception of the Allies in Paris.
Collapse of the empire.
Abdication of Napoleon.
Treaty of Fontainebleau.
"At an early hour in the morning [of the 31st of March], the
Allied troops had taken possession of the barriers, and
occupied the principal avenues leading to the city. Picquets
of the Cossacks of the Guard were stationed at the corners of
the principal streets. Vast multitudes thronged the
Boulevards, in anxious and silent expectation of pending
events. The royalists alone were active. The leaders, a small
band indeed, had early assembled in the Place Louis XV.,
whence, with Bourbon banners displayed, they proceeded along
the principal streets, haranguing the people and National
Guard; but though not interfered with by the police,--for all
seemed to feel that the Imperial government was at an
end,--they were listened to with such perfect indifference,
that many began to think their cause absolutely hopeless. It
was between ten and eleven o'clock when the procession began
to enter the city. Light horsemen of the Russian Guard opened
the march; at the head of the main column rode the Emperor of
Russia and the King of Prussia. ... Then followed 35,000 men,
cavalry, infantry, and artillery, the elite of the armies, in
all the pride and circumstance of war and conquest. At first
the multitude looked on in silent amazement; but the
affability of the officers, above all, the condescending
manner of the Czar, dispelled any fear they might still
entertain; and shouts of 'Vive Alexander!' began to be heard;
cries of 'Vive le Roi de Prusse!' were soon added. ... The
shouts of welcome increased at every step. The conquerors were
now hailed as liberators; 'Vivent les Allies!' 'Vivent nos
liberateurs!' sounded through the air, mingled at last with
the long-forgotten cry of 'Vive le Roi!' 'Vivent les
Bourbons!' ... The Emperor Alexander had no sooner seen the
troops file past on the Place Louis XV., than he repaired to
the hôtel of Talleyrand, where in the evening, a council was
assembled to deliberate on the important step next to be
taken, and, on the best mode of turning the glorious victories
achieved to an honourable and beneficial account. ... The
points discussed were:
I. The possibility, on sufficient guarantees, of a peace
with Napoleon;
II. The plan of regency under Marie Louise; and,
III. The restoration of the Bourbons.
The choice was not without difficulties. The first plan was
easily dismissed; as the reception of the Allies proved
clearly that the power of Napoleon was broken. The second
seemed more likely to find favour, as promising to please the
Emperor of Austria; but was finally rejected, as being, in
fact, nothing more than a continuance of the Imperial reign
under a different title. Against the restoration of the
Bourbons, it was urged that the nation at large had evinced no
desire for their recall, and seemed to have almost forgotten
them. This, Talleyrand said, was owing entirely to the
Congress of Chatillon, and the negotiations carried on with
Napoleon; introducing at the same time, the Abbé de Pradt and
Baron Louis, who fully confirmed the assertion. On being asked
how he expected to obtain a declaration in favour of the
exiled family, Talleyrand replied, that he was certain of the
Senate; and that their vote would influence Paris, the example
of which would be followed by all France.
{1357}
Alexander having on this assurance taken the opinion of the
King of Prussia and Prince Schwarzenberg, signed a declaration
to the effect that 'the Allies would treat no more with
Napoleon Bonaparte, or with any member of his family.' A
proclamation was issued at the same time, calling on the
conservative Senate to assemble and form a provisional
government, for the purpose of drawing up a constitution
suitable to the wishes of the French people. This the Allies
promised to guarantee; as it was their wish, they said, to see
France 'powerful, happy, and prosperous.' A printer was ready
in attendance; and before dark, this memorable decree was seen
placarded in all the streets of Paris. The inconstant populace
had not even waited for such a sig nal, and had been already
engaged in destroying the emblems of the Imperial government; an
attempt had even been made to pull down the statue of Napoleon
from the summit of the column of Austerlitz, in the Place
Vendome! The decisive impulse thus given, events moved rapidly
forward. Caulaincourt's zealous efforts in favour of his
master could effect nothing after the declaration already
noticed. On the 2d, he took his departure for Fontainbleau;
having, however, received the assurance that Napoleon would be
suitably provided for. ... The funds rose five per cent., and all
other public securities in proportion, on the very day after
the occupation of the capital; and wherever the Allied
Sovereigns appeared in public, they were loudly cheered and
hailed as liberators. From the first, officers of the Allied
armies filled the public walks, theatres, and coffee-houses,
and mixed with the people as welcome guests rather than as
conquering invaders. The press, so long enslaved by Napoleon,
took the most decided part against its oppressor; and from
every quarter injurious pamphlets, epigrams, and satires, now
poured upon the fallen ruler. Madame de Staël had
characterised him as 'Robespierre on horseback'; De Pradt had
more wittily termed him 'Jupiter Scapin'; and these sayings
were not forgotten. But by far the most vivid sensation was
produced by Chateaubriand's tract of 'Bonaparte and the
Bourbons'; 30,000 copies of which are said to have been sold
in two days. In proportion as the popular hatred of the
Emperor evinced itself, grew the boldness of his adversaries.
On the first of April, the Municipal Council of Paris met and
already declared the throne vacant; on the next day, the
Conservative Senate formed a Provisional Government, and
issued a decree, declaring, first,'That Napoleon Bonaparte had
forfeited the throne and the right of inheritance established in
his family; 2d, That the people and army of France were
disengaged and freed from the oath of fidelity which they had
taken to him and his constitution.' ... The members of the
Legislative Assembly who happened to be in Paris, followed the
example of the Senate. The Assembly had been dissolved in
January, and could not meet constitutionally unless summoned
by the Sovereign; this objection was, however, set aside, and
the Assembly having met, ratified the act of deposition passed
by the Senate. All the public functionaries, authorities and
constituted bodies in and near Paris, hastened to send in
their submission to the new powers: it was a general race in
which honour was not always the prize of speed; for every
address, every act of submission sent in to the new
government, teemed with invectives against the deposed ruler.
... It was in the night between the 2d and 3d, that
Caulaincourt returned from his mission, and informed Napoleon
of the events which had passed. ... In what manner the Emperor
received these fatal tidings we are not told. ... At first it
would seem that he entertained, or affected to entertain,
thoughts of resorting to arms; for in the morning he reviewed
his Guard, and addressed them in the following
terms:--'Officers and soldiers of my Old Guard, the enemy has
gained three marches on us, and outstripped us at Paris. Some
factious men, emigrants whom I had pardoned, have surrounded
the Emperor Alexander; they have mounted the white cockade,
and would force us to do the same. In a few days I shall
attack the enemy, and force them to quit the capital. I rely
on you: am I right?' The troops readily replied with loud
cheers to this address, calling out 'To Paris! 'to Paris!' but
the Marshals and senior officers were by no means so zealous
in the cause. ... The Generals and Marshals ... followed the
Emperor to his apartments after the review; and having advised
him to negotiate with the Allies, on the principle of a
personal abdication, ended by informing him, that they would
not accompany him if he persisted in the proposed attack on
Paris. The scene which followed seems to have been of a very
undignified description. Napoleon was almost convulsed with
rage; he tore and trampled under foot the decree of the
Senate; vowed vengeance against the whole body, who should
yet, he said, be made to pay for their deed of 'felony'; but
ended, nevertheless, by ignobly signing the abdication
demanded of him. We say ignobly; for nothing can be more
debasing in character, than to sink down from a very tempest
of passion to tame submission. ... The act of abdication was
worded in the following terms: 'The Allied powers having
proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon is the sole obstacle to
the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon,
faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend
from the throne, to quit France, and even to relinquish life,
for the good of the country, which is inseparable from the
rights of his son, from those of the regency in the person of
the Empress, and from the maintenance of the laws of the
empire. Done at our Palace of Fontainbleau, 4th April 1814.
Napoleon.' Caulaincourt, Marshals Ney and M'Donald, were
appointed to carry this conditional abdication to Paris. ...
The commissioners on returning to Fontainbleau found the
Emperor in his cabinet, impatiently awaiting the result of
their mission. Marshal Ney was the first to speak; and in that
abrupt, harsh and not very respectful tone which he had lately
assumed towards his falling sovereign, told him at once, that
'France, the army and the cause of peace, demanded his
unconditional abdication.' Caulaincourt added, that the full
sovereignty of the Isle of Elba, with a suitable
establishment, had been offered by the Emperor Alexander; and
Marshal M'Donald, who had so zealously defended the cause of
his master, confirmed the statement,--declaring also that, 'in
his opinion, the Imperial cause was completely lost, as they
had all three'--the commissioners--'failed against a
resolution irrevocably fixed.' 'What!' exclaimed Napoleon,
'not only my own abdication, but that of Marie Louise, and of
my son? This is rather too much at once.'
{1358}
And with these words he delayed the answer till next day,
intending, he said, to consider the subject, and consult the
army; ... Words ran high between the fallen chieftain and his
former subordinates; there were altercations, recriminations,
and painful scenes, and it was only when Napoleon had signed
the following unconditional abdication that perfect calm was
restored:--'The Allied Sovereigns having declared that the
Emperor Napoleon is the only obstacle to the re-establishment
of a general peace, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his
oath, declares, that he renounces, for himself and his heirs,
the throne of France and Italy; and that there is no personal
sacrifice, not even that of life itself, which he is not
willing to make for the interest of France. Napoleon.
Fontainbleau, 6th April 1814.' This deplorable document is
written in so agitated and faltering a hand as to be almost
illegible. ... According to the treaty signed at Paris on the
10th, and usually called the Treaty of Fontainbleau, Napoleon,
from being Emperor of France and King of Italy, became Emperor
of Elba! He was to have a guard and a navy suited to the
extent of his dominions, and to receive from France a pension
of six millions of francs annually. The Duchies of Parma,
Placentia and Guastala, were to be conferred in sovereignty on
Marie Louise and her heirs. Two millions and a half of francs
were further to be paid annually by the French government to
the Empress Josephine and other members of the Bonaparte
family. Splendid as these terms were for a dethroned and
defenceless monarch, Napoleon ratified the treaty with
reluctance, and delayed the signature as long as possible;
still clinging, it would seem, to some vague hope of returning
fortune. It is even related by Fain, Norvins, Constant, and in
the pretended Memoirs of Caulaincourt, that he attempted to
commit suicide by taking poison, 'and was only saved by the
weakness of the dose, and the remedies administered by his
attendants, who, hearing his groans, hastened to his bedside.
It is certain that he was very unwell on the following
morning, the 18th April, a circumstance easily accounted for
by the anxiety he had undergone; but there can be little
difficulty in rejecting the tale of poison, for, it is
mentioned in none of the St. Helena Memoirs."
Lieutenant-Colonel J. Mitchell,
The Fall of Napoleon,
book 8, chapter 8 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
M. de Bourrienne,
Private Memoirs of Napoleon,
volume 4, chapters 20-23.
Duke of Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 4, part 1, chapters 4-10.
Prince Talleyrand,
Memoirs,
part 7 (volume 2).
FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (April-June).
Departure of Napoleon for Elba.
Louis XVIII. called to the throne.
Settlement of the constitution.
Evacuation of France by the Allies.
The Treaty of Paris.
Determination of the new boundaries of the kingdom.
"April 20, everything being ready for Napoleon's journey, and
the commissioners of the four great powers who were to
accompany him having arrived, the former drew up the imperial
guard in the grand courtyard at Fontainebleau to take leave of
them. 'Soldiers,' said he, 'I have one mission left to fulfil
in life,--to recount to posterity the glorious deeds we have
done together.' Would to Heaven he had kept his word and done
nothing else! He kissed the flag, and his brave soldiers, who
only saw the man who so often led them on to victory, burst
into tears. Seven or eight hundred of them were to form the
army left to him who had had a million soldiers at his
command, and they were sent in advance, Napoleon going by
another road, unescorted save by General Drouot, Bertrand, and
the four foreign commissioners with their people. In the first
departments through which they passed ... the people who had
been eye-witnesses of the invasion forgot the evil wrought by
Napoleon, and only saw the defender of his country. They
shouted 'Long live the Emperor! Down with foreigners!' But
beyond Lyons, where the foe never penetrated, the population
became hostile: old royalist and Catholic passions were
revived in proportion as they went farther south; the mob
cried 'Long live the King! down with the tyrant!' and others
howled 'Long live the allies!' At Avignon and Organ a furious
rabble attacked the carriages, demanding that the tyrant
should be handed over to them to be hung or thrown into the
Rhone. The man who braved the storm of shot and shell with
utter indifference gave way before these ignoble perils, and
disguised himself; otherwise the commissioners could scarcely
have saved his life at Orgon. The sad journey closed at the
Gulf of St. Raphael, on the coast of Provence. ... An English
frigate awaited him and bore him to Elba, where he landed at
Porto-Ferraio, May 4. While the Empire was crumbling to dust
... and the fallen Emperor went into exile, the new government
was working hard to hold its own at Paris. The royalists were
at sword's points with the national sovereignty party in the
commission chosen by the senate to draw up a constitution. The
pretender's agent, Abbé de Montesquiou, failed to win
acceptance of the principle that royal right is superior to
the nation's will; and the formula adopted was as follows:
'The French people freely call to the throne of France, Louis
Stanislas Xavier de France, brother of the late king, and,
after him, the other members of the house of Bourbon.' Thus
they did not recognize in the king whom they elected the title
of Louis XVIII., and did not admit that between him and his
brother, Louis XVI., there had been a rightful king, the poor
child who died in the Temple and whom royalists called Louis
XVII. The reign of Louis Stanislas Xavier was to date from the
day when he swore allegiance to the Constitution: the
executive power was vested in the king, who shared the
legislative power with the Senate and a Chamber of Deputies.
The Constitution sanctioned individual liberty, freedom of
worship and the press, the sale of national goods, the public
debt, and proclaimed oblivion of all acts committed since the
beginning of the Revolution. The principles of 1789 were
maintained, and in the sad state of France there was nothing
better to be done than to rally round this Constitution, which
was voted by the Senate, April 6, and accepted by the
Legislature. ... The Senate's lack of popularity gave the
royalist party hope that the act of April 6 might be
retracted, and at this time that party won a faint success in
a matter on which they laid great stress. Count d' Artois was
on his way to Paris, and declared that he would not lay aside
the white cockade on entering. The temporary government
ordered the national guard to assume the white cockade, and
let Count d'Artois in without conditions (April 12), He was
received in solemn state, the marshals marching before him,
still wearing their tri-colored cockades and plumes, which the
government dared not attack.
{1359}
The rabble was cold, but the middle classes received the
prince favorably and he proved gracious to every one. ...
D'Artois ... insisted on being recognized, unconditionally, as
lieutenant-general of the kingdom, as he had entered Paris
without making terms; but this time the Senate and temporary
government did not yield. They intended that the prince should
make a solemn promise, in his brother's name, in regard to the
Constitution. The czar interfered and explained to D' Artois
that the allies were pledged to the Senate and the nation, and
he was forced to submit and receive the lieutenant-generalcy
of the kingdom from the Senate, 'until Louis Stanislas Xavier
of France should accept the Constitutional Charter.' ... The
day after his proclamation as lieutenant-general, the white
cockade was finally adopted, and ... imposed upon the army and
various public buildings, though the national cockade was
still worn by many French soldiers from the Garonne to the
Elbe, and many warlike deeds still signalized the final
efforts of their arms, even after Napoleon had laid aside his
sword. ... By degrees the truce became universal, and the next
question was to fix the terms of peace. ... The enemy held
nothing but Paris and the unfortified towns, French garrisons
still occupying all the strongholds of France, old and new,
and several important places far beyond the Rhine. ... This
was a powerful means of gaining, not the preservation of the
natural frontiers, which could no longer be hoped for, but at
least an important advance on the limits of the ancient
monarchy. Unluckily a movement, natural but hasty, broke out
all over France, to claim the immediate evacuation of her soil
by foreign armies;"--an impatience which allowed no time for
bargaining in the matter, and which precipitated an agreement
(April 23) with the allied powers "to leave the French
dominion as it had been on the 1st of January, 1792, in
proportion as the places still occupied beyond those limits by
French troops should be evacuated and restored to the allies.
... This compact surrendered to the allies, without any
compensation, 58 strongholds, 12,600 pieces of ordnance,
arsenals and magazines filled with vast supplies." The new
king, calling himself Louis XVIII., arrived in Paris on the 3d
of May, from England, where he had latterly resided. He had
offended the czar, ruffled public feeling in France, even
before he arrived, by saying publicly to the English people
that he owed his restoration, under Providence, to them.
Negotiations for a definite treaty of peace were opened at
once. "At Metternich's suggestion, the allies decided to
conclude their arrangements with France in Paris, and to
reserve general arrangements with Europe for a congress at
Vienna.
See VIENNA: THE CONGRESS OF.
Talleyrand did not object, although this plan was evidently
unfavorable to France. ... The royal council directed
Talleyrand to try to win for the northern frontier those
million people promised beyond the old limits; but Louis X
VIII., by angering the czar, completed the sad work of April
23. Alexander thought of renewing with the Bourbons the
alliance that he had planned with Napoleon, and marrying to
the Duke de Berri, Louis's nephew, that one of his sisters to
whom Napoleon preferred Marie Louise. Louis ... responded
churlishly to the czar's advances. Accordingly, when France
demanded a solid frontier, including the South of Belgium, ...
Lord Castlereagh absolutely refused, and was supported by
Prussia, hostile to France, and by Austria, indifferent on
that score, but disposed to follow England in everything.
Russia did not side with France. ... The allies were willing
to grant, in place of the old dominion of the monarchy, on the
Rhine side, the line of the Queich, which opened communication
with Landau, and to the southeast the department of Vaucluse
(once County Venaissin) given up by the Pope, besides Chambéry
and a part of Savoy; finally, in the Jura region, Montbéliard.
This made nearly 600,000 people. As for the colonies, England
reluctantly returned Martinique, Guadeloupe, and the Isle of
Bourbon, but refused to restore the Isle de France [or
Mauritius, captured in 1810], that great military post which
is to the Indian Ocean what Malta is to the Mediterranean.
This island was bravely defended for some years by its
governor. ... The English declared that they would also keep
Malta, taken from France, and the Cape of Good Hope, wrested
from Holland, saying that all these belonged to them, being on
the road to India. ... Secret articles provided that Holland,
under the rule of the House of Orange, should be increased by
the countries ceded by France, between the sea, the French
frontier of 1790, and the Meuse (Austrian Netherlands and
Liége). The countries ceded by France on the left bank of the
Rhine were to be divided as 'compensation' among the German
states. Austria was to have the country bounded by the Po,
Ticino, and Lake Maggiore, that is, the old Venetian states,
Milan, and Mantua. The territory of the former Republic of
Genoa was to be given to the King of Sardinia. Such was the
end of the wars of the Empire. Republican France reached the
goal of the old monarchy, the natural limits of ancient Gaul;
the Empire lost them."
H. Martin,
Popular History of France,
volume 2, chapter 17.
"The Peace of Paris [signed May 30] was followed by some
subsidiary treaties. ... By a Convention of June 3rd between
Austria and Bavaria, Maximilian Joseph restored to Austria the
Tyrol with the Vorarlberg, the principality of Salzburg, the
district of the Inn and the Hausrück. During the visit of the
Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia to London in June,
it was agreed that the Article of the Peace of Paris
stipulating the aggrandisement of Holland, should, be carried
out by the annexation of Belgium to that country, an
arrangement which was accepted by the Sovereign of the
Netherlands, July 21st 1814."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapter 16.
ALSO IN:
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Restoration,
books 13-14 and 16 (volumes 1-2).
E. E. Crowe,
History of the Reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles X.,
volume 1, chapter 3.
{1360}
FRANCE: A. D. 1814-1815.
Ten months of Bourbon rule and its follies.
Return of Napoleon from Elba.
Flight of the King.
The Hundred Days.
Preparations for war.
"The peace of Paris did not endure a year. Ten months of
Bourbon rule, vengeful, implacable, stupid; alike violent in
act and in language; sufficed to bring France once more to the
brink of revolution. Two acts alone are sufficient to
demonstrate the folly of the royalists--the resumption of the
white flag, and the changing of the numbers of the regiments.
A prudent king would have adopted the tricolour when he agreed
to a constitutional charter, and would have refrained from
wounding military sensibility by destroying the numbers of the
regiments. But more stupid than these acts was the political
policy pursued, a policy which aroused on all sides suspicions
of what was worse than the grinding but gilded despotism of
Napoleon--namely, that the Government favoured a forcible
resumption of the confiscated lands, the restoration of
tithes, and of the abolished exactions and imposts of
feudalism. It has been surmised, and with much reason, that
had Napoleon not reappeared a popular movement would have
extorted from the king a really constitutional government. In
that case France might have taken some real steps towards a
free government, and the bases of liberty rather than of
equality might have been laid. But while the Powers were
wrangling at Vienna, and the Bourbons were irritating France,
Napoleon was watching from Elba for the opportunity of
resuming empire. It was not in the nature of the man to yield
passively to anything, even to the inevitable. So long as a
chance remained he looked out keenly for the propitious hour.
He selected Elba as a residence because thence 'he could keep
an eye upon France and upon the Bourbons.' It was his duty, he
said, to guard the throne of France for his family and for his
son. Thus, in making peace at Fontainebleau, he only bowed to
a storm he could not then resist, and cherished in his mind
the project of an imperial restoration. The hour for which he
waited came at length. February, 1815, he had arrived at the
conclusion that with the aid of the army he could overthrow
the Bourbons, whose government, he said, was good for priests,
nobles, and countesses of the old time, but worth nothing to
the living generation. The army, he knew, was still, and would
be always, devoted to him. ... He had weighed all the chances
for and against the success of his enterprise, and he had
arrived at the conclusion that he should succeed; for,
'Fortune had never deserted him on great occasions.' It has
been said that his departure was precipitated by a report of
the dissolution of the Congress of Vienna. ... It is possible,
indeed, that the rumour of an intention to confine him upon an
island in the Atlantic may have exercised some influence over
him; but the real reasons for the selection of the 26th of
February were that he was tired of inactivity, and convinced
that the favourable moment had arrived. Therefore, instructing
Murat to second him by assuming a strong position in front of
Ancona, he embarked his faithful Thousand, and set sail for
France. On the 1st of March he landed on the shores of the
Gulf of Juan, and on the 20th he entered the Tuileries. As he
had predicted, the army rallied to the tricolour; the generals
could neither restrain nor guide their soldiers; the Bourbon
dukes and princes, and the brave Duchess of Angoulême--'the
only man of the family'--were utterly powerless before the
universal military disaffection; and one after the other they
were chased out of France. The army had restored Napoleon.
Louis XVIII. drove out of Paris by the road to St. Denis on
the 19th, a few hours before Napoleon, on the 20th, drove in
by the Barrier of Italy; and on the 23rd, after a short stay
at Lille, the King was safe in Ghent. 'The great question is,'
wrote Lord Castlereagh to the Duke of Wellington three days
afterwards, while yet in ignorance of the event, 'can the
Bourbons get Frenchmen to fight for them against Frenchmen?'
The result showed that they could not. In the then state of
France the army was master of France. Louis and his ministers
had done nothing to conciliate, and almost everything to
irritate, the people; and even so early as November, 1814,
Wellington did not see what means the King had of resisting
the attack of a few hundred officers determined to risk
everything. During the period occupied by Napoleon in passing
from Elba to Paris, the conduct of' the sovereigns and
diplomatists assembled at Vienna offered a striking contrast
to the weakness and inaptitude of the Bourbons. ... That there
was fear in Vienna is manifest, but the acts of the Allied
Powers show that fear speedily gave place to resolution. For,
as early as the 12th of' March, before the Allies knew where
Napoleon was, or anything about him, except that he was
somewhere at large in France, they drew up that famous
declaration, and signed it the next day, in which they
declared that he had broken the sole legal tie to which his
existence was attached, and that it was possible to keep with
him 'neither peace nor truce.' 'The Powers, in consequence,'
so runs this document, 'declare that Napoleon Buonaparte is
placed beyond the pale of civil and social relations, and
that, as a common enemy and disturber of the peace of the
world, he has delivered himself over to public justice.' This
declaration, which has been the subject of vehement criticism,
was the natural consequence of the prevailing and correct
appreciation of Napoleon's character. There was not a nation
in Europe which felt the slightest particle of confidence or
trust in him. Hence this declaration, made so promptly, was
drawn up in ignorance of any professions he might make,
because, beforehand, Europe felt that no professions of his
could be relied on. The news of his success was followed by a
treaty, adopted on the 25th of March, renewing the alliance of
Chaumont, whereby Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia
bound themselves to provide each 150,000 men; to employ, in
addition, all their resources, and to work together for the
common end--the maintenance of the Treaty of Paris, and of the
stipulations determined on and signed at the Congress of
Vienna. Further, they engaged not to lay down their arms but
by common consent; nor before the object of the war should
have been attained; nor, continues the document, 'until
Buonaparte shall have been rendered absolutely unable to
create disturbance, and to renew attempts for possessing
himself of supreme power in France.' All the Powers of Europe
generally, and Louis XVIII. specially, were invited to accede
to the treaty; but, at the instance of Lord Castlereagh, the
Four Great Powers declared in the most solemn manner that,
although they desired to see his Most Christian Majesty
restored to the throne, and also to contribute to that
'auspicious result,' yet that their 'principles' would not
permit them to prosecute the war 'with a view of imposing any
particular Government on France.' With Napoleon they refused
to hold any communication whatever; and when he sent couriers
to announce that he intended to observe existing treaties,
they were stopped on the frontiers. ...
{1361}
Wellington, on his own responsibility, acted for England,
signed treaties, undertook heavy engagements in her name, and
agreed to command an army to be assembled in Belgium; and
having satisfied, as well as he could, the clamour of 'all'
for subsidies from England, he took his departure from Vienna
on the 29th of March, and arrived in Brussels on the 4th of
April. The British Parliament and nation confirmed readily the
proceedings of the Government and of the Duke of Wellington at
Vienna. ... Napoleon had formed a Ministry on the very evening
of his return to the Tuileries. ... He felt certain that war
would ensue. Knowing that at the moment when he returned from
Elba a large part of the best troops of England were in
America, that the German force on the Rhine was weak, and that
the Russian armies were in Poland, he calculated that the
Allied Powers would not be in a position to open the campaign,
at the earliest, until the middle of July; and, for a moment,
he hoped that, by working on the feelings of his
father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, and by rousing the
anger of the Emperor Alexander against his allies, he would be
able, if not to reduce his enemies to two, England and
Prussia, at least to defer the period of hostilities until the
autumn. ... Before his great schemes of military preparation
were half complete he found himself compelled by events to
begin the war. What he actually did accomplish between March
and June has been the subject of fierce controversy. His
friends exaggerate, his enemies undervalue, his exertions and
their results. But no candid inquirer can fail to see, that if
his energetic activity during this period is far below that of
the Convention when threatened by Europe, it is far above the
standard fixed by his passionate crimes. The real reason why
he failed to raise a larger military force during the hundred
days was that his genius worked upon exhausted materials. The
nation, to use an expressive vulgarism, was 'used up.' ... The
proper conscription for 1815 had been levied in the autumn of
1813. The drafts on the rising generation had been
anticipated, and hence there remained little available except
the old soldiers. ... The result of Napoleon's prodigious
exertions to augment the military force of France appears to
be this: Napoleon found ready to his hand a force of 228,972
men of all arms, officers included, giving a disposable
effective of 155,000 men ready to take the field. By the 18th
of June he had raised this force to 276,982 men, officers
included: that is 247,609 of the line, and 29,373 of the
Imperial Guard. The number disposable for war was 198,180; and
it therefore follows that Napoleon had increased the general
effective by 53,010 men, and that part of it disposable for
war by 48, 180."
G. Hooper,
Waterloo,
book 1, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
Imbert de Saint-Amand,
The Duchess of Angouléme and the two Restorations,
part 1.
F. P. Guizot,
Memoirs of My Time,
volume 1, chapter 3.
J. C. Ropes,
The First Napoleon,
lecture 6.
E. E. Crowe,
History of the Reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles X.,
volume 1, chapters 4-6.
R. H. Horne,
Life of Napoleon, chapters 41-42.
General Sir N. Campbell,
Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba.
FRANCE: A. D. 1814-1815.
The Congress of Vienna and the fruits of its labors.
See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (June).
Napoleon's last campaign.
His final defeat and overthrow at Waterloo.
"The nearest troops of the allies were the Prussian army in
the Rhenish provinces, and the army of British, Dutch,
Belgians, Bunswickers, and Hanoverians, occupying Belgium.
Napoleon's scheme, the best in his desperate circumstances,
was to expel the British and Prussians, who were moving west,
from Belgium, win the Rhine frontier--to arouse the enthusiasm
of all France--before the Austrians were ready, and carry the
war out of France. The Duke of Wellington proceeded to
Belgium, for the first and last time to measure his skill with
Napoleon's, and Marshal Blücher took over from Kleist the
command of the Prussians. The two armies, the Prussian and the
British, took up a line extending from Liege to the sea. The
country on this line was open along the west, affording by
nature little means of resisting an invasion, but most of the
fortresses commanding the roads had been put in a state of
moderate repair. The Prussians held the line of the Meuse and
Sambre to beyond Charleroi, the head-quarters being at Namur.
They numbered about 117,000 men ... with 312 guns. ... The
motley mass of the British and their allies numbered 106,000
men ... with 196 guns. ... So entirely ignorant were the
allies of Napoleon's movements, that on the very day on which
he burst across the frontier, Wellington wrote to the Czar,
who was at Vienna, respecting the general invasion of France.
At that time the frontier of France approached within six
miles of Charleroi (which is itself but 34 miles by the main
road from Brussels). The Charleroi road was not only the most
direct to Brussels, but was unprotected by fortresses; and the
line of the allied armies was weakest here at the point of
junction between them. ... It was against the central weak
point that Napoleon resolved to move, down the basins of the
Sambre and the Meuse. ... The mass of the troops was being
assembled within a league of the frontier, but behind some
small hills which completely screened them from the enemy's
outposts. To conceal his designs to the last moment, the line
of sentries along the frontier was tripled, and any attempt to
pass the line was forbidden under pain of death. The
arrangements were being carried out by Soult, who on the 2nd
June had been appointed chief of the staff. ... The army
concentrated on the frontier consisted (according to Colonel
Chesney) of 90,000 infantry and 22,000 cavalry--in all 112,000
men--344 guns. ... Napoleon, accompanied by his brother
Jerome, arrived in the camp, and in the evening of the 14th
his soldiers, already elated by his presence, were excited to
the highest pitch of enthusiasm by an address from Napoleon.
... A general order fixed the attack upon the allies' position
for three o'clock in the following morning (15th)." At the
appointed time "the French left was in motion, Reille
proceeding from Solre down the right bank of the Sambre. He
was soon brought into collision with the Prussian outposts
near Thuin: he drove them back and secured at ten o'clock the
bridge of Marchiennes." The movements of other corps were
delayed by various causes. Nevertheless, "of the Prussians
only Ziethen's corps, and of Wellington's army only
Perponcher's Dutch-Belgians, were as yet near the menaced
position; while 40,000 French had passed the Sambre at
Marchiennes and 70,000 more were entering Charleroi. When
Reille deployed in front of Gosselies, the Prussians called in
their detachments and retired from it, upon Fleurus, ...
leaving open the road through Quatre Bras to Brussels.
{1362}
Ney, who had just come up, then took command of the left, ...
which was now directed upon Quatre Bras; and Napoleon galloped
off to the road between Charleroi and Fleurus, where the
retiring Prussians were concentrating. ... At dark Ziethen
[with the First Prussian corps] still held Fleurus with his
advanced guard, and the wood on its south, the bulk of his
troops lay for the night upon the hill of Ligny, above the
village of Bry. His loss during the day's manœuvring has been
estimated at 2,000. On the French left, Ney... had come in
contact with the advance guard of Wellington's army, a
battalion of Nassauers and a light battery, in front of the
village of Frasnes, two miles from Quatre Bras, the name
applied to the farm-buildings at the intersection of the four
main roads,--Brussels, Nivelles, Charleroi, Namur. ... After a
few cannon-shots the outpost fell back from Frasnes to Quatre
Bras." Ney, after a reconnoissance, postponed attack until
morning. "It had been intended by Napoleon that the whole army
should have crossed the Sambre before noon; but from the
several delays ... when night fell on the 15th, half of the
cavalry of the guard, two of Grouchy's reserve divisions,
Lobau's corps, and one-half of Gérard's corps were still on
the south of the river. Apparently relying on secret
information from Paris--which contradicted the rumours that
Napoleon was about to join the army--Wellington had been
lulled into a false security, and the reports as to the
concentration had been neglected. News of the enemy's advance
across the Sambre did not reach him till three o'clock in the
afternoon of the 15th, when the Prince of Orange in person
reported the skirmish at Thuin. As he did not yet know the
point of concentration, the British general, 'never
precipitate or nervous' (Hooper), merely issued orders for all
the troops to be in readiness. ... At night intelligence was
received from Mons that the French concentration was at
Charleroi, and orders were issued for the immediate movement
of the troops. ... Wellington and the Prince of Orange, with
several of the staff' officers, went--it is said, to prevent a
panic in Brussels--to the Duchess of Richmond's ball, where
'Belgium's capital had gathered then her beauty and her
chivalry,' and, 'while all went merry as a marriage bell,' the
staff officers stole away one by one. The Duke himself,
'throwing away golden minutes' (Hamley), as if to show his
confidence in his fortunes, remained to a late hour to return
thanks after supper for the health of the Prince Regent of
Great Britain, which the Prince of Orange proposed. ...
Blücher had received, at his head-quarters at Namur, news on
the morning of the 14th of the French concentration, and he
had ordered forward the corps of Pirch and Thielemann. ...
Napoleon did not foresee Blücher's promptitude, and nothing
was done in the early morning of the 16th to proceed with the
execution of the intended surprise. . . .... No orders were
issued by the Emperor till eight, when Napoleon's resolution
was taken,--to strike at the Prussians, who would, he
believed, if defeated, retire upon their natural base of
communications, through Namur and Liege, and he would thus be
left to deal separately with the British, who could not move
from their base, the sea. The French army was to advance in
two wings, the left under Ney, the right under Grouchy, with
the reserve under the Emperor himself. Ney was to capture
Quatre Bras, reconnoitre the Brussels road, and hold himself
in readiness to march to Brussels, which Napoleon hoped to be
able to enter the following morning. ... Napoleon had 64,000
men to attack the position at Ligny; Ney on the left wing had
45,000 for Quatre Bras; Lobau had 10,000 to support either
wing of the Grand Army; 5,000 troops were in the rear; and the
victorious wing, whether Ney's or Grouchy's, was to wheel
round and manœuvre in the direction of the other. Thielemann
having come up before the French delivered their attack,
Blücher had 85,000 men on the field. Wellington arrived at
Quatre Bras (which is 20 miles from Brussels) at 11 o'clock in
the forenoon. As Marshal Ney gave no sign of an imminent
attack, Wellington galloped over, about seven miles, to confer
with Blücher. ... Wellington, after some discussion, in which
he expressed his disapproval of Blücher's position, agreed to
move to the rear of the Prussians, to act as a reserve, if his
own position at Quatre Bras were not attacked. ... He reached
Quatre Bras when his own position was being assailed, and no
help could be sent to Blücher. ... At about three o'clock,
when the heavy cannonade a few miles to the west intimated
that a desperate battle was in progress at Quatre Bras, the
signal for attack [on the Prussians, at Ligny] was given. The
French left sped forward with impetuosity; the resistance was
vigorous but futile, and the enemy streamed through the
village. Blücher immediately moved forward fresh troops and
re-took the village, but was unable to retain it. ... Thrice
the Grenadiers forced their way into and through the village,
but only to be driven back again." But "Blücher gradually
exhausted his reserves, and when, in the dusk, Napoleon saw
the last battalion moved forward and the ground behind Ligny
vacant, he exclaimed, 'they are lost!' The Guards and the
Cuirassiers were immediately ordered to attack," and the
wearied Prussian infantry were broken by their onset. "The
fugitives led precipitately over the fields and along the
roads to the east, and the order for the whole to retire was
immediately given. ... Blücher himself gathered a few of his
squadrons to check the hot pursuit near Sombreffe, and thrice
led them to the charge. His squadrons were broken, and after
the last charge his horse fell dead, and the veteran marshal
lay under it. His aid-de-camp, Nostitz, stood by him, and
covered him with a cloak; the Cuirassiers galloped past
without noticing him. ... Gneisenau, who took temporary
command from the accident to Blücher, ordered a retreat upon
Wavre, with the view of joining Bülow's corps and keeping open
the communications with Wellington. ... The loss on each side
has been very variously estimated. Napoleon put his own loss
at 7,000 men, Charras puts it at 11,000, and the loss of the
Prussians at 18,000. The retreat upon Wavre abandoned the
communications with Namur and Liege, through which the
Prussian supplies came from the lower Rhine, for a new line by
Louvain, but it kept the Prussians on a line parallel to the
road on which Wellington must retreat, and thus still enabled
the two armies to aid each other. 'This noble daring at once
snatched from Napoleon the hoped-for fruits of his victory,
and the danger Ligny had for a few hours averted was left
impending over him' (Chesney)."
H. R. Clinton,
The War in the Peninsula and Wellington's Campaigns
in France and Belgium, chapter 12.
{1363}
On Wellington's return to Quatre Bras from his interview with
Blücher, he found, as stated above, that the Prince of Orange
had already became desperately engaged with the superior
forces of Ney. "The Duke's presence gave new life to the
battle, and when Picton's division, followed by the
Brunswickers and Van Merle's Belgian horse, arrived, he took
the offensive, pushing forward right up to the edge of the
farm of Gemioncourt. Ney, reinforced by the rest of Reille's
corps and part of Kellerman's cavalry, violently retorted, and
in the charge, which partially broke into spray before the
squares, Wellington ran the risk of death or capture. But he
leaped his horse over the 92d Highlanders lining the ditch on
the Namur road, while his gallant pursuers, cut up by the
infantry fire, were killed or driven off. Ney was further
reinforced by more guns and cavalry, and Wellington's brigades
continued to arrive in parcels. The Marshal was always
superior in horsemen and cannon, but after 5 o'clock his
opponent had larger numbers of foot. Holding firmly to the
cross-roads and, the highway to Namur, Wellington became the
stronger as the day waned; and when the Guards emerged from
the Nivelles road and the Allies pressed forward, Ney, who had
no fresh troops, was driven back, and his antagonist remained
at sundown master of the whole field of battle. The position
was maintained, but the cost was great, for there were no
fewer than 4,600 killed and wounded, more than half being
British soldiers. The thunder of cannon to the eastward had
also died away, but none knew as yet at Quatre Bras how
Blücher had fared at the hands of his redoubtable foe.
Wellington, who slept at his head-quarters in Genappe, was on
the field and scrutinising his outposts at daybreak an the
17th. Soon after came a report, confirmed a little later, that
the Prussians had retreated on Wavre. ... Napoleon had a
belief that Blücher would retreat upon Liège, which caused him
at a late hour in the day to despatch Grouchy to that side,
and thus touch was lost. While the French were cooking and
Napoleon was pondering, definite intelligence was brought to
Wellington, who, learning for certain that Blücher was at
Wavre, promised to stand fast himself at Mont St. Jean and
fight, if Blücher would support him with two corps. The
intrepid Marshal replied that he would came with his whole
army, and Wellington got the famous answer before night. Thus
was made, between generals who thoroughly trusted each other,
that combination which led to the Battle of Waterloo. It was
no chance combat, but the result of a deliberate design,
rendered capable of execution, even when Blücher was wounded,
by his resolve to retreat upon Wavre, and by Napoleon, who
acted on conjecture that the Prussians would hurry towards
their base at Liege. The morning at Quatre Bras was peaceful;
the Allies cooked their food before starting rearward.
Wellington, it is said, lay down for a moment, and snatched
perhaps a little sleep. There was no stir in front or on the
exposed left flank; and, covered by a strong display of
horsemen, the Allied divisions tramped steadily towards Mont
St. Jean. ... The retreat continued all day. A thunderstorm,
so often a precursor of Wellington's battles, deluged the
fields with rain, and pursuer and pursued struggling through
the mire, were drenched to the skin by nightfall. ... The
results of two days' warfare may be thus summed up. Napoleon
had inflicted a defeat, yet not a decisive defeat, upon the
Prussians, who escaped from his ken to Wavre. He had then, at
a late hour on the 17th, detached Grouchy with 33,000 men to
follow them, and Grouchy at night from Gembloux reported that
they had retired in three directions. Moving himself in the
afternoon, Napoleon, uniting with Ney, had pursued Wellington
to Mont St. Jean, and slept in the comfortable belief that he
had separated the Allies. At that very time Wellington, who
had assembled his whole force except 17,000 men, ... was in
close communication with Blücher, and intended on the 18th to
stop Napoleon by delivering battle, and to hold him fast until
Blücher could cut in on his right flank and rear. Thus it was
the Allies who were united practically, and the French army
which was separated into two groups unable to support each
other. ... The tempest which burst over the retreating columns
on the 17th followed them to their bivouacs and raged all
night, and did not cease until late on the fateful Sunday.
Wellington, mounting his faithful Copenhagen at break of day,
rode from the village of Waterloo to the field, where the
armies on both sides, protected by watchful sentries, were
still contending with the mischiefs inflicted by the storm.
The position was the crest of a gentle slope stretching from
Smohain to the Nivelles road, having upon and in advance of
its right the château, garden, and wood of Hougoumont, and in
the centre, where the Charleroi road cut through the little
ridge, the farm of La Haye Sainte. Both these posts were
occupied, but the latter, unfortunately, not so solidly as
Hougoumont. ... The position was well filled by the 69,000 men
of all arms and 156 guns which were present that day.
Napoleon, who slept at the farm of Caillou, and who had been
out on foot to the front during the night, was also early in
the field, and glad of the gift which he thought fortune had
placed in his hands. When Reille had joined him from Genappe,
he had 72,000 men, all admirable soldiers, and 240 guns, with
which to engage in combat, and he reckoned that the chances
were ninety to ten in his favour. He mounted his charger,
reconnoitred his opponent's position, and then gave the orders
which, promptly and finely obeyed, disclosed the French array.
... It was now nearly eleven o'clock, and, although his
opponent knew it not, Wellington had got news of the march
from Wavre of Bulow, whose leading troops were actually, at
that time, close to the wood of St. Lambert on the French
right; while Grouchy was at Sart les Walhain, between Gembloux
and Wavre. It is not practicable here to give a full account of
the battle of Waterloo; we can only describe its broad
outlines. The first gun was fired about twenty or thirty
minutes past eleven, and preluded a dashing and sustained
attack an Hougoumont, which failed to carry the house, garden,
or orchard, but did gain the wood. It was probably intended to
divert attention from the attack on the left and centre, which
Ney, massing his guns opposite the British left, was preparing
to execute. Wellington watched and in some measure controlled
the fight for Hougoumont, and then rode off to the centre,
taking post at a solitary tree which grew near the Charleroi
road above La Haye Sainte.
{1364}
Ney at half past one sent forward the whole of D'Erlon's
corps, and although some of them pushed close up to and over
the Wavre road, stormed the orchard of La Haye Sainte and took
the Pappelotte farm, yet at the critical moment Sir William
Ponsonby's Union Brigade of horse charged into the French
infantry, already shattered by the fire of Picton's troops,
and the net result of the combined operation was that two
eagles and 3,000 prisoners were captured, while nearly that
number of killed and wounded remained on the ground. On the
other side of La Haye Sainte the Household Brigade, led by
Lord Anglesea in person, charged in upon and routed a large
body of French cuirassiers. The grand attack thus completely
failed, and the centre, like the right, remained intact. It
was just before this combat began that Napoleon saw something
like troops towards St. Lambert and despatched two brigades of
light cavalry to reconnoitre. A Prussian staff officer was
caught beyond Planchenoit, and from him came the unexpected
and unwelcome information that the whole Prussian army was
approaching. ... The signs of danger on his right flank, the
punishment of D'Erlon's corps, the ineffectual attempt upon
the British Guards in and about Hougoumont, were followed by a
kind of pause and the combat reverted to cannonading and
skirmishing. But towards four o'clock Napoleon, increasing the
fire of his artillery, threw forward a mass of cavalry, forty
squadrons, and then began that series of reiterated onsets of
horse which lasted for two hours. ... Twice they were driven
down the slope, and the third time, when they came on, they
were strengthened by Kellerman and Guyot until they reached a
force of 77 squadrons, or 12,000 men; but these also were
repulsed, the British horse, what remained of them, charging
when the French were entangled among the squares and
disordered by the musketry and guns. Four times these fine
troopers charged, yet utterly failed to penetrate or move a
single foot battalion. But some time before the final effort,
Ney by a fierce attack got possession of La Haye Sainte, and
thus, just as the cavalry were exhausted, the French infantry
were established within sixty yards of the Allied centre. And
although the Emperor was obliged to detach one-half of his
Guard to the right, because Blucher had brought into play
beyond Planchenoit against Lobau nearly 80,000 men, still the
capture of La Haye Sainte was justly regarded as a grave
event. Wellington during the cavalry fight had moved three
brigades on his right nearer to Hougoumont, and had called up
Chassé and his Belgians to support them; and it was a little
before this time that he cried out to Brigadier-General Adam,
'By G--, Adam, I think we shall beat them yet! ... The crisis
of the battle had come for Napoleon. Unable after eight hours'
conflict to do more than capture La Haye Sainte; hardly
pressed by the Prussians, now strong and aggressive; owing
such success as he had obtained to the valour and discipline
of his soldiers--the Emperor delivered his last stroke, not
for victory--he could no longer hope to win--but for safety.
He sent forward the last ten battalions of his Guard to assail
the British right, and directed the whole remaining infantry
force available to attack all along the line. The Guard
marched onward in two columns, which came successively in
contact with their opponents. Napier's guns and the British
Guards, who rising from the ground showed across the head of
the first column, fired heavily and charging drove them in
confusion back towards La Belle Alliance; and the second
column, struck in flank by the musketry of the 52nd and 95th
was next broken by a bayonet charge and pursued by Colonel
Colborne to and beyond the Charleroi road. As Ziethen's
Prussians were falling upon the French near Pappelotte, and
Pirch and Bulow wrestling with the Imperial Guard in
Planchenoit, Wellington ordered the whole of the British line
to advance. The cheers arising on the right where he was,
extended along the front and gave new strength to the wearied
soldiers. He led the way. As he neared the Charleroi road, the
riflemen, full of Peninsular memories, began to cheer him as
he galloped up, but he called out, 'No cheering, my lads;
forward and complete your victory.' He found that good
soldier, Colborne, halted for a moment before three squares of
the rallied Imperial Guard. 'Go on, Colborne,' he said;
'better attack them, they won't stand.' Nor did they.
Wellington then turned to the right, where Vivian's Light
Cavalry were active in the gloom, and we next find him once
more with the 52nd near Rossomme, the farthest point of the
advance, where that regiment halted after its grand march over
the battlefield. Somewhere on the highway he met Blucher, who had
so nobly kept his word, and it was then that Gneisenau
undertook to chase the fugitives over the frontier. The
French, or perhaps we should say the Napoleonic army, was
destroyed, and the power which its mighty leader had built up
on the basis of its astonishing successes was gone for ever."
G. Hooper,
Wellington,
chapter 9.
ALSO IN:
D. Gardner,
Quatre Bras, Ligny, and Waterloo.
Lieutenant Colonel C. C. Chesney,
Waterloo Lectures.
W. Siborne,
History of the War in France and Belgium in 1819.
General Sir J. S. Kennedy,
Notes on the Battle of Waterloo.
W. H. Maxwell,
Life of Wellington,
volume 8, chapters 28-32.
G. R. Gleig,
Story of the Battle of Waterloo.
W. O'C. Morris,
Great Commanders of Modern Times,
and the Campaign of 1815.
FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (June-August).
Napoleon's return to Paris.
His final abdication.
His surrender of himself to the English.
His captivity at St. Helena.
"The vanquished army had lost 200 pieces of ordnance, and
80,000 men hors de combat or prisoners; as many more remained,
independently of Grouchy's 85,000 men; but the difficulty was
to rally them in presence of an enemy, that had taken lessons
in audacity and activity from Napoleon himself. The loss of
the allies was not less considerable, but there remained to
them 150,000 men, the confidence of victory, and the certainty
of being seconded by 300,000 allies, who were crossing the
Rhine from Mentz to Bäle. Such was the issue of this struggle,
commenced under such happy auspices, and which resulted more
fatal to France than the battles of Poitiers and Azincourt. It
must be admitted, that this disaster was the work of a
multitude of unheard-of circumstances: if Napoleon can be
reproached for certain faults, it must be allowed that fortune
dealt cruelly with him in the lesser details, and that his
enemies, in return, were as fortunate as they showed
themselves skillful.
{1365}
However unjust be the spirit of party, we are forced to render
homage to the merits of two generals, who, unexpectedly
attacked in their cantonments extending from Dinant and Liège
to Renaix, near Tournay, had taken such wise measures as to be
in condition next morning for giving battle to equal forces,
and for afterwards conquering by an able concentration of the
two armies. ... In the very battle of Waterloo, the French
might be censured for having attempted the first attack in
masses too deep. This system was never successful against the
murderous fire of English infantry and artillery. ... There
were likewise extraordinary charges of cavalry, which, being
devoid of support, became heroic but useless struggles.
Notwithstanding all this, it is almost certain that Napoleon
would have remained master of the field of battle, but for the
arrival of 65,000 Prussians on his rear; a decisive and
disastrous circumstance, that to prevent was not entirely in
his power. As soon as the enemy led 130,000 men on the
battle-field, with scarcely 50,000 to oppose them, all was
lost. ... Napoleon had but one course left him, which was to
direct Grouchy through the Ardennes on Laon; to collect at
this point all that could be drawn from the interior, from
Metz and from Rapp's corps, leaving but garrisons in Lorraine
and Alsace. The imperial cause was very much shaken, put not
entirely lost; should all Frenchmen determine on opposing
Europe with the courage of the Spartans of Leonidas, the
energy of the Russians in 1812, or of the Spaniards of
Palafox. Unfortunately for them, as·for Napoleon, opinion was
very much divided on this subject, and the majority still
believing that the struggle interested only the power of the
emperor and his family, the fate of the country seemed of
little consequence. Prince Jerome had collected 25,000 men in
rear of Avesnes: he was ordered to lead them to Laon; there
remained 200 pieces of artillery, beside those of Grouchy. ...
Reaching Loon on the 19th, where he had at first resolved to
await the junction of Grouchy and Jerome, the emperor
discussed, with the small number of the trustworthy who had
followed him, the course he should adopt after this frightful
disaster. Should he repair to Paris, and concert with the
chambers and his ministers, or else remain with the army,
demanding of the chambers to invest him with dictatorial power
and an unlimited confidence, under the conviction that he
would obtain from them the most energetic measures, for saving
France and conquering her independence, on heaps of ruins? As
it always happens, his generals were divided in opinion; some
wished him to proceed to Paris, and deposit the crown into the
hands of the nation's delegates, or receive it from them a
second time, with the means of defending it. Others, with a
better appreciation of the views of the deputies, affirmed,
that far from sympathizing with Napoleon, and seconding him,
they would accuse him of having lost France, and would
endeavor to save the country by losing the emperor. ...
Lastly, the most prudent thought that Napoleon should not go
to Paris, but remain at the head of the army, in order to
treat with the sovereigns himself, by offering to abdicate in
favor of his son. It is said, that Napoleon inclined to the
idea of remaining at Laon with the army; but the advice of the
greatest number determined him, and he departed for Paris."
Baron de Jomini,
History of the Campaign of Waterloo,
pages 184-189.
"It was a moment of unrelieved despair for the public men who
gathered round him on his return to Paris, and among these
were several whose fame was of earlier date than his own. La
Fayette, the man of 1789; Carnot, organizer of victory to the
Convention; Lucien, who had decided the revolution of
Brumaire,--all these met in that comfortless deliberation.
Carnot was for a dictatorship of public safety, that is, for
renewing his great days of 1793; Lucien too liked the Roman
sound of the word dictator. 'Dare!' he said to his brother,
but the spring of that terrible will was broken at last. 'I
have dared too much already;' said Napoleon. Meanwhile, in the
Chamber of Representatives the, word was not dictatorship but
liberty. Here La Fayette caused the assembly to vote itself
permanent, and to declare guilty of high treason whoever
should attempt to dissolve it. He hinted that, if the word
abdication were not soon pronounced on the other side, he
would himself pronounce the word 'dechéance.' The second
abdication took place on June 22d. 'I offer myself a sacrifice
to the hatred of the enemies of France. My public life is
finished, and I proclaim my son, under the title of Napoleon
II., Emperor of the French.' On the 25th he retired to
Malmaison, where Josephine had died the year before. He had by
no means yet ceased to hope. When his son was passed over by
the Chamber of Representatives, who named an executive
commission of five, he protested that he had not intended to
make way for a new Directory. ... On the 27th he went so far
as to offer his services once more as general, 'regarding
myself still as the first soldier of the nation;' He was met
by a refusal, and left Malmaison on the 29th for Rochefort,
well furnished with books on the United States. France was by
this time entering upon another Reign of Terror. Massacre had
begun at Marseilles as early as the 25th. What should Napoleon
do? He had been formerly the enemy of every other nation, and
now he was the worst enemy, if not of France, yet of the
triumphant faction in France. He lingered some days at
Rochefort, where he had arrived on July 3d, and then, finding
it impossible to escape the vigilance of the English cruisers,
went on the 15th on board the 'Bellerophon' and surrendered
himself to Captain Maitland. It was explained to him that no
conditions could be accepted, but that he would be 'conveyed
to England to be received in such manner as the Prince Regent
should deem expedient:' He had written at the Île d'Aix the
following characteristic letter to the Prince Regent:--'Royal
Highness,--A prey to the factions which divide my country and
to the enmity of the powers of Europe, I have terminated my
public career, and I come, like Themistocles, to seat myself
at the hearth of the British people. I place myself under the
protection of its laws, which I claim from your Royal Highness
as the most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous
of my enemies.' It was perhaps the only course open to him. In
France his life could scarcely have been spared, and Blücher
talked of executing him on the spot where the Duc d'Enghien
had fallen. He therefore could do nothing but what he did. His
reference to Themistocles shows that he was conscious of
being the worst enemy that England had ever had.
{1366}
Perhaps he remembered that at the rupture of the treaty of
Amiens he had studied to envenom the contest by detaining the
English residents in France. Still he might reflect, on the
other hand, that England was the only great country which had
not been trampled down and covered with massacre by his
soldiers. It would have been inexcusable if the English
Government had given way to vindictive feelings, especially as
they could well afford to be magnanimous, having just won the
greatest of all victories. But it was necessary to deprive him
of the power of exciting new wars, and the experiment of Elba
had shown that this involved depriving him of his liberty. The
frenzy which had cost·the lives of millions must be checked. This
was the principle laid down in the declaration of March 15th,
by which he had been excommunicated as a public enemy. It was
therefore necessary to impose some restraint upon him. He must
be separated from his party and from all the revolutionary
party in Europe. So long as he remained in Europe this would
involve positive imprisonment. The only arrangement therefore
which would allow him tolerable personal comfort and enjoyment
of life, was to send him out of Europe. From these
considerations grew the decision of the Government to send him
to St. Helena. An Act of Parliament was passed 'for the better
detaining in custody Napoleon Bonaparte,' and another Act for
subjecting St. Helena to a special system of government. He
was kept on board the 'Bellerophon' till August 4th, when he
was transferred to the 'Northumberland.' On October 15th he
arrived at St. Helena, accompanied by Counts Montholon, Las
Cases, and Bertrand, with their families, General Gourgaud,
and a number of servants. In April, 1816, arrived Sir Hudson
Lowe, an officer who had been knighted for bringing the news
of the capture of Paris in 1814, as governor. The rest of his
life, which continued till May 5, 1821, was occupied partly in
quarrels with this governor, which have now lost their
interest, partly in the task he had undertaken at the time of
his first abdication, that of relating his past life. He did
not himself write this narrative, nor does it appear that he
even dictated it word for word. It is a report made partly by
General Gourgaud, partly by Count Montholon, of Napoleon's
impassioned recitals; but they assure us that this report, as
published, has been read and corrected throughout by him. It
gives a tolerably complete account of the period between the
siege of Toulon and the battle of Marengo. On the later period
there is little, except a memoir on the campaign of 1815, to
which the editors of the Correspondence have been able to add
another on Elba and the Hundred Days."
J. R. Seeley,
Short History of Napoleon I.,
chapter 6, section 5.
ALSO IN:
Count de Las Cases,
Life, Exile and Conversations of Napoleon.
General Count Montholon,
History of the Captivity of Napoleon.
W. Forsyth,
History of the Captivity of Napoleon.
B. E. O'Meara,
Napoleon in Exile.
Sir W. Scott,
Life of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapters 49-56.
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and the Empire,
chapters 61-62 (volume 5).
FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (July-November).
English and Prussian armies in Paris.
Return of Louis XVIII.
Restoration of the art-spoils or Napoleon.
Indemnities demanded.
Russian, Austrian and Spanish armies on French soil.
The second Treaty or Paris.
"The 7th of July was the proudest day in the annals of
England. On that day her victorious army, beaded by
Wellington, made their public entry, along with the Prussians,
into Paris, where an English drum had not been heard for
nearly four hundred years. ... The French regarded them with
melancholy hearts and anxious looks. Few persons were to be
seen in the streets. ... The English established themselves in
the Bois de Boulogne in a regular camp; the Prussians
bivouacked in the churches, on the quays, and in the principal
streets. On the following day Louis, who had followed in the
rear of the English army from Ghent, made his public entrance,
escorted by the national guard. But his entry was attended by
still more melancholy circumstances, and of sinister augury to
the future stability of his dynasty. Even the royalists were
downcast; their patriotic feelings were deeply wounded by the
defeat of France. ... There was something in the restoration
of the monarch by the arms of the old rivals and enemies of
France which added inexpressibly to its bitterness. ... The
reality of subjugation was before their eyes. Blucher kept
aloof from all intercourse with the court, and haughtily
demanded a contribution of 100,000,000 francs ... for the pay
of his troops, as Napoleon had done from the Prussians at
Berlin. Already the Prussian soldiers insisted with loud cries
that the pillar of Austerlitz should be pulled down, as
Napoleon had destroyed the pillar of Rosbach; and Blucher was
so resolute to destroy the bridge of Jena, that he had
actually begun operations by running mines under the arches
for blowing it up. ... Wellington as steadily resisted the
ruthless act, but he had great difficulty in maintaining his
point; and it was only by his placing a sentinel on the
bridge, and repeated and earnest remonstrances, that the
destruction of that beautiful monument was prevented. ... A
still more melancholy humiliation than they had yet
experienced ere long befell the French nation. The Allied
sovereigns now arrived in Paris, and insisted upon the
restoration of the objects of art in the museum of the Louvre,
which had been pillaged from their respective states by the
orders of Napoleon. The justice of this demand could not be
contested: it was only wresting the prey from the robber. ...
Nothing wounded the French so profoundly as this breaking up
of the trophies of the war. It told them, in language not to
be misunderstood, that conquest had now reached their doors:
the iron went into the soul of the nation. A memorial from all
the artists of Europe at Rome claimed for the Eternal City the
entire restoration of the immortal works of art which had once
adorned it. The Allied sovereigns acceded to the just demand;
and Canova, impassioned for the arts and the city of his
choice, hastened to Paris to superintend the removal. It was
most effectually done. The bronze horses ... [from Venice]
were restored to their old station in front of the Church of
St. Mark. The Transfiguration and the Last Communion of St.
Jerome resumed their place in the halls of the Vatican; the
Apollo and the Laocoon again adorned the precincts of St.
Peter's; the Venus was enshrined anew amidst beauty in the
Tribune of Florence; and the Descent from the Cross by Rubens
was restored to the devout worship of the Flemings in the
cathedral of Antwerp. ...
{1367}
The claims preferred by the different Allied powers for
restitution not merely of celebrated objects of art, but of
curiosities and valuable articles of all kinds, which had been
carried off by the French during their occupation of the
different countries of Europe, especially under Napoleon, were
immense, and demonstrated at once the almost incredible length
to which the system of spoliation and robbery had been carried
by the republican and imperial authorities. Their amount may
be estimated by one instance from an official list, prepared
by the Prussian authorities in 1815, It appears that, during
the years 1806 and 1807, there had been violently taken from
the Prussian states, on the requisition of M. Donore, and
brought to Paris,--statues, paintings, antiquities, cameos,
manuscripts, maps, gems, antiques, rarities, and other
valuable articles, the catalogue of which occupies 53 closely
printed pages of M. Schoell's valuable Recueil. Among them are
127 paintings, many of them of the very highest value, taken from
the palaces of Berlin and Potsdam alone; 187 statues, chiefly
antique, taken from the same palaces during the same period;
and 86 valuable manuscripts and documents seized in the city
of Aix-la-Chapelle, on the occupation of that city, then a
neutral power, in 1803, by the armies of the First Consul on
the invasion of Hanover. The total articles reclaimed by the
Prussians exceeded two thousand. ... The claims of states and
cities for indemnity on account of' the enormous exactions
made from them by the French generals, under the authority of
the Convention and the Emperor, were still more extraordinary.
... The vast amount of these claims for indemnities in money
or territories, and the angry feelings with which they were
urged, were of sinister augury to the French nation, and
augmented, in a most serious degree, the difficulties
experienced by those who were intrusted with the conduct of
the negotiations. But, be they what they may, the French had
no means of resisting them; all they could trust to was the
moderation or jealousies of their conquerors. The force which,
during the months of July and August, advanced from all
quarters into their devoted territory, was immense, and such
as demonstrated that, if Napoleon had not succeeded in
dissolving the alliance by an early victory in the
Netherlands, the contest, even without the battle of Waterloo,
would have been hopeless. The united armies of Russians and
Austrians, 350,000 strong, under Schwartzenberg and Barclay de
Tolly, crossed the Rhine in various places from Bâle to
Coblentz, and, pressing rapidly forward, soon occupied the
whole eastern provinces of France. The Austrians and
Piedmontese, a hundred thousand more; passed Mont Cenis, or
descended the Rhone, from Geneva to Lyons. The Spaniards made
their appearance in Bearn or Roussillon. The armies of Blucher
and Wellington, now reinforced to 200,000 effective men,
occupied Paris, its environs, Normandy, and Picardy. Eighty
thousand Prussians and Germans, in addition, were advancing
through the Rhenish provinces and Belgium. Before the Allied
sovereigns returned to Paris, in the middle of July, the
French territory was occupied by 800,000 men, to oppose which
no considerable force remained but the army beyond the Loire,
which mustered 65,000 combatants. ... Austria insisted upon
getting back Lorraine and Alsace; Spain put in a claim to the
Basque provinces; Prussia alleged that her security would be
incomplete unless Mayence, Luxembourg, and all the frontier
provinces of France adjoining her territory, were ceded to
her; and the King of the Netherlands claimed the whole of the
French fortresses of the Flemish barrier. The monarchy of
Louis seemed on the eve of dissolution; and so complete was
the prostration of the vanquished, that there appeared no
power capable of preventing it. It was with no small
difficulty, and more from the mutual jealousies of the
different powers than any other cause, that these natural
reprisals for French rapacity were prevented from taking
place. The negotiation was protracted at Paris till late in
autumn; Russia, which had nothing to gain by the proposed
partition, took part with France throughout its whole
continuance; and the different powers, to support their
pretensions in this debate, maintained their armies, who had
entered on all sides, on the French soil; so that above
800,000 foreign troops were quartered on its inhabitants for
several months. At length, however, by the persevering efforts
of Lord Castlereagh, M. Nesselrode, and M. Talleyrand, all
difficulties were adjusted, and the second treaty of Paris was
concluded in November 1815, between France and the whole
Allied powers. By this treaty, and the relative conventions
which were signed the same day, conditions of a very onerous
kind were imposed upon the restored government. The French
frontier was restored to the state in which it stood in 1790,
by which means the whole of the territory, far from
inconsiderable, gained by the treaty of 1814, was resumed by
the Allies. In consequence of this, France lost the fortresses
of Landau, Sarre-Louis, Philipville, and Marienburg, with the
adjacent territory of each. Versoix, with a small district
round it, was ceded to the canton of Geneva; the fortress of
Huningen was to be demolished; but the little country of the
Venaisin, the first conquest of the Revolution, was preserved
to France. Seven hundred millions of francs (£28,000,000
sterling) were to be paid to the Allied powers for the
expenses of the war; in addition to which it was stipulated
that an army of 150,000 men, composed of 80,000 from each of
the great powers of England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, and
the lesser powers of Germany, was to occupy, for a period not
less than three, or more than five years, the whole frontier
fortresses of France; ... and this large force was to be
maintained entirely at the expense of the French government.
In addition to this, the different powers obtained indemnities
for the spoliations inflicted on them by France during the
Revolution, which amounted to the enormous sum of 735,000,000
of francs more (£29,400,000 sterling). A hundred millions of
francs were also provided to the smaller powers as an
indemnity for the expenses of the war; so that the total sums
which France had to pay, besides maintaining the army of
occupation, amounted to no less than fifteen hundred and
thirty-five millions of francs, or £61,400,000 sterling. ...
Great Britain, in a worthy spirit, surrendered the whole sum
falling to her out of the indemnity for the war, amounting to
nearly £5,000,000 sterling, to the King of the Netherlands, to
restore the famous barrier against France which Joseph II. had
so insanely demolished."
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 95 (volume 20).
ALSO IN:
Prince de Talleyrand,
Memoirs,
part 9 (volume 8).
E. Hertslet,
The Map of Europe by Treaty,
Number 40 (volume 1).
{1368}
FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (September).
The Holy Alliance.
See HOLY ALLIANCE.
FRANCE: A. D. 1815-1830.
The restored monarchy.
Louis XVIII. and Charles X.
Career of the Reactionaries.
Conquest of Algiers.
Ordinances of July.
Revolution.
Abdication and exile of the king.
"France was defeated but not crushed. Indeed she had gained
Avignon and some districts of Alsace since 1792, and she had
gained social and political stability by having millions of
peasants as small proprietors in the soil; moreover, as
Napoleon always waged his wars at the expense of his conquered
foes, the French national debt was after all the wars only
one-sixth of the debt of Great Britain. So France soon rose to
a position of strength and prosperity hardly equalled in all
Europe, in spite of bad harvests, political unrest, and the
foreign occupation which ended in 1818. The royalists, after a
quarter of a century of repression, now revenged themselves
with truly French vehemence. In France a victorious party
generally crushes its opponents; and the elections, held
during the full swing of the royalist reaction, sent up to
Paris a Legislative Assembly 'more royalist than the king
himself.' Before it assembled, Louis XVIII., in spite of his
promise only to punish those who were declared by the Assembly
to be traitors, proscribed fifty-seven persons who had
deserted to Napoleon in the 'Hundred Days.' ... Of the
proscribed men thirty-eight were banished and a few were shot.
Among the latter the most illustrious was Marshal Ney, whose
past bravery did not shield him from the extreme penalty for
the betrayal of the military oath. ... This impolitic
execution rankled deep in the breasts of all Napoleon's old
soldiers, but for the present all opposition was swept away in
the furious tide of reaction. Brune, one of Napoleon's
marshals, was killed by the royalist populace of Avignon; and
the Protestants of the south, who were suspected of favouring
Napoleon's home policy, suffered terrible outrages at Nimes
and Uzès in this 'white terror.' The restored monarchy had far
stronger executive powers than the old system wielded before
1789, for it now drew into its hands the centralised powers
which, under the Directory and the Empire, had replaced the
old cumbrous provincial system; but even this gain of power
did not satisfy the hot-headed royalists of the Chamber. They
instituted judicial courts under a provost (prévôt), which
passed severe sentences without right of appeal. Dismissing
the comparatively Liberal ministers Talleyrand and Fouché,
Louis in September 1816 summoned a more royalist ministry
under the Duc de Richelieu, which was itself hurried on by the
reactionaries. Chateaubriand fanned the flames of royalist
passion by his writings, until the king even found it
necessary to dissolve this mischievous Chamber, and the new
deputies who assembled (February 1817) showed a more moderate
spirit. France was soon delivered from the foreign armies of
occupation, for the sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and
Prussia, meeting at Aix-la-Chapelle (September 1818), in order
to combat revolutionary attempts, decided that an early
evacuation of French territory would strengthen the Bourbon
rule in France; and they renewed the Quadruple Alliance, which
aimed at upholding existing treaties. The discontent in
Germany and Italy awakened a sympathetic echo in France, which
showed itself in the retirement of the Duc de Richelieu and
the accession of a more progressive minister, Decazes
(November 1819). This check to the royalist reaction was soon
swept away by an event of sinister import. The Duc de Berry,
second son of the Comte d'Artois, was assassinated (February
1820), as he was leaving the opera-house, by a fanatic who
aimed at cutting off the direct Bourbon line (February 1820).
His design utterly failed, for a posthumous son, the
celebrated Comte de Chambord, was born in September 1820; and
the only result was a new outburst of royalist fury. Liberty
of the press was suspended, and a new complicated electoral
system restricted the franchise to those who paid at least
1,000 francs a year in direct taxation: the, Chamber of
Deputies, a fifth part of which was renewed every year by an
electorate now representing only the wealthy, became every
year more reactionary, while the Left saw its numbers decline.
The Ultra-royalist ministry of Villèle soon in its turn
aroused secret conspiracies, for the death of Napoleon (May 5,
1821) was now awakening a feeling of regret for the
comparative liberty enjoyed in France during the Empire.
Military conspiracies were formed, only to be discovered and
crushed, and the veteran republican Lafayette was thought to
be concerned in a great attempt projected in the eastern
departments with its headquarters at Belfort; and the terrible
society of the Carbonari secretly spread its arms through the
south of France, where it found soil as favourable as in Italy
itself. ... A revolution in Spain held Ferdinand a prisoner in
his palace at Madrid. Louis determined to uphold the throne of
his Bourbon relative, and sent an army which quickly effected
its object (1823). 'The Pyrenees no longer exist,' exclaimed
Louis XVIII. In fact, everywhere in Europe absolutism seemed
to be triumphant, and the elections of December 1823 sent up a
further reinforcement to the royalist party; also the
approaching end of the sensible old king foreshadowed a period
of still more violent reaction under his hot-headed brother
Charles. Louis XVIII. died on September 16, 1824, At his death
the restoration seemed firmly established. ... France had
quickly recovered from twenty years of warfare, and was
thought to have the strongest government in Europe. Always the
chief of the reactionary nobles, Charles had said, 'It is only
Lafayette and I who have not changed since 1789.' Honest,
sincere, and affable as the new king was, yet his popularity
soon vanished when it was seen how entirely he was under the
control of his confessor; and the ceremonies of his coronation
at Rheims showed that he intended to revive the almost
forgotten past. In Guizot's words, 'Louis XVIII was a moderate
of the old system and a liberal-minded inheritor of the 18th
century: Charles X. was a true Émigré, and a submissive bigot'
Among the first bills which Charles proposed to the Chambers was
one to indemnify those who had lost their lands in the
Revolution. To give these lands back would have caused general
unsettlement among thousands of small cultivators; but the
former landowners received an indemnity of a milliard of
francs, which they exclaimed against for its insufficiency
just as loudly as the radicals did for its extravagance: by
this tardy act of justice the State endeavoured to repair some
of the unjust confiscations of the revolutionary era. ...
{1369}
The attempts made by the Jesuits to regain their legal status
in France, in spite of the prohibition dating from before the
fall of the old regime, aroused further hostility to the king,
who was well known to favour their cause. Nothing, however, so
strengthened the growing opposition in the Chambers and in the
country at large as a rigorous measure aimed at the
newspapers, pamphlets, and books which combated the clerical
reaction. These publications were to pay a stamp duty per
page, while crushing fines were devised to ruin the offending
critics. One of the leaders of the opposition, Casimir Périer,
exclaimed against this measure as ruinous to trade: 'Printing
would be suppressed in France and transferred to Belgium.' The
king persevered in his mad enterprise: he refused to receive a
petition from the most august literary society in Europe, the
Académie Française, and cashiered its promoters as if they
were clerks under his orders. Strange to say, the Chamber of
Deputies passed the measure, while that of the Peers rejected
it--an event greeted by illuminations all over Paris (April
1827). A few days afterwards, at a review of the National
Guards in Paris, the troops raised cries for the liberty of
the press and for the charter granted in 1815. The next day
they were disbanded by royal command, but were foolishly
allowed to retain their arms, which were soon to be used
against the government. Charles next created seventy-six new
peers to outvote his opponents in the Upper House. He also
dissolved the Chamber of Deputies, but found the new members
less pliable. Finally, Charles had to give way for the time,
and accept a more moderate ministry under Martignac in place
of the reactionary Villèle Cabinet. ... Charles was soon able
to dismiss this ministry, the last hope of conciliation, and
formed (August 1829) a ministry under Count Polignac, one of
whose colleagues was the General Bourmont who had deserted to
the allies the day before Waterloo. The king's speech at the
opening of the next session (March 1830) was curt and
threatening, and the Chamber was soon prorogued. Reform
banquets, a custom which the French borrowed from English
reformers, increased the agitation, which the Polignac
ministry vainly sought to divert by ambitious projects of
invasion and partition of some neighbouring States. The only
practical outcome of these projects was the conquest of the
pirate stronghold of Algiers. This powerful fortress had been
bombarded and reduced by Lord Exmouth with the British fleet
in 1816, and the captives, mostly Italians, were released from
that den of slave-dealers; but the Dey of Algiers had resumed
his old habits, complaints from the French were met by
defiance, and at last the French envoy quitted the harbor amid
a shower of bullets. A powerful expedition effected a landing
near the strongly-fortified harbour, and easily beat back the
native attack; and then from the land side soon battered down
the defences of the city.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1830.
Thus the city which had long been the terror of Mediterranean
sailors became the nucleus of the important French colony of
Algeria (July 4,1830). The design of Charles X. and of his
reactionary Polignac ministry to divert the French people from
domestic grievances to foreign conquest needed the genius and
strength of a Napoleon to ensure success. The mere fact of the
expedition being Under the command of the hated General
Bourmont had made it unpopular. ... So, although the victory
was triumphantly announced throughout France, yet the
elections sent up a majority hostile to the king.
Nevertheless, with his usual blind obstinacy, Charles on the
25th July 1830 issued the famous ordinances which brought
matters to a crisis. The first suspended the liberty of the
press, and placed books under a strict censorship; the second
dissolved the newly-elected Chamber of Deputies; the third
excluded licensed dealers (patentés) from the franchise; the
fourth summoned a new Chamber under the new conditions, every
one of which violated the charter granted by the late king.
The Parisians at once flew to arms, and raised barricades in
the many narrow streets which then favoured street-defence.
Marmont, hated by the people as being the first of Napoleon's
marshals who had treated with the allies, was to quell the
disturbances with some 20,000 troops of the line; but on the
second day's fighting (July 28) the insurgents, aided by the
disbanded National Guards, and veterans of the empire, beat
back the troops; and on the third day the royal troops, cut
off from food and supplies, and exhausted by the heat, gave
way before the tri-colour flag; the defection of two line
regiments left the Louvre unguarded; a panic spread among
other regiments, and soon the tri-colour floated above the
Tuileries. Charles thereupon set the undignified example, soon
to be followed by so many kings and, princes, of giving way
when it was too late. He offered to withdraw the hated
ordinances, but was forced to flee from St. Cloud. He then
tried the last expedient, also doomed to failure, of
abdicating in favour of his little grandson the Duc de
Bordeaux, since better known as the Comte de Chambord.
Retiring slowly with his family to Cherbourg, the baffled
monarch set out for a second and last exile, spent first at
Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, and ended at Göritz in Bohemia.
More than 5,000 civilians and 700 soldiers were killed or
wounded in these terrible 'three days' of July 1830, which
ended all attempts to re-establish the tyranny of the old
régime. The victims were appropriately buried in the Place de
la Bastille. They freed not France alone, but dealt a fierce
blow at the system of Metternich."
J. H. Rose,
Century of Continental History,
chapter 23.
ALSO IN:
D. Turnbull,
The French Revolution of 1830.
A. de Lamartine,
The Restoration of Monarchy in France,
books 32-50 (volumes 3-4).
E. E. Crowe,
History of the Reigns of Louis XVIII.
and Charles X.
Prince de Talleyrand,
Memoirs,
part 10 (volumes 3-4).
G. L. Dickinson,
Revolution and Reaction in Modern France,
chapter 3.
FRANCE: A. D. 1822:
The Congress of Verona.
French intervention in Spain approved.
See VERONA: THE CONGRESS OF.
FRANCE: A. D. 1823-1827.
Interference in Spain to suppress the revolution and reinstate
King Ferdinand.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1814-1827.
FRANCE: A. D. 1827-1829.
Intervention on behalf of Greece.
Battle of Navarino.
See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.
{1370}
FRANCE: A. D. 1830-1840.
The monarchy renewed under Louis Philippe.
Its steady drift from the constitutional course.
"The Constitutional party set their hopes on Louis Philippe,
Duke of Orleans. This prince, born in 1773, was the son of
that notorious 'Egalité' who during the revolution had ended
his checkered career under the guillotine. His grandmother was
the noble Elizabeth Charlotte, a native of the Palatinate, who
had the misfortune to be the wife of the effeminate Duke of
Orleans, brother of Louis XIV. Louis Philippe was a Bourbon,
like King Charles; but the opposition of several members of
this Orleans branch of the royal house had caused it to be
regarded as a separate family. From his youth up he had
displayed a great deal of popular spirit and common-sense. ...
Seemingly created by his nature and career to be a citizen
king, he had long since, as early as 1814, determined to
accept the throne in case it were offered him." The offer came
in 1830 with the revolution of July. On the 31st of that month
he accepted the office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom,
conferred by the vote of a meeting of fifty delegates. "The
'Society of the Friends of the People' [an organization of the
pronounced republicans], not very well pleased with this result
of the 'great week' [as the week of the revolution was
called], laid before Lafayette, on the following day," their
programme, "and commissioned him to make the duke guarantee
the popular rights therein set forth by his signature. With
this document in his pocket, Lafayette made his ... visit to
Louis Philippe in the Palais Royal. In the course of
conversation he said to him, 'You know that I am a republican,
and consider the American constitution the most perfect.' 'I
am of the same opinion,' replied the duke; 'no one could have
been two years in America and not share that view. But do you
think that that constitution could be adopted in France in its
present condition--with the present state of popular opinion?'
'No,' said Lafayette; 'what France needs is a popular monarchy
surrounded by republican--thoroughly
republican--institutions.' 'There I quite agree with you,'
rejoined Louis Philippe. Enchanted with this political
harmony, the old general considered it unnecessary to present
the programme, and went security to the republicans for the
duke, the patriot, of 1789. ... On the 3d of August the
Chamber was opened by the Duke of Orleans, and the abdication
of the king and dauphin announced. ... The question whether
the constitution was to be changed, and how, gave rise to an
animated contest between radicals and liberals. The confidence
in Louis Philippe was so great, that they were content with a
few improvements. The throne was declared vacant, and Louis
Philippe proclaimed king of the French. ... August 8th, Louis
Philippe appeared in the Palais Bourbon, took the oath to the
constitution, and was thereupon proclaimed king. ... None of
the great monarchs had so difficult a task as Louis Philippe.
If he attached himself to the majority of his people and
showed himself in earnest with 'the republican institutions
which ought to surround the throne,' he had all the
continental powers against him; if he inclined toward the
absolute system of the latter, then not alone the extreme
parties, but also the men of the constitutional monarchy, ...
rose against him. ... His system, which he himself named a
happy medium (juste milieu), would have been a happy medium if
he had struck the middle and kept it; but he gradually swerved
so much toward the right that the middle was far to his left.
From the outset he had three parties against him--Legitimists,
Bonapartists, and Republicans." At intervals, there were
demonstrations and insurrections undertaken in the interest of
each of these. In July, 1835, the assassination of the king
was attempted, by the explosion of an infernal machine, which
killed and wounded sixty people. "The whole Republican party
was unjustly made responsible for this attempt, and new blows
were struck at the juries and the Press. Every Press offence
involving a libel of the king or the administration was to be
tried from this time on before the Court of Peers, and the
composition of that body rendered conviction certain. With
these September laws' the reaction was complete, the power of
the Republicans was broken. Their activity did not cease,
however. Their numerous societies continued to exist in
secret, and to the political affiliated themselves the social
societies, which ... demanded, among other impossibilities,
the abolition of private property. It was these baleful
excrescences which deprived republicanism of all credit, and
outbreaks like that of May 12th, 1839, where a few hundred
members of the 'Society of the Seasons,' with Barbès and
Blanqui at their head, disarmed military posts and proclaimed
the republic, found not the slightest response. The repeated
attempts which were made on the king's life were also
unsuccessful." The relations of Louis Philippe "to foreign
powers became better the more he approximated to their system,
putting restraints upon societies, the Press, and juries, and
energetically crushing popular revolts. Naturally he was by
this very means constantly further estranging the mass of the
people. ... What the Legitimists and Republicans had not
effected--a change of government--the Napoleonids now took in
hand." Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, son of ex-king Louis of
Holland and Hortense Beauharnais, made his appearance among
the soldiers of the garrison at Strasburg, October 30, 1836,
with the expectation that they would proclaim him emperor and
set the example of a rising in his favor. But the attempt was
a wretched failure; Louis Napoleon was arrested and
contemptuously sent out of the country, to America, without
punishment. In 1840 he repeated his undertaking, at Boulogne,
more abortively than in the first instance; was again made
prisoner, and was consigned, this time, to the castle of Ham,
from which he escaped six years later. "All the world laughed
at his folly; but without the scenes of Strasburg and
Boulogne, and the martyrdom of a six years' imprisonment, his
name certainly would not have produced such an effect in the
year 1848."
W. Miller,
Political History of Recent Times,
sections 7 and 14.
ALSO IN:
L. Blanc,
History of Ten Years, 1830-1840.
F. P. Guizot,
Memoirs to Illustrate the History of My Own Time,
volumes 3-4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1831-1832.
Intervention in the Netherlands.
Siege of Antwerp.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1830-1832.
FRANCE: A. D. 1833-1840.
The Turko-Egyptian question and its settlement.
See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.
FRANCE: A. D. 1833-1846.
The subjugation of Algeria.
War with Abd-el-Kader.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D.1830-1846.
{1371}
FRANCE: A. D. 1841-1848.
The limited electoral body and its corruption.
Agitation for reform.
The suppressed banquet at Paris and the
revolution which followed.
Abdication and flight of the king.
"The monarchy of Louis Philippe lasted for 18 years. But the
experiment was practicable only so long as the throne rested
on a small body of obedient electors. The qualification for
the franchise was so high that it was held only by 200,000
people. So small a constituency could, be 'managed' by the
skill of M. Guizot and M. Thiers [who were the chief rivals of
the time in political leadership]. It could be 'managed'
through gifts of places, bribes, the influence of local
magnates, and the pressure of public officials. There was
never perhaps so corrupt an electoral body. ... M. Guizot, who
was an austere puritan at home, and who has entered into a
competition with Saint Augustin as a writer of religious
meditations, raised many sneers to the lips of worldlings, not
only by lending his hand to the infamous intrigue of the
Spanish Marriages, but by allowing his subordinates to traffic
in places for the sake of getting votes. His own hands, of
course, were clean; no one spoke a whisper against his
personal purity. But he seemed to have much practical sympathy
with the advice which Pitt, in one of Landor's 'Imaginary
Conversations,' gives to his young disciple Canning. Pecuniary
corruption was the very breath of life to the constitutional
monarchy. The voters were bought as freely as if they had
stood in the market-place. The system admirably suited the
purpose of the little family party of princes and
parliamentary chiefs who ruled the country. But it was as
artificial and fleeting as the sand castles which a child
builds on the edge of the advancing tide."
J. Macdonell,
France since the First Empire,
pages 172-174.
"The population of France was then 34,000,000, and the
privilege of the political franchise was vested exclusively in
those who paid in direct taxes a sum not less than £8. This
class numbered little more than 200,000. ... The government
had 130,000 places at its disposal, and the use which was made
of these during the 18 years of Louis Philippe's reign was
productive of corruption more widespread and shameless than
France had known since the first revolution. In the scarcely
exaggerated language used by M. de Lamartine, the government
had 'succeeded in making of a nation of citizens a vile band
of beggars.' It was obvious to all who desired the
regeneration of France that reform must begin with the
representation of the people. To this end the liberals
directed much effort. They did not as yet propose universal
suffrage, and their leaders were divided between an extension
of the franchise to all who paid £2 of direct taxes and an
extension, which went no lower than £4. The demand for reform
was resisted by the government. ... Among the leaders of the
liberal party were men of high character and commanding
influence. Arago, Odillon Barrot, Louis Blanc, Thiers,
Lamartine, were formidable assailants for the strongest
government to encounter. Under their guidance the agitation
for reform assumed dimensions exceedingly embarrassing and
even alarming. For once France borrowed from England her
method of political agitation. Reform banquets, attended by
thousands of persons, were held in all the chief towns, and
the pressure of a peaceful public opinion was employed to
obtain the remedy of a great wrong. The police made feeble
attempts to prevent such gatherings, but were ordinarily
unsuccessful. But the king and M. Guizot, strong in the
support of the army and a purchased majority of the deputies,
and apparently little aware of the vehemence of the popular
desire, made no effort to satisfy or propitiate. Louis
Philippe had wisely set a high value on the maintenance of
cordial relations with England. ... The Queen of England
gratified him by a visit [1843], which he returned a few
months after. ... During these visits there was much
conversation regarding a Spanish matter which was then of some
interest. The Spanish government was looking around to find
suitable husbands for their young queen and her sister. The
hands of the princesses were offered to two sons of Louis
Philippe. But ... England looked with disfavour upon a close
alliance between the crowns of France and Spain. The king
would not offend England. He declined the hand of the Spanish
queen, but accepted that of her sister for his fourth son, the
Duc de Montpensier. Queen Victoria and her ministers approved
of that marriage on the condition voluntarily offered by King
Louis, that it should not take place till the Spanish queen
was married and had children. But in a few years the king
violated his pledge, and pressed upon Spain an arrangement
under which the two marriages were celebrated together [1846].
... To Louis Philippe himself the transaction was calamitous.
He had broken his kingly word, and he stood before Europe and
before his own people a dishonoured man. ... Circumstances
made it easy for the opposition to enhance the general
discontent. Many evidences of shameless corruption were at
this time brought to light. ... The crops failed in 1845 and
1846, and prices rose to a famine point. ... The demand for
parliamentary reform became constantly more urgent; but M.
Guizot heeded it not. The reformers took up again their work
of agitation. They announced a great procession and reform
banquet. The police, somewhat hesitatingly, interdicted the
demonstration, and its promoters resolved to submit; but the
people, insufficiently informed of these movements, gathered
for the procession in the early morning. All that day
[February 22, 1848] the streets were thronged, and the
excitement of the people increased from hour to hour; but few
soldiers were seen, and consequently no conflict occurred.
Next morning the strategic points of the city were garrisoned
by a strong force of soldiers and national guards, and the
people saw that the government feared them. Business was
suspended, and the constantly rising agitation foretold
irrepressible tumults. The men of the faubourgs appeared once
more. Towards evening a few barricades were thrown up, and a
few gunsmiths' shops were plundered. Worst of all, the
national guard appeared to sympathize with the people. ... To
appease the angry mob, no measure seemed so hopeful as the
sacrifice of the ministry. Guizot resigned. Thiers and Odillon
Barrot, chiefs of the liberal party, were received into the
cabinet. Marshal Bugeaud was appointed to command the troops.
But before the day closed a disaster had occurred which made
all concession vain. Before one of the public offices there
was stationed a battalion of infantry, around which there
surged an excited crowd. A shot came from the crowd, and was
promptly responded to by a volley which killed or wounded 50
persons.
{1372}
The bodies of the victims were placed on waggons and drawn
along the streets, that the fury of the people might be
excited to the highest pitch. During that sleepless night,
Marshal Bugeaud, skilfully directing the forces which he
commanded, had taken the barricades and effectively checked
the rioters. But in early morning the new ministers ordered
him to desist and withdraw his troops. They deemed it useless
to resist. Concession was, in their view, the only avenue to
tranquillity. The soldiers retired; the crowds pressed on to
the Tuileries." The king, terrified by their approach, was
persuaded to sign an abdication in favor of his grandson, the
Comte de Paris, and to fly in haste, with his family, from the
palace and from Paris. A week later the royal family "reached
the coast and embarked for England, ... their majesties
travelling under the lowly but well-chosen incognito of Mr.
and Mrs. Smith. ... Immediately on the departure of the king,
a provisional government was organized, with M. Lamartine at
its head."
R. Mackenzie,
The Nineteenth Century,
book 3, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
France under Louis Philippe.
M. Caussidière,
Memoirs,
volume 1.
FRANCE: A. D. 1848 (February-May).
The three months of Provisional Government.
Its extraordinary measures.
Its absolutism.
Creation or the Ateliers Nationaux.
The consequences.
On the morning of February 24th--the morning of the king's
flight--M. de Lamartine, entering the Palais Bourbon, where
the Chamber of Deputies held its meetings, found in the
vestibule seven or eight persons waiting for him. "Who they
were we are not told--or what they were, except that they
belonged to the newspaper press. Even the names of the papers
with which they were connected are not expressly
stated--though the 'National' and 'Réforme' are indicated.
They demanded a secret conference. Lamartine took them into a
distant apartment." There they "proposed to him to substitute
for Louis-Philippe the Comte de Paris as king, and the Duchess
of Orleans as regent, and to place him [Lamartine] over them
minister." "Lamartine does not appear to have been surprised
at the proposal. He does not appear to have doubted the power
of seven or eight journalists to dethrone a king, create a
regent, and appoint a minister! And he was right. The
'National' and the 'Réforme,' whose representatives stood
before him, did more than all this, a couple of hours after.
... He objected to their scheme that such an arrangement would
not last, and declared himself in favour of a republic, based
on universal suffrage; ... they expressed their conviction,
and separated, agreed, apparently, on the course of action to
be pursued.' A few hours later, the Chamber was invaded by a
body of rioters, fresh from the sack of the Tuileries. The
Duchess of Orleans, who had presented herself at the Chamber
with her two children, fled before them. "M. Sauzet, the
President, disappeared. Lamartine [who was speaking] remained
in the tribune, and desired Dupont de l'Eure to take the
vacant chair." Thereupon a Provisional Government was
appointed, in some fashion not clearly detailed. It underwent
certain changes, by unexplained additions, within the
following day or two, but "in the 'Moniteur' of February 27
(the third day of the existence of the Provisional
Government), its members are arranged thus:--MM. Arago, Dupont
de l'Eure, Albert (ouvrier), F. Marrast, F. Flocon, Lamartine,
Marie, L. Blanc, Crémieux, Ledru Rollin, Garnier Pagès. ...
Within two days after its formation it was on the brink of
ruin under an attack from the Terrorists [or Red Republicans,
who assumed the red flag as their standard]. ... The contest
had left the members of the government in a state of mind
which M. de Lamartine thinks peculiarly favourable to wise
legislation. ... 'Every member of the Council sought [he
says], in the depths of his heart and of his intellect, for
some great reform, some great legislative, political, or moral
improvement. Some proposed the instantaneous abolition of
negro slavery. Others, the abolition of the restrictions
imposed by the laws of September upon the press. Some, the
proclamation of fraternity among nations, in order to abolish
war by abolishing conquest. Some, the abolition of the
qualification of electors. And all, the principles of mutual
charity among all classes of citizens. As quickly as these
great democratic truths, rather felt than discussed, were
converted into decrees, they were printed in a press set up at
the door of the council-room, thrown from the windows to the
crowd, and despatched by couriers through the departments.'
... The important decrees, which actually bear date February
25 or 26, and which may therefore be referred to this evening
of instinct, inspiration, and enthusiasm, are these:--The
18th, which sets at liberty all persons detained on political
grounds. The 19th, by which the government--
1, Engages to secure the existence of the operative
(ouvrier) by employment:
2, Engages to secure employment (garantir du travail) to
all citizens:
3, Admits that operatives ought to combine in order to
enjoy the fruits of their labour:
4, And promises to return to the operatives, whose property
it is, the million which will fall in from the civil list.
The 22nd, which dissolves the Municipal Guards. The 26th,
which declares that the actual government of France is
republican, and that the nation will immediately be called on
to ratify by its votes this resolution of the government and
of the people of Paris. The 29th, which declares that Royalty,
under any name whatever, ... is abolished. ... And the 30th,
which directs the immediate establishment of national
workshops (ateliers natlonaux). We confess that, we agree with
Lamartine in thinking that they bear the stamp of instinct
much more than that of reason. ... The declaration that the
actual government of France was republican ... was palpably
untrue. The actual government of France at that time was as
far removed from republicanism as it was possible for a
government to be. It was a many-headed Dictatorship--a
despotic oligarchy. Eleven men--some appointed in the offices
of a newspaper, and the others by a mob which had broken into
the Chamber of Deputies--ruled France, during three months,
with an absoluteness of which there is no other example in
history. ... They dissolved the Chamber of Deputies; they
forbade the peers to meet; they added 200,000 men to the
regular army, and raised a new metropolitan army of 20,000
more at double the ordinary pay; to meet this expense they
added 45 centimes to the direct taxes; they restricted the
Bank from cash payments; they made its paper a legal tender,
and then required it to lend them fifty millions; ... they
altered the hours of labour throughout France, and, subjected
to heavy fines any master who should allow his operatives to
remain at work for the accustomed period. ...
{1373}
The necessary consequence of the 19th decree, promising
employment to all applicants, was the creation of the ateliers
nationaux by the 30th. These workshops were immediately opened
in the outskirts Of Paris. A person who wished to take
advantage of the offers of the Government took from the person
with whom he lodged a certificate that he was an inhabitant of
the Department de la Seine. This certificate he carried to the
mairie of his arrondissement, and obtained an order of
admission to an atelier. If he was received and employed
there, he obtained an order on his mairie for forty sous. If
he was not received, after having applied at all of them, and
found them all full, he received an order for thirty sous.
Thirty sous is not high pay; but it was to be had for doing
nothing; and hopes of advancement were held out. Every body of
eleven persons formed an escouade; and their head, the
escouadier, elected by his companions, got half a franc a day
extra. Five escouades formed a brigade; and the brigadier,
also elected by his subordinates, received three francs a day.
Above these again were the lieutenants, the chefs de
compagnie, the chefs de service, and the chefs
d'arrondissement, appointed by the Government, and receiving
progressively higher salaries. Besides this, bread was
distributed to their families in proportion to the number of
children. The hours supposed to be employed in labour were
nine and a half. ... This semi-military organisation, regular
payment, and nominal work produced results which we cannot
suppose to have been unexpected by the Government. M. Emile
Thomas tells us that in one mairie, that containing the
Faubourg St.-Antoine, a mere supplemental bureau enrolled,
from March 12 to 20, more than 1,000 new applicants every day.
We have before us a list of those who had been enrolled on May
19, and it amounts to 87,942. A month later it amounted to
125,000--representing, at 4 to a family, 600,000 persons--more
than one half of the population of Paris. To suppose that such
an army as this could be regularly organised, fed, and paid,
for months in idleness, and then quietly disbanded, was a
folly of which the Provisional Government was not long guilty.
They soon saw that the monster which they had created could
not be subdued, if it could be subdued at all, by any means
short of civil war. ... 'A thunder-cloud (says M. de
Lamartine) was always before our eyes. It was formed by the
ateliers nationaux; This army of 120,000 work-people, the
great part of whom were idlers and agitators, was the deposit
of the misery, the laziness, the vagrancy, the vice, and the
sedition which the flood of the revolution had cast up and
left on its shores.' ... As they were managed, the ateliers
nationaux, it is now admitted, produced or aggravated the very
evils which they professed to cure or to palliate. They
produced or continued the stagnation of business which they
were to remedy; and, when they became absolutely intolerable,
the attempt to put an end to them occasioned the civil war
which they were to prevent."
N. W. Senior,
Journals kept in France and Italy, 1848-1852,
volume 1, pages 14-59.
ALSO IN:
Marquis of Normandy,
A Year of Revolution,
chapters 8-11 (volume l).
L. Blanc,
Historical Revelations, 1848.
A. de Lamartine,
History of the Revolution of 1848.
J. P. Simpson,
Pictures from Revolutionary Paris.
FRANCE: A. D. 1848 (April-December).
The Constituent National Assembly, and the Constitution of the
Second Republic.
Savage and terrible insurrection of the workmen of the
Ateliers Nationaux.
Vigorous dictatorship of Cavaignac.
Appearance of Louis Napoleon.
His election to the Presidency of the Republic.
The election by universal suffrage of a Constituent National
Assembly, twice deferred on account of fears of popular
turbulence, took place on the 23d of April, and resulted in
the return of a very Conservative majority, largely composed
of Napoleonists, Legitimists and Orleanists. The meeting of
the Assembly was opened on the 7th of May. "The moderates were
anxious to invest M. de Lamartine with a dictatorial
authority," which he declined. "Eventually an executive
commission of five was appointed. ... The commission consisted
of Arago, Garnier Pagès, Marie, Lamartine, and Ledru Rollin.
... This conciliatory executive commission was elected by the
Assembly on the 10th of May. On the 15th, the 'concilliated'
mob broke into the chamber, insulted the deputies, turned them
out, proclaimed a provisional government, and then marched to
the Hôtel de Ville, where they were installed with due
revolutionary solemnity;" but the National Guard rallied to
the support of the government, and the insurrection was
promptly suppressed. "Eleven vacancies in the Assembly had to
be filled in the department of the Seine, on account of double
returns. These elections produced fresh uneasiness in Paris.
Eighth on the list stood Louis Napoleon Bonaparte; and among
the names mentioned as candidates was that of Prince de
Joinville, the most popular of the Orleans princes. The
executive commission appears to have been more afraid of the
latter than of the former; and to prevent the disagreeable
circumstance of France returning him to the Assembly as one of
her representatives, they thought themselves justified in
declaring the whole Orleans family incapable of serving France
in any capacity. ... Louis Napoleon, on the first proclamation
of the Republic, had at once offered his services; but was by
the Provisional Government requested to withdraw, as his great
name might trouble the republic. ... Two Bonapartes had been
elected members for Corsica, and three sat in the Assembly;
but, as the next heir of the Emperor, Louis Napoleon caused
them much uneasiness. ... Already mobs had gone about the
Boulevard crying 'Vive l'Empereur.' The name of Bonaparte was
not unpopular with the bourgeoisie; it was a guarantee of
united and strong government to all. On his election, Louis
Napoleon wrote to the President of the Assembly: a phrase in
his letter gave considerable offence. Some days before,
Lamartine had proposed his exclusion from the Assembly and the
country; but, as it appeared he was in no way implicated in
the seditious cries, they voted his admission by a large
majority. The phrase which gave umbrage was: 'If the country
imposes duties upon me, I shall know how to fulfill them.' ...
However, by a subsequent letter, dated the 15th, he restored
confidence by saying he would resign rather than be a cause of
tumult. But the real difficulties of the government arose from
a different cause.
{1374}
The National Assembly bore with impatience the expense of the
Ateliers Nationaux: It was enough to submit to the factious
spirit of those bodies; but it was too much to pay them for
keeping on foot an organized insurrection, ever ready to break
out and deluge the capital in blood. The executive commission
had been desirous of finding means gradually to lessen the
numbers receiving wages; and on the 12th of May, it was
resolved to close the lists. The commission foresaw that if
the Ateliers were at once abolished, it would produce a
rebellion in Paris; and they hoped, first, by preventing any
more being inscribed, and then by setting them to task-work,
that they should gradually get the numbers reduced. ... But
the Assembly would not wait; they ordered all the workmen
between 18 and 25 years old, and unmarried, to be drafted into
the army, or to be discharged; and they were breaking them up
so rapidly, that if the workmen wanted to fight it was evident
that it must be done at once or not at all. ... General
Cavaignac, who had been sent for from Africa, was on his
arrival in Paris named Minister at War, and had command of the
troops. ... Preparations for the conflict commenced on Thursday
the 22nd of June; but it was noon of the following day ere the
first shot was fired. It is said, that had the executive
commission known what they were about, the heads of the
insurrection might have been all arrested in the meantime, for
they were walking about all day, and at one time met in the
Jardin des Plantes. The fighting on the 23d continued all day,
with much slaughter, and little practical result. ... The
extent of the insurgent lines swallowed up the troops, so
that, though great numbers were in Paris, there appeared to be
a deficiency of them, and loud complaints were made against
the inefficiency of the executive commission. During the night
the fighting ceased, and both parties were occupied in
strengthening their positions. The Assembly was sitting in
permanence; they were highly incensed against the executive
commission, and wished them to send in their resignations; but
the latter refused, saying it was cowardly to do so in the face
of insurrection. The Assembly then formally deposed the
commission, and appointed Cavaignac dictator; to which
arrangement the executive commission at once assented. The
General instantly ordered the National Guards to prevent
assemblages in the streets, and that no one should go out
without a pass: anyone going about, out of uniform, without
permission, was walked home. In this manner many persons
carrying ammunition to the insurgents were arrested. At noon,
he sent a flag of truce with a proclamation, offering an
amnesty to the rebels, at the suggestion of the ex-prefect
Caussidière; but it was unhesitatingly rejected. This latter
personage, though he was not among the barricades, was by many
thought to be the head of the insurrection. The troops of the
insurgents were managed with great military skill, showing
that persons of military knowledge must have had the command;
though no one knew who were their leaders. ... During the
early part of the day, the fighting was mainly on the southern
side of the river. The church of St. Gervais and the bridges
were carried with great slaughter, as well as the church of
St. Severin, and their great head-quarters the Pantheon; and
by four o'clock, the troops had conquered the whole of the
south bank of the Seine. On the other side, a hot engagement
was going on in the Faubourgs Poissonnière and St. Denis:
these were carried with great loss at a late hour, whence the
insurrection was forced back to its great stronghold, the Clos
St. Lazare; which defied every effort of General Lamoricière
to take it on Saturday. An unfinished hospital served as a
citadel, and several churches and public buildings as
out-posts; while the old city wall, which they had loop-holed,
enabled them to fire on the troops in comparative security;
but the buildings were breached with cannon, and the
insurgents by four o'clock on Sunday were dispersed. ... A
desperate struggle was going on at a late hour in the Faubourg
du Temple; and on the Monday morning the insurgents made a
stand behind the Canal St. Martin, where they sent to treat on
condition of retaining their arms. But Cavaignac would hear of
no terms. It was thought, at one time, that they had
surrendered; when some soldiers, going within the lines, were
surprised and murdered. Hostilities at once began again, and
the insurgents were finally subdued by one o'clock on Monday
the 26th. The victory was dearly bought: 8,000 were
ascertained to have been killed or wounded; and, as many
bodies were thrown into the Seine unrecognised, this is much
under the number. Nearly 14,000 prisoners were taken, and
3,000 of these died of gaol fever. ... The excellent
Archbishop of Paris, Denis Auguste Affre, fell a sacrifice to
his Christian benevolence. Horrified at the slaughter, he,
attended by two of his vicars carrying the olive-branch of
peace, passed between the combatants. The firing ceased at his
appearance; but, from the discharge of a single musket, it
began again: he, nevertheless, mounted the barricade and
descended into the midst of the insurgents, and was, in the
act of addressing them, when some patriot, fearing the effect
of his exhortations, shot him from a window. ... General
Cavaignac, immediately after the pacification of Paris, laid
down the temporary dictatorship with which he had been
invested by the Assembly; but their gratitude for the
salvation of society led them to appoint him President of the
Council, with the power to name his own Ministry. He at once
sent adrift all the red republican party, and chose a Ministry
from among the moderate class of republicans; to which he
afterwards added some members of the old opposition. ...
Prince Louis Napoleon was again thrust upon the Assembly, by
being elected for Corsica; but he wrote a letter on the 8th of
July, saying, that though he did not renounce the honour of
one day sitting as a representative of the people, he would
wait till the time when his return to France could not in any
way serve as a pretext to the enemies of the republic. ... On
Tuesday, the 26th of September, shortly after the president
had taken his seat, Louis Napoleon appeared quietly in the
chamber, and placed himself on one of the back benches. ...
The discussion of the constitution, which had been referred to
a committee, was the only subject of interest, except the
important question of how the president should be elected. It
was proposed by some that the assembly itself should elect a
president, a proposition which was eventually negatived by a
large majority.
{1375}
The real object was to exclude Louis Napoleon, whose great
name gave him every chance of success, if an appeal were made
to the universal suffrage of the nation, which the republicans
distrusted. Another amendment was moved to exclude all
pretenders to the throne; on which, allusion being made to
Louis Napoleon, he mounted the rostrum, and denied that he was
a pretender. ... The red republicans were desirous of having
no president, and that the constituent assembly itself should
name the ministers. It was not the only constitutional point
in dispute: for weeks and months, the debate on the
constitution dragged its weary length along; amendments were
discussed, and the work when turned out was, as might have
been expected, a botch after all. ... It was eventually
agreed, that to give validity to the election of a president
it should be necessary that he should have more than a half of
all the votes given; that is to say, more votes than all the
other candidates put together; if not, the assembly was to
choose between the highest candidate on the list and his
competitors, by which means they hoped to be able to get rid
of Bonaparte. ... The constitution was proclaimed on the 10th
of November. ... The legitimist and Orleanist parties refused
to start a candidate for fear of weakening Bonaparte, and thus
throwing the choice into the hands of the assembly, who would
choose General Cavaignac. Both these parties gave the former
at least a negative support; and as M. Thiers declared that
nine-tenths of the country were opposed to the General as too
revolutionary, it was clear that in the country itself
reaction was going on faster than in the assembly. ... Louis
Napoleon's chief support was from the inhabitants of the
country districts, the peasantry. ... On the 10th of December,
5,534,520 votes were recorded for Louis Napoleon. General
Cavaignac had 1,448,302. Then came Ledru Rollin; then Raspail.
Lamartine got 17,914; 23,219 were disallowed, as being given
for some of the banished royal family. The total number of
voters was 7,449,471."
E. S. Cayley,
The European Revolution of 1848,
volume 1, chapters 4-5.
ALSO IN:
J. F. Corkran,
History of the Constituent
National Assembly from May, 1848.
Marquis of Normanby,
A Year of Revolution,
chapters 13-15(volume 2).
H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 5, and appendix 8.
FRANCE: A. D. 1849.
Intervention at Rome, to crush the revolutionary republic and
restore the Pope.
French capture and occupation of the city.
See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
FRANCE: A. D. 1849-1850.
Disagreement with England in Greece.
The Don Pacifico affair.
See GREECE: A. D.1846-1850.
FRANCE: A. D.1851.
The plot of the Coup d'État.
"In the beginning of the winter of 1851 France was still a
republic; but the Constitution of 1848 had struck no root.
There was a feeling that the country had been surprised and
coerced into the act of declaring itself a republic, and that
a monarchical system of government was the only one adapted
for France. The sense of instability which sprang from this
belief was connected with an agonising dread of insurrections.
... Moreover, to those who watched and feared, it seemed that
the shadow on the dial was moving on with a terrible
steadiness to the hour when a return to anarchy was, as it
were, pre-ordained by law; for the constitution requited that
a new president should be chosen in the spring of the
following year. ... In general, France thought it best that,
notwithstanding the Rule of the Constitution, which stood in
the way, the then President should be quietly re-elected; and
a large majority of the Assembly, faithfully representing this
opinion, had come to a vote which sought to give it effect;
but their desire was baffled by an unwise provision of the
Republican Charter which had laid it down that no
constitutional change should take place without the sanction
of three-fourths of the Assembly. By this clumsy bar the
action of the State system was hampered, and many whose minds
generally inclined them to respect legality were forced to
acknowledge that the Constitution wanted a wrench." The
President of the republic, Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte,
"had always wished to bring about a change in the
constitution, but, originally, he had hoped to be able to do
this with the aid and approval of some at least of the
statesmen and eminent generals of the country." But, "although
there were numbers in France who would have been heartily glad
to see the Republic crushed by some able dictator, there were
hardly any public men who believed that in the President of
the Republic they would find the man they wanted. Therefore
his overtures to the gentlemen of France were always rejected.
Every statesman to whom he applied refused to entertain his
proposals. Every general whom he urged always said that for
whatever he did he must have 'an order from the Minister of
War.' The President being thus rebuffed, his plan of changing
the form of government with the assent of some of the leading
statesmen and generals of the country degenerated into schemes
of a very different kind; and at length he fell into the hands
of persons of the quality of Persigny, Morny, and Fleury. ...
The President had been a promoter of the law of the 31st of
May, restricting the franchise, but he now became the champion
of universal suffrage. To minds versed in politics this change
might have sufficed to disclose the nature of the schemes upon
which the Chief of the State was brooding; but, from first to
last, words tending to allay suspicion had been used with
great industry and skill. From the moment of his coming before
the public in February 1848, the Prince laid hold of almost
every occasion he could find for vowing, again and again, that
he harbored no schemes against the Constitution. ... It was
natural that in looking at the operation which changed the
Republic into an Empire, the attention of the observer should
be concentrated upon the person who, already the Chief of the
State, was about to attain to the throne; and there seems to
be no doubt, that what may be called the literary part of the
transaction was performed by the President in person. He was
the lawyer of the confederacy. He no doubt wrote the
Proclamations, the Plebiscites, and the Constitutions, and all
such like things; but it seems that the propelling power which
brought the plot to bear was mainly supplied by Count de Morny,
and by a resolute Major, named Fleury. M. Morny was a man of
great daring, and gifted with more than common powers of
fascination. He had been a member of the Chamber of Deputies
in the time of the monarchy; but he was rather known to the
world as a speculator than as a politician. He was a buyer and
seller of those fractional and volatile interests in trading
adventures, which go by the name of 'Shares.' ...
{1376}
He knew how to found a 'company,' and he now undertook to
establish institutions which were destined to be more
lucrative to him than any of his former adventures; ... It
seems, however, that the man who was the most able to make the
President act, to drive him deep into his own plot, and
fiercely carry him through it, was Major Fleury. ... He was
daring and resolute, and his daring was of the kind which
holds good in the moment of danger. If Prince Louis Bonaparte
was bold and ingenious in designing, Fleury was the man to
execute. ... The language held by the generals who declared
that they would act under the authority of the Minister of War
and not without it, suggested the contrivance which was
resorted to. Fleury determined to find a military man capable
of command, capable of secrecy, and capable of a great
venture. The person chosen was to be properly sounded, and if
he seemed willing, was to be admitted into the plot. He was
then to be made Minister of War, in order that through him the
whole of the land forces should be at the disposal of the
plotters. Fleury went to Algeria to find the instrument
required, and he so well performed his task that he hit upon a
general officer who was christened, it seems, Jacques Arnaud
Le Roy, but was known at this time as Achille St. Arnaud. ...
He readily entered into the plot. From the moment that Prince
Louis Bonaparte and his associates had entrusted their secret
to the man of Fleury's selection, it was perhaps hardly
possible for them to flinch, for the exigencies of St. Arnaud,
formerly Le Roy, were not likely to be on so modest a scale as
to consist with the financial arrangements of a Republic
governed by law, and the discontent of a person of his quality
with a secret like that in his charge would plainly bring the
rest of the brethren into danger. He was made Minister of War.
This was on the 27th of October. At the same time M. Maupas or
de Maupas was brought into the Ministry. ... Persigny,
properly Fialin, was in the plot. He was descended on one side
of an ancient family, and disliking his father's name he seems
to have called himself for many years after the name of his
maternal grandfather. ... It was necessary to take measures
for paralyzing the National Guard, but the force was under the
command of General Perrot, a man whose honesty could not be
tampered with. To dismiss him suddenly would be to excite
suspicion. The following expedient was adopted: the President
appointed as Chief of the Staff of the National Guard, a
person named Vieyra. The past life and the then repute of this
person were of such a kind, that General Perrot, it seems,
conceived himself insulted by the nomination, and instantly
resigned. That was what the brethren of the Elysée wanted. On
Sunday, the 30th, General Lawæstine was appointed to the
command. ... His function was--not to lead the force of which
he took the command but--to prevent it from acting. ... Care
had been taken to bring into Paris and its neighborhood the
regiments most likely to serve the purpose of the Elysée, and
to give the command to generals who might be expected to act
without scruples. The forces in Paris and its neighborhood
were under the orders of General Magnan. ... From time to time
the, common soldiery were gratified with presents of food and
wine, as well, as with an abundance of flattering words, and
their exasperation against civilians was so well kept alive
that men used to African warfare were brought into the humor
for calling the Parisians 'Bedouins.' There was massacre in
the very sound. The army of Paris was in the temper required.
It was necessary for the plotters to have the concurrence of
M. St. Georges, the director Of the state printing-office. M.
St. Georges was suborned. Then all was ready. On the Monday
night between the 1st and 2d of December, the President had
his usual assembly at the Elysée. Ministers who were loyally
ignorant of what was going on were mingled with those who were
in the plot. ... At the usual hour the assembly began to
disperse, and by eleven o'clock there were only three guests
who remained. These were Morny (who had previously taken care
to show himself at one of the theatres), Maupas, and St.
Arnaud, formerly Le Roy. There was, besides, an orderly
officer of the President, called Colonel Beville, who was
initiated in the secret. ... They were to strike the blow that
night. ... By and by they were apprised that an order which had
been given for the movement of a battalion of gendarmerie, had
duly taken effect without exciting remark. ... The President
entrusted a packet of manuscripts to Colonel Beville, and
despatched him to the state printing office. It was in the
streets which surround this building that the battalion of
gendarmerie had been collected. When Paris was hushed in
sleep, the battalion came quietly out, and folded round the
state printing-office. From that moment until their work was
done the printers were all close captives, for no one of them
was suffered to go out. ... It is said that there was
something like resistance, but in the end, if not at first,
the printers obeyed. Each compositor stood whilst he worked
between two policemen, and, the manuscript being cut into many
pieces, no one could make out the sense of what he was
printing. By these proclamations the President asserted that
the Assembly was a hot-bed of plots; declared it dissolved;
pronounced for universal suffrage; proposed a new
constitution; vowed anew that his duty was to maintain the
Republic; and placed Paris and the twelve surrounding
departments under martial law. In one of the proclamations, he
appealed to the army, and strove to whet its enmity against
civilians, by reminding it of the defeats inflicted upon the
troops in 1830 and 1848. The President wrote letters
dismissing the members of the government who were not in the
plot; but he did not cause these letters to be delivered until
the following morning. He also signed a paper appointing Morny
to the Home Office. ... The order from the Minister of War was
probably signed by half-past two in the morning, for at three it
was in the hands of Magnan. At the same hour Maupas (assigning
for pretext the expected arrival of foreign refugees), caused
a number of Commissaries to be summoned in all haste to the
Prefecture of Police. At half-past three in the morning these
men were in attendance. ... It was then that, for the first
time, the main secret of the confederates passed into the
hands of a number of subordinate agents. During some hours of
that night every one of those humble Commissaries had the
destinies of France in his hands; for he might either obey the
Minister, and so place his country in the power of the Elysée,
or he might obey the law, denounce the plot, and bring its
contrivers to trial. Maupas gave orders for the seizure at the
same minute of the foremost Generals of France, and several of
her leading Statesmen.
{1377}
Parties of the police, each under the orders of a Commissary,
were to be at the doors of the persons to be arrested some
time beforehand, but the seizures were not to take place until
a quarter past six. ... At the appointed minute, and whilst it
was still dark, the designated houses were entered. The most
famous generals of France were seized. General Changarnier,
General Bedeau, General Lamoricière, General Cavaignac, and
General Leflô were taken from their beds, and carried away
through the sleeping city and thrown into prison. In the same
minute the like was done with some of the chief members and
officers of the Assembly, and amongst others with Thiers,
Miot, Baze, Colonel Charras, Roger du Nord, and several of the
democratic leaders. Some men believed to be the chiefs of
secret societies were also seized. The general object of these
night arrests was that, when morning broke, the army should be
without generals inclined to observe the law, that the
Assembly should be without the machinery for convoking it, and
that all the political parties in the State should be
paralyzed by the disappearance of their chiefs. The number of
men thus seized in the dark was seventy-eight. Eighteen of
these were members of the Assembly. Whilst it was still dark,
Morny, escorted by a body of infantry, took possession of the
Home Office, and prepared to touch the springs of that
wondrous machinery by which a clerk can dictate to a nation.
Already he began to tell 40,000 communes of the enthusiasm
with which the sleeping city had received the announcement of
measures not hitherto disclosed. When the light of the morning
dawned, people saw the Proclamations on the walls, and slowly
came to hear that numbers of the foremost men of France had
been seized in the night-time, and that every General to whom
the friends of law and order could look for help was lying in
one or other of the prisons. The newspapers, to which a man
might run in order to know truly what others thought and
intended, were all seized and stopped. The gates of the
Assembly were closed and guarded, but the Deputies, who began
to flock thither, found means to enter by passing through one
of the official residences which formed Part of the building.
They had assembled in the Chamber in large numbers, and some
of them having caught Dupin, their reluctant President, were
forcing him to come and take the chair, when a body of
infantry burst in and drove them out, striking some of them
with the butt-ends of their muskets. ... Driven from their
Chamber, the Deputies assembled at the Mayoralty of the 10th
arrondissement. There, upon the motion of the illustrious,
Berryer, they resolved that the act of Louis Bonaparte was a
forfeiture of the Presidency, and they directed the judges of
the Supreme Court to meet and proceed to the judgment of the
President and his accomplices. These resolutions had just been
voted, when a battalion of the Chasseurs de Vincennes entered
the courtyard. ... An aide-de-camp of General Magnan came with
a written order directing the officer in command of the
battalion to clear the hall, to do this if necessary by force,
and to carry off to the prison of Mazas any Deputies offering
resistance. ... The number of Deputies present at this moment
was 220. The whole Assembly declared that they resisted, and
would yield to nothing short of force. ... They were carried
off, some to the Fort of Mount Valerian, some to the fortress
of Vincennes, and some to the prison of Mazas. ... By the laws
of the Republic, the duty of taking cognizance of offences
against the Constitution was cast upon the Supreme Court. The
Court was sitting, when an armed force entered the hall, and
the judges were driven from the bench, but not until they had
made a judicial order for the impeachment of the President."
A. W. Kinglake,
The Invasion of the Crimea,
volume 1, chapter 14.
ALSO IN:
E. Tênot,
Paris in December, 1851,
chapters 1-4.
V. Hugo,
Napoleon the Little.
M. de Maupas,
The Story of the Coup d'État.
B. Jerrold,
Life of Napoleon III.,
book 8 (volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1851.
The bloody Triumph of the Coup d'État.
Destruction of the Second Republic.
"The second part of the Coup d'État, which drenched the
boulevards with innocent blood, has cast a shade of horror
over the whole transaction that time has been unable to
efface. Paris is never so reduced in a crisis, whether the
cause be just or unjust, that she is bereft of hands to erect
and defend barricades in her streets. In the Faubourg St.
Antoine an incipient rising on the 2d was suppressed
immediately by the troops. The volcanic district from the
Hôtel de Ville northward to the boulevards also showed signs
of uneasiness, and throughout the morning of the 3d the
military were busy pulling down partially completed barricades
and dispersing small bodies of insurgents. There seems to be
little question that the army was embittered against the
populace. If this were so, the proclamation circulated by the
president through the ranks on the 2d was not calculated to
appease it. He styled the soldiers as the 'flower of the
nation.' He pointed out to them that his interests and theirs
were the same, and that they had suffered together in the past
from the course of the Assembly. He reminded them of the years
1830 and 1848, when the army had fought the people in the
streets of Paris, and concluded by an allusion to the military
grandeur of the Bonapartes. During the afternoon of the 3d and
morning of the 4th the troops remained inactive; pending
orders from the minister of war, and in this interval several
strong barricades were erected in the restless quarters. On
the afternoon of the 4th the boulevards, from the Madeleine to
the Rue du Sentier, were occupied by a great body of troops
awaiting orders to move east through the Boulevard Bonne
Nouvelle upon the barricaded district. The soldiers stood at
ease, and the officers lounged about, smoking their cigars.
The sidewalks, windows, and balconies were crowded with men,
women, and children, thoughtless onlookers of the great
military display. Suddenly a single shot was heard. It was
fired from a window near the Rue du Sentier. The troops at the
head of the column faced sharply to the south, and commenced a
deliberate fusillade upon the crowded walks and balconies. The
battalions farther west caught the murderous contagion, until
the line of fire extended into the Boulevard des Italiens. In
a few moments the beautiful boulevards were converted into a
bloody pandemonium. The sidewalks were strewn with corpses and
stained with blood. The air was rent with shrieks and groans
and the breaking of glass, while the steady, incessant
rattling of the musketry was intensified by an occasional
cannon-shot, that brought down with a crash the masonry from
some fine façade.
{1378}
This continued for nearly twenty minutes, when a lack of
people to kill seems to have restrained the mad volleys of the
troops. If any attempt was made by officers to check their
men, it was wholly unavailing, and in some cases miserable
fugitives were followed into buildings and massacred. Later in
the day the barricades were attacked, and their defenders
easily overcome. By night-fall insurgent Paris was thoroughly
cowed. These allegations, though conflicting with sworn
statements of Republicans and Imperialists, can hardly be
refuted. The efforts of the Napoleonic faction to portray the
thoughtless crowd of the boulevards as desperate and
bloody-minded rebels have never been successful, while the
opposition so brilliantly represented by the author of
'Histoire d'un Crime' have been too fierce and immoderate in
their accusations to win public credence. The questions as to
who fired the first shot, and whether it was fired as a signal
for, or a menace against the military, are points on which
Frenchmen of different political parties still debate. It is
charitable to accept M. Hugo's insinuation that the soldiery
were drunk with the president's wine, even though the fact
implies a low state of discipline in the service. To what
extent was the president responsible for the boulevard horror?
M. Victor Hugo and M. de Maupas do not agree upon this point,
and it seems useless to discuss it. Certain facts are
indisputable. We know the army bore small love toward the
Parisians, and we know it was in the streets by order of the
president. We know that the latter was in bad company, and
playing a dangerous game. We may discard M. Victor Hugo's
statement as to the orders issued by the president from the
Elysée on the fatal day, but we cannot disguise the fact that
the boulevard horror subdued Paris, and crowned his cause with
success. In other words, Louis Napoleon was the gainer by the
slaughter of unoffending men, women, and children, and in
after-years, when referring to the 4th of December, he found
it for his interest to distort facts, and make figures lie.
... Louis Napoleon had expressly stated in the proclamation
that astonished Paris on the 2d that he made the people judge
between him and the Assembly. The citizens of France were
called upon to vote on the 20th and 21st of December 'Yes' or
'No' to the question as to whether the president should be
sustained in the measures he had taken, should be empowered to
draw up a new constitution, and should retain the presidential
chair for a period of ten years."
H. Murdock,
The Reconstruction of Europe,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
V. Hugo,
History of a Crime.
E. Tênot,
Paris in December, 1851,
chapters 5-6.
M. de Maupas,
Story of the Coup d'État,
chapters 18-24 (volume 2).
Count H. de Viel Castel,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapter 4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1851-1852.
Transportation and exile of republicans.
The dictator's constitution for France.
Rapid progress of despotism.
The Second Empire ordained.
Elevation of Napoleon III. to the throne.
"The struggle was over: terror of the victors followed.
Thirty-two departments were in a state of siege. More than
100,000 citizens were languishing in prison. Trial followed
trial in rapid succession, the cases being classed under three
heads: 1st, persons found armed, or against whom serious
charges existed; 2d, persons charged with minor offences; 3d,
dangerous persons. The first class was judged at once by a
council of war, the second sent to various tribunals, the
third transported without trial. Many prisoners were not even
questioned. Numbers were set free; but multitudes were still
held. Under these conditions the date of the plebiscite,
December 20 and 21, approached. Notices were posted to the
effect that 'any person seeking to disturb the polls or to
question the result of the ballot would be tried by a council
of war.' All liberty of choice was taken from the electors,
many of whom were arrested on suspicion of exciting others to
vote against the president of the republic. When the lists
were published it was found that the 'ayes' had carried the
day, although many did not vote at all. Indubitably the
figures were notably swelled by violence and fraud. ...
December 31, ex-Minister Baroche presented the result of the
ballots to the prince-president,--a strange title now given to
Louis Napoleon, for the time being, in lieu of another. ...
Next day, January 1, 1852, Archbishop Sibour celebrated a Te
Deum in Notre Dame, the prince-president sitting under a
canopy. ... While the man of December 2 lodged in the palace
of kings, the chief representatives of the republic were cast
into exile. The executors of the plot treated the captive
representatives very differently according as they were
conservative or republican. When the prisoners were told that
a distinction was to be made among them, they honorably
refused to give their names, but they were betrayed by an
usher of the Assembly. The republicans were then sent to
Mazas, and treated like common thieves, M. Thiers alone being
allowed a bed instead of the ordinary hammock. The other party
were soon set free, with but few exceptions, and on the 8th of
January the generals imprisoned at Ham, with their companion,
Questor Baze, were sent to Belgium. Next day a series of
proscriptions came out. All persons 'convicted of taking part
in the recent insurrections' were to be transported, some to
Guiana, some to Algiers. A second decree expelled from France,
Algiers, and the French colonies, 'as a measure of public
safety,' sixty representatives of the Left, including Victor
Hugo and certain others, for whom it was reserved to aid in
the foundation of a third republic. A third decree commanded
the temporary absence from France and Algiers of eighteen
other representatives, including the generals, with Thiers, De
Rémusat, and several members of the Left, among them Edgar
Quinet and Emile de Girardin. ... The next step was to
establish the famous 'mixed commissions' in every province.
These commissions were to try the numerous prisoners still
held captive. ... The mixed commissions of 1852, as the
historian of the coup d'état (M. Eugène Ténot) declares,
'decided, without legal proceedings, without hearing of
witnesses, without public trial, the fate of thousands and
thousands of republicans.' They have left the indelible memory
of one of the most monstrous events known in history. An act
equally extraordinary in another way was the promulgation of
the new constitution framed by the dictator alone (January 14,
1852). ... The constitution of 1852 began by a 'recognition,
confirmation, and guarantee of the great principles proclaimed
in 1789, which are the foundation of the public rights and
laws of France.'
{1379}
But it did not say one word about the freedom of the press,
nor about freedom of clubs and association. ... 'The
government of the French republic is intrusted to Prince Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte for the term of ten years.' In the preface
Louis Napoleon threw aside the fiction of irresponsibility
'which deceives public sentiment'; the constitution therefore
declares the leader of the state responsible to the French
people, but omits to say how this responsibility may be
realized; the French people have no resource save revolution.
... The legislative body was to consist of 262 members (one
for each 3,500 electors), chosen for five years by universal
suffrage. This body would vote upon the laws and taxes. Louis
Napoleon, having profited so largely by the repeal of the law
of May 31, could scarcely refuse to retain direct universal
suffrage, but he essentially altered its character by various
modifications. He also so reduced the importance of the only
great body still elective, that he had little or nothing to
fear from it. Another assembly, the Senate, was to be composed
of eighty members, which number might be increased to 150. The
senators were irremovable, and were to be chosen by the
president of the republic, with the exception of cardinals,
marshals, and admirals, who were senators by right. The
president might give each senator an income of 80,000 francs.
The Senate was the guardian of the constitution and of 'the
public liberty.' ... The executive power chose all mayors, and
was at liberty to select them outside the town council. In
fact, the constitution of 1852 surpassed the constitution of
the year VIII. as a piece of monarchic reaction. It entailed
no consulate, but an empire,--dictatorship and total
confiscation of public liberty. ... Despotism spread daily in
every direction. On the 17th of February the liberty of the
press was notably reduced, and severe penalties were affixed
to any infraction. In fact, the press was made dependent on
the good-will of the president. Education was next attacked, a
decree of March 9, 1852, stripping the professors of the
University of all the pledges and principles granted by the
First Empire. ... The new power, in 1852, labored to turn all
the forces of the country to material interests, while it
stifled all moral interests. It suppressed education and the
press, and constantly stimulated the financial and industrial
movement. ... Numberless railroad companies now sprang to
life, and roads were rapidly built upon a grand scale. The
government adopted the system of grants on a long term of
years,--say ninety-nine,--plus the guarantee of a small rate
of interest. In everything the cry was for instant success, at
any cost. Great financial operations followed on the heels of
the first grants to railroad companies. ... This year's
budget, like the constitution, was the work of a single man.
The dictator settled it by a decree; then, having ordered the
elections for his Chamber of Deputies, just before his
constitution went into operation, he raised the universal
state of siege (March 28). This was only a feint, for his
government was a permanent state of siege. ... The official
candidates presented, or rather imposed, were generally
elected; the republicans failed to vote throughout a great
part of the country. ... March 29, the prince-president
proceeded to install the great state bodies at the Tuileries.
It was thought that he would hint in his speech that he
expected the title of Emperor, but he left that point vague,
and still talked of preserving the republic. ... During the
session a rumor was current that Louis Napoleon was to be
proclaimed emperor on the 10th of May, after the distribution
of eagles to the army; but this was not carried out. The
dictator had no desire to be made emperor in this fashion. He
meant to do it more artfully, and to make it seem that the
nation forced the accomplishment of his wishes upon him. He
therefore undertook a fresh journey through the provinces. ...
The watchword was everywhere given by the authorities and
influential persons, whose example was imitated by the crowd,
irreconcilable opponents keeping silent. ... He returned to
Paris, October 16, and was received in state at the Orleans
station. The official bodies greeted him with shouts of 'Long
live the Emperor!' ... Next day, the following paragraph
appeared in the 'Moniteur': 'The tremendous desire for the
restoration of the empire manifested throughout France, makes
it incumbent upon the president to consult the Senate upon the
subject.' The Senate and Legislature were convened November 4;
the latter was to verify the votes, should the Senate decide
that the people must be consulted in regard to a change in the
form of government, which no one doubted would be the case.
... The Senate ... passed a decree for the submission of the
restoration of the hereditary empire for popular acceptance
(November 7); the senators then went in a body to St. Cloud to
inform the prince-president of this decision. ... The people
were then called upon to vote for the plebiscite decreed by
the Senate (November 20 and 21). Republican and legitimist
protests were circulated in despite of the police, the
government publishing them in the official organ, the
'Moniteur,' as if in defiance, thinking that the excessive
violence of the republican proscripts of London and Guernsey
would alarm the peace-loving public. The result of the vote
was even greater than that of December 20, 1851; the
authenticity of the figures may indeed be doubted, but there
is not a doubt that there was really a large majority in favor
of the plebiscite. France abandoned the struggle! On the
evening of December 1, the three great state bodies, the two
Chambers and the State Council, went to St. Cloud, and the
president of the Legislature presented the result of the
ballot to the new emperor, who sat enthroned, between his
uncle Jerome and his cousin Napoleon."
H. Martin,
Popular History of France,
1789-1878, volume 3, chapter 15.
ALSO IN:
H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 6, and appendix 9.
FRANCE: A. D. 1853-1856.
The Crimean war.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1853-1854, to 1854-1856.
FRANCE: A. D. 1857-1860.
Allied operations with England in China.
See CHINA: A. D. 1856-1860.
FRANCE: A. D. 1858.
The Orsini attempt to assassinate Napoleon III.
Complaints against England.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1858-1859.
FRANCE: A. D. 1859.
Alliance with Sardinia and war with Austria.
Victories of Magenta and Solferino.
Liberation of Lombardy.
Peace of Villafranca.
Acquisition of Savoy and Nice.
See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859, and 1859-1861.
{1380}
FRANCE: A. D. 1860.
The Chevalier-Cobden commercial treaty with England.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (FRANCE): A. D. 1858-1860.
FRANCE: A. D.1860-1870.
Modifications of the imperial constitution.
"Originally ... the power of the Legislative Body was limited
to voting and rejecting as a whole the laws submitted to it by
the Executive; there was no such thing as criticism or control
of the general policy of the reign: but the year 1860 opened a
period of development in the direction of liberty; by a decree
of the November of that year the Emperor permitted the
Deputies to draw up an address in answer to his speech, giving
them thereby the opportunity to criticise his policy; by that
of December 1861 he allowed them to vote the budget by
sections, that is to say, to discuss and, if desirable, reject
its items; by that of January 1867 he substituted for the
Address the right of questioning the Ministers, who might be
delegated to the Chamber by the Emperor to take part in
certain definite discussions; lastly, by that of September
1869 he gave to the Legislative Body the right of initiating
laws, removed the restrictions hitherto retained on the right
of amendment and of questions, and made the Ministers
responsible to the Chamber. Thus the Constitution was
deliberately modified, by the initiative of the Emperor
himself, from the form of imperial despotism to that of
parliamentary monarchy: this modified Constitution was
submitted to a plebiscite in May 1870, and once more the
people ratified the Empire by over seven million votes against
a million and a half."
G. L. Dickinson,
Revolution and Reaction in Modern France,
chapter 7, section 8.
FRANCE: A. D.1861-1867.
Intervention in Mexico and its humiliating failure.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1861-1867.
FRANCE: A. D. 1862.
Commercial treaty with Germany.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (GERMANY): A. D. 1853-1892.
FRANCE: A. D. 1866.
Withdrawal of troops from Rome.
See ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866.
FRANCE: A. D. 1866-1870.
Territorial concessions demanded from Germany.
The Luxemburg question.
War temporarily averted.
See GERMANY. A.D. 1866-1870.
FRANCE: A. D. 1867.
Last defense of Papal sovereignty at Rome.
Defeat of Garibaldi at Mentana.
See ITALY: A.D. 1867-1870.
FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (June-July).
"The Hohenzollern incident."
Unjustifiable declaration of war against Prussia.
"Towards the last of June, 1870, there arose what is known as
the 'Hohenzollern incident,' which assumed so much importance,
as it led up to the Franco-German War. In June, 1868, Queen
Isabella had been chased from Spain, and had sought refuge in
France. The Spanish Cortes, maintaining the monarchical form,
offered the Crown of Spain to Prince Hohenzollern, a relation
of the King of Prussia.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1866-1878.
The French Minister at Madrid telegraphed that Prince Leopold
Hohenzollern had been nominated to the throne of Spain, and
had accepted. This produced the utmost excitement and
indignation among the French people. The Paris press teemed
with articles more or less violent, calling on the government
to prevent this outrage, even at the cost of war. The journals
of all shades were unanimous in the matter, contending that it
was an insult and a peril to France, and could not be
tolerated. The Opposition in the Chamber made the incident an
occasion for attacking the government, alleging that it was
owing to its weak and vacillating policy that France was
indebted to her fresh humiliation. The government journals,
however, laid the whole blame upon the ambition of Count
Bismarck, who had become to them a bête noire. ... Both
parties vied with each other in showing the extent of their
dislike to the great Prussian Chancellor. Much pressure was
soon brought to bear in the proper quarters; the result of
this was the withdrawal of the Hohenzollern candidacy.
Explanations were made, better counsels seemed to prevail, and
all immediate trouble appeared averted. It seemed quite
certain that all danger of a war between France and Germany
was at an end, and all being quiet on the banks of the Seine,
on the 3d of July I left Paris in pursuit of health and
recreation at the healing waters of Carlsbad, of far-off
Bohemia. I was in excellent relations with the Duke de
Gramont, and everything appeared to be serene. I had hardly
reached Carlsbad, when scanty news was received of a somewhat
threatening character. I could hardly believe that anything
very serious was likely to result; yet I was somewhat uneasy.
Going to drink the water at one of the health-giving springs,
early in the morning of July 15th, my Alsatian valet brought
me the startling news, that a private telegram, received at
midnight, gave the intelligence that France had declared war
against Germany. The news fell upon the thousands of visitors
and the people of Carlsbad, like a clap of thunder in a
cloudless sky, and the most intense excitement prevailed. The
nearest railroad station to Carlsbad, at that time, was Eger.
... I rode all night from Carlsbad to Eger. Taking the
railroad from Eger to Paris, and passing through Bavaria,
Baden, Darmstadt and the valley of the Rhine, the excitement
was something prodigious, recalling to me the days at home of
the firing upon Sumter, in 1861. The troops were rushing to
the depots; the trains were all blocked, and confusion
everywhere reigned supreme. After great delays, and much
discomfort, and a journey of fifty-two hours, I reached Paris
at ten o'clock at night, July 18th. The great masses of
people, naturally so excitable and turbulent, had been
maddened by the false news so skilfully disseminated, that
King William, at Ems, had insulted the French nation through
its Ambassador. ... It soon turned out that all the reports
which had been spread over Paris, that King William had
insulted the French Ambassador were utterly false, and had not
the slightest foundation. The French Ambassador, M. Benedetti,
denied that he had received the least indignity from the
Emperor. The plain truth seemed to be that the French
Ambassador courteously approached the Emperor, while walking
in the garden of the Kursaal, and spoke to him in relation to
the pending difficulties then existing between the two
countries. The good old king was kind and polite, as he always
is to every one with whom he comes in contact, and when M.
Benedetti commenced talking in relation to matters of such a
grave character, he politely stated that he would have to talk
upon such questions with the German Foreign Office. All that
was very proper, and nobody thought of it, or supposed that
there was any indignity, as there was not the slightest
intended. ...
{1381}
The exaggerations in Paris and France of this simple incident
surpassed all bounds, and they were apparently made to inflame
the people still more. It really appeared that the Government
of France had determined to have war with Germany, coûte que
coûte [at all costs]. The alleged causes growing out of the
talk that Germany was to put a German prince on the throne of
Spain were but a mere pretext. The Hohenzollern candidature
had been withdrawn, and there was no necessity or sense in any
further trouble. But the truth was that, after eighteen years
of peace, the courtiers and adventurers who surrounded the
Emperor seemed to think that it was about time to have a war,
to awaken the martial spirit of the French people, to plant
the French eagles in triumph in the capital of some foreign
country, and, as a consequence, to fix firmly on the throne
the son of Napoleon the Third, and restore to the Imperial
crown the lustre it had lost."
E. B. Washburne,
Recollections of a Minister to France,
volume 1, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
W. Müller,
Political History of Recent Times,
section 25.
G. B. Malleson,
The Refounding of the German Empire,
chapter 11;
W. Rüstow,
The War for the Rhine Frontier, 1870,
chapter 6 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (July-August).
Disastrous opening of the war.
Defeats at Wörth, Spichern and Gravelotte.
Bazaine's army shut up in Metz.
"July 23d Napoleon intrusted the regency to the empress for
the period of his absence from Paris. ... On the 28th, ...
accompanied by his son, [he] left for Metz, to assume command
of the army. ... The army consisted of eight corps. Of these,
the 1st, under Marshal MacMahon, was stationed at Strasburg;
the 2d, under General Frossard, at St. Avold; the 3d, under
Marshal Bazaine, at Metz; the 4th, under General Ladmirault,
at Diedenhofen (Thionville); the 5th, under General Failly, at
Bitsch; the 6th, under Marshal Canrobert, in the camp at
Châlons; the 7th, under General Felix Douay, at Belfort; the
8th,--the Imperial Guard--under General Bourbaki, at Nancy.
Accordingly, the French forces were divided into two groups,
the larger stationed on the Moselle, and the smaller in
Alsace. To the latter belonged the 1st and 7th corps, both of
which were placed under the command of Marshal MacMahon, with
orders to prevent the crown prince's army from entering
Alsace. The larger group comprised the 2d, 3d, and 4th corps.
... The 6th and 8th were to have formed the reserve; but the
greatly superior numbers of Prince Frederic Charles and
Steinmetz, who were advancing against this larger group,
necessitated the immediate bringing of those corps to the
front. The connection between the two groups was to be
maintained by the 5th corps, stationed at Bitsch. Skirmishing
of the advanced posts and collisions between reconnoitering
parties began on the 19th of July. The most important of these
minor engagements was that at Saarbrücken, on the 2d of August
[the French claiming a victory]. ... August 4th the crown
prince crossed the French frontier and attacked the town of
Weissenburg, on the little river Lauter. ... Weissenburg was
successfully carried by Prussian and Bavarian battalions
combined, and the Geisberg by sixteen battalions of Prussians
alone. ... August 5th MacMahon with his corps took up his
position at Wörth, fortifying the heights westward from
Sauerbach, together with the villages of Froschweiler and
Elsasshausen, in the intention of meeting at that place the
advancing columns of the crown prince, whose attack he
expected on the 7th. To strengthen his army sufficiently for
the task required of it he endeavored to bring up General
Felix Douay's corps from Belfort and Mühlhausen, and that of
General Failly from Bitsch; but only one division of the
former arrived in time, and a division of the latter which was
sent to his support did not reach the neighborhood of the
battle-field until the evening of the 6th, in time to afford a
partial protection on the retreat. Consequently, MacMahon was
left with not more than 45,000 men to face the crown prince's
whole army. ... On the morning of the 6th the advance guard of
the 5th corps became involved in a sharp action with the
enemy," and "from a mere skirmish of the advance guard
resulted the decisive battle of Wörth. ... After Wörth itself
had been carried, the fighting was most severe around the
fortified village of Froschweiler. This was finally taken, and
a desperate charge of the French cuirassiers repulsed.
Thereupon MacMahon's army broke and fled in wild confusion,
some toward the passes of the Vosges, others to Strasburg or
Bitsch. ... The trophies of victory were numerous and
valuable: 200 officers and 9,000 men prisoners. ... The French
lost 6,000 dead and wounded; the German loss was 489 officers
and 10,153 men--a loss greater than that of Sadowa. ...
MacMahon, with about 15,000 of his defeated troops, reached
Zabern on the morning of the 7th, and set out thence for
Châlons, whither Generals Douay and Failly were also directed
to lead their forces. A new army was to be formed at that
point, and northern Alsace was abandoned to the crown prince's
victorious troops. The Badish division received orders to march
against Strasburg, and by the 9th the whole corps was
assembled before that city, Hagenau having been taken by the
cavalry on the way. ... Preparations for a siege were made, a
regular siege corps being formed ... and placed under the
command of General Werder. With the remainder of the third
army the crown prince left Wörth on the 8th of August, marched
through the unguarded passes of the Vosges, and entered Nancy
on the 16th. ... Detachments were left behind to blockade
Bitsch and Pfalzburg. At Nancy the prince rested for a few
days and waited for decisive news from the Saar and Moselle. A
second victory was won on the 6th of August at Spichern [or
Forbach]. Like the battle of Wörth, this action was not the
result of a strategical combination, but rather of a
misunderstanding. ... Frossard [whose corps was encountered at
Spichern] fell back on Metz by way of Saargemünd. Bazaine, who,
although not more than seven or eight miles from the field of
battle, had made no attempt to come to Frossard's assistance,
led his corps to the same place. In this battle, owing to the
unfavorable nature of the ground, the losses of the conquerors
were heavier than those of the conquered. The Germans had 223
officers and 4,648 men dead, wounded, and missing; while the
French, according to their own reports, lost 249 officers and
3,829 men, 2,000 of whom were taken prisoners. August 7th the
victors continued their forward march, capturing great stores
of provisions in Forbach. On the 9th St. Avold was taken, and
foraging parties advanced almost to Metz.
{1382}
Marching through the Rhenish Palatinate, part of Prince
Frederic Charles's army directed its course toward Metz by way
of Saarbrücken, and part through Saargemünd. ... In the
imperial head-quarters at Metz the greatest consternation
prevailed. ... It was [finally] decided to concentrate five
army corps on the right bank of the Moselle, at Metz, and to
form a second army, consisting of four corps, under MacMahon's
command, in the camp at Châlons. The first line of defence on
the Rhine and Saar had been abandoned, and France was to be
defended on the Moselle. By this decision Alsace and Lorraine
were surrendered to the foe at the very outset." On the 9th of
August the French emperor transferred the chief command from
himself to Marshal Bazaine, while Lebœuf at the same time
withdrew from the direction of the staff. Simultaneously, at
Paris, the Grammont-Ollivier ministry resigned, and was
succeeded by a cabinet formed under the presidency of Count
Palikao (General Montauban). "New levies were called into the
field, comprising all unmarried men between the ages of 25 and
30 not already enrolled in the 'garde mobile.' ... In the
German head-quarters ... it was resolved in some way to make
Bazaine's army harmless, either by shutting him up in Metz or
by pushing him northward to the Belgian frontier. ... The task
was a difficult one. ... All depended upon what course Bazaine
might conclude to pursue, and the energy with which he
executed his plans. It was his purpose to leave Metz with the
field army and join MacMahon at Châlons. There would then be
300,000 French at that place to block the German march to
Paris. In that event the Germans would have to leave 60,000
men before Metz ... and Diedenhofen, and would not have enough
left to venture an attack on the united and well-intrenched
armies at Châlons. Accordingly, the union of those two armies
must be prevented at any price, and Bazaine be attacked before
Metz. The execution of this plan led to the severe fighting
near that city--the battle of Colombey-Nouilly (Borny), on the
14th, Vionville on the 16th, and Gravelotte on the 18th." The
battle of Gravelotte was "the first battle in the war in which
a pre-arranged plan [Moltke's] was actually carried out. ... It
was a brilliant victory, and followed by important results.
Bazaine's army was shut up in the fortress and among the
outlying forts, and rendered unavailable for further service
in the field. The losses of the French amounted to about
13,000 men, including 600 officers; the German loss was 899
officers and 19,260 men, of whom 328 officers and 4,909 men
were killed outright. The number of combatants on the side of
the French was about 140,000, on the side of the Germans
178,818, the former having 550, and the latter 822 cannon. It
must be remembered, however, that the French occupied a
position very much of the nature of a fortress, which had to
be carried by storm."
W. Müller,
Political History of Recent Times,
section 25.
ALSO IN:
Count H. von Moltke,
The Franro-German War of 1870-71,
section 1.
Colonel A. Borbstaedt and Major F. Dwyer,
The Franco-German War,
chapters 10-29.
FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (August-September).
Investment of Metz by the Germans.
Disastrous attempt of MacMahon to rescue Bazaine.
The catastrophe at Sedan.
"The huge, stubborn, vehement and bloody conflict waged in the
rural tract between the northern edges of the Bois de Vaux and
the Forest of Jaumont, which the French Marshal called the
'Defence of the Lines of Amanvillers,' the French Army, 'the
Battle of St. Privat,' and the Germans the battle of
'Gravelotte--St. Privat,' established the mastery of the
latter over 'the Army of the Rhine.' Marshal Bazaine had not
proved strong enough to extricate the Army he was suddenly
appointed to command from the false position in which it had
been placed by the errors and hesitations of the Emperor and
Marshal Lebœuf. ... The German leaders forthwith resolved, and
acted on the resolve, to take the largest advantage of success.
When the broadening day showed that the French were encamped
under the guns of the fort, and that they did not betray the
faintest symptom of fighting for egress on any side, the place
was deliberately invested. ... Soon the blockade was so far
completed that only adventurous scouts were able at rare
intervals to work their way through the German lines. As early
as the forenoon of the 19th, the King had decided to form what
came to be called the 'Army of the Meuse' out of the Corps
which were not needed to uphold the investment of Metz, and
thus place himself in a condition to assail the French Army
collecting at Chalons. ... This formidable force was put under
the command of the Crown Prince of Saxony, who had shown
himself to be an able soldier. Consequently, there remained
behind to invest Bazaine, seven Corps d'Armée and a Division
of Reserve under General von Kummer. ... One Army had been
literally imprisoned, another remained at large, and behind it
were the vast resources of France. Three Marshals were cooped
up in the cage on the Moselle; one, MacMahon, and the Emperor
were still in the field; and upon the forces with them it was
resolved to advance at once, because prudence required that
they should be shattered before they could be completely
organized, and while the moral effect of the resounding blows
struck in Alsace and Lorraine had lost none of its terrible
power. Therefore the King and General von Moltke started on
the morrow of victory to march on Paris through the plains of
Champagne."
G. Hooper,
The Campaign of Sedan,
chapter 10.
"While the German invasion had thus been rolling from Lorraine
into the flats of Champagne, the shattered right wing of the
army of the Rhine, with reinforcements sent off from Paris,
had been drawn together in the well-known plains made
memorable by the defeat of Attila. By 20 August the first and
fifth French corps marched rapidly from the Upper Moselle to
the Marne, had been joined by the seventh corps from Belfort
and by the twelfth formed in and despatched from Paris; and
this force, numbering perhaps 130,000 men, with from 400 to
500 guns, had been concentrated round the great camp of
Châlons. Macmahon was given the supreme command, and the first
operations of the experienced chief showed that he understood
the present state of affairs, and were in accord with the
rules of strategy. Bazaine, he knew, was in peril near Metz,
and certainly had not attained the Meuse; and he was at the
head of the last army which France could assemble for the
defence of her capital.
{1383}
In these circumstances, impressed perhaps by the grand
memories of the campaign of 1814, he most properly resolved to
fall back towards Paris; but as Bazaine was possibly not far
distant, and a position on the flank of the German advance
might afford a favourable opportunity to strike, he withdrew
northwards on the 21st to Rheims, in the double hope that he
would approach his colleague and threaten the communications
of the advancing enemy. This, we repeat, was following the art
of war, and had Macmahon firmly adhered to his purpose, there
would have been no Sedan and no treaty of Frankfort. Unhappily
the marshal, a hero in the field, was deficient in real
strength of character, and at this critical moment evil
counsels and false information shook, and at last changed, a
resolve that ought to have never faltered. A new
administration had been formed in Paris, and Palikao, the
minister of war, devoted to the Empire, and especially bent on
satisfying the demands of the excited capital, which
passionately insisted on the relief of Bazaine, had conceived
a project by which he hoped that this great object would be
effected and the 'dynasty' be restored in popular opinion. The
army of the Meuse, he argued, was near that stream, round
Verdun; the third army was far away to the south; there was a
considerable interval between the two masses; and the army of
Châlons, then at Rheims, was not far from the Upper Meuse. In
those circumstances it was quite practicable, should Macmahon
rapidly advance to the Meuse, to overpower with his largely
superior force the army of the Meuse before support could be
sent from the distant third army; and the enemy in his path
being swept aside, the marshal could then descend on Metz,
fall with the collected strength of the army of Châlons on the
divided fragments of the investing force, and triumphantly
effect his junction with Bazaine, having routed, perhaps, the
first and second armies before the third could appear on the
scene. The defiles and woods of the Argonne and the Ardennes,
stretching between the French and the German armies, Palikao
insisted, would form a screen to conceal the advance of the
army of Chãlons, and would greatly facilitate the proposed
movement. This project reached Macmahon on 21 August, and may
be pronounced one of the most reckless ever designed by a
desperate gambler in war. ... Macmahon at first refused to
listen to what he condemned as a hopeless project; but bad
advisers found their way to him, and his resolution was
already yielding when a calamitous event fixed his shifting
purpose. A despatch from Bazaine, obscure and untrue,
announced that he was on his way northward. Macmahon inferred
that his beleaguered colleague had left Metz and eluded his
foes, and, thinking that he would reach Bazaine before long,
in an evil hour for France and for himself, he consented to
attempt the march to the Meuse."
W. O'C. Morris,
The Campaign of Sedan
(English Historical Review., April, 1888).
"It was not until the afternoon of August 23 that MacMahon's
army passed through Rheims. Anxious, and knowing that
everything depended on speed, he addressed some columns as
they toiled onwards, reminding them that French soldiers had
marched thirty miles a day under the sun of Africa. The
difference, however, was great between raids made by a few
light regiments and the advance of a raw unwieldy mass; and
though the marshal endeavoured to hurry them forward, he was
confronted with almost insurmountable obstacles. Scarcely had
the army made a march towards establishing itself at
Bethniville, on the Suippe, when commissariat difficulties
obliged him to re-approach the line of the railway. He made a
movement on his left, and reached Rethel on the 24th, in order
to obtain for his troops several days' subsistence. This
distribution occupied the whole of the 25th. ... As the
direction of the French movement could not now be concealed,
at this point MacMahon made arrangements for marching with all
possible rapidity. It may be doubted, however, whether
Napoleon himself, at the head of the grand army could have
made the haste which the marshal designed with his raw and
partly demoralized troops. ... His army was altogether unequal
to forced marches, and moved at this critical moment with the
sluggishness inherent in its defective organization.
Encumbered with stragglers, badly pioneered, and checked by
hindrances of every kind, it made hardly ten miles a day; and
it was the 27th of August before its right column, still far
from the Meuse, passed through Vouziers, and the left reached
Le Chêne. ... On the 27th it was openly boasted of in Paris
that MacMahon had gained at least forty-eight hours' start of
the Crown Prince, and his coming success was firmly counted on
by the imperialist cabinet, whereas, in reality, the whole
scheme was foiled beforehand by Von Moltke's and General
Blumenthal's prompt combination. ... If in fighting, in the
boldness of their cavalry, the activity of their staff, the
cool firing of their infantry, and the skilful tactical use of
their guns, the superiority of the Germans to their
antagonists had been already proved; it only required the
contrast now presented between the movements of the two armies
to show, that in no point had the difference of training and
moral feeling told more in favour of the invaders than in that
of the marching, on which the elder Napoleon so often relied
for his advantage over these very Germans. ... Between the
27th and the morning of the 29th, the right column of the
French army had only its outposts at Buzancy, while the left,
though its outposts touched Stenay, was only at Stonne and
Beaumont, both columns spreading a long way backward; in other
words, they were still a march from the Meuse, which they
ought to have passed three days before, and their rearward
divisions were yet distant. The German armies, from the 26th
to the 29th, made astonishing exertions to close on MacMahon
as he crossed towards the Meuse, and success was already
within their grasp. The force of the Crown Prince of Saxony,
in two columns, had reached the Meuse at Dun on the 27th, and
was thus in a position to arrest and retard the vanguard of
the French whenever it attempted to cross the river. Meanwhile
the army of the Crown Prince of Prussia, hastening forward by
Varennes and Grand Prè, and to the left by Senuc and Suippe,
had arrived close to the line of march of MacMahon's right
column, and by the evening of the 28th had occupied it about
Vouziers. A step farther, and this immense army would be upon
the positions of the luckless French, who, assailed in flank
and rear by superior numbers, could not fail to be involved in
terrible disaster. ... MacMahon [on the 27th], observing that
the enemy so completely surrounded him, felt more than ever
satisfied that it would be impossible to carry out the plan
which had been prescribed to him at Paris; and to save, if
possible, the sole army which France had at her disposal, he
accordingly resolved to turn back in a westerly direction. ...
{1384}
The same evening he sent ... [a] telegram to the Count
Palikao, at Paris. ... In reply to this, the government sent a
telegram to the emperor at eleven o'clock the same night,
telling him that if they abandoned Bazaine there would
certainly be a revolution in Paris, and they would themselves
be attacked by all the enemy's forces. ... The emperor admits
that he could unquestionably have set this order aside, but
'he was resolved not to oppose the decision of the regency,
and had resigned himself to submit to the consequences of the
fatality which attached itself to all the resolutions of the
government.' 'As for MacMahon, he again bowed to the decision
intimated to him from Paris, and once more turned towards
Metz. These orders and counter-orders naturally occasioned
further delay, and the French headquarters had reached no
farther than Stonne on the 28th. ... On Monday, August 29, De
Failly occupied the country between Beaumont and Stonne, on
the left bank of the Meuse; while the main body of the French
army, under MacMahon in person, had crossed the river, and
were encamped on the right bank at Vaux, between Mouzon and
Carignan, and on the morning of the 30th the emperor
telegraphed to Paris that a brilliant victory might be
expected. MacMahon's position was in a sharp wedge of country
formed by the confluence of the rivers Meuse and Chiers, and
it was his intention to advance towards Montmèdy. The other
part of his army was close to the river on its left bank. ...
The battle--or rather series of battles, for the fighting
extended over three days--which was to decide whether or not
he would reach Metz and liberate Bazaine, began in earnest a
little before noon on Tuesday, August 30."
H. M. Hozier,
The Franco-Prussian War,
volume 1, chapter 13.
"The retreating French were concentrated, or rather massed,
under the walls of Sedan, in a valley commonly called the Sink
of Givonne. The army consisted of twenty-nine brigades,
fifteen divisions, and four corps d'armée, numbering ninety
thousand men. 'It was there,' says Victor Hugo, 'no one could
guess what for, without order, without discipline, a mere
crowd of men, waiting, as it seemed, to be seized by an
immensely powerful hand. It seemed to be under no particular
anxiety. The men who composed it knew, or thought they knew,
that the enemy was far away. Calculating four leagues as a
day's march, they believed the Germans to be at three days'
distance. The commanders, however, towards nightfall, made
some preparations for safety. The whole army formed a sort of
horse-shoe, its point turning towards Sedan. This disposition
proved that its chiefs believed themselves in safety. The
valley was one of those which the Emperor Napoleon used to
call a "bowl," and which Admiral Van Tromp designated by a
less polite name. No place could have been better calculated
to shut in an army. Its very numbers were against it. Once in,
if the way out were blocked, it could never leave it again.
Some of the generals,--General Wimpfen among them--saw this,
and were uneasy; but the little court around the emperor was
confident of safety. "At worst," they said, "we can always
reach the Belgian frontier." The commonest military
precautions were neglected. The army slept soundly on the
night of August 31. At the worst they believed themselves to
have a line of retreat open to Mézières, a town on the
frontier of Belgium. No cavalry reconnoissance was made that
night; the guards were not doubled. The French believed
themselves more than forty miles from the German army. They
behaved as if they thought that army unconcentrated and
ill-informed, attempting vaguely several things at once, and
incapable of converging on one point, namely, Sedan. They
thought they knew that the column under the Prince of Saxony
was marching upon Châlons, and that the Crown Prince of
Prussia was marching upon Metz. But that night, while the
French army, in fancied security, was sleeping at Sedan, this
is what was passing among the enemy. By a quarter to two A. M.
the army of the Prince of Saxony was on its march eastward
with orders not to fire a shot till five o'clock, and to make
as little noise as possible. They marched without baggage of
any kind. At the same hour another division of the Prussian
army marched, with equal noiselessness, from another direction
on Sedan, while the Würtemburgers secured the road to
Mézières, thereby cutting off the possibility of a retreat
into Belgium. At the same moment, namely, five o'clock,--on
all the hills around Sedan, at all points of the compass,
appeared a dense dark mass of German troops, with their
commanders and artillery. Not one sound had been heard by the
French army, not even an order. Two hundred and fifty thousand
men were in a Circle on the heights round the Sink of Givonne.
They had come as stealthily and as silently as serpents. They
were there when the sun rose, and the French army were
prisoners.'
Victor Hugo,
Choses Vues.
The battle was one of artillery. The German guns commanded
every part of the crowded valley. Indeed the fight was simply
a massacre. There was no hope for the French, though they
fought bravely. Their best troops, the Garde Impériale, were
with Bazaine at Metz. Marshal MacMahon was wounded very early
in the day. The command passed first to General Ducrot, who
was also disabled, and afterwards to Wimpfen, a brave African
general who had hurried from Algeria just in time to take part
in this disastrous day. He told the emperor that the only hope
was for the troops to cut their way out of the valley; but the
army was too closely crowded, too disorganized, to make this
practicable. One Zouave regiment accomplished this feat, and
reached Belgium. That night--the night of September 1--an
aide-de-camp of the Emperor Napoleon carried this note to the
camp of the king of Prussia:--Monsieur Mon Frère,--Not having
been able to die in midst of my troops, it only remains for me
to place my sword in the hands of your Majesty. I am your
Majesty's good brother, Napoleon. ... With Napoleon III. fell
not only his own reputation as a ruler, but the glory of his
uncle and the prestige of his name. The fallen emperor and
Bismarck met in a little house upon the banks of the Meuse.
Chairs were brought out, and they talked in the open air. It
was a glorious autumn morning. The emperor looked care-worn,
as well he might. He wished to see the king of Prussia before
the articles of capitulation were drawn up: but King William
declined the interview. When the capitulation was signed,
however, he drove over to visit the captive emperor at a
château where the latter had taken refuge.
{1385}
Their interview was private; only the two sovereigns were
present. The French emperor afterwards expressed to the Crown
Prince of Prussia his deep sense of the courtesy shown him. He
was desirous of passing as unnoticed as possible through
French territory, where, indeed, exasperation against him, as
the first cause of the misfortunes of France, was so great
that his life would have been in peril. The next day he
proceeded to the beautiful palace at Cassel called
Wilhelmshöhe, or William's Rest. It had been built at ruinous
expense by Jerome Bonaparte while king of Westphalia, and was
then called Napoleon's Rest. ... Thus eighty thousand men
capitulated at Sedan, and were marched as prisoners into
Germany; one hundred and seventy-five thousand French soldiers
remained shut up in Metz, besides a few thousand more in
Strasburg, Phalsbourg, Toul, and Belfort. But the road was
open to Paris, and thither the various German armies marched,
leaving the Landwehr, which could not be ordered to serve
beyond the limits of Germany, to hold Alsace and Lorraine,
already considered a part of the Fatherland."
E. W. Latimer,
France in the Nineteenth Century,
chapter 12.
"The German army had lost in the battle of Sedan about 460
officers and 8,500 men killed and wounded. On the French side
the loss sustained in the battle and at the capitulation
amounted according to their returns to the following: Killed
3,000 men; wounded 14,000; prisoners (in the battle) 21,000;
prisoners (at the capitulation) 83,000; disarmed in Belgium
3,000; total 124,000."
The Franco-German War: German Official Account,
part 1, volume 2, page 408.
ALSO IN:
Capt. G. Fitz-George,
Plan of the battle of Sedan, with Memoir.
A. Forbes,
My Experiences of the War between France and Germany,
part 1, chapter 4 (volume l).
Colonel. A. Borbstaedt and Major F. Dwyer,
The Franco-German War,
chapters 30-40.
G. B. Malleson,
The Refounding of the German Empire,
chapter 14.
FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (September).
Revolution at Paris.
Collapse of the empire.
Self-constitution of the Government of National Defense.
At Paris, the whole truth of the tremendous disaster at Sedan
was but slowly learned. On the afternoon of Saturday,
September 3, Count de Palikao intimated a little part of it,
only, "in a statement to the Corps Législatif, announcing that
Marshal Bazaine, after a vigorous sally, had been obliged to
retire again under the walls of Metz, and that Macmahon, after
a series of combats, attended by reverses and successes--
having at the outset driven a part of the enemy's army into
the Meuse--had been compelled to retreat to Sedan and
Mézières, a portion of his army having taken refuge in
Belgium. The junction of the two armies had therefore not been
made. The situation was serious, calmly observed the Minister
of War, but not hopeless. Not hopeless! when the truth was
that one army was blockaded and the other prisoner, and that
there were no reserves. ... At a midnight sitting Count de
Palikao, still determined to conceal a portion of the truth,
intimated that part of Marshal Macmahon's army had been driven
back into Sedan, that the remainder had capitulated, and that
the Emperor had been made prisoner. M. Jules Favre met this
announcement of fresh disasters by a motion, declaring the
Emperor and his dynasty to have forfeited all rights conferred
by the Constitution, demanding the appointment of a
Parliamentary Committee invested with the governing power, and
having for its special mission the expulsion of the enemy from
French territory, and further maintaining General Trochu in
his post as Governor of Paris. The Chamber then adjourned till
the morrow. But Paris had touched one of those crises when, as
Pascal says, a grain of sand will give a turn to history and
change the life of nations, and the morrow brought with it the
downfall of the Ministry, of the dynasty, of the Empire, and of
that bizarre constitutional edifice which had been kept
waiting so long for its complemental crown. ... It had been
intimated that the Corps Législatif would reassemble at noon,
before which time numerous groups collected on the Place de la
Concorde, and eventually swelled to a considerable crowd. The
bridge leading to the Palais Bourbon was guarded by a
detachment of mounted gendarmes, and numerous
sergents-de-ville. ... Battalions of National Guards having,
however, arrived, the gendarmes, after flourishing their
swords, opened their ranks and allowed them to pass, followed
by a considerable portion of the crowd, shouting 'Vive la
République!' and singing the 'Chant du Départ.' The iron gates
of the Palais Bourbon having been opened to admit a deputation
of National Guards, the crowd precipitated itself forward, and
in a few minutes the steps and courtyard were alike invaded.
Cries of 'Vive la Garde Nationale!' 'Vive la Ligne!' 'Vive la
République!' resounded on all sides, and the soldiers who
occupied the court of the Palais Bourbon, after making a show
of resistance, ended by hoisting the butt ends of their rifles
in the air in sign of sympathy, joining at the same time in the
shouts of the crowd, while the latter, encountering no further
opposition, proceeded to invade the passages of the Chamber,
at the moment Count de Kératry was attacking the Ministry for
surrounding the Corps Législatif with troops and
sergents-de-ville, contrary to the orders of General Trochu.
Count de Palikao, having explained the relative positions of
the Governor of Paris and the Minister of War, introduced a
bill instituting a Council of Government and National Defence,
composed of five members elected by the Legislative Body, the
ministers to be appointed with the approval of the members of
this Council, and he, Count de Palikao, to occupy the post of
Lieutenant-General. M. Jules Favre having claimed priority for
the motion which he had introduced the day before, M. Thiers,
pleading the necessity for union, next moved that:--'In view
of existing circumstances, the Chamber appoints a Commission
of Government and National Defence. A Constituent Assembly
will be convoked as soon as circumstances permit.' The Chamber
having declared in favour of their urgency, these several
propositions were eventually referred to the Bureau, and the
sitting was suspended. It was during this period that the
crowd penetrated into the Salles des Quatre Colonnes and de la
Paix. ... At half-past two, when the sitting was resumed, the
galleries were crowded and very noisy. The members of the Left
only were in their places. It was in vain the President
attempted to obtain silence, in vain the solemn huissiers
commanded it. MM. Gambetta and Crémieux appeared together at
the tribune, and the former begged of the people to remain
quiet. ...
{1386}
A partial silence having been secured, Count de Palikao,
followed by a few members of the majority, entered the
Chamber, but did not essay to speak. ... A minute or two
afterwards, the clamour arose again, and a noisy multitude
commenced invading the floor of the hall. ... Nothing was left
to the President but to put on his hat and retire, which he
did, together with Count de Palikao and the members by whom
the latter had been accompanied. By this time the Chamber was
completely invaded by National and Mobile Guards, in company
with an excited crowd, whose advance it was in vain now to
attempt to repel. M. Jules Favre, having mounted the tribune,
obtained a moment's silence. 'No scenes of violence,' cried
he; 'let us reserve our arms for our enemies.' Finding it
utterly impossible to obtain any further hearing inside the
Chamber, M. Gambetta, accompanied by the members of the Left,
proceeded to the steps of the peristyle, and there announced
the dethronement of the Emperor to the people assembled
outside. Accompanied by one section of the crowd, they now
hurried to the Hôtel de Ville, and there installed themselves
as a Provisional Government, whilst another section took
possession of the Tuileries--whence the Empress had that
morning taken flight--as national property. A select band of
Republicans, mindful of what Count--now Citoyen--Henri
Rochefort had done to bring Imperialism into disrepute,
proceeded to the prison of Sainte Pélagie and conducted the
author of the Lanterne, and other political prisoners, in
triumph to the Hôtel de Ville. The deputies who quitted the
Chamber when it was invaded by the mob, met that same
afternoon at the President's residence, and sent a deputation
to the Hôtel de Ville, with a proposal to act in common with
the new Government. This proposition was, however, declined,
on the score of the Republic having been already proclaimed
and accepted by the population of Paris. At an evening meeting
of nearly two hundred deputies, held under the presidency of
M. Thiers, MM. Jules Favre and Simon attended on the part of
the Provisional Government to explain that they were anxious
to secure the support of the deputies, whom they hinted,
however, could best serve their country in the departments.
After this unequivocal rebuff, the deputies, who had in the
meantime been apprised that seals had been placed on the doors
of the Corps Législatif, saw that nothing remained to them but
to protest, and protest they accordingly did against the
events of the afternoon. ... Not one of the two hundred
deputies present so much as dared suggest the breaking of the
seals and the assembling in the Legislative Chamber. ... The
Government which grasped the reins of power on the utter
collapse of Imperial institutions was a mob-named one in the
fullest sense of the term, the names having been chalked by
the populace on the pillars of the portico of the Palais
Bourbon during that invasion of the Chamber on the Sunday
afternoon which resulted in the overthrow of the Imperial
regime. The list appears to have been accepted by the
principal members of the Left, who, although they would have
preferred disassociating themselves from M. Rochefort,
nevertheless felt that it was impossible to leave him out of
the combination, and therefore adroitly--and not
inappropriately, as the safety of Paris was especially in
their keeping--made it embrace all the deputies for Paris,
save, as M. Jules Simon observed, the most illustrious
--meaning M. Thiers, who refused to join it. ... The
Government of National Defence, as it elected to style itself,
on M. Rochefort's suggestion, was composed of the following
members:--General Trochu, president; Jules Favre, Vice
President and Minister for Foreign Affairs; Emanuel Arago;
Crémieux, Minister of Justice; Jules Ferry, Secretary; Leon
Gambetta, Minister of the Interior; Garnier-Pagès;
Glais-Bizoin; Eugene Pelletan; Ernest Picard, Minister of
Finance; Henri Rochefort; and Jules Simon, Minister of Public
Instruction. Subsequently it associated with it General Le
Flô, Minister of War; Admiral Fourichon, Minister of Marine;
M. Dorian, Minister of Public Works; and M. Magnin, Minister
of Agriculture and Commerce. These, with Count de Kératry,
charged with the Prefecture of Police, M. Etienne Arago,
appointed Mayor of Paris, composed altogether no less than
eighteen members, upwards of two-thirds of whom were Bretons,
advocates, or journalists. ... For some days the new
Government was prodigal of proclamations and decrees. Its
first acts were to close the doors of the Palais Bourbon and
the Palais du Luxembourg, and dissolve the Corps Législatif
and abolish the Senate as bouches inutiles politiques, to
issue proclamations to the army, or rather the debris of one,
justifying the Revolution and appealing to the troops to
continue their heroic efforts for the defence of the country,
and to the National Guard, thanking them for their past, and
asking for their future patriotism. It released all
functionaries from their oaths, dismissed the ambassadors at
foreign courts, appointed prefects in all the departments, and
new mayors in the twenty arrondissements of the capital,
proclaimed the complete liberty of the press, ordered all
Germans not provided with special permission to remain, to
quit the departments of the Seine and Seine-et-Oise within
four-and-twenty hours. ... It pressed forward the provisioning
of the city and its works of defence, increased the herds of
sheep and oxen and the stores of corn and flour, provisionally
abolished all local customs and octroi dues, and fixed the price
of butcher's meat, armed the outer forts and the enceinte,
blew up or mined all the bridges and fired all the woods in
the environs, razed thousands of houses to the ground, felled
roadside trees, and constructed huge barricades with them;
laid in fact all the beautiful suburbs in waste; listened to
the thousand and one wild schemes put forth by patriotic
madmen for exterminating the invaders, and launched a huge
captive balloon, which hovered daily over Paris to give timely
notice of their dreaded arrival."
H. Vizetelly, editor,
Paris in Peril,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
J. Favre,
The Government of the National Defence, June-October.
W. Rüstow,
The War for the Rhine Frontier,
chapter 22 (volume 2).
{1387}
FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (September-October).
Futile striving for allies and for peace without
territorial sacrifices.
Investment of Paris.
Gambetta's organization of defense in the provinces.
Bazaine's surrender at Metz.
"The Government of National Defence ... imagined that the fall
of the Empire would simplify the cruel position of France
towards the enemy. The Dynasty which had declared war being
reversed, and the men now in power having been throughout
opposed to war and in favour of German unity, and now
demanding nothing but peace, what motive could the King of
Prussia have to continue the invasion of France? It was
further to be considered that free France would defend her
integrity to the last drop of her blood; that she would
voluntarily give up neither an inch of her territory nor a
stone of her fortresses. Such were the ideas which the new
Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Jules Favre, expressed on the
6th of September, in a circular addressed to the French agents
in foreign countries. The Cabinet of Berlin was not slow in
disabusing him of these convictions. Far from accepting the
view that the Emperor Napoleon was the sole promoter of war,
Count Bismarck, in two despatches of the 13th and of the 16th
of September, threw the responsibility of the conflict on the
French nation. He stated that the vast majority of the
Chambers had voted for war, and that the Emperor was justified
in assuring the King that he had been forced into a war to
which he was personally averse. ... In order to be secure
against future aggression, Germany would ask for guarantees
from the French nation itself, and not from a transitory
Government. ... In any case, Germany would require Strasburg
and Metz. Thus the accession to power of the Republican
Government did not modify the reciprocal positions of the two
belligerents. Nevertheless, hope was entertained in Paris that
the friendly intervention of the great powers might induce the
victor to soften his rigour;" but intervention was declined by
the Berlin Cabinet and not undertaken. "On the 19th of
September the investment of Paris was completed. At the desire
of the French Government, the English Cabinet applied to the
German head-quarters, with the object of obtaining for M.
Jules Favre an interview with Count Bismarck. This request
having been granted, the two statesmen held conferences, on
the 19th and 20th of September, at Ferrières, a castle of
Baron Rothschild near Meaux. During these interviews the
French Minister was sentimental and the German Minister coldly
logical. They could not come to an agreement on any single
point. ... The Government of Paris ... again proclaimed that
France would not cede an inch of her territory. Meanwhile, in
consequence of the investment of Paris, the Government of
National Defence was divided into two parts; some of its
Delegates withdrew to Tours, forming a delegation of the
central Government which remained in Paris. The German armies
had continued their onward march, as well as their operations
against the fortresses. Toul capitulated on the 23rd and
Strasburg on the 28th of September. On the 5th of October,
King William had established his headquarters at Versailles."
Meantime "the Government of National Defence made a last
attempt to secure allies, or at least the help of powerful
mediators. With this object M. Thiers, who had placed himself
at the disposal of the Administration of the 4th of September,
was sent on a mission to the European Courts. From the 12th of
September till the 20th of October, the old statesman visited
in succession London, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Florence. In
none of these cities were his measures attended with happy
results." At St. Petersburg and at London he was told--and he
was himself convinced--"that the King of Prussia was
compelled to consider the public opinion of Germany, and that
France would have to resign herself to territorial
sacrifices." He returned to France to advise, and to procure
authority for, a conference with the German Chancellor. But
events had already occurred which aggravated the forlorn
condition of France. "The youngest and most enterprising
member of the Government of Paris, M. Gambetta, had left the
Capital on the 8th of October in a balloon for Tours. It was
his intention to organise national defence in the Provinces.
The day after his arrival at Tours, he issued a fiery
Proclamation to the French people. ... With an energy that
called forth universal admiration, the Government of Tours,
over which Gambetta presided as Dictator, organised
resistance, formed a new army, and gathered together every
possible resource for defence both in men and in materials.
All these efforts could not arrest the progress of the
invasion. From the 11th to the 31st of October, the Germans
took successively Orleans, Soissons, Schlestadt and Dijon.
Round Paris they repulsed the sallies of Malmaison, Champigny,
and le Bourget. But all these defeats of heroic soldiers waned
when compared to the appalling and decisive catastrophe of
Metz. After the battle of Gravelotte, Marshal Bazaine had
unsuccessfully attempted several sallies. ... On the 7th of
October, after an unfortunate battle at Woippy, lasting nine
hours, Bazaine considered the situation desperate. His only
thought was to obtain the most favourable conditions he could,
and with this object he sent General Boyer to the headquarters
at Versailles." After two weeks of negotiation, "on the 21st
of October, the army encamped within the walls of Metz found
itself without provisions. ... Negotiations with Prince
Frederick Charles, nephew of the King and Commander-in-chief
of the besieging Army, were opened on the 25th, and terminated
on the 27th of October. The conditions were identical with
those of Sedan: capitulation of the town and its forts with
all the material of war, all the army of the Rhine to be
prisoners and the officers to be liberated on parole."
E. Simon,
The Emperor William and his Reign,
chapter 13 (volume 2).
"The French Army of the Rhine at the time of the surrender
still numbered 173,000 men, inclusive of 6,000 officers and
20,000 men remaining temporarily in Metz as sick or
convalescent."
The Franco-German War: German Official Account,
part 2, volume 1, page 201.
ALSO IN:
A. Forbes,
My Experiences of the War between France and Germany,
part 2 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1870-1871.
The war in the provinces.
Unsuccessful attempts to relieve the capital.
Distress in Paris.
Capitulation and armistice.
"The surrender of Metz and the release of the great army of
Prince Frederick Charles by which it was besieged fatally
changed the conditions of the French war of national defence.
Two hundred thousand of the victorious troops of Germany under
some of their ablest generals were set free to attack the
still untrained levies on the Loire and in the north of
France, which, with more time for organisation, might well
have forced the Germans to raise the siege of Paris. The army
once commanded by Steinmetz was now reconstituted, and
despatched under General Manteuffel towards Amiens; Prince
Frederick Charles moved with the remainder of his troops
towards the Loire. Aware that his approach could not long be
delayed, Gambetta insisted that Aurelle de Paladines should
begin the march on Paris.
{1388}
The general attacked Tann at Coulmiers on the 9th of November,
defeated him, and re-occupied Orleans, the first real success
that the French had gained in the war. There was great alarm
at the German headquarters at Versailles; the possibility of a
failure of the siege was discussed; and 40,000 troops were
sent southwards in haste to the support of the Bavarian
general. Aurelle, however, did not move upon the capital: his
troops were still unfit for the enterprise; and he remained
stationary on the north of Orleans, in order to improve his
organisation, to await reinforcements, and to meet the attack
of Frederick Charles in a strong position. In the third week
of November the leading divisions of the army of Metz
approached, and took post between Orleans and Paris. Gambetta
now insisted that the effort should be made to relieve the
capital. Aurelle resisted, but was forced to obey. The
garrison of Paris had already made several unsuccessful
attacks upon the lines of their besiegers, the most vigorous
being that of Le Bourget on the 30th of October, in which
bayonets were crossed. It was arranged that in the last days
of November General Trochu should endeavour to break out on
the southern side, and that simultaneously the army of the
Loire should fall upon the enemy in front of it and endeavour
to force its way to the capital. On the 28th the attack upon
the Germans on the north of Orleans began. For several days
the struggle was renewed by one division after another of the
armies of Aurelle and Prince Frederick Charles. Victory
remained at last with the Germans; the centre of the French
position was carried; the right and left wings of the army
were severed from one another and forced to retreat, the one
up the Loire, the other towards the west. Orleans on the 5th
of December passed back into the hands of the Germans. The
sortie from Paris, which began with a successful attack by
General Ducrot upon Champigny beyond the Marne, ended after
some days of combat in the recovery by the Germans of the
positions which they had lost, and in the retreat of Ducrot
into Paris. In the same week Manteuffel, moving against the
relieving army of the north, encountered it near Amiens,
defeated it after a hard struggle, and gained possession of
Amiens itself. After the fall of Amiens, Manteuffel moved upon
Rouen. This city fell into his hands without resistance. ...
But the Republican armies, unlike those which the Germans had
first encountered, were not to be crushed at a single blow.
Under the energetic command of Faidherbe the army of the north
advanced again upon Amiens. Goeben, who was left to defend the
line of the Somme, went out to meet him, defeated him on the
23rd of December, and drove him back to Arras. But again,
after a week's interval, Faidherbe pushed forward. On the 3rd
of January he fell upon Goeben's weak division at Bapaume, and
handled it so severely that the Germans would on the following
day have abandoned their position, if the French had not
themselves been the first to retire. Faidherbe, however, had
only fallen back to receive reinforcements. After some days'
rest he once more sought to gain the road to Paris, advancing
this time by the eastward line through St. Quentin. In front
of this town Goeben attacked him. The last battle of the army
of the North was fought on the 19th of January. The French
general endeavoured to disguise his defeat, but the German
commander had won all that he desired. Faidherbe's army was
compelled to retreat northwards in disorder; its part in the
war was at an end. During the last three weeks of December
there was a pause in the operations of the Germans on the
Loire. ... Gambetta ... had ... determined to throw the army
of Bourbaki, strengthened by reinforcements from the south,
upon Germany itself. The design was a daring one, and had the
... French armies been capable of performing the work which
Gambetta required of them, an inroad into Baden, or even the
reconquest of Alsace, would most seriously have affected the
position of the Germans before Paris. But Gambetta
miscalculated the power of young, untrained troops,
imperfectly armed, badly fed, against a veteran army. In a
series of hard-fought struggles the army of the Loire under
General Chanzy was driven back at the beginning of January
from Vendôme to Le Mans. On the 12th, Chanzy took post before
this city and fought his last battle. While he was making a
vigorous resistance in the centre of the line, the Breton
regiments stationed on his right gave way; the Germans pressed
round him, and gained possession of the town. Chanzy retreated
towards Laval, leaving thousands of prisoners in the hands of the
enemy, and saving only the debris of an army. Bourbaki in the
meantime, with a numerous but miserably equipped force, had
almost reached Belfort. ... Werder had evacuated Dijon and
fallen back upon Vesoul; part of his army was still occupied
in the siege of Belfort. As Bourbaki approached he fell back
with the greater part of his troops in order to cover the
besieging force, leaving one of his lieutenants to make a
flank attack upon Bourbaki at Villersexel. This attack, one of
the fiercest in the war, delayed the French for two days, and
gave Werder time to occupy the strong positions that he had
chosen about Montbéliard. Here, on the 15th of January, began
a struggle which lasted for three days. The French, starving
and perishing with cold, though far superior in number to
their enemy, were led with little effect against the German
entrenchments. On the 18th Bourbaki began his retreat. Werder
was unable to follow him; Manteuffel with a weak force was
still at some distance, and for a moment it seemed possible
that Bourbaki, by a rapid movement westwards, might crush this
isolated foe. Gambetta ordered Bourbaki to make the attempt:
the commander refused to court further disaster with troops
who were not fit to face an enemy, and retreated towards
Pontarlier in the hope of making his way to Lyons. But
Manteuffel now descended in front of him; divisions of
Werder's army pressed down from the north; the retreat was cut
off; and the unfortunate French general, whom a telegram from
Gambetta removed from his command, attempted to take his own
life. On the 1st of February, the wreck of his army, still
numbering 85,000 men, but reduced to the extremity of weakness
and misery, sought refuge beyond the Swiss frontier. The war
was now over. Two days after Bourbaki's repulse at Montbéliard
the last unsuccessful sortie was made from Paris. There now
remained provisions only for another fortnight; above 40,000
of the inhabitants had succumbed to the privations of the
siege; all hope of assistance from the relieving armies before
actual famine should begin disappeared.
{1389}
On the 23rd of January Favre sought the German Chancellor at
Versailles in order to discuss the conditions of a general
armistice and of the capitulation of Paris. The negotiations
lasted for several days; on the 28th an armistice was signed
with the declared object that elections might at once be
freely held for a National Assembly, which should decide
whether the war should be continued, or on what conditions
peace should be made. The conditions of the armistice were
that the forts of Paris and all their material of war should
be handed over to the German army; that the artillery of the
enceinte should be dismounted; and that the regular troops in
Paris should, as prisoners of war, surrender their arms. The
National Guard were permitted to retain their weapons and
their artillery. Immediately upon the fulfilment of the first
two conditions all facilities were to be given for the entry
of supplies of food into Paris. The articles of the armistice
were duly executed, and on the 30th of January the Prussian
flag waved over the forts of the French capital."
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 3, chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
H. Murdock,
The Reconstruction of Europe,
chapters 29-30.
Daily News Correspondence of the War
chapters 13-21.
Cassell's History of the War,
volume 1, chapter 36,
volume 2; chapters 1-18.
Comte d'Herrison,
Journal of a Staff Officer in Paris.
E. B. Washburne,
Recollections of a Minister to France,
volume 1, chapters 5-10.
J. A. O'Shea,
An Iron-bound City.
F. T. Marzials,
Life of Gambetta,
chapter 5.
H. von Moltke,
The Franco-German War of 1870-71,
sections 3-7.
T. G. Bowles,
The Defence of Paris.
W. Rüstow,
The War for the Rhine Frontier, 1870,
volume 3.
FRANCE: A. D. 1871 (January-May).
Preliminaries of Peace signed at Versailles.
The Treaty of Frankfort.
Cession of Alsace and one-fifth of Lorraine.
Five milliards of indemnity.
"On the afternoon of January 28 [1871] the capitulation of
Paris was signed, and an armistice agreed upon to expire on
February 19 at noon. The provinces occupied by the armies of
Bourbaki and Munteuffel were alone excluded from this
agreement. On January 29 the German troops quietly took
possession of the Paris forts. The regulars and mobiles became
prisoners of war, with the exception of 12,000 men who were
left under arms to preserve order. At the earnest request of
Favre the National Guard were allowed to retain their arms. If
Favre urged this as a measure to counteract the imperialistic
ideas supposed to be still cherished by the prisoners
returning from Germany, it was a political crime as well as a
military folly. The National Guard became the armed Commune.
... While the armies withdrew to the lines stipulated in the
armistice, the elections went quietly forward. The assembly
convened at Bordeaux, and manifested a spirit that won for it
universal respect. On February 17 M. Thiers was appointed
chief of the executive power, and having named his ministry,
he repaired to Versailles to arrange the preliminaries of
peace. The conferences that followed with the German
chancellor were perhaps the most trying ordeals to which the
Frenchman had ever been subjected. No peace was possible save
on the basis of the cession of miles of territory and the
strongest of fortresses. France must also pay a war indemnity
of no less than five milliards of francs. Bismarck, it is
true, thought Thiers 'too sentimental for business, ... hardly
fit indeed to buy or sell a horse,' but no diplomatist,
however astute, could have made better terms for stricken
France. So thought the assembly at Bordeaux; and when Thiers
announced the result of his mission with a quivering lip, he
had its sympathy and support. On the 2d of March the assembly
formally ratified the peace preliminaries by a vote of 546 to
107. It had been stipulated in the armistice that the German
troops should not occupy Paris. The extension of time granted
by the Germans entitled them to some compensation, and the
entry of Paris was the compensation claimed. The troops
detailed for this purpose were not chosen at random. To the
Frenchman who on the 1st day of March beheld them pass along
the Avenue de Malakoff or the Champs Elysées it was an ominous
pageant. It was a German and not a Prussian army that he
beheld. ... That night the Hessians smoked their pipes on the
Trocadéro, and the Bavarians stacked their arms in the Place
de la Concorde, while the lights blazing from the palace of
the Elysée announced the German military headquarters. On the
third day of the month, the Bordeaux Assembly having ratified
the peace preliminaries, the German troops marched out, and
Paris was left to herself again. The war was over. Beyond the
Rhineland, in Bavaria and Würtemberg as well as in the north,
all was joy and enthusiasm over the return of the army that
had answered before the world the question, 'What is the
German Fatherland?' On the 10th of May the definite treaty of
peace was signed at Frankfort by which France ceded Alsace and
a portion of Lorraine, including the fortresses of Metz and
Strasburg, to her conqueror."
H. Murdock,
The Reconstruction of Europe,
chapter 30.
The following are the heads of the Preliminary Treaty
concluded at Versailles, to which the final Treaty of
Frankfort conformed:
"1. France renounces in favour of the German Empire the
following rights: the fifth part of Lorraine including Metz
and Thionville, and Alsace less Belfort.
2. France will pay the sum of five milliards of francs, of
which one milliard is to be paid in 1871 and the remaining
four milliards by instalments extending over three years.
3. The German troops will begin to evacuate the French
territory as soon as the Treaty is ratified. They will then
evacuate the interior of Paris and some departments lying in
the western region. The evacuation of the other departments
will take place gradually after payment of the first milliard,
and proportionately to the payment of the other four
milliards. Interest at the rate of five per cent. per annum
will be paid on the amount remaining due from the date of the
ratification of the Treaty.
4. The German troops will not levy any requisitions in the
departments occupied by them, but will be maintained at the
cost of France. A delay will be granted to the inhabitants of
the territories annexed to choose between the two
nationalities.
6. Prisoners of war will be immediately set at liberty.
7. Negotiations for a definitive Treaty of Peace will be
opened at Brussels after the ratification of this Treaty.
8. The administration of the departments occupied by the
German troops will be entrusted to French officials, but under
the control of the chiefs of the German Corps of occupation.
9. The present Treaty confers upon the Germans no rights
whatever in the portions of territories not occupied.
10. This Treaty will have to be ratified by the
National Assembly of France."
C. Lowe,
Prince Bismarck,
volume 1, chapter 9.
ALSO IN:
E. Hertslet,
The Map of Europe by Treaty,
volume 3, numbers 438 and 446.
{1390}
FRANCE: A. D. 1871 (March-May).
Insurrection of the Communists of Paris.
Second siege and reduction of the capital.
"On the 3d of March the German army of occupation--which had
been in the assigned part of the city since the 1st--marched
off through the Arc de Triomphe, and on the 7th the German
headquarters were moved from Versailles. The great
Franco-Prussian War was over. ... But before ... peace could
be attained, the country had yet to suffer from the so-called
patriots of the Red Republicans worse outrage than it had
endured at the hands of the German invaders. When the
negotiations for the capitulation of Paris were in progress,
Count Bismarck had warned M. Favre of the danger of allowing,
as he proposed, the National Guard to retain their arms; and
the members of the Government of National Defence might
themselves have seen the risk they were incurring, had they
calmly considered the various émeutes that had taken place
during the siege, and in which the National Guard had always
played such a conspicuous part on the side of disaffection.
Now, in the full consciousness of their strength--somewhere
about 100,000--and in their possession of a powerful
artillery,--for during the German occupation they had, on the
pretext of keeping them safe, got a large number of cannon
into their hands,--they seemed determined to attempt the
revival of the Reign of Terror. ... The appointment of General
d'Aurelle de Paladines as their commander gave great offence,
and on the 9th March an attempt to place the tricolor on the
column in the Place de la Bastille instead of the red flag of
revolution led to an outbreak. A promise in the event of the
cannon being given up, of the continuance of pay till
'ordinary work was resumed,' was disregarded, and the
dismissal of D'Aurelle and the full recognition of the right
of the National Guard to elect its own officers demanded. An
effort of the government to seize the cannon in the Place des
Vosges failed, and it was now clear enough that more energetic
action than negotiations must take place. On the morning of the
18th March a large force of regular troops under Generals
Vinoy and Lecomte proceeded to Montmarte and took possession
of the guns; but the want of horses for their immediate
removal gave time for the Reds to assemble and frustrate the
effort, while, worst of all, a large number of the regular
troops fraternized with the insurgents. General Lecomte and
General Clement Thomas were taken prisoners and almost
immediately shot. The outbreak, thus begun, spread rapidly;
for, through some unaccountable timidity of the government,
the government forces were withdrawn from the city, and the
insurgents left free to act as they pleased. They seized
General Chanzy at the Orleans railway station, took possession
of the Ministry of Justice and the Hôtel de Ville, and threw
up barricades round all the revolutionary quarters. The
Central Committee of the National Guard, the leading man of
which was Assi, ... summoned the people of Paris to meet 'in
their comitia for the communal elections,' and declared their
intention of resigning their power into the hands of the
Commune thus chosen. The National Assembly removed from
Bordeaux and held its sittings at Versailles: but bitter as
was the feeling of the majority of the Deputies against the
new turbulence, the position of affairs prevented any action
from being taken against the insurgents. The removal of
General d'Aurelle and the appointment of Admiral Saisset in
his place was of no avail. A number of the inhabitants of
Paris, styling themselves 'Men of Order,' attempted to
influence affairs by a display of moral force, but they were
fired on and dispersed. The Assembly was timid, and apparently
quite unable to bring its troops into play. ... Through
Admiral Saisset concessions were offered, but the demands of
the Communists increased with the prospect of obtaining
anything. They now modestly demanded that they should
supersede the Assembly wherever there was any prospect of
collision of power, and be allowed to control the finances;
and as a very natural consequence the negotiations were
abandoned. This was on the 25th of March, and on the 26th the
Commune was elected, the victory of the Reds being very easily
gained, as hardly any of those opposed to them voted. Two days
afterwards the Commune was proclaimed at the Hôtel de Ville,
the members who had been elected being seated on a platform in
red arm-chairs. The leading man of the new system was the
honest but hot-headed and utopian Deleseluze; Cluseret, a man
of considerable military genius, who had led a life of a very
wild nature in America, and who was the soul of the resistance
when the actual fighting began, was Delegate of War; Grousset,
of Foreign Affairs; and Rigault, of Public Safety. The new
government applied itself vigorously to changes; conscription
was abolished, and the authority of the Versailles government
declared 'null and void.' Seeing that a desperate struggle
must inevitably ensue, a very large number of the inhabitants
of Paris quitted the city, and the German authorities allowed
the prisoners from Metz and Sedan to return so as to swell the
forces at the disposal of M. Thiers. They also intimated that,
in view of the altered circumstances, it might again become
necessary for them to occupy the forts they had already
evacuated. The first shot in the second siege of Paris, in
which Frenchmen were arrayed against Frenchmen, was fired on
the 2d April, when a strong division of the Versailles army
advanced against the National Guards posted at Courbevoie, and
drove them into Paris across the Pont de Neuilly. During the
ensuing night a large force of insurgents gathered, and were
on the morning of the 3d led in three columns against
Versailles. Great hopes had been placed on the sympathy of the
regular troops, but they were doomed to disappointment. ...
The expedition ... not only failed, but it ... cost the
Commune two of its leading men,--Duval, and that Flourens who
had already made himself so conspicuous in connection with
revolutionary outbreaks under the Empire and the Government of
National Defence,--both of whom were taken and promptly shot
by the Versailles authorities. The failure and the executions
proved so exasperating that the 'Commune of Paris' issued a
proclamation denouncing the Versailles soldiers as banditti.
... They had ample means of gratifying their passion for
revenge, for they had in their hands a number of leading men,
including Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, and M. Bonjean,
President of the Court of Cassation, and these--two hundred in
all--they proclaimed their intention of holding as hostages.
{1391}
M. Thiers was still hesitating, and waiting for a force
sufficiently powerful to crush all opposition; and in this he
was no doubt right, for any success of the Communists, even of
the most temporary character, would have proved highly
dangerous. The Germans had granted permission to the
government to increase their original 30,000 troops to
150,000, and prisoners of Metz and Sedan had been pouring
steadily back from Germany for this purpose. On the 8th April
Marshal MacMahon took command of the forces at Versailles. A
premature attack on the forts of Issy, Vanves, and Montrouge
on the 11th failed, but on the 17th and 19th several of the
insurgent positions were carried; on the 25th the bombardment
of Issy and Vanves was begun, and from that time onwards
operations against the city were carried on with the greatest
activity, the insurgents being on all occasions put to the
sword in a most merciless manner. Issy was taken on the 8th
May, and Vanves on the 4th, and the enceinte laid bare. Inside
Paris all this time there was nothing but jealousy. ... First
one leader, and then another, was tried, found wanting, and
disgraced. ... On the 21st May the defenders of the wall at
the gate of St. Cloud were driven from their positions by the
heavy artillery fire, and the besieging army, having become
aware of the fact, pushed forward and secured this entrance to
the city; and by the evening of the 22d there were 80,000
Versaillists within the walls. Next day they gained fresh
ground, and were ready to re-occupy the Tuileries and the
Hôtel de Ville; but before this was possible the Communists,
mad with despair, had resolved on that series of outrages
against humanity that will make their names detested and their
cause distrusted as long as the story of their crimes stands
recorded in the annals of history. They had already
perpetrated more than one act of vandalism. ... On the 12th
May, in accordance with a public decree, they had destroyed
the private residence of M. Thiers with all its pictures and
books; on the 16th the magnificent column erected in the Place
Vendome in memory of Napoleon I., and crowned by his statue,
was undermined at one side and then pulled to the ground by
means of ropes and utterly destroyed; and now on the 24th, in
the last efforts of despairing rage, bands of men and women,
still more frantic and eager for blood than were those of the
Reign of Terror, rushed through the doomed city. Early in the
morning the Tuileries, the Hôtel de Ville, the Ministry of
Finance, the Palais d'Orsay, and other public and private
buildings were seen to be on fire. The Louvre, too, with all
its inestimable treasures, was in flames, and was saved with
the greatest difficulty. If the Commune was to perish, it had
clearly resolved that the city was to perish with it. Men and
women marched about in bands with petroleum, and aided the
spread of the conflagration by firing the city in different
places. Heedless of the flames, the Versailles troops pressed
on, eager, if possible, to save the lives of the 200 hostages,
but, alas, in vain. A passion for blood had seized on the
Commune, and its last expiring effort was to murder in cold
blood, not only a large number of the hostages, but also
batches of fresh victims, seized indiscriminately about the
streets by bands of men and women, and dragged off to instant
death. On the 26th Belleville was captured, and on the 27th
and 28th the Cemetery of Père la Chaise was the scene of the
final struggle,--a struggle of such a desperate nature--for
there was no quarter--that, for days after, the air of the
district was literally fraught with pestilence. Many of the
leaders of the Commune had fallen in the final contest, and
all the others who were captured by the Versailles troops
during the fighting were at once shot. Of the 30,000 prisoners
who had fallen into the hands of the government, a large
number, both men and women, were executed without mercy, and
the rest distributed in various prisons to await trial, as
also were Rossel, Assi, Grousset, and others, who were
captured after the resistance was at an end. Cluseret
succeeded in making good his escape. ... Of the prisoners,
about 10,000 were set free without trial, and the others were
sentenced by various courts-martial during the following
months and on through the coming year, either to death,
transportation or imprisonment."
H. Martin,
Popular History of France from the First Revolution,
volume 3, chapter 24.
ALSO IN:
E. B. Washburne,
Recollections of a Minister to France,
volume 2, chapters 5-7.
P. Vésinier,
History of the Commune of Paris.
P. O. Lissagaray,
History of the Commune of 1871.
W. P. Fetridge,
Rise and Fall of the Paris Commune.
J. Leighton,
Paris under the Commune.
FRANCE: A. D. 1871 (April-May).
The government of the Commune in Paris.
"For the conduct of affairs the Communal Council divided
itself into ten 'commissions,' of finance, war, public safety,
external relations, education, justice, labour and exchange,
provisions, the public service, and the general executive. Of
these the most efficient appears to have been that of finance;
by advances from the bank and by the revenues of the post, the
telegraph, the octrois, &c., means were found to provide for
the current expenditure. The other commissions were admittedly
inefficient, and especially the one which was most important
for the moment, that of war:--'as to a general plan,' says
Lissagaray, 'there never was one: the men were abandoned to
themselves, being neither cared for nor controlled;' 'at the
Ministry,' says Gastyne, 'no one is at his place. They pass
their time in running after one another. The most
insignificant Lieutenant will take orders from nobody, and
wants to give them to everybody. They smoke, chat and chaff.
They dispute with the contractors. They buy irresponsibly
right and left because the dealers give commissions or have
private relations with the officials;' 'in the army of
Versailles,' said a member of the Commune, 'they don't get
drunk: in ours they are never sober;' 'the administration of
war,' said another, 'is the organisation of disorganisation;'
'I feel myself,' said Rossel, on resigning his command,
'incapable of any longer bearing the responsibility of a
command where everyone deliberates and no one obeys. The
central committee of artillery has deliberated and prescribed
nothing. The Commune has deliberated and resolved upon
nothing. The Central Committee deliberates and has not yet
known how to act. ... My predecessor committed the fault of
struggling against this absurd situation. I retire, and have
the honour to ask you for a cell at Mazas.' The same
incompetence, leading to the same result of anarchy, was
displayed by the Executive Commission:--'in less than a
fortnight,' said Grosset, 'conflicts of every kind had arisen;
the Executive Commission gave orders which were not executed;
each particular commission, thinking itself sovereign in its
turn, gave orders too, so that the Executive Commission could
have no real responsibility.'
{1392}
On April 20 the Executive Commission was replaced by a
committee, composed of a delegate from each of the nine other
commissions; still efficiency could not be secured, and at the
end of the month it was proposed to establish a Committee of
Public Safety. This proposition was prompted by the traditions
of 1793, and brought into overt antagonism the two conflicting
tendencies of the Commune: there were some of its members who
were ready to save the movement by a despotism, to secure at
every cost a strong administration, and impose the Commune, if
need be by terror, upon Paris and the provinces. ... On the
other hand there was a strong minority which opposed the
proposal, on the ground that it was tantamount to an
abdication on the part of the Communal Council. ... The
appointment of the Committee was carried by forty-five votes
to twenty-three; many of those who voted for it regarded it as
merely another 'Executive Commission,' subordinate to, and at
any moment subject to dismissal by, the Commune; and so, in
effect, it proved; it was neither more terrible nor more
efficient than the body to which it succeeded; it came into
existence on the 1st of May, and on the 9th the complaint was
already advanced that 'your Committee of Public Safety has not
answered our expectations; it has been an obstacle, instead of a
stimulus;' on the 10th a new committee was appointed, with
similar results; all that the innovation achieved was to bring
into clear relief the fact that there existed in the Commune a
Jacobin element ready to recur to the traditions of 1793, and
to make Paris the mistress of France by the guillotine or its
modern equivalent."
G. L. Dickinson,
Revolution and Reaction in Modern France,
pages 267-270.
FRANCE: A. D. 1871-1876.
The Assembly at Bordeaux.
Thiers elected Chief of the Executive Power.
The founding of the Republic.
The recovery of order and prosperity.
Resignation of Thiers.
Election of Marshal MacMahon.
Plans of the Monarchists defeated.
Adoption of the Constitution of 1875.
"The elections passed off more quietly than was to be
expected, and the Assembly which came together at Bordeaux on
the 13th of February exactly represented the sentiment of the
nation at that particular moment. France being eager for
peace, the Assembly was pacific. It was also somewhat
unrepublican, for the Republic had been represented in the
provinces only by Gambetta, the promoter of war to the knife,
who had sacrificed the interests of the Republic to what he
conceived to be the interests of the national honor. Politics
had, in truth, been little thought of, and Thiers was elected
in 27 departments upon very diverse tickets, rather on account
of his opposition to the war and his efforts in favor of peace
than on account of his fame as a liberal orator and historian.
Moved by the same impulse, the Assembly almost unanimously
appointed him Chief of the Executive Power of the French
Republic, and intrusted to him the double task of governing
the country and of treating with the German Emperor. ... It
was apparently in the name of the Republic that peace was
negotiated and the Government gradually reconstructed. ... The
Assembly, however, which was all-powerful, held that to change
the form of government was one of its rights. It might have
been urged that the electors had scarcely contemplated this,
and that the Monarchists were in the majority simply because
they represented peace, while in the provinces the Republic
had meant nothing but war to the hilt. But these distinctions
were not thought of in the press of more urgent business,
namely, the treaty which was to check the shedding of blood,
and the rudiments of administrative reconstruction. No
monarchy would have been willing to assume the responsibility
of this Treaty. ... The Right accordingly consented to accept
the name of Republic as a makeshift, provided it should be
talked about as little as possible. Thiers had come to think,
especially since the beginning of the war, that the Republic
was the natural heir of Napoleon III. ... He had, however,
been struck with the circumstance that so many Legitimists had
been elected to the Assembly, and he was no more eager than
they to stop to discuss constitutions. ... He was the more
disposed to wait, inasmuch as he saw in the Chamber the very
rapid formation and growth of a group in which he had great
confidence. Of these deputies M. Jules Simon has given a
better definition than they could themselves formulate,--for
this political philosopher has written a masterly history of
these years. ... Here is what Simon says of this party in the
Assembly: 'There were in this body some five-score firm
spirits who were alike incapable either of forsaking the
principles whereon all society rests, or of giving up freedom.
Of all forms of government they would have preferred
constitutional monarchy, had they found it established, or
could they have restored it by a vote without resort to force.
But they quickly perceived that neither the Legitimists nor
the Bonapartists would consent to the constitutional form;
that such a monarchy could obtain a majority neither in the
Parliament nor among the people. ... Some of these men
entertained for the Republic a distrust which, at first,
amounted to aversion. Being persuaded, however, that they must
choose between the Republic and the Empire ... they did not
despair of forming a Republic at once liberal and
conservative. In a word, they thrust aside the Legitimate
Monarchy as chimerical, Republican and Cæsarian dictatorship
as alike hateful. ... Of this party M. Thiers was not merely
the head, but the body also.' ... But there was another party,
which, although the least numerous in the Assembly and split
into factions at that, was the most numerous in the
country,--the Republican party."
P. de Rémusat,
Thiers,
chapters 6-7.
{1393}
"In the wake of Thiers followed such men as Rémusat, Casimir
Périer, Leon Say, and Lafayette. This added strength made the
Republicans the almost equal rivals of the other parties
combined. So great was Thiers' influence that, despite his
conversion to Republicanism, he was still able to control the
Monarchical Assembly. A threat of resignation, so great was
the dread of what might follow it, and so jealous were the
Monarchists of two shades and the Imperialists of each other,
was enough to bring the majority to the President's terms. It
was under such political conditions that the infant Republic,
during its first year, undertook the tasks of preserving
peace, of maintaining internal order, of retrieving disaster,
of tempting back prosperity and thrift to the desolated land,
of relieving it of the burdens imposed by war, and, at the
same time, of acquiring for itself greater security and
permanency. The recovery of France was wonderfully rapid; her
people began once more to taste sweet draughts of liberty; the
indemnity was almost half diminished; and her industries, at
the end of the year, were once more in full career. But the
Republic was a long way from complete and unquestioned
recognition. The second year of the Republic (1872-73) was
passed amid constant conflicts between the rival parties.
Thiers still maintained his ascendency, and stoutly adhered to
his defence of Republican institutions; but the Assembly was
restive under him, and energetic attempts were made to bring
about a fusion between the Legitimists and the Orleanists.
These attempts were rendered futile by the obstinacy of the
Count of Chambord, who would yield nothing, either of
principle or even of symbol, to his cousin of Orleans. The
want of harmony among the Monarchists postponed the
consideration of what should be the permanent political
constitution of France until November of the year 1872, when a
committee of thirty was chosen to recommend constitutional
articles. Against this the Republicans protested. They
declared that the Assembly had only been elected to make peace
with Germany; ... that dissolution was the only further act
that the Assembly was competent to perform. This indicated the
confidence of the Republicans in their increased strength in
the country; and the fact that the Monarchists refused to
dissolve shows that they were not far from holding this
opinion of their opponents. Despite the rivalries and
bitterness of the factions, the Republic met with no serious
blow from the time of its provisional establishment in
February, 1871, until May, 1873. Up to the latter period two
thirds of the enormous indemnity had been paid, and the German
force of occupation had almost entirely retired from French
territory. ... But in Italy, 1873, a grave misfortune, alike
to France and to the Republican institutions, occurred. At
last the Monarchical reactionists of the Assembly had gathered
courage to make open war upon President Thiers. Perceiving
that his policy was having the effect of nourishing and adding
ever new strength to the Republican cause, and that every
month drifted them further from the opportunity and hope of
restoring Monarchy or Empire ... they now forgot their own
differences, and resolved, at all hazards, to get rid of the
Republic's most powerful protector. ... The Duc de Broglie,
the leader of the reactionary Monarchists, offered a
resolution in the Assembly which was tantamount to a
proposition of want of confidence in President Thiers. After
an acrimonious debate, in which Thiers himself took part, De
Broglie's motion was passed by a majority of fourteen. The
President had no alternative but to resign; and thus the
executive power, at a critical moment, passed out of
Republican into Monarchical hands. Marshal MacMahon was at
once chosen President. ... MacMahon was strongly Catholic in
religion; and so far as he was known to have any political
opinions, they wavered between Legitimism and
Imperialism--they were certainly as far as possible from
Republicanism. Now was formed and matured a deliberate project
to overthrow the young Republic, and to set up Monarchy in its
place. All circumstances combined to favor its success. The
new President was found to be at least willing that the thing
should, if it could, be done. His principal minister, De
Broglie, entered warmly into the plot. The Orleanist princes
agreed to waive their claims, and the Count of Paris was
persuaded to pay a visit to the Count of Chambord at his
retreat at Frohsdorf, to acknowledge the elder Bourbon's right
to the throne, and to abandon his own pretensions. The
Assembly was carefully canvassed, and it was found that a
majority could be relied upon to proclaim, at the ripe moment,
Chambord as king, with the title of Henry V. The Republic was
now, in the early autumn of 1873, in the most serious and real
peril. It needed but a word from the Bourbon pretender to
overthrow it, and to replace it by the throne of the Capets
and the Valois. Happily, the old leaven of Bourbon bigotry
existed in 'Henry V.' He conceded the point of reigning with
parliamentary institutions, but he would not accept the
tricolor as the flag of the restored monarchy. He insisted
upon returning to France under the white banner of his
ancestors. To him the throne was not worth a piece of cloth.
To his obstinacy in clinging to this trifle of symbolism the
Republic owed its salvation. The scheme to restore the
monarchy thus fell through. The result was that the two wings
of Monarchists flew apart again, and the Republicans, being
now united and patient under the splendid leadership of
Gambetta, once more began to wax in strength. It only remained
to the Conservatives to make the best of the situation--to
proceed to the forming of a Constitution, and to at least
postpone to as late a period as possible the permanent
establishment of the Republic. The first step was to confirm
MacMahon in the Presidency for a definite period; and 'the
Septennate,' giving him a lease of power for seven years--that
is, until the autumn of 1880--was voted. ... It was not until
late in the year 1875 that the Constitution which is now the
organic law of France was finally adopted.
See CONSTITUTION OF FRANCE.
The chief circumstance which impelled a majority of the
Assembly to take this decisive step was the alarming revival
of Imperialism in the country. This was shown in the success
of Bonapartists in isolated elections to fill vacancies. Much
as the Royalists distrusted a Republic, they dreaded yet more
the restoration of the Empire; and the rapid progress made by
the partisans of the Empire forced them to adopt what was
really a moderate Republican Constitution. This Constitution
provided that the President of the Republic should be elected
by a joint convention of the Senate and the Chamber of
Deputies; that the Senate should consist of 300 members, of
whom 75 were to be elected for life by the Assembly, and the
remaining 225 by electoral colleges, composed of the deputies,
the councillors-general, the members of the councils
d'arrondissement, and delegates chosen from municipal
councils; that the vacancies in the life senatorships should
be filled by the Senate itself, while the term of the Senators
elected by the colleges should be nine years, one third
retiring every three years; that the Chamber of Deputies
should consist of 533 members, and that the deputies should be
chosen by single districts, instead of, as formerly, in groups
by departments: that the President could only dissolve the
Chamber of Deputies with the consent of the Senate; that money
bills should originate in the Lower Chamber, and that the
President should have the right of veto.
{1394}
The 'Septennate' organized and the Constitution adopted, the
Assembly, which had clung to power for about five years, had
no reason for continued existence, and at last dissolved early
in 1876, having provided that the first general election under
the new order of things should take place in February. ... The
result of the elections proved three things--the remarkable
growth of Republican sentiment; the great progress made, in
spite of the memory of Sedan, by the Bonapartist propaganda;
and the utter hopelessness of any attempt at a Royalist
restoration."
G. M. Towle,
Modern France,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
J. Simon,
The Government of M. Thiers.
F. Le Goff,
Life of Thiers,
chapters 8-9.
FRANCE: A. D. 1872-1889.
Reform of Public Instruction.
See
EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
FRANCE: A. D. 1833-1889.
FRANCE: A. D. 1875-1889.
Stable settlements of the Republic.
Presidencies of MacMahon and Grevy.
Military operations in Tunis, Madagascar and Tonquin.
Revision of the constitution.
Expulsion of the princes.
Boulangerism.
Election of M. Sadi Carnot to the presidency.
"The last day of the year 1875 saw a final prorogation of this
monarchist assembly which had established the Republic. It had
been in existence nearly five years. The elections to the
Senate gave a small majority to the Republicans. Those to the
Chamber of Deputies (February, 1876) gave about two-thirds of
its 532 seats to Republicans, mostly moderate Republicans. The
ministry to which the leadership of this assembly was soon
confided, was therefore naturally a ministry of moderate
Republicans. M. Dufaure was prime minister, and M. Léon Say
minister of finance. ... The Dufaure ministry was not
long-lived, being succeeded before the year 1876 closed, by a
ministry led by M. Jules Simon, a distinguished orator and
writer. The tenure of French cabinets in general has been so
little permanent under the Third Republic, that in the
nineteen years which have elapsed since the fall of the
Empire, twenty-five cabinets have had charge of the executive
government. ... Few events had marked the history of the Simon
ministry when, suddenly, in May, 1877, the President of the
Republic demanded its resignation. Much influenced of late by
Monarchist advisers, he had concluded that the moderate
Republican cabinets did not possess the confidence of the
chambers, and, feeling that the responsibility of maintaining
the repose and security of France rested upon him, had
resolved, rather than allow the management of the affairs of
the country to fall into the hands of M. Gambetta and the
Radicals, to appoint a ministry of conservatives, trusting
that the country would ratify the step. A ministry was
organized under the Duke of Broglie, and the Chamber of
Deputies was first prorogued, and then, with the consent of
the Senate, dissolved. The death of M. Thiers in September
caused a great national demonstration in honor of that
patriotic statesman, 'the liberator of the territory.' The
result of the ensuing elections was a complete victory for the
Republicans, who secured nearly three-fourths of the seats in
the new Chamber. The Marshal, appointing a ministry composed
of adherents of his policy who were not members of the
Assembly, attempted to make head against the majority, but was
forced in December to yield to the will of the people and of
their representatives, and to recall M. Dufaure and the
moderate Republicans to office. The year 1878 therefore passed
off quietly, being especially distinguished by the great
success of the universal exhibition held at Paris. ... At the
beginning of 1879 elections were held in pursuance of the
provisions of the constitution, for the renewal of a portion
of the Senate. ... Elections were held for the filling of 82
seats. Of these the Republicans won 66, the Monarchist groups
16. This was a loss of 42 seats on the part of the latter, and
assured to the Republicans a full control of the Senate. It
had also the effect of definitively establishing the Republic
as the permanent government of France. The Republican leaders
therefore resolved to insist upon extensive changes in the
personnel of the Council of State and the judiciary body. ...
When they also proposed to make extensive changes in other
departments, Marshal MacMahon, who foresaw the impossibility
of maintaining harmonious relations with the cabinets which
the Republican majority would now demand, took these new
measures as a pretext, and, on January 30, 1879, resigned the
office of President of the Republic. On the same day the
Senate and Chamber, united in National Assembly, elected as
his successor, for the constitutional term of seven years, M.
Jules Grevy, president of the Chamber of Deputies a moderate
Republican who enjoyed general respect. M. Grévy was 71 years
old. M. Gambetta was chosen to succeed him as president of the
Chamber. The cabinet was remodelled, M. Dufaure resigning his
office and being succeeded by M. Waddington. In the
reorganized ministry one of the most prominent of the new
members was M. Jules Ferry, its minister of education. He soon
brought forward two measures which excited violent discussion:
the one dealing with the regulation of superior education, the
other with the constitution of the Supreme Council of Public
Instruction. ... In March, 1880, the Senate rejected the bill
respecting universities. The ministry, now composed of members
of the 'pure Left' (instead of a mixture of these and the Left
Centre) under M. de Freycinet, resolved to enforce the
existing laws against non-authorized congregations. The
Jesuits were warned to close their establishments; the others,
to apply for authorization. Failing to carry out these
decrees, M. de Freycinet was forced to resign, and was
succeeded as prime minister by M. Ferry, under whose orders
the decrees were executed in October and November,
establishments of the Jesuits and others, to the number of
nearly 300, being forcibly closed and their inmates dispersed.
Laws were also passed in the same year and in 1881 for the
extension of public education, and a general amnesty
proclaimed for persons engaged in the insurrection of the
commune. In April and May, 1881, on pretext of chastising
tribes on the Tunisian frontier of Algeria, who had committed
depredations on the French territories in Northern Africa, a
military force from Algeria entered Tunis, occupied the
capital, and forced the Bey to sign a treaty by which he put
himself and his country under the protectorate of France. ...
{1395}
The elections, in August, resulted in a Chamber composed of
467 Republicans, 47 Bonapartists, and 43 Royalists, whereas
its predecessor had consisted of 387 Republicans, 81
Bonapartists, and 61 Royalists. In response to a general
demand, M. Gambetta became prime minister on the meeting of
the new Assembly in the autumn. ... But his measures failed to
receive the support of the Chamber, and he was forced to
resign after having held the office of prime minister but two
months and a half (January, 1882). On the last day of that
year M. Gambetta, still the most eminent French statesman of
the time, died at Paris, aged forty-four. ... The death of
Gambetta aroused the Monarchists to renewed activity. Prince
Napoleon issued a violent manifesto, and was arrested. Bills
were brought in which were designed to exclude from the soil
of France and of French possessions all members of families
formerly reigning in France. Finally, however, after a
prolonged contest, a decree suspending the dukes of Aumale,
Chartres, and Alençon from their functions in the army was
signed by the President. Some months later, August, 1883, the
Count of Chambord ('Henry V.') died at Frohsdorf; by this
event the elder branch of the house of Bourbon became extinct
and the claims urged by both Legitimists and Orleanists were
united in the person of the Count of Paris. During the year
1882 alleged encroachments upon French privileges and
interests in the northwestern portion of Madagascar had
embroiled France in conflict with the Hovas, the leading tribe
of that island. The French admiral commanding the squadron in
the Indian Ocean demanded in 1883 the placing of the
northwestern part of the island under a French protectorate,
and the payment of a large indemnity. These terms being
refused by the queen of the Hovas, Tamatave was bombarded and
occupied, and desultory operations continued until the summer
of 1883, when an expedition of the Hovas resulted in a signal
defeat of the French. A treaty was then negotiated, in
accordance with which the foreign relations of the island were
put under the control of France, while the queen of Madagascar
retained the control of internal affairs and paid certain
claims. A treaty executed in 1874 between the emperor of Annam
and the French had conceded to the latter a protectorate over
that country. His failure completely to carry out his
agreement, and the presence of Chinese troops in Tonquin, were
regarded as threatening the security of the French colony of
Cochin China. A small expedition sent out [1882] under
Commander Rivière to enforce the provision of the treaty was
destroyed at Hanoi. Reinforcements were sent out. But the
situation was complicated by the presence of bands of 'Black
Flags,' brigands said to be unauthorized by the Annam
government, and by claims on the part of China to a suzerainty
over Tonquin. A treaty was made with Annam in August, 1883,
providing for the cession of a province to France, and the
establishment of a French protectorate over Annam and Tonquin.
This, however, did not by any means wholly conclude
hostilities in that province. Sontay was taken from the Black
Flags in December, and Bacninh occupied in March, 1884. The
advance of the French into regions over which China claimed
suzerainty, and which were occupied by Chinese troops, brought
on hostilities with that empire. In August, 1884, Admiral
Courbet destroyed the Chinese fleet and arsenal at Foo-chow;
in October he seized points on the northern end of the island
of Formosa, and proclaimed a blockade of that portion of the
island. On the frontier between Tonquin and China the French
gained some successes, particularly in the capture of
Lang-Sön; yet the climate, and the numbers and determination
of the Chinese troops, rendered it impossible for them to
secure substantial results from victories. Finally, after a
desultory and destructive war, a treaty was signed in June,
1885, which arranged that Formosa should be evacuated, that
Annam should in future have no diplomatic relations except
through France, and that France should have virtually complete
control over both it and Tonquin, though the question of
Chinese suzerainty was left unsettled. ... It was not felt
that the expeditions against Madagascar, Annam, and China had
achieved brilliant success. They had, moreover, been a source
of much expense to France; at first popular, they finally
caused the downfall of the ministry which ordered them. That
ministry, the ministry of M. Jules Ferry, ... remained in
power an unusual length of time,--a little more than two
years. Its principal achievement in domestic affairs consisted
in bringing about the revision of the constitution, which,
framed by the Versailles Assembly in 1875, was felt by many to
contain an excessive number of Monarchical elements. ... In
1885, after the fall of the Ferry cabinet, a law was passed
providing for scrutin de liste; each department being entitled
to a number of deputies proportioned to the number of its
citizens, the deputies for each were to be chosen on a general
or departmental ticket. In the same year a law was passed
declaring ineligible to the office of President of the
Republic, senator or deputy, any prince of families formerly
reigning in France. ... In December the National Assembly
re-elected M. Grévy President of the Republic. In the ministry
led by M. de Freycinet, which held office during the year 1886,
great prominence was attained by the minister of war, General
Boulanger, whose management of his department and political
conduct won him great popularity. ... The increasing activity
of the agents of the Monarchist party, the strength which that
party had shown in the elections of the preceding year, and
the demonstrations which attended the marriage of the daughter
of the Count of Paris to the crown prince of Portugal, incited
the Republican leaders to more stringent measures against the
princes of houses formerly reigning in France. The government
was intrusted by law with discretionary power to expel them
all from France, and definitely charged to expel actual
Claimants of the throne and their direct heirs. The Count of
Paris and his son the Duke of Orleans, Prince Napoleon and his
son Prince Victor, were accordingly banished by presidential
decree in June, 1886. General Boulanger struck off from the
army-roll the names of all princes of the Bonaparte and
Bourbon families. The Duke of Aumale, indignantly protesting,
was also banished; in the spring of 1889 he was permitted to
return. Meanwhile, within the Republican ranks, dissensions
increased. The popularity of General Boulanger became more and
more threatening to the cabinets of which he was a member. An
agitation in his favor, conducted with much skill, caused fear
lest he were aspiring to a military dictatorship
of France. ...
{1396}
In the autumn of 1887, an inquiry into the conduct of General
Caffarel, deputy to the commander-in-chief, accused of selling
decorations, implicated by Daniel Wilson, son-in-law of M.
Grévy, who was alleged to have undertaken to obtain
appointments to office and lucrative contracts in return for
money. M. Grévy's unwise attempts to shield his son-in-law
brought about his own fall. The chambers, determined to force
his resignation, refused to accept any ministry proposed by
him. After much resistance and irritating delays he submitted,
and resigned the presidency of the Republic on December 2,
1887. On the next day the houses met in National Assembly at
Versailles to chose the successor of M. Grévy. ... The most
prominent candidates for the Republicans were M. Ferry and M.
de Freycinet; the former, however, was unpopular with the
country. The followers of both, finding their election
impossible, resolved to cast their votes for M. Sadi Carnot, a
Republican of the highest integrity and universally respected.
M. Carnot, a distinguished engineer, grandson of the Carnot
who had, as minister of war, organized the victories of the
armies of the Revolution, was accordingly elected President of
the French Republic. ... The chief difficulties encountered by
the cabinet arose out of the active propagandism exercised in
behalf of General Boulanger. ... His name ... became the
rallying-point of those who were hostile to the parliamentary
system, or to the Republican government in its present form.
Alarmed both by his singular popularity and by his political
intrigues, the government instituted a prosecution of him
before the High Court of Justice; upon this he fled from the
country, and the dangers of the agitation in his favor were,
for the time at least, quieted. On May 5, 1889, the
one-hundredth anniversary of the assembly of the
States-General was held at Versailles. On the next day,
President Carnot formally opened the Universal Exhibition at
Paris, the greatest of the world's fairs which have been held
in that city."
V. Duruy,
History of France,
pages 666-677.
ALSO IN:
H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 7, and appendix 10.
J. G. Scott,
France and Tonkin.
F. T. Marzials,
Life of Gambetta.
E. W. Latimer,
France in the 19th Century,
chapters 18-20.
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, March, 1893, supplement.
FRANCE: A. D. 1877-1882.
Anglo-French control of Egyptian finances.
See EGYPT: A. D. 1875-1882 and 1882-1883.
FRANCE: A. D. 1884-1885.
Territorial claims in Africa.
The Berlin Conference.
See AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1889.
FRANCE: A. D. 1892-1893.
The Panama Canal scandal.
See PANAMA CANAL.
FRANCE: A. D. 1893.
Election of Deputies.
Elections for a new Chamber of Deputies were held in France,
ending on Sunday, September 3, 1893. The resulting division of
parties in the Chamber is stated as follows: "Opportunists
[those, that is, who would shape political action by
circumstances--by opportunities--and not by hard and fast
principles], 292; Converted Monarchists [who accept the
Republic as a fixed fact], 35; Unconverted Monarchists, 58;
and Radicals, including Socialists, 187. As the Converted
Monarchists will vote with the Government, there will be a
heavy Government majority to begin with; but ... it is not
perfectly reliable, and is singularly deficient in marked
men."
Spectator, Sept. 9, 1893.
----------FRANCE: End----------
FRANCESCO MARIA, Duke of Milan, A. D. 1521-1535.
FRANCESCO SFORZA, Duke of Milan, A. D. 1450-1466.
FRANCHE COMTÉ.
In the dissolution of the last kingdom of Burgundy (see
BURGUNDY, THE LAST KINGDOM: A. D. 1032), its northern part
maintained a connection with the Empire, which had then become
Germanic, much longer than the southern. It became divided
into two chief states--the County Palatine of Burgundy, known
afterwards as Franche Comté, or the "free county," and Lesser
Burgundy, which embraced western Switzerland and northern
Savoy. "The County Palatine of Burgundy often passed from one
dynasty to another, and it is remarkable for the number of
times that it was held as a separate state by several of the
great princes of Europe. It was held by the Emperor Frederick
Barbarossa in right of his wife; the marriage of one of his
female descendants carried it to Philip the Fifth of France.
Then it became united with the French duchy of Burgundy under
the dukes of the House of Valois. Saving a momentary French
occupation after the death of Charles the Bold, it remained
with them and their Austrian and Spanish representatives. ...
But, through all these changes of dynasty, it remained an
acknowledged fief of the Empire, till its annexation to France
under Lewis the Fourteenth. The capital of this county, it
must be remembered, was Dole. The ecclesiastical metropolis of
Besançon, though surrounded by the county, remained a free
city of the Empire from the days of Frederick Barbarossa [A.
D. 1152-1190] to those of Ferdinand the Third [A. D.
1637-1657]. It was then merged in the county, and along with
the county it passed to France."
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 8, section 5.
FRANCHE COMTÉ: A. D. 1512.
Included in the Circle of Burgundy.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519.
FRANCHE COMTÉ: A. D. 1648.
Still held to form a part of the Empire.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
FRANCHE COMTÉ: A. D. 1659.
Secured to Spain.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.
FRANCHE COMTÉ: A. D. 1674.
Final conquest by Louis XIV. and incorporation with France.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678;
also, NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.
----------FRANCHE COMTÉ: End----------
FRANCHISE, Elective, in England.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.
FRANCIA, Doctor, The dictatorship of.
See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1608-1873.
FRANCIA.
See FRANCE: 9TH CENTURY.
also, GERMANY: A. D. 843-962.
FRANCIS
(called Phœbus), King of Navarre, A. D. 1479-1503.
Francis I. (of Lorraine), Germanic Emperor, 1745-1765.
Francis I., King of France, 1515-1547.
Francis I., King of Naples or the Two Sicilies, 1825-1830.
Francis II.,
Germanic Emperor, 1792-1806;
Emperor of Austria, 1806-1835;
King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1792-1835.
Francis II., King of France, 1559-1560.
Francis II., King of Naples or the Two Sicilies,
A. D. 1859-18.61.
Francis Joseph I., Emperor of Austria, 1848;
King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1848-.
{1397}
FRANCISCANS.
See MENDICANT ORDERS,
also, BEGUINES, ETC.
FRANCO-GERMAN, OR FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR, The.
See FRANCE: A.. D. 1870 (JUNE-JULY), to 1870-1871.
FRANCONIA: The Duchy and the Circle.
"Among the great duchies [of the old Germanic kingdom or
empire of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries], that of
Eastern Francia, Franken, or Franconia, is of much less
importance in European history than that of Saxony. It gave
the ducal title to the bishops of Würzburg; but it cannot be
said to be in any sense continued in any modern state. Its
name gradually retreated, and the circle of Franken or
Franconia took in only the most eastern part of the ancient
duchy.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1493--1519.
The western and northern part of the duchy, together with a
good deal of territory which was strictly Lotharingian, became
part of the two Rhenish circles. Thus Fulda, the greatest of
German abbeys, passed away from the Frankish name. In
north-eastern Francia, the Hessian principalities grew up to
the north-west. Within the Franconian circle lay Würzburg, the
see of the bishops who bore the ducal title, the other great
bishopric of Bamberg, together with the free city of Nürnberg,
and various smaller principalities. In the Rhenish lands, both
within and without the old Francia, one chief characteristic
is the predominance of the ecclesiastical principalities,
Mainz, Köln, Worms, Speyer, and Strassburg. The chief temporal
power which arose in this region was the Palatinate of the
Rhine, a power which, like others, went through many unions
and divisions, and spread into four circles, those of Upper
and Lower Rhine, Westfalia and Bavaria. This last district,
though united with the Palatine Electorate, was, from the
early part of the fourteenth century, distinguished from the
Palatinate of the Rhine as the Oberpfalz or Upper Palatinate."
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 8, section 1.
See, also,
ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504.
FRANCONIA, The Electorate of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1152.
FRANCONIAN OR SALIC IMPERIAL HOUSE.
The emperors, Conrad II., Henry III., Henry IV., and Henry V.,
who reigned from 1024 until 1125, over the Germanic-Roman or
Holy Roman Empire, were of the Salic or Franconian house.
See GERMANY: A. D. 973--1122.
FRANKALMOIGN.
See FEUDAL TENURES.
FRANKFORT, Treaty of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1871 (JANUARY-MAY).
FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN, Origin of.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504.
FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1287.
Declared an imperial city.
See CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY.
FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1525.
Formal establishment of the Reformed Religion.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1522-1525.
FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1744.
The "Union" formed by Frederick the Great.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743-1744.
FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1759.
Surprised by the French.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (APRIL-AUGUST).
FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1801-1803.
One of six free cities which survived the Peace of Luneville.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.
FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1806.
Loss of municipal freedom.
Transfer, as a grand duchy, to the ancient Elector of Mayence.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806.
FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1810.
Erected into a grand duchy by Napoleon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1810 (FEBRUARY-DECEMBER).
FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1810-1815.
Loss and recovery of autonomy as a "free city."
See CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY;
and VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1848-1849.
Meeting of the German National Assembly.
Its work, its failure, and its end.
Riotous outbreak in the city.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1848 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER)
and 1848-1850.
FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: A. D. 1866.
Absorption by Prussia.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.
----------FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN: End----------
FRANKLIN, Benjamin, and the early American Press.
See PRINTING: A. D. 1704-1729.
FRANKLIN, Benjamin: His plan of Union in 1754.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.
FRANKLIN, Benjamin:
Colonial representative in England.
Return to America.
See PENNSYLVANIA: A.D. 1757-1762;
and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1765-1768, 1766, 1775 (JANUARY-MARCH),
and (APRIL-JUNE).
FRANKLIN, Benjamin: Signing of the Declaration of Independence.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JULY).
FRANKLIN, Benjamin: Mission to France:
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1776-1778, 1778 (FEBRUARY),
1782 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).
FRANKLIN, Benjamin:
Framing of the Federal Constitution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787.
FRANKLIN, The ephemeral state of.
See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1785;
and 1785-1796.
FRANKLIN, Tennessee, Battles at and near.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: TENNESSEE),
and 1864 (NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE).
FRANKLIN, OR FRANKLEYN, The.
"'There is scarce a small village,' says Sir John Fortescue
[15th century] 'in which you may not find a knight, an
esquire, or some substantial householder (paterfamilias)
commonly called a frankleyn, possessed of considerable estate;
besides others who are called freeholders, and many yeomen of
estate sufficient to make a substantial jury.' ... By a
frankleyn in this place we are to understand what we call a
country squire, like the frankleyn of Chaucer; for the word
esquire in Fortescue's time was only used in its limited
sense, for the sons of peers and knights, or such as had
obtained the title by creation or some other legal means."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 8, part 3, with note (volume 3).
FRANKPLEDGE.
An old English law required all men to combine in associations
of ten, and to become standing sureties for one another,
--which was called "frankpledge."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 5, section 41.
{1398}
FRANKS: Origin and earliest history.
"It is well known that the name of 'Frank' is not to be found
in the long list of German tribes preserved to us in the
'Germania' of Tacitus. Little or nothing is heard of them
before the reign of Gordian III. In A. D. 240 Aurelian, then a
tribune of the sixth legion stationed on the Rhine, encountered a
body of marauding Franks near Mayence and drove them back into
their marshes. The word 'Francia' is also found at a still
earlier date, in the old Roman chart called the 'Charta
Peutingeria,' and occupies on the map the right bank of the
Rhine from opposite Coblentz to the sea. The origin of the
Franks has been the subject of frequent debate, to which
French patriotism has occasionally lent some asperity. ... At
the present day, however, historians of every nation,
including the French, are unanimous in considering the Franks
as a powerful confederacy of German tribes, who in the time of
Tacitus inhabited the north-western parts of Germany bordering
on the Rhine. And this theory is so well supported by many
scattered notices, slight in themselves, but powerful when
combined, that we can only wonder that it should ever have
been called in question. Nor was this aggregation of tribes
under the new name of Franks a singular instance; the same
took place in the case of the Alemanni and Saxons. ... The
etymology of the name adopted by the new confederacy is also
uncertain. The conjecture which has most probability in its
favour is that adopted long ago by Gibbon, and confirmed in
recent times by the authority of Grimm, which connects it with
the German word Frank (free). ... Tacitus speaks of nearly all
the tribes, whose various appellations were afterwards merged
in that of Frank, as living in the neighbourhood of the Rhine.
Of these the principal were the Sicambri (the chief people of
the old Iscævonian tribe), who, as there is reason to believe,
were identical with the Salian Franks. The confederation
further comprised the Bructeri, the Chamavi, Ansibarii,
Tubantes, Marsi, and Chasuarii, of whom the five last had
formerly belonged to the celebrated Cheruscan league, which,
under the hero Arminius, destroyed three Roman legions in the
Teutoburgian Forest. The strongest evidence of the identity of
these tribes with the Franks, is the fact that, long after
their settlement in Gaul, the distinctive names of the
original people were still occasionally used as synonymous
with that of the confederation. ... The Franks advanced upon
Gaul from two different directions, and under the different
names of Salians, and Ripuarians, the former of whom we have
reason to connect more particularly with the Sicambrian tribe.
The origin of the words Salian and Ripuarian, which are first
used respectively by Ammianus Marcellinus and Jornandes, is
very obscure, and has served to exercise the ingenuity of
ethnographers. There are, however, no sufficient grounds for a
decided opinion. At the same time it is by no means improbable
that the river Yssel, Isala or Sal (for it has borne all these
appellations), may have given its name to that portion of the
Franks who lived along its course. With still greater
probability may the name Ripuarii, or Riparii, be derived from
'Ripa,' a term used by the Romans to signify the Rhine. These
dwellers on 'the Bank' were those that remained in their
ancient settlements while their Salian kinsmen were advancing
into the heart of Gaul."
W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
book 3, chapters 9 and 11.
T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 2, chapter 3.
FRANKS: A. D. 253.
First appearance in the Roman world.
"When in the year 253 the different generals of Rome were once
more fighting each other for the imperial dignity, and the
Rhine-legions marched to Italy to fight out the cause of their
emperor Valerianus against ... Aemilianus of the Danube-army,
this seems to have been the signal for the Germans pushing
forward, especially towards the lower Rhine. These Germans
were the Franks, who appear here for the first time, perhaps
new opponents only in name; for, although the identification
of them, already to be met with in later antiquity, with
tribes formerly named on the lower Rhine--partly, the Chamavi
settled beside the Bructeri, partly the Sugambri formerly
mentioned subject to the Romans--is uncertain and at least
inadequate, there is here greater probability than in the case
of the Alamanni that the Germans hitherto dependent on Rome, on
the right bank of the Rhine, and the Germanic tribes
previously dislodged from the Rhine, took at that time--under
the collective name of the 'Free'--the offensive in concert
against the Romans."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 4.
FRANKS: A. D. 277.
Repulse from Gaul, by Probus.
See GAUL: A. D. 277.
FRANKS: A. D. 279.
Escape from Pontus.
See SYRACUSE: A. D. 279.
FRANKS: A. D. 295-297.
In Britain.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 288-297.
FRANKS: A. D. 306.
Defeat by Constantine.
Constantine the Great, A. D. 306, fought and defeated the
Salian Franks in a great battle and "carried off a large
number of captives to Treves, the chief residence of the
emperor, and a rival of Rome itself in the splendour of its
public buildings. It was in the circus of this city, and in
the presence of Constantine, that the notorious 'Ludi
Francici' were celebrated; at which several thousand Franks,
including their kings Regaisus and Ascaricus, were compelled
to fight with wild beasts, to the inexpressible delight of the
Christian spectators."
W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapter 2.
FRANKS: A. D. 355.
Settlement in Toxandria.
See GAUL: A. D. 355-361;
also, TOXANDRIA.
FRANKS: 5th-10th Centuries.
Barbarities of the conquest of Gaul.
State of society under the rule of the conquerors.
Evolution of Feudalism.
See GAUL: 5TH-8TH, and 5TH-10TH CENTURIES.
FRANKS: A. D. 406-409.
Defense of Roman Gaul.
See GAUL: A. D. 406-409.
FRANKS: A. D. 410-420.
The Franks join in the attack on Gaul.
After vainly opposing the entrance of Vandals, Burgundians and
Sueves into Gaul, A. D. 406, "the Franks, the valiant and
faithful allies of the Roman republic, were soon [about A. D.
410-420] tempted to imitate the invaders whom they had so
bravely resisted. Treves, the capital of Gaul, was pillaged by
their lawless bands; and the humble colony which they so long
maintained in the district of Toxandria, in Brabant,
insensibly multiplied along the banks of the Meuse and
Scheldt, till their independent power filled the whole extent
of the Second, or Lower, Germany. ... The ruin of the opulent
provinces of Gaul may be dated from the establishment of these
barbarians, whose alliance was dangerous and oppressive, and
who were capriciously impelled, by interest or passion, to
violate the public peace."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 31.
{1399}
"They [the Franks] resisted the great invasion of the Vandals
in the time of Stilicho, but did not scruple to take part in
the subsequent ravages. Among the confusions of that
disastrous period, indeed, it is not improbable that they
seized the cities of Spires, Strasburg, Amiens, Arras,
Therouane and Tournai, and by their assaults on Trèves
compelled the removal of the præfectural government to Arles.
Chroniclers who flourished two centuries later refer to the
year 418 large and permanent conquests in Gaul by a visionary
king called Pharamund, from whom the French monarchy is
usually dated. But history seeks in vain for any authentic
marks of his performances."
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
book 3, chapter 11, section 5.
FRANKS: A. D. 448-456.
Origin of the Merovingian dynasty.
The royal dynasty of the kingdom of the Franks as founded by
Clovis is called the Merovingian. "It is thought that the
kings of the different Frankish people were all of the same
family, of which the primitive ancestor was Meroveus
(Meer-wig, warrior of the sea). After him those princes were
called Merovingians (Meer-wings); they were distinguished by
their long hair, which they never cut. A Meroveus, grandfather
of Clovis, reigned, it is said, over the Franks between 448
and 456; but only his name remains, in some antient
historians, and we know absolutely nothing more either of his
family, his power, or of the tribe which obeyed him: so that
we see no reason why his descendants had taken his name. ...
The Franks appear in history for the first time in the year
241. Some great captain only could, at this period, unite
twenty different people in a new confederation; this chief
was, apparently, the Meroveus, whose name appeared for such a
long time as a title of glory for his descendants, although
tradition has not preserved any trace of his victories."
J. C. L. S. de Sismondi,
The French under the Merovingians,
chapter 3.
FRANKS: A. D. 451.
At the battle of Châlons.
See HUNS: A. D. 451.
FRANKS: A. D. 481-511.
The kingdom of Clovis.
"The Salian Franks had ... associated a Roman or a Romanized
Gaul, Aegidius, with their native chief in the leadership of
the tribe. But, in the year 481, the native leadership passed
into the hands of a chief who would not endure a Roman
colleague, or the narrow limits within which, in the general
turmoil of the world, his tribe was cramped. He is known to
history by the name of Clovis, or Chlodvig, which through many
transformations, became the later Ludwig and Louis. Clovis
soon made himself feared as the most ambitious, the most
unscrupulous, and the most energetic of the new Teutonic
founders of states. Ten years after the fall of the Western
empire [which was in 476], seven years before the rise of the
Gothic kingdom of Theoderic, Clovis challenged the Roman
patrician, Syagrius of Soissons, who had succeeded to
Aegidius, defeated him in a pitched field, at Nogent, near
Soissons (486), and finally crushed Latin rivalry in northern
Gaul. Ten years later (496), in another famous battle, Tolbiac
(Zülpich), near Cologne, he also crushed Teutonic rivalry, and
established his supremacy over the kindred Alamanni of the
Upper Rhine. Then he turned himself with bitter hostility
against the Gothic power in Gaul. The Franks hated the Goths,
as the ruder and fiercer of the same stock hate those who are
a degree above them in the arts of peace, and are supposed to
be below them in courage and the pursuits of war. There was
another cause of antipathy. The Goths were zealous Arians; and
Clovis, under the influence of his wife Clotildis, the niece
of the Burgundian Gundobad, and in consequence, it is said, of
a vow made in battle at Tolbiac, had received Catholic baptism
from St. Remigius of Rheims.
See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800.
The Frank king threw his sword into the scale against the
Arian cause, and became the champion and hope of the Catholic
population all over Gaul. Clovis was victorious. He crippled
the Burgundian kingdom (500), which was finally destroyed by
his sons (534). In a battle near Poitiers, he broke the power
of the West Goths in Gaul; he drove them out of Aquitaine,
leaving them but a narrow slip of coast, to seek their last
settlement and resting-place in Spain; and, when he died, he
was recognized by all the world, by Theoderic, by the Eastern
emperor, who honoured him with the title of the consulship, as
the master of Gaul. Nor was his a temporary conquest. The
kingdom of the West Goths and the Burgundians had become the
kingdom of the Franks. The invaders had at length arrived who
were to remain. It was decided that the Franks, and not the
Goths, were to direct the future destinies of Gaul and
Germany, and that the Catholic faith, and not Arianism, was to
be the religion of these great realms."
R. W. Church,
Beginning of the Middle Ages,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapter 2.
J. C. L. S. de Sismondi,
The French under the Merovingians,
translated by Bellingham,
chapters 4-5.
See, also, GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-509.
FRANKS: A. D. 481-768.
Supremacy in Germany, before Charlemagne.
See GERMANY: A. D. 481-768.
FRANKS: A. D. 496.
Conversion to Christianity.
See above: A. D. 481-511;
also, ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504.
FRANKS: A. D. 496-504.
Overthrow of the Alemanni.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 496-504;
also, SUEVI: A. D. 460-500.
FRANKS: A. D. 511-752.
The house of Clovis.
Ascendancy of the Austrasian Mayors of the Palace.
On the death of Clovis, his dominion, or, speaking more
strictly, the kingly office in his dominion, was divided among
his four sons, who were lads, then, ranging in age from twelve
to eighteen. The eldest reigned in Metz, the second at
Orleans, the third in Paris, and the youngest at Soissons.
These princes extended the conquests of their father, subduing
the Thuringians (A. D. 515-528), overthrowing the kingdom of
the Burgundians (A. D. 523-534), diminishing the possessions
of the Visigoths in Gaul (A. D. 531-532), acquiring Provence
from the Ostrogoths of Italy and securing from the Emperor
Justinian a clear Roman-imperial title to the whole of Gaul.
The last survivor of the four brother-kings, Clotaire I.,
reunited the whole Frank empire under his own sceptre, and on
his death, A. D. 561, it was again divided among his four
sons. Six years later, on the death of the elder, it was
redivided among the three survivors. Neustria fell to
Chilperic, whose capital was at Soissons, Austrasia to
Sigebert, who reigned at Metz, and Burgundia to Guntram, who
had his seat of government at Orleans. Each of the kings took
additionally a third of Aquitaine, and Provence was shared
between Sigebert and Guntram. "It was agreed on this occasion
that Paris, which was rising into great importance, should be
held in common by all, but visited by none of the three kings
without the consent of the others." The reign of these three
brothers and their sons, from 561 to 613, was one long
revolting tragedy of civil war, murder, lust, and treachery,
made horribly interesting by the rival careers of the evil
Fredegunda and the great unfortunate Brunhilda, queens of
Neustria and Austrasia, respectively.
{1400}
In 613 a second Clotaire surviving his royal kin, united the
Frank monarchy once more under a single crown. But power was
fast slipping from the hands of the feeble creature who wore
the crown, and passing to that one of his ministers who
succeeded in making himself the representative of
royalty--namely, the Mayor of the Palace. There was a little
stir of energy in his son, Dagobert, but from generation to
generation, after him, the Merovingian kings sank lower into
that character which gave them the name of the fainéant kings
("rois fainéans")--the slothful or lazy kings--while the
mayors of the palace ruled vigorously in their name and
tumbled them, at last, from the throne. "While the Merovingian
race in its decline is notorious in history as having produced
an unexampled number of imbecile monarchs, the family which
was destined to supplant them was no less wonderfully prolific
in warriors and statesmen of the highest class. It is not
often that great endowments are transmitted even from father
to sou, but the line from which Charlemagne sprang presents to
our admiring gaze an almost uninterrupted succession of five
remarkable men, within little more than a single century. Of
these the first three held the mayoralty of Austrasia [Pepin
of Landen, Pepin of Heristal, and Carl, or Charles Martel, the
Hammer]; and it was they who prevented the permanent
establishment of absolute power on the Roman model, and
secured to the German population of Austrasia an abiding
victory over that amalgam of degraded Romans and corrupted
Gauls which threatened to leaven the European world. To them,
under Providence, we owe it that the centre of Europe is at
this day German, and not Gallo-Latin." Pepin of Heristal,
Mayor in Austrasia, broke the power of a rival Neustrian
family in a decisive battle fought near the village of Testri,
A. D. 687, and gathered the reins of the three kingdoms
(Burgundy included) into his own hands. His still more
vigorous son, Charles Martel, won the same ascendancy for
himself afresh, after a struggle which was signalized by three
sanguinary battles, at Amblève (A. D. 716), at Vinci, near
Cambrai (717) and at Soissons (718). When firm in power at
home, he turned his arms against the Frisians and the
Bavarians, whom he subdued, and against the obstinate Saxons,
whose country he harried six times without bringing them to
submission. His great exploit in war, however, was the repulse
of the invading Arabs and Moors, on the memorable battle-field
of Tours (A. D.732), where the wave of Mahommedan invasion was
rolled back in western Europe, never to advance beyond the
Pyrenees again. Karl died in 741, leaving three sons, among
whom his power was, in the Frank fashion, divided. But one of
them resigned, in a few years, his sovereignty, to become a
monk; another was deposed, and the third, Pepin, surnamed "The
Little," or "The Short," became supreme. He contented himself, as
his father, his grandfather, and his great grandfather had
done, with the title of Mayor of the Palace, until 752, when,
with the approval of the Pope and by the act of a great
assembly of leudes and bishops at Soissons, he was lifted on
the shield and crowned and anointed king of the Franks, while
the last of the Merovingians was shorn of his long royal locks
and placed in a monastery. The friendliness of the Pope in this
matter was the result and the cementation of an alliance which
bore important fruits. As the champion of the church, Pepin
made war on the Lombards and conquered for the Papacy the
first of its temporal dominions in Italy. In his own realm, he
completed the expulsion of the Moors from Septimania, crushed
an obstinate revolt in Aquitaine, and gave a firm footing to
the two thrones which, when he died in 768, he left to his
sons, Carl and Carloman, and which became in a few years the
single throne of one vast empire, under Carl--Carl the Great--
Charlemagne.
W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapters 3-6.
ALSO IN:
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
chapters 12-15.
J. C. L. S. de Sismondi,
The French under the Merovingians,
chapters 6-13.
See, also,
AUSTRASIA AND NEUSTRIA, and MAYOR OF THE PALACE.
FRANKS: A. D. 528.
Conquest of Thuringia.
See THURINGIANS, THE.
FRANKS: A. D. 539-553.
Invasion of Italy.
Formal relinquishment of Gaul to them.
During the Gothic war in Italy,--when Belisarius was
reconquering the cradle of the Roman Empire for the Eastern
Empire which still called itself Roman, although its seat was
at Constantinople,--both sides solicited the help of the
Franks. Theudebert, who reigned at Metz, promised his aid to
both, and kept his word. "He advanced [A. D. 539, with 100,000
men] toward Pavia, where the Greeks and Goths were met, about
to encounter, and, with an unexpected impartiality, attacked
the astonished Goths, whom he drove to Ravenna, and then,
while the Greeks were yet rejoicing over his performance, fell
upon them with merciless fury, and dispersed them through
Tuscany." Theudebert now became fired with an ambition to
conquer all Italy; but his savage army destroyed everything in
its path so recklessly, and pursued so unbridled a course,
that famine and pestilence soon compelled a retreat and only
one-third of its original number recrossed the Alps.
Notwithstanding, this treachery, the emperor Justinian renewed
his offers of alliance with the Franks (A.D. 540), and
"pledged to them, as the price of their fidelity to his cause,
besides the usual subsidies, the relinquishment of every
lingering claim, real or pretended, which the empire might
assert to the sovereignty of the Gauls. The Franks accepted
the terms, and 'from that time,' say the Byzantine
authorities, 'the German chiefs presided at the games of the
circus, and struck money no longer, as usual, with the effigy
of the emperors, but with their own image and superscription.
Theudebert, who was the principal agent of these transactions,
if he ratified the provisions of the treaty, did not fulfill
them in person, but satisfied himself with sending a few
tributaries to the aid of his ally. But his first example
proved to be more powerful than his later, and large swarms of
Germans took advantage of the troubles in Italy to overrun the
country and plunder and slay at will. For twelve years, under
various leaders, but chiefly under two brothers of the
Alemans, Lutherr and Bukhelin, they continued to harass the
unhappy object of all barbaric resentments, till the sword of
Narses finally exterminated them [A. D. 553]."
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
book 3, chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 41.
{1401}
FRANKS: A. D. 547.
Subjugation of Bavarians and Alemanni.
See BAVARIA: A. D. 547.
FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.
Charlemagne, Emperor of the Romans.
As a crowned dynasty, the Carlovingians or Carolingians or
Carlings begin their history with Pepin the Short. As an
established sovereign house, they find their founder in 'King
Pepin's father, the great palace mayor, Carl, or Charles
Martel, if not in his grandfather, Pepin Heristal. But the
imperial splendor of the house came to it from the second of
its kings, whom the French call 'Charlemagne,' but whom
English readers ought to know as Charles the Great. The French
form of the name has been always tending to represent
'Charlemagne' as a king of France, and modern historians
object to it for that reason. "France, as it was to be and as
we know it, had not come into existence in his [Charlemagne's]
days. What was to be the France of history was then but one
province of the Frank kingdom, and one with which Charles was
personally least connected. ... Charles, king of the Franks,
was, above all things, a German. ... It is entirely to mistake
his place and his work to consider him in the light of a
specially 'French' king, a predecessor of the kings who
reigned at Paris and brought glory upon France. ... Charles
did nothing to make modern France. The Frank power on which he
rose to the empire was in those days still mainly German; and
his characteristic work was to lay the foundations of modern
and civilized Germany, and, indirectly, of the new
commonwealth of nations, which was to arise in the West of
Europe."
R. W. Church,
The Beginnings of the Middle Ages,
chapter 7.
"At the death of King Pippin the kingdom of the Franks was
divided into two parts, or rather ... the government over the
kingdom was divided, for some large parts of the territory
seem to have been in the hands of the two brothers together.
The fact is, that we know next to nothing about this division,
and hardly more about the joint reign of the brothers. The
only thing really clear is, that they did not get along very
well together, that Karl was distinctly the more active and
capable of the two, and that after four years the younger
brother, Karlmann, died, leaving two sons. Here was a chance
for the old miseries of division to begin again; but
fortunately the Franks seem by this time to have had enough of
that, and to have seen that their greatest hope for the future
lay in a united government. The widow and children of Karlmann
went to the court of the Lombard king Desiderius and were
cared for by him. The whole Frankish people acknowledged
Charlemagne as their king. Of course he was not yet called
Charlemagne, but simply Karl, and he was yet to show himself
worthy of the addition 'Magnus.' ... The settlement of Saxony
went on, with occasional military episodes, by the slower, but
more certain, processes of education and religious conversion.
It appears to us to be anything but wise to force a religion
upon a people at the point of the sword; but the singular fact
is, that in two generations there was no more truly devout
Christian people, according to the standards of the time, than
just these same Saxons. A little more than a hundred years
from the time when Charlemagne had thrashed the nation into
unwilling acceptance of Frankish control, the crown of the
Empire he founded was set upon the head of a Saxon prince. The
progress in friendly relations between the two peoples is seen in
the second of the great ordinances by which Saxon affairs were
regulated. This edict, called the 'Capitulum Saxonicum,' was
published after a great diet at Aachen, in 797, at which, we
are told, there came together not only Franks, but also Saxon
leaders from all parts of their country, who gave their
approval to the new legislation. The general drift of these
new laws is in the direction of moderation. ... The object of
this legislation was, now that the armed resistance seemed to
be broken, to give the Saxons a government which should be as
nearly as possible like that of the Franks. The absolute
respect and subjection to the Christian Church is here, as it
was formerly, kept always in sight. The churches and
monasteries are still to be the centres from which every
effort at civilization is to go out. There can be no doubt
that the real agency in this whole process was the organized
Church. The fruit of the great alliance between Frankish
kingdom and Roman papacy was beginning to be seen. The papacy
was ready to sanction any act of her ally for the fair promise
of winning the great territory of North Germany to its
spiritual allegiance. The most solid result of the campaigns
of Charlemagne was the founding of the great bishoprics of
Minden, Paderborn, Verden, Bremen, Osnabrück, and Halberstadt.
... About these bishoprics, as, on the whole, the safest
places, men came to settle. Roads were built to connect them;
markets sprang up in their neighborhood; and thus gradually,
during a development of centuries, great cities grew up, which
came to be the homes of powerful and wealthy traders, and gave
shape to the whole politics of the North. Saxony was become a
part of the Frankish Empire, and all the more thoroughly so,
because there was no royal or ducal line there which had to be
kept in place."
E. Emerton,
Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages,
chapter 13.
Between 768 and 800 Charlemagne extinguished the Lombard
kingdom and made himself master of Italy, as the ally and
patron of the Pope, bearing the old Roman title of Patrician;
he crossed the Pyrenees, drove the Saracens southward to the
Ebro, and added a "Spanish March" to his empire (see SPAIN: A.
D. 778); he broke the obstinate turbulence of the Saxons, in a
series of bloody campaigns which (see SAXONS: A. D. 772-804)
consumed a generation; he extirpated the troublesome Avars,
still entrenched along the Danube, and he held with an always
firm hand the whole dominion that came to him by inheritance
from his father. "He had won his victories with Frankish arms,
and he had taken possession of the conquered countries in the
name of the Frankish people. Every step which he had taken had
been with the advice and consent of the nation assembled in
the great meetings of the springtime, and his public documents
carefully express the share of the nation in his great
achievements. Saxony, Bavaria, Lombardy, Aquitaine, the
Spanish Mark, all these great countries, lying outside the
territory of Frankland proper, had been made a part of its
possession by the might of his arm and the wisdom of his
counsel. But when this had all been done, the question arose,
by what right he should hold all this power, and secure it so
that it should not fall apart as soon as he should be gone.
{1402}
As king of the Franks it was impossible that he should not
seem to the conquered peoples, however mild and beneficent his
rule might be, a foreign prince; and though he might be able
to force them to follow his banner in war, and submit to his
judgment in peace, there was still wanting the one common
interest which should bind all these peoples, strangers to the
Franks and to each other, into one united nation. About the
year 800 this problem seems to have been very much before the
mind of Charlemagne. If we look at the boundaries of his
kingdom, reaching from the Eider in the north to the Ebro and
the Garigliano in the south, and from the ocean in the west to
the Elbe and the Enns in the east, we shall say as the people
of his own time did, 'this power is Imperial.' That word may
mean little to us, but in fact it has often in history been
used to describe just the kind of power which Charlemagne in
the year 800 really had. ... The idea of empire includes under
this one term, kingdoms, duchies, or whatever powers might be
in existence; all, however, subject to some one higher force,
which they feel to be necessary for their support. ... But
where was the model upon which Charlemagne might build his new
empire? Surely nowhere but in that great Roman Empire whose
western representative had been finally allowed to disappear
by Odoacer the Herulian in the year 476. ... After Odoacer the
Eastern Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, still
lived on, and claimed for itself all the rights which had
belonged to both parts. That Eastern Empire was still alive at
the time of Charlemagne. We have met with it once or twice in
our study of the Franks. Even Clovis had been tickled with the
present of the title of Consul, sent him by the Eastern
Emperor; and from time to time, as the Franks had meddled with
the affairs of Italy, they had been reminded that Italy was in
name still a part of the Imperial lands. ... But now, when
Charlemagne himself was thinking of taking the title of
Emperor, he found himself forced to meet squarely the
question, whether there could be two independent Christian
Emperors at the same time. ... On Christmas Day, in the year
800, Charlemagne was at Rome. He had gone thither at the
request of the Pope Leo, who had been accused of dreadful
crimes by his enemies in the city, and had been for a time
deprived of his office. Charlemagne had acted as judge in the
case, and had decided in favor of Leo. According to good
Teutonic custom, the pope had purified himself of his charges
by a tremendous oath on the Holy Trinity, and had again
assumed the duties of the papacy. The Christmas service was
held in great state at St. Peter's. While Charlemagne was
kneeling in prayer at the grave of the Apostle, the pope
suddenly approached him, and, in the presence of all the
people, placed upon his head a golden crown. As he did so, the
people cried out with one voice, 'Long life and victory to
Charles Augustus, the mighty Emperor, the Peace-bringer,
crowned by God!' Einhard, who ought to have known, assures us
that Charles was totally surprised by the coronation, and
often said afterward that if he had known of the plan he would
not have gone into the church, even upon so high a festival.
It is altogether probable that the king had not meant to be
crowned at just that moment and in just that way; but that he
had never thought of such a possibility seems utterly
incredible. By this act Charlemagne was presented to the world
as the successor of the ancient Roman Emperors of the West,
and so far as power was concerned, he was that. But he was
more. His power rested, not upon any inherited ideas, but upon
two great facts: first, he was the head of the Germanic Race;
and second, he was the temporal head of the Christian Church.
The new empire which he founded rested on these two
foundations."
E. Emerton,
Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages,
chapter 14.
The great empire which Charles labored, during all the
remainder of his life, to organize in this Roman imperial
character, was vast in its extent. "As an organized mass of
provinces, regularly governed by imperial officers, it seems
to have been nearly bounded, in Germany, by the Elbe, the
Saale, the Bohemian mountains, and a line drawn from thence
crossing the Danube above Vienna, and prolonged to the Gulf of
Istria. Part of Dalmatia was comprised in the duchy of Friuli.
In Italy the empire extended not much beyond the modern
frontier of Naples, if we exclude, as was the fact, the duchy
of Benevento from anything more than a titular subjection. The
Spanish boundary ... was the Ebro."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 1, part 1.
"The centre of his realm was the Rhine; his capitals Aachen
[or Aix-la-Chapelle] and Engilenheim [or Ingelheim]; his army
Frankish; his sympathies as they are shewn in the gathering of
the old hero-lays, the composition of a German grammar, ...
were all for the race from which he sprang. ... There were in
his Empire, as in his own mind, two elements; those two from
the union and mutual action and reaction of which modern
civilization has arisen. These vast domains, reaching from the
Ebro to the Carpathian mountains, from the Eyder to the Liris,
were all the conquests of the Frankish sword, and were still
governed almost exclusively by viceroys and officers of
Frankish blood. But the conception of the Empire, that which
made it a State and not a mere mass of subject tribes, ... was
inherited from an older and a grander system, was not Teutonic
but Roman--Roman in its ordered rule, in its uniformity and
precision, in its endeavour to subject the individual to the
system--Roman in its effort to realize a certain limited and
human perfection, whose very completeness shall exclude the
hope of further progress." With the death of Charles in 814
the territorial disruption of his great empire began. "The
returning wave of anarchy and barbarism swept up violent as
ever, yet it could not wholly obliterate the past: the Empire,
maimed and shattered though it was, had struck its roots too
deep to be overthrown by force." The Teutonic part and the
Romanized or Latinized part of the empire were broken in two,
never to unite again; but, in another century, it was on the
German and not the Gallo-Latin side of the line of its
disruption that the imperial ideas and the imperial titles of
Charlemagne came to life again, and his Teutonic Roman
Empire--the "Holy Roman Empire," as it came to be called--was
resurrected by Otto the Great, and established for eight
centuries and a half of enduring influence in the politics of
the world.
J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 5.
{1403}
"Gibbon has remarked, that of all the heroes to whom the title
of 'The Great' has been given, Charlemagne alone has retained
it as a permanent addition to his name. The reason may perhaps
be, that in no other man were ever united, in so large a
measure, and in such perfect harmony, the qualities which, in
their combination, constitute the heroic character, such as
energy, or the love of action; ambition, or the love of power;
curiosity, or the love of knowledge; and sensibility, or the
love of pleasure--not, indeed, the love of forbidden, of
unhallowed, or of enervating pleasure, but the keen relish for
those blameless delights by which the burdened mind and jaded
spirits recruit and renovate their powers. ... For the charms
of social intercourse, the play of a buoyant fancy, the
exhilaration of honest mirth, and even the refreshment of
athletic exercises, require for their perfect enjoyment that
robust and absolute health of body and of mind which none but
the noblest natures possess, and in the possession of which
Charlemagne exceeded all other men. His lofty stature, his
open countenance, his large and brilliant eyes, and the
dome-like structure of his head, imparted, as we learn from
Eginhard, to all his attitudes the dignity which becomes a
king, relieved by the graceful activity of a practiced
warrior. ... Whether he was engaged in a frolic or a chase--
composed verses or listened to homilies--fought or
negotiated--cast down thrones or built them up--studied,
conversed, or legislated, it seemed as if he, and he alone,
were the one wakeful and really living agent in the midst of
an inert, visionary, and somnolent generation. The rank held
by Charlemagne among great commanders was achieved far more by
this strange and almost superhuman activity than by any
pre-eminent proficiency in the art or science of war. He was
seldom engaged in any general action, and never undertook any
considerable siege, excepting that of Pavia, which, in fact,
was little more than a protracted blockade. But, during
forty-six years of almost unintermitted warfare, he swept over
the whole surface of Europe, from the Ebro to the Oder, from
Bretagne to Hungary, from Denmark to Capua, with such a
velocity of movement, and such a decision of purpose, that no
power, civilized or barbarous, ever provoked his resentment
without rapidly sinking beneath his prompt and irresistible
blows. And though it be true, as Gibbon has observed, that he
seldom, if ever, encountered in the field a really formidable
antagonist, it is not less true that, but for his military
skill, animated by his sleepless energy, the countless
assailants by whom he was encompassed must rapidly have become
too formidable for resistance. For to Charlemagne is due the
introduction into modern warfare of the art by which a general
compensates for the numerical inferiority of his own forces to
that of his antagonists--the art of moving detached bodies of
men along remote but converging lines with such mutual concert
as to throw their united forces at the same moment on any
meditated point of attack. Neither the Alpine marches of
Hannibal nor those of Napoleon were combined with greater
foresight, or executed with greater precision, than the
simultaneous passages of Charlemagne and Count Bernard across
the same mountain ranges, and their ultimate union in the
vicinity of their Lombard enemies."
Sir J. Stephen,
Lectures on the History of France,
lecture 3.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 49.
See, also,
GERMANY: A. D. 800.
FRANKS: A. D. 814-962.
Dissolution of the Carolingian Empire.
Charlemagne, at his death, was succeeded by his son Ludwig, or
Louis the Pious--the single survivor of three sons among whom
he had intended that his great empire should be shared. Mild
in temper, conscientious in character, Louis reigned with
success for sixteen years, and then lost all power of control,
through the turbulence of his family and the disorders of his
times. He "tried in vain to satisfy his sons (Lothar, Lewis,
and Charles) by dividing and redividing: they rebelled; he was
deposed, and forced by the bishops to do penance, again
restored, but without power, a tool in the hands of contending
factions. On his death the sons flew to arms, and the first of
the dynastic quarrels of modern Europe was fought out on the
field of Fontenay. In the partition treaty of Verdun [A. D.
843] which followed, the Teutonic principle of equal division
among heirs triumphed over the Roman one of the transmission
of an indivisible Empire: the practical sovereignty of all
three brothers was admitted in their respective territories, a
barren precedence only reserved to Lothar, with the imperial
title which he, as the eldest, already enjoyed. A more
important result was the separation of the Gaulish and German
nationalities. ... Modern Germany proclaims the era of A. D.
843 the beginning of her national existence and celebrated its
thousandth anniversary [in 1843]. To Charles the Bald was
given Francia Occidentalis; that is to say, Neustria and
Aquitaine; to Lothar, who as Emperor must possess the two
capitals, Rome and Aachen, a long and narrow kingdom
stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, and
including the northern half of Italy; Lewis (surnamed, from
his kingdom, the German) received all east of the Rhine,
Franks, Saxons, Bavarians, Austria, Carinthia, with possible
supremacies over Czechs and Moravians beyond. Throughout these
regions German was spoken; through Charles's kingdom a corrupt
tongue, equally removed from Latin and from modern French.
Lothar's, being mixed and having no national basis, was the
weakest of the three, and soon dissolved into the separate
sovereignties of Italy, Burgundy and Lotharingia, or, as we
call it, Lorraine. On the tangled history of the period that
follows it is not possible to do more than touch. After
passing from one branch of the Carolingian line to another,
the imperial sceptre was at last possessed and disgraced by
Charles the Fat, who united all the dominions of his
great-grandfather. This unworthy heir could not avail himself
of recovered territory to strengthen or defend the expiring
monarchy. He was driven out of Italy in A. D. 887 and his
death in 888 has been usually taken as the date of the
extinction of the Carolingian Empire of the West. ... From all
sides the torrent of barbarism which Charles the Great had
stemmed was rushing down upon his empire. ... Under such
strokes the already loosened fabric swiftly dissolved. No one
thought of common defence or wide organization: the strong
built castles, the weak became their bondsmen, or took shelter
under the cowl: the governor--count, abbot, or
bishop--tightened his grasp, turned a delegated into an
independent, a personal into a territorial authority, and
hardly owned a distant and feeble suzerain. ... In Germany,
the greatness of the evil worked at last its cure.
[1404 moved to end of FRANKS.]
{1405}
When the male line of the eastern branch of the Carolingians
had ended in Lewis (surnamed the Child), son of Arnulf [A. D.
911], the chieftains chose and the people accepted Conrad the
Franconian, and after him Henry the Saxon duke, both
representing the female line of Charles. Henry laid the
foundations of a firm monarchy, driving back the Magyars and
Wends, recovering Lotharingia, founding towns to be centres of
orderly life and strongholds against Hungarian irruptions. He
had meant to claim at Rome his kingdom's rights, rights which
Conrad's weakness had at least asserted by the demand of
tribute; but death overtook him, and the plan was left to be
fulfilled by Otto his son."
J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 6.
"The division of 888 was really the beginning of the modern
states and the modern divisions of Europe. The Carolingian
Empire was broken up into four separate kingdoms: the Western
Kingdom, answering roughly to France, the Eastern Kingdom or
Germany, Italy, and Burgundy. Of these, the three first remain
as the greatest nations of the Continent: Burgundy, by that
name, has vanished; but its place as a European power is
occupied, far more worthily than by any King or Cæsar, by the
noble confederation of Switzerland."
E. A. Freeman,
The Franks and the Gauls.
(Historical Essays, 1st series, number 7.)
ALSO IN:
E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages,
book 2, numbers 3.
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
chapter 18.
R. W. Church,
The Beginning of the Middle Ages,
chapter 8.
F. Guizot,
History of Civilization,
lecture 24.
Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and France,
volumes 1-2.
See, also,
GERMANY: A. D. 843-962;
and FRANCE: A. D. 843, and after.
FRANKS: A. D. 843-962.
Kingdom of the East Franks.
See GERMANY: A. D. 843-962.
----------End: FRANKS ----------
CENTRAL EUROPE AT THE PEACE OF VERDUN 843 A. D.
CENTRAL EUROPE 888 A. D.
----------------------------------
FRATRES MINORES.
See MENDICANT ORDERS.
FRATRICELLI, The.
See BEGUINES, ETC.
FRAZIER'S FARM, OR GLENDALE, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).
FREDERICIA, Battle of (1849).
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862.
FREDERICIA, Siege of (1864).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866.
FREDERICK I.
(called Barbarossa), Emperor, A. D. 1155-1190;
King of Germany, 1152-1190;
King of Italy, 1155-1190.
Frederick I., King of Denmark and Norway, 1523-1533.
Frederick I., King of Prussia, 1701-1713;
Frederick III., Elector of Brandenburg, 1688-1713.
Frederick I., Elector of Brandenburg, 1417-1440.
Frederick II.,
Emperor, 1220-1250;
King of Germany, 1212-1250.
See ITALY: A. D. 1183-1250;
and GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268.
Frederick II., King of Denmark and Norway, 1558-1588.
Frederick II., King of Naples, 1496-1503.
Frederick II. (called The Great),
King of Prussia, 1740-1786.
Frederick II., King of Sicily, 1295-1337.
Frederick II., Elector of Brandenburg, 1440-1470.
Frederick III., Emperor, and King of Germany, 1440-1493.
Frederick III., German Emperor and King of Prussia,
1888, March-June.
Frederick III., King of Denmark and Norway, 1648-1670.
Frederick III., King of Sicily, 1355-1377.
Frederick IV., King of Denmark and Norway, 1609-1730.
Frederick V., King of Denmark and Norway, 1746-1766.
Frederick V., Elector of the Palatinate
(and King-elect of Bohemia),
and the Thirty Years' War.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620, 1620, 1621-1623,
1631-1632, and 1648.
Frederick VI.,
King of Denmark and Norway, 1808-1814;
King of Denmark, 1814-1839.
Frederick VII., King of Denmark, 1848-1863.
Frederick Augustus I.,
Elector of Saxony, 1694-1733;
King of Poland,1697-1704 (deposed), and 1709-1733.
Frederick Augustus II.,
Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, 1733-1763.
Frederick Henry, Stadtholder of the United Provinces,
1625-1647.
Frederick William (called The Great Elector),
Elector of Brandenburg, 1640-1688.
Frederick William I., King of Prussia, 1713-1740.
Frederick William II., King of Prussia, 1786-1797.
Frederick William III., King of Prussia, 1797-1840.
Frederick William IV., King of Prussia, 1840-1861.
----------FREDERICK: End----------
FREDERICKSBURG, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D.1862 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: VIRGINIA).
FREDERICKSBURG:
Sedgwick's demonstration against.
See
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (APRIL-MAY: VIRGINIA).
----------FREDERICKSBURG: End----------
FREDERICKSHALL.
Siege by the Swedes.
Death of Charles XII. (1718).
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1707-1718.
FREDERICKSHAMM, Peace of (1809).
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1807-1810.
FREDLINGEN, Battle of (1703).
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.
FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1843.
FREE CITIES.
See CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY;
also, ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152, and after.
FREE COMPANIES, The.
See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393;
and FRANCE: A. D. 1360-1380.
FREE LANCES.
See LANCES, FREE.
FREE MASONS.
"The fall of the Knights Templars has been connected with the
origin of the Freemasons, and the idea has prevailed that the
only secret purpose of the latter was the reestablishment of
the suppressed order. Jacques de Molai, while a prisoner in
Paris, is said to have created four new lodges, and the day
after his execution, eight knights, disguised as masons, are
said to have gone to gather up the ashes of their late Grand
Master. To conceal their designs, the new Templars assumed the
symbols of the trade, but took, it is said, the name of Francs
'Maçons' to distinguish themselves from ordinary craftsmen,
and also in memory of the general appellation given to them in
Palestine. Even the allegories of Freemasonry, and the ceremonies
of its initiations, have been explained by a reference to the
history of the persecutions of the Templars. The Abbé Barruel
says, that 'every thing--the signs, the language, the names of
grand master, of knight, of temple--all, in a word, betray the
Freemasons as descendants of the proscribed knights.' Lessing,
in Germany, gave some authority to this opinion, by asserting
positively that 'the lodges of the Templars were in the very
highest repute in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and
that out of such a lodge, which had been constantly kept up in
London, was established the society of Freemasons, in the
seventeenth century, by Sir Christopher Wren.'
{1406}
Lessing is of opinion that the name Mason has nothing to do
with the English meaning of the word, but comes from
Massonney, a 'lodge' of the Knights Templars. This idea may
have caused the Freemasons to amalgamate the external ritual
of the Templars with their own, and to found the higher French
degrees which have given colour to the very hypothesis which
gave rise to their introduction. But the whole story appears
to be most improbable, and only rests upon the slight
foundation of fancied or accidental analogies. Attempts have
also been made to show that the Freemasons are only a
continuation of the fraternities of architects which are
supposed to have originated at the time of the building of
Solomon's Temple. The Egyptian priests are supposed to have
taught those who were initiated a secret and sacred system of
architecture; this is said to have been transmitted to the
Dionysiac architects, of whom the first historical traces are
to be found in Asia Minor, where they were organized into a
secret fraternity. ... It is, however; a mere matter of
speculation whether the Jewish and Dionysiac architects were
closely connected, but there is some analogy between the
latter and the Roman guilds, which Numa is said to have first
introduced, and which were probably the prototypes of the
later associations of masons which flourished until the end of
the Roman Empire. The hordes of barbarians which then
ruthlessly swept away whatever bore the semblance of luxury
and elegance, did not spare the noblest specimens of art, and
it was only when they became converted to Christianity, that
the guilds were re-established. During the Lombard rule they
became numerous in Italy. ... As their numbers increased,
Lombardy no longer sufficed for the exercise of their art, and
they travelled into all the countries where Christianity, only
recently established, required religious buildings. ... These
associations, however, became nearly crushed by the power of
the monastic institutions, so that in the early part of the
Middle Ages the words artist and priest became nearly
synonymous; but in the twelfth century they emancipated
themselves, and sprang into new life. The names of the authors
of the great architectural creations of this period are almost
all unknown; for these were not the work of individuals, but
of fraternities. ... In England guilds of masons are said to
have existed in the year 926, but this tradition is not
supported by history; in Scotland similar associations were
established towards the end of the fifteenth century. The Abbé
Grandidier regards Freemasonry as nothing more than a servile
imitation of the ancient and useful fraternity of true masons
established during the building of the Cathedral of Strasburg,
one of the masterpieces of Gothic architecture, and which caused
the fame of its builders to spread throughout Europe. In many
towns similar fraternities were established. ... The origin of
the Freemasons of the present day is not to be attributed to
these fraternities, but to the Rosicrucians [see ROSICRUCIANS]
who first appeared at the beginning of the seventeenth
century."
A. P. Marras,
Secret Fraternities of the Middle Ages,
chapters 7-8.
ALSO IN:
J. G. Findel,
History of Freemasonry.
C. W. Heckethorn,
Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries,
book 8 (volume 1).
FREE-SOIL PARTY, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848.
FREE SPIRIT, Brethren and Sisters of the.
See BEGUINES.
FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1836-1839;
1842; 1845-1846; and 1846-1879.
FREEDMEN OF THE SOUTH.
The emancipated slaves of the United States of America.
FREEDMEN'S BUREAU, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1695.
Expiration of the Censorship law in England.
See PRINTING: A. D. 1695.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1734.
Zenger's trial at New York.
Vindication of the rights of the colonial Press.
See NEW YORK: A. D. 1720-1734.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1755.
Liberty attained in Massachusetts.
See PRINTING: A. D. 1535-1709.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1762-1764.
Prosecution of John Wilkes.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1762-1764.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1771.
Last contest of the British Parliament with the Press.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1771.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: A. D. 1817.
The trials of William Hone.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1816-1820.
----------FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: End----------
FREEHOLD.
See FEUDAL TENURES.
FREEMAN'S FARM, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (JULY-OCTOBER).
FREGELLÆ.
Fregellæ, a Latin colony, founded by the Romans, B. C. 329, in
the Volscian territory, on the Liris, revolted in B. C. 125.
and was totally destroyed. A Roman colony, named Fabrateria,
was founded near the site.
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 1, chapter 17.
FREIBURG (in the Breisgau).
Freiburg became a free city in 1120, but lost its freedom a
century later, and passed, in 1368, under the domination of
the Hapsburgs.
FREIBURG: A. D. 1638.
Capture by Duke Bernhard.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.
FREIBURG: A. D. 1644.
Siege and capture by the Imperialists.
Attempted recovery by Condé and Turenne.
The three days battle.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1643-1644.
FREIBURG: A. D. 1677.
Taken by the French.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.
FREIBURG: A. D. 1679.
Retained by France.
See NIMEGUEN, THE PEACE OF.
FREIBURG: A. D. 1697.
Restored to Germany.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1697.
FREIBURG: A. D. 1713-1714.
Taken and given up by the French.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
FREIBURG: A. D. 1744-1748.
Taken by the French and restored to Germany.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1744-1745;
and AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: THE CONGRESS.
----------FREIBURG: End----------
FREJUS, Origin of.
See FORUM JULII.
FREMONT, General John C.,
The conquest of California.
See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1846-1847.
Defeat in Presidential election.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856.
Command in the west.
Proclamation of Freedom.
Removal.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI),
and (AUGUST-OCTOBER: MISSOURI).
Command in West Virginia.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862. (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).
{1407}
FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.
The four intercolonial wars of the 17th and 18th centuries, in
America, commonly known, respectively, as "King William's
War," "Queen Anne's War," "King George's War," and the French
and Indian War, were all of them conflicts with the French and
Indians of Canada, or New France; but the last of the series
(coincident with the "Seven Years War" in Europe) became
especially characterized in the colonies by that designation.
Its causes and chief events are to be found related under the
following headings:
CANADA: A.D. 1750-1753,1755, 1756, 1756-1757, 1758,
1759,1760;
NOVA SCOTIA: A. D.1749-1755, 1755;
OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, 1755;
CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760;
also, for an account of the accompanying Cherokee War,
SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1759-1761.
FRENCH FURY, The.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1581-1584.
FRENCH SPOLIATION CLAIMS.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1800.
FRENCHTOWN (now Monroe, Mich.), Battle at.
See
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.
HARRISON'S NORTHWESTERN CAMPAIGN.
FRENTANIANS, The.
See SABINES.
FRIARS.
"Carmelite Friars,"
"White Friars."
See CARMELITE FRIARS.
Austin Friars;
See AUSTIN CANONS.
"Preaching Friars,"
"Begging Friars,"
"Minor Friars,"
"Black Friars,"
"Grey Friars."
See MENDICANT ORDERS.
FRIEDLAND, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).
FRIEDLINGEN, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1702.
FRIENDS, The Society of.
See QUAKERS.
FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE; The Society of the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1830-1840.
FRIESLAND.
Absorbed in the dominions of the House of Burgundy (1430).
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1417-1430.
FRIGIDUS, Battle of the (A. D. 394).
See ROME: A. D. 379-395.
FRILING, The.
See LÆTI.
FRIMAIRE, The month.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER).
FRISIANS, The.
"Beyond the Batavians, upon the north, dwelt the great Frisian
family, occupying the regions between the Rhine and Ems. The
Zuyder Zee and the Dollart, both caused by the terrific
inundations of the 13th century, and not existing at this
period [the early Roman Empire], did not then interpose
boundaries between kindred tribes."
J. L. Motley,
Rise of the Dutch Republic,
introduction, section. 2.
"The Frisians, adjoining [the Batavi] ... in the coast
district that is still named after them, as far as the lower
Ems, submitted to Drusus and obtained a position similar to
that of the Batavi. There was imposed on them instead of
tribute simply the delivery of a number of bullocks' hides for
the wants of the army; on the other hand they had to furnish
comparatively large numbers of men for the Roman service. They
were the most faithful allies of Drusus as afterwards of
Germanicus."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 4.
FRISIANS: A. D. 528-729.
Struggles against the Frank dominion, before Charlemagne.
See GERMANY: A. D. 481-768.
FRITH-GUILDS.
See GUILDS, MEDIÆVAL.
FROEBEL AND THE KINDERGARTEN.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS &c.: 1816-1892.
FROG'S POINT, Battle At.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1776 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).
FRONDE, FRONDEURS, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1647-1648, 1649, 1650-1651, 1651-1653;
and BORDEAUX: A. D. 1652-1653.
FRONT ROYAL, Stonewall Jackson's capture of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).
FRONTENAC, Count, in New France.
See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687, to 1696.
FRONTENAC, Fort.
See KINGSTON, CANADA.
FRUCTIDOR, The Month.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER).
FRUCTIDOR: The Coup d'Etat of the Eighteenth of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (SEPTEMBER).
FRUELA I.,
King of Leon and the Asturias, or Oviedo, A. D. 757-768.
Fruela II., King of Leon and the Asturias, or Oviedo,
A. D. 923-925.
FRUMENTARIAN LAW, The First.
See ROME: B. C. 133-121.
FUEGIANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PATAGONIANS.
FUENTES D'ONORO, Battle of (1811).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1810-1812.
FUFIAN LAW, The.
See ÆLIAN AND FUFIAN LAWS.
FUGGERS, The.
"Hans Fugger was the founder of the Fugger family, whose
members still possess extensive estates and authority as
princes and counts in Bavaria and Wurtemburg. He came to
Augsburg in 1365 as a poor but energetic weaver's apprentice,
acquired citizenship by marrying a burgher's daughter, and,
after completing an excellent masterpiece, was admitted into
the guild of weavers. ... Hans Fugger died in 1409, leaving
behind him a fortune of 3,000 florins, which he had made by
his skill and diligence. This was a considerable sum in those
days, for the gold mines of the New World had not yet been
opened up, and the necessaries of life sold for very low
prices. The sons carried on their father's business, and with
so much skill and success that they were always called the
rich Fuggers. The importance and wealth of the family
increased every day. By the year 1500 it was not easy to find
a frequented route by sea or land where Fugger's wares were
not to be seen. On one occasion the powerful Hanseatic league
seized twenty of their ships, which were sailing with a cargo
of Hungarian copper, down the Vistula to Cracow and Dantzic.
Below ground the miner worked for Fugger, above it the
artisan. In 1448 they lent 150,000 florins to the then
Archdukes of Austria, the Emperor Frederick the Third (father
of Maximilian) and his brother Albert. In 1509 a century had
passed since the weaver Hans Fugger had died leaving his
fortune of 3,000 florins, acquired by his laborious industry.
His grand-children were now the richest merchants in Europe;
without the aid of their money the mightiest princes of the
continent could not complete any important enterprise, and
their family was connected with the noblest houses by the ties
of relationship. They were raised to the rank of noblemen and
endowed with honourable privileges by the Emperor Maximilian
the First."
A. W. Grube,
Heroes of History and Legend,
chapter 13.
{1408}
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, AND ITS REPEAL.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1850, and 1864 (JUNE).
FULAHS, The.
See AFRICA: THE INHABITING RACES.
FULFORD, Battle of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1066 (SEPTEMBER).
FULTON'S FIRST STEAMBOAT.
See STEAM NAVIGATION: THE BEGINNINGS.
FUNDAMENTAL AGREEMENT OF NEW HAVEN.
See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1639.
FUNDAMENTAL ORDERS OF CONNECTICUT.
See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1636-1639.
FUORUSCITI.
In Italy, during the Guelf and Ghibelline contests of the 13th
and 14th centuries (see ITALY: A. D. 1215-1293), "almost every
city had its body of 'fuorusciti';--literally, 'those who had
gone out';--proscripts and exiles, in fact, who represented
the minorities ... in the different communities;--Ghibelline
fuorusciti from Guelph cities, and Guelph fuorusciti from
Ghibelline cities."
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
volume 1, page 380.
FÜRST.
Prince; the equivalent German title.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1152.
FURY, The French.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1581-1584.
FURY, The Spanish.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.
FUSILLADES.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793-1794 (OCTOBER-APRIL).
FUTTEH ALI SHAH,
Shah of Persia, A. D. 1798-1834.
FUTTEHPORE, Battle of (1857).
See INDIA: A. D. 1857-1858 (JULY-JUNE).
FYLFOT-CROSS, The.
See TRI-SKELION.
FYRD, The.
"The one national army [in Saxon England, before the Norman
Conquest] was the fyrd, a force which had already received in
the Karolingian legislation the name of landwehr by which the
German knows it still. The fyrd was in fact composed of the
whole mass of free landowners who formed the folk: and to the
last it could only be summoned by the voice of the folk-moot.
In theory therefore such a host represented the whole
available force of the country. But in actual warfare its
attendance at the king's war-call was limited by practical
difficulties. Arms were costly; and the greater part of the
fyrd came equipped with bludgeons and hedge-stakes, which
could do little to meet the spear and battleaxe of the
invader."
J. R. Green,
The Conquest of England,
p. 133.
G.
GA, The.
See GAU.
GABELLE The.
"In the spring of the year 1343, the king [Philip de Valois,
king of France] published an ordinance by which no one was
allowed to sell salt in France unless he bought it from the
store-houses of the crown, which gave him the power of
committing any degree of extortion in an article that was of
the utmost necessity to his subjects. This obnoxious tax,
which at a subsequent period became one of the chief sources
of the revenue of the crown of France, was termed a gabelle, a
word of Frankish or Teutonic origin, which had been in use
from the earliest period to signify a tax in general, but
which was from this time almost restricted to the
extraordinary duty on salt. ... This word gabelle is the same
as the Anglo-Saxon word 'gafol,' a tax."
T. Wright,
History of France,
volume 1, page 364, and foot-note.
See, also, TAILEE AND GABELLE.
GABINIAN LAW, The.
See ROME: B.C. 69-63.
GACHUPINES AND GUADALUPES.
In the last days of Spanish rule in Mexico, the Spanish
official party bore the name of Gachupines, while the native
party, which prepared for revolution, were called Guadalupes.
E. J. Payne,
History of European Colonies,
p. 303.
The name of the Guadalupes was adopted by the Mexicans "in
honour of 'Our Lady of Guadalupe,' the tutelar protectress of
Mexico;" while that of the Gachupines "was a sobriquet
gratuitously bestowed upon the Spanish faction."
W. H. Chynoweth,
The Fall of Maximilian,
page 3.
GADEBUSCH, Battle of (1712).
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1707-1718.
GADENI, The.
See BRITAIN, CELTIC TRIBES.
GADES (Modern Cadiz); Ancient commerce of.
"At this period [early in the last century before Christ]
Gades was undoubtedly one of the most important emporiums of
trade in the world: her citizens having absorbed a large part
of the commerce that had previously belonged to Carthage. In
the time of Strabo they still retained almost the whole trade
with the Outer Sea, or Atlantic coasts."
E. H. Bunbury,
History of Ancient Geography,
chapter 18, section 6 (volume 2).
See, also, UTICA.
GADSDEN PURCHASE, The.
See ARIZONA: A. D. 1853.
GAEL.
See CELTS.
GAETA: A. D. 1805-1806.
Siege and Capture by the French.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (DECEMBER-SEPTEMBER).
GAETA: A. D. 1848.
The refuge of Pope Pius IX.
See ITALY: A.. D. 1848-1849.
GAFOL.
A payment in money, or kind, or work, rendered in the way of
rent by a villein-tenant to his lord, among the Saxons and
early English. The word signified tribute.
F. Seebohm,
English Village Community,
chapters 2 and 5.
GAG, The Atherton.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1836.
GAGE, General Thomas, in the command and government at Boston.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (MARCH-APRIL);
1775 (APRIL), (APRIL-MAY), and (JUNE).
GAI SABER, El.
See PROVENCE: A. D. 1179-1207.
GAINAS, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 547-633.
GAINES' MILL, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).
GALATA, The Genoese colony.
See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299;
also CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1261-1453, and 1348-1355.
{1409}
GALATÆ, The.
See GAULS.
GALATIA.-GALATIANS.
In 280 B. C. a body of Gauls, or Celts, invaded Greece, under
Brennus, and in the following year three tribes of them
crossed into Asia Minor. There, as in Greece, they committed
terrible ravages, and were a desolating scourge to the land,
sometimes employed as mercenaries by one and another of the
princes who fought over the fragments of Alexander's Empire,
and sometimes roaming for plunder on their own account.
Antiochus, son of Seleueus, of Syria, is said to have won a
great victory over them; but it was not until 239 B. C. that
they were seriously checked by Attalus, King of Pergamus, who
defeated them in a great battle and forced them to settle in
the part of ancient Phrygia which afterwards took its name
from them, being called Galatia, or Gallo-Græcia, or Eastern
Gaul. When the Romans subjugated Asia Minor they found the
Galatæ among their most formidable enemies. The latter were
permitted for a time to retain a certain degree of
independence, under tetrarchs, and afterwards under kings of
their own. But finally Galatia became a Roman province. "When
St. Paul preached among them, they seemed fused into the
Hellenistic world, speaking Greek like the rest of Asia; yet
the Celtic language long lingered among them and St. Jerome
says he found the country people still using it in his day
(fourth century A. D.)."
J. P. Mahaffy,
Story of Alexander's Empire,
chapter 8.
See, also, GAULS: B. C. 280-279.
INVASION OF GREECE.
GALBA, Roman Emperor, A. D. 68-69.
GALEAZZO MARIO, Duke of Milan, A.D. 1466-1476.
GALERIUS, Roman Emperor, A. D. 305-311.
GALICIA (Spain), Settlement of Sueves and Vandals in.
See SPAIN: A. D. 409-414.
GALILEE.
The Hebrew name Galil, applied originally to a little section
of country, became in the Roman age, as Galilæa, the name of
the whole region in Palestine north of Samaria and west of the
river Jordan and the Sea of Galilee. Ewald interprets the name
as meaning the "march" or frontier land; but in Smith's
"Dictionary of the Bible" it is said to signify a "circle" or
"circuit." It had many heathen inhabitants and was called
Galilee of the Gentiles.
H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
book 5, section 1.
GALLAS, The.
See AFRICA: THE INHABITING RACES;
and ABYSSINIA: 15th-19th CENTURIES.
GALLATIN, Albert, Negotiation of the Treaty of Ghent.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER).
GALLDACHT.
See PALE, THE ENGLISH.
GALLEON OR GALEON.--GALERA.--GALEAZA.--GALEASSES.
See CARAVELS;
also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1588;
also, PERU: A. D. 1550-1816.
GALLI, The.
See GAULS.
GALLIA.
See GAUL.
GALLIA BRACCATA, COMATA AND TOGATA.
"The antient historians make some allusion to another division
of Gaul, perhaps introduced by the soldiers, for it was
founded solely upon the costume of the inhabitants. Gallia
Togata, near the Rhone, comprehended the Gauls who had adopted
the toga and the Roman manners. In Gallia Comata, to the north
of the Loire, the inhabitants wore long plaited hair, which we
find to this day among the Bas Britons. Gallia Bracata, to the
south of the Loire, wore, for the national costume, trousers
reaching from the hips to the ancles, called 'braccæ.'"
J. C. L. S. de Sismondi,
The French under the Merovingians,
translated by Bellingham,
chapter 2, note.
GALLIA CISALPINA.
See ROME: B. C. 390-347.
GALLICAN CHURCH: A. D. 1268.
The Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1268.
GALLICAN CHURCH: A. D. 1438.
The Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VII., affirming some of the
decrees of the reforming Council of Basel.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1438.
GALLICAN CHURCH: A. D. 1515-1518.
Abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction.
The Concordat of Bologna.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1515-1518.
GALLICAN CHURCH: A. D. 1653-1713.
The conflict of Jesuits and Jansenists.
Persecution of the latter.
The Bull Unigenitus and its tyrannical enforcement.
See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS.
GALLICAN CHURCH: A. D. 1791-1792.
The civil constitution of the clergy.
The oath prescribed by the National Assembly.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1791; 1790-1791;
and 1791-1792.
GALLICAN CHURCH: A. D. 1793.
Suppression of Christian worship in Paris and other parts of
France.
The worship of Reason.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (NOVEMBER).
GALLICAN CHURCH: A. D. 1802.
The Concordat of Napoleon.
Its Ultramontane influence.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1804.
GALLICAN CHURCH: A. D. 1833-1880.
The Church and the Schools.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: FRANCE: A. D. 1833-1889.
----------GALLICAN CHURCH: End----------
GALLICIA, The kingdom of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 713-737.
GALLIENUS, Roman Emperor, A. D. 253-268.
GALLOGLASSES.
The heavy-armed foot-soldiers of the
Irish in their battles with the
English during the 14th century.
See, also, RAPPAREE.
GALLS.
See IRELAND: 9TH-10TH CENTURIES.
GALLUS, Trebonianus, Roman Emperor, A. D. 251-253.
GAMA, Voyage of Vasco da.
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1463-1498.
GAMBETTA AND THE DEFENSE OF FRANCE.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER),
and 1870-1871.
GAMMADION, The.
See TRI-SKELION.
GAMORI.
See GEOMORI.
GANAWESE OR KANAWHAS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.
GANDARIANS, The.
See GEDROSIANS.
GANDASTOGUES, OR CONESTOGAS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SUSQUEHANNAS.
GANGANI, The.
See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
{1410}
GANGWAY, The.
On the floor of the English House of Commons, "the long lines
of seats rise gradually on each side of the chair--those to
the Speaker's right being occupied by the upholders of the
Government, and those to the left accommodating the
Opposition. One length of seating runs in an unbroken line
beneath each of the side galleries, and these are known as the
'back benches.' The other lengths are divided into two nearly
equal parts by an unseated gap of about a yard wide. This is
'the gangway.' Though nothing more than a convenient means of
access for members, this space has come to be regarded as the
barrier that separates the thick and thin supporters of the
rival leaders from their less fettered colleagues--that is to
say, the steady men from the Radicals, Nationalists, and
free-lances generally."
Popular Account of Parliamentary Procedure,
page 6.
GAON.-THE GAONATE.
See JEWS: 7th CENTURY.
GARAMANTES, The.
The ancient inhabitants of the north African region now called
Fezzan, were known as the Garamantes.
E. H. Bunbury,
History of Ancient Geography,
chapter 8, section 1.
GARCIA,
King of Leon and the Asturias, or Oviedo, A. D. 910-914.
Garcia I., King of Navarre, 885-891.
Garcia II., King of Spain, 925-970.
Garcia III., King of Navarre, 1035-1054.
Garcia IV., King of Navarre, 1134-1150.
GARFIELD, General James A.
Campaign in Kentucky.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY; KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE).
Presidential election.
Administration.
Assassination.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1880, and 1881.
GARIBALD, King of the Lombards, A. D. 672-673.
GARIBALDI'S ITALIAN CAMPAIGNS.
See ITALY; A. D. 1848-:1849; 1856-1859;
1859-1861; 1862-1866; and 1867-1870.
GARIGLIANO, Battle of the (1503).
See ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504.
GARITIES, The.
See AQUITAINE: THE ANCIENT TRIBES.
GARRISON, William Lloyd, and the American Abolitionists.
See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1828-1832.
GARTER, Knights of the Order of the.
"About this time [A. D. 1343] the king of England [Edward
III.] resolved to rebuild and embellish the great castle of
Windsor, which king Arthur had first founded in time past, and
where he had erected and established that noble round table
from whence so many gallant knights had issued forth, and
displayed the valiant prowess of their deeds at arms over the
world. King Edward, therefore, determined to establish an
order of knighthood, consisting of himself, his children, and
the most gallant knights in Christendom, to the number of
forty. He ordered it to be denominated 'knights of the blue
garter,' and that the feast should be celebrated every year at
Windsor, upon St. George's day. He summoned, therefore, all
the earls, barons, and knights of his realm, to inform them of
his intentions; they heard it with great pleasure; for it
appeared to them highly honourable, and capable of increasing
love and friendship. Forty knights were then elected,
according to report and estimation the bravest in Christendom,
who sealed, and swore to maintain and keep the feast and the
statutes which had been made. The king founded a chapel at
Windsor, in honour of St. George, and established canons,
there to serve God, with a handsome endowment. He then issued
his proclamation for this feast by his heralds, whom he sent
to France, Scotland, Burgundy, Hainault, Flanders, Brabant,
and the empire of Germany, and offered to all knights and
squires, that might come to this ceremony, passports to last
for fifteen days after it was over. The celebration of this
order was fixed for St. George's day next ensuing, to be held
at Windsor, 1344."
Froissart (Johnes),
Chronicles,
book 1, chapter 100.
"The popular tradition, derived from Polydore Vergil, is that,
having a festival at Court, a lady chanced to drop her garter,
when it was picked up by the King. Observing that the incident
made the bye-standers smile significantly, Edward exclaimed in
a tone of rebuke, 'Honi soit qui mal y pense'--'Dishonoured
be he who thinks evil of it': and to prevent any further
innuendos, he tied the garter round his own knee. This
anecdote, it is true, has been characterized by some as an
improbable fable; why, we know not. ... Be the origin of the
institution, however, what it may, no Order in Europe is so
ancient, none so illustrious, for 'it exceeds in majesty,
honour and fame all chivalrous fraternities in the world.' ...
By a Statute passed on the 17th January, 1805, the Order is to
consist of the Sovereign and twenty-five Knights Companions,
together with such lineal descendants of George III. as may be
elected, always excepting the Prince of Wales, who is a
constituent part of the original institution. Special Statutes
have since, at different times, been proclaimed for the
admission of Sovereigns and extra Knights."
Sir B. Burke,
Book of Orders of Knighthood,
page 98.
ALSO IN:
J. Buswell,
Historical Account of the Knights of the Garter.
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
2d series, chapter 3.
GARUMNI, The Tribe of the.
See AQUITAINE: THE ANCIENT TRIBES.
GASCONY.--GASCONS: Origin.
See AQUITAINE: A. D. 681-768.
GASCONY: A. D. 778.
The ambuscade at Roncesvalles.
See SPAIN: A. D. 778.
GASCONY: A. D. 781.
Embraced in Aquitaine.
See AQUITAINE: A. D. 781.
GASCONY: 11th Century.
The Founding of the Dukedom.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1032.
----------GASCONY: End----------
GASIND, The.
See COMITATUS.
GASPE, The burning of the.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1772.
GASTEIN, Convention of (1865).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866.
GATES, General Horatio, and the American Revolution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1775 (MAY-AUGUST);
1777 (JULY-OCTOBER);
1777-1778; 1780 (FEBRUARY-AUGUST); 1780-1781.
GATH.
See PHILISTINES.
GATHAS, The.
See ZOROASTRIANS.
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GAU, OR GA, The.
"Next [after the Mark, in the settlements of the Germanic
peoples] in order of constitution, if not of time, is the
union of two, three, or more Marks in a federal bond for
purposes of a religious, judicial, or even political
character. The technical name for such a union is in Germany a
Gau or Bant; in England the ancient name Ga has been almost
universally superseded by that of Scir or Shire. For the most
part the natural divisions of the country are the divisions
also of the Ga; and the size of this depends upon such
accidental limits as well as upon the character and
dispositions of the several collective bodies which we have
called Marks. The Ga is the second and final form of unsevered
possession; for every larger aggregate is but the result of a
gradual reduction of such districts, under a higher political
or administrative unity, different only in degree and not in
kind from what prevailed individually in each. The kingdom is
only a larger Ga than ordinary; indeed the Ga itself was the
original kingdom. ... Some of the modern shire-divisions of
England in all probability have remained unchanged from the
earliest times; so that here and there a now existent Shire
may be identical in territory with an ancient Ga. But it may
be doubted whether this observation can be very extensively
applied."
J. M. Kemble,
The Saxons in England.
book 1, chapter 8.
GAUGAMELA, OR ARBELA, Battle of (B. C. 331).
See MACEDONIA: B. C. 384-380.
GAUL: described by Cæsar.
"Gallia, in the widest sense of the term, is divided into
three parts, one part occupied by the Belgae, a second by the
Aquitani, and a third by a people whom the Romans name Galli,
but in their own tongue they are named Celtae. These three
people differ in language and social institutions. The Garumna
(Garonne) is the boundary between the Aquitani and the Celtae:
the rivers Matrona (Marne, a branch of the Seine) and the
Sequana (Seine) separate the Celtae from the Belgae. ... That
part of Gallia which is occupied by the Celtae begins at the
river Rhone: it is bounded by the Garonne, the Ocean and the
territory of the Belgae; on the side of the Sequani and the
Helvetii it also extends to the Rhine. It looks to the north.
The territory of the Belgae begins where that of the Celtae
ends: it extends to the lower part of the Rhine; it looks
towards the north and the rising sun. Aquitania extends from
the Garonne to the Pyrenean mountains and that part of the
Ocean which borders on Spain. It looks in a direction between
the setting sun and the north."
Julius Cæsar,
Gallic Wars,
book 1, chapter 1;
translated by G. Long
(Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 8, chapter 22).
GAUL: B. C. 125-121.
First Roman conquests.
See SALYES; ALLOBROGES; and ÆDUI.
GAUL: B. C. 58-51.
Cæsar's conquest.
Cæsar was consul for the year 695 A. U. (B. C. 59). At the
expiration of his consulship he secured, by vote of the
people, the government of the two Gauls (see ROME: B. C.
68-58), not for one year, which was the customary term, but
for five years--afterwards extended to ten. Cisalpine Gaul
(northern Italy) had been fully subjugated and was tranquil;
Transalpine Gaul (Gaul west and north of the Alps, or modern
France, Switzerland and Belgium) was troubled and threatening.
In Transalpine Gaul the Romans had made no conquests beyond
the Rhone, as yet, except along the coast at the south. The
country between the Alps and the Rhone, excepting certain
territories of Massilia (Marseilles) which still continued to
be a free city, in alliance with Rome, had been fully
appropriated and organized as a province--the Provence of
later times. The territory between the Rhone and the Cevennes
mountains was less fully occupied and controlled. Cæsar's
first proceeding as proconsul in Gaul was to arrest the
migration of the Helvetii, who had determined to abandon their
Swiss valleys and to seize some new territory in Gaul. He blocked
their passage through Roman Gaul, then followed them in their
movement eastward of the Rhone, attacked and defeated them
with great slaughter, and forced the small remnant to return
to their deserted mountain homes. The same year (B. C. 58) he
drove out of Gaul a formidable body of Suevic Germans who had
crossed the Rhine some years before under their king,
Ariovistus. They were almost annihilated. The next year (B. C.
57) he reduced to submission the powerful tribes of the
Belgian region, who had provoked attack by leaguing themselves
against the Roman intrusion in Gaul. The most obstinate of
those tribes--the Nervii--were destroyed. In the following
year (B. C. 56) Cæsar attacked and nearly exterminated the
Veneti, a remarkable maritime people, who occupied part of
Armorica (modern Brittany); he also reduced the coast tribes
northwards to submission, while one of his lieutenants,
Crassus, made a conquest of Aquitania. The conquest of Gaul
was now apparently complete, and next year (B. C. 55), after
routing and cutting to pieces another horde of Germanic
invaders--the Usipetes and Tenctheri--who had ventured across
the lower Rhine, Cæsar traversed the channel and invaded
Britain. This first invasion, which had been little more than
a reconnoissance, was repeated the year following (B. C. 54),
with a larger force. It was an expedition having small
results, and Cæsar returned from it in the early autumn to
find his power in Gaul undermined everywhere by rebellious
conspiracies. The first outbreak occurred among the Belgæ, and
found its vigorous leader in a young chief of the Eburones,
Ambiorix by name. Two legions, stationed in the midst of the
Eburones, were cut to pieces while attempting to retreat. But
the effect of this great disaster was broken by the bold
energy of Cæsar, who led two legions, numbering barely 7,000
men, to the rescue of his lieutenant Cicero (brother of the
orator) whose single legion, camped in the Nervian territory,
was surrounded and besieged by 60,000 of the enemy. Cæsar and
his 7,000 veterans sufficed to rout the 60,000 Belgians.
Proceeding with similar vigor to further operations, and
raising new legions to increase his force, the proconsul had
stamped the rebellion out before the close of the year 58 B.
C., and the Eburones, who led in it, had ceased to exist. But
the next year (B. C. 52) brought upon him a still more serious
rising, of the Gallic tribes in central Gaul, leagued with the
Belgians. Its leader was Vercingetorix, a gallant and able
young chief of the Arverni. It was begun by the Carnutes, who
massacred the Roman settlers in their town of Genabum
(probably modern Orleans, but some say Gien, farther up the
Loire). Cæsar was on the Italian side of the Alps when the
news reached him, and the Gauls expected to be able to prevent
his joining the scattered Roman forces in their country. But
his energy baffled them, as it had baffled them many times
before. He was across the Alps, across the Rhone, over the
Cevennes--through six feet of snow in the passes--and in
their midst, with such troops as he could gather in the
Province, before they dreamed of lying in wait for him. Then,
leaving most of these forces with Decimus Brutus, in a strong
position, he stole away secretly, recrossed the Cevennes, put
himself at the head of a small body of cavalry at Vienne on
the Rhone, and rode straight through the country of the
insurgents to join his veteran legions, first at Langres and
afterwards at Sens.
{1412}
In a few weeks he was at the head of a strong army, had taken
the guilty town of Genabum and had given it up to fire and the
sword. A little later the capital of the Bituriges, Avaricum
(modern Bourges), suffered the same fate. Next, attempting to
reduce the Arvernian town of Gergovia, he met with a check and
was placed in a serious strait. But with the able help of his
lieutenant Labienus, who defeated a powerful combination of
the Gauls near Lutetia (modern Paris), he broke the toils,
reunited his army, which he had divided, routed Vercingetorix
in a great battle fought in the valley of the Vingeanne, and
shut him up, with 80,000 men, in the city of Alesia. The siege
of Alesia (modern Alise-Sainte-Reine, west of Dijon) which
followed, was the most extraordinary of Cæsar's military
exploits in Gaul. Holding his circumvallation of the town,
against 80,000 within its walls and thrice as many swarming
outside of it, he scattered the latter and forced the
surrender of the former. His triumph was his greatest shame.
Like a very savage, he dragged the knightly Vercingetorix in
his captive train, exhibited him at a subsequent "triumph" in
Rome, and then sent him to be put to death in the ghastly
Tullianum. The fall of Alesia practically ended the revolt;
although even the next year found some fighting to be done,
and one stronghold of the Cadurci, Uxellodunum (modern
Puy-d'Issolu, near Vayrac), held out with great obstinacy. It
was taken by tapping with a tunnel the spring which supplied
the besieged with water, and Cæsar punished the obstinacy of
the garrison by cutting off their hands. Gaul was then deemed
to be conquered and pacified, and Cæsar was prepared for the
final contest with his rivals and enemies at Rome.
Cæsar,
Gallic War.
ALSO IN:
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 4.
Napoleon III.,
History of Cæsar.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapters 6-7, 10, and 12 (volumes 1-2).
T. A. Dodge,
Cæsar,
chapters 4-25.
GAUL: 2d-3d Century.
Introduction of Christianity.
See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 100-312 (GAUL).
GAUL: A. D. 277.
The invaders driven back by Probus.
"The most important service which Probus [Roman Emperor, A. D.
276-282] rendered to the republic was the deliverance of Gaul,
and the recovery of seventy flourishing cities oppressed by
the barbarians of Germany, who, since the death of Aurelian,
had ravaged that great province with impunity. Among the
various multitude of those fierce invaders, we may
distinguish, with some degree of clearness, three great
armies, or rather nations, successively vanquished by the
valour of Probus. He drove back the Franks into their
morasses; a descriptive circumstance from whence we may infer
that the confederacy known by the manly appellation of 'Free'
already occupied the flat maritime country, intersected and
almost overflown by the stagnating waters of the Rhine, and
that several tribes of the Frisians and Batavians had acceded
to their alliance. He vanquished the Burgundians [and the
Lygians]. ... The deliverance of Gaul is reported to have cost
the lives of 400,000 of the invaders--a work of labour to the
Romans, and of expense to the emperor, who gave a piece of
gold for the head of every barbarian."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 12.
See, also, LYGIANS.
GAUL: A. D. 287.
Insurrection of the Bagauds.
See BAGAUDS;
also, DEDITITIUS.
GAUL: A. D. 355-361.
Julian's recovery of the province from the barbarians.
During the civil wars and religious quarrels which followed
the death of Constantine the Great--more especially in the
three years of the usurpation of Magnentius, in the west (A.
D. 350-353), Gaul was not only abandoned, for the most part,
to the barbarians of Germany, but Franks and Alemanni were
invited by Constantius to enter it. "In a little while a large
part of the north and east of Gaul were in their almost
undisputed possession. The Alamans seized upon the countries
which are now called Alsace and Lorraine; the Franks secured
for themselves Batavia and Toxandria: forty-five flourishing
cities, among them Cologne, Treves, Spires, Worms, and
Strasburg, were ravaged; and, in short, from the sources of
the Rhine to its mouth, forty miles inland, there remained no
safety for the population but in the strongly fortified
towns." In this condition of the Gallic provinces, Julian, the
young nephew of the emperor, was raised to the rank of Cæsar
and sent thither with a trifling force of men to take the
command. "During an administration of six years [A. D.
355-361] this latest Cæsar revived in Gaul the memory of the
indefatigable exploits and the vigorous rule of the first
Cæsar. Insufficient and ill-disciplined as his forces were,
and baffled and betrayed as he was by those who should have
been his aids, he drove the fierce and powerful tribes of the
Alamans, who were now the hydra of the western provinces,
beyond the Upper Rhine; the Chamaves, another warlike tribe,
he pursued into the heart of their native forests; while the
still fiercer and more warlike Franks were dislodged from
their habitations on the Meuse, to accept of conditions from
his hands. ... A part of these, called the Salians, and
destined to figure hereafter, were allowed to settle in
permanence in Toxandria, between the Meuse and the Scheld,
near the modern Tongres. ... By three successful expeditions
beyond the Rhine [he] restored to their friends a multitude of
Roman captives, recovered the broken and down-trodden lines of
the empire, humiliated many of the proud chiefs of the
Germans, and impressed a salutary awe and respect upon their
truculent followers. ... He spent the intervals of peace which
his valor procured in recuperating the wasted energies of the
inhabitants. Their dilapidated cities were repaired, the
excesses of taxation retrenched, the deficient harvests
compensated by large importations of corn from Britain, and
the resources of suspended industry stimulated into new
action. Once more, says Libanius, the Gauls ascended from the
tombs to marry, to travel, to enjoy the festivals, and to
celebrate the public games."
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
book 2, chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 19.
GAUL: A. D. 365-367.
Expulsion of the Alemanni by Valentinian.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 365-367.
GAUL: A. D. 378.
Invasion of the Alemanni.
Their destruction by Gratian.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 378.
{1413}
GAUL: A. D. 406-409.
The breaking of the Rhine barrier.
The same year (A. D. 406) in which Radagaisus, with his motley
barbaric horde, invaded Italy and was destroyed by Stilicho, a
more fatal assault was made upon Gaul. Two armies, in which
were gathered up a vast multitude of Suevi, Vandals, Alans and
Burgundians, passed the Rhine. The Franks opposed them as
faithful allies of the Roman power, and defeated a Vandal army
in one great battle, where 20,000 of the invaders were slain;
but the Alans came opportunely to the rescue of their friends
and forced the Frank defenders of Gaul to give way. "The
victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last
day of the year, in a season when the waters of the Rhine were
most probably frozen, they entered without opposition the
defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the
Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never
afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the
Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the
barriers which had so long separated the savage and the
civilized nations of the earth were, from that fatal moment,
levelled with the ground. ... The flourishing city of Mentz
was surprised and destroyed, and many thousand Christians were
inhumanly massacred in the church. Worms perished after a long
and obstinate siege; Strasburg, Spires, Rheims, Tournay,
Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German
yoke; and the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of
the Rhine over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of
Gaul. That rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean,
the Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the barbarians,
who drove before them in a promiscuous crowd the bishop, the
senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses
and altars."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 30.
GAUL: A. D. 407-411.
Reign of the usurper Constantine.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 407.
GAUL: A. D. 410-419.
Establishment of the Visigoths in the kingdom of Toulouse.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 410-419.
GAUL: A. D. 410-420.
The Franks join in the attack on Gaul.
See FRANKS: A. D. 410-420.
GAUL: 5th-8th Centuries.
Barbarities of the Frank conquest.
The conquests of the Franks in Gaul, under Clovis, began in
486 and ended with his death in 511 (see FRANKS: A. D.
481-511). "In the year 532, Theoderik, one of the sons and
successors of Chlodowig, said to those Frankish warriors whom
he commanded: 'Follow me as far as Auvergne, and I will make
you enter a country where you will take as much gold and
silver as you possibly can desire; where you can carry away in
abundance flocks, slaves, and garments.' The Franks took up
arms and once more crossing the Loire, they advanced on the
territory of the Bituriges and Arvernes. These paid with
interest for the resistance they had dared to the first
invasion. Everything amongst them was devastated; the churches
and monasteries were razed to their foundations. The young men
and women were dragged, their hands bound, after the luggage
to be sold as slaves. The inhabitants of this unfortunate
country perished in large numbers or were ruined by the
pillage. Nothing was left them of what they had possessed,
says an ancient chronicle, except the land, which the
barbarians could not carry away. Such were the neighbourly
relations kept up by the Franks with the Gallic populations
which had remained beyond their limits. Their conduct with
respect to the natives of the northern provinces was hardly
less hostile. When Hilperik, the son of Chlother, wished, in
the year 584, to send his daughter in marriage to the king of
the West Goths, or Visigoths, settled in Spain, he came to
Paris and carried away from the houses belonging to the 'fisc'
a great number of men and women, who were heaped up in
chariots to accompany and serve the bride elect. Those who
refused to depart, and wept, were put in prison: several
strangled themselves in despair. Many people of the best
families enlisted by force into this procession, made their
will, and gave their property to the churches. 'The son,' says
a contemporary, 'was separated from his father, the mother
from her daughter; they departed sobbing, and pronouncing deep
curses; so many persons in Paris were in tears that it might
be compared to the desolation of Egypt.' In their domestic
misfortunes the kings of the Franks sometimes felt remorse,
and trembled at the evil they had done. ... But this momentary
repentance soon yielded to the love of riches, the most
violent passion of the Franks. Their incursions into the south
of Gaul recommenced as soon as that country, recovered from its
terrors and defeats, no longer admitted their garrisons nor
tax collectors. Karle, to whom the fear of his arms gave the
surname of Marteau, made an inroad as far as Marseilles; he
took possession of Lyons, Arles, and Vienne, and carried off
an immense booty to the territory of the Franks. When this
same Karle, to insure his frontiers, went to fight the
Saracens in Aquitania, he put the whole country to fire and
sword; he burnt Bérgiers, Agde, and Nûnes; the arenas of the
latter city still bear traces of the fire. At death of Karle,
his two sons, Karlemann and Peppin, continued the great
enterprise of replacing the inhabitants of the south, to whom
the name of Romans was still given, under the yoke of the
Franks. ... Southern Gaul was to the sons of the Franks what
entire Gaul had been to their fathers; a country, the riches
and climate of which attracted them incessantly, and saw them
return as enemies, as soon as it did not purchase peace of
them."
A. Thierry,
Narratives of the Merovingian Era, Historical Essays, etc.,
essay 24.
GAUL: 5th-10th Centuries.
The conquerors and the conquered.
State of society under the barbarian rule.
The evolution of Feudalism.
"After the conclusion of the great struggles which took place
in the fourth and fifth centuries, whether between the German
conquerors and the last forces of the empire, or between the
nations which had occupied different portions of Gaul, until
the Franks remained sole masters of the country, two races,
two populations, which had nothing in common but religion,
appear forcibly brought together, and, as it were, face to
face with each other, in one political community. The
Gallo-Roman population presents under the same law very
different and very unequal conditions; the barbarian
population comprises, together with its own peculiar
classifications of ranks and conditions, distinct laws and
nationalities. In the first we find citizens absolutely free,
coloni, or husbandmen belonging to the lands of a proprietor,
and domestic slaves deprived of all civil rights; in the
second, we see the Frankish race divided into two tribes, each
having its own peculiar law [the law of the Salic Franks or Salic
law, and the law of the Ripuarian Franks or Ripuarian law];
the Burgundians, the Goths, and the rest of the Teutonic
races, who became subjected, either of their own accord or by
force, to, the Frankish empire, governed by other and entirely
different laws; but among them all, as well as among the
Franks, we find at least three social conditions--two degrees
of liberty, and slavery.
{1414}
Among these incongruous states of existence, the criminal law
of the dominant race established, by means of the scale of
damages for crime or personal injury, a kind of hierarchy--
the starting-point of that movement towards an assimilation
and gradual transformation, which, after the lapse of four
centuries, from the fifth to the tenth, gave rise to the
society of the feudal times. The first rank in the civil order
belonged to the man of Frankish origin, and to the Barbarian who
lived under the law of the Franks; in the second rank was
placed the Barbarian, who lived under the law of his own
country; next came the native freeman and proprietor, the
Roman possessor, and, in the same degree, the Lidus or German
colonus; after them, the Roman tributary--i. e., the native
colonus; and, last of all, the slave, without distinction of
origin. These various classes, separated on the one hand by
distance of rank, on the other by difference of laws, manners,
and language, were far from being equally distributed between
the cities and the rural districts. All that was elevated in
the Gallo-Roman population, of whatever character it might be,
was found in the cities, where its noble, rich, and
industrious families dwelt, surrounded by their domestic
slaves; and, among the people of that race, the only constant
residents in the country were the half-servile coloni and the
agricultural slaves. On the contrary, the superior class of
the German population established itself in the country, where
each family, independent and proprietary, was maintained on
its own domain by the labour of the Lidi whom it had brought
thither, or of the old race of coloni who belonged to the
soil. The only Germans who resided in the cities were a small
number of officers in the service of the Crown, and of
individuals without family and patrimony, who, in spite of
their original habits, sought a livelihood by following some
employment. The social superiority of the dominant race rooted
itself firmly in the localities inhabited by them, and passed,
as has been already remarked, from the cities to the rural
districts. By degrees, also, it came to pass that the latter
drew off from the former the upper portion of their
population, who, in order to raise themselves still higher,
and to mix with the conquerors, imitated, as far as they were
able, their mode of life. ... While Barbarism was thus
occupying or usurping all the vantage points of the social
state, and civil life in the intermediate classes was arrested
in its progress, and sinking gradually to the lowest
condition, even to that of personal servitude, an ameliorating
movement already commenced before the fall of the empire,
still continued, and declared itself more and more loudly. The
dogma of a common brotherhood in the eyes of God, and of one
sole redemption for all mankind, preached by the Church to the
faithful of every race, touched the heart and awakened the
mind in favour of the slave, and, in consequence,
enfranchisements became more frequent, or a treatment more
humane was adopted on the part of the masters, whether Gauls
or Germans by origin. The latter, moreover, had imported from
their country, where the mode of life was simple and without
luxury, usages favourable to a modified slavery. The rich
barbarian was waited upon by free persons--by the children of
his relatives, his clients and his friends; the tendency of
his national manners, different from that of the Roman,
induced him to send the slave out of his house, and to
establish him as a labourer or artisan on some portion of land
to which he then became permanently attached, and the
destination of which he followed, whether it were inherited or
sold. ... Domestic slavery made the man a chattel, a mere
piece of moveable property. The slave, settled on a spot of
land, from that time entered into the category of real
property. At the same time that this last class, which
properly bore the name of serfs, was increased at the expense
of the first, the classes of the coloni and Lidi would
naturally multiply simultaneously, by the very casualties of
ruin and adverse circumstances which, at a period of incessant
commotions, injured the condition of the freemen. ... In the
very heart of the Barbarian society, the class of small
proprietors, which had originally formed its strength and
glory, decreased, and finally became extinct by sinking into
vassalage, or a state of still more ignoble dependence, which
partook more or less of the character of actual servitude. ...
The freemen depressed towards servitude met the slave who had
reached a sort of half liberty. Thus, through the whole extent
of Gaul, was formed a vast body of agricultural labourers and
rural artisans, whose lot, though never uniform, was brought
more and more to a level of equality; and the creative wants
of society produced a new sphere of industry in the country,
while the cities remained stationary, or sank more and more
into decay. ... On every large estate where improvement
flourished, the cabins of those employed, Lidi, coloni or
slaves, grouped as necessity or convenience suggested, were
multiplied and peopled more numerously, till they assumed the
form of a hamlet. When these hamlets were situated in a
favourable position ... they continued to increase till they
became villages. ... The building of a church soon raised the
village to the rank of a parish; and, as a consequence, the
new parish took its place among the rural circonscriptions.
... Thence sprung, altogether spontaneously, under the
sanction of the intendant, joined to that of the priest, rude
outlines of a municipal organization, in which the church
became the depository of the acts which, in accordance with
the Roman law, were inscribed on the registers of the city. It
is in this way that beyond the towns, the cities, and the
boroughs, where the remains of the old social condition
lingered in an increasing state of degradation, elements of
future improvement were formed. ... This modification, already
considerably advanced in the ninth century, was completed in
the course of the tenth. At that period, the last class of the
Gallo-Frankish society disappeared--viz., that of persons
held as chattels, bought, exchanged, transferred from one
place to another, like any other kind of moveable goods. The
slave now belonged to the soil rather than to the person; his
service, hitherto arbitrary, was changed into customary dues
and regulated employment; he had a settled abode, and, in
consequence, a right of possession in the soil on which he was
dependent. This is the earliest form in which we distinctly
trace the first impress of the modern world upon the civil
state.
{1415}
The word serf henceforward took its definite meaning; it
became the generic name of a mixed condition of servitude and
freedom, in which we find blended together the states of the
colonus and Lidus--two names which occur less and less
frequently in the tenth century, till they entirely disappear.
This century, the point to which all the social efforts of the
four preceding ones which had elapsed since the Frankish
conquest had been tending, saw the intestine struggle between
the Roman and German manners brought to a conclusion by an
important revolution. The latter definitively prevailed, and
from their triumph arose the feudal system; that is to say, a
new form of the state, a new constitution of property and
domestic life, a parcelling out of the sovereignty and
jurisdiction, all the public powers transformed into demesnial
privileges, the idea of nobility devoted to the profession of
arms, and that of ignobility to industry and labour. By a
remarkable coincidence, the complete establishment of this
system is the epoch when the distinction of races terminates
in Frankish Gaul--when all the legal consequences of
diversity of origin between Barbarians and Romans, conquerors
and subjects, disappear. The law ceases to be personal, and
becomes local; the German codes and the Roman code itself are
replaced by custom; it is the territory and not the descent
which distinguishes the inhabitant of the Gallic soil;
finally, instead of national distinctions, one mixed
population appears, to which the historian is able
henceforward to give the name of French."
A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers État in France,
volume 1, chapter 1.
GAUL: A. D. 412-453.
The mixed administration, Roman and barbarian.
"A prætorian prefect still resided at Trèves; a vicar of the
seventeen Gallic provinces at Aries: each of these provinces
had its Roman duke; each of the hundred and fifteen cities of
Gaul had its count; each city its curia, or municipality. But,
collaterally with this Roman organisation, the barbarians,
assembled in their 'mallum,' of which their kings were
presidents, decided on peace and war, made laws, or
administered justice. Each division of the army had its Graf
Jarl, or Count; each subdivision its centenary, or
hundred-man; and all these fractions of the free population
had the same right of deciding by suffrage in their own
mallums, or peculiar courts, all their common affairs. In
cases of opposition between the barbarian and the Roman
jurisdiction, the overbearing arrogance of the one, and the
abject baseness of the other, soon decided the question of
supremacy. In some provinces the two powers were not
concurrent: there were no barbarians between the Loire and the
Meuse, nor between the Alps and the Rhone; but the feebleness
of the Roman government was only the more conspicuous. A few
great proprietors cultivated a part of the province with the
aid of slaves; the rest was desert, or only inhabited by
Bagaudæ, runaway slaves, who lived by robbery. Some towns
still maintained a show of opulence, but not one gave the
slightest sign of strength; not one enrolled its militia, nor
repaired its fortifications. ... Honorius wished to confer on
the cities of southern Gaul a diet, at which they might have
deliberated on public affairs: he did not even find public
spirit enough to accept the offered privilege."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 7 (volume 1).
GAUL: A. D. 451.
Attila's invasion.
See HUNS: A. D. 451.
GAUL: A. D. 453-484.
Extension of the Visigothic kingdom.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 453-484.
GAUL: A. D. 457-486.
The last Roman sovereignty.
The last definite survival of Roman sovereignty in Gaul
lingered until 486 in a district north of the Seine, between
the Marne and the Oise, which had Soissons for its capital. It
was maintained there, in the first instance, by Ægidius, a
Gallic noble whom Marjorian, one of the last of the emperors
at Rome, made Master-General of Gaul. The respect commanded by
Ægidius among the surrounding barbarians was so great that the
Salian Franks invited him to rule over them, in place of a
licentious young king, Childeric, whom they had driven into
exile. He was king of these Franks, according to Gregory of
Tours, for eight years (457-464), until he died. Childeric
then returned, was reinstated in his kingdom and became the
father of Clovis (or Chlodwig), the founder of the great Frank
monarchy. But a son of Ægidius, named Syagrius, was still the
inheritor of a kingdom, known as, the "Kingdom of Syagrius,"
embracing, as has been said, the country around Soissons,
between the Seine, the Marne and the Oise, and also including,
in the opinion of some writers, Troyes and Auxerre. The first
exploit of Clovis--the beginning of his career of
conquest--was the overthrow of this "king of the Romans," as
Syagrius was called, in a decisive battle fought at Soissons,
A. D. 486, and the incorporation of his kingdom into the Frank
dominions. Syagrius escaped to Toulouse, but was surrendered
to Clovis and put to death.
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
book 3, chapter 11.
ALSO IN:
W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapter 2.
GAUL: A. D. 474.
Invasion of Ostrogoths.
See GOTHS (OSTROGOTHS): A. D. 473-474.
GAUL: A. D. 507-509.
Expulsion of the Visigoths.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-509.
GAUL: A. D. 540.
Formal relinquishment of the country to the Franks by
Justinian.
See FRANKS: A. D. 539-553.
GAULS.
"The Gauls, properly so called, the Galatæ of the Greeks, the
Galli of the Romans, and the Gael of modern history, formed
the van of the great Celtic migration which had poured
westward at various intervals during many hundred years. ...
Having overrun the south of Gaul and penetrated into Spain,
they lost a part of the territory thus acquired, and the
restoration of the Iberian fugitives to Aquitania placed a
barrier between the Celts in Spain and their brethren whom
they had left behind them in the north. In the time of the
Romans the Galli were found established in the centre and east
of the country denominated Gaul, forming for the most part a
great confederation, at the head of which stood the Arverni.
It was the policy of the Romans to raise the Ædui into
competition with this dominant tribe. ... The Arverni, whose
name is retained in the modern appellation of Auvergne,
occupied a large district in the middle and south of Gaul, and
were surrounded by tributary or dependent clans. The Ædui lay
more to the north and east, and the centre of their
possessions is marked by the position of their capital
Bibracte, the modern Autun, situated in the highlands which
separate the waters of the Loire, the Seine and the Saone. ...
{1416}
Other Gallic tribes stretched beyond the Saone: the Sequani,
who afterwards made an attempt to usurp this coveted
preeminence (the valley of the Doubs formed the centre of the
Sequanese territory, which reached to the Jura and the Rhine);
the Helvetii and other mountain races, whose scanty pastures
extended to the sources of the Rhine; the Allobroges, who
dwelt upon the Isere and Rhone, and who were the first of
their race to meet and the first to succumb before the prowess
of the Roman legions. According to the classification both of
Cæsar and Strabo, the Turones, Pictones and Santones must be
comprised under the same general denomination."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 5 (volume 1).
See, also, CELTS.
GAUL: B. C. 390-347.
Invasions of Italy.
Destruction of Rome.
See ROME: B. C. 390-347.
GAUL: B. C. 295-191.
Roman conquest of the Cisalpine tribes.
See ROME: B. C. 295-191.
GAUL: B. C. 280-279.
Invasion of Greece.
In the year 280 B. C. the Gauls, who had long before passed
from northern Italy around the Adriatic to its eastern coast,
made their first appearance in Macedonia and northern Greece.
The Macedonian throne was occupied at the time by the infamous
usurper, Ptolemy Ceraunus (see MACEDONIA: B. C. 297-280), and
the Celtic savages did one good service to Greece by slaying
him, in the single battle that was fought. The whole open
country was abandoned to them, for a time, and they swept it,
as far southward as the valley of the Peneus, in Thessaly; but
the walled cities were safe. After ravaging the country for
some months the Gauls appear to have retired; but it was only
to return again the next year in more formidable numbers and
under a chief, Brennus, of more vigor and capability. On this
occasion the country suffered fearfully from the barbaric
swarm, but defended itself with something like the spirit of
the Greece of two centuries before. The Ætolians were
conspicuous in the struggle; the Peloponnesian states gave
little assistance. The policy of defense was much the same as
at the time of the Persian invasion, and the enemy was
confronted in force at the pass of Thermopylæ. Brennus made a
more desperate attempt to force the pass than Xerxes had done
and was beaten back with a tremendous slaughter of his Gauls.
But he found traitors, as Xerxes had done, to guide him over
the mountains, and the Greeks at Thermopylæ, surrounded by the
enemy, could only escape by sea. The Gauls marched on Delphi,
eager for the plunder of the great temple, and there they met
with some fatal disaster. Precisely what occurred is not
known. According to the Greeks, the god protected his
sanctuary, and the accounts they have left are full of
miracles and prodigies--of earthquakes, lightnings, tempests,
and disease. The only clear facts seem to be that Delphi was
successfully defended; that the Gauls retreated in disorder
and were destroyed in vast numbers before the remnant of them
got away from the country. Brennus is said to have killed
himself to escape the wrath of his people for the failure of
the expedition. One large body of the great army had separated
from the rest and gone eastward into Thrace, before the
catastrophe occurred. These subsequently passed over to Asia
and pursued there an adventurous career, leaving a historic
name in the country.
See GALATIA.
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 60.
----------GAUL: End----------
GAULS, Præfect of the.
See PRÆTORIAN PRÆFECTS.
GAUSARAPOS, OR GUUCHIES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.
GAVELKIND, Irish.
"The Irish law of succession in landed property, known as that
of Irish gavelkind, was a logical consequence of the theory of
tribal ownership. If a member of the tribe died, his piece of
land did not descend by right to his eldest son, or even to
all his children equally. Originally, it reverted to its sole
absolute owner, the tribe, every member of which had a right
to use proportionate to his tribal status. This was
undoubtedly the essential principle of inheritance by
gavelkind."
S. Bryant,
Celtic Ireland,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
Sir H. Maine,
Early History of Institutions,
lecture 7.
GAVELKIND, Kentish.
See FEUDAL TENURES.
GAVEREN, Battle of (1453).
See GHENT: A. D. 1451-1453.
GAZA: Early history.
See PHILISTINES.
GAZA: B. C. 332.
Siege by Alexander.
In his march from Phœnicia to Egypt (see MACEDONIA, &c.: B. C.
334-330), Alexander the Great was compelled to pause for
several months and lay siege to the ancient Philistine city of
Gaza. It was defended for the Persian king by a brave eunuch
named Batis. In the course of the siege, Alexander received a
severe wound in the shoulder, which irritated his savage
temper. When the town was at length taken by storm, he gave no
quarter. Its male inhabitants were put to the sword and the
women and children sold to slavery. The eunuch Batis, being
captured alive, but wounded, was dragged by the feet at the
tail of a chariot, driven at full speed by Alexander himself.
The "greatest of conquerors" proved himself often enough, in
this way, to be the greatest of barbarians--in his age.
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 93.
GAZA: B. C. 312.
Battle between Ptolemy and Demetrius.
See MACEDONIA: B. C. 315-310.
GAZA: B. C. 100.
Destruction by Alexander Jannæus.
Gaza having sided with the Egyptian king, in a war between
Alexander Jannæus, one of the Asmonean kings of the Jews, and
Ptolemy Lathyrus of Egypt and Cyprus, the former laid siege to
the city, about 100 B. C., and acquired possession of it after
several months, through treachery. He took his revenge by
massacring the inhabitants and reducing the city to ruins. It
was rebuilt not long afterwards by the Romans.
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 3, chapter 9.
GAZA: A. D. 1516.
Defeat of the Mamelukes by the Turks.
See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.
----------GAZA: End----------
GAZACA.
See ECBATANA.
GAZARI, The.
See CATHARISTS.
GAZNEVIDES, OR GHAZNEVIDES.
See TURKS: A. D. 999-1183.
GEARY ACT, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1892.
GEDDES, Jenny, and her stool.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1637.
{1417}
GEDROSIANS, The.
"Close to the Indus, and beyond the bare, hot, treeless shores
of the ocean, the southern part of the plain [of eastern Iran]
consists of sandy flats, in which nothing grows but prickly
herbs and a few palms. The springs are a day's journey from
each other, and often more. This region was possessed by a
people whom Herodotus calls Sattagydæ and the companions of
Alexander of Macedonia, Gedrosians. ... Neighbours of the
Gandarians, who, as we know, dwelt on the right bank of the
Indus down to the Cabul, the Gedrosians led a wandering,
predatory life; under the Persian kings, they were united into
one satrapy with the Gandarians."
M. Duncker,
History of Antiquity,
book 7, chapter 1 (volume 5).
GEIZA II., King of Hungary, A. D. 1141-1160.
GELA, Founding of.
See SYRACUSE, FOUNDING OF.
GELASIUS II., Pope, A. D. 1118-1119.
GELEONTES.
See PHYLÆ.
GELHEIM, Battle of (1298).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.
GELONI, The.
An ancient colony of Greeks intermixed with natives which
shared the country of the Budini, on the steppes between the
Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea.
G. Grote, History of Greece,
part 2, volume 3, chapter 17.
GELVES, Battle of (1510).
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1505-1510.
GEMARA, The.
See TALMUD.
GEMBLOURS, Battle of (1578).
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581.
GEMEINDE.--GEMEINDERATH.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1848-1890.
GEMOT.
A meeting, assembly, council, moot.
See WITENAGEMOT.
GENABUM, OR CENABUM.
The principal town of the Gallic tribe called the Carnutes;
identified by most archæologists with the modern city of
Orleans, France, though some think its site was at Gien.
See GAUL, CÆSAR'S CONQUEST OF.
GENAUNI, The.
See RHÆTIANS.
GENERAL PRIVILEGE OF ARAGON.
See CORTES, THE EARLY SPANISH.
GENERALS, Execution of the Athenian.
See GREECE: B. C. 406.
GENET, "Citizen," the mission of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.
GENEVA: Beginnings of the city.
See HELVETII, THE ARRESTED MIGRATION OF THE.
GENEVA: A. D. 500.
Under the Burgundians.
See BURGUNDIANS: A. D. 500.
GENEVA: 10th Century.
In the kingdom of Arles.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 843-933.
GENEVA: A. D. 1401.
Acquisition of the Genevois, or County, by the House of Savoy.
The city surrounded.
See SAVOY: 11TH-15TH CENTURIES.
GENEVA: A. D. 1504-1535.
The emancipation of the city from the Vidomme and the
Prince-Bishop.
Triumph of the Reformation.
"Geneva was nominally a free city of the Empire, but had in
reality been governed for some centuries by its own bishop,
associated with a committee of lay-assessors, and controlled
by the general body of the citizens, in whose hands the
ultimate power of taxation, and of election of the magistrates
and regulation of the police, rested. The prince-bishop did
not exercise his temporal jurisdiction directly, but through
an officer called the Vidomme (vice-dominus), whose rights had
in the 15th century become hereditary in the dukes of Savoy.
These rights appear to have been exercised without any
considerable attempt at encroachment till the beginning of the
following century, when Charles III. succeeded to the ducal
crown (1504). To his ambition the bishop, John, a weak and
willing tool of the Savoy family, to which he was nearly
allied, ceded everything; and the result was a tyrannical
attempt to destroy the liberties of the Genevese. The Assembly
of the citizens rose in arms; a bitter and sanguinary contest
ensued between the Eidgenossen [Confederates] or Patriot party
on the one side, and the Mamelukes or monarchical party on the
other side. By the help of the free Helvetian states,
particularly Berne and Friburg, the Patriots triumphed, the
friends of Savoy were banished, the Vidommate abolished, and
its powers transferred to a board of magistrates. The conduct
of the bishops in this conflict ... helped greatly, as may be
imagined, to shake the old hierarchical authority in Geneva;
and when, in 1532, Farel first made his appearance in the
city, he found a party not indisposed to join him in his eager
and zealous projects of reform. He had a hard fight for it,
however, and was at first obliged to yield, and leave the city
for a time; and it was not till August 1535 that he and Viret
and Froment succeeded in abolishing the mass, and establishing
the Protestant faith."
J. Tulloch,
Leaders of the Reformation,
pages 161-162.
ALSO IN:
J. Planta,
History of the Helvetic Confederacy,
book 2, chapter 6 (volume 2).
I. Spon,
History of the City and State of Geneva,
book 2.
See, also, SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1531-1648.
GENEVA: A. D. 1536.
The coming of Calvin.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535.
GENEVA: A. D. 1536-1564.
Calvin's Ecclesiastical State.
"Humanly speaking, it was a mere accident which caused Calvin
to yield to the entreaties of his friends to remain in the
city where he was to begin his renowned efforts in the cause
of reform. Geneva had been from ancient times one of the most
flourishing imperial cities of the Burgundian territory; it
was situated on the frontiers of several countries where the
cross roads of various nationalities met. The city, which in
itself was remarkable, belonged originally to the German
empire; the language of its inhabitants was Romanic; it was
bounded on one side by Burgundy, on the other by German
Switzerland. ... Geneva was apparently in a state of
political, ecclesiastical, and moral decay. With the
puritanical strictness of Geneva, as it afterwards became,
before the mind's eye, it is difficult to picture the Geneva
of that day. An unbridled love of pleasure, a reckless
wantonness, a licentious frivolity had taken possession of
Genevan life, while the State was the plaything of intestine
and foreign feuds. ... Reformers had already appeared in the
city: Vinet, Farel, Theodore Beza; they were Frenchmen, Farel
a near neighbour of Geneva. These French Reformers are of
quite a different stamp from our Germans, who, according as
Luther or Melancthon is taken as their type, have either a
plebeian popular, or learned theological character. They are
either popular orators of great power and little polish, or
they belong to the learned circles, and keep strictly to this
character. In France they were mostly men belonging not to the
lower, but to the middle and higher ranks of society, refined
and cultivated; and in this fact lay the weakness of
Calvinism, which knew well how to rule the masses, but never
to gain their affection. ...
{1418}
His [Calvin's] greatness ... was shown in the fanatical zeal
with which he entered the city, ready to stake his life for
his cause. He began to teach, to found a school, to labour on
the structure which was the idea of his life, to introduce
reforms in doctrine, worship, the constitution and discipline
of the Church, and he preached with that powerful eloquence
only possessed by those in whom character and teaching are in
unison. The purified worship was to take place within bare,
unadorned walls; no picture of Christ, nor pomp of any kind,
was to disturb the aspirations of the soul. Life outside the
temple was also to be a service of God; games, swearing,
dancing, singing, worldly amusements, and pleasure were
regarded by him as sins, as much as real vice and crime. He
began to form little congregations, like those in the early
ages of the Church, and it need scarcely be said that even in
this worldly and pleasure-loving city the apparition of this
man, in the full vigour of life, all conviction and
determination, half prophet and half tribune, produced a
powerful impression. The number of his outward followers
increased, but they were outward followers only. Most of them
thought it would be well to make use of the bold Reformer to
oppose the bishop, and that he would find means of
establishing a new and independent Church, but they seemed to
regard freedom as libertinism. Calvin therefore regarded the
course things were taking with profound dissatisfaction. ...
So he delivered some extremely severe sermons, which half
frightened and half estranged his hearers; and at Easter,
1538, when the congregation came to partake of the Lord's
Supper, he took the unheard-of step of sending them all back
from the altar, saying, 'You are not worthy to partake of the
Lord's body; you are just what you were before; your
sentiments, your morals, and your conduct are unchanged.' This
was more than could be hazarded without peril to his life. The
effect was indescribable; his own friends disapproved of the
step. But that did not dismay him. He had barely time to flee
for his life, and he had to leave Geneva in a state of
transition--a chaos which justified a saying of his own, that
defection from one Church is not renovation by another. He was
now once more an exile. He wandered about on the frontiers of
his country, in the German cities of Strasburg, Basle, &c.,
and we several times meet with him in the religious
discussions between 1540 and 1550. ... But a time came when
they wished him back at Geneva. ... In September, 1541, he
returned and began his celebrated labours. Endowed with
supreme power, like Lycurgus at Sparta, he set to work to make
Geneva a city of the Lord--to found an ecclesiastical state in
which religion, public life, government, and the worship of
God were to be all of a piece, and an extraordinary task it
was. Calvinistic Geneva became the school of reform for
western Europe, and scattered far and wide the germs of
similar institutions. In times when Protestantism elsewhere
had become cool, this school carried on the conflict with the
mediæval Church. Calvin was implacable in his determination to
purify the worship of God of all needless adjuncts. All that
was calculated to charm and affect the senses was abolished;
spiritual worship should be independent of all earthly things,
and should consist of edification by the word, and simple
spiritual songs. All the traditional externals that Luther had
retained--altars, pictures, ceremonials, and decorations of
every kind--were dispensed with. ... Calvin next established a
system of Church discipline which controlled the individual in
every relation of life, and ruled him from the cradle to the
grave. He retained all the means by which ecclesiastical
authority enforced obedience on the faithful in the Middle
Ages--baptism, education up to confirmation, penance, penal
discipline, and excommunication. ... Calvin began his labours
late in the autumn of 1541, and he acquired and maintained
more power than was ever exercised by the most powerful popes.
He was indeed only the 'preacher of the word,' but through his
great influence he was the lawgiver, the administrator, the
dictator of the State of Geneva. There was nothing in the
commonwealth that had not been ordained by him, and this
indicates a remarkable aspect of his character. The
organization of the State of Geneva began with the ordinances
of the 2nd of January, 1542. There were four orders of
officials--pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. The
Consistory was formed of the pastors and elders. ... It was
the special duty of the Consistory, which was composed of the
clergy and twelve laymen, to see that the ordinances were duly
observed, and it was the supreme tribunal of morals. The
twelve laymen were elected for a year, by the council of two
hundred, on the nomination by the clergy. The Consistory met
every Thursday to see that everything in the church was in
order. They had the power of excommunication, but this only
consisted in exclusion from the community of the faithful, and
the loss of the privilege of partaking of the Lord's Supper.
It also decided questions relating to marriage. The deacons
had the care of the poor and of almsgiving. Calvin himself was
the soul of the whole organization. But he was a cold, stiff,
almost gloomy being, and his character produces a very
different impression from the genial warmth of Luther, who
could be cheerful and merry with his family. Half Old
Testament prophet, half Republican demagogue, Calvin could do
anything in his State, but it was by means of his personal
influence, the authority of his words, 'the majesty of his
character,' as was said by a magistrate of Geneva after his
death. He was to the last the simple minister, whose frugal
mode of life appeared to his enemies like niggardliness. After
a reign of twenty-three years, he left behind him the
possessions of a mendicant monk. ... No other reformer
established so rigid a church discipline. ... All noisy games,
games of chance, dancing, singing of profane songs, cursing
and swearing, were forbidden, and ... church-going and
Sabbath-keeping were strictly enjoined. The moral police took
account of everything. Every citizen had to be at home by nine
o'clock, under heavy penalties. Adultery, which had previously
been punished by a few days' imprisonment and a small fine,
was now punished by death. ... At a time when Europe had no
solid results of reform to show, this little State of Geneva
stood up as a great power; year by year it sent forth apostles
into the world, who preached its doctrines everywhere, and it
became the most dreaded counterpoise to Rome, when Rome no
longer had any bulwark to defend her. ... It formed a weighty
counterpoise to the desperate efforts which the ancient Church
and monarchical power were making to crush the spirit of the
Reformation.
{1419}
It was impossible to oppose Caraffa, Philip II., and the
Stuarts, with Luther's passive resistance; men were wanted who
were ready to wage war to the knife, and such was the
Calvinistic school. It everywhere accepted the challenge;
throughout all the conflicts for political and religious
liberty, up to the time of the first emigration to America, in
France, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland, we recognise
the Genevan school. A little bit of the world's history was
enacted in Geneva, which forms the proudest portion of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."
L. Häusser,
The Period of the Reformation,
chapter 18.
ALSO IN:
P. Henry,
Life and Times of Calvin,
parts 2-3.
J. H. Merle D'Aubigne,
History of the Reformation in the time of Calvin,
books 9 and 11.
F. P. Guizot,
Calvin,
chapters 12-22.
L. von Ranke,
Civil Wars and Monarchy in France, 16th-17th Centuries,
chapter 8.
GENEVA: A. D. 1570.
Treaty with the Duke of Savoy.
Agreement of non-molestation.
See SAVOY: A. D. 1559-1580.
GENEVA: A. D. 1602-1603.
The escalade of the Savoyards and its repulse.
Treaty of St. Julien.
Finding a pretext in some hostile manifestations which had
appeared among the Genevese during a conflict between the
French king and himself, Charles Emanuel I., duke of Savoy,
chose to consider himself at war with Geneva, and "determined
to fight out his quarrel without further notice. The night of
the 11th to the 12th of December, 1602.. is forever memorable
in the annals of Geneva. 4,000 Savoyards, aided by darkness,
attempted the escalade of its walls; an unforeseen accident
disconcerted them; the citizens exhibited the most heroic
presence of mind; the ladders by which the aggressors ascended
were shot down by a random cannon-ball; the troops outside
fell into confusion; those who had already entered the town
were either mowed down in fight or hung on the scaffold on the
morrow; thus the whole enterprise miscarried. It was in vain
that the Duke came forward with his whole host, and tried to
prevail by open force where stratagem had failed. He was
thwarted by the intervention of the French and Swiss, and
compelled by their threats to sign the Treaty of St. Julien
(July 21st, 1603), which secured the independence of the
Genevese. Charles nevertheless did not, to his last day, give
up his designs upon that city."
A. Gallenga,
History of Piedmont,
volume 3, chapter 2.
GENEVA: A. D. 1798.
Forcibly united to the French Republic.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1792-1798.
GENEVA: A. D. 1814.
United with the Swiss Confederation.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1803-1848.
GENEVA: A. D. 1815.
United as a canton to the Swiss Confederation, by the Congress
of Vienna.
See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
----------GENEVA: End----------
GENEVA CONVENTION, The.
See RED CROSS.
GENEVA TRIBUNAL OF ARBITRATION.
See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1871, and 1871-1872.
GENEVOIS, The.
See SAVOY AND PIEDMONT: 11TH-15TH CENTURIES.
GENGHIS KHAN, The conquests of.
See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.
GENOA:
Origin and rise of the city.
"Genoa, anciently Genua, was the chief maritime city of
Liguria, and afterwards a Roman municipium. Under the Lombards
the constant invasions of the Saracens united the professions
of trade and war, and its greatest merchants became also its
greatest generals, while its naval captains were also
merchants. The Crusades were of great advantage to Genoa [see
CRUSADES: A. D. 1104-1111] in enabling it to establish trading
settlements as far as the Black Sea; but the power of Pisa in
the East, as well as its possession of Corsica and Sardinia,
led to wars between it and Genoa, in which the Genoese took
Corsica [see CORSICA: EARLY HISTORY] and drove the Pisans out
of Sardinia. By land the Genoese territory was extended to
Nice on one side and to Spezia on the other."
A. J. C. Hare,
Cities of Northern and Central Italy,
volume 1, page 30.
GENOA: A. D. 1256-1257.
Battles with the Venetians at Acre.
See VENICE: A. D. 1256-1257.
GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299.
The supplanting of Venice at Constantinople and in the Black
Sea trade.
Colonies in the Crimea.
Wars with Venice.
Victory at Curzola and favorable treaty of peace.
During the Latin dynasty in Constantinople the Genoese never
gained the first place in the commerce of the Black Sea. ...
It was Venice who held the key of all this commerce, at
Constantinople; when, after diverting the whole course of the
fourth Crusade, she induced Christendom to waste its energies
on subduing the Greek empire for her benefit [see BYZANTINE
EMPIRE: A.D. 1203-1204]. With the exiled Greek dynasty,
however, the Genoese were always on the best of terms, at
Trebizond, Nicea, and in Roumania; and recognizing that as
long as the Latins were all-powerful in Constantinople she
would have to relinquish the cream of the Black Sea commerce
to the Queen of the Adriatic, she at length determined to
strike a bold stroke and replace a Greek again on the throne."
This was accomplished in 1261, when Baldwin II. fled from the
Byzantine capital and Michael Paleologus took possession of
his throne and crown (see GREEK EMPIRE OF NICÆA: A. D.
1204-1261). For the assistance given in that revolution, the
Genoese obtained the treaty of Ninfeo, "which firmly
established their influence in the Black Sea. ... Thus did the
brave mariner-town of Genoa turn the scale of the vast, but
rotten, Eastern Empire; and her reward was manifold. The
grateful emperor gave her streets and quays in Constantinople,
immunity from tribute, and a free passage for her commerce.
... In addition to these excellent terms in the treaty of
Ninfeo, the emperor conceded to various Genoese private
families numerous islands in the Archipelago. ... But the
great nucleus of this power was the streets, churches, and
quays in Constantinople which were allotted to the Genoese,
and formed a vast emporium of strength and commerce, which
must have eventually led to entire possession of
Constantinople, had not the 'podesta,' or ruler of the Genoese
colony there, thought fit, from personal motives, or from large
offers made him by the Venetians, to attempt a restoration of
the Latin line. ... His conspiracy was discovered, and the
Genoese were sent away in a body to Eraclea. However, on
representation from home that it was none of their doing, and
that Guercio had been acting entirely on his own account, the
emperor yielded in perpetuity to the Genoese the town of Pera,
on the sole condition that the governors should do him homage
[see, also, CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1261-1453]. ...
{1420}
Thus were the Genoese established in this commanding position;
here they had a separate government of their own, from here
they ruled the road of commerce from China to Europe; and,
taking advantage of the weakness of the emperors, they were
able to do much as they wished about building fortresses and
palaces, with gardens to the water's edge; and thus from Pera,
with its citadel of Galata behind it, they were enabled to
dictate what terms they pleased to ships passing to and from
the Bosphorus." In the Black Sea, "from time immemorial, the
small tongue of land now known as the Crimea, then as the
Tauric Chersonese, was the mart towards which all the caravan
trade of Asia was directed by this northern road, and upon
this tongue of land sprang up a group of noble cities which,
until finally seized by the Turks, were without exception
Genoese property. Of these, Caffa was the chief. When this
city was built on the ruins of Theodosia, and by whom, is
somewhat shrouded in mystery. Certain it is that Genoa had a
colony here soon after the first Crusade. ... Second only to
Caffa in importance, and better known to us by name, was the
town of Crim, which gave its name eventually to the whole
peninsula, which originally it had got from the Crim Tatars.
... Prior to its cession to the Genoese, it had been the
residence of a Tatar emperor. ... Here, then, in this narrow
tongue of land, which we now call the Crimea, was the kernel
of Genoese prosperity. As long as she flourished here she
flourished at home. And when at length the Turkish scourge
swept over this peninsula and swallowed up her colonies, the
Ligurian Republic, by a process of slow decay, withered like a
sapless tree." The supplanting of the Venetians at
Constantinople by the Genoese, and the great advantages gained
by the latter in the commerce of the Black Sea, led
necessarily to war between the rival republics. "To maintain
her newly acquired influence in the East, Genoa sent forth a
fleet under the joint command of Pierino Grimaldi, a noble,
and Perchelto Mallone, the people's representative. They
encountered the Venetian squadron at Malvasia [1263] which was
greatly inferior to their own. But as the combatants were just
warming to their work, Mallone, actuated by party spirit,
withdrew his ships and sailed away. The Venetians could
scarcely believe what they saw; they anticipated some deep
laid stratagem, and withdrew for a while from the contest.
When however they beheld Mallone's galleys fairly under sail,
they wonderingly attacked Grimaldi and his 13 ships and
obtained an easy victory. Grimaldi fell at his post. ... This
fatal day of Malvasia [sometimes called the battle of Sette
Pozzi] might easily have secured Venice her lost place in the
Black Sea had she been able to follow up her victory, but with
inexplicable want of vigour she remained inactive." Genoa,
meantime, recovered from the disaster and sent out another
fleet which captured a rich squadron of Venetian merchant
ships in the Adriatic, taking large booty. "It surprises us
immensely to find how for the next thirty years Genoa was able
to keep up a desultory warfare with Venice, when she was at
the height of her struggle with Pisa; and it surprises us
still more that Venice raised not a hand to assist Pisa,
though she was on most friendly terms with her, and when by so
doing she could have ruined Genoa. ... After the fall of Pisa
at Meloria, in 1296 [1284], Genoa could transfer her attention
with all the greater vigour to her contest against Venice.
Four years after this victory men's minds were again bent on
war. Venice cared not to pay a tax to her rival on all ships
which went to Caffa, Genoa resented the treatment she had
received in Cyprus, and thus the rivals prepared for another
and more determined contest for supremacy." The Venetians sent
a fleet to operate in the Black Sea. "Fire was set to the
houses of Galata, irreparable damage was done to Caffa, and in
the Archipelago everything Genoese was burnt, and then off
they sailed for Cyprus, whilst the Genoese were squabbling
amongst themselves. With much trouble the many rulers of Genoa
succeeded at length in adjusting their difference, and a
goodly array of 76 galleys was entrusted to the care of Lamba
D'Oria to punish the Venetians for their depredations. ...
Much larger was the force Venice produced for the contest, and
when the combatants met off Curzola, amongst the Dalmatian
islands, the Genoese were anxious to come to terms, and sought
them, but the Venetians haughtily refused. ... This battle of
Curzola [September 8, 1298] was a sharp and vehement struggle,
and resulted in terrible loss to the Venetians, four of whose
galleys alone escaped to tell the tale. ... Had Lamba D'Oria
but driven the contest home, Venice was ill-prepared to meet
him; as it was, he determined to sail off to Genoa, taking
with him the Venetian admiral ... Dandolo. Chained to the mast
of his own vessel, and unable to sustain the effects of his
humiliation, there, as he stood, Dandolo dashed his head
against the mast and died. ... The natural result of such a
victory was a most favourable peace for Genoa, signed under
the direction of Matteo Visconti, lord of Milan, in 1299; and
thus the century closed on Genoa as without doubt the most
powerful state in Italy, and unquestionably the mistress of
the Mediterranean. ... The next outbreak of war between the
two Republics had its origin in the occupation of the island
of Chios, in 1349," and Genoa in that struggle encountered not
the Venetians alone, but the Greeks and Catalans in alliance
with them.
See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1348-1355.
J. T. Bent,
Genoa: How the Republic rose and fell,
chapters 6 and 8.
ALSO IN:
W. C. Hazlitt,
History of the Venetian Republic,
chapter 11 (volume 2).
GENOA: A. D. 1282-1290.
War with Pisa.
The great victory of Meloria.
Capture of the chain of the Pisan harbor.
See PISA: A. D. 1063-1293.
GENOA: A. D. 1313.
Alliance with the Emperor Henry VII. against Naples.
See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.
GENOA: A. D. 1318-1319.
Feuds of the four great families.
Siege of the city by the exiles and the Lombard princes, and
its defense by the King of Naples.
See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.
GENOA: A. D. 1348-1355.
War with the Greeks, Venetians and Aragonese.
See CONSTANTINOPLE: AD. 1348-1355.
GENOA: A. D. 1353.
Annexed by the Visconti to their Milanese principality.
See MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447.
GENOA: A. D. 1378-1379.
Renewed war with Venice.
The victory at Pola.
See VENICE: A. D. 1378-1379.
{1421}
GENOA: A. D. 1379-1381.
The disastrous war of Chioggia.
Venice triumphant.
See VENICE: A. D. 1379-1381.
GENOA: A. D. 1381-1422.
A succession of foreign masters.
The King of France, the Marquis of Monferrat
and the Duke of Milan.
The history of Genoa for more than a century after the
disastrous War of Chioggia "is one long and melancholy tissue
of internal and external troubles, coming faster and faster
upon one another as the inherent vitality of the Republic grew
weaker. ... During this period we have a constant and
unhealthy craving for foreign masters, be they Marquises of
Monferrato, Dukes of Milan, or the more formidable subverters
of freedom, the kings of France. ... In 1396 ... Adorno [then
doge of Genoa], finding himself unable to tyrannize as he
wished, decided on handing over the government to Charles VI.
of France. In this he was ably backed up by many members of
the old nobility, as the signatures to the treaty testify. The
king was to be entitled 'Defender of the Commune and People,'
and was to respect in every way the existing order of things.
So on the 27th of November, in that year, the great bell in
the tower of the ducal palace was rung, the French standard
was raised by the side of the red cross of Genoa, and in the
great council hall, where her rulers had sat for centuries,
now sat enthroned the French ambassadors, whilst Antoniotto
Adorno handed over to them the sceptre and keys of the city.
These symbols of government were graciously restored to him,
with the admonition that he should no longer be styled 'doge,'
but 'governor' in the name of France. Thus did Adorno sell his
country for the love of power, preferring to be the head of
many slaves, rather than to live as a subordinate in a free
community. The first two governors sent by France after
Adorno's death were unable to cope with the seething mass of
corruption they found within the city walls, until the Marshal
Boucicault was sent, whose name was far famed for cruelty in
Spain against the Moors, in Bulgaria against the Turks, and in
France against the rebels." The government of Boucicault was
hard and cruel, and "his name is handed down by the Genoese as
the most hateful of her many tyrants." In 1409 they took
advantage of his absence from the city to bring in the Marquis
of Monferrato, who established himself in his place. "It was
but for a brief period that the Genoese submitted to the
Marquis of Monferrato; they preferred to return to their doges
and internal quarrels. ... Throughout the city nothing was
heard but the din of arms. Brother fought against brother,
father against son, and for the whole of an unusually chill
December, in 1414, there was not a by-path in Genoa which was
not paved with lances, battle-axes and dead bodies. ... Out of
this fiery trial Genoa at length emerged with Tommaso
Campofregoso as her doge, one of the few bright lights which
illumined Liguria during the early part of this century. ...
The Genoese arms during this time of quiescence again shone
forth with something of their ancient brilliancy. Corsica was
subdued, and a substantial league was formed with Henry V. of
England, ... 1421, by which perpetual friendship and peace by
land and sea was sworn. Short, however, was the period during
which Genoa could rest contented at home. Campofregoso was
driven from the dogeship, and Filippo Maria, Visconti of
Milan, was appointed protector of the Republic [1422], and
through this allegiance the Genoese were drawn into an
unprofitable war for the succession in Naples, in which the
Duke of Milan and the Pope supported the claims of Queen
Joanna and her adopted son, Louis of Anjou, against Alphonso
of Aragon."
J. T. Bent,
Genoa,
chapter 9.
The Universal History,
chapter 73, sections 3-4 (volume 25).
GENOA: A. D. 1385-1386.
Residence of Pope Urban VI.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1343-1389.
GENOA: A. D. 1407-1448.
The Bank of St. George.
"The Bank of St. George was founded in Genoa in the year 1407.
It was an immense success and a great support to the
government. It gradually became a republic within the
republic, more peaceful and better regulated than its
mistress." In 1448 the administration of Corsica and of the
Genoese colonies in the Levant was transferred to the Bank,
which thenceforward appointed governors and conducted colonial
affairs.
G. B. Malleson,
Studies from Genoese History,
page 75.
ALSO IN:
J. T. Bent,
Genoa,
chapter 11.
See, also,
CORSICA: EARLY HISTORY.
GENOA: A. D. 1421-1435.
Submission to the Duke of Milan, and recovery of the freedom
of the city.
See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.
GENOA: A. D. 1458-1464.
Renewed struggles of domestic faction and changes of foreign
masters.
Submission to the Dukes of Milan.
"Genoa, wearied with internal convulsions, which followed each
other incessantly, had lost all influence over the rest of
Italy; continually oppressed by faction, it no longer
preserved even the recollection of liberty. In 1458, it had
submitted to the king of France, then Charles VII.; and John
of Anjou, duke of Calabria, had come to exercise the functions
of governor in the king's name. He made it, at the same time,
his fortress, from whence to attack the kingdom of Naples.
See ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480.
But this war had worn out the patience of the Genoese; they
rose against the French; and, on the 17th of July, 1461,
destroyed the army sent to subdue them by René of Anjou. The
Genoese had no sooner thrown off a foreign yoke than they
became divided into two factions,--the Adorni and the Fregosi,
[severally partisans of two families of that name which
contended for the control of the republic]: both had at
different times, and more than once, given them a doge. The
more violent and tyrannical of these factious magistrates was
Paolo Fregoso, also archbishop of Genoa, who had returned to
his country, in 1462, as chief of banditti; and left it again,
two years afterwards, as chief of a band of pirates. The
Genoese, disgusted with their independence, which was
disgraced by so many crimes and disturbances, had, on the 13th
of April, 1464, yielded to Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan;
and afterwards remained subject to his son Galeazzo."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Italian Republics,
chapter 11.
ALSO IN:
B. Duffy,
The Tuscan Republics,
chapter 23.
GENOA: A. D. 1475.
Loss of possessions in the Crimea.
See TURKS: A. D. 1451-1481.
{1422}
GENOA: A. D. 1500-1507.
Capitulation to Louis XII. of France, conqueror of Milan.
Revolt and subjugation.
By the conquest of Milan (see ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500), Louis
XII. of France acquired the signoria of Genoa, which had been
held by the deposed duke, Ludovico Sforza. "According to the
capitulation, one half of the magistrates of Genoa should be
noble, the other half plebeian. They were to be chosen by the
suffrages of their fellow-citizens; they were to retain the
government of the whole of Liguria, and the administration of
their own finances, with the reservation of a fixed sum
payable yearly to the king of France. But the French could
never comprehend that nobles were on an equality with
villains; that a king was bound by conditions imposed by his
subjects; or that money could be refused to him who had force.
All the capitulations of Genoa were successively violated; while
the Genoese nobles ranged themselves on the side of a king
against their country: they were known to carry insolently
about them a dagger, on which was inscribed, 'Chastise
villains'; so impatient were they to separate themselves from
the people, even by meanness and assassination. That people
could not support the double yoke of a foreign master and of
nobles who betrayed their country. On the 7th of February,
1507, they revolted, drove out the French, proclaimed the
republic, and named a new doge; but time failed them to
organize their defence. On the 3d of April, Louis advanced
from Grenoble with a powerful army. He soon arrived before
Genoa: the newly-raised militia, unable to withstand veteran
troops, were defeated. Louis entered Genoa on the 29th of
April; and immediately sent the doge and the greater number of
the generous citizens, who had signalized themselves in the
defence of their country, to the scaffold."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Italian Republics,
chapter 14.
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations
from 1494 to 1514,
page 260.
GENOA: A. D. 1527-1528.
French dominion momentarily restored and then overthrown by
Andrew Doria.
The republic revived.
See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.
GENOA: A. D. 1528-1559.
The conspiracy of Fiesco and its failure.
Revolt and recovery of Corsica.
"Sustained by the ability of Doria, and protected by the arms
of Charles V., the Republic, during near nineteen years
subsequent to this auspicious revolution, continued in the
enjoyment of dignified independence and repose. But, the
memorable conspiracy of Louis Fiesco, Count of Lavagna, the
Catiline of Liguria, had nearly subverted Genoa, and reduced
it anew to the obedience of France, or exposed it once more to
all the misfortunes of anarchy. The massacre of Doria and his
family constituted one of the primary objects of the plot;
while the dissimulation, intrepidity, and capacity, which
marked its leader ... have rendered the attempt one of the
most extraordinary related in modern history. It was
accompanied with complete success till the moment of its
termination. Jeannetin Doria, the heir of that house, having
perished by the dagger, and Andrew, his uncle, being with
difficulty saved by his servants, who transported him out of
the city, the Genoese Senate was about to submit
unconditionally to Fiesco, when that nobleman, by a sudden and
accidental death, at once rendered abortive his own hopes and
those of his followers. The government, resuming courage,
expelled the surviving conspirators; and Doria, on his return
to the city, sullied the lustre of his high character, by
proceeding to acts of cruelty against the brothers and
adherents of the Count of Lavagna. Notwithstanding this
culpable and vindictive excess, he continued invariably firm
to the political principles which he had inculcated, for
maintaining the freedom of the Commonwealth. Philip, Prince of
Spain, son of Charles V., having visited Genoa in the
succeeding year, attempted to induce the senate, under
specious pretences of securing their safety, to consent to the
construction of a citadel, garrisoned by Spaniards. But he found
in that assembly, as well as in Doria, an insurmountable
opposition to the measure, which was rejected with unanimous
indignation. The island of Corsica, which had been subjected
for ages to Genoa, and which was oppressed by a tyrannical
administration, took up arms at this period [1558-1559]; and
the French having aided the insurgents, they maintained a long
and successful struggle against their oppressors. But the
peace concluded at Cateau between Philip, King of Spain, and
Henry II., in which the Spanish court dictated terms to
France, obliged that nation to evacuate their Corsican
acquisitions, and to restore the island to the Genoese.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.
Soon afterwards [1559], at the very advanced age of ninety,
Andrew Doria expired in his own palace, surrounded by the
people on whom he had conferred freedom and tranquillity;
leaving the Commonwealth in domestic repose and undisturbed by
foreign war."
Sir N. W. Wraxall,
History of France, 1574-1610,
volume 2, pages 43-44.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
Studies from Genoese History,
chapter 1-3.
GENOA: A. D. 1625-1626.
Unsuccessful attack by France and Savoy.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
GENOA: A. D. 1745.
The republic sides with Spain and France in the War of the
Austrian Succession.
See ITALY: A. D. 1745.
GENOA: A. D. 1746-1747.
Surrendered to the Austrians.
Popular rising.
Expulsion of the Austrian garrison.
Long siege and deliverance of the city.
See ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.
GENOA: A. D. 1748.
Territory secured by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: A. D. 1748.
GENOA: A. D. 1768.
Cession of Corsica to France.
See CORSICA: A. D. 1729-1769.
GENOA: A. D. 1796.
Treaty of peace with France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (OCTOBER).
GENOA: A. D. 1797.
Revolution forced by Bonaparte.
Creation of the Ligurian Republic.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).
GENOA: A. D. 1800.
Siege by the Austrians.
Masséna's defense.
Surrender of the city.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).
GENOA: A. D. 1805.
Surrender of independence.
Annexation to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.
GENOA: A. D. 1814.
Reduction of the forts by English troops.
Surrender of the French garrison.
See ITALY: A. D. 1814.
GENOA: A. D. 1814-1815.
Annexation to the kingdom of Sardinia.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE);
and VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
----------GENOA: End----------
GENOLA, Battle of (1799).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
{1423}
GENS, GENTES, GENTILES.
"When Roman history begins, there were within the city, and
subordinate to the common city government, a large number of
smaller bodies, each of which preserved its individuality and
some semblance of governmental machinery. These were clans
[gens], and in prehistoric times each of them is taken to have
had an independent political existence, living apart, worshiping
its own gods, and ruled over by its own chieftain. This clan
organization is not supposed to have been peculiar at all to
Rome, but ancient society in general was composed of an
indefinite number of such bodies, which, at the outset,
treated with each other in a small way as nations might treat
with each other to-day. It needs to be noted, however, that,
at any rate, so far as Rome is concerned, this is a matter of
inference, not of historical proof. The earliest political
divisions in Latium of which we have any trace consisted of
such clans united into communities. If they ever existed,
separately, therefore their union must have been deliberate
and artificial, and the body thus formed was the canton
('civitas' or 'populus'). Each canton had a fixed common
stronghold ('capitolium,' 'height,' or 'arx'--cf. 'arceo'
--'citadel') situated on some central elevation. The clans
dwelt around in hamlets ('vici' or 'pagi') scattered through
the canton. Originally, the central stronghold was not a place
of residence like the 'pagi,' but a place of refuge ... and a
place of meeting. ... In all of this, therefore, the clan
seems to lie at the very foundation. ... Any clan in the
beginning, of course, must have been simply a family. When it
grew so large as to be divided into sections, the sections
were known as families ('familiæ') and their union was the
clan. In this view the family, as we find it existing in the
Roman state, was a subdivision of the clan. In other words,
historically, families did not unite to form clans, but the
clan was the primitive thing, and the families were its
branches. Men thus recognized kinship of a double character.
They were related to all the members of their clan as
'gentiles,' and again more closely to all the members of their
branch of the clan at once as 'gentiles' and also as 'agnati.'
As already stated, men belonged to the same family ('agnati')
when they could trace their descent through males from a
common ancestor who gave its name to the family, or, what is
the same thing, was its eponym. Between the members of a clan
the chief evidence of relationship in historical times was
tradition. ... We have thus outlined what is known as the
patriarchal theory of society, and hinted at its application
to certain facts in Roman history. It should be remembered,
however, that it is only a theory, and that it is open to some
apparent and to some real criticism."
A. Tighe,
Development of the Roman Constitution,
chapter 2.
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome, book 1,
chapter 5.
"The patricians were divided into certain private
associations, called Gentes, which we may translate Houses or
Clans. All the members of each Gens were called gentiles; and
they bore the same name, which always ended in -ius; as for
instance, every member of the Julian Gens was a Julius; every
member of the Cornelian Gens was a Cornelius, and so on. Now
in every Gens there were a number of Families which were
distinguished by a name added to the name of the Gens. Thus
the Scipios, Sullas, Cinnas, Cethegi, Lentuli, were all
families of the Cornelian Gens. Lastly, every person of every
Family was denoted by a name prefixed to the name of the Gens.
The name of the person was, in Latin, prænomen; that of the
Gens or House, nomen, that of the Family, cognomen. Thus Caius
Julius Cæsar was a person of the Cæsar Family in the Julian
Gens; Lucius Cornelius Scipio was a person of the Scipio
Family in the Cornelian Gens; and so forth."
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 1, chapter 3.
"There is no word in the English language which satisfactorily
renders the Latin word 'gens.' The term 'clan' is apt to
mislead; for the Scotch Highland clans were very different
from the Roman 'gentes.' The word 'House' is not quite
correct, for it always implies relationship, which was not
essential in the 'gens'; but for want of a better word we
shall use 'House' to express 'gens,' except where the spirit
of the language rejects the term and requires 'family'
instead. The German language has in the word 'Geschlecht' an
almost equivalent term for the Latin 'gens'."
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 1, chapter 13, foot-note.
ALSO IN:
Fustel de Coulanges,
The Ancient City,
book 2, chapter 10.
On the Greek gens, see PHYLÆ.
GENSERIC AND THE VANDALS.
See VANDALS: A. D. 429-439.
GENTILES.
See GENS.
GENUCIAN LAW, The.
A law which prohibited the taking of interest for loans is
said to have been adopted at Rome, B. C. 342, on the proposal
of the tribune Genucius; but modern historians are skeptical
as to the actual enactment of the law.
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapter 5.
GEOK TEPE, Siege and capture of (1881).
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1869-1881.
GEOMORI, OR GAMORI, The.
"As far as our imperfect information enables us to trace,
these early oligarchies of the Grecian states, against which
the first usurping despots contended, contained in themselves
more repulsive elements of inequality, and more mischievous
barriers between the component parts of the population, than
the oligarchies of later days. ... The oligarchy was not (like
the government so denominated in subsequent times) the
government of a rich few over the less rich and the poor, but
that of a peculiar order, sometimes a Patrician order, over
all the remaining society. ... The country-population, or
villagers who tilled the land, seem in these early times to
have been held to a painful dependence on the great
proprietors who lived in the fortified town, and to have been
distinguished by a dress and habits of their own, which often
drew upon them an unfriendly nickname. ... The governing
proprietors went by the name of the Gamori, or Geomori,
according as the Doric or Ionic dialect might be used in
describing them, since they were found in states belonging to
one race as well as to the other. They appear to have
constituted a close order, transmitting their privileges to
their children, but admitting no new members to a
participation. The principle called by Greek thinkers a
Timocracy (the apportionment of political rights and
privileges according to comparative property) seems to have
been little, if at all, applied in the earlier times. We know
no example of it earlier than Solon."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 9.
GEONIM, The.
See JEWS: 7TH CENTURY.
GEORGE I.,
King of England (first of the Hanoverian or Brunswick line),
A. D. 1714-1727.
George II., King of England," 1727-1760.
George III., King of England, 1760-1820.
George IV., King of England, 1820-1830.
George Podiebrad, King of Bohemia, 1458-1471.
George William, Elector of Brandenburg, 1619-1640.
----------GEORGE: End----------
{1424}
GEORGIA: The Aboriginal Inhabitants.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: APALACHES,
MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY, CHEROKEES.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1539-1542.
Traversed by Hernando de Soto.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1528-1542.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1629.
Embraced in the Carolina grant to Sir Robert Heath.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1663.
Embraced in the Carolina grant to Monk,
Clarendon, and others.
See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1663-1670.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1732-1739.
Oglethorpe's colony.
"Among the members of Parliament during the rule of Sir Robert
Walpole was one almost unknown to us now, but deserving of
honour beyond most men of his time. His name was James
Oglethorpe. He was a soldier, and had fought against the Turks
and in the great Marlborough wars against Louis XIV. In
advanced life he became the friend of Samuel Johnson. Dr.
Johnson urged him to write some account of his adventures. 'I
know no one,' he said, 'whose life would be more interesting:
if I were furnished with materials I should be very glad to
write it.' Edmund Burke considered him 'a more extraordinary
person than any he had ever read of.' John Wesley 'blessed God
that ever he was born.' Oglethorpe attained the great age of
ninety-six, and died in the year 1785. ... In Oglethorpe's
time it was in the power of a creditor to imprison, according
to his pleasure, the man who owed him money and was not able
to pay it. It was a common circumstance that a man should be
imprisoned during a long series of years for a trifling debt.
Oglethorpe had a friend upon whom this hard fate had fallen.
His attention was thus painfully called to the cruelties which
were inflicted upon the unfortunate and helpless. He appealed
to Parliament, and after inquiry a partial remedy was
obtained. The benevolent exertions of Oglethorpe procured
liberty for multitudes who but for him might have ended their
lives in captivity. This, however, did not content him.
Liberty was an incomplete gift to men who had lost, or perhaps
had scarcely ever possessed, the faculty of earning their own
maintenance. Oglethorpe devised how lie might carry these
unfortunates to a new world, where, under happier auspices,
they might open a fresh career. He obtained [A. D. 1732] from
King George II. a charter by which the country between the
Savannah and the Alatamaha, and stretching westward to the
Pacific, was erected into the province of Georgia. It was to
be a refuge for the deserving poor, and next to them for
Protestants suffering persecution. Parliament voted £10,000 in
aid of the humane enterprise, and many benevolent persons were
liberal with their gifts. In November the first exodus of the
insolvent took place. Oglethorpe sailed with 120 emigrants,
mainly selected from the prisons--penniless, but of good
repute. He surveyed the coasts of Georgia, and chose a site
for the capital of his new State. He pitched his tent where
Savannah now stands, and at once proceeded to mark out the
line of streets and squares. Next year the colony was joined
by about a hundred German Protestants, who were then under
persecution for their beliefs. ... The fame of Oglethorpe's
enterprise spread over Europe. All struggling men, against
whom the battle of life went hard, looked to Georgia as a land
of promise. They were the men who most urgently required to
emigrate; but they were not always the men best fitted to
conquer the difficulties of the immigrant's life. The progress
of the colony was slow. The poor persons of whom it was
originally composed were honest but ineffective, and could not
in Georgia more than in England find out the way to become
self-supporting. Encouragements were given which drew from
Germany, from Switzerland, and from the Highlands of Scotland
men of firmer texture of mind--better fitted to subdue the
wilderness and bring forth its treasures. With Oglethorpe
there went out, on his second expedition to Georgia [1736],
the two brothers John and Charles Wesley. Charles went as
secretary to the Governor. John was even then, although a very
young man, a preacher of unusual promise. ... He spent two
years in Georgia, and these were unsuccessful years. His
character was unformed; his zeal out of proportion to his
discretion. The people felt that he preached 'personal
satires' at them. He involved himself in quarrels, and at last
had to leave the colony secretly, fearing arrest at the
instance of some whom he had offended. He returned to begin
his great career in England, with the feeling that his
residence in Georgia had been of much value to himself, but of
very little to the people whom he sought to benefit. Just as
Wesley reached England, his fellow-labourer George Whitefield
sailed for Georgia. ... He founded an Orphan-House at
Savannah, and supported it by contributions--obtained easily
from men under the power of his unequalled eloquence. He
visited Georgia very frequently, and his love for that colony
remained with him to the last. Slavery was, at the outset,
forbidden in Georgia. It was opposed to the gospel, Oglethorpe
said, and therefore not to be allowed. He foresaw, besides, what
has been so bitterly experienced since, that slavery must
degrade the poor white labourer. But soon a desire sprung up
among the less scrupulous of the settlers to have the use of
slaves. Within seven years from the first landing, slave-ships
were discharging their cargo at Savannah."
R. Mackenzie,
America: A History,
book 1, chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
T. M. Harris,
Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe,
chapters 1-10.
R. Wright,
Memoir of General James Oglethorpe,
chapters 1-9.
For text of charter, etc., see in
G. White,
Historical Collections of Georgia,
pages. 1-20.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1734.
The settlement of the Salzburgers.
"As early as October the 12th, 1732, the 'Society for the
Propagation of Christian Knowledge' expressed to the Trustees
a desire 'that the persecuted Salzburgers should have an
asylum provided for them in Georgia.' ... These Germans
belonged to the Archbishopric of Salzburg, then the most
eastern district of Bavaria; but now forming a detached
district in upper Austria, and called Salzburg from the broad
valley of the Salzer, which is made by the approximating of
the Norric and Rhetian Alps. Their ancestors, the Vallenges of
Piedmont, had been compelled by the barbarities of the Dukes
of Savoy, to find a shelter from the storms of persecution in
the Alpine passes and vales of Salzburg and the Tyrol, before
the Reformation; and frequently since had they been hunted out
by the hirelings and soldiery of the Church of Rome. ...
{1425}
The quietness which they had enjoyed for nearly half a century
was now rudely broken in upon by Leopold, Count of Firmian and
Archbishop of Salzburg, who determined to reduce them to the
Papal faith and power. He began in the year 1729, and, ere he
ended in 1732, not far from 30,000 had been driven from their
homes, to seek among the Protestant States of Europe that
charity and peace which were denied them in the glens and
fastnesses of their native Alps. More than two-thirds settled
in the Prussian States; the rest spread themselves over
England, Holland, and other Protestant countries. Thrilling is
the story of their exile. The march of these Salzburgers
constitutes an epoch in the history of Germany. ... The
sympathies of Reformed Christendom were awakened on their
behalf, and the most hospitable entertainment and assistance
were everywhere given them." Forty-two families, numbering 78
persons, accepted an invitation to settle in Georgia,
receiving allotments of land and provisions until they could
gather a harvest. They arrived at Savannah in March, 1734, and
were settled at a spot which they selected for themselves,
about thirty miles in the interior. "Oglethorpe marked out for
them a town; ordered workmen to assist in building houses; and
soon the whole body of Germans went up to their new home at
Ebenezer."
W. B. Stevens,
History of Georgia,
book 2, chapter 2 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
F. Shoberl,
Persecutions of Popery,
chapter 9 (volume 2).
E. B. Speirs,
The Salzburgers
(English History Review, October, 1890).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1735-1749.
The Slavery question.
Original exclusion and subsequent admission of negro slaves.
Among the fundamental regulations of the Trustees was one
prohibiting negro slavery in the colony. "It was policy and
not philanthropy which prohibited slavery; for, though one of
the Trustees, in a sermon to recommend charity, declared, 'Let
avarice defend it as it will, there is an honest reluctance in
humanity against buying and selling, and regarding those of
our own species as our wealth and possessions'; and though
Oglethorpe himself, speaking of slavery as against 'the gospel
as well as the fundamental law of England', asserted, 'we
refused, as Trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid
crime'; yet in the official publications of that body its
inhibition is based only on political and prudential, and not
on humane and liberal grounds; and even Oglethorpe owned a
plantation and negroes near Parachucla in South Carolina,
about forty miles above Savannah. ... Their [the Trustees']
design was to provide for poor but honest persons, to erect a
barrier between South Carolina and the Spanish settlements,
and to establish a wine and silk-growing colony. It was
thought by the Trustees that neither of these designs could be
secured if slavery was introduced. ... But while the Trustees
disallowed negroes, they instituted a system of white slavery
which was fraught with evil to the servants and to the colony.
These were white servants, consisting of Welch, English, or
German, males and females--families and individuals--who were
indented to individuals or the Trustees, for a period of from
four to fourteen years. ... On arriving in Georgia, their
service was sold for the term of indenture, or apportioned to
the inhabitants by the magistrates, as their necessities
required. ... Two years had not elapsed since the landing of
Oglethorpe before many complaints originated from this cause;
and in the summer of 1735 a petition, signed by seventeen
freeholders, setting forth the unprofitableness of white
servants, and the necessity for negroes, was carried by Mr.
Hugh Sterling to the Trustees, who, however, resented the
appeal as an insult to their honour. ... The plan for
substituting white for black labour failed through the
sparseness of the supply and the refractoriness of the
servants. As a consequence of the inability of the settlers to
procure adequate help, the lands granted them remained
uncleared, and even those which the temporary industry of the
first occupants prepared remained uncultivated. ... There
accumulated on the Trustees' hands a body of idle, clamourous,
mischief-making men, who employed their time in declaiming
against the very government whose charity both fed and clothed
them. ... For nearly fifteen years from 1735, the date of the
first petition for negroes, and the date of their express law
against their importation, the Trustees refused to listen to
any similar representations, except to condemn them," and they
were supported by the Salzburgers and the Highlanders, both of
whom opposed the introduction of negro slaves. But finally, in
1749, the firmness of the Trustees gave way and they yielded
to the clamor of the discontented colony. The importation of
black slaves was permitted, under certain regulations intended
to diminish the evils of the institution. "The change in the
tenure of grants, and the permission to hold slaves, had an
immediate effect on the prosperity of the colony."
W. B. Stevens,
History of Georgia,
book 2, chapter 9 (volume 1).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1738-1743.
War with the Spaniards of Florida.
Discontents in the colony.
"The assiento enjoyed under the treaty of Utrecht by the
English South Sea Company, the privilege, that is, of
transporting to the Spanish colonies a certain number of
slaves annually, ... was made a cover for an extensive
smuggling trade on the part of the English, into which private
merchants also entered. ... To guard against these systematic
infractions of their laws, the Spaniards maintained a numerous
fleet of vessels in the preventive service, known as 'guarda
costas,' by which some severities were occasionally exercised
on suspected or detected smugglers. These severities, grossly
exaggerated, and resounded throughout the British dominions,
served to revive in England and the colonies a hatred of the
Spaniards, which, since the time of Philip II., had never
wholly died out. Such was the temper and position of the two
nations when the colonization of Georgia was begun, of which
one avowed object was to erect a barrier against the
Spaniards, among whom the runaway slaves of South Carolina
were accustomed to find shelter, receiving in Florida an
assignment of lands, and being armed and organized into
companies, as a means of strengthening that feeble colony. A
message sent to St. Augustine to demand the surrender of the
South Carolina runaways met with a point blank refusal, and
the feeling against the Spaniards ran very high in
consequence. ... Oglethorpe ... returned from his second visit
to England [Sept. 1738], with a newly-enlisted regiment of
soldiers, and the appointment, also, of military commander for
Georgia and the Carolinas, with orders 'to give no offense,
but to repel force by force.' Both in Spain and England the
administrators of the government were anxious for peace. ...
The ferocious clamors of the merchants and the mob ...
absolutely forced Walpole into a war.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.--THE WAR OF JENKINS' EAR.
{1426}
Travelling 300 miles through the forests, Oglethorpe held at
Coweta, on the Chattahoochee, just below the present site of
Columbus, a new treaty with the Creeks, by which they
confirmed their former cessions, acknowledged themselves
subject to the King of Great Britain, and promised to exclude
from their territories all but English settlers. After
finishing the treaty, Oglethorpe returned through the woods by
way of Augusta to Savannah, where he found orders from England
to make an attack on Florida. He called at once on South
Carolina and the Creeks for aid, and in the mean time made an
expedition, in which he captured the Fort of Picolata, over
against St. Augustine, thus securing the navigation of the St.
John's, and cutting off the Spaniards from their forts at St.
Mark's and Pensacola. South Carolina entered very eagerly into
the enterprise. Money was voted; a regiment, 500 strong, was
enlisted, partly in North Carolina and Virginia. This addition
raised Oglethorpe's force to 1,200 men. The Indians that
joined him were as many more. Having marched into Florida, he
took a small fort or two, and, assisted by several ships of
war, laid siege to St. Augustine. But the garrison was 1,000
strong, besides militia. The fortifications proved more
formidable than had been expected. A considerable loss was
experienced by a sortie from the town, falling heavily on the
Highland Rangers. Presently the Indians deserted, followed by
part of the Carolina regiment, and Oglethorpe was obliged to
give over the enterprise. ... From the time of this repulse,
the good feeling of the Carolinians toward Oglethorpe came to
an end. Many of the disappointed Georgia emigrants had removed
to Charleston, and many calumnies against Oglethorpe were
propagated, and embodied in a pamphlet published there. The
Moravians also left Georgia, unwilling to violate their
consciences by bearing arms. Most unfortunately for the new
colony, the Spanish war withdrew the Highlanders and others of
the best settlers from their farms to convert them into
soldiers."
R. Hildreth,
History of the United States,
chapter 25 (volume 2).
"After the late incursion into Florida, the General kept
possession of a southern region which the Spaniards had
claimed as their own; and, as they had taken encouragement
from the successful defence of St. Augustine, and the
well-known dissensions on the English side, it was to be
expected that they would embrace the earliest opportunity of
taking their revenge. ... The storm, which had been so long
anticipated, burst upon the colony in the year 1742. The
Spaniards had ... fitted out, at Havana, a fleet said to
consist of 56 sail and 7,000 or 8,000 men. The force was
probably not quite so great; if it was, it did not all reach
its destination," being dispersed by a storm, "so that only a
part of the whole number succeeded in reaching St. Augustine.
The force was there placed under the command of Don Manuel de
Monteano, the Governor of that place. ... The fleet made its
appearance on the coast of Georgia on the 21st of June"; but
all its attempts, first to take possession of the Island of
Amelia, and afterwards to reduce the forts at Frederica, were
defeated by the vigor and skill of General Oglethorpe. After
losing heavily in a fight called the Battle of the Bloody
Marsh, the Spaniards retreated about the middle of July. The
following year they prepared another attempt; but Oglethorpe
anticipated it by a second demonstration on his own part
against St. Augustine, which had no other result than to
disconcert the plans of the enemy.
W. B. O. Peabody,
Life of Oglethorpe
(Library of American Biographies, 2d series, volume 2),
chapters 11-12.
"While Oglethorpe was engaged in repelling the Spaniards, the
trustees of Georgia had been fiercely assailed by their
discontented colonists. They sent Thomas Stevens to England
with a petition containing many charges of mismanagement,
extravagance, and peculation, to which the trustees put in an
answer. After a thorough examination of documents and
witnesses in committee of the whole, and hearing counsel, the
House of Commons resolved that 'the petition of Thomas Stevens
contains false, scandalous, and malicious charges'; in
consequence of which Stevens, the next day, was brought to the
bar, and reprimanded on his knees. ... Oglethorpe himself had
been a special mark of the malice and obloquy of the
discontented settlers. ... Presently his lieutenant colonel, a
man who owed everything to Oglethorpe's favor, re-echoing the
slanders of the colonists, lodged formal charges against him.
Oglethorpe proceeded to England to vindicate his character,
and the accuser, convicted by a court of inquiry of falsehood,
was disgraced and deprived of his commission. Appointed a
major general, ordered to join the army assembled to oppose
the landing of the Pretender, marrying also about this time,
Oglethorpe did not again return to Georgia. The former scheme
of administration having given rise to innumerable complaints,
the government of that colony was intrusted to a president and
four counselors."
R. Hildreth,
History of the United States,
chapter. 25 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
C. C. Jones,
History of Georgia,
chapters 17-22 (volume 1).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1743-1764.
Surrender to the Crown.
Government as a royal province.
"On Oglethorpe's departure [1743], William Stephens, the
secretary, was made President, and continued in office until
1751, when he was succeeded by Henry Parker. The colony, when
Stephens came into office, comprised about 1,500 persons. It
was almost at a stand-still. The brilliant prospects of the
early days were dissipated, and immigration had ceased, thanks
to the narrow policy and feeble government of the Trustees. An
Indian rising, in 1749, headed by Mary Musgrove, Oglethorpe's
Indian interpreter, and her husband, one Bosomworth, who laid
claim to the whole country, came near causing the destruction
of the colony, and was only repressed by much negotiation and
lavish bribes. The colony, thus feeble and threatened,
struggled on, until it was relieved from danger from the
Indians and from the restrictive laws, and encouraged by the
appointment of Parker, and the establishment of a
representative government. This produced a turn in the affairs
of Georgia. Trade revived, immigration was renewed, and
everything began to wear again a more hopeful look. Just at
this time, however, the original trust was on the point of
expiring by limitation.
{1427}
There was a party in the colony who desired a renewal of the
charter; but the Trustees felt that their scheme had failed in
every way, except perhaps as a defence to South Carolina, and
when the limit of the charter was reached, they turned the
colony over to the Crown. ... A form of government was
established similar to those of the other royal provinces, and
Captain John Reynolds was sent out as the first Governor." The
administration of Reynolds produced wide discontent, and in
1757 he was recalled, being "succeeded by Henry Ellis as
Lieutenant-governor. The change proved fortunate, and brought
rest to the colony. Ellis ruled peaceably and with general
respect for more than two years, and was then promoted to the
governorship of Nova Scotia. In the same year his successor
arrived at Savannah, in the person of James Wright, who
continued to govern the province until it was severed from
England by the Revolution. The feebleness of Georgia had
prevented her taking part in the union of the colonies, and
she was not represented in the Congress at Albany. Georgia
also escaped the ravages of the French war, partly by her
distant situation, and partly by the prudence of Governor
Ellis; and the conclusion of that war gave Florida to England,
and relieved the colony from the continual menace of Spanish
aggression. A great Congress of southern Governors and Indian
chiefs followed, in which Wright, more active than his
predecessor, took a prominent part. Under his energetic and
firm rule, the colony began to prosper greatly, and trade
increased rapidly; but the Governor gained at the same time so
much influence, and was a man of so much address, that he not
only held the colony down at the time of the Stamp Act, but
seriously hampered its action in the years which led to
revolution."
H. C. Lodge,
Short History of the English Colonies in America,
chapter 9.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1760-1775.
Opening events of the Revolution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1760-1775, to 1775.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1775-1777.
The end of royal government.
Constitutional organization of the state."
The news of the battle of Lexington reached Savannah on the
night of the 10th of May, 1775, and produced intense
excitement among all classes. On the night of the 11th, Noble
Wimberly Jones, Joseph Habersham, Edward Telfair, and a few
others, impressed with the necessity of securing all military
stores, and preserving them for colonial use, took from the
King's magazine, in Savannah, about 500 pounds of powder. ...
Tradition asserts that part of this powder was sent to Boston,
and used by the militia at the battle of Bunker Hill. ... The
activity of the Liberty party, and its rapid increase, ...
gave Governor Wright just cause for alarm; and he wrote to
General Gage, expressing his amazement that these southern
provinces should be left in the situation they are, and the
Governors and King's officers, and friends of Government,
naked and exposed to the resentment of an enraged people.' ...
The assistance so earnestly solicited in these letters would
have been promptly rendered, but that they never reached their
destination. The Committee of Safety at Charleston withdrew them
from their envelopes, as they passed through the port, and
substituted others, stating that Georgia was quiet, and there
existed no need either of troops or vessels." The position of
Governor Wright soon became one of complete powerlessness and
he begged to be recalled. In January, 1776, however, he was
placed under arrest, by order of the Council of Safety, and
gave his parole not to leave town, nor communicate with the
men-of-war which had just arrived at Tybee; notwithstanding
which he made his escape to one of the King's ships on the
11th of February. "The first effective organization of the
friends of liberty in the province took place among the
deputies from several parishes, who met in Savannah, on the
18th January, 1775, and formed what has been called 'A
Provincial Congress.' Guided by the action of the other
colonies, a 'Council of Safety' was created, on the 22d June,
1775, to whom was confided the general direction of the
measures proper to be pursued in carrying out resistance to
the tyrannical designs of the King and Parliament. William
Ewen was the first President of this Council of Safety, and
Seth John Cuthbert was the Secretary. On the 4th July, the
Provincial Congress (now properly called such, as every parish
and district was represented) met in Savannah, and elected as
its presiding officer Archibald Bulloch. This Congress
conferred upon the 'Council of Safety,' 'full power upon every
emergency during the recess of Congress.'" Soon finding the
need of a more definite order of government, the Provincial
Congress, on the 15th of April, 1776, adopted provisionally,
for six months, a series of "Rules and Regulations," under
which Archibald Bulloch was elected President and
Commander-in-chief of Georgia, and John Glen, Chief Justice.
After the Declaration of Independence, steps were taken toward
the settling of the government of the state on a permanent
basis. On the proclamation of President Bulloch a convention
was elected which met in Savannah in October, and which framed
a constitution that was ratified on the 5th of February, 1777.
W. B. Stevens,
History of Georgia,
book 4, chapter 2,
and book 5, chapter 1 (volume 2).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1776-1778.
The war in the North.
The Articles of Confederation.
The alliance with France.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A.D. 1776, to 1778.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1778-1779.
Savannah taken and the state subjugated by the British.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1779.
Unsuccessful attack on Savannah by the French and Americans.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1779 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1780.
Successes of the British arms in South Carolina.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1780 (FEBRUARY-AUGUST).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1780-1783.
Greene's campaign in the South.
Lafayette and Washington in Virginia.
Siege of Yorktown and surrender of Cornwallis.
Peace.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A. D. 1780, to 1783.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1787-1788.
The formation and adoption of the Federal Constitution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1787, and 1787-1789.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1802.
Cession of Western land claims to the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786
and MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1798-1804.
GEORGIA: A. D. 1813-1814.
The Creek War.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1816-1818.
The First Seminole War.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.
{1428}
GEORGIA: A. D. 1861 (January).
Secession from the Union.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1861 (October-December).
Savannah threatened.
The Union forces in possession of the mouth of the river.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: SOUTH CAROLINA-GEORGIA).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1862 (February-April).
Reduction of Fort Pulaski and sealing up of the port of
Savannah by the National Forces.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: GEORGIA-FLORIDA).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1864 (May-September).
Sherman's campaign against Atlanta.
The capture of the city.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY: GEORGIA),
and (MAY-SEPTEMBER: GEORGIA).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1864 (September-October).
Military occupation of Atlanta.
Removal of the inhabitants.
Hood's Raid to Sherman's rear.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: GEORGIA).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1864 (November-December).
Destruction of Atlanta.
Sherman's March to the Sea.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER: GEORGIA).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1865 (March-May).
Wilson's Raid.
Capture of Jefferson Davis.
End of the Rebellion.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL-MAY).
GEORGIA: A. D. 1865-1868.
Reconstruction.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY), and after, to 1868-1870.
----------GEORGIA: End----------
GEOUGEN, The.
See TURKS: SIXTH CENTURY.
GEPIDÆ, The.
See GOTHS: ORIGIN OF;
HUNS; LOMBARDS: EARLY HISTORY;
and AVARS.
GERALDINES, The.
The Geraldines of Irish history were descendants of Maurice
and William Fitzgerald, two of the first among the
Anglo-Norman adventurers to engage in the conquest of
Ireland, A. D. 1169-1170. Their mother was a Welsh princess,
named Nest, or Nesta, who is said to have been the mistress
of Henry I. of England, and afterwards to have married the
Norman baron, Gerald Fitz Walter, who became the father of
the Fitzgeralds. "Maurice Fitzgerald, the eldest of the
brothers, became the ancestor both of the Earls of Kildare
and Desmond; William, the younger, obtained an immense grant
of land in Kerry from the McCarthys, indeed as time went on
the lordship of the Desmond Fitzgeralds grew larger and
larger, until it covered nearly as much ground as many a
small European kingdom. Nor was this all. The White Knight,
the Knight of Glyn, and the Knight of Kerry were all three
Fitzgeralds, all descended from the same root, and all owned
large tracts of country. The position of the Geraldines of
Kildare was even more important, on account of their close
proximity to Dublin. In later times their great keep at
Maynooth dominated the whole Pale, while their followers
swarmed everywhere, each man with a 'G' embroidered upon his
breast in token of his allegiance. By the beginning of the
16th century their power had reached to, perhaps, the highest
point ever attained in these islands by any subject. Whoever
might be called the Viceroy in Ireland it was the Earl of
Kildare who practically governed the country."
Hon. E. Lawless,
The Story of Ireland,
chapter 14.
See, also,
IRELAND: A. D. 1515;
and for some account of the subsequent rebellion and fall
of the Geraldines, see
IRELAND: A. D. 1535-1553.
GERALDINES, League of the.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603.
GERBA, OR JERBA, The disaster at. (1560).
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1543-1560.
GEREFA.
"The most general name for the fiscal, administrative and
executive officer among the Anglosaxons was Gerefa, or as it
is written, in very early documents geroefa: but the peculiar
functions of the individuals comprehended under it were
further defined by a prefix compounded with it, as scirgerefa,
the reeve of the shire or sheriff: tungerefa, the reeve of the
farm or bailiff. The exact meaning and etymology of this name
have hitherto eluded the researches of our best scholars."
J. M. Kemble,
The Saxons in England,
book 2, chapter 5 (volume 2).
See, also, SHIRE; and EALDORMAN.
GERGESENES, The.
One of the tribes of the Canaanites, whose territory is
believed by Lenormant to have "included all Decapolis and even
Galilee," and whose capital he places at Gerasa, now Djerash,
in Perea.
F. Lenormant and E. Chevallier,
Manual of Ancient History,
book 6, chapter 1 (volume 2).
GERGITHIAN SIBYL.
See CUMÆ.
GERGITHIANS, The.
See TROJA;
and, ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES.
GERGOVIA OF THE ARVERNI.
"The site of Gergovia of the Arverni is supposed to be a hill
on the bank of the Allier, two miles from the modern Clermont
in Auvergne. The Romans seem to have neglected Gergovia, and
to have founded the neighbouring city, to which they gave the
name Augustonemetum. The Roman city became known afterwards as
Civitas Arvernorum, in the middle ages Arverna, and then, from
the situation of its castle, clarus mons, Clermont."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 12 (volume 2, page 20, foot-note).
For an account of Cæsar's reverse at Gergovia of the Arverni,
See GAUL: B. C. 58-51.
GERGOVIA OF THE BOIANS.
See BOIANS.
GERIZIM.
"The sacred centre of the Samaritans is Gerizim, the 'Mount of
Blessings.' On. its summit a sacred rock marks the site where,
according to their tradition, Joshua placed the Tabernacle and
afterwards built a temple, restored later by Sanballat on the
return of the Israelites from captivity. On the slope of the
mountain the Feast of the Passover is still celebrated in
accordance with the injunctions of the Law."
C. R. Conder,
Syrian Stone Lore,
chapter 4.
GERMAN, High and Low.
The distinction, made between High German and Low German is
that resulting from differences of language, etc., between the
Germanic peoples which dwelt anciently in the low, flat
countries along the German Ocean and the Baltic, and those
which occupied the higher regions of the upper Rhine, Elbe and
Danube.
GERMAN EAST AFRICAN AND WEST AFRICAN ASSOCIATIONS.
See AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1889.
GERMAN EMPIRE, The Constitution of the new.
See CONSTITUTION OF GERMANY.
----------------------------------
A Logical Outline of German History
Ethnological
Social and political.
Intellectual, moral and religious.
Foreign.
IN WHICH THE DOMINANT CONDITIONS AND
INFLUENCES ARE DISTINGUISHED BY COLORS.
3d-5th Centurles. The Wanderinag of the nations.
Germany was slow in finding the definite place in geography
and history that belongs to it at the present day. It was no
more at first than a name, applied with large vagueness to the
country beyond the Rhine and the Danube, where many restless
tribes, of kindred language and character, were unstably
distributed. In time, the tribes crowded one another into wide
wandering movements, were pushed and pressed together into
confederacies and nations, and went swarming over the Danube
and the Rhine into Roman provinces, to take possession of them
and to be the new masters of the European world; but it was
the Germans, not Germany, who began then to be historic.
5th-9th Centuries--Empire of the Franks.
As a fact in history, Germany emerged first with the Franks,
out of the dust-clouds of the wandering time and the darker
clouds of the Gallic conquest. Fast seated on the great
dividing river, the Rhine, the Franks reached backward into
the land which gave them birth, and forward into the land
which took their name, and gathered a broad empire out of
both. But always the two parts of it refused to be held
together. Neither by Clovis, the first conqueror, nor by
Charlemagne, after three hundred years, were the Kingdom of
the East Franks and the Kingdom of the West Franks bound fast
into one. Under Charlemagne's successors, the Kingdom of the
East Franks began to be Germany, in the growing of the fact as
well as the name.
A. D. 962.--The Holy Roman Empire.
But no sooner had a Kingdom of Germany been created than it
was strangely deprived of the distinctness needful to the
making of a nation. The adventurous Otho, its second Saxon
king, who reclaimed Italy and revived the imperial sovereignty
of Charlemagne, diminished the weight and dignity of his
Germanic realm as much as he advanced himself and his
successors in title and rank. By that elevation of its kings
to a pseudo-Roman throne, Germany lost its own proper place in
history, and was obscured by the shadow of an empire which
soon existed as a shadow only. Its elective kings, forsaking
the title of Kings of Germany, and calling themselves Kings of
the Romans, even while they waited for an imperial coronation
at the hands of the Pope, made the nationalizing of Germany,
as France was being nationalized, by its monarchy, impossible.
10th-18th Centuries.--Contests In Italy.
For three centuries, the ambitions and the interests of the
imperialized monarchy were ultramontane. Its Teutonic seat was
a mere resting-place between Italian expeditions. Its quarrels
with the Popes cast all questions of German politics into the
background. It took no root in German feeling, rallied no
national sentiment, gathered no increase of authority, sent
out from itself no centralizing influences, judicial or
administrative, to resist the dissolving forces of feudalism.
And nowhere else in Europe was the action of those forces so
destructive of political unity. That great Fatherland of the
German peoples, where the slow solidification of a nation
should have been going on as surely as in France, was crumbled
by them into petty principalities, which time only hardened in
their separateness.
A. D. 1273-1440--Rise of the House of Hapsburg.
When, at last, the crown came to be settled in one fast-rooted
and enduring House, it was not fortunately placed. Territorially
the Hapsburgs were planted on the verge of the Teutonic land,
where they fronted the Hungarians and the Svavs and were
threatened by the approaching Turks. Speaking figuratively,
they stood with their backs to Germany, facing their greater
dangers and their greater opportunities, east and south.
Their personal dominions were acquired for the most part
outside of the Teutonic line. Their immediate subjects were of
many alien races, with a few of Greman blood. Their kingship
of Hungary was more substantial in its political weight than
any Germanic sovereignty that they held. From the beginning of
its remarkable dynastic career, the House of Austria was in
all respects quite at one side of the great people whose crown
had unhappily passed to its keeping. The emperor-kings, throned
with less reality at Vienna than at Presburg and Prague, lost
more and more their German character, receded more and more
from the range of German influence. Thus Germany was robbed
again of the centralizing constraints which a vigorous, rising
monarchy of the true stamp, not falsified by a fictitious
imperialization, would have brought to bear upon it, for the
unifying of a great nation.
A. D. 1477-1496.--Burgundian and Spanish marriages.
The marriagcs which linked the Austrian House with the
sovereign families of Burgundy and Spain only drew it still
farther away, and made it more alien than before to the people
of the German North. The imperial government was brought then
under influences from Spain which opposed every tendency of
their feeling and thought. While the strong Teutonic mind
worked its slow way towards personal freedom,--towards
fearless inquiry and independent belief,--a contrary movement
went on in the Austrian court. Between Germany at large and
the circle in which Vienna stood really a center and a
capital, a widening inteliectual breach began when the
Hapsburg brain was narrowed by the astringent blood of
Castile. This appeared, not alone in the rupture of the
religious Reformation, but in all the advances that were made,
from the sixteenth century down, in science, philosophy,
literature and art.
Some advance was always made; but the modern impulses which
woke early in the German race were wastefully spent, during
many generations, for want of any national concentration. No
large channel opened to them; no worthy spirit directed them.
The pettiness of petty politics and courts belittled in most
ways, for a lamentable time, the workings of German energy and
genius.
A. D. 1618.--Brandenburg—Prussia.
The Thirty Years War made chaos in Germany complete. No
semblance of substance in the empire remained. The Kaiser had
become a sovereign less honored than the King of France,
and Vienna a capital less considered than Paris. But the
first nucleus of nationality took form in that chaos, when
Brandenburg drew Prussia to itself, in the union which
produced a new kingdom at the North. The rise of Prussia was
the rise of German nationality. It brought to bear on the
German people the first centralizing influence that had acted
upon them since their kings took the crown of Rome. For the
first time in their history they felt the pull of a force
which drew them towards common lines of action.
A. D. 1740-1786.--Frederick the Great.
A. D. 1800-1813.--Struggle with Napoleon.
The aggrandizement of Prussia by Frederick the Great, though
iniquitous when considered in itself, was splendid work for
Germany. It prepared, for the perils of the next generation, a
power which Napoleon could humble at the moment, but which he
could not crush. It gave footing for the great heroic rally of
the Germanic people, whereby they conquered their place in the
world and secured their future.
A. D. 1866.--The Seven Weeks War
A. D. 1870-1871.--The Franco-German War.
A. D. 1871.--The Empire.
In all that has come to pass since Leipsic and Waterloo, the
logical sequence is plainer than history is wont to show it.
From men of the first decade in this century, who put the
school and the camp side by side in Prussian training, there
came more than from Bismarck or Moltke of the power which
triumphed at Sadowa and Sedan, which has constructed a new and
true Empire of Germany, with its capital at Berlin, and which
has dismissed Austria from German reckonings as mistress or as
rival, but to make of her an ally and a friend.
Within the last third of the nineteenth century, the Germans
may be said to have opened a great national career, such as
the English, their kinsmen, had entered upon nearly two
hundred years before. The energies of their powerful race have
been centered at last, and are acting with new potency, in
commerce and colonization, abroad, and in all modes of human
advancement, at home.
----------End: A Logical Outline of German History ------
{1429}
GERMAN FLATS: A. D.1765.
Treaty with the Indians.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.
GERMAN FLATS: A. D. 1778.
Destruction by Brant.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1778 (JUNE-NOVEMBER).
GERMAN NATIONS, The wandering of.
See GOTHS; FRANKS; ALEMANNI; MARCOMANNI;
QUADI; GEPIDÆ; SAXONS; ANGLES; BURGUNDIANS;
VANDALS; SUEVI; LOMBARDS.
GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.
See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.
GERMANIA.
"On the origin of the name Germania see Waitz D. V. G. i. 24;
he rejects all German derivations and concludes that it is
originally Gallic, the name given (as Tacitus indicates) by
the Gauls first to the Tungri, and afterwards to all the
kindred tribes. The meaning may be either 'good shouters'
(Grimm), or, according to other writers, 'East-men,' or
'neighbours.'"
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
volume 1, page 17, note.
GERMANIANS, The.
See CARMANIANS.
GERMANIC CONFEDERATION,
The First.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1820.
The Second.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1870 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).
GERMANIC DIET, The.
See DIET, GERMANIC.
GERMANIC PEOPLES OF THE ALEMANNIC LEAGUE.
See ALEMANNI: A.-D. 213.
GERMANICUS, Campaigns of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 14-16.
GERMANTOWN, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1777 (JANUARY-DECEMBER).
GERMANY:
The national name.
"The nations of the Germania had no common name recognised by
themselves, and were content, when, ages after, they had
realised their unity of tongue and descent, to speak of their
language simply as the Lingua Theotisca, the language of the
people (theod). ... Whence the name 'Deutsch.' Zeuss derives
it rather from the root of 'deuten,' to explain, so that
'theotisc' should mean 'significant.' But the root of 'theod'
and 'deuten' is the same. ... The general name by which the
Romans knew them [Germani] was one which they had received
from their Gallic neighbours."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
volume 1, chapter 3, and foot-note.
"In Gothic we have 'thiuda,' people; 'thiudisks,' belonging to
the people. ... The High-German, which looks upon Sanskrit 't'
and Gothic 'th' as 'd,' possesses the same word, as 'diot,'
people; 'diutisc,' popularis; hence Deutsch, German, and
'deuten,' to explain, literally to Germanize."
F. Max Müller,
Lectures on the Science of Language,
2d series, lecture. 5.
The account which Tacitus gives of the origin of the name
Germany is this: "The name Germany ... they [the Germans] say,
is modern and newly introduced, from the fact that the tribes
which first crossed the Rhine and drove out the Gauls, and are
now called Tungrians, were then called Germans. Thus what was
the name of a tribe, and not of a race, gradually prevailed,
till all called themselves by this self-invented name of
Germans, which the conquerors had first employed to inspire
terror."
Tacitus,
Germany;
translated by Church and Brodribb, chapter 2.
"It is only at the mouth of the Elbe that the Germany of the
really historical period begins: and this is a Germany only in
the eyes of scholars, antiquarians, and generalizing
ethnologists. Not one of the populations to whom the name is
here extended would have attached any meaning to the word,
except so far as they had been instructed by men who had
studied certain Latin writers. There was no name which was, at
one and the same time, native and general. There were native
names, but they were limited to special populations. There was
a general name, but it was one which was applied by strangers
and enemies. What this name was for the northern districts, we
know beforehand. It was that of Saxones and Saxonia in Latin;
of Sachsen and Sachsenland in the ordinary German. Evidence,
however, that any German population ever so named itself is
wholly wanting, though it is not impossible that some
unimportant tribe may have done so: the only one so called
being the Saxons of Ptolemy, who places them, along with
several others, in the small district between the Elbe and the
Eyder, and on three of the islands off the coast. ... The
Franks gave it its currency and generality; for, in the eyes
of a Frank, Saxony and Friesland contained all those parts of
Germany which, partly from their difference of dialect, partly
from their rudeness, partly from their paganism, and partly
from the obstinacy of their resistance, stood in contrast to
the Empire of Charlemagne and his successors. A Saxon was an
enemy whom the Franks had to coerce, a heathen whom they had
to convert. What more the term meant is uncertain."
R. G. Latham,
Introduction to Kemble's "Horæ Ferales."
See, also, TEUTONES.
GERMANY: As known to Tacitus.
"Germany is separated from the Galli, the Rhæti, and Pannonii,
by the rivers Rhine and Danube; mountain ranges, or the fear
which each feels for the other, divide it from the Sarmatæ and
Daci. Elsewhere ocean girds it, embracing broad peninsulas and
islands of unexplored extent, where certain tribes and
kingdoms are newly known to us, revealed by war. The Rhine
springs from a precipitous and inaccessible height of the
Rhætian Alps, bends slightly westward, and mingles with the
Northern Ocean. The Danube pours down from the gradual and
gently rising slope of Mount Abnoba, and visits many nations,
to force its way at last through six channels into the Pontus;
a seventh mouth is lost in marshes. The Germans themselves I
should regard as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other
races through immigration or intercourse. For, in former
times, it was not by land but on shipboard that those who
sought to emigrate would arrive; and the boundless and, so to
speak, hostile ocean beyond us, is seldom entered by a sail
from our world. And, besides the perils of rough and unknown
seas, who would leave Asia, or Africa, or Italy for Germany,
with its wild country, its inclement skies, its sullen manners
and aspect, unless indeed it were his home?
{1430}
In their ancient songs, their only way of remembering or
recording the past, they celebrate an earth-born god, Tuisco,
and his son Mannus, as the origin of their race, as their
founders. To Mannus they assign three sons, from whose names,
they say, the coast tribes are called Ingævones; those of the
interior, Herminones; all the rest, Istævones. Some, with the
freedom of conjecture permitted by antiquity, assert that the
god had several descendants, and the nation several
appellations, as Marsi, Gambrivii, Suevi, Vandilii, and that
these are genuine old names. The name Germany, on the other
hand, they say, is modern and newly introduced."
Tacitus,
Germany:
translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb,
chapters 1-2.
GERMANY: B. C. 12-9.
Campaigns of Drusus.
The first serious advance of the Roman arms beyond the Rhine
was made in the reign of Augustus, by the emperor's step-son,
Drusus. Cæsar had crossed the river, only to chastise and
terrify the tribes on the right bank which threatened Gaul.
Agrippa, some years later, repeated the operation, and
withdrew, as Cæsar had done. But Drusus invaded Germany with
intentions of conquest and occupation. His first campaign was
undertaken in the spring of the year 12 B. C. He crossed the
Rhine and drove the Usipetes into their strongholds; after
which he embarked his legions on transport ships and moved
them down the river to the ocean, thence to coast northwards
to the mouth of the Ems, and so penetrate to the heart of the
enemy's country. To facilitate this bold movement, he had
caused a channel to be cut from the Rhine, at modern Arnheim,
to the Zuyder Zee, utilizing the river Yssel. The expedition
was not successful and retreated overland from the Frisian
coast after considerable disaster and loss. The next year,
Drusus returned to the attack, marching directly into the
German country and advancing to the banks of the Weser, but
retreating, again, with little to show of substantial results.
He established a fortified outpost, however, on the Lippe, and
named it Aliso. During the same summer, he is said to have
fixed another post in the country of the Chatti. Two years
then passed before Drusus was again permitted by the emperor
to cross the Rhine. On his third campaign he passed the Weser
and penetrated the Hercynian forest as far as the Elbe,--the
Germans declining everywhere to give him battle. Erecting a
trophy on the bank of the Elbe, he retraced his steps, but
suffered a fall from his horse, on the homeward march, which
caused his death. "If the Germans were neither reduced to
subjection, nor even overthrown in any decisive engagement, as
the Romans vainly pretended, yet their spirit of aggression
was finally checked and from thenceforth, for many
generations, they were fully occupied with the task of
defending themselves."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 36.
GERMANY: B. C. 8-A. D. 11.
Campaigns of Tiberius.
The work of Roman conquest in Germany, left unfinished by
Drusus, was taken up by his brother Tiberius (afterwards
emperor) under the direction of Augustus. Tiberius crossed the
Rhine, for the first time, B. C. 8. The frontier tribes made
no resistance, but offered submission at once. Tiberius sent
their chiefs to Augustus, then holding his court at Lugdunum
(Lyons), to make terms with the emperor in person, and
Augustus basely treated them as captives and threw them into
prison. The following year found the German tribes again under
arms, and Tiberius again crossed the Rhine; but it was only to
ravage the country, and not to remain. Then followed a period
of ten years, during which the emperor's step-son,
dissatisfied with his position and on ill terms with Augustus,
retired to Rhodes. In the summer of A. D. 4, he returned to
the command of the legions on the Rhine. Meantime, under other
generals,--Domitius and Vinicius,--they had made several
campaigns beyond the river; had momentarily crossed the Elbe;
had constructed a road to the outposts on the Weser; had
fought the Cherusci, with doubtful results, but had not
settled the Roman power in Germany. Tiberius invaded the
country once more, with a powerful force, and seems to have
crushed all resistance in the region between the lower Rhine
and the Weser. The following spring, he repeated, with more
success, the movement of Drusus by land and sea, sending a
flotilla around to the Elbe and up that stream, to a point
where it met and co-operated with a column moved overland,
through the wilderness. A single battle was fought and the
Germans defeated; but, once more, when winter approached, the
Romans retired and no permanent conquest was made. Two years
later (A. D. 6), Tiberius turned his arms against the powerful
nation of the Marcomanni, which had removed itself from the
German mark, or border, into the country formerly occupied, by
the Boii--modern Bohemia. Here, under their able chief Marbod,
or Maroboduus, they developed a formidable military
organization and became threatening to the Roman frontiers on
the Upper Danube. Two converging expeditions, from the Danube
and from the Rhine, were at the point of crushing the
Marcomanni between them, when news of the alarming revolt, in
Pannonia and Dalmatia, called the "Batonian War," caused the
making of a hasty peace with Maroboduus. The Batonian or
Pannonian war occupied Tiberius for nearly three years. He had
just brought it to a close, when intelligence reached Rome of
a disaster in Germany which filled the empire with horror and
dismay. The tribes in northwestern Germany, between the lower
Rhine and the Elbe, supposed to be cowed and submissive, had
now found a leader who could unite them and excite them to
disdain the Roman yoke. This leader was Arminius, or Hermann,
a young chief of the Cherusci, who had been trained in the
Roman military service and admitted to Roman citizenship, but
who hated the oppressors of his country with implacable
bitterness. The scheme of insurrection organized by Arminius
was made easy of execution by the insolent carelessness and
the incapacity of the Roman commander in Germany, L.
Quintilius Varus. It succeeded so well that Varus and his
army,--three entire legions, horse, foot and
auxiliaries,--probably 20,000 men in all,--were overwhelmed in
the Teutoburger Wald, north of the Lippe, and destroyed. Only
a few skulking fugitives reached the Rhine and escaped to tell
the fate of the rest. This was late in the summer of A. D. 9.
In the following spring Tiberius was sent again to the Rhine
frontier, with as powerful a levy of men and equipments as the
empire could collect. He was accompanied by his nephew,
Germanicus, son of Drusus, destined to be his successor in the
field of German conquest.
{1431}
But dread and fear were in the Roman heart, and the campaign
of Tiberius, delayed another twelve months, until A. D. 11,
was conducted too cautiously to accomplish any important
result. He traversed and ravaged a considerable region of the
German country, but withdrew again across the Rhine and left
it, apparently, unoccupied. This was his last campaign.
Returning to Rome, he waited only two years longer for the
imperial sovereignty to which he succeeded on the death of
Augustus, who had made him, by adoption, his son and his heir.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapters 36-38.
ALSO IN:
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 1.
Sir E. Creasy,
Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,
chapter 5.
T. Smith,
Arminius, part 1,
chapters 4-6.
GERMANY: A. D. 14-16.
Campaigns of Germanicus.
Germanicus--the son of Drusus--was given the command on the
Rhine at the beginning of the year 13 A. D. The following
year, Augustus died and Tiberius became emperor; whereupon
Germanicus found himself no longer restrained from crossing
the river and assuming the offensive against Arminius and his
tribes. His first movement, that autumn, was up the valley of
the Lippe, which he laid waste, far and wide. The next spring,
he led one column, from Mentz, against the Chatti, as far as
the upper branches of the Weser, while he sent another farther
north to chastise the Cherusci and the Marsi, surprising and
massacring the latter at their feast of Tanfana. Later in the
same year, he penetrated, by a double expedition,--moving by
sea and by land, as his father had done before,--to the
country between the Ems and the Lippe, and laid waste the
territory of the Bructeri, and their neighbors. He also
visited the spot where the army of Varus had perished, and
erected a monument to the dead. On the return from this
expedition, four legions, under Cæcina, were beset in the same
manner that Varus had been, and under like difficulties; but
their commander was of different stuff and brought them safely
through, after punishing his pursuers severely. But the army
had been given up as lost, and only the resolute opposition of
Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, had prevented the Roman
commander at Vetera, on the Rhine, from destroying the bridge
there, and abandoning the legions to their supposed fate. In
the spring of A. D. 16, Germanicus again embarked his army,
80,000 strong, at the mouth of the Rhine, on board transports,
and moved it to the mouth of the Ems, where the fleet
remained. Thence he marched up the Ems and across to the
Weser, and was encountered, in the country of the Cherusci, by
a general levy of the German tribes, led by Arminius and
Inguiomerus. Two great battles were fought, in which the
Romans were victorious. But, when returning from this
campaign, the fleet encountered a storm in which so much of it
perished, with the troops on board, that the disaster threw a
heavy cloud of gloom over the triumph of Germanicus. The young
general was soon afterwards recalled, and three years later he
died,--of poison, as is supposed,--at Antioch. "The central
government ceased from this time to take any warm interest in
the subjugation of the Germans; and the dissensions of their
states and princes, which peace was not slow in developing,
attracted no Roman emissaries to the barbarian camps, and
rarely led the legions beyond the frontier, which was now
allowed to recede finally to the Rhine."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 42.
ALSO IN:
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 1.
T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 1, chapter 7.
GERMANY: 3d Century.
Beginning of the "Wandering of the Nations."
"Towards the middle of the third century, ... a change becomes
perceptible in the relations and attitude of the German
peoples. Many of the nations, which have been celebrated in
the annals of the classical writers, disappear silently from
history; new races, new combinations and confederacies start
into life, and the names which have achieved an imperishable
notoriety from their connection with the long decay and the
overthrow of the Roman Empire, come forward, and still
survive. On the soil whereon the Sigambri, Marsi, Chauci, and
Cherusci had struggled to preserve a rude independence, Franks
and Saxons lived free and formidable; Alemanni were gathered
along the foot of the Roman wall which connected the Danube
with the Rhine, and had, hitherto, preserved inviolate the
Agri decumates; while eastern Germany, allured by the hope of
spoil, or impelled by external pressure, precipitated itself
under the collective term of Goths upon the shrinking
settlements of the Dacia and the Danube. The new appellations
which appear in western Germany in the third century have not
unnaturally given rise to the presumption that unknown peoples
had penetrated through the land, and overpowered the ancient
tribes, and national vanity has contributed to the delusion.
As the Burgundians ... were flattered by being told they were
descendants of Roman colonists, so the barbarian writers of a
later period busied their imaginations in the solitude of
monastic life to enhance the glory of their countrymen, by the
invention of what their inkling of classical knowledge led
them to imagine a more illustrious origin. ... Fictions like
these may be referred to as an index of the time when the
young barbarian spirit, eager after fame, and incapable of
balancing probabilities, first gloated over the marvels of
classical literature, though its refined and delicate beauties
eluded their grosser taste; but they require no critical
examination; there are no grounds for believing that Franks,
Saxons, or Alemanni, were other than the original inhabitants
of the country, though there is a natural difficulty arising
from the want of written contemporary evidence in tracing the
transition, and determining the tribes of which the new
confederacies were formed. At the same time, though no
immigration of strangers was possible, a movement of a
particular tribe was not unfrequent. The constant internal
dissensions of the Germans, combined with their spirit of
warlike enterprise, led to frequent domestic wars; and the
vanquished sometimes chose rather to seek an asylum far from
their native soil, where they might live in freedom, than
continue as bondmen or tributaries to the conqueror. Of such a
nature were the wanderings of the Usipites and Teuchteri
[Tenchteri] in Cæsar's time, the removal of the Ubii from
Nassau to the neighbourhood of Cöln and Xanthen; and to this
must be ascribed the appearance of the Burgundians, who had
dwelt beyond the Oder, in the vicinity of the Main and the
Necker. Another class of national emigrations, were those
which implied a final abandonment of the native Germany with
the object of seeking a new settlement among the possessions
of the sinking empire.
{1432}
Those of the Goths, Vandals, Alans, Sueves, the second
movement of the Burgundians, may be included in this category;
the invasions of the Franks, Alemanni, and Saxons, on the
contrary, cannot be called national emigrations, for they
never abandoned, with their families, their original
birthplace; their outwanderings, like the emigrations of the
present day, were partial; their occupation of the enemy's
territory was, in character, military and progressive; and,
with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain,
their connection with the original stock was never
interrupted. In all the migrations of German peoples spoken of
from Cæsar downwards, the numbers of the emigrants appear to
be enormously exaggerated. The Usipites and Teuchteri are
estimated by Cæsar at 430,000 souls. How could such a
multitude find nourishment during a three years' wandering? If
80,000 Burgundian Wehrmen came to the Rhine to the assistance
of Valentinian, as Cassiodorius, Jerome, and other chroniclers
state, the numbers of the whole nation must have approached
400,000, and it is impossible to believe that such a mass
could obtain support in the narrow district lying between the
Alemanni, the Hermunduri, and the Chatti. In other cases,
vague expressions, and still more the wonderful achievements
of the Germans in the course of their emigrations, have led to
the supposition of enormous numbers; but Germany could not
find nourishment for the multitudes which have been ascribed
to it. Corn at that period was little cultivated; it was not
the food of the people, whose chief support was flesh. ... The
conquests of the barbarians may be ascribed as much to the
weakness of their adversaries, to their want of energy and
union, as to their own strength. There was, in fact, no enemy
to meet them in the field; and their domination was, at least,
as acceptable to the provincial inhabitants as that of the
imbecile, but rapacious ministers of the Roman government. ...
It was not the lust of wandering, but the influence of
external circumstances which brought them to the vicinity of
the Danube: at first the aggressions of the Romans, then the
pressure of the Huns and the Sclavonic tribes. The whole
intercourse of Germany with Rome must be considered as one
long war, which began with the invasion of Cæsar; which, long
restrained by the superior power of the enemy, warmed with his
growing weakness, and only ended with the extinction of the
Roman name. The wars of the third, fourth, and fifth
centuries, were only a continuance of the ancient hostility.
There might be partial truce, or occasional intermission; some
tribes might be almost extirpated by the sword; some, for a
time, bought off by money; but Rome was the universal enemy,
and much of the internal restlessness of the Germans was no
more than the natural movement towards the hostile borders. As
the invasion of northern Germany gave rise to the first great
northern union, so the conquest of Dacia brought Goths from
the Vistula to the south, while the erection of the giant wall
naturally gathered the Suevic tribes along its limits, only
waiting for the opportunity to break through. Step by step
this battle of centuries was fought; from the time of
Caracalla the flood turned, wave followed wave like the
encroaching tide, and the ancient landmarks receded bit by
bit, till Rome itself was buried beneath the waters. ... Three
great confederacies of German tribes, more or less united by
birth, position, interest, or language, may be discerned,
during this period, in immediate contact with the Romans---the
Alemanni, the Goths, and the Franks. A fourth, the Saxons, was
chiefly known from its maritime voyages off the coast of Gaul
and Britain. There were also many independent peoples which
cannot be enumerated among any of the political confederacies,
but which acted for themselves, and pursued their individual
ends: such were the Burgundians, the Alans, the Vandals, and
the Lombards."
T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 2, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
R. G. Latham,
Nationalities of Europe,
volume 2, chapter 21.
See, also,
ALEMANNI; MARCOMANNI; QUADI; GOTHS;
GEPIDÆ; SAXONS; ANGLES, FRANKS;
BURGUNDIANS; VANDALS; SUEVI; LOMBARDS;
and, also, Appendix A, volume 1.
GERMANY: A. D. 277.
Invasion by Probus.
The vigorous emperor Probus, who, in the year 277, drove from
Gaul the swarms of invaders that had ravaged the unhappy
province with impunity for two years past, then crossed the
Rhine and harried the country of the marauders, as far as the
Elbe and the Neckar. "Germany, exhausted by the ill success of
the last emigration, was astonished by his presence. Nine of
the most considerable princes repaired to his camp and fell
prostrate at his feet. Such a treaty was humbly received by
the Germans as it pleased the conqueror to dictate." Probus
then caused a stone wall, strengthened at intervals with
towers, to be built from the Danube, near Neustadt and
Ratisbon, to Wimpfen on the Neckar, and thence to the Rhine,
for the protection of the settlers of the "Agri Decumates."
But the wall was thrown down, a few years afterwards, by the
Alemanni.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 12.
GERMANY: 5th Century.
Conversion of the Franks.
See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800.
GERMANY: A. D. 481-768.
Acquisition of supremacy by the Franks.
The original dominions of Clovis, or Chlodwig--with whose
reign the career of the Franks as a consolidated people
began--corresponded nearly to the modern kingdom of Belgium.
His first conquests were from the Romans, in the neighboring
parts of Gaul, and when those were finished, "the king of the
Franks began to look round upon the other German nations
settled upon its soil, with a view to the further extension of
his power. A quarrel with the Alemanni supplied the first
opportunity for the gratification of his ambition. For more
than a century the Alemanni had been in undisturbed possession
of Alsace, and the adjoining districts; Mainz, Worms, Speyer,
Strasburg, Basel, Constanz, Bregenz, lay within their
territory. ... The Vosegen range was a bulwark on the side of
Gaul, waste lands separated them from the Burgundians, who
were settled about the Jura and in the south-west part of
Helvetia, and the Moselle divided them from the Ripuarian
Franks. It is unknown whether they formed a state distinct
from their brethren on the right of the Rhine; probably such
was the case, for the Alemanni, at all times, were divided
into separate tribes, between which, however, was generally a
common union; nor is it certain whether the Alsatian Alemanni
were under one or several Adelings; a single king is mentioned
as having fallen in the battle with Chlodwig, who may have
been merely an elected military leader.
{1433 and 1434 moved forward for continuity}
{1435}
Equally obscure is the cause of their war with Chlodwig,
though it has been assumed, perhaps too hastily, by all recent
historians, that the Frank king became involved in it as an
ally of the Ripuarians. The Ripuarian Franks were settled, as
the name imports, upon the banks of the Rhine, from the
Moselle downwards; their chief seat was the city of Cologne.
It is probable that they consisted of the remains of the
ancient Ubii, strengthened by the adventurers who crossed over
on the first invasion, and the name implies that they were
regarded by the Romans as a kind of limitanean soldiery. For,
in the common parlance of the Romans of that period, the tract
of land lying along the Rhine was called Ripa, in an absolute
sense, and even the river itself was not unfrequently
denominated by the same title. Ripuarii are Ripa-wehren,
Hreop, or Hrepa-wehren, defenders of the shore. About the
close of the fifth century these Ripuarii were under the
government of a king, named Sigebert, usually called 'the
lance.' The story told by modern writers is, that this
Sigebert, having fallen into dispute with the Alemanni, called
upon Chlodwig for assistance, a call which the young king
willingly listened to. The Alemanni had invaded the Ripuarian
territory, and advanced within a short distance of Cologne,
when Chlodwig and his Franks joined the Ripuarii; a battle
took place at Zülpich, about twenty-two English miles from
Cologne, which, after a fierce struggle, ended in the defeat
of the Alemanni. ... Chlodwig was following up his victory
over the Alemanni, perhaps with unnecessary ferocity, when he
was stopped in his course by a flattering embassy from the
great Theodorich. Many of the Alemanni had submitted, after
the death of their chief, on the field of battle. 'Spare us,'
they cried, 'for we are now thy people!' but there were many
who, abhorring the Frank yoke, fled towards the south, and
threw themselves under the protection of the Ostrogothic king,
who had possessed himself of the ancient Rhætia and
Vindelicia."
T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 2, chapter 4.
The sons of Clovis pushed their conquests on the Germanic as
well as on the Gallic side of the Rhine. Theodoric, or
Theuderik, who reigned at Metz, with the aid of his brother
Clotaire, or Chlother, of Soissons, subjugated the
Thuringians, between A. D. 515 and 528. "How he [Theuderik]
acquired authority over the Alemans and the Bavarians is not
known. Perhaps in the subjugation of Thuringia he had taken
occasion to extend his sway over other nations; but from this
time forth we find not only these, but the Saxons more to the
north, regarded as the associates or tributaries of the
Eastern or Ripuarian Franks. From the Elbe to the Meuse, and
from the Northern Ocean to the sources of the Rhine, a region
comprising a great part of ancient Germany, the ascendency of
the Franks was practically acknowledged, and a kingdom was
formed [Austrasia--Oster-rike--the Eastern Kingdom] which was
destined to overshadow all the other Mérovingian states; The
various tribes which composed its Germanic accretions, remote
and exempt from the influences of the Roman civilization,
retained their fierce customs and their rude superstitions,
and continued to be governed by their hereditary dukes; but
their wild masses marched under the standards of the Franks,
and conceded to those formidable conquerors a certain degree
of political supremacy." When, in 558, Clotaire, by the death
of his brothers, became the sole king of the Franks, his
empire embraced all Roman Gaul, except Septimania, still held
by the Visigoths, and Brittany, but slightly subjected; "while
in ancient Germany, from the Rhine to the Weser, the powerful
duchies of the Alemans, the Thuringians, the Bavarians, the
Frisons, and the Saxons, were regarded not entirely as
subject, and yet as tributary provinces." During the next
century and a half, the feebleness of the Merovingians lost
their hold upon these German tributaries. "As early as the
time of Chlother II. the Langobards had recovered their
freedom; under Dagobert [622-638], the Saxons; under Sighebert
II. [638-656], the Thuringians; and now, during the late
broils [670-687], the Alemans, the Bavarians and the Frisons."
But the vigorous Mayors of the Palace, Pepin Heristal and Karl
Martel, applied themselves resolutely to the restoration of
the Frank supremacy, in Germany as well as in Aquitaine. Pepin
"found the task nearly impossible. Time and again he assailed the
Frisons, the Saxons, the Bavarians, and the Alemans, but could
bind them to no truce nor peace for any length of time. No
less than ten times the Frisons resumed their arms, while the
revolts of the others were so incessant that he was compelled
to abandon all hope of recovering the southern or Roman part
of Gaul, in order to direct his attention exclusively to the
Germans. The aid which he received from the Christian
missionaries rendered him more successful among them. Those
intrepid propagandists pierced where his armies could not. ...
The Franks and the Popes of Rome had a common interest in this
work of the conversion of the Germans, the Franks to restrain
irruptions, and the Popes to carry their spiritual sway over
Europe." Pepin left these unfinished German wars to his son
Karl, the Hammer, and Karl prosecuted them with characteristic
energy during his first years of power. "Almost every month he
was forced into some expedition beyond the Rhine. ... The
Alemans, the Bavarians, and the Frisons, he succeeded in
subjecting to a formal confession at least of the Frankish
supremacy; but the turbulent and implacable Saxons baffled his
most strenuous efforts. Their wild tribes had become, within a
few years, a powerful and numerous nation; they had
appropriated the lands of the Thuringians and Hassi, or Catti,
and joined to themselves other confederations and tribes; and,
stretching from the Rhine to the Elbe, offered their marshes
and forests a free asylum to all the persecuted sectaries of
Odhinn, to all the lovers of native and savage independence.
Six times in succession the armies of Karl penetrated the
wilderness they called their home, ravaging their fields and
burning their cabins, but the Saxon war was still renewed. He
left it to the energetic labors of other conquerors, to
Christian missionaries, ... to break the way of civilization
into those rude and darkened realms." Karl's sons Pepin and
Karloman crushed revolts of the Alemans, or Suabians, and the
Bavarians in 742, and Karloman humbled the Saxons in a great
campaign (744), compelling them in large numbers to submit to
Christian baptism. After that, Germany waited for its first
entire master--Charlemagne.
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
chapters 12-15.
ALSO IN:
W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapters 2-6.
See, also,
FRANKS, and AUSTRASIA.
{1433 moved here for continuity}
FIFTH CENTURY.
CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.
* Uncertain date.
A. D. 402.
Defeat of Alaric by Stilicho.
Birth of Phocion* (d. 317).
404.
Removal of the capital of the Western Empire from Rome to
Ravenna.*
Banishment of the Patriarch, John Chrysostom, from
Constantinople; burning of the Church of Saint Sophia.
406.
Barbarian inroad of Radagaisus into Italy.
Breaking of the Rhine barrier by German tribes;
overwhelming invasion of Gaul by Vandals, Alans, Suevi, and
Burgundians.
407.
Usurpation of Constantine in Britain and Gaul.
408.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius, and accession of
Theodosius II.
Execution of Stilicho at Ravenna;
massacre of barbarian hostages in Italy;
blockade of Rome by Alaric.
409.
Invasion of Spain by the Vandals, Suevi, and Alans.
410.
Siege, capture and pillage of Rome by Alaric; his death.
Abandonment of Britain by the Empire.
The barbarian attack upon Gaul joined by the Franks.
412.
Gaul entered by the Visigoths
Cyril made Patriarch of Alexandria.
414.
Title of Augusta taken by Pulcheria at Constantinople.
415.
Visigothic conquest of Spain begun.
Persecution of Jews at Alexandria; death of Hypatia.
418.
Founding of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse in Aquitaine.
422.
War between Persia and the Eastern Empire
partition of Armenia.
423.
Death of Honorius, Emperor in the West;
usurpation of John the Notary.
425.
Accession of the Western Emperor, Valentinian III., under the
regency of Placidia; formal and legal separation of the
Eastern and Western Empires.
428.
Conquests of the Vandals in Spain.
Nestorius made Patriarch of Constantinople.
429.
Vandal conquests in Africa begun.
430.
Siege of Hippo Regius in Africa;
death of Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo.
431.
Third General Council of the Church, held at Ephesus.
433.
Beginning of the reign of Attila, king of the Huns. *
435.
Nestorius exiled to the Libyan desert.
439.
Carthage taken by the Vandals.
440.
Leo the Great elected Pope.
441.
Invasion of the Eastern Empire by Attila and the Huns.
443.
Conquest and settlement of Savoy by the Burgundians.
446.
Thermopylæ passed by the Huns;
humiliating purchase of peace with them by the Eastern
Emperor.
449.
Landing in Britain of the Jutes under Hengist and Horsa.*
Meeting of the so-called Robber Synod at Ephesus.
450.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Theodosius II., and accession of
Pulcheria.
451.
Great defeat of the Huns at Chalons;
retreat of Attila from Gaul.
Fourth General Council of the Church, held at Chalcedon.
452.
Invasion of Italy by Attila; origin of Venice.
453.
Death of Attila; dissolution of his empire.
Death of Pulcheria, Empress in the East.
455.
Murder of Valentinian III., Emperor in the West;
usurpation of Maximus.
Rome pillaged by the Vandals.
Birth of Theodoric the Great (d. 526).
456.
Supremacy of Ricimer, commander of the barbarian mercenaries,
in the Western Empire; Avitus deposed.
457.
Marjorian, first of the imperial puppets of Ricimer, raised to
the throne of the Western Empire.
Accession of Leo I., Emperor in the East.
461.
Marjorian deposed; Severus made Emperor in the West.
Death of Pope Leo the Great and election of Pope Hilarius.
467.
Anthemius made Emperor in the West.
472.
Siege and storming of Rome by Ricimer;
death of Anthemius, and of Ricimer;
Olybrius and Glycerius successive emperors.
473.
Ostrogothic invasion of Italy diverted to Gaul.
474.
Julius Nepos Emperor in the West;
accession of Zeno in the Eastern Empire.
475.
Romulus Augustulus made Emperor in the West.
476.
Romulus Augustulus dethroned by Odoacer:
extinction for more than three centuries of the Western line
of emperors.
477.
Beginning of Saxon conquests in Britain.
480.
Birth of Saint Benedict (d. 543).
481.
Founding of the Frank kingdom by Clovis.
486.
Overthrow of the kingdom of Syagrius, the last Roman
sovereignty in Gaul.
488.
Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, commissioned by the Eastern
Emperor to invade Italy.
489.
Defeat of Odoacer by Theodoric at Verona.
491.
Accession of Anastasius, Emperor in the East.
Capture of Anderida by the South Saxons.
492.
Election of Pope Gelasius I.
493.
Surrender of Odoacer at Ravenna;
his murder;
Theodoric king of Italy.
494. Landing of Cerdic and his band of Saxons in Britain. *
496.
Defeat of the Alemanni at Tolbiac by Clovis, king of the Franks;
baptism of Clovis.
{1434 moved here for continuity}
SIXTH CENTURY.
CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.
* Uncertain date.
A. D. 504.
Expulsion of the Alemanni from the Middle Rhine by the Franks.
505.
Peace between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
507.
Overthrow of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse by Clovis.
511.
Death of Clovis;
partition of the Frank kingdom among his sons.
Monophysite riot at Constantinople.
512.
Second Monophysite riot at Constantinople.
515.
Publication of the monastic rule of Saint Benedict.
518.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Anastasius, and accession of
Justin I.
519.
Cerdic and Cynric become kings of the West Saxons.
525.
Execution of Boethius and Symmachus by Theodoric, king of
Italy.
526.
Death of Theodoric and accession of Athalaric.
Great earthquake at Antioch.
War between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
527.
Accession of Justinian in the Eastern Empire.
528.
Conquest of Thuringia by the Franks.
529.
Defeat of the Persians, at Dara, by the Roman general
Belisarius.
Closing of the schools at Athens.
Publication of the Code of Justinian.
531.
Accession of Chosroes, or Nushirvan, to the throne of Persia.
532.
End of War between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
Nika sedition at Constantinople.
533.
Overthrow of the Vandal kingdom in Africa by Belisarius.
Publication of the Pandects of Justinian.
534.
Conquest of the Burgundians by the Franks.
535.
Recovery of Sicily from the Goths by Belisarius.
536.
Rome taken from the Goths by Belisarius for Justinian.
537.
Unsuccessful siege of Rome by the Goths.
539.
Destruction of Milan by the Goths.
Invasion of Italy by the Franks.
540.
Surrender of Ravenna to Belisarius;
his removal from command.
Invasion of Syria by Chosroes, king of Persia;
storming and sacking of Antioch.
Formal relinquishment of Gaul to the Franks by Justinian.
Vigilius made Pope.
541.
Gothic successes under Totila, in Italy.
End of the succession of. Roman Consuls.
Defense of the East by Belisarius.
542.
Great Plague in the Roman Empire.
543.
Surrender of Naples to Totila.
Death of Saint Benedict.
Invasion of Spain by the Franks.
544.
Belisarius again in command in Italy.
546.
Totila's siege, capture and pillage of Rome.
547.
The city of Rome totally deserted for six weeks.
Founding of the kingdom of Bernicia (afterward included in
Northumberland) in England.
Subjection of the Bavarians to the Franks.
548.
Death of the Eastern Empress, Theodora.
549.
Second siege and capture of Rome by Totila.
Beginning of the Lazic War.
552.
Totila defeated and killed by the imperial army under Narses.
553.
End of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy;
restoration of the imperial sovereignty.
Fifth General Council of the Church, at Constantinople.
Establishment of the Exarch at Ravenna, representing the
Emperor at Constantinople.
555.
Pelagius I. made Pope.
558.
Reunion of the Frank empire under Clothaire I.
560.
John III. made Pope.
563.
Founding of the monastery of Iona, in Scotland, by Saint Columba.
565.
Death of Belisarius and of the Eastern Emperor Justinian;
accession of Justin II.
566.
Conquest of the Gepidæ in Dacia by the Lombards and Avars.
567.
Division of the Frank dominion into the three kingdoms of
Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy.
568.
Invasion of Italy by the Lombards;
siege of Pavia.
570.
Birth of Mahomet. *
572.
Renewed war of the Eastern Empire with Persia.
573.
Murder of Alboin, king of the Lombards.
Subjugation of the Suevi by the Visigoths in Spain.
574.
Benedict I. made Pope.
578.
Accession of the Eastern Emperor Tiberius Constantinus.
Pelagius II. made Pope.
582.
Accession of Maurice, Emperor in the East.
588.
Kingdom of Northumberland, in England, founded by the union of
Bernicia and Deira under Æthelric.
589.
Abandonment of Arianism by the Goths in Spain.
590.
Gregory the Great elected Pope.
591.
Peace between Persia and the Eastern Empire.
597.
Mission of Saint Augustine to England.
Death of Saint Columba.
---------End of moved pages 1433 and 1434----------
{1436}
GERMANY: A. D. 687-800.
Rise of the Carolingians and the Empire of Charlemagne.
"Towards the close of the Merovingian period, ... the kingdom
of the Franks ... was divided into four great districts, or
kingdoms as they were called: Austrasia, or the eastern
kingdom, from the river Rhine to the Meuse, with Metz as its
principal city; Neustria, or the western kingdom, extending
from Austrasia to the ocean on the west, and to the Loire on
the south; Aquitaine, south of that river to the foot of the
Pyrenees; and Burgundy, from the Rhone to the Alps, including
Switzerland. These four kingdoms became, before the extinction
of the Merovingian race, consolidated into two,--viz., Austrasia
and Neustria, Eastern and Western Francia,--modern Germany
and modern France, roughly speaking,--of which the first was
to gain the pre-eminence, as it was the seat of the power of
that race of Charlemagne which seized upon the kingdoms of the
Merovingians. But in these kingdoms, while the family of
Clovis occupied them, the royal power became more and more
feeble as time went on, a condition which is illustrated by
the title given in history to these kings,--that of 'rois
fainéants.'... The most powerful officer of a Frankish king
was his steward, or, as he was called, the mayor of his
palace. ... In Austrasia the office had become hereditary in
the family of Pepin of Landen (a small village near Liège),
and under its guidance the degenerate children of Clovis in
that kingdom fought for the supremacy with those equally
degenerate in Neustria, at that time also under the real
control of another mayor of the palace, called Ebroin. The
result of this struggle, after much bloodshed and misery, was
reached in the year 687 at the battle of Testry, in which the
Austrasians completely defeated the Neustrians. ... The
Merovingian princes were still nominally kings, while all the
real power was in the hands of the descendants of Pepin of
Landen, mayors of the palace, and the policy of government was
as fully settled by them as if they had been kings de jure as
well as de facto. This family produced in its earlier days
some persons who have become among the most conspicuous
figures in history:--Pepin, the founder; Pepin le Gros, of
Héristal; Charles, his son, commonly called Martel, or the
Hammerer; Pepin le Bref, under whom the Carlovingian dynasty
was, by aid of the Pope, recognized as the lawful successor of
the Merovingians, even before the extinction of that race;
and, lastly, Charles, surnamed the Great, or Charlemagne, one
of the few men of the human race who, by common consent, have
occupied the foremost rank in history. ... The object of Pepin
of Héristal was two-fold,--to repress the disposition of the
turbulent nobles to encroach upon the royal authority, and to
bring again under the yoke of the Franks those tribes in
Germany who had revolted against the Frankish rule owing to
the weakness of the Merovingian government. He measurably
accomplished both objects. ... He seems to have had what
perhaps is the best test at all times of the claims of a man
to be a real statesman: some consciousness of the true nature
of his mission,--the establishment of order. ... His son and
successor, Charles Martel, was even more conspicuous for the
possession of this genius of statesmanship, but he exhibited
it in a somewhat different direction. He, too, strove to hold
the nobles in check, and to break the power of the Frisian and
the Saxon tribes; and he fought besides, fortunately for his
fame, one of the fifteen decisive battles in the history of
the world, that of Poitiers, in 732, by which the Saracens,
who had conquered Spain, and who had strong hopes of gaining
possession of the whole of Western Europe, were driven back
from Northern France, never to return. ... His son, Pepin le
Bref, is equally conspicuous with the rest in history, but in
a somewhat different way. He continued the never-ending wars
in Germany and in Gaul with the object of securing peace by
the sword, and with more or less success. But his career is
noteworthy principally because he completed the actual
deposition of the last of the Merovingian race, whose nominal
servants but real masters he and his predecessors, mayors of
the palace, had been, and because he sought and obtained the
sanction of the Church for this usurpation. ... The Pope's
position at this time was one of very great embarrassment.
Harassed by the Lombards, who were not only robbers, but who
were also Arians, and who admitted none of the Catholic clergy
to their councils,--with no succor from the Emperors at
Constantinople (whose subject he nominally was) against the
Lombards, and, indeed, in open revolt against them because as
bishop and patriarch of the West he had forbidden the
execution of the decree against the placing of images in the
churches,--for these and many such reasons he sorely needed
succor, and naturally in his necessity he turned to the
powerful King of the Franks. The coronation of Pepin le Bref,
first by St. Boniface, and then by the Pope himself, was the
first step in the fulfilment of the alliance on his part.
Pepin was soon called upon to do his share of the work. Twice
at the bidding of the Pope he descended from the Alps, and,
defeating the Lombards, was rewarded by him and the people of
Rome with the title of Patrician. ... On the death of Pepin,
the Lombards again took up arms and harassed the Church's
territory. Charlemagne, his successor, was called upon to come
to the rescue, and he swept the Lombard power in Italy out of
existence, annexing its territory to the Frankish kingdom, and
confirming the grant of the Exarchate and of the Pentapolis
which his father had made to the Popes. This was in the year
774. ... For twenty-five years Charlemagne ruled Rome
nominally as Patrician, under the supremacy, equally nominal,
of the Emperor at Constantinople. The true sovereign,
recognized as such, was the Pope or Bishop of Rome, but the
actual power was in the hands of the mob, who at one time
towards the close of the century, in the absence of both
Emperor and Patrician, assaulted the Pope while conducting a
procession, and forced him to abandon the city. This Pope,
Leo, with a fine instinct as to the quarter from which succor
could alone come, hurried to seek Charlemagne, who was then in
Germany engaged in one of his never-ending wars against the
Saxons. The appeal for aid was not made in vain, and Charles
descended once more from the Alps in the summer of 799, with
his Frankish hosts. On Christmas day, A. D. 800, in the Church
of St. Peter ... Pope Leo, during the mass, and after the
reading of the gospel, placed upon the brow of Charlemagne,
who had abandoned his northern furs for the dress of a Roman
patrician, the diadem of the Cæsars, and hailed him Imperator
Semper Augustus, while the multitude shouted, 'Carolo, Augusto
a Deo coronato magno et pacifico Imperatori Vita et Victoria.'
In that shout and from that moment one of the most fruitful
epochs of history begins."
C. J. Stillé,
Studies in Mediæval History,
chapter 3.
See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.
{1437}
GERMANY: A. D. 800.
Charlemagne's restoration of the Roman Empire.
"Three hundred and twenty-four years had passed since the last
Cæsar of the West resigned his power into the hands of the
senate, and left to his Eastern brother the sole headship of
the Roman world. To the latter Italy had from that time been
nominally subject; but it was only during one brief interval,
between the death of Totila the last Ostrogothic king and the
descent of Alboin the first Lombard, that his power had been
really effective. In the further provinces, Gaul, Spain,
Britain, it was only a memory. But the idea of a Roman Empire
as a necessary part of the world's order had not vanished: it
had been admitted by those who seemed to be destroying it; it
had been cherished by the Church; was still recalled by laws
and customs; was dear to the subject populations, who fondly
looked back to the days when slavery was at least mitigated by
peace and order. ... Both the extinction of the Western Empire
in [A.D. 476] ... and its revival in A. D. 800 have been very
generally misunderstood in modern times. ... When Odoacer
compelled the abdication of Romulus Augustulus, he did not
abolish the Western Empire as a separate power, but caused it
to be reunited with or sink into the Eastern, so that from
that time there was, as there had been before Diocletian, a
single undivided Roman Empire. In A. D. 800 the very memory of
the separate Western Empire, as it had stood from the death of
Theodosius till Odoacer, had, so far as appears, been long
since lost, and neither Leo nor Charles nor anyone among their
advisers dreamt of reviving it. They, too, like their
predecessors, held the Roman Empire to be one and indivisible,
and proposed by the coronation of the Frankish king, not to
proclaim a severance of the East and West, but to reverse the
act of Constantine, and make Old Rome again the civil as well
as the ecclesiastical capital of the Empire that bore her
name. ... Although therefore we must in practice speak during
the next seven centuries (down till A. D. 1453, when
Constantinople fell before the Mohammedan) of an Eastern and a
Western Empire, the phrase is in strictness incorrect, and was
one which either court ought to have repudiated. The
Byzantines always did repudiate it; the Latins usually;
although, yielding to facts, they sometimes condescended to
employ it themselves. But their theory was always the same.
Charles was held to be the legitimate successor, not of
Romulus Augustulus, but of Basil, Heraclius, Justinian,
Arcadius, and all the Eastern line. ... North Italy and Rome
ceased for ever to own the supremacy of Byzantium; and while
the Eastern princes paid a shameful tribute to the Mussulman,
the Frankish Emperor--as the recognised head of
Christendom--received from the patriarch of Jerusalem the keys
of the Holy Sepulchre and the banner of Calvary; the gift of
the Sepulchre itself, says Eginhard, from Aaron king of the
Persians [the Caliph Haroun el Rashid]. ... Four centuries
later, when Papacy and Empire had been forced into the mortal
struggle by which the fate of both was decided, three distinct
theories regarding the coronation of Charles will be found
advocated by three different parties, all of them plausible,
all of them to some extent misleading. The Swabian Emperors
held the crown to have been won by their great predecessor as
the prize of conquest, and drew the conclusion that the
citizens and bishop of Rome had no rights as against
themselves. The patriotic party among the Romans, appealing to
the early history of the Empire, declared that by nothing but the
voice of their senate and people could an Emperor be lawfully
created, he being only their chief magistrate, the temporary
depositary of their authority. The Popes pointed to the
indisputable fact that Leo imposed the crown, and argued that
as God's earthly vicar it was then his, and must always
continue to be their right to give to whomsoever they would an
office which was created to be the handmaid of their own. Of
these three it was the last view that eventually prevailed."
J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 4-5.
ALSO IN:
J. I. Mombert,
History of Charles the Great,
chapter 14.
See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.
GERMANY: A. D. 805.
Conquest of the Avars.
Creation of the Austrian March.
See AVARS, and AUSTRIA: A. D. 805-1246.
GERMANY: A. D. 814-843.
Division of the Empire of Charlemagne.
"There was a manifest conflict, during his later years, in the
court, in the councils, in the mind of Charlemagne [who died
in 814], between the King of the Franks and the Emperor of the
West; between the dissociating, independent Teutonic
principle, and the Roman principle of one code, one dominion,
one sovereign. The Church, though Teutonic in descent, was
Roman in the sentiment of unity. ... That unity had been
threatened by the proclaimed division of the realm between the
sons of Charlemagne. The old Teutonic usage of equal
distribution seemed doomed to prevail over the august unity of
the Roman Empire. What may appear more extraordinary, the
kingdom of Italy was the inferior appanage: it carried not
with it the Empire, which was still to retain a certain
supremacy; that was reserved for the Teutonic sovereign. It
might seem as if this were but the continuation of the Lombard
kingdom, which Charlemagne still held by the right of
conquest. It was bestowed on Pepin; after his death entrusted
to Bernhard, Pepin's illegitimate but only son. Wiser counsels
prevailed. The two elder sons of Charlemagne died without
issue; Louis the third son was summoned from his kingdom of
Aquitaine, and solemnly crowned [813] at Aix-la-Chapelle, as
successor to the whole Empire."
H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 5, chapter 2 (volume 2).
{1438}
"Instead of being preoccupied with the care of keeping the
empire united, Louis divided it in the year 817 by giving
kingdoms to his three sons. The eldest, Lothaire, had Italy;
Louis, Bavaria; Pepin, Aquitaine. A nephew of the emperor,
Bernard, imagined himself wronged by this partition, and took
up arms to hold Italy. Vanquished without striking a blow, he
delivered himself up to his uncle, who caused his eyes to be
put out. He expired under that torture. Louis reproached
himself later for that cruel death, and to expiate it,
subjected himself to a public penance. In 823, there was born
to him a fourth son. To make him a sharer of his inheritance,
the emperor, annulling in 829 the partition of 817, gave him
Germany, thus depriving his elder sons of part of the
inheritance previously assigned them. This provoked the
resentment of those princes; they rose in rebellion against
their father, and the rest of the reign of Louis was only a
succession of impious contests with his turbulent sons. In
833, he deposed Pepin, and gave his kingdom of Aquitaine to
his youngest born, Charles. Twice deposed himself, and twice
restored, Louis only emerged from the cloister, for which he
was so well fitted, to repeat the same faults. When Louis the
Good-natured died in 840, it was not his cause only which he
had lost through his weakness, but that of the empire. Those
intestine quarrels presaged its dismemberment, which ere long
happened. The sons of Louis, to serve their own ambition, had
revived the national antipathies of the different races.
Lothaire placed himself at the head of the Italians; Louis
rallied the Germans round him, and Charles the Bald the Franks
of Gaul, who were henceforward called Frenchmen. Those three
peoples aspired to break up the union whose bond Charlemagne
had imposed upon them, as the three brothers aspired to form
each for himself a kingdom. The question was decided at the
great battle of Fontanet, near Auxerre, in 841. Lothaire, who
fought therein for the preservation of the empire and of his
authority, was conquered. By the treaty of Verdun [843--see
VERDUN, TREATY OF] it was decided that Louis should have
Germany to the east of the Rhine; Charles, France to the west
of the Scheld, the Meuse, the Saone, and the Rhone; finally,
Lothaire, Italy, with the long range of country comprised
between the Alps and the Cevennes, the Jura, the Saone, the
Rhine, and the Meuse, which from his name was called
Lotharingia. This designation is still to be traced in one of
the recently French provinces, Lorraine."
S. Menzies,
History of Europe from the Decadence of
the Western Empire to the Reformation,
chapter. 13.
GERMANY: A. D. 843.
Accession of Louis II.
GERMANY: A. D. 843-962.
Treaty of Verdun.
Definite separation from France.
The kingdom of the East Franks.
The partition of the empire of Charlemagne among his three
grandsons, by the Treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, gave to Charles
the Bald a kingdom which nearly coincided with France, as
afterwards existing under that name, "before its Burgundian
and German annexations.
See VERDUN, TREATY OF;
also, FRANKS: A. D. 814-962.
It also founded a kingdom which roughly answered to the later
Germany before its great extension to the East at the expense
of the Slavonic nations. And as the Western kingdom was formed
by the addition of Aquitaine to the Western Francia, so the
Eastern kingdom was formed by the addition of the Eastern
Francia to Bavaria. Lewis of Bavaria [surnamed 'the German']
became king of a kingdom which we are tempted to call the
kingdom of Germany. Still it would as yet be premature to
speak of France at all, or even to speak of Germany, except in
the geographical sense. The two kingdoms are severally the
kingdoms of the Eastern and of the Western Franks. ... The
Kings had no special titles, and their dominions had no
special names recognized in formal use. Every king who ruled
over any part of the ancient Francia was a king of the Franks.
... The Eastern part of the Frankish dominions, the lot of
Lewis the German and his successors, is thus called the
Eastern Kingdom, the Teutonic Kingdom. Its king is the King of
the East-Franks, sometimes simply the King of the Eastern men,
sometimes the King of Germany. ... The title of King of
Germany is often found in the ninth century as a description,
but it was not a formal title. The Eastern king, like other
kings, for the most part simply calls himself' Rex,' till the
time came when his rank as King of Germany, or of the
East-Franks, became simply a step towards the higher title of
Emperor of the Romans. ... This Eastern or German kingdom, as
it came out of the division of 887 [after the deposition of
Charles III., called Charles the Fat,. who came to the throne
in 881, and who had, momentarily reunited all the Frankish
crowns, except that of Burgundy], had, from north to south,.
nearly the same extent as the Germany of later times. It
stretched from the Alps to the Eider. Its southern boundaries
were somewhat fluctuating. Verona and Aquileia are sometimes
counted as a German march, and the boundary between, Germany
and Burgundy, crossing the modern Switzerland, often changed.
To the north-east the kingdom hardly stretched beyond the
Elbe, except in the small Saxon land between the Elbe and the
Eider [called 'Saxony beyond the Elbe'--modern Holstein]. The
great extension of the German power over the Slavonic lands
beyond the Elbe had hardly yet begun. To the southeast lay the
two border-lands or marks; the Eastern Mark, which grew into
the later duchy of, Oesterreich or the modern Austria, and to
the south of it the mark of Kärnthen or Carinthia. But the
main part of the kingdom consisted of the great duchies of
Saxony, Eastern Francia, Alemannia, and Bavaria. Of these the
two names of Saxony and Bavaria must be carefully marked as
having widely different meanings from those which they bear on
the modern map. Ancient Saxony lies, speaking roughly, between
the Eider, the Elbe, and the Rhine, though it never actually
touches the last-named river. To the south of Saxony lies the
Eastern Francia, the centre and kernel of the German kingdom.
The Main and the Neckar both join the Rhine within its
borders. To the south of Francia lie Alemannia and Bavaria.
This last, it must be remembered, borders on Italy, with
Bötzen for its frontier town. Alemannia is the land in which
both the Rhine and the Danube take their source; it stretches
on both sides of the Bodensee or Lake of Constanz, with the
Rætian Alps as its southern boundary. For several ages to
come, there is no distinction, national or even provincial,
between the lands north and south of the Bodensee."
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 6, section 1.
ALSO IN:
Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and England,
volumes 1-2.
On the indefiniteness of the name of the Germanic kingdom in
this period,
See FRANCE: 9TH CENTURY.
GERMANY: A. D. 881.
Accession of Charles III. (called The Fat), afterwards King of
all the Franks and Emperor.
GERMANY: A. D. 888.
Accession of Arnulf, afterwards Emperor.
GERMANY: A. D. 899.
Accession of Louis III. (called The Child).
GERMANY: A. D. 911.
Election of Conrad I.
{1439}
GERMANY: A. D. 911-936.
Conrad the Franconian and Henry the Fowler.
Beginning of the Saxon line.
Hungarian invasion.
The building of towns.
In 911, on the death of Louis, surnamed the Child, the German
or East-Frank branch of the dynasty of Charlemagne had become
extinct. "There remained indeed Charles the Simple,
acknowledged as king in some parts of France, but rejected in
others, and possessing no personal claims to respect. The
Germans therefore wisely determined to chose a sovereign from
among themselves. They were at this time divided into five
nations, each under its own duke, and distinguished by
difference of laws, as well as of origin; the Franks, whose
territory, comprising Franconia and the modern Palatinate, was
considered as the cradle of the empire, and who seem to have
arrogated some superiority over the rest, the Suabians, the
Bavarians, the Saxons ... and the Lorrainers, who occupied the
left bank of the Rhine as far as its termination. The choice
of these nations in their general assembly fell upon Conrad,
duke of Franconia, according to some writers, or at least a
man of high rank, and descended through females from
Charlemagne. Conrad dying without male issue, the crown of
Germany was bestowed [A. D. 919] upon Henry the Fowler, duke
of Saxony, ancestor of the three Othos, who followed him in
direct succession. To Henry, and to the first Otho [A. D.
936-973], Germany was more indebted than to any sovereign
since Charlemagne."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 5.
"In 924, the Hungarians, who were as much dreaded as the angel
of destruction, re-appeared. They came from the grassy plains
of Hungary, mounted on small and ugly, but strong horses, and
swept along the Danube like a hailstorm. Wherever they came
they set fire to farms, hamlets, and towns, and killed all
living creatures or carried them off. And often they bound
their prisoners to the tails of their horses, and dragged them
along till they died from the dreadful torture. Their very
figures inspired disgust and terror, for their faces were
brown, and disfigured by scars to absolute hideousness; their
heads were shaven, and brutal ferocity and rapacity shone out
of their deep-set eyes. And though the Germans fought bravely,
these enemies always overmatched them, because they appeared
now here, now there, on their fleet horses, and fell upon
isolated districts before they were expected or could be
stopped. ... When on a sudden the terrible cry, 'The
Hungarians are coming, the Hungarians are coming,' resounded
through the land, all fled who could, as if the wild legions
of hell were marching through Saxony and Thuringia. King
Henry, however, would not fly, but encountered them in combat,
like a true knight. Yet he lost the battle, either because he
was ill, or because his soldiers were too few, and
unaccustomed to the enemy's mode of fighting, which enabled
them to conquer while they were fleeing. Henry was obliged to
shut himself up in the royal palace of Werla, near Goslar,
which he bravely defended. The Hungarians stormed it again and
again, but they could not scale the walls; while Henry's men
by a daring sally took a Hungarian chieftain prisoner, which
so terrified the besiegers that they concluded a truce for
nine years on condition that their chief should be released,
and that Henry should engage to pay a yearly tribute. Henry
submitted to the dishonourable sacrifice that he might husband
his strength for better times. ... How important it was to
have fortified places which could not be stormed by cavalry,
and therefore afforded a safe refuge to the neighbouring
peasantry, Henry recognised in 929, when the Hungarians
marched through Bavaria and Suabia to Lorraine, plundered the
time-honoured monastery of St. Gall, and burnt the suburbs of
Constance, but could not take the fortified town itself.
Henry, accordingly, published an order throughout the land,
that at suitable places large fortresses should be built, in
which every ninth man from the neighbouring district must take
garrison duty. Certainly living in towns was contrary to the
customs of the North Germans, and here and there there was
much resistance; but they soon recognised the wisdom of the
royal order, and worked night and day with such diligence that
there soon arose throughout the land towns with stately towers
and strong walls, behind whose battlements the armed burghers
defiantly awaited the Hungarians. Hamburg was then fortified,
Itzehoe built, the walls of Magdeburg, Halle, and Erfurt
extended, for these towns had stood since the time of
Charlemagne. Quedlinburg, Merseburg, Meissen, Wittenberg,
Goslar, Soest, Nordhausen, Duderstadt, Gronau, Pölde, were
rebuilt, and many others of which the old chroniclers say
nothing. Those who dwelt in the cities were called burghers,
and in order that they might not be idle they began to
practise many kinds of industry, and to barter their goods
with the peasants. The emperor encouraged the building of
towns, and granted emancipation to every slave who repaired to
a town, allowed the towns to hold fairs and markets, granted
to them the right of coining money and levying taxes, and gave
them many landed estates and forests. Under such encouragement
town life rapidly developed, and the emperor, in his disputes
with the lawless nobility, always received loyal support from
his disciplined burghers. After a few centuries the towns,
which had now generally become republics, under the name of
'free imperial towns,' became the seats of the perfection of
European trade, science, and culture. ... These incalculable
benefits are due to Henry's order to build towns."
A. W. Grübe,
Heroes of History and Legend,
chapter 8.
At the expiration of the nine years truce, the Hungarians
resumed their attacks, and were defeated by Henry in two
bloody battles.
GERMANY: A. D. 936-973.
Restoration of the Roman Empire by
Otho I. called the Great.
"Otho the Great, son and successor of Henry I., added the
kingdom of Italy to the conquests of his father, and procured
also the Imperial dignity for himself, and his successors in
Germany. Italy had become a distinct kingdom since the
revolution, which happened (888) at the death of the Emperor
Charles the Fat. Ten princes in succession occupied the throne
during the space of seventy-three years. Several of these
princes, such as Guy, Lambert, Arnulf, Louis of Burgundy, and
Berenger I., were invested with the Imperial dignity. Berenger
I., having been assassinated (924), this latter dignity ceased
entirely, and the city of Rome was even dismembered from the
kingdom of Italy. The sovereignty of that city was seized by
the famous Marozia, widow of a nobleman named Alberic. She
raised her son to the pontificate by the title of John XI.;
and the better to establish her dominion, she espoused Hugo
King of Italy (932), who became, in consequence of this
marriage, master of Rome. But Alberic, another son of Marozia,
soon stirred up the people against this aspiring princess and
her husband Hugo.
{1440}
Having driven Hugo from the throne, and shut up his mother in
prison, he assumed to himself the sovereign authority, under
the title of Patrician of the Romans. At his death (954) he
transmitted the sovereignty to his son Octavian, who, though
only nineteen years of age, caused himself to be elected pope,
by the title of John XII. This epoch was one most disastrous
for Italy. The weakness of the government excited factions
among the nobility, gave birth to anarchy, and fresh
opportunity for the depredations of the Hungarians and Arabs,
who, at this period, were the scourge of Italy, which they
ravaged with impunity. Pavia, the capital of the kingdom, was
taken, and burnt by the Hungarians. These troubles increased
on the accession of Berenger II. (950), grandson of Berenger
I. That prince associated his son Adelbert with him in the
royal dignity; and the public voice accused them of having
caused the death of King Lothaire, son and successor of Hugo.
Lothaire left a young widow, named Adelaide, daughter of
Rodolph II., King of Burgundy and Italy. To avoid the
importunities of Berenger II., who wished to compel her to
marry his son Adelbert, this princess called in the King of
Germany to her aid. Otho complied with the solicitations of
the distressed queen; and, on this occasion, undertook his
first expedition into Italy (951). The city of Pavia, and
several other places, having fallen into his hands, he made
himself be proclaimed King of Italy, and married the young
queen, his protégée. Berenger and his son, being driven for
shelter to their strongholds, had recourse to negociation.
They succeeded in obtaining for themselves a confirmation of
the royal title of Italy, on condition of doing homage for it
to the King of Germany. ... It appears that it was not without
the regret, and even contrary to the wish of Adelaide, that
Otho agreed to enter into terms of accommodation with
Berenger. ... Afterwards; however, he lent a favourable ear to
the complaints which Pope John XII. and some Italian noblemen
had addressed to him against Berenger and his son; and took
occasion, on their account, to conduct a new army into Italy
(961). Berenger, too feeble to oppose him, retired a second
time within his fortifications. Otho marched from Pavia to
Milan, and there made himself be crowned King of Italy; from
thence he passed to Rome, about the commencement of the
following year. Pope John XII., who had himself invited him,
and again implored his protection against Berenger, gave him,
at first, a very brilliant reception; and revived the Imperial
dignity in his favour, which had been dormant for thirty-eight
years. It was on the 2d of February, 962, that the Pope
consecrated and crowned him Emperor; but he had soon cause to
repent of this proceeding. Otho, immediately after his
coronation at Rome, undertook the siege of St. Leon, a
fortress in Umbria, where Berenger and his queen had taken
refuge. While engaged in the siege, he received frequent
intimations from Rome, of the misconduct and immoralities of
the Pope. The remonstrances which he thought it his duty to
make on this subject, offended the young pontiff, who
resolved, in consequence, to break off union with the Emperor.
Hurried on by the impetuosity of his character, he entered
into a negociation with Adelbert; and even persuaded him to
come to Rome, in order to concert with him measures of
defence. On the first news of this event, Otho put himself at
the head of a large detachment, with which he marched directly
to Rome. The Pope, however, did not think it advisable to wait
his approach, but fled with the King, his new ally. Otho, on
arriving at the capital, exacted a solemn oath from the clergy
and the people, that henceforth they would elect no pope
without his counsel, and that of the Emperor and his
successors. Having then assembled a council, he caused Pope
John XII. to be deposed; and Leo VIII. was elected in his
place. This latter Pontiff was maintained in the papacy, in
spite of all the efforts which his adversary made to regain
it. Berenger II., after having sustained a long siege at St.
Leon, fell at length (964) into the hands of the conqueror,
who sent him into exile at Bamberg, and compelled his son,
Adelbert, to take refuge in the court of Constantinople. All
Italy, to the extent of the ancient kingdom of the Lombards,
fell under the dominion of the Germans; only a few maritime
towns in Lower Italy, with the greater part of Apulia and
Calabria, still remained in the power of the Greeks. This
kingdom, together with the Imperial dignity, Otho transmitted
to his successors on the throne of Germany. From this time the
Germans held it to be an inviolable principle, that as the
Imperial dignity was strictly united with the royalty of
Italy, kings elected by the German nation should, at the same
time, in virtue of that election, become Kings of Italy and
Emperors. The practice of this triple coronation, viz., of
Germany, Italy, and Rome, continued for many centuries; and
from Otho the Great, till Maximilian I. (1508), no king of
Germany took the title of Emperor, until after he had been
formally crowned by the Pope."
C. W. Koch,
The Revolutions of Europe,
period 3.
"At the first glance it would seem as if the relation in which
Otho now stood to the pope was the same as that occupied by
Charlemagne; on a closer inspection, however; we find a wide
difference. Charlemagne's connexion with the see of Rome was
produced by mutual need; it was the result of long epochs of
political combination embracing the development of various
nations; their mutual understanding rested on an internal
necessity, before which all opposing views and interests gave
way. The sovereignty of Otho the Great, on the contrary,
rested on a principle fundamentally opposed to the
encroachment of spiritual influences. The alliance was
momentary; the disruption of it inevitable. But when, soon
after, the same pope who had invoked his aid, John XII.,
placed himself at the head of a rebellious faction, Otho was
compelled to cause him to be formally deposed, and to crush
the faction that supported him by repeated, exertions of
force, before he could obtain perfect obedience; he was
obliged to raise to the papal chair a pope on whose
co-operation he could rely. The popes have often asserted that
they transferred the empire to the Germans; and if they
confined this assertion to the Carolingian race, they are not
entirely wrong. The coronation of Charlemagne was the result
of their free determination. But if they allude to the German
emperors, properly so called, the contrary of their statement
is just as true; not only Carlmann and Otho the Great, but
their successors, constantly had to conquer the imperial
throne, and to defend it, when conquered, sword in hand.
{1441}
It has been said that the Germans would have done more wisely
if they had not meddled with the empire; or, at least, if they
had first worked out their own internal political
institutions, and then, with matured minds, taken part in the
general affairs of Europe. But the things of this world are
not wont to develop themselves so methodically. A nation is
often compelled by circumstances to increase its territorial
extent, before its internal growth is completed. For was it of
slight importance to its inward progress that Germany thus
remained in unbroken connexion with Italy?--the depository of
all that remained of ancient civilisation, the source whence
all the forms of Christianity had been derived. The mind of
Germany has always unfolded itself by contact with the spirit
of antiquity, and of the nations of Roman origin. ... The
German imperial government revived the civilising and
Christianising tendencies which had distinguished the reigns
of Charles Martell and Charlemagne. Otho the Great, in
following the course marked out by his illustrious
predecessors, gave it a fresh national importance by planting
German colonies in Slavonian countries simultaneously with the
diffusion of Christianity. He Germanised as well as converted
the population he had subdued. He confirmed his father's
conquests on the Saale and the Elbe, by the establishment of
the bishoprics of Meissen and Osterland. After having
conquered the tribes on the other side the Elbe in those long
and perilous campaigns where he commanded in person, he
established there, too, three bishoprics, which for a time
gave an extraordinary impulse to the progress of conversion.
... And even where the project of Germanising the population
was out of the question, the supremacy of the German name was
firmly and actively maintained. In Bohemia and Poland
bishoprics were erected under German metropolitans; from
Hamburg Christianity found its way into the north;
missionaries from Passau traversed Hungary, nor is it
improbable that the influence of these vast and sublime
efforts extended even to Russia. The German empire was the
centre of the conquering religion; as itself advanced, it
extended the ecclesiastico-military State of which the Church
was an integral part; it was the chief representative of the
unity of western Christendom, and hence arose the necessity
under which it lay of acquiring a decided ascendancy over the
papacy. This secular and Germanic principle long retained the
predominancy it had triumphantly acquired. ... How magnificent
was the position now occupied by the German nation,
represented in the persons of the mightiest princes of Europe
and united under their sceptre; at the head of an advancing
civilisation, and of the whole of western Christendom; in the
fullness of youthful aspiring strength! We must here however
remark and confess, that Germany did not wholly understand her
position, nor fulfil her mission. Above all, she did not
succeed in giving complete reality to the idea of a western
empire, such as appeared about to be established under Otho I.
Independent and often hostile, though Christian powers arose
through all the borders of Germany; in Hungary and in Poland,
in the northern as well as in the southern possessions of the
Normans; England and France were snatched again from German
influence. Spain laughed at the German claims to a universal
supremacy; her kings thought themselves emperors; even the
enterprises nearest home--those across the Elbe--were for a
time stationary or retrograde. If we seek for the causes of
these unfavourable results, we need only turn our eyes on the
internal condition of the empire, where we find an incessant
and tempestuous struggle of all the forces of the nation.
Unfortunately the establishment of a fixed rule of succession
to the imperial crown was continually prevented by events."
L. Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
introduction.
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 961-1039;
and ROMAN EMPIRE, THE HOLY.
GERMANY: A. D. 955.
Great defeat and repulse of the Hungarians by Otho I.
See HUNGARIANS: A. D. 934-955.
GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122.
End of the Saxon line.
Election of the Franconians.
Reformation of the Papacy.
Contest of Henry IV. with the Head of the Church.
The question of Investitures.
"Otho II. had a short and troubled reign, 973-983 A. D.,
having to repress the Slavi, the Danes, the Greeks of Lower
Italy, and to defend Lorraine against the French. He died at
Rome in his twenty-eighth year. 983 A. D. Otho III. (aged
three years) succeeded under the regency of his mother,
Theophania (a Greek princess), who had to contend with the
rebellious nobles, the Slavi, the Poles, the Bohemians, and
with France, which desired to conquer Lorraine. This able lady
died 991 A. D. Otho III. made three expeditions into Italy,
and in 998 A. D. put down the republic of Rome, which had been
created by the patrician Crescentius. The resistance of
Crescentius had been pardoned the preceding year, but on this
occasion he was publicly beheaded on the battlements of Rome,
in view of the army and of the people. In 999 A. D. Otho
placed his tutor Gerbert in the papal chair as Sylvester II.
The tutor and the emperor were in advance of their age. The
former had gleaned from Saracen translations from the Greek,
as well as from Latin literature, and was master of the
science of the day. It is supposed that they had planned to
remove the seat of empire to Rome--a project which, had he
lived, he would not have been able to carry out, for the
centre of political power had long moved northward: he died at
the early age of twenty-two, 1002 A. D. Henry II. (the Holy),
Duke of Bavaria, was elected emperor, and had to battle, like
his predecessors, with rebellious nobles, with the Poles, and
Bohemians, and the Slavi. He was thrice in Italy, and died
1024 A. D. 'Perhaps, with the single exception of St. Louis
IX., there was no other prince of the middle ages so uniformly
swayed by justice.' Conrad II. (the Salic) of Franconia was
elected emperor in a diet in the plains between Mentz and
Worms, near Oppenheim, which was attended by princes, nobles,
and 50,000 people altogether. His reign was remarkable for the
justice and mercy which he always kept in view. The kingdom of
Aries and Burgundy was united to the empire, 1033 A. D. He
checked the Poles, the Hungarians, and the Lombards, and gave
Schleswiek to Denmark as a fief. In 1037 A. D. he granted to
the lower vassals of the empire the hereditary succession to
their offices and estates, and so extended the privileges of
the great nobles, as to make them almost independent of the
crown. Henry III. succeeded, 1039 A. D., and established the
imperial power with a high hand."
W. B. Boyce,
Introduction to the Study of History,
pages 230-231.
{1442}
"Henry III. was, as sovereign, able, upright, and resolute;
and his early death--for his reign was cut short by disasters
that preyed upon his health--is one of the calamities of
history. The cause of the Roman Court he judged with vigor and
good sense. His strong hand, more than any man's, dragged the
Church out of the slough it had fallen into [see ROME: A. D.
962-1057]. ... A few years before, in 1033, a child ten years
old, son of one of the noble houses, had been put on the papal
throne, under the name of Benedict IX.; and was restored to it
by force of arms, five years later, when he had grown into a
lewd, violent, and wilful boy of fifteen. At the age of
twenty-one he was weary of the struggle, and sold out, for a
large sum of money paid down, to a rich purchaser,--first
plundering the papal treasury of all the funds he could lay
his hands on. His successor, Gregory VI., naturally complained
of his hard bargain, which was made harder by another claimant
(Sylvester III.), elected by a different party; while no law
that could possibly be quoted or invented would make valid the
purchase and sale of the spiritual sovereignty of the world,
which in theory the Papacy still was. Gregory appears to have
been a respectable and even conscientious magistrate, by the
standard of that evil time. But his open purchase of the
dignity not only gave a shock to whatever right feeling there
was left, but it made the extraordinary dilemma and scandal of
three popes at once,--a knot which the German king, now
Emperor, was called in to cut. ... The worthless Benedict was
dismissed, as having betrayed his charge. The impotent
Sylvester was not recognized at all. The respectable Gregory
was duly convinced of his deep guilt of Simony,--because he
had 'thought that the gift of God could be purchased with
money,'--and was suffered as a penitent to end his days in
peace. A fourth, a German ecclesiastic, who was clean of all
these intrigues, was set in the chair of Peter, where he
reigned righteously for two years under the name of Clement
II."
J. H. Allen,
Christian History in its Three Great Periods:
Second period,
pages 57-58.
"With the popes of Henry's appointment a new and most powerful
force rose to the control of the papacy--a strong and earnest
movement for reformation which had arisen outside the circle
of papal influence during the darkest days of its degradation,
indeed, and entirely independent of the empire. This had
started from the monastery of Cluny, founded in 910, in
eastern France, as a reformation of the monastic life, but it
involved gradually ideas of a wider reformation throughout the
whole church. Two great sins of the time, as it regarded them,
were especially attacked, the marriage of priests and simony,
or the purchase of ecclesiastical preferment for money,
including also appointments to church offices by temporal
rulers. ... The earnest spirit of Henry III. was not out of
sympathy with the demand for a real reformation, and with the
third pope of his appointment, Leo IX., in 1048, the ideas of
Cluny obtained the direction of affairs. ... One apparently
insignificant act of Leo's had important consequences. He
brought back with him to Rome the monk Hildebrand. He had been
brought up in a monastery in Rome in the strictest ideas of
Cluny, had been a supporter of Gregory VI., one of the three
rival popes deposed by Henry, who, notwithstanding his
outright purchase of the papacy, represented the new reform
demand, and had gone with him into exile on his deposition. It
does not appear that he exercised any decisive influence
during the reign of Leo IX., but so great was his ability and
such the power of his personality that very soon he became the
directing spirit in the papal policy, though his influence
over the papacy before his own pontificate was not so great
nor so constant as it has sometimes been said to have been. So
long as Henry lived the balance of power was decidedly in favor
of the emperor, but in 1056 happened that disastrous event,
which occurred so many times at critical points of imperial
history, from Arnulf to Henry VI., the premature death of the
emperor. His son, Henry IV., was only six years old at his
father's death, and a minority followed just in the crisis of
time needed to enable the feudal princes of Germany to recover
and strengthen their independence against the central
government, and to give free hands to the papacy to carry out
its plans for throwing off the imperial control. Never again
did an emperor occupy, in respect either to Germany or the
papacy, the vantage-ground on which Henry III. had stood. ...
The triumph of the reform movement and of its ecclesiastical
theory is especially connected with the name of Hildebrand, or
Gregory VII., as he called himself when pope, and was very
largely, if not entirely, due to his indomitable spirit and
iron will, which would yield to no persuasion or threats or
actual force. He is one of the most interesting personalities
of history. ... The three chief points which the reform party
attempted to gain were the independence of the church from all
outside control in the election of the pope, the celibacy of
the clergy, and the abolition of simony or the purchase of
ecclesiastical preferment. The foundation for the first of
these was laid under Nicholas II. by assigning the selection
of the pope to the college of cardinals in Rome, though it was
only after some considerable time that this reform was fully
secured. The second point, the celibacy of the clergy, had
long been demanded by the church, but the requirement had not
been strictly enforced, and in many parts of Europe married
clergy were the rule. ... As interpreted by the reformers, the
third of their demands, the suppression of simony, was as great a
step in advance and as revolutionary as the first.
Technically, simony was the sin of securing an ecclesiastical
office by bribery, named from the incident recorded in the
eighth chapter of the Acts concerning Simon Magus. But at this
time the desire for the complete independence of the church
had given to it a new and wider meaning which made it include
all appointment to positions in the church by laymen,
including kings and the emperor. ... According to the
conception of the public law the bishop was an officer of the
state. He had, in the great majority of cases, political
duties to perform as important as his ecclesiastical duties.
The lands which formed the endowment of his office had always
been considered as being, still more directly than any other
feudal land, the property of the state. ...
{1443}
It was a matter of vital importance whether officers
exercising such important functions and controlling so large a
part of its area--probably everywhere as much as one-third of
the territory--should be selected by the state or by some
foreign power beyond its reach and having its own peculiar
interests to seek. But this question of lay investiture was as
vitally important for the church as for the state. ... It was
as necessary to the centralization and independence of the
church that it should choose these officers as that it should
elect the head of all--the pope. This was not a question for
Germany alone. Every northern state had to face the same
difficulty. ... The struggle was so much more bitter and
obstinate with the emperor than with any other sovereign
because of the close relation of the two powers one to
another, and because the whole question of their relative
rights was bound up with it. It was an act of rebellion on the
part of the papacy against the sovereign, who had controlled
it with almost absolute power for a century, and it was rising
into an equal, or even superior, place beside the emperor of
what was practically a new power, a rival for his imperial
position. ... It was absolutely impossible that a conflict
with these new claims should be avoided as soon as Henry IV.
arrived at an age to take the government into his own hands
and attempted to exercise his imperial rights as he understood
them."
G. B. Adams,
Civilization During the Middle Ages,
chapter 10.
"At Gregory's accession, he [Henry] was a young man of
twenty-three. His violence had already driven a whole district
into rebellion. ... The Pope sided with the insurgents. He
summoned the young king to his judgment-seat at Rome;
threatened at his refusal to 'cut him off as a rotten limb';
and passed on him the awful sentence of excommunication. The
double terror of rebellion at home and the Church's curse at
length broke down the passionate pride of Henry. Humbled and
helpless, he crossed the Alps in midwinter, groping among the
bleak precipices and ice-fields,--the peasants passing him in
a rude sledge of hide down those dreadful slopes,--and went
to beg absolution of Gregory at the mountain castle of
Canossa. History has few scenes more dramatic than that which
shows the proud, irascible, crest-fallen young sovereign
confronted with the fiery, little, indomitable old man. To
quote Gregory's own words:--'Here he came with few attendants,
and for three days before the gate--his royal apparel laid
aside, barefoot, clad in wool, and weeping abundantly--he
never ceased to implore the aid and comfort of apostolic
mercy, till all there present were moved with pity and
compassion; insomuch that, interceding for him with many
prayers and tears they all wondered at my strange severity,
and some even cried out that it was not so much the severe
dignity of an apostle as the cruel wrath of a tyrant. Overcome
at length by the urgency of his appeal and the entreaties of
all present, I relaxed the bond of anathema, and received him
to the favor of communion and the bosom of our holy Mother the
Church.' It was a truce which one party did not mean nor the
other hope to keep. It was policy, not real terror or
conviction, that had led Henry to humble himself before the
Pope. It was policy, not contrition or compassion, that had
led Gregory (against his better judgment, it is said) to
accept his Sovereign's penance. In the war of policy, the man
of the world prevailed. Freed of the Church's curse, he
quickly won back the strength he had lost. He overthrew in
battle the rival whom Gregory upheld. He swept his rebellious
lands with sword and flame. He carried his victorious army to
Rome, and was there crowned Emperor by a rival Pope [1084].
Gregory himself was only saved by his ferocious allies, Norman
and Saracen, at cost of the devastation of half the
capital,--that broad belt of ruin which still covers the half
mile between the Coliseum and the Lateran gate. Then, hardly
rescued from the popular wrath, he went away to die, defeated
and heart-broken, at Salerno, with the almost despairing words
on his lips: 'I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and
therefore I die in exile!' But 'a spirit hath not flesh or
bones,' as a body hath, and so it will not stay mangled and
bruised. The victory lay, after all, with the combatant who
could appeal to fanaticism as well as force."
J. H. Allen,
Christian History in its Three Great Periods:
second period,
pages 69-72.
"Meanwhile, the Saxons had recognized Hermann of Luxemburg as
their King, but in 1087 he resigned the crown: and another
claimant, Eckbert, Margrave of Meissen, was murdered. The
Saxons were now thoroughly' weary of strife, and as years and
bitter experience had softened the character of Henry, they
were the more willing to return to their allegiance. Peace was
therefore, for a time, restored in Germany. The Papacy did not
forgive Henry. He was excommunicated several times, and in
1091 his son Conrad was excited to rebel against him. In 1104
a more serious rebellion was headed by the Emperor's second
son Henry, who had been crowned King, on promising not to
seize the government during his father's lifetime, in 1099.
The Emperor was treated very cruelly, and had to sign his own
abdication at Ingelheim in 1105. A last effort was made on his
behalf by the Duke of Lotharingia; but worn out by his sorrows
and struggles, Henry died in August, 1106. His body lay in a
stone coffin in an unconsecrated chapel at Speyer for five
years. Not till 1111, when the sentence of excommunication was
removed, was it properly buried. Henry V. was not so obedient
to the Church as the Papal party had hoped. He stoutly
maintained the very point which had brought so much trouble on
his father. The right of investiture, he declared, had always
belonged to his predecessors, and he was not to give up what
they had handed on to him. In 1110 he went to Rome,
accompanied by a large army. Next year Pope Paschal II. was
forced to crown him Emperor: but as soon as the Germans had
crossed the Alps again Paschal renewed all his old demands.
The struggle soon spread to Germany. The Emperor was
excommunicated; and the discontented princes, as eager as ever
to break the royal power, sided with the Pope against him. Peace
was not restored till 1122, when Calixtus II. was Pope. In
that year, in a Diet held at Worms, both parties agreed to a
compromise, called the Concordat of Worms."
J. Sime,
History of Germany,
chapter 8.
{1444}
"The long-desired reconciliation was effected in the form of
the following concordat. The emperor renounced the right of
investiture with the ring and crosier, and conceded that all
bishoprics of the empire should be filled by canonical
election and free consecration; the election of the German
bishops (not of the Italian and Burgundian) should be held in
presence of the emperor; the bishops elect should receive
investiture, but only of their fiefs and regalia, by the
sceptre in Germany before, in Italy and in Burgundy after,
their consecration; for these grants they should promise
fidelity to the emperor; contested elections should be decided
by the emperor in favour of him who should be considered by
the provincial synod to possess the better right. Finally he
should restore to the Roman Church all the possessions and
regalia of St. Peter. This convention secured to the Church
many things, and above all, the freedom of ecclesiastical
elections. Hitherto, the different Churches had been compelled
to give their consent to elections that had been made by the
king; but now the king was pledged to consent to the elections
made by the Churches; and although these elections took place
in his presence, he could not refuse his consent and
investiture without violating the treaty, in which he had
promised that for the future elections should be according to
the canons. This, and the great difference, that the king,
when he gave the ring and crosier, invested the bishop elect
with his chief dignity, namely, his bishopric, but now granted
him by investiture with the sceptre, only the accessories,
namely the regalia, was felt by Lothaire, the successor of
Henry, when he required of pope Innocent II. the restoration
of the right of investiture. Upon one important point, the
homage which was to be sworn to the king, the concordat was
silent. By not speaking of it, Calixtus seemed to tolerate it,
and the Roman see therefore permitted it, although it had been
prohibited by Urban and Paschal. It is certain that Calixtus
was as fully convinced as his predecessors, that the condition
of vassals, to which bishops and abbots were reduced by their
oath of homage, could hardly be reconciled with the nature and
dignity of the episcopacy, or with the freedom of the Church,
but he perhaps foresaw, that by insisting too strongly upon
its discontinuance, he might awaken again the unholy war, and
without any hopes of benefit, inflict many evils upon the
Church. Sometime later Adrian endeavoured to free the Italian
bishops from the homage, instead of which, the emperor was to
be content with an oath of fidelity: but Frederick I. would
not renounce the homage unless they resigned the regalia. The
greatest concession made by the papal see in this concordat,
was, that by its silence it appeared to have admitted the
former pretensions of the emperors to take a part in the
election of the Roman pontiff. ... In the following year the
concordat was ratified in the great council of three hundred
bishops, the ninth general council of the Church, which was
convened by Calixtus in Rome."
J. J. I. Döllinger,
History of the Church,
volume 3, pages 345-347.
See, also, PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122;
CANOSSA; ROME: A. D. 1081-1084;
and SAXONY: A. D. 1073-1075.
ALSO IN:
A. F. Villemain,
Life of Gregory VII.,
book 2.
Comte C. F. Montalembert,
The Monks of the West,
book 19.
H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
books 6-8.
W. R. W. Stephens,
Hildebrand and His Times.
E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages,
book 4.
GERMANY: A. D. 1101.
Disastrous Crusade under Duke Welf of Bavaria.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1101-1102.
GERMANY: A. D. 1125.
Election of Lothaire II., King, afterwards Emperor.
GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1152.
The rise of the College of Electors.
The election of Lothaire II., in 1125, when a great assembly
of nobles and church dignitaries was convened at Mentz, and
when certain of the chiefs made a selection of candidates to
be voted for, has been regarded by some historians--Hallam,
Comyn and Dunham, for example--as indicating the origin of the
German electoral college. They have held that a right of
"pretaxation," or preliminary choice, was gradually acquired
by certain princes, which grew into the finally settled
electoral right. But this view is now looked upon as more than
questionable, and is not supported by the best authorities.
"The phrase electoral princes (electores principes) first
occurs in the Privilegium majus Austriacum, which dates from
1156, but it does not appear what princes were intended, and
the accounts extant of the elections of the rival kings,
Philip and Otho (IV.) in 1198, show beyond question that the
right of election was not then limited to a few princes. The
election of Frederick II. (1213) is only described by the
authorities in general terms. They inform us that many princes
took part in the proceedings. The following brief passage
concerning the royal elections occurs in the Auctor Vetus de
Beneficiis: 'When the king elected by the Germans goes to Rome
to be 'consecrated (the) six princes who first cast their
votes for him shall by rights accompany him that the justice
of his election may be evident to the Pope.' The
Sachsenspiegel Lehurecht substantially copies this sentence,
but designates as the six princes: 'the Bishop of Mentz and of
Treves and of Cologne, and the Palsgrave of the Rhine, the
Duke of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg.' The
Sachsenspiegel of Landrecht is still more explicit: 'In voting
for Emperor, the first shall be the Bishop of Mentz; the
second, the (Bishop) of Treves; the third, the (Bishop) of
Cologne. The first of the laymen to vote is the Palsgrave of
the Rhine, the steward of the Empire; the second, the Duke of
Saxony, the marshal; the third, the Margrave of Brandenburg,
the chamberlain. The butler of the Empire (is) the King of
Bohemia. He has no vote because he is not German.' The obvious
inference is that these three temporal princes voted before
the rest because they were respectively the steward, marshal,
and chamberlain. In the chronicle of Albert of Stade, the
inference is given as fact in these words: 'The Palsgrave
votes because he is steward, the Duke of Saxony because (he
is) marshal, and the Margrave of Brandenburg, because (he is)
chamberlain.' The mere fact that the right of casting the
first six votes attached to six particular princes implies
that their votes greatly outweighed those of their
fellow-princes, and this is well known to have been the case
in all the elections held in the thirteenth century subsequent
to that of Frederick II. Only two others were associated with
them in the double election of Richard of Cornwall and
Alphonso of Castile (1256), namely, the King of Bohemia and
the Duke of Bavaria. The whole number of participants was
therefore eight, yet Urban IV., in a letter written March 31,
1263, to Richard of Cornwall, mentions the King of Bohemia
alone as associated with them, and incidentally states that
the 'princes having a voice' in the royal elections were
'seven in number.' It seems as if this must have been the
statement of an idea rather than of a fact, although a college
of seven electors was a recognized institution ten years
later, as the circumstances attending the election of Rudolph
of Hapsburg, demonstrate."
S. E. Turner,
A Sketch of the Germanic Constitution,
chapter 4.
{1445}
The Mark of Brandenburg was raised to the rank of an
Electorate in 1356--not in 1152 as erroneously stated by
Carlyle. The Margraf then became Kurfürst--"one of the Seven
who have a right ... to choose, to 'kieren' the Romish Kaiser;
and who are therefore called Kur Princes, Kurfürste, or
Electors. ... Fürst (prince) I suppose is equivalent
originally to our noun of number, 'First.' The old verb
'kieren' (participle 'erkoren' still in use, not to mention
'Val-kyr' and other instances) is essentially the same word as
our 'choose,' being written 'kiesen' as well as 'kieren.' Nay,
say the etymologists, it is also written 'Küssen ('to
kiss,'--to choose with such emphasis!), and is not likely to
fall obsolete in that form.--The other Six Electoral
Dignitaries, who grew to Eight by degrees, and may be worth
noting once by the readers of this book, are:
1. Three Ecclesiastical, Mainz, Cöln, Trier (Mentz, Cologne,
Treves), Archbishops all. ...
2. Three Secular, Sachsen, Pfalz, Böhmen (Saxony, Palatinate,
Bohemia); of which the last, Böhmen, since it fell from being
a kingdom in itself, to being a Province of Austria, is not
very vocal in the Diets.
These Six, with Brandenburg, are the Seven Kurfürsts in old
time; Septemvirs of the Country, so to speak. But now Pfalz,
in the Thirty-Years War (under our Prince Rupert's Father,
whom the Germans call the 'Winter-King'), got abrogated, put
to the ban, so far as an indignant Kaiser could; and the vote
and Kur of Pfalz was given to his Cousin of Baiern
(Bavaria),--so far as an indignant Kaiser could.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.
However, at the Peace of Westphalia (1648) it was found
incompetent to any Kaiser to abrogate Pfalz or the like of
Pfalz, a Kurfürst of the Empire. So, after jargon
inconceivable, it was settled, that Pfalz must be reinstated,
though with territories much clipped, and at the bottom of the
list, not the top as formerly; and that Baiern, who could not
stand to be balked after twenty-years possession, must be made
Eighth Elector.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
The Ninth, we saw (Year 1692), was Gentleman Ernst of Hanover.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1705.
There never was any Tenth."
T. Carlyle,
Frederick the Great,
book 2, chapter 4.
"All the rules and requisites of the election were settled by
Charles the Fourth in the Golden Bull [A. D. 1356--see below:
A. D. 1347-1493], thenceforward a fundamental law of the
Empire."
J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 14.
GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268.
The house of Suabia, or the Hohenstaufen.
Its struggles in Germany and Italy, and its end.
The Factions of the
Guelfs and Ghibellines.
Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick the Second.
On the death of Henry V., in 1125, the male line of the house
of Franconia became extinct. Frederick, duke of Suabia, and
his brother Conrad, duke of the Franks, were grandchildren of
Henry IV. on their mother's side, and, inheriting the
patrimonial estates, were plainly the heirs of the crown, if
the crown was to be recognized as hereditary and dynastic. But
jealousy of their house and a desire to reassert the elective
dependence of the imperial office prevailed against their
claims and their ambition. At an election which was denounced
as irregular, the choice fell upon Lothaire of Saxony. The old
imperial family was not only set aside, but its bitterest
enemies were raised over it. The consequences were a feud and
a struggle which grew and widened into the long-lasting,
far-reaching, historical conflict of Guelfs and Ghibellines.
See GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES;
also, SAXONY: DISSOLUTION OF THE OLD DUCHY.
The Saxon emperor Lothaire found his strongest support in the
great Wölf, Welf, or Guelf nobleman, Henry the Proud, duke of
Bavaria, to whom he (Lothaire) now gave his daughter in
marriage, together with the dukedom of Saxony, and whom he
intended to make his successor on the imperial throne. But the
scheme failed. On Lothaire's death, in 1138, the partisans of
the Suabian family carried the election of Conrad (the
Crusader--see CRUSADES: A. D. 1147-1149), and the dynasty most
commonly called Hohenstaufen rose to power. It took the name
of Hohenstaufen from its original family seat on the lofty
hill of Staufen, in Suabia, overlooking the valley of the
Rems. Its party, in the wars and factions of the time,
received the name of the Waiblingen, from the birth-place of
the Suabian duke Frederick--the little town of Waiblingen in
Franconia. Under the tongue of the Italians, when these party
names and war-cries were carried across the Alps, Waiblingen
became Ghibelline and Welf became Guelf. During the first half
century of the reign of the Hohenstaufen, the history of
Germany is the history, for the most part, of the strife in
which the Guelf dukes, Henry the Proud and Henry the Lion, are
the central figures, and which ended in the breaking up of the
old powerful duchy of Saxony. But Italy was the great
historical field of the energies and the ambitions of the
Hohenstaufen emperors. There, Frederick Barbarossa (Frederick
Red beard, as the Italians called him), the second of the
line, and Frederick II., his adventurous grandson, fought
their long, losing battle with the popes and with the
city-republics of Lombardy and Tuscany.
U. Balzani,
The Popes and the Hohenstaufen.
Frederick Barbarossa, elected Emperor in 1152, passed into
Italy in 1154. "He came there on the invitation of the Pope,
of the Prince of Capua, and of the towns which had been
subjected to the ambition of Milan. He marched at the head of
his German feudatories, a splendid and imposing array. His
first object was to crush the power of Milan, and to exalt
that of Pavia, the head of a rival league. Nothing could stand
against him. At Viterbo he was compelled to hold the stirrup
of the Pope, and in return for this submission he received the
crown from the Pontiff's hands in the Basilica of St. Peter.
He returned northwards by the valley of the Tiber, dismissed
his army at Ancona, and with difficulty escaped safely into
Bavaria. His passage left little that was solid and durable
behind it. He had effected nothing against the King of Naples.
His friendship with the Pope was illusory and short-lived. The
dissensions of the North, which had been hushed for a moment
by his presence, broke out again as soon as his back was
turned. He had, however, received the crown of Charles the
Great from the hands of the successor of St. Peter. But
Frederick was not a man to brook easily the miscarriage of his
designs. In 1158 he collected another army at Ulm. Brescia was
quickly subdued; Lodi, which had been destroyed by the
Milanese, was rebuilt, and Milan itself was reduced to terms.
{1446}
This peace lasted but for a short time; Milan revolted, and
was placed under the ban of the Empire. The fate of Cremona
taught the Milanese what they had to expect from the clemency
of the Emperor. After a desultory warfare, regular siege was
laid to the town. On March 1, 1162, Milan, reduced by famine,
surrendered at discretion, and a fortnight later all the
inhabitants were ordered to leave the town. The circuit of the
walls was partitioned out among the most pitiless enemies of
its former greatness, and the inhabitants of Lodi, of Cremona,
of Pavia, of Novara, and of Como were encouraged to wreak
their vengeance on their defeated rival. For six days the
imperial army laboured to overturn the walls and public
buildings, and when the Emperor left for Pavia, on Palm Sunday
1162, not a fiftieth part of the city was standing. This terrible
vengeance produced a violent reaction. The homeless fugitives
were received by their ancient enemies, and local jealousies
were merged in common hatred of the common foe. Frederick had
already been excommunicated by Pope Alexander III. as the
supporter of his rival Victor. Verona undertook to be the
public vindicator of discontent. Five years after the
destruction of Milan the Lombard league numbered fifteen towns
amongst its members. Venice, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso,
Ferrara, Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, Milan, Lodi, Piacenza,
Parma, Modena, and Bologna. The confederation solemnly engaged
to expel the Emperor from Italy. The towns on the frontier of
Piedmont asked and obtained admission to the league, and to
mark the dawn of freedom a new town was founded on the low
marshy ground which is drained by the Bormida and the Tanaro,
and which afterwards witnessed the victory of Marengo. It was
named by its founders Alessandria, in honour of the Pope, who
had vindicated their independence of the Empire. ... The
Lombard league had unfortunately a very imperfect
constitution. It had no common treasure, no uniform rules for
the apportionment of contributions; it existed solely for the
purposes of defence against the external foe. The time was not
yet come when self-sacrifice and self-abnegation could lay the
foundations of a united Italy. Frederick spent six years in
preparing vengeance. In 1174 he laid siege to the new
Alexandria, but did not succeed in taking it. A severe
struggle took place two years later. In 1176 a new army
arrived from Germany, and on May 29 Frederick Barbarossa was
entirely defeated at Legnano. In 1876 the seventh hundred
anniversary of the battle was celebrated on the spot where it
was gained, and it is still regarded as the birthday of
Italian freedom."
O. Browning,
Guelphs and Ghibellines,
chapter 1.
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162 to 1174-1183.
"The end was that the Emperor had to make peace with both the
Pope and the cities, and in 1183 the rights of the cities were
acknowledged in a treaty or law of the Empire, passed at
Constanz or Constance in Swabia. In the last years of his
reign, Frederick went on the third Crusade, and died on the
way.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192.
Frederick was succeeded by his son Henry the Sixth, who had
already been chosen King, and who in the next year, 1191, was
crowned Emperor. The chief event of his reign was the conquest
of the Kingdom of Sicily, which he claimed in right of his
wife Constance, the daughter of the first King William. He
died in 1197, leaving his son Frederick a young child, who had
already been chosen King in Germany, and who succeeded as
hereditary King in Sicily. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily thus
came to an end, except so far as it was continued through
Frederick, who was descended from the Norman Kings through his
mother. On the death of the Emperor Henry, the election of
young Frederick seems to have been quite forgotten, and the
crown was disputed between his uncle Philip of Swabia and Otto
of Saxony. He was son of Henry the Lion, who had been Duke of
Saxony and Bavaria, but who had lost the more part of his
dominions in the time of Frederick Barbarossa. Otto's mother
was Matilda, daughter of Henry the Second of England. ... Both
Kings were crowned, and, after the death of Philip, Otto was
crowned Emperor in 1209. But presently young Frederick was
again chosen, and in 1220 he was crowned Emperor, and reigned
thirty years till his death in 1250. This Frederick the
Second, who joined together so many crowns, was called the
Wonder of the World. And he well deserved the name, for
perhaps no King that ever reigned had greater natural gifts,
and in thought and learning he was far above the age in which
he lived. In his own kingdom of Sicily he could do pretty much
as he pleased, and it flourished wonderfully in his time. But in
Germany and Italy he had constantly to struggle against
enemies of all kinds. In Germany he had to win the support of
the Princes by granting them privileges which did much to
undermine the royal power, and on the other hand he showed no
favour to the rising power of the cities. In Italy he had
endless strivings with one Pope after another, with Innocent
the Third; Honorius the Third, Gregory the Ninth, and Innocent
the Fourth; as well as with the Guelfic cities, which
withstood him much as they had withstood his grandfather. He
was more than once excommunicated by the Popes, and in 1245
Pope Innocent the Fourth held a Council at Lyons, in which he
professed to depose the Emperor. More than one King was chosen
in opposition to him in Germany, just as had been done in the
time of Henry the Fourth, and there were civil wars all his
time, both in Germany and in Italy, while a great part of the
Kingdom of Burgundy was beginning to slip away from the Empire
altogether."
E. A. Freeman,
General Sketch of European History,
chapter 11.
"It is probable that there never lived a human being endowed
with greater natural gifts, or whose natural gifts were,
according to the means afforded him by his age, more
sedulously cultivated, than the last Emperor of the House of
Swabia. There seems to be no aspect of human nature which was
not developed to the highest degree in his person. In
versatility of gifts, in what we may call manysidedness of
character, he appears as a sort of mediæval Alkibiadês, while
he was undoubtedly far removed from Alkibiadês' utter lack of
principle or steadiness of any kind. Warrior, statesman,
lawgiver, scholar, there was nothing in the compass of the
political or intellectual world of his age which he failed to
grasp. In an age of change, when, in every corner of Europe
and civilized Asia, old kingdoms, nations, systems, were
falling and new ones rising, Frederick was emphatically the
man of change, the author of things new and unheard of--he was
stupor mundi et immutator mirabilis.
{1447}
A suspected heretic, a suspected Mahometan, he was the subject
of all kinds of absurd and self-contradictory charges; but the
charges mark real features in the character of the man. He was
something unlike any other Emperor or any other man. ... Of
all men, Frederick the Second might have been expected to be
the founder of something, the beginner of some new era,
political or intellectual. He was a man to whom some great
institution might well have looked back as its creator, to
whom some large body of men, some sect or party or nation,
might well have looked back as their prophet or founder or
deliverer. But the most gifted of the sons of men has left
behind him no such memory, while men whose gifts cannot bear a
comparison with his are reverenced as founders by grateful
nations, churches, political and philosophical parties.
Frederick in fact founded nothing, and he sowed the seeds of
the destruction of many things. His great charters to the
spiritual and temporal princes of Germany dealt the death-blow
to the Imperial power, while he, to say the least, looked
coldly on the rising power of the cities and on those
commercial Leagues which were in his time the best element of
German political life. In fact, in whatever aspect we look at
Frederick the Second, we find him, not the first, but the
last, of every series to which he belongs. An English writer
[Capgrave], two hundred years after his time, had the
penetration to see that he was really the last Emperor. He was
the last Prince in whose style the Imperial titles do not seem
a mockery; he was the last under whose rule the three Imperial
kingdoms retained any practical connexion with one another and
with the ancient capital of all. ... He was not only the last
Emperor of the whole Empire; he might almost be called the
last King of its several Kingdoms. After his time Burgundy
vanishes as a kingdom. ... Italy too, after Frederick,
vanishes as a kingdom; any later exercise of the royal
authority in Italy was something which came and went wholly by
fits and starts. ... Germany did not utterly vanish, or utterly
split in pieces, like the sister kingdoms; but after Frederick
came the Great Interregnum, and after the Great Interregnum
the royal power in Germany never was what it had been before.
In his hereditary Kingdom of Sicily he was not absolutely the
last of his dynasty, for his son Manfred ruled prosperously
and gloriously for some years after his death. But it is none
the less clear that from Frederick's time the Sicilian Kingdom
was doomed. ... Still more conspicuously than all was
Frederick the last Christian King of Jerusalem, the last
baptized man who really ruled the Holy Land or wore a crown in
the Holy City. ... In the world of elegant letters Frederick
has some claim to be looked on as the founder of that modern
Italian language and literature which first assumed a
distinctive shape at his Sicilian court. But in the wider
field of political history Frederick appears nowhere as a
creator, but rather everywhere as an involuntary destroyer.
... Under Frederick the Empire and everything connected with
it seems to crumble and decay while preserving its external
splendour. As soon as its brilliant possessor is gone, it at
once falls asunder. It is a significant fact that one who in
mere genius, in mere accomplishments, was surely the greatest
prince who ever wore a crown, a prince who held the greatest
place on earth, and who was concerned during a long reign in
some of the greatest transactions of one of the greatest ages,
seems never, even from his own flatterers, to have received
that title of Great which has been so lavishly bestowed on far
smaller men. ... Many causes combined to produce this singular
result, that a man of the extraordinary genius of Frederick,
and possessed of every advantage of birth, office, and
opportunity, should have had so little direct effect upon the
world. It is not enough to attribute his failure to the many
and great faults of his moral character. Doubtless they were
one cause among others. But a man who influences future ages
is not necessarily a good man. ... The weak side in the
brilliant career of Frederick is one which seems to have been
partly inherent in his character, and partly the result of the
circumstances in which he found himself. Capable of every
part, and in fact playing every part by turns, he had no
single definite object, pursued honestly and steadfastly,
throughout his whole life. With all his powers, with all his
brilliancy, his course throughout life seems to have been in a
manner determined for him by others. He was ever drifting into
wars, into schemes of policy, which seem to be hardly ever of
his own choosing. He was the mightiest and most dangerous
adversary that the Papacy ever had. But he does not seem to
have withstood the Papacy from any personal choice, or as the
voluntary champion of any opposing principle. He became the
enemy of the Papacy, he planned schemes which involved the
utter overthrow of Papacy, yet he did so simply because he
found that no Pope would ever let him alone. ... The most
really successful feature in Frederick's career, his
acquisition of Jerusalem [see CRUSADES: A. D. 1216-1229], is
not only a mere episode in his life, but it is something that
was absolutely forced upon him against his will. ... With
other Crusaders the Holy War was, in some cases, the main
business of their lives; in all cases it was something
seriously undertaken as a matter either of policy or of
religious duty. But the Crusade of the man who actually did
recover the Holy City is simply a grotesque episode in his
life. Excommunicated for not going, excommunicated again for
going, excommunicated again for coming back, threatened on
every side, he still went, and he succeeded. What others had
failed to win by arms, he contrived to win by address, and all
that came of his success was that it was made the ground of
fresh accusations against him. ... For a man to influence his
age, he must in some sort belong to his age. He should be
above it, before it, but he should not be foreign to it. ...
But Frederick belongs to no age; intellectually he is above
his own age, above every age; morally it can hardly be denied
that he was below his age; but in nothing was he of his age."
E. A. Freeman,
The Emperor Frederick the Second
(Historical Essays, volume 1, Essay 10).
For an account of Frederick's brilliant Sicilian court, and of
some of the distinguishing features of his reign in Southern
Italy, as well as of the end of his family, in the tragical
deaths of his son Manfred and his grandson Conradin (1268).
See ITALY: A. D. 1183-1250.
ALSO IN:
T. L. Kington,
History of Frederick the Second.
J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapters 10-13.
H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 8, chapter 7, and book 9.
{1448}
GERMANY: A. D. 1142-1152.
Creation of the Electorate of Brandenburg.
See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1142-1152.
GERMANY: A. D. 1156.
The Margravate of Austria created a Duchy.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 805-1246.
GERMANY: A. D. 1180-1214.
Bavaria and the Palatinate of the Rhine acquired by the house
of Wittelsbach.
See BAVARIA: A. D. 1180-1356.
GERMANY: A. D. 1196-1197.
The Fourth Crusade.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1196-1197.
GERMANY: 13th Century.
The rise of the Hanseatic League.
See HANSA TOWNS.
GERMANY: 13th Century.
Cause of the multiplication of petty principalities and
states.
"While the duchies and counties of Germany retained their
original character of offices or governments, they were of
course, even though considered as hereditary, not subject to
partition among children. When they acquired the nature of
fiefs, it was still consonant to the principles of a feudal
tenure that the eldest son should inherit according to the law
of primogeniture; an inferior provision or appanage, at most,
being reserved for the younger children. The law of England
favoured the eldest exclusively; that of France gave him great
advantages. But in Germany a different rule began to prevail
about the thirteenth century. An equal partition of the
inheritance, without the least regard to priority of birth,
was the general law of its principalities. Sometimes this was
effected by undivided possession, or tenancy in common; the
brothers residing together, and reigning jointly. This tended
to preserve the integrity of dominion; but as it was
frequently incommodious, a more usual practice was to divide
the territory. From such partitions are derived those numerous
independent principalities of the same house, many of which still
subsist in Germany. In 1589 there were eight reigning princes
of the Palatine family; and fourteen, in 1675, of that of
Saxony. Originally these partitions were in general absolute
and without reversion; but, as their effect in weakening
families became evident, a practice was introduced of making
compacts of reciprocal succession, by which a fief was
prevented from escheating to the empire, until all the male
posterity of the first feudatory should be extinct. Thus,
while the German empire survived, all the princes of Hesse or
of Saxony had reciprocal contingencies of succession, or what
our lawyers call cross-remainders, to each other's dominions.
A different system was gradually adopted. By the Golden Bull
of Charles IV. the electoral territory, that is, the
particular district to which the electoral suffrage was
inseparably attached, became incapable of partition, and was
to descend to the eldest son. In the 15th century the present
house of Brandenburg set the first example of establishing
primogeniture by law; the principalities of Anspach and
Bayreuth were dismembered from it for the benefit of younger
branches; but it was declared that all the other dominions of
the family should for the future belong exclusively to the
reigning elector. This politic measure was adopted in several
other families; but, even in the 16th century, the prejudice
was not removed, and some German princes denounced curses on
their posterity, if they should introduce the impious custom
of primogeniture. ... Weakened by these subdivisions, the
principalities of Germany in the 14th and 15th centuries
shrink to a more and more diminutive size in the scale of
nations."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 5 (volume 2).
See, also,
CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY.
GERMANY: A. D. 1212.
The Children's Crusade.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1212.
GERMANY: A. D. 1231-1315.
Relations of the Swiss Forest Cantons to the Empire and to the
House of Austria.
See SWITZERLAND: THE THREE FOREST CANTONS.
GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272.
Degradation of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Great Interregnum.
Anarchy and disorder universal.
Election of Rudolf of Hapsburg.
"With Frederick [the Second] fell the Empire. From the ruin
that overwhelmed the greatest of its houses it emerged, living
indeed, and destined to a long life, but so shattered,
crippled, and degraded, that it could never more be to Europe
and to Germany what it once had been. ... The German kingdom
broke down beneath the weight of the Roman Empire. To be
universal sovereign Germany had sacrificed her own political
existence. The necessity which their projects in Italy and
disputes with the Pope laid the Emperors under of purchasing
by concessions the support of their own princes, the ease with
which in their absence the magnates could usurp, the
difficulty which the monarch returning found in resuming the
privileges of his crown, the temptation to revolt and set up
pretenders to the throne which the Holy See held out, these
were the causes whose steady action laid the foundation of
that territorial independence which rose into a stable fabric
at the era of the Great Interregnum. Frederick II. had, by two
Pragmatic Sanctions, A. D. 1220 and 1232, granted, or rather
confirmed, rights already customary, such as to give the
bishops and nobles legal sovereignty in their own towns and
territories, except when the Emperor should be present; and
thus his direct jurisdiction became restricted to his narrowed
domain, and to the cities immediately dependent on the crown.
With so much less to do, an Emperor became altogether a less
necessary personage; and hence the seven magnates of the
realm, now by law or custom sole electors, were in no haste to
fill up the place of Conrad IV., whom the supporters of his
father Frederick had acknowledged. William of Holland [A. D.
1254] was in the field, but rejected by the Swabian party: on
his death a new election was called for, and at last set on
foot. The archbishop of Cologne advised his brethren to choose
some one rich enough to support the dignity, not strong enough
to be feared by the electors: both requisites met in the
Plantagenet Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother of the English
Henry III. He received three, eventually four votes, came to
Germany, and was crowned at Aachen [A. D. 1256]. But three of
the electors, finding that his bribe to them was lower than to
the others, seceded in disgust, and chose Alfonso X. of
Castile, who, shrewder than his competitor, continued to watch
the stars at Toledo, enjoying the splendours of his title
while troubling himself about it no further than to issue now
and then a proclamation. Meantime the condition of Germany was
frightful. The new Didius Julianus, the chosen of princes
baser than the prætorians whom they copied, had neither the
character nor the outward power and resources to make himself
respected. Every floodgate of anarchy was opened: prelates and
barons extended their domains by war: robber-knights infested
the highways and the rivers: the misery of the weak, the
tyranny and violence of the strong, were such as had not been
seen for centuries.
{1449}
Things were even worse than under the Saxon and Franconian
Emperors; for the petty nobles who had then been in some
measure controlled by their dukes were now, after the
extinction of the great houses, left without any feudal
superior. Only in the cities was shelter or peace to be found.
Those of the Rhine had already leagued themselves for mutual
defence, and maintained a struggle in the interests of
commerce and order against universal brigandage. At last, when
Richard had been some time dead, it was felt that such things
could not go on for ever: with no public law, and no courts of
justice, an Emperor, the embodiment of legal government, was
the only resource. The Pope himself, having now sufficiently
improved the weakness of his enemy, found the disorganization
of Germany beginning to tell upon his revenues, and threatened
that if the electors did not appoint an Emperor, he would.
Thus urged, they chose, in 1272 [1273?], Rudolf, count of
Hapsburg, founder of the house of Austria. From this point
there begins a new era. We have seen the Roman Empire revived
in A. D. 800, by a prince whose vast dominions gave ground to
his claim of universal monarchy; again erected, in A. D. 962,
on the narrower but firmer basis of the German kingdom. We
have seen Otto the Great and his successors during the three
following centuries, a line of monarchs of unrivalled vigour
and abilities, strain every nerve to make good the pretensions
of their office against the rebels in Italy and the
ecclesiastical power. Those efforts had now failed signally
and hopelessly. Each successive Emperor had entered the strife
with resources scantier than his predecessors, each had been
more decisively vanquished by the Pope, the cities, and the
princes. The Roman Empire might, and, so far as its practical
utility was concerned, ought now to have been suffered to
expire; nor could it have ended more gloriously than with the
last of the Hohenstaufen. That it did not so expire, but lived
on 600 years more, till it became a piece of antiquarianism
hardly more venerable than ridiculous--till, as Voltaire said,
all that could be said about it was that it was neither holy,
nor Roman, nor an empire--was owing partly indeed to the
belief, still unshaken, that it was a necessary part of the
world's order, yet chiefly to its connection, which was by
this time indissoluble, with the German kingdom. The Germans
had confounded the two characters of their sovereign so long,
and had grown so fond of the style and pretensions of a
dignity whose possession appeared to exalt them above the
other peoples of Europe, that it was now too late for them to
separate the local from the universal monarch. If a German
king was to be maintained at all, he must be Roman Emperor;
and a German king there must still be. ... That head, however,
was no longer what he had been. The relative position of
Germany and France was now exactly the reverse of that which
they had occupied two centuries earlier. Rudolf was as
conspicuously a weaker sovereign than Philip III. of France,
as the Franconian Emperor Henry III. had been stronger than
the Capetian Philip I. In every other state of Europe the
tendency of events had been to centralize the administration
and increase the power of the monarch, even in England not to
diminish it: in Germany alone had political union become
weaker, and the independence of the princes more confirmed."
J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 13.
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1250-1520.
GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.
The first Hapsburg kings of the Romans, Rodolph and Albert.
The choice made (A. D. 1273) by the German Electors of Rodolph
of Hapsburg for King of the Romans (see AUSTRIA: A. D.
1246-1282), was duly approved and confirmed by Pope Gregory
X., who silenced, by his spiritual admonitions, the rival
claims of King Alfonso of Castile. But Rodolph, to secure this
papal confirmation of his title, found it necessary to
promise, through his ambassadors, a renewal of the
Capitulation of Otho IV., respecting the temporalities of the
Pope. This he repeated in person, on meeting the Pope at
Lausanne, in 1275, On that occasion, "an agreement was entered
into which afterwards ratified to the Church the long disputed
gift of Charlemagne, comprising Ravenna, Æmilia, Bobbio,
Cesena, Forumpopoli, Forli, Faenza, Imola, Bologna, Ferrara,
Comacchio, Adria, Rimini, Urbino, Monteferetro, and the
territory of Bagno. Rodolph also bound himself to protect the
privileges of the Church, and to maintain the freedom of
Episcopal elections, and the right of appeal in all
ecclesiastical causes; and having stipulated for receiving the
imperial crown in Rome he promised to undertake an expedition
to the holy land. If Rodolph were sincere in these last
engagements, the disturbed state of his German dominions
afforded him an apology for their present non-fulfilment: but
there is good reason for believing that he never intended to
visit either Rome or Palestine; and his indifference to Italy
has even been the theme of panegyric with his admirers. The
repeated and mortifying reverses of the two Frederics were
before his eyes; there was little to excite his sympathy with
the Italians; and though Lombardy seemed ready to acknowledge
his supremacy, the Tuscan cities evinced aspirations after
independence." During the early years of Rodolph's reign he
was employed in establishing his authority, as against the
contumacy of Ottocar, King of Bohemia, and the Duke of Bavaria.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.
Meantime, Gregory X. and three short-lived successors in the
papal office passed away, and Nicholas III. had come to it
(1277). That vigorous pontiff called Rodolph to account for
not having yet surrendered the states of the Church in due
form, and whispered a hint of excommunication and interdict.
"Rodolph was too prudent to disregard this admonition: he
evaded the projected crusade and journey to Rome; but he took
care to send thither an emissary, who in his name surrendered
to the Pope the territory already agreed on. ... During his
entire reign Rodolph maintained his indifference towards
Italy." His views "were rather directed to the wilds of
Hungary and Germany than to the delicious regions of the
south. ... He compelled Philip, Count of Savoy, to surrender
Morat, Payerne, and Guminen, which had been usurped from the
Empire. By a successful expedition across the Jura, he brought
back to obedience Otho IV. Count of Burgundy; and forced him
to renounce the allegiance he had proffered to Philip III.
King of France. ... He crushed an insurrection headed by an
impostor, who had persuaded the infatuated multitude to
believe that he was the Emperor Frederic II.
{1450}
And he freed his dominions from rapine and desolation by the
destruction of several castles, whose owners infested the
country with their predatory incursions." Before his death, in
1291, Rodolph "grew anxious to secure to his son Albert the
succession to the throne, and his nomination by the Electors
ere the grave closed upon himself. ... But all his entreaties
were unavailing; he was coldly reminded that he himself was
still the 'King,' and that the Empire was too poor to support
two kings. Rodolph might now repent his neglect to assume the
imperial crown: but the character of Albert seems to have been
the real obstacle to his elevation. With many of the great
qualities of his father, this prince was deficient in his
milder virtues; and his personal bravery and perseverance were
tainted with pride, haughtiness; and avarice." On Rodolph's
death, the Electors chose for his successor Adolphus, Count of
Nassau, a choice of which they soon found reason to repent. By
taking pay from Edward I. of England, for an alliance with the
latter against the King of France, and by attempts to enforce
a purchased claim upon the Landgraviate of Thuringia, Adolphus
brought himself into contempt, and in 1298 he was solemnly
deposed by the Electors, who now conferred the kingship upon
Albert of Austria whom they had rejected six years before.
"The deposed sovereign was, however, strongly supported; and
he promptly collected his adherents, and marched at the head
of a vast army against Albert, who was not unprepared for his
reception. A great battle took place at Gelheim, near Worms;
and, after a bloody contest, the troops of Adolphus were
entirely defeated," and he himself was slain. But Albert, now
unopposed in Germany, found his title disputed at Rome.
Boniface VIII., the most arrogant of all popes, refused to
acknowledge the validity of his election, and drove him into a
close alliance with the Pope's implacable and finally
triumphant enemy, Philip IV. of France (see PAPACY: A. D.
1294-1348). He was soon at enmity, moreover, with a majority
of the Electors who had given the crown to him, and they,
stimulated by the Pope, were preparing to depose him, as they
had deposed Adolphus. But Albert's energy broke up their
plans. He humbled their leader, the Archbishop-Elector of
Mentz, and the rest became submissive. The Pope now came to
terms with him, and invited him to Rome to receive the
imperial crown; also offering to him the crown of France, if
he would take it from the head of the excommunicated Philip;
but while these proposals were under discussion, Boniface
suffered humiliations at the hands of the French king which
caused his death. During most of his reign, Albert was busy
with undertakings of ambition and rapacity which had no
success. He attempted to seize the counties of Holland,
Zealand, and Friesland, as fiefs reverting to the crown, on
the death of John, Count of Holland, in 1299. He claimed the
Bohemian crown in 1306, when Wenceslaus V., the young king,
was assassinated, and invaded the country; but only to be
beaten back. He was defeated at Lucka, in 1308, when
attempting to grasp the inheritance of the Landgrave of
Thuringia--under the very transaction which had chiefly caused
his predecessor Adolphus to be deposed, and he himself
invested with the Roman crown. Finally, he was in hostilities
with the Swiss Forest Cantons, and was leading his forces
against them, in May, 1308, when he was assassinated by
several nobles, including his cousin John, whose enmity he had
incurred.
Sir R. Comyn,
History of the Western Empire,
chapters 14-17 (volume 1).
ALSO IN;
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 5 (volume 1).
GERMANY: A. D. 1282.
Acquisition of the duchy of Austria by the House of Hapsburg.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.
GERMANY: A. D. 1308-1313.
The reign of Henry of Luxemburg.
The king (subsequently crowned emperor) chosen to succeed
Albert was Count Henry of Luxemburg, an able and excellent
prince. The new sovereign was crowned as Henry VII. "Henry did
not make the extension of his private domains his object, yet
favoring fortune brought it to him in the largest measure.
Since the death of Wenzel III., the succession to the throne
of Bohemia had been a subject of constant struggles. A very
small party was in favor of Austria; but the chief power was
in the hands of Henry of Carinthia, husband of Anna, Wenzel's
eldest daughter. But he was hated by the people, whose hopes
turned more and more to Elizabeth, a younger daughter of
Wenzel; though she was kept in close confinement by Henry, who
was about to marry her, it was supposed, below her rank. She
escaped, fled to the emperor, and implored his aid. He gave
her in marriage to his young son John, sending him to Bohemia
in charge of Peter Aichspalter; to take possession of the
kingdom. He did so, and it remained for more than a century in
the Luxemburg family. This King John of Bohemia was a man of
mark. His life was spent in the ceaseless pursuit of
adventure--from tournament to tournament, from war to war,
from one enterprise to another. We meet him now in Avignon,
and now in Paris; then on the Rhine, in Prussia, Poland, or
Hungary, and then prosecuting large plans in Italy, but hardly
ever in his own kingdom. Yet his restless activity
accomplished very little, apart from some important
acquisitions in Silesia. Henry then gave attention to the
public peace; came to an understanding with Leopold and
Frederick, the proud sons of Albert, and put under the ban
Everard of Wirtemberg, long a fomenter of disturbances,
sending against him a strong imperial army. ... At the Diet of
Spires, in September, 1309, it was cheerfully resolved to
carry out Henry's cherished plan of reviving the traditional
dignity of the Roman emperors by an expedition to the Eternal
City. Henry expected thus to renew the authority of his title
at home, as well as in Italy, where, in the traditional view,
the imperial crown was as important and as necessary as in
Germany. Every thing here had gone to confusion and ruin since
the Hohenstaufens had succumbed to the bitter hostility of the
popes. The contending parties still called themselves Guelphs
and Ghibellines, though they retained little of the original
characteristics attached to these names. A formal embassy,
with Matteo Visconti at its head, invited Henry to Milan; and
the parties every where anticipated his coming with hope. The
great Florentine poet, Dante, hailed him as a saviour for
distracted Italy. Thus, with the pope's approval, he crossed
the Alps in the autumn of 1310, attended by a splendid escort
of princes of the empire.
{1451}
The news of his approach excited general wonder and
expectation, and his reception at Milan in December was like a
triumph. He was crowned King of Lombardy without opposition.
But when, in the true imperial spirit, he announced that he
had come to serve the nation, and not one or another party,
and proved his sincerity by treating both parties alike, all
whose selfish hopes were deceived conspired against him.
Brescia endured a frightful siege for four months, showing
that the national hatred of German rule still survived. At
length a union of all his adversaries was formed under King
Robert of Naples, the grandson of Charles of Anjou, who put
Conradin to death. Meanwhile Henry VII. went to Rome, May
1312, and received the crown of the Cæsars from four
cardinals, plenipotentiaries of the pope, in the church of St.
John Lateran, south of the Tiber, St. Peter's being occupied
by the Neapolitan troops. But many of his German soldiers left
him, and he retired, with a small army, to Pisa, after an
unsuccessful effort to take Florence. From the faithful city
of Pisa he proclaimed King Robert under the ban, and, in
concert with Frederick of Sicily, prepared for war by land and
sea. But the pope, now a mere tool of the King of France,
commanded an armistice; and when Henry, in an independent
spirit, hesitated to obey, Clement V. pronounced the ban of
the Church against him. It never reached the emperor, who died
suddenly in the monastery of Buon-Convento: poisoned, as the
German annalists assert, by a Dominican monk, in the
sacramental cup, August 24, 1313. He was buried at Pisa.
Meanwhile his army in Bohemia had been completely successful
in establishing King John on the throne."
C. T. Lewis,
A History of Germany,
book 3, chapter 10.
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.
GERMANY: A. D. 1314-1347.
Election of rival emperors, Lewis (Ludowic) of Bavaria and
Frederic of Austria.
Triumph of Lewis at the Battle of Mühldorf.
Papal interference and excommunication of Lewis.
Germany under interdict.
Unrelenting hostility of the Church.
"The death of Heinric [Henry] replunged Germany into horrors
to which, since the extinction of the Swabian line of
emperors, it had been a stranger. The Austrian princes, who
had never forgiven the elevation of the Luxemburg family,
espoused the interests of Frederic, their head; the Bohemians
as naturally opposed them. From the accession of John, the two
houses were of necessity hostile; and it was evident that
there could be no peace in Germany until one of them was
subjected to the other. The Bohemians, indeed, could not hope
to place their king on the vacant throne, since their project
would have found an insurmountable obstacle in the jealousy of
the electors; but they were at least resolved to support the
pretensions of a prince hostile to the Austrians. ... The diet
being convoked at Frankfort, the electors repaired thither,
but with very different views; for, as their suffrages were
already engaged, while the more numerous party proclaimed the
duke of Bavaria as Ludowic V., another no less eagerly
proclaimed Frederic. Although Ludowic was a member of the
Austro-Hapsburg family--his mother being a daughter of Rodolf
I.--he had always been the enemy of the Austrian princes, and
in the same degree the ally of the Luxemburg faction. The two
candidates being respectively crowned kings of the Romans,
Ludowic at Aix-la-Chapelle, by the archbishop of
Mentz--Frederic at Bonn, by the metropolitan of Cologne, a
civil war was inevitable: neither had virtue enough to
sacrifice his own rights to the good of the state. ... The
contest would have ended in favour of the Austrians, but for
the rashness of Frederic, who, in September 1322, without
waiting for the arrival of his brother Leopold, assailed
Ludowic between Mahldorf and Ettingen in Bavaria. ... The
battle was maintained with equal valour from the rising to the
setting sun; and was evidently in favour of the Austrians,
when an unexpected charge in flank by a body of cavalry under
the margrave of Nuremburg decided the fortune of the day.
Heinric of Austria was first taken prisoner; and Frederic
himself, who disdained to flee, was soon in the same
condition. To his everlasting honour, Ludowic received
Frederic with the highest assurances of esteem; and though the
latter was conveyed to the strong fortress of Trapnitz, in the
Upper Palatinate, he was treated with every indulgence
consistent with his safe custody. But the contest was not yet
decided; the valiant Leopold was still at the head of a
separate force; and pope John XXII., the natural enemy of the
Ghibelins, incensed at some succours which Ludowic sent to
that party in Lombardy, excommunicated the king of the Romans,
and declared him deposed from his dignity. Among the
ecclesiastics of the empire this iniquitous sentence had its
weight; but had not other events been disastrous to the king,
he might have safely despised it. By Leopold he was signally
defeated; he had the mortification to see the inconstant king
of Bohemia join the party of Austria; and the still heavier
misfortune to learn that the ecclesiastical and two or three
secular electors were proceeding to another choice--that of
Charles de Valois, whose interests were warmly supported by
the pope. In this emergency, his only chance of safety was a
reconciliation with his enemies; and Frederic was released on
condition of his renouncing all claim to the empire. But
though Frederic sincerely resolved to fulfil his share of the
compact, Leopold and the other princes of his family refused;
and their refusal was approved by the pope. With the
magnanimity of his character, Frederic, unable to execute the
engagements which he had made, voluntarily surrendered himself
to his enemy. But Ludowic, who would not be outdone in
generosity, received him, not as a prisoner, but a friend.
'They ate,' says a contemporary writer, 'at the same table,
slept on the same couch;' and when the King left Bavaria, the
administration of that duchy was confided to Frederic. Two
such men could not long remain even politically hostile; and
by another treaty, it was agreed that they should exercise
conjointly the government of the empire. When this arrangement
was condemned both by the pope and the electors, Ludowic
proposed to take Italy as his seat of government, and leave
Germany to Frederic. But the death [1326] of the war-like
Leopold--the great support of the Austrian cause--and the
continued opposition of the states to any compromise, enabled
Ludowic to retain the sceptre of the kingdom; and in 1329,
that of Frederic strengthened his party. But his reign was
destined to be one of troubles. ... His open warfare against
the head of the church did not much improve his affairs, the
vindictive pope, in addition to the former sentence, placing
all Germany under an interdict. ...
{1452}
In 1338, the diet of Frankfort issued a declaration for ever
memorable in the annals of freedom. That the imperial
authority depended on God alone; that the pope had no temporal
influence, direct or indirect, within the empire; ... it
concluded by empowering the emperor (Ludowic while in Italy
[see ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330] had received the imperial crown
from the anti-pope whom he had created in opposition to John
XXII.) to raise, of his own authority, the interdict which,
during four years, had oppressed the country. Another diet,
held the following year, ratified this bold declaration. ...
But this conduct of the diet was above the comprehension of
the vulgar, who still regarded Ludowic as under the curse of
God and the church. ... Unfortunately for the national
independence, Ludowic himself contradicted the tenor of his
hitherto spirited conduct, by mean submissions, by humiliating
applications for absolution. They were unsuccessful; and he
had the mortification to see the king of Bohemia, who had
always acted an unaccountable part, become his bitter enemy.
... From this moment the fate of Ludowic was decided. In
conjunction with the pope and the French king, Charles of
Bohemia, who in 1346 succeeded to his father's kingdom and
antipathy, commenced a civil war; and in the midst of these
troubled scenes the emperor breathed his last [October 11,
1347]. Twelve months before the decease of Ludowic, Charles of
Bohemia [son of John, the blind king of Bohemia, who fell,
fighting for the French, at the battle of Crecy], assisted by
Clement VI., was elected king of the Romans."
S. A. Dunham,
History of the Germanic Empire,
book 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
J. I. von Döllinger,
Studies in European History,
chapter 5.
J. C. Robertson,
History of the Christian Church,
book 8, chapter 2, V. 7.
M. Creighton,
History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation,
introduction, chapter 2.
GERMANY: A. D. 1347-1493.
The Golden Bull of Charles IV.
The Luxemburg line of emperors, and the reappearance of the
Hapsburgs.
The Holy Roman Empire as it was at the end of the Middle Ages.
"John king of Bohemia did not himself wear the imperial crown;
but three of his descendants possessed it, with less
interruption than could have been expected. His son Charles
IV. succeeded Louis of Bavaria in 1347; not indeed without
opposition, for a double election and a civil war were matters
of course in Germany. Charles IV. has been treated with more
derision by his contemporaries, and consequently by later
writers, than almost any prince in history; yet he was
remarkably successful in the only objects that he seriously
pursued. Deficient in personal courage, insensible of
humiliation, bending without shame to the pope, to the
Italians, to the electors, so poor and so little reverenced as
to be arrested by a butcher at Worms for want of paying his
demand, Charles IV. affords a proof that a certain dexterity
and cold-blooded perseverance may occasionally supply, in a
sovereign, the want of more respectable qualities. He has been
reproached with neglecting the empire. But he never deigned to
trouble himself about the empire, except for his private'
ends. He did not neglect the kingdom of Bohemia, to which he
almost seemed to render Germany a province. Bohemia had been
long considered as a fief of the empire, and indeed could
pretend to an electoral vote by no other title. Charles,
however, gave the states by law the right of choosing a king,
on the extinction of the royal family, which seems derogatory
to the imperial prerogative. ... He constantly resided at
Prague, where he founded a celebrated university, and
embellished the city with buildings. This kingdom, augmented
also during his reign by the acquisition of Silesia, he
bequeathed to his son Wenceslaus, for whom, by pliancy towards
the electors and the court of Rome, he had procured, against
all recent example, the imperial succession. The reign of
Charles IV. is distinguished in the constitutional history of
the empire by his Golden Bull [1356]; an instrument which
finally ascertained the prerogatives of the electoral college.
See above: A. D. 1125-1152.
The Golden Bull terminated the disputes which had arisen
between different members of the same house as to their right
of suffrage, which was declared inherent in certain definite
territories. The number was absolutely restrained to seven.
The place of legal imperial elections was fixed at Frankfort;
of coronations, at Aix-la-Chapelle: and the latter ceremony
was to be performed by the arch-bishop of Cologne. These
regulations, though consonant to ancient usage, had not always
been observed, and their neglect had sometimes excited
questions as to the validity of elections. The dignity of
elector was enhanced by the Golden Bull as highly as an
imperial edict could carry it: they were declared equal to
kings, and conspiracy against their persons incurred the
penalty of high treason. Many other privileges are granted to
render them more completely sovereign within their dominions.
It seems extraordinary that Charles should have voluntarily
elevated an oligarchy, from whose pretensions his predecessors
had frequently suffered injury. But he had more to apprehend
from the two great families of Bavaria and Austria, whom he
relatively depressed by giving such a preponderance to the
seven electors, than from any members of the college. By his
compact with Brandenburg [see BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1168-1417] he
had a fair prospect of adding a second vote to his own. ...
The next reign, nevertheless, evinced the danger of investing
the electors with such preponderating authority. Wenceslaus
[elected in 1378], a supine and voluptuous man, less
respected, and more negligent of Germany, if possible, than
his father, was regularly deposed by a majority of the
electoral college in 1400. ... They chose Robert count
palatine instead of Wenceslaus; and though the latter did not
cease to have some adherents, Robert has generally been
counted among the lawful emperors. Upon his death [1410] the
empire returned to the house of Luxemburg; Wenceslaus himself
waiving his rights in favour of his brother Sigismund of
Hungary." On the death of Sigismund, in 1437, the house of
Austria regained the imperial throne, in the person of Albert,
duke of Austria, who had married Sigismund's only daughter,
the queen of Hungary and Bohemia. "He died in two years,
leaving his wife pregnant with a son, Ladislaus Posthumus, who
afterwards reigned in the two kingdoms just mentioned; and the
choice of the electors fell upon Frederic duke of Styria,
second-cousin of the last emperor, from whose posterity it
never departed, except in a single instance, upon the
extinction of his male line in 1740.
{1453}
Frederic III. reigned 53 years [1440-1493], a longer period
than any of his predecessors; and his personal character was
more insignificant. ... Frederic, always poor, and scarcely
able to protect himself in Austria from the seditions of his
subjects, or the inroads of the king of Hungary, was yet
another founder of his family, and left their fortunes
incomparably more prosperous than at his accession. The
marriage of his son Maximilian with the heiress of Burgundy
[see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1477] began that aggrandizement of the
house of Austria which Frederic seems to have anticipated. The
electors, who had lost a good deal of their former spirit, and
were grown sensible of the necessity of choosing a powerful
sovereign, made no opposition to Maximilian's becoming king of
the Romans in his father's lifetime."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 5 (volume 2).
"It is important to remark that, for more than a century after
Charles IV. had fixed his seat in Bohemia, no emperor
appeared, endowed with the vigour necessary to uphold and
govern the empire. The bare fact that Charles's successor,
Wenceslas, was a prisoner in the hands of the Bohemians,
remained for a long time unknown in Germany: a simple decree
of the electors' sufficed to dethrone him. Rupert the Palatine
only escaped a similar fate by death. When Sigismund of
Luxemburg, (who, after many disputed elections, kept
possession of the field,) four years after his election,
entered the territory of the empire of which he was to be
crowned sovereign, he found so little sympathy that he was for
a moment inclined to return to Hungary without accomplishing
the object of his journey. The active part he took in the
affairs of Bohemia, and of Europe generally, has given him a
name; but in and for the empire, he did nothing worthy of
note. Between the years 1422 and 1430 he never made his
appearance beyond Vienna; from the autumn of 1431 to that of
1433 he was occupied with his coronation journey to Rome; and
during the three years from 1434 to his death he never got
beyond Bohemia and Moravia; nor did Albert II., who has been
the subject of such lavish eulogy, ever visit the dominions of
the empire. Frederic III., however, far outdid all his
predecessors. During seven-and-twenty years, from 1444 to
1471, he was never seen within the boundaries of the empire.
Hence it happened that the central action and the visible
manifestation of sovereignty, in as far as any such existed in
the empire, fell to the share of the princes, and more
especially of the prince-electors. In the reign of Sigismund
we find them convoking the diets, and leading the armies into
the field against the Hussites: the operations against the
Bohemians were attributed entirely to them. In this manner the
empire became, like the papacy, a power which acted from a
distance, and rested chiefly upon opinion. ... The emperor was
regarded, in the first place, as the supreme feudal lord, who
conferred on property its highest and most sacred sanction.
... Although he was regarded as the head and source of all
temporal jurisdiction, yet no tribunal found more doubtful
obedience than his own. The fact that royalty existed in
Germany had almost been suffered to fall into oblivion; even
the title had been lost. Henry VII. thought it an affront to
be called King of Germany, and not, as he had a right to be
called before any ceremony of coronation, King of the Romans.
In the 15th century the emperor was regarded pre-eminently as
the successor of the ancient Roman Cæsars, whose rights and
dignities had been transferred, first to the Greeks, and then
to the Germans in the persons of Charlemagne and Otho the
Great; as the true secular head of Christendom. ... The
opinion was confidently entertained in Germany that the other
sovereigns of Christendom, especially those of England, Spain,
and France, were legally subject to the crown of the empire:
the only controversy was, whether their disobedience was
venial, or ought to be regarded as sinful."
L. von Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
volume 1, pages 52-56.
ALSO IN:
Sir R. Comyn,
History of the Western Empire,
chapter 24 (volume l).
E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages,
book 2, number 10.
See, also,
AUSTRIA: A. D. 1330-1364, to 1471-1491.
GERMANY: A. D. 1363-1364.
Tyrol acquired by the House of Austria, with the reversion of
the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1330-1364.
GERMANY: A. D. 1378.
Final surrender of the Arelate to France.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1127-1378.
GERMANY: A. D. 1386-1388.
Defeat of the Austrians by the Swiss at Sempach and Naefels.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1386-1388.
GERMANY: A. D. 1405-1434.
The Bohemian Reformation and the Hussite wars.
See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1405-1415, and 1419-1434.
GERMANY: A. D. 1414-1418.
Failure of demands for Church Reform in the Council of
Constance.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1414-1418.
GERMANY: A. D. 1417.
The Electorate of Brandenburg conferred on the Hohenzollerns.
"The March of Brandenburg is one of those districts which was
first peopled by the advance of the German nation towards the
east during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was in
the beginning, like Silesia, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Prussia,
and Livonia, a German colony settled upon an almost
uncultivated soil: from the very first, however, it seems to
have given the greatest promise of vigour. ... Possession was
taken of the soil upon the ground of the rights of the
princely Ascanian house--we know not whether these rights were
founded upon inheritance, purchase, or cession. The process of
occupation was so gradual that the institutions of the old
German provinces, like those constituting the northern march,
had time to take firm root in the newly-acquired territory;
and owing to the constant necessity for unsheathing the sword,
the colonists acquired warlike habits which tended to give them
spirit and energy. ... The Ascanians were a warlike but
cultivated race, incessantly acquiring new possessions, but
generous and openhanded; and new life followed in their
footsteps. They soon took up an important political position
among the German princely houses: their possessions extended
over a great part of Thuringia, Moravia, Lausitz, and Silesia;
the electoral dignity which they assumed gave to them and to
their country a high rank in the Empire. In the Neumark and in
Pomerelllen the Poles retreated before them, and on the
Pomeranian coasts they protected the towns founded by the
Teutonic order from the invasion of the Danes. It has been
asked whether this race might not have greatly extended its
power; but they were not destined even to make the attempt.
{1454}
It is said that at the beginning of the fourteenth century
nineteen members of this family were assembled on the
Margrave's Hill near Rathenau. In the year 1320, of all these
not one remained, or had even left an heir. ... In Brandenburg
... it really appeared as if the extinction of the ruling
family would entail ruin upon the country. It had formed a
close alliance with the imperial power--which at that moment
was the subject of contention between the two great families
of Wittelsbach and Luxemburg--was involved in the quarrels of
those two races, injured by all their alternations of fortune,
and sacrificed to their domestic and foreign policy, which was
totally at variance with the interests of Brandenburg. At the
very beginning of the struggle the March of Brandenburg lost
its dependencies. ... At length the Emperor Sigmund, the last
of the house of Luxemburg, found himself so fully occupied
with the disturbances in the Empire and the dissensions in the
Church, that he could no longer maintain his power in the
March, and intrusted the task to his friend and relation,
Frederick, Burgrave of Nürnberg, to whom he lay under very
great obligations, and who had assisted him with money at his
need. ... It was a great point gained, after so long a period
of anarchy, to find a powerful and prudent prince ready to
undertake the government of the province. He could do nothing
in the open field against the revolted nobles, but he assailed
and vanquished them in their hitherto impregnable strong-holds
surrounded with walls fifteen feet thick, which he demolished
with his clumsy but effective artillery. In a few years he had
so far succeeded that he was able to proclaim a Landfriede, or
public peace, according to which each and everyone who was an
enemy to him, or to those comprehended in the peace, was
considered and treated as the enemy of all. But the effect of
all this would have been but transient, had not the Emperor,
who had no son, and who was won by Frederick's numerous
services and by his talents for action, made the Electorate
hereditary in his family. ... The most important day in the
history of the March of Brandenburg and the family of Zollern
was the 18th of April, 1417, when in the market-place of
Constance the Emperor Sigmund formally invested the Burgrave
with the dignity of Elector, placed in his hands the flag with
the arms of the March and received from him the oath of
allegiance. From this moment a prospect was afforded to the
territory of Brandenburg of recovering its former prosperity
and increasing its importance, while to the house of Zollern a
career of glory and usefulness was opened worthy of powers
which were thus called into action."
L. von Ranke,
Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg,
book 1, chapter 2.
See, also, BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1168-1417;
and HOHENZOLLERN, RISE OF THE HOUSE OF.
GERMANY: A. D. 1467-1471.
Crusade against George Podiebrad, king of Bohemia.
See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1458-1471.
GERMANY: A. D. 1467-1477.
Relations of Charles the Bold of Burgundy to the Empire.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467, and 1476-1477.
GERMANY: A. D. 1492-1514.
The Bundschuh insurrections of the Peasantry.
Several risings of the German peasantry, in the later part of
the 15th and early part of the 16th century, were named from
the Bundschuh, or peasants' clog, which the insurgents bore as
their emblem or pictured on their banners. "While the peasants
in the Rhætian Alps were gradually throwing off the yoke of
the nobles and forming the 'Graubund' [see SWITZERLAND: A. D.
1396-1499], a struggle, was going on between the neighbouring
peasantry of Kempten (to the east of Lake Constance) and their
feudal lord, the Abbot of Kempten. It began in 1423, and came
to an open rebellion in 1492. It was a rebellion against new
demands not sanctioned by ancient custom, and though it was
crushed, and ended in little good to the peasantry (many of
whom fled into Switzerland), yet it is worthy of note because
in it for the first time appears the banner of the Bundschuh.
The next rising was in Elsass (Alsace), in 1493, the peasants
finding allies in the burghers of the towns along the Rhine,
who had their own grievances. The Bundschuh was again their
banner, and it was to Switzerland that their anxious eyes were
turned for help. This movement also was prematurely discovered
and put down. Then, in 1501, other peasants, close neighbours
to those of Kempten, caught the infection, and in 1502, again
in Elsass, but this time further north, in the region about
Speyer and the Neckar, lower down the Rhine, nearer Franconia,
the Bundschuh was raised again. It numbered on its recruit
rolls many thousands of peasants from the country round, along
the Neckar and the Rhine. The wild notion was to rise in arms,
to make themselves free, like the Swiss, by the sword, to
acknowledge no superior but the Emperor, and all Germany was
to join the League. They were to pay no taxes or dues, and
commons, forests, and rivers were to be free to all. Here,
again, they mixed up religion with their demands, and 'Only
what is just before God' was the motto on the banner of the
Bundschuh. They, too, were betrayed, and in savage triumph the
Emperor Maximilian ordered their property to be confiscated,
their wives and children to be banished, and themselves to be
quartered alive. ... Few ... really fell victims to this cruel
order of the Emperor. The ringleaders dispersed, fleeing some
into Switzerland and some into the Black Forest. For ten years
now there was silence. The Bundschuh banner was furled, but
only for a while. In 1512 and 1513, on the east side of the
Rhine, in the Black Forest and the neighbouring districts of
Würtemberg, the movement was again on foot on a still larger
scale. It had found a leader in Joss Fritz. A soldier, with
commanding presence and great natural eloquence, ... he bided
his time. ... Again the League was betrayed ... and Joss
Fritz, with the banner under his clothes, had to fly for his
life to Switzerland. ... He returned after a while to the
Black Forest, went about his secret errands, and again bided
his time. In 1514 the peasantry of the Duke Ulrich of
Würtemberg rose to resist the tyranny of their lord [in a
combination called 'the League of Poor Conrad']. ... The same
year, in the valleys of the Austrian Alps, in Carinthia,
Styria, and Crain, similar risings of the peasantry took
place, all of them ending in the triumph of the nobles."
F. Seebohm,
The Era of the Protestant Revolution,
part 1, chapter 4.
See, also, below: A. D. 1524-1525.
GERMANY: A. D. 1493.
Maximilian I. becomes emperor.
{1455}
GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519.
The reign of Maximilian.
His personal importance and his imperial powerlessness.
Constitutional reforms in the Empire.
The Imperial Chamber.
The Circles.
The Aulic Council.
"Frederic [the Third] died in 1493, after a protracted and
inglorious reign of 53 years. ... On the death of his father,
Maximilian had been seven years king of the Romans; and his
accession to the imperial crown encountered no opposition. ...
Scarcely had he ascended the throne, when Charles VIII., king
of France, passed through the Milanese into the south of
Italy, and seized on Naples without opposition.
See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.
Maximilian endeavoured to rouse the German nation to a sense
of its danger, but in vain. ... With difficulty he was able to
despatch 3,000 men to aid the league, which Spain, the pope,
the Milanese, and the Venetians had formed, to expel the
ambitious intruders from Italy. To cement his alliance with
Fernando the Catholic, he married his son Philip to Juana, the
daughter of the Spaniard. The confederacy triumphed; not
through the efforts of Maximilian, but through the hatred of
the Italians to the Gallic yoke. ... Louis XII., who succeeded
to Charles (1498), ... forced Philip to do homage for
Flanders; surrendering, indeed, three inconsiderable towns,
that he might be at liberty to renew the designs of his house
on Lombardy and Naples. ... The French had little difficulty
in expelling Ludovico Moro, the usurper of Milan, and in
retaining possession of the country during the latter part of
Maximilian's reign.
See ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500.
Louis, indeed, did homage for the duchy to the Germanic head;
but such homage was merely nominal: it involved no tribute, no
dependence. The occupation of this fine province by the French
made no impression on the Germans; they regarded it as a fief
of the house of Austria, not of the empire: but even if it had
stood in the latter relation, they would not have moved one
man, or voted one florin, to avert its fate. That the French
did not obtain similar possession of Naples, and thereby
become enabled to oppose Maximilian with greater effect, was
owing to the valour of the Spanish troops, who retained the
crown in the house of Aragon. His disputes with the Venetians
were inglorious to his arms; they defeated his armies, and
encroached considerably on his Italian possessions. He was
equally unsuccessful with the Swiss, whom he vainly persuaded
to acknowledge the supremacy of his house. ... For many of his
failures ... he is not to be blamed. To carry on his vast
enterprises he could command only the resources of Austria:
had he been able to wield those of the empire, his name would
have been more formidable to his enemies; and it is no slight
praise, that with means so contracted he could preserve the
Netherlands against the open violence, no less than the subtle
duplicity, of France. But the internal transactions of
Maximilian's reign are those only to which the attention of
the reader can be directed with pleasure. In 1495 we witness
the entire abolition of the right of diffidation [private
warfare, see LANDFRIEDE],--a right which from time immemorial
had been the curse of the empire. ... The passing of the
decree which for ever secured the public peace, by placing
under the ban of the empire, and fining at 2,000 marks in
gold, every city, every individual that should hereafter send
or accept a defiance, was nearly unanimous. In regard to the
long-proposed tribunal [to take cognizance of all violations
of the public tranquillity], which was to retain the name of
the Imperial chamber, Maximilian relaxed much from the
pretensions of his father. ... It was solemnly decreed that
the new court should consist of one grand judge, and of 16
assessors, who were presented by the states, and nominated by
the emperor. ... Though a new tribunal was formed, its
competency, its operation, its support, its constitution, the
enforcement of its decisions, were left to chance; and many
successive diets--even many generations--were passed before
anything like an organised system could be introduced into it.
For the execution of its decrees the Swabian league was soon
employed; then another new authority, the Council of Regency.
... But these authorities were insufficient to enforce the
execution of the decrees emanating from the chamber; and it
was found necessary to restore the proposition of the circles,
which had been agitated in the reign of Albert II. ...
Originally they comprised only--
1. Bavaria,
2. Franconia,
3. Saxony,
4. the Rhine,
5. Swabia, and
6. Westphalia; thus excluding the states of Austria and the
electorates. But this exclusion was the voluntary act of the
electors, who were jealous of a tribunal which might encroach
on their own privileges. In 1512, however, the opposition of
most appears to have been removed; for four new circles were
added.
7. The circle of Austria comprised the hereditary dominions of
that house.
8. That of Burgundy contained the states inherited from
Charles the Rash in Franche-Comté; and the Netherlands.
9. That of the Lower Rhine comprehended the three
ecclesiastical electorates and the Palatinate.
10. That of Upper Saxony extended over the electorate of that
name and the march of Brandenburg. ...
Bohemia and Prussia ... refused to be thus partitioned. Each
of these circles had its internal organisations, the elements
of which were promulgated in 1512, but which was considerably
improved by succeeding diets. Each had its hereditary
president, or director, and its hereditary prince convoked,
both offices being frequently vested in the same individual.
... Each circle had its military chief, elected by the local
states, whose duty it was to execute the decrees of the
imperial Chamber. Generally this office was held by the prince
director. ... The establishment of the Imperial Chamber was
... disagreeable to the emperor. To rescue from its
jurisdiction such causes as he considered lay more peculiarly
within the range of his prerogative, and to encroach by
degrees on the jurisdiction of this odious tribunal,
Maximilian, in 1501, laid the foundation of the celebrated
Aulic Council. But the competency of this tribunal was soon
extended; from political affairs, investitures, charters, and
the numerous matters which concerned the Imperial chancery, it
immediately passed to judicial crimes. ... By an imperial
edict of 1518, the Aulic Council was to consist of 18 members,
all nominated by the emperor. Five only were to be chosen from
the states of the empire, the rest from those of Austria.
About half were legists, the other half nobles, but all
dependent on their chief. ... When he [Maximilian] laboured to
make this council as arbitrary in the empire as in Austria, he
met with great opposition. ... But his purpose was that of
encroachment no less than of defence; and his example was so
well imitated by his successors, that in most cases the Aulic
Council was at length acknowledged to have a concurrent
jurisdiction with the Imperial Chamber, in many the right of
prevention over its rival."
S. A. Dunham,
History of the Germanic Empire,
book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2).
{1456}
"The received opinion which recognises in [Maximilian] the
creative founder of the later constitution of the empire, must
be abandoned. ... He had not the power of keeping the princes
of the empire together; ... on the contrary, everything about
him split into parties. It followed of necessity that abroad
he rather lost than gained ground. ... The glory which
surrounds the memory of Maximilian, the high renown which he
enjoyed even among his contemporaries, were therefore not won
by the success of his enterprises, but by his personal
qualities. Every good gift of nature had been lavished upon
him in profusion. ... He was a man ... formed to excite
admiration, and to inspire enthusiastic attachment; formed to
be the romantic hero, the exhaustless theme of the people."
L. von Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
volume 1, pages 379-381.
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations
from 1494 to 1514,
book 1, chapter 3,
and book 2, chapters 2 and 4.
See, also, AUSTRIA: A. D. 1477-1495.
GERMANY: A. D.1496-1499.
The Swabian war.
Practical separation of the Swiss Confederacy from the Empire.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499.
GERMANY: A. D. .1508-1509.
The League of Cambrai against Venice.
See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.
GERMANY: A. D. 1513-1515.
The emperor in the pay of England.
Peace with France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1513-1515.
GERMANY: A. D. 1516.
Abortive invasion of Milaness by Maximilian.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1516-1517.
GERMANY: A. D. 1517-1523.
Beginning of the movement of Religious Reformation.
Papal Indulgences, and Luther's attack on them.
"The Reformation, like all other great social convulsions, was
long in preparation. It was one part of that general progress,
complex in its character, which marked the fifteenth century
and the opening of the sixteenth as the period of transition
from the Middle Ages to modern civilization. ... But while the
Reformation was one part of a change extending over the whole
sphere of human knowledge and activity, it had its own
specific origin and significance. These are still, to some
extent, a subject of controversy. ... One of its causes, as
well as one of the sources of its great power, was the
increasing discontent with the prevailing corruption and
misgovernment in the Church, and with papal interference in
civil affairs. ... The misconduct of the popes in the last
half of the fifteenth century was not more flagrant than that
of their predecessors in the tenth century. But the fifteenth
century was an age of light. What was done by the pontiffs was
not done in a corner, but under the eyes of all Europe.
Besides, there was now a deep-seated craving, especially in
the Teutonic peoples, who had so long been under the tutelage
of a legal, judaizing form of Christianity, for a more
spiritual type of religion. ... The Reformation may be viewed
in two aspects. On the one hand it is a religious revolution
affecting the beliefs, the rites, the ecclesiastical
organization of the Church, and the form of Christian life. On
the other hand, it is a great movement in which sovereigns and
nations are involved; the occasion of wars and treaties; the
close of an old, and the introduction of a new, period in the
history of culture and civilization. Germany, including the
Netherlands and Switzerland, was the stronghold of the
Reformation. It was natural that such a movement should spring
up and rise to its highest power among a people in whom a love of
independence was mingled with a yearning for a more spiritual
form of religion than was encouraged by mediæval
ecclesiasticism. Hegel has dwelt with eloquence upon the fact
that while the rest of the world was gone out to America or to
the Indies, in quest of riches and a dominion that should
encircle the globe, a simple monk, turning away from empty
forms and the things of sense, was finding him whom the
disciples once sought in a sepulchre of stone. Unquestionably
the hero of the Reformation was Martin Luther. ... As an
English writer has pointed out, Luther's whole nature was
identified with his great work, and while other leaders, like
Melancthon and even Calvin, can be separated in thought from
the Reformation, Luther, apart from the Reformation, would
cease to be Luther.' ... In 1517 John Tetzel, a hawker of
indulgences, the proceeds of which were to help pay for the
building of St. Peter's Church, appeared in the neighborhood
of Wittenberg. To persuade the people to buy his spiritual
wares, he told them, as Luther himself testifies, that as soon
as their money clinked in the bottom of the chest the souls of
their deceased friends forthwith went up to heaven. Luther was
so struck with the enormity of this traffic that he determined
to stop it. He preached against it, and on October 31, 1517,
he posted on the door of the Church of All Saints, at
Wittenberg, his ninety-five theses. [For the full text of
these, see PAPACY: A. D. 1517], relating to the doctrine and
practice of selling indulgences. Indulgences ... were at first
commutations of penance by the payment of money. The right to
issue them had gradually become the exclusive prerogative of
the popes. The eternal punishment of mortal sin being remitted
or commuted by the absolution of the priest, it was open to the
pope or his agents, by a grant of indulgences, to remove the
temporal or terminable penalties, which might extend into
purgatory. For the benefit of the needy he could draw upon the
treasury of merit stored up by Christ and the saints. Although
it was expressly declared by Pope Sixtus IV., that souls are
delivered from purgatorial fires in a way analogous to the
efficacy of prayer, and although contrition was theoretically
required of the recipient of an indulgence, it often appeared
to the people as a simple bargain, according to which, on
payment of a stipulated sum, the individual obtained a full
discharge from the penalties of sin, or procured the release
of a soul from the flames. Luther's theses assailed the
doctrines which made this baneful traffic possible. ...
Unconsciously to their author, they struck a blow at the
authority of Rome and of the priesthood. Luther had no thought
of throwing off his allegiance to the Roman Church. Even his
theses were only propositions, propounded for academic debate,
according to the custom in mediæval universities. He concluded
them with the solemn declaration that he affirmed nothing, but
left all to the judgment of the Church. ...
{1457}
The theses stirred up a commotion all over Germany. ... A
controversy arose between the new champion of reform and the
defenders of indulgences. It was during this dispute that
Luther began to realize that human authority was against him
and to see the necessity of planting himself more distinctly
on the Scriptures. His clear arguments and resolute attitude
won the respect of the Elector of Saxony, who, though he often
sought to restrain his vehemence, nevertheless protected him
from his enemies. This the elector was able to do because of
his political importance, which became still greater when,
after the death of Maximilian, he was made regent of Northern
Germany."
G. P. Fisher,
History of the Christian Church,
pages 287-293.
"At first neither Luther, nor others, saw to what the contest
about the indulgences would lead. The Humanists believed it to
be only a scholastic disputation, and Hutten laughed to see
theologians engaged in a fight with each other. It was not
till the Leipzig disputation (1519), where Luther stood
forward to defend his views against Eck, that the matter
assumed a grave aspect, took another turn, and after the
appearance of Luther's appeals 'To the Christian Nobility of
the German Nation,' 'On the Babylonian Captivity,' and against
Church abuses, that it assumed national importance. All the
combustible materials were ready, the spark was thrown among
them, and the flames broke out from every quarter. Hundreds of
thousands of German hearts glowed responsive to the complaints
which the Wittenberg monk flung against Papal Rome, in a
language whose sonorous splendour and iron strength were now
first heard in all the fulness, force, and beauty of the
German idiom. That was an imperishable service rendered to his
country by Luther. He wrote in German, and he wrote such
German. The papal ban hurled back against him in 1520 was
disregarded. He burnt it outside the gate of Wittenberg by the
leper hospital, in the place where the rags and plague-stained
garments of the lepers were wont to be consumed. The nobility,
the burghers, the peasants, all thrilled at his call. Now the
moment had come for a great emperor, a second Charlemagne, to
stand forward and regenerate at once religion and the empire.
There was, however, at the head of the state, only Charles V.,
the grandson of Maximilian, a man weak where he ought to have
been strong, and strong where he ought to have been weak, a
Spanish Burgundian prince, of Romance stock, who despised and
disliked the German tongue, the tongue of the people whose
imperial crown he bore, a prince whose policy was to combat
France and humble it. It was convenient for him, at the time,
to have the pope on his side, so he looked with dissatisfied
eyes on the agitation in Germany. The noblest hearts among the
princes bounded with hope that he would take the lead in the
new movement. The lesser nobility, the cities, the peasantry,
all expected of the emperor a reformation of the empire
politically and religiously. ... But all hopes were dashed.
Charles V. as little saw his occasion as had Maximilian. He
took up a hostile position to the new movement at once. He
was, however, brought by the influential friends of Luther,
among whom first of all was the Elector of Saxony, to hear
what the reformer had to say for himself, before he placed him
under the ban of the empire. Luther received the imperial
safe-conduct, and was summoned to the Diet of Worms, there to
defend himself. He went, notwithstanding that he was warned
and reminded of the fate of Huss. 'I will go to Worms,' said
he, 'even were as many devils set against me as there are
tiles on the roofs.' It was probably on this journey that the
thoughts entered his mind which afterwards (1530) found their
expression in that famous chorale, 'Eine feste Burg ist unser
Gott,' which became the battle-song of Protestants. Those were
memorable days, the 17th and 18th of April, 1521, in which a
poor monk stood up before the emperor and all the estates of
the empire, undazzled by their threatening splendour, and
conducted his own case. At that moment when he closed his
defence with the stirring words, 'Let me be contradicted out
of Holy Scripture--till that is done I will not recant. Here
stand I. I can do no other, so help me God, amen!' then he had
reached the pinnacle of his greatness. The result is well known.
The emperor and his papal adviser remained unmoved, and the
ban was pronounced against the heretic. Luther was carried off
by his protector, the Elector of Saxony, and concealed in the
Wartburg, where he worked at his translation of the Bible. ...
Brandenburg, Hesse, and Saxony declared in favour of reform.
In 1523 Magdeburg, Wismar, Rostock, Stettin, Danzig, Riga,
expelled the monks and priests, and appointed Lutheran
preachers. Nürnberg and Breslau hailed the Reformation with
delight."
S. Baring-Gould,
The Church in Germany,
chapter 18.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1516-1517, to 1522-1525.
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany.
L. Hausser,
The Period of the Reformation.
J. H. Merle d'Aubigne,
History of the Reformation.
M. J. Spaulding,
History of the Protestant Reformation.
F. Seebohm,
The Era of the Protestant Revolution.
P. Bayne,
Martin Luther.
C. Beard,
Martin Luther and the Reformation.
J. Köstlin,
Life of Luther.
GERMANY: A. D. 1519,
Contest for the imperial crown,
Three royal candidates in the field.
Election of Charles V., the Austro-Spanish monarch of many
thrones.
In his last years, Maximilian made great efforts to secure the
Imperial Crown for his grandson Charles, who had already
inherited, through his mother Joanna, of Spain, the kingdoms
of Castile, Aragon, and the Two Sicilies, and through his
father, Philip of Austria, the duchy of Burgundy and the many
lordships of the Netherlands. "In 1518 he obtained the consent
of the majority of the electors to the Roman crown being
bestowed on that prince. The electors of Treves and Saxony
alone opposed the project, on the ground that, as Maximilian
had never received the Imperial crown [but was styled Emperor
Elect] he was himself still King of the Romans, and that
consequently Charles could not assume a dignity that was not
vacant. To obviate this objection, Maximilian pressed Leo to
send the golden crown to Vienna; but this plan was defeated by
the intrigues of the French court. Francis, who intended to
become a candidate for the Imperial crown, intreated the Pope
not to commit himself by such an act; and while these
negociations were pending, Maximilian died at Wels, in Upper
Austria, January 12th 1519. ... Three candidates for the
Imperial crown appeared in the field: the Kings of Spain,
France, and England.
{1458}
Francis I. [of France] was now at the height of his
reputation. His enterprises had hitherto been crowned with
success, the popular test of ability, and the world
accordingly gave him credit for a political wisdom which he
was far from possessing. He appears to have gained three or
four of the Electors by the lavish distribution of his money,
which his agent, Bonnivet, was obliged to carry through
Germany on the backs of horses; for the Fuggers, the rich
bankers of Augsburg, were in the interest of Charles, and
refused to give the French any accommodation. But the bought
votes of these venal Electors could not be depended on, some
of whom sold themselves more than once to different parties.
The infamy of Albert, Elector of Mentz, in these transactions,
was particularly notorious. The chances of Henry VIII. [of
England] were throughout but slender. Henry's hopes, like
those of Francis, were chiefly founded on the corruptibility
of the Electors, and on the expectation that both his rivals,
from the very magnitude of their power, might be deemed
ineligible. Of the three candidates the claims of Charles
seemed the best founded and the most deserving of success. The
House of Austria had already furnished six emperors, of whom
the last three had reigned eighty years, as if by an
hereditary succession. Charles's Austrian possessions made him
a German prince, and from their situation constituted him the
natural protector of Germany against the Turks. The previous
canvass of Maximilian had been of some service to his cause,
and all these advantages he seconded, like his competitors, by
the free use of bribery. ... Leo X., the weight of whose
authority was sought both by Charles and Francis, though he
seemed to favour each, desired the success of neither. He
secretly advised the Electors to choose an emperor from among
their own body; and as this seemed an easy solution of the
difficulty, they unanimously offered the crown to Frederick
the Wise, Elector of Saxony. But Frederick magnanimously
refused it, and succeeded in uniting the suffrages of the
Electors in favour of Charles; principally on the ground that
he was the sovereign best qualified to meet the great danger
impending from the Turk. ... The new Emperor, now in his 20th
year, assumed the title of Charles V. ... He was proclaimed as
'Emperor Elect,' the title borne by his grandfather, which he
subsequently altered to that of 'Emperor Elect of the Romans,'
a designation adopted by his successors, with the omission of
the word 'elect,' down to the dissolution of the empire."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 2, chapter 2 (volume l).
On his election to the Imperial throne, Charles ceded to his
younger brother, Ferdinand, all the German possessions of the
family. The latter, therefore, became Archduke of Austria, and
the German branch of the House of Austria was continued
through him; while Charles himself became the founder of a new
branch of the House--the Spanish.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1496-1526.
ALSO IN:
W. Robertson,
History of the Reign of Charles V.,
book 1.
J. S. Brewer,
The Reign of Henry VIII.,
chapter 11 (volume 1).
J. Van Praet,
Essays on the Political History of the 15th-17th Centuries,
chapter 2, (volume 1).
GERMANY: A. D. 1520-1521.
The Capitulation of Charles V.
His first Diet, at Worms, and its political measures.
The election of Charles V. "was accompanied with a new and
essential alteration in the constitution of the empire.
Hitherto a general and verbal promise to confirm the Germanic
privileges had been deemed a sufficient security; but as the
enormous power and vast possessions of the new emperor
rendered him the object of greater jealousy and alarm than his
predecessors, the electors digested into a formal deed or
capitulation all their laws, customs, and privileges, which
the ambassadors of Charles signed before his election, and
which he himself ratified before his coronation; and this
example has been followed by his successors. It consisted of
36 articles, partly relating to the Germanic body in general,
and partly to the electors and states in particular. Of those
relating to the Germanic body in general, the most prominent
were, not to confer the escheated fiefs, but to re-unite and
consolidate them, for the benefit of the emperor and empire;
not to intrust the charges of the empire to any but Germans;
not to grant dispensations of the common law; to use the
German language in the proceedings of the chancery; and to put
no one arbitrarily to the ban, who had not been previously
condemned by the diet or imperial chamber. He was to maintain
the Germanic body in the exercise of its legislative powers,
in its right of declaring war and making peace, of passing
laws on commerce and coinage, of regulating the contingents,
imposing and directing the perception of ordinary
contributions, of establishing and superintending the superior
tribunals, and of judging the personal causes of the states.
Finally, he promised not to cite the members of the Germanic
body before any tribunal except those of the empire, and to
maintain them in their legitimate privileges of territorial
sovereignty. The articles which regarded the electors were of
the utmost importance, because they confirmed the rights which
had been long contested with the emperors. ... Besides these
concessions, be promised not to make any attempt to render the
imperial crown hereditary in his family, and to re-establish the
council of regency, in conformity with the advice of the
electors and great princes of the empire. On the 6th of
January, 1521, Charles assembled his first diet at Worms,
where he presided in person. At his proposition the states
passed regulations to terminate the troubles which had already
arisen during the short interval of the interregnum, and to
prevent the revival of similar disorders. ... The imperial
chamber was re-established in all its authority, and the
public peace again promulgated, and enforced by new penalties.
In order to direct the affairs of the empire during the
absence of Charles, a council of regency was established. ...
It was to consist of a lieutenant-general, appointed by the
emperor, and 22 assessors, of' whom 18 were nominated by the
states, and four by Charles, as possessor of the circles of
Burgundy and Austria. ... At the same time an aid of 20,000
foot and 4,000 horse was granted, to accompany the emperor in
his expedition to Rome; but the diet endeavoured to prevent
him from interfering, as Maximilian had done, in the affairs
of Italy, by stipulating that these troops were only to be
employed as an escort, and not for the purpose of aggression."
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 26 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
book 2, chapter 4 (volume 1).
{1459}
GERMANY: A. D. 1522-1525.
Systematic organization and adoption in northern Germany of
the Lutheran Reformation.
The Diets at Nuremberg.
The Catholic League of Ratisbon.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1522-1525.
GERMANY: A. D. 1524-1525.
The Peasants' War.
"A political ferment, very different from that produced by the
Gospel, had long been troubling the empire. The people,
weighed down under civil and ecclesiastical oppression,
attached in many places to the lands belonging to the lords,
and sold with them, threatened to rise, and furiously burst
their chains. In Holland, at the end of the preceding century,
the peasants had mustered around standards inscribed with the
words 'bread' and 'cheese,' to them the two necessaries of
life. In 1503 the 'Cobblers' League' ['Bundschuh'--see
GERMANY: A. D. 1492-1514] had burst forth in the neighbourhood
of Spires. In 1513 this was renewed in Brisgau, and encouraged
by the priests. In 1514 Wurtemburg had witnessed 'the League
of poor Conrad,' the object of which was to uphold 'the
justice of God' by revolt. In 1515 terrible commotions had
taken place in Carinthia and Hungary. These insurrections were
stifled by torrents of blood, but no relief had been given to
the peoples. A political reform was as much wanted as a
religious one. The people had a right to it, but they were not
ripe to enjoy it. Since the commencement of the Reformation
these popular agitations had been suspended, the minds of men
being absorbed with other thoughts. ... But everything showed
that peace would not last long. ... The main dykes which had
hitherto kept the torrent back were broken, and nothing could
restrain its fury. Perhaps it must be admitted that the
movement communicated to the people by the Reform gave new
force to the discontent which was fermenting in the nation.
... Erasmus did not hesitate to say to Luther: 'We are now
reaping the fruits of the seed you have sown.' ... The evil
was augmented by the pretensions of certain fanatical men, who
laid claim to celestial inspirations. ... The most
distinguished of these enthusiasts was Thomas Münzer. ... His
first appearance was at Zwickau. He left Wittenberg after
Luther's return [from his concealment at Wartburg, 1522],
dissatisfied with the inferior part he had played, and he
became pastor of the little town of Alstadt in Thuringia.
There he could not long be at rest, and he accused the
reformers of founding a new papacy by their attachment to the
letter, and of forming churches which were not pure and holy.
He regarded himself as called of God to bear a remedy for so
great an evil. ... He maintained that to obey princes,
'destitute of reason,' was to serve God and Belial at the same
time. Then, marching at the head of his parishioners, to a
chapel which was visited by pilgrims from all quarters, he
pulled it to the ground. After this exploit he was obliged to
quit the country, wandered over Germany, and came to
Switzerland, spreading as he went, wherever people would hear
him, his plan for a universal revolution. In every place he
found elements ready for his purpose. He threw his powder upon
the burning coals, and a violent explosion soon followed. ...
The revolt commenced in those regions of the Black Forest, and
the sources of the Danube, which were so often the scene of
popular disturbances. On the 19th of July, 1524, the
Thurgovian peasantry rose against the Abbot of Reichenau, who
would not grant them an evangelical preacher. Thousands soon
gathered around the little town of Tengen, to liberate an
ecclesiastic who was imprisoned there. The revolt spread, with
inconceivable rapidity, from Suabia to the Rhine countries, to
Franconia, to Thuringia, and to Saxony. In January, 1525, the
whole of these countries were in insurrection. Towards the end
of that month the peasants published a declaration in twelve
articles, asking the liberty to choose their own pastors, the
abolition of petty tithes, serfdom, the duties on inheritance,
and liberty to hunt, fish, cut wood, &c., and each demand was
supported by a passage of Scripture."
J. H. Merle D'Aubigné,
The Story of the Reformation,
part 3, chapter 8,
(History of the Reformation, book 10, chapters 10-11).
"Had the feudal lords granted proper and fair reforms long
ago, they would never have heard of these twelve articles. But
they had refused reform, and they now had to meet revolution.
And they knew of but one way of meeting it, namely, by the
sword. The lords of the Swabian League sent their army of foot
and horsemen, under their captain, George Truchsess. The poor
peasants could not hold out against trained soldiers and
cavalry. Two battles on the Danube, in which thousands of
peasants were slain, or drowned in the river, and a third
equally bloody one in Algau, near the Boden See, crushed this
rebellion in Swabia, as former rebellions had so often been
crushed before. This was early in April 1525. But in the
meantime the revolution had spread further north. In the
valley of the Neckar a body of 6,000 peasants had come
together, enraged by the news of the slaughter of their fellow
peasants in the south of Swabia." They stormed the castle of the
young Count von Helfenstein, who had recently cut the throats
of some peasants who met him on the road, and put the Count to
death, with 60 of his companions. "A yell of horror was raised
through Germany at the news of the peasants' revenge. No yell
had risen when the Count cut peasants' throats, or the Swabian
lords slew thousands of peasant rebels. Europe had not yet
learned to mete out the same measure of justice to noble and
common blood. ... The revolution spread, and the reign of
terror spread with it. North and east of the valley of the
Neckar, among the little towns of Franconia, and in the
valleys of the Maine, other bands of peasants, mustering by
thousands, destroyed alike cloisters and castles. Two hundred
of these lighted the night with their flames during the few
weeks of their temporary triumph. And here another feature of
the revolution became prominent. The little towns were already
... passing through an internal revolution. The artisans were
rising against the wealthier burghers, overturning the town
councils, and electing committees of artisans in their place,
making sudden changes in religion, putting down the Mass,
unfrocking priests and monks, and in fact, in the interests of
what they thought to be the gospel, turning all things upside
down. ... It was during the Franconian rebellion that the
peasants chose the robber knight Goetz von Berlichingen as
their leader. It did them no good. More than a robber chief
was needed to cope with soldiers used to war. ... While all
this was going on in the valleys of the Maine, the revolution
had crossed the Rhine into Elsass and Lothringen, and the
Palatinate about Spires and Worms, and in the month of May had
been crushed in blood, as in Swabia and Franconia.
{1460}
South and east, in Bavaria, in the Tyrol, and in Carinthia
also, castles and monasteries went up in flames, and then,
when the tide of victory turned, the burning houses and farms
of the peasants lit up the night and their blood flowed
freely. Meanwhile Münzer, who had done so much to stir up the
peasantry in the south to rebel, had gone north into
Thuringia, and headed a revolution in the town of Mülhausen,
and became a sort of Savonarola of a madder kind. ... But the
end was coming. The princes, with their disciplined troops,
came nearer and nearer. What could Münzer do with his 8,000
peasants? He pointed to a rainbow and expected a miracle, but
no miracle came. The battle, of course, was lost; 5,000
peasants lay dead upon the field near the little town of
Frankenhausen, where it was fought. Münzer fled and concealed
himself in a bed, but was found and taken before the princes,
thrust into a dungeon, and afterwards beheaded. So ended the
wild career of this misguided, fanatical, self-deceived, but
yet, as we must think, earnest and in many ways heroic spirit.
... The princes and nobles now everywhere prevailed over the
insurgent peasants. Luther, writing on June 21, 1525,
says:--'It is a certain fact, that in Franconia 11,000
peasants have been slain. Markgraf Casimir is cruelly severe
upon his peasants, who have twice broken faith with him. In
the Duchy of Wurtemberg, 6,000 have been killed; in different
places in Swabia, 10,000. It is said that in Alsace the Duke
of Lorraine has slain 20,000. Thus everywhere the wretched
peasants are cut down.' ... Before the Peasants' War was ended
at least 100,000 perished, or twenty times as many as were put
to death in Paris during the Reign of Terror in 1793. ...
Luther, throughout the Peasants' War, sided with the ruling
powers. ... The reform he sought was by means of the civil
power; and in order to clear himself and his cause from all
participation in the wild doings of the peasantry, he publicly
exhorted the princes to crush their rebellion."
F. Seebohm,
The Era of the Protestant Revolution,
part 2, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
book 3, chapter 6 (volume 2).
P. Bayne,
Martin Luther: His Life and Work,
book 11 (volume 2).
J. Köstlin,
Life of Luther,
part 4, chapter 5.
C. W. C. Oman,
The German Peasant War of 1525
(English History Review, volume 5).
GERMANY: A. D. 1525-1529.
League of Torgau.
The Diets at Spires.
Legal recognition of the Reformed Religion, and the withdrawal
of it.
The Protest which gave rise to the name "Protestants."
See PAPACY: A. D.1525-1529.
GERMANY: A. D. 1529.
Turkish invasion of Austria.
Siege of Vienna.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1526-1567.
GERMANY: A. D. 1530.
The Diet at Augsburg.
The signing and reading of the Protestant Confession of Faith.
The condemnatory decree.
Breach between the Protestants and the emperor.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1530-1531.
GERMANY: A. D. 1530-1532.
The Augsburg Decree.
Alarm of the Protestants.
Their League of Smalkalde and alliance with the king of
France.
Pacification of Nuremberg with the emperor.
Expulsion of the Turks from Hungary.
The decree issued by the Diet at Augsburg was condemnatory of
most of the tenets peculiar to the protestants, "forbidding
any person to protect or tolerate such as taught them,
enjoining a strict observance of the established rites, and
prohibiting any farther innovation, under severe penalties.
All orders of men were required to assist with their persons
and fortunes in carrying this decree into execution; and such
as refused to obey it were declared incapable of acting as
judges, or of appearing as parties in the imperial chamber,
the supreme court of judicature in the empire. To all which
was subjoined a promise, that an application should be made to
the pope, requiring him to call a general council within six
months, in order to terminate all controversies by its
sovereign decisions. The severity of this decree, which was
considered as a prelude to the most violent persecution,
alarmed the protestants, and convinced them that the emperor
was resolved on their destruction." Under these circumstances,
the protestant princes met at Smalkalde, December 22, 1530,
and there "concluded a league of mutual defence against all
aggressors, by which they formed the protestant states of the
empire into one regular body, and, beginning already to
consider themselves as such, they resolved to apply to the
kings of France and England, and to implore them to patronise
and assist their new confederacy. An affair not connected with
religion furnished them with a pretence for courting the aid
of foreign princes.'" This was the election of the emperor's
brother, Ferdinand, to be King of the Romans, against, which
they had protested vigorously. "When the protestants, who
were' assembled a second time at Smalkalde [February, 1531],
received an account of this transaction, and heard, at the
same time, that prosecutions were commenced in the imperial
chamber against some of their number, on account of their
religious principles, they thought it necessary, not only to
renew their former confederacy, but immediately to despatch
their ambassadors into France and England." The king of France
"listened with the utmost eagerness to the complaints of the
protestant princes; and, without seeming to countenance their
religious opinions, determined secretly to cherish those
sparks of political discord which might be afterwards kindled
into a flame. For this purpose he sent William de Bellay, one
of the ablest negotiators in France, into Germany, who,
visiting the courts of the malecontent princes, and
heightening their ill-humour by various arts, concluded an
alliance between them, and his master, which, though concealed
at that time, and productive of no immediate effects, laid the
foundation of a union fatal on many occasions to Charles's
ambitious projects. ... The king of England [Henry VIII.],
highly incensed against Charles, in complaisance to whom, the
pope had long retarded, and now openly opposed, his divorce
[from Catharine of Aragon], was no less disposed than Francis
to strengthen a league which might be rendered so formidable
to the emperor. But his favourite project of the divorce led
him into such a labyrinth of schemes and negotiations, and he
was, at the same time, so intent on abolishing the papal
jurisdiction in England, that he had no leisure for foreign
affairs. This obliged him to rest satisfied with giving
general promises, together with a small supply in money, to
the confederates of Smalkalde. Meanwhile, many circumstances
convinced Charles that this was not a juncture" in which he
could afford to let his zeal for the church push him to
extremities with the protestants.
{1461}
"Negotiations were, accordingly, carried on by his direction
with the elector of Saxony and his associates; after many
delays ... terms of pacification were agreed upon at Nuremberg
[July 23], and ratified solemnly in the diet at Ratisbon
[August 3]. In this treaty it was stipulated: that universal
peace be established in Germany, until the meeting of a
general council, the convocation of which within six months
the emperor shall endeavour to procure; that no person shall
be molested on account of religion; that a stop shall be put
to all processes begun by the imperial chamber against
protestants, and the sentences already passed to their
detriment shall be declared void. On their part, the
protestants engaged to assist the emperor with all their
forces in resisting the invasion of the Turks. ... The
protestants of Germany, who had hitherto been viewed only as a
religious sect, came henceforth to be considered as a
political body of no small consequence. The intelligence which
Charles received of Solyman's having entered Hungary, at the
head of 300,000 men, brought the deliberations of the diet at
Ratisbon to a period. ... The protestants, as a testimony of
their gratitude to the emperor, exerted themselves with
extraordinary zeal, and brought into the field forces which
exceeded in number the quota imposed on them; and the
catholics imitating their example, one of the greatest and
best-appointed armies that had ever been levied in Germany
assembled near Vienna. ... It amounted in all to 90,000
disciplined foot, and 30,000 horse, besides a prodigious swarm
of irregulars. Of this vast army ... the emperor took the
command in person; and mankind waited in suspense the issue of
a decisive battle between the two greatest monarchs in the
world. But each of them dreading the other's power and good
fortune, they both conducted their operations with such
excessive caution, that a campaign for which such immense
preparations had been made ended without any memorable event.
Solyman, finding it impossible to gain ground upon an enemy
always attentive and on his guard, marched back to
Constantinople towards the end of autumn. ... About the
beginning of this campaign, the elector of Saxony died, and
was succeeded by his son John Frederick. ... Immediately after
the retreat of the Turks, Charles, impatient to revisit Spain,
set out, on his way thither, for Italy."
W. Robertson,
History of the Reign of Charles V.,
book 5.
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
book 6, chapters 1-8 (volume 3).
H. Stebbing,
History of the Reformation,
chapters 12-13 (volume 2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1532-1536.
Fanaticism of the Anabaptists of Münster.
Siege and capture of the city.
See ANABAPTISTS OF MÜNSTER.
GERMANY: A. D. 1533-1546.
Mercenary aspects of the Reformation.
Protestant intolerance.
Union with the Swiss Reformers.
The Catholic Holy League.
Preparations for war.
"During the next few years [after the peace concluded at
Nuremberg] there was no open hostility between the two
religious parties. ... But there was dissension enough. In the
first place there was much disputation as to the meaning of
the articles concluded at Nuremberg. The catholic princes,
under the pretext that, if no man was to be disturbed for his
faith, or for things depending on faith, he was still amenable
for certain offences against the church, which were purely of a
civil nature, were eager that the imperial chamber should take
cognisance of future cases, at least, where protestants should
seek to invade the temporalities of the church. ... But
nothing was effected; the tribunal was too powerless to
enforce its decrees. In 1534, the protestants, in a public
assembly, renounced all obedience to the chamber; yet they did
not cease to appropriate to themselves the property of such
monasteries and churches as, by the conversion of catholics to
their faith--and that faith was continually progressive--lay
within their jurisdiction. We need scarcely observe, that the
prospect of spoliation was often the most powerful inducement
with the princes and nobles to change their religion. When
they, or the magistracy of any particular city, renounced the
faith hitherto established, the people were expected to follow
the example: the moment Lutheranism was established in its place,
the ancient faith was abolished; nobody was allowed to profess
it; and, with one common accord, all who had any prospect of
benefiting by the change threw themselves on the domains of
the expelled clergy. That the latter should complain before
the only tribunal where justice could be expected, was
natural; nor can we be surprised that the plunderers should
soon deny, in religious affairs, the jurisdiction of that
tribunal. From the departure of the emperor to the year 1538,
some hundreds of domains were thus seized, and some hundreds
of complaints addressed to him by parties who resolved to
interpret the articles of Nuremberg in their own way. The
protestants declared, in a letter to him, that their
consciences would not allow them to tolerate any papist in
their states. ... By espousing the cause of the exiled duke of
Wittemberg, they procured a powerful ally. ... But a greater
advantage was the union of the sacramentarians [the Swiss
reformers, who accepted the doctrine of Zwingli respecting the
purely symbolical significance of the commemoration of the
Lord's Supper--see SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1528-1531] with the
Lutherans. Of such a result, at the diet of Augsburg, there
was not the least hope; but Bucer, being deputed by the
imperial cities to ascertain whether a union might not be
effected, laboured so zealously at the task that it was
effected. He consented to modify some of his former opinions;
or at least to wrap them in language so equivocal that they
might mean anything or nothing at the pleasure of the holder.
The Swiss, indeed, especially those of Zurich, refused to
sanction the articles on which Luther and Bucer had agreed.
Still, by the union of all protestant Germany under the same
banners, much was gained. ... In the meantime, the dissensions
between the two great parties augmented from day to day. To
pacify them, Charles sent fruitless embassies. Roused by the
apparent danger, in 1538, the catholic princes formed, at
Nuremberg, a counter league to that of Smalcald [calling it
the Holy League]. ... The death of Luther's old enemy, George,
duke of Saxony [1539], transferred the dominion of that
prince's states into the hands of [his brother Henry] a
Lutheran. Henry, duke of Brunswick, was now the only great
secular prince in the north of Germany who adhered to the
Roman catholic faith. ... A truce was concluded at Frankfort,
in 1539; but it could not remove the existing animosity, which
was daily augmented. Both parties were in the wrong. ...
{1462}
At the close of 1540, Worms was the scene of a conference very
different from that where, 20 years before, Luther had been
proscribed. There was an interminable theological disputation.
... As little good resulted, Charles, who was hastening from
the Low Countries to his German dominions, evoked the affair
before a diet at Ratisbon, in April, 1541. ... The diet of
Ratisbon was well attended; and never did prince exert himself
more zealously than Charles to make peace between his angry
subjects. But ... all that could be obtained was, that things
should be suffered to remain in their present state until a
future diet or a general council. The reduction of Buda,
however, by the Turks, rendered king Ferdinand, his brother,
and the whole of Germany, eager for an immediate settlement of
the dispute. ... Hence the diet of Spires in 1542. If, in
regard to religion, nothing definitive was arranged, except
the selection of Trent as the place most suitable for a
general council, one good end was secured--supplies for the
war with the Turks. The campaign, however, which passed
without an action, was inglorious to the Germans, who appear
to have been in a lamentable state of discipline. Nor was the
public satisfaction much increased by the disputes of the
Smalcald league with Henry of Brunswick. The duke was angry
with his subjects of Brunswick and Breslau, who adhered to the
protestant league; and though he had reason enough to be
dissatisfied with both, nothing could be more vexatious than
his conduct towards them. In revenge, the league of Smalcald
sent 19,000 men into the field,--a formidable display of
protestant power!--and Henry was expelled from his hereditary
states, which were seized by the victors. He invoked the aid
of the imperial chamber, which cited the chiefs of the league;
but as, in 1538, the competency of that tribunal had been
denied in religious, so now it was denied in civil matters.
... The following years exhibit on both sides the same
jealousy, the same duplicity, often the same violence where
the mask was no longer required, with as many ineffectual
attempts to procure a union between them. ... The progress of
events continued to favour the reformers. They had already two
votes in the electoral college,--those of Saxony and Brandenburg;
they were now to have the preponderance; for the elector
palatine and Herman archbishop of Cologne abjured their
religion, thus placing at the command of the reformed party
four votes against three. But this numerical superiority did
not long remain. ... The pope excommunicated the archbishop,
deposed him from his dignity, and ordered the chapter to
proceed to a new election; and when Herman refused to obey,
Charles sent troops to expel him, and to install the
archbishop elect, Count Adolf of Nassau. Herman retired to his
patrimonial estates, where he died in the profession of the
reformed religion. These events mortified the members of the
Smalcald league; but they were soon partially consoled by the
capture of Henry duke of Brunswick [1546], who had the
temerity to collect troops and invade his patrimonial
dominions. Their success gave umbrage to the emperor. ... He
knew that the confederates had already 20,000 men under arms,
and that they were actively, however secretly, augmenting
their forces. His first care was to cause troops to be as
secretly collected in his hereditary states; his second, to
seduce, if possible, some leaders of the protestants. With
Maurice duke of Saxony he was soon successful; and eventually
with the two margraves of Brandenburg, who agreed to make
preparations for a campaign and join him at the proper moment.
... His convocation of the diet at Ratisbon [1546], which
after a vain parade ended in nothing, was only to hide his
real designs. As he began to throw off the mask, the reformed
theologians precipitately withdrew; and both parties took the
field, but not until they had each published a manifesto to
justify this extreme proceeding. In each there was much truth,
and more falsehood."
S. A. Dunham,
History of the Germanic Empire,
book 3, chapter 2 (volume 3).
GERMANY: A. D. 1542-1544.
War with Francis I. of France.
Battle of Cerisoles.
Treaty of Crespy.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.
GERMANY: A. D. 1542-1563.
The beginning of the Roman Catholic reaction.
The Council of Trent.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1537-1563.
GERMANY: A. D. 1546-1552.
War of Charles against the Protestants.
The treachery of Maurice of Saxony.
The battle of Muhlberg.
The emperor's proposed "Interim" and its failure.
His reverse of fortune.
Protestantism triumphant.
The Treaty of Passau.
"Luther's death [which occurred in 1546] made no change in the
resolution which Charles had at last taken to crush the
Reformation in his German dominions by force of arms; on the
contrary, he was more than ever stimulated to carry out his
purpose by two occurrences: the adoption of the new religion
by one who was not only an Elector of the Empire, but one of
the chief prelates of the Church, the Prince-Archbishop of
Cologne. ... The other event that influenced him was the
refusal of the Protestants to accept as binding the decrees of
the Council of Trent, which was composed of scarcely any
members but a few Italian and Spanish prelates, and from which
they appealed to either a free general Council or a national
Council of the Empire; offering, at the same time, if Charles
should prefer it, to submit the whole question of religion to
a joint Commission, composed of divines of each party. These
remonstrances, however, the Emperor treated with contempt. He
had been for some time secretly raising troops in different
quarters; and, early in 1546, he made a fresh treaty with the
Pope, by which he bound himself instantly to commence warlike
operations, and which, though it had been negotiated, as a
secret treaty, Paul instantly published, to prevent any
retraction or delay on his part. War therefore now began,
though Charles professed to enter upon it, not for the purpose
of enforcing a particular religious belief on the recusants,
but for that of re-establishing the Imperial authority, which,
as he affirmed, many of the confederate princes had disowned.
Such a pretext he expected to sow disunion in the body, some
members of which were far from desirous to weaken the great
confederacy of the Empire: and, in effect, it did produce a
hesitation in their early steps that had the most important
consequences on the first campaign; for, in spite of the
length of time during which he had secretly been preparing for
war, when it came they were more ready than he. They at once
took the field with an army of 90,000 men and 120 guns, while
he, for the first few weeks after the declaration of war, had
hardly 10,000 men with him in Ratisbon. ...
{1463}
But the advantage of a single over a divided command was
perhaps never more clearly exemplified than in the first
operations of the two armies. He, as the weaker party, took up
a defensive position near Ingolstadt; but, though they
advanced within sight of his lines, they could not agree on
the mode of attack, or even on the prudence of attacking him
at all. ... At last, the confederates actually drew off, and
Charles, advancing, made himself master of many important
towns, which their irresolution alone had enabled him to
approach." Meanwhile the Emperor had won an important ally.
This was Duke Maurice, of the Albertine line of the House of
Saxony (see SAXONY: A. D. 1180-1553), to whom several
opportune deaths had given the ducal seat unexpectedly, in
1541, and whose ambition now hungered for the Electorate,
which was held by the other (the Ernestine) branch of the
family. He conceived the idea of profiting by the troubles of
the time to win possession of it. "With this view, though he
also was a Protestant, he tendered his services to the
Emperor, who, in spite of his youth, discerned in him a
promise of very superior capacity, gladly accepted his aid,
and promised to reward him with the territories which he
coveted. The advantages which Protestantism eventually derived
from Maurice's success has blinded some historians to the
infamy of the conduct by which he achieved it. ... The Elector
[John Frederick] was his [second] cousin; the Landgrave of
Hesse was his father-in-law. Pleading an unwillingness while
so young (he was barely 21) to engage in the war, he
volunteered to undertake the protection of his cousin's
dominions during his absence in the field. His offer was
thankfully accepted; but he was no sooner installed in his
charge than he began to negotiate with the enemy to invade the
territories which he had bound himself to protect. And on
receiving from Charles a copy of a decree, called the Ban of
the Empire, which had just been issued against both the
Elector and the Landgrave, he at once raised a force of his
own, with which he overran one portion of [the Elector's]
dominions, while a division of the Imperial army attacked the
rest; and he would probably have succeeded at once in subduing
the whole Electorate, had the main body of the Protestants
been able to maintain the war on the Danube." But Charles's
successes there brought about a suspension ol hostilities
which enabled the Elector to return and "chastise Maurice for
his treachery; to drive him not only from the towns and
districts which he had seized, but to strip him also of the
greater part of the territory which belonged to him by
inheritance." Charles was unable, at first, to give any
assistance to his ally. The Elector, however, who was the
worst of generals, so scattered his forces that when, "on the
23d of April [1547], Charles reached the Elbe and prepared to
attack him, he had no advantage over his assailant but that of
position. That indeed was very strong. He lay at Muhlberg, on
the right bank of the river, which at that point is 300 yards
wide and more than four feet deep, with a stream so rapid as
to render the passage, even for horsemen, a task of great
difficulty and danger." Against the remonstrances of his
ablest general, the Duke of Alva, Charles, favored by a heavy
fog, led his army across the river and boldly attacked. The
Ejector attempted to retreat, but his retreat became a rout.
Many fell, but many more were taken prisoners, including the
Elector and the Landgrave of Hesse. The victory was decisive
for the time, and Charles used it without moderation or
generosity. He declared a forfeiture of the whole Electorate
of Saxony by John Frederick, and conferred it upon the
treacherous Maurice; and, "though Maurice was son-in-law of
the Landgrave of Hesse, he stripped that prince of his
territories, and, by a device scarcely removed from the tricks
of a kidnapper, threw him also into prison." Charles seemed
now to be completely master of the situation in Germany, and
there was little opposition to his will in a diet which he
convened at Augsburg.
C. D. Yonge,
Three Centuries of Modern History,
chapter 4.
"He opened the Diet of Augsburg (September 1, 1547), in the
hope of finally bringing about the union so long desired and
so frequently attempted, but which he despaired of effecting
through a council which the Protestants had rejected in
advance. ... By the famous 'Interim' of Augsburg--the joint
production of Julius von Pflug, Bishop of Naumberg; Michael
Helding, coadjutor of Mentz; and the wily and subtle John
Agricola, preacher to the Elector of Brandenburg--Protestants
were permitted to receive the Holy Eucharist under both kinds;
the Protestant clergy already married to retain their wives;
and a tacit approval given to the retention of property
already taken from the Church. This instrument was, from
beginning to end, a masterpiece of duplicity, and as such
satisfied no party. The Catholics of Germany, the Protestants,
and the Court of Rome, each took exception to it. ... Maurice,
the new Elector of Saxony, unwilling to give the Interim an
unconditional approval, consulted with a number of Protestant
theologians, headed by Melancthon, as to how far he might
accept its provisions with a safe conscience. In reply they
drew up what is known as the Leipsig Interim (1548), in which
they stated that questions of ritual and ceremony, and others
of minor importance, which they designated by the generic word
adiaphora, might be wholly overlooked; and even in points of a
strictly doctrinal character, they expressed themselves
favourable to concession and compromise. ... Such Lutheran
preachers as professed to be faithful followers of their
master, made a determined opposition to the 'Interim,' and
began a vigorous assault upon its adiaphoristic clauses. The
Anti-adiaphorists, as they were called, were headed by Flacius
Illyricus, who being an ardent disciple of Luther's, and
possessing somewhat of his courage and energy, repaired to
Magdeburg, whose bold citizens were as defiant of imperial
power as they were contemptuous of papal authority. But in
spite of this spirited opposition, the Interim was gradually
accepted by several Protestant countries and cities--a fact
which encouraged the emperor at the Diet of Augsburg, in 1550,
to make a final effort to have the Protestants attend the
sessions of the Council of Trent, again opened by Pope Julius
III. ... After a short delay, deputies from Brandenburg,
Würtemberg, and Saxony began to appear at Trent; and even the
Wittenberg theologians, headed by Melancthon, were already on
their way to the Council, when Maurice of Saxony, having
secured all the advantages he hoped to obtain by an alliance
with the Catholic party, and regardless of the obligations by
which he was bound, proceeded to betray both the emperor and
his country.
{1464}
Having received a commission to carry into effect the ban of
the empire passed upon Magdeburg, he was in a position to
assemble a large body of troops in Germany without exciting
suspicion, or revealing his ulterior purposes. Besides uniting
to himself, as confederates in his plot, John Albert, Duke of
Mecklenburg; Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg; and William,
Landgrave of Hesse, eldest son of Philip of Hesse, he entered
into a secret treaty (Oct. 5, 1551) with Henry II., King of
France, who, as was pretended, coming into Germany as the
saviour of the country, seized the cities of Metz, Toul, and
Verdun. Maurice also held out to Henry the prospect of
securing the imperial crown. Everything being in readiness for
action, Maurice advancing through Thuringia, seized the city
of Augsburg, and suddenly made his appearance before
Innspruck, whence the emperor, who lay sick of a severe attack
of the gout, was hastily conveyed on a litter, through the
passes of the mountains, to Villach, in Carinthia. While
Maurice was thus making himself master of Innspruck, the King
of the French was carrying out his part of the programme by
actively prosecuting the war in Lorraine. Charles V., now
destitute of the material resources necessary to carry on a
successful campaign against the combined armies of the French
king and the German princes, and despairing of putting an end
to the obstinate conflict by his personal endeavours, resolved
to re-establish, if possible, his waning power by peaceful
negotiations. To this end, he commissioned his brother
Ferdinand to conclude the Treaty of Passau (July 30, 1552),
which provided that Philip of Hesse should be set at liberty,
and gave pledges for the speedy settlement of all religious
and political differences by a Diet, to be summoned at an
early day. It further provided that neither the emperor nor
the Protestant princes should put any restraint upon freedom
of conscience, and that all questions arising in the interval
between the two parties should be referred for settlement to
an Imperial Commission, composed of an equal number of
Catholics and Protestants. In consequence of the war then
being carried on by the empire against France for the recovery
of the three bishoprics of Lorraine of which the French had
taken possession, the Diet did not convene until February 5,
1555."
J. Alzog,
Manual of Universal Church History,
volume 3, pages 276-279.
ALSO IN:
W. Robertson,
History of the Reign of Charles V.,
books 8-10 (volume 2-3).
L. von Ranke,
Civil Wars and Monarchy in France,
chapter 6.
E. E. Crowe,
Cardinal Granvelle and Maurice of Saxony
(Eminent Foreign Statesmen, volume 1).
L. Häusser,
The Period of the Reformation,
chapters 15-17.
G. P. Fisher,
History of the Reformation,
chapter 5.
F. Kohlrausch,
History of Germany,
chapter 20.
GERMANY: A. D. 1547.
Pragmatic Sanction of Charles V., changing the relations of
the Netherland provinces to the Empire.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1547.
GERMANY: A. D. 1552-1561.
Battle of Sievershausen and death of Maurice.
The Religious Peace of Augsburg.
Abdication of Charles V.
Succession of Ferdinand I.
The halting of the Reformation and the rally of Catholic
resistance.
By the treaty of Passau, Maurice of Saxony bound himself to
defend the empire against the French and the Turks. "He
accordingly took the field against the latter, but with little
success, the imperial commander, Castaldo, contravening all
his efforts by plundering Hungary and drawing upon himself the
hatred of the people. Charles, meanwhile, marched against the
French, and, without hesitation, again deposed the corporative
governments reinstated by Maurice, on his way through
Augsburg, Ulm, Esslingen, etc. Metz, valiantly defended by the
Duke de Guise, was vainly besieged for some months, and the
Emperor was at length forced to retreat. The French were,
nevertheless, driven out of Italy. The aged emperor now sighed
for peace. Ferdinand, averse to open warfare, placed his hopes
on the imperceptible effect of a consistently pursued system
of suppression and Jesuitical obscurantism. Maurice was
answerable for the continuance of the peace, the terms of
which he had prescribed. ... Albert the Wild [of Brandenburg]
was the only one among the princes who was still desirous of
war. Indifferent to aught else, he marched at the head of some
thousand followers through central Germany, murdering and
plundering as he passed along, with the intent of once more
laying the Franconian and Saxon bishoprics waste in the name
of the gospel. The princes at length formed the Heidelberg
confederacy against this monster and the emperor put him under
the bann of the empire, which Maurice undertook to execute,
although he had been his old friend and companion in arms.
Albert was engaged in plundering the archbishopric of
Magdeburg, when Maurice came up with him at Sievershausen. A
murderous engagement took place (A. D. 1553). Three of the
princes of Brunswick were slain. Albert was severely wounded,
and Maurice fell at the moment when victory declared in his
favour, in the 33d year of his age, in the midst of his
promising career. ... Every obstacle was now removed, and a
peace, known as the religious peace of Augsburg, was concluded
by the diet held in that city, A. D. 1555. This peace was
naturally a mere political agreement provisionally entered
into by the princes for the benefit, not of religion, but of
themselves. Popular opinion was dumb, knights, burgesses, and
peasants bending in lowly submission to the mandate of their
sovereigns. By this treaty, branded in history as the most
lawless ever concerted in Germany, the principle 'cujus regio,
ejus religio,' the faith of the prince must be that of the
people, was laid down, By it not only all the Reformed
subjects of a Catholic prince were exposed to the utmost
cruelty and tyranny, but the religion of each separate country
was rendered dependent on the caprice of the reigning prince;
of this the Pfalz offered a sad example, the religion of the
people being thus four times arbitrarily changed. ... Freedom
of belief, confined to the immediate subjects of the empire,
for instance, to the reigning princes, the free nobility, and
the city councillors, was monopolized by at most 20,000
privileged persons. ... The false peace concluded at Augsburg
was immediately followed by Charles V. 's abdication of his
numerous crowns [see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1555]. He would
willingly have resigned that of the empire to his son Philip,
had not the Spanish education of that prince, his gloomy and
bigoted character, inspired the Germans with an aversion as
unconquerable as that with which he beheld them.
{1465}
Ferdinand had, moreover, gained the favour of the German
princes. Charles, nevertheless, influenced by affection
towards his son, bestowed upon him one of the finest of the
German provinces, the Netherlands, besides Spain, Milan,
Naples, and the West Indies (America). Ferdinand received the
rest of the German hereditary possessions of his house,
besides Bohemia and Hungary. ... Ferdinand I., opposed in his
hereditary provinces by a predominating Protestant party,
which he was compelled to tolerate, was politically
overbalanced by his nephew, Philip II., in Spain and Italy,
where Catholicism flourished. The preponderance of the Spanish
over the Austrian branch of the house of Habsburg exercised
the most pernicious influence on the whole of Germany, by
securing to the Catholics a support which rendered
reconciliation impossible. ... The religious disputes and
petty egotism of the several estates of the empire had utterly
stifled every sentiment of patriotism, and not a dissentient
voice was raised against the will of Charles V., which
bestowed the whole of the Netherlands, one of the finest of
the provinces of Germany, upon Spain, the division and
consequent weakening of the powerful house of Habsburg being
regarded by the princes with delight. At the same time that
the power of the Protestant party was shaken by the peace of
Augsburg, Cardinal Caraffa mounted the pontifical throne as
Paul IV., the first pope who, following the plan of the
Jesuits, abandoned the system of defence for that of attack.
The Reformation no sooner ceased to progress, than a
preventive movement began [see PAPACY: A. D. 1537-1563]. ...
Ferdinand I. was in a difficult position. Paul IV. refused to
acknowledge him on account of the peace concluded between him
and the Protestants, whom he was unable to oppose, and whose
tenets he refused to embrace, notwithstanding the expressed
wish of the majority of his subjects. Like his brother, he
intrigued and diplomatized until his Jesuitical confessor,
Bobadilla, and the new pope, Pius IV., again placed him on
good terms with Rome, A. D. 1559. ... Augustus, elector of
Saxony, the brother of Maurice, alarmed at the fresh alliance
between the emperor and pope, convoked a meeting of the
Protestant leaders at Naumberg. His fears were, however,
allayed by the peaceful proposals of the emperor (A. D. 1561).
... A last attempt to save the unity of the German church, in
the event of its separation from that of Rome, was made by
Ferdinand, who convoked the spiritual electoral princes, the
archbishops and bishops, for that purpose to Vienna, but the
consideration with which he was compelled to treat the pope
rendered his efforts weak and ineffectual. ... The
Protestants, blind to the unity and strength resulting from
the policy of the Catholics, weakened themselves more and more
by division."
W. Menzel,
History of Germany,
sections 197-198 (volume 2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1556-1558.
Abdication of the emperor, Charles V., and election of his
brother, Ferdinand.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1555.
GERMANY: A. D. 1556-1609.
The degeneracy of the Reformation.
Internal hostilities of Protestantism.
Tolerant reigns of Ferdinand I. and Maximilian II.
Renewed persecution under Rudolf II.
The risings against him.
His cessions and abdications.
"Germany was externally at peace. When the peace was broken in
Protestant states, the Protestants themselves, that is, a part
of their divines, were the cause of' the disturbance. These
were 'frantic' Lutherans. The theologian Flacius, at Jena,
openly attacked Melancthon as a 'traitor to the church,' on
account of his strivings for peace. The religious
controversies in the bosom of the adherents of the Augsburg
Confession had been since Luther's death inflamed to madness
by a strict Lutheran party, by slaves of the letter, who raged
not only against the Zwinglian and Calvinistic reformations,
but against Melancthon and those who sympathized with him. The
theological pugilists disgraced Protestantism, and aroused such
a spirit of persecution that Melancthon died on the 19th of
April, 1560, 'weary and full of anxiety of soul about the
future of the Reformation and the German nation.' His
followers, 'Lutheran' preachers and professors, were
persecuted, banished, imprisoned, on account of suspicion of
being inclined to the 'Reformed' [Calvinistic] as
distinguished from 'Evangelical' views; prayers for the
'extirpation of heresy' were offered in the churches of
Saxony, and a medal struck 'to commemorate the victory of
Christ over the Devil and Reason,' that is, over Melancthon
and his moderate party. ... Each parson and professor held
himself to be a divinely inspired watchman of Zion, who had to
watch over purity of doctrine. ... The universal prevalence of
'trials for witchcraft' in Protestant districts, with their
chambers of torture and burnings at the stake, marked the new
priestcraft of Lutheran Protestantism in its debasement into a
dogmatizing church. This quickly degenerating Protestant Church
comprised a mass of separate churches, because the vanity and
selfishness of the court clergy at every court, and the
professors of every university, would have a church of their
own. ... Every misfortune to the 'Reformed' churches caused a
malevolent joy in the Lutheran camp, and every common measure
against the common enemy was rejected by the Lutheran clergy
from hatred to the 'Reformed.' ... The emperor Ferdinand I.
had long been convinced that some change was required in the
Church of Rome. As he wrote to his ambassador in Trent, 'If a
reform of the Church did not proceed from the Church herself,
he would undertake the charge of it in Germany.' He never
ceased to offer his mediation between the two religious
parties. He thought, and thought justly, that a compromise was
possible in Germany. ... The change which gradually took place
in the head and heart of Ferdinand had not extended to those
who sat in St. Peter's chair. Ferdinand I., to improve the
moral state of the old Church, insisted most strongly on the
abolition of the celibacy of the clergy; this the Pope
declared the most indispensable prop of the Papacy. As thus
his proposals came to naught, he attempted to introduce the
proposed reformation into his hereditary domains; but just as
he was beginning to be the Reformer of these provinces, death
removed him from the world, on the 25th of July, 1564. ... His
oldest son and successor, Maximilian II., ... was out and out
German. Growing up in the great movement of the time, the
Emperor Maximilian II. was warmly devoted to the new ideas. He
hated the Jesuits and the Papacy. ...
{1466}
He remained in the middle between Protestants and Catholics,'
but really above both. ... He favored the Reformation in his
Austrian dominions; at the very time when Philip II. of Spain,
the son of Charles V., had commenced the bloodiest persecution
against the Reformed Church in the Netherlands ... ; at the
very time when the French court, ruled and led by Jesuits, put
into execution the long-prepared conspiracy of St.
Bartholomew. ... He never ceased to call the kings of France
and Spain to gentleness and toleration. ... 'I have no power,'
said the emperor, 'over consciences, and may constrain no
man's faith.' The princes unanimously elected the son of
Maximilian as King of the Romans, and Max received another
gratification: he was elected king by the gallant nation of
the Poles. Thus the house of Austria was again powerfully
strengthened. Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, and Germany, united
under one ruler, formed a power which could meet Turkey and
Russia. The Turks and the Russians were pressing forward. The
Turkish wars, more than anything else, prevented Max from
carrying out his long-cherished plan and giving a constitution
to the empire and church of the Germans. He who towered high
above the Papal party and the miserable controversies of
Protestant divines, and whose clear mind saw what the times
required, would have had every qualification for such a task.
But in the midst of his great projects, Maximilian II. died,
in his 49th year, on the 12th of October, 1576; as emperor,
honest, mild and wise, and elevated above all religious
controversies to a degree that no prince has ever reached. He
had always been a rock of offence to the Catholic party. ...
But Rudolf [son of Maximilian II.], when he became emperor
[1576], surrounded by secret Jesuits who had been his teachers
and advisers, became the humblest slave of the order and let
it do what it would. Rudolf had been sent by his father for
the interests of his own house to the Spanish court; a
terrible punishment now followed this self-seeking. Rudolf
confirmed liberty of conscience only to the nobles, not to the
citizens or peasants. He forbade the two latter classes to
visit the Evangelical churches, he closed their schools,
ordered them to frequent Catholic churches, threatened
disobedience with banishment, and even in the case of nobles
he dismissed from his court charges all who were not strict
papists. The people of Vienna and Austria hated him for these
orders. ... Without any judicial investigation he threatened
free cities with 'execution.' Aix la Chapelle expelled his
troops. Gebhard, the elector of Cologne, married a Countess
von Mansfeld and went over to Protestantism. ... The
Protestants supported him badly; Lutherans and Calvinists were
at bitter feud with each other, and weakened themselves in the
struggle. ... It was a croaking of ravens, and a great field
of the dead was not far off. ... The Emperor Rudolf, ... on a
return journey from Rome, vowed to Our Lady of Loretto, 'his
Generalissima,' to extirpate heretics at the risk of his life.
In his hereditary estates he ordered all who were not papists
to leave the territory. Soon afterwards he pulled down the
Evangelical churches, and dispersed the citizens by arms. He
intended soon to begin the same proceedings in Hungary and
Bohemia; but in Hungary the nation rose in defence of its
liberty and faith. The receipt of the intelligence that the
Hungarian malcontents were progressing victoriously
produced--what there had been symptoms of before--insanity.
The members of the house of Austria assembled, and declared
'The Emperor Rudolf can be no longer head of the house,
because unfortunately it is too plain that his Roman Imperial
Majesty ... was not competent or fit to govern the kingdoms.'
The Archduke Matthias [eldest brother of Rudolf] was elected
head of the Austrian house [1606]. He collected an army of
20,000 men, and made known that he would depose the emperor
from the government of his hereditary domains. Rudolf's
Jesuitical flatterers had named him the 'Bohemian Solomon.' He
now, in terror, without drawing sword, ceded Hungary and Austria
to Matthias, and gave him also the government of Moravia.
Matthias guaranteed religious liberty to the Austrians. Rudolf
did the same to the Bohemians and Silesians by the 'Letters of
Majesty.' Rudolf, to escape deposition by Matthias, abdicated
the throne of Bohemia."
W. Zimmerman,
Popular History of Germany,
book 5, chapter 2 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
F. Kohlrausch,
History of Germany,
chapter 21.
GERMANY: A. D. 1608-1618.
The Evangelical Union and the Catholic League.
The Jülich-Cleve contest.
Troubles in Bohemia.
The beginning of the Thirty Years War.
"Many Protestants were alarmed by the attempts Rudolf had made
to put them down, and especially by his allowing the Duke of
Bavaria to seize the free city of Donauwörth, formerly a
Bavarian town, and make it Catholic. In 1608 a number of
Protestants joined together and formed, for ten years, a
league called The Union. Its formation was due chiefly to the
exertions of Prince Christian of Anhalt, who had busily
intrigued with Henry IV. of France; but its head was the
Elector Palatine. As the latter belonged to the Reformed
Church, the Lutherans for the most part treated the Union
coldly; and the Elector of Saxony would have nothing to do
with it. It soon had an opportunity of acting. Duke William of
Jülich, who held Jülich, Cleve, and other lands, died in 1609.
John Sigmund, Elector of Brandenburg, and the Palsgrave of
Neuberg, both members of the Union, claimed to be his heirs,
and took possession of his lands. The Emperor Rudolf sent his
brother, the Archduke Leopold, Bishop of Passau, to drive out
these princes. The Union thereupon formed an alliance with
Henry IV. of France [see FRANCE: A. D. 1599-1610], and, coming
to the aid of its members, scattered the forces of the
Archduke in 1610. The Catholics now took fright, and hastened
to form a League which should hold the Union in check. It was
formed for nine years, and the supreme command was given to
Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. The death of Henry IV. took away
from the Union its chief source of strength, so that it shrank
from a general war. The two princes, however, who had given
rise to the quarrel, kept for a time the Jülich-Cleve
territory. In 1611 [1618] the power of the Elector of
Brandenburg was further increased by his succeeding to the
Duchy of Prussia. From this time East Prussia was always
joined to the Mark or Electorate of Brandenburg. It was now,
therefore, that the house of Brandenburg laid the foundations
of its future greatness. Matthias, in order to pacify the
Austrian States, granted them full religious liberty.
{1467}
In 1609 the Bohemian States also obtained from Rudolf a Royal
Charter, called 'The Letter of Majesty,' conceding to
nobility, knights and towns perfect freedom in religious
matters, and the right to build Protestant churches and
schools on their own and on the royal lands. Bohemia showed no
gratitude for this favour. Suspecting his designs, the
Bohemians even shut Rudolf up in his castle at Prague in 1611,
and asked Matthias to come to their aid. He did so, and seized
the supreme power. Next year Rudolf died. Matthias was crowned
at Frankfurt with great pomp, but he was no better fitted for
the throne than his brother. He was compelled to yield much to
the Protestants, yet favoured the Jesuits in their continued
efforts to convert Germany. His government was so feeble that
his brothers at length made him accept Ferdinand, Duke of
Styria, as his coadjutor. In 1617 Ferdinand was elected as
Rudolf's successor to the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary, and
from this time all real power in the Habsburg possessions was
wielded by him. Ferdinand was a young man, but had already
given proof of great energy of character. ... The Protestants
looked forward with dread to his reign if he should receive
the Imperial crown. Styria had become almost wholly Lutheran.
When Ferdinand succeeded his father, he had driven out the
Protestant families, and made the land altogether Catholic. No
Catholic prince had ever shown himself more reckless as to the
means by which he served his church. The Protestants,
therefore, had good reason to fear that if he became Emperor
he would renew the policy of Charles V., and try to bring back
the old state of things, in which there was but one Church as
there was but one Empire. Events proved that these fears were
well founded. The last days of Matthias were very troubled.
Two Protestant churches were built in Bohemia, one in the
territory of the Archbishop of Prague, the other in that of
the Abbot of Braunau. These princes, with permission of the
Emperor, pulled down one of the churches and shut up the
other. The Protestants complained; but their appeal was met by
the reply that the Letter of Majesty did not permit them to
build churches on the lands of ecclesiastics. This answer
excited great indignation in Bohemia; and a rumour was got up
that it had not come from the Emperor, but had been written in
Prague. On May 23, 1618, a number of Protestants, headed by Count
Thurn, marched to the Council Hall of the Royal Castle, and
demanded to be told the real facts. When the councillors
hesitated, two of them, with the private secretary, were
seized and thrown out of the window.
See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1611-1618.
The Protestants then took possession of the Royal Castle,
drove the Jesuits out of Bohemia, and appointed a council of
thirty nobles to carry on the government." These events formed
the beginning of the "Thirty Years War."
J. Sime,
History of Germany,
chapter 14.
"The Thirty Years' War was the last struggle which marked the
progress of the Reformation. This war, whose direction and
object were equally undetermined, may be divided into four
distinct portions, in which the Elector Palatine, Denmark,
Sweden, and France played in succession the principal part. It
became more and more complicated, until it spread over the
whole of Europe. It was prolonged indefinitely by various
causes.
I. The intimate union between the two branches of the house of
Austria and of the Catholic party--their opponents, on the
other hand, were not homogeneous.
II. The inaction of England, the tardy intervention of France,
the poverty of Denmark and Sweden, &c. The armies which took
part in the Thirty Years' War were no longer feudal militias,
they were permanent armies, although their sovereigns were
incapable of supporting them. They lived at the expense of the
countries which they laid waste. The ruined peasant turned
soldier and sold himself to the first comer."
J. Michelet,
Summary of Modern History,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
A. Gindely,
History of the Thirty Years' War,
chapters 1-3 (volume 1).
T. Carlyle,
History of Frederick the Great,
book 3, chapter 14 (volume 1).
GERMANY: A. D. 1612.
Election of the Emperor Matthias.
GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620.
The Thirty Years War: Hostilities in Bohemia precipitated by
Ferdinand.
His election to the imperial throne and his deposition in
Bohemia.
Acceptance of the Bohemian crown by Frederick, the Palatine
Elector.
His unsupported situation.
The Treaty of Ulm.
"The emperor was not a little disconcerted when he received
the news of what was passing [in Bohemia]. For whence could he
receive the aid necessary to put down these revolutionary acts
and restore order in Bohemia? Discontent, indeed, was scarcely
less formidably expressed even in his Austrian territories,
whilst in Hungary its demonstration was equally as serious.
Conciliation appeared to be the only means of preserving to
the house of Austria that important country, and even the
confessor and usual counsellor of the emperor, Cardinal
Klesel, the most zealous opponent of the Protestants, advised
that course. But such considerations were most strenuously
opposed by young Ferdinand. ... At his instigation, and that
of the other archdukes, backed by the pope, the pacific
Cardinal Klesel was unexpectedly arrested, and charged with a
variety of crimes. The intention was to remove him from the
presence of the old and weak emperor, who was now without
support, and obliged to resign all to the archdukes. From this
moment the impotency of the emperor was complete, and all
hopes of an amicable pacification of Bohemia lost. The
Bohemians, likewise, took to arms, and possessed themselves of
every city in their country as far as Budweis and Pilsen,
which were still occupied by the imperial troops. They
obtained assistance, quite unlooked for, in the person of one
who may be regarded as one of the most remarkable heroes of
that day. ... Count Ernest of Mansfield, a warrior from his
youth, was of a bold and enterprising spirit; he had already
encountered many dangers, and had just been raising some
troops for the Duke of Savoy against the Spaniards. The duke,
who now no longer required them, gave him permission to serve
in the cause of the Evangelical Union in Germany; and by that
body he was despatched with 3,000 men to Bohemia, as having
apparently received his appointment from that country. He
appeared there quite unexpectedly, and immediately took from
the imperial army the important city of Pilsen [November 21,
1618]. ... The Emperor Matthias died on the 10th of March,
1619 ... and the Bohemians, who acknowledged his sovereignty
while living, now resolved to renounce his successor
Ferdinand, whose hostile intentions were already too clearly
expressed. Ferdinand attained the throne under circumstances
the most perplexing.
{1468}
Bohemia in arms, and threatening Vienna itself with invasion;
Silesia and Moravia in alliance with them; Austria much
disposed to unite with them; Hungary by no means firmly
attached, and externally menaced by the Turks; besides which,
encountering in every direction the hatred of the Protestants,
against whom his zeal was undisguised. ... Count Thurn
advanced upon Vienna with a Bohemian army. ... He came before
Vienna, and his men fired, even upon the imperial castle
itself, where Ferdinand, surrounded by open and secret foes,
had taken up his quarters. He dared not leave his capital, for
by so doing Austria, and with it the preservation of the
empire itself, must have been sacrificed. But his enemies
looked upon him as lost; and they already spoke of confining
him in a convent, and educating his children in the Protestant
faith. ... Count Thurn was obliged soon to return to Bohemia,
as Prague was menaced by the armies of Austria, and Ferdinand
availed himself of this moment in order to undertake another
hazardous and daring project. ... He ... resolved to proceed
to Frankfort to attend the election of emperor. The spiritual
electors had been gained over; Saxony also adhered closely to
the house of Austria; Brandenburg was not unfriendly; hence
the opposition of the palatinate alone against him could
accomplish nothing; accordingly Ferdinand was unanimously
chosen emperor on the 28th of August, 1619." Just two days
previously, on the 26th of August, the Bohemians, at a general
assembly of the states, had formally deposed Ferdinand from
the kingship of their nation, and proceeded to elect another
king in his place. "The Catholics proposed the Duke of Savoy
and Maximilian of Bavaria, whilst, in the Protestant interest,
the Elector John George of Saxony, and Frederick V., of the
palatinate, were put forward. The latter obtained the
election, being a son-in-law of King James I. of England, from
whom they expected assistance, and who personally was regarded
as resolute, magnanimous, and generous. The incorporated
provinces of Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia supported the
election, and even the Catholic states of Bohemia pledged
their fidelity and obedience. Frederick was warned against
accepting so dangerous a crown by Saxony, Bavaria, and even by
his father-in-law; but his chaplain, Scultetus, and his own
consort, Elizabeth, who as the daughter of a king aspired to a
royal crown, persuaded him with all their influence to accept
it. Frederick was accordingly ruled by them, received the
regal dignity in Bohemia, and was crowned at Prague with great
pomp on the 25th of October, 1619. ... Ferdinand in returning
from Frankfort passed on to Munich, and there concluded with
the Duke of Bavaria that important treaty which secured to him
the possession of Bohemia. These two princes had been
companions in youth, and the Evangelical Union had by several
incautious proceedings irritated the duke. Maximilian
undertook the chief command in the cause of the Catholic
party, and stipulated with the house of Austria that he should
be indemnified for every outlay and loss incurred, to the
extent even, if necessary, of the surrender of the territories
of Austria itself into his hands. With Spain, also, the
emperor succeeded in forming an alliance, and the Spanish
general, Spinola, received orders to invade the countries of
the palatinate from the Netherlands. Subsequently the Elector
of Mentz arranged a convention at Mülhausen with the Elector
John George of Saxony, the Elector of Cologne, and the
Landgrave Lewis of Darmstadt, wherein it was determined to
render all possible assistance to the emperor for the
maintenance of his kingdom and the imperial dignity.
Frederick, the new Bohemian king, was now left with no other
auxiliary but the Evangelical Union; for the Transylvanian
prince, Bethlen Gabor, was, notwithstanding all his promises,
a very dubious and uncertain ally, whilst the troops he sent
into Moravia and Bohemia were not unlike a horde of savage
banditti. Meanwhile the union commenced its preparations for
war, as well as the league. The whole of Germany resembled a
grand depot for recruiting. Every eye was directed to the
Swabian district, where the two armies were to meet; there,
however, at Ulm, on the 3rd of July, 1620, they unexpectedly
entered into a compact, in which the forces of the union
engaged to lay down their arms, and both parties pledged each
other to preserve peace and tranquillity. The unionists felt
themselves too weak to maintain the contest, since Saxony was
now likewise against them, and Spinola threatened them from
the Netherlands. It was, however, a great advantage for the
emperor, that Bohemia was excluded from this treaty, for, now
the forces of the league were at liberty to aid him in
subjugating his royal adversary. Maximilian of Bavaria,
therefore, immediately took his departure, and on his war
reduced the states of Upper Austria to the obedience due to
Ferdinand, joined the imperial army, and made a spirited
attack upon Bohemia. On the other side, the Elector of Saxony
took possession of Lusatia in the name of the emperor."
F. Kohlrausch,
History of Germany,
chapter 22.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603-1642,
chapters 29-32 (volume 3).
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapters 46-48 (volume 2).
Miss Benger,
Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia,
chapters 6-9 (volumes 1-2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1620.
The Thirty Years War: Disappointment of the Bohemians in
their elected king.
Frederick's offensive Calvinism.
Defeat of his army before Prague.
Loss of Bohemian liberties.
Prostration of Protestantism.
"The defection of the Union accelerated the downfall of
Frederick; but its cordial support could scarcely have
hindered it. For the Bohemians had been disappointed in their
king, disappointed in the strength they had expected from him
through his connexions, equally disappointed in the man, and
in the hopes of protection and sympathy which they had
expected from him in the exercise of their religion. Within a
month of his coronation the metropolitan church was spoiled of
its images, the crucifix cut in pieces, the statues of the
saints cast out, broken, and burnt, the ornaments used in
divine service, and venerable in the eyes of Catholics and
Lutherans alike, scattered here and there, and turned upside
down with contempt and execration. These proceedings, which
were presumed, not without reason, to have the king's
authority--for during their enactment the court chaplain
addressed the people in praise of this purgation of the
temple--called forth loud complaints and increased the
disaffection which, more than any external force brought
against Frederick, produced his ruin.
{1469}
Early in November Maximilian appeared before Prague, and found
the Bohemians, under Christian van Anhalt, skilfully and
strongly posted on the Weissenberg [White Mountain] to offer
battle. The cautious Bucquoi would have declined the offer,
and attacked the city from another point; but an enthusiastic
friar who broke in upon the conference of the leaders, and,
exhibiting a mutilated image of the Virgin, reproached them
with their hesitation, put to flight all timid counsels. The
battle began at twelve o'clock. It was a Sunday, the octave of
the festival of All Saints [November 8, 1620]. ... In the
Catholic army Bucquoi was at the head of the Imperial
division. Tilly commanded in chief, and led the front to the
battle. He was received with a heavy fire; and for half an
hour the victory trembled in the balance: then the Hungarians,
who had been defeated by the Croats the day before, fled, and
all the efforts of the Duke of Saxe Weimar to rally them
proved fruitless. Soon the whole Bohemian army, Germans,
English, horse and foot, fled in disorder. One gallant little
band of Moravians only, under the Count of Thurn and the young
Count of Sehlick, maintained their position, and, with the
exception of their leaders, fell almost to a man. The battle
lasted only an hour; but the victory was not the less
complete. A hundred banners, ten guns, and a rich spoil fell
into the hands of the victors. Four thousand of the Bohemian
army, but scarcely as many hundreds of their opponents (if we
may believe their account), lay dead upon the field. ...
Frederick had returned from the army the day before, with the
intelligence that the Bavarians were only eight (English)
miles distant; but relying on the 28,000 men which he had to
cover his capital, he felt that night no uneasiness. ... He
had invited the English ambassadors to dine; and he remained
to entertain them. After dinner he mounted his horse to ride
to the Star Park; but before he could get out of the city
gate, he was met with the news of the total overthrow of his
army. His negotiations with Maximilian failing, or receiving
no answer, the next morning he prepared for flight. ...
Accompanied by his queen, Van Anhalt, the Prince of Hohenlohe,
and the Count of Thurn, he made a precipitate retreat from
Prague, leaving behind him the insignia of that monarchy which
he had not the wisdom to firmly establish, nor resolution to
defend to the last. It must be confessed, however, that his
position, after the defeat at Prague, was not altogether so
promising, and consequently his abandonment of his capital not
altogether so pusillanimous, as some have represented."
B. Chapman,
History of Gustavus Adolphus,
chapter 5.
"Frederick fled for his life through North Germany, till he
found a refuge at the Hague. The reign of the Bohemian
aristocracy was at an end. ... The chiefs perished on the
scaffold. Their lands were confiscated, and a new German and
Catholic nobility arose. ... The Royal Charter was declared to
have been forfeited by rebellion, and the Protestant churches
in the towns and on the royal estates had nothing to depend on
but the will of the conqueror. The ministers of one great body
--the Bohemian Brethren--were expelled at once. The Lutherans
were spared for a time."
S. R. Gardiner,
The Thirty Years' War,
chapter 3, section 1.
ALSO IN:
C. A. Peschek,
Reformation and Anti-Reformation in Bohemia,
volume 1, chapter 9.
See, also, BOHEMIA: A. D. 1621-1648;
and HUNGARY: A. D. 1606-1660.
GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.
The Thirty Years War:
The Elector Palatine placed under the ban.
Dissolution of the Evangelical Union.
Invasion and conquest of the Palatinate.
Transfer of the electoral dignity to the Duke of Bavaria.
"Ferdinand, though firm, patient, and resigned in adversity,
was stern, vengeful, and overbearing in prosperity. He was
urged by many motives of resentment, policy, and zeal to
complete the ruin of the elector Palatine, and he did not
possess sufficient magnanimity to resist the temptation.
Having squandered away the confiscated property among his
Jesuits and favourites, he had still many allies and adherents
whose fidelity he was desirous to reward; he was anxious to
recover Upper Austria, which he had mortgaged to the duke of
Bavaria, as a pledge for the expenses of the war; he wished to
regain possession of Lusatia; and he was bound in honour to
satisfy the elector of Saxony for his opportune assistance.
... These motives overbearing an considerations of justice and
prudence, Ferdinand published the ban of the empire [January
22, 1621], of his own authority, against the elector Palatine
and his adherents the prince of Anhalt, the count of
Hohenlohe, and the duke of Jaegendorf. The execution of this
informal sentence he intrusted to the archduke Albert, as
possessor of the circle of Burgundy, and to the duke of
Bavaria, commanding the former to occupy the Lower, and the
latter the Upper Palatinate. This vigorous act was instantly
followed by the most decisive effects; for the Protestants
were terrified by the prospect of sharing the fate of the
unfortunate elector. The members of the union now felt the
fatal consequences of their own indecision and want of
foresight. ... Threatened at once by Spinola [commanding the
Spanish auxiliaries from the Netherlands] and the duke of
Bavaria, and confounded by the growing power of the emperor,
they vied in abandoning a confederacy which exposed them to
his vengeance. On the 12th of April, 1621, they concluded at
Mentz a treaty of neutrality, by which they promised not to
interfere in the affairs of the Palatinate, agreed to disband
their troops within a month, and to enter into no new
confederacy to the disadvantage of the emperor. This
dishonourable treaty was followed by the dissolution of the
union, which, on its expiration, was not renewed. During these
events, Spinola, having completed the reduction of the Lower
Palatinate, was occupied in the siege of Frankendahl, which
was on the point of surrendering, and its capture must have
been followed by the submission of Heidelberg and Manheim. The
duke of Bavaria had been still more successful in the Upper
Palatinate, and had rapidly subjugated the whole province,
together with the district of Cham. The elector Palatine,
deserted by the Protestant union, and almost abandoned by his
relatives, the kings of England and Denmark, owed the first
revival of his hopes of restoration to Mansfeld, an
illegitimate adventurer, with no other resources than plunder
and devastation. Christian of Brunswick, administrator of
Halberstadt, distinguished indeed by illustrious birth, but
equally an adventurer, and equally destitute of territory or
resources, espoused his cause, as well from ties of affinity
[he was the cousin of Elizabeth, the electress Palatine, or
queen of Bohemia, as she preferred to be called] as from a
chivalrous attachment to his beautiful consort; and George
Frederic, margrave of Baden, even abdicated his dignity to
devote himself to his support."
{1470}
Mansfeld, who had held his ground in Bohemia for nearly a year
after the battle of the White Mountain, now became hard
pressed there by Tilly, and suddenly escaped by forced marches
(October, 1621,) into the Lower Palatinate. "Here he found a
more favourable field of action; for Spinola being recalled
with the greater part of the Spanish forces, had left the
remainder to Gonzales de Cordova, who, after reducing several
minor fortresses, was pressing the siege of Frankendahl. The
name of the brave adventurer drew to his standard multitudes
of the troops, who had been disbanded by the Protestant union,
and he was joined by a party of English, who had been sent for
the defence of the Palatinate. Finding himself at the head of
20,000 men, he cleared the country in his passage, relieved
Frankendahl, and provided for the safety of Heidelberg and
Manheim. Unable, however, to subsist in a district so recently
the seat of war, he turned into Alsace, where he increased his
forces; from thence he invaded the neighbouring bishoprics of
Spire and Strasburgh, levying heavy contributions, and giving
up the rich domains of those sees to the devastations of his
troops. Encouraged by this gleam of hope, the elector Palatine
quitted his asylum in Holland, passed in disguise through
Loraine and Alsace, joined Mansfeld, and gave his name and
countenance to this predatory army." Mansfeld, recrossing the
Rhine, effected a junction with the margrave of Baden; and
Christian of Brunswick, after pillaging the rich sees of Lower
Saxony, was on his way with a considerable force to unite with
both. "At the same time the duke of Wirtemberg, the landgrave
of Hesse, and other Protestant princes, began to arm, and
hopes were even entertained of the revival of the Protestant
union. Tilly, who had followed Mansfeld from Bohemia, had in
vain endeavoured to prevent his junction with the margrave of
Baden. Defeated at Mingelsheim by Mansfeld, on the 29th of
April, 1622, he had been reduced to the defensive, and in this
situation saw a powerful combination rising on every side
against the house of Austria. He waited therefore for an
opportunity of attacking those enemies singly, whom he could
not resist when united, and that opportunity was presented by
the separation of the margrave of Baden from Mansfeld, and his
attempt to penetrate into Bavaria. Tilly suddenly drew
together the Spanish troops, and with this accession of force
defeated, on the 6th of May, the margrave at Wimpfen, with the
loss of half his army, and took his whole train of artillery
and military chest. Leaving Mansfeld employed in the siege of
Ladenburgh, he next directed his attention to Christian of
Brunswick, routed him on the 20th of June, at Hoechst
[Höchst], as he was crossing the Main, pursued him till his
junction with Mansfeld, and drove their united forces beyond
the Rhine, again to seek a refuge and subsistence in Alsace.
These successes revived the cause of Ferdinand; the margrave
of Baden retired from the contest; the duke of Wirtemberg and
the other Protestant princes suspended their armaments; and
although Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick laid siege to
Saverne, and evinced a resolution to maintain the contest to
the last extremity, yet the elector Palatine again gave way to
that weakness which had already lost him a crown." He was
persuaded by his witless father-in-law, James I. of England,
to trust his cause to negotiations in which the latter was
being duped by the emperor. He consented, accordingly, "to
disavow his intrepid defenders, to dismiss them from his
service, to retire again into Holland, and wait the mercy of
the emperor. By this disavowal, Mansfeld and Christian were
left without a name to countenance their operations; and after
various negotiations, feigned or real, for entering into the
service of the emperor, Spain, or France, they accepted the
overtures of the Prince of Orange and forced their way through
the Spanish army which attempted to oppose their passage, to
join at Breda the troops of the United Provinces. The places
in Alsace and the bishopric of Spire which had been occupied
by the enemy were recovered by the archduke Leopold; and
Tilly, having completed the conquest of the Palatinate by the
capture of Heidelberg and Manheim, directed his attacks
against the forces which Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick
had again assembled. After a short continuance in Holland,
Mansfeld, in November, had led his predatory army into the
rich province of East Friesland, conquered the principal
fortresses, and extorted enormous contributions from the duke,
who was in alliance with Spain. On the other hand, Christian,
passing into Lower Saxony, persuaded the states of the circle
to collect an army of observation amounting to 12,000 men, and
intrust him with the command; and he soon increased this army
to almost double that number, by the usual incitements of
pillage and plunder. These levies attracting the attention of
the emperor, his threats, together with the advance of Tilly,
compelled the Saxon states to dismiss Christian and his army.
Thus left a second time without authority, he pushed towards
Westphalia, with the hope of joining Mansfeld and renewing
hostilities in the Palatinate; his design was however
anticipated by Tilly, who overtook him at Loen [or Stadtlohn],
in the district of Munster, and defeated him with the loss of
6,000 killed and 4,000 prisoners, in August, 1623. The
victorious general then turned towards East Friesland; but
Mansfeld, who had hitherto maintained himself in that country,
avoided an unequal contest by disbanding his troops, and
withdrawing into Holland, in January, 1624. ... Having
despoiled the elector Palatine of all his dominions, and
delivered himself from his enemies in Germany, Ferdinand had
proceeded to carry his plans into execution, by transferring
the electoral dignity to the duke of Bavaria, and dividing the
conquered territories among his adherents. ... He gained the
elector of Saxony, by promising him the revenues and perhaps
the cession of Lusatia; and the landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt,
by offering to favour his pretensions to the succession of
Marburgh, which he was contesting with the landgrave of Hesse
Cassel. ... Having thus gained those whose opposition was most
likely to frustrate his design, he paid little regard to the
feeble threats of James, and to the remonstrances of the king
of Denmark. ... He summoned, on the 25th of February, 1623, a
meeting of the electors and princes who were most devoted to
his cause at Ratisbon, and, in concurrence with the majority
of this irregular assembly, transferred the Palatine
electorate, with all its honours, privileges, and offices, to
Maximilian, duke of Bavaria.
{1471}
To keep up, however, the hopes of the elector Palatine and his
adherents, and not to drive his family and connections to
desperation, the whole extent of the plan was not developed;
the partition of his territories was deferred, the transfer of
the electorate was made only for the life of Maximilian, and
the rights of the sons and collateral heirs of the unfortunate
elector were expressly reserved."
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 49 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
A. Gindely,
History of the Thirty Years' War,
volume 1, chapter 7.
F. Schiller,
History of the Thirty Years' War,
book 2.
C. R. Markham,
The Fighting Veres;
part 2, chapter 3.
GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626.
The Thirty Years War:
Alliance of England, Holland, and Denmark to support the
Protestant cause.
Creation of the imperial army of Wallenstein, and its first
campaigns.
"Had the Emperor been as wise as he was resolute, it is
probable that, victorious in every direction, he might have
been able to conclude a permanent peace with the Protestant
Party. But the bigotry which was a very part of his nature was
spurred on by his easy triumphs to refuse to sheathe the sword
until heresy had been rooted out from the land. In vain did
the Protestant princes, who had maintained a selfish and
foolish neutrality, remonstrate against the continuance of
hostilities after the avowed object for which those
hostilities were undertaken had been gained. In the opinion of
Ferdinand II. the real object still remained to be
accomplished. Under these critical circumstances the
emigrants, now grown numerous [see BOHEMIA: A. D. 1621-1648],
and the awakened Protestant princes, earnestly besought the
aid of a foreign power. It was their representations which at
length induced three nations of the reformed faith--England,
Holland, and Denmark--to ally themselves to assist their
oppressed brethren.
See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
England agreed to send subsidies, Holland to supply troops.
The command of the delivering army was confided to Christian
IV., King of Denmark (1625). He was to be supported in Germany
by the partisan Mansfeldt, by Prince Christian of Brunswick,
and by the Protestants of Lower Saxony, who had armed
themselves to resist the exactions of the Emperor. Ferdinand
II., after vainly endeavouring to ward off hostilities by
negotiations, despatched Tilly to the Weser to meet the enemy.
Tilly followed the course of that river as far as Minden,
causing to be occupied, as he marched, the places which
commanded its passage. Pursuing his course northwards, he
crossed the river at Neuburg (midway between Minden and
Bremen), and occupied the principality of Kalenberg. The King
of Denmark was near at hand, in the Duchy of Brunswick,
anxious, for the moment, to avoid a battle. Tilly, superior to
him in numbers, was as anxious to fight one. As though the
position of the King of Denmark were not already sufficiently
embarrassing, the Emperor proceeded at this period to make it
almost unendurable by launching upon him likewise an imperial
army. ... Up to the period of the complete overthrow and
expulsion from the Palatinate of Frederic V., ex-King of
Bohemia, Ferdinand had been indebted for all his successes to
Maximilian of Bavaria. It was Maximilian who, as head of the
Holy League, had reconquered Bohemia for the Emperor: it was
Maximilian's general, Tilly, who had driven the Protestant
armies from the Palatinate; and it was the same general who
was now opposing the Protestants of the north in the lands
watered by the Weser. Maximilian had been rewarded by the
cession to him of the Palatinate, but it was not advisable
that so near a neighbour of Austria should be made too strong.
It was this feeling, this jealousy of Maximilian, which now
prompted Ferdinand to raise, for the first time in this war,
an imperial army, and to send it to the north. This army was
raised by and at the expense of Albert Wenzel Eusebius of
Waldstein, known in history as Wallenstein. A Czech by
nationality, born in 1583 of noble parents, who belonged to
one of the most advanced sects of the reformers but who died
whilst their son was yet young, Wallenstein had, when yet a
child, been committed to the care of his uncle, Albert
Slavata, an adherent of the Jesuits, and by him educated at
Olmütz in the strictest Catholic faith." By marrying, first, a
rich widow, who soon died, and then an heiress, daughter of
Count Harrach, and by purchasing with the fortune thus
acquired many confiscated estates, he had become possessed of
enormous wealth. He had already won distinction as a soldier.
"For his faithful services, Ferdinand in 1623 nominated
Wallenstein to be Prince, a title changed, the year following,
into that of Duke of Friedland. At this time the yearly income
he derived from his various estates, all economically managed,
was calculated to be 30,000,000 florins--little short of
£2,500,000." Wallenstein now, in 1625, "divining his master's
wishes, and animated by the ambition born of natural ability,
offered to raise and maintain, at his own cost, an army of
50,000 men, and to lead it against the enemy. Ferdinand
eagerly accepted the offer. Named Generalissimo and Field
Marshal in July of the same year, Wallenstein marched at the
head of 30,000 men, a number which increased almost daily,
first to the Weser, thence, after noticing the positions of
Tilly and of King Christian, to the banks of the Elbe, where
he wintered. ... In the spring ... Mansfeldt, with the view to
prevent a junction between Tilly and Wallenstein, marched
against the latter, and, though his troops were fewer in
number, took up a position at Dessau in full view of the
imperial camp, and there intrenched himself. Here Wallenstein
attacked (25 April 1626) and completely defeated him. Not
discouraged by this overthrow, and still bearing in mind the
main object of the campaign, Mansfeldt fell back into
Brandenburg, recruited there his army, called to himself the
Duke of Saxe-Weimar and then suddenly dashed, by forced
marches, towards Silesia and Moravia, with the intention of
reaching Hungary, where Bethlen Gabor had promised to meet
him." Wallenstein followed and "pressed him so hard that,
though Mansfeldt did effect a junction with Bethlen Gabor, it
was with but the skeleton of his army. Despairing of success
against numbers vastly superior, Bethlen Gabor withdrew from
his new colleague, and Mansfeldt, reduced to despair,
disbanded his remaining soldiers, and sold his camp-equipage
to supply himself with the means of flight (September).
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1606-1660.
{1472}
He died soon after (30th November). ... Wallenstein then
retraced his steps to the north. Meanwhile Tilly, left to deal
with Christian IV., had followed that prince into Lower
Saxony, had caught, attacked, and completely defeated him at
Lutter (am Barenberge), the 27th July 1626. This victory gave
him complete possession of that disaffected province, and,
despite a vigorous attempt made by the Margrave George
Frederic of Baden to wrest it from him, he held it till the
return of Wallenstein from the pursuit of Mansfeldt. As two
stars of so great a magnitude could not shine in the same
hemisphere, it was then decided that Tilly should carry the
war into Holland, whilst to Wallenstein should be left the
honour of dealing with the King of Denmark and the Protestant
princes of the north."
G. B. Malleson,
The Battle-fields of Germany,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
W. Zimmermann,
Popular History of Germany,
book 5, chapter 2 (volume 4).
GERMANY: A. D. 1627-1629.
The Thirty Years War:
Wallenstein's campaign against the Danes.
His power and his oppression in Germany.
The country devoured by his army.
Unsuccessful siege of Stralsund.
First succor from the king of Sweden.
The Peace of Lubeck.
The Edict of Restitution.
"Wallenstein opened the campaign of 1627 at the head of a
refreshed and well-equipped army of 40,000 men. His first
effort was directed against Silesia; and the Danish troops,
few in number, and ill commanded, gave way at his approach. To
prevent the fugitives from infringing on the neutrality of
Brandenburg, he occupied the whole electorate. Mecklenburg and
Pomerania soon shared the same fate. Remonstrances and
assurances of perfect neutrality were treated with absolute
scorn; and Wallenstein declared, in his usual haughty style,
that 'the time had arrived for dispensing altogether with
electors; and that Germany ought to be governed like France
and Spain, by a single and absolute sovereign.' In his rapid
march towards the frontiers of Holstein, he acted fully up to
the principle he had laid down, and naturally exercised
despotic power, as the representative of the absolute monarch
of whom he spoke. ... He ... followed up the Danes, defeated
their armies in a series of actions near Heiligenhausen,
overran the whole peninsula of Jutland before the end of the
campaign, and forced the unhappy king to seek shelter, with
the wrecks of his army, in the islands beyond the Belt. ...
Brilliant as the campaign of 1627 proved in its general
result, few very striking feats of arms were performed during
its progress. ... Now it was that the princes and states of
Lower Germany began to feel the consequences of their
pusillanimous conduct; and the very provinces which had just
before refused to raise troops for their own protection, were
obliged to submit, without a murmur, to every species of
insult and exaction. Wallenstein's army, augmented to 100,000
men, occupied the whole country; and the lordly leader
following, on a far greater scale, the principle on which
Mansfeld had acted, made the war maintain the war, and
trampled alike on the rights of sovereigns and of subjects.
And terrible was the penalty now paid for the short-sighted
policy which avarice and cowardice had suggested, and which
cunning had vainly tried to disguise beneath affected
philanthropy, and a generous love of peace. Provided with
imperial authority, and at the head of a force that could no
longer be resisted, Wallenstein made the empire serve as a
vast storehouse, and wealthy treasury for the benefit of the
imperial army. He forbade even sovereigns and electors to
raise supplies in their own countries, and was justly termed
'the princes' scourge, and soldiers' idol.' The system of
living by contributions had completely demoralised the troops.
Honour and discipline were entirely gone; and it was only
beneath the eye of the stern and unrelenting commander, that
anything like order continued to be observed. Dissipation and
profligacy reigned in all ranks: bands of dissolute persons
accompanied every regiment, and helped to extinguish the last
sparks of morality in the breast of the soldier. The generals
levied arbitrary taxes; the inferior officers followed the
example of their superiors; and the privates, soon ceasing to
obey those whom they ceased to respect, plundered in every
direction; while blows, insults, or death awaited all who
dared to resist. ... The sums extorted, in this manner, prove
that Germany must have been a wealthy country in the 17th
century; for the money pressed out of some districts, by the
imperial troops, far exceeds anything which the same quarters
could now be made to furnish. Complaints against the author of
such evils were, of course, not wanting; but the man
complained of had rendered the Emperor all-powerful in
Germany: from the Adriatic to the Baltic, Ferdinand reigned
absolute, as no monarch had reigned since the days of the
Othos. This supremacy was due to Wallenstein alone; and what
could the voice of the humble and oppressed effect against
such an offender? Or when did the voice of suffering nations,
arrest the progress of power and ambition? During the winter
that followed on the campaign of 1627, Wallenstein repaired to
Prague, to claim [and to receive] from the Emperor, who was
residing in the Bohemian capital, additional rewards for the
important services so lately rendered. The boon solicited was
nothing less than the Duchy of Mecklenburg, which was to be
taken from its legitimate princes, on the ground of their
having joined the King of Denmark, and bestowed on the
successful general. ... Hitherto the ocean had alone arrested
the progress of Wallenstein: a fleet was now to be formed,
which should enable him to give laws beyond the Belts, and
perhaps beyond the Baltic also. Every seaport in Mecklenburg
and Pomerania is ordered to be taken possession of and
fortified. ... The siege of Stralsund, which was resolved upon
early in 1628, constitutes one of the most memorable
operations of the war. Not merely because it furnishes an
additional proof of what may be effected by skill, courage and
resolution, against vastly superior forces, but because its
result influenced, in an eminent degree, some of the most
important events that followed. When Wallenstein ordered the
seaports along the coast of Pomerania to be occupied,
Stralsund, claiming its privilege as an imperial and Hanseatic
free town, refused to admit his troops. ... After a good deal
of negotiation, which only cost the people of Stralsund some
large sums of money, paid away in presents to the imperial
officers, Arnheim invested the place on the 7th of May with
8,000 men. ...
{1473}
The town ... , unable to obtain assistance from the Duke of
Pomerania, the lord superior of the province, who, however
willing, had no means of furnishing relief, placed itself
under the protection of Sweden; and Gustavus Adolphus, fully
sensible of the importance of the place, immediately
dispatched the celebrated David Leslie, at the head of 600
men, to aid in its defence. Count Brahe, with 1,000 more, soon
followed; so that when Wallenstein reached the army on the
27th of June, he found himself opposed by a garrison of
experienced soldiers, who had already retaken all the outworks
which Arnheim had captured in the first instance. ... Rain
began to fall in such torrents that the trenches were entirely
filled, and the flat moor ground, on which the army was encamped,
became completely inundated and untenable. The proud spirit of
Friedland, unused to yield, still persevered; but sickness
attacked the troops, and the Danes having landed at Jasmund,
he was obliged to march against them with the best part of his
forces; and in fact to raise the siege. ... The Danes having
effected their object, in causing the siege of Stralsund to be
raised, withdrew their troops from Jasmund, and landed them
again at Wolgast. Here, however, Wallenstein surprised, and
defeated them with great loss. ... There being on all sides a
willingness to bring the war to an end, peace was ...
concluded at Lubeck in January 1629. By this treaty the Danes
recovered, without reserve or indemnity, all their former
possessions; only pledging themselves not again to interfere
in the affairs of the Empire. ... The peace of Lubeck left
Wallenstein absolute master in Germany, and without an equal
in greatness: his spirit seemed to hover like a storm-charged
cloud over the land, crushing to the earth every hope of
liberty and successful resistance. Mansfeld and Christian of
Brunswick had disappeared from the scene; Frederick V. had
retired into obscurity. Tilly and Pappenheim, his former
rivals, now condescended to receive favours, and to solicit
pensions and rewards through the medium of his intercession.
Even Maximilian of Bavaria was second in greatness to the
all-dreaded Duke of Friedland: Europe held no uncrowned head
that was his equal in fame, and no crowned head that surpassed
him in power. ... Ferdinand, elated with success, had
neglected the opportunity, again afforded him by the peace of
Lubeck, for restoring tranquillity to the empire. ... Instead
of a general peace, Ferdinand signed the fatal Edict of
Restitution, by which the Protestants were called upon to
restore all the Catholic Church property they had sequestrated
since the religious pacification of 1555: such sequestration
being, according to the Emperor's interpretation, contrary to
the spirit of the treaty of Passau. The right of
long-established possession was here entirely overlooked; and
Ferdinand forgot, in his zeal for the church, that he was
actually setting himself up as a judge, in a case in which he
was a party also. It was farther added, that, according to the
same treaty, freedom of departure from Catholic countries, was
the only privilege which Protestants had a right to claim from
Catholic princes. This decree came like a thunder-burst over
Protestant Germany. Two archbishopricks, 12 bishopricks, and a
countless number of convents and clerical domains, which the
Protestants had confiscated, and applied to their own
purposes, were now to be surrendered. Imperial commissioners
were appointed to carry the mandate into effect, and, to
secure immediate obedience, troops were placed at the disposal
of the new officials. Wherever these functionaries appeared,
the Protestant service was instantly suspended; the churches
deprived of their bells; altars and pulpits pulled down; all
Protestant books, bibles and catechisms were seized; and
gibbets were erected to terrify those who might be disposed to
resist. All Protestants who refused to change their religion
were expelled from Augsburg: summary proceedings of the same
kind were resorted to in other places. Armed with absolute
power, the commissioners soon proceeded from reclaiming the
property of the church to seize that of individuals. The
estates of all persons who had served under Mansfeld, Baden,
Christian of Brunswick; of all who had aided Frederick V., or
rendered themselves obnoxious to the Emperor, were seized and
confiscated. ... The Duke of Friedland, who now ruled with
dictatorial sway over Germany, had been ordered to carry the
Edict of Restitution into effect, in all the countries
occupied by his troops. The task, if we believe historians,
was executed with unbending rigour."
J. Mitchell,
Life of Wallenstein,
chapters 2-3.
ALSO IN:
L. Häusser,
The Period of the Reformation,
1517 to 1648, chapter 33.
GERMANY: A. D. 1627-1631.
War of the Emperor and Spain with France, over the succession
to the duchy of Mantua.
See ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.
GERMANY: A. D. 1630.
The Thirty Years War:
Universal hostility to Wallenstein.
His dismissal by the Emperor.
The rising of a new champion of Protestantism in Sweden.
"Wallenstein had ever shown great toleration in his own
domains; but it is not to be denied that ... he aided to carry
out the edict [of Restitution] in the most barbarous and
relentless manner. It would be as tedious as painful to dwell
upon all the cruelties which were committed, and the
oppression that was exercised, by the imperial commissioners;
but a spirit of resistance was aroused in the hearts of the
German people, which only waited for opportunity to display
itself. Nor was it alone against the emperor that wrath and
indignation was excited. Wallenstein drew down upon his head
even more dangerous enmity than that which sprung up against
Ferdinand. He ruled in Germany with almost despotic sway; for
the emperor himself seemed at this time little more than a
tool in his hands. His manners were unpopular, stern,
reserved, and gloomy. . . . Princes were kept waiting in his
ante-chamber; and all petitions and remonstrances against his
stern decrees were treated with the mortifying scorn which
adds insult to injury. The magnificence of his train, the
splendor of his household, the luxury and profusion that
spread every where around him, afforded continual sources of
envy and jealous hate to the ancient nobility of the empire.
The Protestants throughout the land were his avowed and
implacable enemies; and the Roman Catholic princes viewed him
with fear and suspicion. Maximilian of Bavaria, whose star had
waned under the growing luster of Wallenstein's renown, who
had lost that authority in the empire which he knew to be due
to his services and his genius, solely by the rise and
influence of Wallenstein, and whose ambitious designs of
ruling Germany through an emperor dependent upon him for
power, had been frustrated entirely by the genius which placed
the imperial throne upon a firm and independent basis, took no
pains to conceal his hostility to the Duke of Friedland. ...
{1474}
Though the soldiery still generally loved him, their officers
hated the hand that put a limit to the oppression by which
they throve, and would fain have resisted its power. ... While
these feelings were gathering strength in Germany; while
Wallenstein, with no friends, though many supporters, saw
himself an object of jealousy or hatred to the leaders of
every party throughout the empire; and while the suppressed
but cherished indignation of all Protestant Germany was
preparing for the emperor a dreadful day of reckoning, events
were taking place in other countries which hurried on rapidly
the dangers that Wallenstein had foreseen. In France, a weak
king, and a powerful, politic, and relentless minister,
appeared in undissembled hostility to the house of Austria;
and the famous Cardinal de Richelieu busied himself,
successfully, to raise up enemies to the German branch of that
family. ... In Poland, Sigismund, after vainly contending with
Gustavus Adolphus, and receiving an inefficient aid from
Germany, was anxious to conclude the disastrous war with
Sweden. Richelieu interfered; Oxenstiern negotiated on the
part of Gustavus; and a truce of six years was concluded in
August, 1629, by which the veteran and victorious Swedish
troops were set free to act in any other direction. A great
part of Livonia was virtually ceded to Gustavus, together with
the towns and territories of Memel, Braunsberg and Elbingen,
and the strong fortress of Pillau. At the same time, Richelieu
impressed upon the mind of Gustavus the honor, the advantage,
and the necessity of reducing the immense power of the
emperor, and delivering the Protestant states of Germany from
the oppression under which they groaned. ... Confident in his
own powers of mind and warlike skill, supported by the love
and admiration of his people, relying on the valor and
discipline of' his troops, and foreseeing all the mighty
combinations which were certain to take place in his favor,
Gustavus hesitated but little. He consulted with his
ministers, indeed heard and answered every objection that
could be raised; and then applied to the Senate at Stockholm
to insure that his plans were approved, and that his efforts
would be seconded by his people. His enterprise met with the
most enthusiastic approbation; and then succeeded all the
bustle of active preparation. ... While this storm was
gathering in the North, while the towns of Sweden were
bristling with arms, and her ports filled with ships,
Ferdinand was driven or persuaded to an act the most fatal to
himself, and the most favorable to the King of Sweden. A Diet
was summoned to meet at Ratisbon early in the year 1630; and
the chief object of the emperor in taking a step so dangerous
to the power he had really acquired, and to the projects so
boldly put forth in his name, seems to have been to cause his
son to be elected King of the Romans. ... The name of the
archduke, King of Hungary, is proposed to the Diet for
election as King of the Romans, and a scene of indescribable
confusion and murmuring takes place: A voice demands that,
before any such election is considered, the complaints of the
people of Germany against the imperial armies shall be heard;
and then a perfect storm of accusations pours down. Every sort
of tyranny and oppression, every sort of cruelty and exaction,
every sort of licentiousness and vice is attributed to the
emperor's troops; but the hatred and the charges all
concentrate themselves upon the head of the great commander of
the imperial forces; and there is a shout for his instant
dismissal. ... Ferdinand hesitated, and affected much surprise
at the charges brought against his general and his armies. He
yielded in the end, however; and it is said, upon very good
authority, that his ruinous decision was brought about by the
arts of the same skillful politician who had conjured up the
storm which now menaced the empire from the north. Richelieu
had sent an embassador to Ratisbon. ... In the train of the
embassador came the well-known intriguing friar, Father
Joseph, the most unscrupulous and cunning of the cardinal's
emissaries; and he, we are assured, found means to persuade
the emperor that, by yielding to the demand of the electors
and removing Wallenstein for a time, he might obtain the
election of the King of Hungary, and then reinstate the Duke
of Friedland in his command as soon as popular anger had
subsided. However that might be, Ferdinand, as I have said,
yielded, openly expressing his regret at the step he was about
to take, and the apprehensions which he entertained for the
consequences. Count Questenberg and another nobleman, who had
been long on intimate terms with Wallenstein, were sent to the
camp to notify to him his removal from command, and to soften
the disgrace by assuring him of the emperor's gratitude and
affection."
G. P. R. James,
Dark Scenes of History: Wallenstein,
chapters 3-4.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
The Thirty Years' War,
chapter 7, section 3.
A. Gindely,
History of the Thirty Years' War,
volume 2, chapter 1.
GERMANY: A. D. 1630-1631.
The Thirty Years War:
The Coming of Gustavus Adolphus.
His occupation of Pomerania and Brandenburg.
The horrible fate of Magdeburg at the hands of Tilly's
ruffians.
"On June 24, 1630, one hundred years, to a day, after the
Augsburg Confession was promulgated, Gustavus Adolphus landed
on the coast of Pomerania, near the mouth of the river Peene,
with 13,000 men, veteran troops, whose rigid discipline was
sustained by their piety, and who were simple-minded, noble,
and glowing with the spirit of the battle. He had reasons
enough for declaring war against Ferdinand, even if 10,000 of
Wallenstein's troops had not been sent to aid Sigismund
against him. But the controlling motive, in his own mind, was
to succor the imperiled cause of religious freedom in Germany.
Coming as the protector of the evangelic Church, he expected
to be joined by the Protestant princes. But he was
disappointed. Only the trampled and tortured people of North
Germany, who in their despair were ready for revolts and
conspiracies of their own, welcomed him as their deliverer
from the bandits of Wallenstein and the League. Gustavus
Adolphus appeared before Stettin, and by threats compelled the
old duke, Bogislaw XIV., to open to him his capital city, He
then took measures to secure possession of Pomerania. His army
grew rapidly, while that of the emperor was widely dispersed,
so that he now advanced into Brandenburg. George William, the
elector, was a weak prince, though a Protestant, and a brother
of the Queen of Sweden; he was guided by his Catholic
chancellor, Schwarzenberg, and had painfully striven to keep
neutral throughout the war, neither side, however, respecting
his neutrality.
{1475}
In dread of the plans of Gustavus Adolphus concerning
Pomerania and Prussia, he held aloof from him. Meanwhile
Tilly, general-in-chief of the troops of the emperor and the
League, drew near, but suddenly turned aside to New
Brandenburg, in the Mecklenburg territory, now occupied by the
Swedes, captured it after three assaults, and put the garrison
to the sword (1631). He then laid siege to Magdeburg. Gustavus
Adolphus took Frankfort-on-the-Oder, where there was an
imperial garrison, and treated it, in retaliation, with the
same severity. Thence, in the spring of 1631, he set out for
Berlin. ... In Potsdam he heard of the fall of Magdeburg. He
then marched with flying banners into Berlin, and compelled
the elector to become his ally. Magdeburg was the strong
refuge of Protestantism, and the most important trading centre
in North Germany. It had resisted the Augsburg Interim of
1548, and now resisted the Edict of Restitution, rejected the
newly appointed prince bishop, Leopold William, son of the
emperor himself, and refused to receive the emperor's
garrison. The city was therefore banned by the emperor, and
was besieged for many weeks by Pappenheim, a general of the
League, who was then reinforced by Tilly himself with his
army. Gustavus Adolphus was unable to make an advance, in view
of the equivocal attitude of the two great Protestant electors,
without exposing his rear to garrisoned fortresses. From
Brandenburg as well as Saxony he asked in vain for help to
save the Protestant city. Thus Magdeburg fell, May 10, 1631.
The citizens were deceived by a pretended withdrawal of the
enemy. But suddenly, at early dawn, the badly guarded
fortifications were stormed."
C. T. Lewis,
History of Germany,
chapter 18, sections 3-4.
Two gates of the city having been opened by the storming
party, "Tilly marched in with part of his infantry.
Immediately occupying the principal streets, he drove the
citizens with pointed cannon into their dwellings, there to
await their destiny. They were not long held in suspense; a
word from Tilly decided the fate of Magdeburg. Even a more
humane general would in vain have recommended mercy to such
soldiers; but Tilly never made the attempt. Left by their
general's silence masters of the lives of all the citizens,
the soldiery broke into the houses to satiate their most
brutal appetites. The prayers of innocence excited some
compassion in the hearts of the Germans, but none in the rude
breasts of Pappenheim's Walloons. Scarcely had the savage
cruelty commenced, when the other gates were thrown open, and
the cavalry, with the fearful hordes of the Croats, poured in
upon the devoted inhabitants. Here commenced a scene of
horrors for which history has no language--poetry no pencil.
Neither innocent childhood, nor helpless old age; neither
youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the
conquerors. Wives were abused in the arms of their husbands,
daughters at the feet of their parents; and the defenceless
sex exposed to the double sacrifice of virtue and life. No
situation, however obscure, or however sacred, escaped the
rapacity of the enemy. In a single church fifty-three women
were found beheaded. The Croats amused themselves with
throwing children into the flames; Pappenheim's Walloons with
stabbing infants at the mother's breast. Some officers of the
League, horror-struck at this dreadful scene, ventured to
remind Tilly that he had it in his power to stop the carnage.
'Return in an hour,' was his answer; 'I will see what I can
do; the soldier must have some reward for his danger and
toils.' These horrors lasted with unabated fury, till at last
the smoke and flames proved a check to the plunderers. To
augment the confusion and to divert the resistance of the
inhabitants, the Imperialists had, in the commencement of the
assault, fired the town in several places. The wind rising
rapidly, spread the flames, till the blaze became universal.
Fearful, indeed, was the tumult amid clouds of smoke, heaps of
dead bodies, the clash of swords, the crash of falling ruins,
and streams of blood. The atmosphere glowed; and the
intolerable heat forced at last even the murderers to take
refuge in their camp. In less than twelve hours, this strong,
populous, and flourishing city, one of the finest in Germany,
was reduced to ashes, with the exception of two churches and a
few houses. ... The avarice of the officers had saved 400 of
the richest citizens, in the hope of extorting from them an
exorbitant ransom. But this humanity was confined to the
officers of the League, whom the ruthless barbarity of the
Imperialists caused to be regarded as guardian angels.
Scarcely had the fury of the flames abated, when the
Imperialists returned to renew the pillage amid the ruins and
ashes of the town. Many were suffocated by the smoke; many
found rich booty in the cellars, where the citizens had
concealed their more valuable effects. On the 13th of May,
Tilly himself appeared in the town, after the streets had been
cleared of ashes and dead bodies. Horrible and revolting to
humanity was the scene that presented itself. The living
crawling from under the dead, children wandering about with
heart-rending cries, calling for their parents; and infants
still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers. More than
6,000 bodies were thrown into the Elbe to clear the streets; a
much greater number had been consumed by the flames. The whole
number of the slain was reckoned at not less than 30,000. The
entrance of the general, which took place on the 14th, put a
stop to the plunder, and saved the few who had hitherto
contrived to escape. About a thousand people were taken out of
the cathedral, where they had remained three days and two
nights, without food, and in momentary fear of death."
F. Schiller,
History of the Thirty Years' War,
book 2.
ALSO IN:
Sir E. Cust,
Lives of the Warriors of the
Thirty Years' War, part 1.
GERMANY: A. D. 1631 (January).
The Thirty Years War:
The Treaty of Bärwalde between Gustavus Adolphus and the king
of France.
"On the 13th of January, 1631, the Treaty of Barwalde was
concluded between France and Sweden. Hard cash had been the
principal subject of the negotiation, and Louis XIII. had
agreed to pay Gustavus a lump sum of $120,000 in consideration
of his recent expenditure,--a further sum of $400,000 a year
for six years to come. Until that time, or until a general
peace, if such should supervene earlier, Sweden was to keep in
the field an army of 30,000 foot and 6, 000 horse. The object
of the alliance was declared to be 'the protection of their
common friends, the security of the Baltic, the freedom of
commerce, the restitution of the oppressed members of the
Empire, the destruction of the newly erected fortresses in the
Baltic, the North Sea, and in the Grisons territory, so that
all should be left in the state in which it was before the
German war had begun.'
{1476}
Sweden was not to 'violate the Imperial constitution' where
she conquered; she was to leave the Catholic religion
undisturbed in all districts where she found it existing. She
was to observe towards Bavaria and the League--the spoilt
darlings of Richelieu's anti-Austrian policy--friendship or
neutrality, so far as they would observe it towards her. If,
at the end of six years, the objects were not accomplished,
the treaty was to be renewed."
C. R. L. Fletcher,
Gustavus Adolphus and the Struggle
of Protestantism for Existence,
chapter 9.
GERMANY: A. D. 1631.
The Thirty Years War:
The elector of Brandenburg brought to terms by the king of
Sweden.
The elector of Saxony frightened into line.
Defeat of Tilly at Leipsig (Breitenfeld).
Effects of the great victory.
"Loud were the cries against Gustavus for not having relieved
Magdeburg. To answer them he felt himself bound to publish a
careful apology. In this document he declared, among other
things, that if he could have obtained from the Elector of
Brandenburg the passage of Küstrin he might not only have
raised the siege of Magdeburg but have destroyed the whole of
the Imperial army. The passage, however, had been denied him;
and though the preservation of Magdeburg so much concerned the
Elector of Saxony, he could obtain from him a passage toward
it neither by Wittemberg, nor the Bridge of Dessau, nor such
assistance in provision and shipping as was necessary for the
success of the enterprise. ... Something more than mere
persuasion had induced the Elector of Brandenburg, after the
capture of Francfort, to grant Gustavus possession of Spandau
for a month. The month expired on the 8th of June; and the
elector demanded back his stronghold. The king, fettered by
his promise, surrendered it; but the next day, having marched
to Berlin and pointed his guns against the palace, the ladies
came forth as mediators, and the elector consented both to
surrender Spandau again and to pay, for the maintenance of the
Swedish troops, a monthly subsidy of 30,000 rix-dollars. At
the end of May Tilly removed from Magdeburg and the Elbe to
Ascherleben. This enabled the king to take Werben, on the
confluence of the Elbe and Havel, where, after the reduction
of Tangermünde and Havelberg, he established his celebrated
camp." In the latter part of July, Tilly made two attacks on
the king's camp at Werben, and was repulsed on both occasions
with heavy loss. "In the middle of August, Gustavus broke up
his camp. His force at that time, according to the
muster-rolls, amounted to 13,000 foot, and 8,850 cavalry. He
drew towards Leipsig, then threatened by Tilly, who, having
been joined at Eisleben by 15,000 men under Fürstenburg, now
possessed an army 40,000 strong to enforce the emperor's ban
against the Leipsig decrees [or resolutions of a congress of
Protestant princes which had assembled at Leipsig in February,
1631, moved to some organized common action by the Edict of
Restitution] within the limits of the electorate. The Elector
of Saxony was almost frightened out of his wits by the
impending danger. ... His grief and rage at the fall of
Magdeburg had been so great that, for two days after receiving
the news, he would admit no one into his presence. But that
dire event only added to his perplexity; he could resolve
neither upon submission, nor upon vengeance. In May, indeed,
terrified by the threats of Ferdinand, he discontinued his
levies, and disbanded a part of his troops already enlisted:
but in June he sent Arnim to Gustavus with such overtures that
the king drank his health, and seemed to have grown sanguine
in the hope of his alliance. In July, his courage still
rising, he permitted Gustavus to recruit in his dominions. In
August, his courage falling again at the approach of
Fürstenburg, he gave him and his troops a free passage through
Thuringia." But now, later in the same month, he sent word to
Gustavus Adolphus "that not only Wittemberg but the whole
electorate was open to him; that not only his son, but
himself, would serve under the king; that he would advance one
month's payment for the Swedish troops immediately, and give
security for two monthly payments more. ... Gustavus rejoiced
to find the Duke of Saxony in this temper, and, in pursuance
of a league now entered into with him, and the Elector of
Brandenburg, crossed the Elbe at Wittemberg on the 4th of
September. The Saxons, from 16,000 to 20,000 strong, moving
simultaneously from Torgau, the confederated armies met at
Düben on the Mulda, three leagues from Leipsig. At a
conference held there, it was debated whether it would be
better to protract the war or to hazard a battle. The king
took the former side, but yielded to the strong
representations of the Duke of Saxony. ... On the 6th of
September the allies came within six or eight miles of the
enemy, where they halted for the night. ... Breitenfeld, the
place at which Tilly, urged by the importunity of Pappenheim,
had chosen to offer battle, was an extensive plain, in part
recently ploughed, about a mile from Leipsig and near the
cemetery of that city. Leipsig had surrendered to Tilly two
days before. The Imperial army, estimated at 44,000 men,
occupied a rising ground on the plain. ... The army was drawn
up in one line of great depth, having the infantry in the
centre, the cavalry on the wings, according to the Spanish
order of battle, The king subdivided his army, about 20,000
strong, into centre and wings, each of which consisted of two
lines and a reserve. ... To this disposition is attributed, in
a great degree, the success of the day. ... The files being so
comparatively shallow, artillery made less havoc among them.
Then, again, the division of the army into small maniples,
with considerable intervals between each, gave space for
evolutions, and the power of throwing the troops with rapidity
wherever their services or support might be found requisite.
... The battle began at 12 o'clock." It only ended with the
setting of the sun; but long before that time the great army
of Tilly was substantially destroyed. It had scattered the
Saxons easily enough, and sent them flying, with their
worthless elector; but Gustavus and his disciplined, brave,
powerfully handled Swedes had broken and ruined the stout but
clumsy imperial lines. "It is scarcely possible to exaggerate
the importance of this success. On the event of that day, as
Gustavus himself said, the whole (Protestant) cause, 'summa
rei,' depended. The success was great in itself. The numbers
engaged on either side had been nearly equal. Not so their
loss. The Imperial loss in killed and wounded, according to
Swedish computation, was from 8,000 to 10,000; according to
the enemy's own account, between 6,000 and 7,000; while all
seem to agree that the loss on the side of the allies was only
2,700, of which 2,000 were Saxon, 700 Swedes. Besides,
Gustavus won the whole of the enemy's artillery, and more than
100 standards. Then the army of Tilly being annihilated left
him free to choose his next point of attack, almost his next
victory."
B. Chapman,
History of Gustavus Adolphus,
chapter 8.
{1477}
"The battle of Breitenfeld was an epoch in war, and it was an
epoch in history. It was an epoch in war, because first in it
was displayed on a great scale the superiority of mobility
over weight. It was an epoch in history, because it broke the
force upon which the revived Catholicism had relied for the
extension of its empire over Europe. ... 'Germany might tear
herself and be torn to pieces for yet another half-generation,
but the actual result of the Thirty-Years' War was as good as
achieved.'"
C. R. L. Fletcher,
Gustavus Adolphus and the Struggle
of Protestantism for Existence,
chapter 11.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
The Battle-fields of Germany,
chapter 1.
GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1632.
The Thirty Years War:
Movements and plans of the Swedish king in southern Germany.
Temporary recovery of the Palatinate.
Occupation of Bavaria.
The Saxons in Bohemia.
Battle of the Lech.
Death of Tilly.
Wallenstein's recall.
Siege and relief of Nuremberg.
Battle of Lützen, and death of Gustavus Adolphus.
"This battle, sometimes called Breitenwald [Breitenfeld],
sometimes the First Battle of Leipsic, ... was the first
victory on the Protestant side that had been achieved. It was
Tilly's first defeat after thirty battles. It filled with joy
those who had hitherto been depressed and hopeless. Cities
which had dreaded to declare themselves for fear of the fate
of Magdeburg began to lift up their heads, and vacillating
princes to think that they could safely take the part which
they preferred. Gustavus knew, however, that he must let the
Germans do as much as possible for themselves, or he should
arouse their national jealousy of him as a foreign conqueror.
So he sent the Elector of Saxony to awaken the old spirit in
Bohemia. As for himself, his great counsellor, Oxenstierna,
wanted him to march straight on Vienna, but this was not his
object. He wanted primarily to deliver the northern states,
and to encourage the merchant cities, Ulm, Augsburg,
Nuremberg, which had all along been Protestant, and to deliver
the Palatinate from its oppressors. And, out of mortification,
a strange ally offered himself, namely, Wallenstein, who
wanted revenge on the Catholic League which had insisted on
his dismissal, and the Emperor who had yielded to them. ... He
said that if Gustavus would trust him, he would soon get his
old army together again, and chase Ferdinand and the Jesuits
beyond the Alps. But Gustavus did not trust him, though he sat
quiet at Prague while the Saxons were in possession of the
city, plundering everywhere, and the Elector sending off to
Dresden fifty waggon-loads filled with the treasures of the
Emperor Rudolf's museum. ... Many exiles returned, and there
was a general resumption of the Hussite form of worship.
Gustavus had marched to Erfurt, and then turned towards the
Maine, where there was a long row of those prince bishoprics
established on the frontier by the policy of
Charlemagne--Wurtzburg, Bamberg, Fulda, Köln, Triers, Mentz,
Wurms, Spiers. These had never been secularised and were
popularly called the Priests' Lane. They had given all their
forces to the Catholic League, and Gustavus meant to repay
himself upon them. He permitted no cruelties, no persecutions;
but he levied heavy contributions, and his troops made merry
with the good Rhenish wine when he kept his Christmas at
Mentz. He invited the dispossessed Elector Palatine to join
him, and Frederick started for the camp, after the christening
of his thirteenth child. ... The suite was numerous enough to
fill forty coaches, escorted by seventy horse--pretty well
for an exiled prince dependent on the bounty of Holland and
England. ... There was the utmost enthusiasm for the Swede in
England, and the Marquess of Hamilton obtained permission to
raise a body of volunteers to join the Swedish standards, and
in the August of 1631 brought 6,000 English and Scots in four
small regiments; but they proved of little use ... many dying.
... So far as the King's plans can be understood, he meant to
have formed a number of Protestant principalities, and united
them in what he called 'Corpus Evangelicorum' around the
Baltic and the Elbe, as a balance to the Austrian Roman
Catholic power in southern Germany. Frederick wanted to raise
an army of his own people and take the command, but to this
Gustavus would not consent, having probably no great
confidence in his capacity. All the Palatinate was free from
the enemy except the three fortresses of Heidelberg,
Frankenthal, and Kreuznach, and the last of these was
immediately besieged. ... In the midst of the exultation
Frederick was grieved to learn that his beautiful home at
Heidelberg had been ravaged by fire, probably by the Spanish
garrison in expectation of having to abandon it. But as Tilly
was collecting his forces again, Gustavus would not wait to
master that place or Frankenthal, and recrossed the Rhine. Sir
Harry Vane had been sent as ambassador from Charles I. to
arrange for the restoration of the Palatinate, the King
offering £10,000 a mouth for the expense of the war, and
proposing that if, as was only too probable, he should be
prevented from performing this promise, some of the fortresses
should be left as guarantees in the hands of the Swedes.
Frederick took great and petulant offence at this stipulation,
and complained, with tears in his eyes, to Vane and the
Marquess of Hamilton. ... He persuaded them to suppress this
article, though they warned him that if the treaty failed it
would be by his own fault. It did in fact fail, for, as usual,
the English money was not forthcoming, and even if it had
been, Gustavus declared that he would be no man's servant for
a few thousand pounds. Frederick also refused the King's own
stipulation, that Lutherans should enjoy equal rights with
Calvinists. Moreover, the Swedish success had been
considerably more than was desired by his French allies. ...
Louis XIII. was distressed, but Richelieu silenced him, only
attempting to make a treaty with the Swedes by which the
Elector of Bavaria and the Catholic League should be neutral
on condition of the restoration of the bishops. To this,
however, Gustavus could not fully consent, and imposed
conditions which the Catholics could not accept. Tilly was
collecting his forces and threatening Nuremberg, but the Swedes
advanced, and he was forced to retreat, so that it was as a
deliverer that, on the 31st March [1632], Gustavus was received
in beautiful old Nuremberg with a rapture of welcome. ...
{1478}
Tilly had taken post on the Lech, and Maximilian was
collecting an army in Bavaria. The object of Gustavus was now
to beat one or other of them before they could join together:
so he marched forward, took Donauwerth, and tried to take
Ingoldstadt, but found it would occupy too much time, and,
though all the generals were of a contrary opinion, resolved
to attack Tilly and force the passage of the Lech. The
Imperialists had fortified it to the utmost, but in their very
teeth the Swedes succeeded in taking advantage of a bend in
the river to play on them with their formidable artillery,
construct a pontoon bridge, and, after a desperate struggle,
effect a passage. Tilly was struck by a cannon-shot in the
knee," and died soon afterwards. "On went Gustavus to Augsburg
... where the Emperor had expelled the Lutheran pastors and
cleared the municipal council of Protestant burgomasters. In
restoring the former state of things, Gustavus took a fresh
step, making the magistrates not only swear fidelity to him as
an ally till the end of the war, but as a sovereign. This made
the Germans begin to wonder what were his ulterior views. Then
he marched on upon Bavaria, intending to bridge the Danube and
take Ratisbon, but two strong forts prevented this. ... He,
however, made his way into the country between the Inn and the
Lech, Maximilian retreating before him. ... At Munich the
inhabitants brought him their keys. As they knelt he said,
'Rise, worship God, not man.' ... To compensate the soldiers
for not plundering the city, the King gave them each a crown
on the day of their entrance. ... Catholic Germany was in
despair. There was only one general in whom there was any
hope, and that was the discarded Wallenstein. ... He made
himself be courted. He would not come to Vienna, only to Znaim
in Moravia, where he made his terms like an independent
prince. ... At last he undertook to collect an army, but
refused to take the command for more than three months. His
name was enough to bring his Friedlanders flocking to his
standard. Not only Catholics, but Protestants came, viewing
Gustavus as a foreign invader. ... Wallenstein received
subsidies not only from the Emperor, but from the Pope and the
King of Spain, towards levying and equipping them, and by the
end of the three months he had the full 40,000 all in full
order for the march. Then he resigned the command. ... He
affected to be bent only on going back to his tower and his
stars at Prague [the study of astrology being his favorite
occupation], and to yield slowly to the proposals made him. He
was to be Generalissimo, neither Emperor nor Archduke was ever
to enter his camp; he was to name all his officers, and have
absolute control. ... Moreover, he might levy contributions as
he chose, and dispose as he pleased of lands and property
taken from the enemy; Mecklenburg was to be secured to him,
together with further rewards yet unspecified; and when
Bohemia was freed from the enemy, the Emperor was to live
there, no doubt under his control. ... There was no help for
it, and Wallenstein thus became the chief power in the Empire,
in fact a dictator. The power was conferred on him in April.
The first thing he did was to turn the Saxons out of Bohemia,
which was an easy matter." At Egra, Wallenstein was joined by
the Elector of Bavaria, which raised the Catholic force to
60,000. "The whole army marched upon Nuremberg, and Gustavus,
with only 20,000 men, dashed back to its defence. Wallenstein
had intrenched himself on an eminence called Fürth." As
Nuremberg was terribly distressed, his own army suffering, and
being infected with the lawless habits of German warfare,
Gustavus found it necessary to attempt (August 24) the
storming of the Imperialists' camp. He was repulsed, after
losing 3,000 of his Swedes and thrice as many Germans. He then
returned to Bavaria, while Wallenstein, abandoning his hope of
taking Nuremberg, moved into Saxony and began ravaging the
country. The Swedish king followed him so quickly that he had,
no time to establish the fortified camp he had intended, but
was forced to take up an intrenched position at Lützen. There
he was attacked on the 6th of November, 1632, and defeated in
a desperate battle, which became one of the memorable
conflicts in history because it brought to an end the great
and splendid career of Gustavus Adolphus, the Swede. The king
fell as he was leading a charge, and the fierce fight went on
over his body until the enemy had been driven from the field.
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
6th series, chapter 19.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
Battle-fields of Germany,
chapters 2-3.
R. C. Trench,
Gustavus Adolphus in Germany.
J. L. Stevens,
History of Gustavus Adolphus,
chapters 15-18.
GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1641.
The Thirty Years War:
The war in Lorraine.
Possession of the duchy taken by the French.
See LORRAINE: A. D. 1624-1663.
GERMANY: A. D. 1632-1634.
The Thirty Years War:
Retirement of Wallenstein to Bohemia.
Oxenstiern in the leadership of the Protestant cause.
Union of Heilbronn.
Inaction and suspicious conduct of Wallenstein.
The Ban pronounced against him.
His assassination.
"The account of the battle [of Lützen] transmitted by
Wallenstein to the Imperial Court, led Ferdinand to think that
he had gained the day. ... But ... the reputed conqueror was
glad to shelter himself behind the mountains of the Bohemian
frontier. After the battle, Wallenstein found it necessary to
evacuate Saxony in all haste; and, leaving garrisons at
Leipsic, Plauen, Zwickau, Chemnitz, Freiberg, Meissen, and
Frauenstein, he reached Bohemia without further loss, and put
his army into winter-quarters. After his arrival at Prague, he
caused many of his officers to be executed for their conduct
at Lützen, among whom were several who belonged to families of
distinction, nor would he allow them to plead the Emperor's
pardon. A few he rewarded. The harshness of his proceedings
increased the hatred already felt for him by many of his
officers, and especially the Italian portion: of them. ...
Axel Oxenstiern, the Swedish Chancellor, succeeded, on the
death of Gustavus Adolphus, to the supreme direction of the
affairs of Sweden in Germany, and was invested by the Council
at Stockholm with full powers both to direct the army and to
negotiate with the German courts. Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar
retained the military command of the Swedish-German army,
divisions of which were cantoned from the Baltic to the
Danube.
{1479}
After driving the Imperialists from Saxony, Bernhard had
hastened into Franconia, the bishoprics of which, according to
a promise of Gustavus, were to be erected in his favour into a
duchy; but, after taking Bamberg, his assistance was invoked
by General Horn, on the Upper Danube. One of the first cares
of Oxenstiern was to consolidate the German alliance; and, in
March 1633, he summoned a meeting at Heilbronn of the States
of the four Circles of the Upper and Lower Rhine, Franconia,
and Suabia, as well as deputies from Nuremberg, Strasburg,
Frankfort, Ulm, Augsburg, and other cities of the empire. The
assembly was also attended by ambassadors from France,
England, and Holland; and on April 9th was effected the Union
of Heilbronn. Brandenburg and Saxony stood aloof; nor was
France, though she renewed the alliance with Sweden, included
in the Union. The French minister at Heilbronn assisted,
however, in the formation of the Union, although he
endeavoured to limit the power of Oxenstiern, to whom the
conduct of the war was intrusted. At the same time, the Swedes
also concluded a treaty with the Palatinate, now governed, or
rather claimed to be governed, by Louis Philip, brother of the
Elector Frederick V., as guardian and regent for the latter's
youthful son Charles Louis. The unfortunate Frederick had
expired at Mentz in his 37th year, not many days after the
death of Gustavus Adolphus. ... Swedish garrisons were to be
maintained in Frankenthal, Bacharach, Kaub, and other places;
Mannheim was to be at the disposal of the Swedes so long as
the war should last. ... After the junction of Duke Bernhard
with Horn, the Swedish army,--for so we shall continue to call
it, though composed in great part of Germans,--endeavoured to
penetrate into Bavaria; but the Imperial General Altringer,
aided by John von Werth, a commander of distinction, succeeded
in covering Munich, and enabled Maximilian to return to his
capital. The Swedish generals were also embarrassed by a
mutiny of their mercenaries, as well as by their own
misunderstandings and quarrels; and all that Duke Bernhard was
able to accomplish in the campaign of 1633, besides some
forays into Bavaria, was the capture of Ratisbon in November."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 4, chapter 6 (volume 2).
Wallenstein, meantime, had been doing little. "After a long
period of inaction in Bohemia, he marched during the summer of
1633, with imperial pomp and splendor, into Silesia. There he
found a mixed army of Swedes, Saxons, and Brandenburgers, with
Matthias Thurn, who began the war, among them. Wallenstein
finally shut in this army [at Steinau] so that he might have
captured it; but he let it go, and went back to Bohemia, where
he began to negotiate with Saxony for peace. Meanwhile the
alliance formed at Heilbronn had brought Maximilian of Bavaria
into great distress. Regensburg [Ratisbon], hitherto occupied by
him, and regarded as an outwork of Bavaria and Austria, had
been taken by Bernard of Weimar. But Wallenstein, whom the
emperor sent to the rescue, only went into the Upper
Palatinate, and then returned to Bohemia. He seemed to look
upon that country as a strong and commanding position from
which he could dictate peace. He carried on secret
negotiations with France, Sweden, and all the emperor's
enemies. He had, indeed, the power to do this under his
commission; but his attitude toward his master became
constantly more equivocal. The emperor was anxious to be rid
of him without making him an enemy, and wished to give to his
own son, the young King of Hungary, the command in chief. But
the danger of losing his place drove Wallenstein to bolder
schemes. At his camp at Pilsen, all his principal officers
were induced by him to unite in a written request that he
should in no case desert them--a step which seemed much like a
conspiracy. But some of the generals, as Gallas, Aldringer,
and Piccolomini, soon abandoned Wallenstein, and gave warning
to the emperor. He secretly signed a patent deposing
Wallenstein, and placed it in the hands of Piccolomini and
Gallas, January 24, 1634, but acted with the profoundest
dissimulation until he had made sure of most of the commanders
who served under him. Then, suddenly, on February 18,
Wallenstein, his brother-in-law Tertzski, Ilow, Neumann, and
Kinsky were put under the ban, and the general's possessions
were confiscated. Now, at length, Wallenstein openly revolted,
and began to treat with the Swedes for desertion to them; but
they did not fully trust him. Attended only by five Sclavonic
regiments, who remained faithful to him, he went to Eger,
where he was to meet troops of Bernard of Weimar; but before
he could join them, he and the friends named above were
assassinated, February 25, by traitors who had remained in his
intimate companionship, and whom he trusted, under the command
of Colonel Butler, an Irishman, employed by Piccolomini."
C. T. Lewis,
History of Germany,
chapter 18, section 10.
ALSO IN:
F. Schiller,
History of the Thirty Years' War,
book 4.
J. Mitchell,
Life of Wallenstein,
chapters 8-10.
Sir E. Cust,
Lives of the Warriors of the Thirty Years' War,
part 1.
GERMANY: A, D. 1634-1639.
The Thirty Years War:
Successes of the Imperialists.
Their victory at Nördlingen.
Richelieu and France become active in the war.
Duke Bernhard's conquest of Alsace.
Richelieu's appropriation of the conquest for France.
"Want of union among the Protestants prevented them from
deriving all the benefit which they had at first anticipated
from Wallenstein's death. The King of Hungary assumed the
command of the army, and by the aid of money, which was
plentifully distributed, the soldiers were, without
difficulty, kept in obedience; not the slightest attempt was
any where made to resist the Emperor's orders. On the other
hand, Bernhard of Weimar and Field-Marshal Horn were masters
of Bavaria. In July 1634, they gained a complete victory at
Landshut, over General Altringer, who was slain in the action.
... The Swedes, who had so long been victorious, were, in their
turn, destined to taste the bitterness of defeat. 15,000
Spaniards, under the Cardinal Infant, son of Philip III.,
entered Germany [see NETHERLANDS: A.D. 1621-1633, and
1635-1638], and in conjunction with the imperial army, under
the King of Hungary, laid siege to Nördlingen. Field-Marshal
Horn, and Bernhard of Weimar, hurried to the relief of the
place. Owing to the superiority of the enemy, who was besides
strongly intrenched, the Swedish commanders had no intention
to hazard a battle, before the arrival of the Rhin-graff Count
Otho, with another division of the army, which was already
close at hand; but the impetuosity of the Duke of Weimar lost
every thing.
{1480}
Horn had succeeded in carrying a hill, called the Amsberg, a
strong point, which placed him in communication with the town,
and almost secured the victory. Bernhard, thinking that so
favourable an opening should not be neglected, hurried on to
the attack of another post. It was taken and retaken; both
armies were gradually, and without method, drawn into the
combat, which, after eight hours' duration, ended in the
complete defeat of the Swedes. Horn was made prisoner; and
Bernhard escaped on a borrowed horse. ... The defeat of'
Nördlingen almost ruined the Swedish cause in Germany; the
spell of invincibility was gone, and the effects of the panic
far surpassed those which the sword had produced. Strong
fortresses were abandoned before the enemy came in sight;
provinces were evacuated, and armies, that had been deemed
almost inconquerable, deserted their chiefs, and broke into
bands of lawless robbers, who pillaged their way in every
direction. Bavaria, Suabia and Franconia were lost; and it was
only behind the Rhine that the scattered fugitives could again
be brought into something like order. ... The Emperor refused
to grant the Swedes any other terms of peace than permission
to retire from the empire. The Elector of Saxony, forgetful of
what was due to his religion, and forgetful of all that Sweden
had done for his country, concluded, at Prague, a separate
peace with the Emperor; and soon afterwards joined the
Imperialists against his former allies. The fortunes of the
Protestants would have sunk beneath this additional blow, had
not France come to their aid. Richelieu had before only
nourished the war by means of subsidies, and had, at one time,
become nearly as jealous of the Swedes as of the Austrians;
but no sooner was their power broken, than the crafty priest
took an active share in the contest."
J. Mitchell,
Life of Wallenstein,
chapter 10.
"Richelieu entered resolutely into the contest, and in 1635
displayed enormous diplomatic activity. He wished not only to
reduce Austria, but, at the same time, Spain. Spanish
soldiers, Spanish treasure, and Spanish generals made in great
part the strength of the imperial armies, and Spain besides
never ceased to ferment internal troubles in France. Richelieu
signed the treaty of Compiegne with the Swedes against
Ferdinand II. By its conditions he granted them considerable
subsidies in order that they should continue the war in
Germany. He made the treaty of St. Germain en Laye with
Bernard of Saxe Weimar, to whom he promised an annual
allowance of money as well as Alsace, provided that he should
remain in arms to wrest Franche-Comté from Philip IV. He made
the treaty of Paris with the Dutch, who were to help the King
of France to conquer Flanders, which was to be divided between
France and the United Provinces. He made the treaty of Rivoli
with the dukes of Savoy, of Parma, and of Mantua, who were to
undertake in concert with France the invasion of the
territories of Milan and to receive a portion of the spoils of
Spain. At the same time he declared war against the Spanish
Government, which had arrested and imprisoned the Elector of
Trèves, the ally of France, and refused to surrender him when
demanded. Hostilities immediately began on five different
theatres of war--in the Low Countries, on the Rhine, in
Eastern Germany, in Italy, and in Spain. The army of the
Rhine, commanded by Cardinal de la Valette, was to operate in
conjunction with the corps of Bernard of Saxe Weimar against
the Imperialists, commanded by Count Gallas. To this army
Turenne was attached. It consisted of 20,000 infantry, 5,000
cavalry, and 14 guns. This was the army upon which Richelieu
mainly relied. ... Valette was to annoy the enemy without
exposing himself, and was not to approach the Rhine; but
induced by Bernard, who had a dashing spirit and wished to
reconquer all he had lost, encouraged by the terror of the
Imperialists who raised the siege of Mayence, he determined to
pass the river. He was not long in repenting of that step. He
established his troops round Mayence and revictualled this
place, which was occupied by a Swedish garrison, throwing in
all the supplies of which the town had need. The Imperialists,
who had calculated on this imprudence, immediately took to
cutting off his supplies, so that soon everything was wanting
in the French camp. ... The scourge of famine threatened the
French: it was necessary to retreat, to recross the Rhine, to
pass the Sarre, and seek a refuge at Metz. Few retreats have
been so difficult and so sad. The army was in such a pitiable
condition that round Mayence the men had to be fed with roots
and green grapes, and the horses with branches of trees. ...
The sick and the weary were abandoned, the guns were buried,
villages were burnt to stay the pursuit of the enemy, and to
prevent the wretched soldiers who would fall out of the ranks
from taking refuge in them."
H. M. Hozier,
Turenne,
chapter 2.
"Meanwhile, Saxony had concluded with the Emperor at Pirna, at
the close of 1634, a convention which ripened into a treaty of
alliance, to which almost all the princes of Northern Germany
subscribed, at Prague, in the month of May following. The
Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg were thus changed into
enemies of Sweden. The Swedish General, Banner [or Baner],
who, at the period of the battle of Nördlingen, had been
encamped side by side with the Saxon army on the White Hill
near Prague, had, on the first indication of wavering on the
part of its Elector, managed skilfully to withdraw his troops
from the dangerous proximity. On the 22nd October 1635, he
defeated the Saxon army, at Dömitz on the Elbe, then invaded
Brandenburg, took Havelberg, and even threatened Berlin.
Compelled by the approach of a Saxon and Imperialist army to
quit his prey, he turned and beat the combined army at
Wittstock (24th September 1636). After that battle, he drew
the reinforced Imperialists, commanded by Gallas, after him
into Pomerania; there he caused them great losses by cutting
off their supplies, then forced them back into Saxony, and,
following them up closely, attacked and beat them badly at
Chemnitz (4th April, 1639)." In the south, Duke Bernhard had
gained meantime some solid successes. After his retreat from
Mayence, in 1635, he had concluded his secret treaty with
Richelieu, placing himself wholly at the service of France,
and receiving the promise of 4,000,000 francs yearly, for the
support of his army, and the ultimate sovereignty of Alsace
for himself. "Having concerted measures with La Valette
[1636], ... he invaded Lorraine, drove the enemy thence,
taking Saarburg and Pfalzburg, and then, entering Alsace, took
Saverne. His career of conquest in Alsace was checked by the
invasion of Burgundy by Gallas, with an army of 40,000 men.
{1481}
Duke Bernhard marched with all haste to Dijon, and forced
Gallas to fall back, with great loss, beyond the Saone
(November 1636). Pursuing his advantages, early the following
year he forced the passage of the Saone at Gray, despite the
vivid resistance of Prince Charles of Lorraine (June 1637),
and pursued that commander as far as Besançon. Reinforced
during the autumn, he marched towards the Upper Rhine, and,
undertaking a winter campaign, captured Lauffenburg, after a
skirmish with John of Werth; then Säckingen and Waldshut, and
laid siege to Rheinfelden. The Imperialist army, led by John
of Werth, succeeded, indeed, after a very hot encounter, in
relieving that place; but three days later Duke Bernhard
attacked and completely defeated it (21st February 1638),
taking prisoners not only John of Werth himself, but the
generals, Savelli, Enkefort, and Sperreuter. The consequences
of this victory were the fall of Rheinfelden, Rötteln,
Neuenberg, and Freiburg. Duke Bernhard then laid siege to
Breisach (July 1638). ... The Imperial general, Götz, advanced
at the head of a force considerably outnumbering that of Duke
Bernhard. Leaving a portion of his army before the place, Duke
Bernhard then drew to himself Turenne, who was lying in the
vicinity with 3,000 men, fell upon the Imperialists at
Wittenweiher (30th July), completely defeated them, and
captured their whole convoy. Another Imperialist army, led by
the Duke of Lorraine in person, shared a similar fate at
Thann, in the Sundgau, on the 4th October following. Götz, who
was hastening with a strengthened army to support the Duke of
Lorraine, attacked Duke Bernhard ten days later, but was
repulsed with great loss. Breisach capitulated on the 7th
December. Duke Bernhard took possession of it in his own name,
and foiled all the efforts of Richelieu to secure it for
France, by garrisoning it with German soldiers. To compensate
the French Cardinal Minister for Breisach, Duke Bernhard
undertook a winter campaign to drive the Imperialists from
Franche-Comté. Entering that province at the end of December,
he speedily made himself master of its richest part. He then
returned to Alsace with the resolution to cross the Rhine and
carry the war once again into Bavaria," and then, in junction
with Banner, to Vienna. "He had made all the necessary
preparations for this enterprise, had actually sent his army
across the Rhine, when he died very suddenly, not without
suspicion of poison, at Neuberg am Rhein (8th July, 1639). The
lands he had conquered he bequeathed to his brother. ... But
Richelieu paid no attention to the wishes of the dead general.
Before any of the family could interfere, he had secured all
the fortresses in Alsace, even Breisach, which was its key,
for France."
G. B. Malleson,
The Battle-fields of Germany,
chapter 5.
"During [1639] Piccolomini, at the head of the Imperialist and
Spanish troops, gave battle to the French at Diedenhofen. The
battle took place on the 7th of June, and the French were
beaten and suffered great losses."
A. Gindely,
History of the Thirty Years' War,
chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
Sir E. Cust,
Lives of the Warriors of the Thirty Years' War,
part 2.
S. R. Gardiner,
The Thirty Years' War,
chapter 9, section 5.
GERMANY: A. D. 1635-1638.
The Thirty Years War:
Campaigns in the Netherlands.
The Dutch and French against the Spaniards.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638.
GERMANY: A. D. 1636-1637.
Diet at Ratisbon.
Attempted negotiations of peace.
Death of the Emperor Ferdinand II
"An electoral diet was assembled at Ratisbon, by the emperor
in person, on the 15th of September, 1636, for the ostensible
purpose of restoring peace, for which some vague negotiations
had been opened under the mediation of the pope and the king
of Denmark, and congresses appointed at Hamburgh and Cologne;
but with the real view of procuring the election of his son
Ferdinand as king of the Romans. ... Ferdinand was elected
with only the fruitless protest of the Palatine family, and
the dissenting voice of the elector of Treves. ... The emperor
did not long survive this happy event. He died on the 15th of
February, 1637. ... Ferdinand ... seems to have been the first
who formally established the right of primogeniture in all his
hereditary territories. By his testament, dated May 10th.
1621, he ordered that all his Austrian dominions should
devolve on his eldest male descendant, and fixed the majority
at 18 years."
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 56 (volume 2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1637.
Election of the Emperor Ferdinand III.
GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645.
The Thirty Years War:
Campaigns of Baner and Torstenson.
The second Breitenfeld.
Jankowitz.
Mergentheim.
Allerheim.
War in Denmark.
Swedish army in Austria.
Saxony forced to neutrality.
"The war still went on for eight years, but the only influence
that it exerted upon the subsequent Peace was that it overcame
the last doubts of the Imperial court as to the indispensable
principles of the Peace. ... The first event of importance on
the theatre of war after Bernhard's death was Baner's attempt
to join the army of Weimar in central Germany. Not in a
condition to pass the winter in Bohemia, and threatened in
Saxony and Silesia, he ... commenced [March, 1640] a retreat
amidst fearful devastations, crossed the Elbe at Leitmeritz,
and arrived April 3rd at Zwickau. He succeeded in joining with
the mercenaries of Weimar and the troops of Lüneburg and Hesse
at Saalfeld;" but no joint action was found possible. "Until
December, the war on both sides consisted of marches hither
and thither, accompanied with horrible devastation; but
nothing decisive occurred. In September the Diet met at
Ratisbon. While wearisome attempts were being made to bend the
obstinacy of Austria, Baner resolved to compel her to yield by
a bold stroke, to invade the Upper Palatinate, to surprise
Ratisbon, and to put an end to the Diet and Emperor together.
... Not without difficulty Guebriant [commanding the French in
Alsace] was induced to follow, and to join Baner at Erfurt.
... But the surprise of Ratisbon was a failure. ... The armies
now separated again. Baner exhausted his powers of persuasion
in vain to induce Guebriant to go with him. The French went
westward. Hard pressed himself, Baner proceeded by forced
marches towards Bohemia, and by the end of March reached
Zwickau, where he met Guebriant again, and they had a sharp
conflict with the Imperialists on the Saal. There Baner died,
on the 21st of May, 1641, leaving his army in a most critical
condition, The warfare of the Swedish-French arms was come to
a standstill.
{1482}
Both armies were near dissolution, when, in November,
Torstenson, the last of the Gustavus Adolphus school of
generals, and the one who most nearly equalled the master,
appeared with the Swedish army, and by a few vigorous strokes,
which followed each other with unexampled rapidity, restored
the supremacy of its arms. ... After three months of rest,
which he mainly devoted to the reorganization and payment of
his army, by the middle of January [1642] he had advanced
towards the Elbe and the Altmark; and as the Imperial forces
were weakened by sending troops to the Rhine, he formed the
great project of proceeding through Silesia to the Austrian
hereditary dominions. On April 3rd he crossed the Elbe at
Werben, between the Imperial troops, increased his army to
20,000 men, stormed Glogau on May 4th, stood before
Schweidnitz on the 30th, and defeated Francis Albert of
Lauenburg; Schweidnitz, Neisse, and Oppeln fell into his
hands. Meanwhile Guebriant, after subduing the defiant and
mutinous spirit of his troops by means of money and promises,
had, on January 17th, defeated the Imperialists near Kempen,
not far from Crefeld [at Hulst], for which he was honoured
with the dignity of marshal. But this was a short-lived gleam
of light, and was soon followed by dark days, occasioned by
want of money and discontent in the camp. ... He had turned
eastward from the Rhine to seek quarters for his murmuring
troops in nether Germany, when Torstenson effected a decision
in Saxony. After relieving Glogau, and having in vain tried to
enter Bohemia, he had joined the detachments of Königsmark and
Wrangel, and on October 30th he appeared before Leipzig. On
November 2nd there was a battle near Breitenfeld, which ended
in a disastrous defeat of the Imperialists and Leipzig
surrendered to Torstenson three weeks afterwards. In spite of
all the advantages which Torstenson gained for himself, it
never came to a united action with the French; and the first
victory won by the French in the Netherlands, in May, 1643,
did not alter this state of things. Torstenson ... was
suddenly called to a remote scene of war in the north. King
Christian IV. of Denmark had been persuaded, by means of the
old Danish jealousy of Sweden, to take up arms for the
Emperor. He declared war just as Torstenson was proceeding to
Austria. Vienna was now saved; but so much the worse for
Denmark. In forced marches, which were justly admired,
Torstenson set out from Silesia towards Denmark at the end of
October, conducted a masterly campaign against the Danes, beat
them wherever he met with them, conquered Holstein and
Schleswig, pushed on to Jutland, then, while Wrangel and Horn
carried on the war (till the peace of Brömsebro, August,
1645), he returned and again took up the war against the
Imperialists, everywhere an unvanquished general. The
Imperialists under the incompetent Gallas intended to give
Denmark breathing-time by creating a diversion; but it did not
save Denmark, and brought another defeat upon themselves.
Gallas did not bring back more than 2,000 men from Magdeburg
to Bohemia, and they were in a very disorganized state. He was
pursued by Torstenson, while Ragoczy threatened Hungary. The
Emperor hastily collected what forces he could command, and
resolved to give battle. Torstenson had advanced as far as
Glattau in February, and on March 6th, 1645, a battle was
fought near Jankowitz, three miles from Tabor. It was the most
brilliant victory ever gained by the Swedes. The Imperial army
was cut to pieces; several of its leaders imprisoned or
killed. In a few weeks Torstenson conquered Moravia and
Austria as far as the Danube. Not far from the capital itself
he took possession of the Wolfsbrücke. As in 1618, Vienna was
in great danger." But the ill-success of the French "always
counterbalanced the Swedes' advantages. Either they were
beaten just as the Swedes were victorious, or could not turn a
victory to account. So it was during this year [1645]. The
west frontier of the empire was guarded on the imperial side
by Mercy, together with John of Werth, after he was liberated
from prison. On 26th March, Turenne crossed the Rhine, and
advanced towards Franconia. There he encamped near Mergentheim
and Rosenberg. On 5th May, a battle near Mergentheim ended
with the entire defeat of the French, and Turenne escaped with
the greatest difficulty by way of Hammelburg, towards Fulda.
The victors pushed on to the Rhine. To avenge this defeat,
Enghien was sent from Paris, and, at the beginning of July,
arrived at Spires, with 12,000 men. His forces, together with
Königsmark's, the remnant of Turenne's and the Hessians,
amounted to 30,000 men. At first Mercy dexterously avoided a
battle under unfavourable circumstances, but on August 3d the
contest was inevitable. A bloody battle was fought between
Nördlingen and Donauwörth, near Allerheim [called the battle
of Nordlingen, by the French], which was long doubtful, but,
after tremendous losses, resulted in the victory of the
French. Mercy's fall, Werth's imprudent advance, and a final
brave assault of the Hessians, decided the day. But the
victors were so weakened that they could not fully take
advantage of it. Condé was ill; and in the autumn Turenne was
compelled, not without perceptible damage to the cause, to
retreat with his army to the Neckar and the Rhine. Neither had
Torstenson been able to maintain his position in Austria. He
had been obliged to raise the siege of Brunn, and learnt at
the same time that Ragoczy had just made peace with the
Emperor. Obliged to retire to Bohemia, he found his forces
considerably diminished. Meanwhile, Kônigsmark had won an
important advantage. While Torstenson was in Austria he gained
a firm footing in Saxony. Then came the news of Allerheim, and
of the peace of Brömsebro. Except Dresden and Königstein, all
the important points were in the hands of the Swedes; so, on
the 6th of September [1645], the Elector John George concluded
a treaty of neutrality for six months. Besides money and
supplies, the Swedes received Leipzig, Torgau, and the right
of passage through the country. Meanwhile, Torstenson had
retreated into the north-east of Bohemia, and severe physical
sufferings compelled him to give up the command. He was
succeeded by Charles Gustavus Wrangel."
L. Hausser,
The Period of the Reformation,
1517 to 1648, chapter 39.
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 58 (volume 2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1642-1643.
The Thirty Years War:
Condé's victory at Rocroi and campaign on the Moselle.
See FRANCE: A.D. 1642-1648, and 1643.
{1483}
GERMANY: A. D. 1643-1644.
The Thirty Years War:
Campaigns of Turenne and Condé against Merci, on the Upper
Rhine.
Dütlingen.
Freiburg.
Philipsburg.
"After the death of Bernard of Saxe Weimar, Marshal Guébriant
had been placed in command of the troops of Weimar. He had
besieged and taken Rottweil in Suabia, but had there been
killed. Rantzau, who succeeded him in command of the Weimar
army, marched (24-25 November, 1643) upon Dütlingen [or
Tuttlingen], on the Upper Rhine, was there beaten by Mercy and
made prisoner, with the loss of many officers and 7,000
soldiers. This was a great triumph for the Bavarians; a
terrible disaster for France. The whole of the German infantry
in the French service was dispersed or taken, the cavalry
retreated as they best could upon the Rhine. ... Circumstances
required active measures. Plenipotentiaries had just assembled
at Münster to begin the negotiations which ended with the
peace of Westphalia. It was desired that the French Government
should support the French diplomatist by quick successes. ...
Turenne was sent to the Rhine with reinforcements. ... He
re-established discipline, and breathed into [the army] a new
spirit. ... At the same time, by negotiations, the prisoners
who had been taken at Dütlingen were restored to France, the
gaps in the ranks were filled up, and in the spring of 1644
Turenne found himself at the head of 9,000 men, of whom 5,000
were cavalry, and was in a position to take the field." He
"pushed through the Black Forest, and near the source of the
Danube gained a success over a Bavarian detachment. For some
reason which is not clear he threw a garrison into Freiburg,
and retired across the Rhine. Had he remained near the town he
would have prevented Mercy from investing it. So soon as
Turenne was over the river, Mercy besieged Freiburg, and
although Turenne advanced to relieve the place, a stupid error
of some of his infantry made him fail, and Freiburg
capitulated to Mercy."
H. M. Hozier,
Turenne,
chapter 3 and 5.
"Affairs being in so bad a state about the Black Forest, the
Great Condé, at that time Duc d'Enghien, was brought up, with
10,000 men; thus raising the French to a number above the
enemy's. He came crowned with the immortal laurels of Rocroi;
and in virtue of his birth, as a prince of the blood-royal,
took precedence of the highest officers in the service. Merci,
a capable and daring general, aware of his inferiority, now
posted himself a short distance from Freyburg, in a position
almost inaccessible. He garnished it with felled trees and
intrenchments, mountains, woods, and marshes, which of
themselves defied attack." Turenne advocated a flank movement,
instead of a direct assault upon Merci's position; but Condé,
reckless of his soldiers' lives, persisted in leading them
against the enemy's works. "A terrible action ensued (August
3, 1644). Turenne made a long detour through a defile; Condé,
awaiting his arrival on the ground, postponed the assault till
three hours before sunset, and then ascended the steep. Merci
had the worse, and retreated to a fresh position on the Black
Mountain, where he successfully repulsed for one day Condé's
columns (August 5). In this action Gaspard Merci was killed.
Condé now adopted the flank movement, which, originally
recommended by Turenne, would have saved much bloodshed; and
Merci, hard pressed, escaped by a rapid retreat, leaving
behind him his artillery and baggage (August 9). These are the
'three days of Freyburg.' To retake the captured Freyburg after
their victory ... was the natural suggestion first heard." But
Turenne persuaded Condé that the reduction of Philipsburg was
more important. "Philipsburg was taken after a short siege;
and its fall was accompanied by the submission of the adjacent
towns of Germersheim, Speier, Worms, Mentz, Oppenheim and
Landau. Condé at this conjuncture left the Upper Rhine, and
took away his regiments with him."
T. O. Cockayne,
Life of Turenne,
pages 20-22.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
The Battle-fields of Germany,
chapter 6.
GERMANY: A. D. 1646-1648.
The Thirty Years War:
Its final campaigns.
The sufferings of Bavaria.
Truce and peace negotiations initiated by the Elector
Maximilian.
The ending of the war at Prague.
"The retreat of the French [after the battle of Allerheim]
enabled the enemy to turn his whole force upon the Swedes in
Bohemia. Gustavus Wrangel, no unworthy successor of Banner and
Torstensohn, had, in 1646, been appointed Commander-in-chief
of the Swedish army. ... The Archduke, after reinforcing his
army ... moved against Wrangel, in the hope of being able to
overwhelm him by his superior force before Koenigsmark could
join him, or the French effect a diversion in his favour.
Wrangel, however, did not await him." He moved through Upper
Saxony and Hesse, to Weimar, where he was joined by the flying
corps of Koenigsmark. Finally, after much delay, he was joined
likewise by Turenne and the French. "The junction took place
at Giessen, and they now felt themselves strong enough to meet
the enemy. The latter had followed the Swedes into Hesse, in
order to intercept their commissariat, and to prevent their
union with Turenne. In both designs they had been
unsuccessful; and the Imperialists now saw themselves cut off
from the Maine, and exposed to great scarcity and want from
the loss of their magazines. Wrangel took advantage of their
weakness to execute a plan by which he hoped to give a new
turn to the war. ... He determined to follow the course of the
Danube, and to break into the Austrian territories through the
midst of Bavaria. ... He moved hastily, ... defeated a
Bavarian corps near Donauwerth, and passed that river, as well
as the Lech, unopposed. But by wasting his time in the
unsuccessful siege of Augsburg, he gave opportunity to the
Imperialists, not only to relieve that city, but also to
repulse him as far as Lauingen. No sooner, however, had they
turned towards Suabia, with a view to remove the war from
Bavaria, than, seizing the opportunity, he repassed the Lech,
and guarded the passage of it against the Imperialists
themselves. Bavaria now lay open and defenceless before him;
the French and Swedes quickly overran it; and the soldiery
indemnified themselves for all dangers by frightful outrages,
robberies, and extortions. The arrival of the Imperial troops,
who at last succeeded in passing the Lech at Thierhaupten,
only increased the misery of this country, which friend and
foe indiscriminately plundered. And now, for the first time
during the whole course of this war, the courage of
Maximilian, which for eight-and-twenty years had stood
unshaken amidst fearful dangers, began to waver. Ferdinand
II., his school-companion at Ingolstadt, and the friend of his
youth, was no more; and, with the death of his friend and
benefactor, the strong tie was dissolved which had linked the
Elector to the House of Austria. ...
{1484}
Accordingly, the motives which the artifices of France now put
in operation, in order to detach him from the Austrian
alliance, and to induce him to lay down his arms, were drawn
entirely from political considerations. ... The Elector of
Bavaria was unfortunately led to believe that the Spaniards
alone were disinclined to peace, and that nothing but Spanish
influence had induced the Emperor so long to resist a
cessation of hostilities. Maximilian detested the Spaniards,
and could never forgive their having opposed his application
for the Palatine Electorate. ... All doubts disappeared; and,
convinced of the necessity of this step, he thought he should
sufficiently discharge his obligations to the Emperor if he
invited him also to share in the benefit of the truce. The
deputies of the three crowns, and of Bavaria, met at Ulm, to
adjust the conditions. But it was soon evident, from the
instructions of the Austrian ambassador, that it was not the
intention of the Emperor to second the conclusion of a truce,
but if possible· to prevent it. ... The good intentions of the
Elector of Bavaria, to include the Emperor in the benefit of
the truce, having been thus rendered unavailing, he felt
himself justified in providing for his own safety. ... He
agreed to the Swedes extending their quarters in Suabia and
Franconia, and to his own being restricted to Bavaria and the
Palatinate. The conquests which he had made in Suabia were
ceded to the allies, who, on their part, restored to him what
they had taken from Bavaria. Cologne and Hesse Cassel were
also included in the truce. After the conclusion of this
treaty, upon the 14th March, 1647, the French and Swedes left
Bavaria. ... Turenne, according to agreement, marched into
Wurtemburg, where he forced the Landgrave of Darmstadt and the
Elector of Mentz to imitate the example of Bavaria, and to
embrace the neutrality. And now, at last, France seemed to
have attained the great object of its policy, that of
depriving the Emperor of the support of the League, and of his
Protestant allies. ... But ... after a brief crisis, the
fallen power of Austria rose again to a formidable strength.
The jealousy which France entertained of Sweden, prevented it
from permitting the total ruin of the Emperor, or allowing the
Swedes to obtain such a preponderance in Germany, which might
have been destructive to France herself. Accordingly, the
French minister declined to take advantage of the distresses
of Austria; and the army of Turenne, separating from that of
Wrangel, retired to the frontiers of the Netherlands. Wrangel,
indeed, after moving from Suabia into Franconia, taking
Schweinfurt, ... attempted to make his way into Bohemia, and
laid siege to Egra, the key of that kingdom. To relieve this
fortress, the Emperor, put his last army in motion, and placed
himself at its head. But ... on his arrival Egra was already
taken." Meantime the Emperor had engaged in intrigues with the
Bavarian officers and had nearly seduced the whole army of the
Elector. The latter discovered this conspiracy in time to
thwart it; but he now suddenly, on his own behalf, struck
hands with the Emperor again, and threw over his late
agreements with the Swedes and French. "He had not derived
from the truce the advantages he expected. Far from tending to
accelerate a general peace, it had a pernicious influence upon
the negociations at Munster and Osnaburg, and had made the
allies bolder in their demands." Maximilian, therefore,
renounced the truce and began hostilities anew. "This
resolution, and the assistance which he immediately despatched
to the Emperor in Bohemia, threatened materially to injure the
Swedes, and Wrangel was compelled in haste to evacuate that
kingdom. He retired through Thuringia into Westphalia and
Lunenburg, in the hope of forming a junction with the French
army under Turenne, while the Imperial and Bavarian army
followed him to the Weser, under Melander and Gronsfeld. His
ruin was inevitable if the enemy should overtake him before
his junction with Turenne; but the same consideration which
had just saved the Emperor now proved the salvation of the
Swedes. ... The Elector of Bavaria could not allow the Emperor
to obtain so decisive a preponderance as, by the sudden
alteration of affairs, might delay the chances of a general
peace. ... Now that the power of the Emperor threatened once
more to attain a dangerous superiority, Maximilian at once
ceased to pursue the Swedes. ... Melander, prevented by the
Bavarians from further pursuing Wrangel, crossed by Jena and
Erfurt into Hesse. ... In this exhausted country, his army was
oppressed by want, while Wrangel was recruiting his strength,
and remounting his cavalry in Lunenburg. Too weak to maintain
his wretched quarters against the Swedish general, when he
opened the campaign in the winter of 1648, and marched against
Hesse, he was obliged to retire with disgrace, and take refuge
on the banks of the Danube. ... Turenne received permission to
join the Swedes; and the last campaign of this eventful war
was now opened by the united armies. Driving Melander before
them along the Danube, they threw supplies into Egra, which
was besieged by the Imperialists, and defeated the Imperial
and Bavarian armies on the Danube, which ventured to oppose
them at Susmarshausen, where Melander was mortally wounded."
They then forced a passage of the Lech, at the point where
Gustavus Adolphus formerly overcame Tilly, and ravaged Bavaria
once more; while nothing but a prolonged rain-storm, which
flooded the Inn, saved Austria from a similar devastation.
Koenigsmark, with his flying corps, entered Bohemia,
penetrated to Prague and surprised and captured the lesser
side of the city (the Kleinsite), thus acquiring the
reputation of "closing the Thirty Years' War by the last
brilliant achievement. This decisive stroke, which vanquished
the Emperor's irresolution, cost the Swedes only the loss of a
single man. But the old town, the larger half of Prague, which
is divided into two parts by the Moldau, by its vigorous
resistance wearied out the efforts of the Palatine, Charles
Gustavus, the successor of Christina on the throne, who had
arrived from Sweden with fresh troops. ... The approach of
winter at last drove the besiegers into their quarters, and in
the meantime the intelligence arrived that a peace had been
signed at Munster, on the 24th October,"--the "solemn and ever
memorable and sacred treaty which is known by the name of the
Peace of Westphalia."
F. Schiller,
History of the Thirty Years' War,
book 5.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
The Battle-fields of Germany,
chapter 7.
{1485}
GERMANY: The Thirty Years War:
Its horrors.
Its destructiveness.
The state of the country at its close.
"The materials of which the armies were composed passed
inevitably from bad to worse. This, which had been a civil war
at the first, did not continue such for long; or rather it
united presently all the dreadfulness of a civil war and a
foreign. It was not long before the hosts which trampled the
German soil had in large part ceased to be German; every
region of Europe sending of its children, and, as it would
seem, of those whom it must have been gladdest to be rid of,
to swell the ranks of the destroyers. ... From all quarters
they came trooping, not singly, but in whole battalions. ...
All armies draw after them a train of camp-followers; they are
a plague which in the very nature of things is inevitable. But
never perhaps did this evil rise to so enormous a height as
now. Toward the close of this War an Imperial army of 40,000
men was found to be attended by the ugly accompaniment of
140,000 of these. The conflict had in fact by this time lasted
so long that the soldiery had become as a distinct nation,
camping in the midst of another; and the march of an army like
the migration of some wild nomade horde, moving with wives and
children through the land. And not with these only. There were
others too in its train, as may easily be supposed. ... It is
a thought to make one shudder, the passage of one of these
armies with its foul retinue through some fair and smiling and
well-ordered region--what it found, and what it must have left
it, and what its doings there will have been. Bear in mind
that there was seldom in these armies any attempt whatever at
a regular commissariat; rations being never issued except to
the actual soldiers, and most irregularly to them; that the
soldier's pay too was almost always enormously in arrear, so
that he could not purchase even if he would. ... It was indeed
the bitterest irony of all, that this War, which claimed at the
outset to be waged for the highest religious objects, for the
glory of God and for the highest interests of His Church,
should be signalized ere long by a more shameless treading
under foot of all laws human and divine, disgraced by worse
and wickeder outrages against God, and against man, the image
of God, than probably any war which modern Christendom has
seen. The three master sins of our fallen nature, hate, lust,
and covetousness, were all rampant to the full. ... Soon it
became evident that there was no safety in almost any
remoteness from that which might be the scene of warfare at
the actual moment. When all in their immediate neighbourhood
was wasted, armed bands variously disguised, as merchants, as
gipsies, as travellers, or sometimes as women, would penetrate
far into the land. ... Nor was the condition of the larger
towns much better. ... It did not need actual siege or capture
to make them acquainted with the miseries of the time. With no
draught-cattle to bring firewood in, there was no help for it
but that abandoned houses, by degrees whole streets, and
sometimes the greater part of a town, should be pulled down to
prevent those of its inhabitants who remained from perishing
by cold, the city thus living upon and gradually consuming
itself. ... Under conditions like these, it is not wonderful
that the fields were left nearly or altogether untilled; for
who would sow what he could never hope to reap? ... What
wonder that famine, thus invited, should before long have
arrived? ... Persons were found dead in the fields with grass
in their mouths; while the tanners' and knackers' yards were
beset for the putrid carcasses of beasts; the multitudes,
fierce with hunger, hardly enduring to wait till the skin had
been stript away. The bodies of malefactors, broken on the
wheel, were secretly removed to serve for food; or men climbed
up the gibbets, and tore down the bodies which were suspended
there, and devoured them. This, indeed, was a supply which was
not likely to fail. ... Prisoners in Alsace were killed that
they might be eaten. Children were enticed from home. ...
Putting all together, it is not too much to say that the
crowning horrors of Samaria, of Jerusalem, of Saguntum, found
their parallels, and often worse than their parallels, in
Christian Germany only two centuries ago. I had thought at one
time that there were isolated examples of these horrors, one
here, one there, just enough to warrant the assertion that
such things were done; but my conviction now is that they were
very frequent indeed, and in almost every part of the land.
... Districts which had for centuries been in the occupation
of civilized men were repossessed by forests. ... When Peace
was at length proclaimed, and Germany had leisure to take an
inventory of her losses, it was not altogether impossible to
make a rude and rough estimate. ... The statistics, so far as
they were got together, tell a terrible tale. ... Of the
population it was found that three-fourths, in some parts a
far larger proportion, had perished; or, not having perished,
were not less effectually lost to their native land, having
fled to Switzerland, to Holland, and to other countries, never
to return from them again. Thus in one group of twenty
villages which had not exceptionally suffered, 85 per cent.,
or more than four-fifths of the inhabitants, had disappeared.
... Of the houses, three-fourths were destroyed. ... Careful
German writers assure us that there are districts which at
this present day [1872] have just attained the population, the
agricultural wealth, the productive powers which they had when
the War commenced."
R. C. Trench,
Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, and other
Lectures on the Thirty Years' War,
lectures 3 and 5.
See, also, BOHEMIA: A. D. 1621-1648.
GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
The Peace of Westphalia.
Cession of Alsace to France.
Separation of Switzerland from the Empire.
Loosening of the constitutional bonds of the Empire.
"The opening of the peace negotiations between the Emperor and
his enemies was ... fixed for the 25th of March, 1642, and the
cities of Münster and Osnabrück as the places of the sitting;
but neither in this year nor in the next did it take place. It
was not until the year 1644 that in the former of these
cities" were assembled the following: The Papal Nuncio and the
envoy of the Republic of Venice, acting as mediators, two
imperial ambassadors, two representatives of France, three of
Spain, and the Catholic Electors; later came also the Catholic
Princes. To Osnabrück, Sweden sent two ambassadors and France
three, while the Electors, the German Princes and the imperial
cities were represented. Questions of etiquette, which demanded
prior settlement, occupied months, and serious matters when
reached were dealt with slowly and jealously, with many
interruptions. It was not until the 24th of October, 1648,
that the articles of peace forming the two treaties of Münster
and Osnabrück, and known together as the Peace of Westphalia,
were signed by all the negotiators at Münster.
{1486}
The more important of the provisions of the two instruments
were the following "To France was secured the perpetual
possession of the Bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, as
also Moyenvic and Pignerol, with the right to keep a garrison
in Philipsburg, and finally Breisach, Alsace, with its ten
imperial cities, and the Sundgau. The Emperor bound himself to
gain the assent of the Archduke Ferdinand, of Tyrol and Spain,
to this last-named cession. France made good to the Archduke this
loss by the payment of 3,000,000 francs. Although it was not
expressly provided that the connection with the Empire of the
German provinces ceded to France should be dissolved, yet the
separation became, as a matter of fact, a complete one. The
Emperor did not summon the Kings of France to the Diets of the
Empire, and the latter made no demand for such summons. ... In
relation to Italy, the French treaty provided that the peace
concluded in 1631 [see ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631] should remain
in force, except the part relating to Pignerol. ['Pinerolo was
definitely put under the French overlordship.']
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
volume 3, page 98.
Switzerland was made independent of the German Empire; but the
Circle of Burgundy [the Spanish Netherlands and Franche-Comté]
was still to form a part of the Empire, and after the close of
the war between France and Spain, in which the Emperor and the
Empire were to take no part, was to be included in the peace.
No aid was to be rendered to the Duke of Lorraine against
France, although the Emperor and the Empire were left free to
mediate for him a peace. Sweden received Hither Pomerania,
including the Island of Rügen, from Further Pomerania the
Island of Wollin and several cities, with their surroundings,
among which were Stettin, as also the expectancy of Further
Pomerania in case of the extinction of the house of
Brandenburg. Furthermore, it received the city of Wismar, in
Mecklenburg, and the Bishoprics of Bremen [secularized and
made a Grand Duchy] and Verden, with reservation of the rights
and immunities of the city of Bremen. Sweden was to hold all
the ceded territory as feudal tenures of the Empire, and be
represented for them in the Imperial Diet. ... Brandenburg
received for its loss of Pomerania the Bishoprics of
Halberstadt, Minden, and Camin, and the expectancy of that of
Magdeburg as soon as this should become vacant by the death of
its Administrator, the Saxon Prince, although the four
bailiwicks separated from it were to remain with Saxony as
provided in the Peace of Prague. ... The house of
Brunswick-Lüneberg was to renounce its right to the
coadjutorship of Magdeburg, Bremen, Halberstadt, and
Ratzeburg, and, in return for this renunciation, was to
alternate with a Catholic prelate in the possession of the
Bishopric of Osnabrück. ... To Duke Maximilian of Bavaria was
conveyed the Electorate, together with the Upper Palatinate,
to be hereditary in his family of the line of William, for
which he, on the other hand, was to surrender to the Emperor
the account of the 13,000,000 florins which he had made for
the execution of the sentence against the Palsgrave Frederic.
To the Palsgrave, Charles Lewis, son of the proscribed Elector
[Frederic, who had died in 1632], was given back the Lower
Palatinate, while a new Electorate, the eighth, was created
for him. ... There were numerous provisions relating to the
restoration of the Dukes of Würtemberg, the Margraves of
Baden, and the Counts of Nassau and those of Hanau to several
parts of the territories which either belonged to them or were
contested. A general amnesty was indeed provided, and everyone
was to be restored to the possession of the lands which he had
held before the war. This general article was, however,
limited by various special provisions, as that in relation to
the Palsgrave, and was not to be applied to Austria at all.
... Specially important are the sections which relate to the
settlement of religious grievances. The treaty of Passau and
the Augsburg religious peace were confirmed; the 1st of
January, 1624, was fixed as the time which was to govern
mutual reclamations between the Catholics and Protestants;
both parties were secured the right to all ecclesiastical
foundations, whether in mediate or immediate connection with
the Empire, which they severally held in possession on the
first day of January, 1624; if any such had been taken from
them after this date, restoration was to be made, unless
otherwise specially provided. The Ecclesiastical Reservation
was acknowledged by the Protestants, and Protestant holders of
ecclesiastical property were freely admitted to the Imperial
Diets. The right of reformation was conceded to the Estates,
and permission to emigrate to the subjects; while it was at
the same time provided that, if in 1624 Protestant subjects of
Catholic Princes, or the reverse, enjoyed freedom of religion,
this right should not in the future be diminished. It was
specially granted for Silesia that all the concessions which
had been made before the war to the Dukes of Liegnitz,
Münsterburg, and Oels, and to the city of Breslau, relating to
the free exercise of the Augsburg Confession, should remain in
force. ... Finally, the Reformed--that is, the adherents of
Calvinism--were placed upon the same ground with those of the
Augsburg Confession; and it was provided that if a Lutheran
Estate of the Empire should become a Calvinist, or the
reverse, his subjects should not be forced to change with
their Prince."
A. Gindely,
History of the Thirty Years' War,'
volume 2, chapter 10.
"The emperor, in his own name, and in behalf of his family and
the 'empire, ceded the full sovereignty of Upper and Lower
Alsace, with the prefecture of Haguenau, or the ten towns
[Haguenau, Schelestadt, Weissemburgh, Colmar, Landau,
Oberenheim, Rosheim, Munster in the Val de St. Gregoire,
Kaiserberg, and Turingheim], and their dependencies. But by
one of those contradictions which are common in treaties, when
both parties wish to preserve their respective claims, another
article was introduced, binding the king of France to leave
the ecclesiastics and immediate nobility of those provinces in
the immediacy which they had hitherto possessed with regard to
the Roman empire, and not to pretend to any sovereignty over
them, but to remain content with such rights as belonged to
the house of Austria. Yet this was again contradicted by a
declaration, that this exception should not derogate from the
supreme sovereignty before yielded to the king of France."
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 59 (volume 2).
{1487}
"Respecting the rights of sovereignty due to the princes and
the relations of the states of the empire with the emperor,
the Peace of Westphalia contained such regulations as must in
the course of time produce a still greater relaxation of those
ties, already partially loosened, which held together the
empire in one entirety. ... At the Peace of Westphalia the
independence of the princes was made completely legal. They
received the entire right of sovereignty over their territory,
together with the power of making war, concluding peace, and
forming alliances among themselves, as well as with foreign
powers, provided such alliances were not to the injury of the
empire. But what a feeble obstacle must this clause have
presented? For henceforward, if a prince of the empire, having
formed an alliance with a foreign power, became hostile to the
emperor, he could immediately avail himself of the pretext
that it was for the benefit of the empire, the maintenance of
his rights, and the liberty of Germany. And in order that the
said pretext might, with some appearance of right, be made
available on every occasion, foreigners established themselves
as the guardians of the empire; and accordingly France and
Sweden took upon themselves the responsibility of legislating
as guarantees, not only for the Germanic constitution, but for
everything else that was concluded in the Peace of Westphalia
at Münster and Osnaburg. Added to this, in reference to the
imperial cities, whose rights had hitherto never been
definitively fixed, it was now declared that they should
always be included under the head of the other states, and
that they should command a decisive voice in the diets;
thenceforth, therefore, their votes and those of the other
states--the electoral and other princes--should be of equal
validity."
F. Kohlrausch,
History of Germany,
chapter 26.
Peace between Spain and the United Provinces was embodied in a
separate treaty, but negotiated at Münster, and concluded and
signed a few months earlier in the same year. The war between
Spain and France went on.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1646-1648.
GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
Effects of the Peace of Westphalia on the Empire.
It becomes a loose confederacy and purely German.
"It may ... be said of this famous peace, as of the other
so-called 'fundamental law of the Empire,' the Golden Bull,
that it did no more than legalize a condition of things
already in existence, but which by being legalized acquired
new importance. ... While the political situation, to use a
current phrase, had changed within the last two hundred years,
the eyes with which men regarded it had changed still more.
Never by their fiercest enemies in earlier times, not once by
the Popes or Lombard republicans in the heat of their strife
with the Franconian and Swabian Cæsars, had the Emperors been
reproached as mere German kings, or their claim to be the
lawful heirs of Rome denied. The Protestant jurists of the
16th or rather of the 17th century were the first persons who
ventured to scoff at the pretended lordship of the world, and
declare their Empire to be nothing more than a German
monarchy, in dealing with which no superstitious reverence
need prevent its subjects from making the best terms they
could for themselves, and controlling a sovereign whose
religious predilections made him the friend of their enemies.
... It was by these views ... that the states, or rather
France and Sweden acting on their behalf, were guided in the
negotiations of Osnabrück and Münster. By extorting a full
recognition of the sovereignty of all the princes, Catholics
and Protestants alike, in their respective territories, they
bound the Emperor from any direct interference with the
administration, either in particular districts or throughout
the Empire. All affairs of public importance, including the
rights of making war or peace, of levying contributions,
raising troops, building fortresses, passing or interpreting
laws, were henceforth to be left entirely in the hands of the
Diet. ... Both Lutherans and Calvinists were declared free
from all jurisdiction of the Pope or any Catholic prelate.
Thus the last link which bound Germany to Rome was snapped,
the last of the principles by virtue of which the Empire had
existed was abandoned. For the Empire now contained and
recognized as its members persons who formed a visible body at
open war with the Holy Roman Church; and its constitution
admitted schismatics to a full share in all those civil rights
which, according to the doctrines of the early Middle Age,
could be enjoyed by no one who was out of the communion of the
Catholic Church. The Peace of Westphalia was therefore an
abrogation of the sovereignty of Rome, and of the theory of
Church and State with which the name of Rome was associated.
And in this light was it regarded by Pope Innocent X., who
commanded his legate to protest against it, and subsequently
declared it void by the bull 'Zelo domus Dei.' ... The Peace
of Westphalia is an era in imperial history not less clearly
marked than the coronation of Otto the Great, or the death of
Frederick II. As from the days of Maximilian it had borne a
mixed or transitional character, well expressed by the name
Romano-Germanic, so henceforth it is in everything but title
purely and solely a German Empire. Properly, indeed, it was no
longer an empire at all, but a Confederation, and that of the
loosest sort. For it had no common treasury, no efficient
common tribunals, no means of coercing a refractory member;
its states were of different religions, were governed
according to different forms, were administered judicially and
financially without any regard to each other. ... There were
300 petty principalities between the Alps and the Baltic, each
with its own laws, its own courts, ... its little armies, its
separate coinage, its tolls and custom-houses on the frontier,
its crowd of meddlesome and pedantic officials. ... This
vicious system, which paralyzed the trade, the literature, and
the political thought of Germany, had been forming itself for
some time, but did not become fully established until the
Peace of Westphalia, by emancipating the princes from imperial
control, had made them despots in their own territories."
J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 19.
{1488}
GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1705.
After the Peace of Westphalia.
French influence in the Empire.
Creation of the Ninth Elector.
After the Peace of Westphalia, the remainder of the reign of
Ferdinand III. "passed in tranquillity. ... He caused his son
to be elected king of the Romans, under the title of Ferdinand
IV.; but the young prince, already king of Bohemia and
Hungary, preceded him to the tomb, and left the question of
the succession to be decided by a diet. Ferdinand III. died in
1657. ... The interregnum, and, indeed, the century which
followed the death of Ferdinand, showed the alarming
preponderance of the influence gained by France in the affairs
of the empire, and the consequent criminality of the princes
who had first invoked the assistance of that power. Her recent
victories, her character as joint guarantee of the treaty of
Westphalia, and the contiguity of her possessions to the
states of the empire, encouraged her ministers to demand the
imperial crown for the youthful Louis XIV. Still more
extraordinary is the fact that four of the electors were
gained, by that monarch's gold, to espouse his views. ...
Fortunately for Germany and for Europe, the electors of
Treves, Brandenburg, and Saxony, were too patriotic to
sanction this infatuated proposal; they threatened to elect a
native prince of their own authority,--a menace which caused
the rest to co-operate with them; so that, after some
fruitless negotiations, Leopold, son of the late emperor, king
of Bohemia and of Hungary, was raised to the vacant dignity.
His reign was one of great humiliation to his house and to the
empire. Without talents for government, without generosity,
feeble, bigoted, and pusillanimous, he was little qualified to
augment the glory of the country. ... Throughout his long
reign [1657-1705], he had the mortification to witness, on the
part of Louis XIV., a series of the most unprovoked, wanton, and
unprincipled usurpations ever recorded in history. ...
Internally, the reign of Leopold affords some interesting
particulars. ... Not the least is the establishment of a ninth
electoral dignity in favour of Ernest Augustus, Duke of
Brunswick Lunenburg, who then became (1692) the first elector
of Hanover. This was the act of Leopold, in return for
important aid in money and troops from two princes of that
house; but it could not be effected without the concurrence of
the electoral body, who long resisted it. ... The
establishment of a permanent diet, attended, not by the
electors in person, but by their representatives, is one of
the most striking peculiarities of Leopold's reign."
S. A. Dunham,
History of the Germanic Empire,
book 3, chapter 3 (volume 3).
See, DIET, THE GERMANIC.
GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1780.
The Austrian incubus.
"Before the Thirty Years' War the territories of the German
Hapsburgs were not very considerable. The greatest part of
Hungary was in the hands of the Turks; the Tyrol belonged to a
collateral line; and, in the other provinces, the independence
of the Nobility was much stronger than the sovereignty of the
Archdukes. The Nobles were all zealous protestants, so that a
monarchical power could only be created after a victory of the
Catholic faith. For the first time since 1621, the crown was
seen in these regions to assume a really dominant position.
Efforts in this direction had been zealously carried on since
1648; the Tyrolese Estates now lost their most important
privileges; and, above all, the Emperor succeeded, by the help
of Polish and German troops, in driving out the Turks from
Hungary, and at the same time crushing the national freedom of
the Magyars with frightful bloodshed. By these victories the
Monarchy gained, in the first place, a large increase of
territory--which placed it nearly on a level with France. In
the second place it acquired at home the power of raising as
many taxes and soldiers as were necessary to increase the army
to the extent of its wishes; and of distributing its officials
and troops--without distinction of nation--as imperial
servants, throughout its dominions. And thus it secured
submission at home and disposable strength for its operations
abroad. Here it stopped short. As it had no national, and,
consequently, no warm and natural relation to any of its
provinces--which were merely used as passive tools to promote
the lofty aims of the Hapsburg family--the Government had no
intention of using its power at home for the furtherance of
the public good, or the building up of a generally useful
Administration. The Nobility had no longer the strength to
resist the demands of the Crown for men and money, but it
still retained exemption from taxes, the jurisdiction and
police among its own peasants, and a multitude of feudal
rights, which, often enough, degraded the peasant to the
condition of a serf, and everywhere bound down agriculture in
the most galling bonds. Of manufactures there were little or
none; trade was carried on on the system of guilds. The State
officials exercised but little influence over the internal
affairs of the Communes, or Provinces; and the privileged
orders had full liberty to prosecute their own interests among
their inferiors with inconsiderate selfishness. In this
aristocracy, the Church, from its wealth and its close
internal unity, assumed the first place; and its superior
importance was still farther enhanced by the fact of its being
the chief bond of unity between the otherwise so loosely
compacted portions of the Empire. ... The Church attached the
Nobility to the Government; for we must not forget that a very
considerable portion of the estates of the Nobles had passed
into the hands of new possessors who had received them as a
reward for being good catholics. The Church, too, taught all
the youth of the Empire--in all its different languages--
obedience to the House of Hapsburg, and received from the
Crown, in return, exclusive control of the national education.
It formed, in spite of the resistance of nationalities, a sort
of public opinion in favour of the unity of the Empire; and the
Crown, in return, excluded all non-catholic opinions from the
schools, from literature and religion. Austria, therefore,
continued to be catholic, even after 1648; and by this we
mean, not only that its Princes were personally devout--or
that the Catholic clergy were supported in the performance of
their spiritual functions--or that the institutions of the
Church were liberally supported--but also that the State
directed its policy according to ecclesiastical views, made
use of the Church for political purposes, and crushed every
movement hostile to it in all other spheres of the national
life. In Austria, therefore, it was not merely a question of
theological differences, but of the deepest and most
comprehensive points of distinction between the mediæval and
the modern world. Austria was still, in its whole nature, a
Mediæval State or Confederacy of States. The consequences of
this condition were most strikingly seen in its relation to
Germany. In the first place, there was a complete separation,
in regard to all mental and spiritual matters, between the
great body of the Empire, and its powerful Eastern member.
This was the period, in which Germany was awaking to a new
intellectual life in modern Europe, and laying the foundation
of its modern science in every branch--in History and
Statistics, Chemistry and Geology, Jurisprudence and
Philosophy--and assuming by its Literature, an equal rank with
other nations in national refinement and civilization.
{1489}
By the works of genius which this period produced Austria
remained entirely uninfluenced; and it has been said, that
Werther had only been made known to the Viennese in the form
of fireworks in the Prater. The literary policy allowed no
seed of modern culture to enter the Empire; and the Jesuit
schools had rendered the soil unfit for its reception. All the
progress of German civilization, at this period, was based on
the principle of the independence of the mind in art and
science. The education of the Jesuits, on the contrary, though
unsurpassed where the object is to prepare men for a special
purpose, commences by disowning individual peculiarities, and
the right of a man to choose his own career. There was, at
this time, no other characteristic of an Austrian than an
entire estrangement from the progress of the German mind. ...
The progress of the people in science and art, in politics and
military strength, was only seen in the larger secular
territories, which, after 1648, enjoyed their own sovereignty;
and even these were checked in their movements at every step
by the remnants of the Imperial Constitution. The Members of
the Empire alone, in whom the decaying remains of Mediæval
existence still lingered on--the Ecclesiastical Princes--the
small Counts--the Imperial Knights and the Imperial
Towns,--clung to the Emperor and the Imperial Diet. In these,
partly from their small extent of territory, partly from the
inefficiency of their institutions, neither active industry,
nor public spirit, nor national pride, were to be found. In
all which tended to elevate the nation, and raise its hopes
for the future, they took, at this period, as little part as
Austria herself. ... The Imperial constitution, therefore, was
inwardly decayed, and stood in no relation to the internal
growth of the nation. ... There was the same divergence
between Austria and Germany with respect to their foreign
interests, as we have observed in their internal relations.
After the Turks had been driven from Hungary, and the Swedes
from the half of' Pomerania, Germany had only two neighbours
whom it was a matter of vital importance to watch,--the Poles
and the French. In the South, on the contrary, it had no
interests in opposition to Italy, except the protection of its
frontier by the possession or the neutrality of the Alpine
passes. And yet it was just towards Italy that the eyes of the
House of Hapsburg had been uninterruptedly directed for centuries
past. The favourite traditions of the family, and their
political and ecclesiastical interest in securing the support
of the Pope, and thereby that of the Clergy, constantly
impelled them to consolidate and extend their dominion in that
country. All other considerations yielded to this; and this is
intelligible enough from an Austrian point of view; but it was
not on that account less injurious to the German Empire. How
strikingly was this opposition of interests displayed at the
end of the glorious war of the Spanish succession, when the
Emperor rejected a peace which would have restored Strasburg
and Alsace to the Empire, because only Naples, and not Sicily
also, was offered to Austria! How sharply defined do the same
relations present themselves to our view, in the last years of
the Hapsburg dynasty, at the peace of Vienna in 1738!--on
which occasion the Emperor--in order at least to gain Tuscany,
as a compensation for the loss of Naples,--gave up Lorraine to
the French, without even consulting the Empire, which he had
dragged into the war. Austria thus maintained a predominant
influence in Italy; but the Empire, during the whole century
after the Peace of Westphalia, did not obtain a single
noteworthy advantage over France. How much more was this the
case with respect to Poland, which during the whole period of
the religious wars had been the most zealous ally of Spain and
the Hapsburgs, and which subsequently seemed to threaten no
danger to Austrian interests."
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).
GERMANY: A. D. 1658.
Election of the Emperor, Leopold I.
GERMANY: A. D. 1660-1664.
Renewed war with the Turks.
Victory of St. Gothard.
Transylvania liberated.
A twenty years truce.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1660-1664.
GERMANY: A. D. 1672-1679.
The war of the Coalition against Louis XIV.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674,
and 1674-1678;
also NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.
GERMANY: A. D. 1675-1678.
War with Sweden.
Battle of Fehrbellin.
See BRANDENBURG: A.D. 1640-1688;
and SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1644-1697.
GERMANY: A. D. 1679-1681.
The final absorption of Alsace and Les Trois-Evêchés by
France, with boundaries widened.
Bold encroachments of the French Chambers of Reannexation.
The seizure of Strasburg.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1681.
GERMANY: A. D. 1686.
The League of Augsburg against Louis XIV.
"The Duke of Orleans, the French King's brother, had married
the sister of the Elector Palatine, the last of the House of
Simmern, who died in May 1685, when his next relative, the
Count Palatine Philip William, Duke of Neuberg, took
possession of the Electorate. The Duchess of Orleans had by
her marriage contract renounced all her feudal rights to the
Palatinate, but not her claims to the allodial property and
the moveables of her family." These latter claims, taken in
hand by Louis XIV. on behalf of his sister-in-law, were made
so formidable that the new Elector appealed to the Empire for
protection, "and, thus redoubled the uneasiness felt in
Germany, and indeed throughout the greater part of Europe,
respecting the schemes of Louis. The Prince of Orange availed
himself of these suspicions to forward his plans against
Louis. He artfully inflamed the general alarm, and at length
succeeded in inducing the Emperor Leopold, the Kings of Spain,
and Sweden, as princes of the Empire, the Electors of Saxony
and Bavaria, the circles of Suabia, Franconia, Upper Saxony,
and Bavaria, to enter into the celebrated League of Augsburg
(July 9th 1686). The object of this league was to maintain the
Treaties of Münster and Nimeguen and the Truce of Ratisbon. If
any of the members of it was attacked he was to be assisted by
the whole confederacy; 60,000 men were to be raised, who were
to be frequently drilled, and to form a camp during some weeks
of every year, and a common fund for their support was to be
established at Frankfort. The League was to be in force only
for three years, but might be prolonged at the expiration of
that term should the public safety require it. The Elector
Palatine, who was in fact the party most directly interested,
acceded to the League early in September, as well as the Duke
of Holstein Gottorp."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 5, chapter 5 (volume 3).
{1490}
"To Madame's great anger France set up a claim to the
Palatinate on her behalf, Louvois persuading the King and the
royal family that with a few vigorous measures the Palatinate
would be abandoned by the Neubourgs and annexed to France as
part of Madame's dowry. This led to the devastation of the
states, to which Madame [Charlotte Elizabeth, the Duchess of
Orleans] so often and so bitterly alludes during the next ten
years. Obliged by Louis XIV. 's policy to represent herself as
desirous to recover her rights over her father's and brother's
succession, in many documents which she was never even shown,
Madame protested in all her private letters against France's
action in the matter, and made every one at court thoroughly
aware of her grief and disapproval of what the king was doing
on her behalf."
Life and Letters of Charlotte Elizabeth,
Princess Palatine,
chapter 2.
GERMANY: A. D. 1689-1696.
The War of the League of Augsburg, or Grand Alliance,
against Louis XIV.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690 to 1695-1696.
GERMANY: A. D. 1690.
The second Devastation of the Palatinate.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690.
GERMANY: A. D. 1700.
Interest in the question of the Spanish Succession.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700.
GERMANY: A. D. 1700.
Prussia raised to the dignity of a kingdom.
See PRUSSIA: A. D. 1700.
GERMANY: A. D. 1700-1740.
The first king of Prussia and his shabby court.
The second king, his Brobdingnagian army
and his extraordinary character.
The up-bringing of Frederick the Great.
The "Great Elector" of Brandenburg "left to his son Frederic a
principality as considerable as any which was not called a
kingdom."
See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1640-1688.
"Frederic aspired to the style of royalty. Ostentatious and
profuse, negligent of his true interests and of his high
duties, insatiably eager for frivolous distinctions, he added
nothing to the real weight of the state which he governed:
perhaps he transmitted his inheritance to his children
impaired rather than augmented in value; but he succeeded in
gaining the great object of his life, the title of King. In
the year 1700 he assumed this new dignity. He had, on that
occasion to undergo all the mortifications which fall to the
lot of ambitious upstarts. Compared with the other crowned
heads of Europe, he made a figure resembling that which a
Nabob or a Commissary, who had bought a title, would make in
the company of Peers whose ancestors had been attainted for
treason against the Plantagenets. The envy of the class which
Frederic quitted, and the civil scorn of the class into which
he intruded himself, were marked in very significant ways. ...
Frederic was succeeded by his son, Frederic William, a prince
who must be allowed to have possessed some talents for
administration, but whose character as disfigured by odious
vices, and whose eccentricities were such as had never before
been seen out of a madhouse. He was exact and diligent in the
transacting of business; and he was the first who formed the
design of obtaining for Prussia a place among the European
powers, altogether out of proportion to her extent and
population, by means of a strong military organization. Strict
economy enabled him to keep up a peace establishment of 60,000
troops. These troops were disciplined in such a manner, that,
placed beside them, the household regiments of Versailles and
St. James's would have appeared an awkward squad. The master
of such a force could not but be regarded by all his
neighbours as a formidable enemy and a valuable ally. But the
mind of Frederic William was so ill regulated, that all his
inclinations became passions, and all his passions partook of
the character of moral and intellectual disease. His parsimony
degenerated into sordid avarice. His taste for military pomp
and order became a mania, like that of a Dutch burgomaster for
tulips, or that of a member of the Roxburghe Club for Caxtons.
While the envoys of the Court of Berlin were in a state of
such squalid poverty as moved the laughter of foreign
capitals; while the food placed before the princes and
princesses of the blood-royal of Prussia was too scanty to
appease hunger, and so bad that even hunger loathed it, no
price was thought too extravagant for tall recruits. The
ambition of the king was to form a brigade of giants, and
every country was ransacked by his agents for men above the
ordinary stature. ... Though his dominant passion was the love
of military display, he was yet one of the most pacific of
princes. We are afraid that his aversion to war was not the
effect of humanity, but was merely one of his thousand whims.
His feeling about his troops seems to have resembled a miser's
feeling about his money. He loved to collect them, to count
them, to see them increase; but he could not find it in his
heart to break in upon the precious hoard. He looked forward
to some future time when his Patagonian battalions were to
drive hostile infantry before them like sheep: but this future
time was always receding; and it is probable that, if his life
had been prolonged 30 years, his superb army would never have
seen any harder service than a sham fight in the fields near
Berlin. But the great military means which he had collected
were destined to be employed by a spirit far more daring and
inventive than his own. Frederic, surnamed the Great, son of
Frederic William, was born in January 1712. It may safely be
pronounced that he had received from nature a strong and sharp
understanding, and a rare firmness of temper and intensity of
will. As to the other parts of his character, it is difficult
to say whether they are to be ascribed to nature, or to the
strange training which he underwent. The history of his
boyhood is painfully interesting. Oliver Twist in the parish
work-house, Smike at Dotheboys Hall, were petted children when
compared with this wretched heir-apparent of a crown. The
nature of Frederic William was hard and bad, and the habit of
exercising arbitrary power had made him frightfully savage.
His rage constantly vented itself to right and left in curses
and blows. When his Majesty took a walk, every human being
fled before him, as if a tiger had broken loose from a
menagerie. ... But it was in his own house that he was most
unreasonable and ferocious. His palace was hell, and he the
most execrable of fiends. ... Early in the year 1740, Frederic
William met death with a firmness and dignity worthy of a
better and wiser man; and Frederic, who had just completed his
28th year, became king of Prussia."
Lord Macaulay,
Frederic the Great (Essays).
{1491}
"Frederick William I. became ... the founder of the first
modern State in Germany. His was a nature in which the
repulsive and the imposing, the uncouth and the admirable,
were closely united. In his manners a rough and unrefined
peasant, in his family a tyrant, in his government a despot,
choleric almost to madness, his reign would have been a curse
to the country, had he not united with his unlimited power a
rare executive ability and an incorruptible fidelity to duty;
and from first to last he consecrated all his powers to the
common weal. By him effective limitations were put upon the
independent action of the provinces, and upon the overgrown
privileges of the estates. He did not do away with the guilds
of the different orders, but placed them under the strict
control of a strongly centralized superintendence, and
compelled their members to make every necessary sacrifice for
the sake of assisting him in his efforts for the prosperity
and power of Prussia. It is astonishing to see with what
practical judgment he recognized a needed measure both in
general and in detail; how he trained a body of officials,
suited in all grades to the requirements of their position;
how he disciplined them in activity, prudence, and rectitude,
by strict inspection, by encouraging instruction, and by
brutal punishments; how he enforced order and economy in the
public finances; how he improved the administration of his own
domains, so that it became a fruitful example to all
proprietors; and how, full of the desire to make the peasants
free owners of the soil, although he did not yet venture on
such a radical measure, he nevertheless constantly protected
the poor against the arbitrariness and oppression of the
higher classes. ... There was no department of life to which
he did not give encouragement and assistance; it is also true
that there was none which he did not render subservient to his
own will, and the products of which he did not make conducive
to the one great end,--the independence and aggrandizement of
the State. So that he who was the ruler of, at most, three
million people, created, without exhausting the country, a
standing army of eighty thousand men: a remarkably skilful and
ready army, which he disciplined with barbarous severity on
the slightest occasion, at the same time that he looked out
for the welfare of every soldier even in the smallest detail,
according to his saying, that 'a king's warrior must live
better than a gentleman's servant.' What he had in his mind,
almost a hundred years before Scharnhorst, was the universal
obligation of military service; but it fared with him in
regard to this as in regard to the freedom of the peasants:
strong as he was, he could not turn the world he lived in
upside down; he contented himself with bequeathing his best
ideas to a more propitious future. The foundations of the
government rested upon the estates in spite of all monarchical
reforms. Thus, beside the federative Empire of the Hapsburgs,
arose the small, compact Prussian State, which, by reason of
the concentration of its forces, was a match for its
five-times-larger rival."
H. Von Sybel,
The Founding of the German Empire by William I.,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
T. Carlyle,
History of Frederick II., called the Great,
book 3, chapter 19, books 5-10 (volumes 1-2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1702.
The War of the Spanish Succession:
Siege of Landau.
Battle of Friedlingen.
On the part of the Imperialists, the War of the Spanish
Succession was opened on the Rhine frontier in June 1702, by a
movement of the army commanded by the Margrave Louis of Baden,
which "came over the Rhine and laid siege to the important
fortress of Landau,--the bulwark of Alsace as it was then
regarded. The Margrave was subsequently joined by the
Emperor's eldest son, the young King of the Romans, who
desired to share in the glory, though not in the toils of the
expected conquest. ... The Maréchal de Catinat, one of the
soldiers of whom France has most reason to be proud,--the
virtuous Catinat as Rousseau terms him--held command at this
period in Alsace. So inferior were his numbers that he could
make no attempt to relieve Landau. But after its reduction an
opportunity appeared in which by detaching a portion of his
army he might retrieve the fortunes of France in another
quarter. The Elector of Bavaria, after much irresolution, had
openly espoused the cause of Louis. He seized upon the city of
Ulm and issued a proclamation in favor of his new ally. To
support his movements an enterprising and ambitious officer,
the Marquis de Villars, was sent across the Rhine with part of
the army of Alsace. The declaration of the Elector of Bavaria
and the advance of Villars into Germany disquieted in no
slight degree the Prince Louis of Baden. Leaving a sufficient
garrison in Landau, he also passed the Rhine. The two armies
met at Friedlingen on the 14th of October. Louis of Baden, a
ponderous tactician bred in the wars against the Turks, might
out-manœuvre some Grand Vizier, but was no match for the
quick-witted Frenchman. He was signally defeated with the loss
of 3,000 men; soon after which, the season being now far
advanced, Villars led back his army to winter quarters in
France. His victory of Friedlingen gained for him at
Versailles the rank of Maréchal de France."
Earl Stanhope (Lord Mahon),
History of England: Reign of Queen Anne,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 68 (volume 2).
See, also; NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704,
and SPAIN: A. D. 1702.
GERMANY: A. D. 1703.
The War of the Spanish Succession:
Campaigns on the Upper Rhine and in Bavaria.
"Early in June [A. D. 1703], Marshal Tallard assumed the
command of the French forces in Alsace, ... took Prissac on
the 7th of September, and invested Landau on the 16th of
October. The allies, under the Prince of Hesse, attempted to
raise the siege, but were defeated with considerable loss;
and, soon after, Landau surrendered, thus terminating with
disaster the campaign on the Upper Rhine. Still more
considerable were the losses sustained in Bavaria. Marshal
Villars commanded there, and, at the head of the French and
Bavarians, defeated General Stirum, who headed the
Imperialists, on the 20th of September. In December, Marshal
Marsin, who had succeeded Villars in the command, made himself
master of the important city of Augsburg, and in January,
1704, the Bavarians got possession of Passau. Meanwhile, a
formidable insurrection had broken out in Hungary, which so
distracted the cabinet of Vienna that the capital seemed to be
threatened by the combined forces of the French and Bavarians
after the fall of Passau. ... Instead of confining the war to
one of posts and sieges in Flanders and Italy, it was resolved
[by the French] to throw the bulk of their forces at once into
Bavaria, and operate against Austria from the heart of
Germany, by pouring down the valley of the Danube.
{1492}
The advanced post held there by the Elector of Bavaria in
front, forming a salient angle, penetrating, as it were, into
the Imperial dominions, the menacing aspect of the Hungarian
insurrection in the rear, promised the most successful issue
to this decisive operation. For this purpose, Marshal Tallard,
with the French army on the Upper Rhine, received orders to
cross the Black Forest and advance into Swabia, and unite with
the Elector of Bavaria, which he accordingly did at Donawerth,
in the beginning of July. Marshal Villeroy, with forty
battalions and thirty-nine squadrons, was to break off from
the army in Flanders and support the advance by a movement on
the Moselle, so as to be in a condition to join the main army
on the Danube, of which it would form, as it were, the left
wing; while Vendôme, with the army of Italy, was to penetrate
into the Tyrol, and advance by Innspruck on Salzburg. The
united armies, which it was calculated, after deducting all
the losses of the campaign, would muster 80,000 combatants,
was then to move direct by Lintz and the valley of the Danube
on Vienna, while a large detachment penetrated into Hungary to
lend a hand to the already formidable insurrection in that
kingdom. The plan was grandly conceived. ... Marlborough, by
means of the secret information which he obtained from the
French head-quarters, had got full intelligence of it, and its
dangers to the allies, if it succeeded, struck him as much as
the chances of great advantage to them if ably thwarted. His
line was instantly taken."
A. Alison,
Military Life of Marlborough,
chapter 2, sections 30-33.
The measures taken by Marlborough to defeat the plans of the
French in this campaign are briefly stated in the account of
his first campaigns in the Netherlands.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.
ALSO IN:
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.
(translated by M. L. Booth), volume 2, chapter 5.
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 69 (volume 2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1704.
The War of the Spanish Succession:
Marlborough and Prince Eugene on the Danube.
The Battle of Blenheim.
"Marlborough, with his motley army of English, Dutch, Danes
and Germans, concealing his main purpose, was marching south
along the Rhine, with a design to strike his critical blow, by
attacking the French armies that were forming for the campaign
of the Danube, and thus protect the Emperor and Vienna, and
punish the Elector of Bavaria, whose territories would be then
exposed. On the route, Marlborough was joined by Prince Eugene
and the Margrave of Baden: but as a new French force was
approaching, Prince Eugene was sent to keep it in check.
Marlborough and the Prince of Baden, with united forces of
about 60,000 men, then advanced, in rapid marches, and took,
by gallant assault, the fortifications of the Schellenberg in
Bavaria, and the old town of Donauworth, a critical and
commanding position on the Danube. The allies were now masters
of the main passages of the Danube--and had a strong place as
a basis of action. The allied leaders thereupon sent troops
into the heart of Bavaria, and devastated the country even to
the vicinity of Munich--burning and destroying as they
marched, and taking several minor fortresses. Marlborough's
forces and those of Prince Eugene were distant from each other
some forty miles, when came the news of the march of a French
army of 25,000 men under Tallard, to form a junction with the
others, to succor the Elector, and take revenge for the defeat
of the Schellenberg. Two French Marshals, Tallard and Marsin,
were now in command: their design was to attack Marlborough
and Eugene's armies in detail. By rapid marches, Marlborough
crossed the Danube and joined Prince Eugene near Donauworth,
and thereupon occurred one of the most important and decisive
contests of modern times, fought between the old town of
Hochstadt and the village of Blenheim, about fifteen miles
south of Donauworth. The skilful tactics of the allied
generals precipitated the battle. The allied French and
Bavarians numbered 60,000 [56,000; Malleson] men--the English,
Dutch and Germans and other allies, about 53,000 [52,000;
Malleson]. The allies were allowed to cross an intervening
brook without opposition, and form their lines. A great
charge, in full force, of the allies was then made; they broke
the enemy's extended line; and an ensuing charge of cavalry
scattered his forces right and left, and drove many into the
Danube. More than 14,000 French and Bavarians, who had not
struck a blow, except to defend their position, entrenched and
shut up in the village of Blenheim, waiting for orders to
move, were then surrounded by the victorious allies, and
compelled to surrender as prisoners of war. The scattered
remnants of the French and Bavarian army either disbanded, or
were driven over the Rhine. The garrison at Ulm capitulated,
and the Elector fled into France."
J. W. Gerard,
The Peace of Utrecht,
chapter 16.
"The armies of Marchin and of Max Emanuel [of Bavaria] had
been defeated; that of Tallard had been annihilated. Whilst
the loss of the victors in killed and wounded reached 12,000
men, that of the French and Bavarians exceeded 14,000. In
addition, the latter lost 13,000 men taken prisoners, 47
pieces of cannon, 25 standards, and 90 colours. Such was the
battle of Blenheim. It was one of the decisive battles of
history, and it changed the character of the war. Up to that
moment, the action of France against. Germany had been
aggressive; thenceforward it became purely defensive.
Blenheim, in fact, dashed to the ground the hopes of Louis
XIV. and Max Emanuel of Bavaria. It saved the house of
Habsburg in Germany, and helped it greatly in Hungary. It
showed likewise that it was possible to inflict a crushing
defeat on the armies of Louis XIV."
Colonel G. B. Malleson,
Prince Eugene of Savoy,
chapter 6.
"Marlborough [after the battle], having detached part of his
force to besiege Ulm, drew near with the bulk of his army to
the Rhine, which he passed near Philipsburg on the 6th of
September, and soon after commenced the siege of Landau, on
the French side; Prince Louis, with 20,000 men, forming the
besieging force, and Eugene and Marlborough, with 30,000, the
covering army. Villeroi, with the French army, abandoned an
intrenched camp which he had constructed to cover the town.
Marlborough followed, and made every effort to bring the
French marshal to battle, but in vain. ... Ulm surrendered on
the 16th of September, ... which gave the allies a solid
foundation on the Danube, and effectually crushed the power of
the Elector of Bavaria, who, isolated now in the midst of his
enemies, had no alternative but to abandon his dominions and
seek refuge in Brussels, where he arrived in the end of
September. ...
{1493}
The Electress of Bavaria, who had been left regent of that
state in the absence of the Elector in Flanders, had now no
resource left but submission; and a treaty was accordingly
concluded in the beginning of November, by which she agreed to
disband all her troops. Trêves and Traerbach were taken in the
end of December; the Hungarian insurrection was suppressed;
Landau capitulated in the beginning of the same month; a
diversion which the enemy attempted toward Trêves was defeated
by Marlborough's activity and vigilance, and that city put in
a sufficient posture of defense; and, the campaign being now
finished, that accomplished commander returned to the Hague
and London."
A. Alison,
Military Life of Marlborough,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
Battle-fields of Germany,
chapter 10.
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Marlborough,
chapters 22-26 (volume 1).
J. H. Burton,
History of the Reign of Queen Anne,
chapter 6 (volume 1).
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 2, chapter 5.
GERMANY: A. D. 1705.
The Election of the Emperor Joseph I.
GERMANY: A. D. 1705.
The War of the Spanish Succession:
The dissolution of Bavaria.
"The campaign of 1705 was destitute of any important events on
the side of Germany. ... In Bavaria, the peasants, irritated
by the oppressions of the Austrian government, rose in a body
in the autumn, and, could they have been supported by France,
would have placed the Emperor in great danger; but without
that aid the insurrection only proved fatal to themselves. The
insurgents were beaten in detail, and the Emperor now resolved
on the complete dissolution of Bavaria as a state. The four
elder sons of Maximilian were carried to Klagenfurt in
Carinthia, to be there educated under the strictest inspection
as Counts of Wittelsbach, while the younger sons were
consigned to the care of a court lady at Munich, and the
daughters sent to a convent. The Electress, who had been on a
visit to Venice, was not permitted to return to her dominions,
and the Elector Maximilian, as well as the Elector of Cologne,
was, by a decree of the Electoral College, placed under the
ban of the Empire. The Upper Palatinate was restored to the
Elector Palatine. ... The remaining Bavarian territories were
confiscated, and divided among various princes."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 5, chapter 6 (volume 3).
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 72 (volume 3).
The campaign of 1705 in the Netherlands was unimportant; but
in Spain it had brilliant results.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1705;
and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1705.
GERMANY: A. D. 1706-1711.
The War of the Spanish Succession:
Successes of the French.
During 1706, little was attempted on either side by the forces
which watched each other along the Rhine. In 1707 Villars, the
French commander, obtained liberty to act. "The Emperor,
greatly preoccupied with Hungary, had furnished but
indifferent resources to the new general of the army of the
Rhine, Brandenburg-Baireuth; the German army was ill paid and
in bad condition in its immense lines on the right bank, which
extended along the Rhine from Philippsburg as far as
Stolhofen, then, in a square, from Stolhofen to the Black
Mountains by Bühl. May 22, the lines were attacked
simultaneously at four points. ... The success was complete;
the enemy fled into the mountains, abandoning artillery,
baggage, and munitions, and did not stop till beyond the
Neckar. The lines were razed; Swabia and a part of Franconia
were put under contribution. Villars marched on Stuttgart,
crossed the Neckar, and subjected the whole country to ransom
as far as the Danube. The enemies in vain rallied and
reinforced themselves with tardy contingents of the Empire;
they could not prevent Villars from laying under contribution
the Lower Neckar, then the country between the Danube and Lake
Constance, and from maintaining himself beyond the Rhine till
he went into winter-quarters. French parties scoured the
country as conquerors as far as the fatal field of Hochstadt."
At the beginning of the campaign of 1708, it was the plan of
the allies to make their chief attack on France "by the way of
the Rhine and the Moselle, with two armies of 60,000 men each,
under the command of the Elector of Hanover and Eugene, whilst
Marlborough occupied the great French army in Flanders." But
this plan was changed. "Eugene left the Elector of Hanover in
the north of Swabia, behind the lines of Etlingen, which the
allies had raised during the winter to replace the lines of
Bühl at Stolhofen, and, with 24,000 soldiers collected on the
Moselle, he marched by the way of Coblentz towards Belgium
(June 30). The French forces of the Rhine and the Moselle
followed this movement." The campaign then ensuing in the
Netherlands was that which was signalized by Marlborough and
Eugene's victory at Oudenarde and the siege of Lille. In 1709,
"the attention of Europe, as in 1708, was chiefly directed to
Flanders; but it was not only on that side that France was
menaced. France was to be encroached upon at once on the north
and the east. Whilst the great allied army penetrated into
Artois, the army of the Rhine and the army of the Alps were to
penetrate, the latter into Bresse by the way of Savoy, the
former into Franche-Comté by the way of Alsace, and to combine
their operations. ... The Germans had not taken the offensive
in Alsace till in the month of August. Marshal Harcourt, with
over 20,000 men, had covered himself with the lines of the
Lauter: the Elector of Hanover, who had crossed the Rhine at
Philippsburg with superior forces, did not attack Harcourt,
and strove to amuse him whilst 8,000 or 9,000 Germans, left in
Swabia with General Merci, moved rapidly on Neuberg ... and
established there a tête-du-pont in order to enter Upper
Alsace." By swiftly sending a sufficient force to attack and
defeat Merci at Neuberg, August 26, Harcourt completely
frustrated these plans. "The Elector of Hanover recrossed the
river and retired behind the lines of Etlingen." During the
two following years the French and German forces on the side
of the Rhine did little more than observe one another.
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV:,
volume 2, chapters 5-6.
Meantime, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet had been fought
in the Netherlands; Prince Eugene had won his victory at
Turin, and the contest had been practically decided in Spain,
at Almanza.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1706-1707,
1708-1709, 1710-1712;
ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713;
SPAIN: A. D. 1706, 1707, and 1707-1710;
and ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapters 75-79 (volume 3).
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapter 45 (volume 5).
GERMANY: A. D. 1711.
Election of the Emperor Charles VI.
{1494}
GERMANY: A. D. 1711.
The War of the Spanish Succession:
Change in the circumstances of the war.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1711.
GERMANY: A. D. 1713-1719.
The Emperor's continued differences with the King of Spain.
The Triple Alliance.
The Quadruple Alliance.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.
GERMANY: A. D. 1714.
Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession:
The Peace of Utrecht and the Treaty of Rastadt.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
GERMANY: A. D. 1732-1733.
Interference in the election of the King of Poland.
See POLAND: A. D. 1732-1733.
GERMANY: A. D. 1733-1735.
The War of the Polish Succession.
Cession of Lorraine to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.
GERMANY: A. D. 1740.
The question of the Austrian Succession.
The Pragmatic Sanction.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, and 1740.
GERMANY: A. D. 1740-1756.
Early years of the reign of Frederick the Great in Prussia.
The War of the Austrian Succession.
When Frederick II., known as Frederick the Great, succeeded
his father, in 1740, "nobody had the least suspicion that a
tyrant of extraordinary military and political talents, of
industry more extraordinary still, without fear, without
faith, and without mercy, had ascended the throne."
Lord Macaulay,
Frederic the Great (Essays).
The reign of Frederick II. "was expected to be an effeminate
one; but when at the age of twenty-nine he became king, he
forgot his pleasures, thought of nothing but glory, and no
longer employed himself but in attention to his finances, his
army, his policy, and his laws. His provinces were scattered,
his resources weak, his power precarious; his army of seventy
thousand soldiers was more remarkable for handsomeness of the
men, and the elegance of their appearance, than for their
discipline. He augmented it, instructed it, exercised it, and
fortune began to open the field of glory to him at the moment
he was fully prepared to enjoy her favours. Charles XII. was
dead, and his station filled by a king without authority.
Russia, deprived of Peter the Great, who had only rough-hewn
her civilization, languished under the feeble government of
the Empress Anne, and of a cruel and ignorant minister.
Augustus III. King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, a Prince
devoid of character, could not inspire him with any dread.
Louis XV., a weak and peaceable king, was governed by Cardinal
Fleuri, who loved peace, but always by his weakness suffered
himself to be drawn into war. He presented to Frederic rather
a support than an obstacle. The court of France had espoused
the cause of Charles VII. against Francis I. Maria Theresa,
wife of Francis, and Queen of Hungary, saw herself threatened
by England, Holland, and France; and whilst she had but little
reason to hope the preservation of her hereditary dominions,
that arrogant princess wished to place her husband on the
Imperial Throne. This quarrel kindled the flames of war in
Europe; the genius of Frederic saw by a single glance that the
moment was arrived for elevating Prussia to the second order of
powers; he made an offer to Maria Theresa to defend her, if
she would cede Silesia to him, and threatened her with war in
case of refusal. The Empress, whose firmness nothing could
shake, impoliticly refused that proposition; war was declared,
and Frederic entered Silesia at the head of eighty thousand
men. This first war lasted eighteen months.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740 to 1741.
Frederic, by gaining five battles, shewed that Europe would
recognize one great man more in her bloody annals. He had
begun the war from ambition, and contrary to strict justice;
he concluded it with ability, but by the abandonment of France
his ally, without giving her information of it, and he thus
put in practice, when he was seated on the throne, the
principles of Machiavel, whom he had refuted before he
ascended it. Men judge according to the event. The hero was
absolved by victory from the wrongs with which justice
reproached him; and this brilliant example serves to confirm
men in that error, too generally and too lightly adopted, that
ability in politics is incompatible with the strict rule of
morality. Four years after, in [1744], Frederic again took up
arms.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743-1744 to 1744-1745.
He invaded Bohemia, Upper Silesia, and Moravia. Vienna thought
him at her gates; but the defection of the Bavarians, the
retreat of the French, and the return of Prince Charles into
Bohemia, rapidly changed the face of affairs. The position of
Frederic became as dangerous as it had been menacing; he was
on the point of being lost, and he saw himself compelled to
retire with as much precipitation, as he had advanced with
boldness. The gaining the battle of Hohen-Friedberg saved him.
That retreat and that victory fixed the seal to his
reputation. It was after this action that he wrote to Louis
XV. 'I have just discharged in Silesia the bill of exchange
which your majesty drew on me at Fontenoy.' A letter so much
the more modest, as Frederic had conquered, and Louis had only
been witness to a victory. He displayed the same genius and the
same activity in the campaign of 1745, and once more abandoned
France in making his separate peace at Dresden. By this treaty
Francis was peaceably assured of the empire, and the cession
of Silesia was confirmed to Frederic. France during this war
committed some wrongs, which might palliate the abandonment of
Prussia. The French did not keep Prince Charles within bounds,
they made no diversion into Germany, and fought no where but
in Flanders. ... In 1756, Europe was again in a flame. France
and England declared war against each other, and both sought
alliances; Frederic ranged himself on the side of England, and
by that became the object of the unreflecting vengeance of the
French, and of the alliance of that power with Austria;
Austria also formed an alliance with the Court of Petersburg
by means of a Saxon secretary; Frederic discovered the project
of the Courts of Petersburg, Dresden, and Vienna, to invade
the Prussian dominions. He was before-hand with them, and
began the war by some conquests."
L. P. Ségur, the elder,
History of the Principal Events of the Reign of Frederic
William II., King of Prussia,
volume 1, pages 2-6.
GERMANY: A. D. 1742.
The Elector of Bavaria crowned Emperor (Charles VII.).
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741 (OCTOBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1745.
The consort of Maria Theresa elected Emperor (Francis I.).
Rise of the imperial house of Hapsburg-Lorraine.
See AUSTRIA: A. D.1745 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER);
also, 1744-1745.
GERMANY: A. D. 1748.
End and results of the War of the Austrian Succession.
See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. THE CONGRESS.
{1495}
GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756.
The Seven Years War:
Its causes and provocations.
"The great national quarrel between England and the powers
which restrained her free movements on the sea and her
extension of colonies, had never ceased. England would have
the freedom of the sea: and on land she pushed population and
ploughs where France paraded soldiers. In such a struggle war
must come, but, by laws invariable as the laws of nature, the
population will win in the end. After much bickering, blows
began in 1754, and at the beginning of 1755 England despatched
the ill-fated Braddock with a small force, which was destroyed
in July. ... As yet, however, the quarrel was only colonial.
England embittered it by seizing French ships without any
declaration of war. But why did Frederick [of Prussia] strike
in, if indeed he desired peace? In truth there was no choice
for him. As early as 1752-53 his secret agents had discovered
that Austria, Russia and Saxony were hatching a plot for the
destruction of Prussia, and such a partition as afterwards
befell unhappy Poland. In 1753 a Saxon official, Mentzel by
name, began to supply the Prussian agents with copies of
secret documents from the archives at Dresden, which proved
that, during the whole of the peace, negotiations had been
proceeding for a simultaneous attack on Frederick, though the
astute Brühl [Saxon minister], mindful of former defeats,
objected to playing the part of jackal to the neighbouring
lions. In short, by the end of 1755 the king knew that
preparations were already on foot in Austria and Russia, and
that he would probably be attacked next year certainly, or, at
latest, the year after. A great war was coming between England
and France, in which the continental power would attack
Hanover, and tread closely on the skirts of Prussia. The
situation was dangerous, and became terribly menacing when
England bargained with Russia to subsidise a Muscovite army of
55,000 men for defence of Hanover. Russia consented with
alacrity. Money was all that the czarina needed for her
preparations against Frederick, and in the autumn of 1755 she
assembled, not 55,000, but 70,000 men on the Prussian
frontier, nominally for the use of England. But throughout the
winter all the talk at St. Petersburg was of Frederick's
destruction in the coming spring. It was time for him to stir.
His first move was one of policy. He offered England a
'neutrality convention' by which the two powers jointly should
guarantee the German Reich against all foreign intervention
during the coming war. On the 16th of January, 1756, the
convention was signed in London, and the Russian agreement
thrown over, as it could well be, since it had not been
ratified. Europe was now ranking herself for the struggle. In
preceding years, the Austrian diplomatist, Kaunitz, had so
managed the French court, especially through the medium of
Madame de Pompadour, that Louis XV. was now on the side of
Maria Theresa, who had bowed her neck so far as to write to
the French king's mistress as 'Ma Cousine,' while Frederick
forgot policy, and spoke of the Pompadour in slighting terms.
'Je ne la connais pas,' said he once, and was never forgiven.
... The agreement with Russia to partition Prussia had already
been made, and Frederick's sharp tongue had betrayed him into
calling the czarina that 'Infame catin du nord.' Saxony waited
for the appearance of her stronger neighbours in order to join
them. England alone was Frederick's ally."
Colonel C. B. Brackenbury,
Frederick the Great,
chapter 9.
"The secret sources of the Third Silesian War, since called
'Seven-Years War,' go back to 1745; nay, we may say, to the
First Invasion of Silesia in 1740. For it was in Maria
Theresa's incurable sorrow at loss of Silesia, and her
inextinguishable hope to reconquer it, that this and all
Friedrich's other Wars had their origin. ... Traitor Menzel
the Saxon Kanzellist ... has been busy for Prussia ever since
'the end of 1752.' Got admittance to the Presses; sent his
first Excerpt 'about the time of Easter-Fair 1753,'--time of
Voltaire's taking wing. And has been at work ever since.
Copying Despatches from the most secret Saxon Repositories;
ready always on Excellency Maltzahn's indicating the Piece
wanted [Maltzahn being the Prussian Minister at Dresden]. ...
Menzel ... lasted in free activity till 1757; and was then put
under lock and key. Was not hanged: sat prisoner for
twenty-seven years after; over-grown with hair, legs and arms
chained together, heavy iron-bar uniting both ankles; diet
bread-and-water;--for the rest, healthy; and died, not very
miserable it is said, in 1784."
T. Carlyle,
History of Friedrich II. of Prussia,
book 17, chapter 1 (volume 7).
ALSO IN:
Duc de Broglie,
The King's Secret,
chapters 1-2 (volume 1).
Frederick II.,
History of the Seven Years War
(Posthumous Works, volume 2), chapter 3.
H. Tuttle,
History of Prussia, 1745-1756
(volume 3), chapters 6-9.
F. Von Raumer,
Contributions to Modern History:
Frederick II. and his Times, chapters 24-28.
See, also,
ENGLAND: A. D. 1754-1755;
and AUSTRIA: A. D. 1755-1763.
GERMANY: A. D. 1756.
The Seven Years War:
Frederick strikes the first blow.
Saxony subdued.
"Finding that the storm was wholly inevitable, and must burst
on him next year, he [Frederick], with bold sagacity,
determined to forestall it. First, then, in August, 1756, his
ambassador at Vienna had orders to demand of the Empress Queen
a statement of her intentions, to announce war as the
alternative, and to declare that he would accept no answer 'in
the style of an oracle.' The answer, as he expected, was
evasive. Without further delay an army of 60,000 Prussians,
headed by Frederick in person, poured into Saxony. The Queen
of Poland was taken in Dresden: the King of Poland [Augustus
III. Elector of Saxony, and, by election, King of Poland] and
his troops were blockaded in Pirna. Thus did Frederick
commence that mighty struggle which is known to Germans by the
name of the Seven Years' War. The first object of the Prussian
monarch at Dresden was to obtain possession of the original
documents of the coalition against him, whose existence he
knew by means of the traitor Menzel. The Queen of Poland, no
less aware than Frederick of the importance of these papers,
had carried them to her own bed-chamber. She sat down on the
trunk which contained the most material ones, and declared to
the Prussian officer sent to seize them that nothing but force
should move her from the spot. [The official account of this
occurrence which Carlyle produces represents the Queen as
'standing before the door' of the 'archive apartment' in which
the compromising documents were locked up, she having
previously sealed the door.] This officer was of Scottish
blood, General Keith, the Earl Marischal's brother.
{1496}
'All Europe,' said the Queen, 'would exclaim against this
outrage; and then, sir, you will be the victim; depend upon
it, your King is a man to sacrifice you to his own honour!'
Keith, who knew Frederick's character, was startled, and sent
for further orders; but on receiving a reiteration of the
first he did his duty. The papers were then made public,
appended to a manifesto in vindication of Frederick's conduct;
and they convinced the world that, although the apparent
aggressor in his invasion of Saxony, he had only acted on the
principles of self-defence. Meanwhile, the Prussian army
closely blockaded the Saxon in Pirna, but the Austrian, under
Marshal Brown, an officer of British extraction, was advancing
to its relief through the mountain passes of Bohemia.
Frederick left a sufficient force to maintain the blockade,
marched against Brown with the remainder, and gave him battle
at Lowositz [or Lobositz] on the 1st of October. It proved a
hard-fought day; the King no longer found, as he says in one
of his letters, the old Austrians he remembered; and his loss
in killed and wounded was greater than theirs [3,308 against
2,984]; but victory declared on his side. Then retracing his
steps towards Pirna he compelled, by the pressure of famine,
the whole Saxon army, 17,000 strong, to an unconditional
surrender. The officers were sent home on parole, but the
soldiers were induced, partly by force and partly by
persuasion, to enlist in the Prussian ranks, and swear
fidelity to Frederick. Their former sovereign, King Augustus,
remained securely perched on his castle-rock of Königstein,
but, becoming weary of confinement, solicited, and was most
readily granted, passports to Warsaw. During the whole winter
Frederick fixed his head-quarters at Dresden, treating Saxony
in all respects as a conquered province, or as one of his own.
Troops and taxes were levied throughout that rich and populous
land with unsparing rigour, and were directed against the very
cause which the sovereign of that land had embraced."
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 33 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
T. Carlyle,
History of Friedrich II.,
book 17, chapters 4-8 (volume 7).
Lord Dover,
Life of Frederick IL,
volume 2, chapter 1.
GERMANY: A.-D. 1756-1757.
The Seven Years War:
Frederick under the Ban of the Empire.
The coalition against Frederick.
"All through the winter Austria strained every nerve to
consolidate her alliances, and she did not scruple to use her
position at the head of the Empire, in order to drag that body
into the quarrel that had arisen between two of its members.
On his own responsibility, without consulting the electors,
princes, and cities, the Emperor passed sentence on Frederick,
and condemned him, unheard, as a disturber of the peace. Many
of the great cities altogether refused to publish the
Emperor's decree, and even among the states generally
subservient to Austria there were some that were alarmed at so
flagrant a disregard of law and precedent. It may have seemed
a sign of what was to be expected should Prussia be
annihilated, and no state remain in Germany that dared to lift
up its voice against Austria. Nevertheless, in spite of this
feeling, and in spite of the opposition of nearly all the
Protestant states, Austria succeeded in inducing the Empire to
espouse her cause. In all three colleges of electors, princes,
and cities she obtained a majority, and at a diet held on
January 17, 1757, it was resolved that an army of the Empire
should be set on foot for the purpose of making war on
Prussia. Some months later Frederick was put to the ban of the
Empire. But the use of this antiquated weapon served rather to
throw ridicule on those who employed it than to injure him
against whom it was launched. ... It has been calculated that
the population of the States arrayed against Frederick the
Great amounted to 90,000,000, and that they put 430,000 men
into the field in the year 1757. The population of Prussia was
4,500,000, her army 200,000 strong; but, after deducting the
garrisons of the fortresses, there remained little over
150,000 men available for service in the field. The odds
against Frederick were great, but they were not absolutely
overwhelming. His territories were scattered and difficult of
defence, the extremities hardly defensible at all; but he
occupied a central position from which he might, by rapidity
of movement, be able to take his assailants in detail, unless
their plans were distinguished by a harmony unusual in the
efforts of a coalition."
F. W. Longman,
Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War,
chapter 8, section 3.
GERMANY: A. D. 1756-1758.
War of Prussia with Sweden in Pomerania.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1720-1792.
GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (April-June).
The Seven Years War:
Frederick's, invasion of Bohemia.
Victory at Prague and defeat at Kolin.
"At the commencement of 1757, the grand confederacy against
the king of Prussia was consolidated by the efforts and
intrigues of the court of Vienna. The French had drawn
together 80,000 men on the Rhine, under the command of marshal
d' Etrées; the army of execution was assembling in the empire;
the Swedes were preparing to penetrate into Pomerania, and
60,000 Russians were stationed on the frontiers of Livonia,
waiting the season of action to burst into the kingdom of
Prussia. With this favourable aspect of affairs, the empress
prepared for the campaign by augmenting her forces in Hungary
and Bohemia to 150,000 men; the main army, stationed in the
vicinity of Prague, was commanded by Prince Charles, who was
assisted by the skill of marshal Brown, and the other corps
intrusted to count Daun. Frederic possessed too much foresight
and vigilance to remain inactive while his enemies were
collecting their forces; he therefore resolved to carry the
war into the heart of the Austrian territories, and by a
decisive stroke to shake the basis of the confederacy. He
covered this plan with consummate address; he affected great
trepidation and uncertainty, and, to deceive the Austrians
into a belief that he only intended to maintain himself in
Saxony, put Dresden in a state of defence, broke down the
bridges, and marked out various camps in the vicinity. In the
midst of this apparent alarm three Prussian columns burst into
Bohemia, in April, and rapidly advanced towards Prague. ...
The Austrians, pressed on all sides, retreated with
precipitation under the walls of Prague, on the southern side
of the Moldau, while the Prussians advancing towards the
capital formed two bodies; one under Schwerin remaining at
Jung Bunzlau, and the other, headed by the king, occupying the
heights between the Moldau and the Weisseberg.
{1497}
Expecting to be joined by marshal Daun, who was hastening from
Moravia, the Austrians remained on the defensive; but prince
Charles took so strong a position as seemed to defy all
apprehensions of an attack. ... These obstacles, however, were
insufficient to arrest the daring spirit of Frederic, who
resolved to attack the Austrians before the arrival of Daun.
Leaving a corps under prince Maurice above Prague, he crossed
the Moldau near Rostock and Podabe on the 5th of May, with
16,000 men, and on the following morning at break of day was
joined by the corps under marshal Schwerin. ... Victory
declared on the side of the Prussians, but was purchased by
the loss of their best troops, not less than 18,000, even by
the avowal of the king, being killed, with many of his bravest
officers, and Schwerin, the father of the Prussian discipline,
and the guide of Frederic in the career of victory. Of the
Austrians 8,000 were killed and wounded, 9,000 made prisoners,
and 28,000 shut up within the walls of Prague. ... A column of
16,000 Austrians made good their retreat along the Moldau to
join the army of marshal Daun. Prague was instantly blockaded
by the victorious army, and not less than 100,000 souls were
confined within the walls, almost without the means of
subsistence. They were soon reduced to the greatest
extremities. ... In this disastrous moment the house of
Austria was preserved from impending destruction by the skill
and caution of a general, who now, for the first time,
appeared at the head of an army. This general was Leopold
count Daun, a native of Bohemia. ... Daun had marched through
Moravia towards Prague, to effect a junction with prince
Charles. On arriving at Boehmischgrod, within a few miles of
Prague, he was apprised of the recent defeat, and halted a few
days to collect the fugitives, till his corps swelled so
considerably that Frederic detached against him the prince of
Bevern with 20,000 men." Daun declined battle and retreated,
until he had collected an army of 60,000 men and restored
their courage. He then advanced, forcing back the prince of
Bevern, and when Frederick, joining the latter with
reinforcements, attacked him at Kolin, on the 18th of June, he
inflicted on the Prussian king a disastrous defeat--the first
which Frederick had known. The Prussian troops, "for the first
time defeated, gave way to despondency, and in their retreat
exclaimed, 'This is our Pultawa.' Daun purchased the victory
with the loss of 9,000 men; but on the side of the Prussians
not less than 14,000 were killed, wounded, and taken
prisoners, and 43 pieces of artillery, with 22 standards, fell
into the hands of the Austrians. Maria Theresa ... conveyed in
person the news of this important victory to the countess
Daun, and instituted the military order of merit, or the Order
of Maria Theresa, with which she decorated the commander and
officers who had most signalised themselves, and dated its
commencement from the æra of that glorious victory. To give
repose to the troops, and to replace the magazines which had
been destroyed by the Prussians, Daun remained several days on
the field of battle; and as he advanced to Prague found that
the Prussians had raised the siege on the 20th of June, and
were retreating with precipitation towards Saxony and
Lusatia."
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 112 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
Colonel C. B. Brackenbury,
Frederick the Great,
chapters 11-12.
F. Kugler,
Pict. History of Germany during the
Reign of Frederick the Great,
chapter 25.
GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (July-December).
The Seven Years War:
Darkening and brightening of Frederick's career.
Closter-Seven.
Rossbach.
Leuthen.
The enemies of the King of Prussia "were now closing upon him
from every side. The provinces beyond the Vistula became the
prey of Russian hordes, to which only one division of
Prussians under Marshal Lehwald was opposed. In the result,
however, their own devastations, and the consequent want of
supplies, proved a check to their further progress during this
campaign. In Westphalia above 80,000 effective French soldiers
were advancing, commanded by the Mareschal d'Estrées, a
grandson of the famous minister Louvois. The Duke of
Cumberland, who had undertaken to defend his father's
electorate against them, was at the head of a motley army of
scarce 50,000 men. ... His military talents were not such as
to supply his want of numbers or of combination; he allowed
the French to pass the deep and rapid Weser unopposed; he gave
them no disturbance when laying waste great part of the
Electorate; he only fell back from position to position until
at length the enemy came up with him at the village of
Hastenback near Hameln. There, on the 26th of July, an action
was fought, and the Duke was worsted with the loss of several
hundred men, The only resource of His Royal Highness was a
retreat across the wide Lüneberg moors, to cover the town of
Stade towards the mouth of the Elbe, where the archives and
other valuable effects from Hanover had been already deposited
for safety." Intrigue at Versailles having recalled D'Estrées
and sent the Duke de Richelieu into his place, the latter
pressed the Duke of Cumberland so closely, hemming him in and
cutting off his communications, that he was soon glad to make
terms. On the 8th of September the English Duke signed, at
Closter-Seven, a convention under which the auxiliary troops
in his army were sent home, the Hanoverians dispersed, and
only a garrison left at Stade. "After the battle of Kolin and
the Convention of Closter-Seven, the position of Frederick,--
hemmed in on almost every side by victorious enemies,--was not
only most dangerous but well-nigh desperate. To his own eyes
it seemed so. He resolved in his thoughts, and discussed with
his friends, the voluntary death of Otho as a worthy example
to follow. Fully resolved never to fall alive into the hands
of his enemies, nor yet to survive any decisive overthrow, he
carried about his person a sure poison in a small glass phial.
Yet ... he could still, with indomitable skill and energy, make
every preparation for encountering the Prince de Soubise. He
marched against the French commander at the head of only
22,000 men; but these were veterans, trained in the strictest
discipline, and full of confidence in their chief. Soubise, on
the other hand, owed his appointment in part to his
illustrious lineage, as head of the House of Rohan, and still
more to Court-favour, as the minion of Madame de Pompadour,
but in no degree to his own experience or abilities. He had
under his orders nearly 40,000 of his countrymen, and nearly
20,000 troops of the Empire; for the Germanic diet also had
been induced to join the league against Frederick. On the 5th
of November the two armies came to a battle at Rosbach [or
Rossbach], close to the plain of Lützen, where in the
preceding century Gustavus Adolphus conquered and fell.
{1498}
By the skilful manœvres of Frederick the French were brought
to believe that the Prussians intended nothing but retreat,
and they advanced in high spirits as if only to pursue the
fugitives. Of a sudden they found themselves attacked with all
the compactness of discipline, and all the courage of despair.
The troops of the Empire, a motley crew, fled at the first
fire. ... So rapid was the victory that the right wing of the
Prussians, under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, was never
engaged at all. Great numbers of the French were cut down in
their flight by the Prussian cavalry, not a few perished in
the waters of the Saale, and full 7,000 were made prisoners,
with a large amount of baggage, artillery and standards. ...
The battle of Rosbach was not more remarkable for its military
results than for its moral influence. It was hailed throughout
Germany as a triumph of the Teutonic over the Gallic race. ...
So precarious was now Frederick's position that the battle of
Rosbach, as he said himself, gained him nothing but leisure to
fight another battle elsewhere. During his absence on the
Saale, the Austrian armies had poured over the mountains into
Silesia; they had defeated the Prussians under the Duke of
Bevern; they had taken the main fortress, Schweidnitz, and the
capital, Breslau; nearly the whole province was already
theirs. A flying detachment of 4,000 cavalry, under General
Haddick, had even pushed into Brandenburg, and levied a
contribution from the city of Berlin [entering one of the
suburbs of the Prussian capital and holding it for twelve
hours]. The advancing season seemed to require winter
quarters, but Frederick never dreamed of rest until Silesia
was recovered. He hastened by forced marches from the Saale to
the Oder, gathering reinforcements while he went along. As he
drew near Breslau, the Imperial commander, Prince Charles of
Lorraine, flushed with recent victory and confident in
superior numbers, disregarded the prudent advice of Marshal
Daun, and descended from an almost inaccessible position to
give the King of Prussia battle on the open plain. ... On the
5th of December, one month from the battle of Rosbach, the two
armies met at Leuthen, a small village near Breslau, Frederick
with 40,000, Prince Charles of Lorraine with between 60,000
and 70,000 men. For several hours did the conflict rage
doubtfully and fiercely. It was decided mainly by the skill
and the spirit of the Prussian monarch. 'The battle of
Leuthen,' says Napoleon, 'was a master-piece. Did it even
stand alone it would of itself entitle Frederick to immortal
fame.' In killed, wounded and taken, the Austrians lost no
less than 27,000 men; above 50 standards, above 100 cannon,
above 4,000 waggons, became the spoil of the victors; Breslau
was taken, Schweidnitz blockaded, Silesia recovered; the
remnant of the Imperial forces fled back across the mountains;
and Frederick, after one of the longest and most glorious
campaigns that History records, at length allowed himself and
his soldiers some repose."
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 34 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
T. Carlyle,
History of Friedrich II.,
book 18, chapters 5-10.
Lord Dover,
Life of Frederick II.,
volume 2, chapters 3-4.
Sir E. Cust,
Annals of the Wars of the 18th Century,
volume 2, pages 217-240.
GERMANY: A. D. 1758.
The Seven Years War:
Campaign in Hanover.
Siege of Olmütz.
Russian defeat at Zorndorf.
Prussian defeat at Hochkirch.
"Before the end of 1757, England began to take a more active
part on the Continent. Lord Chatham brought about the
rejection of the Convention of Closter-Zeven by Parliament,
and the recall of Cumberland by the king. The efficient Prince
Ferdinand of Brunswick was proposed by Frederick and made
commander of the English and Hanoverian forces. He opened the
campaign of 1758 in the winter. The French, under Clermont,
being without discipline or control, he drove them in headlong
flight out of their winter-quarters in Hanover and Westphalia,
to the Rhine and across it; and on June 23 defeated them at
the battle of Crefeld. A French army under Soubise afterward
crossed the Rhine higher up, and Ferdinand, retreated, but
succeeded in protecting the west as far as the Weser against
General Contades. Frederick first retook Schweidnitz, April
16. He then, in order to prevent the junction of the Russians
and Austrians, ventured to attack Austria, and invaded
Moravia. His brother, Prince Henry, had but a small force in
Saxony, and Frederick thought that he could best cover that
country by an attack on Austria. But the siege of Olmütz
detained him from May until July, and his prospects grew more
doubtful. The Austrians captured a convoy of 300 wagons of
military stores, which Ziethen was to have escorted to him.
[Instead of 800, the convoy comprised 3,000 to 4,000 wagons,
of which only 200 reached the Prussian camp, and its
destruction by General Loudon completely frustrated
Frederick's plan of campaign.] Frederick raised the siege,
and, by an admirable retreat, brought his army through Bohemia
by way of Königgrätz to Landshut. Here he received bad news.
The Russians, under Fermor, were again in Prussia, occupying
the eastern province, but treating it mildly as a conquered
country, where the empress already received the homage of the
people. They then advanced, with frightful ravages, through
Pomerania and Neumark to the Oder, and were now near Küstrin,
which they laid in ashes. Frederick made haste to meet them.
He was so indignant at the desolation of the country and the
suffering of his people that he forbade quarter to be given.
The report of this fact also embittered the Russians. At
Zorndorf, Frederick met the enemy, 50,000 strong, August 25,
1758. They were drawn up in a great square or phalanx, in the
ancient, half-barbarous manner. A frightfully bloody fight
followed, since the Russians would not yield, and were cut
down in heaps. Seidlitz, the victor of Rossbach, by a timely
charge of his cavalry, captured the Russian artillery, and
crushed their right wing. On the second day the Russians were
driven back, but not without inflicting heavy loss on the
Prussians, who, though they suffered much less than their
enemies, left more than one third of their force on the field.
The Russians were compelled to withdraw from Prussia.
Frederick then hastened to Saxony, where his brother Henry was
sorely pressed by Daun and the imperial army. He could not
even wait to relieve Silesia, where Neisse, his principal
fortress, was threatened. Daun, hearing of his approach, took
up a position in his way, between Bautzen and Görlitz. But
Frederick, whose contempt for this prudent and slow general
was excessive, occupied a camp in a weak and exposed position,
at Hochkirch, under Daun's very eyes, against the protest of
his own generals.
{1499}
He remained there three days unmolested; but on October 14,
the day fixed for advancing, the Austrians attacked him with
twice his numbers. A desperate fight took place in the burning
village; the Prussians were driven out, and lost many guns.
Frederick himself was in imminent danger, and his friends
Keith and Duke Francis of Brunswick fell at his side. Yet the
army did not lose its spirit or its discipline. Within eleven
days Frederick, who had been joined by his brother Henry, was
in Silesia, and relieved Neisse and Kosel. Thus the campaign
of 1758 ended favorably to Frederick. The pope sent Daun a
consecrated hat and sword, as a testimonial for his victory at
Hochkirch."
C. T. Lewis,
History of Germany,
book 5, chapter 23, sections 7-9.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Malleson,
Military Life of Loudon,
chapters 7-8.
F. Kugler,
Pict. History of Germany during the
Reign of Frederick the Great,
chapters 29-31.
Frederick II.,
History of the Seven Years War
(Posthumous Works, volume 2), chapter 8.
GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (April-August).
The Seven Years War:
Prince Ferdinand's Hanoverian campaign.
Defeat at Bergen and victory at Minden.
In the Hanoverian field of war, where Prince Ferdinand of
Brunswick held command, the campaign of 1759 was important,
and prosperous in the end for the allies of Prussia. "Besides
the Hanoverians and Hessians in British pay, he [Prince
Ferdinand] had under his direction 10,000 or 12,000 British
soldiers, amongst whom, since the death of the Duke of
Marlborough, Lord George Sackville was the senior officer. The
French, on their part, were making great exertions, under the
new administration of the Duke de Choiseul; large
reinforcements were sent into Germany, and early in the year
they surprised by stratagem the free city of Frankfort and
made it the place of arms for their southern army. No object
could be of greater moment to Ferdinand than to dislodge them
from this important post." Marching quickly, with 30,000 of
his army, he attacked the French, under the Duke de Broglie,
at Bergen, on the Nidda, in front of Frankfort, April 13, and
was repulsed, after heavy fighting, with a loss of 2,000 men.
"This reverse would, it was supposed, reduce Prince Ferdinand
to the defensive during the remainder of the campaign. Both De
Broglie and Contades eagerly pushed forward, their opponents
giving way before them. Combining their forces, they reduced
Cassel, Munster, and Minden, and they felt assured that the
whole Electorate must soon again be theirs. Already had the
archives and the most valuable property been sent off from
Hanover to Stade. Already did a new Hastenbeck--a new
Closter-Seven--rise in view. But it was under such
difficulties that the genius of Ferdinand shone forth. With a
far inferior army (for thus much is acknowledged, although I
do not find the French numbers clearly or precisely stated),
he still maintained his ground on the left of the Weser, and
supplied every defect by his superiority of tactics. He left a
detachment of 5,000 men exposed, and seemingly unguarded, as a
bait to lure De Contades from his strong position at Minden.
The French Mareschal was deceived by the feint, and directed
the Duke De Broglie to march forward and profit by the
blunder, as he deemed it to be. On the 1st of August,
accordingly, De Broglie advanced into the plain, his force
divided in eight columns." Instead of the small corps
expected, he found the whole army of the allies in front of
him. De Contades hurried to his assistance, and the French,
forced to accept battle in an unfavorable position, were
overcome. At the decisive moment of their retreat, "the Prince
sent his orders to Lord George Sackville, who commanded the
whole English and some German cavalry on the right wing of the
Allies, and who had hitherto been kept back as a reserve. The
orders were to charge and overwhelm the French in their
retreat, before they could reach any clear ground to rally.
Had these orders been duly fulfilled, it is acknowledged by
French writers that their army must have been utterly
destroyed; but Lord George either could not or would not
understand what was enjoined on him. ... Under such
circumstances the victory of Minden would not have been signal
or complete but for a previous and most high-spirited
precaution of Prince Ferdinand. He had sent round to the rear
of the French a body of 10,000 men, under his nephew--and also
the King of Prussia's--the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick.
... Thus Ferdinand became master of the passes, and the French
were constrained to continue their retreat in disorder. Upon the
whole, their loss was 8,000 men killed, wounded, or taken, 30
pieces of artillery, and 17 standards. ... Great was the
rejoicing in England at the victory of Minden"; but loud the
outcry against Lord George Sackville, who was recalled and
dismissed from all his employments.
Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapter 36 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
Sir E. Cust,
Annals of the Wars of the 18th Century,
volume 2, pages 327-333.
GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (July-November).
The Seven Years War:
Disasters of Frederick.
Kunersdorf.
Dresden.
Maxen.
"Three years of the war were gone and the ardour of
Frederick's' enemies showed no signs of abating. The war was
unpopular in the Russian army, but the Czarina thought no
sacrifice too great for the gratification of her hatred.
France was sick of it too, and tottering on the verge of
national bankruptcy, but Louis was kept true to his
engagements by domestic influences and by the unbending
determination of Maria Theresa never to lay down arms until
Prussia was thoroughly humbled. ... Already Frederick was at
his wits' end for men and money. Of the splendid infantry
which had stormed the heights at Prague, and stemmed the rout
of Kollin, very little now remained. ... Moreover, Austria,
relying on her vastly larger population, had ceased to
exchange prisoners, and after the end of 1759 Russia followed
her example. ... Frederick's pecuniary difficulties were even
greater still. But for the English subsidy he could hardly
have subsisted at all. ... The summer was half gone before
there was any serious fighting. Frederick had got together
125,000 men of some sort, besides garrison troops, but he no
longer felt strong enough to take the initiative, and the
Austrians were equally indisposed to attack without the
co-operation of their allies. Towards the middle of July the
Russians, under Count Soltikoff, issued from Posen, advanced
to the Oder', and, after defeating a weak Prussian corps near
Kay, took possession of Frankfort.
{1500}
It now became necessary for the king to march in person
against them, the more especially as Laudon [or Loudon] with
18,000 Austrians was on his way to join Soltikoff. Before he
could reach Frankfort, Laudon, eluding with much dexterity the
vigilance of his enemies, effected his junction, and
Frederick, with 48,000 men, found himself confronted by an
army 78,000 strong. The Russians were encamped on the heights
of Kunersdorf, east of Frankfort." Frederick attacked them,
August 12, with brilliant success at first, routing their left
wing and taking 70 guns, with several thousand prisoners. "The
Prussian generals then besought the king to rest content with
the advantage he had gained. The day was intensely hot; his
soldiers had been on foot for twelve hours, and were suffering
severely from thirst and exhaustion; moreover, if the Russians
were let alone, they would probably go off quietly in the
night, as they had done after Zorndorf. Unhappily Frederick
refused to take counsel. He wanted to destroy the Russian
army, not merely to defeat it; he had seized the Frankfort
bridge and cut off its retreat." He persisted in his attack
and was beaten off. "The Prussians were in full retreat when
Laudon swept down upon them with eighteen fresh squadrons. The
retreat became a rout more disorderly than in any battle of
the war except Rossbach. The king, stupefied with his
disaster, could hardly be induced to quit the field, and was
heard to mutter, 'Is there then no cursed bullet that can
reach me?' The defeat was overwhelming. Had it been properly
followed up, it must have put an end to the war, and
Kunersdorf would have ranked among the decisive battles of the
world. Berlin lay open to the enemy; the royal family fled to
Magdeburg. For the first (and last) time in his life Frederick
gave way utterly to despair. 'I have no resources left,' he wrote
to the minister Finckenstein the evening after the battle,
'and to tell the truth I hold all for lost. I shall not
survive the ruin of my country. Farewell for ever.' The same
night he resigned the command of the army to General Finck.
Eighteen thousand, five hundred of his soldiers were killed,
wounded, or prisoners, and the rest were so scattered that no
more than 3,000 remained under his command. All the artillery
was lost, and most of his best generals were killed or
wounded. ... By degrees, however, the prospect brightened. The
fugitives kept coming in, and the enemy neglected to give the
finishing stroke. Frederick shook off his despair, and resumed
the command of his army. Artillery was ordered up from Berlin,
and the troops serving against the Swedes were recalled from
Pomerania. Within a week of Kunersdorf he was at the head of
33,000 men, and in a position to send relief to Dresden, which
was besieged by an Austrian and Imperialist army. The relief,
as it happened, arrived just too late." Dresden was
surrendered by its commandant, Schmettau, on the 4th of
September, to the great wrath of Frederick. By a wonderful
march of fifty-eight miles in fifty hours, Prince Henry, the
brother of Frederick, prevented the Austrians from gaining the
whole electorate of Saxony. The Russians and the Austrians
quarrelled, the former complaining that they were left to do
all the fighting, and presently they withdrew into Poland.
"With the departure of the Russians, the campaign would
probably have ended, had not Frederick's desire to close it
with a victory led him into a fresh disaster, hardly less
serious and far more disgraceful than that of Kunersdorf. ...
With the view of hastening the retreat of the Austrians, and
of driving them, if possible, into the difficult Pirna
country, he ordered General Finck to take post with his corps
at Maxen, to bar their direct line of communications with
Bohemia." As the result, Finck, with his whole corps, of
12,000, were overwhelmed and taken prisoners. "The
capitulation of Maxen was no less destructive of Frederick's
plans than galling to his pride. The Austrians now retained
Dresden, a place of great strategical importance, though the
king, in the hope of dislodging them, exposed the wrecks of
his army to the ruinous hardships of a winter campaign, in
weather of unusual severity, and borrowed 12,000 men of
Ferdinand of Brunswick to cover his flank while so engaged.
The new year had commenced before he allowed his harassed
troops to go into winter-quarters."
F. W. Longman,
Frederick the Great and the Seven Years War,
chapter 10, section 2.
ALSO IN:
T. Carlyle,
History of Friedrich II.;
book 19, chapters 4-7.
Frederick II.,
History of the Seven Years War
(Posthumous Works, volume 3), chapter 10.
GERMANY: A. D. 1760.
The Seven Years War:
Saxony reconquered by Frederick.
Dresden bombarded.
Battles of Liegnitz, Torgau and Warburg.
"The campaign of 1759 had extended far into the winter, and
Frederick conceived the bold idea of renewing it while the
vigilance of his enemies was relaxed in winter quarters, and
of making another effort to drive the Austrians from Saxony.
His head-quarters were at Freyberg. Having received
reinforcements from Prince Ferdinand, and been joined by
12,000 men under the hereditary prince, he left the latter to
keep guard behind the Mulde, and in January 1760, at a time
when the snow lay deep upon the ground, he made a fierce
spring upon the Austrians, who were posted at Dippoldiswalde;
but General Maguire, who commanded there, baffled him by the
vigilance and skill with which he guarded every pass, and
compelled him to retrace his steps to Freyberg. When the
winter had passed and the regular campaign had opened, Laudohn
[Loudon], one of the most active of the Austrian generals--the
same who had borne a great part in the victories of
Hochkirchen and Kunersdorf--entered Silesia, surprised with a
greatly superior force the Prussian General Fouqué, compelled
him, with some thousands of soldiers, to surrender [at
Landshut, June 22], and a few days later reduced the important
fortress of Glatz [July 26]. Frederick, at the first news of
the danger of Fouqué, marched rapidly towards Silesia, Daun
slowly following, while an Austrian corps, under General Lacy,
impeded his march by incessant skirmishes. On learning the
surrender of Fouqué, Frederick at once turned and hastened
towards Dresden. It was July, and the heat was so intense that
on a single day more than a hundred of his soldiers dropped dead
upon the march. He hoped to gain some days upon Daun, who was
still pursuing, and to become master of Dresden before
succours arrived. As he expected, he soon outstripped the
Austrian general, and the materials for the siege were
collected with astonishing rapidity, but General Maguire, who
commanded at Dresden, defended it with complete success till
the approach of the Austrian army obliged Frederick to retire.
{1501}
Baffled in his design, he took a characteristic vengeance by
bombarding that beautiful city with red-hot balls,
slaughtering multitudes of its peaceable inhabitants, and
reducing whole quarters to ashes; and he then darted again
upon Silesia, still followed by the Austrian general. Laudohn
had just met with his first reverse, having failed in the
siege of Breslau [an attempted surprise and a brief
bombardment]; on August 15, when Daun was still far off,
Frederick fell upon him and beat him in the battle of
Liegnitz. [The statement that 'Daun was still far off' appears
to be erroneous. Loudon and Daun had formed a junction four
days before, and had planned a concerted attack on Frederick's
camp; Loudon was struck and defeated while making the movement
agreed upon, and Daun was only a few miles away at the time.]
Soon after, however, this success was counterbalanced by Lacy
and Totleben, who; at the head of some Austrians and Russians,
had marched upon Berlin, which, after a brave resistance, was
once more captured and ruthlessly plundered; but on the
approach of Frederick the enemy speedily retreated. Frederick
then turned again towards Saxony, which was again occupied by
Daun, and on November 3 he attacked his old enemy in his
strong entrenchments at Torgau. Daun, in addition to the
advantage of position, had the advantage of great numerical
superiority, for his army was reckoned at 65,000, while that
of Frederick was not more than 44,000. But the generalship of
Frederick gained the victory. General Ziethen succeeded in
attacking the Austrians in the rear, gaining the height, and
throwing them into confusion. Daun was wounded and disabled,
and General O'Donnell, who was next in command, was unable to
restore the Austrian line. The day was conspicuous for its
carnage, even among the bloody battles of the Seven Years'
War: 20,000 Austrians were killed, wounded, or prisoners,
while 14,000 Prussians were left on the field. The battle
closed the campaign for the year, leaving all Saxony in the
possession of the Prussians, with the exception of Dresden,
which was still held by Maguire. The English and German army,
under Prince Ferdinand, succeeded in the meantime in keeping
at bay a very superior French army, under Marshal Broglio; and
several slight skirmishes took place, with various results.
The battle of Warburg, which was the most important, was won
chiefly by the British cavalry, but Prince Ferdinand failed in
his attempts to take Wesel and Gottingen; and at the close of
the year the French took up their quarters at Cassel."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 8 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 115 (volume 3).
G. B. Malleson,
Military Life of Loudon,
chapter 10.
T. Carlyle,
History of Friedrich II.,
book 20, chapters 1-6.
GERMANY: A. D. 1761-1762.
The Seven Years War:
The closing campaigns.
"All Frederick's exertions produced him only 96,000 men for
defence of Silesia and Saxony this year [1761]. Prince Henry
had to face Daun in Saxony; the king himself stood in Silesia
against Loudon and the Russians under Butterlin. Loudon opened
the campaign by advancing against Goltz, near Schweidnitz, in
April. Goltz had only 12,000 to his adversary's 30,000, but
posted himself so well that Loudon could not attack him.
Reinforcements came gradually to Loudon, raising his army to
72,000, but orders from Vienna obliged him to remain inactive
till he could be joined near Neisse by the Russians with
60,000. Goltz, manœuvring against the Russians, was taken
prisoner. The king himself delayed the junction of his enemies
for some time, but could not now offer battle. The junction
took place the 18th of August. He then struck at Loudon's
communications, but the thrust was well parried, and on the
20th of August, Frederick, for the first time, was reduced to
an attitude of pure defence. He formed an intrenched camp at
Bunzelwitz, and lay there, blocking the way to Schweidnitz.
Loudon's intreaties could not persuade the Russians to join
him in full force to attack the position, and on the 9th of
September Butterlin's army fell back across the Oder, leaving
20,000 of his men to act under Loudon. Frederick remained a
fortnight longer in the camp of Bunzelwitz, but was then
forced to go, as his army was eating up the magazines of
Schweidnitz. Again he moved against Loudon's magazines, but
the Austrian general boldly marched for Schweidnitz, and
captured the place by assault on the night of the 30th
September--1st October. No fight took place between London and
the king. They both went into winter quarters in
December--Prussians at Strehlen, Austrians at Kunzendorf, and
Russians about Glatz. ... In the western theatre Ferdinand
defeated Broglio and Soubise at Vellinghausen [or
Wellinghausen, or Kirch-Denkern, as the battle, fought July
15, is differently called], the English contingent again
behaving gloriously. ... Prince Henry and Daun manœuvred
skilfully throughout the campaign, but never came to serious
blows. Frederick is described as being very gloomy in mind
this winter. The end of the year left him with but 60,000 men
in Saxony, Silesia, and the north. Eugene of Wurtemburg had
5,000 to hold back the Swedes, Prince Henry 25,000 in Saxony,
the king himself 30,000. But the agony of France was
increasing; Maria Theresa had to discharge 20,000 men from
want of money, and Frederick's bitter enemy, 'cette infame
Catin du Nord' [the czarina Elizabeth], was failing fast in
health. A worse blow to the king than the loss of a battle had
been the fall of Pitt, in October, and with him all hope of
English subsidies. Still, the enemies of Prussia were almost
exhausted. One more year of brave and stubborn resistance, and
Prussia must be left in peace. By extraordinary exertions, and
a power of administrative organisation which was one of his
greatest qualities, Frederick not only kept up his 60, 000,
but doubled their number. In the spring he had 70,000 for his
Silesian army, 40,000 for Prince Henry in Saxony, and 10,000
for the Swedes or other purposes. Best news of all, the
czarina died on the 5th of January, 1762, and Peter, who
succeeded her--only for a short time, poor boy--was an ardent
admirer of the great king. Frederick at once released and sent
home his Russian prisoners, an act which brought back his
Prussians from Russia. On the 23rd February Peter declared his
intention to be at peace and amity with Frederick, concluded
peace on the 5th of May, and a treaty of alliance a month
later. The Swedes, following suit, declared peace on the 22nd
of May, and Frederick could now give his sole attention to the
Austrians." For a few weeks, only, the Prussian king had a
Russian contingent of 20,000 in alliance with him, but could
make no use of it.
{1502}
It was recalled in July, by the revolution at St. Petersburg,
which deposed the young czar, Peter, in favour of his
ambitious consort, Catherine. Frederick succeeded in
concealing the fact long enough to frighten Daun by a show of
preparations for attacking him, with the Russian troops
included in his army, and the Austrian general retired to
Glatz and Bohemia. Frederick then took Schweidnitz, and
marched on Dresden. "Daun followed heavily. Like a
prize-fighter knocked out of time, he had no more fight in
him. Prince Henry had two affairs with the Reich's army and
its Austrian contingent. Forced to retire from Freyburg on the
15th, he afterwards attacked them on the 29th of October and
defeated them by a turning movement. They had 40,000, he 30,
000. The Austrian contingent suffered most. In the western
theatre Ferdinand held his own and had his usual successes.
His part in the war was to defend only, and he never failed to
show high qualities as a general. Thus, nowhere had
Frederick's enemies succeeded in crushing his defences. For
seven years the little kingdom of Prussia had held her ground
against the three great military powers, France, Austria, and
Russia. All were now equally exhausted. The constancy,
courage, and ability of Frederick were rewarded at last; on
the 15th of February, 1763, the treaty of Hubertsburg was
signed, by which Austria once more agreed to the cession of
Silesia. Prussia was now a Great Power like the rest, her
greatness resting on no shams, as she had proved."
Colonel C. B. Brackenbury,
Frederick the Great,
chapter 18.
ALSO IN:
Sir E. Cust,
Annals of the Wars of the 18th Century,
volume 3, pages 57-87.
Frederick II.,
History of the Seven Years War
(Posthumous Works, volume 3), chapters 14-16.
GERMANY: A. D. 1763.
The end, results and costs of the Seven Years War.
The Peace of Hubertsburg and Peace of Paris.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR.
GERMANY: A. D. 1763-1790.
A period of peace and progress.
Intellectual cultivation.
Accession of the Emperor Joseph II.
His character and his reforms.
Accession of Leopold II.
"The peace of nearly thirty years which followed the
Seven-Years' War in Germany was a time of rich mental activity
and growth. Court life itself, if its vanities were not
abolished, still acquired a more enlightened and humane tone.
The fierce passions of the princes no longer exclusively
controlled it: there was something of regard for education,
for art and science, and for the public welfare. This is
particularly true of courts which were intimately connected
with Prussia; as that of Brunswick, where Duke Charles,
Frederick II.'s brother-in-law, though personally an
extravagant prince, founded an institution of learning which
brought together many of the best intellects of Germany (1740
to 1760), or that of Anhalt-Dessau, where the famous
'Philanthropinum' was established. Several princes imitated
Frederick's military administration, and that sometimes on a
scale so small as to be ludicrous. Prince William of
Lippe-Schaumburg founded in his little territory a fortress
and a school of war. But this school educated Scharnhorst, and
the prince himself won fame in distant lands. He invited
Herder to his little court at Bückeburg. Weimar, too, imitated
Frederick's example, where the Duchess Amalie, daughter of
Charles of Brunswick, and her intellectual son, Charles
Augustus, made their little cities Weimar and Jena places of
gathering for the greatest men of genius of the time. Among
the petty Thuringian princes of this period, there were others
of noble character. In 1764 the Saxon throne was ascended by
Frederick Augustus, grandson of Augustus III., but, being a
minor, he could not be elected king of Poland. This put an end
to the union of the two titles, which had been the cause of
immeasurable evil to Saxony and to Germany. When the young
elector attained his majority, the government of Saxony was
greatly improved, and a period of prosperity followed. Duke
Charles Eugene of Wirtemberg (1737-1793), during his early
years, rivaled Louis XV. in extravagance and immorality, but
in after-days was greatly changed. He founded the Charles
School, at which Schiller was educated. Baden enjoyed a high
degree of prosperity under Charles Frederick (1746-1811). Even
the spiritual lords, on the whole, threw their influence in
favor of enlightenment and progress. ... The prelates of
Cologne, Trèves, Mayence, and Salzburg, strange to say, agreed
at Ems in 1786 to renounce the supremacy of Rome, and to found
an independent German Catholic Church; but the plan was broken
down by the resistance of the inferior clergy and of the
Emperor Joseph II. Some of the German states were slow to take
part in the general progress. Bavaria was constantly retarded
by the influence of the Jesuits. ... The Palatinate, too, was
under luxurious and idle rulers, mostly in the pay of France.
In some territories the boundless extravagance of the princes
was a terrible burden upon their subjects. ... Men who
professed enlightenment and humanity were often shamefully
tyrannical. The courts of Cassel and Wirtemberg sold their
people by regiments to England, to fight against the
independence of the North American Colonies. ...
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-JUNE).
Austria shared in the general intellectual awakening of
Germany. Maria Theresa was a firm, strong character, with a
clear mind and sincere desire for the people's welfare. She
found Austria in decay, and was able to introduce many
reforms. She alleviated the condition of the peasants, who
were still mostly serfs. The nobles had before lived mainly
for show, but she provided institutions for their education.
... It was a condition of the Peace of Hubertsburg that
Frederick II. should give his electoral vote for the eldest
son of Francis I. None of the other electors objected to the
choice, and on March 27, 1764, they performed the ceremony of
choosing Joseph 'King of the Romans,' but without power to
interfere with the government during his father's life.
Francis I. died August 18, 1765, and his son Joseph II.
(1765-1790) was then crowned emperor in the traditional
fashion. He was also associated with his mother in the
government of' Austria; but she retained the royal power
mainly in her own hands, assigning to her son the executive
control of military affairs. Joseph II. was an impetuous and
intellectual character, all aglow with the new ideas of
enlightenment and progress, and was perhaps more deeply
impressed by the example of Frederick II. than any other
prince of the age. ... At the same time, Joseph II. was eager
to aggrandize Austria, and at least to obtain an equivalent
for Silesia.
{1503}
For a long time Austria had been longing to acquire Bavaria,
and there now seemed to be some reason to hope for success,
The ancient line of electors of the house of Wittelsbach died
out in 1777 with Maximilian Joseph (December 30). The next
heir was the Elector Palatine, Charles Theodore, also Duke of
Jülich and Berg, who was not eager to obtain Bavaria, since,
by the Peace of Westphalia, he must then forfeit the
electorate of the Palatinate. ... Under these circumstances
Joseph II. made an unfounded claim to Lower Bavaria, under a
pretended grant of the Emperor Sigismund in 1426. A secret
treaty was made by him with Charles Theodore, by which he was
to pay that prince a large sum of money for Lower Bavaria; and
soon after Maximilian Joseph's death, Joseph II. occupied the
land with troops. Frederick II., who was ever jealous of the
growth of Austria, resolved to prevent this acquisition. ...
See BAVARIA: A. D. 1777-1779.
Thus the war of the Bavarian Succession broke out (1778-79).
... By the death of Maria Theresa, November 29, 1780, her son
Joseph II. became sole monarch of Austria. ... Joseph II. was
a man of large mind and noble aims. Like Frederick, he was
unwearying in labor, accessible to everyone, and eager to
assume his share of work or responsibility. The books and the
people's memory are full of anecdotes of him, though he was
far from popular during his life. But he lacked the strong
practical sense and calculating foresight of the veteran
Prussian king. In his zeal for reforms he hastened to heap one
upon another in confusion. Torture was abolished, and for a
time even the death penalty. Rigid equality before the law was
introduced, and slavery done away.
See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.
His reforms in the Church were still more sweeping. He closed
more than half of the monasteries, and devoted their estates
to public instruction; he introduced German hymns of praise
and the German Bible. By his Edict of Toleration, June 22,
1781, he secured to all Protestants throughout the Austrian
states their civil rights and freedom of worship, 'in houses
of prayer without bells or towers.' ... He zealously followed
up Maria Theresa's policy of consolidating Austria into one
state; and it was this course which made him enemies. He
offended the powerful nobility of Hungary by abolishing
serfdom (November 1, 1781), and the whole people by the
measures he took to promote the use of the German language. In
the Netherlands, he alienated from him the powerful clergy by
his innovations; and they stirred up against him the people,
already aggrieved by the loss of some of their ancient
liberties. A revolution broke out among them in 1788, and was
threatening to extend to Hungary and Bohemia, when the emperor
suddenly died, still in the full vigor of manhood, at the age
of forty-nine, February 20, 1790. ... After his death, the
progress of reform was checked in Austria; but he had awakened
new and strong forces there, and a complete return to the
ancient system was impossible. ... Leopold II. (1790-1792),
who succeeded his brother Joseph II., both in Austria and as
emperor, was a self-indulgent but prudent ruler."
C. T. Lewis,
History of Germany,
book 5, chapter 24, sections 8-18.
GERMANY: A. D. 1772-1773.
The first Partition of Poland.
See POLAND: A. D. 1763-1773.
GERMANY: A. D. 1787.
Prussian intervention in Holland.
Restoration of the expelled stadtholder.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1746-1787.
GERMANY: A. D. 1791.
The forming of the Coalition against French democracy.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1790-1791;
and 1791 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1791-1792.
The question of war with France, and the question of the
Partition of Poland.
Motives and action of Prussia and Austria.
"After the acceptance of the Constitution by Louis XVI.
[September--see FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (JULY-SEPTEMBER)], the
Emperor indulged for a time a confident hope, that the French
question was solved, and that he was relieved from all fear of
trouble from that quarter. He had cares enough upon him to
make him heartily congratulate himself on this result. ... In
foreign affairs, the Polish question--the next in importance
to the French--was still unsettled, and daily presented fresh
difficulties. ... The fact that Russia began to show the
greatest favour to the Emigrés, and to preach at Berlin and
Vienna a crusade against the wicked Jacobins, only served to
confirm the Emperor in his peaceful sentiments. He rightly
concluded that Catharine wished to entangle the German Powers
in a struggle with France, that she might have her own way in
Poland; and he was not at all inclined to be the dupe of so
shallow an artifice. ... At the same time he set about
bringing his alliance with Prussia to a definite conclusion,
in order to secure to himself a firm support for every
emergency. On the 17th of November--a week after the
enactment of the first edict against the Emigrés--Prince Reuss
made a communication on this subject to the Prussian Ministry,
and on this occasion declared himself empowered to commence at
any moment the formal draft of an alliance. ... 'We are now
convinced,' wrote the Ministers to their ambassador at Vienna,
'that Austria will undertake nothing against France.' This
persuasion was soon afterwards fully confirmed by Kaunitz, who
descanted in the severest terms on the intrigues of the
Emigrés on the Rhine, which it was not in the interest of any
Power to support. It was ridiculous, he said, in the French
Princes, and in Russia and Spain, to declare the acceptance of
the constitution by the King compulsory, and therefore void;
and still more so to dispute the right of Louis XVI. to alter
the constitution at all. He said that they would vainly
endeavour to goad Austria into a war, which could only have
the very worst consequences for Louis and the present
predominance of the moderate party in France. ... Here, again,
we see that without the machinations of the Girondists, the
revolutionary war would never have been commenced. It is true,
indeed, that at this time a very perceptible change took place
in the opinions of the second German potentate--the King of
Prussia. Immediately after the Congress of Pillnitz, great
numbers of French Emigrés, who had been driven from Vienna by
the coldness of Leopold, had betaken themselves to Berlin. At
the Prussian Court they met with a hospitable reception, and
aroused in the King, by their graphic descriptions, a warm
interest for the victims of the Revolution. ... He loaded the
Emigrés with marks of favour of every kind, and thereby
excited in them the most exaggerated hopes.
{1504}
Yet the King was far from intending to risk any important
interest of the State for the sake of his protégés; he had no
idea of pursuing an aggressive policy towards France; and the
only point in which he differed from Leopold was in the
feeling with which he regarded the development of the warlike
tendencies of the French. His Ministers, moreover, were,
without exception, possessed by the same idea as Prince
Kaunitz; that a French war would be a misfortune to all
Europe." As the year 1791 drew towards its close,
"unfavourable news arrived from Paris. The attempts of the
Feuillants had failed; Lafayette had separated himself from
them and from the Court; and the zeal and confidence of
victory among the Democrats were greater than ever. The
Emigrés in Berlin were jubilant; they had always declared that
no impression was to be made upon the Jacobins except by the
edge of the sword, and that all hopes founded on the stability
of a moderate middle party were futile. The King of Prussia
agreed with them, and determined to begin the unavoidable
struggle as quickly as possible. He told his Ministers that
war was certain, and that Bischoffswerder ought to go once
more to the Emperor. ... Bischoffswerder, having received
instructions from the King himself, left Berlin, and arrived
in Vienna, after a speedy journey, on the 28th of February.
But he was not destined again to discuss the fate of Europe
with his Imperial patron; for on the 29th the smallpox showed
itself, of which Leopold died after three days sickness. The
greatest consternation and confusion reigned in Vienna. ... No
one knew to whom the young King Francis--he was as yet only
king of Hungary and Bohemia--would give his confidence, or
what course he would take; nay, his weakly and nervous
constitution rendered it doubtful whether he could bear--even
for a short period--the burdens of his office. For the present
he confirmed the Ministers in their places, and expressed to them
his wish to adhere to the political system of his father. ...
He ... ordered one of his most experienced Generals, Prince
Hohenlohe-Kirchberg, to be summoned to Vienna, that he might
take council with Bischoffswerder respecting the warlike
measures to be adopted by both Powers, in case of a French
attack. At the same time, however, the Polish question was, if
possible, to be brought to a decision, and Leopold's plan in
all its details was to be categorically recommended for
adoption, both in Berlin and Petersburg. ... The Austrian
Minister, Spielmann, had prepared the memorial on Poland,
which Prince Reuss presented at Berlin, on the 10th of March.
It represented that Austria and Prussia had the same interest
in stopping a source of eternal embarrassment and discussion,
by strengthening the cause of peace and order in Poland. That
herein lay an especially powerful motive to make the crown of
that country hereditary; that for both Powers the Elector of
Saxony would be the most acceptable wearer of that crown. ...
The important point, the memorial went on to say, was this,
that Poland should no longer be dependent on the predominant
influence of any one neighbouring Power. ... When the King had
read this memorial, in which the Saxon-Polish union was
brought forward, not as an idea of the feeble Elector, but as
a proposal of powerful Austria; he cried out, 'We must never
give our consent to this.' He agreed with his Ministers in the
conclusion that nothing would be more dangerous to Prussia,
than the formation of such a Power as would result from the
proposed lasting union of Poland and Saxony--a Power, which,
in alliance with Austria, could immediately overrun Silesia,
and in alliance with Russia, might be fatal to East Prussia.
... In the midst of this angry and anxious excitement, which
for a moment alienated his heart from Austria, the King
received a fresh and no less important despatch from
Petersburg. Count Golz announced the first direct
communication of Russia respecting Poland. 'Should Poland'
[wrote the Russian Vice Chancellor] 'be firmly and lastingly
united to Saxony, a Power of the first rank will arise, and
one which will be able to exercise the most sensible pressure
upon each of its neighbours. We are greatly concerned in this,
in consequence of the extension of our Polish frontier; and
Prussia is no less so, from the inevitable increase which
would ensue of Saxon influence in the German Empire. We
therefore suggest, that Prussia, Austria, and Russia, should
come to an intimate understanding with one another on this
most important subject.' ... This communication sounded
differently in the ears of the King from that which he had
received from Austria. The fears which agitated his own mind
and those of the Russian chancellor were identical. While
Austria called upon him to commit a political suicide, Russia
offered her aid in averting the most harassing danger, and
even opened a prospect of a considerable territorial increase.
The King had no doubt to which of the two Powers he ought to
incline. He would have come to terms with Russia on the spot,
had not an insurmountable obstacle existed in the new path
which was opened to the aggrandizement of Prussia,--viz., the
Polish treaty of 1790; in which Prussia had expressly bound
herself to protect the independence and integrity of Poland.
... He decided that there was no middle course between the
Russian and Austrian plans. On the one side was his Polish
treaty of 1790, the immediate consequence of which would be a
new breach, and perhaps a war, with Russia, and the final
result such a strengthening of Poland, as would throw back the
Prussian State into that subordinate position, both in Germany
and Europe, which it had occupied in the seventeenth century.
On the other side there was, indeed, a manifest breach of
faith, but also the salvation of Prussia from a perilous
dilemma, and perhaps the extension of her boundaries by a
goodly Polish Province. If he wavered at all in this conflict
of feeling, the Parisian complications soon put an end to his
doubts. In quick succession came the announcements that
Delessart's peaceful Ministry had fallen; that King Louis had
suffered the deepest humiliation; and that the helm of the
State had passed into the hands of the Girondist war party. A
declaration of war on the part of France against Francis· II.
might be daily expected, and the Russian-Polish contest would
then only form the less important moiety of the European
catastrophe. Austria would now be occupied for a long time in
the West; there could be no more question of the formation of
a Polish-Saxon State; and Austria could no longer be reckoned
upon to protect the constitution of 1791, or even to repel a
Russian invasion of Poland. Prussia was bound to aid the
Austrians against France, and for many months the King had
cherished no more ardent wish than to fulfil this obligation
with all his power.
{1505}
Simultaneously to oppose the Empress Catharine, was out of the
question. ... The King wrote on the 12th of March to his
Ministers as follows: ... 'Russia is not far removed from
thoughts of a new partition; and this would indeed be the most
effectual means of limiting the power of a Polish King,
whether hereditary or elective. I doubt, however, whether in
this case a suitable compensation could be found for Austria;
and whether, after such a curtailment of the power of Poland,
the Elector of Saxony would accept the crown. Yet if Austria
could be compensated, the Russian plan would be the most
advantageous for Prussia,--always provided that Prussia
received the whole left bank of the Vistula, by the
acquisition of which that distant frontier--so hard to be
defended--would be well rounded off. This is my judgment
respecting Polish affairs.' This was Poland's sentence of
death. It was not, as we have seen, the result of a
long-existing greed, but a suddenly seized expedient, which
seemed to be accompanied with the least evil, in the midst of
an unexampled European crisis. ... On the 20th of April the
French National Assembly proclaimed war against the King of
Hungary and Bohemia. A fortnight later the Prince of
Hohenlohe-Kirchberg appeared in Berlin to settle some common
plan for the campaign; and at the same time Kaunitz directed
Prince Reuss to enter into negociations on the political
question of expenditure and compensation. Count Schulenburg
... immediately sent a reply to the Prince, to the effect that
Prussia--as it had uniformly declared since the previous
summer--could only engage in the war on condition of receiving
an adequate compensation. ... Both statesmen well knew with
what secret mistrust each of these Powers contemplated the
aggrandizement of the other; their deliberations were
therefore conducted with slow and anxious caution, and months
passed by before their respective demands were reduced to any
definite shape."
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 4, chapter 1 (volume 2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1792.
Accession of the Emperor Francis II.
GERMANY: A. D. 1792-1793.
War with Revolutionary France.
The Coalition.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1791-1792; 1792 (APRIL-.JULY),
and (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER);
1792-1793 (DECEMBER-FEBRUARY);
1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL), (MARCH-SEPTEMBER),
and (JULY-DECEMBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1192-1796.
The second and third Partitions of Poland.
See POLAND: A. D. 1791-1792; and 1793-1796.
GERMANY: A. D. 1794.
Withdrawal of Prussia from the Coalition.
French conquest of the Austrian Netherlands and successes on
the Rhine.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).
GERMANY: A. D. 1795.
Treaty of Basle between Prussia and France.
Crumbling of the Coalition.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY).
GERMANY: A. D. 1796-1797.
Expulsion of Austria from Italy.
Bonaparte's first campaigns.
Advance of Moreau and Jourdan beyond the Rhine.
Their retreat.
Peace preliminaries of Leoben.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER);
and 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).
GERMANY: A. D. 1797 (October).
The Treaty of Campo Formio between Austria and France.
Austrian cession of the Netherlands and Lombardy and
acquisition of Venice.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1798.
The second Coalition against Revolutionary France.
Prussia and the Empire withheld from it.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).
GERMANY: A. D. 1799.
The Congress at Rastadt.
Murder of French envoys.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1800 (May-December).
The disastrous campaigns of Marengo and Hohenlinden.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).
GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.
The Peace of Luneville.
Territorial cessions and changes.
The settlement of indemnities in the Empire.
Confiscation and secularization of the ecclesiastical
principalities.
Absorption of Free Cities.
Re-constitution of the Electoral College.
"By the treaty of Luneville, which the Emperor Francis was
obliged to subscribe, 'not only as Emperor of Austria, but in
the name of the German empire,' Belgium and all the left bank
of the Rhine were again formally ceded to France; Lombardy was
erected into an independent state, and the Adige declared the
boundary betwixt it and the dominions of Austria; Venice, with
all its territorial possessions as far as the Adige, was
guaranteed to Austria; the Duke of Modena received the Brisgau
in exchange for his duchy, which was annexed to the Cisalpine
republic; the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Emperor's brother,
gave up his dominions to the infant Duke of Parma, a branch of
the Spanish family [who was thereupon raised to royal rank by the
fiat of Bonaparte, who transformed the grand-duchy of Tuscany
into the kingdom of Etruria], on the promise of an indemnity
in Germany; France abandoned Kehl, Cassel, and
Ehrenbreitstein, on condition that these forts should remain
in the situation in which they were when given up; the princes
dispossessed by the cession of the left bank of the Rhine were
promised an indemnity in the bosom of the Empire; the
independence of the Batavian, Helvetic, Cisalpine and Ligurian
republics was guaranteed, and their inhabitants declared 'to
have the power of choosing whatever form of government they
preferred.' These conditions did not differ materially from
those contained in the treaty of Campo Formio, or from those
offered by Napoleon previous to the renewal of the war. ...
The article which compelled the Emperor to subscribe this
treaty as head of the empire, as well as Emperor of Austria,
gave rise in the sequel ... to the most painful internal
divisions in Germany. By a fundamental law of the empire, the
Emperor could not bind the electors and states of which he was
the head, without either their concurrence or express powers
to that effect previously conferred. ... The emperor hesitated
long before he subscribed such a condition, which left the
seeds of interminable discord in the Germanic body; but the
conqueror was inexorable, and no means of evasion could be
found. He vindicated himself to the electors in a dignified
letter, dated 8th February 1801, the day before that when the
treaty was signed. ... The electors and princes of the empire
felt the force of this touching appeal; they commiserated the
situation of the first monarch in Christendom, compelled to
throw himself on his subjects for forgiveness of a step which
he could not avoid; and one of the first steps of the Diet of
the empire, assembled after the treaty of Luneville was
signed, was to give it their solemn ratification, grounded on
the extraordinary situation in which the Emperor was then
placed.
{1506}
But the question of indemnities to the dispossessed princes
was long and warmly agitated. It continued for above two years
to distract the Germanic body; the intervention both of France
and Russia was required to prevent the sword being drawn in
these internal disputes; and by the magnitude of the changes
which were ultimately made, and the habit of looking to
foreign protection which was acquired, the foundation was laid
of that league to support separate interests which afterwards,
under the name of the Confederation of the Rhine, so well
served the purposes of French ambition, and broke up the
venerable fabric of the German empire."
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 32 (volume 7).
"Germany: lost by this treaty about 24,000 square miles of its
best territory and 3,500,000 of its people; while the princes
were indemnified by the plunder of their peers. But the
hardest task, the satisfactory distribution of this plunder,
remained. While the Diet at Regensburg, after much complaint
and management, assigned the arrangement of these affairs to a
committee, the princely bargainers were in Paris, employing
the most disgraceful means to obtain the favor of Talleyrand
and other influential diplomatists. On the 25th of February,
1803, the final decision of the delegation or committee of the
empire was adopted by the Diet, and promulgated with the approval
of the emperor, Francis II., and of Prussia and Bavaria. It
confiscated all the spiritual principalities in Germany,
except that the Elector of Mayence, Charles Theodore of
Dalberg, received Regensburg, Aschaffenburg, and Wetzlar, as
an indemnity, and retained a seat and a voice in the imperial
Diet. Of the 48 free cities of the empire, six only
remained--Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, Frankfort, Nuremburg, and
Augsburg. Austria obtained the bishoprics of Trent and Brixen;
Prussia, as a compensation for the loss of 1,018 square miles
with 122,000 inhabitants west of the Rhine, received 4,875
square miles, with 580,000 inhabitants, including the
endowments of the religious houses of Hildesheim and
Paderborn, and most of Münster; also Erfurt and Eichsfeld, and
the free cities of Nordhausen, Mülhausen, and Goslar; Hanover
obtained Osnabruck; to Bavaria, in exchange for the
Palatinate, were assigned Würzburg, Bamberg, Freisingen,
Augsburg, and Passau, besides a number of cities of the
empire, in all about 6,150 square miles, to compensate for
4,240, vastly increasing its political importance. Wirtemberg,
too, was richly compensated for the loss of the Mömpelgard by
the confiscation of monastery endowments and free cities in
Suabia. But Baden made the best bargain of all, receiving
about 1,270 square miles of land, formerly belonging to
bishops or to the Palatinate, in exchange for 170. After this
acquisition, Baden extended, though in patches, from the
Neckar to the Swiss border. By building up these three South
German states, Napoleon sought to erect a barrier for himself
against Austria and Prussia. With the same design,
Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau were much enlarged. There were
multitudes of smaller changes, under the name of
'compensations and indemnities.' Four new lay electorates were
established in the place of the three secularized prelacies,
and were given to Baden, Wirtemberg, Hesse-Cassel, and
Salzburg. But they never had occasion to take part in the
election of an emperor."
C. T. Lewis,
History of Germany,
chapter 25, sections 26-27.
ALSO IN:
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and the Empire,
books 7 and 15 (volume 1).
J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).
GERMANY: A. D. 1803.
Bonaparte's seizure of Hanover in his war with England.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1802-1803.
GERMANY: A. D. 1805 (January-April).
The third Coalition against France.
Prussian Neutrality.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (JANUARY-APRIL).
GERMANY: A. D. 1805 (September-December).
Napoleon's overwhelming campaign.
The catastrophes at Ulm and Austerlitz.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (MARCH-DECEMBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806.
The Peace of Presburg.
Territorial losses of Austria.
Aggrandizement of Bavaria and Würtemberg, which become
kingdoms, and Baden a grand duchy.
The Confederation of the Rhine.
End of the Holy Roman Empire.
"On the 6th of December, hostilities ceased, and the Russians
retired by way of Galicia, but in accordance with the terms of
the armistice, the French troops continued to occupy all the
lands they had invaded, Austria, Tyrol, Venetia, Carniola,
Carinthia, and Styria; within Bohemia they were to have the
circle of Tabor, together with Brno and Znoymo in Moravia and
Pozsony (Pressburg) in Hungary. The Morava (March) and the
Hungarian frontier formed the line of demarcation between the
two armies. A definitive peace was signed at Pressburg on the
26th of December, 1805. Austria recognized the conquests of
France in Holland and Switzerland and the annexation of Genoa,
and ceded to the kingdom of Italy Friuli, Istria, Dalmatia with
its islands, and the Bocche di Cattaro. A little later, by the
explanatory Act of Fontainebleau, she lost the last of her
possessions to the west of the Isonzo, when she exchanged
those portions of the counties of Gorico and Gradisca which
are situated on the right bank of that river for the county of
Montefalcone in Istria. The new kingdoms of Bavaria and
Würtemberg [brought into existence by this treaty, through the
recognition of them by the Emperor Francis] were aggrandized
at the expense of Austria. Bavaria obtained Vorarlberg, the
county of Hohenembs, the town of Lindau, and the whole of
Tyrol, with Brixen and Trent. Austrian Suabia was given to
Würtemberg, while Breisgau and the Ortenau were bestowed on
the new grand duke of Baden. One compensation alone, the duchy
of Salzburg, fell to Austria for all her sacrifices, and this
has remained in her possession ever since. The old bishopric
of Würzburg was created an electorate and granted to Ferdinand
III. of Tuscany and Salzburg. Altogether the monarchy lost
about 25,400 square miles and nearly 3,000,000 of inhabitants.
She lost Tyrol with its brave and loyal inhabitants and the
Vörlande which had assured Austrian influence in Germany;
every possession on the Rhine, in the Black Forest, and on the
Lower Danube; she no longer touched either Switzerland or
Italy, and she ceased to be a maritime power. Besides all
this, she had to pay forty millions for the expenses of the
war, while she was exhausted by contributions and
requisitions. Vienna had suffered much, and the French army
had carried off the 2,000 cannons and the 100,000 guns which
had been contained in her arsenals. On the 16th of January,
1806, the emperor Francis returned to his capital.
{1507}
He was enthusiastically received, and the Viennese returned to
the luxurious and easy way of life which has always
characterized them. ... Austria seemed no longer to have any
part to play in German politics. Bavaria, Würtemberg and Baden
had been formed into a separate league--the Confederation of
the Rhine--under French protection. On the 1st of August,
1806, these states announced to the Reichstag at Ratisbon that
they looked upon the empire as at an end, and on the 6th,
Francis II. formally resigned the empire altogether, and
released all the Imperial officials from their engagements to
him. Thus the sceptre of Charlemagne fell from the hands of
the dynasty which had held it without interruption from 1438."
L. Leger,
History of Austro-Hungary,
chapter 25.
"Every bond of union was dissolved with the diet of the empire
and with the imperial chamber. The barons and counts of the
empire and the petty princes were mediatised; the princes of
Hohenlohe, Oettingen, Schwarzenberg, Thurn, and Taxis, the
Truchsess von Waldburg, Fürstenberg, Fugger, Leiningen,
Löwenstein, Solms, Hesse-Homburg, Wied-Runkel, and
Orange-Fulda, became subject to the neighbouring Rhenish
confederated princes. Of the remaining six imperial free
cities, Augsburg and Nuremberg fell to Bavaria; Frankfurt,
under the title of grand-duchy, to the ancient elector of
Mayence, who was again transferred thither from Ratisbon. The
ancient Hanse-towns, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen, alone
retained their freedom."
W. Menzel,
History of Germany,
chapter 253 (volume 3).
"A swift succession of triumphs had left only one thing still
preventing the full recognition of the Corsican warrior as
sovereign of Western Europe, and that one was the existence of
the old Romano-Germanic Empire. Napoleon had not long assumed
his new title when he began to mark a distinction between 'la
France' and 'l'Empire Française.' France had, since A. D.
1792, advanced to the Rhine, and, by the annexation of
Piedmont, had overstepped the Alps; the French Empire
included, besides the kingdom of Italy, a mass of dependent
states, Naples, Holland, Switzerland, and many German
principalities, the allies of France in the same sense in
which the 'socii populi Romani' were allies of Rome. When the
last of Pitt's coalitions had been destroyed at Austerlitz,
and Austria had made her submission by the peace of Presburg,
the conqueror felt that his hour was come. He had now overcome
two Emperors, those of Austria and Russia, claiming to
represent the old and new Rome respectively, and had in
eighteen months created more kings than the occupants of the
Germanic throne in as many centuries. It was time, he thought,
to sweep away obsolete pretensions, and claim the sole
inheritance of that Western Empire, of which the titles and
ceremonies of his court presented a grotesque imitation. The
task was an easy one after what had been already accomplished.
Previous wars and treaties had so redistributed the
territories and changed the constitution of the Germanic
Empire that it could hardly be said to exist in anything but
name. ... The Emperor Francis, partly foreboding the events
that were at hand, partly in order to meet Napoleon's
assumption of the imperial name by depriving that name of its
peculiar meaning, began in A. D. 1805 to style himself
'Hereditary Emperor of Austria,' while retaining at the same
time his former title. The next act of the drama was one in
which we may more readily pardon the ambition of a foreign
conqueror than the traitorous selfishness of the German
princes, who broke every tie of ancient friendship and duty to
grovel at his throne. By the Act of the Confederation of the
Rhine, signed at Paris, July 12th, 1806, Bavaria, Würtemberg,
Baden, and several other states, sixteen in all, withdrew from
the body and repudiated the laws of the Empire, while on
August 1st the French envoy at Regensburg announced to the
Diet that his master, who had consented to become Protector of
the Confederate princes, no longer recognized the existence of
the Empire. Francis II. resolved at once to anticipate this
new Odoacer, and by a declaration, dated August 6th, 1806,
resigned the imperial dignity. His deed states that finding it
impossible, in the altered state of things, to fulfil the
obligations imposed by his capitulation, he considers as
dissolved the bonds which attached him to the Germanic body,
releases from their allegiance the states who formed it, and
retires to the government of his hereditary dominions under
the title of 'Emperor of Austria.' Throughout, the term
'German Empire' (Deutsches Reich) is employed. But it was the
crown of Augustus, of Constantine, of Charles, of Maximilian,
that Francis of Hapsburg laid down, and a new era in the
world's history was marked by the fall of its most venerable
institution. One thousand and six years after Leo the Pope had
crowned the Frankish king, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight
years after Cæsar had conquered at Pharsalia, the Holy Roman
Empire came to its end."
J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 20.
GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (January-August).
The Confederation of the Rhine.
Cession of Hanover to Prussia.
Double dealing and weakness of the latter.
Her submission to Napoleon's insults and wrongs.
Final goading of the nation to war.
"The object at which all French politicians had aimed since
the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the exclusion of both
Austria and Prussia from influence in Western Germany, was now
completely attained. The triumph of French statesmanship, the
consummation of two centuries of German discord, was seen in
the Act of Federation subscribed by the Western German
Sovereigns in the summer of 1806. By this Act the Kings of
Bavaria and Würtemberg, the Elector of Baden, and 13 minor
princes, united themselves, in the League known as the Rhenish
Confederacy, under the protection of the French Emperor, and
undertook to furnish contingents, amounting to 63,000 men, in
all wars in which the French Empire should engage. Their
connection with the ancient Germanic Body was completely
severed; the very town in which the Diet of the Empire had
held its meetings was annexed by one of the members of the
Confederacy. The Confederacy itself, with a population of
8,000,000, became for all purposes of war and foreign policy a
part of France. Its armies were organised by French officers;
its frontiers were fortified by French engineers; its treaties
were made for it at Paris. In the domestic changes which took
place within these States the work of consolidation begun in
1801 was carried forward with increased vigour. Scores of tiny
principalities which had escaped dissolution in the earlier
movement were now absorbed by their stronger neighbours. ...
{1508}
With the establishment of the Rhenish Confederacy and the
conquest of Naples, Napoleon's empire reached, but did not
overpass, the limits within which the sovereignty of France
might probably have been long maintained. ... If we may judge
from the feeling with which Napoleon was regarded in Germany
down to the middle of the year 1806, and in Italy down to a
much later date, the Empire then founded might have been
permanently upheld, if Napoleon had abstained from attacking
other States." During the winter of 1806, Count Haugwitz, the
Prussian minister, had visited Paris "for the purpose of
obtaining some modification in the treaty which he had signed
[at the palace of Schönbrunn, near Vienna] on behalf of
Prussia after the battle of Austerlitz. The principal feature
in that treaty had been the grant of Hanover to Prussia by the
French Emperor in return for its alliance. This was the point
which above all others excited King Frederick William's fears
and scruples; He desired to acquire Hanover, but he also
desired to derive his title rather from its English owner
[King George III., who was also Elector of Hanover] than from
its French invader. It was the object of Haugwitz' visit to
Paris to obtain an alteration in the terms of the treaty which
should make the Prussian occupation of Hanover appear to be
merely provisional, and reserve to the King of England at
least a nominal voice in its ultimate transfer. In full
confidence that Napoleon would agree to such a change, the
King of Prussia, on taking possession of Hanover in January,
1806, concealed the fact of its cession to himself by
Napoleon, and published an untruthful proclamation. ... The
bitter truth that the treaty between France and Prussia
contained no single word reserving the rights of the Elector,
and that the very idea of qualifying the absolute cession of
Hanover was an afterthought, lay hidden in the conscience of
the Prussian Government. Never had a Government more
completely placed itself at the mercy of a pitiless enemy.
Count Haugwitz, on reaching Paris, was received by Napoleon
with a storm of indignation and contempt. Napoleon declared
that the ill-faith of Prussia had made an end even of that
miserable pact which had been extorted after Austerlitz, and
insisted that Prussia should openly defy Great Britain by
closing the ports of Northern Germany to British vessels, and
by declaring itself endowed by Napoleon with Hanover in virtue
of Napoleon's own right of conquest. Haugwitz signed a second
and more humiliating treaty [February 15] embodying these
conditions; and the Prussian Government, now brought into the
depths of contempt, but unready for immediate war, executed
the orders of its master. ... A decree was published excluding
the ships of England from the ports of Prussia and from those
of Hanover itself (March 28, 1806). It was promptly followed
by the seizure of 400 Prussian vessels in British harbours,
and by the total extinction of Prussian maritime commerce by
British privateers. Scarcely was Prussia committed to this
ruinous conflict with Great Britain when Napoleon opened
negotiations for peace with Mr. Fox's Government. The first
condition required by Great Britain was the restitution of
Hanover to King George III. It was unhesitatingly granted by
Napoleon. Thus was Prussia to be mocked of its prey, after it
had been robbed of all its honour. ... There was scarcely a
courtier in Berlin who did not feel that the yoke of the
French had become past endurance; even Haugwitz himself now
considered war as a question of time. The patriotic party in
the capital and the younger officers of the army bitterly
denounced the dishonoured Government, and urged the King to
strike for the credit of his country. ... Brunswick was
summoned to the King's council to form plans of a campaign;
and appeals for help were sent to Vienna, to St. Petersburg,
and even to the hostile Court of London. The condition of
Prussia at this critical moment was one which filled with the
deepest alarm those few patriotic statesmen who were not
blinded by national vanity or by a slavery to routine. ...
Early in the year 1806 a paper was drawn up by Stein,
exposing, in language seldom used by a statesman, the
character of the men by whom Frederick William was surrounded,
and declaring that nothing but a speedy change of system could
save the Prussian State from utter downfall and ruin. Two
measures of immediate necessity were specified by Stein, the
establishment of a responsible council of Ministers, and the
removal of Haugwitz and all his friends from power. ... The
army of Prussia ... was nothing but the army of Frederick the
Great grown twenty years older. ... All Southern Germany was
still in Napoleon's hands. The appearance of a Russian force
in Dalmatia, after that country had been ceded by Austria to
the French Emperor, had given Napoleon an excuse for
maintaining his troops in their positions beyond the Rhine. As
the probability of a war with Prussia became greater and greater,
Napoleon tightened his grasp upon the Confederate States.
Publications originating among the patriotic circles of
Austria were beginning to appeal to the German people to unite
against a foreign oppressor. An anonymous pamphlet, entitled
'Germany in its Deep Humiliation,' was sold by various
booksellers in Bavaria, among others by Palm, a citizen of
Nuremberg. There is no evidence that Palm was even acquainted
with the contents of the pamphlet; but ... Napoleon ...
required a victim to terrify those who, among the German
people, might be inclined to listen to the call of patriotism.
Palm was not too obscure for the new Charlemagne. The innocent
and unoffending man, innocent even of the honourable crime of
attempting to save his country, was dragged before a tribunal
of French soldiers, and executed within twenty-four hours of
his trial, in pursuance of the imperative orders of Napoleon
(August 26). ... Several years later, ... the story of Palm's
death was one of those that kindled the bitterest sense of
wrong; at the time, it exercised no influence upon the course
of political events. Prussia had already resolved upon war."
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapters 6-7.
ALSO IN:
Sir W. Scott,
Life of Napoleon,
chapters 51-52.
J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 2, chapters 4-5 (volume 1).
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapter 15.
{1509}
GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (October).
Napoleon's sudden invasion of Prussia.
The decisive battle of Jena.
Prostration of the Prussian Kingdom.
"The Emperor of Russia ... visited Berlin, when the feelings
of Prussia, and indeed of all the neighbouring states, were in
this fever of excitement. He again urged Frederick William to
take up arms in the common cause, and offered to back him with
all the forces of his own great empire. The English
government, taking advantage of the same crisis, sent Lord
Morpeth to Berlin, with offers of pecuniary supplies--about
the acceptance of which, however, the anxiety of Prussia on
the subject of Hanover created some difficulty. Lastly,
Buonaparte, well informed of what was passing in Berlin, and
desirous, since war must be, to hurry Frederick into the field
ere the armies of the Czar could be joined with his, now
poured out in the 'Moniteur' such abuse on the persons and
characters of the Queen, Prince Louis, and every illustrious
patriot throughout Prussia, that the general wrath could no
longer be held in check. War-like preparations of every kind
filled the kingdom during August and September. On the 1st of
October the Prussian minister at Paris presented a note to
Talleyrand, demanding, among other things, that the formation
of a confederacy in the north of Germany should no longer be
thwarted by French interference, and that the French troops
within the territories of the Rhenish League should recross
the Rhine into France, by the 8th of the same month of
October. But Napoleon was already in person on the German side
of the Rhine; and his answer to the Prussian note was a
general order to his own troops, in which he called on them to
observe in what manner a German sovereign still dared to
insult the soldiers of Austerlitz. The conduct of Prussia, in
thus rushing into hostilities without waiting for the advance
of the Russians, was as rash as her holding back from Austria
during the campaign of Austerlitz had been cowardly. As if
determined to profit by no lesson, the Prussian council also
directed their army to advance towards the French, instead of
lying on their own frontier--a repetition of the great leading
blunder of the Austrians in the preceding year. The Prussian
army accordingly invaded the Saxon provinces, and the Elector
... was compelled to accept the alliance which the cabinet of
Berlin urged on him, and to join his troops with those of the
power by which he had been thus insulted and wronged. No
sooner did Napoleon know that the Prussians had advanced into
the heart of Saxony, than he formed the plan of his campaign;
and they, persisting in their advance, and taking up their
position finally on the Saale, afforded him, as if studiously,
the means of repeating, at their expense, the very manœvres which
had ruined the Austrians in the preceding campaign." The flank
of the Prussian position was turned,--the bridge across the
Saale, at Saalfield, having been secured, after a hot
engagement with the corps of Prince Louis of Prussia who fell
in the fight,--"the French army passed entirely round them;
Napoleon seized Naumburg and blew up the magazines
there,--announcing, for the first time, by this explosion, to
the King of Prussia and his generalissimo the Duke of
Brunswick, that he was in their rear. From this moment the
Prussians were isolated, and cut off from all their resources,
as completely as the army of Mack was at Ulm, when the French
had passed the Danube and overrun Suabia. The Duke of
Brunswick hastily endeavoured to concentrate his forces for
the purpose of cutting his way back again to the frontier
which he had so rashly abandoned. Napoleon, meantime, had
posted his divisions so as to watch the chief passages of the
Saale, and expected, in confidence, the assault of his
outwitted opponent. It was now that he found leisure to answer
the manifesto of Frederick William. ... His letter, dated at
Gera, is written in the most elaborate style of insult. ...
The Prussian King understood well, on learning the fall of
Naumburg, the imminent danger of his position; and his army
was forthwith set in motion, in two great masses; the former,
where he was in person present, advancing towards Naumburg;
the latter attempting, in like manner, to force their passage
through the French line in the neighbourhood of Jena. The
King's march was arrested at Auerstadt by Davoust, who, after
a severely contested action, at length repelled the assailant.
Napoleon himself, meanwhile, was engaged with the other great
body of the Prussians. Arriving on the evening of the 13th
October at Jena, he perceived that the enemy were ready to
attempt the advance next morning, while his own heavy train
was still six-and-thirty hours' march in his rear. Not
discouraged with this adverse circumstance, the Emperor
laboured all night in directing and encouraging his soldiery
to cut a road through the rocks, and draw up by that means
such light guns as he had at command to a position on a lofty
plateau in front of Jena, where no man could have expected
beforehand that any artillery whatever should be planted. ...
Lannes commanded the centre, Augereau the right, Soult the
left, and Murat the reserve and cavalry. Soult had to sustain
the first assault of the Prussians, which was violent--and
sudden; for the mist lay so thick on the field that the armies
were within half-gunshot of each other ere the sun and wind
rose and discovered them, and on that instant Mollendorf
charged. The battle was contested well for some time on this
point; but at length Ney appeared in the rear of the Emperor
with a fresh division; and then the French centre advanced to
a general charge, before which the Prussians were forced to
retire. They moved for some space in good order; but Murat now
poured his masses of cavalry on them, storm after storm, with
such rapidity and vehemence that their rout became inevitable.
It ended in the complete breaking up of the army--horse and
foot all flying together, in the confusion of panic, upon the
road to Weimar. At that point the fugitives met and mingled
with their brethren flying, as confusedly as themselves, from
Auerstadt. In the course of this disastrous day 20,000
Prussians were killed or taken, 300 guns, 20 generals, and 60
standards. The Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Brunswick,
being wounded in the face with a grape-shot, was carried early
off the field, never to recover. ... The various routed
divisions roamed about the country, seeking separately the
means of escape: they were in consequence destined to fall an
easy prey. ... The Prince of Hohenlohe at length drew together
not less than 50,000 of these wandering soldiers," and retreated
towards the Oder; but was forced, in the end, to lay down his
arms at Prentzlow. "His rear, consisting of about 10,000,
under the command of the celebrated General Blucher, was so
far behind as to render it possible for them to attempt
escape. Their heroic leader traversed the country with them
for some time unbroken, and sustained a variety of assaults,
from far superior numbers, with the most obstinate resolution.
{1510}
By degrees, however, the French, under Soult, hemmed him in on
one side, Murat on the other, and Bernadotte appeared close
behind him. He was thus forced to throw himself into Lubeck,
where a severe action was fought in the streets of the town,
on the 6th of November. The Prussian, in this battle, lost
4,000 prisoners, besides the slain and wounded: he retreated
to Schwerta, and there, it being impossible for him to go
farther without violating the neutrality of Denmark, on the
morning of the 7th, Blucher at length laid down his arms. ...
The strong fortresses of the Prussian monarchy made as
ineffectual resistance as the armies in the field. ...
Buonaparte, in person, entered Berlin on the 25th of October;
and before the end of November, except Konigsberg--where the
King himself had found refuge, and gathered round, him a few
thousand troops ... --and a few less important fortresses, the
whole of the German possessions of the house of Brandenburg
were in the hands of the conqueror. Louis Buonaparte, King of
Holland, meanwhile had advanced into Westphalia and occupied
that territory also, with great part of Hanover, East
Friesland, Embden, and the dominions of Hesse-Cassel."
J. G. Lockhart,
Life of Napoleon,
chapter 20.
ALSO IN:
C. Adams,
Great Campaigns in Europe from 1796 to 1870,
chapter. 4.
Baron Jomini,
Life of Napoleon,
chapter 9 (volume 2),
Memoirs of Napoleon dictated at St. Helena,
volume 6, pages 60-72.
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 43 (volume 10).
Duke of Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 1, part 2, chapters 21-23.
GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (October-December).
Napoleon's ungenerous use of his victory.
His insults to the Queen of Prussia.
The kingdom governed as conquered territory.
The French advance into Poland, to meet the Russians.
Saxony made a kingdom.
"Napoleon made a severe and ungenerous use of his victory. The
old Duke of Brunswick, respectable from his age, his
achievements under the Great Frederick, and the honourable
wounds he had recently received on the field of battle, and
who had written a letter to Napoleon, after the battle of
Jena, recommending his subjects to his generosity, was in an
especial manner the object of invective. His states were
overrun, and the official bulletins disgraced by a puerile
tirade against a general who had done nothing but discharge
his duty to his sovereign. For this he was punished by the
total confiscation of his dominions. So virulent was the
language employed, and such the apprehensions in consequence
inspired, that the wounded general was compelled, with great
personal suffering, to take refuge in Altona, where he soon
after died. The Queen, whose spirit in prosperous and
constancy in adverse fortune had justly endeared her to her
subjects, and rendered her the admiration of all Europe, was
pursued in successive bulletins with unmanly sarcasms; and a
heroic princess, whose only fault, if fault it was, had been
an excess of patriotic ardour, was compared to Helen, whose
faithless vices had involved her country in the calamities
consequent on the siege of Troy. The whole dominions of the
Elector of Hesse Cassel were next seized; and that prince, who
had not even combated at Jena, but merely permitted, when he
could not prevent, the entry of the Prussians into his
dominions, was dethroned and deprived of all his possessions.
... The Prince of Orange, brother-in-law to the King of
Prussia, ... shared the same fate: while to the nobles of
Berlin he used publicly the cruel expression, more withering
to his own reputation than theirs,--'I will render that
noblesse so poor that they shall be obliged to beg their
bread.' ... Meanwhile the French armies, without any further
resistance, took possession of the whole country between the
Rhine and the Oder; and in the rear of the victorious bands
appeared, in severity unprecedented even in the revolutionary
armies, the dismal scourge of contributions. Resolved to
maintain the war exclusively on the provinces which were to be
its theatre, Napoleon had taken only 24,000 francs in specie
across the Rhine in the military chest of the army. It soon
appeared from whom the deficiency was to be supplied. On the
day after the battle of Jena appeared a proclamation,
directing the levy of an extraordinary war contribution of
159,000,000 francs (£6,300,000) on the countries at war with
France, of which 100,000,000 was to be borne by the Prussian
states to the west of the Vistula, 25,000,000 by the Elector
of Saxony [who had already detached himself from his alliance
with Prussia], and the remainder by the lesser states in the
Prussian confederacy. This enormous burden ... was levied with
unrelenting severity. ... Nor was this all. The whole civil
authorities who remained in the abandoned provinces were
compelled to take an oath of fidelity to the French
Emperor,--an unprecedented step, which clearly indicated the
intention of annexing the Prussian dominions to the great
nation. ... Early in November there appeared an elaborate
ordinance, which provided for the complete civil organisation
and military occupation of the whole country from the Rhine to
the Vistula. By this decree the conquered states were divided
into four departments; those of Berlin, of Magdeburg, of
Stettin, and of Custrin; the military and civil government of
the whole conquered territory was intrusted to a
governor-general at Berlin, having under him eight commanders
of provinces into which it was divided. ... The same system of
government was extended to the duchy of Brunswick, the states
of Hesse and Hanover, the duchy of Mecklenburg, and the Hanse
towns, including Hamburg, which was speedily oppressed by
grievous contributions. ... The Emperor openly announced his
determination to retain possession of all these states till
England consented to his demands on the subject of the liberty
of the seas. ... Meanwhile the negotiations for the conclusion of
a separate peace between France and Prussia were resumed. ...
The severity of the terms demanded, as well as ... express
assurances that no concessions, how great soever, could lead
to a separate accommodation, as Napoleon was resolved to
retain all his conquests until a general peace, led, as might
have been expected, to the rupture of the negotiations.
Desperate as the fortunes of Prussia were, ... the King ...
declared his resolution to stand or fall with the Emperor of
Russia [who was vigorously preparing to fulfil his promise of
help to the stricken nation]. This refusal was anticipated by
Napoleon. It reached him at Posen, whither he had advanced on
his road to the Vistula; and nothing remained but to enter
vigorously on the prosecution of the war in Poland.
{1511}
To this period of the war belongs the famous Berlin decree
[see FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810] of the 21st November against the
commerce of Great Britain. ... Napoleon ... at Posen, in
Prussian Poland, gave audience to the deputies of that unhappy
kingdom, who came to implore his support to the remains of its
once mighty dominion. His words were calculated to excite
hopes which his subsequent conduct never realised. ... While
the main body of the French army was advancing by rapid
strides from the Oder to the Vistula, Napoleon, ever anxious
to secure his communications, and clear his rear of hostile
bodies, caused two different armies to advance to support the
flanks of the invading force. ... The whole of the north of
Germany was overrun by French troops, while 100,000 were
assembling to meet the formidable legions of Russia in the
heart of Poland. Vast as the forces of Napoleon were, such
prodigious efforts, over so great an extent of surface,
rendered fresh supplies indispensable. The senate at Paris was
ready to furnish them; and on the requisition of the Emperor
80,000 were voted from the youth who were to arrive at the
military age in 1807. ... A treaty, offensive and defensive,
between Saxony and France, was the natural result of these
successes. This convention, arranged by Talleyrand, was signed
at Posen, on the 12th December. It stipulated that the Elector
of Saxony should be elevated to the dignity of king; he was
admitted into the Confederation of the Rhine, and his
contingent fixed at 20,000 men. By a separate article, it was
provided that the passage of foreign troops across the kingdom
of Saxony should take place without the consent of the sovereign:
a provision which sufficiently pointed it out as a military
outpost of the great nation--while, by a subsidiary treaty,
signed at Posen three days afterwards, the whole minor princes
of the House of Saxony were also admitted into the
Confederacy."
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 43, sections 87-99 (volume 10).
ALSO IN:
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapter 16.
Mrs. S. Austin,
Germany from 1760 to 1814,
page 294, and after.
E. H. Hudson,
Life and Times of Louisa,
Queen of Prussia, volume 2, chapters 8-9.
GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1807.
Opening of Napoleon's campaign against the Russians.
The deluding of the Poles.
indecisive battle of Eylau.
The campaign against the Russians "opened early in the winter.
The 1st of November, the Russians and French marched towards
the Vistula, the former from the Memel, the latter from the
Oder. Fifty thousand Russians pressed forward under General
Benningsen; a second and equal army followed at a distance
with a reserve force. Some of the Russian forces on the
Turkish frontier were recalled, but were still remote. The
first two Russian armies, with the remaining Prussians,
numbered about 120,000. England made many promises and kept
few of them, thinking more of conquering Spanish and Dutch
colonies than of helping her allies. Her aid was limited to a
small reinforcement of the Swedes guarding Swedish Pomerania,
the only portion of Northern Germany not yet in French power.
Gustavus II., the young King of Sweden, weak and impulsive,
rushed headlong, without a motive, into the ... alliance
[against Napoleon], destined to be so fatal to Sweden. ...
Eighty thousand men under Murat crossed the Oder and entered
Prussian Poland, and an equal number stood ready to sustain
them. November 9, Davout's division entered Posen, the
principal town of the Polish provinces still preserving the
national sentiment, and whose people detested Prussian rule
and resented the treachery with which Prussia dismembered
Poland after swearing alliance with her. All along the road,
the peasants hastened to meet the French; and at Posen, Davout
was hailed with an enthusiasm which moved even him, cold and
severe as he was, and he urged Napoleon to justify the hopes
of Poland, who looked to him as her savior. The Russian
vanguard reached Warsaw before the French, but made no effort
to remain there, and recrossed the Vistula. November 28,
Davout and Murat entered the town, and public delight knew no
bounds. It would be a mere illusion to fancy that sentiments
of right and justice had any share in Napoleon's resolve, and
that he was stirred by a desire to repair great wrongs. His
only question was whether the resurrection of Poland would
increase his greatness or not; and if he told the Sultan that
he meant to restore Poland, it was because he thought Turkey
would assist him the more willingly against Russia. He also
offered part of Silesia to Austria, if she would aid him in
the restoration of Poland by the cession of her Polish
provinces; but it was not a sufficient offer, and therefore
not serious. The truth was that he wanted promises from the
Poles before he made any to them. ... Thousands of Poles
enlisted under the French flag and joined the Polish legions
left from the Italian war. Napoleon established a provisional
government of well-known Poles in Warsaw, and required nothing
but volunteers of the country. He had seized without a blow
that line of the Vistula which the Prussian king would not
barter for a truce, and might have gone into winter-quarters
there; but the Russians were close at hand on the opposite
shore, in two great divisions 100,000 strong, in a wooded and
marshy country forming a sort of triangle, whose point touches
the union of the Narew and Ukra rivers with the Vistula, a few
leagues below Warsaw. The Russians communicated with the sea
by a Prussian corps stationed between them and Dantzic.
Napoleon would not permit them to hold this post, and resolved
to strike a blow, before going into winter-quarters, which
should cut them off from the sea and drive them back towards
the Memel and Lithuania. He crossed the Vistula, December 23,
and attacked the Russians between the Narew and the Ukra. A
series of bloody battles followed [the most important being at
Pultusk and Golymin, December 26] in the dense forests and deep
bogs of the thawing land. Napoleon said that he had discovered
a fifth element in Poland,--mud. Men and horses stuck in the
swamp and the cannons could not be extricated. Luckily the
Russians were in the incompetent hands of General Kamenski,
and both parties fought in the dark, the labyrinth of swamps
and woods preventing either army from guessing the other's
movements. The Russians were finally driven, with great loss,
beyond the Narew towards the forests of Belostok, and a
Prussian corps striving to assist them was driven back to the
sea. ... The grand army did not long enjoy the rest it so much
needed; for the Russians, whose losses were more than made up
by the arrival of their reserves, suddenly resumed the
offensive.
{1512}
General Benningsen, who gave a fearful proof of his sinister
energy by the murder of Paul I., had been put in command in
Kamenski's place. Marching round the forests and traversing
the line of lakes which divide the basin of the Narew from
those watercourses flowing directly to the sea, he reached the
maritime part of old Prussia, intending to cross the Vistula
and drive the French from their position in Poland. He had
hoped to surprise the French left wing, lying between the
Passarge and Lower Vistula, but arrived too late. Ney and
Bernadotte rapidly concentrated their forces and fought with a
bravery which arrested the Russians (January 25 and 27).
Napoleon came to the rescue, and having once driven the enemy
into the woods and marshes of the interior, now strove to turn
those who meant to turn him, by an inverse action forcing them
to the sea-coast. ... Benningsen then halted beyond Eylau, and
massed his forces to receive battle next day [February 8]. He
had about 70,000 men, twice the artillery of Napoleon (400
guns against 200), and hoped to be joined betimes by a
Prussian corps. Napoleon could only dispose of 60,000 out of
his 300,000 men,--Ney being some leagues away and Bernadotte
out of reach. ... The battlefield was a fearful sight next
day. Twelve thousand Russians and 10,000 French lay dying and
dead on the vast fields of snow reddened with blood. The
Russians, besides, carried off 15,000 wounded. 'What an
ineffectual massacre" cried Ney, as he traversed the scene of
carnage. This was too true; for although Napoleon drove the
Russians to the sea, it was not in the way he desired.
Benningsen succeeded in reaching Konigsberg, where he could
rest and reinforce his army, and Napoleon was not strong
enough to drive him from this last shelter."
H. Martin,
Popular History of France from 1789,
volume 2, chapter 11.
ALSO IN:
Baron Jomini,
Life of Napoleon,
chapter 10 (volume 2).
C. Joyneville,
Life and Times of Alexander I.,
volume 1, chapter 8.
J. C. Ropes,
The First Napoleon,
lecture 3.
Baron de Marbot,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 29-30.
GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1810.
Commercial blockade by the English Orders in Council and
Napoleon's Decrees.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810.
GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (February-June).
Closer alliance of Prussia and Russia.
Treaty of Bartenstein.
Napoleon's victory at Friedland.
End of the campaign.
The effect produced in Europe by the doubtful battle of Eylau
"was unlucky for France; in Paris the Funds fell. Bennigsen
boldly ordered the Te Deum to be sung. In order to confirm his
victory, re-organise his army, reassure France, re-establish
the opinion of Europe, encourage the Polish insurrection, and
to curb the ill-will of Germany and Austria, Napoleon remained
a week at Eylau. He negotiated: on one side he caused
Talleyrand to write to Zastrow, the Prussian foreign minister,
to propose peace and his alliance; he sent Bertrand to Memel
to offer to re-establish the King of Prussia, on the condition
of no foreign intervention. He also tried to negotiate with
Bennigsen; to which the latter made answer, 'that his master
had charged him to fight, and not negotiate.' After some
hesitation, Prussia ended by joining her fortunes to those of
Russia. By the convention of Bartenstein (25th April, 1807)
the two sovereigns came to terms on the following points:
1. The re-establishment of Prussia within the limits of 1805.
2. The dissolution of the Confederation of the Rhine.
3. The restitution to Austria of the Tyrol and Venice.
4. The accession of England to the coalition, and the
aggrandisement of Hanover.
5. The co-operation of Sweden.
6. The restoration of the house of Orange, and indemnities to
the kings of Naples and Sardinia.
This document is important; it nearly reproduces the
conditions offered to Napoleon at the Congress of Prague, in
1813. Russia and Prussia proposed then to make a more pressing
appeal to Austria, Sweden, and England; but the Emperor
Francis was naturally undecided, and the Archduke Charles,
alleging the state of the finances and the army, strongly
advised him against any new intervention. Sweden was too weak;
and notwithstanding his fury against Napoleon, Gustavus III.
had just been forced to treat with Mortier. The English
minister showed a remarkable inability to conceive the
situation; he refused to guarantee the new Russian loan of a
hundred and fifty millions, and would lend himself to no
maritime diversion. Napoleon showed the greatest diplomatic
activity. The Sultan Selim III. declared war against Russia;
General Sebastiani, the envoy at Constantinople, put the
Bosphorus in a state of defence, and repulsed the English
fleet [see TURKS: A. D. 1806-1807]; General Gardane left for
Ispahan, with a mission to cause a Persian outbreak in the
Caucasus. Dantzig had capitulated [May 24, after a long
siege], and Lefèbvre's 40,000 men were therefore ready for
service. Masséna took 36,000 of them into Italy, In the
spring, Bennigsen, who had been reinforced by 10,000 regular
troops, 6,000 Cossacks, and the Imperial Guard, being now at
the head of 100,000 men, took the offensive; Gortchakof
commanding the right and Bagration the left. He tried, as in
the preceding year, to seize Ney's division; but the latter
fought, as he retired, two bloody fights, at Gutstadt and
Ankendorff. Bennigsen, again in danger of being surrounded,
retired on Heilsberg. He defended himself bravely (June 10);
but the French, extending their line on his right, marched on
Eylau, so as to cut him off from Konigsberg. The Russian
generalissimo retreated; but being pressed, he had to draw up
at Friedland, on the Alle. The position he had taken up was
most dangerous. All his army was enclosed in an angle of the
Alle, with the steep bed of the river at their backs, which in
case of misfortune left them only one means of retreat, over
the three bridges of Friedland. ... 'Where are the Russians
concealed?' asked Napoleon when he came up. When he had noted
their situation, he exclaimed, 'It is not every day that one
surprises the enemy in such a fault.' He put Lannes and Victor
in reserve, ordered Mortier to oppose Gortchakof on the left
and to remain still, as the movement which 'would be made by
the right would pivot on the left.' As to Ney, he was to cope
on the right with Bagration, who was shut in by the angle of
the river; he was to meet them 'with his head down,' without
taking any care of his own safety. Ney led the charge with
irresistible fury; the Russians were riddled by his artillery
at 150 paces: he successively crushed the chasseurs of the
Russian Guard, the Ismaïlovski, and the Horse Guards, burnt
Friedland by shells, and cannonaded the bridges which were the
only means of retreat. ... The Russian left wing was almost
thrown into the river; Bagration, with the Semenovski and
other troops, was hardly able to cover the defeat.
{1513}
On the Russian right, Gortchakof, who had advanced to attack
the immovable Mortier, had only time to ford the Alle. Count
Lambert retired with 29 guns by the left bank; the rest fled
by the right bank, closely pursued by the cavalry. Meanwhile
Murat, Davoust, and Soult, who had taken no part in the
battle, arrived before Konigsberg. Lestocq, with 25,000 men,
tried to defend it, but on learning the disaster of Friedland
he hastily evacuated it. Only one fortress now remained to
Frederick William--the little town of Memel. The Russians had
lost at Friedland from 15,000 to 20,000 men, besides 80 guns
(June 14, 1807). ... Alexander had no longer an army. Only one
man, Barclay de Tolly, proposed to continue the war; but in
order to do this it would be necessary to re-enter Russia, to
penetrate into the very heart of the empire, to burn
everything on the way, and only present a desert to the enemy.
Alexander hoped to get off more cheaply. He wrote a severe
letter to Bennigsen, and gave him powers to treat."
A. Rambaud,
History of Russia,
volume 2, chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
Duke de Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 2, part 1, chapters 4-6.
GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (June-July).
The Treaty of Tilsit.
Its known and its unknown agreements.
"Alexander I. now determined to negotiate in person with the
rival emperor, and on the 25th of June the two sovereigns met
at Tilsit, on a raft which was moored in the middle of the
Niemen. The details of the conference are a secret, as
Napoleon's subsequent account of it is untrustworthy, and no
witnesses were present. All that is certain is that Alexander
I., whose character was a curious mixture of nobility and
weakness, was completely won over by his conqueror. ...
Napoleon, ... instead of attempting to impose extreme terms
upon a country which it was impossible to conquer, ... offered
to share with Russia the supremacy in Europe which had been
won by French arms. The only conditions were the abandonment
of the cause of the old monarchies, which seemed hopeless, and
an alliance with France against England. Alexander had several
grievances against the English government, especially the
lukewarm support that had been given in recent operations, and
made no objection to resume the policy of his predecessors in
this respect. Two interviews sufficed to arrange the basis of
an agreement. Both sovereigns abandoned their allies without
scruple. Alexander gave up Prussia and Sweden, while Napoleon
deserted the cause of the Poles, who had trusted to his zeal
for their independence, and of the Turks, whom his envoy had
recently induced to make war upon Russia. The Treaty of Tilsit
was speedily drawn up; on the 7th of July peace was signed
between France and Russia, on the 9th between France and
Prussia. Frederick William III. had to resign the whole of his
kingdom west of the Elbe, together with all the acquisitions
which Prussia had made in the second and third partitions of
Poland. The provinces that were left, amounting to barely half
of what he had inherited, were burthened with the payment of
an enormous sum as compensation to France. The district west
of the Elbe was united with Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick, and
ultimately with Hanover, to form the kingdom of Westphalia,
which was given to Napoleon's youngest brother, Jerome. Of
Polish Prussia, one province, Bialystock, was added to Russia,
and the rest was made into the grand duchy of Warsaw, and
transferred to Saxony. Danzig, with the surrounding territory,
was declared a free state under Prussian and Saxon protection,
but it was really subject to France, and remained a centre of
French power on the Baltic. All trade between Prussia and
England was cut off. Alexander I., on his side, recognised all
Napoleon's new creations in Europe--the Confederation of the
Rhine, the kingdoms of Italy, Naples, Holland, and Westphalia,
and undertook to mediate between France and England. But the
really important agreement between France and Russia was to be
found, not in the formal treaties, but in the secret
conventions which were arranged by the two emperors. The exact
text of these has never been made public, and it is probable
that some of the terms rested upon verbal rather than on
written understandings, but the general drift of them is
unquestionable. The bribe offered to Alexander was the
aggrandisement of Russia in the East. To make him an
accomplice in the acts of Napoleon, he was to be allowed to
annex Finland from Sweden, and Moldavia and Wallachia from
Turkey. With regard to England, Russia undertook to adopt
Napoleon's blockade-system, and to obtain the adhesion of
those states which still remained open to English
trade--Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal."
H. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 24, section 25.
"'I thought,' said Napoleon at St. Helena, 'it would benefit
the world to drive these brutes, the Turks, out of Europe. But
when I reflected what power it would give to Russia, from the
number of Greeks in the Turkish dominions who may be
considered Russians, I refused to consent to it, especially as
Alexander wanted Constantinople, which would have destroyed
the equilibrium of power in Europe. France would gain Egypt,
Syria, and the islands; but those were nothing to what Russia
would have obtained.' This coincides with Savary's [Duke de
Rovigo's] statement, that Alexander told him Napoleon said he
was under no engagements to the new Sultan, and that changes
in the world inevitably changed the relations of states to one
another; and again, Alexander said that, in their
conversations at Tilsit, Napoleon often told him he did not
require the evacuation of Moldavia and Wallachia; he would
place things in a train to dispense with it, and it was not
possible to suffer longer the presence of the Turks in Europe.
'He even left me,' said Alexander, 'to entertain the project
of driving them back into Asia. It is only since that he has
returned to the idea of leaving Constantinople to them, and
some surrounding provinces.' Due day, when Napoleon was
talking to Alexander, he asked his secretary, M. Meneval, for
the map of Turkey, opened it, then renewed the conversation;
and placing his finger on Constantinople said several times to
the secretary, though not loud enough to be heard by
Alexander, 'Constantinople, Constantinople, never. It is the
capital of the world.' ... It is very evident in their
conversations that Napoleon agreed to his [Alexander's]
possessing himself of the Turkish Empire up to the Balkan, if
not beyond; though Bignon denies that any plan for the actual
partition of Turkey was embodied in the treaty of Tilsit.
Hardenberg, not always well informed, asserts that it was.
{1514}
Savary says he could not believe that Napoleon would have
abandoned the Turks without a compensation in some other
quarter; and he felt certain Alexander had agreed in return to
Napoleon's project for the conquest of Spain, 'which the
Emperor had very much at heart'"
C. Joyneville,
Life and Times of Alexander I.,
volume 1, chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 46 (volume 10).
Count Miot de Melito,
Memoirs,
chapter 24.
P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
chapters 3-4.
Prince de Talleyrand,
Memoirs,
part 3 (volume 1).
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and the Empire,
book 27 (volume 2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (July).
The collapse of Prussia and its Causes.
"For the five years that followed, Prussia is to be conceived,
in addition to all her other humiliations, as in the hands of
a remorseless creditor whose claims are decided by himself
without appeal, and who wants more than all he can get. She is
to be thought of as supporting for more than a year after the
conclusion of the Treaty a French army of more than 150,000
men, then as supporting a French garrison in three principal
fortresses, and finally, just before the period ends, as
having to support the huge Russian expedition in its passage
through the country. ... It was not in fact from the Treaty of
Tilsit, but from the systematic breach of it, that the
sufferings of Prussia between 1807 and 1813 arose. It is
indeed hardly too much to say that the advantage of the Treaty
was received only by France, and that the only object Napoleon
can have had in signing it was to inflict more harm on Prussia
than he could inflict by simply continuing the war. Such was
the downfall of Prussia. The tremendousness of the catastrophe
strikes us less because we know that it was soon retrieved,
and that Prussia rose again and became greater than ever. But
could this recovery be anticipated? A great nation, we say,
cannot be dissolved by a few disasters; patriotism and energy
will retrieve everything. But precisely these seemed wanting.
The State seemed to have fallen in pieces because it had no
principle of cohesion, and was only held together by an
artificial bureaucracy. It had been created by the energy of
its government and the efficiency of its soldiers, and now it
appeared to come to an end because its government had ceased
to be energetic and its soldiers to be efficient. The
catastrophe could not but seem as irremediable as it was
sudden and complete." There may be discerned "three distinct
causes for it. First, the undecided and pusillanimous policy
pursued by the Prussian government since 1803 had an evident
influence upon the result by making the great Powers,
particularly England and Austria, slow to render it
assistance, and also by making the commanders, especially
Brunswick, irresolute in action because they could not, even
at the last moment, believe the war to be serious. This
indecision we have observed to have been connected with a
mal-organisation of the Foreign Department. Secondly, the
corruption of the military system, which led to the surrender
of the fortresses. Thirdly, a misfortune for which Prussia was
not responsible, its desertion by Russia at a critical moment,
and the formation of a close alliance between Russia and
France."
J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 2, chapter 5 (volume 1).
GERMANY: A. D. 1807-1808.
The great Revolutionary Reforms of Hardenberg, Stein and
Scharnhorst.
Edict of Emancipation.
Military reorganization.
Beginning of local self-government.
Seeds of a new national life.
"The work of those who resisted Napoleon--even if no one of
them should ever be placed in the highest class of the
benefactors of mankind--has in some cases proved enduring, and
nowhere so much as in Germany. They began two great works--the
reorganisation of Prussia and the revival of the German
nationality, and time has deliberately ratified their views.
Without retrogression, without mistake, except the mistake
which in such matters is the most venial that can be
committed, that, namely, of over-caution, of excessive
hesitation, the edifice which was then founded has been raised
higher and higher till it is near completion. ... Because
Frederick-William III. remains quietly seated on the throne
through the whole period, we remain totally unaware that a
Prussian revolution took place then--a revolution so
comprehensive that the old reign and glories of Frederick may
fairly be said to belong to another world--to an 'ancien
regime' that has utterly passed away. It was a revolution
which, though it did not touch the actual framework of
government in such a way as to substitute one of Aristotle's
forms of government for another, yet went so far beyond
government, and made such a transformation both in industry
and culture, that it deserves the name of revolution far more,
for instance, than our English Revolution of the 17th century.
... In Prussia few of the most distinguished statesmen, few even
of those who took the lead in her liberation from Napoleon,
were Prussians. Blücher himself began life in the service of
Sweden, Scharnhorst was a Hanoverian, so was Hardenberg, and
Stein came from Nassau. Niebuhr was enticed to Berlin from the
Bank of Copenhagen. Hardenberg served George III. and
afterwards the Duke of Brunswick before he entered the service
of Frederick-William II.; and when Stein was dismissed by
Frederick-William III. in the midst of the war of 1806, though
he was a man of property and rank, he took measures to
ascertain whether they were in want of a Finance Minister at
St. Petersburg. ... We misapprehend the nature of what took
place when we say, as we usually do, that some important and
useful reforms were introduced by Stein, Hardenberg, and
Scharnhorst. In the first place, such a word as reform is not
properly applied to changes so vast, and in the second place.
the changes then made or at least commenced, went far beyond
legislation. We want some word stronger than reform which
shall convey that one of the greatest events of modern history
now took place in Prussia. Revolution would convey this, but
unfortunately we appropriate that word to changes in the form
of government, or even mere changes of dynasty, provided they
are violent, though such changes are commonly quite
insignificant compared to what now took place in Prussia. ...
The form of government indeed was not changed. Not merely did
the king continue to reign, but no Parliament was created even
with powers ever so restricted. Another generation had to pass
away before this innovation, which to us seems the beginning
of political life, took place. But a nation must be made
before it can be made free, and, as we have said, in Prussia
there was an administration (in great disorder) and an army,
but no nation.
{1515}
When Stein was placed at the head of affairs in the autumn of
1807, he seems, at first, hardly to have been aware that
anything was called for beyond the reform of the
administration, and the removal of some abuses in the army.
Accordingly he did reform the administration from the top to
the bottom, remodelling the whole machinery both of central
and local government which had come down from the father of
Frederick the Great. But the other work also was forced upon
him, and he began to create the nation by emancipating the
peasantry, while Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were brooding over
the ideas which, five years later, took shape in the Landwehr
of East Prussia. Besides emancipating the peasant he
emancipated industry,--everywhere abolishing that strange
caste system which divided the population rigidly into nobles,
citizens, and peasants, and even stamped every acre of land in
the country with its own unalterable rank as noble, or
citizen, or peasant land. Emancipation, so to speak, had to be
given before enfranchisement. The peasant must have something
to live for; freewill must be awakened in the citizen; and he
must be taught to fight for something before he could receive
political liberty. Of such liberty Stein only provided one
modest germ. By his Städteordnung he introduced popular
election into the towns. Thus Prussia and France set out
towards political liberty by different roads. Prussia began
modestly with local liberties, but did not for a long time
attempt a Parliament. France with her charte, and in imitation
of France many of the small German States, had grand popular
Parliaments, but no local liberties. And so for a long time
Prussia was regarded as a backward State. ... It was only by
accident that Stein stopped short at municipal liberties and
created no Parliament. He would have gone further, and in the
last years of the wartime Hardenberg did summon deliberative
assemblies, which, however, fell into disuse again after the
peace. ... In spite however of all reaction, the change
irrevocably made by the legislation of that time was similar
to that made in France by the Revolution, and caused the age
before Jena to be regarded as an 'ancien regime.' But in
addition to this, a change had been made in men's minds and
thoughts by the shocks of the time, which prepared the way for
legislative changes which have taken place since. How
unprecedented in Prussia, for instance, was the dictatorial
authority wielded by Hardenberg early in 1807, by Stein in the
latter part of that year and in 1808, and by Hardenberg again
from 1810 onwards! Before that time in the history of Prussia
we find no subject eclipsing or even approaching the King in
importance. Prussia had been made what she was almost entirely
by her electors and kings. In war and organisation alike all
had been done by the Great Elector or Frederick-William I., or
Frederick the Great. But now this is suddenly changed. Everything
now turns on the minister. Weak ministers are expelled by
pressure put upon the king, strong ones are forced upon him.
He is compelled to create a new ministerial power much greater
than that of an English Prime Minister, and more like that of
a Grand Vizier, and by these dictators the most comprehensive
innovations are made. The loyalty of the people was not
impaired by this; on the contrary, Stein and Hardenberg saved
the Monarchy; but it evidently transferred the Monarchy,
though safely, to a lower pedestal."
J. R. Seeley,
Prussian History (Macmillan's Magazine,
volume 36, pages 342-351).
ALSO IN:
J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
parts 3-5 (volumes 1-2).
R. B. D. Morier,
Agrarian Legislation of Prussia
(Systems of Land Tenure: Cobden Club Essays,
chapter 5).
GERMANY: A. D. 1808.
The Awakening of the national spirit.
Effects of the Spanish rising, and of Fichte's Addresses.
The beginnings of the great rising in Spain against Napoleon
(see SPAIN: A. D. 1808, and after) "were watched by Stein from
Berlin while he was engaged in negotiating with Daru; we can
imagine with what feelings! His cause had been, since his
ministry began, substantially the same as that of Spain; but
he had perhaps understood it himself but dimly, at any rate
hoped but faintly to see it prosper. But now he ripens at once
into a great nationality statesman; the reforms of Prussia
begin at once to take a more military stamp, and to point more
decisively to a great uprising of the German race against the
foreign oppressor. The change of feeling which took place in
Prussia after the beginning of the Spanish troubles is very
clearly marked in Stein's autobiography. After describing the
negotiations at Paris and Berlin, ... he begins a new
paragraph thus: 'The popular war which had broken out in Spain
and was attended with good success, had heightened the
irritation of the inhabitants of the Prussian State caused by
the humiliation they had suffered. All thirsted for revenge;
plans of insurrection, which aimed at exterminating the French
scattered about the country, were arranged; among others, one
was to be carried out at Berlin, and I had the greatest
trouble to keep the leaders, who confided their intentions to
me, from a premature outbreak. We all watched the progress of
the Spanish war and the commencement of the Austrian, for the
preparations of that Power had not remained a secret;
expectation was strained to the highest point; pains were
necessary to moderate the excited eagerness for resistance in
order to profit by it in more favourable circumstances. ...
Fichte's Addresses to the Germans, delivered during the French
occupation of Berlin and printed under the censorship of M.
Bignon, the Intendant, had a great effect upon the feelings of
the cultivated class.' ... That in the midst of such weighty
matters he should remember to mention Fichte's Addresses is a
remarkable testimony to the effect produced by them on the
public mind, and at the same time it leads us to conjecture
that they must have strongly influenced his own. They had been
delivered in the winter at Berlin and of course could not be
heard by Stein, who was then with the King, but they were not
published till April. As affecting public opinion therefore,
and also as known to Stein, the book was almost exactly of the
same date as the Spanish Rebellion, and it is not unnatural
that he should mention the two influences together. ... When
the lectures were delivered at Berlin a rising in Spain was
not dreamed of, and even when they were published it had not
taken place, nor could clearly be foreseen. And yet they teach
the same lesson. That doctrine of nationality which was taught
affirmatively by Spain had been suggested to Fichte's mind by
the reductio ad absurdum which events had given to the
negation of it in Germany.
{1516}
Nothing could be more convincing than the concurrence of the
two methods of proof at the same moment, and the prophetic
elevation of these discourses (which may have furnished a
model to Carlyle) was well fitted to drive the lesson home,
particularly to a mind like Stein's, which was quite capable
of being impressed by large principles. ... Fichte's Addresses
do not profess to have in the first instance nationality for
their subject. They profess to inquire whether there exists
any grand comprehensive remedy for the evils with which
Germany is afflicted. They find such a remedy where Turgot
long before had looked for deliverance from the selfishness to
which he traced all the abuses of the old regime, that is, in
a grand system of national education. Fichte reiterates the
favourite doctrine of modern Liberalism, that education as
hitherto conducted by the Church has aimed only at securing
for men happiness in another life, and that this is not
enough, inasmuch as they need also to be taught how to bear
themselves in the present life so as to do their duty to the
state, to others and themselves. He is as sure as Turgot that
a system of national education will work so powerfully upon
the nation that in a few years they will not be recognisable,
and he explains at great length what should be the nature of
this system, dwelling principally upon the importance of
instilling a love of duty for its own sake rather than for
reward. The method to be adopted is that of Pestalozzi. Out of
fourteen lectures the first three are entirely occupied with
this. But then the subject is changed, and we find ourselves
plunged into a long discussion of the peculiar characteristics
which distinguish Germany from other nations and particularly
other nations of German origin. At the present day this
discussion, which occupies four lectures, seems hardly
satisfactory; but it is a striking deviation from the fashion
of that age. ... But up to this point we perceive only that
the subject of German nationality occupies Fichte's mind very
much, and that there was more significance than we first
remarked in the title, Addresses to the German Nation;
otherwise we have met with nothing likely to seem of great
importance to a statesman. But the eighth Lecture propounds
the question, 'What is a Nation in the higher signification of
the word, and what is patriotism? It is here that he delivers
what might seem a commentary on the Spanish Revolution, which
had not yet taken place. ... Fichte proclaims the Nation not
only to be different from the State, but to be something far
higher and greater. ... Applied to Germany this doctrine would
lead to the practical conclusion that a united German State
ought to be set up in which the separate German States should
be absorbed. ... In the lecture before us he contents himself
with advising that patriotism as distinguished from loyalty to
the State should be carefully inculcated in the new education,
and should influence the individual German Governments. It
would not indeed have been safe for Fichte to propose a
political reform, but it rather appears that he thought it an
advantage rather than a disadvantage that the Nation and the
State should be distinct. ... I should not have lingered so
long over this book if it did not strike me as the prophetical
or canonical book which announces and explains a great
transition in Modern Europe, and the prophecies of which began
to be fulfilled immediately after its publication by the
rising in Spain. ... It is this Spanish Revolution which when
it has extended to the other countries we call the
Anti-Napoleonic Revolution of Europe. It gave Europe years of
unparalleled bloodshed, but at the same time years over which
there broods a light of poetry; for no conception can be more
profoundly poetical than that which now woke up in every part
of Europe, the conception of the Nation. Those years also led
the way to the great movements which have filled so much of
the nineteenth century, and have rearranged the whole central
part of the map of Europe on a more natural system."
J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 4, chapter 1 (volume 2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1808 (January).
Kehl, Cassel and Wesel annexed to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).
GERMANY: A. D. 1808 (April-December).
The Tugendbund, and Stein's relations to it.
"English people think of Stein almost exclusively in connexion
with land laws. But the second and more warlike period of his
Ministry has also left a faint impression in the minds of many
among us, who are in the habit of regarding him as the founder
of the Tugendbund. In August and September [1808], the very
months in which Stein was taking up his new position, this
society was attracting general attention, and accordingly this
is the place to consider Stein's relation to it. That he was
secretly animating and urging it on must have seemed at the
time more than probable, almost self-evident. It aimed at the
very objects which he had at heart, it spoke of him with warm
admiration, and in general it used language which seemed an
echo of his own. ... Whatever his connexion with the
Tugendbund may have been, it cannot have commenced till April,
1808, for it was in that month that the Tugendbund began its
existence, and therefore nothing can be more absurd than to
represent Stein as beginning to revolutionise the country with
the help of the Tugendbund, for his revolutionary edict had
been promulgated in the October before. ... In his
autobiography ... Stein [says]: 'An effect and not the cause
of this passionate national indignation at the despotism of
Napoleon was the Tugendbund, of which I was no more the
founder than I was a member, as I can assert on my honour and
as is well known to its originators. About July, 1808, there
was formed at Königsberg a society consisting of several
officers, for example, Colonel Gneisenau, Grolmann, &c., and
learned men, such as Professor Krug, in order to combat
selfishness and to rouse the nobler moral feelings; and
according to the requirements of the existing laws they
communicated their statutes and the list of their members to
the King's Majesty, who sanctioned the former without any
action on my part, it being my belief in general that there
was no need of any other institute but to put new life into
the spirit of Christian patriotism, the germ of which lay
already in the existing institutions of State and Church. The
new Society held its meetings, but of the proceedings I knew
nothing, and when later it proposed to exert an indirect
influence upon educational and military institutions I
rejected the proposal as encroaching on the department of the
civil and ecclesiastical governing bodies. As I was driven
soon afterwards out of the public service, I know nothing
of the further operations of this Society.' ...
{1517}
He certainly seems to intend his readers to understand that he
had not even any indirect or underhand connexion with it, but
from first to last stood entirely aloof, except in one case
when he interfered to restrain its action. It is even possible
that by telling us that he had nothing to do with the step
taken by the King when he sanctioned the statutes of the
society he means to hint that; had his advice been taken, the
society would not have been even allowed to exist. ... The
principal fact affirmed by Stein is indeed now beyond
controversy; Stein was certainly not either the founder or a
member of the Tugendbund. The society commonly known by that
name, which however designated itself as the Moral and
Scientific Union, was founded by a number of persons, of whom
many were Freemasons, at Konigsberg in the month of April.
Professor Krug, mentioned by Stein, was one of them; Gneisenau
and Grolmann, whom he also mentions, were not among the first
members, and Gneisenau, it seems, was never a member. The
statutes were drawn by Krug, Bardeleben and Baersch, and if
anyone person can be called the Founder of the Tugendbund, the
second of these, Bardeleben, seems best to deserve the title.
The Order of Cabinet by which the society was licensed is
dated Konigsberg, June 30th, and runs as follows: 'The revival
of morality, religion, serious taste and public spirit, is
assuredly most commendable; and, so far as the society now
being formed under the name of a Virtue Union (Tugendverein)
is occupied with this within the limits of the laws of the
country and without any interference in politics or public
administration, His Majesty the King of Prussia approves the
object and constitution of the society.' ... From Konigsberg
missionaries went forth who established branch associations,
called Chambers, in other towns, first those of the Province
of Prussia, Braunsberg, Elbing, Graudenz, Eylau, Hohenstein,
Memel, Stallupöhnen; then in August and September Bardeleben
spread the movement with great success through Silesia. The
spirit which animated the new society could not but be
approved by every patriot. They had been deeply struck with
the decay of the nation, as shown in the occurrences of the
war, and their views of the way in which it might be revived
were much the same as those of Stein and Fichte. The only
question was whether they were wise in organising a society in
order to promulgate these views, whether such a society was
likely to do much good, and also whether it might not by
possibility do much harm. Stein's view, as he has given it,
was that it was not likely to do much good, and that such an
organisation was unnecessary. ... It did not follow because he
desired Estates or Parliaments that he was prepared to
sanction a political club. ... It may well have seemed to him
that to suffer a political club to come into existence was to
allow the guidance of the Revolution which he had begun to
pass out of his hands. There appears, then, when we consider
it closely, nothing unnatural in the course which Stein
declares himself to have taken."
J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 4, chapter 3 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
T. Frost,
Secret Societies of the European Revolution,
volume 1, chapter 4.
GERMANY: A. D. 1808 (September-October).
Imperial conference and Treaty of Erfurt.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1808 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (January-June).
Outburst of Austrian feeling against France.
Reopening of war.
Napoleon's advance to Vienna.
His defeat at Aspern and perilous situation.
Austrian reverses in Italy and Hungary.
"The one man of all the Austrians who felt the least amount of
hatred against France, was, perhaps, the Emperor. All his
family and all his people--nobles and priests, the middle
classes and the peasantry--evinced a feeling full of anger
against the nation which had upset Europe. ... By reason of
the French, the disturbers and spoilers, the enemies of the
human race, despisers of morality and religion alike, Princes
were suffering in their palaces, workmen in their shops,
business men in their offices, priests in their churches,
soldiers in their camps, peasants in their huts. The movement
of exasperation was irresistible. Everyone said that it was a
mistake to have laid down their arms; that they ought against
France to have fought on to the bitter end, and to have
sacrificed the last man and the last florin; that they had
been wrong in not having gone to the assistance of Prussia
after the Jena Campaign; and that the moment had arrived for
all the Powers to coalesce against the common enemy and crush
him. ... All Europe had arrived at a paroxysm of indignation.
What was she waiting for before rising? A signal. That signal
Austria was about to give. And this time with what chances of
success! The motto was to be 'victory or death.' But they were
sure of victory. The French army, scattered from the Oder to
the Tagus, from the mountains of Bohemia to the Sierra Morena,
would not be able to resist the onslaught of so many nations
eager to break their bonds. ... Vienna, in 1809, indulged in
the same language, and felt the same passions, that Berlin did
in 1806. ... The Landwehr, then only organized a few months,
were impatiently awaiting the hour when they should measure
themselves against the Veterans of the French army. Volunteers
flocked in crowds to the colours. Patriotic subscriptions
flowed in. ... Boys wanted to leave school to fight. All
classes of society vied with each other in zeal, courage, and
a spirit of sacrifice. When the news was made public that the
Archduke Charles had, on the 20th of February, 1809, been
appointed Generalissimo, there was an outburst of joy and
confidence from one end of the Empire to the other."
Imbert de Saint-Amand,
Memoirs of the Empress Marie Louise,
part 1, chapter 2.
"On receiving decisive intelligence of these hostile
preparations, Napoleon returned with extraordinary expedition
from Spain to Paris, in January, 1809, and gave orders to
concentrate his forces in Germany, and call out the full
contingents of the Confederation of the Rhine. Some further
time was consumed by the preparations on either side. At last,
on the 8th of April, the Austrian troops crossed the frontiers
at once on the Inn, in Bohemia, in the Tyrol and in Italy. The
whole burthen of the war rested on Austria alone, for Prussia
remained neutral, and Russia, now allied to France, was even
bound to make a show at least, though it were no more, of
hostility to Austria. On the same day on which the Austrian
forces crossed the frontiers, the Tyrol rose in insurrection
[see below: A. D. 1809-1810 (APRIL-FEBRUARY)], and was swept
clear of the enemy in four days, with the exception of a
Bavarian garrison, that still held out in Kufstein.
{1518}
The French army was at this time dispersed over a line of
forty leagues in extent, with numerous undefended apertures
between the corps; so that the fairest possible opportunity
presented itself to the Austrians for cutting to pieces the
scattered forces of the French, and marching in triumph to the
Rhine. As usual, however, the archduke's early movements were
subjected to most impolitic delays by the Aulic Council; and
time was allowed Napoleon to arrive on the theatre of war
(April 17), and repair the faults committed by his
adjutant-general, Berthier. He instantly extricated his army
from its perilous position--almost cut in two by the advance
of the Austrians--and, beginning on the 19th, he beat the
latter in five battles on five successive days, at Thaun,
Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmühl, and Ratisbon. The Archduke
Charles retired into Bohemia to collect reinforcements, but
General Hiller was, in consequence of the delay in repairing
the fortifications of Linz, unable to maintain that place, the
possession of which was important, on account of its forming a
connecting point between Bohemia and the Austrian Oberland.
Hiller, however, at least saved his honour by pushing forward
to the Traun, and in a fearfully bloody encounter at
Ebersberg, captured three French eagles, one of his colours
alone falling into the enemy's hands. He was, nevertheless,
compelled to retire before the superior forces of the French,
and crossing over at Krems to the left bank of the Danube, he
formed a junction with the Archduke Charles. The way was now
clear to Vienna, which, after a slight show of defence,
capitulated to Napoleon on the 12th of May. The Archduke
Charles had hoped to reach the capital before the French, and
to give battle to them beneath its walls; but as he had to
make a circuit whilst the French pushed forward in a direct
line, his plan was frustrated, and he arrived, when too late,
from Bohemia. Both armies, separated by the Danube, stood
opposed to one another in the vicinity of the imperial city.
Both commanders were desirous of coming to a decisive
engagement. The French had secured the island of Lobau, to
serve as a mustering place, and point of transit across the
Danube. The archduke allowed them to establish a bridge of
boats, being resolved to await them on the Marchfeld. There it
was that Rudolph of Habsburg, in the battle against Ottakar,
had laid the foundation of the greatness of the house of
Austria; and there the political existence of that house and
the fate of the monarchy were now to be decided. Having
crossed the river, Napoleon was received on the opposite bank,
near Aspern and Esslingen, by his opponent, and, after a
dreadful battle [in which Marshal Lannes was killed], that was
carried on with unwearied animosity for two days, May 21st and
22nd, 1809, he was completely beaten, and compelled to fly for
refuge to the island of Lobau. The rising stream had,
meanwhile, carried away the bridge, Napoleon's sole chance of
escape to the opposite bank. For two days he remained on the
island with his defeated troops, without provisions, and in
hourly expectation of being cut to pieces; the Austrians,
however, neglected to turn the opportunity to advantage, and
allowed the French leisure to rebuild the bridge, a work of
extreme difficulty. During six weeks afterwards, the two
armies continued to occupy their former positions under the
walls of Vienna, on the right and left banks of the Danube,
narrowly watching each other's movements, and preparing for a
final struggle. Whilst these events were in progress, the
Archduke John had successfully penetrated into Italy, where he
had totally defeated the Viceroy Eugene at Salice, on the 16th
of April. Favoured by the simultaneous revolt of the Tyrolese,
he might have obtained the most decisive results from this
victory, but the extraordinary progress of Napoleon down the
valley of the Danube rendered necessary the concentration of
the whole forces of the monarchy for the defence of the
capital. Having begun a retreat, he was pursued by Eugene, and
defeated on the Piave, with great loss, on the 8th of May.
Escaping thence, without further molestation, to Villach, in
Carinthia, he received intelligence of the fall of Vienna,
together with a letter from the Archduke Charles, of the 15th
of May, directing him to move with all his forces upon Lintz,
to act on the rear and communications of Napoleon. Instead of
obeying these orders, he thought proper to march into Hungary,
abandoning the Tyrol and the whole projected operations on the
Upper Danube to their fate. His disobedience was disastrous to
the fortunes of his house, for it caused the fruits of the
victory at Aspern to be lost. He might have arrived, with
50,000 men, on the 24th or 25th, at Lintz, where no one
remained but Bernadotte and the Saxons, who were incapable of
offering any serious resistance. Such a force, concentrated on
the direct line of Napoleon's communications, immediately
after his defeat at Aspern, on the 22nd, would have deprived
him of all means of extricating himself from the most perilous
situation in which he had yet been placed since ascending the
consular throne. After totally defeating Jellachich in the
valley of the Muhr, Eugene desisted from his pursuit of the
army of Italy, and joined Napoleon at Vienna. The Archduke
John united his forces at Raab with those of the Hungarian
insurrection, under his brother, the Palatine. The viceroy
again marched against him, and defeated him at Raab on the
14th of June. The Palatine remained with the Hungarian
insurrection in Komorn; Archduke John moved on to Presburg. In
the north, the Archduke Ferdinand, who had advanced as far as
Warsaw, had been driven back by the Poles: under Poniatowsky,
and by a Russian force sent by the Emperor Alexander to their
aid, which, on this success, invaded Galicia."
W. K. Kelly,
History of the House of Austria (Continuation of Coxe),
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 56-57 (volume 12).
Duke de Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 2, part 2, chapters 3-12.
Baron Jomini,
Life of Napoleon,
chapter 14 (volume 3).
Baron de Marbot,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 42-48.
GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (April-July).
Risings against the French in the North.
"A general revolt against the French had nearly taken place in
Saxony and Westphalia, where the enormous burdens imposed on
the people, and the insolence of the French troops, had
kindled a deadly spirit of hostility against the oppressors.
Everywhere the Tugendbund were in activity; and the advance of
the Austrians towards Franconia and Saxony, at the beginning
of the war, blew up the flame. The two first attempts at
insurrection, headed respectively by Katt, a Prussian officer
(April 3), and Dornberg, a Westphalian colonel (April 23),
proved abortive; but the enterprise of the celebrated Schill
was of a more formidable character.
{1519}
This enthusiastic patriot, then a colonel in the Prussian
army, had been compromised in the revolt of Dornberg; and
finding himself discovered, he boldly raised the standard
(April 29) at the head of 600 soldiers. His force speedily
received accessions, but failing in his attempts on Wittenberg
and Magdeburg, he moved towards the Baltic, in hope of succour
from the British cruisers, and at last threw himself into
Stralsund. Here he was speedily invested; the place was
stormed (May 31), and the gallant Schill slain in the assault,
a few hours only before the appearance of the British vessels
--the timely arrival of which might have secured the place,
and spread the rising over all Northern Germany. The Duke of
Brunswick-Oels, with his 'black band' of volunteers, had at
the same time invaded Saxony from Bohemia; and though then
obliged to retreat, he made a second incursion in June,
occupied Dresden and Leipsic, and drove the King of Westphalia
into France. After the battle of Wagram he made his way across
all Northern Germany, and was eventually conveyed, with his
gallant followers, still 2,000 strong, to England."
Epitome of Alison's History of Europe,
sections 525-526.
GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (July-September).
Napoleon's victory at Wagram.
The Peace of Schonbrunn.
Immense surrender of Austrian territory.
"The operation of establishing the bridges between the French
camp and the left bank of the Danube commenced on the night of
the 30th of June; and during the night of the 4th of July the
whole French army, passing between the villages of Enzersdorf
and Muhlleuten, debouched on the Marchfeld, wheeling to their
left. Napoleon was on horseback in the midst of them by
daylight; all the Austrian fortifications erected to defend
the former bridge were turned, the villages occupied by their
army taken, and the Archduke Charles was menaced both in flank
and rear, the French line of battle appuyed on Enzersdorf
being at a right angle to his left wing. Under these
circumstances the Archduke, retiring his left, attempted to
outflank the French right, while Napoleon bore down upon his
centre at Wagram. This village became the scene of a
sanguinary struggle, and one house only remained standing when
night closed in. The Archduke sent courier after courier to
hasten the advance of his brother, between whom and himself
was Napoleon, whose line on the night of the 5th extended from
Loibersdorf on the right to some two miles beyond Wagram on
the left. Napoleon passed the night in massing his centre,
still determining to manœuvre by his left in order to throw
back the Archduke Charles on that side before the Archduke
John could come up on the other. At six o'clock on the morning
of the 6th of July he commanded the attack in person.
Disregarding all risk, he appeared throughout the day in the
hottest of the fire, mounted on a snow-white charger,
Euphrates, a present from the Shah of Persia. The Archduke
Charles as usual committed the error which Napoleon's enemies
had not even yet learned was invariably fatal to them:
extending his line too greatly he weakened his centre, at the
same time opening tremendous assaults on the French wings,
which suffered dreadfully. Napoleon ordered Lauriston to
advance upon the Austrian centre with a hundred guns,
supported by two whole divisions of infantry in column. The
artillery, when within half cannon-shot, opened a terrific
fire: nothing could withstand such a shock. The infantry, led
by Macdonald, charged; the Austrian line was broken and the
centre driven back in confusion. The right, in a panic,
retrograded; the French cavalry then bore down upon them and
decided the battle, the Archduke still fighting to secure his
retreat, which he at length effected in tolerably good order.
By noon the whole Austrian army was abandoning the contest.
Their defeat so demoralized them that the Archduke John, who
came up on Napoleon's right before the battle was over, was
glad to retire with the rest, unnoticed by the enemy. That
evening the Marchfeld and Wagram were in possession of the
French. The population of Vienna had watched the battle from
the roofs and ramparts of the city, and saw the retreat of
their army with fear and gloom. Between 300,000 and 400,000
men were engaged, and the loss on both sides was nearly equal.
About 20,000 dead and 30,000 wounded strewed the ground; the
latter were conveyed to the hospitals of Vienna. ... Twenty
thousand Austrians were taken prisoners, but the number would
have been greater had the French cavalry acted with their
usual spirit. Bernadotte, issuing a bulletin, almost assuming
to himself the sole merit of the victory, was removed from his
command. Macdonald was created a marshal of the empire on the
morning after the battle. ... The battle of Wagram was won
more by good fortune than skill. Napoleon's strategy was at
fault, and had the Austrians fought as stoutly as they did at
Aspern, Napoleon would have been signally defeated. Had the
Archduke John acted promptly and vigorously, he might have
united with his brother's left--which was intact--and
overwhelmed the French. ... The defeated army retired to
Znaim, followed by the French; but further resistance was
abandoned by the Emperor of Austria. The Archduke Charles
solicited an armistice on the 9th; hostilities ceased, and
Napoleon returned to the palace of Schonbrunn while the
plenipotentiaries settled the terms of peace. ... English
Ministers displayed another instance of their customary spirit
of procrastination. Exactly eight days after the armistice of
Znaim, which assured them that Austria was no longer in a
position to profit by or co-operate with their proceedings,
they sent more than 80,000 fighting men, under the command of
Lord Chatham, to besiege Antwerp. ...
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1809 (JULY-DECEMBER).
Operations against Naples proved equally abortive. ... In
Spain alone English arms were successful. Sir Arthur Wellesley
won the battle of Talavera on the 28th of July. ...
See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (FEBRUARY-JULY).
A treaty of peace, between France and Austria was signed on
the 14th of October at Vienna [sometimes called the Treaty of
Vienna, but more commonly the Peace of Schonbrunn]. The
Emperor of Austria ceded Salzburg and a part of Upper Austria
to the Confederation of the Rhine; part of Bohemia, Cracow,
and Western Galicia to the King of Saxony as Grand Duke of
Warsaw; part of Eastern Galicia to the Emperor of Russia; and
Trieste, Carniola, Friuli, Villach, and some part of Croatia
and Dalmatia to France: thus connecting the kingdom of Italy
with Napoleon's Illyrian possessions, making him master of the
entire coast of the Adriatic, and depriving Austria of its
last seaport. It was computed that the Emperor Francis gave up
territory to the amount of 45,000 square miles, with a
population of nearly 4,000,000. He also paid a large
contribution in money."
R. H. Horne,
Life of Napoleon,
chapter 32.
{1520}
"The cessions made directly to Napoleon were the county of
Görtz, or Goricia, and that of Montefalcone, forming the
Austrian Friuli; the town and government of Trieste, Carniola,
the circle of Villach in Carinthia, part of Croatia and
Dalmatia, and the lordship of Räzuns in the Grison territory.
All these provinces, with the exception of Räzuns, were
incorporated by a decree of Napoleon, with Dalmatia and its
islands, into a single state with the name of the Illyrian
Provinces. They were never united with France, but always
governed by Napoleon as an independent state. A few districts
before possessed by Napoleon were also incorporated with them:
as Venetian Istria and Dalmatia with the Bocca di Cattaro,
Ragusa, and part of the Tyrol. ... The only other articles of
the treaty of much importance are the recognition by Austria
of any changes made, or to be made, in Spain, Portugal, and
Italy; the adherence of the Emperor to the prohibitive system
adopted by France and Russia, and his engaging to cease all
correspondence and relationship with Great Britain. By a
decree made at Ratisbon, April 24th, 1809, Napoleon had
suppressed the Teutonic Order in all the States belonging to
the Rhenish Confederation, reannexed its possessions to the
domains of the prince in which they were situated, and
incorporated Mergentheim, with the rights, domains, and
revenues attached to the Grand Mastership of the Order, with
the Kingdom of Würtemberg. These dispositions were confirmed
by the Treaty of Schönbrunn. The effect aimed at by the Treaty
of Schönbrunn was to surround Austria with powerful states,
and thus to paralyse all her military efforts. ... The Emperor
of Russia ... was very ill satisfied with the small portion of
the spoils assigned to him, and the augmentation awarded to
the duchy of Warsaw. Hence the first occasion of coldness
between him and Napoleon, whom he suspected of a design to
reestablish the Kingdom of Poland."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 7, chapter 14 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapters 59-60 (volume 13).
General Count M. Dumas,
Memoirs,
chapter 13 (volume 2).
E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
book 4, chapter 9 (volume 3).
J. C. Ropes,
The First Napoleon,
lecture 4.
GERMANY: A. D. 1809-1810.
Humboldt's reform of Public Instruction in Prussia.
See EDUCATION, MODERN:
EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.-PRUSSIA: A. D. 1809.
GERMANY: A. D. 1809-1810 (April-February).
The revolt in the Tyrol.
Heroic struggle of Andrew Hofer and his countrymen.
"The Tyrol, for centuries a possession of Austria, was ceded
to Bavaria by the Peace of Presburg in 1805. The Bavarians
made many innovations, in the French style, some good and some
bad; but the mountaineers, clinging to their ancient ways,
resisted them all alike. They hated the Bavarians as foreign
masters forced upon them; and especially detested the military
conscription, to which Austria had never subjected them. The
priests had an almost unlimited influence over these faithful
Catholics, and the Bavarians, who treated them rudely, were
regarded as innovators and allies of revolutionary France.
Thus the country submitted restlessly to the yoke of the Rhine
League until the spring of 1809. A secret understanding was
maintained with Austria and the Archduke John, and the people
never abandoned the hope of returning to their Austrian
allegiance. When the great war of 1809 began, the Emperor
Francis summoned all his people to arms. The Tyrolese answered
the call. ... They are a people trained in early life to the
use of arms, and to activity, courage, and ready devices in
hunting, and in traveling on their mountain paths. Austria
could be sure of the faithfulness of the Tyrol, and made haste
to occupy the country. When the first troops were seen entering
the passes, the people arose and drove away the Bavarian
garrisons. The alarm was soon sounded through the deepest
ravines of the land. Never was there a more united people, and
each troop or company chose its own officers, in the ancient
German style, from among their strongest and best men. Their
commanders were hunters, shepherds, priests: the former
gamekeeper, Speckbacher; the innkeeper, Martin Teimer; the
fiery Capuchin monk, Haspinger, whose sole weapon in the field
was a huge ebony crucifix, and many more of like peaceful
occupations. At the head of the whole army was a man who, like
Saul, towered by a head above all others, while his handsome
black beard fell to his girdle--Andrew Hofer, formerly an
innkeeper at Passeyr--a man of humble piety and simple
faithfulness, who fairly represented the people he led. He
regarded the war as dutiful service to his religion, his
emperor, and his country. The whole land soon swarmed with
little bands of men, making their way to Innsprück (April,
1809), whence the Bavarian garrison fled. Meanwhile a small
French corps came from Italy to relieve them. Though fired
upon by the peasants from every ravine and hill, they passed
the Brenner, and reached the Iselberg, near Innsprück. But
here they were surrounded on every side, and forced to
surrender. The first Austrian soldiers, under General
Chasteler, then reached the capital, and their welcome was a
popular festival. The liberators, as the Tyrolese soldiers
regarded themselves, committed no cruelties, but carried on
their enterprise in the spirit of a national jubilee. The
tidings of the disasters at Regensburg [Ratisbon] now came
upon them like a thunderbolt. The withdrawal of the Austrian
army then left the Tyrol without protection. Napoleon treated
the war as a mutiny, and set a price upon Chasteler's head.
Neither Chasteler nor any of the Austrian officers with him
understood the warfare of the peasantry. The Tyrolese were
left almost wholly to themselves, but they resolved to defend
their mountains. On May 11 the Bavarians under Wrede again set
out, from Salzburg, captured the pass of the Strub after a
bloody fight, and then climbed into the valley of the Inn.
They practiced frightful cruelties in their way. A fierce
struggle took place at the little village of Schwatz; the
Bavarians burned the place, and marched to Innsprück.
Chasteler withdrew, and the Bavarians and French, under Wrede
and Lefevre, entered the capital. The country again appeared
to be subdued. But cruelty had embittered the people. Wrede
was recalled, with his corps, by Napoleon; and now Hofer, with
his South Tyrolese, recrossed the Brenner Pass. Again the
general alarm was given, the leaders called to arms, and again
every pass, every wall of rock, every narrow road was seized.
The struggle took place at the Iselberg.
{1521}
The Bavarians, 7,000 in number, were defeated with heavy loss.
The Tyrol now remained for several months undisturbed, during
the campaign around Vienna. After the battle of Aspern, an
imperial proclamation formally assured the Tyrolese that they
should never be severed from the Austrian Empire; and that no
peace should be signed unless their indissoluble union with
the monarchy were recognized. The Tyrolese quietly trusted the
emperor's promise, until the armistice of Znaim. But in this
the Tyrol was not mentioned, and the French and their allies
prepared to chastise the loyal and abandoned country."
C. T. Lewis,
History of Germany,
chapter 28.
"In the mouth of July, an army of 40,000 French and Bavarians
attacked the Tyrol from the German side; while from Italy,
General Rusca, with 18,000 men, entered from Clagenfurth, on
the southern side of the Tyrolese Alps. Undismayed by this
double and formidable invasion, they assailed the invaders as
they penetrated into their fastnesses, defeated and destroyed
them. The fate of a division of 10,000 men, belonging to the
French and Bavarian army, which entered the Upper Innthal, or
Valley of the Inn, will explain in part the means by which
these victories were obtained. The invading troops advanced in
a long column up a road bordered on the one side by the river
Inn, there a deep and rapid torrent, where cliffs of immense
height overhang both road and river. The vanguard was
permitted to advance unopposed as far as Prutz, the object of
their expedition. The rest of the army were therefore induced
to trust themselves still deeper in this tremendous pass,
where the precipices, becoming more and more narrow as they
advanced, seemed about to close above their heads. No sound
but of the screaming of the eagles disturbed from, their
eyries, and the roar of the river, reached the ears of the
soldier, and on the precipices, partly enveloped in a hazy
mist, no human forms showed themselves. At length the voice of
a man was heard calling across the ravine, 'Shall we
begin?'--'No,' was returned in an authoritative tone of voice,
by one who, like the first speaker, seemed the inhabitant of
some upper region. The Bavarian detachment halted, and sent to
the general for orders;' when presently was heard the terrible
signal, 'In the name of the Holy Trinity, cut all loose!' Huge
rocks, and trunks of trees, long prepared and laid in heaps
for the purpose, began now to descend rapidly in every
direction, while the deadly fire of the Tyrolese, who never
throw away a shot, opened from every bush, crag, or corner of
rock, which would afford the shooter cover. As this dreadful
attack was made on the whole line at once, two-thirds of the
enemy were instantly destroyed; while the Tyrolese, rushing
from their shelter, with swords, spears, axes, scythes, clubs
and all other rustic instruments which could be converted into
weapons, beat down and routed the shattered remainder. As the
vanguard, which had reached Prutz, was obliged to surrender,
very few of the 10,000 invaders are computed to have
extricated themselves from the fatal pass. But not all the
courage of the Tyrolese, not all the strength of their
country, could possibly enable them to defend themselves, when
the peace with Austria had permitted Buonaparte to engage his
whole immense means for the acquisition of these mountains.
Austria too--Austria herself, in whose cause they had
incurred all the dangers of war, instead of securing their
indemnity by some stipulations in the treaty, sent them a cold
exhortation to lay down their arms. Resistance, therefore, was
abandoned as fruitless; Hofer, chief commander of the
Tyrolese, resigned his command, and the Bavarians regained the
possession of a country which they could never have won back
by their own efforts. Hofer, and about thirty chiefs of these
valiant defenders of their country, were put to death
[February, 1810], in poor revenge for the loss their bravery
had occasioned. But their fame, as their immortal spirit, was
beyond the power of the judge alike and executioner; and the
place where their blood was shed, becomes sacred to the
thoughts of freedom, as the precincts of a temple to those of
religion."
Sir W. Scott,
Life of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 58 (volume 12).
History of Hofer
(Quarterly Review, July, 1817).
C. H. Hall,
Life of Andrew Hofer.
GERMANY: A. D. 1810.
Annexation of the Hanse Towns and territory on the North Sea
to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1810 (FEBRUARY-DECEMBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1810-1812.
Marriage of the Archduchess Marie Louise
of Austria to Napoleon.
Alliance of German powers with Napoleon against Russia.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812.
GERMANY: A. D. 1812.
The Russian campaign of Napoleon and its disastrous ending.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER),
(SEPTEMBER), and (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813.
The Teutonic uprising against Napoleon.
Beginning of the War of Liberation.
Alliance of Prussia and Russia.
"During Napoleon's march on Moscow and his fatal return,
Macdonald remained on the Lower Dwina, before Riga, with an
observation corps of Prussians and Poles, nor had he ever
received an order to retreat from Napoleon. Learning of the
misfortunes of the grand army, he went from the Dwina towards
the Niemen. As he passed through Courland, General York,
commander of the Prussian troops, allowed him to lead the way
with the Poles, and then signed an agreement of neutrality
with the Russians (December 30, 1812). The Prussian troops,
from a military spirit of honor, had fought the Russians
bravely; they retained some scruples relative to the worthy
marshal under whom they served, and forsook without betraying
him, that is, they left him time to escape. This was a most
important event and the beginning of the inevitable defection
of Germany. The attitude of Czar Alexander decided General
York; the former was completely dazzled by his triumphs, and
aspired to nothing less than to destroy Napoleon and liberate
Europe, even France! With mingled enthusiasm and calculation,
he promised all things to all men; on returning to Wilna, he
granted an amnesty for all acts committed in Poland against
Russian authority. On the one hand, he circulated a rumor that
he was about to make himself King of Poland, and, on the other
hand, he announced to the Prussians that he was ready to
restore the Polish provinces taken from them by Napoleon. He
authorized ex-Minister Stein to take possession, as we may
say, of Old Prussia, just evacuated by the French, and to
promise the speedy enfranchisement of Germany, protesting, at
the same time, that he would not dispute 'the legitimate
greatness' of France.
{1522}
The French army, on hearing of York's defection, left
Königsberg with ten or twelve thousand sick men and eight or
ten thousand armed troops, withdrawing to the Vistula and
thence to Warta and Posen. General Rapp had succeeded in
gathering at Dantzic, the great French depot of stores and
reserves, 25,000 men, few of whom had gone through the Russian
campaign, and a division of almost equal numbers occupied
Berlin. The French had in all barely 80,000 men, from Dantzic
to the Rhine, not including their Austrian and Saxon allies,
who had fallen back on Warsaw and seemed disposed to fight no
more. Murat, to whom Napoleon confided the remains of the
grand army, followed the Emperor's example and set out to
defend his Neapolitan kingdom, leaving the chief command to
Prince Eugene. Great agitation prevailed around the feeble
French forces still occupying Germany. The Russians
themselves, worn out, did not press the French very hotly; but
York and Stein, masters of Königsberg, organized and armed Old
Prussia without awaiting authorization from the king, who was
not considered as a free agent, being under foreign rule.
Pamphlets, proclamations, and popular songs were circulated
everywhere, provoking the people to rebellion. The idea of
German union ran like wildfire from the Niemen to the Rhine;
federal union, not unity in a single body or state, which was
not thought of then."
H. Martin,
Popular History of France from 1789,
volume 2, chapter 16.
"The king of Prussia had suddenly abandoned Berlin [January,
1813], which was still in the hands of the French, for
Breslau, whence he declared war against France. A conference
also took place between him and the emperor Alexander at
Calisch [Kalisch], and, on the 28th of February, 1813, an
offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between them.
The hour for vengeance had at length arrived. The whole
Prussian nation, eager to throw off the hated yoke of the
foreigner, to obliterate their disgrace in 1806, to regain
their ancient name, cheerfully hastened to place their lives
and property at the service of the impoverished government.
The whole of the able-bodied population was put under arms.
The standing army was increased: to each regiment were
appended troops of volunteers, Jaegers, composed of young' men
belonging to the higher classes, who furnished their own
equipments: a numerous Landwehr, a sort of militia, was, as in
Austria, raised besides the standing army, and measures were
even taken to call out, in case of necessity, the heads of
families and elderly men remaining at home, under the name of
the Landsturm. The enthusiastic people, besides furnishing the
customary supplies and paying the taxes, contributed to the
full extent of their means towards defraying the immense
expense of this general arming. Every heart throbbed high with
pride and hope. ... More loudly than even in 1809 in Austria
was the German cause now discussed, the great name of the
German empire now invoked in Prussia, for in that name alone
could all the races of Germany be united against their
hereditary foe. The celebrated proclamation, promising
external and internal liberty to Germany, was, with this view,
published at Calisch by Prussia and Russia. Nor was the appeal
vain. It found an echo in every German heart, and such plain
demonstrations of the state of the popular feeling on this
side the Rhine were made, that Davoust sent serious warning to
Napoleon, who contemptuously replied, 'Pah! Germans never can
become Spaniards!' With his customary rapidity he levied in
France a fresh army 300,000 strong, with which he so
completely awed the Rhenish confederation as to compel it once
more to take the field with thousands of Germans against their
brother Germans. The troops, however, reluctantly obeyed, and
even the traitors were but lukewarm, for they doubted of
success. Mecklenburg alone sided with Prussia. Austria
remained neutral. A Russian corps under General Tettenborn had
preceded the rest of the troops and reached the coasts of the
Baltic. As early as the 24th of March, 1813, it appeared in
Hamburg and expelled the French authorities from the city. The
heavily oppressed people of Hamburg, whose commerce had been
totally annihilated by the continental system, gave way to the
utmost demonstrations of delight, received their deliverers
with open arms, revived their ancient rights, and immediately
raised a Hanseatic corps destined to take the field against
Napoleon. Dörnberg, the ancient foe to France, with another
flying squadron took the French division under Morand
prisoner, and the Prussian, Major Hellwig (the same who, in
1806, liberated the garrison of Erfurt), dispersed, with
merely 120 hussars, a Bavarian regiment 1,300 strong and
captured five pieces of artillery. In January, the peasantry
of the upper country had already revolted against the
conscription, and, in February, patriotic proclamations had
been disseminated throughout Westphalia under the signature of
the Baron von Stein. In this month, also, Captain Maas and two
other patriots, who had attempted to raise a rebellion, were
executed. As the army advanced, Stein was nominated chief of
the provisional government of the still unconquered provinces
of Western Germany. The first Russian army, 17,000 strong,
under Wittgenstein, pushed forward to Magdeburg, and, at
Mökern, repulsed 40,000 French who were advancing upon Berlin.
The Prussians, under their veteran general, Blücher, entered
Saxony and garrisoned Dresden, on the 27th of March, 1813,
after an arch of the fine bridge across the Elbe [had] been
uselessly blown up by the French. Blücher, whose gallantry in
the former wars had gained for him the general esteem and
whose kind and generous disposition had won the affection of
the soldiery, was nominated generalissimo of the Prussian
forces, but subordinate in command to Wittgenstein, who
replaced Kutusow as generalissimo of the united forces of
Russia and Prussia. The Emperor of Russia and the King of
Prussia accompanied the army and were received with loud
acclamations by the people of Dresden and Leipzig."
W. Menzel,
History of Germany,
chapter 260 (volume 3).
Bernadotte, the adopted Crown Prince and expectant King of
Sweden, had been finally thrown into the arms of the new
Coalition against Napoleon, by the refusal of the latter to
take Norway from Denmark and give it to Sweden. "The
disastrous retreat of the French from Moscow ... led to the
signature of the Treaty of Stockholm on the 2d of March, 1813,
by which England acceded to the union of Norway to Sweden, and a
Swedish force was sent to Pomerania under General Sandels. On
the 18th of May, 1813, Bernadotte landed at Stralsund."
Lady Bloomfield,
Biographical Sketch of Bernadotte
(Memoir of Lord Bloomfield, volume 1, page 31).
ALSO IN:
J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 7 (volume 3).
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and the Empire,
book 47 (volume 4).
{1523}
GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (April-May).
Battle of Lützen.
Humiliation of the King of Saxony.
"On the 14th April, Napoleon left Paris to assume the command
of the army. Previous to his departure, with a view, perhaps,
of paying a compliment to the Emperor of Austria, the Empress
Marie Louise was appointed regent in his absence; but Prince
Schwarzenberg, who had arrived on a special mission from
Vienna, was treated only as the commander of an auxiliary
corps, to which orders would immediately be transmitted. On
the 16th he reached Mayence, where, for the last time, vassal
princes assembled courtier-like around him; and on the 20th he
was already at Erfurt, in the midst of his newly-raised army.
The roads were everywhere crowded with troops and artillery,
closing in towards the banks of the Saale. From Italy, Marshal
Bertrand joined with 40,000 men, old trained soldiers; the
Viceroy brought an equal number from the vicinity of
Magdeburg; and Marshal Macdonald having, on the 29th, taken
Merseburg by assault, the whole army, which Bade, the ablest
and most accurate of the authors who have written on this
campaign, estimates at 140,000 men, was assembled for action.
With this mighty force Napoleon determined to seek out the
enemy, and bring them quickly to battle. The Russian and
Prussian armies were no sooner united, after the alliance
concluded between the sovereigns, than they crossed the Elbe,
occupied Dresden, which the King of Saxony had abandoned, and
advanced to the banks of the Saale. General Blücher commanded
the Prussians, and Count Wittgenstein the Russian corps; and,
death having closed the career of old Marshal Kutusoff, ...
the command of both armies devolved upon the last mentioned
officer. Informed of the rapid advance of the French, the
allied monarchs joined their forces, which were drawn together
in the plains between the Saale and the Elbe; their numerous
cavalry giving them perfect command of this wide and open
country. Napoleon, always anxious for battle, determined to
press on towards Leipzig, behind which he expected to find the
Allied army, who, as it proved, were much nearer than he
anticipated. At the passage of the Rippach, a small stream
that borders the wide plain of Lützen, he already encountered
a body of Russian cavalry and artillery under Count
Winzingerode; and as the French were weak in horse, they had
to bring the whole of Marshal Ney's corps into action before
they could oblige the Russians to retire. Marshal Bessieres,
the commander of the Imperial Guard, was killed. ... On the
evening of the 1st of May, Napoleon established his quarters
in the small town of Lützen. The Allies, conscious of the vast
numerical superiority of the French, did not intend to risk a
general action on the left bank of the Elbe; but the length of
the hostile column of march, which extended from beyond
Naumberg almost to the gates of Leipzig, induced Scharnhorst
to propose an advance from the direction of Borna and Pegau
against the right flank of the enemy, and a sudden attack on
the centre of their line in the plain of Lützen. It was
expected that a decisive blow might be struck against this
centre, and the hostile army broken before the distant wings
could close up and take an effective part in the battle. The
open nature of the country, well adapted to the action of
cavalry, which formed the principal strength of the Allies,
spoke in favour of the plan. ... The bold attempt was
immediately resolved upon, and the onset fixed for the
following morning. The annals of war can hardly offer a plan
of battle more skilfully conceived than the one of which we
have here spoken; but unfortunately the execution fell far
short of the admirable conception. Napoleon, with his Guards
and the corps of Lauriston, was already at the gates of
Leipzig, preparing for an attack on the city, when about one
o'clock [May 2] the roar of artillery burst suddenly on the
ear, and gathering thicker and thicker as it rolled along,
proclaimed that a general action was engaged in the plain of
Lützen,--proclaimed that the army was taken completely at
fault, and placed in the most imminent peril. ... The Allies,
who, by means of their numerous cavalry, could easily mask
their movement, had advanced unobserved into the plain of
Lützen," and the action was begun by a brigade of Blücher's
corps attacking the French in the village of Great-Görschen
(Gross-Görschen). "Reinforcements ... poured in from both
sides, and the narrow and intersected ground between the
villages became the scene of a most murderous and
closely-contested combat of infantry. ... But no attempt was
made to employ the numerous and splendid cavalry, that stood
idly exposed, on open plain, to the shot of the French
artillery. ... When night put an end to the combat,
Great-Görschen was the sole trophy of the murderous fight that
remained in the hands of the Allies. ... On the side of the
Allies, 2,000 Russians and 8,000 Prussians had been killed or
wounded: among the slain was Prince Leopold of Hessen-Homburg;
among the wounded was the admirable Scharnhorst, who died a
few weeks afterwards. ... The loss sustained by the French is
not exactly known; but ... Jomini tells us that the 3d corps,
to which he was attached as chief of the staff, had alone 500
officers and 12,000 men 'hors de combat.' Both parties laid
claim to the victory: the French, because the Allies retired
on the day after the action; the Allies, because they remained
masters of part of the captured battlefield, had taken two
pieces of artillery, and 800 prisoners. ... The Allies
alleged, or pretended perhaps, that it was their intention to
renew the action on the following morning: in the Prussian
army every man, from the king to the humblest soldier, was
anxious indeed to continue the fray; and the wrath of Blücher,
who deemed victory certain, was altogether boundless when he
found the retreat determined upon. But ... opinion has, by
degrees, justified Count Wittgenstein's resolution to recross
the Elbe and fall back on the reinforcements advancing to join
the army. ... On the 8th of May, Napoleon held his triumphal
entrance into Dresden. ... On the advance of the Allies, the
Saxon monarch had retired to Ratisbon, and from thence to
Prague, intending, as he informed Napoleon, to join his
efforts to the mediation of Austria. Orders had, at the same
time, been given to General Thielman, commanding the Saxon
troops at Torgau, to maintain the most perfect neutrality, and
to admit neither of the contending parties within the walls of
the fortress. Exasperated by this show of independence,
Napoleon caused the following demands to be submitted to the
King, allowing him only six hours to determine on their
acceptance or refusal;
{1524}
1. 'General Thielman and the Saxon troops instantly evacuate
Torgau, and form the 7th corps under General Réynier; and all
the resources of the country to be at the disposal of the
Emperor, in conformity with the principles of the
Confederation of the Rhine.'
2. 'The Saxon Cavalry'--some regiments had accompanied the
King--'return immediately to Dresden.'
3. 'The King declares, in a letter to the Emperor, that he is
still a member of the Confederation of the Rhine, and ready to
fulfil all the obligations which it imposes upon him.'
'If these conditions are not immediately complied with,' says
Napoleon in the instructions to his messenger, 'you will cause
his Majesty to be informed that he is guilty of felony, has
forfeited the Imperial protection, and has ceased to reign.'
... Frederick Augustus, finding himself threatened with the
loss of his crown by an overbearing conqueror already in
possession of his capital, ... yielded in an evil hour to
those imperious demands, and returned to Dresden. ... Fortune
appeared again to smile upon her spoiled and favoured child;
and he resolved, on his part, to leave no expedient untried to
make the most of her returning aid. The mediation of Austria,
which from the first had been galling to his pride, became
more hateful every day, as it gradually assumed the appearance
of an armed interference, ready to enforce its demands by
military means. ... Tidings having arrived that the allied
army, instead of continuing their retreat, had halted and
taken post at Bautzen, he immediately resolved to strike a
decisive blow in the field, as the best means of thwarting the
pacific efforts of his father-in-law."
Lieutenant Colonel J. Mitchell,
The Fall of Napoleon,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 75 (volume 13).
Duchess d'Abrantes,
Memoirs of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapter 44.
GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (May-August).
Battle of Bautzen.
Armistice of Pleswitz.
Accession of Austria and Great Britain to the Coalition
against Napoleon.
"While the Emperor paused at Dresden, Ney made various
demonstrations in the direction of Berlin, with the view of
inducing the Allies to quit Bautzen; but it soon became
manifest that they had resolved to sacrifice the Prussian
capital, if it were necessary, rather than forego their
position. ... Having replaced by wood-work some arches of the
magnificent bridge over the Elbe at Dresden, which the Allies
had blown up on their retreat, Napoleon now moved towards
Bautzen, and came in sight of the position on the morning of
the 21st of May. Its strength was obviously great. In their
front was the river Spree: wooded hills supported their right,
and eminences well fortified their left. The action began with
an attempt to turn their right, but Barclay de Tolly
anticipated this movement, and repelled it with such vigour
that a whole column of 7,000 dispersed and fled into the hills
of Bohemia for safety. The Emperor then determined to pass the
Spree in front of the enemy, and they permitted him to do so,
rather than come down from their position. He took up his
quarters in the town of Bautzen, and his whole army bivouacked
in presence of the Allies. The battle was resumed at daybreak
on the 22d; when Ney on the right, and Oudinot on the left;
attempted simultaneously to turn the flanks of the position;
while Soult and Napoleon himself directed charge after charge
on the centre. During four hours the struggle was maintained
with unflinching obstinacy; the wooded heights, where Blucher
commanded, had been taken and retaken several times--the
bloodshed on either side had been terrible--ere ... the Allies
perceived the necessity either of retiring, or of continuing
the fight against superior numbers on disadvantageous ground.
They withdrew accordingly; but still with all the deliberate
coolness of a parade, halting at every favourable spot and
renewing their cannonade. 'What,' exclaimed Napoleon, 'no
results! not a gun! not a prisoner!--these people will not
leave me so much as a nail.' During the whole day he urged the
pursuit with impetuous rage, reproaching even his chosen
generals as 'creeping scoundrels,' and exposing his own person
in the very hottest of the fire." His closest friend, Duroc,
Grand Master of the Palace, was mortally wounded by his side,
before he gave up the pursuit. "The Allies, being strongly
posted during most of the day, had suffered less than the
French; the latter had lost 15,000, the former 10,000 men.
They continued their retreat into Upper Silesia; and
Buonaparte advanced to Breslau, and released the garrison of
Glogau. Meanwhile the Austrian, having watched these
indecisive though bloody fields, once more renewed his offers
of mediation. The sovereigns of Russia and Prussia expressed
great willingness to accept it; and Napoleon also appears to
have been sincerely desirous for the moment of bringing his
disputes to a peaceful termination. He agreed to an armistice
[of six weeks], and in arranging its conditions agreed to fall
back out of Silesia; thus enabling the allied princes to
reopen communications with Berlin. The lines of country to be
occupied by the armies, respectively, during the truce, were
at length settled, and it was signed on the 1st of June [at
Poischwitz, though the negotiations were mostly carried on at
Pleswitz, whence the Armistice is usually named]. The French
Emperor then returned to Dresden, and a general congress of
diplomatists prepared to meet at Prague. England alone refused
to send any representative to Prague, alleging that Buonaparte
had as yet signified no disposition to recede from his
pretensions on Spain, and that he had consented to the
armistice with the sole view of gaining time for political
intrigue and further military preparation. It may be doubted
whether any of the allied powers who took part in the Congress
did so with much hope that the disputes with Napoleon could
find a peaceful end. ... But it was of the utmost importance
to gain time for the advance of Bernadotte; for the arrival of
new reinforcements from Russia; for the completion of the
Prussian organization; and, above all, for determining the
policy of Vienna. Metternich, the Austrian minister, repaired
in person to Dresden, and while inferior diplomatists wasted
time in endless discussions at Prague, one interview between
him and Napoleon brought the whole question to a definite
issue. The Emperor ... assumed at once that Austria had no
wish but to drive a good bargain for herself, and asked
broadly, 'What is your price? Will Illyria satisfy you? I only
wish you to be neutral--I can deal with these Russians and
Prussians single-handed.'
{1525}
Metternich stated plainly that the time in which Austria could
be neutral was past; that the situation of Europe at large
must be considered; ... that events had proved the
impossibility of a steadfast peace unless the sovereigns of
the Continent were restored to the rank of independence; in a
word, that the Rhenish Confederacy must be broken up; that
France must be contented with the boundary of the Rhine, and
pretend no longer to maintain her usurped and unnatural
influence in Germany. Napoleon replied by a gross personal
insult: 'Come, Metternich,' said he, 'tell me honestly how
much the English have given you to take their part against
me.' The Austrian court at length sent a formal document,
containing its ultimatum, the tenor of which Metternich had
sufficiently indicated in this conversation. Talleyrand and
Fouché, who had now arrived from Paris, urged the Emperor to
accede to the proffered terms. They represented to him the
madness of rousing all Europe to conspire for his destruction,
and insinuated that the progress of discontent was rapid in
France itself. Their arguments were backed by intelligence of
the most disastrous character from Spain. ...
See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.
Napoleon was urged by his military as well as political
advisers, to appreciate duly the crisis which his affairs had
reached. ... He proceeded to insult both ministers and
generals ... and ended by announcing that he did not wish for
any plans of theirs, but their service in the execution of
his. Thus blinded by arrogance and self-confidence, and
incapable of weighing any other considerations against what he
considered as the essence of his personal glory, Napoleon
refused to abate one iota of his pretensions--until it was too
late. Then, indeed, ... he did show some symptoms of
concession. A courier arrived at Prague with a note, in which
he signified his willingness to accede to a considerable
number of the Austrian stipulations. But this was on the 11th
of August. The day preceding was that on which, by the
agreement, the armistice was to end. On that day Austria had
to sign an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Russia and
Prussia. On the night between the 10th and 11th, rockets
answering rockets, from height to height along the frontiers
of Bohemia and Silesia, had announced to all the armies of the
Allies this accession of strength, and the immediate
recommencement of hostilities."
J. G. Lockhart,
Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,
chapters 32-33.
"On the 14th of June Great Britain had become a party to the
treaty concluded between Russia and Prussia. She had promised
assistance in this great struggle; but no aid could have been
more effectual than that which she was rendering in the
Peninsula."
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
chapter 32 (volume 7).
ALSO IN:
G. R. Gleig,
The Leipsic Campaign,
chapters 7-16.
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and the Empire,
book 48-49 (volume 4).
Prince Metternich,
Memoirs, 1773-1815,
book 1, chapter 8 (volume 1).
J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 7, chapters 4-5 (volume 3).
J. Philippart,
Northern Campaign, 1812-1813,
volume 2.
GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (August).
Great battle and victory of Napoleon at Dresden.
French defeats at Kulm, Gross-Beeren and the Katzbach.
"Dresden, during the armistice, had been converted by Napoleon
into such a place of strength that it might be called one
citadel. All the trees in the neighbourhood, as well as those
which had formed the ornament of the public gardens and walks
of that beautiful capital, were cut down and converted into
abattis and palisades; redoubts, field-works, and fosses had
been constructed. The chain of fortresses garrisoned by French
troops secured to Napoleon the rich valley of the Elbe.
Hamburg, Dantzic, and many strong places on the Oder and
Vistula were in his possession. ... His army assembled at the
seat of war amounted to nearly 300,000 men, including the
Bavarian reserve of 25,000 under General Wrede, and he had
greatly increased his cavalry. This powerful force was divided
into eleven army corps, commanded by Vandamme, Victor, Bertrand,
Ney, Lauriston, Marmont, Reynier, Poniatowski, Macdonald,
Oudinot, and St. Cyr. Murat, who, roused by the news of the
victories of Lutzen and Bautzen, had left his capital, was
made commander-in-chief of all the cavalry. ... Davoust held
Hamburg with 20,000 men. Augereau with 24,000 occupied
Bavaria. The armies of the allies were computed at nearly
400,000 men, including the divisions destined to invade Italy.
Those ready for action at the seat of war in Germany were
divided into three great masses,--the army of Bohemia,
consisting mainly of Austrians commanded by Prince
Schwartzenburg; the army of Silesia, commanded by Blucher; and
the troops under the command of Bernadotte, stationed near
Berlin. These immense hosts were strong in cavalry and
artillery, and in discipline and experience far exceeded the
French soldiers, who were nearly all young conscripts. Two
Frenchmen of eminence were leaders in the ranks of the enemies
of France,--Bernadotte and Moreau; Jomini, late chief of the
engineer department in Napoleon's army, was a Swiss. These
three men, well instructed by the great master of the art of
war, directed the counsels of the allied Sovereigns and taught
them how to conquer. Bernadotte pointed out that Napoleon lay
in Dresden with his guard of five-and-twenty thousand men,
while his marshals were stationed in various strong positions
on the frontiers of Saxony. The moment a French corps d'armée
was attacked Napoleon would spring from his central point upon
the flank of the assailants, and as such a blow would be
irresistible he would thus beat the allied armies in detail.
To obviate this danger Bernadotte recommended that the first
general who attacked a French division and brought Napoleon
into the field should retreat, luring the Emperor onward in
pursuit, when the other bodies of allied troops,
simultaneously closing upon his rear, should surround him and
cut him off from his, base. This plan was followed: Blucher
advanced from Silesia, menacing the armies of Macdonald and
Ney, and Napoleon, with the activity expected, issued from
Dresden on the 15th of August, rapidly reached the point of
danger, and assumed the offensive. But he was unable to bring
the Prussian general to a decisive action, for Blucher,
continuing to retreat before him, the pursuit was only
arrested by an estafette reporting on the 23rd that the main
body of the allies threatened Dresden. On the 25th, at 4 in
the afternoon, 200,000 allied troops led by Schwartzenburg
appeared before that city. St. Cyr, who had been left to
observe the passes of the Bohemian mountains with 20,000 men,
retreated before the irresistible torrent and threw himself
into the Saxon capital, which he prepared to defend with his
own forces and the garrison left by the Emperor.
{1526}
It was a service of the last importance. With Dresden Napoleon
would lose his recruiting depot and supplies of every kind.
... The Austrian commander-in-chief deferred the attack till
the following day, replying to the expostulations of Jomini
that Napoleon was engaged in the Silesian passes. Early on the
morning of the 26th the allies advanced to the assault in six
columns, under cover of a tremendous artillery fire. They
carried one great redoubt, then another, and closed with the
defenders of the city at every point, shells and balls falling
thick on the houses, many of which were on fire. St. Cyr
conducted the defence with heroism; but before midday a
surrender was talked of. ... Suddenly, from the opposite bank
of the Elbe columns of soldiers were seen hastening towards
the city. They pressed across the bridges, swept through the
streets, and with loud shouts demanded to be led into battle,
although they had made forced marches from the frontiers of
Silesia. Napoleon, with the Old Guard and cuirassiers, was in
the midst of them. His enemies had calculated on only half his
energy and rapidity, and had forgotten that he could return as
quickly as he left. The Prussians had penetrated the Grosse
Garten on the French left, and so close was the Russian fire
that Witgenstein's guns enfiladed the road by which Napoleon
had to pass; consequently, to reach the city in safety, he was
compelled to dismount at the most exposed part, and, according
to Baron Odeleben (one of his aides-de-camp), creep along on his
hands and knees (ventre à terre). Napoleon halted at the
palace to reassure the King of Saxony, and then joined his
troops who were already at the gates. Sallies were made by Ney
and Mortier under his direction. The astonished assailants
were driven back. The Young Guard recaptured the redoubts, and
the French army deployed on the plateau lately in possession
of their enemies. ... The fury of the fight gradually
slackened, and the armies took up their positions for the
night. The French wings bivouacked to the right and left of
the city, which itself formed Napoleon's centre. The allies
were ranged in a semicircle cresting the heights. ... They had
not greatly the advantage in numbers, for Klenau's division
never came up; and Napoleon, now that Victor and Marmont's
corps had arrived, concentrated nearly 200,000 men. ... The
next day broke in a tempest of wind and rain. At six o'clock
Napoleon was on horseback, and ordered his columns to advance.
Their order of battle has been aptly compared to 'a fan when
it expands.' Their position could scarcely have been worse.
... Knowing that in case of disaster retreat would be almost
an impossibility, Napoleon began an attack on both flanks of
the allied army, certain that their defeat would demoralize
the centre, which he could overwhelm by a simultaneous
concentric attack, supported by the fire of 100 guns. The
stormy weather which concealed their movements favoured them;
and Murat turning and breaking the Austrian left, and Ney
completely rolling up the Austrian right, the result was a
decisive victory. By three in the afternoon of the 27th the
battle was concluded, and the allies were in full retreat,
pursued by the French. The roads to Bohemia and those to the
south were barred by Murat's and Vandamme's corps, and the
allied Sovereigns were obliged to take such country paths and
byways as they could find--which had been rendered almost
impassable by the heavy rain. They lost 25,000 prisoners, 40
standards, 60 pieces of cannon, and many waggons. The killed
and wounded amounted on each side to seven or eight thousand.
The first cannon-shot fired by the guard under the
direction of Napoleon mortally wounded Moreau while talking to
the Emperor Alexander. ... The French left wing, composed of
the three corps of Vandamme, St. Cyr, and Marmont, were
ordered to march by their left along the Pirna road in pursuit
of the foe, who was retreating into Bohemia in three columns,
and had traversed the gorges of the Hartz Mountains in safety,
though much baggage, several ammunition waggons, and 2,000
prisoners, fell into the hands of the French. The Russians,
under Ostermann, halted on the plain of Culm [or Kulm] for the
arrival of Kleist's Prussians; the Austrians hurried along the
Prague route. Vandamme marched boldly on, neglecting even the
precaution of guarding the defile of Peterswald in his rear.
Trusting to the rapid advance of the other French corps, he
was lured on by the hope of capturing the allied Sovereigns in
their headquarters at Toplitz. Barclay de Tolly, having
executed a rapid detour from left to right, brought the bulk
of his Russian forces to bear on Vandamme, who, on reaching
Culm, was attacked in front and rear [August 29-30], surprised
and taken, losing the whole of his artillery and between 7,000
and 8,000 prisoners; the rest of his corps escaped and
rejoined the army. This disaster totally deranged Napoleon's
plans, which would have led him to follow up the pursuit
towards Bohemia in person. Oudinot was ordered to march
against Bülow's corps at Berlin and the Swedes commanded by
Bernadotte, taking with him the divisions of Bertrand and
Reynier--a force of 80,000 men. Reynier, who marched in
advance, fell in with the allies at Gross-Beeren, attacked
them precipitately and suffered severely, his division,
chiefly composed of Saxons, taking flight. Oudinot also
sustained considerable losses, and retreated to Torgau on the
Elbe. Girard, sallying out of Magdeburg with 5,000 or 6,000
men, was defeated near Leibnitz, with the loss of 1,000 men,
and some cannon and baggage. Macdonald encountered Blucher in
the plains between Wahlstadt and the Katzbach under
disadvantageous circumstances [August 26], and was obliged to
retire in disorder."
R. H. Horne,
History of Napoleon,
chapter 37.
"The great battle of the Katzbach, the counterpart to that of
Hohenlinden, [was] one of the most glorious ever gained in the
annals of European fame. Its trophies were immense. ...
Eighteen thousand prisoners, 103 pieces of cannon, and 230
caissons, besides 7,000 killed and wounded, presented a total
loss to the French of 25,000 men."
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe,
chapter 80, section 68 (volume 17).
"Of the battle of Kulm it is not too much to say that it was
the most critical in the whole war of German liberation. The
fate of the coalition was determined absolutely by its
results. Had Vandamme been strong enough to keep his hold of
Bohemia, and to block up from them the mouths of the passes,
the allied columns, forced back into the exhausted mountain
district through which they were retreating, must have
perished for lack of food, or dissolved themselves."
G. R. Gleig,
The Leipzig Campaign,
chapter 27.
{1527}
ALSO IN:
Baron Jomini,
Life of Napoleon,
chapter 20 (volume 4).
Major C. Adams,
Great Campaigns in Europe,
1796 to 1870, chapter 5.
GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (September-October).
French reverse at Dennewitz.
Napoleon's evacuation of Dresden.
Allied concentration at Leipsic.
Preparations for the decisive battle.
"The [allied] Army of the North had been nearly idle since the
battle of Grossbeeren. The Prussian generals were extremely
indignant against Bernadotte, whose slowness and inaction were
intolerable to them. It took them, under his orders, a
fortnight to advance as far as a good footman could march in a
day. They then unexpectedly met a new French army advancing
against them from a fortified camp at Wittenberg. Napoleon had
now assigned to Marshal Ney--the bravest of the brave'--the
work of beating 'the Cossack hordes and the poor militia,' and
taking Berlin. Under him were Oudinot, Regnier, Bertrand, and
Arrighi, with 70,000 men. On September 6 Tauenzien met their
superior forces at Jüterbogk, but sustained himself valiantly
through a perilous fight. Bernadotte was but two hours' march
away, but as usual disregarded Bülow's request to bring aid.
But Bülow himself brought up his corps on the right, and took
the brunt of the battle, extending it through the villages
south of Jüterbogk, of which Dennewitz was the centre. The
Prussians took these villages by storm, and when evening came
their victory was complete, though Bernadotte had not
stretched out a hand to help them. ... Bülow bore the name of
Dennewitz afterward in honor of his victory. Ney reported to
his master that he was entirely defeated. Napoleon unwisely
ascribed his defeat entirely to the Saxons, who fought well
that day for him, but for the last time. By his reproaches he
entirely alienated the people from him. The French loss in
this battle was 10,000 killed and wounded, and 10,000
prisoners, besides 80 guns. The Prussians lost in killed and
wounded more than 5,000. Thus five victories had been won by
the Allies in a fortnight, compensating fully for the loss of
the battle of Dresden. The way to the Elbe lay open to the
Army of the North. But Bernadotte continued to move with
extreme slowness. Bülow and Tauenzien seriously proposed to
Blücher to leave the Swedish prince, whom they openly
denounced as a traitor. Blücher approached the Elbe across the
Lausitz from Bohemia, and it would have been easy to cross the
river and unite the two armies, threatening Napoleon's rear,
and making Dresden untenable for him. Napoleon advanced in
vain against Blücher to Bausitz. The Prussian general wisely
avoided a battle. Then the emperor turned against the Army of
Bohemia, but it was too strong in its position in the valley
of Teplitz, with the mountains in its rear, to be attacked.
Then again he moved toward Blücher, but again failed to bring
about an action. At this time public opinion throughout Europe
was undergoing a rapid change, and Napoleon's name was losing
its magic. The near prospect of his fall made the nations he
had oppressed eager and impatient for it, and his German
allies and subjects lost all regard and hope for his cause. On
October 8 the Bavarian plenipotentiary, General Wrede,
concluded a treaty with Austria at Ried, by the terms of which
Bavaria left Napoleon and joined the allies. This important
defection, though it had been for some weeks expected, was
felt by the French emperor as a severe blow to his prospects.
Napoleon's circle of movement around Dresden began to be
narrowed. The Russian reserves under Benningsen, 57,000
strong, were also advancing through Silesia toward Bohemia.
Blücher was therefore not needed in Bohemia, and he pressed
forward vigorously to cross the Elbe. His army advanced along
the right bank of the Black Elster to its mouth above
Wittenberg. On the opposite bank of the Elbe, in the bend of
the stream, stands the village of Wartenburg, and just at the
bend Blücher built two bridges of boats without opposition. On
October 3 York's corps crossed the river. But now on the west
side, among the thickets and swamps before the village, arose
a furious struggle with a body of 20,000 French, Italians, and
Germans of the Rhine League under Bertrand. York displayed
eminent patience, coolness, and judgment, and won a decided
victory out of a great danger. Bernadotte, though with much
hesitation, also crossed the Elbe at the mouth of the Mulde,
and the army of the North and of Silesia were thus united in
Napoleon's rear. It was now evident that the successes of
these armies had brought the French into extreme danger, and
the allied sovereigns resolved upon a concerted attack.
Leipsic was designated as the point at which the armies should
combine. Napoleon could no longer hold Dresden, lest he should
be cut off from France by a vastly superior force. The
partisan corps of the allies were also growing bolder and more
active far in Napoleon's rear, and on October 1 Czernicheff
drove Jerome out of Cassel and proclaimed the kingdom of
Westphalia dissolved. This was the work of a handful of
Cossacks, without infantry and artillery; but though Jerome
soon returned, the moral effect of this sudden and easy
overthrow of one of Napoleon's military kingdoms was immense.
On October 7 Napoleon left Dresden, and marched to the Mulde.
Blücher's forces were arrayed along both sides of this stream,
below Düben. But he quietly and successfully retired, on
perceiving Napoleon's purpose to attack him, and moved
westward to the Saale, in order to draw after him Bernadotte
and the Northern army. The plan was successful, and the united
armies took up a position behind the Saale, extending from
Merseburg to Alsleben, Bernadotte occupying the northern end
of the line next to the Elbe. Napoleon, disappointed in his
first effort, now formed a plan whose boldness astonished both
friend and foe. He resolved to cross the Elbe, to seize Berlin
and the Marches, now uncovered, and thus, supported by his
fortresses of Magdeburg, Stettin, Dantzic, and Hamburg, where
he still had bodies of troops and magazines, to give the war
an entirely new aspect. But the murmurs of his worn-out
troops, and even of his generals, compelled him to abandon
this plan, which was desperate, but might have been effectual.
The suggestion of it terrified Bernadotte, whose province of
Lower Pomerania would be threatened, and he would have
withdrawn in headlong haste across the Elbe had not Blücher
persisted in detaining him. Napoleon now resolved to march
against the Bohemian army at Leipsic. On October 14, on
approaching the city from the north, he heard cannon-shots on
the opposite side. It was the advanced guard of the main army,
which was descending from the Erz-Gebirge range, after a sharp
but indecisive cavalry battle with Murat at the village of
Liebertwolkwitz, south of Dresden.
{1528}
In the broad, thickly settled plains around Leipsic, the
armies of Europe now assembled for the final and decisive
conflict. Napoleon's command included Portuguese, Spaniards,
Neapolitans, and large contingents of Germans from the Rhine
League, as well as the flower of the French youth; while the
allies brought against him Cossacks and Calmucks, Swedes and
Magyars, besides all the resources of Prussian patriotism and
Austrian discipline. Never since the awful struggle at
Chalons, which saved Western civilization from Attila, had
there been a strife so well deserving the name of 'the battle
of the nations.' West of the city of Leipsic runs the Pleisse,
and flows into the Elster on the northwest side. Above their
junction, the two streams run for some distance near one
another, inclosing a sharp angle of swampy land. The great
highway to Lindenau from Leipsic crosses the Elster, and then
runs southwesterly to Lützen and Weissenfels. South of the
city and east of the Pleisse lie a number of villages, of
which Wachau, Liebertwolkwitz, and Probstheida, nearer the
city, were important points during the battle. The little
river Partha approaches the city on the east, and then runs
north, reaching the Elster at Gohlis. Napoleon occupied the
villages north, east and south of the city, in a small circle
around it."
C. T. Lewis,
History of Germany,
chapter 30, sections 7-11.
ALSO IN:
E. Baines,
History of the Wars of the French Revolution,
book 4, chapter 23 (volume 3).
GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (October).
"The Battle of the Nations."
"The town of Leipsic has four sides and four gates. ... On the
south is the rising ground called the Swedish Camp; and
another called the Sheep-walk, bordering on the banks of the
Pleisse. To this quarter the Grand Army of the Allies was seen
advancing on the 15th of October. Buonaparte made his
arrangements accordingly. Bertrand and Poniatowski defended
Lindenau and the east side of the city, by which the French
must retreat. Augereau was posted farther to the left, on the
elevated plain of Wachau, and on the south, Victor, Lauriston,
and Macdonald confronted the advance of the Allies with the
Imperial Guards placed as a reserve. On the north, Marmont was
placed between Mœckern and Euterist, to make head against
Blücher, should he arrive in time to take part in the battle.
On the opposite quarter, the sentinels of the two armies were
within musket-shot of each other, when evening fell. ... The
number of men who engaged the next morning was estimated at
136,000 French, and 230,000 on the part of the Allies. ...
Napoleon remained all night in the rear of his own Guards,
behind the central position, facing a village called Gossa,
occupied by the Austrians. At daybreak on the 16th of October
the battle began, The French position was assailed along all
the southern front with the greatest fury. ... The Allies
having made six desperate attempts, ... all of them
unsuccessful, Napoleon in turn assumed the offensive. ... This
was about noon. The village of Gossa was carried by the
bayonet. Macdonald made himself master of the Swedish Camp;
and the eminence called the Sheep-walk was near being taken in
the same manner. The impetuosity of the French had fairly
broken through the centre of the Allies, and Napoleon sent the
tidings of his success to the King of Saxony, who ordered all
the bells in the city to be rung. ... The King of Naples, with
Latour-Maubourg and Kellermann, poured through the gap in the
enemy's centre at the head of the whole body of cavalry, and
thundered forward as far as Magdeburg, a village in the rear
of the Allies, bearing down General Rayefskoi with the
Grenadiers of the Russian reserve. At this moment, while the
French were disordered by their own success, Alexander, who
was present, ordered forward the Cossacks of his Guard, who,
with their long lances, bore back the dense body of cavalry
that had so nearly carried the day. Meantime, as had been
apprehended, Blücher arrived before the city, and suddenly
came into action with Marmont, being three times his numbers.
He in consequence obtained great and decided advantages; and
before night-fall had taken the village of Mœckern, together
with 20 pieces of artillery and 2,000 prisoners. But on the
south side the contest continued doubtful. Gossa was still
disputed. ... General Mehrfeldt fell into the hands of the
French. The battle raged till night-fall, when it ceased by
mutual consent. ... The armies slept on the ground they had
occupied during the day. The French on the southern side had
not relinquished one foot of their original position, though
attacked by such superior numbers. Marmont had indeed been
forced back by Blücher, and compelled to crowd his line of
defence nearer the walls of Leipsic. Thus pressed on all sides
with doubtful issues, Buonaparte availed himself of the
capture of General Mehrfeldt to demand an armistice and to
signify his acceptance of the terms proposed by the Allies,
but which were now found to be too moderate. ... Napoleon
received no answer till his troops had recrossed the Rhine;
and the reason assigned is, that the Allies had pledged
themselves solemnly to each other to enter into no treaty with
him 'while a single individual of the French army remained in
Germany.' ... The 17th was spent in preparations on both
sides, without any actual hostilities. At eight o'clock on the
morning of the 18th they were renewed with tenfold fury.
Napoleon had considerably contracted his circuit of defence,
and the French were posted on an inner line, nearer to
Leipsic, of which Probtsheyda was the central point. ...
Barclay, Wittgenstein, and Kleist advanced on Probtsheyda,
where they were opposed by Murat, Victor, Augereau, and
Lauriston, under the eye of Napoleon himself. On the left
Macdonald had drawn back his division to a village called
Stoetteritz. Along this whole line the contest was maintained
furiously on both sides; nor could the terrified spectators,
from the walls and steeples of Leipsic, perceive that it
either receded or advanced. About two o'clock the Allies
forced their way ... into Probtsheyda; the camp-followers
began to fly; the tumult was excessive. Napoleon ... placed
the reserve of the Old Guard in order, led them in person to
recover the village, and saw them force their entrance ere he
withdrew to the eminence from whence he watched the battle.
... The Allies, at length, felt themselves obliged to desist
from the murderous attacks on the villages which cost them so
dear; and, withdrawing their troops, kept up a dreadful fire
with their artillery.
{1529}
The French replied with equal spirit, though they had fewer
guns; and, besides, their ammunition was falling short. Still,
however, Napoleon completely maintained the day on the south
of Leipsic, where he commanded in person. On the northern
side, the yet greater superiority of numbers placed Ney in a
precarious situation; and, pressed hard both by Blücher and
the Crown-Prince, he was compelled to draw nearer the town,
and had made a stand on an eminence called Heiterblick, when
on a sudden the Saxons, who were stationed in that part of the
field, deserted from the French and went over to the enemy. In
consequence of this unexpected disaster, Ney was unable any
longer to defend himself. It was in vain that Buonaparte
dispatched his reserves of cavalry to·fill up the chasm that
had been made; and Ney drew up the remainder of his forces
close under the walls of Leipsic. The battle once more ceased
at all points. ... Although the French army had thus kept its
ground up to the last moment on these two days, yet there was
no prospect of their being able to hold out much longer at
Leipsic. ... All things counselled a retreat, which was
destined (like the rest of late) to be unfortunate. ... The
retreat was commenced in the night-time; and Napoleon spent a
third harassing night in giving the necessary orders for the
march. He appointed Macdonald and Poniatowski ... to defend
the rear. ... A temporary bridge which had been erected had
given way, and the old bridge on the road to Lindenau was the
only one that remained for the passage of the whole French
army. But the defence of the suburbs had been so gallant and
obstinate that time was allowed for this purpose. At length
the rear-guard itself was about to retreat, when, as they
approached the banks of the river, the bridge blew up by the
mistake of a sergeant of a company of sappers who ... set fire
to the mine of which he had charge before the proper moment.
This catastrophe effectually barred the escape of all those
who still remained on the Leipsic side of the river, except a
few who succeeded in swimming across, among whom was Marshal
Macdonald. Poniatowski ... was drowned in making the same
attempt. In him, it might be said, perished the last of the
Poles. About 25,000 French were made prisoners of war, with a
great quantity of artillery and baggage."
W. Hazlitt,
Life of Napoleon,
chapter 50 (volume 3).
"The battle of Leipsic was over. Already had the allied
sovereigns entered the town, and forcing, not without
difficulty, their way through the crowd, passed on to the
market-place. Here, the house in which the King of Saxony had
lodged was at once made known to them by the appearance of the
Saxon troops whom Napoleon had left to guard their master. ...
Moreover, the King himself ... stood bare-headed on the steps
of the stairs. But the Emperor of Russia, who appears at once
to have assumed the chief direction of affairs, took no notice
of the suppliants. ... The battle of Leipsic constitutes one
of those great hinges on which the fortunes of the world may
be said from time to time to turn. The importance of its
political consequence cannot be overestimated. ... As a great
military operation, the one feature which forces itself
prominently upon our notice is the enormous extent of the
means employed on both sides to accomplish an end. Never since
the days when Persia poured her millions into Greece had armies
so numerous been marshalled against each other. Nor does
history tell of trains of artillery so vast having been at any
time brought into action with more murderous effect. ... About
1,300 pieces, on the one side, were answered, during two days,
by little short of 1,000 on the other. ... We look in vain for
any manifestations of genius or military skill, either in the
combinations which rendered the battle of Leipsic inevitable,
or in the arrangements according to which the attack and
defence of the field were conducted. ... It was the triumph,
not of military skill, but of numbers."
G. R. Gleig,
The Leipsic Campaign,
chapter 41.
"No more here than at Moscow must we seek in the failure of
the leader's talents the cause of such deplorable results,--
for he was never more fruitful in resource, more bold, more
resolute, nor more a soldier,--but in the illusions of pride,
in the wish to regain at a blow an immense fortune which he
had lost, in the difficulty of acknowledging to himself his
defeat in time, in a word, in all those errors which we may
discern in miniature and caricature in an ordinary gambler,
who madly risks riches acquired by folly; errors which are
found on a large and terrible scale in this gigantic gambler,
who plays with human blood as others play with money. As
gamblers lose their fortunes twice,--once from not knowing
where to stop, and a second time from wishing to restore it at
a single cast,--so Napoleon endangered his at Moscow by wishing
to make it exorbitantly large, and in the Dresden campaign by
seeking to restore it in its full extent. The cause was always
the same, the alteration not in the genius, but in the
character, by the deteriorating influence of unlimited power
and success."
A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and the Empire,
book 50 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
Duke de Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 3, part 2, chapter 17.
J. C. Ropes,
The First Napoleon.
Baron de Marbot,
Memoirs,
volume 2, chapter 38-39.
GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (October-December).
Retreat of Napoleon beyond the Rhine.
Battle of Hanau.
Fall of the kingdom of Westphalia.
Surrender of French garrisons and forces.
Liberation achieved.
"Blucher, with Langeron and Sacken, moved in pursuit of the
French army, which, disorganised and dejected, was wending its
way towards the Rhine. At the passage of the Unstrutt, at
Freyberg, 1,000 prisoners and 18 guns were captured by the
Prussian hussars; but on the 23d the French reached Erfurth,
the citadels and magazines of which afforded them at once
security and relief from their privations. Here Napoleon
halted two days, employed in reorganising his army, the
thirteen corps of which were now formed into six, commanded by
Victor, Ney, Bertrand, Augereau, Marmont, and Macdonald, and
amounting in all to less than 90,000 men; while twice that
number were left blockaded in the fortresses on the Elbe, the
Oder, and the Vistula. On the 25th, after parting for the last
time with Murat, who here quitted him and returned to Naples,
he resumed his march, retreating with such rapidity through
the Thuringian forest, that the Cossacks alone of the pursuing
army could keep up with the retiring columns--while the men
dropped, exhausted by fatigue and hunger, or deserted their
ranks by hundreds; so that when the fugitive host approached
the Maine, not more than 50,000 remained effective round their
colours--10,000 had fallen or been made prisoners, and at
least 30,000 were straggling in the rear. But here fresh
dangers awaited them.
{1530}
After the treaty of the 8th October, by which Bavaria had
acceded to the grand alliance, an Austro-Bavarian force under
Marshal Wrede had moved in the direction of Frankfort, and was
posted, to the number of 45,000 men, in the oak forest near
Hanau across the great road to Mayence, and blocking up
entirely the French line of retreat. The battle commenced at
11 A. M. on the 30th; but the French van, under Victor and
Macdonald, after fighting its way through the forest, was
arrested, when attempting to issue from its skirts, by the
concentric fire of 70 pieces of cannon, and for four hours the
combat continued, till the arrival of the guards and main body
changed the aspect of affairs. Under cover of the terrible
fire of Drouot's artillery, Sebastiani and Nansouty charged
with the cavalry of the guard, and overthrew everything
opposed to them, and Wrede at length drew off his shattered
army behind the Kinzig. Hanau was bombarded and taken, and
Mortier and Marmont, with the rear divisions, cut their way
through on the following day, with considerable loss to their
opponents. The total losses of the Allies amounted to 10,900
men, of whom 4,000 were prisoners; and the victory threw a
parting ray of glory over the long career of the revolutionary
arms in Germany. On the 2d of November the French reached
Mayence, and Napoleon, after remaining there six days to
collect the remains of his army, set out for Paris, where he
arrived on the 9th; and thus the French eagles bade a final
adieu to the German plains. In the mean time, the Allied
troops, following closely on the footsteps of the retreating
French, poured in prodigious strength down the valley of the
Maine. On the 5th of November the Emperor Alexander entered
Frankfort in triumph, at the head of 20,000 horse; and on the
9th the fortified post of Hochheim, in advance of the
tête-du-pont of Mayence at Cassel, was stormed by Giulay. From
the heights beyond the town the victorious armies of Germany
beheld the winding stream of the Rhine; a shout of enthusiasm
ran from rank to rank as they saw the mighty river of the
Fatherland, which their arms had liberated; those in the rear
hurried to the front, and soon a hundred thousand voices
joined in the cheers which told the world that the war of
independence was ended and Germany delivered. Nothing now
remained but to reap the fruits of this mighty victory; yet so
vast was the ruin that even this was a task of time and
difficulty. The rickety kingdom of Westphalia fell at once,
never more to rise; the revolutionary dynasty in Berg followed
its fate; and the authority of the King of Britain was
re-established by acclamation in Hanover, at the first
appearance of Bernadotte and Benningsen. The reduction of
Davoust, who had been left in Hamburg with 25,000 French and
10,000 Danes, was an undertaking of more difficulty; and
against him Walmoden and Bernadotte moved with 40,000 men. The
French marshal had taken up a position on the Stecknitz; but,
fearful of being cut off from Hamburg, he retired behind the
Bille on the advance of the Allies, separating himself from
the Danes, who were compelled to capitulate. The operations of
the Crown-Prince against Denmark, the ancient rival of Sweden,
were now pushed with a vigour and activity strongly
contrasting with his luke-warmness in the general campaign;
and the court of Copenhagen, seeing its dominions on the point
of being overrun, signed an armistice on the 15th December, on
which was soon after based a permanent treaty [of Kiel]. ...
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1813-1814.
When Napoleon (Oct. 7) marched northwards from Dresden, he had
left St. Cyr in that city with 30,000 men, opposed only by a
newly-raised Russian corps under Tolstoi, which St. Cyr, by a
sudden attack, routed with the loss of 3,000 men and 10 guns.
But no sooner was the battle of Leipsic decided, than Dresden
was again blockaded by 50.000 men under Klenau and Tolstoi;
and St. Cyr, who was encumbered with a vast number of sick and
wounded, and was almost without provisions, was obliged, after
a fruitless sortie on the 6th November, to surrender on the
11th, on condition of being sent with his troops to France.
The capitulation, however, was disallowed by Schwartzenberg,
and the whole were made prisoners of war--a proceeding which
the French, not without some justice, declaim against as a
gross breach of faith--and thus no less than 32 generals,
1,795 officers, and 33,000 rank and file, with 240 pieces of
cannon, fell into the power of the Allies. The fall of Dresden
was soon followed by that of the other fortresses on the
Vistula and the Oder. Stettin, with 8,000 men and 350 guns,
surrendered on the 21st November; and Torgau, which contained
the military hospitals and reserve parks of artillery left by
the grand army on its retreat from the Elbe, yielded at
discretion to Tauenzein (December 26), after a siege of two
months. But such was the dreadful state of the garrison, from
the ravages of typhus fever, that the Allies dared not enter
this great pest-house till the 10th January; and the terrible
epidemic which issued, from its walls made the circuit, during
the four following years, of every country in Europe. Dantzic,
with its motley garrison of 35,000 men, had been blockaded
ever since the Moscow retreat; but the blockading corps, which
was not of greater strength, could not confine the French
within the walls; and Rapp made several sorties in force
during the spring and summer, by which he procured abundance
of provisions. It was not till after the termination of the
armistice of Pleswitz that the siege was commenced in form;
and after sustaining a severe bombardment, Rapp, deprived of
all hope by the battle of Leipsic, capitulated (November 29)
with his garrison, now reduced by the sword, sickness, and
desertion, to 16,000 men. Zamosc, with 3,000 men, surrendered
on the 22d December, and Modlin, with 1,200, on the 25th; and
at the close of the year, France retained beyond the Rhine
only Hamburg, Magdeburg, and Wittenberg, on the Elbe; Custrin
and Glogau on the Oder; and the citadels of Erfurth and
Würtzburg, which held out after the capitulation of the
towns."
Epitome of Alison's History of Europe,
sections 737-742
(chapter 82, volume 17, in complete work).
"The princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, with the
exception of the captive King of Saxony, and one or two minor
princes, deserted Napoleon, and entered into treaties with the
Allies."
T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 4, page 538.
ALSO IN:
M. Bourrienne,
Private Memoirs of Napoleon,
volume 4, chapter 16.
The Year of Liberation: Journal of the Defence of Hamburgh.
J. Philippart,
Campaign in Germany and France, 1813,
volume 1, pages 230-278.
GERMANY: A. D. 1814.
The Allies in France and in possession of Paris.
Fall of Napoleon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH),
and (MARCH-APRIL).
{1531}
GERMANY: A. D. 1814 (May).
Readjustment of French boundaries by the Treaty of Paris.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE).
GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1815.
The Congress of Vienna.
Its territorial and political readjustments.
See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1820.
Reconstruction of Germany.
The Germanic Confederation and its constitution.
"Germany was now utterly disintegrated. The Holy Roman Empire
had ceased to exist; the Confederation of the Rhine had
followed it; and from the Black Forest to the Russian frontier
there was nothing but angry ambitions, vengeances, and fears.
If there was ever to be peace again in all these wide regions,
it was clearly necessary to create something new. What was to
be created was a far more difficult question; but already, on
the 30th of May 1814, the powers had come to some sort of
understanding, if not with regard to the means to be pursued,
at least with regard to the end to be attained. In the Treaty
of Paris we find these words: 'Les états de l'Allemagne seront
indépendants et unis par un lien fédératif.' But how was this to
be effected? There were some who wished the Holy Roman Empire
to be restored. ... Of course neither Prussia, Bavaria, nor
Wurtemberg, could look kindly upon a plan so obviously
unfavourable to them; but not even Austria really wished it,
and indeed it had few powerful friends. Then there was a
project of a North and South Germany, with the Maine for
boundary; but this was very much the reverse of acceptable to
the minor princes, who had no idea of being grouped like so
many satellites, some around Austria and some around Prussia.
Next came a plan of reconstruction by circles, the effect of
which would have been to have thrown all the power of Germany
into the hands of a few of the larger states. To this all the
smaller independent states were bitterly opposed, and it broke
down, although supported by the great authority of Stein, as
well as by Gagern. If Germany had been in a later phase of
political development, public opinion would perhaps have
forced the sovereigns to consent to the formation of a really
united Fatherland with a powerful executive and a national
parliament--but the time for that had not arrived. What was
the opposition of a few hundred clear-sighted men with their
few thousand followers, that it should prevail over the
masters of so many legions? What these potentates cared most
about were their sovereign rights, and the dream of German
unity was very readily sacrificed to the determination of each
of them to be, as far as he possibly could, absolute master in
his own dominions. Therefore it was that it soon became
evident that the results of the deliberation on the future of
Germany would be, not a federative state, but a confederation
of states--a Staaten-Bund, not a Bundes-Staat. There is no
doubt, however, that much mischief might have been avoided if
all the stronger powers had worked conscientiously together to
give this Staaten-Bund as national a character as possible.
... Prussia was really honestly desirous to effect something
of this kind, and Stein, Hardenberg, William von Humboldt,
Count Münster, and other statesmen, laboured hard to bring it
about. Austria, on the other hand, aided by Bavaria,
Wurtemberg, and Baden, did all she could to oppose such
projects. Things would perhaps have been settled better than
they ultimately were, if the return of Napoleon from Elba had
not frightened all Europe from its propriety, and turned the
attention of the sovereigns towards warlike preparations. ...
The document by which the Germanic Confederation is created is
of so much importance that we may say a word about the various
stages through which it passed. First, then, it appears as a
paper drawn up by Stein in March 1814, and submitted to
Hardenberg, Count Münster, and the Emperor Alexander. Next, in
the month of September, it took the form of an official plan,
handed by Hardenberg to Metternich, and consisting of
forty-one articles. This plan contemplated the creation of a
confederation which should have the character rather of a
Bundes-Staat than of a Staaten-Bund; but it went to pieces in
consequence of the difficulties which we have noticed above,
and out of it, and of ten other official proposals, twelve
articles were sublimated by the rival chemistry of Hardenberg
and Metternich. Upon these twelve articles the representatives
of Austria, Prussia, Hanover, and Wurtemberg, deliberated.
Their sittings were cut short partly by the ominous appearance
which was presented in the autumn of 1814 by the Saxon and Polish
questions, and partly by the difficulties from the side of
Bavaria and Wurtemberg, which we have already noticed. The
spring brought a project of the Austrian statesman Wessenberg,
who proposed a Staaten-Bund rather than a Bundes-Staat; and
out of this and a new Prussian project drawn up by W. von
Humboldt, grew the last sketch, which was submitted on the 23d
of May 1815 to the general conference of the plenipotentiaries
of all Germany. They made short work of it at the last, and
the Federal-Act (Bundes-Acte) bears date June 8th, 1815. This
is the document which is incorporated in the principal act of
the Congress of Vienna, and placed under the guarantee of
eight European powers, including France and England.
Wurtemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Homburg, did not form part of the
Confederation for some little time--the latter not till 1817;
but after they were added to the powers at first consenting,
the number of the sovereign states in the Confederation was
altogether thirty-nine. ... The following are the chief
stipulations of the Federal Act. The object of the
Confederation is the external and internal security of
Germany, and the independence and inviolability of the
confederate states. A diète fédérative (Bundes-Versammlung) is
to be created, and its attributions are sketched. The Diet is,
as soon as possible, to draw up the fundamental laws of the
Confederation. No state is to make war with another on any
pretence. All federal territories are mutually guaranteed.
There is to be in each state a 'Landständische
Verfassung'--'il y aura des assemblées d'états dans tous les
pays de la Confedération.' Art. 14 reserves many rights to the
mediatised princes. Equal civil and political rights are
guaranteed to all Christians in all German States, and
stipulations are made in favour of the Jews. The Diet did not
actually assemble before the 5th of November 1816. Its first
measures, and, above all, its first words, were not unpopular.
The Holy Allies, however, pressed with each succeeding month
more heavily upon Germany, and got at last the control of the
Confederation entirely into their hands.
{1532}
The chief epochs in this sad history were the Congress of
Carlsbad, 1819--the resolutions of which against the freedom
of the press were pronounced by Gentz to be a victory more
glorious than Leipzig; the ministerial conferences which
immediately succeeded it at Vienna; and the adoption by the
Diet of the Final Act (Sehluss Acte) of the Confederation on
the 8th of June 1820. The following are the chief stipulations
of the Final Act:--The Confederation is indissoluble. No new
member can be admitted without the unanimous consent of all
the states, and no federal territory can be ceded to a foreign
power without their permission. The regulations for the
conduct of business by the Diet are amplified and more
carefully defined. All quarrels between members of the
Confederation are to be stopped before recourse is had to
violence. The Diet may interfere to keep order in a state
where the government of that state is notoriously incapable of
doing so. Federal execution is provided for in case any
government resists the authority of the Diet. Other articles
declare the right of the Confederation to make war and peace
as a body, to guard the rights of each separate state from
injury, to take into consideration the differences between its
members and foreign nations, to mediate between them, to
maintain the neutrality of its territory, to make war when a
state belonging to the Confederation is attacked in its
non-federal territory if the attack seems likely to endanger
Germany."
M. E. G. Duff,
Studies in European Politics,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 8 (volume 3).
E. Hertslet,
The Map of Europe by Treaty,
volume 1, number 26
(Text of Federative Constitution).
See, also, VIENNA: CONGRESS OF.
GERMANY: A. D. 1815.
Napoleon's return from Elba.
The Quadruple Alliance.
The Waterloo campaign and its results.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814-1815.
GERMANY: A. D. 1815.
Final Overthrow of Napoleon.
The Allies again in Paris.
Second treaty with France.
Restitutions and indemnities.
French frontier of 1790 re-established.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JUNE),
(JULY-NOVEMBER).
GERMANY: A. D. 1815.
The Holy Alliance.
See HOLY ALLIANCE.
GERMANY: A. D. 1817-1820.
The Burschenschaft.
Assassination of Kotzebue.
The Karlsbad Conference.
"In 1817, the students of several Universities assembled at
the Wartburg in order to celebrate the tercentenary of the
Reformation. In the evening, a small number of them, the
majority having already left, were carried away by
enthusiastic zeal, and, in imitation of Luther, burnt a number
of writings recently published against German freedom,
together with other emblems of what was considered hateful in
the institutions of some of the German States. These youthful
excesses were viewed by the Governments as symptoms of grave
peril. At the same time, a large number of students united to
form one great German Burschenschaft [association of
students], whose aim was the cultivation of a love of country,
a love of freedom, and the moral sense. Thereupon increased
anxiety on the part of the Governments, followed by vexatious
police interference. Matters grew worse in consequence of the
rash act of a fanatical student, named Sand. It became known
that the Russian Government was using all its powerful
influence to have liberal ideas suppressed in Germany, and
that the play-wright Kotzebue had secretly sent to Russia
slanderous and libellous reports on German patriots. Sand
travelled to Mannheim and thrust a dagger into Kotzebue's
heart. The consequences were most disastrous to the cause of
freedom in Germany. The distrust of the Governments reached
its height: it was held that this bloody deed must needs be
the result of a wide-spread conspiracy: the authorities
suspected demagogues everywhere. Ministers, of course at the
instigation of Metternich, met at Karlsbad, and determined on
repressive measures. These were afterwards adopted by the
Federal Diet at Frankfort, which henceforth became an
instrument in the hands of the Emperor Francis and his
Minister for guiding the internal policy of the German States.
Accordingly, the cession of state-constitutions was opposed,
and prosecutions were instituted throughout Germany against
all who identified themselves with the popular movement; many
young men were thrown into prison; gymnastic and other
societies were arbitrarily suppressed; a rigid censorship of
the press was established, and the freedom of the Universities
restrained; various professors, among them Arndt, whose songs had
helped to fire the enthusiasm of the Freiheitskämpfer--the
soldiers of Freedom--in the recent war, were deprived of their
offices; the Burschenschaft was dissolved, and the wearing of
their colours, the future colours of the German Empire, black,
red, and gold, was forbidden. ... The Universities continued
to uphold the national idea; the Burschenschaft soon secretly
revived as a private association, and as early as 1820 there
again existed at most German Universities, Burschenschaften,
which, though their aims were not sharply defined, bore a
political colouring and placed the demand for German Unity in
the foreground."
G. Krause,
The Growth of German Unity,
chapter 8.
GERMANY: A. D. 1819-1847.
Arbitrary rulers and discontented subjects.
The ferment before revolution.
Formation of the Zollverein.
"The history of Germany during the thirty years of peace which
followed [the Congress of Carlsbad] is marked by very few
events of importance. It was a season of gradual reaction on
the part of the rulers; and of increasing impatience and
enmity on the part of the people. Instead of becoming loving
families, as the Holy Alliance designed, the States (except
some of the little principalities) were divided into two
hostile classes. There was material growth everywhere; the
wounds left by war and foreign occupation were gradually
healed; there was order, security for all who abstained from
politics, and a comfortable repose for such as were
indifferent to the future. But it was a sad and disheartening
period for the men who were able to see clearly how Germany,
with all the elements of a freer and stronger life existing in
her people, was falling behind the political development of
other countries. The three days' Revolution of 1830, which
placed Louis Philippe on the throne of France, was followed by
popular uprisings in some parts of Germany. Prussia and
Austria were too strong, and their people too well held in
check, to be affected; but in Brunswick the despotic Duke,
Karl, was deposed, Saxony and Hesse-Cassel were obliged to
accept co-rulers (out of their reigning families) and the
English Duke, Ernest Augustus, was made viceroy of Hannover.
{1533}
These four States also adopted a constitutional form of
government. The German Diet, as a matter of course, used what
power it possessed to counteract these movements, but its
influence was limited by its own laws of action. The hopes and
aspirations of the people were kept alive, in spite of the
system of repression, and some of the smaller States took
advantage of their independence to introduce various measures
of reform. As industry, commerce and travel increased, the
existence of so many boundaries, with their custom-houses,
taxes and other hindrances, became an unendurable burden.
Bavaria and Würtemberg formed a customs union in 1828, Prussia
followed, and by 1836 all of Germany except Austria was united
in the Zollverein (Tariff Union) [see TARIFF LEGISLATION
(GERMANY): A. D. 1833], which was not only a great material
advantage, but helped to inculcate the idea of a closer
political union. On the other hand, however, the monarchical
reaction against liberal government was stronger than ever.
Ernest Augustus of Hannover arbitrarily overthrew the
constitution he had accepted, and Ludwig I. of Bavaria,
renouncing all his former professions, made his land a very
nest of absolutism and Jesuitism. In Prussia, such men as
Stein, Gneisenau, and Wilhelm von Humboldt had long lost their
influence, while others of less personal renown, but of
similar political sentiments, were subjected to contemptible
forms of persecution. In March, 1835, Francis II. of Austria
died, and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand I., a man of
such weak intellect that he was in some respects idiotic. On
the 7th of June, 1840, Frederick William III. of Prussia died,
and was also succeeded by his son, Frederick William IV., a
man of great wit and intelligence, who had made himself
popular as Crown-prince, and whose accession the people hailed
with joy, in the enthusiastic belief that better days were
coming. The two dead monarchs, each of whom had reigned 43
years, left behind them a better memory among their people
than they actually deserved. They were both weak, unstable and
narrow-minded; had they not been controlled by others, they
would have ruined Germany; but they were alike of excellent
personal character, amiable, and very kindly disposed towards
their subjects so long as the latter were perfectly obedient
and reverential. There was no change in the condition of
Austria, for Metternich remained the real ruler, as before. In
Prussia a few unimportant concessions were made, an amnesty
for political offences was declared, Alexander von Humboldt
became the king's chosen associate, and much was done for
science and art; but in their main hope of a liberal
reorganization of the government, the people were bitterly
deceived. Frederick William IV. took no steps towards the
adoption of a Constitution; he made the censorship and the
supervision of the police more severe; he interfered in the
most arbitrary and bigoted manner in the system of religious
instruction in the schools; and all his acts showed that his
policy was to strengthen his throne by the support of the
nobility and the civil service, without regard to the just
claims of the people. Thus, in spite of the external quiet and
order, the political atmosphere gradually became more sultry
and disturbed. ... There were signs of impatience in all
quarters; various local outbreaks occurred, and the aspects
were so threatening that in February, 1847, Frederick William
IV. endeavored to silence the growing opposition by ordering
the formation of a Legislative Assembly. But the provinces
were represented, not the people, and the measure only
emboldened the latter to clamor for a direct representation.
Thereupon, the king closed the Assembly, after a short
session, and the attempt was probably productive of more harm
than good. In most of the other German States, the situation
was very similar; everywhere there were elements of
opposition, all the more violent and dangerous, because they
had been kept down with a strong hand for so many years."
B. Taylor,
History of Germany,
chapter 37.
ALSO IN:
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 2, chapters 5 and 7.
See, also, AUSTRIA: A. D.1815-1835.
GERMANY: A. D. 1820-1822.
The Congresses of Troppau, Laybach and Verona.
See VERONA, THE CONGRESS OF.
GERMANY: A. D. 1835-1846.
Death of the Emperor Francis I. of Austria.
Accession of Ferdinand I.
Extinction of the Polish republic of Cracow.
Its annexation to Austria.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815-1846.
GERMANY: A. D. 1839-1840.
The Turko-Egyptian question and its settlement.
Quadruple Alliance.
See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.
GERMANY: A. D. 1848 (March).
Revolutionary outbreaks.
The King of Prussia heads a national movement.
Mistaken battle of soldiers and citizens at Berlin.
"The French revolution of February, the flight of Louis
Philippe and the fall of the throne of the barricades, and the
proclamation of a republic, had kindled from one end to the
other of Europe the enthusiasm of the republican party. The
conflagration rapidly extended itself. The Rhenish provinces
of Prussia, whose near neighbourhood and former connexion with
France made them more peculiarly combustible, broke out with a
cry for the most extensive reforms; that is to say, for
representative institutions, the passion for which had spread
over the whole of Germany. ... The reform fever which had
attacked the Rhenish provinces quickly spread to the rest of
the body politic. The urban populace--a class in all countries
rarely incited to agitation--took the lead. They were headed
by the students. Breslau, Königsberg, and Berlin, were in
violent commotion. In the month of March, a great open air
meeting was held at Berlin: it ended in a riot. The troops
were called out to act against the mob. For near a week,
Berlin was in a state of chronic disturbance. The troops acted
with great firmness. The mob gathered together, but did not
show much fight; but they were dispersed with difficulty, and
continued to offer a passive resistance to the soldiers. On
the 15th, ten persons were said to have been killed, and over
100 wounded. At the same time, similar scenes were, being
enacted at Breslau and Königsberg, where several persons lost
their lives. A deputation from the Rhenish provinces arrived
at Berlin on the 18th, bearing a petition from Cologne to the
king for reform. He promised to grant it. ... Finding he could
not keep the movement in check, he resolved to put himself at
the head of it. It was probably the only course open to him,
if he would preserve his crown. ...
{1534}
The king must have previously had the questions which were
agitating Germany under careful consideration; for he at once
published a proclamation embodying the whole of them: the
unity of Germany, by forming it into a federal state, with a
federal representation; representative institutions for the
separate states; a general military system for all Germany,
under one federal banner; a German fleet; a tribunal for
settling disputes between the states, and a right for all
Germans to settle and trade in any part of Germany they
thought fit; the whole of Germany formed into one customs
union, and included in the Zollverein; one system of money,
weights, and measures; and the freedom of the press. These
were the subjects touched upon. ... The popularity of the
proclamation with the mob-leaders was unbounded, and the mob
shouted. Every line of it contained their own ideas,
vigorously expressed. Their delight was proportionate to their
astonishment. A crowd got together at the palace to express
their gratitude; the king came out of a window, and was loudly
cheered. Two regiments of dragoons unluckily mistook the
cheering for an attack, and began pushing them back by forcing
their horses forward. ... Unfortunately, as the conflict (if
conflict it could be called, which was only a bout of which
could push hardest) was going forward, two musket-shots were
fired by a regiment of infantry. It appears that the muskets
went off accidentally. No one was injured by them. It is not
clear they were not blank cartridges; but the people took
fright. They imagined that there was a design to slaughter
them. At once they rushed to arms; barricades were thrown up
in every street. ... Sharpshooters placed themselves in the
windows and behind the barricades, and opened a fire on the
soldiery. These, exasperated by what they thought an unfair
species of fighting, were by no means unwilling for the fray.
... The troops carried barricade after barricade, and gave no
quarter even to the unresisting. As they took the houses, they
slaughtered all the sharpshooters they found in them, not very
accurately discriminating those engaged in hostilities from
those who were not. Horrible cruelties were committed on both
sides. ... The flight raged for fifteen hours. Either the king
lost his head when it began, or the troops, having their blood
up, would not stop. ... The firing began at two o'clock on the
18th of March, and the authorities succeeded in withdrawing
the troops and stopping it the next morning at five o'clock,
they having been during that time successful at all points.
... The king put out a manifesto at seven o'clock, declaring
that the whole business arose from an unlucky misunderstanding
between the troops and the people, as it unquestionably did,
and the people appear to have been aware of the fact and
ashamed of themselves. ... A general amnesty was proclaimed
for all parties concerned, and orders were given to form at
once a burgher guard to supply the place of the military, who
were to be withdrawn. A new ministry was appointed, of a
liberal character. ... The troops were marched out of the
town, and were cheered by the people. ... It is estimated
that, of the populace, about 200 were killed: 187 received a
public funeral. No accurate account of the wounded can be
obtained. ... Of the troops, according to the official
returns, there fell 3 officers and 17 non-commissioned
officers and privates; of wounded there were 14 officers, 14
non-commissioned officers, and 225 privates, and 1 surgeon.
... The king's object was to divert popular enthusiasm into
another channel; he therefore assumed the lead in the
regeneration of Germany. On the 21st he issued a proclamation,
enlarging on these views, and rode through the streets with
the proscribed German tricolor on his helmet, and was
vociferously cheered as he passed along. Prussia was not the
first of the German states where the old order of things was
overturned. During the whole of the month of March, Germany
underwent the process of revolution. ... On the 3d of March
... the new order of things ... began at Wurtemberg. The Duke
of Hesse-Darmstadt abdicated. In Bavaria, things took a more
practical turn. The people insisted on the dismissal of the
king's mistress, Lola Montez: she was sent away, but, trusting
to the king's dotage, she came back, police or no police--was
received by the king--he created her Countess of Lansfeldt.
This was a climax to which the people were not prepared to
submit. ... The king was compelled to expel her, to annul her
patent of naturalization, and resume the grant he had made of
property in her favour. This was more than he could stand, and
he shortly after abdicated in favour of his heir. In Saxony
the king gave way, after his troops had refused to act, and
the freedom of the press was established, and other popular
demands granted. In Vienna, the old system of Metternich was
abolished, after a revolution which was little more than a
street row. The king of Hanover refused to move, but was
eventually induced to receive Stube as one of his ministers,
who had been previously in prison for his opinions. However,
he was firmer than most of his brother monarchs, and his
country suffered less than the rest of Germany in
consequence."
E. S. Cayley,
The European Revolutions of 1848,
volume 2: Germany, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
C. E. Maurice,
The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9,
chapter 7.
GERMANY: A. D. 1848 (March-September).
Election and meeting of the National Assembly at Frankfort.
Resignation of the Diet.
Election of Archduke John to be Administrator of Germany.
Powerlessness of the new government.
Troubles rising from the Schleswig-Holstein question.
Outbreak at Frankfort.
The setting in of Reaction.
"In south-western Germany the liberal party set itself at the
head of the movement. ... The Heidelberg assembly of March
5th, consisting of the former opposition leaders in the
various Chambers, issued a call to the German nation, and
chose a commission of seven men, who were to make propositions
with regard to a permanent parliament and to summon a
preliminary parliament at Frankfort. This preliminary
parliament assembled in St. Paul's church, March 31st. ... The
majority, consisting of constitutional monarchists, resolved
that an assembly chosen by direct vote of the people ...
should meet in the month of May, with full and sovereign power
to frame a constitution for all Germany. ... These measures
did not satisfy the radical party, whose leaders were Hecker
and Struve. As their proposition to set up a sovereign
assembly, and republicanize Germany, was rejected, they left
Frankfort, and held in the highlands of Baden popular meetings
at which they demanded the proclamation of the republic.
{1535}
A Hesse-Darmstadt corps under Frederic von Gagern ... was sent
to disperse them. An engagement took place at Kandern, in
which Gagern was shot, but Hecker and his followers were put
to flight. ... The disturbances in Odenwald, and in the Main
and Tauber districts, once the home of the peasant war, were
of a different description. There the country people rose
against the landed proprietors, destroyed the archives, with
the odious tithe and rental books, and demolished a few
castles. The Diet, which in the meantime continued its
illusory existence, thought to extricate itself from the
present difficulties by a few concessions. It ... invited the
governments to send confidential delegates to undertake, along
with its members, a revision of the constitution of the
confederation. ... These confidential delegates, among them
the poet Uhland, from Würtemberg, began their work on the 30th
of March. The elections for the National Assembly stirred to
their innermost fibres the German people, dreaming of the
restoration of their former greatness. May 18th about 320
delegates assembled in the Imperial Hall, in the Römer (the
Rathhaus), at Frankfort. ... Never has a political assembly
contained a greater number of intellectual and scholarly
men--men of character and capable of self-sacrifice; but it
certainly was not the forte of these numerous professors and
jurists to conduct practical politics. The moderate party was
decidedly in the majority. ... It was decided ... that a
provisional central executive should be created in the place
of the Diet, and created, not by the National Assembly in
concert with the princes, but by the National Assembly alone.
June 27th, following out the bold conception of its president,
the assembly decided to appoint an irresponsible
administrator, with a responsible ministry; and June 29th,
Archduke John of Austria was chosen Administrator of Germany
by 436 votes out of 546. He made his entry into Frankfort July
11th, and entered upon his office on the following day. The
hour of the Diet had struck, apparently for the last time. It
resigned its authority into the hands of the Administrator,
and, after an existence of 32 years, left the stage unmourned.
Archduke John was a popular prince, who found more pleasure in
the mountain air of Tyrol and Styria than in the perfumed
atmosphere of the Vienna court. But, as a novice 66 years of
age, he was not equal to the task of governing, and as a
thorough Austrian he lacked a heart for all Germany. The main
question for him and for the National Assembly was, what force
they could apply in case the individual governments refused
obedience to the decrees issued in the name of the National
Assembly. This was the Achilles's heel of the German
revolution. ... Orders were issued by the federal minister of
war that all the troops of the Confederation should swear
allegiance to the federal administrator on the 6th of August;
but Prussia and Austria, with the exception of the Vienna
garrison, paid no attention to these orders; Ernest Augustus,
in Hanover, successfully set his hard head against them, and
only the lesser states obeyed. ... There certainly was no
other way out of the difficulty than by the formation of a
parliamentary army. ... Instead of meeting these dangers
resolutely, and in a common-sense way, the Assembly left
matters to go as they would, outside of Frankfort. One
humiliation was submitted to after another, while the
Assembly, busying itself for months with a theoretical
question, as if it were a juristic faculty, entered into a
detailed consideration of the fundamental rights of the German
people. The Schleswig-Holstein question, which had just
entered upon a new phase of its existence, was the first
matter of any importance to manifest the disagreement between
the central administration and the separate governments; and
it opened, as well, a dangerous gulf in the Assembly itself.
The question at issue was one of succession [see SCANDINAVIAN
STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862]. ... The Estates of the
duchies [Schleswig and Holstein] established a provisional
government, applied at Frankfort for the admission of
Schleswig into the German confederation, and besought armed
assistance both there and at Berlin. The preliminary
parliament [this having occurred in April, before the meeting
of the National Assembly] approved the application of
Schleswig for admission, and commissioned Prussia, in
conjunction with the 10th army corps of the Confederation, to
occupy Schleswig and Holstein. On the 21st of April, 1848,
General Wrangel crossed the Eider as commander of the forces
of the Confederation; and on the 23d, in conjunction with the
Schleswig-Holstein troops, he drove the Danes out of the
Danewerk. On the following day the Danes were defeated at
Oeversee by the 10th army corps, and all Schleswig-Holstein
was free. Wrangel entered Jutland and imposed a war tax of
3,000,000 thalers (about $2,250,000). He meant to occupy this
province until the Danes--who, owing to the inexcusable
smallness of the Prussian navy, were in a position unhindered
to injure the commerce of the Baltic--had indemnified Prussia
for her losses; but Prussia, touched to the quick by the
destruction of her commerce, and intimidated by the
threatening attitude of Russia, Sweden, and England, recalled
her troops, and concluded an armistice at Malmö, in Sweden, on
the 26th of August. All measures of the provisional government
were pronounced invalid; a common government for the duchies
was to be appointed, one half by Denmark, and the other by the
German confederation; the Schleswig troops were to be
separated from those of Holstein; and the war was not to be
renewed before the 1st of April, 1849--i. e., not in the
winter, a time unfavorable for the Danes. This treaty was
unquestionably no masterpiece on the part of the Prussians.
All the advantage was on the side of the conquered Danes. ...
It was not merely the radicals who urged, if not the final
rejection, at least a provisional cessation of the armistice,
and the countermanding of the order to retreat. ... A bill to
that effect, demanded by the honor of Germany, had scarcely
been passed by the majority, on the 5th of September, when the
moderate party reflected that such action, involving a breach
with Prussia, must lead to civil war and revolution, and call
into play the wildest passions of the already excited people.
In consequence of this the previous vote was rescinded, and
the armistice of Malmö accepted by the Assembly, after the
most excited debates, September 16th. This gave the radicals a
welcome opportunity to appeal to the fists of the lower
classes, and imitate the June outbreak of the social democrats
in Paris. ...
{1536}
A collision ensued [September 18]; barricades were erected,
but were carried by the troops without much bloodshed. ...
General Auerswald and Prince Lichnowsky, riding on horseback
near the city, were followed by a mob. They took refuge in a
gardener's house on the Bornheimer-heide, but were dragged out
and murdered with the most disgraceful atrocities. Thereupon
the city was declared in a state of siege, all societies were
forbidden, and strong measures were taken for the maintenance
of order. The March revolution had passed its season, and
reaction was again beginning to bloom. ... Reaction drew
moderate men to its side, and then used them as
stepping-stones to immoderation."
W. Müller,
Political History of Recent Times,
section 17.
ALSO IN:
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1815-1852,
chapter 53.
GERMANY: A. D. 1848-1849.
Revolutionary risings in Austria and Hungary.
Bombardment of Vienna.
The war in Hungary.
Abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand.
Accession of Francis Joseph.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.
GERMANY: A. D. 1848-1850.
The Prussian National Assembly, and its dissolution.
The work and the failure of the National Assembly of
Frankfort.
Refusal of the imperial crown by the King of Prussia.
End of the movement for Germanic unity.
"The elections for the new Prussian Constituent Assembly, as
well as for the Frankfort Parliament, were to take place (May
1). The Prussian National Assembly was to meet May 22. The
Prussian people, under the new election law, if left to
themselves, would have quietly chosen a body of competent
representatives; but the revolutionary party thought nothing
could be done without the ax and the musket. ... The people of
Berlin, from March to October, were ... really in the hands of
the mob. ... The newly-elected Prussian National Assembly was
opened by the king, May 21. ... One of the first resolutions
proceeded from Behrend of the Extreme Left. 'The Assembly
recognizes the revolution, and declares that the combatants
who fought at the barricades, on March 18 and 19, merit the
thanks of the country.' ... The motion was rejected. On
issuing from the building into the street, after the sitting,
the members who had voted against it, were received by the mob
with threats and insults. ... In the evening of the same day,
in consequence of the rejection of the Behrend resolution, the
arsenal was attacked by a large body of laborers. The
burgher-guard were not prepared, and made a feeble defense.
There was a great riot. The building was stormed and partially
plundered. ... The sketch of a constitution proposed by the
king was now laid before the Assembly. It provided two
Chambers--a House of Lords, and a House of Commons. The last
to be elected by the democratic electoral law; the first to
consist of all the princes of the royal house in their own
right, and, in addition, 60 members from the wealthiest of the
kingdom to be selected by the king, their office hereditary.
This constitution was immediately rejected. On the rejection
of the constitution the ministry Camphausen resigned. ... The
Assembly, elected exclusively to frame a constitution, instead
of performing its duty ... attempted to legislate, with
despotic power, on subjects over which it had no jurisdiction.
As the drama drew nearer its close, the Assembly became more
open in its intention to overthrow the monarchy. On October 12
discussions began upon a resolution to strike from the king's
title the words, 'By the grace of God,' and to abolish all
titles of nobility and distinctions of rank. The Assembly
building, during the sitting, was generally surrounded by
threatening crowds. ... Of course, during this period business
was suspended, and want, beggary, and drunkenness, as well as
lawless disorder, increased. ... The writer was one day alone
in the diplomatic box, following an excited debate. A speaker
in the tribune was urging the overthrow of the monarchy, when
suddenly the entire Assembly was struck mute with
stupefaction. The Prince of Prussia, the late Emperor William
I., supposed to be in England, in terror for his life,
appeared at the door, accompanied by two officers, all three
in full uniform, and marched directly up to the tribune. The
Assembly could not have been more astounded had old Barbarossa
himself, with his seven-hundred-years-long beard, marched into
the hall out of his mountain cave. ... After a slight delay,
the President, Mr. von Grabow, accorded the tribune to the
prince. He ascended and made a short address, which was
listened to, with breathless attention, by every individual
present. He spoke with the assurance of an heir to a throne
which was not in the slightest danger of being abolished; but
he spoke with the modesty and good sense of a prince who
frankly accepted the vast transformation which the government
had undergone, and who intended honestly to endeavor to carry
out the will of the whole nation. ... This was one of many
occasions on which the honesty and superiority of the prince's
character made itself felt even by his enemies. ... Berlin was
now thoroughly tired of street tumults and the horn of the
burgher-guard. ... The Prussian troops which had been engaged
in the Schleswig-Holstein war, were now placed under General
Wrangel. ... He proceeded without delay to encircle the city
with the 25,000 troops. At the same time, a cabinet order of
the king (September 21) named a new ministry. ... At this
moment, the revolution over all Europe was nearly exhausted.
Cavaignac had put down the June insurrection. The Prussian
flag waved above the flag of Germany. The Frankfort Parliament
was rapidly dying out. ... On November 2, Count Brandenburg
stated to the Assembly that the king had requested him to form
a new ministry. ... On the same day, Count Brandenburg, with
his colleagues, appeared in the hall of the Prussian National
Assembly, and announced his desire to read a message from his
Majesty the King. ... 'As the debates are no longer free in
Berlin, the Assembly is hereby adjourned to November 27. It
will then meet, and thereafter hold its meetings, not in
Berlin, but in Brandenburg' (fifty miles from Berlin). After
reading the message, Count Brandenburg, his colleagues, and
all the members of the Right retired. ... The Assembly ...
adjourned, and met again in the evening. ... On November 10,
the Assembly met again. Their debates were interrupted by
General Wrangel, who had entered Berlin by the Brandenburg
gate, at the head of 25,000 troops. ... An officer from
General Wrangel entered the hall and politely announced that
he had received orders to disperse the Assembly. The members
submitted, and left the hall. ...
{1537}
An order was now issued dissolving the burgher-guard. On the
12th, Berlin was declared in a state of siege. ... During the
state of siege, the Assembly met again under the presidency of
Mr. von Unruh. A body of troops entered the hall, and
commanded the persons present to leave it. President von Unruh
declared he could not consistently obey the order. There was,
he said, no power higher than the Assembly. The soldiers did
not fire on him, or cut him down with their sabers; but
good-naturedly lifted his chair with him in it, and gently
deposited both in the street. ... On November 27, Count
Brandenburg went to Brandenburg to open the Assembly; but he
could not find any. It had split into two parts. ... There was
no longer a quorum. Thus the Prussian National Assembly
disappeared. On December 5; appeared a royal decree,
dissolving the National Assembly. ... Then appeared a
provisional octroyirte electoral law, for the election of two
Chambers. ... The new Chambers met February 26, 1849. ...
Prussia had thus closed the revolution of 1848, as far as she
was concerned. Bismarck was elected member of the Second
Chamber." Meantime, in the Frankfort Parliament, "the great
question, Austria's position with regard to the new Germany,
came up in the early part of November, 1848. Among many
propositions, we mention three: I. Austria should abandon her
German provinces. ... II. Austria should remain as a separate
whole, with all her provinces. ... III. The Austrian plan. All
the German States, and all the Austrian provinces (German and
non-German), should be united into one gigantic empire ...
with Austria at the head. ... Meanwhile, the debates went on
upon the questions: What shall be the form, and who shall be
the chief of what may be called the Prussian-Germany? Among
the various propositions (all rejected) were the following: 1.
A Directory, consisting of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria,
Würtemberg, and Saxony. II. The King of Prussia and Emperor of
Austria to alternate in succession every six years, as
Emperor. III. A chief magistracy, to which every German
citizen might aspire. IV. Revival of the old Bundestag, with
certain improvements. On January 23, 1849, the resolution that
one of the reigning German princes should be elected, with the
title of Emperor of Germany, was adopted (258 against 211). As
it was plain the throne could be offered to no one but
Prussia, this was a breach between the Parliament and Austria.
... The first reading of the constitution was completed,
February 3, 1849. The middle and smaller German States
declared themselves ready to accept it, but the kingdoms
remained silent. ... The real question before the Parliament
was, whether Prussia or Austria should be leader of Germany.
... On March 27, the hereditability passed by a majority of
four. On March 28, the constitution, with the democratic
electoral law, universal suffrage, the ballot, and the
suspensive veto, was voted and accepted. ... President Simson
then called the name of each member to vote upon the question
of the Emperor. There were 290 votes for Frederic William IV.
... A deputation, consisting of 30 of the most distinguished
members, was immediately sent to Berlin to communicate to the
king his election as Emperor. ... To the offer of the crown,
his Majesty replied he 'could not accept without the consent
of all the governments, and without having more carefully
examined the constitution.' ... Austria instantly rejected the
constitution, protested against the authority of the
Parliament, and recalled all her representatives from
Frankfort. The King of Würtemberg accepted; but rejected the
House of Hohenzollern as head of the Empire. Bavaria, Hanover,
Saxony, rejected; 28 of the smaller German States accepted. In
these were included the free-cities Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck.
... On April 28, Prussia addressed a circular note to the
governments, inviting them to send representatives to Berlin,
for the purpose of framing a new constitution. The note added:
In case of any attempt to force the Frankfort constitution
upon the country, Prussia was ready to render to the
governments all necessary assistance. ... On May 3, an
insurrection broke out in Saxony. ... On May 6, Prussian
troops appeared, called by the Saxon government, and attacked
the barricades. The battle lasted three days. ... The
insurgents abandoned the city. Dresden was declared in a state
of siege. ... The King of Prussia now recalled [from the
Frankfort Parliament] all the Prussian representatives. ... By
the gradual disappearance of most of the moderate members ...
the Parliament, now a mere revolutionary committee, dwindled
down to about 100 members. A resolution, proposed by Carl
Vogt, was passed to transfer the sittings to Stuttgart. ... On
June 6, the Rump Parliament in Stuttgart elected a central
government of its own. ... The Assembly was then dispersed.
... The German revolutions commenced and ended in the Grand
Duchy of Baden. ... By a mutiny in the regular army, it
intrenched itself in the first-class fortress, Rastadt. There
were, in all, three attempts at revolution in Baden [and one
in the Palatinate]. ... A large number of the leaders were
tried and shot. ... It was for taking part in this
insurrection that Gottfried Kinkel was sentenced to
imprisonment for life in the fortress of Spandau. Carl Schurz
aided him in escaping."
T. S. Fay,
The Three Germanys,
chapters 25-26 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 3, chapter 2.
H. von Sybel,
The Founding of the German Empire,
books 2-5 (volumes 1-2).
See, also, CONSTITUTION OF PRUSSIA.
GERMANY: A. D. 1848-1862.
Opening of the Schleswig-Holstein question.
War with Denmark.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862.
GERMANY: A. D. 1853-1875.
Commercial treaties with Austria and France.
Progress towards free trade.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (GERMANY): A. D. 1853-1892.
GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866.
Advent of King William I. and Prince Bismarck in Prussia.
Reopening of the Schleswig-Holstein question.
Conquest of the duchies by Prussia and Austria.
Consequent quarrel and war.
"King Frederic William IV. [of Prussia], never a man of strong
head, had for years been growing weaker and more eccentric.
... In the early part of 1857, symptoms of softening of the
brain began to show themselves. That disorder so developed
itself that in October, 1857, he gave a delegation to the
Prince of Prussia [his brother] to act as regent; but the
first commission was only for three months. ... The Prince's
temporary commission was renewed from time to time; but it
soon became apparent that Frederic William's case was
hopeless, and his brother was formally installed as Regent in
October, 1858.
{1538}
Ultimately, the King died in January, 1861, and his brother
succeeded to the throne as William I." In September, 1862,
Otto von Bismarck became the new King's chief minister, with
General Roon for Minister of War, appointed to carry out a
reorganization of the Prussian army which King William had
determined to effect. Bismarck found his first opportunity for
the aggrandizement of Prussia in a reopening of the
Schleswig-Holstein question, which came about in November,
1863, when "Frederic of Denmark died, and Prince Christian
succeeded to the throne of that kingdom. Already before his
accession, the duchies were possessions of the Danish
monarchy, but had in certain respects a separate
administrative existence. This Denmark, in the year of
Christian's accession, had materially infringed in the case of
Sleswig, by a law which virtually incorporated that duchy with
the Danish monarchy. The German Confederation protested
against this 'Danification' of Sleswig, and having pronounced
a decree of Federal execution against the new King of Denmark
as Duke of Holstein and, in virtue of that duchy, a member of
the German Confederation, sent into Holstein Federal troops
belonging to the smaller States of the Confederation. The
Confederation, as a collective body, favoured the
establishment of the independence of the duchies, and had with
it the wishes probably of the great mass of the German nation.
But the independence of Sleswig and Holstein scarcely suited
the views of Bismarck. He desired the annexation to Prussia of
at all events Holstein, because in Holstein is the great
harbour of Kiel, all important in view of the new fleet with
which he purposed equipping Prussia; if Sleswig could be
compassed along with Holstein, so much the better. But there
were two difficulties in Bismarck's way. Prussia was a
co-signatory of the Treaty of London. If he were to grasp at
the duchies single-handed, a host of enemies might confront
him. England was burning to take up arms in the cause of the
father of the beautiful princess she had adopted as her own.
The German Confederation would oppose Prussia's naked effort
to aggrandise herself; and Austria, in the double character of
a party to the Treaty of London and of a member of the
Confederation, would rejoice in the opportunity to strike a
blow at a power of whose rising pretensions she had begun to
be jealous. The wily Bismarck had to dissemble. He made the
proposal to Austria that the two states should ignore their
participation as individual States in the Treaty of London,
and that as corporate members of the German Confederation they
should constitute themselves the executors of the Federal
decree, and put aside the minor states whose troops had been
charged with that office. Austria acceded. It was a bad hour
for her when she did, yet she moves no compassion for the
misfortunes which befell her as the issue. ... The Diet had to
submit. The Austro-Prussian troops marched through Holstein
into Sleswig, and on the 2nd of February, 1864, struck at the
Danes occupying the Dannewerke. ... The venerable Marshal
Wrangel was commander-in-chief of the combined forces until
after the fall of Düppel, when Prince Frederic Charles
succeeded him in that position; but throughout the campaign
the control of the dispositions was mainly exercised by the
Red Prince. But neither strategy nor tactics were very
strenuously brought into use for the discomfiture of the
unfortunate Danes. Their ruin was wrought partly because of
the overwhelmingly superior force of their allied opponents,
partly because of their own unpreparedness for war in almost
everything save the possession of heroic bravery; but most of
all by the fire of the needle-gun and the Prussian advantage
in the possession of rifled artillery. Only part of the
Prussian infantry had used the needle-gun in the reduction of
the Baden insurrection in 1848; now, however, the whole army
was equipped with it. ... In their retreat from the Dannewerke
into the Düppel position, the Danes suffered severely from the
inclemency of the weather, and fought a desperate rear-guard
engagement with the Austrians. ... The Prussians undertook the
task of reducing Düppel; the Austrians marched northward into
Jutland, and driving back the Danish troops they encountered
in their march, sat down before the fortress of Fredericia,
and swept the Little Belt with their cannon. The sieges, both
of Düppel and of Fredericia, were conducted with extreme
inertness." But the former was taken and the latter abandoned.
"The Danish war was terminated by the Treaty of Vienna on the
30th October, 1864, under which the duchies of Sleswig,
Holstein, and Lauenburg were handed over to the sovereigns of
Austria and Prussia. ... Out of the Danish war of 1864 grew
almost inevitably the war of 1866, between Prussia and
Austria. The wolves quite naturally wrangled over the carcase,
and the astuter wolf had so much the better of the wrangle
that the duller one, unless he chose to be partly bullied,
partly tricked out of his share, had no alternative but to
fight for it, with the result that he clean lost that and a
great deal more besides. The future of the Elbe Duchies was
played at pitch and toss with between Prussia and Austria for
the best part of a year; the details of the game were too
intricate to be followed here. The condominium of the two
Powers in the duchies produced constant friction, which was
probably Bismarck's intention, especially as Prussia had taken
care to keep stationed in them twice as many troops as Austria
had left there. Relations were becoming very strained when in
August, 1865, the Emperor Francis Joseph and King William met
at the little watering-place of Gastein, and from their
interview originated the short-lived arrangement known as the
Convention of Gastein. By that compact, while the two Powers
preserved the common sovereignty over the duchies, Austria
accepted the administration of Holstein, Prussia undertaking
that of Sleswig. Prussia was to have rights of way through
Holstein to Sleswig, was given over the right of construction
of a North Sea and Baltic Canal; and while Kiel was
constituted a Federal harbour, Prussia was authorised to
construct there the requisite fortifications and marine
establishments, and to maintain an adequate force for the
protection of these. Assuming the arrangement to be
provisional, as on all hands it was regarded, Prussia clearly
had the advantage under it. ... But the Gastein Convention
contained another provision--that Austria should sell to
Prussia all her rights in the duchy of Lauenburg (an outlying
appanage of Holstein) for the sum of 2,500,000 thalers: thus
making market of rights of which she was but a trustee for the
German Confederation.
{1539}
The Convention of Gastein pleased nobody, but that mattered
little to Bismarck. ... Bickerings recommenced before the year
1865 was out, and early in 1866 Austria began to arm. ... In
March, 1866, a secret treaty was formed between Italy and
Prussia. ... Prussia threw the Convention of Gastein to the
winds by civilly but masterfully turning the Austrian brigade
of occupation out of Holstein. Then Austria in the Federal
Diet, complaining that by this act Prussia had disturbed the
peace of the German Confederation, moved for a decree of
Federal execution against that state, to be enforced by the
Confederation's armed strength. On the 14th June, Austria's
motion was carried by the Diet, its last act; for Prussia next
day wrecked the flimsy organisation of the German Confederation,
by declaring war against three of its component members,
Hanover, Hesse, and Saxony. There was no formal declaration of
war between Austria and Prussia, only a notification of
intended hostile action sent by the Prussian commanders to the
Austrian foreposts. On the 17th the Emperor Francis Joseph
published his war manifesto; King William on the 18th emitted
his to 'My People;' on the 20th, Italy declared war against
Austria and Bavaria."
A. Forbes,
William of Germany,
chapters 7-8.
ALSO IN:
H. von Sybel,
The Founding of the German Empire,
books 9-16 (volumes 3-4).
C. Lowe,
Prince Bismarck,
chapters 5-7 (volume 1),
and appendices. A, B, C (volume 2).
J. G. L. Hesekiel,
Life of Bismarck,
book 5, chapter 3.
Count von Beust,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 22-28.
GERMANY: A. D. 1862.
The Schleswig-Holstein question.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862.
GERMANY: A. D. 1866.
The Seven Weeks War.
Defeat of Austria.
Victory and Supremacy of Prussia.
Her Absorption of Hanover, Hesse, Nassau, Frankfort and
Schleswig-Holstein.
Formation of the North German Confederation.
Exclusion of Austria from the Germanic organization.
"Prussia had built excellent railroads throughout the country,
and quietly placed her troops on the frontier; within 14 days
she had 500,000 men under arms. By the end of May they were on
the frontiers ready for action, while Austria was only half
prepared, and her allies only beginning to arm. On the 14th of
June the diet, by a vote of nine to six, had ordered the
immediate mobilization of a federal army; whereupon Prussia
declared the federal compact dissolved and extinguished. In
Vienna and the petty courts men said, 'Within fourteen days
after the outbreak of hostilities the allied armies will enter
Berlin in triumph and dictate peace; the power of Prussia will
be broken by two blows.' The Legitimists were exultant; even
the majority of the democracy in South Germany joined with the
Ultramontane party in shouting for Austria. On the 10th of June,
Bismark laid before the German governments the outlines of a
new federal constitution, but was not listened to; on the 15th
he made proposals to the states in the immediate neighborhood
of Prussia for a peace on these foundations, and demanded
their neutrality, adding that if they declined his peaceful
offers he would treat them as enemies. The cabinets of Dresden
and Hanover, of Cassel and Wiesbaden, declined them.
Immediately, on the night of the 15th and 16th of June,
Prussian troops entered Hanover, Hesse and Saxony. In four or
five days Prussia had disarmed all North Germany, and broken
all resistance from the North Sea to the Main. On the 18th of
June, the Prussian general Bayer entered Cassel; the Elector
was surprised at Wilhelmshöhe. As he still refused all terms
he was arrested by the direct order of the king of Prussia and
sent as a prisoner to Stettin. On the 17th, General Vogel von
Falkenstein entered Hanover. King George with his army of
18,000 men sought to escape to South Germany. After a gallant
struggle at Langensalza on the 27th, his brave troops were
surrounded. The King capitulated on the 29th. His army was
disbanded, he himself allowed to go to Vienna. On the 18th the
Prussians were in Dresden; on the 19th, in Leipzig; by the
20th, all Saxony except the fortress of Königstein was in
their hands. The king and army of Saxony, on the approach of
the Prussians, had left the country by the railroads to
Bohemia to form a junction with the Austrians. The Saxon army
consisted of 23,000 men and 60 cannon. Everyone had expected
Austria to occupy a country of such strategic value as Saxony
before the Prussians could touch it. The Austrian army
consisted of seven corps, 180,000 infantry, 24,000 cavalry,
762 guns. The popular opinion had forced the emperor to make
Benedek the commander-in-chief in Bohemia. Everything there
was new to him. The Prussians were divided into three armies:
the army of the Elbe, 40,000 men, under Herwarth von
Bittenfeld; the first army, 100,000 men, under Prince
Frederick Charles; the second or Silesian army under the Crown
Prince, 116,000 strong. The reserve consisted of 24,000
Landwehr. The whole force in this quarter numbered 280,000 men
and 800 guns. ... The Prussians knew what they were fighting
for. To the Austrians the idea of this war was something
strange. At Vienna, Benedek had spoken against war; after the
first Prussian successes, he had in confidence advised the
emperor to make peace as soon as possible. As he was unable,
from want of means, to attack, he concentrated his army
between Josephstadt and the county of Glatz. He thought only
of defence. ... On the 23rd of June the great Prussian army
commenced contemporaneously its march to Bohemia from the
Riesengebirge, from Lusatia, from Dresden. It advanced from
four points to Josephstadt-Koniggrätz, where the junction was
to take place. Bismarck had ordered, from financial as well as
political reasons, that the war must be short. The Prussian
armies had at all points debouched from the passes and entered
Bohemia before a single Austrian corps had come near these
passes. ... In a couple of days Benedek lost in a series of
fights against the three Prussian advancing armies nearly
35,000 men; five of his seven corps had been beaten. He
concentrated these seven corps at Koniggrätz in the ground
before this fortress; he determined to accept battle between
the Elbe and the Bistritz. He had, however, previously
reported to the emperor that his army after its losses was not
in a condition for a pitched battle. He wished to retire to
Moravia and avoid a battle till he had received
reinforcements. This telegram of Benedek arrived in the middle
of the exultation which filled the court of Vienna after
hearing of the victory over the Italians at Custozza.
See ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866.
{1540}
The emperor replied by ordering him briefly to give battle
immediately. Benedek, on the 1st of July, again sent word to
the emperor, 'Your majesty must conclude peace.' Yet on these
repeated warnings came the order to fight at once. Benedek had
provided for such an answer by his arrangements for July the
2nd. He had placed his 500 guns in the most favorable
positions, and occupied the country between the Elbe and the
little river Bistritz for the extent of a league. As soon as
the Prussians heard of this movement they resolved to attack
the Austrians on the 3d. On the 2d the king, accompanied by
Count Bismarck, Von Roon and Von Moltke, had joined the army.
He assumed command of the three armies. The Crown Prince and
Herwarth were ordered to advance against Königgrätz. Part of
the Crown Prince's army were still five German miles from the
intended battle ground. Prince Frederick Charles and Herwarth
had alone sustained the whole force of Austria in the struggle
around Sadowa, which began at 8 o'clock in the morning.
Frederick Charles attacked in the centre over against Sadowa;
Herwarth on the right at Nechanitz; the Crown Prince was to
advance on the left from Königinhof. The Crown Prince received
orders at four o'clock in the morning; he could not in all
probability reach the field before one or two o'clock after
noon. All depended on his arrival in good time. Prince
Frederick Charles forced the passage of the Bistritz and took
Sadowa and other places, but could not take the heights. His
troops suffered terribly from the awful fire of the Austrian
batteries. The King himself and his staff came under fire,
from which the earnest entreaties of Bismarck induced him to
retire. About one o'clock the danger in the Prussian centre
was great. After five hours of fighting they could not
advance, and began to talk of retreat. On the right, things
were better. Herwarth had defeated the Saxons, and threatened
the Austrian left. Yet, if the army of the Crown Prince did
not arrive, the battle was lost, for the Prussian centre was
broken. But the Crown Prince brought the expected succor.
About two o'clock came the news that a part of the Crown
Prince's army had been engaged since one o'clock. The
Austrians, attacked on their right flank and rear, had to give
way in front. Under loud shouts of 'Forward,' Prince Frederick
Charles took the Wood of Sadowa at three, and the heights of
Lipa at four o'clock. At this very time, four o'clock, Benedek
had already given orders to retreat. ... From the ... first
the Prussians were superior to the Austrians in ammunition,
provisions and supplies. They had a better organization,
better preparation, and the needle-gun, which proved very
destructive to the Austrians. The Austrian troops fought with
thorough gallantry. ... Respecting this campaign, an Austrian
writes: 'Given in Vienna a powerful coterie which reserves to
itself all the high commands and regards the army as its
private estate for its own private benefit, and defeat is
inevitable.' The Austrians lost at Sadowa, according to the
official accounts at Vienna, 174 cannon, 18,000 prisoners. 11
colors, 4,190 killed, 11,900 wounded, 21,400 missing,
including the prisoners. The Prussians acknowledged a loss of
only 10,000 men. The result of the battle was heavier for
Austria than the loss in the action and the retreat. The
armistice which Benedek asked for on the 4th of July was
refused by the Prussians: a second request on the 10th was
also rejected. On the 5th of July the emperor of Austria
sought the mediation of France to restore peace. ... All
further movements were put a stop to by the five days'
armistice, which began on the 22d of July at noon, and was
followed by an armistice for four weeks. ... Hostilities were
at an end on Austrian territory when the war began on the Main
against the allies of Austria. The Bavarian army, under the
aged Prince Charles, distinguished itself by being driven by
the less numerous forces of Prussia under General Falkenstein
across the Saale and the Main. ... The eighth federal army
corps of 50,000 men, composed of contingents from Baden,
Würtemberg, Electoral Hesse, Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, and
12,000 Austrians under Prince Alexander of Hesse, was so
mismanaged that the Würtemberg contingent believed itself sold
and betrayed. ... On the 16th of July, in the evening,
Falkenstein entered Frankfort, and in the name of the king of
Prussia took possession of this Free City, of Upper Hesse and
Nassau. Frankfort, on account of its Austrian sympathies, had
to pay a contribution of six millions of gulden to
Falkenstein, and on the 19th of July a further sum of nineteen
millions to Manteuffel, the successor of Falkenstein. The
latter sum was remitted when the hitherto Free City became a
Prussian city. Manteuffel, in several actions from the 23d to
the 26th of July, drove the federal army back to Würzburg;
Göben defeated the army of Baden at Werbach, and that of
Würtemberg at Tauberbischofsheim; before this the eighth
federal army corps joined the Bavarian army, and on the 25th
and 26th of July the united forces were defeated at Gerschheim
and Rossbrunn, and on the 27th, the citadel of Würzburg was
invested. The court of Vienna had abandoned its South German
allies when it concluded the armistice; it had not included
its allies either in the armistice or the truce. ... On the
29th of July, the Baden troops marched off homewards in the
night, the Austrians marched to Bohemia, the Bavarians
purchased an armistice by surrendering Würzburg to the
Prussians. Thus of the eighth army corps, the Würtembergers
and Hessians alone kept the field. On the 2d of August these
remains of the eighth army corps were included in the
armistice of Nicholsburg. ... On the 23d of August peace was
signed between Austria and Prussia at Prague. Bismarck treated
Austria with great consideration, and demanded only twenty
millions of thalers as war indemnity; Würtemberg had to pay
eight millions of gulden, Baden six millions, Hesse-Darmstadt
three millions, Bavaria thirty millions of gulden. The
Würtemberg minister, Varnbüler, and the Baden minister,
Freydorf, offered to form an offensive and defensive alliance
with Prussia for the purpose of saving the ruling families,
and in alarm lest Bavaria and Hesse-Darmstadt might seek in
their territories compensation for cessions to Prussia.
Bavaria also formed an alliance with Prussia, and ceded a
small district in the north. Hesse-Darmstadt ceded
Hesse-Homburg and some pieces of territory, and entered the
North German Confederation, giving to Prussia the right of
keeping a garrison in Mainz.
{1541}
Austria renounced her claims on Schleswig and Holstein,
acknowledged the dissolution of the German Confederation and a
modification of Germany by which Austria was excluded. It
recognized the creation of the North German Confederation, the
union of Venetia to Italy, the territorial alterations in
North Germany. Prussia acknowledged the territorial
possessions of Austria with the sole exception of Venetia; and
also of Saxony; and undertook to obtain the assent of the King
of Italy to the peace. Prussia announced the incorporation of
Schleswig-Holstein, the Free City of Frankfort, the Kingdom of
Hanover, the Electorate of Hesse, and the Duchy of Nassau,
subject to the payment of annual incomes to the deposed
princes. The Kingdom of Saxony, the two Mecklenburgs, the
Hanse-towns, Oldenburg, Brunswick, and the Thuringian states
entered the North German Confederation. Prussia now contained
twenty-four millions of inhabitants, or including the Northern
Confederation, twenty-nine millions. The military forces of
the Confederation were placed under the command of Prussia.
The states north of the Main were at liberty to form a
Southern Confederation, the connection of which with the
Northern Confederation was to be a subject of future
discussion. Moreover, Bavaria, Baden and Würtemberg had
engaged 'in case of war to place their whole military force at
the disposal of Prussia,' and Prussia guaranteed their
sovereignty and the integrity of their territory. Saxony paid
ten millions of thalers as a war indemnity. Prussia received
on the whole, as war indemnities, eighty-two millions of
gulden. Thus ended in the year 1866 the struggle [known as the
Seven Weeks War] between Austria and Prussia for the
leadership of Germany."
W. Zimmermann,
Popular History of Germany,
book 6, chapter 3 (v. 4).
ALSO IN:
H. von Sybel,
The Founding of the German Empire,
books 17-20 (volume 5).
Major C. Adams,
Great Campaigns in Europe from 1796 to 1870,
chapter 10.
Count von Beust,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 29-34.
G. B. Malleson,
The Refounding of the German Empire,
chapters 6-10.
GERMANY: A. D. 1866-1867.
Foreshadowings of the new Empire.
"We may make the statement that in the autumn of 1866 the
German Empire was founded. ... The Southern States were not
yet members of the Confederation, but were already, to use an
old expression, relatives of the Confederation
(Bundesverwandte) in virtue of the offensive and defensive
alliances with Prussia and of the new organization of the
Tariff-Union. ... The natural and inevitable course of events
must here irresistibly break its way, unless some circumstance
not to be foreseen should throw down the barriers beforehand.
How soon such a crisis might take place no one could at that
time estimate. But in regard to the certainty of the final
result there was in Germany no longer any doubt. ...
Three-fourths of the territory of this Empire was dominated by
a Government that was in the first place efficient in military
organization, guided by the firm hand of King William,
counselled by the representatives of the North German
Sovereigns, and recognized by all the Powers of Europe. The
opening of that Parliament was near at hand, that should in
common with this Government determine the limitations to be
placed upon the powers of the Confederation in its relation to
the individual states and also the functions of the new
Reichstag in the legislation and in the control of the
finances of the Confederation. ... It was, in the first place,
certain that the functions of the future supreme Confederate
authority would be in general the same as those specified in
the Imperial Constitution of 1849. ... The most radical
difference between 1849 and 1866 consisted in the form of the
Confederate Government. The former period aimed at the
appointment of a Constitutional and hereditary emperor, with
responsible ministers, to the utter exclusion of the German
sovereigns: whereas now the plan included all of these
sovereigns in a Confederate Council (Bundesrath) organized
after the fashion of the old Confederate Diet, with committees
for the various branches of the administration, and under the
presidency of the King of Prussia, who should occupy a
superior position in virtue of the conduct, placed in his
hands once for all, of the foreign policy, the army and the
navy, but who otherwise in the Confederate Council, in spite
of the increase of his votes, could be outvoted like every
other prince by a decree of the Majority. ... Before the time
of the peace-conferences, when all definite arrangements of
Germany's future seemed suspended in the balance and
undecided, the Crown Prince Frederick William, who in general
had in mind for the supreme head of the Confederation a higher
rank and position of power than did the Ring, maintained that
his father should bear the title of King of Germany. Bismarck
reminded him that there were other Kings in Germany: the Kings
of Hanover, of Saxony, etc. 'These,' was the reply, 'will then
take the title of Dukes.' 'But they will not agree to that.'
'They will have to!' cried His Royal Highness. After the
further course of events, the Crown Prince indeed gave up his
project; but in the early part of 1867 he asserted that the
King should assume the title of German Emperor, arguing that
the people would connect no tangible idea with the title of
President of the Confederation, whereas the renewal of the
imperial dignity would represent to them the actual
incorporation of the unity finally attained, and the
remembrance of the old glory and power of the Empire would
kindle all hearts. This idea, as we have experienced and
continue to experience its realization, was in itself
perfectly correct: But it was evidently at that time
premature: a North German empire would have aroused no
enthusiasm in the north, and would have seriously hindered the
accomplishment of the national aim in the south. King William
rejected this proposition very decidedly: in his own simple
way he wished to be nothing more than Confederate
Commander-in-chief and the first among his peers."
H. von Sybel,
The Founding of the German Empire by William I.,
book 20, chapter 4 (volume 5).
{1542}
GERMANY: A. D. 1866-1870.
Territorial concessions demanded by France.
Rapid progress of German unification.
The Zollparlament.
The Luxemburg question.
French determination for war.
"The conditions of peace ... left it open to the Southern
States to choose what relationship they would form with the
Northern Confederation. This was a compromise between Bismarck
and Napoleon, the latter fearing a United Germany, the former
preferring to restrict himself to what was attainable at the
time, and taking care not to humiliate or seriously to injure
Austria, whose friendship he foresaw that Germany would need.
Meanwhile Napoleon's interference continued. Scarcely had
Benedetti, who had followed Bismarck to the battle-fields,
returned to Berlin, when he received orders from his
Government to demand not less than the left bank of the Rhine
as a compensation for Prussia's increase of territory. For
this purpose he submitted the draft of a treaty by which
Prussia was even to bind herself to lend an active support to
the cession of the Bavarian and Hessian possessions west of
the Rhine! ... Bismarck would listen to no mention of ceding
German territory. 'Si vous refusez,' said the conceited
Corsican, 'c'est la guerre.'--'Eh bien, la guerre,' replied
Bismarck calmly. Just as little success had Benedetti with
King William. 'Not a clod of German soil, not a chimney of a
German village,' was William's kingly reply. Napoleon was not
disposed at the time to carry out his threat. He disavowed
Benedetti's action, declaring that the instructions had been
obtained from him during his illness and that he wished to
live in peace and friendship with Prussia. Napoleon's
covetousness had at least one good effect: it furthered the
work of German union. Bavaria and Würtemberg, who during the
war had sided with Austria, had at first appealed to Napoleon
to mediate between them and Prussia. But when the Ministers of
the four South German States appeared at Berlin to negotiate
with Bismarck, and Benedetti's draft-treaty was communicated
to them, there was a complete change of disposition. They then
wished to go much further than the Prussian Statesman was
prepared to go: they asked, in order to be protected from
French encroachments, to be admitted into the North German
Confederation. But Bismarck would not depart from the
stipulations of the Treaty of Nikolsburg. The most important
result of the negotiations was that secret treaties were
concluded by which the Southern States bound themselves to an
alliance with the Northern Confederation for the defence of
Germany, and engaged to place their troops under the supreme
command of the Prussian King in the event of any attack by a
foreign Power. In a military sense Klein-Deutschland was now
one, though not yet politically. ... That Prussia was the
truly representative German State had been obvious to the
thoughtful long before: the fact now stood out in clear light
to all who would open their eyes to see. Progress had
meanwhile been made with the construction of the North German
Confederation, which embraced all the States to the north of
the river Main. Its affairs were to be regulated by a
Reichstag elected by universal suffrage and by a Federal
Council formed of the representatives of the North German
Governments. In a military sense it was a Single State,
politically a Confederate State, with the King of Prussia as
President. This arrangement was not of course regarded as
final: and in his speech from the throne to the North German
Reichstag, King William emphasized the declaration that
Germany, so long torn, so long powerless, so long the theatre
of war for foreign nations, would henceforth strive to recover
the greatness of her past. ... A first step towards 'bridging
over the Main,' i. e., causing South and North to join hands
again, was taken by the creation of a Zollparlament, or
'Customs Parliament, which was elected by the whole of
Klein-Deutschland, and met at Berlin, henceforth the capital
of Germany. It was also a step in advance that Baden and
Hesse-Darmstadt signed conventions, by which their military
system was put on the same footing as that of the North German
Confederation. Baden indeed would willingly have entered into
political union with the North, had the same disposition
prevailed at the time in the other South German States. The
National Liberals however had to contend with strong
opposition from the Democrats in Würtemberg, and from the
Ultramontanes in Bavaria. The latter were hostile to Prussia
on account of her Protestantism, the former on account of the
stern principles and severe discipline that pervaded her
administration. ... In the work of German unification the
Bonapartes have an important share. ... By outraging the
principle of nationality, Napoleon I. had re-awakened the
feeling of nationality among Germans: Napoleon III., by
attempting to prevent the unification of Germany, actually
hastened it on. ... When King William had replied that he
would not yield up an inch of German soil, 'patriotic pangs'
at Prussian successes and the thirst for 'compensation'
continued to disturb the sleep of the French Emperor, and as
he was unwilling to appear baffled in his purpose, he returned
to the charge. On the 16th of August, 1866, through his
Ambassador Benedetti, he demanded 'the cession of Landau,
Saarbrücken, Saarlouis, and Luxemburg, together with Prussia's
consent to the annexation of Belgium by France. If that could
not be obtained, he would be satisfied with Luxemburg and
Belgium; he would even exclude Antwerp from the territory
claimed that it might be created a free town. Thus he hoped to
spare the susceptibilities of England. As a gracious return he
offered the alliance of France. After his first interview
Benedetti gave up his demand for the three German towns, and
submitted a new scheme, according to which Germany should
induce the King of the Netherlands to a cession of Luxemburg,
and should support France in the conquest of Belgium; whilst,
on his part, Napoleon would permit the formation of a federal
union between the Northern Confederation and the South German
States, and would enter into a defensive and offensive
alliance with Germany. Count Bismarck treated these
propositions, as he himself has stated, 'in a dilatory
manner,' that is to say, he did not reject them, but he took
good care not to make any definite promises. When the Prussian
Prime Minister returned from his furlough to Berlin, towards
the end of 1866, Benedetti resumed his negotiations, but now
only with regard to Luxemburg, still garrisoned by Prussian
troops as at the time of the old Germanic Confederation.
Though the Grand-Duchy of Luxemburg did not belong to the new
North German Confederation, Bismarck was not willing to allow
it to be annexed by France. Moltke moreover declared that the
fortress could only be evacuated by the Prussian troops if the
fortifications were razed. But without its fortifications
Napoleon would not have it. And when, with regard to the
Emperor's intentions upon Belgium, Prussia offered no active
support, but only promised observance of neutrality, France
renounced the idea of an alliance with Prussia, and entered
into direct negotiations with the King of Holland, as
Grand-Duke of Luxemburg.
{1543}
Great excitement was thereby caused in Germany, and, as a
timely warning to France, Bismarck surprised the world with
the publication of the secret treaties between Prussia and the
South German States. But when it became known that the King of
Holland was actually consenting to the sale of his rights in
Luxemburg to Napoleon, there was so loud a cry of indignation
in all parts of Germany, there was so powerful a protest in
the North German Parliament against any sale of German
territory by the King of Holland, that Count Bismarck, himself
surprised at the vigour of the patriotic outburst, declared to
the Government of the Hague that the cession of Luxemburg
would be considered a casus belli. This peremptory declaration
had the desired effect: the cession did not take place. This
was the first success in European politics of a united
Germany, united not yet politically, but in spirit. That was
satisfactory. A Conference of the Great Powers then met in
London [May, 1867]: by its decision, Luxemburg was separated
from Germany, and,--to give some kind of satisfaction to the
Emperor of the French,--was formed into a neutral State. From
a national point of view, that was unsatisfactory. ... The
danger of an outbreak of war between France and Germany had
only been warded off for a time by the international
settlement of the Luxemburg question. ... In the early part of
July, 1870, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, at the
request of the Spanish Government; became a candidate for the
Spanish throne. Napoleon III. seized the occasion to carry
into effect his hostile intentions against Germany."
G. Krause,
The Growth of German Unity,
chapter 13-14.
ALSO IN:
E. Simon,
The Emperor William and his Reign,
chapter 9-10 (volume l).
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 3, chapter 5-6.
GERMANY: A. D. 1870 (June-July).
"The Hohenzollern incident."
French Declaration of War.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JUNE-JULY).
GERMANY: A. D. 1870 (September-December).
The Germanic Confederation completed.
Federative treaties with the states of South Germany.
Suggestion of the Empire.
"Having decided on taking Strasburg and Metz from France"
Prussia "could only justify that conquest by considerations of
the safety of South Germany, and she could only defend these
interests by effecting the union of North and South. She found
it necessary to realise this union at any price, even by some
concessions in favour of the autonomy of those States, and
especially of Bavaria. Such was the spirit in which
negotiations were opened, in the middle of September, 1870,
between Bavaria and Prussia, with the participation of Baden,
Wurtemberg and Hesse-Darmstadt. ... Prussia asked at first for
entire and unreserved adhesion to the Northern Confederation,
a solution acceptable to Baden, Wurtemberg and
Hesse-Darmstadt, but not to Bavaria, who demanded for herself
the preservation of certain rights, and for her King a
privileged position in the future Confederation next to the
King of Prussia. The negotiations with Baden and
Hesse-Darmstadt came to a conclusion on the 15th of November;
and on the 25th, Wurtemberg accepted the same arrangement.
These three States agreed to the constitution, slightly
modified, of the Northern Confederation; the new treaties were
completed by military conventions, establishing the fusion of
the respective Corps d'Armée with the Federal Army of the
North, under the command of the King of Prussia. The Treaty
with Bavaria was signed at Versailles on the 23rd of November.
The concessions obtained by the Cabinet of Munich were reduced
to mere trifles. ... The King of Bavaria was allowed the
command of his army in time of peace. He was granted the
administration of the Post-Office and partial autonomy of
indirect contributions. A committee was conceded, in the
Federal Council, for Foreign Affairs, under the Presidency of
Bavaria. The right of the King of Prussia, as President of
this Council, to declare war, was made conditional on its
consent. Such were the Treaties submitted on the 24th of
November to the sanction of the Parliament of the North,
assembled in an Extraordinary Session. They met with intense
opposition from the National Liberal and from the Progressive
Party," but "the Parliament sanctioned the treaties on the
10th of December. According to the Treaties, the new
association received the title of Germanic Confederation, and
the King of Prussia that of its President. These titles were
soon to undergo an important alteration. The King of Bavaria,
satisfied with the concessions, more apparent than real, made
by the Prussian Cabinet to his rights of sovereignty,
consented to defer to the wishes of King William. On the 4th
of December, King Louis addressed him [King William] a letter,
informing him that he had invited the Confederate sovereigns
to revive the German Empire and confer the title of Emperor on
the President of the Confederation. ... The sovereigns
immediately gave their consent, so that the Imperial titles
could be introduced into the new Constitution before the final
ote of the Parliament of the North. ... To tell the truth, King
William attached slight importance to the votes of the various
Chambers. He was not desirous of receiving his new dignity
from the hands of a Parliament; the assent of the sovereigns
was in his eyes far more essential."
E. Simon,
The Emperor William and his Reign,
chapter 13 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
G. Freytag,
The Crown Prince and the Imperial Crown.
GERMANY: A. D. 1870-1871.
Victorious war with France.
Siege of Paris.
Occupation of the city.
Enormous indemnity exacted.
Acquisition of Alsace and part of Lorraine.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST)
to 1871 (JANUARY-MAY).
GERMANY: A. D. 1871 (January).
Assumption of the Imperial dignity by King William,
at Versailles.
"Early in December the proposition came from King Ludwig of
Bavaria to King William, that the possession of the
presidential rights of the Confederacy vested in the Prussian
monarch should be coupled with the imperial title. The King of
Saxony spoke to the same purport; and in one day a measure
providing for the amendment of the Constitution by the
substitution of the words 'Emperor' and 'Empire' for
'President' and 'Confederation' was passed through the North
German Parliament, which voted also an address to his Majesty,
from which the following is an extract: 'The North German
Parliament, in unison with the Princes of Germany, approaches
with the prayer that your Majesty will deign to consecrate the
work of unification by accepting the Imperial Crown of Germany.
{1544}
The Teutonic Crown on the head of your Majesty will
inaugurate, for the re-established Empire of the German
nation, an era of power, of peace, of well-being, and of
liberty secured under the protection of the laws.' The address
of the German Parliament was presented to the King at
Versailles on Sunday, the 18th of December, by its speaker,
Herr Simson, who, as speaker of the Frankfort Parliament in
1848, had made the identical proffer to William's brother and
predecessor [see above: A. D. 1848-1850]. ... The formal
ratification of assent to the Prussian King's assumption of
the imperial dignity had yet to be received from the minor
German States; but this was a foregone conclusion, and the
unification of Germany really dates from that 18th of
December, and from the solemn ceremonial in the prefecture of
Versailles."
A. Forbes,
William of Germany,
chapter 12.
King William's formal assumption of the Imperial dignity took
place on the 18th of January, 1871. "The Crown Prince was
entrusted with all the preparations for the ceremony. Every
regiment in the army of investment was instructed to send its
colours in charge of an officer and two non-commissioned
officers to Versailles, and all the higher officers who could
be spared from duty were ordered to attend, for the army was
to represent the German nation at this memorable scene. The
Crown Prince escorted his father from the Prefecture to the
palace of Versailles, where all the German Princes or their
representatives were assembled in the Galerie des Glaces. A
special service was read by the military chaplains, and then
the Emperor, mounting on the dais, announced his assumption of
Imperial authority, and instructed his Chancellor to read the
Proclamation issued to the whole German nation. Then the Crown
Prince, as the first subject of the Empire, came forward and
performed the solemn act of homage, kneeling down before his
Imperial Father. The Emperor raised him and clasped to his
arms the son who had toiled and fought and borne so great a
share in achieving what many generations had desired in vain."
R. Rodd,
Frederick, Crown Prince and Emperor,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
C. Lowe,
Prince Bismarck,
chapter 9 (volume 1).
GERMANY: A. D. 1871 (April).
The Constitution of the new Empire.
By a proclamation dated April 16, 1871, the German Emperor
ordered, "in the name of the German Empire, by and with the
consent of the Council of the Confederation and of the
Imperial Diet," that "in the place of the Constitution of the
German Confederation," as agreed to in November 1870, there be
substituted a Constitution for the German Empire,--the text of
which appeared as an appendix to this imperial decree. For a
full translation of the text of the Constitution,
See CONSTITUTION OF GERMANY.
ALSO IN:
E. Hertslet,
The Map of Europe by Treaty,
volume 3, Number 442.
C. Lowe,
Prince Bismarck,
appendix F. (volume 2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1871-1879.
Organization of the government of Alsace-Lorraine as an
imperial province.
"How to garner the territorial harvest of the
war--Alsace-Lorraine--was a question which greatly vexed the
parliamentary mind. Several possible solutions had presented
themselves. The conquered provinces might be made neutral
territory, which, with Belgium on one side, and Switzerland on
the other, would thus interpose a continuous barrier against
French aggression from the mouth of the Rhine to its source.
But one fatal objection, among several others, to the adoption
of this course, was the utter lack, in the Alsace-Lorrainers,
of the primary condition of the existence of all neutral
States--a determination on the part of the neutralised people
themselves to be and remain neutral. And none knew better than
Bismarck that it would take years of the most careful nursing
to reconcile the kidnapped children of France to their
adoptive parent. For him, the only serious question was
whether Alsace-Lorraine should be annexed to Prussia, or be
made an immediate Reichsland (Imperial Province). 'From the
very first,' he said, 'I was most decidedly for the latter
alternative, first--because there is no reason why dynastic
questions should be mixed up with political ones; and,
secondly--because I think it will be easier for the Alsatians
to take to the name of "German" than to that at of "Prussian,"
the latter being detested in France in comparison with the
other.' In its first session, accordingly, the Diet was asked
to pass a law incorporating Alsace-Lorraine with the Empire,
and placing the annexed provinces under a provisional
dictatorship till the 1st January, 1874, when they would enter
into the enjoyment of constitutional rights in common with the
rest of the nation. But the latter clause provoked much
controversy. ... A compromise was ultimately effected by which
the duration of the dictatorship, or period within which the
Imperial Government alone was to have the right of making laws
for Alsace-Lorraine, was shortened till 1st January, 1873;
while the Diet, on the other hand, was only to have
supervision of such loans or guarantees as affected the
Empire. In the following year, however, the Diet came to the
conclusion that, after all, the original term fixed for the
dictatorship was the more advisable of the two, and prolonged
it accordingly. For the next three years, therefore, the
Reichsland was governed from the Wilhelmstrasse, as India is
ruled from Downing Street. ... In the beginning of 1874 ...
fifteen deputies from Alsace-Lorraine--now thus far admitted
within the pale of the Constitution--took their seats in the
second German Parliament. Of these fifteen deputies, five were
out-and-out French Protesters, and the rest Clericals--seven
of the latter being clergymen, including the Bishops of Metz
and Strasburg. They entered the Diet in a body, with much
theatrical pomp, the clergy wearing their robes; and one of
the French Protesters--bearing the unfortunate name of
Teutsch--immediately tabled a motion that the inhabitants of
Alsace-Lorraine, having been annexed to Germany without being
themselves consulted, should now be granted an opportunity of
expressing their opinion on the subject by a plebiscite. ...
The motion of French Mr. Teutsch, who spoke fluent German, was
of course rejected; whereupon he and several of his
compatriots straightway returned home, and left the Diet to
deal with the interests of their constituents as it liked.
Those of his colleagues who remained behind only did so to
complain of the 'intolerable tyranny' under which the
provinces were groaning, and to move for the repeal of the law
(of December, 1871) which invested the local Government with
dictatorial powers. ...
{1545}
Believing home-rule to be one of the best guarantees of
federal cohesion, Bismarck determined to try the effect of
this cementing agency on the newest part of the Imperial
edifice; and, in the autumn of 1874, he advised the Emperor to
grant the Alsace-Lorrainers (not by law, but by ordinance,
which could easily be revoked) a previous voice on all bills
to be submitted to the Reichstag on the domestic and fiscal
affairs of the provinces. ... In the following summer (June,
1875), therefore, there met at Strasburg the first
Landesausschuss, or Provincial Committee, composed of
delegates, thirty in number, from the administrative District
Councils. ... So well, indeed, on the whole, did this
arrangement work, that within two years of its creation the
Landesausschuss was invested with much broader powers. ...
Thus it came about that, while the Reichsland continued to be
governed from Berlin, the making of its laws was more and more
confined to Strasburg. ... The party of the Irreconcilables
had been gradually giving way to the Autonomists, or those who
subordinated the question of nationality to that of home-rule.
Rapidly gaining in strength, this latter party at last (in the
spring of 1879) petitioned the Reichstag for an independent
Government, with its seat in Strasburg, for the representation
of the Reichsland in the Federal Council, and for an
enlargement of the functions of the Provincial Committee.
Nothing could have been more gratifying to Bismarck than this
request, amounting, as it did, to a reluctant recognition of
the Treaty of Frankfort on the part of the Alsace-Lorrainers.
He therefore replied that he was quite willing to confer on
the provinces 'the highest degree of independence compatible
with the military security of the Empire.' The Diet, without
distinction of party, applauded his words; and not only that,
but it hastened to pass a bill embodying ideas at which the
Chancellor himself had hinted in the previous year. By this
bill, the government of Alsace-Lorraine was to centre in a
Statthalter, or Imperial Viceroy, living at Strasburg, instead
of, as heretofore, in the chancellor. ... Without being a
Sovereign, this Statthalter was to exercise all but sovereign
rights. ... For this high office the Emperor selected the
brilliant soldier-statesman, Marshal Manteuffel. ...
Certainly, His Majesty could not possibly have chosen a better
man for the responsible office, which the Marshal assumed on
the 1st October, 1879. Henceforth, the conquered provinces
entered an entirely new phase of their existence. ... Whether
the Reichsland will ever ripen into an integral part of
Prussia, or into a regular Federal State with a Prussian
prince for its Sovereign, the future alone can show."
C. Lowe,
Prince Bismarck,
chapter 14 (volume 2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1873-1887.
The Culturkampf.
The "May Laws" and their repeal.
"The German Culturkampf, or civilization-fight, as its
illustrious chief promoter is said to have named it, may
equally well be styled the religion combat, or education
strife. ... The arena of the Culturkampf in Germany is,
strictly speaking, Prussia and Hesse Darmstadt--pre-eminently
the former. According to the last census, taken December 1,
1880, the population of Prussia is 27,278,911. Of these, the
Protestants are 17,645,462, being 64.7 per cent., and the
Catholics 9,205,136, or 34.1 per cent., of the total
population. The remainder are principally Jews, amounting to
363,790, or 1.334 per cent. It was on the 9th of January,
1873, that Dr. Falk, Minister of Public Worship, first
introduced into the Prussian Diet the bills, which were
afterwards to be known as the May Laws [so called because they
were generally passed in the month of May, although in
different years, but also called the Falk Laws, from the
Minister who framed them]. These laws, which, for the future,
were to regulate the relations of Church and State, purported
to apply to the Evangelical or united Protestant State Church
of Prussia ... as well as to the Catholic Church. Their
professed main objects were: first, to insure greater liberty
to individual lay members of those churches; secondly, to
secure a German and national, rather than an 'Ultramontane'
and non-national, training for the clergy; and, thirdly, to
protect the inferior clergy against the tyranny of their
superiors--which simply meant, as proved in the sequel, the
withdrawal of priests and people, in matters spiritual, from
the jurisdiction of the bishops, and the separation of
Catholic Prussia from the Centre of Unity; thus substituting a
local or national Church, bound hand and foot, under State
regulation, for a flourishing branch of the Universal Church.
To promote these objects, it was provided, that all
Ecclesiastical seminaries should be placed under State
control; and that all candidates for the priesthood should
pass a State examination in the usual subjects of a liberal
education; and it was further provided, that the State should
have the right to confirm or to reject all appointments of
clergy. These bills were readily passed: and all the religious
orders and congregations were suppressed, with the provisional
exception of those which devoted themselves to the care of the
sick; and all Catholic seminaries were closed. ... The Bishops
refused to obey the new laws, which in conscience they could
not accept; and they subscribed a collective declaration to
this effect, on the 26th of May 1873. On the 7th of August
following, Pope Pius IX. addressed a strong letter of
remonstrance to the Emperor William; but entirely without
effect, as may be seen in the Imperial reply of the 5th of
September. In punishment of their opposition, several of the
Bishops and great numbers of their clergy were fined,
imprisoned, exiled, and deprived of their salaries. Especially
notable among the victims of persecution, were the venerable
Archbishop of Cologne, Primate of Prussia, the Bishop of
Munster, the Prince Bishop of Breslau, the Bishop of
Paderborn, and Cardinal Ledochowski, Archbishop of Gnesen and
Posen, on whom, then in prison, a Cardinal's hat was conferred
by the Pope, in March 1875, as a mark of sympathy, encouragement,
and approval. ... The fifteen Catholic dioceses of Prussia
comprised, in January 1873, a Catholic aggregate of 8,711,535
souls. They were administered by 4,627 parish-priests, and
3,812 coadjutor-priests, or curates, being a total of 8,439
clergy. Eight years later, owing to the operation of the May
Laws, there were exiled or dead, without being replaced, 1,770
of these clergy, viz., 1,125 parish-priests, and 645,
coadjutor-priests; and there were 601 parishes, comprising
644,697 souls, quite destitute of clerical care, and 584
parishes, or 1,501,994 souls, partially destitute thereof.
Besides these 1,770 secular priests, dead or exiled, and not
replaced, there were the regular clergy (the members of
religious orders), all of whom had been expelled."
J. N. Murphy,
The Chair of Peter,
chapter 29.
{1546}
"Why was the Kulturkampf undertaken? This is a question often
asked, and answered in different ways. That Ultramontanism is
a danger to the Empire is the usual explanation; but proof is
not producible. ... Ultramontanism, as it is understood in
France and Belgium, has never taken root in Germany. It was
represented by the Jesuits, and when they were got rid of,
Catholicism remained as a religion, but not as a political
factor. ... The real purpose of the Kulturkampf has been, I
conceive, centralisation. It has not been waged against the
Roman Church only, for the same process has been followed with
the Protestant Churches. It was intolerable in a strong
centralising Government to have a Calvinist and a Lutheran
Church side by side, and both to call themselves Protestant.
It interfered with systematic and neat account-keeping of
public expenditure for religious purposes. Consequently, in
1839, the King of Prussia suppressed Calvinism and
Lutheranism, and established a new Evangelical Church on their
ruins, with constitution and liturgy chiefly of his own
drawing up. The Protestant churches of Baden, Nassau, Hesse,
and the Bavarian Palatinate have also been fused and organised
on the Prussian pattern. In Schleswig-Holstein and in Hanover
existed pure Lutherans, but they, for uniformity's sake, have
been also recently unified and melted into the Landeskirche of
Prussia. A military government cannot tolerate any sort of
double allegiance in its subjects. Education and religion,
medicine and jurisprudence, telegraphs and post-office, must
be under the jurisdiction of the State. ... From the point of
view of a military despotism, the May laws are reasonable and
necessary. As Germany is a great camp, the clergy, Protestant
and Catholic, must be military chaplains amenable to the
general in command. ... I have no doubt whatever that this is
the real explanation of the Kulturkampf, and that all other
explanations are excuses and inventions. ... The Chancellor,
when he began the crusade, had probably no idea of the
opposition he would meet with, and when the opposition
manifested itself, it irritated him, and made him more dogged
in pursuing his scheme."
S. Baring-Gould,
Germany, Present and Past,
chapter 13 (volume 2).
"The passive resistance of the clergy and laity, standing on
their own ground, and acting together in complete agreement,
succeeded in the end. The laity had recognised their own
priests, even when suspended by government, and had resolutely
refused to receive others; and both priests and laity insisted
upon the Church regulating its own theological education.
Prussia and Baden became weary of the contest. In 1880 and
1881 the 'May Laws' were suspended, and, after negotiation
with Leo XIII., they were to a large extent repealed. By this
change, completed In April, 1887, the obligations of civil
marriage and the vesting of Catholic property in the hands of
lay trustees were retained, but the legislative interference
with the administration of the Church, including the education
required for the priesthood, was wholly abandoned. The
Prussian Government had entirely miscalculated its power with
the Church."
S. Baring-Gould,
The Church in Germany,
chapter 21.
By the Bill passed in 1887, "all religious congregations which
existed before the passing of the law of May 31, 1875, were to
be allowed to re-establish themselves, provided their objects
were purely religious, charitable, or contemplative. ... The
Society of Jesus, which is a teaching order, was not included
in this permission. But Prince Bismarck's determination never
to readmit the Jesuits is well known. ... The Bill left very
few vestiges of the May laws remaining."
Annual Register, 1887,
part 1, page 245.
ALSO IN:
C. Lowe,
Prince Bismarck,
chapters 12-13 (volume 2).
GERMANY: A. D. 1878-1879.
Prince Bismarck's economic revolution.
Adoption of the Protective policy.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (GERMANY): A. D. 1853-1892.
GERMANY: A. D. 1878-1893.
The Socialist Parties.
See SOCIALIST PARTIES IN GERMANY.
GERMANY: A. D. 1882.
The Triple Alliance.
See TRIPLE ALLIANCE.
GERMANY: A. D. 1884-1889.
Colonization in Africa.
Territorial seizures.
The Berlin Conference.
See AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1891.
GERMANY: A. D. 1888.
Death of the Emperor William I.
Accession and death of Frederick III.
Accession of William II.
The Emperor William died on the 9th of March, 1888. He was
succeeded by his son, proclaimed under the title of Frederick
III. The new Emperor was then at San Remo, undergoing
treatment for a mortal malady of the throat. He returned at
once to Berlin, where an unfavorable turn of the disease soon
appeared. "Consequently an Imperial decree, dated the 21st of
March, was addressed to the Crown Prince and published,
expressing the wish of the Emperor that the Prince should make
himself conversant with the affairs of State by immediate
participation therein. His Imperial Highness was accordingly
entrusted with the preparation and discharge of such State
business as the Emperor should assign to him, and he was
empowered in the performance of this duty to affix all
necessary signatures, as the representative of the Emperor,
without obtaining an especial authorisation on each occasion.
... The insidious malady from which the Emperor suffered
exhibited many fluctuations," but the end came on the 15th of
June, his reign having lasted only three months. He was
succeeded by his eldest son, who became Emperor William II.
Eminent Persons:
Biographies reprinted from The Times,
volume 4, pages 112-115.
ALSO IN:
R. Rodd,
Frederick, Crown Prince and Emperor.
G. Freytag,
The Crown Prince.
GERMANY: A. D. 1888.
The end of the Free Cities.
"The last two cities to uphold the name and traditions of the
Hanseatic League, Hamburg and Bremen, have been incorporated
into the German Zoll Verein, thus finally surrendering their
old historical privileges as free ports. Lübeck took this step
some twenty-two years ago [1866], Hamburg and Bremen not till
October, 1888--so long had they resisted Prince Bismarck's
more or less gentle suasions to enter his Protection League.
... They, and Hamburg in particular, held out nobly, jealous,
and rightly jealous, of the curtailment of those privileges
which distinguished them from the other cities of the German
Empire. It was after the foundation of this empire that the
claim of the two cities to remain free ports was conceded and
ratified in the Imperial Constitution of April, 1871, though
the privilege, in the case of Hamburg, was restricted to the
city and port, and withdrawn from the rest of the State, which
extends to the mouth of the Elbe and embraces about 160 square
miles, while the free-port territory was reduced to 28 square
miles.
{1547}
This was the first serious interference with the city's
liberty, and others followed, perhaps rather of a petty,
annoying, than of a seriously aggressive, character, but
enough to show the direction in which the wind was blowing. It
was in 1880 that the proposal to include Hamburg in the
Customs Union was first politically discussed. ... In May,
1881, ... was drafted a proposal to the effect that the whole
of the city and port of Hamburg should be included in the Zoll
Verein." After long and earnest discussion the proposition was
adopted by the Senate and the House of Burgesses. "The details
for carrying into effect this conclusion have occupied seven
years, and the event was finally celebrated with great pomp,
the Emperor William II. coming in person to enhance the
solemnity of the sacrifice brought by the burghers of the erst
free city for the common weal of the German Fatherland. ...
The last and only privilege the three once powerful Hanseatic
cities retain is that of being entitled, like the greatest
States in the empire, to send their own representatives to the
Bundesrath and to the Reichstag."
H. Zimmern,
The Hansa Towns, period 3,
chapter 8, note.
GERMANY: A. D. 1888-1889.
Prussian Free School laws.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
PRUSSIA: 1885-1889.
GERMANY: A. D. 1889-1890.
Rupture between Emperor William II. and Chancellor Bismarck.
Retirement of the great Chancellor.
Soon after the accession of William II., signs of discord
between the young Emperor and the veteran statesman,
Chancellor Bismarck, began to appear. "In March, 1889, the
Minister of Finance had drawn up a Bill for the reform of the
income tax, which had been sanctioned by the Emperor; suddenly
Prince Bismarck interfered, declaring that it was against the
agrarian interest, and the Landtag, summoned expressly to vote
that Bill, was dismissed 're inacta.' Count Waldersee, the
Chief of the General Staff, an eminent and independent man,
and standing high in favour, had for years been a thorn in the
Chancellor's side, who looked upon him as a possible rival; he
had tried to overthrow him under Frederic III., but had not
succeeded, Moltke protesting that the general was
indispensable to the army. When Waldersee, in the summer of
1889, accompanied the Emperor to Norway, a letter appeared in
the Hamburger Nachrichten, to the effect that in a Memoir he
had directed his sovereign's attention to the threatening
character of the Russian armaments, and had advised, in
contradiction to the Chancellor's policy, the forcing of war
upon Russia. The Count from Trondhjem addressed a telegraphic
denial to the paper, stating that he had never presented such
a Memoir; but the Nachrichten registered this declaration in a
garbled form and in small type, and the Norddeutsche Zeitung,
which at the same time had published an article, to the effect
that according to General von Clausewitz, war is only the
continuation of a certain policy, and that therefore the Chief
of the General Staff must needs be under the order of the
Foreign Minister, took no notice of the Count's protest. ...
In the winter session of the Reichstag the Government
presented a Bill tending to make the law against
Social-Democracy a permanent one, but even the pliant National
Liberals objected to the clause that the police should be
entitled to expel Social-Democrats from the large towns. They
would have been ready to grant that permission for two years,
but the Government did not accept this, and the Bill fell to
the ground. The reason, which at that time was not generally
understood, was, that there existed already a hitch between
the policy of the Chancellor and that of the Emperor, who had
arrived at the conviction that the law against Social
Democrats was not only barren, but had increased their power.
This difference was accentuated by the Imperial decree of
February 4 in favour of the protection of children's and
women's labour, which the Chancellor had steadily resisted,
and by the invitation of an international conference for that
end. Prince Bismarck resigned the Ministry of Commerce, and
was replaced by Herr von Berlepsch, who was to preside at the
conference. The elections for the Reichstag were now at hand,
a new surprise was expected for maintaining the majority
obtained by the cry of 1887; but it did not come, and the
result was a crushing defeat of the Chancellor. Perhaps even
then the Emperor had discerned that he could not go on with
Bismarck, and that it would be difficult to get rid of him, if
he obtained another majority for five years. At least it seems
certain that William II. already in the beginning of February
had asked General von Caprivi whether he would be ready to
take the Chancellor's place. Affairs were now rapidly pushing
to a crisis. Bismarck asked the Emperor that, in virtue of a
Cabinet order of 1852, his colleagues should be bound to
submit beforehand to him any proposals of political importance
before bringing it to the cognizance of the Sovereign. The
Emperor refused, and insisted upon that order being cancelled.
The last drop which made the cup overflow was an interview of the
Chancellor with Windthorst. The Emperor, calling upon Bismarck
the next morning, asked to hear what had passed in that
conversation; the Chancellor declined to give any account of
it, as he could not submit his intercourse with deputies to
any control, and added that he was ready to resign."
The Change of Government in Germany
(Fortnightly Review, August, 1890),
pages 301-304.
"Early on the 17th of March the Emperor sent word that he was
waiting for Bismarck's resignation. The Prince refused to
resign, on grounds of conscience and of self-respect. ... The
Emperor must dismiss him. A second messenger came, in the
course of the day, with a direct order from the Emperor that
the Prince should send in his resignation within a given
number of hours. At the same time Bismarck was informed that
the Emperor intended to make him Duke of Lauenburg. The Prince
responded that he might have had that title before if he had
wished it. He was then assured (referring to the grounds on
which he had previously declined the title) that the Emperor
would pledge himself to secure such a legislative grant as
would suffice for the proper maintenance of the ducal dignity.
Bismarck declined this also, declaring that he could not be
expected to close such a career as his had been 'by running
after a gratuity such as is given to a faithful letter-carrier
at New Year's.' His resignation, of course, he would send in
as soon as possible, but he owed it to himself and to history
to draw up a proper memorial. This he took two days to write.
... He has since repeatedly demanded the publication of this
memorial, but without success. ... On March 20, the Emperor,
in a most graciously worded letter (which was immediately
published), accepted Bismarck's 'resignation.' ... The
immediate nomination of his successor [General von Caprivi]
forced Bismarck to quit the Chancellor's official residence in
such haste that ... 'Bismarck himself compared his exit to the
expulsion of a German family from Paris in 1870.'"
Nation, March 22, 1894 (reviewing 'Das Deutsche
Reich zur Zeit Bismarcks,' von Dr. Hans Blum).
{1548}
GERMANY: A. D. 1890.
Settlement of African claims with England.
Acquisition of Heligoland.
See AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1891.
GERMANY: A. D. 1894.
Reconciliation of Bismarck with the Emperor.
In January, 1894, the complete rupture of friendly relations
between Prince Bismarck and the Emperor, and the Emperor's
government, which had existed since the dismissal of the
former, was terminated by a dramatic reconciliation. The
Emperor made a peace-offering, upon the occasion of the
Prince's recovery from an illness, by sending his
congratulations, with a gift of wine. Prince Bismarck
responded amiably, and was then invited to Berlin, to be
entertained as a guest in the royal palace. The invitation was
accepted, the visit promptly made on the 26th of January, and
an enthusiastic reception was accorded to the venerable
ex-chancellor at the capital, by court and populace alike.
----------GERMANY: End----------
GERMINAL, The month.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER).
GERONA, Siege of.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1809. (FEBRUARY-JUNE).
GERONTES.
Spartan senators, or members of the Gerusia.
See SPARTA: THE CONSTITUTION, &c.
GERONTOCRACY.
See HAYTI: A.D. 1804-1880.
GEROUSIA.
See GERUSIA.
GERRY, Elbridge, and the framing of the Federal Constitution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787.
GERRYMANDERING.
"In the composition of the House of Representatives [of the
Congress of the United States] the state legislatures play a
very important part. For the purposes of the election a state
is divided into districts corresponding to the number of
representatives the state is entitled to send to Congress.
These electoral districts are marked out by the legislature,
and the division is apt to be made by the preponderating party
with an unfairness that is at once shameful and ridiculous.
The aim, of course, is so to lay out the districts 'as to
secure in the greatest possible number of them a majority for
the party which conducts the operation. This is done sometimes
by throwing the greatest possible number of hostile voters
into a district which is anyhow certain to be hostile,
sometimes by adding to a district where parties are equally
divided some place in which the majority of friendly voters is
sufficient to turn the scale. There is a district in
Mississippi (the so-called Shoe-String District) 250 miles
long by 30 broad, and another in Pennsylvania resembling a
dumb-bell. ... In Missouri a district has been contrived
longer, if measured along its windings, than the state itself,
into which as large a number as possible of the negro voters
have been thrown.' This trick is called gerrymandering, from
Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, who was vice-president of
the United States from 1813 to 1817. It seems to have been
first devised in 1788 by the enemies of the Federal
Constitution in Virginia, in order to prevent the election of
James Madison to the first Congress, and fortunately it was
unsuccessful. It was introduced some years afterward into
Massachusetts. In 1812, while Gerry was governor of that
state, the Republican legislature redistributed the districts
in such wise that the shapes of the towns forming a single
district in Essex county gave to the district a somewhat
dragon-like contour. This was indicated upon a map of
Massachusetts which Benjamin Russell, an ardent Federalist and
editor of the 'Centinel,' hung up over the desk in his office.
The celebrated painter, Gilbert Stuart, coming into the office
one day and observing the uncouth figure, added with his
pencil a head, wings and claws, and exclaimed, 'That will do
for a salamander!' 'Better say a Gerrymander!' growled the
editor; and the outlandish name, thus duly coined, soon came
into general currency."
J. Fiske,
Civil Government in the U. S.,
pages 216-218.
ALSO IN:
J. Bryce,
The American Commonwealth,
volume 1, page 121.
J. W. Dean,
The Gerrymander (New England History
and Genealogical Register, October, 1892).
GERSCHHEIM, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.
GERTRUYDENBERG: Prince Maurice's siege and capture of.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1588-1593.
GERTRUYDENBERG: Conferences at.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1710.
GERUSIA, OR GEROUSIA, The.
"There is the strongest reason to believe that among the
Dorians, as in all the heroic states, there was, from time
immemorial, a council of elders. Not only is it utterly
incredible that the Spartan council (called the gerusia, or
senate) was first instituted by Lycurgus, it is not even clear
that he introduced any important alteration in its
constitution or functions. It was composed of thirty members,
corresponding to the number of the 'obes,' a division as
ancient as that of the tribes, which alone would suffice to
refute the legend that the first council was formed of the
thirty who aided Lycurgus in his enterprise, even without the
conclusive fact that two of the 'obes' were represented by the
kings. ... So far as we know, the twenty-eight colleagues of
the kings were always elected by the people, without regard to
any qualification besides age and personal merit. The mode of
election breathes a spirit of primitive simplicity: the
candidates, who were required to have reached the age of
sixty, presented themselves in succession to the assembly, and
were received with applause proportioned to the esteem in
which they were held by their fellow-citizens. These
manifestations of popular feeling were noted by persons
appointed for the purpose, who were shut up in an adjacent
room, where they could hear the shouts, but could not see the
competitors. He who in their judgment had been greeted with
the loudest plaudits, won the prize--the highest dignity in
the commonwealth next to the throne. The senators held their
office for life."
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 8 (volume 1).
{1549}
ALSO IN:
G. F. Schöman,
Antiquity of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapter 1.
See, also, SPARTA: THE CONSTITUTION, &c.
GES TRIBES, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES:
TUPI.
GUARANI.
TUPUYAS.
GESITHS.--GESITHCUND.
See COMITATUS;
and ENGLAND: A. D. 958.
GESORIACUM.
The principal Roman port and naval station on the Gallic side
of the English Channel--afterwards called Bononia-modern
Boulogne. "Gesoriacum was the terminus of the great highway,
or military marching road, which had been constructed by
Agrippa across Gaul."
H. M. Scarth,
Roman Britain,
chapter 4.
GETA, Roman Emperor, A. D. 211-212.
GETÆ, The.
See DACIA; THRACIANS; SARMATIA;
and GOTHS, ORIGIN OF.
GETTYSBURG, Battle of.
See UNITED UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (JUNE-JULY: PENNSYLVANIA).
GETULIANS, The.
See LIBYANS.
GEWISSAS, The.
This was the earlier name of the West Saxons.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 477-527.
GHAZNEVIDES, OR GAZNEVIDES.
See TURKS: A. D. 999-1183.
GHENT: A. D. 1337.
Revolt under Jacques Van Arteveld.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1335-1337.
GHENT: A. D. 1345.
The end of Jacques Van Arteveld.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1345.
GHENT: A. D. 1379-1381.
The revolt of the White-Hoods.
The captaincy of Philip Van Arteveld.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1379-1381.
GHENT: A. D. 1382-1384.
Resistance to the Duke of Burgundy.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1382.
GHENT: A. D. 1451-1453.
Revolt against the taxes of Philip of Burgundy.
In 1450, Philip, Duke of Burgundy, having exhausted his usual
revenues, rich as they were, by the unbounded extravagance of
his court, laid a heavy tax on salt in Flanders. The sturdy
men of Ghent were little disposed to submit to an imposition
so hateful as the French "gabelle"; still less when, the next
year, a new duty on grain was demanded from them. They rose in
revolt, put on their white hoods, and prepared for war. It was
an unfortunate contest for them. They were defeated in nearly
every engagement; each encounter was a massacre, with no
quarter given on either side; the surrounding country was laid
waste and depopulated. A final battle, fought at Gavre, or
Gaveren, July 22, 1453, went against them so murderously that
they submitted and went on their knees to the duke--not
metaphorically, but actually. "The citizens were deprived of
the banners of their guilds; and the duke was henceforward to
have an equal voice with them in the appointment of their
magistrates, whose judicial authority was considerably
abridged; the inhabitants likewise bound themselves to
liquidate the expenses of the war, and to pay the gabelle for
the future." The Hollanders and Zealanders lent their
assistance to the duke against Ghent, and were rewarded by
some important concessions.
C. M. Davies,
History of Holland,
part 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).
"The city lost her jurisdiction, her dominion over the
surrounding country. She had no longer any subjects, was
reduced to a commune, and a commune, too, in ward two gates,
walled up forever, were to remind her of this grave change of
state. The sovereign banner of Ghent, and the trades' banners,
were handed over to Toison d'Or, who unceremoniously thrust
them into a sack and carried them off."
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 12, chapter 1 (volume 2).
GHENT: A. D. 1482-1488.
In trouble with the Austrian ducal guardian.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1482-1493.
GHENT: A. D. 1539-1540.
The last peal of the great bell Roland.
Once more, in 1539, Ghent became the scene of a memorable
rising of the people against the oppressive exactions of their
foreign masters. "The origin of the present dispute between
the Ghenters and the court was the subsidy of 1,200,000
guilders, demanded by the governess [sister of the emperor
Charles V.] in 1536, which ... it was found impossible to levy
by a general tax throughout the provinces. It was therefore
divided in proportional shares to each; that of Flanders being
fixed at 400,000 guilders, or one-third of the whole. ... The
citizens of Ghent ... persisted in refusing the demand,
offering, instead, to serve the emperor as of old time, with
their own troops assembled under the great standard of the
town. ... The other cities of Flanders showed themselves
unwilling to espouse the cause of the Ghenters, who, finding
they had no hope of support from them, or of redress from the
emperor, took up arms, possessed themselves of the forts in
the vicinity of Ghent, and despatched an embassy to Paris to
offer the sovereignty of their city to the king." The French
king, Francis I., not only gave them no encouragement, but
permitted the emperor, then in Spain, to pass through France,
in order to reach the scene of disturbance more promptly. In
the winter of 1540, the latter presented himself before Ghent,
at the head of a German army, and the unhappy city could do
nothing but yield itself to him.
C. M. Davies,
History of Holland,
part 2, chapter 5 (volume 1).
At the time of this unsuccessful revolt and the submission of
the city to Charles V., "Ghent was, in all respects, one of
the most important cities in Europe. Erasmus, who, as a
Hollander and a courtier, was not likely to be partial to the
turbulent Flemings, asserted that there was no town in all
Christendom to be compared to it for size, power, political
constitution, or the culture of its inhabitants. It was, said
one of its inhabitants at the epoch of the insurrection,
rather a country than a city. ... Its streets and squares were
spacious and elegant, its churches and other public buildings
numerous and splendid. The sumptuous church of Saint John or
Saint Bavon, where Charles V. had been baptized, the ancient
castle whither Baldwin Bras de Fer had brought the daughter of
Charles the Bald [see FLANDERS: A. D. 863], the city hall with
its graceful Moorish front, the well-known belfry, where for
three centuries had perched the dragon sent by the Emperor
Baldwin of Flanders from Constantinople, and where swung the
famous Roland, whose iron tongue had called the citizens,
generation after generation, to arms, whether to win battles
over foreign kings at the head of their chivalry, or to plunge
their swords in each others' breasts, were all conspicuous in
the city and celebrated in the land. Especially the great bell
was the object of the burghers' affection, and, generally, of
the sovereign's hatred; while to all it seemed, as it were, a
living historical personage, endowed with the human powers and
passions which it had so long directed and inflamed. ...
Charles allowed a month of awful suspense to intervene between
his arrival and his vengeance.
{1550}
Despair and hope alternated during the interval. On the 17th
of March, the spell was broken by the execution of 19 persons,
who were beheaded as ringleaders. On the 29th of April, he
pronounced sentence upon the city. ... It annulled all the
charters, privileges, and laws of Ghent. It confiscated all
its public property, rents, revenues, houses, artillery,
munitions of war, and in general everything which the
corporation, or the traders, each and all, possessed in
common. In particular, the great bell Roland was condemned and
sentenced to immediate removal. It was decreed that the
400,000 florins, which had caused the revolt, should forthwith
be paid, together with an additional fine by Ghent of 150,000,
besides 6,000 a year, forever after."
J. L. Motley,
The Rise of the Dutch Republic,
introduction, section 11.
GHENT: A. D. 1576.
The Spanish Fury.
The treaty of the "Pacification of Ghent."
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.
GHENT: A. D. 1584.
Disgraceful surrender to the Spaniards.
Decline of the city.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585.
GHENT: A. D. 1678.
Siege and capture by the French.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.
GHENT: A. D. 1678.
Restored to Spain.
See NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.
GHENT: A. D. 1706.
Occupied by Marlborough.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1706-1707.
GHENT: A. D. 1708-1709.
Taken by the French and retaken by the Allies.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709.
GHENT: A. D. 1745-1748.
Surrendered to the French, and restored to Austria.
See NETHERLANDS (AUSTRIAN PROVINCES): A. D.1745;
and AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: A. D. 1748.
GHENT: A. D. 1814.
Negotiation of the Treaty of Peace between Great Britain and
the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A.D. 1814 (DECEMBER).
----------GHENT: End----------
GHERIAH, Battle of (1763).
See INDIA: A. D. 1757-1772.
GHIBELINS.
See GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES.
GHILDE.
See GUILDS.
GHORKAS, OR GOORKAS, English war with the.
See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.
GIAN GALEAZZO,
Lord of Milan, A. D. 1378-1396;
Duke, 1396-1402.
Gian Galeazzo II., Duke of Milan, 1476-1494.
GIBBORIM, The.
King David's chosen band of six hundred, his heroes, his
"mighty men," his standing army.
H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
book 3.
GIBEON, Battle of.
See BETH-HORON, BATTLES OF.
GIBEONITES, The.
The Gibeonites were a "remnant of the Amorites, and the
children of Israel had sworn unto them" (ii Samuel xxi., 2).
Saul violated the pledged faith of his nation to these people
and "sought to slay them." After Saul's death there came a
famine which was attributed to his crime against the
Gibeonites; whereupon David sought to make atonement to them.
They would accept nothing but the execution of vengeance upon
seven of Saul's family, and David gave up to them two sons of
Saul's concubine, Rizpah, and five sons of Michel, the
daughter of Saul, whom they hanged.
H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
book 3.
GIBRALTAR, Origin of the name.
See SPAIN: A. D. 711-713.
GIBRALTAR: A. D. 1309-1460.
Taken by the Christians, recovered by the Moors, and finally
wrested from them, after several sieges.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1273-1460.
GIBRALTAR: A. D. 1704.
Capture by the English.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1703-1704.
GIBRALTAR: A. D. 1713.
Ceded by Spain to England.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
GIBRALTAR: A. D. 1727.
Abortive siege by the Spaniards.
The lines of San Roque.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.
GIBRALTAR: A. D. 1780-1782.
Unsuccessful siege by the Spaniards and French.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1780-1782.
----------GIBRALTAR: End----------
GILBERT, Sir Humphrey:
Expedition to Newfoundland.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1583.
GILBOA, Battles of.
See MEGIDDO.
GILDO, Revolt of.
See ROME: A. D. 396-398.
GILDS.
See GUILDS.
GILEAD.
See JEWS: ISRAEL UNDER THE JUDGES.
GILLMORE, General Q. A.
Siege and reduction of Fort Pulaski.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: GEORGIA-FLORIDA).
The siege of Charleston.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (JULY: S. CAROLINA),
and (AUGUST-DECEMBER: SOUTH CAROLINA).
GIOVANNA.
See JOANNA.
GIOVANNI MARIA, Duke of Milan, A. D. 1402-1412.
GIPSIES.
See GYPSIES.
GIRONDINS.-GIRONDISTS, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (OCTOBER); 1791-1792;
1792 (JUNE-AUGUST), (AUGUST), (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER);
1793 (MARCH-JUNE), (JUNE), (JULY-DECEMBER),
(SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER); 1793-1794 (OCTOBER-APRIL).
GIRTON COLLEGE.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &c.: 1865-1883.
GITANOS.
See GYPSIES.
GIURGEVO, Battle of (1595).
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES,
14TH-18TH CENTURIES (ROUMANIA, ETC.).
GLADIATORS, Revolt of the.
See SPARTACUS.
GLADSTONE MINISTRIES.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1868-1870; 1873-1880 to 1885;
1885-1886; and 1892-1893.
GLATZ, Capture of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1760.
GLENCO, Massacre of.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1692.
GLENDALE, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).
GLENDOWER'S REBELLION.
See WALES: A. D. 1402-1413.
GLENMALURE, Battle of (1580).
See IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603.
GLEVUM.
Glevum was a large colonial city of the Romans in Britain,
represented by the modern city of Gloucester. It "was a town
of great importance, as standing not only on the Severn, near
the place where it opened out into the Bristol Channel, but
also as being close to the great Roman iron district of the
Forest of Dean."
T. Wright,
Celt, Roman and Saxon,
chapter 5.
{1551}
GLOGAU, The storming of (1642).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645.
GLOSSATORS, The.
See BOLOGNA: 11TH CENTURY.--SCHOOL OF LAW.
GLOUCESTER, Origin of.
See GLEVUM.
GLOUCESTER: A. D. 1643.
Siege of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).
GLYCERIUS, Roman Emperor (Western), A. D. 473-474.
GNOSTICS-GNOSTICISM.
"In a word ... Gnosticism was a philosophy of religion; but in
what sense was it this? The name of Gnosticism--Gnosis--does
not belong exclusively to the group of phenomena with whose
historical explanation we are here concerned. Gnosis is a
general idea; it is only as defined in one particular manner
that it signifies Christian Gnosticism in a special sense:
Gnosis is higher Knowledge, Knowledge that has a clear
perception of the foundations on which it rests, and the
manner in which its structure has been built up; a Knowledge
that is completely that which, as Knowledge, it is called to
be. In this sense it forms the natural antithesis to Pistis,
Faith [whence Pistics, believing Christians]: if it is desired
to denote Knowledge in its specific difference from faith, no
word will mark the distinction more significantly than Gnosis.
But we find that, even in this general sense, the Knowledge
termed Gnosis is a religious Knowledge rather than any other;
for it is not speculative Knowledge in general, but only such
as is concerned with religion. ... In its form and contents
Christian Gnosticism is the expansion and development of
Alexandrian religious philosophy; which was itself an offshoot
of Greek philosophy. ... The fundamental character of
Gnosticism in all its forms is dualistic. It is its
sharply-defined, all-pervading dualism that, more than
anything else, marks it directly for an offspring of paganism.
... In Gnosticism the two principles, spirit and matter, form
the great and general antithesis, within the bounds of which
the systems move with all that they contain. ... A further
leading Gnostic conception is the Demiurgus. The two highest
principles being spirit and matter, and the true conception of
a creation of the world being thus excluded, it follows in the
Gnostic systems, and is a characteristic feature of them, that
they separate the creator of the world from the supreme God,
and give him a position subordinate to the latter. He is
therefore rather the artificer than the creator of the world.
... The oldest Gnostic sects are without doubt those whose
name is not derived from a special founder, but only stand for
the general notion of Gnosticism. Such a name is that of the
Ophites or Naassenes. The Gnostics are called Ophites,
brethren of the Serpent, not after the serpent with which the
fathers compared Gnosticism, meaning to indicate the dangerous
poison of its doctrine, and to suggest that it was the hydra,
which as soon as it lost one head at once put forth another;
but because the serpent was the accepted symbol of their lofty
Knowledge. ... The first priests and supporters of the dogma
were, according to the author of the Philosophoumena, the
so-caned Naassenes--a name derived from the Hebrew name of
the serpent. They afterwards called themselves Gnostics,
because they asserted that they alone knew the things that are
deepest. From this root the one heresy divided into various
branches; for though these heretics all taught a like
doctrine, their dogmas were various."
F. C. Baur,
The Church History of the First Three Centuries,
volume 1, pages 187-202.
"Bigotry has destroyed their [the Gnostics'] writings so
thoroughly, that we know little of them except from hostile
sources. They called themselves Christians, but cared little
for the authority of bishops or apostles, and borrowed freely
from cabalists, Parsees, astrologers, and Greek philosophers,
in building up their fantastic systems. ... Much as we may
fear that the Gnostic literature was more remarkable for
boldness in speculation than for, clearness of reasoning or
respect for facts, it is a great pity that it should have been
almost entirely destroyed by ecclesiastical bigotry."
F. M. Holland,
The Rise of Intellectual Liberty,
chapter 3, section 6.
ALSO IN:
J. L. von Mosheim,
Historical Commentaries on the State of Christianity,
century 1,
sections 60-70, century 2, sections 41-65.
C. W. King,
The Gnostics and their Remains.
A. Neander,
General History of the Christian Religion and Church,
volume 2.
See, also, DOCETISM.
GOA, Acquisition by the Portuguese (1510).
See INDIA: A. D. 1498-1580.
GODERICH MINISTRY, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1827-1828.
GODFREY DE BOUILLON:
His crusade and his kingdom of Jerusalem.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099;
and JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099, and 1099-1144.
GODOLO, Battle of (1849).
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.
GODOLPHIN AND THE ENGLISH TREASURY.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.
GODWINE, Earl: Ascendancy in England.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1042-1066.
GOIDEL, The.
See CELTS, THE.
GOITO, Battles of(1848).
See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
GOLD DISCOVERY IN AUSTRALIA.
See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1839-1855.
GOLD DISCOVERY IN CALIFORNIA.
See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1848-1849.
GOLDEN BIBLE, The.
See MORMONISM: A. D. 1805-1830.
GOLDEN BOOK OF VENICE.
See VENICE: A. D. 1032-1319.
GOLDEN BOUGH, The.
See ARICIAN GROVE.
GOLDEN BULL, Byzantine.
A document to which the emperor attached his golden seal was
called by the Byzantines, for that reason, a chrysobulum or
golden bull. The term was adopted in the Western or Holy Roman
Empire.
G. Finlay,
History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires,
page 190.
GOLDEN BULL OF CHARLES IV., The.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1347-1493;
and 13TH CENTURY.
GOLDEN BULL OF HUNGARY.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1114-1301.
GOLDEN CHERSONESE.
See CHRYSE.
{1552}
GOLDEN CIRCLE, Knights of the.
David Christy published his 'Cotton is King' in the year
[1856] in which Buchanan was elected [President of the United
States], and the Knights of the Golden Circle appear to have
organized about the same time. The Golden Circle had its
centre at Havana, Cuba, and with a radius of sixteen degrees
(about 1,200 miles) its circumference took in Baltimore, St.
Louis, about half of Mexico, all of Central America, and the
best portions of the coast along the Caribbean Sea. The
project was, to establish an empire with this circle for its
territory, and by controlling four great staples--rice,
tobacco, sugar, and cotton--practically govern the
commercial world. Just how great a part this secret
organization played in the scheme of secession, nobody that
was not in its counsels can say; but it is certain that it
boasted, probably with truth, a membership of many
thousands."
Rossiter Johnson,
Short History of the War of Secession,
page 24.
During the American Civil War, the Order of the Knights of
the Golden Circle was extended (1862-1864) through the
Northern States, as a secret treasonable organization, in aid
of the Southern Rebellion.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (OCTOBER).
GOLDEN FLEECE, Knights of the Order of the.
"It was on the occasion of his marriage [A. D. 1430] that
Philip [Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, Count of Flanders,
etc.], desirous of instituting a national order of knighthood,
chose for its insignia a 'golden fleece,' with the motto,
'Pretium non vile laborum,'--not to be condemned is the reward
of labour. ... For the first time labour was given heraldic
honours. The pride of the country had become laden with
industrial recollections, its hope full of industrial
triumphs; if feudalism would keep its hold, it must adopt or
affect the national feeling. No longer despised was the
recompense of toil; upon the honour of knighthood it should so
be sworn; nay knighthood would henceforth wear appended to its
collar of gold no other emblem than its earliest and most
valued object--a golden fleece."
W. T. McCullagh,
Industrial History of Free Nations,
volume 2, chapter 10.
"This order of fraternity, of equality between nobles, in
which the duke was admonished, 'chaptered,' just the same as
any other, this council, to which he pretended to communicate
his affairs, was at bottom a tribunal where the haughtiest
found the duke their judge; he could honour or dishonour them
by a sentence of the order. Their scutcheon answered for them;
hung up in St. Jean's, Ghent, it could either be erased or
blackened. ... The great easily consoled themselves for
degradation at Paris by lawyers, when they were glorified by
the duke of Burgundy in a court of chivalry in which kings
took their seat."
J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 12, chapter 4.
"The number of the members was originally fixed at 31,
including the sovereign, as the head and chief of the
institution. They were to be: 'Gentilshommes de nom et d'armes
sans reproche.' In 1516, Pope Leo X. consented to increase the
number to 52, including the head. After the accession of
Charles V., in 1556, the Austro-Spanish, or, rather, the
Spanish-Dutch line of the house of Austria, remained in
possession of the Order. In 1700, the Emperor Charles VI. and
King Philip of Spain both laid claim to it. ... It now passes
by the respective names of the Spanish or Austrian. 'Order of
the Golden Fleece,' according to the country where it is
issued."
Sir B. Burke,
Book of Orders of Knighthood,
page 6.
ALSO IN:
J. F. Kirk,
History of Charles the Bold,
book 1, chapter 2.
GOLDEN GATE, The.
"The Bay of San Francisco is separated by [from] the sea by
low mountain ranges. Looking from the peaks of the Sierra
Nevada, the coast mountains present an apparently continuous
line, with only a single gap, resembling a mountain pass. This
is the entrance to the great bay. ... On the south, the
bordering mountains come down in a narrow ridge of broken
hills, terminating in a precipitous point, against which the
sea breaks heavily. On the northern side, the mountain
presents a bold promontory, rising in a few miles to a height
of two or three thousand feet. Between these points is the
strait--about one mile broad in the narrowest part, and five
miles long from the sea to the bay. To this Gate I gave the
name of Chrysopylæ, or Golden Gate; for the same reasons that
the harbor of Byzantium (Constantinople afterwards), was
called Chrysoceras, or Golden Horn. Passing through this gate,
the bay opens to the right and left, extending in each
direction about 35 miles, making a total length of more than
70, and a coast of about 275 miles."
J. C. Fremont,
Memoirs of my life,
volume 1, page 512.
GOLDEN HORDE, The.
See MONGOLS: A. D. 1238-1391.
GOLDEN HORN, The.
See BYZANTIUM.
GOLDEN HORSESHOE, Knights of the.
See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1710-1716.
GOLDEN HOUSE, The.
The imperial palace at Rome, as restored by Nero after the
great fire, was called the Golden House. It was destroyed by
Vespasian.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapters 53 and 90.
GOLDEN, OR BORROMEAN, LEAGUE, The.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1579-1630.
GOLDEN SPUR, Order of the.
An order of knighthood instituted in 1550 by Pope Paul III.
GOLDSBORO, General Sherman's march to.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865
(FEBRUARY-MARCH: THE CAROLINAS),
and (FEBRUARY-MARCH: N. CAROLINA).
GOLIAD, Massacre at (1836).
See TEXAS: A. D. 1824-1836.
GOLOWSTSCHIN, Battle of (1708).
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1707-1718.
GOLYMIN, Battle of (1806).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1807.
GOMER, OR OMER, The.
See EPHAH.
GOMERISTS. See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1603-1619.
GOMPHI.
Gomphi, a city on the border of Thessaly, shut its gates
against Cæsar, shortly before the battle of Pharsalia. He
halted one day in his march, stormed the town and gave it up
to his soldiers to be sacked.
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 5, chapter 15.
GONDS, The.
See INDIA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
GONFALONIERE.
See CARROCCIO.
GONZAGA, The House of.
"The house of Gonzaga held sovereign power at Mantua, first as
captains, then as marquesses, then as dukes, for nearly 400
years" (1328-1708).
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
volume 1, page 243.
GOOD ESTATE OF RIENZI, The.
See ROME: A. D. 1347-1354.
GOOD HOPE, Cape of:
The Discovery and the Name.
See PORTUGAL: A. D.1463-1498.
GOOD HOPE, Cape of:
The Colonization.
See SOUTH AFRICA.
{1553}
GOORKAS, OR GURKHAS, OR GHORKAS, The.
See INDIA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS;
and A. D. 1805-1816.
GOOROO, OR GURU.
See SIKHS.
GORDIAN I. and II., Roman Emperors, A. D. 238.
Gordian III., Roman Emperor, A. D. 238-244.
GORDIAN KNOT, Cutting the.
"It was about February or March 333 B. C., when Alexander
reached Gordium; where he appears to have halted for some
time, giving to the troops which had been with him in Pisidia
a repose doubtless needful. While at Gordium, he performed the
memorable exploit familiarly known as the cutting of the
Gordian knot. There was preserved in the citadel an ancient
waggon of rude structure, said by the legend to have once
belonged to the peasant Gordius and his son Midas--the
primitive rustic kings of Phrygia, designated as such by the
Gods and chosen by the people. The cord (composed of fibres
from the bark of the cornel tree), attaching the yoke of this
waggon to the pole, was so twisted and entangled as to form a
knot of singular complexity, which no one had ever been able
to untie. An oracle had pronounced, that to the person who
should untie it the empire of Asia was destined. ...
Alexander, on inspecting the knot, was as much perplexed as
others had been before him, until at length, in a fit of
impatience, he drew his sword and severed the cord in two. By
everyone this was accepted as a solution of the problem."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 93.
GORDON, General Charles George,
In China.
See CHINA: A. D.1850-1864.
In the Soudan.
See EGYPT: A. D. 1870-1883, and 1884-1885.
GORDON RIOTS, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1778-1780.
GORDYENE, OR CORDYENE, OR CORDUENE.
The tribes of the Carduchi which anciently occupied the region
of northern Mesopotamia, east of the Tigris, have given their
name permanently to the country, but in variously modified
forms. In the Greek and Roman period it was known as Gordyene,
Cordyene, Corduene; at the present day it is Kurdistan. Under
the Parthian domination in Asia, Gordyene was a tributary
kingdom. In the early part of the last century B. C. it was
conquered by Tigranes, king of Armenia, who chose a site
within it for building his vast new capital, Tigranocerta, to
populate which twelve Greek cities were stripped of
inhabitants. It was included among the conquests of Trajan for
the Romans, but relinquished by Hadrian.
G. Rawlinson,
Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy,
chapter 10, and after.
See, also, CARDUCHI, THE.
GORGES, Sir Ferdinando, and the colonization of Maine.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631, and 1635;
also MAINE: A. D. 1639.
GORM, King of Denmark, A. D. 883-941.
GOROSZLO, Battle of (1601).
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14TH-18TH CENTURIES
(ROUMANIA, &c.).
GORTYN.
See CRETE.
GOSHEN, Land of.
See JEWS: THE ROUTE OF THE EXODUS.
GOSNOLD'S VOYAGE TO NEW ENGLAND.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1602-1605.
GOSPORT NAVY YARD, Abandonment and destruction of the.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL).
GOTHA, Origin of the Dukedom of.
See SAXONY: A. D. 1180-1553.
GOTHI MINORES, The.
See GOTHS: A. D. 341-381.
GOTHIA, in central Europe.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 376.
GOTHIA, in Gaul.
Septimania, the strip of land along the Mediterranean between
the Pyrenees and the Rhone, was the last possession of the
Goths in Gaul, and the name Gothia became for a time attached
to it.
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 5, section 5.
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 419-451.
GOTHINI, The.
The Gotini or Gothini were a people of ancient Germany who
"are probably to be placed in Silesia, about Breslau." "The
Gotini and Osi [who held a part of modern Gallicia, under the
Carpathian mountains] are proved by their respective Gallic
and Pannonian tongues, as well as by the fact of their
enduring tribute, not to be Germans. ... The Gotini, to
complete their degradation, actually work iron mines."
Tacitus,
Minor Works,
translated by Church and Brodribb:
The Germany, with geographical notes.
GOTHLAND IN SWEDEN.
See GOTHS: ORIGIN OF THE.
GOTHONES, The.
A tribe in ancient Germany, mentioned by Tacitus. They
"probably dwelt on either side of the Vistula, the Baltic
being their northern boundary. Consequently, their settlements
would coincide with portions of Pomerania and Prussia. Dr.
Latham thinks they were identical with the Æstii."
Church and Brodribb,
Geographical Notes to the Germany of Tacitus.
See GOTHS, ORIGIN OF THE.
GOTHS, Origin of the.
"The Scandinavian origin of the Goths has given rise to much
discussion, and has been denied by several eminent modern
scholars. The only reasons in favor of their Scandinavian
origin are the testimony of Jornandes and the existence of the
name of Gothland in Sweden; but the testimony of Jornandes
contains at the best only the tradition of the people
respecting their origin, which is never of much value; and the
mere fact of the existence of the name of Gothland in Sweden
is not sufficient to prove that this country was the original
abode of the people. When the Romans first saw the Goths, in
the reign of Caracalla, they dwelt in the land of the Getæ [on
the northern side of the lower Danube]. Hence Jornandes,
Procopius, and many other writers, both ancient and modern,
supposed the Goths to be the same as the Getæ of the earlier
historians. But the latter writers always regarded the Getæ as
Thracians; and if their opinion was correct, they could have
had no connection with the Goths. Still, it is a startling
fact that a nation called Gothi should have emigrated from
Germany, and settled accidentally in the country of a people
with a name so like their own as that of Getæ. This may have
happened by accident, but certainly all the probabilities are
against it. Two hypotheses have been brought forward in modern
times to meet this difficulty. One is that of Grimm, in his
History of the German Language, who supposes that there was no
migration of the Goths at all, that they were on the Lower
Danube from the beginning, and that they were known to the
earlier Greek and Latin writers as Getæ: but the great
objection to this opinion is the general belief of the earlier
writers that the Getæ were Thracians, and the latter were
certainly not Germans.
{1554}
The other is that of Latham, who supposes, with much
ingenuity, that the name of Get, or Goth, was the general name
given by the Slavonic nations to the Lithuanians. According to
this theory, the Goth-ones, or Guth-ones, at the mouth of the
Vistula, mentioned by Tacitus and Ptolemy, are Lithuanians,
and the Get-æ, on the Danube, belong to the same nation.
Latham also believes that the Goths of a later period were
Germans who migrated to the Danube, but that they did not bear
the name of Goths till they settled in the country of the
Getæ.
See Latham,
The Germania of Tacitus,
Epil., p. xxxviii., seq."
W. Smith,
Note to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 10.
"The first clear utterance of tradition among the Goths points
to Sweden as their home. It is true that this theory of the
Swedish origin of the Goths has of late been strenuously
combatted, but until it is actually disproved (if that be
possible) it seems better to accept it as a 'working
hypothesis,' and, at the very least, a legend which influenced
the thoughts and feelings of the nation itself. Condensing the
narrative of Jornandes ... we get some such results as these:
'The island of Scanzia [peninsula of Norway and Sweden] lies
in the Northern Ocean, opposite the mouths of the Vistula, in
shape like a cedar-leaf. In this island, a warehouse of
nations ("officina gentium"), dwelt the Goths, with many other
tribes,' whose uncouth names are for the most part forgotten,
though the Swedes, the Fins, the Heruli, are familiar to us.
'From this island the Goths, under their king Berig, set forth
in search of new homes. They had but three ships, and as one
of these during their passage always lagged behind, they
called her "Gepanta," "the torpid one," and her crew, who ever
after showed themselves more sluggish and clumsy than their
companions when they became a nation, bore a name derived from
this circumstance, Gepidae, the Loiterers'." Settling, first,
near the mouth of the Vistula, these Gothic wanderers
increased in numbers until they were forced once more to
migrate southward and eastward, seeking a larger and more
satisfactory home. In time, they reached the shores of the
Euxine. "The date of this migration of the Goths is uncertain;
but, as far as we can judge from the indications afforded by
contemporary Roman events, it was somewhere between 100 and
200 A. D. At any rate, by the middle of the third century, we
find them firmly planted in the South of Russia. They are now
divided into three nations, the Ostrogoths on the East, the
Visigoths on the West, the lazy Gepidae a little to the
rear--that is, to the North of both. ... It is important for
us to remember that these men are Teutons of the Teutons. ...
Moreover, the evidence of language shows that among the
Teutonic races they belonged to the Low German family of
peoples: more nearly allied, that is to say, to the Dutch, the
Frieslanders, and to our own Saxon forefathers, all of whom
dwelt by the flat shores of the German Ocean or the Baltic
Sea, than to the Suabians and other High German tribes who
dwelt among the hills."
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
introduction, chapter 3 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 6.
T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 2, chapter 2.
See, also, VANDALS.
GOTHS:
Acquisition of Bosphorus.
"The little kingdom of Bosphorus; whose capital was situated
on the straits through which the Mæotis communicates itself to
the Euxine, was composed of degenerate Greeks and
half-civilized barbarians. It subsisted as an independent
state from the time of the Peloponnesian war, was at last
swallowed up by the ambition of Mithridates, and, with the
rest of his dominions, sunk under the weight of the Roman
arms. From the reign of Augustus the kings of Bosphorus were
the humble but not useless allies of the empire. By presents,
by arms, and by a slight fortification drawn across the
isthmus, they effectually guarded, against the roving
plunderers of Sarmatia, the access of a country which, from
its peculiar situation and convenient harbours, commanded the
Euxine Sea and Asia Minor. As long as the sceptre was
possessed by a lineal succession of kings, they acquitted
themselves of their important charge with vigilance and
success. Domestic factions, and the fears or private interest
of obscure usurpers who seized on the vacant throne, admitted
the Goths [already, in the third century, in possession of the
neighboring region about the mouth of the Dneiper] into the
heart of Bosphorus. With the acquisition of a superfluous
waste of fertile soil, the conquerors obtained the command of
a naval force sufficient to transport their armies to the
coast of Asia."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 10.
GOTHS: A. D. 244-251.
First invasions of the Roman Empire.
As early as the reign of Alexander Severus (A. D. 222-235) the
Goths, then inhabiting the Ukraine, had troubled Dacia with
incursions; but it was not until the time of the Emperor
Philip, called the Arabian (244-249), that they invaded the
Empire in force, passing through Dacia and crossing the Danube
into Mœsia (Bulgaria). They had been bribed by a subsidy to
refrain from pillaging Roman territory, but complained that
their "stipendia" had not been paid. They made their way
without opposition to the city of Marcianopolis, which Trajan
had founded in honor of his sister, and which was the capital
of one of the two provinces into which Mœsia had been divided.
The inhabitants ransomed themselves by the payment of a large
sum of money, and the barbarians retired. But their expedition
had been successful enough to tempt a speedy repetition of it,
and the year 250 found them, again, in Mœsia, ravaging the
country with little hindrance. The following year they crossed
the Hæmus or Balkan mountains and laid siege to the important
city of Philippopolis--capital of Thrace, founded by Philip of
Macedon. Now, however, a capable and vigorous emperor, Decius,
was briefly wearing the Roman purple. He met the Goths and
fought them so valiantly that 30,000 are said to have been
slain; yet the victory remained with the barbarians, and
Philippopolis was not saved. They took it by storm, put
100,000 of its inhabitants to the sword and left nothing in
the ruins of the city worth carrying away. Meantime the
enterprising Roman emperor had reanimated and recruited his
troops and had secured positions which cut off the retreat of
the Gothic host. The peril of the barbarians seemed so great,
in fact, that they offered to surrender their whole booty and
their captives, if they might, on so doing, march out of the
country undisturbed. Decius sternly rejected the proposition,
and so provoked his dangerous enemies to a despair which was
fatal to him. In a terrible battle that was fought before the
close of the year 251, at a place in Mœsia called Forum
Trebonii, the Roman emperor perished, with the greater part of
his army. The successor of Decius, Gallus, made haste to
arrange a payment of annual peace-money to the Goths, which
persuaded them to retire across the Danube.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
introduction, chapter 8 (volume 1).
{1555}
GOTHS: A. D. 258-267.
Naval expeditions in the East.
Having acquired command of a port and a navy by their conquest
of or alliance with the little kingdom of Bosporus in the
Chersonesus Taurica (modern Crimea), the Goths launched forth
boldly upon a series of naval marauding expeditions, which
spread terror and destruction along the coasts of the Euxine,
the Ægean and the straits between. The first city to suffer
was Pityus, on the Euxine, which they totally destroyed, A. D.
258. The next was Trebizond, which fell a victim to the
negligence with which its strong walls were guarded. The Goths
loaded their ships with the enormous booty that they took from
Trebizond, and left it almost a ruined city of the dead.
Another expedition reached Bithynia, where the rich and
splendid cities of Chalcedon, Nicea, Nicomedia, Prusa, Apamæa,
nd others were pillaged and more or less wantonly destroyed. "In
the year 267, another fleet, consisting of 500 vessels, manned
chiefly by the Goths and Heruls [or Heruli], passed the
Bosphorus and the Hellespont. They seized Byzantium and
Chrysopolis, and advanced, plundering the islands and coasts
of the Ægean Sea, and laying waste many of the principal
cities of the Peloponnesus. Cyzicus, Lemnos, Skyros, Corinth,
Sparta, and Argos are named as having suffered by their
ravages. From the time of Sylla's conquest of Athens, a period
of nearly 350 years had elapsed, during which Attica had
escaped the evils of war; yet when the Athenians were called
upon to defend their homes against the Goths, they displayed a
spirit worthy of their ancient fame. An officer, named
Cleodamus, had been sent by the government from Byzantium to
Athens, in order to repair the fortifications, but a division
of these Goths landed at the Piræus and succeeded in carrying
Athens by storm, before any means were taken for its defence.
Dexippus, an Athenian of rank in the Roman service, soon
contrived to reassemble the garrison of the Acropolis; and by
joining to it such of the citizens as possessed some knowledge
of military discipline, or some spirit for warlike enterprise,
he formed a little army of 2,000 men. Choosing a strong
position in the Olive Grove, he circumscribed the movements of
the Goths, and so harassed them by a close blockade that they
were soon compelled to abandon Athens. Cleodamus, who was not
at Athens when it was surprised, had in the meantime assembled
a fleet and gained a naval victory over a division of the
barbarian fleet, These reverses were a prelude to the ruin of
the Goths. A Roman fleet entered the Archipelago, and a Roman
army, under the emperor Gaillenus, marched into Illyricum; the
separate divisions of the Gothic expedition were everywhere
overtaken by these forces, and destroyed in detail. During
this invasion of the empire, one of the divisions of the
Gothic army crossed the Hellespont into Asia, and succeeded in
plundering the cities of the Troad, and in destroying the
celebrated temple of Diana of Ephesus. ... The celebrity of
Athens, and the presence of the historian Dexippus, have given
to this incursion of the barbarians a prominent place in
history; but many expeditions are casually mentioned which
must have inflicted greater losses on the Greeks, and spread
devastation more widely over the country."
G. Finlay,
Greece Under the Romans,
chapter 1, section 14.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 10.
GOTHS: A. D. 268-270.
Defeat by Claudius.
"Claudius II. and his successor Aurelian, notwithstanding the
shortness of their reigns, effectually dissipated the
mosquito-swarms of barbarian invaders and provincial usurpers
who were ruining the unhappy dominions of Gallienus. The two
campaigns (of 268 and 269) in which the Emperor Claudius
vanquished the barbarians are related with great brevity, and
in such a shape that it is not easy to harmonise even the
scanty details which are preserved for us. It seems clear,
however, that the Goths (both Ostrogoths and Visigoths), with
all their kindred tribes, poured themselves upon Thrace and
Macedonia in vaster numbers than ever. The previous movements
of these nations had been probably but robber-inroads: this
was a national immigration. ... A few years earlier, so vast
an irruption must inevitably have ruined the Roman Empire. But
now, under Claudius, the army, once more subjected to strict
discipline, had regained, or was rapidly regaining, its tone,
and the Gothic multitudes, vainly precipitating themselves
against it, by the very vastness of their unwieldy masses,
hastened their own destruction. A great battle was fought at
Naissus (Nisch, in Servia), a battle which was not a complete
victory, which according to one authority was even a defeat
for the Romans, but since the barbarians as an immediate
consequence of it lost 50,000 men, their doubtful victory may
fairly be counted as a defeat. In the next campaign they were
shut up in the intricate passes of the Balkans by the Roman
cavalry. Under the pressure of famine they killed and ate the
cattle that drew their waggons, so parting with their last
chance of return to their northern homes. ... At length the
remnants of the huge host seem to have disbanded, some to have
entered the service of their conqueror as 'foederati,' and
many to have remained as hired labourers to plough the fields
which they had once hoped to conquer. ... The vast number of
unburied corpses bred a pestilence, to which the Emperor fell
a victim. His successor Aurelian, the conqueror of Zenobia ...
made peace wisely as well as war bravely, and, prudently
determining on the final abandonment of the Roman province of
Dacia, he conceded to the Goths the undisturbed possession of
that region [A. D. 270], on condition of their not crossing
the Danube to molest Moesia. Translating these terms into the
language of modern geography, we may say, roughly, that the
repose of Servia and Bulgaria was guaranteed by the final
separation from the Roman Empire of Hungary, Transylvania,
Moldavia, and Wallachia, which became from this time forward
the acknowledged home of the Gothic nation. ... For about a
century (from 270 to 365) the Goths appear to have been with
little exception at peace with Rome."
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
introduction, chapter 3.
{1556}
GOTHS: A. D. 341-381.
Conversion to Christianity.
The introduction of Christianity among the Goths seems to have
begun while they were yet on the northern side of the Danube
and the Black Sea. It first resulted, no doubt, from the
influence of many Christian captives who were swept from their
homes in Mœsia, Greece, and Asia Minor, and carried away to
spend their lives in slavery among the barbarians. To these
were probably added a considerable number of Christian
refugees from Roman persecution, before the period of
Constantine. But it was not until the time of Ulfilas, the
great apostle and bishop of the Goths (supposed to have held
the office of bishop among them from about A. D. 341 to 381),
that the development and organization of Christianity in the
Gothic nation assumed importance. Ulfilas is represented to
have been a descendant of one of the Christian captives
alluded to above. Either as an ambassador or as a hostage, he
seems to have passed some years in his early manhood at
Constantinople. There he acquired a familiar knowledge of the
Greek and Latin languages, and became fitted for his great
work--the reducing of the Gothic language to a written form,
with an alphabet partly invented, partly adapted from the
Greek, and the translation of the Bible into that tongue. The
early labors of Ulfilas among his countrymen beyond the Danube
were interrupted by an outbreak of persecution, which drove
him, with a considerable body of Christian Goths, to seek
shelter within the Roman empire. They were permitted to settle
in Mœsia, at the foot of the Balkans, round about Nicopolis,
and near the site of modern Tirnova. There they acquired the
name of the Gothi Minores, or Lesser Goths. From this Gothic
settlement of Ulfilas in Mœsia the alphabet and written
language to which he gave form have been called Mœso-Gothic.
The Bible of Ulfilas--the first missionary translation of the
Scriptures--with the personal labors of the apostle and his
disciples, were powerfully influential, without doubt, in the
Christianizing of the whole body of the Goths, and of their
German neighbors, likewise. But Ulfilas had imbibed the
doctrines of Arianism, or of Semi-Arianism, at Constantinople,
and he communicated that heresy (as it was branded by the
Athanasian triumph) to all the barbarian world within the
range of Gothic influence. It followed that, when the kingdoms
of the Goths, the Vandals, and the Burgundians were
established in the west, they had to contend with the
hostility of the orthodox or Catholic western church, and were
undermined by it. That hostility had much to do with the
breaking down of those states and with the better success of
the orthodox Franks.
C. A. A. Scott,
Ulfilas, Apostle of the Goths.
See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 481-511.
GOTHS: (Ostrogoths) A. D. 350-375.
The empire of Ermanaric or Hermanric.
"Ermanaric, who seems to have been chosen king about the year
350, was a great warrior, like many of his predecessors; but
his policy, and the objects for which he fought, were markedly
different from theirs. ... Ermanaric made no attempt to invade
the provinces of the Roman Empire; but he resolved to make his
Ostrogothic kingdom the centre of a great empire of his own.
The seat of his kingdom was, as tradition tells us, on the
banks of the Dnieper [and it extended to the Baltic]. ... A
Roman historian compares Ermanaric to Alexander the Great; and
many ages afterwards his fame survived in the poetic
traditions of Germans, Norsemen and Anglo-Saxons. ...
Ermanaric was the first king since Ostrogotha who belonged to
the Amaling family. ... Henceforward the kingship of the
Ostrogoths became hereditary among the descendants of
Ermanaric. During this time the Visigoths appear to have been
practically independent, divided into separate tribes ruled by
their own 'judges' or chieftains; but ... it is probable that in
theory they acknowledged the supremacy of the Ostrogothic
king. ... Ermanaric died in the year 375, and the Ostrogoths
were subdued by the Hunnish king Balamber. For a whole century
they remained subject to the Huns." One section of the
Ostrogothic nation escaped from the Hunnish conquest and
joined the Visigoths, who found a refuge on the Roman side of
the Danube. The bulk of the nation bore the yoke until the
death of the great Hun king, Attila, in 453, when the strife
between his sons gave them an opportunity to throw it off.
H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapter 5.
"The forecast of European history which then [during the reign
of Hermanric] seemed probable would have been that a great
Teutonic Empire, stretching from the Danube to the Don, would
take the place which the colossal Slav Empire now holds in the
map of Europe, and would be ready, as a civilised and
Christianised power, to step into the place of Eastern Rome
when, in the fulness of centuries, the sceptre should drop
from the nerveless hands of the Cæsars of Byzantium."
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 4, chapter 1.
GOTHS: (Visigoths) A. D. 376.
Admission into the Roman Empire.
"Let us suppose that we have arrived at the year (364) when
the feeble and timid Valens was placed on the Eastern throne
by his brother Valentinian. At that time, Ulfilas would be in
the fifty-third year of his age and the twenty-third of his
episcopate. Hermanric, king of the Ostrogoths, a centenarian
and more, was still the most important figure in the loosely
welded Gothic confederacy. His special royalty may possibly
have extended over Northern Hungary, Lithuania, and Southern
Russia. The 'torpid' Gepidæ, dwelt to the north of him, to the
south and west the Visigoths, whose settlements may perhaps
have occupied the modern countries of Roumania, Transylvania
and Southern Hungary. The two great nations, the Ostrogoths
and Visigoths, were known at this time to the Romans, perhaps
among themselves also, by the respective names of the
Gruthungi and Thervingi, but it will be more convenient to
disregard these appellations and speak of them by the names
which they made conspicuous in later history."
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
introduction, chapter 3.
This was the situation of Gothia, or the Gothic Empire of
Central Europe, when the Huns made their appearance on the
scene. "An empire, formerly powerful, the first monarchy of
the Huns, had been overthrown by the Sienpi, at a distance of
500 leagues from the Roman frontier, and near to that of
China, in the first century of the Christian era. ... The
entire nation of the Huns, abandoning to the Sienpi its
ancient pastures bordering on China, had traversed the whole
north of Asia by a march of 1,300 leagues. This immense horde,
swelled by all the conquered nations whom it carried along in
its passage, bore down on the plains of the Alans, and
defeated them on the banks of the Tanais in a great battle.
{1557}
It received into its body a part of the vanquished tribe,
accompanied by which it continued to advance towards the West;
while other Alans, too haughty to renounce their independence,
had retreated, some into Germany, whence we shall see them
afterwards pass into Gaul; others into the Caucasian
mountains, where they preserve their name to this day. The
Goths, who bordered on the Alans, had fertilised by their
labours the rich plains which lie to the north of the Danube
and of the Black Sea. More civilised than any of the kindred
Germanic tribes, they began to make rapid progress in the
social sciences. ... This comparatively fortunate state of
things was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of the
Huns,--the unlooked-for arrival of that savage nation,
which, from the moment it crossed the Borysthenes, or the
Dnieper, began to burn their villages and their crops; to
massacre, without pity, men, women, and children; to devastate
and destroy whatever came within the reach of a Scythian
horseman. ... The great Hermanric, whose kingdom extended from
the Baltic to the Black Sea, would not have abandoned his
sceptre to the Huns without a struggle; but at this very time
he was murdered by a domestic enemy. The nations he had
subjugated prepared on every side for rebellion. The
Ostrogoths, after a vain resistance, broke their alliance with
the Visigoths; while the latter, like an affrighted flock of
sheep, trooping together from all parts of their vast
territory to the right bank of the Danube, refused to combat
those superhuman beings by whom they were pursued. They
stretched out their supplicating hands to the Romans on the
other bank, entreating that they might be permitted to seek a
refuge from the butchery which threatened them, in those wilds
of Mœsia and Thrace which were, almost valueless to the
empire." Their prayer was granted by the Emperor Valens, on
the condition that they surrender their arms and that the sons
of their chief men be given as hostages to the Romans. The
great Visigothic nation was then (A. D. 376) transported
across the Danube to the Mœsian shore--200,000 warriors in
number, besides children and women and slaves in proportion.
But the Roman officers charged with the reception of the Goths
were so busy in plundering the goods and outraging the
daughters and wives of their guests that they neglected to
secure the arms of the grim warriors of the migration. Whence
great calamities ensued.
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 3 and 5 (volume 1).
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 378.
Defeat and destruction of Valens.
When the Visigothic nation was permitted to cross the Danube,
A. D. 376, to escape from the Huns, and was admitted into
Lower Mœsia, nothing seems to have been left undone that would
exasperate and make enemies of these unwelcome colonists.
Every possible extortion and outrage was practised upon them.
To buy food, they were driven to part, first, with their
slaves, then with their household goods, and finally with
their children, whom they sold. In despair, at last, they
showed signs of revolt, and the fatuous Roman commander
precipitated it by a murderous outrage at Marcianople (modern
Shumla). In a battle which soon followed near that town, the
Romans were disastrously beaten. The Visigoths were now joined
by a large body of Ostrogoths, who passed the Danube without
resistance, and received into their ranks, moreover, a
considerable force of Gothic soldiers who had long been in the
service of the empire. The open country of Mœsia and Thrace was
now fully exposed to them (the fortified cities they could not
reduce), and they devastated it for a time without restraint.
But Valens, the emperor in the east, and Gratian in the west,
exerted themselves in co-operation to gather forces against
them, and for two years there was a doubtful struggle carried
on. The most serious battle, that of The Willows (Ad Salices),
fought in the region now called the Dobrudscha, was a victory
to neither side. On the whole the Romans appear to have had
some advantage in these campaigns, and to have narrowed the
range of the Gothic depredations. But the host of the
barbarians was continually increased by fresh reinforcements
from beyond the Danube. Even their own ferocious enemies, Huns
and Alans, were permitted to join their standard. Yet, in face
of this fact, the folly and jealousy of the Emperor Valens led
him to stake all on the chances of a battle which he made
haste to rush into, when he learned that his nephew Gratian
was marching to his assistance from the west. He coveted the
sole honors of a victory; but death and infamy for himself and
an overwhelming calamity to the empire were what he achieved.
The battle was fought near Hadrianople, on the 9th day of
August, A. D. 378. Two-thirds of the Roman army perished on
the awful field, and the body of the emperor was never found.
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 26.
H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapter 8.
See, also, ROME: A. D, 363-379.
GOTHS: A. D. 379-382.
Settlement of the Goths by Theodosius, in Mœsia and Thrace.
"The forces of the East were nearly annihilated at the
terrible battle of Adrianople: more than 60,000 Roman soldiers
perished in the fight or in the pursuit; and the time was long
past when such a loss could have been easily repaired by fresh
levies. Nevertheless, even after this frightful massacre, the
walls of Adrianople still opposed an unconquerable resistance
to the barbarians. Valour may supply the place of military
science in the open field, but civilised nations recover all
the advantages of the art of war in the attack or defence of
fortified towns. ... The Goths, leaving Adrianople in their
rear, advanced, ravaging all around them, to the foot of the
walls of Constantinople; and, after some unimportant
skirmishes, returned westward through Macedonia, Epirus and
Dalmatia. From the Danube to the Adriatic, their passage was
marked by conflagration and blood. Whilst the European
provinces of the Greek empire sunk under these calamities, the
Asiatic provinces took a horrible vengeance on the authors of
them." The Gothic youths who had been required as hostages
when the nation crossed the Danube, and those who were
afterwards sold by their starving parents, were now gathered
together in different cities of the Asiatic provinces and
massacred in cold blood, at a given signal, on the same day
and hour. By this atrocious act, all possible reconciliation
with the Goths might well seem to be destroyed. The prospect
was discouraging enough to the new emperor who now ascended
the vacant throne of Valens (A. D. 379),--the soldier
Theodosius, son of Theodosius who delivered Britain from the
Scots.
{1558}
Chosen by the Emperor Gratian to be his colleague and Emperor
of the East, Theodosius undertook a most formidable task. "The
abandonment of the Danube had opened the entrance of the
empire, not only to the Goths, but to all the tribes of
Germany and Scythia. ... The blood of the young Goths which
had been shed in Asia was daily avenged with interest over all
that remained of Mœsian, Thrasian, Dalmatian, or Grecian race.
It was more particularly during these four years of
extermination that the Goths acquired the fatal celebrity
attached to their name, which is still that of the destroyers
of civilisation. Theodosius began by strengthening the
fortified cities, recruiting the garrisons, and exercising his
soldiers in small engagements whenever he felt assured of
success; he then waited to take advantage of circumstances; he
sought to divide his enemies by intrigue, and, above all,
strenuously disavowed the rapacity of the ministers of Valens,
or the cruelty of Julius; he took every occasion of declaring
his attachment and esteem for the Gothic people, and at length
succeeded in persuading them that his friendship was sincere.
... The very victories of the Goths, their pride, their
intemperance, at length impaired their energy. Fritigern, who,
in the most difficult moments, had led them on with so much
ability, was dead; the jealousies of independent tribes were
rekindled. ... It was by a series of treaties, with as many
independent chieftains, that the nation was at length induced
to lay down its arms: the last of these treaties was concluded
on the 30th of October, 382. It restored peace to the Eastern
empire, six years after the Goths crossed the Danube. This
formidable nation was thus finally established within the
boundary of the empire of the East. The vast regions they had
ravaged were abandoned to them, if not in absolute
sovereignty, at least on terms little at variance with their
independence. The Goths settled in the bosom of the empire had
no kings; their hereditary chiefs were consulted under the
name of judges, but their power was unchanged. ... The Goths
gave a vague sort of recognition to the sovereignty of the
Roman emperor; but they submitted neither to his laws, his
magistrates, nor his taxes. They engaged to maintain 40,000
men for the service of Theodosius; but they were to remain a
distinct army. ... It was, probably, at this period that their
apostle, bishop Ulphilas, who had translated the Gospels into
their tongue, invented the Mœso-Gothic character, which bears
the name of their new abode."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 5 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 26.
GOTHS: A. D. 395.
Alaric's invasion of Greece.
"The death of Theodosius [A. D. 395] threw the administration
of the Eastern Empire into the hands of Rufinus, the minister
of Arcadius; and that of the Western into those of Stilicho,
the guardian of Honorius. The discordant elements which
composed the Roman empire began to reveal all their
incongruities under these two ministers. ... The two ministers
hated one another with all the violence of aspiring ambition."
G. Finlay,
Greece under the Romans,
chapter 2, section 8.
"The animosity existing between Stilicho and the successive
ministers of the Eastern Emperor (an animosity which does not
necessarily imply any fault on the part of the former) was one
most potent cause of the downfall of the Western Empire. ...
Alaric (the all-ruler) surnamed Baltha (the bold) was the
Visigothic chieftain whose genius taught him the means of
turning this estrangement between the two Empires to the best
account. He was probably born about 360. His birth-place was
the island Peuce, in the Delta of the Danube, apparently south
of what is now termed the Sulina mouth of that river. We have
already met with him crossing the Alps as a leader of
auxiliaries in the army of Theodosius."
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 4.
"At this time [A. D. 395] Alaric, partly from disgust at not
receiving all the preferment which he expected, and partly in
the hope of compelling the government of the Eastern Empire to
agree to his terms, quitted the imperial service and retired
towards the frontiers, where he assembled a force sufficiently
large to enable him to act independently of all authority.
Availing himself of the disputes between the ministers of the
two emperors, and perhaps instigated by Rufinus or Stilicho to
aid their intrigues, he established himself in the provinces
to the south of the Danube. In the year 395 he advanced to the
walls of Constantinople; but the movement was evidently a
feint. ... After this demonstration, Alaric marched into
Thrace and Macedonia, and extended his ravages into Thessaly.
... When the Goth found the northern provinces exhausted, he
resolved to invade Greece and Peloponnesus, which had long
enjoyed profound tranquillity. ... Thermopylæ was left
unguarded, and Alaric entered Greece without encountering any
resistance. The ravages committed by Alaric's army have been
described in fearful terms; villages and towns were burnt, the
men were murdered, and the women and children carried away to
be sold as slaves by the Goths. ... The walls of Thebes had
been rebuilt, and it was in such a state of defence that
Alaric could not venture to besiege it, but hurried forward to
Athens. He concluded a treaty with the civil and military
authorities, which enabled him to enter that city without
opposition. ... Athens evidently owed its good treatment to
the condition of its population, and perhaps to the strength
of its walls, which imposed some respect on the Goths; for the
rest of Attica did not escape the usual fate of the districts
through which the barbarians marched. The town of Eleusis, and
the great temple of Ceres, were plundered and then destroyed.
... Alaric marched unopposed into the Peloponnesus, and, in a
short time, captured almost every city in it without meeting
with any resistance. Corinth, Argos, and Sparta were all
plundered by the Goths." Alaric wintered in the Peloponnesus;
in the following spring he was attacked, not only by the
forces of the Eastern Empire, whose subjects he had outraged,
but by Stilicho, the energetic minister of the Roman West.
Stilicho, in a vigorous campaign, drove the Goths into the
mountains on the borders of Elis and Arcadia; but they escaped
and reached Epirus, with their plunder (see ROME: A. D.
396-398). "The truth appears to be that Alaric availed himself
so ably of the jealousy with which the court of Constantinople
viewed the proceedings of Stilicho, as to negotiate a treaty,
by which he was received into the Roman service, and that he
really entered Epirus as a general of Arcadius. ... He
obtained the appointment of Commander-in-chief of the imperial
forces in Eastern' Illyricum, which be held for four years.
During this time he prepared his troops to seek his fortune in
the Western Empire."
G. Finlay,
Greece under the Romans,
chapter 2, section 8.
{1559}
"The birth of Alaric, the glory of his past exploits, and the
confidence in his future designs, insensibly united the body
of the nation under his victorious standard; and, with the
unanimous consent of the barbarian chieftains, the
Master-general of Illyricum was elevated, according to ancient
custom, on a shield, and solemnly proclaimed king of the
Visigoths."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 30.
GOTHS: A. D. 400.
Failure of Gainas at Constantinople.
His defeat and death.
See ROME: A. D. 400-518.
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 400-403.
Alaric's first invasion of Italy.
After Alaric had become a commissioned general of the Eastern
Empire and had been placed in command of the great præfecture
of Eastern Illyricum, he "remained quiet for three years,
arming and drilling his followers, and waiting for the
opportunity to make a bold stroke for a wider and more secure
dominion. In the autumn of the year 400, knowing that Stilicho
was absent on a campaign in Gaul, Alaric entered Italy. For
about a year and a half the Goths ranged almost unresisted
over the northern part of the peninsula. The emperor, whose
court was then at Milan, made preparations for taking refuge
in Gaul; and the walls of Rome were hurriedly repaired in
expectation of an attack. On the Easter Sunday of the year 402
(March 19), the camp of Alaric, near Pollentia, was surprised
by Stilicho, who rightly guessed that the Goths would be
engaged in worship, and would not imagine their Roman
fellow-Christians less observant of the sacred day than
themselves. Though unprepared for battle, the barbarians made
a desperate stand, but at last they were beaten. ... Alaric
was able to retreat in good order, and he soon after crossed
the Po with the intention of marching against Rome. However,
his troops began to desert in large numbers, and he had to
change his purpose. In the first place he thought of invading
Gaul, but Stilicho overtook him and defeated him heavily at
Verona [A. D. 403]. Alaric himself narrowly escaped capture by
the swiftness of his horse. Stilicho, however, was not very
anxious for the destruction of Alaric, as he thought he might
some day find him a convenient tool in his quarrels with the
ministers of Arcadius [the Emperor of the East]. So he offered
Alaric a handsome bribe to go away from Italy"--[back to
Illyria].
H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 5.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 30.
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 408-410.
Alaric's three sieges and sack of Rome.
His death.
See ROME: A. D. 408-410.
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 410-419.
Founding of the kingdom of Toulouse.
On the death of Alaric (A. D. 410), his brother-in-law,
Ataulphus, or Atawulfs, was chosen king by the wandering
Visigothic nation, and the new king succeeded in negotiating a
treaty of peace with the court at Ravenna. As the result of
it, the Goths moved northwards and, at the beginning of the
year 412, they passed out of Italy into Gaul. A number of
usurpers had risen in the western provinces, during the five
years since 407, encouraged by the disorders of the time, and
Ataulphus accepted a commission from Honorius to put them down
and to restore the imperial authority in southern Gaul. The
commission was faithfully executed in one of its parts; but
the authority which the Gothic king established was, rather,
his own, than that of the imperial puppet at Ravenna. Before
the end of 413, he was master of most of the Gallic region on
the Mediterranean (though Marseilles resisted him), and
westward to the Atlantic. Then, at Narbonne, he married Galla
Placidia, sister of Honorius, who had been a prisoner in the
camp of the Goths for four years, but who was gallantly wooed,
it would seem, and gently and truly won, by her Gothic lover.
Apparently still commissioned by the Roman emperor, though
half at war with him, and though his marriage with Placidia
was haughtily forbidden and unrecognized, Ataulphus next
carried his arms into Spain, already ravaged by Vandals, Alans
and Suevic bands. But there he was cut off in the midst of his
conquests, by assassination, in August, 415. The Goths,
however, pursued their career under another valiant king,
Wallia, who conquered the whole of Spain and meditated the
invasion of Africa; but was persuaded to give up both
conquests and prospects to Honorius, in exchange for a
dominion which embraced the fairest portions of Gaul. "His
victorious Goths, forty-three years after they had passed the
Danube, were established, according to the faith of treaties,
in the possession of the second Aquitaine, a maritime province
between the Garonne and the Loire, under the civil and
ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Bordeaux. ... The Gothic limits
were enlarged by the additional gift of some neighboring
dioceses; and the successors of Alaric fixed their royal
residence at Toulouse, which included five populous quarters,
or cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls. ... The
Gothic limits contained the territories of seven
cities--namely, those of Bordeaux, Périgueux, Angoulême, Agen,
Saintes, Poitiers, and Toulouse. Hence the district obtained
the name of Septimania."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 31 (with note by Dr. Wm. Smith).
It was at the end of the year 418, that the Goths settled
themselves in their new kingdom, of Toulouse. The next year,
Wallia died, and was succeeded by Theodoric, a valorous
soldier of the race of the Balthings, who played a
considerable part in the history of the next thirty years.
H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapter 11-12.
ALSO IN:
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 8 (volume 1).
GOTHS: (The Visigoths): A. D.419-451.
The Kingdom of Toulouse.
"By the peace which their king Wallia concluded with Honorius
(416) after the restoration of Placidia, they [the Visigoths]
had obtained legal possession of the district called Aquitania
Secunda, together with the territory round Toulouse, all of
which allotment went by the name of Septimania or Gothia. For
ten years (419-429) there had been firm peace between
Visigoths and Romans; then, for ten years more (429-439),
fierce and almost continued war, Theodoric, king of the
Visigoths, endeavouring to take Arles and Narbonne; Aetius and
his subordinate Litorius striving to take the Gothic capital
of Toulouse, and all but succeeding. And in these wars Aetius
had availed himself of his long-standing friendship with the
Huns to enlist them as auxiliaries against the warriors of
Theodoric, dangerous allies who plundered friends and enemies.
... For the last twelve years (439-451) there had been peace,
but scarcely friendship, between the Courts of Ravenna and
Toulouse."
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 2, chapter 3 (volume 2).
{1560}
As the successor of Wallia, who died in 419, the Visigoths
chose Theoderic, "who seems to have been a Balthing, though
not related either to Wallia or to Atawulf. You must be
careful not to confound this Visigoth Theoderic, or his son of
the same name, with the great Theoderic the Amaling, who began
to reign over the Ostrogoths about the year 475. Theoderic the
Visigoth was not such a great man as his namesake, but he must
have been both a brave soldier and an able ruler, or he could
not have kept the affection and obedience of his people for
thirty-two years. His great object was to extend his kingdom,
which was hemmed in on the north by the Franks, ... and on the
west by another people of German invaders, the Burgunds; while
the Roman Empire still kept possession of some rich cities,
such as Arles and Narbonne [the first named of which Theoderic
besieged unsuccessfully in 425, the last named in 437], which
were temptingly close to the Gothic boundary on the south. ...
In the year 450 the Visigoths and the Romans were drawn more
closely together by the approach of a great common danger. ...
The Huns ... had, under their famous king, Attila, moved
westward, and were threatening to over-run both Gaul and
Italy."
H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapter 12.
See HUNS: A. D. 451.
GOTHS: (Ostrogoths and Visigoths): A. D. 451.
At the battle of Chalons.
See HUNS: A. D. 451.
GOTHS: (Ostrogoths): A. D. 453.
Breaking the yoke of the Huns.
See HUNS: A. D. 453.
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 453-484.
Extension of the kingdom of Toulouse.
"The Visigoths were governed from 453 to 466 by Theodoric the
Second, son of Theodoric the First, and grandson of Alaric.
... The reign of Theodoric was distinguished by conquests. On
the one hand he drove the Suevians as far as the extremity of
Gallicia. ... On the other hand, in 462, he rendered himself
master of the town of Narbon, which was delivered up to him by
its count; he also carried his arms towards the Loire; but his
brother Frederic, whom he had charged with the conquest of the
Armorici, and who had taken possession of Chinon, was killed
in 463 near Orleans, in a battle which he gave to Count
Ægidius. Theodoric finally extended the dominion of the
Visigoths to the Rhone; he even attacked Arles and Marseille,
but he could not subjugate them. After a glorious reign of
thirteen years, he was killed in the month of August, 466, by
his brother Euric, by whom he was succeeded. ... Euric ...
attacked, in 473, the province of Auvergne. ... He conquered
it in 475 and caused his possession of it to be confirmed by
the emperor Nepos. He had at that period acquired the Loire
and the Rhone as frontiers; in Spain he subjected the whole of
the province of Taragon. ... He afterwards conquered Provence,
and was acknowledged a sovereign in Arles and at Marseille,
towards the year 480. No prince, whether civilized or
barbarian, was at that period so much feared as Euric; and,
had he lived longer, it would undoubtedly have been to the
Visigoths, and not to the Franks, that the honor would have
belonged of reconstituting the Gallic provinces; but he died
at Arles towards the end of the year 484, leaving an only son
of tender age, who was crowned under the name of Alaric the
Second."
J. C. L. S. de Sismondi,
The French under the Merovingians;
translated by Bellingham, chapter 4.
GOTHS: (Ostrogoths): A. D. 473-474.
Invasions of Italy and Gaul.
"The Ostrogothic brother-kings, who served under Attila at the
battle in Champagne, on the overthrow of the Hunnish Empire
obtained for themselves a goodly settlement in Pannonia, on
the western bank of the Danube. For near twenty years they had
been engaged in desultory hostilities with their barbarian
neighbours, with Sueves and Rugians on the north, with Huns
and Sarmatians on the south. Now, as their countryman,
Jornandes, tells us with admirable frankness, 'the spoils of
these neighbouring nations were dwindling, and food and
clothing began to fail the Goths.' ... They clustered round
their kings, and clamoured to be led forth to war--whither
they cared not, but war must be. Theodemir, the elder king,
took counsel with his brother Widemir, and they resolved to
commence a campaign against the Roman Empire. Theodemir, as
the more powerful chieftain, was to attack the stronger Empire
of the East; Widemir, with his weaker forces, was to enter
Italy. He did so, but, like so many of the northern
conquerors, he soon found a grave in the beautiful but deathly
land. His son, the younger Widemir, succeeded to his designs
of conquest, but Glycerius [Roman emperor, for the moment]
approached him with presents and smooth words, and was not
ashamed to suggest that he should transfer his arms to Gaul,
which was still in theory, and partially in fact, a province
of the Empire. The sturdy bands of Widemir's Ostrogoths
descended accordingly into the valleys of the Rhone and the
Loire; they speedily renewed the ancient alliance with the
Visigothic members of their scattered nationality, and helped
to ruin yet more utterly the already desperate cause of
Gallo-Roman freedom."
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 3, chapter 7 (volume 2).
GOTHS: (Ostrogoths): A. D. 473-488.
Rise of Theodoric.
The greater mass of the Ostrogoth nation who followed
Theodemir (or Theudemer) the elder of the royal brothers, into
the territories of the Eastern Empire, were rapidly successful
in their adventures. The Court at Constantinople made little
attempt to oppose them with arms, but bribed them to peace by
gifts of money and a large cession of territory in Macedonia.
"Amongst the cities which were abandoned to them was Pella,
famous as the birthplace of Alexander the Great. Just after
the conclusion of this treaty (in the year 474) Theudemer
died, and his son Theoderic, at the age of twenty years, began
his long and glorious reign as king of the Ostrogoths."
Theodoric had been reared in the imperial court at
Constantinople, from his eighth to his eighteenth year, his
father having pledged him to the emperor as a hostage for the
fulfilment of a treaty of peace. He understood, therefore, the
corrupt politics of the empire and its weakness, and he made the
most of his knowledge.
{1561}
Sometimes at peace with the reigning powers and sometimes at
war; sometimes ravaging the country to the very gates of the
impregnable capital, and sometimes settled quietly on lands
along the southern bank of the Danube which he had taken in
exchange for the Maeedonian tract; sometimes in league and
sometimes in furious rivalry with another Gothic chieftain and
adventurer, called Theodoric Strabo, whose origin and whose
power are somewhat of a mystery--the seriousness to the
Eastern Empire of the position and the strength of Theodoric
and his Ostrogoths went on developing until the year 488. That
year, the statesmen at Constantinople were illuminated by an
idea. They proposed to Theodoric to migrate with his nation
into Italy and to conquer a kingdom there. The Emperor Zeno,
to whom the Roman senate had surrendered the sovereignty of
the Western Roman Empire, and into whose hands the barbarian
who extinguished it, Odoacer, or Odovacar, had delivered the
purple robes--the Emperor Zeno, in the exercise of his
imperial function, authorized the conquest to be made.
Theodoric did not hesitate to accept a commission so
scrupulously legal.
H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapters 14-15.
GOTHS: (Ostrogoths): A. D. 488-526.
The kingdom of Theodoric in Italy.
See ROME: A. D. 488-526.
GOTHS: (Ostrogoths): A. D. 493-525.
Theodoric in German legend.
See VERONA: A. D. 493-525.
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 507-509.
The kingdom of Toulouse overthrown by the Franks.
"If the successors of Euric had been endowed with genius and
energy equal to his, it is possible that the Visigoths might
have made themselves masters of the whole Western world. But
there was in the kingdom one fatal element of weakness, which
perhaps not even a succession of rulers like Euric could have
long prevented from working the destruction of the State. The
Visigoth kings were Arians; the great mass of their subjects
in Gaul were Catholics, and the hatred between religious
parties was so great that it was almost impossible for a
sovereign to win the attachment of subjects who regarded him
as a heretic." After 496, when Clovis, the king of the Franks,
renounced his heathenism, professed Christianity, and was
baptized by a Catholic bishop, the Catholics of Southern Gaul
began almost openly to invite him to the conquest of their
country. In the year 507 he responded to the invitation, and
declared war against the Visigoth, giving simply as his ground
of war that it grieved him to see the fairest part of Gaul in
the hands of the Arians. "The rapidity of Clovis's advance was
something quite unexpected by the Visigoths. Alaric still
clung to the hope of being able to avoid a battle until the
arrival of Theodoric's Ostrogoths [from his great kinsman in
Italy] and wished to retreat," but the opinion of his officers
forced him to make a stand. "He drew up his army on 'the field
of Voclad' (the name still survives as Vouillé or Vouglé), on
the banks of the Clain, a few miles south of Poitiers, and
prepared to receive the attack of the Franks. The battle which
followed decided the fate of Gaul. The Visigoths were totally
defeated, and their king was killed. Alaric's son, Amalaric, a
child five years of age, was carried across the Pyrenees into
Spain. During the next two years Clovis conquered, with very
little resistance, almost all the Gaulish dominions of the
Visigoths, and added them to his own. The 'Kingdom of
Toulouse' was no more. ... But Clovis was not allowed to
fulfil his intention of thoroughly destroying their [the
Visigothic] power, for the great Theoderic of Italy took up
the cause of his grandson Amalaric. The final result of many
struggles between Theoderic and the Franks was that the
Visigoths were allowed to remain masters of Spain, and of a
strip of sea-coast bordering on the Gulf of Lyons. ... This
diminished kingdom ... lasted just 200 years."
H. Bradley,
The Story of the Goths,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 4, chapter 9.
W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapter 2.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 38.
See, also, ARLES: A. D. 508-510.
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 507-711.
The kingdom in Spain.
The conquests of Clovis, king of the Franks, reduced the
dominion of the Visigoths on the northern side of the Pyrenees
to a small strip of Roman Narbonensis, along the gulf of
Lyons; but most of Spain had come under their rule at that
time and remained so. Amalaric, son of Alaric II. (and
grandson, on the maternal side, of the great Ostrogothic king,
Theodoric, who ruled both Gothic kingdoms during the minority
of Amalaric), reigned after the death of Theodoric until 531,
when he was murdered. He had made Narbonne his capital, until
he was driven from it, in a war with one of the sons of
Clovis. It was recovered; but the seat of government became
fixed at Toledo. During the reign of his successor, the Franks
invaded Spain (A.D. 543), but were beaten back from the walls
of Cæsaraugusta (modern Saragossa), and retreated with
difficulty and disaster. The Visigoths were now able to hold
their ground against the conquerors of Gaul, and the limits of
their kingdom underwent little subsequent change, until the
coming of the Moors. "The Gothic kings, in spite of bloody
changes and fierce opposition from their nobility, succeeded
in identifying themselves with the land and the people whom
they had conquered. They guided the fortunes of the country
with a distinct purpose and vigorous hand. By Leovigild
(572-586) the power of the rebellious nobility was broken, and
the independence and name of the Sueves of Gallicia
extinguished. The still more dangerous religious conflict
between the Catholic population and the inherited Arianism of
the Goths was put down, but at the cost of the life of his
son, Herminigild, who had married a Frank and Catholic
princess, and who placed himself at the head of the Catholics.
But Leovigild was the last Arian king. This cause of
dissension was taken away by his son Reccared (568-601), who
solemnly abandoned Arianism, and embraced with zeal the
popular Catholic creed. He was followed by the greater part of
his Arian subjects, but the change throughout the land was not
accomplished without some fierce resistance. It led among
other things to the disappearance of the Gothic language, and
of all that recalled the Arian days, and to the destruction in
Spain of what there was of Gothic literature, such as the
translation of the Bible, supposed to be tainted with
Arianism. But it determined the complete fusion of the Gothic
and Latin population. After Reccared, two marked features of
the later Spanish character began to show themselves. One was
the great prominence in the state of the ecclesiastical
element. The Spanish kings sought in the clergy a counterpoise
to their turbulent nobility. The great church councils of
Toledo became the legislative assemblies of the nation; the
bishops in them took precedence of the nobles; laws were made
there as well as canons; and seventeen of these councils are
recorded between the end of the fourth century and the end of
the seventh.
{1562}
The other feature was that stern and systematic intolerance
which became characteristic of Spain. Under Sisebut (612-620),
took place the first expulsion of the Jews. ... The Gothic
realm of Spain was the most flourishing and the most advanced
of the new Teutonic kingdoms. ... But however the Goths in
Spain might have worked out their political career, their
course was rudely arrested. ... While the Goths had been
settling their laws, while their kings had been marshalling
their court after the order of Byzantium, the Saracens had
been drawing nearer and nearer."
R. W. Church,
The Beginning of the Middle Ages,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
H. Bradley,
Story of the Goths,
chapters 29-35.
S. A. Dunham,
History of Spain and Portugal,
book 2.
H. Coppée,
Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors,
book 2.
GOTHS: (Ostrogoths): A. D. 535-553.
Fall of the kingdom of Theodoric.
Recovery of Italy by Justinian.
See ROME: A. D. 535-553.
GOTHS: (Ostrogoths): A. D. 553.
Their disappearance from History.
"Totila and Teia, last of the race of Ostrogoth kings, fell as
became their heroic blood, sword in hand, upon the field of
battle. Then occurred a singular phenomenon,--the
annihilation and disappearance of a great and powerful people
from the world's history. ... A great people, which had
organized an enlightened government, and sent 200,000 fighting
men into the field of battle, is annihilated and forgotten. A
wretched remnant, transported by Narses to Constantinople,
were soon absorbed in the miserable proletariat of a
metropolitan city. The rest fell by the sword, or were
gradually amalgamated with the mixed population of the
peninsula. The Visigoth kingdom in Gaul and Spain, which had
been overshadowed by the glories of the great Theodoric,
emerges into independent renown, and takes up the traditions
of the Gothic name. In the annals of Europe, the Ostrogoth is
heard of no more."
J. G. Sheppard,
The Fall of Rome,
lecture 6.
GOTHS: (Visigoths): A. D. 711-713.
Fall of the kingdom in Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 711-713.
----------GOTHS: End----------
GOURGUES, Dominic de, The vengeance of.
See FLORIDA: A. D. 1567-1568.
GOWRIE PLOT, The.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1600.
GRACCHI, The.
See ROME: B. C. 133-121.
GRACES OF CHARLES I. TO THE IRISH.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1625.
GRAF.-GRAFIO.
"The highest official dignitary of which the Salic law [law of
the Sulian Franks] makes mention is the Grafio (Graf, Count),
who was appointed by the king, and therefore protected by a
triple ... leodis [weregild]. His authority and jurisdiction
extended over a district answering to the gau (canton) of
later times, in which he acted as the representative of the
king, and was civil and military governor of the people."
W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapter 10.
See, also, MARGRAVE.
GRAFTON-CHATHAM MINISTRY, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D.1765-1768, and 1770.
GRAHAM'S DIKE.
See ROMAN WALLS IN BRITAIN.
GRAMPIANS, OR MONS GRANPIUS.
Victoriously fought by the Romans under Agricola with the
tribes of Caledonia, A. D. 86. Mr. Skene fixes the battle
ground at the junction of the Isla with the Tay.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 78-84.
GRAN CHACO, The.
"This tract of flat country, lying between the tropic and 29°
South, extends eastward to the Parana and Paraguay, and
westward to the province of Santiago del Estero. Its area is
180,000 square miles. About one-third belongs to Paraguay, and
a small part to Bolivia, but the bulk is in the Argentine
Republic. ... The Gran Chaco is no desert, but a rich alluvial
lowland, fitted for colonization, which is hindered by the
want of knowledge of the rivers and their shiftings."
The American Naturalist,
volume 23, page 799.
"In the Quitchoane language, which is the original language of
Peru, they call 'chacu,' those great flocks of deer, goats,
and such other wild animals, which the inhabitants of this
part of America drive together when they hunt them; and this
name was given to the country we speak of, because at the time
Francis Pizarro made himself master of a great part of the
Peruvian empire, a great number of its inhabitants took refuge
there. Of 'Chacu', which the Spaniards pronounce 'Chacou"
custom has made 'Chaco.' It appears that, at first, they
comprehended nothing under this name but the country lying
between the mountains of the Cordilliere, the Pilco Mayo, and
the Red River; and that they extended it, in process of time,
in proportion as other nations joined the Peruvians, who had
taken refuge there to defend their liberties against the
Spaniards."
Father Charlevoix,
History of Paraguay,
book 3 (volume l).
For an account of the tribes of the Gran Chaco,
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.
GRANADA:
The rise of the city.
Granada "was small and unimportant until the year 1012. Before
that time, it was considered a dependency of Elvira [the
neighboring ancient Roman city of Illiberis]; but, little by
little, the people of Elvira migrated to it, and as it grew
Elvira dwindled into insignificance."
H. Coppée,
Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors,
book 6, chapter 5, note (volume 2).
GRANADA: A. D. 711.
Taken by the Arab-Moors.
See SPAIN: A. D. 711-713.
GRANADA: A. D. 1238.
The founding of the Moorish kingdom.
Its vassalage to the King of Castile.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1212-1238.
GRANADA: A. D. 1238-1273.
The kingdom under its founder.
The building of the Alhambra.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1238-1273.
GRANADA: A. D. 1273-1460.
Slow decay and crumbling of the Moorish kingdom.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1273-1460.
GRANADA: A. D. 1476-1492.
The fall of the Moorish kingdom.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1476-1492.
----------GRANADA: End----------
GRANADA, Treaty of.
See ITALY: A. D: 1501-1504.
GRANADINE CONFEDERATION, The.
See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1830-1886.
GRAND ALLIANCES against Louis XIV.
See
FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690, to 1695-1696;
SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702;
and ENGLAND: A. D. 1701-1702.
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GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC.
"The Grand Army of the Republic was organized April 6, 1866,
in Decatur, the county seat of Macon County, Illinois. Its
originator was Dr. Benjamin F. Stephenson, a physician of
Springfield, Illinois, who had served during the war as
surgeon of the 14th Illinois Infantry. He had spent many weeks
in study and plans so that the Order might be one that would
meet with the general approval of the surviving comrades of
the war, and thus insure their hearty co-operation. He made a
draft of a ritual, and sent it by Captain John S. Phelps to
Decatur, where two veterans, Messrs. Coltrin and Prior, had a
printing-office. These gentlemen, with their employees, who
had been in the service, were first obligated to secrecy, and
the ritual was then placed in type in their office. Captain
Phelps returned to Springfield with proofs of the ritual, but
the comrades in Decatur were so interested in the project,
that, with the active assistance of Captain M. F. Kanan and
Dr. J. W. Routh, a sufficient number of names were at once
secured to an application for charter, and these gentlemen
went to Springfield to request Dr. Stephenson to return with
them and organize a post at Decatur. The formation of a post
was under way in Springfield, but not being ready for muster,
Dr. Stephenson, accompanied by several comrades, proceeded to
Decatur, and, as stated, on April 6, 1866, mustered post No.1,
with General Isaac C. Pugh as post commander, and Captain
Kanan as adjutant. The latter gave material aid to Dr.
Stephenson in the work of organizing other posts, and Dr.
Routh served as chairman of a committee to revise the ritual.
The title, 'The Grand Army of the Republic, U. S.,' was
formally adopted that night. Soon after this, post No.2 was
organized at Springfield with General Jules C. Webber as
commander. ... Nothing was done in the Eastern States about
establishing posts until the opportunity was given for
consultation on this subject at a national soldiers' and
sailors' convention, held in Pittsburg in September, 1866,
when prominent representatives from Eastern States were
obligated and authorized to organize posts. The first posts so
established were posts Nos. 1 in Philadelphia, and 3 in
Pittsburg, by charters direct from the acting
commander-in-chief, Dr. Stephenson; and post 2, Philadelphia,
by charter received from General J. K. Proudfit, department
commander of Wisconsin. A department convention was held at
Springfield, Illinois, July 12, 1866, and adopted resolutions
declaring the objects of the G. A. R. General John W. Palmer
was elected the first Department Commander. ... The first
national convention was held at Indianapolis, Ind., November
20, 1866. ... General Stephen A. Hurlbut, of Illinois, was
elected Commander-in-Chief. General Thomas B. McKean, of New
York, Senior Vice-Commander-in-Chief; General Nathan Kimball,
of Indiana, Junior Vice-Commander-in-Chief; and Dr.
Stephenson, Adjutant-General. The objects of the Order cannot
be more briefly stated than from the articles and regulations.
1. To preserve and strengthen those kind and fraternal
feelings which bind together the Soldiers, Sailors, and
Marines who united to suppress the late Rebellion, and to
perpetuate the memory and history of the dead.
2. To assist such former comrades in arms as need help and
protection, and to extend needful aid to the widows and
orphans of those who have fallen.
3. To maintain true allegiance to the United States of
America, based upon a paramount respect for, and fidelity to,
its Constitution and laws, to discountenance whatever tends to
weaken loyalty, incites to insurrection, treason, or
rebellion, or in any manner impairs the efficiency and
permanency of our free institutions; and to encourage the
spread of universal liberty, equal rights, and justice to all
men.
Article IV. defines the qualifications of members in the
following terms: Soldiers and Sailors of the United States
Army, Navy, or Marine Corps who served between April 12, 1861,
and April 29, 1865, in the war for the suppression of the
Rebellion, and those having been honorably discharged
therefrom after such service, and of such State regiments as
were called into active service and subject to the orders of
United States general officers, between the dates mentioned,
shall be eligible to membership in the Grand Army of the
Republic. No person shall be eligible who has at any time
borne arms against the United States. ... The second national
encampment was held in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pa.,
January 15, 1868. ... General John A. Logan, of Illinois, was
elected Commander-in-Chief. ... That which tended most to
attract public attention to the organization was the issuance
of the order of General Logan early in his administration, in
1868, directing the observance of May 30th as Memorial Day.
... At the national encampment, held May 11, 1870, at
Washington, D. C., the following article was adopted as a part
of the rules and regulations: 'The national encampment hereby
establishes a Memorial Day, to be observed by the members of
the Grand Army of the Republic, on the 30th day of May
annually, in commemoration of the deeds of our fallen
comrades. When such day occurs on Sunday, the preceding day
shall be observed, except where, by legal enactment, the
succeeding day is made a legal holiday, when such day shall be
observed.' Memorial Day has been observed as such every year
since throughout the country wherever a post of the Grand Army
of the Republic has been established. In most of the States
the day has been designated as a holiday."
W. H. Ward, editor,
Records of Members of the
Grand Army of the Republic,
pages 6-9.
ALSO IN:
G. S. Merrill,
The Grand Army of the Republic
(New England Magazine, August, 1890).
GRAND ARMY REMONSTRANCE, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).
GRAND COUNCIL, The.
See VENICE: A. D. 1032-1319.
GRAND MODEL, The.
The "fundamental constitutions" framed by the philosopher,
John Locke, for the Carolinas, were so called in their day.
See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1669-1693.
GRAND PENSIONARY, The.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1651-1660.
GRAND REMONSTRANCE, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1641 (NOVEMBER).
GRAND SERJEANTY.
See FEUDAL TENURES.
GRAND SHUPANES.
See SHUPANES.
GRANDELLA, OR BENEVENTO, Battle of (1266).
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1250-1268.
GRANDI OF FLORENCE, The.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1250-1293.
GRANGE, The.
Grangers.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1877-1891.
GRANICUS, Battle of the (B. C. 334).
See MACEDONIA: B. C. 334-330.
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GRANSON, Battle of (1476).
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1476-1477.
GRANT, General Ulysses S.
First Battle at Belmont.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861
(SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
Capture of Forts Henry and Donelson.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862
(JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE).
Battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862
(FEBRUARY-APRIL: TENNESSEE).
Under Halleck at Corinth.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862
(APRIL-MAY: TENNESSEE-MISSISSIPPI).
Command of the Armies of the Mississippi and Tennessee.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862
(JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).
Iuka and Corinth.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862
(SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: MISSISSIPPI).
Campaign against Vicksburg.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863
(JANUARY-APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI),
and (APRIL-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
The Chattanooga campaign.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863
(OCTOBER-NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE).
In chief command of the whole army.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864
(MARCH-APRIL).
Last campaign.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864
(MAY: VIRGINIA) to 1865 (APRIL: VIRGINIA).
Presidential election, re-election and Administration.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868
(NOVEMBER), to 1876-1877.
GRANVELLE'S MINISTRY IN THE NETHERLANDS.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1555-1559, to 1562-1566.
GRASSHOPPER WAR, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHAWANESE.
GRATIAN, Roman Emperor (Western), A. D. 367-383.
GRAUBUNDEN: Achievement of independence.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499.
The Valtelline revolt and war.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
Dismemberment by Bonaparte.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).
GRAVE: A. D. 1586.
Siege and capture by the Prince of Parma.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1585-1586.
GRAVE: A. D. 1593.
Capture by Prince Maurice.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1588-1593.
----------GRAVE: End----------
GRAVELINES: A. D. 1383.
Capture and destruction by the English.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1383.
GRAVELINES: A. D. 1652.
Taken by the Spaniards.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1652.
GRAVELINES: A. D. 1658.
Siege and capture by the French.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1655-1658.
GRAVELINES: A. D. 1659.
Ceded to France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.
----------GRAVELINES: End----------
GRAVELOTTE, OR ST. PRIVAT, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST).
GRAYBACKS, BOYS IN GRAY.
See BOYS IN BLUE.
GREAT BELL ROLAND, The.
See GHENT: A. D. 1539-1540.
GREAT BRIDGE, Battle at (1775).
See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1775-1776.
GREAT BRITAIN: Adoption of the name for the United Kingdoms of
England and Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707.
GREAT CAPTAIN, The.
This was the title commonly given to the Spanish general,
Gonsalvo de Cordova, after his campaign against the French in
Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504.
GREAT COMPANY, The.
See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.
GREAT CONDÉ, The.
See CONDÉ.
GREAT DAYS OF AUVERGNE, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1665.
GREAT ELECTOR, The.
See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1640-1688.
GREAT INTERREGNUM, The.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272.
GREAT KANAWHA, Battle of the.
See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.
GREAT KING, The.
A title often applied to the kings of the ancient Persian
monarchy.
GREAT MEADOWS, Washington's first battle and capitulation at.
See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.
GREAT MOGULS.
The Mongol sovereigns of India.
See INDIA: A. D. 1399-1605.
GREAT PEACE, The.
See BRETIGNY, TREATY OF.
GREAT POWERS, The.
The six larger and stronger nations of Europe,--England,
Germany, France, Austria, Russia and Italy,--are often
referred to as "the great powers." Until the rise of united
Italy, the "great powers" of Europe were five in number.
GREAT PRIVILEGE, or Great Charter of Holland, The.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D.1477, and after.
GREAT RUSSIA.
See RUSSIA, GREAT.
GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, The founding of.
See MORMONISM: A. D. 1846-1848.
GREAT SCHISM, The.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1377-1417;
and ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389, and 1378.
GREAT TREK, The.
See SOUTH AFRICA. A. D. 1806-1881.
GREAT WALL OF CHINA.
See CHINA: THE ORIGIN OF THE PEOPLE.
GREAT WEEK, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1830-1840.
GREAT YAHNI, Battle of (1877).
See TURKS: A.D. 1877-1878.
GREAVES.
The greaves which formed part of the armour of the ancient
Greeks were "leggings formed of a pewter-like metal, which
covered the lower limbs down to the instep; and they were
fastened by clasps. ... Homer designates them as 'flexible';
and he frequently speaks of the Greek soldiery as being
well-equipped with this important defence--not only, that is,
well provided with greaves, but also having them so well
formed and adjusted that they would protect the limbs of the
warrior without in any degree affecting his freedom of
movement and action. These greaves, as has been stated, appear
to have been formed of a metal resembling the alloy that we
know as pewter."
C. Boutell,
Arms and Armour in Antiquity and the Middle Ages,
chapter 2, section 3.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 66861 ***