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Title: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8
       The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation

Author: Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

Release Date: November 17, 2003 [EBook #10103]

Language: English

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BINDING Vol. VIII

The binding of this volume is a facsimile of the original in the British
Museum, and is considered the most artistic mosaic binding design in
existence.

It was executed about 1710, by Antoine Michel Padeloup, Royal Binder of
both France and Portugal.

He presented it to Francoise Marie de Bourbon, daughter of Louis XIV and
Madame de Montespan, on the anniversary of her marriage to Philippe, Duke
of Orleans, who afterward became Regent of France.

During the Reign of Terror this volume found its way to England, where it
was sold at a handsome price. It was bequeathed to the British Museum by
Felix Slade, Esq.




THE GREAT EVENTS

BY

FAMOUS HISTORIANS

A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES IN
THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS

NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL

ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE
MOST DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D.

_With a staff of specialists

VOLUME VIII

The National Alumni_

1905




CONTENTS

VOLUME VIII


_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_ CHARLES F. HORNE

_Origin and Progress of Printing (A.D. 1438)_ HENRY GEORGE BOHN

_John Hunyady Repulses the Turks (A.D. 1440-1456)_ ARMINIUS VAMBERY

_Rebuilding of Rome by Nicholas V, the "Builder-pope_" _(A.D. 1447-1455)_
MRS. MARGARET OLIPHANT

_Mahomet II Takes Constantinople (A.D. 1453)_ _End of the Eastern Empire_
GEORGE FINLAY

_Wars of the Roses (A.D. 1455-1485)_ _Death of Richard III at Bosworth_
DAVID HUME

_Ivan the Great Unites Russia and Breaks the Tartar_ _Yoke (A.D.
1462-1505)_ ROBERT BELL

_Culmination of the Power of Burgundy_ _Treaty of Peronne (A.D. 1468)_
P.F. WILLERT

_Lorenzo de'Medici Rules in Florence_ _Zenith of Florentine Glory (A.D.
1469)_ OLIPHANT SMEATON

_Death of Charles the Bold (A.D. 1477) Louis XI Unites Burgundy with
the Crown of France_ PHILIPPE DE COMINES

_Inquisition Established in Spain (A.D.1480),_ WILLIAM H. RULE JAMES
BALMES

_Murder of the Princes in the Tower (A.D.1483)_ JAMES GAIRDNER

_Conquest of Granada_ (A.D.1490) WASHINGTON IRVING

_Columbus Discovers America_ (A.D.1492) CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS FERDINAND
COLUMBUS

_Conspiracy, Rebellion, and Execution of Perkin Warbeck_ (A.D.1492)
FRANCIS BACON

_Savonarola's Reforms and Death_ The French Invade Italy_ (A.D.1494)
PASQUALE VILLARI JEAN C. L. SISMONDI

_Discovery of the Mainland of North America by the Cabots_ (A.D.1497)
SAMUEL EDWARD DAWSO

_The Sea Route to India Vasco da Gama Sails around Africa_ (A.D.1498)
GASPAR CORREA

_Columbus Discovers South America (A.D.1498)_ CLEMENTS ROBERT MARKHAM

_Establishment of Swiss Independence (A.D.1499)_ HEINRICH ZSCHOKKE

_Amerigo Vespucci in America (A.D.1499)_ AMERIGO VESPUCCI

_Rise and Fall of the Borgias (A.D.1502)_ NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI

_Painting of the Sistine Chapel (A.D.1508)_ _The Splendor of Renaissance
Art under Michelangelo_ CHARLES CLEMENT

_Balboa Discovers the Pacific (A.D.1513)_ MANUEL JOSE QUINTANA

_Universal Chronology (A.D.1438-1516)_ JOHN RUDD

ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME VIII

_Murder of the princes, sons of King Edward IV, in _the Tower of London
(page 194)1_ Painting by Otto Seitz.

_Facsimile of a page from Caxton's_ Recuyell of the Historyes of
Troye--_the first book printed in the English language_

_Louis XI at his devotions in the castle of Peronne while held a prisoner
by Charles the Bold_ Painting by Hermann Kaulbach.

_Pope Sixties V and the Grand Inquisitor_ Painting by Jean Paul Laurens.



AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF

THE GREAT EVENTS

(THE LATER RENAISSANCE: FROM GUTENBERG TO THE REFORMATION)

CHARLES F. HORNE

The Renaissance marks the separation of the mediaeval from the modern
world. The wide difference between the two epochs of Teutonic history
arises, we are apt somewhat glibly to say, from the fact that our
ancestors worshipped and were ruled by brute force, whereas we follow the
broad light of intellect. Perhaps both statements require modification;
yet in a general way they do suggest the change which by a thousand
different agencies has, in the course of the last four centuries, been
forced upon the world. Mediaeval Europe was a land not of equals, but of
lords and slaves. The powerful nobles regarded themselves as of wholly
different clay from the hapless peasants whom they trampled under foot,
serfs so ignorant, so brutalized by want, that they were often little
better than the beasts with which they herded. Gradually the tradesmen,
the middle classes, forced their way to practical equality with the
nobles. Then came the turn of the masses to do the same. The beginnings
of the merchants' movement we have already traced in the preceding
volumes; the end of the peasants' effort is perhaps even to-day scarce
yet accomplished.

In dealing with modern history, therefore, every writer is apt to begin
with a different date. Some go back as far as Petrarch, who reintroduced
the study of ancient art and learning; that is, they regard our world as
a direct continuation of the Roman, with the thousand years of the Middle
Ages gaping between like an earthquake gulf of barbarism, that was
bridged at last. Some take the invention of printing as a starting-point,
feeling that the chief element of our progress has been the gathering of
information by the poorer classes. Some, looking to political changes,
turn to the reign of Louis XI of France, noting him as the first modern
king, or to the downfall of Charles the Bold, the last great feudal
noble. Others name later starting-points such as the establishment of
modern art by Michelangelo and Raphael at Rome, the discovery of America,
with its opening of vast new lands for the pent-up population of narrow
Europe, or the Reformation, which has been called man's revolt against
superstition, the establishment of the independence of thought.

All of these epochs fall within the limits of the Renaissance, and all,
except that of Petrarch, within the later Renaissance which we are now
considering. The period is therefore worth careful study.

INTELLECTUAL SUPREMACY OF ITALY

Gutenberg's invention had no immediate effect upon his world.[1] Indeed,
so little enthusiasm did it arouse that while the inventor's plans were
probably evolved as early as 1438, it was not until 1454 or thereabouts
that the first completed book was issued from his press. His business
partner, Faust, sold his wares in wealthy Paris without explaining that
these were different from earlier hand-written books; and when their
cheapness, as well as their exact similarity, was discovered, the
merchant was suspected of having sold himself to the devil. Hence
probably originated the Faust legend. Superstition, it is evident, had
still an extended course to run.

It is worth noting that to sell his books Faust left Germany for Paris,
and that while printing-presses multiplied but slowly in the land of
their origin, the new art was instantly seized upon in Italy, was there
made widest use of and pushed to its perfection. In fact, through all the
Middle Ages the Romance or semi-Teutonic peoples of Italy, France, and
Spain were intellectually in advance of the more wholly Teutonic races of
the North. Many of their descendants believe half contemptuously that the
difference has not even yet been overcome.

Italy at this time held clearly the intellectual supremacy of the western
world, and Florence under the Medici, Cosmo and then Lorenzo, held the
supremacy of Italy.[2] Not only in thought, but in art, was there an
outburst brilliant beyond all earlier times. A friend and pupil of Cosmo
de' Medici was made pope at Rome, and under the name of Nicholas V
originated vast schemes for the rebuilding and beautifying of his city of
ruins.[3] Modern Rome with all its beautiful churches and wonders of art
rose from the hands of Nicholas and his immediate successors. It was
their idea that the city should no longer be remembered by its heathen
greatness, but by its Christian splendor; that the sight of it should
impress upon pilgrims not the decay of the world, but the glory and
majesty of the Church. Nicholas also continued the work of Petrarch,
gathering vast stores of ancient manuscripts, refounding and practically
beginning the enormous Vatican Library. He established that alliance of
the Church with the new culture of the age which for a century continued
to be an honor and distinguishment to both.

In his pontificate occurred the fall of Constantinople, bringing with
it the definite establishment of the Turks in Europe and the final
extinction of that Roman Empire of the East which had originated with
Constantine. For this reason the date of its fall (1453) is also employed
as marking the beginning of modern Europe. It was at least the closing of
the older volume, the final not undramatic exit of the last remnant of
the ancient world, with its long decaying arts and arrogance, its wealth,
its literature, and its law.[4]

Greek scholars fleeing from the sack of their city brought many
marvellous old manuscripts to Western Europe and were eagerly welcomed by
Pope Nicholas and all of Italy. Nicholas even preached a crusade against
the terrible Turks, and tried once more to rouse Europe to ancient
enthusiasms. But he failed, and died, they say, heartbroken at his
helplessness.

THE CLASH OF RACES IN THE EAST

The Turks had recovered from their defeat by the Tartars of Timur, and
became once more an active menace. With Constantinople in their power,
they attacked the Venetians and compelled those wealthy traders to pay
them tribute. Venice by sea and Hungary on land remained for a century
the bulwarks of Christendom, and were forced, almost unaided, to
withstand all the assaults of the East. They wellnigh perished in the
effort. In Hungary this was the period of the great hero, Hunyady, a
man of unknown birth and no official rank, who roused his countrymen to
repeated effort and led them to repeated victories and defeats against
the vastly more numerous invaders.[5]

Hunyady died, worn out with ceaseless warfare, and his son, Matthias,
was elected by acclamation to be monarch of the land the father had
preserved. This was the proudest era in the history of the Hunnish race.
Under Matthias they even resumed their German warfare of five centuries
before, and won from a Hapsburg emperor his city of Vienna, ancient
capital of Austria, the eastmark or borderland which had been erected by
Otto the Great to hold the Huns in check. For a few years Matthias placed
his kingdom amid the foremost states of Europe; but with his death came
renewed disunion and disorder to his lawless people, and the fierce,
fanatic Turks returned again to their assaults.

Further north the yellow races were less successful. Along the shifting
borderlands of Asia which mark the line of demarcation between the two
mightier families of man, the tide turned ever more steadily in the
Aryans' favor. The Russians, under their chief, Ivan III, threw off the
galling Tartar yoke which they had borne for over two hundred years.
Ivan concentrated in his own hands the power of all the little Russian
duchies, overthrew the celebrated Russian republic of Novgorod the Great,
and defied the Tartars. Equally noteworthy to modern eyes was his wedding
with Sophia, heiress of the last of the emperors of the East. When that
outworn empire perished with the fall of Constantinople, Ivan succeeded
nominally at least to its heirship. Hence it is that his successors have
assumed the title of caesar or kaiser or czar and have grown to look upon
themselves as inheritors of the ancient supremacy of Rome.[6]

The fifteenth century was thus a time of many changes in Eastern Europe.
Not only did the Eastern Empire disappear at last, not only did Hungary
rise to the brief zenith of her glory, there was a sort of general
movement, sometimes spoken of as the "Slavonic reaction," against the
hitherto successful Teutons. The Slavic Bohemians in their "Hussite" wars
repelled all the religious fighting strength of Europe. The Poles began
to win back territory from the German empire, and especially from their
hereditary foes the "Teutonic Knights" of Prussia. And Russia, greatest
of all the Slav countries, grew into a strong kingdom. She and Turkey,
rising as twin menaces to the West, assumed at almost the same period
that threatening aspect which Turkey has only lately lost, and Russia, to
some statesmen's eyes, still holds.

POLITICAL CHANGES IN WESTERN EUROPE

Turn now to the affairs of Western Europe. The feebleness of the German
empire continued. For over half a century it was nominally ruled by
Frederick III (1440-1493), the lazy and feeble emperor who let Matthias
of Hungary expel him from Vienna, and never made any vigorous effort to
recover his capital. He was succeeded by his son Maximilian, a man of far
other temper, full of courage, energy, and hardihood. Maximilian has been
called "the last of the knights," and indeed his whole career may well
exemplify the changing times. The one achievement of his life was the
recovery of Vienna from the Hungarians, and in that he was successful
only because the heirs of Matthias were being overwhelmed by the Turks.

The remainder of his career was spent in learning bitterly how little
real power he had as emperor. He attempted to bring the Swiss once more
under the imperial dominion, but the little armies he could scrape
together against them were repeatedly defeated.[7] He was always
declaring war against this kingdom or that, and summoning his great
lords to aid him in upholding the glory of the empire. They persistently
declined; and he was helpless. At one time having pledged his alliance to
the English king, Henry VII, against France, he preserved his knightly
word by going alone and serving as a volunteer in Henry's army, whither
his people would not follow him. Instead they stayed at home and demanded
from him constitutions and courts of law and other internal reforms,
uninteresting matters about which the gallant soul of Maximilian cared
not a straw and which he gave his subjects under protest.

To the westward of him a far subtler monarch, by far subtler means, was
strengthening the power of France and making smooth her way toward that
supremacy over European affairs which she was later to assert. Louis XI
(1461-1483) is called the first modern king, though it is little flattery
to modern statecraft to compare its methods with his, and perhaps our
recent governments have truly outgrown them. Louis was no warrior,
although under compulsion he showed possibilities of becoming an able
general. He preferred to send others who should do his fighting for him,
to embroil his opponents one with another, and then reap the fruit of
their mutual exhaustion. He was passed master of all falsity and craft;
and by his shrewdness he brought to his country peace and prosperity.
Typically does he represent his age in which intellectual ability, though
sometimes wholly divorced from nobleness of soul, began to dominate brute
force.

Charles the Bold stands as the representative of this brute force. He was
the mightiest of the French nobles. His ancestors, a younger branch
of the royal family, had been made dukes of Burgundy, and by skilful
alliances and rapid changes of side through the long Hundred Years' War,
they had steadily added to their possessions and their powers. The father
of Charles found himself stronger than his king, possessor not only of
Burgundy, but of many other fiefs from Germany as well as France, and
lord of the Netherlands as well.[8]

Charles was thus the last of those great, overgrown vassals so
characteristic of feudal times. Like Hugh Capet in France, like William
the Conqueror in England, he hoped to establish himself as an independent
king. He opened negotiations for this purpose with the Emperor Frederick,
Maximilian's father. He made himself practically independent of France.
He wielded a military power greater than that of any other prince of the
moment, and he knew it and charged like a mad bull at whoever seemed to
interpose in his designs.

Over such a man Louis XI's cunning had full play. He involved Charles in
fights with every neighbor. Finally he lured him into conflict with the
Swiss, and those hardy mountaineers won the repute of being the best
soldiers of Europe by defeating Charles again and again till they left
him slain on the field of Nancy (1477).[9] Louis promptly seized most of
his dead vassal's domains. Maximilian, having wedded Charles' daughter,
inherited the remainder; and the old Burgundian kingdom, so nearly
revived to stretch as a permanent dividing land between France and
Germany, disappeared forever.

What Louis had done with Burgundy he attempted with his other
semi-independent duchies. The Hundred Years' War had almost destroyed
central government in France. Louis, by means as secret and varied as his
cunning could suggest, gradually reestablished an undisputed leadership
above his lords. Fortunately for France, perhaps, England was prevented
by a long series of civil wars from interfering in her neighbor's
affairs. These wars, though they originated before Louis' time, were
constantly fomented and kept alive by him, and England thus paid dearly
for having become a source of danger to France.

The Wars of the Roses,[10] as they are called, caused deep-seated changes
in England's life and society. They mark for her the transition from the
mediaeval to the modern era which was everywhere taking place. Beginning
as a contest between two rival branches of the Plantagenets for the
kingship, these wars remained aristocratic throughout. That is to say,
the common people took little interest in them, while the nobles,
espousing sides, fought savagely and murderously, giving one another
no quarter, sparing the lesser folk, but executing as traitors their
prisoners of rank. When one side seemed hopelessly overcome, Louis would
lend them arms and money wherewith to seek revenge once more. Thus almost
all the old nobility of England perished; and both lines of kings became
extinct, Richard III, their last representative, being accused of
murdering all his relatives or possible rivals.[11] At last, Richard too
was slain, and a new family of rulers, only remotely connected with the
old, was inaugurated by Henry Tudor, grandson of a private gentleman of
Wales. This new king, Henry VII (1485-1509), found no powerful lords to
oppose his will. One or two impostors were raised against him,[12] France
making anxious efforts to prolong the troubles of her dangerous
neighbor; but the attempts failed through the utter completeness of the
aristocracy's exhaustion.

Thus in England as in France, though by widely differing chances, the
kingly power had triumphed over feudalism. Monarchs began to come into
direct contact, not always pleasant, with the entire mass of their
subjects, the "third estate," the common people.

RISE OF SPANISH POWER

Spain also was to pass through a similar experience. Indeed, one of the
most striking facts of this age of the Renaissance is the swift and
spectacular rise of Spain from a land of feebleness and internal strife
into the most powerful kingdom of Europe. We have seen the Spanish
peninsula in previous ages the seat of endless strife between Saracens
and Christians. Gradually the Moors had been driven back, and the little
independent Christian states had been united by the fortunes of war and
marriage into three--Portugal on the Atlantic coast, Castile occupying
the larger part of the mainland, and Aragon, a maritime kingdom, less
extensive in Spain, but extending its sovereignty over many of the
Mediterranean isles, over Sicily and southern Italy. In 1469 Isabella,
heiress of Castile, and Ferdinand, heir of Aragon, were wedded; and
soon afterward their countries were united under their joint rule. The
combined strength of both was then devoted to a long religious war
against the Moors. Granada, the last and most famous of the Moorish
capitals and strongholds, was finally captured in 1492.[13] The followers
of Mahomet were driven out of Western Europe during the same period that,
under Turkish leadership, they had at last won Constantinople in the
East.

The whole Spanish peninsula with the exception of Portugal was thus
united under Ferdinand and Isabella, greatest of the sovereigns of
Spain. The ages of battle with the Moors had bred a nation of cavaliers,
intensely loyal, passionately religious. They were splendid fighters, but
stern, hard-hearted, merciless men. Isabella, "the Saint," most holy and
pure-souled of women, herself introduced into her country the terrible
Inquisition.[14] Jews and Moors were given little peace in life unless
they turned Christian. Heretics and relapsed converts from the other
faiths were burned to death. The Queen declared she would approve all
possible torture to men's bodies, when necessary in order to save their
souls.

If such were the women of Spain, what was to be expected of the men? How
could even Ferdinand, "the Wise," keep them employed now that there
were no longer Moors to fight against? Uprisings, rebellions, began to
threaten Spain with such desolation as England had endured. But a higher
Providence solved for Ferdinand his impossible problem: the age of
maritime discovery began.[15]

THE ERA OF DISCOVERY

The Portuguese from their Atlantic seaboard had already begun to explore
southward along the African coast. In 1402 they had settled the Canary
Isles. In 1443 they reached southward beyond the sands of the Sahara and
saw Cape Verd, discovered that Africa was not all burning desert,
that heat would not forever increase as they went southward. In 1487
Bartholomew Diaz, after almost a year of sailing, reached the Cape of
Good Hope, the southern point of the vast African continent; and in 1497
Vasco da Gama rounded the cape and sailed on to India[16]. He had found a
way of bringing Indian spices, silks, and jewels to Europe, bringing them
in quantities and without paying tribute to the Turks, without crossing
the deadly deserts of Arabia. He had made his little country wealthy.

Meanwhile, stimulated by Portuguese success, the mariners of other
nations began to brave the giant storms of the Atlantic. The Turks had
made trade with the far East wellnigh impossible. Portugal was not the
only land to seek a sea-route to India. Venice and Genoa saw before them
the threat of ruin to their most profitable commerce. So we may even say
that it was the Turks who set the Genoese captain Columbus to planning
his great voyage; it was the conquest of the Moors that set Isabella free
to listen to him, and offer her crown jewels for the expedition which
should convert other heathen, establish other inquisitions; and it was
the downfall of the Moors which left the Spanish warriors so eager to
throng to adventure and warfare in the West, once Columbus had shown the
way.

For a time the theatre of great events shifts to the new continent.
The Portuguese explorers had doubled the size of the known world. The
Spaniards doubled it again. But the credit must not be given wholly
to Spain. Though it was the liberality of her monarchs which had made
discovery possible, and though it was the daring of her warriors that
laughed at danger and made conquest sure, yet the Spaniards were not
sailors. It was to Italy, the home of commerce, that they turned for
their captains and their pilots. Columbus, the Genoese, had discovered
the islands along the coast. England, wishing to have a share in this
world of wonders, sent a Venetian mariner, John Cabot; and he and his son
sailed along our northern mainland in English ships.[17] Columbus touched
the coast of South America in 1498.[18] A Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci,
was the first to cruise far along this southern coast, probably in 1499,
and it was his name which Europe gave to the new lands.[19]

Following the discovery came settlement, warfare with the unhappy
Indians, a fierce and frantic search for gold. It was while engaged in
this work that Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, saw the vast
waters of the Pacific, and riding out into them upon his warhorse took
possession, in the name of Spain, of the largest ocean of the globe.[20]
Men recognized at last that these were not the Asiatic shores, but a
wholly new continent which they had found.

RELIGIOUS CHANGES

Let us pause to recapitulate the wonders which this age of the
Renaissance had seen--a new world of Africa discovered in the South, a
new world of America in the West, the rise of Spain, the conquest of the
last of the western Saracens at Granada and the rise of the Turks in the
East, the rise of Russia, the downfall of the last vestige of the ancient
empire of Rome, the last expiring effort of feudalism in Charles the
Bold, and of errant knighthood in Maximilian; the beginning of modern
statecraft in Louis XI of France, Henry VII of England, and Ferdinand the
Wise of Spain; the spread of printing and with it the spread of thought
and knowledge among the masses; and, sometimes accounted greatest of all,
came the wonderful awakening of art in Italy. We have traced the early
part of this under the Medici and Pope Nicholas. Lorenzo de'Medici was
the centre of its later development.[21] From his court went forth that
galaxy of artists which the world of art unites in calling the unequalled
masters of all ages--Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and a host of
others.[22]

Unfortunately in Italy at least the great movement in art and literature
took an antireligious, sometimes an antipatriotic, tone. Lorenzo was
openly defiant and scornful of the teachings of the Church, and after his
death a French king, Charles VIII, was able to enter Italy and march from
end to end of it without opposition. Religion seemed dying there, and
love of country dead.

Florence underwent an extravagant though brief religious revival. The
monk Savonarola preached against wickedness in high places, and thundered
at the Florentines for their presumption and vanity. The impressionable
people wept, they appointed a "day of vanities" and laid all their rich
robes and jewels at Savonarola's feet. They made him ruler of the city.
But, alas! they soon tired of his severities, sighed for their vanities
back again, and at last burned the reformer at the stake.[23]

In Rome itself there arose popes, Lorenzo's followers, who preferred
art to Christianity, or others like the terrible Alexander Borgia, who
adopted the maxims of the new statecraft. Alexander, a worthy disciple of
Louis XI, admired falsehood before truth, and sought to win his aims by
poisoning his enemies. The career of his nephew Caesar Borgia has supplied
history with its most awful picture of successful crime, and the book
written in his praise by Macchiavelli has given us a new word for Satanic
subtlety and treachery. We call it Macchiavellian. The rest of Europe
shrank from Italy in fear, and named it "poisoning Italy."[24]

Against the spiritual dominance of such a land the world was surely ready
for revolt. The mind of man, so long and slowly awakening, and at last so
intensely roused, seeing great discoveries on every hand, was no longer
to be controlled by authority. The time was ripe for the Reformation.

[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME IX]

[Footnote 1: See _Origin and Progress of Printing_, page 5.]

[Footnote 2: See _Beginning and Progress of the Renaissance_, vol. ix, p.
110.]

[Footnote 3: See _Rebuilding of Rome by Nicholas V_, page 46.]

[Footnote 4: See _Mahomet II Takes Constantinople_, page 55.]

[Footnote 5: See _John Hunyady Repulses the Turks_, page 30.]

[Footnote 6: See _Ivan the Great Unites Russia_, page 109.]

[Footnote 7: See _Establishment of Swiss Independence_, page 336.]

[Footnote 8: See _Culmination of the Power of Burgundy_, page 125.]

[Footnote 9: See _Death of Charles the Bold_, page 155.]

[Footnote 10: See _Wars of the Roses_, page 72.]

[Footnote 11: See _Murder of the Princes in the Tower_, page 192,]

[Footnote 12: See _Conspiracy, Rebellion, and Execution of Perkin
Warbeck_, page 250.]

[Footnote 13: See _Conquest of Granada_, page 202.]

[Footnote 14: See _Inquisition Established in Spain_, page 166.]

[Footnote 15: See _Columbus Discovers America_, page 224.]

[Footnote 16: See _The Sea Route to India_, page 299.]

[Footnote 17: See _Discovery of the Mainland of North America by the
Cabots_, page 282.]

[Footnote 18: See _Columbus Discovers South America_, page 323.]

[Footnote 19: See _Amerigo Vespucci in America_, page 346.]

[Footnote 20: See _Balboa Discovers the Pacific_, page 381.]

[Footnote 21: See _Lorenzo de'Medici Rules in Florence_, page 134.]

[Footnote 22: See _Painting of the Sistine Chapel_, page 369.]

[Footnote 23: See _Savonarola's Reforms and Death_, page 265.]

[Footnote 24: See _Rise and Fall of the Borgias_, page 360.]



ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF PRINTING

A.D. 1438

HENRY GEORGE BOHN


It was perhaps not altogether fortuitous that the invention of printing
came concurrently with the Revival of Learning. Men's minds were turned
toward practical experiment in that art by the very influences made
active through the labors of those scholars who ushered in the
Renaissance. "The art preservative of all other arts" has also preserved
the records of its own beginnings and development, although of its
earlier sources our knowledge is very obscure, and even the modern
achievement, which antiquity in various ways foreshadowed, is itself a
subject of uncertainty and dispute.

Bohn, in his admirable survey of the origin and progress of modern
printing, gives us a full and accurate account, from the earliest
evidences and conjectures relating to antiquity to the latter part of the
nineteenth century, confining himself, however, to European developments.
But before the middle of the sixteenth century printing was introduced
into Spanish America. Existing books show that in Mexico there was a
press as early as 1540; but it is impossible to name positively the first
book printed on this continent. North of Mexico the first press was used,
1639, by an English Non-conformist clergyman named Glover. In 1660 a
printer with press and types was sent from England by the corporation for
propagating the gospel among the Indians of New England in the Indian
language. This press was taken to a printing-house already established at
Cambridge, Mass. It was not until several years later that the use of a
press in Boston was permitted by the colonial government, and until near
the end of the seventeenth century no presses were set up in the colonies
outside of Massachusetts.

In 1685 printing began in Pennsylvania, a few years later in New York,
and in Connecticut in 1709. From 1685 to 1693 William Bradford, an
English Quaker, conducted a press in Philadelphia, and in the latter
year he removed his plant to New York. He was the first notable American
printer, and became official printer for Pennsylvania, New York, New
Jersey, Rhode Island, and Maryland. His first book was an almanac for
1686. In 1725 he founded the _New York Gazette_, the first newspaper in
New York. But the first newspaper published in the English colonies was
the _Boston News-Letter_, founded in 1704 by John Campbell, a bookseller
and postmaster in Boston. Only four American periodicals had been
established when, in 1729, Benjamin Franklin, who was already printer
to the Pennsylvania Assembly, became proprietor and editor of the
_Pennsylvania Gazette_.

Until the last quarter of the eighteenth century the progress of printing
in America was slow. But in 1784 the first daily newspaper, the _American
Daily Advertiser_, was issued in Philadelphia, and from this time
periodical publications multiplied and the printing of books increased,
until the agency and influence of the press became as marked in the
United States as in the leading countries of Europe.

Even since the time when Bohn wrote, the progress made in various
branches of the printer's art has been such as might have astonished
that famous publisher of so many standard works. Recent improvements
for increasing the capacity of the press, and often the quality of its
productions, are quite comparable to those which our own time has seen in
other departments of industry, as in the applications of electricity and
the like. In addition to the further development of stereotyping, there
has been marvellous improvement in nearly all the machinery and processes
of printing. This is especially marked in rapid color-printing, and in
the successors of inadequate typesetting-machines--in the linotype, the
monotype, the typograph, etc.

Most wonderful of all, perhaps, is the improved printing-press itself,
in various classes, each adapted to its special purpose. The sum of all
improvements in this department of mechanical invention is seen in the
great cylinder-presses now in general use, especially the one known as
the web perfecting press. This is a machine of great size and intricate
construction, which yet does its complex work with an accuracy that
almost seems to denote conscious intelligence. It prints from an immense
roll of paper, making the impression from curved stereotype plates, runs
at high speed, prints both sides of the paper at one run, and folds,
pastes, and performs other processes as provided for. By doubling and
quadrupling the parts, the ordinary speed of about twenty-four thousand
impressions an hour may be increased to one hundred thousand an hour.
The multicolor web perfecting press prints four or more colors at one
revolution of the impression cylinder.

To meet the demands of such an enormous consumption of paper as the
modern press requires, it was necessary to invent other processes and to
utilize more abundant and cheaper material for paper-making than those
formerly employed. This requirement has been supplied in recent years
mainly through the extensive manufacture of paper from wood-pulp. This
method, together with improved processes in the use of other materials,
has removed all fear of a paper famine such as has sometimes threatened
the printing industry in the past.

"Nature does not advance by leaps," says an old proverb; neither does her
offspring, Art. All the great boons vouchsafed to man by a munificent
providence are of gradual development; and though some may appear to have
come upon us suddenly, reflection and inquiry will always show that they
have had their previous stages.

Indeed, nothing in this great world which concerns the well-being of man
takes place by accident, but is brought forward by divine will, precisely
at the moment most suitable to our condition. So it was with astronomy,
the mariner's compass, the steam-engine, gas, the electric telegraph, and
many other of those blessings which have progressed with civilization.
The elements were there and known, but the time had not arrived for their
fructification.

And so it is with printing: although its invention is placed in the
middle of the fifteenth century, and almost the very year fixed, this can
only be regarded as a matured stage of it. To illustrate this, I propose
to begin with a cursory view of its primitive elements, of which the very
first were no doubt initiative marks and numerals.

The use of numerals has been denominated "the foundation of all the arts
of life"; and we know with certainty that several nations, and among them
the Mexicans, had numerals before they were acquainted with letters. The
first method of reckoning was with the fingers, but small stones were
also used--hence the words "calculate" and "calculation," which are
derived from _calculus_, the Latin for a pebble-stone.

The Chinese counted for many years with notched sticks; and even in
England, in comparatively modern times, accounts were kept by tallies, in
which notches were cut alike in two parallel pieces of wood. Shakespeare
alludes to "the score and the tally" in his _Henry VI_; and this mode
of keeping accounts is still adopted by some of the bakers and dyers in
Warwickshire and Cheshire. And tallies are occasionally produced in the
small-debt courts, where they are admitted as authentic proofs of debt.
Hence the origin and name of the "tally court of the exchequer." The
Peruvians, at the time they were conquered by Pizarro, counted with
knotted strings.

After numerals, came picture-writing, hieroglyphics, and symbolic
characters, such are were used by the Egyptians, the Chinese, and the
Mexicans; which, however unconnected they may be with each other, are
of the same general character. Indeed, the Chinese have never advanced
beyond symbolic characters, of which it is said they have more than one
hundred thousand combinations or varieties.

Rude as these conditions of humanity may seem, they are matched in modern
England, even at a very recent date, if we may credit a well-known story:
A rustic shopkeeper in a remote district, being unable to read or write,
contrived to keep his accounts by picture-writing, and charged his
customer, the miller, with a cheese instead of a grindstone, from having
omitted to mark a hole in the centre.

After picture and symbolic writings would follow phonetic characters,
or marks for sounds; that is, the alphabet. Even the alphabet, which in
civilized countries has now existed for more than three thousand years,
was perfected by degrees; for it has been clearly ascertained that
the earliest known did not comprise more than one-half or, at most,
two-thirds of the letters which eventually formed its complement. Thus,
the Pelasgian alphabet, which is derived from the Phoenician, and is the
parent of the Greek and Roman, consisted originally of only twelve or
thirteen letters.

The invention of the alphabet, which, in a small number of elementary
characters, is capable of six hundred and twenty sextillions of
combinations, and of exhibiting to the sight the countless conceptions of
the mind which have no corporeal forms, is so wonderful that great men of
all ages have shrunk from accounting for it otherwise than as a boon of
divine origin. This feeling is strengthened by the singular circumstance
that so many alphabets bear a strong similarity to each other, however
widely separated the countries in which they arose.

In Egypt the invention of the alphabet is by some ascribed to Syphoas,
nearly two thousand years before the Christian era, but more commonly
to Athotes, Thoth, or Toth, a deity always figured with the head of the
ibis, and very familiar in Egyptian antiquities. Cadmus is accredited
with having introduced it from Egypt into Greece about five centuries
later.

From the alphabet the gradation is natural to compounds of letters and
written language, and, though speech is one of the greatest gifts to man,
it is writing which distinguishes him from the uncivilized savage. The
practice of writing is of such remote antiquity that neither sacred nor
profane authors can satisfactorily trace its origin. The philosopher may
exclaim with the poet:

"Whence did the wondrous mystic art arise. Of painting speech and
speaking to the eyes? That we, by tracing magic lines, are taught How
both to color and embody thought?"

The earliest writing would probably have been with chalk, charcoal,
slate, or perhaps sand, as children from time immemorial have been taught
to read and write in India. The Romans used white walls for writing
inscriptions on, in red chalk--answering the purpose of our
posting-bills--of which several instances were found on the walls of
Pompeii. Plutarch informs us that tradesmen wrote in some such manner
over their doors, and that auction bills ran thus:

"Julius Proculus will this day have an auction of his superfluous goods,
to pay his debts."

Next seems to have followed writing or engraving on stone, wood, ivory,
and metals, of which we have many early evidences. The Decalogue, or the
Ten Commandments, given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, was originally,
we are told in the Bible, written upon two tables of stone; the pillars
of Seth were of brick and stone; the laws of the Greeks were graven on
tables of brass, which were called _cyrbes_. Herodotus mentions a letter
written with a style on stone slabs, which Themistocles, the Athenian
general, sent to the Romans about B.C. 500; and we have another evidence
of the same period still existing--the so-called Borgian inscription,
which is a passport graven in bronze, entitling the holder to hospitable
reception wherever he demanded it. Upward of three thousand of such
engraved tablets, including the famous Roman laws of the Twelve Tables,
were consumed in the great fire which destroyed the Capitol in the time
of Vespasian.

I could cite a great many other evidences of early writing on stone or
brass, but will merely recommend you to see the Rosetta[25] inscription,
which is conspicuously placed in the British Museum. It is this very
interesting stone which, being partly Greek and partly Egyptian, has
enabled us to decipher so many Egyptian monuments.

Pliny informs us that table-books of wood--generally made of box or
citron wood--were in use before the time of Homer, that is, nearly three
thousand years ago; and in the Bible we read of table-books in the time
of Solomon. These table-books were called by the Romans _pugillares_,
which may be translated "hand-books"; the wood was cut into thin slices,
finely planed and polished, and written upon with an iron instrument
called a _stylus_. At a later period, tables, or slices of wood, were
usually covered with a thin layer of hard wax, so that any matter written
upon them might be effaced at pleasure, and the tables used again. Such
practice continued as late as A.D. 1395. In an account roll of Winchester
College of that year we find that a table covered with green wax was kept
in the chapel for noting down with a style the daily or weekly duties
assigned to the officers of the choir. Ivory also was used in the same
way.

Wooden table-books, as we learn from Chaucer, were used in England as
late as the fifteenth century. When epistles were written upon tables of
wood they were usually tied together with cord, the seal being put upon
the knot. Some of the table-books must have been large and heavy, for
in Plautus a schoolboy seven years old is represented as breaking his
master's head with his table-book.

Writing seems also to have been common, at a very early period, on palm
and olive leaves, and especially on the bark of trees--a material used
even in the present time in some parts of Asia. The bark is generally cut
into thin flat pieces, from nine to fifteen inches long and two to four
inches wide, and written on with a sharp instrument. Indeed, the tree,
whether in planks, bark, or leaves, seems in ancient times to have
afforded the principal materials for writing on. Hence the word _codex_,
originally signifying the "trunk or stem of a tree," now means a
manuscript volume. _Tabula_, which properly means a "plank" or "board,"
now also signifies the plate of a book, and was so used by Addison, who
calls his plates "tables." _Folium_ ("a leaf") has given us the word
"folio"; and the word _liber_, originally meaning the "inner bark of a
tree," was afterward used by the Romans to signify a book; whence we
derive our words, "library," "librarian," etc. One more such etymology,
the most interesting of all, is the Greek name for the bark of a tree,
_biblos_, whence is derived the name of our sacred volume.

Before I leave this stage of the subject, I will mention the way in which
the Roman youth were taught writing. Quintilian tells us that they were
made to write through perforated tablets, so as to draw the stylus
through a kind of furrow; and we learn from Procopius that a similar
contrivance was used by the emperor Justinian for signing his name. Such
a tablet would now be called a stencil-plate, and is what to the present
day is found the most rapid and convenient mode of marking goods, only
that a brush is used instead of an iron pen or style.

Writing and materials have so much to do with the invention of printing
that I feel obliged to tarry a little longer at this preliminary stage.
The most important of all the ancient materials for writing upon were
papyrus, parchment, and vellum; and on these substances nearly all our
most valuable manuscripts were written. Papyrus, or paper-rush, is a
large fibrous plant which abounds in the marshes of Egypt, especially
near the borders of the Nile. It was manufactured into a thick sort of
paper at a very early period, Pliny says three centuries before the reign
of Alexander the Great; and Cassiodorus, who lived in the sixth century,
states that it then covered all the desks of the world. Indeed, it had
become so essential to the Greeks and Romans that the occasional scarcity
of it is recorded to have produced riots. Every man of rank and education
kept _librarii_, or book-writers, in his house; and many _servi_, or
slaves, were trained to this service, so that they were a numerous class.

Papyrus is a very durable substance, made of the innermost pellicles of
the stalk, glued together transversely, with the glutinous water of
the Nile. It was for many centuries the great staple of Egypt, and was
exported in large quantities to almost every part of Europe and Asia, but
never, it would appear, to England or Germany. After the seventh century
its use was gradually superseded by the introduction of parchment; and
before the end of the twelfth century it had gone generally out of use.
From "papyrus" the name of "paper," which, with slight variations, is
common to many languages, is no doubt derived.

Parchment and vellum--which are made from the skin of animals, the former
from sheep or goat, the latter from calf, both prepared with lime--were
in use at a very early period, long before their accredited introduction.
It has been by some supposed that Eumenes, King of Pergamus, who lived
about B.C. 190, was the inventor of parchment; but it was known much
earlier, as may be seen by several references to it in the Bible (Isaiah,
viii. i; Jeremiah, xxxvi. 2; Ezekiel, xi. 9). It is, however, very
probable that it may have been brought to perfection at Pergamus, as it
was one of the principal articles of commerce of that kingdom.

Parchment, in early times, was not only expensive, but often very
difficult to procure; whence arose the practice of erasing old writing
from it, and engrossing it a second time. Such manuscripts are called
"palimpsests." Modern art has found the means of discharging the more
recent ink, and thus restoring the original writing, by which means we
have recovered many valuable pieces, particularly Cicero's lost book, _de
Republica_ and some fragments of his _Orations_.

The most ancient manuscripts, both on papyrus and parchment, were kept
in rolls, called in Latin _volumina_, whence our English word "volume."
Chinese paper, made from the bark of the bamboo, the mulberry, or the
khu-ku tree, and so extremely thin that it can only be used on one side,
is supposed to have been invented fifty years before the Christian era
or earlier. Chinese rice-paper is made from the stems of the bread-fruit
tree, cut into slices and pressed. The skins of all kinds of animals
are used--among them the African skin, of a brown color, upon which the
Hebrew Pentateuch and service-books used in the Jewish synagogues were
formerly written. Silk-paper was prepared for the most part in Spain
and its colonies, but was never brought to much perfection. Asbestos, a
fibrous mineral, was made into paper, tolerably light and pliant, which,
being incombustible, was denominated "eternal paper." Herodotus tells
us that cloth was made of asbestos by the Egyptians; and Pliny mentions
napkins made of it in A.D. 74. We know by tradition that the intestines
of a serpent served for Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_; and that the
_Koran_ was written in part on shoulder-bones of mutton, kept in a
domestic chest by one of Mahomet's wives.

We now come to the great period of writing-papers made from cotton and
linen rags, as used at the present day, and which from the first were
so perfect that they have since undergone no material improvement.
Cotton-paper was an Eastern invention, probably introduced in the ninth
century, although not generally used in Europe till about the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. Greek manuscripts are found upon it of the earlier
period, and Italian manuscripts of the later. It seems to have prevailed
at particular periods, in particular countries, according to the
facilities for procuring it, as it now does almost exclusively in
America. Linen paper, the most valuable and important of all the bases
available for writing or printing, is likewise supposed to have been
introduced into Europe from the East, early in the thirteenth century,
although not in general use till the fourteenth.

Before the end of the fourteenth century, paper-mills had been
established in many parts of Europe, first in Spain, and then
successively in Italy, Germany, Holland, and France. They seem to have
come late into England, for Caxton printed all his books on paper
imported from the Low Countries; and it was not till Winkin de Worde
succeeded him, in 1495, that paper was manufactured in England. The
Chinese are supposed to have used it for centuries before, and appear to
have the best title to be considered the inventors of both cotton and
linen paper.

Paper may be made of many other materials, such as hay, straw, nettles,
flax, grasses, parsnips, turnips, colewort leaves, wood-shavings, indeed
of anything fibrous; but as the invention of printing is not concerned in
them, I see no occasion to consider their merits.

Before I pass from paper, it may not be irrelevant to say a word or
two on the names by which we distinguish the sorts and sizes. The
term "post-paper" is derived from the ancient water-mark, which was a
post-horn, and not from its suitableness to transport by post, as many
suppose. The original watermark of a fool's cap gave the name to that
paper, which it still retains, although the fool's cap was afterward
changed to a cap of liberty, and has since undergone other changes. The
smaller size, called "pot-paper," took its name from having at first
been marked with a flagon or pot. Demy-paper, on which octavo books
are usually printed, is so called from being originally a "demi" or
half-sized paper; the term is now, however, equally applied to hard or
writing papers. Hand-cap, which is a coarse paper used for packing, bore
the water-mark of an open hand.

I will now say a few words about pens and ink, for without them we could
neither have had printing nor books. Pens are of great antiquity, and are
frequently alluded to in the Bible. Pens of iron, which may mean styles,
are mentioned by Job and Jeremiah. Reed pens are known to have been in
common use by the ancients, and some were discovered at Pompeii. Pens of
gold and silver are alluded to by the classical writers, and there
is evidence of the use of quills in the seventh century. Of whatever
material the pen was made, it was called a _calamus_, whence our familiar
saying, "_currente calamo_" ("with a flowing pen"). The use of styles, or
iron pens, must have been very prevalent in ancient days, as Suetonius
tells us that the emperor Caligula incited the people to massacre a Roman
senator with their styles; and, previous to that, Caesar had wounded
Cassius with his style.

The next, and not the least important, ingredient in writing and printing
is ink. Staining and coloring matters were well known to the ancients at
a very early period, witness the lustrous pigments on Etruscan vases more
than two thousand years ago; and inks are often mentioned in the Bible.
Gold, silver, red, blue, and green inks were thoroughly understood in
the Middle Ages, and perhaps earlier; and the black writing-ink of the
seventh down to the tenth century, as seen in our manuscripts, was in
such perfection that it has retained its lustre better than some of
later ages. Printing-ink, by the time it began to be currently used for
book-printing in the fifteenth century, had attained a perfection which
has never been surpassed, and indeed scarcely equalled.

Paper and ink being at their highest point, we will now consider the
advances which had in the mean time been made in engraving and type or
letter cutting. It will be seen that the material elements of printing
were by degrees converging to a culminating point. The evidences of
engraving, both in relief and intaglio, are of very ancient date. I need
hardly remind you of the exquisite workmanship on coins, cameos, and
seals, many centuries before the Christian era, to illustrate the high
state of cultivation at which the arts must then have arrived. The art of
casting and chasing in bronze was extensively practised in the twelfth
century, and I have seen a specimen with letters so cut in relief that
they might be separated to form movable type. The goldsmiths were
certainly among the greatest artists of the early ages, and were
competent to execute forms or moulds of any kind to perfection.

In the British Museum is a brass signet stamp, more than two thousand
years old, on which two lines of letters are very neatly engraved
in relief, in the reversed order necessary for printing; and as the
interstices are cut away very deeply and roughly, there is little doubt
but that this stamp was used with ink on papyrus, parchment, or
linen, for paper was not then known. Indeed, the experiment of taking
impressions from it in printing-ink has been tried, and found to answer
perfectly. A large surface so engraved would at once have given to the
world an equivalent to what is now regarded as the most advanced state of
the art of printing; that is, a stereotype plate. Vergil mentions brands
for marking cattle with their owner's name; probably this kind of brass
stamp, but larger.

I could cite many more examples of ancient engraving which would yield
impressions on paper, either by pressure or friction. But our business is
with printing rather than engraving; I will, therefore, go back to the
subject, and cite a very early and interesting example of stamping
engraved letters on clay. I mean the Babylonian bricks, supposed to be
four thousand years old, mostly sun-baked, but some apparently kiln-burnt
almost to vitrification. Of these there are now many examples in England,
added to our stores by the indefatigable researches of Layard, Rawlinson,
and others. These bricks, which are about a foot square and three inches
thick, are on one side covered with hieroglyphics, evidently impressed
with a stamp, just as letters are now stamped on official papers.

Another evidence of the same kind, and of about the same age, is the
famous Babylonian cylinder found in the ruins of Persepolis, and now
preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is about
seven inches high, barrel-shaped, and covered with inscriptions in the
cuneiform character, disposed in vertical lines, and affording a positive
example of an indented surface produced by mechanical impression. Such
cylinders are supposed to have been memorials of matters of national or
family importance, and were in early ages, as we know by tradition, very
numerous. Stamped or printed blocks of lead, bearing the names of Roman
authorities, are to be found in the British Museum.

Printing on leather was practised by the Egyptians, as we discover from
their mummies, which have bandages of leather round their heads, with the
name of the deceased printed on them. And in Pompeii a loaf was found on
which the name of the baker and its quality were printed. Among ancient
testimonies, one of the most interesting is that afforded by Cicero in
his _de Natura Deorum_. He orders types to be made of metal, and calls
them _forma literarum_--the very words used by our first printers; and in
another place he gives a hint of separate cut letters when he speaks of
the impossibility of the most ingenious man throwing the twenty-four
letters of the alphabet together by chance, and thus producing the famous
_Annals_ of Ennius. He makes that observation in opposition to the
atheistical argument of the creation of the world by chance.

We have besides, in what is generally classed as a manuscript, a
reasonable although disputed evidence of an elementary stage of printing;
I mean the _Codex Argenteus_ (or _Silver Book_) of Upsala, which contains
a portion of the gospels in Mesogothic, supposed to be of the fourth or
fifth century, the work of Ulfilas. In this codex the first lines of each
gospel and of the Lord's Prayer are in large gold letters, apparently
printed by a stamp, in the manner of a bookbinder, as there are
indentations on the back of the vellum. The small letters are written in
silver. The whole is on a light purple or violet colored vellum.

Having said enough, I think, of the ancients' knowledge of type-forms and
printing materials, I pass on to the recognized establishments of the art
in the fifteenth century; for, whatever knowledge the ancients had
of printing, it would appear to have yielded no immediate fruits to
posterity.

But before I proceed to modern times, I am bound to note that the
Chinese, who seem to have been many centuries in advance of Europe in
most of the industral arts, are supposed to have practised
block-printing, just as they do now, more than a thousand years ago. Nor
does the complicated nature of their written language, which consists of
more than one hundred thousand word-signs, admit of any readier mode. But
they print, or rather rub off, impressions with such speed--seven
hundred sheets per hour--that, until the introduction of steam, they far
outstripped Europeans. Gibbon, it will be remembered, regrets that the
emperor Justinian, who lived in the sixth century, did not introduce the
art of printing from the Chinese, instead of their silk manufacture.

Block-printing ushered in the great epoch; and the first dawn of it
in Europe seems to have been single prints of saints and scriptural
subjects, with a line or two of description engraved on the same wooden
plate. These are for the most part lost; but there is one in existence,
large and exceedingly fine, of St. Christopher, with two lines of
inscription, dated 1423, believed to have been printed with the ordinary
printing-press. It was found in the library of a monastery near Augsburg,
and is therefore presumed to be of German execution. Till lately this was
the earliest-dated evidence of block-printing known; but there has since
been discovered at Malines, and deposited at Brussels, a wood-cut
of similar character, but assumed to be Dutch or Flemish, dated
"MCCCCXVIII"; and though there seems no reason to doubt the genuineness
of the cut, it is asserted that the date bears evidence of having been
tampered with.

There is a vague tradition, depending entirely on the assertion of a
writer named Papillon, not a very reliable authority, which would give
the invention of wood-cut-printing to Venice, and at a very early period.
He asserts that he once saw a set of eight prints, depicting the deeds
of Alexander the Great, each described in verse, which were engraved in
relief, and printed by a brother and sister named Cunio, at Ravenna,
in 1285. But though the assertion is accredited by Mr. Ottley, it is
generally disbelieved.

There is reason to suppose that playing-cards, from wooden blocks, were
produced at Venice long before the block-books, even as early as 1250;
but there is no positive evidence that they were printed; and some insist
that they were produced either by friction or stencil-plates. It seems,
however, by no means unlikely that cards, which were in most extensive
use in the Middle Ages, should, for the sake of cheapness, have been
printed quite as early, if not earlier, than even figures of saints; and
the same artists are presumed to have produced both.

From single prints, with letter-press inscriptions, the next stage, that
of a series of prints accompanied by letter-press, was obvious. Such are
our first recognized block-books, among which are the Apocalypse, and the
_Biblia Pauperum_ (or _Poor Man's Bible_), supposed to have been printed
at Haarlem by Laurence Koster, between 1420 and 1430; I say supposed,
because we have no positive evidence either of the person, place, or
date; and Erasmus, who was born at Rotterdam in 1467, and always ready
to advance the honor of his country, is silent on the subject. We rely
chiefly upon the testimony of Ulric Zell, an eminent printer of Cologne,
who is quoted in the _Cologne Chronicle_ of 1499, and Hadrian Junius, a
Dutch historian of repute, who wrote in the next century. Both agree in
ascribing the invention of book-printing from wooden blocks, as well as
the first germ of movable wood and metallic type printing, to Haarlem;
and Junius adds the name of Laurence Koster. His surname of Koster is
derived from his office, which was that of custodian, sexton, or warden
of the Cathedral Church of Haarlem. The story told of the accident by
which the discovery was made is as follows:

Koster, as he was one day walking in a wood adjoining the city, about the
year 1420, cut some letters on the bark of a beech tree, from which he
took impressions on paper for the amusement of his brother-in-law's
children. The idea then struck him of enlarging their application;
and, being a man of an ingenious turn, he invented a thicker and more
tenacious ink than was in common use, which blotted, and began to print
figures from wooden tablets or blocks, to which he added several lines of
letters, first solid, and then separate or movable. These wooden types
are said to have been fastened together with string.

One thing seems pretty clear, which is, that, whether or not Koster was
the printer, the first block-books were produced somewhere in Holland, as
several are in Dutch, a language seldom, if ever, printed out of its own
country. They were generally printed in light-brown ink, like a sepia
drawing, which, I think, was adopted with a view to their being
colored--a condition in which we find the greater part of them. When
these prints were colored they presented very much the appearance of the
Low Country stained-glass windows.

Block-books continued to be printed and reprinted, first in Holland and
afterward in Germany, with considerable activity, for twenty or thirty
years, during which period we had several editions of the _Biblia
Pauperum_, the _Ars Moriendi_ (or _Art of Dying),_ the _Speculum Humanae
Salvationis_, and many others, chiefly devoted to the promulgation of
scripture history. The earliest ones are printed, or rather transferred
by friction--and therefore on one side only of the paper--entirely from
solid blocks; later on, some portions were printed with movable types of
wood; and at last the letter-press was entirely of movable metal types.
Junius says that Koster by degrees exchanged his wooden types for leaden
ones, and these for pewter; and I will add that it is not unlikely they
may have been cast in lead or pewter plates from the wooden blocks, as
metal-casting was well understood at the time.

The pretensions of Haarlem and Koster have for more than a century been a
matter of fierce controversy; and there have been upward of one hundred
and fifty volumes written for or against, without any approach to a
satisfactory decision. This one thing is certain, that, whether or not we
owe the first idea of movable type to Laurence Koster or to Haarlem, we
do not owe to the period any very marked use of it; that was reserved for
a later day.

There is a story current, dependent on the authority of Junius, that
Koster's principal workman, assumed to be Hans or John Faust--and some,
to reconcile improbabilities, even say John Gutenberg--who had been sworn
to secrecy, decamped one Christmas Eve, after the death of Koster, while
the family were at church, taking with him types and printing apparatus
and, after short sojourns at Amsterdam and Cologne, got to Mainz or
Mayence with them, and there introduced printing. He is said by Junius
to have printed, about the year 1442--that is, two years after Koster's
death--the _Doctrinale_ of Alexander Gallus and the _Tracts_ of Peter of
Spain, with the very types which Koster made use of in Haarlem; but as no
volume of this kind has ever been discovered, nor any trace of one, the
entire story is generally regarded as apocryphal. Laurence Koster died
in 1440, at the age of seventy; therefore any printing attributed to him
must be within that period.

What has hitherto been advanced proves only that mankind had walked for
many centuries on the borders of the two great inventions, chalcography
and typography, without having fully and practically discovered either of
them.

We now come to the great epoch of printing--I mean the complete
introduction, if not actually the first invention, of movable metal
or fusile types. This took place at Mainz, in or before 1450, and the
general consent of Europe assigns the credit of it to Gutenberg. Of a man
who has conferred such vast obligations on all succeeding ages, it may be
desirable to say a few words.

John Gutenberg was born at Mainz in 1397, of a patrician and rather
wealthy family. He left his native city, it is said, because implicated
in an insurrection of the citizens against the nobility, and settled
at Strasburg, where, in 1427, we find him an established merchant, and
sustaining a suit of breach of promise brought against him by a lady
named Ann of the Iron Door, whom he afterward married. While resident
here, and before 1439, his attention appears to have been actively
directed to the art of printing, as we learn by a legal document of the
time, found of late years in the archives of Strasburg. He is there
stated to have entered into an engagement with three persons, named
Dreizehn, Riffe, and Heilmann, to reveal to them "a secret art of
printing which he had lately discovered," and to take them into
partnership for five years, upon the payment of certain sums.

The death of Dreizehn before he had paid up all his instalments led to a
suit on the part of his relations, which ended in Gutenberg's favor. In
the course of the evidence one of the witnesses, a goldsmith, deposed to
having received from Gutenberg three or four years previously--that
is, about 1435--upward of three hundred florins for materials used in
printing. Other witnesses proved the anxiety that Gutenberg had shown to
have four pages of type distributed which appear to have been screwed up
in chase, and lying on a press on the deceased's premises.

This would be evidence that Gutenberg had arrived at a knowledge of
movable types, either of wood or metal, and probably of both, before
1440; and, had it not been for the rupture of the partnership before
anything had been printed by the new process, Strasburg might have
claimed the honor which is now given to Mainz.

Soon after this--it is supposed in 1444--Gutenberg returned to his native
city, by leave of the town council, which he was obliged to ask, bringing
with him all his materials. In 1446 he entered into a partnership with
John Faust--a wealthy and skilful goldsmith and engraver--who
engaged, upon being taught the secrets of the art and admitted into a
participation of the profits, to advance the necessary funds, which he
did to the extent of two thousand two hundred florins. Goldsmiths, it
should be borne in mind, were then the great artists in all kinds of
metal work, and extremely skilful in modelling, engraving, and casting,
which were exactly the arts required for type-founding.

The new partnership immediately commenced operations, hired a house
called Zumjungen, and took into their employ Peter Schoeffer, who had
been Faust's apprentice, as their assistant. Faust is supposed to have
employed himself in cutting the type, which is an extremely slow process,
till Peter Schoeffer, afterward his son-in-law, suggested an improved
mode of casting it in copper matrices struck by steel punches, pretty
much in the same manner as was till recently practised throughout Europe.
The firm had for some time previously adopted a method of casting type in
moulds of plaster, which was a tedious process, as every letter required
a new mould.

Although to Gutenberg are undoubtedly due all the main features of
metal-type printing, yet we owe, perhaps, to the practical skill of
Faust, and the taste of Schoeffer, who was an accomplished penman, the
exquisite finish and perfection with which their first joint effort came
forth to the world. This was a Latin Vulgate, printed in a large cut
metal type, and commonly called the Mazarin Bible, because the first copy
known to bibliographers was found in the library of Cardinal Mazarin.
It consists of six hundred and forty-one leaves, forming two, sometimes
four, large volumes in folio; some copies on paper of beautiful texture,
some on vellum. It was without date or names of the printers, as it was
evidently intended to present the appearance of a manuscript; but it is
supposed, on good evidence, to have been printed between 1450 and 1455,
and it is not improbable the volumes were all that time, that is,
five years, and some say more, at press; for we know, by certain
technicalities, that every page was printed off singly.

These precious volumes, as splendid as they are wonderful, have excited
the admiration of all beholders. The sharpness and elegant uniformity of
the type, the lustre of the ink, and the purity of the paper leave that
first great monument of the typographic art unsurpassed by any subsequent
effort; nor could it be exceeded with all the appliances of the present
day.

"It is a striking circumstance," says Mr. Hallam, "that the high-minded
inventors of this great art tried, at the very outset, so bold a flight
as the printing of an entire Bible, and executed it with astonishing
success. It was Minerva leaping on earth in her divine strength and
radiant armor, ready, at the moment of her nativity, to subdue and
destroy her enemies."

There is a curious story current about this Bible, which, as it is
connected with a popular fiction, I will venture to repeat. It is that
Faust went to Paris with some of his Bibles for sale, one of which,
printed on vellum and richly illuminated, he sold to the King for seven
hundred and fifty crowns, and another to the Archbishop of Paris for
three hundred crowns, and to the poorer clergy and the laity copies on
paper as low as fifty crowns, and even less. Faust does not appear to
have disclosed the secret of how they were produced, and probably let it
be supposed that they were manuscript; for the aim of the first printers
was to make their books equal in beauty to the finest manuscripts, and
as far as possible undistinguishable from them, to which end the large
capitals and decorations were filled in by hand.

The Archbishop, proud of his purchase, showed it to the King, who,
comparing it with his own, found with surprise that they tallied so
exactly in every respect, excepting the illuminated ornaments, as
convinced them that they were produced by some other art than
transcription; and on further inquiry they found that Faust had sold
a considerable number exactly similar. Orders, therefore, were given
without delay to apprehend and prosecute him as a practitioner of the
black art in multiplying Holy Writ by aid of the devil. Hence arose the
popular fiction of the Devil and Dr. Faustus, which, under different
phases, has found its way into every country in Europe, and probably gave
rise to Goethe's celebrated drama.

In 1455, as we find by a notarial document, dated November 6th of that
year, Faust separated from Gutenberg, and successfully instituted
proceedings against him for money advanced. Gutenberg, who had exhausted
all his means in bringing his invention to maturity, was obliged to
mortgage and in the end surrender all his materials, and, it should seem,
his printed stock. His impoverishment may easily be accounted for when we
are told, as a received fact, that before the first four sheets of his
Bible were completed he had already expended four thousand crowns upon
it--a large sum in those days. Of this his then wealthier partner reaped
all the subsequent advantage.

After this period, Faust, and his son-in-law, Peter Schoeffer, in
possession of the materials, printed on their own account, and, within
eighteen months of their separation from Gutenberg, produced the
celebrated Latin Psalter of 1457, the first book in any country which
bears a complete imprint--that is, the name of the printer, place, and
date. This magnificent volume, of which the whole edition was printed on
vellum, is now even rarer than the Mazarin Bible, and of extraordinary
value; the letters are very large and bold, cast in metal type, and the
ornamental initials are beautifully cut in wood.

Two years later, that is, in 1459, Faust and Schoeffer produced an
almost fac-simile reprint of the Psalter, and in the same year _Durandi
Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_, the latter with an entirely new font of
metal type--the first cast from Schoeffer's punches--which some, in the
erroneous belief that the Psalter was printed from wooden types, have
asserted to be the first dated book printed with metal type. Then
followed, in 1460, the _Constitutiones Clementis V_, a handsome folio,
and in 1462 their famous Latin Bible, the first one with a date.

In the mean time, Gutenberg, undaunted by the loss of all that had cost
him so many years of unremitted application and his whole fortune, began
afresh; and this time, it should seem, with better success, as we find
him, in 1459, undertaking to present, for certain considerations, all the
books he had then printed, or might thereafter print, to a convent where
his sister was a nun. No book, however, has yet been discovered bearing
the name of Gutenberg; and we can only guess what came from his press by
a peculiarity of type, of which, after the first Bible, the most marked
is the famous _Catholicon_, dated 1460--a kind of universal dictionary,
the germ of all future cyclopaedias, and which became so popular that
more than forty editions were printed of it in as many years. In 1465
Gutenberg retired from printing, being appointed to a lucrative office at
the court of the Archbishop of Mainz, and in 1467 he died.

And here we take leave of Gutenberg, with admiration for his patience,
his perseverance, and his self-sacrifice in a cause which has produced
such glorious fruits. He was one of those noble spirits who are endowed
with a perception of what is good, and pursue it independent of worldly
considerations. Posterity has done him tardy justice in erecting a marble
monument to his memory and establishing a jubilee, which gave rise to one
of the most touching of Mendelssohn's compositions.

By this time the secret had transpired to the neighboring states, and
Mentelin, of Strasburg, and Pfister, or Bamberg, were, before the
beginning of 1462, in full activity. Indeed, Pfister is, by some, thought
to have printed before 1460; and his finely executed Latin Bible, in cast
type, was for many years regarded as the first.

At this critical period, when the art was reaching its zenith, the
operations of the Mainz printers were suddenly brought to a standstill
by the siege and capture of the city in 1462. The occasion of this was a
fierce dispute between the Pope and the people as to who had the right of
appointment to the archbishopric, lately become vacant. The original hive
of workmen dispersed to other states, and by degrees the mysteries of the
art became spread over the civilized world. Such, indeed, was the fame
printing had acquired, and its manifest importance, that every crowned
head sought to introduce it into his kingdom, and welcomed the fugitives.
Within a few years of this period the art had been carried by the
scattered German workmen into Italy, France, Spain, and Switzerland; and
before the close of the fifteenth century it was practised in more than
two hundred twenty different places.

Before entering upon the history of printing in England, I will take
leave to call your attention to a few prominent facts connected with its
progress abroad, as well as to some points of its early condition which
could not be conveniently introduced in chronological order. All the
books printed previously to 1465 are in the Gothic, or black letter,
which still remained the favorite in Germany and the Low Countries long
after the Italians introduced their beautiful Roman letter. The first
books in which any Greek type occurs are Cicero's _Offices_, printed
by Faust and Schoeffer in 1465, directly after the resumption of their
establishment; and _Lactantius_, printed the same year by Sweynheim and
Pannartz, in the monastery of Soubiaco at Rome. The first book printed
entirely in Greek was Constantine Lascar's _Greek Grammar_, Milan, 1476.

One of the earliest of the Italian books, and, to use the words of
Dr. Dibdin, perhaps the most notorious volume in existence, was the
celebrated Boccaccio, printed at Venice by Valdarfer in 1471. This book
deserves particular mention, because of an extraordinary contest which
once took place for its possession between two wealthy bibliomaniacs. It
was a small black-letter folio, in faded yellow morocco, and supposed
to be unique. Its history is this: In the early part of the eighteenth
century it had come accidentally into the possession of a London
bookseller, who successively offered it to Harley, Earl of Oxford, and
to Lord Sunderland; then the two principal collectors, for one hundred
guineas; but both were staggered at the price and higgled about the
purchase. An ancestor of the late Duke of Roxburghe, whom nobody dreamed
of as a collector, hearing of the book, secured it, and then invited the
two noblemen to dinner, with the view of parading his trophy. In due
course he led the conversation to the book, and, after letting them
expatiate on its rarity, told them he thought he had a copy in his
bookcase, which they emphatically declared to be impossible, and
challenged him to produce it. On producing the book, about the purchase
of which they had only been temporizing, they were not a little
chagrined.

This same copy made its appearance again, half a century later, at the
Duke of Roxburghe's sale in 1812, a time when bibliomania was at its
height. Loud notes of preparation foretold that it would sell for a
considerable sum; five hundred and even one thousand guineas were
guessed, as it was known that Lord Spencer, the Duke of Devonshire, and
the Marquis of Blandford were all bent on its possession, but nobody
anticipated the extravagant sum it was to realize. After a very spirited
competition, it was knocked down to the Marquis of Blandford for two
thousand sixty pounds. This book was resold at the Marquis of Blandford's
sale, in 1819, for eight hundred seventy-five guineas, and passed to Lord
Spencer, in whose extraordinary library it now reposes.

Before the commencement of the sixteenth century, that is, within forty
or fifty years of the invention of printing with movable type, upward of
twenty thousand volumes had issued from at least a thousand different
presses. All the principal Latin classics, many of the Greek, and upward
of two hundred fifty editions of the Bible, or parts of the Bible, had
appeared.

One of the most active and enterprising of the early printers was Anthony
Koburger of Nuremberg, an accomplished scholar, who began there in 1472,
and before the year 1500 had printed thirteen large editions of the Bible
in folio, and a prodigious number of other books. He kept twenty-four
presses at work, employing one hundred workmen, and had sixteen shops for
the sale of books in the principal cities of Germany, besides factors
and agents all over Europe. He printed, in 1493, that grand volume, the
_Nuremberg Chronicle_, which is illustrated with upward of one thousand
woodcuts by Michael Wohlgemuth, the master of Albert Duerer, and is
curious as being one of the first books in which cross-hatchings occur in
wood-engraving.

The sixteenth century opened with another invention in type, the Italic,
which was beautifully exemplified in a pocket edition of Vergil, the
first of a portable series of classical works commenced in 1501 at Venice
by the celebrated Aldus Manutius, who, after some years of preparation,
had entered actively on his career as a printer in 1494, and deservedly
ranks as one of the best scholars of any age.

Then came the Giunti, the learned family of the Stephenses, of whom
Robert is accredited as the author of the present divisions of our
New Testament into chapters, and Henry, author of the great Greek
_Thesaurus_, the most valuable Greek lexicon ever published. To the
opprobrium of the age, he died in an almshouse.

Among many others immortalized by their successful contributions to the
great cause we must not forget the Plantins, whose memories are still so
cherished at Antwerp that their printing establishment remains to this
day untouched, just as it was left two centuries ago, with all the
freshness of a chamber in Pompeii, the type and chases of their famous
Polyglot lying about, as if the workmen had but just left the office.

The accordance of the art of printing with the spirit of the times which
gave it birth must be regarded as singularly providential. The Protestant
Reformation in Germany was brought about by Luther's accidentally
meeting, in a monastic library, with one of Gutenberg's printed Latin
Bibles, when at the age of twenty. "A mighty change," says Luther, "then
came over me," and all his subsequent efforts are to be attributed to
that event. His recognition of the importance of printing is given in
these words: "Printing is the best and highest gift, the _summum et
postremum donum_ by which God advanceth the Gospel. Thanks be to God that
it hath come at last. Holy fathers now at rest would rejoice to see this
day of the revealed Gospel."

William Caxton, by common consent, is the introducer of the art of
printing into England. He was born about 1422, in Kent, and received
what was then thought a liberal education. His father must have been in
respectable circumstances, as there was at that time a law in full force
prohibiting any youth from being apprenticed to trade whose parent was
not possessed of a certain rental in land. In his eighteenth year Caxton
was apprenticed to Robert Large, an eminent London mercer, who in 1430
was sheriff and in 1439 Lord Mayor of London. At his death, in 1441,
he bequeathed Caxton a legacy of twenty marks--a large sum in those
days--and an honorable testimony to his fidelity and integrity. Soon
after this the Mercers' Company appointed him their agent in the Low
Countries, in which employment he spent twenty-three years.

In 1464 he was one of two commissioners officially employed by Edward IV
to negotiate a commercial treaty with Philip of Burgundy; and in 1468,
when the King's sister, Margaret of York, married Charles of Burgundy,
called "the Bold," he attached himself to their household, probably
in some literary capacity, as in the next year we find him busied in
translating at her request. During the greater part of this long period
he was residing or travelling in the midst of the countries where the new
art of printing was the great subject of interest, and would naturally
take some measures to acquaint himself with it. Indeed, it has been said
that he had a secret commission from Edward IV to learn the art, and to
bribe some of the foreign workmen into England. Be this as it may, we
know that Caxton acquired a complete knowledge of it while abroad, for
he tells us so, and that he had printed at Cologne the _Recueil des
Histoires de Troye_ (or _Romance History of Troy_), in 1465, and in 1472
an English edition of the same, translated by himself. These two early
productions are remarkable as being the first books printed in either the
French or English language[26]. The English edition was sold at the Duke
of Roxburghe's sale for one thousand sixty pounds, and is now in the
possession of the Duke of Devonshire.

Caxton returned to England about 1474, bringing with him presses and
types, and established himself in one of the chapels of Westminster
Abbey, called the Eleemosynary, Almondry, or Arm'ry, supposed to have
been on the site of Henry VII's chapel. A printer would naturally resort
to the abbey for patronage, as in those days it was the head-quarters
of learning as well as of religion. Before the foundation of grammar
schools, there was usually a _scholasticus_ attached to the abbeys and
cathedral churches, who directed and superintended the education of the
neighboring nobility and gentry. He was, besides, one of the members of
the _scriptorium_, a large establishment within the abbey, where school
and other books used to be written.

The first book Caxton printed, after he returned to England and
established himself at the Almonry, is supposed to be _The Game and Play
of Chesse_, dated 1474. But some have raised doubts whether this was
printed in England, as there is no actual evidence of it. One of the
arguments is that the type is exactly the same as what he had previously
used at Cologne; but this is no evidence at all, as both the type and
paper used in England for many years came from Cologne, and there is no
doubt that Caxton brought some with him. A second edition of the book of
chess, with woodcuts, was printed two or three years later, and this is
generally admitted to have been printed in England.

The first book with an unmistakable imprint was his _Dictes and Sayings
of Philosophers_, which had been translated for him by the gallant but
unfortunate Lord Rivers, who was murdered in Pomfret castle by order of
Richard III. The colophon of this states that it was printed in the Abbey
of Westminster in 1477. He appears to have printed but one single volume
upon vellum, which is _The Doctrynal of Sapience_, 1489, of which a copy,
formerly in the King's Library at Windsor, is now in the British Museum.
This is a very interesting work as connected with Caxton, being entirely
translated by himself into English verse. It is an allegorical fiction,
in which the whole system of literature and science comes under
consideration.

Caxton died in 1491, after having produced, within twenty years of his
active career, more than fifty volumes of mark, including Chaucer, Gower,
Lydgate, and his own _Chronicle_ of England. Before Caxton's time the
youths of England were supplied with their school-books and their
reading, which was necessarily very limited, by the Company of
Stationers, or text-writers, who wrote and sold, by an exclusive royal
privilege, the school-books then in use. These were chiefly the A B Cs,
(called _Absies_), the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the address to the
Virgin Mary, called _Ave Maria_.

The location of these stationers was in the neighborhood of St. Paul's
Cathedral, whence arose the names Paternoster Row, Creed Lane, Amen
Corner, and Ave Maria Lane. Manuscripts of a higher order, that is, in
the form of books, were mostly supplied by the monks, and were scarcely
accessible to any but the wealthy, from their extreme cost. Thus, a
Chaucer, which may now be bought for a few shillings, then cost more than
a hundred pounds; and we read of two hundred sheep and ten quarters of
wheat being given for a volume of homilies.

Minstrels, instead of books, were in early times the principal medium of
communication between authors and the public; they wandered up and down
the country, chanting, singing, or reciting, according to the taste of
their customers, and had certain privileges of entertainment in the halls
of the nobility.

It may be wondered that Caxton, like many of the foreign printers, did
not begin with, or at least some time during his career print, the
Scriptures, especially as Wycliffe's translation had already been made.
But there were good reasons. Religious persecution ran high, and the
clergy were extremely jealous of the propagation of the Scriptures among
the people. Knighton had denounced the reading of the Bible, lamenting
lest this jewel of the Church, hitherto the exclusive property of the
clergy and divines, should be made common to the laity; and Archbishop
Arundel had issued an enactment that no part of the Scriptures in English
should be read, either in public or private, or be thereafter translated,
under pain of the greater excommunication. The Star Chamber, too, was big
with terrors. A little later, Erasmus' edition of the New Testament was
forbidden at Cambridge; and in the county of Surrey the Vicar of Croydon
said from the pulpit, "We must root out printing, or printing will root
out us."

Winkin de Worde, who had come in his youth with Caxton to England and
continued with him in the superintendence of his office to the day of his
death, succeeded to the business, and conducted it with great spirit
for the next forty years. He began by entirely remodelling his fonts
of Gothic type, and introduced both Roman and Italic; became his own
founder, instead of importing type from the Low Countries; promoted the
manufacture of paper in this country; and such was his activity that he
printed the extraordinary number of four hundred eight different works.
He deserves, perhaps, more praise than he has ever received for the
important part he played in establishing and advancing the art in
England.

But no one of our early printers deserves more grateful remembrance than
Richard Grafton, who, in 1537, was the first publisher of the Bible in
England. I say in England, because the first Bible, known as Coverdale's,
and several editions of the Testament, translated by Tyndale, had been
previously printed abroad in secrecy. Grafton's first edition of the
Bible was a reprint of Coverdale and Tyndale's translation, with slight
alterations, by one who assumed the name of Thomas Matthew, but whose
real name was John Rogers, then Prebendary of St. Paul's, and afterward
burned as a heretic in Smithfield. Even this was printed secretly abroad,
nobody yet knows where, and did not have Grafton's name attached to it
till the King had granted him a license under the privy seal. Though this
year, 1537, has by the annalists of the Bible been called the first year
of triumph, on account of the King's license, yet Bibles were still apt
to be dangerous things to all concerned; and what was permitted one day
was not unlikely, by a change in religion or policy, to be interdicted
the next with severe visitations.

Although Henry VIII had recently completed his breach with Rome and
been excommunicated, he alternately punished the religious movements of
Protestants and Catholics, according to his caprice; and it was but a few
years previously that the reading of the Bible had been prohibited by
act of parliament, that men had been burned at the stake for having even
fragments of it in their possession, and that Tyndale's translation of
the new Testament had been bought up and publicly burned (1534) by order
of Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London; and even as late as May, 1536,
the reading of the sacred volume had been strictly forbidden.

Grafton, therefore, must have been a bold man to face the danger. Thus,
in 1538, when a new edition of the Bible, commonly called the "Great
Bible," afterward published in 1539, was secretly printing in Paris at
the instance of Lord Cromwell, under the superintendence of Grafton,
Whitchurch, and Coverdale, the French inquisitors of the faith
interfered, charging them with heresy, and they were fortunate in making
their escape to England.

Shortly after the death of Caxton's patron, Lord Cromwell, Grafton was
imprisoned for the double offence of printing Matthew's Bible and the
Great Bible, notwithstanding the King's license; and though after a while
released, he was again imprisoned in the reign of Philip and Mary on
account of his Protestant principles; and, after all his services to
religion and literature, died in poverty in 1572.

Printing was now spreading all over England. It had already begun at
Oxford in 1478--some say earlier--at Cambridge soon after, although the
first dated work is 1521; at St. Albans in 1480; York in 1509; and other
places by degrees.

Printing did not reach Scotland till 1507, and then but imperfectly, and
Ireland not till 1551, owing, it is said, to the jealousy with which it
was regarded by the priesthood.

We will now take a rapid survey of the vast strides printing has made of
late years in England, and therewith close. The principal movements have
been in stereotyping, electrotyping, the improvement of presses, and the
application of steam power. Stereotyping is the transfer of pages of
movable type into solid metal plates, by the medium of moulds formed of
plaster of Paris, _papier-mache,_ gutta-percha, or other substances. This
art is supposed to have been invented, in or about 1725, by William Ged,
a goldsmith of Edinburgh. A small capitalist, who had engaged to embark
with him, withdrawing from the speculation in alarm, he accepted
overtures from a Mr. William Fenner, and in 1729 came to London. Here
he obtained three partners, in conjunction with whom he entered into a
contract with the University of Cambridge for stereotyping Bibles and
prayer-books. But the workmen, fearing that stereotyping would eventually
ruin their trade, purposely made errors, and, when their masters were
absent, battered the type, so that the only two prayer-books completed
were suppressed by authority, and the plates destroyed. Upon this the
art got into disrepute, and Ged, after much ill-treatment, returned to
Edinburgh, impoverished and disheartened. Here his friends, desirous that
a memorial of his art should be published, entered into a subscription to
defray the expense; and a Sallust, printed in 1736, and composed and cast
in the night-time to avoid the jealous opposition of the workmen, is now
the principal evidence of his claim to the invention.

But the time had not come; for without a very large demand, such as could
not exist in those days, stereotyping would be of no advantage. Books
which sell by hundreds of thousands, and are constantly reprinting, such
as Bibles, prayer-books, school-books, Shakespeares, Bunyans, Robinson
Crusoes, Uncle Toms, and very popular authors and editions, will pay for
stereotyping; but for small numbers it is a loss. After the invention had
been neglected long enough to be forgotten, Earl Stanhope, who had for
several years devoted himself earnestly to the subject, and made many
experiments, resuscitated it, in a very perfect manner, in 1803; and his
printer, Mr. Wilson, sold the secret to both universities and to most of
the leading printers. To the art of stereotyping the public is mainly
indebted for cheap literature, for when the plates are once produced the
chief expense is disposed of.

Something akin to stereotyping is another method of printing, called
logography, invented by John Walter of the London _Times_, in 1783, and
for which he took out a patent. This means a system of printing from type
cast in words instead of single letters, which it was thought would save
time and corrections when applied to newspapers, but it was not found to
answer. A joke of the time was a supposed order to the type-founder for
some words of frequent occurrence, which ran thus: "Please send me a
hundredweight, sorted, of murder, fire, dreadful robbery, atrocious
outrage, fearful calamity, alarming explosion, melancholy accident; an
assortment of honourable member, whig, tory, hot, cold, wet, dry; half
a hundred weight, made up in pounds, of butter, cheese, beef, mutton,
tripe, mustard, soap, rain, etc., and a few devils, angels, women,
groans, hisses, etc." This method of printing did not succeed; for if
twenty-four letters will give six hundred sextillions of combinations, no
printing-office could keep a sufficient assortment of even popular words.

[Footnote 1: See Vol 1, 8]

[Footnote 2: See accompanying fac-simile of a page of the English
edition--a reproduction as faithful as possible in text, color, texture
of paper, etc.]



JOHN HUNYADY REPULSES THE TURKS[1]

A.D. 1440-1456

ARMINIUS VAMBERY


From the time (1354) when the Turks took Gallipoli and secured their
first dominion in Europe, the Ottoman power on that side of the
Hellespont was gradually increased. In 1360 Amurath I crossed from Asia
Minor, ravaged an extensive district, and took Adrianople, which he made
the first seat of his royalty and the first shrine of Mahometanism in
Europe. He next turned toward Bulgaria and Servia, where in the warlike
Slavonic tribes he found far stronger foes than the Greek victims of
earlier Turkish conquests.

Pope Urban V preached a crusade against the Turks; and Servia, Hungary,
Bosnia, and Wallachia leagued themselves to drive the Ottomans out of
Europe. Amurath defeated them and added new territory to his previous
acquisitions. A peace was made in 1376, but a new though fruitless
attempt of the Slavonic peoples against him gave Amurath a pretext for
further assault upon southeastern Europe. In 1389 he conquered and
annexed Bulgaria and subjugated the Servians. In the same year Amurath
was assassinated.

Bajazet I, the son and successor of Amurath, still further extended
the Turkish conquests. Under Bajazet's son, Mahomet I (1413-1421),
comparative peace prevailed; but his son, Amurath II, rekindled the
flames of war. A strong combination, including, with other peoples,
the Hungarians and Poles, was made against him. In the struggle that
followed, and which for a time promised the complete expulsion of the
Turks from Europe, the great leader was the Hungarian, John Hunyady, born
in 1388. According to some writers, he was a Wallach and the son of a
common soldier. Creasy calls him "the illegitimate son of Sigismund, King
of Hungary, and the fair Elizabeth Morsiney." With him appeared a new
spirit, such as the Ottomans up to that time could not have expected to
encounter in that part of Europe. In Vambery's narrative we have the
authority of Hungary's greatest historian for the leading events in the
life of her greatest hero.

In Europe a new power pulsating with youthful life had arrived from
somewhere in the interior of Asia with the intention of conquering the
world. This power was the Turk--not merely a single nation, but a whole
group of peoples clustered round a nation, inspired by one single idea
which urged them ever forward--"There is no god but God, and Mahomet is
the apostle of God."

The Mahometan flood already beat upon the bounds of Catholic Christendom,
in the forefront of which stood Hungary. Hungary's King, Sigismund, was
able for a moment in 1396 to unite the nations of Europe against the
common danger, but the proud array of mail-clad knights were swept away
like chaff before the steady ranks of the janizaries.

And herewith began the long series of desolating inroads into Hungary,
for the Turks were wont to suck the blood of the nation they had marked
down as their prey. They took the country by surprise, secretly,
suddenly, like a summer storm, appearing in overwhelming numbers,
burning, murdering, robbing, especially men in the hopes of a rich
ransom, or children whom they might bring up as Mahometans and
janizaries. This body, the flower of the Turkish armies, owed its origin
for the most part to the Christian children thus stolen from their
parents and their country. This infantry of the janizaries was the first
standing army in Europe. Living constantly together under a common
discipline, like the inmates of a cloister, they rushed blindly forward
to the cry of "God and his Prophet!" like some splendid, powerful wild
beast eager for prey. The Turkish sultans published the proud order:
"Forward! Let us conquer the whole world; wheresoever we tie up our
horses' heads, that land is our own."

To resist such a nation, that would not listen to negotiation, but only
thirsted for war and conquest, seemed already an impossibility. Europe
trembled with fear at the reports of the formidable attacks designed
against her, and listened anxiously for news from distant Hungary, which
lay, so to say, in the lion's very mouth.

Against such an enemy a soldier of the modern type was useless, one who
slays only in defence of his own life and at the word of command, whose
force consists in the high development of the military art and the
murderous instruments of modern technical science. What was wanted was a
heroic soul, inspired by a burning faith like to that which impelled the
Mahometan soldier. This heroic soul, this burning faith, united to
the tenacious energy of youth, were all found united in John Hunyady,
accompanied withal by a singular talent for leadership in war. He could
not rely for support upon the haughty magnates who could trace their
descent back for centuries and despised the parvenu with a shorter
pedigree and a smaller estate. He was consequently obliged to cast in
his lot with the mass of the lesser nobility, individually weaker, it is
true, but not deficient in spirit and a consciousness of their own worth.
Of this class he soon became the idolized leader. Around him gathered the
hitherto latent forces of Hungarian society, especially from Transylvania
and South Hungary and the Great Hungarian Plain, which suffered most from
the incursions of the Turks, and were therefore most impressed with the
necessity of organizing a system of defence. It was these who were the
first to be inspired by Hurvyady's heroic spirit.

Before commencing his career as independent commander he, following
his father's example, attached himself to the court of Sigismund, the
Emperor-king, in whose train he visited the countries of Western Europe,
Germany, England, and Italy, till he at length returned home, his mind
enriched by experience but with the fervor of his first faith unchilled.

When over fifty years old, he repaired at his sovereign's command to the
south of Hungary to organize the resistance to the Turks. At first he
was appointed ban of Severin, and as such had the chief command of the
fortified places built by the Hungarians for the defence of the Lower
Danube. After that he became waywode of Transylvania, the civil and
military governor of the southeastern corner of the Hungarian kingdom.

Before, however, he had reached these dignities he had fought a
succession of battles and skirmishes with such success that for the
fanatical Turkish soldiery his form, nay, his very name, was an object
of terror. It was Hunyady alone whom they sought to slay on the field of
battle, well persuaded that, he once slain, they would easily deal with
the rest of Hungary. Thus in 1442 a Turkish leader, named Mezid Bey,
burst into Transylvania at the head of eighty thousand men in pursuance
of the Sultan's commands, with no other aim than to take Hunyady dead or
alive.

Nor, indeed, did Hunyady keep them waiting for him. He hurried at the
head of his troops to attack the Turkish leader, who was laying siege to
Hermannstadt. Upon this, Mezid Bey, calling his bravest soldiers around
him, described to them once more Hunyady's appearance, his arms, his
dress, his stature, and his horse, that they might certainly recognize
him. "Slay him only," he exclaimed, "and we shall easily deal with the
rest of them; we shall drive them like a flock of sheep into the presence
of our august master."

On that occasion was seen with what self-sacrificing enthusiasm his
soldiers loved their heroic leader. When they learned from their spies
the purpose of the Turks, they took all possible measures to secure his
precious life. One of their number, Simon Kemeny, who bore a striking
resemblance to Hunyady, determined to sacrifice himself for his leader.
He announced that he would put on Hunyady's clothes and armor. The Turks
would then attack him under the belief that he was the celebrated chief,
and while they were thus engaged the real Hunyady would fall upon them
unexpectedly and put them to flight. At first Hunyady would by no means
consent to this plan, as he did not wish to expose Kemeny to such mortal
danger; but at last, seeing the great military advantages likely to
accrue from it, he consented.

And so, indeed, it fell out. As soon as the battle began, the Turks,
perceiving Simon Kemeny in the garb of Hunyady, directed all their force
against him. Kemeny, after a stout defence, fell, together with a great
number of his followers, and the Turks, seeing him fall, set up a general
cry of triumph and exultation. Just at this critical moment they were
hotly attacked in the flank by the genuine Hunyady. Thus attacked in the
very moment when they imagined that they had already gained the day,
the Turks were thrown into confusion and took wildly to flight. Twenty
thousand corpses were left on the battlefield; among them lay Mezid Bey
himself, together with his sons.

Fearful was the rage of the Turkish Sultan when he heard of the defeat
and death of Mezid Bey, and he at once despatched another army against
Hunyady, which like the first numbered eighty thousand men. This time,
however, Hunyady did not let them enter Transylvania, but waited for
them at the pass known as the Iron Gate, among the high mountains on the
southern boundary of Hungary.

The Hungarian army was not more than fifteen thousand men, so that the
Turks were at least five times as strong. But the military genius of
Hunyady made up for the small number of his followers. He posted them in
a strong position in the rough pass, and attacked the enemy in places
where it was impossible for him to make use of his strength. Thus more
than half the Turkish army perished miserably in the battle. Again their
commander-in-chief fell on the field, together with six subordinate
commanders, while two hundred horse-tail standards fell into Hunyady's
hands as trophies of his victory.

These two splendid victories filled all Europe with joy and admiration.
Christendom again breathed freely; for she felt that a champion sent by a
special providence had appeared, who had both the courage and the ability
to meet and to repel the haughty and formidable foe. But Hunyady was not
content with doing so much. He thought that by this time he might
carry the war into the enemy's country. The plan of operations was
exceptionally daring, yet Hunyady had not resolved on it without careful
consideration. In the mean time, through Hunyady's exertions, Wladislaw
III, the young King of Poland, had been elected king of Hungary. Hunyady
gained the new King over to his plans, and by this means secured the
cooeperation of the higher aristocracy and the armed bands which they
were bound to lead into the field at the King's summons. Hunyady counted
besides on the assistance of Europe; in the first place on the popes, who
were zealous advocates of the war against the Mahometans; next on Venice,
which, as the first commercial city and state at that time, had suffered
severe losses owing to the spread of Turkish dominions; on the gallant
Poles, whose King now wore the Hungarian crown; and lastly upon the
peoples of Christendom in general, whose enthusiasm for a war against the
infidels had been quickened by the report of Hunyady's victories. And,
indeed, at his request the Pope sent some small sums of money, the Poles
furnished an auxiliary force, while numerous volunteers from the rest of
Europe flocked to serve under his banner.

Although the assistance thus furnished was comparatively unimportant, it
nevertheless served to increase his zeal for the daring undertaking. He
and his heroic companions were not only proud of defending their own
native country, but felt that they were the champions of all Christendom
against Ottoman aggression, and their religious enthusiasm kept pace with
their patriotism. If they did not get regiments sent to their aid, they
felt that the eyes of all Europe were upon them, ready to grieve at their
possible ill-success, while their victories would be celebrated with the
_Te Deum_ in the cathedrals of every capital in Europe.

The aggressive campaign was commenced without delay; Hunyady's resolves
were at once translated into fact; he would not allow the beaten foe
time to recover breath. His plan was to cross the Danube, and penetrate
through the passes of the Balkan to Philippopolis, at that time the
capital of the Sultan's dominions, where he kept the main body of his
army. About Christmas, a season in which the Turk does not like to fight,
amid heavy snow and severe cold, the Hungarian army of about thirty
thousand men pressed forward. Hunyady marched in advance with the
vanguard of twelve thousand picked men; after him the King and the Pope's
legate, with the rest of the army. The Sultan, however, with a large body
of men had occupied the passes of the Balkans and prevented their further
advance. This impediment, coupled with the cold and severe weather,
depressed the spirits of the troops, worn out with fatigue. Hunyady,
however, raised their spirits by gaining a victory; lighting one night
upon a body of the enemy, twenty thousand in number, he attacked them at
once and after a few hours' struggle succeeded in dispersing them.

Later on he took two large towns with their citadels, and in three
engagements triumphed over three separate divisions of the enemy.
Learning that a still larger body of Turks was attempting to cut off his
communications with the King's army, he attacked that also and put it to
flight. After that he joined his corps with the main army under the King,
and, indeed, none too soon. Sultan Amurath suddenly arrived with the main
body of his forces, which he strongly intrenched in the narrowest passes
of the Balkans. Hunyady saw that these intrenchments could not be forced,
and did all he could to entice his enemy down into the plain. This he
succeeded in doing. In the battle that ensued the King, too, played
a conspicuous part and received a wound. In the end, however, the
Hungarians gained the victory, and the younger brother of the Grand
Vizier was taken prisoner. So much success was sufficient for Hunyady for
the time, especially as the natural obstacles had proved insurmountable.
The Hungarian army returned home in good order, and the young King made
a triumphal entry into his capital, preceded by a crowd of Turkish
prisoners and captured Turkish ensigns. These last trophies of victory
were deposited in the Coronation Church in the fortress of Buda.

And now something happened which had hitherto been deemed incredible:
the Sultan sued for peace--a true believer and a sovereign, from an
"unbelieving giaour." The peace was concluded, and Hungary again became
possessed of those dependent (South Slavonic) provinces which lay between
the territories of the Sultan and the kingdom of Hungary in the narrower
sense of the word. In three short years Hunyady had undone the work of
years on the part of the Turks. The Sultan, however, soon repented of
what he had done, and continually delayed the fulfilment of his promise
to evacuate certain frontier fortresses. For this cause the young King,
especially incited thereto by the Pope, determined to renew the war.
Hunyady at first opposed the King's resolution, and wished to wait; later
on he was gained over to the King's view, and took up the matter with his
whole soul. The opportunity was inviting, for the Sultan with his main
army was engaged somewhere in Asia, and the Venetians promised to prevent
with their fleet his return to Europe across the narrow seas in the
neighborhood of Constantinople.

The Hungarian army, indeed, set out (1444) on its expedition, and,
continually expecting the arrival of the troops of their allies--the
Emperor of Constantinople and the princes of Albania--penetrated ever
farther and farther into the hostile territory. They were to be joined by
their allies at the town of Varna on the shores of the Black Sea. When,
however, the Hungarians had arrived at that town, they found no trace of
their expected allies, but on the contrary learned with certainty that
the Sultan had succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the Venetians, had
brought his army in small boats over into Europe, and was now following
fast on their track.

Thus all hope of aid from allies was at an end; the brave general and his
small Hungarian force had to rely on their own resources, separated as
they were by some weeks' journey from their own country, while the enemy
would be soon upon them in numbers five times their own. Yet, even so,
Hunyady's faith and courage did not desert him. The proverb says, "If thy
sword be short, lengthen it by a step forward." And Hunyady boldly,
but yet with the caution that behooved a careful general, took up his
position before the Sultan's army. Both he and his Hungarians fought with
dauntless courage, availing themselves of every advantage and beating
back every assault. Already victory seemed to be assured. A few hours
after the battle had begun both the Turkish wings had been broken, and
even the Sultan and the brave janizaries were thinking of flight, when
the young King, the Pole Wladislaw, whom Hunyady had adjured by God to
remain in a place of safety until the combat should be decided, was
persuaded by his Polish suite to fling himself, with the small band in
immediate attendance upon him, right on the centre of the janizaries, so
that he too might have a share in the victory and not leave it all
to Hunyady. The janizaries wavered for a moment under this new and
unexpected attack, but, soon perceiving that they had to do with the King
of Hungary, they closed round his band, which had penetrated far into
their ranks. The King's horse was first hamstrung, and, as it fell, the
King's head was severed from his body, stuck upon the point of a spear,
and exposed to the view of both armies. The Hungarians, shocked at the
unexpected sight, wavered, and, feeling themselves lost, began to fly.
All the entreaties and exhortations of Hunyady were in vain. Such was the
confusion that he could be neither seen nor heard, and in a few minutes
the whole Hungarian army was in headlong flight.

Hunyady, left to himself, had also to seek safety in flight. Alone,
deserted by all, he had to make his way from one place of concealment to
another, till after some weeks' wandering he arrived in Hungary. The bad
news had preceded him, and in consequence everything was in confusion.
Again arose that difficult question: Who should be the new king under
such difficult circumstances? The Sultan's army had, however, suffered
so much in the battle of Varna that for the time he left the Hungarians
unmolested.

The nation was disposed to choose for its king the child Ladislaus, son
of King Albert, the predecessor of Wladislaw. The child, however, was in
the power of the neighboring Prince, Frederick, the Archduke of Austria,
who was not disposed to let him go out of his hands without a heavy
ransom. In these circumstances the more powerful nobles in Hungary took
advantage of the confusion to strengthen each his own position at the
expense of the nation. At first the government of the country was
intrusted to a number of captains, but this proved so evidently
disastrous that the better sort of people succeeded in having them
abolished and Hunyady established as sole governor. For all that,
however, Hunyady had a good deal of trouble with the chief aristocrats,
Garay, Czillei, Ujlaki, who, envying the parvenu his sudden promotion and
despising his obscure origin, took up arms to resist his authority. Thus
Hunyady, instead of blunting the edge of his sword upon foreign foes, had
to bridle the insubordination of his own countrymen. Luckily it did not
take long to force the discontented to own the weight of his arm and his
superiority as a military leader.

Order being thus to some extent reestablished at home, Hunyady was again
able to turn his attention to the Turks. He felt that he had in fact
gained the battle of Varna, which was only lost through the jealous humor
of a youthful king; that it behooved him not to stop half way; that it
was his duty to continue offensive operations. But in so doing he had to
rely upon his own proper forces. It is true that he was governor of the
country, but for the purpose of offensive warfare beyond the frontier he
could not gain the consent of the great nobles.

Luckily his private property had enormously increased by this time. The
Hungarian constitution required the King to bestow the estates of such
noblemen as died without male heirs, or had been condemned for any
offence, on such noblemen as had approved themselves valiant defenders
of the country. Now where could be found a more worthy recipient of such
estates than Hunyady, to whom the public treasury was besides a debtor on
account of the sums he disbursed for the constant warfare he maintained
against the Turks? Especially in the south of Hungary a whole series
of lordly estates, many of them belonging to the crown, had come into
Hunyady's hands, either as pledges for the repayment of the money he had
paid his soldiers, or as his own private property.

The yearly revenue arising from these vast estates was employed by
Hunyady, not in personal expenditure, but in the defence of his country.
He himself lived as simply as any of his soldiers, and recognized no
other use of money than as a weapon for the defence of Christendom
against Islam. In the early morning, while all his suite slept, he passed
hours in prayer before the altar in the dimly lighted church, imploring
the help of the Almighty for the attainment of his sole object in
life--the destruction of the Turkish power. At last, 1448, he set out
against the Sultan with an army of twenty-four thousand of his most
trusty soldiers.

This time it was on the frontier of Servia, on the "Field of Blackbirds,"
that Hunyady encountered Sultan Amurath, who had an army of one hundred
and fifty thousand men--again more than five times the number of the
Christians. Hunyady at first withdrew himself into his intrenched camp,
but in a few days felt himself strong enough to engage with the enemy on
the open field. The battle lasted without interruption for two days and a
night. Hunyady himself was several times in deadly peril. Once his horse
was shot under him. He was to be found wherever assistance, support,
encouragement, were needed. At last, on the morning of the third day,
as the Turks, who had received reinforcements, were about to renew the
attack, the Waywode of Wallachia passed over to the side of the Turks.
The Waywode belonged to the Orthodox Eastern Church. He had joined
Hunyady on the way, and his desertion transferred six thousand men from
one side to the other, and decided the battle in favor of the Turks.
The Hungarians, worn out by fatigue, fell into a discouragement, while
Hunyady had no fresh troops to bring up to their support. The battle came
to a sudden end. Seventeen thousand Hungarian corpses strewed the field,
but the loss of the Turks was more than thirty thousand men.

Hunyady, again left to himself, had again to make his escape. At first
he only dismissed his military suite; afterward he separated from his
faithful servant in the hope that separately they might more easily
baffle their pursuers. Next he had to turn his horse adrift, as the poor
animal was incapable of continuing his journey. Thus he made his way
alone and on foot toward the frontiers of his native land. After a while,
looking down from the top of a piece of elevated ground, he perceived a
large body of Turks, from whom he hid himself in a neighboring lake. He
thus escaped this danger, but only to encounter another. At a turn of
the road he came so suddenly upon a party of Turkish plunderers as to be
unable to escape from them, and thus became their prisoner. But the Turks
did not recognize him, and, leaving him in the hands of two of their
number, the rest went on in search of more prey. His two guards soon came
to blows with one another about a heavy gold cross which they had found
on the person of their captive, and, while they were thus quarrelling,
Hunyady suddenly wrenched a sword out of the hand of one of the two Turks
and cut off his head, upon which the other took to flight, and Hunyady
was again free.

In the mean time, however, George, the Prince of Servia, who took part
with the aristocratic malcontents, and who, although a Christian, out of
pure hatred to Hunyady had gone over to the side of the Turks, had given
strict orders that all Hungarian stragglers were to be apprehended and
brought before him. In this way Hunyady fell into the hands of some
Servian peasants, who delivered him to their Prince. Nor did he regain
his liberty without the payment of a heavy ransom, leaving his son
Ladislaus as hostage in his stead.

He thus returned home amid a thousand perils, and with the painful
experience that Europe left him to his own resources to fight as best he
could against the ever-advancing Turks. The dependencies of the Hungarian
crown, Servia and Wallachia--on whose recovery he had spent so much
blood and treasure--instead of supporting him, as might be expected of
Christian countries, threw themselves in a suicidal manner into the arms
of the Turks. They hoped by their ready submission to find favor in the
eyes of the irresistible conquerors, by whom, however, they were a little
later devoured.

After these events Hunyady continued to act as governor or regent of
Hungary for five years more, by which time the young Ladislaus, son of
King Albert, attained his majority. In 1453 Hunyady finally laid down his
dignity as governor, and gave over the power into the hands of the young
King, Ladislaus V, whom Hunyady had first to liberate by force of arms
from his uncle, Frederick of Austria, before he could set him on the
throne of Hungary. The young King, of German origin, had hardly become
emancipated from his guardian when he fell under the influence of his
other uncle, Ulric Czillei. This Czillei was a great nobleman of Styria,
but was withal possessed of large estates in Hungary. As a foreigner and
as a relative of King Sigismund, he had long viewed with an evil eye
Hunyady's elevation. On one occasion Hunyady had to inflict punishment
on him. He consequently now did everything he could to induce the young
King, his nephew, to hate the great captain as he himself did. He sought
to infuse jealousy into his mind and to lead him to believe that Hunyady
aimed at the crown. His slanders found the readier credence in the
mind of the youthful sovereign as he was completely stupefied by an
uninterrupted course of debauchery. At last the King was brought to agree
to a plan for ensnaring the great man who so often jeoparded his life and
his substance in the defence of his country and religion. They summoned
him in the King's name to Vienna, where Ladislaus, as an Austrian prince,
was then staying, with the intention of waylaying and murdering him. But
Hunyady got wind of the whole plot, and when he arrived at the place of
ambush it was at the head of two thousand picked Hungarian warriors. Thus
it was Czillei who fell into the snare. "Wretched creature!" exclaimed
Hunyady; "thou hast fallen into the pit thou diggedst for me; were it not
that I regard the dignity of the King and my own humanity, thou shouldst
suffer a punishment proportioned to thy crime. As it is, I let thee off
this time, but come no more into my sight, or thou shalt pay for it with
thy life."

Such magnanimity, however, did not disarm the hostility of those who
surrounded the King. On the pretence of treason against the King, Hunyady
was deprived of all his offices and all his estates. The document is
still to be seen in the Hungarian state archives, in which the King, led
astray by the jealousies that prevailed among his councillors, represents
every virtue of the hero as a crime, and condemns him to exile.

Fortunately Czillei himself soon fell into disfavor; the Germans
themselves overthrew him; and the King, now better informed, replaced
Hunyady in the post of captain-general of the kingdom.

Hunyady, who meanwhile had been living retired in one of his castles, now
complied with the King's wish without difficulty or hesitation, and again
assumed the highest military command. Instead of seeking how to revenge
himself after the manner of ordinary men, he only thought of the great
enemy of his country, the Turk. And indeed, as it was, threatening clouds
hung over the horizon in the southeast.

A new sultan had come to the throne, Mahomet II, one of the greatest
sovereigns of the house of Othman. He began his reign with the occupation
of Constantinople, 1453, and thus destroyed the last refuge of the
Byzantine empire. At the news of this event all Europe burst into a
chorus of lamentation. The whole importance of the Eastern question at
once presented itself before the nations of Christendom. It was at once
understood that the new conqueror would not remain idle within the
crumbling walls of Constantinople.

And, indeed, in no long time was published the proud _mot d'ordre_, "As
there is but one God in heaven, so there shall be but one master upon
earth."

Hunyady looked toward Constantinople with heavy heart. He foresaw the
outburst of the storm which would in the first place fall upon his own
country, threatening it with utter ruin. Hunyady, so it seemed, was again
left alone in the defence of Christendom.

The approaching danger was delayed for a few years, but in 1456 Mahomet,
having finally established himself in Constantinople, set out with the
intention of striking a fatal blow against Hungary. On the borders of
that country, on the bank of the Danube, on what was, properly speaking,
Servian territory, stood the fortress of Belgrad. When the danger from
the Turks became imminent, the kings of Hungary purchased the place from
the despots of Servia, giving them in exchange several extensive estates
in Hungary, and had at great expense turned it into a vast fortress, at
that time supposed to be impregnable.

Mahomet determined to take the place, and to this end made the most
extensive preparations. He led to the walls of Belgrad an army of not
less than one hundred and fifty thousand men. The approach of this
immense host so terrified the young King that he left Hungary and took
refuge in Vienna along with his uncle and counsellor, Czillei.

Hunyady alone remained at his post, resolute like a lion attacked. The
energy of the old leader--he was now nearly sixty-eight--was only steeled
by the greatness of the danger; his forethought and his mental resources
were but increased. As he saw that it would be impossible to do anything
with a small army, he sent his friend, John Capistran, an Italian
Franciscan, a man animated by a burning zeal akin to his own, to preach a
crusade against the enemies of Christendom through the towns and villages
of the Great Hungarian Plain. This the friar did to such effect that in a
few weeks he had collected sixty thousand men, ready to fight in defence
of the cross. This army of crusaders--the last in the history of the
nations--had for its gathering cry the bells of the churches; for its
arms, scythes and axes; Christ for its leader, and John Hunyady and John
Capistran for his lieutenants.

The two greatest leaders in war of that day contended for the possession
of Belgrad. The same army now surrounded that fortress which a few years
before had stormed Constantinople, reputed impregnable. The same hero
defended it who had so often in the course of a single decade defeated
the Turkish foe in an offensive war, and who now, regardless of danger,
with a small but faithful band of followers, was prepared to do all that
courage, resolution, and prudence might effect.

Many hundred large cannon began to break down the stone ramparts; many
hundred boats forming a river flotilla covered the Danube, so as to cut
off all communication between the fortress and Hungary. During this time
Hunyady's son Ladislaus and his brother-in-law Michael Szilagyi were in
command in the fortress. Hunyady's first daring plan was to force his way
through the blockading flotilla, and enter Belgrad before the eyes of
the whole Turkish army, taking with him his own soldiers and Capistran's
crusaders. The plan completely succeeded. With his own flotilla of
boats he broke through that of the Turks and made his entrance into the
fortress in triumph. After this the struggle was continued with equal
resolution and ability on both sides; such advantage as the Christians
derived from the protection afforded by the fortifications being fully
compensated by the enormous superiority in numbers both of men and cannon
on the part of the Turks.

Without example in the history of the storming of fortresses was the
stratagem practised by Hunyady when he permitted the picked troops of the
enemy, the janizaries, to penetrate within the fortification, and there
destroyed them in the place they thought they had taken. Ten thousand
janizaries had already swarmed into the town, and were preparing to
attack the bridges and gates of the citadel, when Hunyady ordered lighted
fagots, soaked in pitch and sulphur and other combustibles, to be flung
from the ramparts into the midst of the crowded ranks of the janizaries.
The fire seized on their loose garments, and in a short time the whole
body was a sea of fire. Everyone sought to fly. Then it was that Hunyady
sallied out with his picked band, while Capistran, with a tall cross in
his hand and the cry of "Jesus" on his lips, followed with his crowd of
fanatics, the cannon of the fortress played upon the Turkish camp, the
Sultan himself was wounded and swept along by the stream of fugitives.
Forty thousand Turks were left dead upon the field, four thousand were
taken prisoners, and three thousand cannon were captured.

According to the opinion of Hunyady himself, the Turks had never suffered
such a severe defeat. Its value as far as the Hungarians were concerned
was heightened by the fact that the ambitious Sultan was personally
humiliated. There was now great joy in Europe. At the news of the
brilliant victory the _Te Deum_ was sung in all the more important cities
throughout Europe, and the Pope wished to compliment Hunyady with a
crown.

A crown of another character awaited him--that of his Redeemer, in whose
name he lived, fought, and fell. The exhalations from the vast number of
unburied or imperfectly buried bodies, festering in the heat of summer,
gave rise to an epidemic in the Christian camp, and to this the great
leader fell a victim. Hunyady died August 11, 1456, in the sixty-eighth
year of his age. He died amid the intoxication of his greatest victory,
idolized by his followers, having once more preserved his country from
imminent ruin. Could he have desired a more glorious death?

He went to his last rest with the consciousness that he had fulfilled his
mission, having designed great things and having accomplished them. And
the result of his lifelong efforts survived him. His great enemy, the
Turk, for the next half-century could only harass the frontier of his
native land; and his country, a few years after his death, placed on the
royal throne his son Matthias.

[Footnote 1: By permission of Selmar Hess.]



REBUILDING OF ROME BY NICHOLAS V, THE "BUILDER-POPE"

A.D. 1447-1455

MRS. MARGARET OLIPHANT


Of those pontiffs who are called the pride of modern Rome--through whom
the city "rose most gloriously from her ashes"--Nicholas V (Tommaso
Parentucelli) was the first. He was born at Sarzana, in the republic of
Genoa, about 1398, was ordained priest at the age of twenty-five, became
Archbishop of Bologna, and in 1447 was elevated to the papal chair. His
election was largely due to the influential part he had taken at the
councils of Basel, 1431-1449, and Ferrara-Florence, 1438-1445. In 1449,
by prevailing upon the Antipope, Felix V, to abdicate, he restored the
peace of the Church. He endeavored, but in vain, to arouse Europe to its
duty of succoring the Greek empire.

Although the coming Reformation was already casting its shadow before,
Nicholas stood calm in face of the inevitable event, devoting himself to
the spiritual welfare of the Church and to the interests of learning and
the arts. But he is chiefly remembered as the first pope to conceive a
systematic plan for the reconstruction and permanent restoration of Rome.
He died before that purpose could be executed in accordance with his
great designs; but others, entering into his labors, carried his work to
a fuller accomplishment.

It was to the centre of ecclesiastical Rome, the shrine of the apostles,
the chief church of Christendom and its adjacent buildings, that the care
of the Builder-pope was first directed. The Leonine City of Borgo, as
it is more familiarly called, is that portion of Rome which lies on the
right side of the Tiber, and which extends from the castle of St. Angelo
to the boundary of the Vatican gardens--enclosing the Church of St.
Peter, the Vatican palace with all its wealth, and the great Hospital of
Santo Spirito, surrounded and intersected by many little streets, and
joining to the other portions of the city by the bridge of St. Angelo.

Behind the mass of picture-galleries, museums, and collections of all
kinds, which now fill up the endless halls and corridors of the papal
palace, comes a sweep of noble gardens full of shade and shelter from the
Roman sun, such a resort for the

  "learned leisure
  Which in trim gardens takes its pleasure"

as it would be difficult to surpass. In this fine extent of wood and
verdure the Pope's villa or casino, now the only summer palace which the
existing Pontiff chooses to permit himself, stands as in a domain, small
yet perfect. Almost everything within these walls has been built or
completely transformed since the days of Nicholas. But, then as now,
here was the heart and centre of Christendom, the supreme shrine of the
Catholic faith, the home of the spiritual ruler whose sway reaches over
the whole earth. When Nicholas began his reign, the old Church of St.
Peter was the church of the Western world, then, as now, classical
in form, a stately basilica without the picturesqueness and romantic
variety, and also, as we think, without the majesty and grandeur, of a
Gothic cathedral, yet more picturesque if less stupendous in size and
construction, than the present great edifice, so majestic in its own
grave and splendid way, with which, through all the agitations of the
recent centuries, the name of St. Peter has been identified. The earlier
church was full of riches and of great associations, to which the
wonderful St. Peter's we all know can lay claim only as its successor and
supplanter. With its flight of broad steps, its portico and colonnaded
facade crowned with a great tower, it dominated the square, open and
glowing in the sun, without the shelter of the great existing colonnades
or the sparkle of the fountains.

Behind was the little palace begun by Innocent III, to afford a shelter
for the popes in dangerous times, or on occasion to receive the foreign
guests whose object was to visit the shrine of the apostles. Almost
all the buildings then standing have been replaced by greater, yet the
position is the same, the shrine unchanged, though everything else then
existing has faded away, except some portion of the old wall which
enclosed this sacred place in a special sanctity and security, which was
not, however, always respected. The Borgo was the holiest portion of all
the sacred city. It was there that the blood of the martyrs had been
shed, and where from the earliest age of Christianity their memory and
tradition had been preserved. It was not necessary for us to enter into
the question whether St. Peter ever was in Rome, which many writers have
laboriously contested. So far as the record of the Acts of the Apostles
is concerned, there is no evidence at all for or against, but tradition
is all on the side of those who assert it. The position taken by Signor
Lanciani on this point seems to us a very sensible one. "I write about
the monuments of ancient Rome," he says, "from a strictly archaeological
point of view, avoiding questions which pertain, or are supposed to
pertain, to religious controversy.

"For the archaeologist the presence and execution of SS. Peter and Paul in
Rome are facts established beyond a shadow of doubt by purely monumental
evidence. There was a time when persons belonging to different creeds
made it almost a case of conscience to affirm or deny _a priori_ those
facts, according to their acceptance or rejection of the tradition of
any particular church. This state of feeling is a matter of the past, at
least for those who have followed the progress of recent discoveries and
of critical literature. There is no event of the Imperial age and of
Imperial Rome which is attested by so many noble structures, all of which
point to the same conclusion--the presence and execution of the apostles
in the capital of the Empire. When Constantine raised the monumental
basilicas over their tombs on the Via Cornelia and the Via Ostiensis;
when Eudoxia built the Church ad Vincula; when Damascus put a memorial
tablet in the Platonia and Catacombos; when the houses of Pudens and
Aquila and Prisca were turned into oratories; when the name of Nymphae
Sancti Petri was given to the springs in the catacombs of the Via
Nomentana; when the 29th of June was accepted as the anniversary of St.
Peter's execution; when sculptors, painters, medallists, goldsmiths,
workers in glass and enamel, and engravers of precious stones all began
to reproduce in Rome the likeness of the apostle at the beginning of the
second century, and continued to do so till the fall of the Empire--must
we consider them as laboring under a delusion, or conspiring in the
commission of a gigantic fraud? Why were such proceedings accepted
without protest from whatever city, whatever community--if there were
any other--which claimed to own the genuine tombs of SS. Peter and Paul?
These arguments gain more value from the fact that the evidence on the
other side is purely negative."

This is one of those practical arguments which are always more
interesting than those which depend upon theories and opinions. However,
there are many books on both sides of the question which may be
consulted. We are content to follow Signor Lanciani. The special sanctity
and importance of Il Borgo originated in this belief. The shrine of the
apostle was its centre and glory. It was this that brought pilgrims from
the far corners of the earth before there was any masterpiece of art to
visit, or any of those priceless collections which now form the glory
of the Vatican. The spot of the apostles' execution was indicated "by
immemorial tradition" as between the two goals (_inter duas metas_) of
Nero's Circus, which spot Signor Lanciani tells us is exactly the site
of the obelisk now standing in the piazza of St. Peter. A little chapel,
called the Chapel of the Crucifixion, stood there in the early ages,
before any great basilica or splendid shrine was possible.

This sacred spot, and the church built to commemorate it, were naturally
the centre of all those religious traditions which separate Rome from
every other city. It was to preserve them from assault, "in order that
it should be less easy for the enemy to make depredations and burn the
Church of St. Peter, as they have heretofore done," that Leo IV, the
first pope whom we find engaged in any real work of construction, built a
wall round the mound of the Vatican, and Colle Vaticano--"little hill,"
not so high as the seven hills of Rome--where against the strong wall
of Nero's Circus Constantine had built his great basilica. At that
period--in the middle of the ninth century--there was nothing but the
church and shrine--no palace and no hospital. The existing houses were
given to the Corsi, a family which had been driven out of their island,
according to Platina, by the Saracens, who shortly before had made an
incursion up to the very walls of Rome, whither the peoples of the coast
(_luoghi maritimi del Mar Terreno_) from Naples northward had apparently
pursued the corsairs, and helped the Romans to beat them back. One other
humble building of some sort, "called Burgus Saxonum, Vicus Saxonum,
Schola Saxonum, and simply Saxia or Sassia," it is interesting to know,
existed close to the sacred centre of the place, a lodging built for
himself by Ina, King of Wessex, in 727. Thus the English have a national
association of their own with the central shrine of Christianity.

There was also a Schola Francorum in the Borgo. The pilgrims must have
built their huts and set up some sort of little oratory--favored, as
was the case even in Pope Nicholas' day, by the excellent quarry of
the Circus close at hand--as near as possible to the great shrine
and basilica which they had come so far to say their prayers in, and
attracted, too, no doubt, by the freedom of the lonely suburb between the
green hill and the flowing river. Leo IV built his wall round this little
city, and fortified it by towers. "In every part he put sculptors of
marble and wrote a prayer," says Platina. One of these gates led to St.
Pellegrino, another was close to the castle of St. Angelo, and was "the
gate by which one goes forth to the open country." The third led to the
School of the Saxons; and over each was a prayer inscribed. These three
prayers were all to the same effect--"that God would defend this new city
which the Pope had enclosed with walls and called by his own name, the
Leonine City, from all assaults of the enemy, either by fraud or by
force."

The greatest, however, of all the conceptions of Pope Nicholas, the very
centre of his great plan, was the library of the Vatican, which he began
to build and to which he left all the collections of his life. Vespasian
gives us a list of the principal among these five thousand volumes, the
things which he prized most, which the Pope bequeathed to the Church and
to Rome. These cherished rolls of parchment, many of them translations
made under his own eyes, were enclosed in elaborate bindings ornamented
with gold and silver. We are not, however, informed whether any of the
great treasures of the Vatican library came from his hands--the good
Vespasian taking more interest in the work of his scribes than in
codexes. He tells us of five hundred scudi given to Lorenzo Valle with a
pretty speech that the price was below his merits, but that eventually he
should have more liberal pay; of fifteen hundred scudi given to Guerroni
for a translation of the _Iliad_, and so forth. It is like a bookseller
of the present day vaunting his new editions to a collector in search of
the earliest known. But Pope Nicholas, like most other patrons of his
time, knew no Greek, nor probably ever expected that it would become a
usual subject of study, so that his translations were precious to him,
the chief way of making his treasures of any practical use.

The greater part, alas! of all his splendor has passed away. One pure and
perfect glory, the little Chapel of San Lorenzo, painted by the tender
hand of Fra Angelico, remains unharmed, the only work of that grand
painter to be found in Rome. If one could have chosen a monument for the
good Pope, the patron and friend of art in every form, there could not
have been a better than this. Fra Angelico seems to have been brought to
Rome by Pope Eugenius, but it was under Nicholas, in two or three years
of gentle labor, that the work was done. It is, however, impossible to
enumerate all the undertakings of Pope Nicholas. He did something to
reestablish or decorate almost all the great basilicas. It is feared--but
here our later historians speak with bated breath, not liking to bring
such an accusation against the kind Pope, who loved men of letters--that
the destruction of St. Peter's, afterward ruthlessly carried out by
succeeding popes, was in his plan, on the pretext, so constantly
employed, and possibly believed in, of the instability of the ancient
building. But there is no absolute certainty of evidence, and at all
events he might have repented, for he certainly did not do that deed. He
began the tribune, however, in the ancient church, which may have been a
preparation for the entire renewal of the edifice; and he did much toward
the decoration of another round church, that of the Madonna delle Febbre,
an ill-omened name, attached to the Vatican. He also built the Belvedere
in the gardens, and surrounded the whole with strong walls and towers
(round), one of which, according to Nibby, still remained fifty years
ago, which very little of Nicholas' building has done. His great sin was
one which he shared with all his brother-popes, that he boldly treated
the antique ruins of the city as quarries for his new buildings, not
without protest and remonstrance from many, yet with the calm of a mind
preoccupied and seeing nothing so great and important as the work upon
which his own heart was set.

This excellent Pope died in 1455, soon after having received the news of
the downfall of Constantinople, which is said to have broken his heart.
He had many ailments, and was always a small and spare man of little
strength of constitution; "but nothing transfixed his heart so much as to
hear that the Turks had taken Constantinople and killed the Europeans,
with many thousands of Christians, among them that same 'Imperadore
de Gostantinopli' whom he had seen seated in state at the Council of
Ferrara, listening to his own and other arguments, only a few years
before--as well as the greater part, no doubt, of his own clerical
opponents there. When he was dying, 'being not the less of a strong
spirit,' he called the cardinals round his bed, and many prelates with
them, and made them a last address. His pontificate had lasted a little
more than eight years, and to have carried out so little of his great
plan must have been heavy on his heart; but his dying words are those
of one to whom the holiness and unity of the Church came before all. No
doubt the fear that the victorious Turks might spread ruin over the whole
of Christendom was first in his mind at that solemn hour.

"'Knowing, my dearest brethren, that I am approaching the hour of my
death, I would, for the great dignity and authority of the apostolic see,
make a serious and important testimony before you, not committed to the
memory of letters, not written, neither on a tablet nor on parchment, but
given by my living voice, that it may have more authority. Listen, I pray
you, while your little Pope Nicholas, in the very instant of dying, makes
his last will before you. In the first place I render thanks to the
Highest God for the measureless benefits which, beginning from the day of
my birth until the present day, I have received of his infinite mercy.
And now I recommend to you this beautiful Spouse of Christ, whom, so
far as I was able, I have exalted and magnified, as each of you is well
aware; knowing this to be the honor of God, for the great dignity that is
in her, and the great privileges that she possesses, and so worthy, and
formed by so worthy an Author, who is the Creator of the universe. Being
of sane mind and intellect, and having done that which every Christian is
called to do, and specially the Pastor of the Church, I have received the
most sacred body of Christ with penitence, taking it from his table with
my two hands, and praying the Omnipotent God that he would pardon my
sins. Having had these sacraments I have also received the extreme
unction, which is the last sacrament for the redeeming of my soul.
Again I recommend to you, as long as I am able, the Roman Church,
notwithstanding that I have already done so; for this is the most
important duty you have to fufil in the sight of God and men. This is the
true Spouse of Christ which he bought with his blood. This is the robe
without seam, which the impious Jews would have torn, but could not. This
is that ship of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, agitated and tossed
by varied fortunes of the winds, but sustained by the Omnipotent God, so
that she could never be submerged or shipwrecked. With all the strength
of your souls sustain her and rule her: she has need of your good works,
and you should show a good example by your lives. If you with all your
strength care for her and love her, God will reward you, both in this
present life and in the future with life eternal; and to do this with all
the strength we have, we pray you, do it diligently, dearest brethren.'

"Having said this he raised his hands to heaven and said: 'Omnipotent
God, grant to the holy Church, and to these fathers, a pastor who will
preserve her and increase her; give to them a good pastor who will rule
and govern thy flock the most maturely that one can rule and govern. And
I pray for you and comfort you as much as I know and can. Pray for me to
God in your prayers.' When he had ended these words he raised his right
arm and, with a generous soul, gave the benediction,' _Benedict vos Deus,
Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus_'--speaking with a raised voice and
solemnly, _in modo pontificate_"

These tremulous words, broken and confused by the weakness of his last
hours, were taken down by the favorite scribe, Giannozzo Manetti, in the
chamber of the dying Pope; with much more of the most serious matter
to the Church and to Rome. His eager desire to soften all possible
controversies and produce in the minds of the conclave about his bed, so
full of ambition and the force of life, the softened heart which would
dispose them to a peaceful and conscientious election of his successor,
is very touching, coming out of the fogs and mists of approaching death.

In the very age that produced the Borgias, and himself the head of that
band of elegant scholars and connoisseurs, everything but Christian,
to whom Rome owes so much of her external beauty and splendor, it is
pathetic to stand by this kind and gentle spirit as he pauses on the
threshold of a higher life, subduing the astute and worldly minded
churchmen around him with the tender appeal of the dying father, their
_Papa Niccolato_, familiar and persuasive--beseeching them to be of one
accord without so much as saying it, turning his own weakness to account
to touch their hearts, for the honor of the Church and the welfare of the
flock.



MAHOMET II TAKES CONSTANTINOPLE.

END OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE

A.D. 1453

GEORGE FINLAY


By the greater number of historians the fall of Constantinople under the
Moslem power is considered as the decisive event which separates the
modern from the mediaeval period. From the same event dates the final
establishment of the Ottoman empire both in Asia Minor and in Europe. At
that moment, when the Moorish power in Spain had been almost destroyed,
Christian Europe was threatened for the second time with Mahometan
conquest.

From 1354, when Suleiman crossed the Hellespont and captured Gallipoli,
the Turks from Asia Minor had kept their foothold on European soil. Under
Amurath I (1359-1389), Bajazet I (1389-1403), Mahomet I and Amurath
II (1404-1451)--the last of whom, in 1422, unsuccessfully besieged
Constantinople--the Ottoman dominions in Europe were much extended. When
Mahomet II, son of Amurath II, became Sultan (1451), the Turks were so
strongly established, and the Eastern Empire was so much weakened, that
he was prepared to finish the work of his predecessors and make the
Ottoman power in Europe what it has ever since been.

Mahomet "the Conqueror"--such was his surname--had for his adversary
Constantine XIII, the last of the Greek emperors, who was proclaimed in
1448, with the consent of Amurath II, whose power is thus attested. The
Empire was torn by the quarrels of political factions and by theological
dissensions. When Mahomet succeeded to the sultanate he was but
twenty-one years old, but had already given proof of great talents,
learning, and ambition, all guided by a judgment of remarkable maturity.

The first object of Mahomet's ambition was the conquest of
Constantinople, the natural capital of his dominions. As long as it was
held by Eastern Christians the Ottoman empire was open to invasion
by those of the West. The first threatening act of Mahomet was the
construction of a fortress on Constantine's territory, at the narrowest
part of the Bosporus, and within five miles of Constantinople.
Constantine was too weak to resent the menace with vigor, and Mahomet
treated his mild protest with contempt, denying the right of a vassal of
the Porte to dispute the Sultan's will. A feeble resistance by some
of the Greeks only gave Mahomet pretexts for further aggression, soon
followed by his formal declaration of war.


Both parties began to prepare for the mortal contest. The siege of
Constantinople was to be the great event of the coming year. The Sultan,
in order to prevent the Emperor's brothers in the Peloponnesus from
sending any succors to the capital, ordered Turakhan, the Pacha of
Thessaly, to invade the peninsula. He himself took up his residence at
Adrianople, to collect warlike stores and siege artillery. Constantine,
on his part, made every preparation in his power for a vigorous defence.
He formed large magazines of provisions, collected military stores, and
enrolled all the soldiers he could muster among the Greek population of
Constantinople. But the inhabitants of that city were either unable or
unwilling to furnish recruits in proportion to their numbers. Bred up in
peaceful occupation, they probably possessed neither the activity nor the
habitual exercise which was required to move with ease under the weight
of armor then in use. So few were found disposed to fight for their
country that not more than six thousand Greek troops appeared under arms
during the whole siege.

The numerical weakness of the Greek army rendered it incapable of
defending so large a city as Constantinople, even with all the advantage
to be derived from strong fortifications. The Emperor was therefore
anxious to obtain the assistance of the warlike citizens of the Italian
republics, where good officers and experienced troops were then numerous.
As he had no money to engage mercenaries, he could only hope to succeed
by papal influence. An embassy was sent to Pope Nicholas V, begging
immediate aid, and declaring the Emperor's readiness to complete the
union of the churches in any way the Pope should direct. Nicholas
despatched Cardinal Isidore, the Metropolitan of Kiev, who had joined the
Latin Church, as his legate. Isidore had represented the Russian Church
at the Council of Florence; but on his return to Russia he was imprisoned
as an apostate, and with difficulty escaped to Italy. He was by birth
a Greek; and being a man of learning and conciliatory manners, it was
expected that he would be favorably received at Constantinople.

The Cardinal arrived at Constantinople in November, 1452. He was
accompanied by a small body of chosen troops, and brought some
pecuniary aid, which he employed in repairing the most dilapidated
part of the fortifications. Both the Emperor and the Cardinal deceived
themselves in supposing that the dangers to which the Greek nation and
the Christian Church were exposed would induce the orthodox to yield
something of their ecclesiastical forms and phrases. It was evident that
foreign aid could alone save Constantinople, and it was absurd to imagine
that the Latins would fight for those who treated them as heretics and
who would not fight for themselves. The crisis therefore compelled the
Greeks to choose between union with the Church of Rome or submission to
the Ottoman power. They had to decide whether the preservation of the
Greek empire was worth the ecclesiastical sacrifices they were called
upon to make in order to preserve their national independence.

In the mean time the emperor Constantine celebrated his union with the
papal Church, in the Cathedral of St. Sophia, on December 12, 1452. The
court and the great body of the dignified clergy ratified the act by
their presence; but the monks and the people repudiated the connection.
In their opinion, the Church of St. Sophia was polluted by the ceremony,
and from that day it was deserted by the orthodox. The historian Ducas
declares that they looked upon it as a haunt of demons, and no better
than a pagan shrine. The monks, the nuns, and the populace publicly
proclaimed their detestation of the union; and their opposition was
inflamed by the bigotry of an ambitious pedant, who, under the name of
Georgius Scholarius, acted as a warm partisan of the union at the Council
of Florence, and under the ecclesiastical name of Gennadius is known in
history as the subservient patriarch of Sultan Mahomet II. On returning
from Italy, he made a great parade of his repentance for complying
with the unionists at Florence. He shut himself up in the monastery
of Pantokrator, where he assumed the monastic habit and the name of
Gennadius, under which he consummated the union between the Greek Church
and the Ottoman administration.

At the present crisis he stepped forward as the leader of the most
bigoted party, and excited his followers to the most furious opposition
to measures which he had once advocated as salutary for the Church, and
indispensable to the preservation of the State. The unionists were now
accused of sacrificing true religion to the delusion of human policy, of
insulting God to serve the Pope, and of preferring the interests of their
bodies to the care of their souls. In place of exhorting their countrymen
to aid the Emperor, who was straining every nerve to defend their
country--in place of infusing into their minds the spirit of patriotism
and religion, these teachers of the people were incessantly inveighing
against the wickedness of the unionists and the apostasy of the Emperor.
So completely did their bigotry extinguish every feeling of patriotism
that the grand duke Notaras declared he would rather see Constantinople
subjected to the turban of the Sultan than to the tiara of the Pope.

His wish was gratified; but, in dying, he must have felt how fearfully he
had erred in comparing the effects of papal arrogance with the cruelty of
Mahometan tyranny. The Emperor Constantine, who felt the importance of
the approaching contest, showed great prudence and moderation in his
difficult position. The spirit of Christian charity calmed his temper,
and his determination not to survive the empire gave a deliberate
coolness to his military conduct. Though his Greek subjects often raised
seditions, and reviled him in the streets, the Emperor took no notice of
their behavior. To induce the orthodox to fight for their country, by
having a leader of their own party, he left the grand duke Notaras in
office; yet he well knew that this bigot would never act cordially with
the Latin auxiliaries, who were the best troops in the city; and the
Emperor had some reason to distrust the patriotism of Notaras, seeing
that he hoarded his immense wealth, instead of expending a portion of it
for his country.

The fortifications were not found to be in a good state of repair.
Two monks who had been intrusted with a large sum for the purpose of
repairing them had executed their duty in an insufficient and it was
generally said in a fraudulent manner. The extreme dishonesty that
prevailed among the Greek officials explains the selection of monks as
treasurers for military objects; and it must lessen our surprise at
finding men of their religious professions sharing in the general
avarice, or tolerating the habitual peculations of others.

Cannon were beginning to be used in sieges, but stone balls were used in
the larger pieces of artillery; and the larger the gun, the greater was
the effect it was expected to produce. Even in Constantinople there was
some artillery too large to be of much use, as the land wall had not been
constructed to admit of their recoil, and the ramparts were so weak as
to be shaken by their concussion. Constantine had also only a moderate
supply of gunpowder. The machines of a past epoch in military science,
but to the use of which the Greeks adhered with their conservative
prejudices, were brought from the storehouses, and planted on the walls
beside the modern artillery. Johann Grant, a German officer, was the most
experienced artilleryman and military engineer in the place.

A considerable number of Italians hastened to Constantinople as soon as
they heard of its danger, eager to defend so important a depot of Eastern
commerce. The spirit of enterprise and the love of military renown had
become as much a characteristic of the merchant nobles of the commercial
republics as they had been, in a preceding age, distinctions of the
barons in feudal monarchies. All the nations who then traded with
Constantinople furnished contingents to defend its walls. A short time
before the siege commenced, John Justiniani arrived with two Genoese
galleys and three hundred chosen troops, and the Emperor valued his
services so highly that he was appointed general of the guard. The
resident bailo of the Venetians furnished three large galeases and a body
of troops for the defence of the port. The consul of Catalans, with his
countrymen and the Aragonese, undertook the defence of the great palace
of Bukoleon and the port of Kontoskalion. Cardinal Isidore, with the
papal troops, defended the Kynegesion, and the angle of the city at the
head of the port down to St. Demetrius. The importance of the aid which
was afforded by the Latins is proved by the fact that of twelve military
divisions, into which Constantine divided the fortifications, the
commands of only two were intrusted to the exclusive direction of Greek
officers. In the others, Greeks shared the command with foreigners, or
aliens alone conducted the defence.

When all Constantine's preparations for defence were completed, he found
himself obliged to man a line of wall on the land side of about five
miles in length, every point of which was exposed to a direct attack. The
remainder of the wall toward the port and the Propontis exceeded nine
miles in extent, and his whole garrison hardly amounted to nine thousand
men. His fleet consisted of only twenty galleys and three Venetian
galeases, but the entry of the port was closed by a chain, the end of
which, on the side of Galata, was secured in a strong fort of which the
Greeks kept possession. During the winter the Emperor sent out his fleet
to ravage the coast of the Propontis as far as Cyzicus, and the spirit of
the Greeks was roused by the booty they made in these expeditions.

Mahomet II spent the winter at Adrianople, preparing everything necessary
for commencing the siege with vigor. His whole mind was absorbed by
the glory of conquering the Roman Empire and gaining possession of
Constantinople, which for more than eleven hundred fifty years had been
the capital of the East. While the fever of ambition inflamed his soul,
his cooler judgment also warned him that the Ottoman power rested on a
perilous basis as long as Constantinople, the true capital of his
empire, remained in the hands of others. Mahomet could easily assemble a
sufficient number of troops for his enterprise, but it required all his
activity and power to collect the requisite supplies of provisions
and stores for the immense military and naval force he had ordered to
assemble, and to prepare the artillery and ammunition necessary to insure
success.

Early and late, in his court and in his cabinet, the young Sultan could
talk of nothing but the approaching siege. With the writing-reed and
a scroll of paper in his hand he was often seen tracing plans of the
fortifications of Constantinople, and marking out positions for his own
batteries. Every question relating to the extent and locality of the
various magazines to be constructed in order to maintain the troops was
discussed in his presence; he himself distributed the troops in their
respective divisions and regulated the order of their march; he issued
the orders relating to the equipment of the fleet, and discussed the
various methods proposed for breaching, mining, and scaling the walls.
His enthusiasm was the impulse of a hero, but the immense superiority of
his force would have secured him the victory with any ordinary degree of
perseverance.

The Ottomans were already familiar with the use of cannon. Amurath II had
employed them when he besieged Constantinople in 1422; but Mahomet now
resolved on forming a more powerful battering-train than had previously
existed. Neither the Greeks nor Turks possessed the art of casting large
guns. Both were obliged to employ foreigners. An experienced artilleryman
and founder named Urban, by birth a Wallachian, carried into execution
the Sultan's wishes. He had passed some time in the Greek service; but,
even the moderate pay he was allowed by the Emperor having fallen in
arrear, he resigned his place and transferred his services to the Sultan,
who knew better how to value warlike knowledge. He now gave Mahomet
proof of his skill by casting the largest cannon which had ever been
fabricated. He had already placed one of extraordinary size in the
new castle of the Bosporus, which carried across the straits. The gun
destined for the siege of Constantinople far exceeded in size this
monster, and the diameter of its mouth must have been nearly two feet
and a half. Other cannon of great size, whose balls of stone weighed one
hundred fifty pounds, were also cast, as well as many guns of smaller
calibre. All these, together with a number of ballistae and other ancient
engines still employed in sieges, were mounted on carriages in order to
transport them to Constantinople. The conveyance of this formidable train
of artillery, and of the immense quantity of ammunition required for its
service, was by no means a trifling operation.

The first division of the Ottoman army moved from Adrianople in February,
1453. In the mean time a numerous corps of pioneers worked constantly at
the road, in order to prepare it for the passage of the long train of
artillery and baggage wagons. Temporary bridges, capable of being
taken to pieces, were erected by the engineers over every ravine and
water-course, and the materials for every siege advanced steadily, though
slowly, to their destination. The extreme difficulty of moving the
monster cannon with its immense balls retarded the Sultan's progress, and
it was the beginning of April before the whole battering-train reached
Constantinople, though the distance from Adrianople is barely a hundred
miles. The division of the army under Karadja Pacha had already reduced
Mesembria and the castle of St. Stephanus. Selymbria alone defended
itself, and the fortifications were so strong that Mahomet ordered it to
be closely blockaded, and left its fate to be determined by that of the
capital.

On April 6th Sultan Mahomet II encamped on the slope of the hill facing
the quarter of Blachern, a little beyond the ground occupied by the
crusaders in 1203, and immediately ordered the construction of lines
extending from the head of the port to the shore of the Propontis. These
lines were formed of a mound of earth, and they served both to restrain
the sorties of the besieged and to cover the troops from the fire of
the enemy's artillery and missiles. The batteries were then formed; the
principal were erected against the gate of Charsias, in the quarter of
Blachern, and against the gate of St. Romanus, near the centre of the
city wall. It was against this last gate that the fire of the monster gun
was directed and the chief attack was made.

The land forces of the Turks probably amounted to about seventy thousand
men of all arms and qualities; but the real strength of the army lay in
the corps of janizaries, then the best infantry in Europe, and their
number did not exceed twelve thousand. At the same time, twenty thousand
cavalry, mounted on the finest horses of the Turkoman breed, and hardened
by long service, were ready to fight either on horseback or on foot,
under the eye of their young Sultan. The fleet which had been collected
along the Asiatic coast, from the ports of the Black Sea to those of
the Aegean, brought additional supplies of men, provisions, and military
stores. It consisted of three hundred twenty vessels of various sizes
and forms. The greater part were only half-decked coasters, and even the
largest were far inferior in size to the galleys and galeases of the
Greeks and Italians.

The fortifications of Constantinople toward the land side vary so little
from a straight line that they afford great facilities for attack. The
defences had been originally constructed on a magnificent scale and with
great skill, according to the ancient art of war. Even though they were
partly ruined by time and weakened by careless reparations, they still
offered a formidable obstacle to the imperfect science of the engineers
in Mahomet's army. Two lines of wall, each flanked with its own towers,
rose one above the other, overlooking a broad and deep ditch. The
interval between these walls enabled the defenders to form in perfect
security, and facilitated their operations in clearing the ditch and
retarding the preparation for assault. The actual appearance of the low
walls of Constantinople, with the ditch more than half filled up, gives
only an incorrect picture of their former state.

Mahomet had made his preparations for the siege with so much skill that
his preliminary works advanced with unexpected rapidity. The numerical
superiority of his army, and the precautions he had adopted for
strengthening his lines, rendered the sorties of the garrison useless.
The ultimate success of the defence depended on the arrival of assistance
from abroad; but the numbers of the Ottoman fleet seemed to render even
this hope almost desperate. An incident occurred that showed the
immense advantage conferred by skill, when united with courage, over an
apparently irresistible superiority of force in naval warfare. Four large
ships, laden with grain and stores, one of which bore the Greek and the
other the Genoese flag, had remained for some time wind-bound at Chios,
and were anxiously expected at Constantinople. At daybreak these ships
were perceived by the Turkish watchmen steering for Constantinople, with
a strong breeze in their favor. The war-galleys of the Sultan immediately
got under way to capture them. The Sultan himself rode down to the point
of Tophane to witness a triumph which he considered certain and which he
thought would reduce his enemy to despair. The Greeks crowded the walls
of the city, offering up prayers for their friends and trembling for
their safety in the desperate struggle that awaited them. The Christians
had several advantages which their nautical experience enabled them to
turn to good account. The good size of their ships, the strength of their
construction, their weight, and their high bulwarks were all powerful
means of defence when aided by a stiff breeze blowing directly in the
teeth of their opponents. The Turks were compelled to row their galleys
against this wind and the heavy sea it raised. In vain they attacked the
Christians with reckless valor, fighting under the eye of their fiery
sovereign. The skill of their enemy rendered all their attacks abortive.
In vain one squadron attempted to impede the progress of the Christians,
while another endeavored to run alongside and carry them by boarding.
Every Turkish galley that opposed their progress was crushed under the
weight of their heavy hulls, while those that endeavored to board had
their oars shivered in the shock, and drifted helpless far astern. The
few that succeeded for a moment in retaining their place alongside were
either sunk by immense angular blocks of stone that were dropped on their
frail timbers, or were filled with flames and smoke by the Greek fire
that was poured upon them. The rapidity with which the best galleys were
sunk or disabled appalled the bravest; and at last the Turks shrank from
close combat on an element where they saw that valor without experience
was of no avail. The Christian ships, in the mean time, held steadily on
their course, under all the canvas their masts could carry, until they
rounded the point of St. Demetrius and entered the port, where the chain
was joyfully lowered to admit them.

The young Sultan, on seeing the defeat of his galleys, lost all command
over his temper. He could hardly be restrained from urging his horse into
the sea, and in his frantic passion heaped every term of abuse and
insult on his naval officers. He even talked of ordering his admiral,
Baltaoghlu, to be impaled on the spot; but the janizaries present
compelled even Mahomet to restrain his vengeance. This check revealed to
Mahomet the extent of the danger to which his naval force was exposed
should either the Genoese or Venetians send a powerful fleet to the
assistance of the emperor Constantine.

This naval discomfiture was also attended by some disasters on shore. The
monster cannon burst before it had produced any serious impression on the
walls. Its loss, however, was soon replaced; but the Ottoman army was
repulsed in a general attack. An immense tower of timber, mounted on many
wheels, and constructed on the model used in sieges from the time of the
ancient Greeks and Romans, was dragged up to the edge of the ditch. Under
its cover, workmen were incessantly employed throwing materials into the
ditch to enable the tower itself to approach the walls, while the fire of
several guns and the operations of a corps of miners ruined the opposite
tower of the city. The progress of the besiegers induced them to risk an
assault, in which they were repulsed, after a hard-fought struggle: and
during the following night John Justiniani made a great sortie, during
which his workmen cleared the ditch, and his soldiers filled the tower
with combustible materials and burned it to the ground. Its exterior,
having been protected by a triple covering of buffalo-hides, was found to
be impervious even to Greek fire.

In order to counteract the effect of these defeats, which had depressed
the courage of the Ottomans and raised the spirits of the Greeks, the
Sultan resolved to adopt measures for placing his fleet in security, and
facilitating the communication between the army before Constantinople and
the naval camp on the Bosporus. The Venetians had recently transported
a number of their galleys from the river Adige overland to the lake
of Garda. This exploit, which had been loudly celebrated at the time,
suggested to the Sultan the idea of transporting a number of vessels from
the Bosporus into the port of Constantinople, where the smooth water and
the command of the shore would secure to his ships the mastery of the
upper half of that extensive harbor. The distance over which it was
necessary to transport the galleys was only five miles, but a steep
hill presented a formidable obstacle to the undertaking. Mahomet,
nevertheless, having witnessed the transport of his monster cannon
over rivers and hills, was persuaded that his engineers would find no
difficulty in moving his ships overland. A road was accordingly made, and
laid with strong planks and wooden rails, which were plastered over with
tallow. It extended from the station occupied by the fleet at Dolma
Baktshe to the summit of the ridge near the Cemetery of Pera. On this
inclined plane, with the assistance of windlasses and numerous yokes of
oxen, the vessels were hauled up one after the other to the summit of the
hill, from whence they descended with difficulty to the point beyond
the present arsenal, where they were launched into the port under the
protection of batteries prepared for their defence. Historians, wishing
to give a dramatic character to their pages, have attributed marvellous
difficulties to this daring exploit. It was a well-conceived and
well-executed undertaking, for a division of the Ottoman fleet was
conveyed into the port in a single night, where the Greeks, at the
dawn of day, were amazed at beholding the hostile ships safe under the
protection of inexpugnable batteries.

To establish an easy and rapid communication between the naval camp
on the Bosporus and the army before Constantinople, Mahomet ordered a
floating bridge to be constructed across the port, from the point near
the old foundry, on the side of Galata, to that near the angle of the
city walls, near Haivan Serai, the ancient amphitheatre. The roadway of
this bridge was supported on the enormous jars used for storing oil and
wine, numbers of which were easily collected in the suburbs of Galata.
These jars, when bound together with their mouth inverted in the water,
formed admirable pontoons. Artillery was mounted on this bridge and the
galleys were brought up to the city walls, which were now assailed from
a quarter hitherto safe from attack. The Genoese under Justiniani on one
occasion, and the Venetians on another, were defeated in their attempts
to burn the Turkish fleet and destroy the bridge. The fire of the
artillery rendered the attacks of the Italians abortive, and their
failure afforded a decisive proof that the defence of the city was
becoming desperate. To avoid the admission of their inferiority in
force, the defeated parties threw the blame on one another, and their
dissensions became so violent that the Emperor could hardly appease the
quarrel.

During all the labors of the besiegers in other quarters, the approaches
were pushed vigorously forward against the land wall. Though the activity
in other and more novel operations might attract greater attention, the
industry of those engaged in filling up the ditch, and the fire of the
breaching batteries, never relaxed. Though all attempts to cross the
ditch at the gate of St. Romanus were long baffled by the Greeks, and
the mining operations at Blachern were discovered and defeated by Johann
Grant, still the superior number and indefatigable perseverance of the
Ottomans at last filled up the ditch, and the fire of their guns ruined
the walls. A visible change in the state of the fortifications encouraged
the assailants, and showed the besieged that the enemy was gradually
gaining a decided advantage. At the commencement of the siege, the
Ottoman engineers had displayed so little knowledge of the mode of using
artillery to effect a breach that a Hungarian envoy from John Hunyady,[1]
who visited Mahomet's camp, ridiculed the idea of their producing any
effect on the walls of Constantinople. This stranger was said to have
taught the Turks to fire in volleys, and to cut the wall in rectangular
sections, in order to produce a practicable breach.

The batteries at length effected a practicable breach at the gate of St.
Romanus. Before issuing his final orders for the assault, Mahomet
II summoned the Emperor to surrender the city, and offered him a
considerable appanage as a vassal of the Porte elsewhere. Constantine
rejected the insulting offer, and the Sultan prepared to take
Constantinople by storm. Four days were employed in the Ottoman camp
making all the arrangements necessary for a simultaneous attack by land
and sea along the whole line of the fortifications, from the modern
quarter of Phanar to the Golden Gate. The Greeks and Latins within the
walls were not less active in their exertions to meet the crisis. The
Latins were sustained by their habits of military discipline, and their
experiences of the chances of war; the Greeks placed great confidence in
some popular prophecies which foretold the ultimate defeat of the Turks.
They felt a pious conviction that the imperial and orthodox city would
never fall into the hands of infidels. But the emperor Constantine was
deceived by no vain hopes. He knew that human prudence and valor could do
no more than had been done to retard the progress of the besiegers.

Time had been gained, but the Greeks showed no disposition to fight for a
heretical emperor, and no succors arrived from the Pope and the western
princes. Constantine could now only hope to prolong the defence for a
few hours, and, when the city fell, to bring his own life to a glorious
termination by dying on the breach.

On the night before the assault, the Emperor rode round to all the posts
occupied by the garrison, and encouraged the troops to expect victory by
his cheerful demeanor. He then visited the Church of St. Sophia, already
deserted by the orthodox, where with his attendants he partook of the
holy sacrament according to the Latin form. He returned for a short time
to the imperial palace, and, on quitting it to take his station at the
great breach, he was so overcome by the certainty that he should
never again behold those present that he turned to the members of his
household, many of whom had been the companions of his youth, and
solemnly asked them to pardon every offence he had ever given them. Tears
burst from all present as Constantine mounted his horse and rode slowly
forward to meet his fate.

The contrast between the city of the Christians and the camp of the
Mahometans was not encouraging. Within the walls an emperor in the
decline of life commanded a small and disunited force, with twenty
leaders under his orders, each at the head of an almost independent band
of Greek, Genoese, Venetian, or Catalan soldiers. So slight was the tie
which bound these various chiefs together that, even when they were
preparing for the final assault, the Emperor was obliged to use all his
authority and personal influence to prevent Justiniani and the grand duke
Notaras from coming to blows. Justiniani demanded to be supplied with
some additional guns for the defence of the great breach, but Notaras,
who had the official control over the artillery, peremptorily refused the
demand.

In the Turkish camp, on the other hand, perfect unity prevailed, and a
young, ardent, and able sovereign concentrated in his hands the most
despotic authority over a numerous and well-disciplined army. To excite
the energy of that army to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, the Sultan
proclaimed to his troops that he granted them the whole plunder of
Constantinople, reserving to himself only the public buildings. The day
of the battle was regarded as a religious festival in the Ottoman camp,
and on the previous night lamps were hung out before every tent, and
fires were kindled on every eminence in or near the lines. Thousands of
lanterns were suspended from the flagstaffs of the batteries and from the
masts and yards of the ships, and were reflected in the waters of
the Propontis, the Golden Horn, and the Bosporus. The whole Ottoman
encampment was resplendent with the blaze of this illumination. Yet a
deep silence prevailed during the whole night, except when the musical
cadence of the solemn chant of the call to prayers showed the Greeks the
immense numbers and the strict discipline of the host.

Before the dawn of day, on the morning of May 29, 1453, the signal was
given for the attack. Column after column marched forward, and took up
its ground before the portion of the wall it was ordered to assail. The
galleys, fitted with towers and scaling-platforms, advanced against the
fortifications of the port protected by the guns on the bridge. But the
principal attack was directed against the breach at the gate of St.
Romanus, where two flanking towers had fallen into the ditch and opened
a passage into the interior of the city. The gate of Charsias and the
quarter of Blachern were also assailed by chosen regiments of janizaries
in overwhelming numbers. The attack was made with daring courage, but for
more than two hours every point was successfully defended. In the port,
the Italian and Greek ships opposed the Turkish galleys so effectually
that the final result appeared to favor the besieged. But on the land
side, one column of troops followed the other in an incessant stream. The
moment a division fell back from the assault, new battalions occupied its
place. The valor of the besieged was for some time successful, but they
were at last fatigued by their exertions, and their scanty numbers were
weakened by wounds and death. Unfortunately, Justiniani, the protostrator
or marshal of the army, and the ablest officer in the place, received a
wound which induced him to retire on board his ship to have it dressed.
Until that moment he and the Emperor had defended the great breach with
advantage; but after his retreat Sagan Pacha, observing that the energy
of the defenders was relaxed, excited the bravest of the janizaries to
mount to the assault. A chosen company led by Hasan of Ulubad, a man of
gigantic frame, first crossed the ruins of the wall, and their leader
gained the summit of the dilapidated tower which flanked the breach.
The defenders, headed by the emperor Constantine, made a desperate
resistance. Hasan and many of his followers were slain, but the
janizaries had secured the vantage-ground, and, fresh troops pouring in
to their aid, they surrounded the defenders of the breach. The Emperor
fell amid a heap of slain, and a column of janizaries rushed into
Constantinople over his lifeless body.

About the same time another corps of the Ottomans forced an entrance into
the city at the gate of the Circus, which had been left almost without
defence, for the besieged were not sufficiently numerous to guard the
whole line of the fortifications, and their best troops were drawn to the
points where the attacks were fiercest. The corps that forced the gate of
the Circus took the defenders of the gate of Charsias in the rear, and
overpowered all resistance in the quarter of Blachern.

Several gates were now thrown open, and the army entered Constantinople
at several points. The cry that the enemy had stormed the walls preceded
their march. Senators, priests, monks, and nuns, men, women, and
children, all rushed to seek safety in St. Sophia's. A prediction current
among the Greeks flattered them with the vain hope that an angel would
descend from heaven and destroy the Mahometans, in order to reveal the
extent of God's love for the orthodox. St. Sophia's, which for some time
they had forsaken as a spot profaned by the Emperor's attempt at a union
of the Christian world, was again revered as the sanctuary of orthodoxy,
and was crowded with the flower of the Greek nation, confident of
a miraculous interposition in favor of their national pride and
ecclesiastical prejudices.

The besiegers, when they first entered the city, fearing lest they might
encounter serious resistance in the narrow streets, put every soul they
encountered to the sword. But as soon as they were fully aware of the
small number of the garrison, and the impossibility of any further
opposition, they began to make prisoners. At length they reached St.
Sophia's, and, rushing into that magnificent temple, which could with
ease contain twenty thousand persons, they performed deeds of plunder and
violence not unlike the scenes which the crusaders had enacted in the
same spot in 1204. The men, women, and children who had sought safety
in the building were divided among the soldiers as slaves, without any
reference to their rank or respect for their ties of blood, and hurried
off to the camp, or placed under the guard of comrades, who formed a
joint alliance for the security of their plunder. The ecclesiastical
ornaments and church plate were poor indeed when compared with the
immense riches of the Byzantine cathedral in the time of the crusaders;
but whatever was movable was immediately divided among the soldiers with
such celerity that the mighty temple soon presented few traces of having
been a Christian church.

While one division of the victorious army was engaged in plundering the
southern side of the city, from the gate of St. Romanus to the Church
of St. Sophia, another, turning to the port, made itself master of the
warehouses that were filled with merchandise, and surrounded the Greek
troops under the grand duke Notaras. The Greeks were easily subdued,
and Notaras surrendered himself a prisoner. About midday the Turks were
in possession of the whole city, and Mahomet II entered his new capital
at the gate of St. Romanus, riding triumphantly past the body of the
emperor Constantine, which lay concealed among the slain in the breach
he had defended. The Sultan rode straight to the Church of St. Sophia,
where he gave the necessary orders for the preservation of all the
public buildings. Even during the license of the sack, the severe
education and grave character of the Ottomans exerted a powerful
influence on their conduct, and on this occasion there was no example
of the wanton destruction and wilful conflagrations that had signalized
the Latin conquest. To convince the Greeks that their orthodox empire
was extinct, Mahomet ordered a mollah to ascend the bema and address
a sermon to the Mussulmans, announcing that St. Sophia was now a mosque
set apart for the prayers of the true believers. To put an end to all
doubts concerning the death of the Emperor, he ordered Constantine's
head to be brought and exposed to the people of the capital, from
whence it was afterward sent as a trophy to be seen by the Greeks of
the principal cities in the Ottoman empire.

[Footnote 1: The great Hungarian leader, who long fought against the
Turks, and signally defeated them at Belgrad in 1456.--ED.]



WARS OF THE ROSES

DEATH OF RICHARD III AT BOSWORTH

A.D. 1455-1485

DAVID HUME


Historians themselves declare that no part of English history since the
Norman Conquest is so obscure and uncertain as that of the Wars of the
Roses. "All we can distinguish with certainty through the deep cloud
which covers that period is a scene of horror and bloodshed, savage
manners, arbitrary executions and treacheries, dishonorable conduct in
all parties." These brutal aspects of that horrid drama of history,
running through more than the course of a full generation, are depicted
for the mimic stage by Shakespeare, in _Henry VI and Richard III_, with
a vividness that brings before us the ghastly realities of the historic
theatre itself, and with such realization of the rude forces at work
as calls for all the poet's refining art to make their representation
tolerable to modern spectators.

But the historians, while consciously failing to discover the hidden
motives of intrigue and treachery which throughout actuated the parties
to this fearful struggle of Englishmen with Englishmen, have nevertheless
recorded for us its main outlines and leading episodes with sufficient
clearness. We are enabled to see England as she was in that great
transition of her "making"--in the throes of civil strife, again to be
endured two centuries later--through which she must pass before she could
become a "land of settled government."

During the weak reign of Henry VI, France was delivered from English
rule, mainly through the heroism of Jeanne d'Arc. In 1450 the commons
rose against King Henry and the house of Lancaster, to which he belonged,
and declared in favor of the house of York--these houses having already
come into serious rivalry for the supreme power. The disasters in France
strengthened the Yorkists, and brought their representative, Richard,
Duke of York, to the front, with armed forces to support his claims.
In 1452 he marched upon London, demanding the removal of the Duke of
Somerset, Henry's chief minister, but a conflict was temporarily averted.
When, in 1454, King Henry became insane, the Duke of York was made
protector by parliament. He might now have seized the crown, but his
forbearance was taken advantage of by the rival party, and "proved the
source of all those furious wars which ensued"--the Wars of the Roses,
beginning with the first battle of St. Albans, in 1455, and ending with
the death of Richard III at Bosworth Field, in 1485.

The wars were signalized by twelve pitched battles; they cost the lives
of about eighty princes of the blood; and during their ravages the
ancient nobility of England was almost annihilated. Yet in these fierce
wars comparatively little damage was done to the general population or to
industry and trade. The wars derived their name from the fact that the
partisans of the house of Lancaster took the red rose as their badge, and
those of York chose the white rose.

The enemies of the Duke of York soon found it in their power to make
advantage of his excessive caution. Henry being so far recovered from his
distemper as to carry the appearance of exercising the royal power, they
moved him to resume his authority, to annul the protectorship of the
Duke, and to commit the administration into the hands of Somerset (1455).
Richard, sensible of the dangers which might attend his former acceptance
of the parliamentary commission should he submit to the annulling of it,
levied an army, but still without advancing any pretensions to the crown.
He complained only of the King's ministers, and demanded a reformation of
the government.

A battle was fought at St. Albans, in which the Yorkists were superior,
and, without suffering any material loss, slew about five thousand
of their enemies, among whom were the Duke of Somerset, the Earl
of Northumberland, the Earl of Stafford, eldest son of the Duke of
Buckingham, Lord Clifford, and many other persons of distinction. The
King himself fell into the hands of the Duke of York, who treated him
with great respect and tenderness; he was only obliged--which he regarded
as no hardship--to commit the whole authority of the crown into the hands
of his rival.

Affairs did not immediately proceed to the last extremities; the
nation was kept some time in suspense; the vigor and spirit of Queen
Margaret,[1] supporting her small power, still proved a balance to the
great authority of Richard, which was checked by his irresolute temper.
A parliament, which was soon after assembled, plainly discovered, by the
contrariety of their proceedings, the contrariety of the motives by which
they were actuated. They granted the Yorkists a general indemnity; and
they restored the protectorship to the Duke, but at the same time they
renewed their oaths of fealty to Henry, and fixed the continuance of the
protectorship to the majority of his son Edward.

It was not found difficult to wrest power from hands so little tenacious
as those of the Duke of York. Margaret, availing herself of that Prince's
absence, produced her husband before the House of Lords; and as his state
of health permitted him at that time to act his part with some tolerable
decency, he declared his intentions of resuming the government, and of
putting an end to Richard's authority. The House of Lords assented to
Henry's proposal, and the King was declared to be reinstated. Even the
Duke of York acquiesced in this irregular act of the peers, and no
disturbance ensued. But that Prince's claim to the crown was too well
known, and the steps which he had taken to promote it were too evident
ever to allow sincere trust and confidence to have place between the
parties.

The court retired to Coventry, and invited the Duke of York and the Earls
of Salisbury and Warwick to attend the King's person. When they were on
the road, they received intelligence that designs were formed against
their liberties and lives. They immediately separated themselves; Richard
withdrew to his castle of Wigmore; Salisbury to Middleham, in Yorkshire;
and Warwick to his government of Calais, which had been committed to him
after the battle of St. Albans, and which, as it gave him the command of
the only regular military force maintained by England, was of the utmost
importance in the present juncture. Still, men of peaceable dispositions,
and among the rest Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, thought it not
too late to interpose with their good offices in order to prevent that
effusion of blood with which the kingdom was threatened; and the awe in
which each party stood of the other rendered the mediation for some time
successful.

It was agreed that all the great leaders on both sides should meet in
London and be solemnly reconciled. The Duke of York and his partisans
came thither with numerous retinues, and took up their quarters near each
other for mutual security. The leaders of the Lancastrian party used the
same precaution. The mayor, at the head of five thousand men, kept a
strict watch night and day, and was extremely vigilant in maintaining
peace between them. Terms were adjusted, which removed not the ground of
difference. An outward reconciliation only was procured; and in order to
notify this accord to the whole people, a solemn procession to St. Paul's
was appointed, where the Duke of York led Queen Margaret, and a leader of
one party marched hand in hand with a leader of the opposite. The less
real cordiality prevailed, the more were the exterior demonstrations of
amity redoubled. But it was evident that a contest for a crown could
not thus be peaceably accommodated, that each party watched only for an
opportunity of subverting the other, and that much blood must yet be
spilt ere the nation could be restored to perfect tranquillity or enjoy a
settled and established government.

Even the smallest accident, without any formed design, was sufficient, in
the present disposition of men's minds, to dissolve the seeming harmony
between the parties; and, had the intentions of the leaders been ever so
amicable, they would have found it difficult to restrain the animosity of
their followers. One of the King's retinue insulted one of the Earl of
Warwick's; their companions on both sides took part in the quarrel; a
fierce combat ensued; the Earl apprehended his life to be aimed at; he
fled to his government of Calais; and both parties, in every county of
England, openly made preparations for deciding the contest by war and
arms.

The Earl of Salisbury, marching to join the Duke of York, was overtaken
at Blore Heath, on the borders of Staffordshire, by Lord Audley, who
commanded much superior forces; and a small rivulet with steep banks ran
between the armies. Salisbury here supplied his defect in numbers by
stratagem a refinement of which there occur few instances in the English
civil wars, where a headlong courage, more than military conduct, is
commonly to be remarked. He feigned a retreat, and allured Audley to
follow him with precipitation; but when the van of the royal army had
passed the brook, Salisbury suddenly turned upon them, and partly by the
surprise, partly by the division of the enemy's forces, put this body to
rout; the example of flight was followed by the rest of the army; and
Salisbury, obtaining a complete victory, reached the general rendezvous
of the Yorkists at Ludlow. The Earl of Warwick brought over to this
rendezvous a choice body of veterans from Calais, on whom, it was
thought, the fortune of the war would much depend; but this reenforcement
occasioned, in the issue, the immediate ruin of the Duke of York's party.
When the royal army approached, and a general action was every hour
expected, Sir Andrew Trollop, who commanded the veterans, deserted to
the King in the night-time; and the Yorkists were so dismayed at this
instance of treachery, which made every man suspicious of his fellow,
that they separated next day without striking a blow; the Duke fled to
Ireland; the Earl of Warwick, attended by many of the other leaders,
escaped to Calais, where his great popularity among all orders of men,
particularly among the military, soon drew to him partisans, and rendered
his power very formidable. The friends of the house of York in England
kept themselves everywhere in readiness to rise on the first summons from
their leaders.

After meeting with some successes at sea, Warwick landed in Kent, with
the Earl of Salisbury and the Earl of March, eldest son of the Duke of
York; and being met by the Primate, by Lord Cobham, and other persons of
distinction, he marched, amid the acclamations of the people, to London.
The city immediately opened its gates to him; and, his troops increasing
on every day's march, he soon found himself in a condition to face the
royal army, which hastened from Coventry to attack him. The battle was
fought at Northampton, and was soon decided against the royalists by the
infidelity of Lord Grey of Ruthin, who, commanding Henry's van, deserted
to the enemy during the heat of action, and spread a consternation
through the troops. The Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Shrewsbury, the
Lords Beaumont and Egremont, and Sir William Lucie were killed in the
action or pursuit; the slaughter fell chiefly on the gentry and nobility;
the common people were spared by orders of the Earls of Warwick and
March. Henry himself, that empty shadow of a king, was again taken
prisoner; and as the innocence and simplicity of his manners, which bore
the appearance of sanctity, had procured him the tender regard of
the people, the Earl of Warwick and the other leaders took care to
distinguish themselves by their respectful demeanor toward him.

A parliament was summoned in the King's name, and met at Westminster,
where the Duke soon after appeared from Ireland. This Prince had never
hitherto advanced openly any claim to the crown. He advanced toward the
throne; and being met by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who asked him
whether he had yet paid his respects to the King, he replied that he knew
of none to whom he owed that title. He then stood near the throne, and,
addressing himself to the House of Peers, he gave them a deduction of his
title by descent, and pleaded his cause before them. The lords remained
in suspense, and no one ventured to utter a word. Richard was much
disappointed at their silence; but, desiring them to reflect on what he
had proposed to them, he departed the house.

The peers, after deliberating, declared the title of the duke of York to
be certain and indefeasible; but in consideration that Henry had
enjoyed the crown, without dispute or controversy, during the course of
thirty-eight years, they determined that he should continue to possess
the title and dignity during the remainder of his life; that the
administration of the government, meanwhile, should remain with Richard;
that he should be acknowledged the true and lawful heir of the monarchy;
that everyone should swear to maintain his succession, and it should
be treason to attempt his life. The act thus passed with the unanimous
consent of the whole legislative body.

The Duke, apprehending his chief danger to arise from Queen Margaret,
sought a pretence for banishing her the kingdom; he sent her in the
King's name a summons to come immediately to London, intending, in case
of her disobedience, to proceed to extremities against her. But the Queen
needed not this menace to excite her activity in defending the rights of
her family. After the defeat of Northampton she had fled with her infant
son to Durham, thence to Scotland; but soon returning she applied to the
northern barons, and employed every motive to procure their assistance.
Her affability, insinuation, and address--qualities in which she
excelled--her caresses, her promises, wrought a powerful effect on
everyone who approached her; the admiration of her great qualities was
succeeded by compassion toward her helpless condition; the nobility of
that quarter, who regarded themselves as the most warlike in the kingdom,
were moved by indignation to find the southern barons pretend to dispose
of the crown and settle the government. And, that they might allure
the people to their standard, they promised them the spoils of all the
provinces on the other side of the Trent. By these means the Queen had
collected an army twenty thousand strong, with a celerity which was
neither expected by her friends nor apprehended by her enemies.

The Duke of York, informed of her appearance in the north, hastened
thither with a body of five thousand men, to suppress, as he imagined,
the beginnings of an insurrection; when, on his arrival at Wakefield, he
found himself so much outnumbered by the enemy. He threw himself into
Sandal castle, which was situated in the neighborhood; and he was advised
by the Earl of Salisbury and other prudent counsellors to remain in that
fortress till his son, the Earl of March, who was levying forces in the
borders of Wales, could advance to his assistance. But the Duke, though
deficient in political courage, possessed personal bravery in an eminent
degree; and notwithstanding his wisdom and experience, he thought that he
should be forever disgraced if, by taking shelter behind walls, he should
for a moment resign the victory to a woman. He descended into the plain
and offered battle to the enemy, which was instantly accepted. The great
inequality of numbers was sufficient alone to decide the victory; but the
Queen, by sending a detachment, who fell on the back of the Duke's army,
rendered her advantage still more certain and undisputed. The Duke
himself was killed in the action; and as his body was found among the
slain, the head was cut off by Margaret's orders and fixed on the gates
of York, with a paper crown upon it, in derision of his pretended title.

The Queen, after this important victory, divided her army. She sent the
smaller division, under Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, half brother to
the King, against Edward the new Duke of York. She herself marched with
the larger division toward London, where the Earl of Warwick had been
left with the command of the Yorkists. Pembroke was defeated by Edward
at Mortimer's Cross, in Herefordshire, his army was dispersed, and he
himself escaped by flight.

Margaret compensated this defeat by a victory which she obtained over the
Earl of Warwick. That nobleman, on the approach of the Lancastrians, led
out his army, reenforced by a strong body of the Londoners, who were
affectionate to his cause; and he gave battle to the Queen at St.
Albans. While the armies were warmly engaged, Lovelace, who commanded a
considerable body of the Yorkists, withdrew from the combat; and this
treacherous conduct decided the victory in favor of the Queen. The person
of the King fell again into the hands of his own party. Lord Bonville, to
whose care he had been intrusted by the Yorkists, remained with him after
the defeat, on assurances of pardon given him by Henry; but Margaret,
regardless of her husband's promise, immediately ordered the head of that
nobleman to be struck off by the executioner. Sir Thomas Kiriel, a brave
warrior, who had signalized himself in the French wars, was treated in
the same manner.

The Queen made no great advantage of this victory. Young Edward advanced
upon her from the other side, and, collecting the remains of Warwick's
army, was soon in a condition of giving her battle with superior forces.
She found it necessary to retreat to the north. Edward entered the
capital amid the acclamations of the citizens, and immediately opened a
new scene to his party. This Prince, in the bloom of youth, remarkable
for the beauty of his person, for his bravery, his activity, his
affability, and every popular quality, found himself so much possessed of
public favor that, elated with the spirit natural to his age, he resolved
no longer to confine himself within those narrow limits which his father
had prescribed to himself, and which had been found by experience so
prejudicial to his cause. He determined to assume the name and dignity
of king, to insist openly on his claim, and thenceforth to treat the
opposite party as traitors and rebels to his lawful authority. His army
was ordered to assemble in St. John's Fields, and great numbers of
people surrounded them. They were asked whether they would have Henry of
Lancaster for king. They unanimously exclaimed against the proposal It
was then demanded whether they would accept of Edward, eldest son of
the late Duke of York. They expressed their assent by loud and joyful
acclamations. A great number of bishops, lords, magistrates, and other
persons of distinction were next assembled at Baynard's castle, who
ratified the popular election; and the new king was on the subsequent day
proclaimed in London by the title of Edward IV.

In this manner ended the reign of Henry VI, a monarch who while in his
cradle had been proclaimed king both of France and England, and who began
his life with the most splendid prospects that any prince in Europe had
ever enjoyed.

Young Edward, now in his twentieth year, was bold, active, and
enterprising. The very commencement of his reign gave symptoms of his
sanguinary disposition. The scaffold, as well as the field, incessantly
streamed with the noblest blood of England. Queen Margaret had prudently
retired northward among her own partisans, and she was able in a few days
to assemble an army sixty thousand strong in Yorkshire. The King and the
Earl of Warwick hastened, with an army of forty thousand men, to check
her progress; and when they reached Pomfret they despatched a body of
troops, under the command of Lord Fitzwalter, to secure the passage of
Ferrybridge over the river Are, which lay between them and the enemy.
Fitzwalter took possession of the post assigned him, but was not able
to maintain it against Lord Clifford, who attacked him with superior
numbers. The Yorkists were chased back with great slaughter, and Lord
Fitzwalter himself was slain in the action.

The Earl of Warwick, dreading the consequences of this disaster, at a
time when a decisive action was every hour expected, immediately ordered
his horse to be brought him, which he stabbed before the whole army, and,
kissing the hilt of his sword, swore that he was determined to share the
fate of the meanest soldier. A proclamation was at the same time issued,
giving to everyone full liberty to retire, but menacing the severest
punishment to those who should discover any symptoms of cowardice in the
ensuing battle. Lord Falconberg was sent to recover the post which had
been lost. He passed the river some miles above Ferrybridge, and, falling
unexpectedly on Lord Clifford, revenged the former disaster by the defeat
of the party and the death of their leader.

The hostile armies met at Touton, and a fierce and bloody battle ensued.
While the Yorkists were advancing to the charge, there happened a great
fall of snow, which, driving full in the faces of their enemies,
blinded them; and this advantage was improved by a stratagem of Lord
Falconberg's. That nobleman ordered some infantry to advance before the
line, and, after having sent a volley of flight arrows (as they were
called) amid the enemy, immediately to retire. The Lancastrians,
imagining that they were gotten within reach of the opposite army,
discharged all their arrows, which thus fell short of the Yorkists. After
the quivers of the enemy were emptied, Edward advanced his line and did
execution with impunity on the dismayed Lancastrians. The bow, however,
was soon laid aside, and the sword decided the combat, which ended in a
total victory on the side of the Yorkists. Edward issued orders to give
no quarter. The routed army was pursued to Tadcaster with great bloodshed
and confusion, and above thirty-six thousand men are computed to have
fallen in the battle and pursuit. Henry and Margaret had remained at York
during the action; but, learning the defeat of their army, they fled into
Scotland.

Scotland had never exerted itself to take advantage either of the wars
which England carried on with France or of the civil commotions between
the contending families. James I avoided all hostilities with foreign
nations. After the murder of that excellent Prince, the minority of
his son and successor, James II, and the distractions incident to it,
retained the Scots in the same state of neutrality. But when the quarrel
commenced between the houses of York and Lancaster, and became absolutely
incurable but by the total extinction of one party, James, who had now
risen to man's estate, was tempted to seize the opportunity, and he
endeavored to recover those places which the English had formerly
conquered from his ancestors. He laid siege to the castle of Roxburghe in
1460, and had provided himself with a small train of artillery for that
enterprise; but his cannon was so ill-framed that one of them burst as he
was firing it, and put an end to his life in the flower of his age.

His son and successor, James III, was also a minor on his accession; the
usual distractions ensued in the government: the Queen Dowager, Anne
of Gueldres, aspired to the regency; the family of Douglas opposed her
pretensions; and Queen Margaret, when she fled into Scotland, found there
a people little less divided by faction than those by whom she had been
expelled. Though she pleaded the connections between the royal family
of Scotland and the house of Lancaster, she could engage the Scottish
council to go no further than to express their good wishes in her favor;
but on her offer to deliver to them immediately the important fortress of
Berwick, and to contract her son in marriage with a sister of King James,
she found a better reception; and the Scots promised the assistance of
their arms to reinstate her family upon the throne. But Edward did not
pursue the fugitive King and Queen into their retreat; he returned to
London, where a parliament was summoned for settling the government.

On the meeting of this assembly, Edward found the good effects of his
vigorous measure in assuming the crown, as well as of his victory at
Touton, by which he had secured it. The parliament no longer hesitated
between the two families, or proposed any of those ambiguous decisions
which could only serve to perpetuate and to inflame the animosities
of party. They recognized the title of Edward, by hereditary descent,
through the family of Mortimer, and declared that he was king by right,
from the death of his father, who had also the same lawful title; and
that he was in possession of the crown from the day that he assumed the
government, tendered to him by the acclamations of the people. They
reinstated the King in all the possessions which had belonged to the
crown at the pretended deposition of Richard II.

But the new establishment seemed precarious and uncertain, not only from
the domestic discontents of the people, but from the efforts of foreign
powers. Louis, the eleventh of the name, had succeeded to his father,
Charles, in 1460, and was led from the obvious motives of national
interest to feed the flames of civil discord among such dangerous
neighbors by giving support to the weaker party. But the intriguing
and politic genius of this Prince was here checked by itself: having
attempted to subdue the independent spirit of his own vassals, he had
excited such an opposition at home as prevented him from making all the
advantage, which the opportunity afforded, of the dissensions among the
English. He sent, however, a small body to Henry's assistance under
Varenne, seneschal of Normandy, 1462, who landed in Northumberland
and got possession of the castle of Alnwick; but as the indefatigable
Margaret went in person to France, where she solicited larger supplies,
and promised Louis to deliver up Calais if her family should by his means
be restored to the throne of England, he was induced to send along with
her a body of two thousand men-at-arms, which enabled her to take the
field and to make an inroad into England, 1464. Though reenforced by a
numerous train of adventurers from Scotland, and by many partisans of
the family of Lancaster, she received a check at Hedgeley Moor from Lord
Montacute, or Montagu, brother to the Earl of Warwick and warden of the
east marches between Scotland and England. Montagu was so encouraged with
this success that, while a numerous reinforcement was on its march to
join him by orders from Edward, he yet ventured, with his own troops
alone, to attack the Lancastrians at Hexham; and he obtained a complete
victory over them. The Duke of Somerset, the Lords Roos and Hungerford,
were taken in the pursuit, and immediately beheaded by martial law at
Hexham. Summary justice was in like manner executed at Newcastle on Sir
Humphrey Nevil, and several other gentlemen. All those who were spared in
the field suffered on the scaffold, and the utter extermination of their
adversaries was now become the plain object of the York party; a conduct
which received but too plausible an apology from the preceding practice
of the Lancastrians.

The fate of the unfortunate royal family, after this defeat, was
singular. Margaret, flying with her son into a forest, where she
endeavored to conceal herself, was beset, during the darkness of the
night, by robbers, who, either ignorant or regardless of her quality,
despoiled her of her rings and jewels, and treated her with the utmost
indignity. The partition of this rich booty raised a quarrel among them;
and, while their attention was thus engaged, she took the opportunity of
making her escape with her son into the thickest of the forest, where she
wandered for some time, overspent with hunger and fatigue and sunk with
terror and affliction. While in this wretched condition, she saw a robber
approach with his naked sword; and, finding that she had no means of
escape, she suddenly embraced the resolution of trusting entirely for
protection to his faith and generosity. She advanced toward him, and,
presenting to him the young Prince, called out to him, "Here my friend, I
commit to your care the safety of your King's son."

The man, whose humanity and generous spirit had been obscured, not
entirely lost, by his vicious course of life, was struck with the
singularity of the event, was charmed with the confidence reposed in him,
and vowed not only to abstain from all injury against the Princess, but
to devote himself entirely to her service. By his means she dwelt some
time concealed in the forest, and was at last conducted to the sea-coast,
whence she made her escape into Flanders. She passed thence into her
father's court, where she lived several years in privacy and retirement.
Her husband was not so fortunate or so dexterous in finding the means of
escape. Some of his friends took him under their protection and conveyed
him into Lancashire, where he remained concealed during a twelvemonth;
but he was at last detected, delivered up to Edward, and thrown into the
Tower. The safety of his person was owing less to the generosity of his
enemies than to the contempt which they had entertained of his courage
and his understanding.

The imprisonment of Henry, the expulsion of Margaret, the execution and
confiscation of all the most eminent Lancastrians, seemed to give full
security to Edward's government. But his amorous temper led him into
a snare, which proved fatal to his repose and to the stability of his
throne. Jaqueline of Luxemburg, Duchess of Bedford, had, after her
husband's death, so far sacrificed her ambition to love that she espoused
in second marriage Sir Richard Woodeville, a private gentleman, to
whom she bore several children, and among the rest Elizabeth, who was
remarkable for the grace and beauty of her person, as well as for other
amiable accomplishments. This young lady had married Sir John Gray of
Groby, by whom she had children; and her husband being slain in the
second battle of St. Albans, fighting on the side of Lancaster, and his
estate being for that reason confiscated, his widow retired to live with
her father, at his seat of Grafton, in Northamptonshire. The King came
accidentally to the house after a hunting party, in order to pay a visit
to the Duchess of Bedford, and, as the occasion seemed favorable for
obtaining some grace from this gallant monarch, the young widow flung
herself at his feet, and with many tears entreated him to take pity on
her impoverished and distressed children. The sight of so much beauty in
affliction strongly affected the amorous Edward, love stole sensibly into
his heart under the guise of compassion; and her sorrow, so becoming a
virtuous matron, made his esteem and regard quickly correspond to his
affection. He raised her from the ground with assurances of favor; he
found his passion increase every moment by the conversation of the
amiable object; and he was soon reduced, in his turn, to the posture and
style of a supplicant at the feet of Elizabeth. But the lady, either
averse to dishonorable love from a sense of duty, or perceiving that
the impression which she had made was so deep as to give her hopes of
obtaining the highest elevation, obstinately refused to gratify his
passion; and all the endearments, caresses, and importunities of
the young and amiable Edward proved fruitless against her rigid and
inflexible virtue. His passion, irritated by opposition and increased by
his veneration for such honorable sentiments, carried him at last beyond
all bounds of reason, and he offered to share his throne, as well as his
heart, with the woman whose beauty of person and dignity of character
seemed so well to entitle her to both. The marriage was privately
celebrated at Grafton; the secret was carefully kept for some time; no
one suspected that so libertine a prince could sacrifice so much to a
romantic passion; and there were, in particular, strong reasons which
at that time rendered this step, to the highest degree, dangerous and
imprudent.

The King, desirous to secure his throne, as well by the prospect of
issue as by foreign alliances, had, a little before, determined to make
application to some neighboring princess; and he had cast his eye on Bona
of Savoy, sister to the Queen of France, who, he hoped, would by her
marriage insure him the friendship of that power which was alone both
able and inclined to give support and assistance to his rival. To render
the negotiation more successful, the Earl of Warwick had been despatched
to Paris, where the Princess then resided; he had demanded Bona in
marriage for the King; his proposals had been accepted; the treaty was
fully concluded; and nothing remained but the ratification of the terms
agreed on, and the bringing over the Princess to England. But when the
secret of Edward's marriage broke out, the haughty Earl, deeming himself
affronted, both by being employed in this fruitless negotiation and by
being kept a stranger to the King's intentions, who had owed everything
to his friendship, immediately returned to England, inflamed with rage
and indignation. The influence of passion over so young a man as Edward
might have served as an excuse for his imprudent conduct had he deigned
to acknowledge his error or had pleaded his weakness as an apology; but
his faulty shame or pride prevented him from so much as mentioning the
matter to Warwick; and that nobleman was allowed to depart the court,
full of the same ill-humor and discontent which he had brought to it.

Every incident now tended to widen the breach between the King and this
powerful subject. The Queen, who lost not her influence by marriage, was
equally solicitous to draw every grace and favor to her own friends and
kindred and to exclude those of the Earl, whom she regarded as her mortal
enemy.

The Earl of Warwick could not suffer with patience the least diminution
of that credit which he had long enjoyed, and which he thought he had
merited by such important services. Edward also, jealous of that power
which had supported him, was well pleased to raise up rivals to the
Earl of Warwick; and he justified, by this political view, his extreme
partiality to the Queen's kindred. But the nobility of England, envying
the sudden growth of the Woodevilles, was more inclined to take part with
Warwick's discontent.

An extensive and dangerous combination was insensibly formed against
Edward and his ministry. While this cloud was gathering at home, Edward
endeavored to secure himself against his factious nobility by entering
into foreign alliances. But whatever ambitious schemes the King might
have built on these alliances, they were soon frustrated by intestine
commotions, which engrossed all his attention. These disorders probably
arose not immediately from the intrigues of the Earl of Warwick, but from
accident, aided by the turbulent spirit of the age, by the general humor
of discontent which that popular nobleman had instilled into the nation,
and perhaps by some remains of attachment to the house of Lancaster. The
hospital of St. Leonard's, near York, had received, from an ancient
grant of King Athelstane, a right of levying a thrave of corn upon every
ploughland in the county. The country people complained that the revenue
of the hospital was no longer expended for the relief of the poor, but
was secreted by the managers, and employed to their private purposes.
After long repining at the contribution, they refused payment;
ecclesiastical and civil censures were issued against them; their goods
were distrained, and their persons thrown into jail; till, as their
ill-humor daily increased, they rose in arms, fell upon the officers
of the hospital, whom they put to the sword, and proceeded in a body,
fifteen thousand strong, to the gates of York. Lord Montagu, who
commanded in those parts, opposed himself to their progress; and having
been so fortunate in a skirmish as to seize Robert Hulderne, their
leader, he ordered him immediately to be led to execution, according to
the practice of the times.

The rebels, however, still continued in arms; and being soon headed by
men of greater distinction--Sir Henry Nevil, son of Lord Latimer, and Sir
John Coniers--they advanced southward, and began to appear formidable to
the Government. Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, was ordered by Edward to march
against them at the head of a body of Welshmen; and he was joined by five
thousand archers, under the command of Stafford, Earl of Devonshire. But
a trivial difference about quarters having begotten an animosity between
these two noblemen, the Earl of Devonshire retired with his archers, and
left Pembroke alone to encounter the rebels.

The two armies approached each other near Banbury, 1469, and Pembroke,
having prevailed in a skirmish, and having taken Sir John Nevil prisoner,
ordered him immediately to be put to death, without any form of process.
This execution enraged without terrifying the rebels; they attacked the
Welsh army, routed them, put them to the sword without mercy; and, having
seized Pembroke, they took immediate revenge upon him for the death
of their leader. The King, imputing this misfortune to the Earl of
Devonshire, who had deserted Pembroke, ordered him to be executed in a
like summary manner.

Soon after there broke out another rebellion. It arose in Lincolnshire,
and was headed by Sir Robert Welles. The army of the rebels amounted to
thirty thousand men. The King fought a battle with the rebels, defeated
them, took Sir Robert Welles and Sir Thomas Launde prisoners, and
ordered them immediately to be beheaded. Edward during these transactions
had entertained so little jealousy of the Earl of Warwick or the Duke of
Clarence that he sent them with commissions of array to levy forces
against the rebels; but these malecontents, as soon as they left the
court, raised troops in their own name, issued declarations against the
Government, and complained of grievances, oppressions, and bad ministers.
The unexpected defeat of Welles disconcerted all their measures; and
they retired northward into Lancashire, where they expected to be joined
by Lord Stanley, who had married the Earl of Warwick's sister. But as
that nobleman refused all concurrence with them, and as Lord Montagu
also remained quiet in Yorkshire, they were obliged to disband their
army and to fly into Devonshire, where they embarked and made sail
toward Calais.

The King of France received Warwick with the greatest demonstrations
of regard, and hoped to make him his instrument in overturning the
government of England and reestablishing the house of Lancaster. No
animosity was ever greater than that which had long prevailed between
that house and the Earl of Warwick. But his present distresses and the
entreaties of Louis made him hearken to terms of accommodation; and
Margaret being sent for from Angers, where she then resided, an agreement
was soon concluded between them. It was stipulated that Warwick should
espouse the cause of Henry and endeavor to restore him to liberty and to
reestablish him on the throne; that the administration of the government
during the minority of young Edward, Henry's son, should be intrusted
conjointly to the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence; that Prince
Edward should marry the Lady Anne, second daughter of that nobleman; and
that the crown, in case of the failure of male issue in that Prince,
should descend to the Duke of Clarence, to the entire exclusion of King
Edward and his posterity. The marriage of Prince Edward with the Lady
Anne was immediately celebrated in France.

Edward foresaw that it would be easy to dissolve an alliance composed
of such discordant parts. For this purpose he sent over a lady of great
sagacity and address, who belonged to the train of the Duchess of
Clarence, and who, under color of attending her mistress, was empowered
to negotiate with the Duke, and to renew the connections of that Prince
with his own family. She represented to Clarence that he had unwarily,
to his own ruin, become the instrument of Warwick's vengeance, and had
thrown himself entirely in the power of his most inveterate enemies;
that the mortal injuries which the one royal family had suffered from
the other were now past all forgiveness, and no imaginary union of
interests could ever suffice to obliterate them; that, even if the
leaders were willing to forget past offences, the animosity of their
adherents would prevent a sincere coalition of parties, and would, in
spite of all temporary and verbal agreements, preserve an eternal
opposition of measures between them; and that a prince who deserted his
own kindred, and joined the murderers of his father, left himself
single, without friends, without protection, and would not, when
misfortunes inevitably fell upon him, be so much as entitled to any pity
or regard from the rest of mankind. Clarence was only one-and-twenty
years of age, and seems to have possessed but a slender capacity; yet
could he easily see the force of these reasons; and, upon the promise
of forgiveness from his brother, he secretly engaged, on a favorable
opportunity, to desert the Earl of Warwick and abandon the Lancastrian
party.

During this negotiation Warwick was secretly carrying on a correspondence
of the same nature with his brother, the Marquis of Montagu, who was,
entirely trusted by Edward; and like motives produced a like resolution
in that nobleman. The Marquis, also, that he might render the projected
blow the more deadly and incurable, resolved on his side to watch a
favorable opportunity for committing his perfidy, and still to maintain
the appearance of being a zealous adherent to the house of York.

After these mutual snares were thus carefully laid, the decision of the
quarrel advanced apace. Louis prepared a fleet to escort the Earl of
Warwick, and granted him a supply of men and money. The Duke of Burgundy,
on the other hand, anxious to support the reigning family in England,
fitted out a larger fleet, with which he guarded the Channel. Edward was
not sensible of his danger; he made no suitable preparations against
the Earl of Warwick; he even said that the Duke might spare himself the
trouble of guarding the seas, and that he wished for nothing more than to
see Warwick set foot on English ground.

The event soon happened of which Edward seemed so desirous. A storm
dispersed the Duke of Burgundy's navy, and left the sea open to Warwick.
That nobleman seized the opportunity, and, setting sail, quickly landed
at Dartmouth with the Duke of Clarence, the earls of Oxford and Pembroke,
and a small body of troops, while the King was in the North, engaged in
suppressing an insurrection which had been raised by Lord Fitz-Hugh,
brother-in-law to Warwick. The scene which ensues resembles more
the fiction of a poem or romance than an event in true history. The
prodigious popularity of Warwick, the zeal of the Lancastrian party,
the spirit of discontent with which many were infected, and the general
instability of the English nation occasioned by the late frequent
revolutions drew such multitudes to his standard that in a very few days
his army amounted to sixty thousand men and was continually increasing.
Edward hastened southward to encounter him; and the two armies approached
each other near Nottingham, where a decisive action was every hour
expected.

The rapidity of Warwick's progress had incapacitated the Duke of Clarence
from executing his plan of treachery; and the Marquis of Montagu had here
the opportunity of striking the first blow. He communicated the design to
his adherents, who promised him their concurrence; they took to arms in
the night-time, and hastened with loud acclamations to Edward's quarters;
the King was alarmed at the noise, and, starting from bed, heard the cry
of war usually employed by the Lancastrian party. Lord Hastings, his
chamberlain, informed him of the danger, and urged him to make his escape
by speedy flight from an army where he had so many concealed enemies and
where few seemed zealously attached to his service. He had just time to
get on horseback and to hurry with a small retinue to Lynne, in Norfolk,
where he luckily found some ships ready, on board of which he instantly
embarked. The Earl of Warwick, in eleven days after his first landing,
was left entire master of the kingdom. But Edward's danger did not end
with his embarkation. The Easterlings or Hanse Towns were then at war
both with France and England; and some ships of these people, hovering on
the English coast, espied the King's vessels and gave chase to them; nor
was it without extreme difficulty that he made his escape into the port
of Alkmaar in Holland.

Immediately after Edward's flight had left the kingdom at Warwick's
disposal, that nobleman hastened to London; and taking Henry from his
confinement in the Tower, into which he himself had been the chief
cause of throwing him, he proclaimed him King with great solemnity.
A parliament was summoned, in the name of that Prince, to meet at
Westminster. The treaty with Margaret was here fully executed; Henry
was recognized as lawful king; but, his incapacity for government being
avowed, the regency was intrusted to Warwick and Clarence till the
majority of Prince Edward; and in default of that Prince's issue,
Clarence was declared successor to the crown.

The ruling party were more sparing in their executions than was usual
after any revolution during those violent times. The only victim
of distinction was John Tibetot, Earl of Worcester. All the other
considerable Yorkists either fled beyond sea or took shelter in
sanctuaries, where the ecclesiastical privileges afforded them
protection. In London alone it is computed that no less than two thousand
persons saved themselves in this manner, and among the rest Edward's
Queen, who was there delivered of a son, called by his father's name.
Queen Margaret had not yet appeared in England, but, on receiving
intelligence of Warwick's success, was preparing with Prince Edward for
her journey. All the banished Lancastrians flocked to her, and, among the
rest, the Duke of Somerset, son of the Duke beheaded after the battle
of Hexham. This nobleman, who had long been regarded as the head of
the party, had fled into the Low Countries on the discomfiture of
his friends; and as he concealed his name and quality, he had there
languished in extreme indigence. But both Somerset and Margaret were
detained by contrary winds from reaching England, till a new revolution
in that kingdom, no less sudden and surprising than the former, threw
them into greater misery than that from which they had just emerged.

The Duke of Burgundy equipped four large vessels, in the name of some
private merchants, at Terveer, in Zealand; and, causing fourteen ships to
be secretly hired from the Easterlings, he delivered this small squadron
to Edward, who, receiving also a sum of money from the Duke, immediately
set sail for England, 1471.

Edward, impatient to take revenge on his enemies and to recover his lost
authority, made an attempt to land with his forces, which exceeded not
two thousand men, on the coast of Norfolk; but being there repulsed, he
sailed northward and disembarked at Ravenspur, in Yorkshire. Finding that
the new magistrates, who had been appointed by the Earl of Warwick, kept
the people everywhere from joining him, he pretended, and even made oath,
that he came, not to challenge the crown, but only the inheritance of the
house of York, which of right belonged to him, and that he did not intend
to disturb the peace of the kingdom. His partisans every moment flocked
to his standard; he was admitted into the city of York; and he was soon
in such a situation as gave him hopes of succeeding in all his claims and
pretensions.

Warwick assembled an army at Leicester, with an intention of meeting and
of giving battle to the enemy, but Edward, by taking another road, passed
him unmolested and presented himself before the gates of London. Edward's
entrance into London made him master not only of that rich and powerful
city, but also of the person of Henry, who, destined to be the perpetual
sport of fortune, thus fell again into the hands of his enemies. It does
not appear that Warwick, during his short administration, which had
continued only six months, had been guilty of any unpopular act, or had
anywise deserved to lose that general favor with which he had so lately
overwhelmed Edward. But this Prince, who was formerly on the defensive,
was now the aggressor. Everyone who had been disappointed in the hopes
which he had entertained from Warwick's elevation either became a cool
friend or an open enemy to that nobleman; and each malecontent, from
whatever cause, proved an accession to Edward's army.

The King, therefore, found himself in a condition to face the Earl of
Warwick, who, being reenforced by his son-in-law the Duke of Clarence,
and his brother the Marquis of Montagu, took post at Barnet, in the
neighborhood of London. Warwick was now too far advanced to retreat, and,
as he rejected with disdain all terms of peace offered him by Edward and
Clarence, he was obliged to hazard a general engagement. The battle was
fought with obstinacy on both sides. The two armies, in imitation of
their leaders, displayed uncommon valor; and the victory remained long
undecided between them. But an accident threw the balance to the side of
the Yorkists. Edward's cognizance was a sun; that of Warwick a star
with rays; and the mistiness of the morning rendering it difficult to
distinguish them, the Earl of Oxford, who fought on the side of the
Lancastrians, was by mistake attacked by his friends and chased off the
field of battle. Warwick, contrary to his more usual practice, engaged
that day on foot, resolving to show his army that he meant to share every
fortune with them, and he was slain in the thickest of the engagement;
and as Edward had issued orders not to give any quarter, a great and
undistinguished slaughter was made in the pursuit. There fell about one
thousand five hundred on the side of the victors.

The same day on which this decisive battle was fought, Queen Margaret
and her son, now about eighteen years of age and a young prince of great
hopes, landed at Weymouth, supported by a small body of French forces.
When this Princess received intelligence of her husband's captivity, and
of the defeat and death of the Earl of Warwick, her courage, which had
supported her under so many disastrous events, here quite left her; and
she immediately foresaw all the dismal consequences of this calamity. At
first she took sanctuary in the Abbey of Beaulieu; but being encouraged
by men of rank, who exhorted her still to hope for success, she resumed
her former spirit and determined to defend to the utmost the ruins of her
fallen fortunes. She advanced through the counties of Devon, Somerset,
and Gloucester, increasing her army on each day's march, but was at last
overtaken by the rapid and expeditious Edward at Tewkesbury, on the banks
of the Severn. The Lancastrians were here totally defeated; the Earl
of Devonshire and Lord Wenlock were killed in the field; the Duke of
Somerset and about twenty other persons of distinction, having taken
shelter in a church, were surrounded, dragged out, and immediately
beheaded; about three thousand of their side fell in battle; and the army
was entirely dispersed.

Queen Margaret and her son were taken prisoners and brought to the King,
who asked the Prince, after an insulting manner, how he dared to invade
his dominions. The young Prince, more mindful of his high birth than
of his present fortune, replied that he came thither to claim his just
inheritance. The ungenerous Edward, insensible to pity, struck him on the
face with his gauntlet; and the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, Lord
Hastings, and Sir Thomas Gray, taking the blow as a signal for further
violence, hurried the Prince into the next apartment and there despatched
him with their daggers. Margaret was thrown into the Tower; King Henry
expired in that confinement a few days after the battle of Tewkesbury;
but whether he died a natural or violent death is uncertain. It is
pretended, and was generally believed, that the Duke of Gloucester killed
him with his own hands; but the universal odium which that Prince had
incurred, perhaps inclined the nation to aggravate his crimes without any
sufficient authority.

All the hopes of the house of Lancaster seemed now to be utterly
extinguished. Every legitimate prince of that family was dead; almost
every great leader of the party had perished in battle or on the
scaffold; the Earl of Pembroke, who was levying forces in Wales,
disbanded his army when he received intelligence of the battle of
Tewkesbury, and he fled into Brittany with his nephew, the young Earl of
Richmond. The bastard of Falconberg, who had levied some forces, and
had advanced to London during Edward's absence, was repulsed; his men
deserted him; he was taken prisoner and immediately executed; and peace
being now fully restored to the nation, a parliament was summoned, which
ratified, as usual, all the acts of the victor, and recognized his legal
authority.

This Prince, who had been so firm and active and intrepid during the
course of adversity, was still unable to resist the allurements of a
prosperous fortune; and he devoted himself, as before, to pleasure and
amusement, after he became entirely master of his kingdom. But while he
was thus indulging himself in pleasure, he was roused from his lethargy
by a prospect of foreign conquests. He passed over to Calais, 1475, with
an army of one thousand five hundred men-at-arms and fifteen thousand
archers, attended by all the chief nobility of England, who,
prognosticating future successes from the past, were eager to appear on
this great theatre of honor. But all their sanguine hopes were damped
when they found, on entering the French territories, that neither did the
constable open his gates to them nor the Duke of Burgundy bring them the
smallest assistance. That Prince, transported by his ardent temper, had
carried all his armies to a great distance, and had employed them in wars
on the frontiers of Germany and against the Duke of Lorraine; and though
he came in person to Edward, and endeavored to apologize for this breach
of treaty, there was no prospect that they would be able this campaign to
make a conjunction with the English. This circumstance gave great disgust
to the King, and inclined him to hearken to those advances which Louis
continually made him for an accommodation.

Louis was sensible that the warlike genius of the people would soon
render them excellent soldiers, and, far from despising them for their
present want of experience, he employed all his art to detach them from
the alliance of Burgundy. When Edward sent him a herald to claim the
crown of France, and to carry him a defiance in case of refusal, so far
from answering to this bravado in like haughty terms, he replied with
great temper, and even made the herald a considerable present. He took
afterward an opportunity of sending a herald to the English camp, and
having given him directions to apply to Lords Stanley and Howard, who,
he heard, were friends to peace, he desired the good offices of these
noblemen in promoting an accommodation with their master. As Edward was
now fallen into like dispositions, a truce was soon concluded on terms
more advantageous than honorable to Louis. He stipulated to pay Edward
immediately seventy-five thousand crowns, on condition that he should
withdraw his army from France, and promised to pay him fifty thousand
crowns a year during their joint lives. In order to ratify this treaty,
the two monarchs agreed to have a personal interview. Edward and Louis
conferred privately together; and having confirmed their friendship, and
interchanged many mutual civilities, they soon after parted. As the two
armies, after the conclusion of the truce, remained some time in the
neighborhood of each other, the English were not only admitted freely
into Amiens, where Louis resided, but had also their charges defrayed,
and had wine and victuals furnished them in every inn without any payment
being demanded.

This treaty did very little honor to either of these monarchs. It
discovered the imprudence of Edward, who had taken his measures so ill
with his allies as to be obliged, after such an expensive armament, to
return without making any acquisitions adequate to it. It showed the want
of dignity in Louis, who, rather than run the hazard of a battle,
agreed to subject his kingdom to a tribunal, and thus acknowledge the
superiority of a neighboring prince possessed of less power and territory
than himself. But Louis thought that all the advantages of the treaty
were on his side, and that he had overreached Edward by sending him out
of France on such easy terms.

The most honorable part of Louis' treaty with Edward was the stipulation
for the liberty of Queen Margaret, who, though after the death of her
husband and son she could no longer be formidable to Government, was
still detained in custody by Edward. Louis paid fifty thousand crowns for
her ransom; and that Princess, who had been so active on the stage of
the world, and who had experienced such a variety of fortune, passed the
remainder of her days in tranquillity and privacy till the year 1482,
when she died; an admirable princess, but more illustrious by her
undaunted spirit in adversity than by her moderation in prosperity.
She seems neither to have enjoyed the virtues nor been subject to the
weaknesses of her sex, and was as much tainted with the ferocity as
endowed with the courage of that barbarous age in which she lived.

The Duke of Clarence, by all his services in deserting Warwick, had never
been able to regain the King's friendship, which he had forfeited by his
former confederacy with that nobleman. He was still regarded at court as
a man of a dangerous and a fickle character; and the imprudent openness
and violence of his temper, though they rendered him much less dangerous,
tended extremely to multiply his enemies and to incense them against him.
Among others, he had had the misfortune to give displeasure to the Queen
herself, as well as to his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, a prince
of the deepest policy, of the most unrelenting ambition, and the least
scrupulous in the means which he employed for the attainment of his ends.
A combination between these potent adversaries being secretly formed
against Clarence, it was determined to begin by attacking his friends. He
was alarmed when he found acts of tyranny exercised on all around him;
but, instead of securing his own life against the present danger by
silence and reserve, he was open and loud in justifying the innocence of
his friends and in exclaiming against the iniquity of their prosecutors.
The King, highly offended with his freedom, or using that pretence
against him, committed him to the Tower, 1478, summoned a parliament, and
tried him for his life. Clarence was pronounced guilty by the peers. The
House of Commons was no less slavish and unjust; they both petitioned
for the execution of the Duke and afterward passed a bill of attainder
against him.

The only favor which the King granted him after his condemnation was to
leave him the choice of his death; and he was privately drowned in a butt
of malmsey in the Tower--a whimsical choice, which implies that he had an
extraordinary passion for that liquor.

The Duke left two children by the elder daughter of the Earl of Warwick:
a son, created an earl by his grandfather's title, and a daughter,
afterward Countess of Salisbury. Both this Prince and Princess were also
unfortunate in their end, and died violent deaths--a fate which, for many
years, attended almost all the descendants of the royal blood of England.
There prevails a report that a chief source of the violent prosecution of
the Duke of Clarence, whose name was George, was a current prophecy that
the King's son should be murdered by one the initial letter of whose name
was G. It is not impossible but, in those ignorant times, such a silly
reason might have some influence; but it is more probable that the whole
story is the invention of a subsequent period, and founded on the murder
of these children by the Duke of Gloucester.

All the glories of Edward's reign terminated with the civil wars, where
his laurels, too, were extremely sullied with blood, violence, and
cruelty. His spirit seems afterward to have been sunk in indolence and
pleasure, or his measures were frustrated by imprudence and the want
of foresight. While he was making preparations for a French war he was
seized with a distemper, of which he expired, 1483, in the forty-second
year of his age and the twenty-third of his reign.

During the latter years of Edward IV the nation, having in a great
measure forgotten the bloody feuds between the two roses, and peaceably
acquiescing in the established government, was agitated only by some
court intrigues, which, being restrained by the authority of the King,
seemed nowise to endanger the public tranquillity. But Edward knew that,
though he himself had been able to overawe rival factions, many disorders
might arise from their contests during the minority of his son; and he
therefore took care, in his last illness, to summon together several of
the leaders on both sides, and, by composing their ancient quarrels, to
provide as far as possible for the future tranquillity of the government.
After expressing his intentions that his brother, the Duke of Gloucester,
then absent in the North, should be intrusted with the regency, he
recommended to them peace and unanimity during the tender years of his
son, and engaged them to embrace each other with all the appearance of
the most cordial reconciliation. But this temporary or feigned agreement
lasted no longer than the King's life; he had no sooner expired than the
jealousies of the parties broke out afresh; and each of them applied, by
separate messages, to the Duke of Gloucester, and endeavored to acquire
his favor and friendship.

This Prince, during his brother's reign, had endeavored to live on good
terms with both parties, and his high birth, his extensive abilities, and
his great services had enabled him to support himself without falling
into a dependence on either. But the new situation of affairs, when the
supreme power was devolved upon him, immediately changed his measures,
and he secretly determined to preserve no longer that neutrality which
he had hitherto maintained. His exorbitant ambition, unrestrained by any
principle either of justice or humanity, made him carry his views to the
possession of the crown itself, and, as this object could not be
attained without the ruin of the Queen and her family, he fell, without
hesitation, into concert with the opposite party. But, being sensible
that the most profound dissimulation was requisite for effecting his
criminal purposes, he redoubled his professions of zeal and attachment
to that Princess; and he gained such credit with her as to influence
her conduct in a point which, as it was of the utmost importance, was
violently disputed between the opposite factions.

The young King, at the time of his father's death, resided in the castle
of Ludlow, on the borders of Wales, whither he had been sent, that
the influence of his presence might overawe the Welsh and restore the
tranquillity of that country, which had been disturbed by some late
commotions.

The Duke of Gloucester, being the nearest male of the royal family
capable of exercising the government, seemed entitled, by the customs of
the realm, to the office of protector; and the council, not waiting for
the consent of parliament, made no scruple of investing him with that
high dignity. The general prejudice entertained by the nobility against
the Queen and her kindred occasioned this precipitation and irregularity;
and no one foresaw any danger to the succession, much less to the lives
of the young princes, from a measure so obvious and so natural. Besides
that the Duke had hitherto been able to cover, by the most profound
dissimulation, his fierce and savage nature, the numerous issue of
Edward, together with the two children of Clarence, seemed to be an
eternal obstacle to his ambition; and it appeared equally impracticable
for him to destroy so many persons possessed of a preferable title and
imprudent to exclude them.

But a man who had abandoned all principles of honor and humanity was
soon carried by his predominant passion beyond the reach of fear or
precaution; and Gloucester, having so far succeeded in his views, no
longer hesitated in removing the other obstructions which lay between
him and the throne. The death of the Earl of Rivers[2], and of other
prisoners detained in Pomfret, was first determined; and he easily
obtained the consent of the Duke of Buckingham, as well as of Lord
Hastings, to this violent and sanguinary measure. Orders were accordingly
issued to Sir Richard Ratcliffe, a proper instrument in the hands of
this tyrant, to cut off the heads of the prisoners. The Protector then
assailed the fidelity of Buckingham by all the arguments capable of
swaying a vicious mind, and he easily obtained from him a promise of
supporting him in all his enterprises.

The Duke of Gloucester, knowing the importance of gaining Lord Hastings,
sounded at a distance his sentiments, but found him impregnable in his
allegiance and fidelity to the children of Edward, who had ever honored
him with his friendship. He saw, therefore, that there were no longer any
measures to be kept with him; and he determined to ruin utterly the man
whom he despaired of engaging to concur in his usurpation. On the very
day when Rivers, Gray, and Vaughan were executed, or rather murdered, at
Pomfret, by the advice of Hastings, the Protector summoned a council
in the Tower, whither that nobleman, suspecting no design against him,
repaired without hesitation. The Duke of Gloucester was capable of
committing the most bloody and treacherous murders with the utmost
coolness and indifference. On taking his place at the council table he
appeared in the easiest and most jovial humor imaginable. He seemed to
indulge himself in familiar conversation with the councillors before they
should enter on business, and having paid some compliments to Morton,
Bishop of Ely, on the good and early strawberries which he raised in his
garden at Holborn, he begged the favor of having a dish of them, which
that prelate immediately despatched a servant to bring to him. The
Protector left the council, as if called away by some other business,
but, soon after returning with an angry and inflamed countenance, he
asked them what punishment those deserved that had plotted against _his_
life, who was so nearly related to the King, and was intrusted with the
administration of government. Hastings replied that they merited the
punishment of traitors. "These traitors," cried the Protector, "are the
sorceress, my brother's wife, and Jane Shore, his mistress, with others
their associates; see to what a condition they have reduced me by their
incantations and witchcraft!" Upon which he laid bare his arm, all
shrivelled and decayed; but the councillors, who knew that this infirmity
had attended him from his birth, looked on each other with amazement;
and, above all, Lord Hastings, who, as he had since Edward's death
engaged in an intrigue with Jane Shore, was naturally anxious concerning
the issue of these extraordinary proceedings.

"Certainly, my lord," said he, "if they be guilty of these crimes, they
deserve the severest punishment." "And do you reply to me," exclaimed the
Protector, "with your _ifs_ and your _ands_? You are the chief abettor of
that witch, Shore; you are yourself a traitor; and I swear by St. Paul
that I will not dine before your head be brought me." He struck the table
with his hand; armed men rushed in at the signal; the councillors were
thrown into the utmost consternation; and one of the guards, as if by
accident or mistake, aimed a blow with a pole-axe at Lord Stanley, who,
aware of the danger, slunk under the table; and though he saved his life,
he received a severe wound in the Protector's presence. Hastings was
seized, and instantly beheaded on a timber-log which lay in the court of
the Tower.

Lord Stanley, the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Ely, and other
councillors were committed prisoners in different chambers of the Tower.
These acts of violence, exercised against the nearest connections of the
late King, prognosticated the severest fate to his defenceless children;
and after the murder of Hastings, the Protector no longer made a secret
of his intentions to usurp the crown. The licentious life of Edward
afforded a pretence for declaring his marriage with the Queen invalid and
all his posterity illegitimate. It was also maintained that the act of
attainder passed against the Duke of Clarence had virtually incapacitated
his children from succeeding to the crown; and, these two families being
set aside, the Protector remained the only true and legitimate heir of
the house of York. The Protector resolved to make use of another plea,
still more shameful and scandalous. His partisans were taught to maintain
that both Edward IV and the Duke of Clarence were illegitimate, and that
the Duke of Gloucester alone appeared to be the true offspring of the
Duke of York.

In a few days the Duke of Buckingham went to Baynard's castle, where
the Protector then resided, to make him a tender of the crown. Richard
refused to appear, and pretended to be apprehensive for his personal
safety; a circumstance taken notice of by Buckingham, who observed "that
the Prince was ignorant of the whole design." At last he was persuaded to
step forth, but he still kept at some distance; and he asked the meaning
of the intrusion and importunity. Buckingham told him that the nation
was resolved to have him for King. The Protector declared his purpose of
maintaining his loyalty to the present sovereign. He was told that the
people had determined to have another prince; and if he rejected their
unanimous voice, they must look out for one who would be more compliant.
This argument was too powerful to be resisted; he was prevailed on to
accept of the crown; and he thenceforth acted as legitimate and rightful
sovereign.

This ridiculous farce was soon after followed by a scene truly
tragical--the murder of the two young princes. Richard gave orders to Sir
Robert Brakenbury, constable of the Tower, to put his nephews to death,
but this gentleman, who had sentiments of honor, refused to have any hand
in the infamous office. The tyrant then sent for Sir James Tyrrel, who
promised obedience; and he ordered Brakenbury to resign to this gentleman
the keys and government of the Tower for one night. Tyrrel, choosing
three associates, Slater, Dighton, and Forest, came in the night-time to
the door of the chamber where the princes were lodged, and, sending in
the assassins, he bade them execute their commission, while he himself
stayed without. They found the young princes in bed and fallen into a
profound sleep. After suffocating them with the bolster and pillows, they
showed their naked bodies to Tyrrel, who ordered them to be buried at the
foot of the stairs, deep in the ground, under a heap of stones, 1483.

These circumstances were all confessed by the actors in the following
reign; they were never punished for the crime, probably because Henry,
whose maxims of government were extremely arbitrary, desired to establish
it as a principle that the commands of the reigning sovereign ought to
justify every enormity in those who paid obedience to them. But there is
one circumstance not so easy to be accounted for: it is pretended that
Richard, displeased with the indecent manner of burying his nephews, whom
he had murdered, gave his chaplain orders to dig up the bodies, and to
inter them in consecrated ground; and as the man died soon after, the
place of their burial remained unknown, and the bodies could never be
found by any search which Henry could make for them. Yet in the reign of
Charles II, when there was occasion to remove some stones and to dig in
the very spot which was mentioned as the place of their first interment,
the bones of two persons were there found, which by their size exactly
corresponded to the age of Edward and his brother. They were concluded
with certainty to be the remains of those princes, and were interred
under a marble monument by orders of King Charles.

The first acts of Richard's administration were to bestow rewards on
those who had assisted him in usurping the crown, and to gain by favors
those who, he thought, were best able to support his future government.

But the person who, both from the greatness of his services and the power
and splendor of his family, was best entitled to favors under the new
government, was the Duke of Buckingham, and Richard seemed determined to
spare no pains or bounty in securing him to his interests. But it was
impossible that friendship could long remain inviolate between two men of
such corrupt minds as Richard and the Duke of Buckingham. The Duke,
soon after Richard's accession, began to form a conspiracy against the
government, and attempted to overthrow that usurpation which he himself
had so zealously contributed to establish. Never was there in any country
a usurpation more flagrant than that of Richard, or more repugnant to
every principle of justice and public interest. To endure such a bloody
usurper seemed to draw disgrace upon the nation, and to be attended with
immediate danger to every individual who was distinguished by birth,
merit, or services. Such was become the general voice of the people; all
parties were united in the same sentiments; and the Lancastrians, so long
oppressed, and of late so much discredited, felt their blasted hopes
again revive, and anxiously expected the consequences of these
extraordinary events.

The Duke of Buckingham, whose family had been devoted to that interest,
and who, by his mother, a daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, was
allied to the house of Lancaster, was easily induced to espouse the
cause of this party, and to endeavor the restoring of it to its ancient
superiority. Morton, Bishop of Ely, a zealous Lancastrian, whom the King
had imprisoned, and had afterward committed to the custody of Buckingham,
encouraged these sentiments; and by his exhortations the Duke cast his
eye toward the young Earl of Richmond as the only person who could free
the nation from the tyranny of the present usurper.

Henry, Earl of Richmond, was at this time detained in a kind of honorable
custody by the Duke of Brittany, and his descent, which seemed to give
him some pretensions to the crown, had been a great object of jealousy
both in the late and in the present reign. Symptoms of continued jealousy
in the reigning family of England seemed to give some authority to
Henry's pretensions, and made him the object of general favor and
compassion, on account of dangers and persecutions to which he was
exposed. The universal detestation of Richard's conduct turned still more
the attention of the nation toward Henry; and as all the descendants of
the house of York were either women or minors, he seemed to be the only
person from whom the nation could expect the expulsion of the odious and
bloody tyrant. But notwithstanding these circumstances, which were so
favorable to him, Buckingham and the Bishop of Ely well knew that there
would still lie many obstacles in his way to the throne. It was therefore
suggested by Morton, and readily assented to by the Duke, that the only
means of overturning the present usurpation was to unite the opposite
factions by contracting a marriage between the Earl of Richmond and the
princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of King Edward, and thereby blending
together the opposite pretensions of their families.

The plan being laid upon the solid foundations of good sense and sound
policy, it was secretly communicated to the principal persons of both
parties in all the counties of England, and a wonderful alacrity appeared
in every order of men to forward its success and completion. But it was
impossible that so extensive a conspiracy could be conducted in so secret
a manner as entirely to escape the jealous and vigilant eye of Richard;
and he soon received intelligence that his enemies, headed by the Duke
of Buckingham, were forming some design against his authority. He
immediately put himself in a posture of defence by levying troops in the
North; and he summoned the Duke to appear at court, in such terms as
seemed to promise him a renewal of their former amity. But that nobleman,
well acquainted with the barbarity and treachery of Richard, replied only
by taking arms in Wales, and giving the signal to his accomplices for a
general insurrection in all parts of England.

But at that very time there happened to fall such heavy rains, so
incessant and continued, as exceeded any known in the memory of man; and
the Severn, with the other rivers in that neighborhood, swelled to a
height which rendered them impassable and prevented Buckingham from
marching into the heart of England to join his associates. The Welshmen,
partly moved by superstition at this extraordinary event, partly
distressed by famine in their camp, fell off from him; and Buckingham,
finding himself deserted by his followers, put on a disguise and took
shelter in the house of Banister, an old servant of his family. But being
detected in his retreat, he was brought to the King at Salisbury, and was
instantly executed, according to the summary method practised in that
age. The other conspirators, who took arms in four different places, at
Exeter, at Salisbury, at Newbury, and at Maidstone, hearing of the
Duke of Buckingham's misfortunes, despaired of success and immediately
dispersed themselves.

The King, everywhere triumphant and fortified by this unsuccessful
attempt to dethrone him, ventured at last to summon a parliament--a
measure which his crimes and flagrant usurpation had induced him hitherto
to decline. His enemies being now at his feet, the parliament had no
choice left but to recognize his authority and acknowledge his right to
the crown. His only son, Edward, then a youth of twelve years of age, was
created prince of Wales.

Sensible that the only circumstance which could give him security was
to gain the confidence of the Yorkists, Richard paid court to the Queen
Dowager with such art and address, made such earnest protestations of
his sincere good-will and friendship, that this Princess ventured to put
herself and her daughters into the hands of the tyrant. He now thought it
in his power to remove the chief perils which threatened his government.
The Earl of Richmond, he knew, could never be formidable but from his
projected marriage with the princess Elizabeth, the true heir of the
crown; and he therefore intended to espouse, himself, this Princess, and
thus to unite in his own family their contending titles. He flattered
himself that the English nation, seeing all danger removed of a disputed
succession, would then acquiesce under the dominion of a prince who
was of mature years, of great abilities, and of a genius qualified for
government, and that they would forgive him all the crimes which he had
committed in paving his way to the throne.

But the crimes of Richard were so horrid, and so shocking to humanity,
that every person of probity and honor was earnest to prevent the sceptre
from being any longer polluted by that bloody and faithless hand which
held it. All the exiles flocked to the Earl of Richmond in Brittany, and
exhorted him to hasten his attempt for a new invasion, and to prevent the
marriage of the princess Elizabeth, which must prove fatal to all his
hopes.

The Earl set sail from Harfleur, in Normandy, with a small army of about
two thousand men; and after a navigation of six days he arrived at
Milford Haven, in Wales, where he landed without opposition. He directed
his course to that part of the kingdom, in hopes that the Welsh, who
regarded him as their countryman, and who had been already prepossessed
in favor of his cause by means of the Duke of Buckingham, would join his
standard, and enable him to make head against the established government.
Richard, who knew not in what quarter he might expect the invader, had
taken post at Nottingham, in the centre of the kingdom; and having
given commissions to different persons in the several counties, whom he
empowered to oppose his enemy, he purposed in person to fly, on the first
alarm, to the place exposed to danger.

Henry, advancing toward Shrewsbury, received every day some reenforcement
from his partisans. The two rivals at last approached each other at
Bosworth, near Leicester, Henry at the head of six thousand men, Richard
with an army of above double the number; and a decisive action was every
hour expected between them. Stanley, who commanded above seven thousand
men, took care to post himself at Atherstone, not far from the hostile
camps; and he made such a disposition as enabled him on occasion to join
either party.

The van of Richmond's army, consisting of archers, was commanded by the
Earl of Oxford; Sir Gilbert Talbot led the right wing; Sir John Savage
the left; the Earl himself, accompanied by his uncle the Earl of
Pembroke, placed himself in the main body. Richard also took post in
_his_ main body, and intrusted the command of his van to the Duke of
Norfolk; as his wings were never engaged, we have not learned the names
of the several commanders. Soon after the battle began, Lord Stanley,
whose conduct in this whole affair discovers great precaution and
abilities, appeared in the field, and declared for the Earl of Richmond.
This measure, which was unexpected to the men, though not to their
leaders, had a proportional effect on both armies: it inspired unusual
courage into Henry's soldiers; it threw Richard's into dismay and
confusion. The intrepid tyrant, sensible of his desperate situation, cast
his eye around the field, and, descrying his rival at no great distance,
he drove against him with fury, in hopes that either Henry's death or his
own would decide the victory between them. He killed with his own hand
Sir William Brandon, standard-bearer to the Earl; he dismounted Sir John
Cheyney. He was now within reach of Richmond himself, who declined not
the combat, when Sir William Stanley,[3] breaking in with his troops,
surrounded Richard, who, fighting bravely to the last moment, was
overwhelmed by numbers, and perished by a fate too mild and honorable
for his multiplied and detestable enormities. His men everywhere sought
safety by flight.

There fell in this battle about four thousand of the vanquished. The loss
was inconsiderable on the side of the victors. Sir William Catesby, a
great instrument of Richard's crimes, was taken, and soon after beheaded,
with some others, at Leicester. The body of Richard was found in the
field, covered with dead enemies, and all besmeared with blood. It was
thrown carelessly across a horse, was carried to Leicester amid the
shouts of the insulting spectators, and was interred in the Gray Friars'
Church of that place.

The historians who favor Richard--for even this tyrant has met with
partisans among the later writers--maintain that he was well qualified
for government had he legally obtained it, and that he committed no
crimes but such as were necessary to procure him possession of the crown;
but this is a poor apology when it is confessed that he was ready to
commit the most horrid crimes which appeared necessary for that purpose;
and it is certain that all his courage and capacity--qualities in which
he really seems not to have been deficient--would never have made
compensation to the people for the danger of the precedent and for the
contagious example of vice and murder exalted upon the throne. This
Prince was of a small stature, hump-backed, and had a harsh, disagreeable
countenance; so that his body was in every particular no less deformed
than his mind.

[Footnote 1: Wife of Henry VI.]

[Footnote 2: The Queen's brother.]

[Footnote 3: Brother of Lord Stanley, _above_.]



IVAN THE GREAT UNITES RUSSIA AND BREAKS THE TARTAR YOKE

A.D. 1462-1505

Robert Bell


At the birth of Ivan III (1440) Russia was all but stifled between the
great Lithuanian empire of the Poles and the vast possessions of the
Mongols. In vain had a succession of Muscovite princes endeavored to give
unity to the little Russian state. Between the grand princes of Moscow
and those of Lithuania stood Novgorod and Pskof, the two chief Russian
republics, hesitating to declare their allegiance.

By the creation of new appanages the Russian princes continually
destroyed the very unity for which they labored. Moreover, at a time when
the great nations of the West were organizing, Muscovy or Russia had
no settled relations with their civilization. The opening of the
Renaissance, the progress of discovery, the invention of printing--by
these the best spirits in Russia were stirred to fresh aspirations for
national organization and participation in the great European movement.

According to the tradition, her deliverer had been foretold and was
expected. His triumphs were predicted at his birth. The man through whom,
or at least in whose name, Russia was to be restored to herself, to be
freed from the Mongol yoke, and brought into living connection with
Western Europe, was Ivan, son and heir of Vasili the Blind, Grand Prince
of Moscow.

This child became Ivan III, surnamed the "Great," because during his
reign, 1462-1505, the expectations of his country were largely realized.
He was the first who could call himself "Ruler of all the Russias," and
he is regarded as the original founder of the Russian empire. Already,
at his accession, the Muscovite principalities were beginning to draw
together, and circumstances were favorable to the prosecution of the task
upon which he was called to enter--the completing of their union and the
securing of their national independence.

Ivan was a man of great cunning and prudence, and was remarkable
for indomitable perseverance, which carried him triumphantly to the
conclusions of his designs in a spirit of utter indifference to the
ruin or bad faith that tracked his progress. Such a man alone, who was
prepared to sacrifice the scruples of honor and the demands of justice,
was fit to meet the difficulties by which the grand princedom of Moscow
was surrounded. He saw them all clearly, resolved upon the course he
should take; and throughout a long reign, in which the paramount ambition
of rendering Russia independent and the throne supreme was the leading
feature of his policy, he pursued his plans with undeviating consistency.

But that policy was not to be accomplished by open and responsible
acts. The whole character of Ivan was tinged with the duplicity of the
churchmen who held a high place in his councils. His proceedings were
neither direct nor at first apparently conducive to the interests of
the empire, but the great cause was secretly advancing against all
impediments. While he forbore to risk his advantages, he left an
opportunity for disunion among his enemies, by which he was certain to
gain in the end. He never committed himself to a position of the security
of which he was not sure; and he carried this spirit of caution to
such an extremity that many of the early years of his reign present a
succession of timid and vacillating movements, that more nearly resemble
the subterfuges of a coward than the crafty artifices of a despot.

The objects, of which he never lost sight, were to free himself from
enemies abroad and to convert the princedom at home into an autocracy. So
extensive a design could not have been effected by mere force of arms,
for he had so many domestic and foreign foes to meet at once, and so many
points of attack and defence to cover, that it was impossible to conduct
so grand a project by military means alone. That which he could not
effect, therefore, by the sword, he endeavored to perform by diplomatic
intrigue; and thus, between the occasional victories of his armies and
the still more powerful influence of his subtle policy, he reduced
his foes and raised himself to an eminence to which none of his most
ambitious predecessors had aspired. The powers against whom he had
to wage this double war of arms and diplomacy were the Tartars and
Lithuanians, beyond the frontier; and the independent republics of
Novgorod, Vyatka, and Pskof, and the princes of the yet unsettled
appanages within. The means he had at his command were fully sufficient
to have enabled him to subdue those princes of the blood who exhibited
faint signs of discontent in their appanages, and who could have been
easily reached through the widely diffused agency of the boyars; but the
obstinate republics of the North were more difficult of access. They
stood boldly upon their independence, and every attempt to reduce them
was followed by as fierce a resistance, and by such a lavish outlay of
the wealth which their commercial advantages had enabled them to amass
that the task was one of extraordinary difficulty. Kazan, the first
and greatest of the Tartar cities, too, claimed a sovereignty over the
republics, which Ivan was afraid to contest, lest that which was but a
vague and empty claim might end in confirmed authority. It was better to
permit the insolent republicans to maintain their entire freedom than
to hazard, by indiscretion, their transferrence to the hands of those
Tartars who were loosened from the parent stock.

His first act, therefore, was to acknowledge, directly or indirectly,
according to the nature of their different tenures, the rights of all his
foes within and without. He appeared to admit the justice of things as
he found them; betrayed his foreign enemies into a confidential reliance
upon his acquiescence in their exactions; and even yielded, without a
murmur, to an abuse of those pretensions to which he affected to submit,
but which he was secretly resolved to annihilate. This plausible
conformity procured him time to prepare and mature his designs; and so
insidiously did he pursue his purpose that he extended that time by
a servility which nearly forfeited the attachment of the people. The
immediate object of consideration was obviously the Golden Horde, because
all the princes and republics, and even the Poles and Lithuanians, were
interested in any movement that was calculated to embarrass the common
enemy. Ivan's policy was to unite as many of his enemies as he could
against a single one, and, finally, to subdue them all by the aid of each
other. Had he ventured upon any less certain course, he must have risked
a similar combination against himself. He began by withholding the
ordinary tribute from the Khan, but without exhibiting any symptoms of
inallegiance. He merely evaded the tax, while he acknowledged the right;
and his dissimulation succeeded in blinding the Tartar, who still
believed that he held the Grand Prince as a tributary, although he
did not receive his tribute. The Khan, completely deceived, not only
permitted this recusancy to escape with impunity, but was further
prevailed upon to withdraw the Tartar residents and their retinues, and
the Tartar merchants who dwelt in Moscow and who infested, with the
haughty bearing of masters, even the avenues of the Kremlin.

This latter concession was purchased by bribery, for Ivan condescended to
buy the interference of a Tartar princess. So slavish and degrading
was his outward seeming that his wife, a noble and spirited lady, the
daughter of the Emperor of Byzantium, could with difficulty prevail upon
him to forego the humiliating usages which had hitherto attended the
reception of the Mongol envoys. It had been customary on the part of the
grand princes to go forward to meet the Tartar minister, to spread a
carpet of fur under his horse's feet, to hear the Khan's letter read upon
their knees, to present to the envoy a cup of koumiss, and to lick from
the mane of the horse the drops which had fallen from the lips of the
negotiator: and these disagreeable customs Ivan would have complied with
but for the successful remonstrances of the Princess.

Kazan presented the most alluring point of actual attack. The horde that
had established that city subsisted by predatory excursions, and even the
other bands of the barbarians were not unwilling to witness the descent
of the Russians upon one of their own tribes that had acquired so much
power. The project was favored by so many circumstances that, although
his policy was evidently at this period to preserve peace as long as he
could, he was tempted to make a general levy, and to assemble the whole
flower of the population for the purpose of driving out of his dominions
the bold invaders who had intrenched themselves within the walls of a
fortified town. This was about 1468. At that very time the army of the
Golden Horde, inspired by some sudden impulse, was advancing into Russia.
It appears, however, that the multitudes assembled by Ivan were so
numerous that the Khan's troops retired upon the mere rumor of their
approach; so that the display of his resources had all the effect he
desired, and he won a signal victory without striking a blow. The old
Russian annalist dwells, with some pomp of words, upon this bloodless
triumph, and, in the true vein of hyperbole, says that the Russian army
shone like the waves of the sea illuminated by the sunbeams. We take the
expression for all it is worth, when we estimate the force as having been
more numerous than that of the Tartars.

It does not appear that Ivan was yet prepared, even with this great
armament, to risk his future objects by any hostile collision, so long
as such an extremity could be averted by intrigue; for in the following
year, when the anticipated march against Kazan was at last commenced,
he suddenly paused in the midst of his course, although the result was
almost certain. Were it of much consequence, it would not be easy to
decide the cause of this strange and abrupt proceeding; but it was
evident that the soldiery were resolved not to return home without
spoils. They rushed onward to the city; and even the general, who was
instructed by Ivan to countermand the attack, in vain attempted to
restrain them. With a leader of their own choosing, they fell upon Kazan,
and utterly routed the inhabitants. The Grand Prince, perceiving that
the enemy was powerless, now no longer hesitated; but, engaging all the
princes in his service, and throwing his own guards into the ranks, he
despatched his colossal forces to reduce the already dismembered hold of
the Tartars of Kazan. The event was a complete victory, but Ivan remained
safe at Moscow, to watch the issue of an undertaking which he could not
reasonably have feared.

The subjugation of Kazan left the field clear for his designs upon the
three domestic republics. Vyatka, insolent in its own strength, declared
itself neutral between Moscow and Kazan; and on the fall of the latter
city, Novgorod, apprehensive that Ivan would turn his arms immediately
against her, called upon the people of Pskof for aid, expressing her
determination to march at once against the Grand Prince, in order to
anticipate and avert his intentions. The Novgorodians were the more
determined upon this bold measure by the personal pusillanimity which
Ivan betrayed in a war where the advantages lay entirely at his own side.
They calculated upon the terror they should inspire; and judged that if
they could not succeed in vanquishing the Grand Prince, they should, at
all events, be enabled to secure their own terms. Marpha, a rich and
influential woman, the widow of a _posadnik_, and who was enamoured of a
Lithuanian chief, conceiving the romantic design of bestowing her country
as a marriage dower upon her lover, exerted all her power to kindle the
enthusiasm and assist the project of the citizens. Her hospitality was
unbounded. She threw open her palace to the people; lavished her wealth
among them in sumptuous entertainments and exhibitions, and caused the
_vetchooi kolokol_ ("assembling-bell"), which summoned the popular
meetings to the market-place, to be rung as the signal of these orgies of
licentiousness. The great bell in Novgorod was the type of the republican
independence of the citizens, and represented the excesses into which
they were not unwilling to plunge whenever it was necessary to testify
their sense of that wild liberty which they had established among
themselves. It was tolled on all occasions of a public nature, and the
people gathered in multitudes at the well-known call. If any individual
were accused of a crime against the republic or of any offence against
the laws, the judges appeared at the sound of the bell to hold a summary
court of justice, and the citizens surrounded the trial-seat, prepared to
execute the sentence. Every citizen, with his sons, attended, carrying
each two stones under his arms; and, if the accused were found guilty,
lapidation instantly followed. The house of the culprit was also
immediately plundered, cast down, confiscated, and sold for the benefit
of the corporation. Except in China, where a law still more sanguinary
and destructive prevails in cases of murder, there is hardly a similar
instance of deliberate legal severity to be found among nations elevated
above barbarism.

Inspired by the revelries of the ambitious Marpha, and the patriotic
associations she awakened, the Novgorodians expelled the officer of the
Grand Prince; possessed themselves of some land that belonged to him in
right of his fief; and, to confirm their revolt against his authority,
submitted themselves, by treaty, to Casimir, Prince of Lithuania. In this
position of affairs, Ivan wisely resolved to leave Vyatka to its own
course, confining his attention solely to Novgorod, and seeking to win
over Pskof and its twelve tributary cities, so that he might combine them
against the turbulent republic. The fall of Novgorod accomplished, the
conquest of the other obstinate cities was easily effected.

The polite, cool, and persevering means he brought into operation against
the refractory republic were admirably seconded by the machinery of
communication which had been previously established in the persons of
the boyars, whose local influence was of the first consequence on this
occasion. As the tide of these numerous negotiations changed, Ivan
assumed the humility or the pride, the generosity or the severity,
adapted to the immediate purpose; and, working upon the characters of the
individuals as well as their interests, he succeeded in gaining a great
moral lever before he unsheathed a sword. He made allies of all the
classes and princes that lay in his way to the heart of the independent
corporation. He represented to the nobles the anomalous nature and
usurpation of the democratic institutions of Novgorod, and he roused
their pride into resentment. He gained over the few princes who still
held trembling appanages by painting to them in strong colors the
enormous opulence and commercial monopolies of the republic; and he
filled the whole population with revenge against the fated city, by
exaggerated accounts of its treasonable designs against the internal
security of the empire. Thus, by artful insinuations of the personal
advantages and general benefits that were to spring from the overthrow
of Novgorod, he succeeded in neutralizing all the opposition he had any
reason to apprehend, and in exciting increased enthusiasm on the part of
the people.

Having made these subtle preparations to facilitate his proceedings, he
sent an ambassador to the citizens calling upon them to acknowledge his
authority; and only awaited their decisive refusal, which he anticipated,
as an excuse for immediate hostilities. The Novgorodians returned an
answer couched in terms of scorn and defiance. His reply was carried by
three formidable armies, which, breaking in on the Novgorodian territory
on three different sides, prostrated the hopes of the citizens by
overwhelming masses, against which their gallant resistance was of no
avail. In this brief and desperate struggle, Ivan possessed extraordinary
superiority by the recent acquisition of firearms and cannon, the use of
which he had learned from Aristotle of Bologna, an Italian, whom he had
taken into his service as an architect, mintmaster, and founder. The
triumph of the arms of the Grand Prince was rapidly followed by the
incursions of swarms of the peasantry, who, secretly urged forward
by Ivan, rushed upon the routed enemy, and completed the work of
devastation. This licentious exhibition of popular feeling Ivan affected
to repress, and, availing himself of the opportunity it afforded to
assume toward the Novgorodians a moderation he did not feel, he pretended
to protect them against any greater violence than was merely necessary
to establish his right to the recovery of the domains of which they had
despoiled him, and the payment of the ransom that was customary under
such circumstances. Here his deep and crafty genius had room for
appropriate display. He did not consider it prudent to seize upon the
republic at once, as, in that event, he was bound to partition it among
his kinsmen, by whose aid, extended upon special promises, he had
overthrown it; so he contented himself with a rich ransom, having already
beggared it by suffering lawless followers to plunder it uninterruptedly
before he interfered, and by demanding an act of submission. But in this
act he contrived to insert some words of ambiguous tendency, under the
shelter of which he might, when his own time arrived, leap upon his prey
with impunity.

The confusion into which the Novgorodians were thrown and the great
reduction of strength which they suffered in the contest enabled Ivan
to deprive them of some of their tributaries, under the pretence of
rendering them a service, so that their exhaustion was seized upon as a
fresh source of injustice. The Permians having offered some indignity
to the republic, Ivan interfered, and transferred the commerce of that
people with Germany to Moscow; and, on another occasion, when the Livoman
knights attempted an aggression, Ivan sent his ambassadors and troops
to force a negotiation in his own name; thus actually depriving both
Novgorod and Pskof, they being mutually concerned, of the right of making
peace and war in their own behalf. By insidious measures like these he
continued to oppress and absorb the once independent city that claimed
and kept so towering an ascendency. But not satisfied with such means of
accumulating the supreme power, he sowed dissensions between the rich
classes and the poor, and after fomenting fictitious grievances,
terminating in open quarrel, he succeeded in having all complaints laid
before him for decision. Then, going among them, he impoverished the
wealthy by the lavish presents his visits demanded, and captivated the
imagination of the multitude by the dazzling splendor of his retinues and
the flexible quality of his justice. The time was now approaching for
a more explicit declaration of his views. On pretence of these
disagreements he loaded some of the principal citizens, the oligarchs of
the republic, with chains and sent them to Moscow. It was so arranged
that these nobles were denounced by the mob; and Ivan, in acceding to
their demand for vengeance, secured the allegiance of the great bulk of
the population. The stratagem succeeded; and with each new violation of
justice he gained an accession of popular favor.

The progress of the scheme against the liberties of Novgorod was slow,
but inevitable. The inhabitants gradually referred all their disputes to
the Grand Prince; and he, profiting by the growing desire to erect him
into the sole judge of their domestic grievances, at length summoned the
citizens to appear before him at Moscow. The demand was as unexpected as
it was extraordinary.

Never before had the Novgorodians gone out from their own walls to sue or
receive judgment; but so seductive and treacherous were the professions
of Ivan that, unsuspicious of his designs, they consented to appear
before his throne. Throughout the whole of these encroachments on the
ancient usages in which the rights of the people resided, he appeared to
be lifted above all personal or tyrannical views. Marpha, the ambitious
widow, who had stirred up the revolt and sought to attach Novgorod to
Lithuania, had never been molested; and even the principal persons who
were most conspicuous in resisting his authority at the outset were
suffered to remain unharmed. These instances of magnanimity, as they were
believed to be, lulled the distrust of the citizens, and seduced them by
degrees to abandon their old customs one by one at his bidding. For seven
years he continued with unwearied perseverance to wean them from all
those distinctive habits that marked their original character and
separated them from the rest of the empire; and at last, when he thought
that he had succeeded in obliterating their attachment to the republican
form of government, he advanced his claim to the absolute sovereignty,
which was now sanctioned by numberless acts of submission, and by
traitorous voices of assent within the council of the citizens.

At an audience to which he admitted an envoy, that officer, either
wilfully or by accident, addressed him by the name of sovereign; and
Ivan, instantly seizing upon the inadvertency, claimed all the privileges
of an absolute master. He required that the republic should surrender its
expiring rights into his hands, and take a solemn oath of allegiance;
that his boyars should be received within its gates, with full authority
to exercise their almost irresponsible control over the city; that the
palace of Yaroslaff, the temple of Novgorodian liberty, should be given
up to his viceroy; that the forum should be abolished; and that the
popular assemblies, and all the corresponding immunities of the people,
should be abrogated forever.

The veil was dropped too suddenly. The citizens were not prepared for so
abrupt and uncompromising an assertion of authority. Hitherto they had
admitted the innovations of the Grand Prince, but it was of their
own free will. They did not expect that he would ground any right of
sovereignty upon their voluntary acquiescence in his character of
arbitrator and ally; and the news of his despotic claim filled them with
despair and indignation. The great bell, which had formerly been the
emblem of their citizenship, now tolled for the last time. They assembled
in the market-place in tumultuous crowds, and summoning the treacherous
or imprudent envoy before them, they tried him by a clamorous and summary
process, and, before the sentence was completed, tore him limb from limb.
Believing that some of the nobles were accessory to the surrender of
their freedom, they fell upon those they suspected, and murdered them in
the streets, thus hastening, and confirming by their intemperance, the
final alienation of the wealthy classes from their cause; and having by
these acts of unbridled desperation given the last demonstrations of
their independence, they once more threw themselves into the arms of
Lithuania, which were open to receive them.

But Ivan was prepared for this demonstration of passion. His measures
were too deeply taken to suffer surprise by any course which the
Novgorodians, in their righteous hatred of oppression, might think fit
to adopt. When he learned the reception they gave to his mandate, he
affected the most painful astonishment. He declared that he alone was the
party aggrieved, that he alone was deceived; that they had laid snares
for his counsel and countenance; and that even when, yielding to their
universal requisition, he had consented to take upon him the toils of
government, they had the audacity to confront him with an imposition in
the face of Russia, to shed the blood of their fellow-men, and to insult
heaven and the empire by calling into the sacred limits the soldiers of
an adverse religion and a foreign power. These ingenious remonstrances
were addressed to the priests, the nobles, and the people, and had the
desired effect. The bishops embarked zealously in the crusade, and the
people entered willingly into the delusion. The dependent republic of
Pskof and the principality of Twer, paralyzed in the convulsion, appeared
to waver; but Ivan, resolved to deprive Novgorod of any help they might
ultimately be tempted to offer, drew out their military strength, under
the form of a contingency, and left them powerless. Yet, although
strongly reenforced on all sides, he still avoided a contest. With
a mingled exhibition of revenge and attachment, he threatened and
propitiated in the same breath.

"I will reign supreme at Novgorod," he exclaimed; "as I do at Moscow. You
must surrender all to me; your posadnik, and the bell that calls your
national council together;" and at the same time he professed his
determination to respect those very liberties which by these demands were
to be sacrificed forever. The Novgorodians, terrified by the immense
force Ivan had collected, which it seemed he only used to menace, and not
to destroy, attempted to capitulate; but he was insensible to all their
representations, and, even while he promised them their freedom, he
refused to grant it. The armament, mighty as it was, which he had
prepared, was kept aloof to threaten and not to strike. He acted as if he
feared to risk the issue of a contest with any of his enemies, or as if
he were unwilling to suffer the loss consequent even upon victory. He
wanted to overbear by terror rather than by arms, so that the fearful
agency of his name might do the work of conquest more powerfully and at
less cost than his armies, which must have been thinned by battles, and
might have been subdued by fortune. So long as he could preserve his
terrible ascendency by the force of the fear which he inspired, he was
secure; but the single defeat, or the doubtful issue of a solitary
struggle, might reduce the potent charm of his unvanquished power. In
this way he drew the chain tighter; and in the agonies of the protracted
and narrowing pressure, Novgorod, unable to resist, died in agonies of
despair.

The surrender of the liberties of the republic was complete. On taking
possession of the city, Ivan seized upon the person of the popular
Marpha, and sent her and seven of the principal citizens as prisoners
to Moscow, confiscating their properties in the name of the state. The
national assemblies and municipal privileges ceased January 15, 1478, on
which day the people took the oath of servitude; and on the 18th, the
boyars and their immediate followers, and the wealthy and the influential
classes of the inhabitants, voluntarily came forward and entered into the
service of the Grand Prince. The revenues of the clergy, which were
by the act of submission transferred to the treasury of Ivan, were
immediately devoted by him to the service of three hundred thousand
followers of boyars, through whose intermediate agency he intended to
assert and maintain his unlimited and supreme authority over the fallen
city. But not alone did he possess himself of the private property of
some of the principal persons who had rendered themselves prominent in
the recent declaration of independence, but he demanded a surrender of a
great part of the territories that belonged by charter to the public.
He also further enriched himself, and impoverished the Novgorodians, by
seizing upon all the gold and valuables to which he could, with any show
of propriety, lay claim. He is said to have conveyed to Moscow no less
than three hundred cart-loads of gold, silver, and precious stones,
besides furs, cloths, and merchandise to a considerable amount.

The settlement of his power in Novgorod had scarcely been concluded when
intelligence was received that the Tartars of the Golden Horde were
preparing for a third invasion. The enormous physical force that was at
Ivan's disposal, the late accession of strength and increase of domain,
by which his means were not only improved, but the number and means of
his opponents were reduced, and the general state of the country, which
was, in all respects, favorable to the objects of his ambition, deprived
such a movement of its wonted terrors. Ivan had nothing to fear from the
approach of the enemy. He was surrounded by the princes of the blood, who
had warmly embarked in the common cause; he had an immense army at his
command, panting for new fields of spoil and glory; he had broken up his
domestic enemies in the North, and dismembered or attached the insurgent
republics. He had left Lithuania to the rapacious guardianship of the
Khan of the Crimea, who was sufficiently formidable to neutralize the
incursions of the duchy upon the frontier; and on every side he found an
ardent population impatient to expel the invader. Yet, encouraging
as these circumstances were, and although they seemed to present the
fortunate opportunity for carrying into execution his cherished plan of
autocracy, Ivan held back. He alone of all Russia was intimidated. His
project of empire was so lofty and comprehensive that he appeared to
shrink from any collision that could even remotely peril its ultimate
success. He was so dismayed that he forced the Princess to fly from
Moscow and seek a temporary shelter in the North. Terror-struck and
unmanned, he deserted the army, and shut himself up in the capital for
security; and when the armed population, pouring forth from all quarters,
and animated by one spirit of resistance, had advanced as far as the
Oka to meet the Tartars, he recalled his son to the capital, as if he
apprehended the consummation of some evil either in his own person or
that of his heir. But the voice of the general indignation reached him in
his retreat, and even his son refused to leave his post in the army. The
murmurs of a disappointed people rose into clamors which he could not
affect to misunderstand. They reproached him with having burdened them
with taxes, without having paid the Khan his tribute; and that, now
the Tartars had come into Russia to demand restitution, he fled from
vindication of his own acts, and left the people to extricate themselves
from a dilemma into which he had brought them.

In this difficulty Ivan had no choice left but to submit to the will of
the country. He accordingly convoked a meeting of the bishops and boyars
for the purpose of asking their advice; but their counsel was even still
more conclusive; and the reluctant Prince was compelled to rejoin the
army. The fear by which he was moved, however, could not be concealed,
and it gradually infected the ranks of the soldiery. He had no sooner
taken his station at the head of the army than he became spellbound. A
river, the Lugra, divided him from the enemy; he could not summon courage
to attempt it, but stood gazing in disastrous terror upon the foe, with
whom he opened negotiations to beg for terms. In the mean time the news
of his indecision spread, and the people at Moscow grew turbulent. The
Primate, perceiving the disaffection that was springing up, addressed the
Prince in the language of despair. He represented to him the state of the
public mind, and the inglorious procedure of suing for a peace where he
could insure a victory and dictate his own terms. "Would you," exclaimed
the Primate, "give up Russia to fire and sword, and the churches to
plunder? Whither would you fly? Can you soar upward like the eagle? Can
you make your nest amid the stars? The Lord will cast you down from even
that asylum. No! you will not desert us. You would blush at the name of
fugitive and traitor to your country!"

Ivan was surrounded by two hundred thousand soldiers; reenforcements
were thronging constantly to his side; the enemy was cut off from all
assistance from his ally of Lithuania; and one word of encouragement
would have set all these advantages into action. The troops only awaited
the signal to rush upon the invaders; but Ivan, amid these flattering
and animated circumstances, was dispirited. Even the voice of the Church
addressed him in vain. He was utterly paralyzed; and cowardice had so
completely taken possession of his mind that when the early winter had
set in and frozen the river, so as to obliterate the obstacle that
separated him from the troops of the Khan, he was seized with
consternation, and fled in the wildest disorder from his position. He was
so alarmed that he could not even preserve any regularity on the retreat,
and all was confusion and panic.

So disgraceful an abandonment of his duty, which in other times must have
cost him his throne, if not his life, was not visited with that rigor by
the Russians which so glaring a defection deserved. The sovereign Prince
was removed to too great a distance from the people to be judged of with
precision or promptitude. The motives of his acts were not accessible
to the multitude, who, accustomed to despotism, had not yet learned to
question the wisdom of their rulers. The rapid advances that had been
made toward the concentration of the governing power in the autocratical
form, limited still more the means of popular observation and the vigor
of the popular check upon the supreme authority. The Grand Prince stood
so much aloof from his subjects, surrounded by special advisers and
court favorites, that even the language of remonstrance, which sometimes
reached his ears, was so softened in its progress that its harshness
was that of subservient admonition; and he was as little shaken by
the smothered discontent of the people as they were roused by an open
sacrifice of their interests. But not alone was this reverence for the
autocracy so great as to protect the autocrat from violent reprisals on
the part of his subjects; but the national veneration for the descendant
of St. Vladimir and the stock of Rurik was sufficient to absorb all the
indignation which the weakness or the wickedness of the Prince might have
aroused.

Ivan, however, independently of those acts of prejudice and ignorance
which preserved him from the wrath which he had so wantonly provoked,
was destined to find all the unfavorable circumstances of his position
changed into the most extraordinary and unexpected advantages. In the
crisis of his despair the fortunes of the day turned to his favor. While
he hung behind the Lugra, seeking a base and humiliating compromise at
the hands of the enemy, his lieutenant of Svenigorod, and his ally the
Khan of the Crimea, advanced upon the Golden Horde, and pushed their
victorious arms into the very den of the Tartars, at the time that
the Tartar forces were drawn off in the invasion of Russia. Speedy
intelligence of this disaster having reached the enemy, he made a
precipitate retreat, in the hope of reaching his fastnesses on the
frontier in time to avert the destruction that threatened him; but
the Russians had been too rapid in their movements; and the work of
devastation, begun by them, was completed by a band of marauding Tartars,
who entered soon after they retired, and, carrying away the women and
the remnant of the treasures left behind, reduced the city of the Golden
Horde to ashes before the distant army could accomplish its retrograde
march. Nor was this all the triumph that Ivan was called upon to share,
without any participation in the danger. The return of the Tartars was
arrested midway by a hetman of the Cossacks and the mirza of the
Nogais, who, falling upon the confused and disorderly ranks, on their
ill-conducted flight homeward, cut them in pieces, and left scarcely a
living vestige on the field of the ancient and implacable enemies of the
country.

The extinction of the Tartars was final. The Golden Horde was
annihilated, and the scourge of Russia and her princes was no more. In
a better educated state of society, these events, so sudden and so
important, must have been attributed to proximate and obvious causes--the
combinations of operations over which Ivan had no control, and the
dismay into which the Tartars were surprised, followed up quickly by
overwhelming masses who possessed the superiority in numbers and in plan.
Ivan, who could lay no claim to the honors of the enterprise, would not
have been associated in its results had the people been instructed in
the respect which was due to themselves. But the Russians, profoundly
venerating the person of the Grand Prince, and accustomed to consider
him as the depository of a wisdom refined above the sphere of ordinary
mortality, did not hesitate to ascribe this transcendent exploit to the
genius of the reluctant autocrat. They looked back upon his pusillanimity
with awe, and extracted from his apparent fears the subtle elements of a
second providence. He was no longer the coward and the waverer. He had
seen the body of the future, before its extreme shadows had darkened
other men's vision; and the whole course of his timid bearing, even
including his flight from the Lugra, was interpreted into a prudent
and prophetic policy, wonderful in its progress and sublime in its
consequences. Without risking a life, or spilling a drop of blood, and
merely by an evasive diversion of his means, he had vanquished the
Asiatic spoiler; and at the very moment that the people were disposed to
doubt his skill and his courage, he had actually destroyed the giant by
turning the arms of his own nation against him. Such was the unanimous
feeling of Russia. Transferring the glory of their signal deliverance
from those who had achieved it to him who had evaded the responsibility
of the attempt, they worshipped, in the Grand Prince, the incarnation of
the new-born liberty.



CULMINATION OF THE POWER OF BURGUNDY

TREATY OF PERONNE

A.D. 1468

P. F. WILLERT


From the planting of the Burgundian branch of the house of Valois, in
1364, arose a formidable rival of the royal power in France. During the
next hundred years the dukes of Burgundy played prominent parts in French
history, and then appeared one of the line who advanced his house to its
loftiest eminence. This was Charles, surnamed the "Bold," son of Philip,
misnamed the "Good." Charles was born in 1433, and became Duke of
Burgundy in 1467. He "held the rank of one of the first princes in Europe
without being a king, and without possessing an inch of ground for which
he did not owe service to some superior lord." Some of his territories
were held of the Holy Roman Empire, and some of the French crown, and
he was at once a vassal of France and of the Emperor. His dominions
contained many prosperous and wealthy cities.

But the possessions of Charles lacked unity alike in territorial
compactness, political distinction, and local rule, and in national
characteristics, language, and laws. His peculiar position exposed him
to the jealous rivalry of Louis XI of France. The King's object was the
consolidation of his monarchy, while Charles aimed to extend his duchy
at the expense of Louis' territories. Thus the two rivals became deadly
enemies.

Charles conceived the design of restoring the old kingdom of Burgundy. In
1467, having secured alliances with Brittany and England, he prepared for
a campaign of conquest. But Louis offered him advantageous terms of peace
and invited him to a conference. While Charles hesitated, Louis stirred
to revolt the Duke's subjects in Liege, with whom Burgundy had lately
been at war. The negotiations between Louis and Charles, and the events
which followed, form the subject of Willert's narrative.

Many messengers came and went, yet Charles hesitated to accept peace even
on terms so greatly to his advantage. The King, if he could but see the
Duke, felt sure he might end this uncertainty, perhaps even obtain more
favorable concessions.

When once the idea of a personal interview had possessed him he was deaf
to the warnings and entreaties of his more prudent or honest advisers.

Charles did not seem anxious to meet the King, and when at length
he yielded to the representations of the King's envoy, he sent a
safe-conduct in the most explicit terms: "Sir, if it be your pleasure to
visit this town of Peronne to confer with us, I swear to you and promise
by my faith and on my honor that you may come, stay, and return at your
good pleasure, without let or harm, notwithstanding any cause that may
now be or hereafter may arise."

After receiving this assurance, Louis might fairly suppose that he had
nothing to fear. He had before trusted himself safely to Charles' honor.
Nor had he himself abused the chance which once delivered his rival into
his hands unprotected by promise or oath. He therefore set out at once
for Peronne, accompanied only by some eighty archers of his Scotch
guard and by his personal attendants. He was met at the frontier by
a Burgundian escort under Philip de Crevecoeur, and he found Charles
himself waiting to receive him at the banks of a little river not far
from Peronne. The princes greeted each other with respect on the one
side, and with hearty affection on the other. They entered the town side
by side, the King's arm resting on his kinsman's shoulder. The castle of
Peronne was small and inconvenient; the King was therefore lodged in
the house of one of the richest citizens. He had scarcely reached his
quarters when the Marshal of Burgundy joined Charles' army with the
forces he commanded. With him came Philip of Savoy and two of his
brothers, Antony de Chateauneuf, and other men who had shared largely in
the King's favor, but who had fled from his resentment after betraying
his confidence. These his enemies might consider the occasion favorable
for a bold stroke. If they acted without the connivance of Charles he
might be grateful to those who satisfied his enmity without irretrievably
compromising his honor. Louis therefore asked to be allowed to move into
the castle, where his archers could at any rate defend him against a
surprise. On the next day the conference began; all that he could demand
was offered to Charles if only he would abandon the alliance of Brittany
and England. But he was determined not to give way, and was insensible to
the blandishments of his guest, who may have been tormented by painful
misgivings as he looked from his prison-like rooms at a gloomy tower in
which Charles the Simple had been confined, and, it was said, murdered by
a rebellious vassal.

At the first suggestion of the interview with the King, Charles had
objected that he could scarcely believe in his sincere desire for peace
while his envoys were encouraging rebels. Cardinal Balue replied that
when the people of Liege learned that the King and Duke had met, they
would not venture upon any hostile movement. But the French agents were
not informed of their master's intended visit to Peronne, and did not
attempt to discourage a premature attack. It is indeed doubtful whether
they could in any case have changed the course of events.

The first rumors of what had happened in a popular outbreak at Liege
reached Peronne on the night of October 10th. As was natural, they were
greatly exaggerated. Tongres had been sacked, the garrison put to the
sword; Humbercourt, the Burgundian Governor, and the Bishop murdered;
the King's envoys had been seen leading and encouraging the assailants.
Charles broke into cries of rage: "The traitor King! So he is only come
to cheat me by a false pretence of peace! By St. George, he and those
villains of Liege shall pay dearly for this!" He did not pause to
consider whether it was likely that Louis had been simple enough to
provoke a catastrophe fatal to his hopes and dangerous to his safety. If
Comines, the Duke's chamberlain, and another favorite attendant, who were
with their master at the time, had not done their best to soothe him it
is probable that the donjon of Peronne would once more have closed upon a
captive king. Charles was at little pains to conceal his rage; and when
Louis was told that the gates of town and castle were guarded to prevent
the escape of a thief who had stolen a casket of jewels, he knew that he
was a prisoner. Yet, however bitter his self-reproach, however gloomy his
forebodings, he did not lose his presence of mind. His attendants were
allowed free access to the castle; he had brought with him fifteen
thousand gold crowns, and these he anxiously employed to secure the good
offices of Charles' advisers. For three nights the angry agitation and
perplexity of Charles were so great that he did not undress. He would
throw himself on his bed for a time and then start up and pace about his
room, uttering threats and invectives against the King.

Nothing was done or decided on the first day, October 11, 1468. On the
second a council was held which sat late into the night. A minority of
the council, the enemies of Louis, or those who were only anxious to
flatter the passions of their master, advised him to use to the full
the opportunity which chance and the foolhardiness and duplicity of his
adversary had placed in his hands. They urged him to keep the King in
secure confinement after providing for the virtual partition of the
kingdom among the great feudatories. The majority, those who had some
regard for the honor of the house of Burgundy, the lawyers, who respected
the letter, if not the spirit, of an agreement, perhaps also the more
far-sighted politicians, were of a different opinion. The fame of the
Duke would suffer irreparable injury by so flagrant a violation of his
plighted word. The advantages, moreover, to be gained by the captivity,
the deposition, perhaps the death of the King, were uncertain. The heir
to the throne was entirely in the hands of the Bretons, and was not
likely to be eager to advance the interests of Burgundy. A large and
well-disciplined army, commanded by experienced captains, was assembled
on the frontiers. If they could not rescue their master, they would at
least endeavor to avenge him, while the new King could acquire an easy
popularity by execrating a crime of which he and Francis of Brittany
would reap all the advantage. It was a wiser course to accept the terms
which the King in his alarm proffered--the settlement in favor of
Burgundy of all the disputed questions which had arisen out of the
treaties of Arras and Conflans--and it might be possible to humiliate and
disgrace Louis by compelling him to take part in the punishment of his
allies, the citizens of Liege, who by their trust in him had been lured
to destruction.

Charles left the council apparently undecided, and passed the night in as
great a storm of passion as the two preceding. The conflict within him
doubtless fanned his wrath. Comines, who shared his room, endeavored to
calm him, and to persuade him to embrace the course most consistent with
his interests and the King's safety; for so great a prince, if once a
captive, might scarcely hope to leave his prison alive. Toward morning
Charles determined to content himself with insisting that Louis should
sign a peace on such terms as he should dictate, and accompany him
against Liege. The King, says Comines, had a friend who informed him that
he would be safe if he agreed to these conditions, but that otherwise his
peril would be extreme. This friend was Comines himself, and Louis never
forgot so timely a service. The two days during which his fate was being
decided had been passed by him in the greatest agony of mind. Though he
had been allowed to communicate freely with the French nobles and his own
attendants, he had been ominously neglected by the Burgundian courtiers.
As soon as the Duke had determined what conditions he intended to impose,
he hastened to the castle to visit his captive. The memorable interview
is described by two eye-witnesses--Comines and Olivier de la Marche.
Charles entered the King's presence with a lowly obeisance; but his
gestures and his unsteady voice betrayed his suppressed passion. The King
could not conceal his fear. "My brother," he asked, "am I not safe in
your dominions?"

"Yes, sire, so safe that if I saw a cross-bow pointed at you I would
throw myself before you to shield you from the bolt."

He then asked the King to swear a peace on the proposed basis: (i) The
faithful execution of the treaty of Conflans; (2) the abolition of the
jurisdiction of the Parliament of Paris over Flanders; (3) the surrender
of all regalian rights in Picardy; (4) the release of the Duke from all
fealty to the King if the treaty was in any way infringed or imperfectly
executed. Louis agreed, and Charles requested his assistance in punishing
the rebellion of Liege. The King expressed his perfect readiness. The
princes then signed a draft of the treaty and swore to execute it
faithfully on the cross of St. Laud. Charles had insisted that Louis
should swear on the relic, a fragment of the true Cross once kept in the
Church of St. Laud at Angers, which the King always carried with him,
esteeming it highly, because he believed that whoever forswore himself on
it would surely die within the year. The Duke at the same time promised
to do homage for the fiefs he held of the crown of France, but the
execution of this promise was evaded.

On the 15th the Duke, with an army of forty thousand men, and the King
with his slender escort, and some three hundred men-at-arms who joined
him by the way, began their march on Liege. Louis was not less anxious
than his companion that Dammartin should not attempt a forcible rescue.
Victory or defeat would have been alike dangerous to his safety. Twice
at Charles' request orders were sent to disband, or at least remove, the
French army from the frontier. The King's letters were delivered by his
messenger in the persistent presence of a Burgundian who prevented the
possibility of any private communication. Louis' crafty old soldier,
Dammartin, paid little attention to such orders. He sent word to the Duke
that, unless his master soon returned, all France would come to fetch
him.

The first divisions of the Burgundian army reached Liege October 22d. The
citizens, whose walls had been destroyed and artillery confiscated, were
in no position to resist an army which might have conquered an emperor.
At the suggestion of the legate they released their bishop, begging him
to intercede on their behalf, and offered to surrender their goods to the
Duke's discretion if only he would spare their lives. Charles would
not listen to their overtures; he swore that he would have town and
inhabitants at his discretion or that he and his army should perish in
the attempt.

The townsmen, with the boldness of despair, sallied forth to meet the
advance guard of their enemies; they were driven back with great loss.
Four days later, the 26th, the Duke and main body of the army had not
come up. The troops, who had repulsed the sally on the 22d, had as yet
met with little resistance, and thought themselves strong enough to
occupy an open town defended only by ill-armed traders and mechanics.
The weather was cold and rainy, the temptation of securing comfortable
quarters and the undivided profits of the sack irresistible. The
assailants occupied one of the suburbs, but their advance was checked by
some hastily constructed defences. At nightfall the citizens came
out through the breaches of their walls; they were enabled, by their
knowledge of the rough and precipitous ground, to fall unobserved upon
the rear of the enemy; eight hundred Burgundians were killed, and the
rout would have been complete had not the Duke with the main body of
his army pushed forward to the assistance of a division which was still
holding its ground.

On the next day the King arrived, and soon after took up his quarters
close to those of the Duke. He showed himself to the men, who had
placed their trust in him, wearing the St. Andrew's cross, the badge
of Burgundy, and replying "_Vive Bourgogne!_" to their cries of "_Vive
France!_" That night there was a great and sudden alarm. The Duke of
Burgundy, though brave, was sometimes wanting in presence of mind, and on
this occasion appeared more troubled in the King's presence than pleased
his friends. Louis took the command, giving his orders with great
coolness and prudence. Even as a general he gained by comparison with his
rival. He was indeed not less anxious than Charles that the Burgundian
army should suffer no reverse. He feared everything that might arouse the
ready suspicion and ungovernable temper of the Duke. On the evening of
the 29th a few hundred men, colliers and miners from the mountainous
district of Franchemont, led by the owners of the house in which the King
and Duke were sleeping, made a desperate attempt to surprise the princes
in their beds. They would have succeeded had they not delayed to attack
a barn in which three hundred Burgundian men-at-arms were posted. Only
a few followed their guides straight to the quarters of the sovereigns.
They were unable, therefore, to overcome the resistance of the guard
before the noise of the conflict had aroused the camp. The assailants
were overwhelmed by numbers, and fell fighting to the last. The assault
had been ordered for the next day, but this bold and unexpected attack so
surprised and disconcerted the Burgundians that the King thought he might
be able to persuade the Duke to agree to a capitulation, or at least to
postpone the assault. He only obtained a contemptuous request that he
should consult his own safety by retiring to Namur. This reflection on
his courage stimulated him to greater ostentation of zeal. He could
scarcely be restrained from leading the assault.

The citizens were worn out by guarding an open town against a powerful
army for more than a week; they imagined that as it was a Sunday they
would not be attacked till the morrow. The assailants entered the town
with little or no resistance. Yet the fury and license of the soldiery
could not have been greater had their passions been excited by an
obstinate and bloody struggle. The horrors of the sack of Dinant[1] were
surpassed, although many of the citizens were able to escape across the
Meuse. The deliberate vengeance of the Duke was more searching and not
less cruel than the lust and rapine of his army; all prisoners who would
not pay a heavy ransom were drowned. Although the cold was so intense
that wine froze, and that his men lost fingers and toes from frost-bites,
Charles did not shrink from the labor of hunting down those who had fled
to the mountains, and burning the villages in which they had sought a
refuge. He had previously taken leave of the King.

Four or five days after the occupation of Liege, Louis had expressed a
wish to depart. If he could be of any further use, his brother might
command his services; but he was anxious to see that their treaty was
registered by the Parliament of Paris, without which it could not be
valid. The Duke seemed unwilling to let his prey escape, but could find
no pretence for his detention. Next year, said the King, he would come
again and spend a month pleasantly with his dear brother in festivities
and good cheer. The treaty, now drawn up in its final shape by the
Burgundian lawyers, was read over to Louis, in order that he might object
to any article of which he disapproved. But he readily ratified all that
he had promised at Peronne. It had seemed useless to require him to
bestow Normandy on Charles of France; nor is the question of his appanage
mentioned in the treaty itself. But the King was compelled to promise
to invest his brother with Champagne and Brie. These provinces, lying
between Burgundy and the Low Countries, would, in the hands of an ally,
serve to consolidate the Duke's dominions, and could be easily defended
in case the King attempted to resume his concessions. Just before the
princes departed, Louis said, as if the thought had suddenly occurred:
"What do you wish me to do if my brother is not content with the appanage
I offer him for your sake?" Charles answered carelessly: "If he will
not take it, I leave the matter to you two to settle; only let him be
satisfied." The King considered the thoughtless admission into which he
had tricked his rival most important, since he fancied that it released
him, so far as his brother's appanage was concerned, from the fearful
obligation of his oath.

But notwithstanding this last advantage, we cannot doubt that Louis felt
bitterly disappointed and ashamed. Although all songs, caricatures,
and writings reflecting on the perfidy of the Duke of Burgundy, and
by implication on the folly of the King, were forbidden under severe
penalties, and even all manner of talking birds which might be taught the
hateful word "Peronne" had been seized by the royal officers, he had not
the heart to visit Paris. The parliament was summoned to meet him at
Senlis. He ordered it to register the treaty without comment, and
hastened southward to hide his mortification in his favorite castles of
Touraine.

[Footnote 1: By Burgundians in 1466.]



LORENZO DE' MEDICI RULES IN FLORENCE

ZENITH OF FLORENTINE GLORY

A.D. 1469

OLIPHANT SMEATON


During the twelfth century several of the Italian cities--especially
Florence and Venice--rose to great wealth and power. Venice, through her
favorable situation, became preeminent in commerce, while Florence was
coming to be the most important industrial centre of Europe. In the
thirteenth century Florence was the scene of continual strife between the
Guelfs and Ghibellines, but she not only continued to develop in material
prosperity, but also attained to intellectual activities whereby in the
next century she gained a higher distinction. She took the foremost
part in the Renaissance, and was the birthplace or the home of Dante,
Boccaccio, and other leaders of the modern movement.

In the fifteenth century Florence reached a still loftier eminence under
the Medici, a family celebrated for the statesmen which it produced and
for its patronage of letters and art. Its most illustrious members were
Cosmo (1389-1464) and his grandson Lorenzo, surnamed the "Magnificent."
Lorenzo was born January 1, 1449, when the second great period of the
Renaissance was nearing its close. That was the "period of arrangement
and translation; the epoch of the formation of the great Italian
libraries; the age when, in Florence around his grandfather Cosmo,
in Rome around Pope Nicholas V, and in Naples around Alfonso the
Magnanimous, coteries of the leading humanists were gathered, engaged in
labors which have made posterity eternally their debtors."

Conjointly with his younger brother Giuliano, Lorenzo, on the death of
his father Piero, in 1469, succeeded to the vast wealth and political
power of the family. In 1478 the death of Giuliano left Lorenzo sole
ruler of Florence.

To few men has either the power or the opportunity been given to
influence their epoch, intellectually and politically, to a degree so
marked as was the lot of Lorenzo de' Medici. One of the most marvellously
many-sided of the many-sided men who adorned the Italy of the fifteenth
century, he did more to place Florence in the forefront of the world's
culture than any other citizen who claimed Val d'Arno[1] as his
birthplace. His influence was great because he was in sympathy so
catholic with all the varied life of his age and circle. While during the
one hour he would be found learnedly discussing the rival claims of the
Platonic and Aristotelian philosophers with Ficino and Landino, the next
might witness him the foremost reveller in the Florentine carnival,
crowned with flowers and with the winecup in his hand, gayly carolling
the _ballate_ he had composed for the occasion; while the third might
behold him surrounded by the leading painters and sculptors of Tuscany,
discoursing profoundly on the aims and mission of art. Truly a unique
personality, at one and the same time the glorious creation and the
splendid epitome of the spirit of the Renaissance!

When Lorenzo de' Medici consented to assume the "position" occupied by
his father Piero and his grandfather Cosmo, he was not the raw youth his
immature years would lead one to suppose. Although intellectual maturity
is reached at an earlier age in the sunny South than in the fog-haunted
lands of Northern Europe, Lorenzo had enjoyed a long apprenticeship
before being called to undertake the duties devolving on him as the
uncrowned king of Florence. From his thirteenth year he had been the
companion and shared the counsels, first of his grandfather and father,
and subsequently of his father alone. From the former especially he
learned many important lessons in statecraft. The matter is open to
question, however, if any advice had more far-reaching results or was
laid more carefully to heart than this which is contained in more
than one of Cosmo's letters: "Never stint your favors to the cause
of learning, and cultivate sedulously the friendship of scholars and
humanists." Toward such a course Lorenzo's inclinations, as well as his
interests, pointed, and during his life Florence was the Athens not only
of Italy but of Europe as a whole. Here, among many others, were to be
found such "epoch-makers" as Poliziano, Ficino, and Landino, Pico della
Mirandola, Leo Battista Alberti, Michelangelo, Luigi Pulci--men who
glorified their age by crowning it with the nimbus of their genius.

The literary and artistic greatness of Florence was not due, however,
to the comparative intellectual poverty of the other states in Italy.
Florence was only _primus inter pares_--greatest among many that were
great. When the fact is recalled that such contemporaries as Pomponius
Laetus, Bartolommeo Sacchi, Molza, Alessandro Farnese (Paul III),
Platina, Sabellicus at Rome; Pontanus, Sannazaro, and Porcello in Naples;
and Pomponasso and Boiardo at Ferrara, were then at or nearing their
prime, the position of Florence as the acknowledged centre of European
culture was conceded by sense of right alone. Than this nothing proves
more emphatically the strides learning had been making. It was no longer
the prerogative of the few, but the privilege of the many. From the
first, Lorenzo recognized what a strong card he held in the affection and
respect of the Italian as well as of the Florentine humanists.

The great secret of Lorenzo's preeminence in European and Italian, as
well as in Tuscan, politics lies in the fact that he was able to unite
the sources of administrative, legislative, and judicial power in
himself. All the public offices in Florence were held by his dependents,
and so entirely was the state machinery controlled by him that we find
such men as Louis XI and the emperor Maximilian, Alfonso of Naples,
and Pope Innocent VIII recognizing his authority and appealing to him
personally, in place of to the seigniory, to effect the ends they
desired. Such power enabled him to avoid the risks his grandfather Cosmo
had been compelled to run to maintain his authority. The Medicean
faction was better in hand than in his grandfather's days, and Lorenzo,
therefore, in playing the _role_ of the peacemaker of Italy, at the time
when he held the "balance of power" through his treaties with Milan,
Naples, and Ferrara, could speak with a decision that carried weight when
he found it necessary to threaten a restless "despot" with a political
combination that might depose him.

Lorenzo's services to learning were inspired by feelings infinitely more
noble than those actuating his political plans. A patriotism as lofty as
it was beneficent led him to desire that his country should be in the
van of Italian progress in Renaissance studies. His sagacious prevision
enabled him to proportion the nature and extent of the benefit he
conferred to the need it was intended to supply. Many statesmen do more
harm than good by failing to appreciate this law of supply and demand.
They grant more than is required, and that which should have been a boon
becomes a burden. Charles V, at the time of the Reformation, on more
than one occasion committed this error, as also did Wolsey and Mazarin.
Lorenzo, like Richelieu, recognized the value of moderation in giving,
and caused every favor to be regarded as a possible earnest of others to
come.

The earlier years of his power were associated with many stirring events
which exercised no inconsiderable influence on the state of learning. For
example, his skilful playing off of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan
against Ferrante, King of Naples, led to greater attention being directed
by the Florentines to Neapolitan and Milanese affairs, with the result
that humanists and artists from both these places paid frequent visits to
Florence, where they were welcomed by Lorenzo as his guests. Then when
the revolt of the small city of Volterra from Florentine rule was
suppressed by Lorenzo's agents, with a rigorous severity that cast a
stain on their master's name, owing to many unoffending scholars having
suffered to the extent of losing their all, Lorenzo made noble amends.
Not only did he generously assist the inhabitants to repair their losses,
not only did he make grants to the local scholars and send them copies of
many of the codices in his own library to supply the loss of their books
which had been burned by the soldiery, but he purchased large estates in
the neighborhood, that the citizens might benefit by his residence among
them. In this way, too, he brought the Volterran scholars into more
intimate relations with the Florentine humanists, and thus contributed to
the further diffusion of the benefits of the Renaissance.

All was not plain sailing, however, as regards the progress of the "New
Learning." Despite his efforts, Lorenzo could not prevent its development
being checked during the papal-Neapolitan quarrel with Florence. That war
originated in a dispute with Pope Sixtus IV, who kept Italy in a ferment
during the whole duration of his pontificate, 1471-1484. Were no other
proof forthcoming of Lorenzo's marvellous diplomatic genius than this one
fact, that he checkmated the political schemes of Sixtus, and finally
so neutralized his influence as to render him wellnigh impotent for
evil-doing, such an achievement was sufficient to stamp him one of the
greatest masters of statecraft Europe has known. In any estimate of his
ability we must take into account the unsatisfactory character of many of
the instruments wherewith he had to achieve his purposes, and also the
fact that he had neither a great army at his back with which to enforce
the fulfilment of treaty obligations--for Florence never was a city of
soldiers--nor had he the prestige of an official position to lend weight
to his words. To all intents and purposes he was a private citizen of
the Florentine republic. Yet such was the dynamic power of the man's
marvellous personality, and the reputation he had earned, even in his
early years, for supreme prescience and far-reaching diplomatic subtlety,
that far and wide he was regarded as the greatest force in Italian
politics. Sixtus sallied forth to crush; he returned to the Vatican a
crushed and a discredited man, to die of sheer chagrin over his defeat by
Lorenzo in his designs upon Ferrara.

Then followed the memorable dispute, in 1472-1473, over the bishopric of
Pisa, when the Pope's nominee, Francesco Salviati, was refused possession
of his see, Pisa being one of the Tuscan towns under the control of
Florence. To this Sixtus retaliated by seeking the friendship of Ferrante
of Naples, a move Lorenzo anticipated by forming the league between
Florence, Milan, and Venice. This league thoroughly alarmed both the Pope
and Ferrante, and on the latter visiting Rome in 1475 a papal-Neapolitan
alliance was formed.

Even then hostilities might not have broken out had the young Duke
of Milan not been assassinated in 1476, leaving an infant heir. This
entailed a long minority, with all its dangers, and the apprehensions
regarding these were not fanciful, inasmuch as Lodovico Sforza, uncle of
the baby Duke, usurped the position under pretext of acting as regent.
These crimes were plainly responsible for the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478
against the Medici themselves, a conspiracy which resulted in Giuliano,
the younger brother of Lorenzo, being murdered in the cathedral, during
mass, on the Sunday before Ascension, while Lorenzo himself was slightly
wounded. That Sixtus and his nephew were accessories before the fact
is now regarded as unquestionable. The vengeance taken by the enraged
Florentines on the conspirators, their relatives, friends, and property,
was terrible; the innocent, alas! being sacrificed indiscriminately with
the guilty.

The Archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati, had entered eagerly into
the scheme, and, although his sacred office prevented him from actually
assisting in the deed, he was present in the cathedral until the signal
was given for the perpetration of the deed, when he left the building to
secure the Palazzo Publico. He was therefore summarily hanged with
the others from the windows of the civic buildings. Sixtus made the
execution, or the "murder" as he called it, of Salviati, his pretext for
calling on his allies to make war on Florence. When he saw, however, that
this action was only throwing the city more completely than ever into the
arms of the Medici, he changed his tactics and said he had no quarrel
with "his well-beloved children of Florence," but only with "that son of
iniquity and child of perdition, Lorenzo de' Medici," and those who had
aided and abetted him, among whom the humanists were expressly mentioned.
Against Lorenzo and his associates a brief of excommunication was
launched, and the city was urged to regain the papal favor by
surrendering the offenders.

The result might have been predicted. The "brief" only tended to knit the
bonds of association closer between Lorenzo and the "City of the Flower,"
while the humanists to a man rallied round their patron. Even the
choleric Filelfo, now a very old man, who had been on anything but
friendly terms with the Medici, addressed two bitter satires to Sixtus,
in which the Pope was styled the real aggressor, while the great humanist
offered to write a history of the whole transaction, that posterity might
know the true facts. The only power which gave its adhesion to Sixtus was
Naples, while Venice, Ferrara, and Milan declared for Florence.

Thus commenced that tedious war which not only ruined so many Florentine
merchants, but retarded the cause of learning so materially. When the
people were groaning under heavy taxes, when all coin which Lorenzo
could scrape together had to be poured out to pay the _condottieri_, or
soldiers of fortune, by whom the battles of Florence were fought, there
was of course but short commons for the humanists who had made Florence
their home. Many of those adapted themselves to circumstances, but
others, to whom money was their god, left the banks of the Arno for those
southern cities where the pinch of scarcity did not prevail.

In this campaign the Florentines gained but little prestige. The larger
share of the cost was quietly suffered by their allies to fall on the
city of bankers. The Milanese were occupied with their own affairs,
owing to the _coup d'etat_ accomplished by Lodovico Sforza. The Duke of
Ferrara withdrew owing to some disagreement with the condottieri
engaged by Lorenzo. The Venetians only despatched a small contingent
under Carlo Montone and Diefebo d'Anguillari; accordingly, in the end,
the whole burden of the struggle fell on Florence. The Magnifico's
position gradually became precarious, inasmuch as many persons declared
the war to be in reality a personal quarrel between Pope Sixtus and
the Medici. Complaints began to be heard that the public treasury was
exhausted and the commerce of the city ruined, while the citizens were
burdened with oppressive taxes. Lorenzo had the mortification of being
told that sufficient blood had been shed, and that it would be expedient
for him rather to devise some means of effecting a peace than of making
further preparations for the war.

In these circumstances, and confronted by one of the most dangerous
crises of his whole life, Lorenzo rose to the occasion and effected a
solution of the difficulty by daring to perform what was undoubtedly one
of the bravest acts ever achieved by a diplomatist. By some statesmen
it might be condemned as foolhardy, by others as quixotic. Its very
foolhardiness and quixotry fascinated the man it was intended to
influence, the blood-thirsty, cruel, and pitiless Ferrante of Naples, who
was restrained from crime by the fear neither of God nor man, and who
had actually slain the condottiere Piccinino when he visited him under a
safe-conduct from the monarch's best ally. But the Renaissance annals are
filled with the records of men and women whose natures are marvellous
studies of contrasted and contradictory traits. Such was the Neapolitan
tyrant. While a monster in much, he had his vulnerable points. He was
ambitious to pose as a friend of the "New Learning," and he knew that
Lorenzo was not only the most munificent patron, but also one of the most
illustrious exponents, of the Renaissance principles.

Although his enemy, Ferrante received Lorenzo with every demonstration of
respect and satisfaction. He lost sight of the hostile diplomatist in
the great humanist. Two Neapolitan galleys were sent to conduct him
to Naples, and he was welcomed on landing with much pomp. Never did
Lorenzo's supreme diplomatic genius, never did his versatile powers as a
statesman, as a scholar, as a patron of letters, and as a brilliant man
of the world, blaze forth in more splendid effulgence than during his
three-months' stay in Naples. Though opposed by all the papal authority
and resources; though Sixtus by turns threatened, cajoled, entreated,
promised, in order to prevent Lorenzo having any success, the successor
of St. Peter was beaten all along the line, and the Magnifico carried
away with him a treaty, signed and sealed, which practically meant that
henceforth Naples and the papacy would be in antagonistic camps.

It was the Renaissance card which won the trick. With startling boldness,
yet with consummate art, Lorenzo played the game of flattering Ferrante.
No ordinary adulation, however, would have had success with the
Neapolitan Phaleris. He was too strong-minded a man for anything of that
kind. But to be hailed by the great Renaissance patron of the period,
by one also who was himself one of the leading humanists, as a
brother-humanist and a fellow-patron of learning, was a delicate incense
to his vanity which he could not resist. He liked to be consulted on
matters of literary moment, and, when he blundered, Lorenzo was too
shrewd a student of human nature to correct him.

Another fact in Lorenzo's favor was that he had the warm support not only
of the beautiful Ippolyta Maria, daughter of Cosmo's friend, Francesco
Sforza of Milan, and now wife of Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, King
Ferrante's heir, as well as of Don Federigo, the monarch's younger son,
who, along with Ippolyta, was a friend to the "New Learning," but he also
had the whole body of Neapolitan humanists on his side, scarce one of
whom but had experienced in some form or another the Medicean bounty.
Such powerful advocacy was not without its influence in bringing about
the result; while Ferrante more and more realized that if the Florentine
Medici were crushed he would have no ally to whom to look for help when
the inevitable shuffle of the political cards took place on the death of
Sixtus.

In February, 1480, therefore, Lorenzo returned in triumph to Florence,
to be received with rapture by his fellow-citizens. Had he delayed a few
months longer, his visit and his _ad-miseri-cordiam_ appeals would not
have been needed. In August of that year Keduk Achmed, one of the Turkish
Sultan's (Mahomet II) ablest generals, besieged and took the city of
Otranto. In face of the common danger to all Italy, Sixtus was compelled
to accept the treaty made by Ferrante with Lorenzo, and a general peace
ensued. The decade accordingly closed with an absolution for all offences
granted by the Pope to Florence, conditional on the Tuscan republic
contributing its share to the expenses of the military preparations to
resist the invasion of the Turk.

Notwithstanding the war, the progress of the Renaissance during the first
decade of Lorenzo's rule was very marked. To the rapid diffusion of
printing this was largely due. Lorenzo had not imbibed the prejudices
against the new art entertained by Cosmo and Federigo of Montefeltro. He
looked at the practical, not the sentimental, side of the question as
regards the new invention. Having seen that the press could throw off, in
a few days, scores of copies of any work, of which it took an amanuensis
months to produce one; also that the scholars of all Italy could be
furnished almost immediately, and at a low price, with the texts of any
manuscript they desired, while they had to wait months for a limited
number of copies whose cost was wellnigh prohibitive, he supported the
new invention from the outset. Having resolved to further his father's
efforts to establish printing in Florence, he stimulated the local
goldsmith, Bernardo Cennini, to turn his attention to type-casting in
metal, and even agreed to pay him an annual grant from the year 1471
until he had fairly settled himself in business. Nor did he confine his
favors to him. John of Mainz and Nicholas of Breslau, who arrived in
Florence, the former in 1472 and the latter in 1477, also participated
in his open-hearted liberality. Printing struck its roots deep into the
Tuscan community and flourished excellently. Though the Florentine craft
never attained the reputation of the Venetian Aldi and Asolani, the
Giunti of Rome, the Soncini of Fano, the Stephani of Paris, and Froben
of Basel, it had the name, for a time at least, of being one of the most
accurate of all presses.

To Lorenzo it owed this celebrity. At an early date he perceived that the
new art would be of little value if there were not careful press readers.
He was therefore among the first to induce scholars of distinction to
engage in this task. For example, he enlisted the aid of Cristoforo
Landino, who in his _Disputationes Camaldunenses_ had really inaugurated
the science of textual criticism by urging that a careful comparison
of the various codices should constitute the preliminary step in any
reproduction of the classics. Landino's work on Vergil and Horace merits
the warmest praise. Lorenzo also impressed Poliziano into the work, whose
labors in marking the various readings, in adding _scholia_ and "notes"
illustrative of the text of Catullus, Propertius, Ovid, etc., were of the
utmost value. To Lorenzo and to his younger brother Giuliano, another
great humanist, Giorgio Merula of Milan, dedicated his _Plautus_,
published in Venice in 1472, showing at how early an age the Magnifico
had taken his place among the recognized patrons of the Italian
Renaissance.

We ought not, moreover, to omit mention of another achievement of
Lorenzo, though performed in a sphere of effort lying outside of the
strict limits of our Renaissance survey. Seeing it was the "Revival of
Letters," however, which induced the revival of the cultivation of the
vernacular Italian literature, surely it is not out of place to refer to
it here. Early in life Lorenzo became imbued with the conviction that his
native tongue was unsurpassed as a medium for "the expression of noble
thoughts in noble numbers." Not only did he encourage others to study
Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, but by following out his own precepts
he became one of the great Italian poets. His _Selve d'Amore,_ his
_Corinto_, his _Ambra_, his _La Nencia da Barberino_, his _Laude_, his
_Sonetti_, his _Cansoni_, etc., are all poems that live in the Italian
literature of to-day. Not as a man ashamed of the vernacular, and forced
to use it because he can command no better, does Lorenzo write. "He is
sure of the justice of his cause, and determined by precept and example
and by the prestige of his princely rank to bring the literature he loves
into repute again."

But of these poems we cannot here take further note. By the scholars of
the Renaissance such work was looked askance at. If they did produce any
of these "trifles," as they were called, they almost blushed to own them,
and were ashamed to communicate them to each other. That he dared to
be natural says much for Lorenzo, and it was largely due to his
encouragement that Cristoforo Landino undertook his great work on
"Dante," to which we owe so much to-day.

In conjunction with his patronage of printing, there was no line of
effort in which Lorenzo did more real good than in collecting manuscripts
and antiquities, and in making them practically public property. On this
account he is styled, by Niccolo Leonicino, "Lorenzo de' Medici, the
great patron of learning in this age, whose messengers are dispersed
through every part of the earth for the purpose of collecting books on
every science, and who has spared no expense in procuring for your use,
and that of others who may devote themselves to similar studies, the
materials necessary for your purpose." The agents he employed travelled
through Italy, Greece, Europe, and the East--Hieronymo Donato, Ermolao
Barbaro, and Paolo Cortesi being the names of some of his most trusted
"commissioners." But the coadjutor whose aid he principally relied on, to
whom he committed the care and arrangement of his vast museum and great
library, was Poliziano, who himself made frequent excursions throughout
Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa to discover and purchase such remains
of antiquity as suited the purposes of his patron. Another successful
agent, though at a later date, was Giovanni Lascaris, who twice journeyed
into the East in search of manuscripts and curios. In the second of these
he brought back upward of two hundred copies of valuable codices from the
monasteries on Mount Athos.

To still another service rendered by Lorenzo to the cause of the
Renaissance attention must be called--the founding of the Florentine
Academy for the study of Greek. This institution, distinct, be it
remembered, from the _Uffiziali dello Studio_ (or high-school),
exercised a marvellous influence on the progress of the "New Learning."
Accordingly, as Roscoe says, succeeding scholars have been profuse in
their acknowledgments to Lorenzo, who first formed the establishment from
which, to use their own classical figure, as from the Trojan horse,
so many illustrious champions have sprung, and by means of which the
knowledge of the Greek tongue was extended not only throughout Italy,
but throughout Europe as well, from all the countries of which numerous
pupils flocked to Florence--pupils who afterward carried the learning
they had received to their native lands.

Of this institution the first public professor was Joannes Argyropoulos,
who, having enjoyed the patronage of Cosmo and Piero, and directed the
education of Lorenzo, was selected by the latter as the fittest person to
be the earliest occupant of the chair. During his tenure of it he sent
out such pupils as Poliziano, Donato Acciaiuoli, Janus Pannonius, and
the famous German humanist Reuchlin. Argyropoulos did not hold the
appointment long. His death took place at Rome in 1471, and he was
succeeded first by Theodore of Gaza, and then by Chalcondylas. Poliziano
certainly discharged the duties of the office frequently, but at first
only as _locum tenens_. He was then almost incessantly engaged in
travelling for his patron in Greece and Asia Minor, and was too valuable
a coadjutor to be tied down to the routine of teaching until he had
completed his work. During the next decade he became the "professor," and
discharged the duties with a genius and an adaptability to circumstances
that won for him the admiration and love of all his students.

This decade was also remarkable for the commencement of the devotion to
the cultivation of literary style, a pursuit yet to reach its culmination
in Poliziano in Florence and in Bembo and Sadoleto in Rome. Originality
gradually gave place to conventionality, until men actually came to
prefer the absurdities of Ciceronianism, and a cold, colorless adherence
to hard-and-fast rules of composition, to a work throbbing with the
pulsation of virile life. Humanism was beginning to take flight from
Italy, to find a home and a welcome beyond the Alps.

The final decade of Lorenzo's life constituted the midsummer bloom of
the Tuscan renaissance, the meridian of the intellectual and artistic
supremacy of Florence. In Lorenzo it found its fullest expression. He was
typical of its spiritual as well as of its moral meaning; typical, too,
of that mental unrest which sought escape from the pressing problems of
an enigmatic present by reverting to the study of a classic past whose
ethical, social, and political difficulties were rarely of a complex
character, but concerned themselves principally with what may be termed
the elementary verities of man's relations to the Deity and to his
fellows.

Lorenzo's amazing versatility has been pronounced a fault by some who
believed they detected in him the potential capacity of rivalling
Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto on their own ground, had he only
conserved his energies. This is a foolish supposition. Lorenzo's
many-sidedness was but the reflection in himself, as the most accurate
mirror of the time, of all that wondrous susceptibility to beauty, that
eager craving after the realization of the [greek: to kalon] ("the Good")
so characteristic of the best Hellenic genius, whether we study it in the
dramas of Sophocles or the _Republic_ of Plato or in the statesmanship of
Pericles. If Lorenzo had resembled his grandfather and concentrated his
energies upon finance and politics, there might have been a line of
reigning Medicean princes in Florence half a century earlier than
actually was the case, but Europe would have been distinctly the loser
by the absence of the greatest personal force making for culture which
characterized the Renaissance.

This last decade of Lorenzo's life--from his thirty-first to his
forty-second year--was memorable in many respects. In the year 1481 he
was again exposed to the danger of assassination. Battista Frescobaldi
and two assistants in the Church of the Carmeli, and again on Ascension
Day, made an attempt to stab him, but were frustrated by the vigilance of
Lorenzo's friends. There is no doubt that this second attempt was also
instigated by Girolamo Riario, the nephew of Sixtus IV. Thereafter
Lorenzo never moved out without a strong bodyguard of friends and
adherents--a precaution rendered necessary by the repeated plots that
were being hatched against him by his enemies.

No sooner had the presence of the Turks at Otranto, in the extreme
southeast of Italy, been rendered a thing of the past by the surrender of
the Moslem garrison to the Duke of Calabria in September, 1481, than
the peninsula was again ranged in opposing camps by the attempt of the
Venetians, assisted by Sixtus and his nephew, to dispossess Ercole
d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, of his dominions. The Duke had married
the daughter of Ferdinand, King of Naples, an alliance which, by
strengthening him, gave on that account great offence to the Venetians.
They therefore sought to provoke him by insisting on their monopoly of
the manufacture of salt in North Italy, and by building a fortress on
a part of the Ferrarese territory which they pretended was within the
limits of their own. When he remonstrated, they declined to remove it. In
vain he appealed to Sixtus. The latter was one of the wolves waiting to
devour him. He then turned to Lorenzo.

To the inexpressible chagrin of Venice and of Sixtus, the Magnifico
promptly espoused his cause, formed an alliance with Ferdinand and other
states, and, before the Pope and the Venetians were aware he had moved,
they found themselves confronted by Naples, Florence, Milan, Bologna,
Mantua, and Faenza. The allies were commanded by Federigo of Montefeltro,
Duke of Urbino, while the Venetian-papal troops were placed under Ruberto
Malatesta of Rimini. In this campaign, however, Lorenzo was really the
master-spirit. Although successes were won on both sides, a more than
usually tragic complexion was given to the war by the death of the two
commanders of the opposing forces. They had been friends from youth, and
such a trifle as the fact that they were hired to fight against each
other never disturbed the tenor of their mutual regard. Armstrong says no
more than the truth when he remarks: "It was a pathetic coincidence.
The two rival generals had bequeathed to each other the care of their
children and estates, a characteristic illustration of the easy
good-fellowship in this game of Italian war."

The war dragged on with varying results until Lorenzo played his reserve
card. He induced the Slavic Archbishop of Carniola, who, visiting Rome
as the emperor Frederick's envoy, had been shocked by the shameless
immorality of the Pope's life, to begin an agitation for a general
council. In this he was supported by several of the rulers in Northern
Italy and Eastern Europe. The move was so far successful. The Pope became
alarmed, and hurriedly broke off his alliance with Venice, on the plea
that the prevention of fresh schism in the Church must take precedence of
every other consideration. The real fact of the matter was he dreaded the
fate of Pope John XXIII, for he knew the actions of his nephew Girolamo
Riario would not stand conciliar examination. Moreover, his other nephew,
Giuliano della Rovere, afterward Pope Julius II, a bitter enemy to
Girolamo, and Lorenzo's warm friend, had, during the disgrace of his
cousin, gained the Pope's ear and told him some plain but wholesome
truths regarding the unpleasant consequences of a permanent rupture with
Lorenzo.

All these considerations induced Sixtus to yield and leave Venice to
prosecute the war alone. This it did against a quadruple alliance, for
the Pope, when the haughty republic of the lagoons refused to disgorge
its Ferrarese prey at his orders, promptly changed sides, and was as keen
against the aggressor as he had previously been favorable to it. The
Venetians sustained two severe defeats, while their fleet was almost
shattered by a storm. The pecuniary strain was beyond their resources
longer to maintain. They therefore resorted to the customary project of
inducing some other power to intervene. In this case they took the step
of inviting the Duke of Orleans to lay claim to the dukedom of Milan, and
the Duke of Lorraine to the throne of Naples. The move was successful
as regards Ludovico of Milan; he withdrew from the alliance, and much
against the wish of the other allies the peace of Bagnolo was concluded
in August, 1484. To Sixtus the news came as the knell of his dearest
hopes. He gave way to one wild outburst of passion, in which he cursed
all who had been engaged in making peace, then apoplexy supervened, and
within a few hours he was a corpse. He was succeeded by Cardinal Cybo, a
warm friend toward the Medici, and one who had such a profound admiration
for the genius of Lorenzo in statecraft that he seldom took any step
without consulting him, though unfortunately he did not always follow the
Magnifico's advice.

If no one else reaped honor and glory from this Ferrarese war, Lorenzo
undoubtedly did so. By both sides the fact was admitted that he had acted
throughout as a far-seeing, sagacious diplomatist, who, while giving
preeminence, as was natural, to the welfare of his own state, had sought
to conserve the cause of letters, even amid the turmoil incident upon the
collision of political interests. He had proved the friend even of the
enemies of his own country, when once they had passed from the scene
of conflict, as, for example, when he dared Girolamo Riario to raise a
finger in the direction of dispossessing the son of the Pope's general,
Ruberto Malatesta, of his Rimini estates. He was the friend of the
oppressed everywhere, and in more cases than one his powerful protection
saved the children of his friends from being robbed by powerful
relatives. This connection between Florence, Naples, Milan, Rome, and
Ferrara tended to the promotion of intellectual intercourse between
them. As printing was now being briskly prosecuted all over Northern and
Central Italy, the interchange of literature went on ceaselessly among
them.

This, however, was Lorenzo's last great war. True, he was implicated in
the prolonged quarrel between the papacy and King Ferrante of Naples, yet
it was more as a mediator between the two antagonists than as the ally
of the last-named that he took part in it; although, as Armstrong points
out, he paid for the services of Trivulsio and four hundred cross-bowmen,
that by enabling the Neapolitans to check San Severino, the leader of the
papal-Venetian troops, he might induce Innocent VIII to lose heart and
retire from the struggle.

Lorenzo, during the last six years of his life, or, to speak more
definitely, after the peace of Bagnolo, had become in Italian, as he was
rapidly becoming in European, politics the master-spirit that inspired
the moves on the diplomatic chess-board. In the mind of the historical
student whose attention is directed to this period, admiration and wonder
go hand-in-hand as we contemplate the marvellous sagacity and prevision
of the man, together with the skill wherewith he made Florence--the
weakest from a military point of view of the five greater Italian
powers--the one which exercised the most preponderating influence
upon the affairs of the peninsula. His supreme genius conceived and
consummated the great scheme for ensuring the peace of Italy by a triple
alliance of the three larger states--Florence, Milan, and Naples--against
the other two, Venice and the papacy.

As showing how entirely it was dependent upon him, the alliance was
operative only so long as he was alive to bind the antagonistic forces of
Naples and Milan together by the link of his own personal influence.
He, in a word, was the subtle acid holding in chemical combination many
mutually repellent substances. When his influence was withdrawn by death,
within a few months they had all fallen apart, the triple alliance was
forgotten and Italy was doomed. Even by those with whom he was nominally
at war he was resorted to for advice. He it was that kept Innocent VIII
from taking up a position that would have rendered the papacy ridiculous
in the eyes of Europe, when he sought to threaten Naples with
consequences he was powerless to inflict.

Many writers have accused Lorenzo of cowardice, of pusillanimity, of want
of political resolution on account of this very course of action, namely,
that he assisted the enemies of Florence to extricate themselves from
their dilemmas. Such criticism fails entirely to understand both the aim
and the scope of his policy. He desired to keep Italy for the Italians.
His clear-sighted sagacity saw nothing but danger in the plans of
Ludovico of Milan to invite the French King into Italy, or in those of
Venice to encourage the Duke of Lorraine to press his claims upon Milan.
The intervention of either France or Spain in Italy was, in his idea,
fraught only with dire disaster. Fain would he have patched up the
quarrel between Naples and the papacy by mutual concessions, because
he foresaw what would happen if the colossal northern powers had their
cupidity aroused regarding Italy, and learned how defenceless she really
was. Because he foresaw so clearly the horrors of the invasion of 1494
and 1527, he acted as he did, even toward those who were enemies of
Florence. His alarm appears in the letter, dated July, 1489, which he
addressed to his ambassador in Rome: "I dislike these Ultramontanes and
barbarians beginning to interfere in Italy. We are so disunited and so
deceitful that I believe that nothing but shame and loss would be our
lot; recent experience may serve to foretell the future." How true a
prophet he was, the subsequent course of Italian history revealed!

Anxious though the situation was, crucial though many of the problems
he had to solve undoubtedly were, yet the statement may be accepted as
approximately true that the last three or four years of Lorenzo's
life were spent amid profound peace--at least as far as Florence was
concerned. Roscoe's picture is highly colored, but not overcolored:

"At this period the city of Florence was at its highest degree
of prosperity. The vigilance of Lorenzo had secured it from all
apprehensions of external attack; and his acknowledged disinterestedness
and moderation had almost extinguished that spirit of dissension for
which it had been so long remarkable. The Florentines gloried in their
illustrious citizen, and were gratified by numbering in their body a man
who wielded in his hand the fate of nations and attracted the respect
and admiration of all Europe; the administration of justice engaged his
constant attention, and he carefully avoided giving rise to an idea that
he was himself above the control of the law."

And Guicciardini adds: "This season of tranquillity was prosperous beyond
any that Italy had experienced during the long course of a thousand
years. Abounding in men eminent in the administration of public affairs,
skilled in every honorable science and every useful art, it stood high in
the estimation of foreign nations; which extraordinary felicity, acquired
at many different opportunities, several circumstances contributed to
preserve, but among the rest no small share of it was by general consent
ascribed to the industry and the virtue of Lorenzo de' Medici, a citizen
who rose so far above the mediocrity of a private station that he
regulated by his counsels the affairs of Florence, then more important by
its situation, by the genius of its inhabitants, and the promptitude
of its resources than by the extent of its dominions, and who, having
obtained the implicit confidence of the Roman pontiff Innocent VIII,
rendered his name great and his authority important in the affairs of
Italy."

Though he had never allowed the demands of civic affairs to interfere
with his interest in the progress of the Renaissance, war-time, as we
have said, is not favorable to the cultivation of letters. While
the connection between the states during the course of hostilities
undoubtedly promoted the increase of mutual interest in each other's
intellectual development, the fact that the Magnifico had to disburse
enormous sums for the prosecution of the campaigns necessarily limited
his ability to extend the same princely patronage to the cause of
learning. But with the conclusion of peace he resumed the original scale
of his benefactions, and the last four years of his life were, perhaps,
the most fruitful of all in sterling good achieved in the fostering of
the Renaissance.

He encouraged the printers to double their output; he munificently
assisted such undertakings as the first edition of Homer, edited by the
famous scholars Demetrius Chalcondyles and Demetrius Cretensis, as well
as other editions of the classics prepared by Poliziano, Marullus, and
others. In the final estimate of his influence upon his age we hope to
show that his aim was as pure as the prosecution of its realization was
determined. He encouraged foreigners to come to Florence to study
Greek, and, when their funds failed them, in many cases he generously
entertained them at his own expense. Grocyn and Linacre, as well as
Reuchlin, testify to the wise generosity of the great Magnifico, and all
three declare that to him, more than to any other man, the Renaissance
owed not only its development, but even the character it assumed in Italy
in the second last decade of the fifteenth century.

The end came when he was literally in his prime. Only forty-two years of
age, he might reasonably have looked forward to many years of active work
and the enjoyment of his honors! But Lorenzo, although not a vicious, was
a pleasure-loving man, and he had drained the cup of enjoyment to the
very lees. His constitution was undermined by worry and late vigils, by
the very intensity of interest wherewith he had devoted himself to the
pleasures of the moment. Accordingly, late in 1491 he began to feel the
gout, from which he had suffered for some years, becoming so troublesome
that he was unable for the duties devolving on him. He had lost his
wife, Clarice Orsini, in July, 1487, at a time when he was absent at the
sulphur baths of Filetta, striving to obtain relief from pain; therefore
his last years were lonely indeed.

Life had lost its relish to the dying Magnifico. The only thing over
which he showed a flash of the old interest was in March, 1492, when his
son Giovanni (afterward Leo X), on being made a cardinal by Innocent
VIII, was invested with the _insignia_ in the Abbey Church of Fiesole.
Although then within a month of his end, although, moreover, so weak that
he was unable to attend the investiture mass or to head his table at the
banquet which followed, he caused himself to be carried in a litter into
the hall, where he publicly paid reverence to his son as a prince of
the Church. He then embraced him as a father and gave him his paternal
blessing. That done, and after addressing a few words of welcome to his
guests collectively, he was slowly borne back to his chamber to die.
Nevermore was he seen in public.

His ruling passion was, however, strong in death. In place of surrounding
himself with clergy, his last hours were spent with the humanists and
scholars he had loved so well. To his beautiful villa of Careggi, and
to that room facing the south which he called his own, he retired, and
summoned Ficino, Poliziano, and Pico della Mirandola to bear him company
until he dipped his feet in the River of Death. They discussed many
things, but principally the consolations afforded by philosophy. Then
they reverted to the subject of the classics, and to the valuable codices
which Lascaris was bringing back from Greece.

But hope at last burned low, and the physicians had to confess that the
case was beyond their skill. How rudimentary as regards medical science
that skill was may be judged from the fact that the staple remedy
prescribed by the great Milanese doctor, Lazaro da Ficino, who had been
called in to consult with Lorenzo's own medical man, Pier Leoni of
Spoleto, was a potion compounded of crushed pearls and jewels. As might
have been expected, such a treatment accelerated rather than retarded the
disease.

The last hours of Lorenzo, and particularly his historic interview with
Savonarola, have often been described and are to this day the subject
of debate. There are two sides to every story, and this one of the last
visit of the haughty prior of San Marco's to the dying Magnifico is no
exception. Poliziano relates the incident in one form, the followers
of Savonarola in another; but neither report is absolutely authentic.
Suffice it for us that Benedetto, writing a week after the Magnifico's
death, says of the matter: "Our dear friend and master died so nobly,
with all the patience, the reverence, the recognition of God which the
best of holy men and a soul divine could show, with words upon his lips
so kind, that he seemed a new St. Jerome."

Perhaps the most reasonable attitude to assume toward the problem is that
Lorenzo died as he lived, feeling that strange, restless curiosity as to
what was summed up in the idea of a "future life" which he had manifested
all his days: "If I believe aught implicitly," he is reported to have
said in earlier years to Alberti, "I believe in Plato's doctrine of
immortality in the _Phaedo,_ for religion is too much a matter of
temperament for us to lay down hard-and-fast rules about it." Lorenzo
outwardly conformed in his dying hours to the rites of the Catholic
Church. He received the _viaticum_ kneeling, he repeated the responses in
an earnest and fervent tone, and then, when he felt that the grains in
the hour-glass of life were running out, he pressed a crucifix to his
lips and so passed within the veil. As a humanist he had been reared, as
a humanist he had lived and labored, as a humanist he died, maintaining
to the very last his interest in those studies which it had been his
life's passion to pursue.

The sun of the Florentine renaissance had set forever!

[Footnote 1: By permission of Selmar Hess.]



DEATH OF CHARLES THE BOLD

LOUIS XI UNITES BURGUNDY WITH THE CROWN OF FRANCE

A.D. 1477

PHILIPPE DE COMINES


During the greater part of his rule as duke of Burgundy, Charles the
Bold was at war with Louis XI of France, notwithstanding the treaty of
Peronne, 1468, which the French monarch accepted under duress. Meanwhile
it was the constant aim of Charles to enlarge his dukedom, and when, in
1475, he had made another peace with Louis, the Duke turned anew to his
scheme of conquest.

Charles soon made himself master of Lorraine, which he had long coveted,
and then, 1476, invaded Switzerland. "It was reserved for a small people,
already celebrated for their heroic valor and their love of liberty, to
beat this powerful man." Crossing the Jura, Charles besieged the little
town of Granson, and after its capitulation he hanged or drowned all the
defenders. When the news of this barbarity had spread through Switzerland
the eight cantons arose, and almost under the walls of Granson the Swiss
inflicted upon Charles a crushing defeat. In June, 1476, the Duke saw his
second army destroyed by the Swiss and the Lorrainers, whom Comines calls
Germans. In the following winter Charles assembled a third army and
marched against Nancy, the capital of Lorraine, which was then held by
the same allies. They were commanded by the Duke of Lorraine, who went to
the relief of the garrison at Nancy from St. Nicholas, six miles away.

Comines, whose account is given below, was a French statesman and
historian, who, after being for a time in the service of Charles the
Bold, went over to Louis and became his personal counsellor. He was
therefore intimately versed in the history of these times.

The Duke of Lorraine and his army of Germans broke up from St. Nicholas,
and advanced toward the Duke of Burgundy, with a resolution to give him
battle. The Count of Campobasso joined them that very day, and carried
off with him about eightscore men-at-arms; and it grieved him much that
he could do his master no greater mischief. The garrison of Nancy had
intelligence of his design, which in some measure encouraged them to hold
out; besides, another person had got over the works, and assured them
of relief, otherwise they were just upon surrendering, and would have
capitulated in a little time, had it not been for the treachery of this
Count; but God had determined to finish this mystery.

The Duke of Burgundy, having intelligence of the approach of the Duke of
Lorraine's army, called a kind of council, contrary to his custom, for
generally he followed his own will. It was the opinion of most of his
officers that his best way would be to retire to Pont-a-Mousson, which
was not far off, and dispose his army in the towns about Nancy; affirming
that, as soon as the Germans had thrown a supply of men and provisions
into Nancy, they would march off again; and the Duke of Lorraine being in
great want of money, it would be a great while before he would be able to
assemble such an army again; and that their supplies of provisions could
not be so great but, before half the winter was over, they would be in
the same straits as they were now; and that in the mean time the Duke
might raise more forces and recruit himself; for I have been told by
those who ought to know best, that the Duke of Burgundy's army did not
then consist of full four thousand men, and of that number not above one
thousand two hundred were in a condition to fight. Money he did not want;
for in the castle of Luxembourg--which was not far off--there were in
ready cash four hundred fifty thousand crowns, which would have raised
men enough. But God was not so merciful to him as to permit him to take
this wise counsel or discern the vast multitude of enemies who on every
side surrounded him. Therefore he chose the worst plan, and, like a rash
and inconsiderate madman, resolved to try his fortune, and engage the
enemy with his weak and shattered army, notwithstanding the Duke of
Lorraine had a numerous force of Germans, and the King's army was not far
off.

As soon as the Count of Campobasso arrived in the Duke of Lorraine's
army, the Germans sent him word to leave the camp immediately, for they
would not entertain such traitors among them. Upon which message he
retired with his party to Conde, a castle and pass not far off, where he
fortified himself with carts and other things as well as he could,
in hopes that, if the Duke of Burgundy were routed, he might have an
opportunity of coming in for a share of the plunder, as he did afterward.
Nor was this practice with the Duke of Lorraine the most execrable action
that Campobasso was guilty of; but, before he left the army, he conspired
with several other officers--finding it was impracticable to attempt
anything against the Duke of Burgundy's person--to leave him just as they
came to the charge; for at that time he supposed it would put the army
into the greatest terror and consternation; and if the Duke fled, he was
sure he could not escape alive, for he had ordered thirteen or fourteen
sure men, some to run as soon as the Germans came up to charge them, and
others to watch the Duke of Burgundy and kill him in the rout; which was
well enough contrived, for I myself have seen two or three of those who
were thus employed to kill the Duke. Having thus settled his conspiracy
at home, he went over to the Duke of Lorraine upon the approach of the
German army; but, finding they would not entertain him, he retired to
Conde, as I said before.

The German army marched forward, and with them a considerable body of
French horse, whom the King had given leave to be present in that action.
Several parties lay in ambush not far off, that, if the Duke of Burgundy
were routed, they might surprise some person of quality or take some
considerable booty. By this everyone may see into what a deplorable
condition this poor Duke had brought himself by his contempt of good
counsel. Both armies being joined, the Duke of Burgundy's forces, which
had been twice beaten before, and were weak and ill-provided besides,
were quickly broken and entirely defeated. Many saved themselves by
flight; the rest were either taken or killed; and among them the Duke of
Burgundy himself was killed on the spot. Not having been in the battle
myself, I will say nothing of the manner of his death; but I was told by
some that they saw him beaten down, but, being prisoners themselves, were
not able to assist him; yet, while they were in sight, he was not killed,
but a great body of men coming that way afterward, they killed and
stripped him in the throng, not knowing who he was. This battle was
fought on January 5, 1476, upon the eve of Twelfth-day.

The King having established posts in all parts of his kingdom--which
before never had been done--it was not long ere he received the news of
the Duke of Burgundy's defeat; and he was in hourly expectation of the
report, for letters of advice had reached him before, importing that
the German army was advancing toward the Duke of Burgundy's, and that a
battle was expected between them. Upon which many persons kept their ears
open for the news, in order to carry it to the King. For his custom was
to reward liberally any person who brought him the first tidings of any
news of importance, and to remember the messenger besides. His majesty
also took great delight in talking of it before it arrived, and would
say, "I will give so much to any man who first brings me such and such
news." The Lord du Bouchage and I, being together, happened to receive
the first news of the battle of Morat, and we went with it to the King,
who gave each of us two hundred marks of silver. The Lord du Lude,
who lay without the Plessis, had the first news of the arrival of the
courier, with the letters concerning the battle of Nancy; he commanded
the courier to deliver him the packet, and as he was a great favorite of
the King's he durst not refuse him. By break of day the next morning,
the Lord du Lude knocked at the door next to the King's chamber, and, it
being opened, he delivered in the packet from the Lord of Craon and other
officers. But none of the first letters gave any certainty of the Duke's
death; they only stated that he was seen to run away, and that it was
supposed he had made his escape.

The King was at first so transported with joy at the news he scarce knew
how to behave himself; however, his majesty was still in some perplexity.
On one hand, he was afraid that if the Duke should be taken prisoner by
the Germans, by means of his money, of which he had great store, he would
make some composition with them. On the other, he was doubtful, if the
Duke had made his escape, though defeated for the third time, whether he
should seize upon his towns in Burgundy or not; which he judged not very
difficult to do, since most of the brave men of that country had been
slain in those three battles. As to this last point, he came to this
resolution--which I believe few were acquainted with but myself--that if
the Duke were alive and well, he would command the army which lay ready
in Champagne and Barrois to march immediately into Burgundy, and
seize upon the whole country while it was in that state of terror and
consternation; and when he was in possession of it he would inform the
Duke that the seizure he had made was only to preserve it for him, and
secure it against the Germans, because it was held under the sovereignty
of the crown of France, and therefore he was unwilling it should fall
into their hands, and whatever he had taken should be faithfully
restored; and truly I am of opinion his majesty would have done it,
though many people who are ignorant of the motives that guided the King
will not easily believe it. But this resolution was altered as soon as he
was certain of the Duke of Burgundy's death.

Upon the King's receiving the above-mentioned first letter--which gave no
account of the Duke's death--he immediately sent to Tours, to summon all
his captains and other great personages to attend him. Upon their arrival
he communicated his letters to them. They all pretended great joy; but
to such as more narrowly observed their behavior, it was easy to be
discerned that most of them did but feign it; and, notwithstanding all
their outward dissimulation, they had been better pleased if the Duke of
Burgundy had been successful. The reason of this might be, because the
King was greatly feared, and now, if he should find himself clear and
secure from his enemies, they were afraid they would be reduced, or at
least their offices and pensions retrenched; for there were several
present who had been engaged against him with his brother the Duke of
Guienne in the confederacy called the "Public Good." After his majesty
had discourse with them for some time, he went to mass, and then ordered
dinner to be laid in his chamber, and made them all dine with him; there
being with him his chancellor and some other lords of his council.
The King's discourse at dinner-time was about this affair, and I well
remember that myself and others took particular notice how those who were
present dined; but to speak truth--whether for joy or sorrow I cannot
tell--there was not one of them that half filled his belly; and certainly
it could not have been from modesty or bashfulness before the King, for
there was not one among them but had dined with his majesty many times
before.

As soon as the King rose from table he retired, and distributed to some
persons certain lands belonging to the Duke of Burgundy, as though he had
been dead. He despatched the Bastard of Bourbon, Admiral of France, and
myself into those parts, with full power to receive the homage of all
such as were willing to submit and become his subjects. He ordered us to
set out immediately, and gave us commission to open all his letters and
packets which we might meet by the way, that thereby we might ascertain
whether the Duke was dead or alive. We departed with all speed, though it
was the coldest weather I ever felt in my life. We had not ridden above
half a day's journey when we met a courier, and commanding him to deliver
his letters we learned by them that the Duke of Burgundy was slain, and
that his body had been found among the dead, and recognized by an Italian
page that attended him and by one Monsieur Louppe, a Portuguese, who was
his physician, and who assured the Lord of Craon that it was the Duke his
master, and the Lord of Craon notified the same at once to the King.

Upon receiving this news we rode directly to the suburbs of Abbeville,
and were the first that announced the intelligence to the Duke's
adherents in those parts. We found the inhabitants of the town in treaty
with the Lord of Torcy, for whom they had held a great affection for a
long time. The soldiers and officers of the Duke of Burgundy negotiated
with us, by means of a messenger whom he had sent to them beforehand; and
in confidence of success they dismissed four hundred Flemings who
were then quartered in the town. The citizens, laying hold of this
opportunity, opened the gates immediately to the Lord of Torcy, to the
great prejudice and disadvantage of the captains and officers of the
garrison--for there were seven or eight of them to whom, by virtue of the
King's authority, we had promised money, and pensions for life; but they
never enjoyed the benefit of that promise, because the town was not
surrendered by them. Abbeville was one of the towns that Charles VII
delivered up by the treaty of Arras in the year 1435, which towns were to
return to the crown of France upon default of issue male; so that their
admitting us so easily is not so much to be wondered at.

From thence we marched to Dourlans, and sent a summons to Arras, the
chief town in Artois, and formerly part of the patrimony of the earls of
Flanders, which for want of heirs male always descended to the daughters.
The Lord of Ravestein and the Lord des Cordes, who were in the town of
Arras, offered to enter into a treaty with us at Mount St. Eloy and to
bring some of the chief citizens with them. It was concluded that I
and some others should meet them in the King's behalf; but the Admiral
refused to go himself, because he presumed they would not consent to
grant all our demands. I had not been long at the place of appointment
when the two above-mentioned lords of Ravestein and Des Cordes arrived,
attended by several persons of quality, and by certain commissioners on
the part of the city, one of whom was their pensionary, named Monsieur
John de la Vaquerie, whom they appointed to be their spokesman, and who
since that time has been made first president of the Parliament of Paris.

We demanded in the King's name to have the gates immediately opened and
to be received into the town, for both the town and the whole country
belonged to the King by right of confiscation; and if they refused
to obey this summons, they would be in danger of being besieged, and
compelled to submit by force, since their Duke was defeated, and his
dominions utterly unprovided with means of defence, upon account of their
irrecoverable losses in the three late battles. The lords returned answer
by their speaker Monsieur John de la Vaquerie that the county of Artois
belonged to the lady of Burgundy, daughter of Duke Charles, and descended
to her in a right line from Margaret, Countess of Flanders, Artois,
Burgundy, Nevers, and Rethel, who was married to Philip I, Duke of
Burgundy, son of King John of France, and younger brother to King Charles
V; wherefore they humbly entreated the King that he would observe and
continue the truce that had existed between him and the late Duke of
Burgundy, her father.

Our conference was but short, for we expected to receive this answer; but
the chief design of my going thither was to have a private conference
with some persons that were thereto try if I could bring them over to the
King's interest. I made overtures to some of them, who soon afterward did
his majesty signal service. We found the whole country in a state of very
great consternation, and not without cause; for in eight days' time they
would scarce have been able to raise eight men-at-arms, and for other
soldiers there were not in the whole country above one thousand five
hundred--reckoning horse and foot together--that had escaped from the
battle in which the Duke of Burgundy was slain, and they were quartered
about Namur and Hainault. Their former haughty language was much altered
now, and they spoke with more submission and humility; not that I would
upbraid them with excessive arrogance in times past, but, to speak
impartially, in my time they thought themselves so powerful that they
spoke neither of nor to the King with the same respect as they have done
since; and if people were wise, they would always use such moderate
language in their days of prosperity that in the time of adversity they
would not need to change it.

I returned to the Admiral, to give him an account of our conference; and
there I was informed that the King was coming toward us, and that upon
receiving the news of the Duke's death he immediately set out, having
despatched several letters in his own and his officers' names to send
after him what forces could presently be assembled, with which he hoped
to reduce the provinces I have just mentioned to his obedience.

The King was overjoyed to see himself rid of all those whom he hated
and who were his chief enemies; on some of them he had been personally
revenged, as on the Constable of France, the Duke of Nemours, and several
others. His brother, the Duke of Guienne, was dead, and his majesty
came to the succession of the duchy. The whole house of Anjou was
extinct--Rene, King of Sicily, John and Nicholas, Dukes of Calabria, and
since them their cousin, the Count du Maine, afterward made count of
Provence. The Count d'Armagnac had been killed at Lestore, and the
King had got the estates and movables of all of them. But the house
of Burgundy, being greater and more powerful than the rest, having
maintained war with Charles VII, our master's father, for two-and-thirty
years together without any cessation, by the assistance of the English,
and having their dominions bordering upon the King's and their subjects
always inclinable to invade his kingdom, the King had reason to be more
than ordinarily pleased at the death of that Duke, and he triumphed more
in his ruin than in that of all the rest of his enemies, as he thought
that nobody, for the future, either of his own subjects or his neighbors,
would be able to oppose him or disturb the tranquillity of his reign. He
was at peace with England, and made it his chief business to continue so;
yet, though he was freed in this manner from all his apprehensions, God
did not permit him to take such courses in the management of his affairs
as were most proper to promote his own interests and designs.

And certainly, although God Almighty has shown, and does still show, that
his determination is to punish the family of Burgundy severely, not only
in the person of the Duke, but in its subjects and estates, yet I think
the King our master did not take right measures to gain his end. For, if
he had acted prudently, instead of pretending to conquer them, he should
rather have endeavored to annex all those large territories, to which he
had no just title, to the crown of France by some treaty of marriage;
or to have gained the hearts and affections of the people, and so have
brought them over to his interest, which he might, without any great
difficulty, have effected, considering how their late afflictions had
impoverished and dejected them. If he had acted after that manner, he
would not only have prevented their ruin and destruction, but extended
and strengthened his own kingdom, and established them all in a firm and
lasting peace. He might by this means have eased, his own country of
its intolerable grievances, and particularly of the marches and
counter-marches of his troops, which are commanded continually up and
down from one end of the kingdom to the other, sometimes upon very slight
occasions.

In the Duke of Burgundy's lifetime the King often talked with me about
this affair, and told me what he would do if he should outlive the Duke,
and his discourse at that time was very rational and wise; he told me
he would propose a match between his son and the Duke of Burgundy's
daughter, and if she would not consent to that, on the ground that the
Dauphin was too young, he would then endeavor to marry her to some young
prince of his kingdom, by which means he might keep her and her subjects
in amity, and obtain without war what he intended to lay claim to for
himself; and this was his resolution not more than a week before he heard
of the Duke of Burgundy's death; but the very day he received that news
his mind began to change, and this wise counsel was laid aside when the
Admiral and I were despatched into those provinces. However, the King
spoke little of what he intended to do--only to some few that were about
him he promised sundry of the Duke's lordships and possessions.

As the King was upon the road toward us, he received from all parts the
welcome news of the delivering up the castles of Han and Bohain, and that
the inhabitants of St. Quentin had secured that town for themselves, and
opened their gates to their neighbor, the Lord of Mouy. He was certain
of Peronne, which was commanded by Master William Bische, and, by the
overtures that we and several other persons had made him, he was in great
hopes that the Lord des Cordes would strike in with his interest. To
Ghent he sent his barber, Master Oliver, [1] born in a small village
not far off; and other agents he sent to other places, with great
expectations from all of them; and most of them promised him very fair,
but performed nothing. Upon the King's arrival near Peronne, I went to
wait on his majesty, and at the same time William Bische and others
brought him the surrender of the town of Peronne, with which he was
extremely pleased.

The King stayed there that day, and I dined with him, according to my
usual custom, for it was his humor to have seven or eight always with him
at table, and sometimes many more. After dinner he withdrew, and seemed
not to be at all pleased with the Admiral's little exploit and mine; he
told us he had sent his barber, Master Oliver, to Ghent, and he doubted
not but he would persuade that town to submit to him; and Robinet
Dodenfort to St. Omer, as he had great interest there; and these his
majesty extolled as fit persons to manage such affairs, to receive the
keys of great towns, and to put garrisons of his troops into them. He
also mentioned others whom he had employed in the same negotiation in
other places.

While the King was busy in subduing towns and places in the marches of
Picardy, his army was in Burgundy, under the command, apparently, of the
Prince of Orange, a native and subject of the county of Burgundy, but one
who had recently, for the second time, become an enemy of Duke Charles,
so that the King made use of him, because he was a powerful noble in both
the county and duchy of Burgundy, and was likewise well connected and
greatly beloved. But the Lord of Craon was the King's lieutenant, and had
the real charge of the army, and was the person in whom the King reposed
most confidence; for he was a man of great wisdom, and thoroughly devoted
to his master, though somewhat too fond of gain. This Lord of Craon, when
he drew near Burgundy, sent forward the Prince of Orange and others to
Dijon to use persuasion, and require the people to render obedience to
the King; and they managed the matter so adroitly, principally by means
of the Prince of Orange, that the city of Dijon and all the other towns
in the duchy of Burgundy, together with many in the county, gave their
allegiance to the King.

[Footnote 1: This personage will be familiar to all who have read
Sir Walter Scott's novel of _Quentin Durward_. Oliver le Mauvais was
_valet-de-chambre_ and chief barber to Louis XI; in October, 1474, he
received letters of nobility from that Prince, authorizing him to change
his name of Mauvais to that of Le Dain. On November 19, 1477, the King
conferred the estates of the deceased Count of Meulant on Oliver le Dain
and his heirs; and to this gift he added the Forest of Senart in October,
1482. On May 21, 1484, Oliver was hanged "for various great crimes,
offences, and malefactions."]



INQUISITION ESTABLISHED IN SPAIN

A.D. 1480

WILLIAM H. RULE JAMES BALMES


Prior to the twelfth century the church authorities had been content with
defining heresy, while the treatment of heretics was left to secular
magistrates. But the spread of heresy at the end of the twelfth century
caused the episcopal authorities to look for some occasion for enlarging
their prerogatives. In 1204 Pope Innocent III appointed a papal delegate
with authority to judge and punish misbelievers. From this germ sprung
the Holy Office, commonly known as the Inquisition.

This papal act met with some opposition from the bishops, upon whose
prerogatives it encroached; and it provoked rebellion among those against
whom it was directed, the Albigenses of Southern France, whose doctrines
were spreading into Italy. In 1208 Innocent began a crusade against them,
which was led by Arnold of Citeaux and Simon de Montfort, and proved a
bloody war of extermination, lasting several years.

Meanwhile the papacy gradually proceeded in the design of creating
a tribunal under its own direct control. Such a tribunal was soon
practically instituted. Its leading spirit was St. Dominic, founder of
the Dominican order of preaching friars, but the title of Inquisitor was
not yet adopted at the time of his death, in 1221. St. Dominic, however,
is with good reason regarded as the founder of the Inquisition.

After the death of St. Dominic the Inquisition gradually assumed a more
definite and avowed character, and its repressive hand, inflicting
terrible punishments upon accused heretics, was soon felt throughout
Southern Europe, and later in the Netherlands, the order of St. Dominic
at first furnishing its principal agents.

But later the Inquisition entered upon another stage, under Spanish
direction, through a specific organization, practically independent of
papal or royal control, though acting under the sanction of both church
and state. It became "the most formidable of irresponsible engines in the
annals of religious institutions." Two points of view--Protestant and
Catholic--are here presented of the Spanish history of the Holy Office.


WILLIAM H. RULE


"Better and happier luck for Spain"--I translate the words of
Mariana--"was the establishment in Castile, which took place about this
time, of a new and holy tribunal of severe and grave judges, for the
purpose of making inquest and chastising heretical pravity and apostasy,
judges other than the bishops, on whose charge and authority this office
was anciently incumbent. For this intent the Roman pontiffs gave them
authority, and order was given that the princes should help them with
their favor and arm. These judges were called 'inquisitors,' because of
the office which they exercised of hunting out and making inquest, a
custom now very general in Italy, France, Germany, and also in the
kingdom of Aragon. Castile, henceforth, would not suffer any nation to go
beyond her in the desire which she always had to punish such enormous and
wicked excesses. We find mention, before this, of some inquisitors who
discharged this function, but not in the manner and force of those who
followed them.

"The chief author and instrument of this salutary grant was the Cardinal
of Spain (Mendoza), who had seen that, in consequence of the great
liberty of past years, and from the mingling of Moors and Jews with
Christians in all sorts of conversation and trade, many things went out
of order in the kingdom. With that liberty it was impossible that some of
the Christians should not be infected. Many more, leaving the religion
which they had voluntarily embraced as converts from Judaism, again
apostatized and returned to their old superstition--an evil which
prevailed more in Seville than in any other part. In that city,
therefore, secret searches were first made, and they severely punished
those whom they found guilty. If their delinquency was considerable after
having kept them long time imprisoned, and after having tormented them,
they burned them. If it was light, they punished the offenders, with the
perpetual dishonor of their family. Of not a few they confiscated the
goods, and condemned them to imprisonment for life. On most of them they
put a _sambenito_, which is a sort of scapulary of yellow color, with a
red St. Andrew's cross, that they might go marked among their neighbors,
and bear a signal that should affright and scare by the greatness of the
punishment and of the disgrace; a plan which experience has shown to
be very salutary, although, at first, it seemed very grievous to the
natives."

Cardinal Mendoza might have been an instrument of establishing the new
tribunal in Spain, but no author was wanted for that work. Pope Gregory
IX, fit successor of Innocent III, had completed in Spain, as in the
county of Toulouse and kingdom of France, the scheme which his uncle
Innocent began. By a bull, dated May 26, 1232, he appointed Dominican
friars inquisitors in Aragon, and forthwith proceeded to confer the same
benefit on the kingdoms of Navarre, Castile, and Portugal; Granada being
in possession of the Moors. Ten years later, in a council at Tarragona,
the chief technicalities of the Spanish Inquisition were settled. At the
invitation of Peter, Archbishop of Tarragona, Raymund of Penaforte, the
Pope's penitentiary, presided. The definitions of the council are notable
for the determination they evidence to conduct the affairs of the
tribunal with entire legal precision and formality. The "vocabulary" was
now settled, and one has only to turn to the _Acts_ of the Council of
Tarragona to find the exact meaning of "heretic, believer, suspected,
simple, vehement, most vehement, favorer, concealer, receiver,
receptacle, defender, abettor, relapsed."

As everyone may well know, no inconsiderable part of the Spanish
population consisted of Jews, many of whose ancestors had taken refuge in
that country, or had settled there for purposes of commerce, ages before
the birth of our Lord, and their number had been increased from time to
time, in consequence of imperial edicts which drove them from Italy,
or by the attractions of honor and wealth in Spain. They were the most
industrious and therefore the most wealthy people in those kingdoms,
and had possessed great influence. Their learned men occupied important
stations as physicians, agents of government, and even officers of
state; while the "New Christians," or Jews professedly converted to
Christianity, were intermarried with the highest families in Spain, and
all this had taken place in spite of the enmity of the clergy, popular
bigotry, and the adverse legislation of _cortes_ or parliaments. But the
wealth which procured Jews and New Christians so much worldly influence
became the occasion of great suffering. The "Old Christians," being less
industrious, and therefore less affluent, were frequently their debtors.
And although usury was checked by legislators, who dreaded its pressure
on themselves, and debts were often repudiated, the Jews maintained their
position of creditors; and, as the _Cartilla_ says, creditors are often
unreasonable persons, or, at least, are considered to be such. Christians
of pure blood, therefore, finding themselves involved in long reckonings,
became increasingly impatient, and, under a cloak of zeal for the
Catholic religion, were incessantly embroiling them with the magistracy
or stirring up the populace against them.

Llorente estimates the number of Jews who perished under the fury of
mobs, in the year 1391, at upward of one hundred thousand. To evade
persecution, multitudes submitted to be baptized. More than a million had
changed name at the end of the fourteenth century. After those tumults
controversial preachers, such as San Vicente Ferrer, declaimed for popery
against Judaism; and in the first ten years of the fifteenth century a
second multitude of forced converts threw themselves into the bosom of
the Romish Church, to the discouragement of their brethern and to their
own confusion at last. They were set under the keenest vigilance of the
inquisitors, without being able even to counterfeit any attachment to the
Church, whose most grievous yoke they had put on, but which in heart they
hated.

Now the Church gloried over the declension of Judaism. In presence of
Benedict XIII, antipope, a Spaniard, wandering in Spain, because in
Rome they would not own him, a formal disputation was carried on for
sixty-nine days between Jerome of Santa Fe and other converts--or, as
the Jews not improperly called them, apostates--on the one side, and a
company of rabbis on the other. Such a controversy, carried on even
in the presence of a half-pope, could only come to the prescribed
conclusion; and after seeing all persuasion and corruption exhausted to
bring over the Hebrews to his sect, but without much success, Benedict
closed the debate, pronounced the Jews vanquished, and gave them notice
of severer measures. The richer from interest, the poorer from bigotry,
and the priesthood from instinct, poured contempt even on proselytes,
whom they classified according to their supposed degrees of heterodoxy.
Some were called "converts," to note the newness of their Christianity;
others "confessed," to tell that they had confessed the falseness of
Judaism. Sometimes they were branded as "maranos," from the words _maran
atha_, which the priests, in their ignorance, took to mean "accursed."
The whole were spoken of as a generation of maranos, or, worst of all in
the imagination of a papist, "Jews." Goaded by the cowardly persecution,
the proselytes groaned after deliverance; a few even dared to renounce
the profession of a faith they never held, and many resumed the practice
of Jewish rites in private. This opened a new field to the zeal of the
inquisitors; but the labor of suppressing a revolt so widely spread, so
rapidly extending, and even infecting the Romish families with whom the
imperfect converts were united, was more than the inquisitors could
undertake without a more powerfully organized system of their own.

I believe that the fear of the Bible and the hatred of the Jews of Spain,
first imprinted in the page of history by the Council of Illiberis in the
beginning of the fourth century, was in course of time much aggravated by
the earnest love of the Spanish Jews for the original scriptures of the
Old Testament. It was not until the eleventh century that rabbinical
tradition gained much hold in the Jewish mind in Spain, but, from the
first, Christians had cursed Jews in sincere but blind zeal against
the descendants, as they thought, of those who crucified our Lord in
Jerusalem. Yet the Sephardim in Spain could have had no knowledge of the
Crucifixion until some weeks, at soonest, after it had taken place, and
perhaps never knew of the hostility of the Jews in Jerusalem against the
Saviour.

Until the dispersion of the Eastern colleges in the eleventh century,
no great rabbis came into Spain with pretension of authority to enforce
Talmudical traditions. When zealots of the sort did come, they found a
community of Hebrews far superior to the Jews of Palestine. No Assyrian
had bribed them to worship the gods of Nineveh. Their neighbors the
Carthaginians, so long as Carthage stood, had persisted in worshipping
the Baal and the Ashtaroth that recreant Israelites in Samaria and Jews
in Jerusalem worshipped for ages; but, while those gods had altars in
Sidon and in Carthage, we do not hear of any altars being raised to
them in "the captivity of Jerusalem, which was in Sepharad," or Spain
(Obadiah, 20); neither do we hear that those Jews betrayed any ambition
to make a hedge to protect God's law, instead of taking care to keep it.
But the first propagators of traditionism in Spain came from the East, on
the breaking up of the great schools of Babylonia by the Persians.

Ancient or Karaite synagogues remained in Spain until the expulsion of
Jews at the close of the fifteenth century, and yet much later in the
provinces that were not annexed to the United Kingdom of Castilla and
Leon under Ferdinand and Isabella. Some of the strongest features of
biblical learning imparted to the literature of the Reformation in its
earlier stages proceeded from the converted Jews of Spain.

About the year 1470, when the persecution of both Jews and Mahometans was
at its height--except in the kingdom of Granada--and when the testimony
quoted from the Old Testament against worship of images must have been
extremely galling to the worshippers, the priests thought it necessary
to enforce the prohibition of vernacular versions of the Bible. Such
versions, we know, were then circulated more freely in France, Spain,
and Portugal. In Spain, one of the chief translators was Rabbi Moses of
Toledo. To put a stop to Bible-reading, an appeal was made to Pope Paul
II, who prohibited the translation of the holy Scriptures "into the
languages of the nations." This authority was quoted in the Council of
Trent by Cardinal Pacheco, in justification of the practice of the Church
of Rome in his day; but another cardinal, Madrucci, arguing against him,
replied with cutting calmness that "Paul, of popes the second," or
any other pope, might be easily deceived in judging of the fitness or
unfitness of a law, but not so Paul the Apostle, who taught that God's
word should never depart from the mouth of the faithful.

During the persecutions of the fifteenth century, while Ferdinand and
Isabella made progress in reconquering the kingdom of Granada from the
Moors, and Mahometanism, like Judaism, was declining, the Moriscoes, a
middle class, resembling the New Christians, and not less dangerous to
Romanism, also challenged the powers of the Inquisition. No other country
in popedom was at that time more deeply imbued with disaffection of the
doctrines and worship of the Church of Rome. Then in 1477, one Brother
Philip de' Barberi, a Sicilian inquisitor, came to the court of Ferdinand
and Isabella, who were sovereigns of Sicily, to solicit the confirmation
of some privileges recently granted to the Holy Office in that island;
and, having observed the peril of the Church within the enlarged and
united dominions of "the Catholic kings" under whose rule nearly all
Spain was comprehended, advised the creation of one undivided court of
inquisition, like that of Sicily, as the only means of defence against
the maranos, Moriscoes, Jews, and Mussulmans.

The advice was quickly taken. First of all, the Dominicans, and after
them the dignitaries of the secular clergy, crowded round the throne to
pray for a reformation of the Inquisition after the Sicilian model. They
appealed to the greed of King Ferdinand by offering him the proceeds of
a confiscation, which might be rapidly effected, in pursuance of laws of
the Church to that intent provided. They appealed to the piety of Queen
Isabella, and were careful that tales of Jewish murders and Jewish
desecrations should be poured incessantly into the royal ear. Ferdinand
had no scruple. He sincerely prayed the Pope to sanction such a measure,
and, swiftly as couriers could bring it, came the desired bull. Isabella
could not blame the zeal of priests and monks; for she, too, was a
zealot. She could not gainsay the urgency of the nuncio. She could not
quench in her husband's bosom the thirst of gold. But she had brought
half the kingdom as her dower; and therefore some deference was due to
her conscience and judgment, and both in conscience and judgment she
desired gentler measures. During two or three years her orator and
confessor wrote books, and preachers were permitted to publish arguments,
and disputants to enter into conferences, for the conviction of the Jews.

At her majesty's request, Cardinal Mendoza issued a constitution in
Seville, in 1478, containing "the form that should be observed with a
Christian from the day of his birth, as well in the sacrament of baptism
as in all other sacraments which he ought to receive, and of what he
should be taught, and ought to do and believe as a faithful Christian,
every day, and at all times of his life, until the day of his death. And
he ordered this to be published in all the churches of the city, and put
in tables in each parish, as a settled constitution. He also published a
summary of what curates and clerks should teach their parishioners, and
what the parishioners should observe and show to their children." Thus
does Hernando del Pulgar, in his _Chronicle of the Catholic Sovereigns_,
describe what some too hastily call a catechism. It was merely a standard
of things to be believed and done, set forth by authority. The King and
Queen also, _not the Cardinal_, commanded "some friars, clerks, and other
religious persons to teach the people." But no true Jew would let himself
be taught that idolatry is not damnable; and even the less discouraging
issues of controversy with the vacillating or the ignorant were not
honestly reported.

The constitution of Cardinal Mendoza and the harangues of the friars were
ineffectual, as well they might be, for the Jews knew that the Christians
had a sacred book, said to be written by divine inspiration, as well as
the Law of Moses; and if that book was not put into their hands, they
could scarcely be expected to believe a religion whose chief written
authority was kept out of sight. That it was, indeed, kept out of sight
was undeniable; and the notorious Alfonso de Castro, chaplain of Philip
II, boasted in his book against heresies that there was "an edict of
the most illustrious and Catholic sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand and
Isabella, in which, under the severest penalties, they forbade anyone to
translate the holy Scriptures into a vulgar language, or to have any such
version in his possession. For they were afraid lest any occasion
of error should be given to the people over whom God had made them
governors." The clergy maintained that conversion to the truth by
argument was impossible, and, at their instance, the bull was no longer
kept in reserve, but was published in 1480.

The Queen's trial of humanity was ended; but a question of policy
remained. The King and Queen remembered that they had an interest in
Spain as well as the Pope, but they scarcely knew how that interest
could be guarded if the inquisitors were allowed absolute power over the
persons and property of their subjects. To have proposed lay assessors
and open court would have provoked a quarrel with the Pope, then powerful
enough to raise Europe in arms against them; therefore they modestly
requested no more than that some priests nominated by the King should
be associated with some others nominated by the Pope; or that the King
should name all, and the Pope confirm his nominations. The "Catholic
sovereigns" calculated that nominees of Rome would, of course, prefer the
rights of the Church to those of the crown, but they fancied, or they
wished to fancy, that priests of their own choice would prefer their
interests to those of a stranger. This was an illusion, and therefore
Rome made little difficulty; and after due correspondence, and some
changes, the Supreme Council of the Spanish Inquisition was constituted
thus:

Inquisitor-general--Friar Thomas de Torquemada, of whom Llorente says
that it was hardly possible that there could have been another man so
capable of fulfilling the intentions of King Ferdinand, by multiplying
confiscations; those of the court of Rome, by propagating their
jurisdictional and pecuniary maxims; and those of the projectors of the
Inquisition, by infusing terror into the people by public executions.


Two assessors--Juan Gutierrez de Chabes and Tristan de Medina,
jurisconsults.

Three King's counsellors--Don Alonso Carillo, a bishop-elect, with Sancho
Valasquez de Cuellar and Poncio de Valencia, doctors of civil law. In
matters relating to royal power they were to have a definite vote; but in
affairs of spiritual jurisdiction they could only be suffered to offer an
opinion, inasmuch as a spiritual power resided in the chief inquisitor
alone.

Under the jurisdiction of the supreme council were four subordinate
tribunals, and eventually several others were added, while some
inquisitors, hitherto holding special powers from the Pope, were stripped
of their independence, that the court of Rome might have one uniform
action throughout Spain. As the Holy Office advanced in labor and
experience, the supreme council was enlarged, and at last it consisted of
a president--inquisitor-general for the time being; six counsellors
with the title of apostolic; a fiscal; a secretary of the chamber;
two secretaries of the council; an alguazil-in-chief, or sheriff; one
receiver; two reporters; four apparitors; one solicitor; and as many
consulters as circumstances might require. Of course these were all
maintained in a style worthy of their office. The Inquisitor-general, or
president of the council, exerted an absolute power over every Spanish
subject, so that he almost ceased to be himself a subject. He alone
consulted with the King concerning the appointment of inquisitors to
preside over all the provincial tribunals. Each of those inferior
inquisitions was managed by three inquisitors, two secretaries, one
under-sheriff, one receiver, and a certain number of triers and
consulters. Their functions were considerably restricted, leaving
all capital cases and ultimate decisions in the hands of the Madrid
"Supreme."

But while Ferdinand, Isabella, Torquemada, and the nuncio were concerting
their plans and preparing death for heretics, what said Spain to it?
Neither was clergy nor laity content. After the bull of Sixtus IV
empowering the King to name inquisitors furnished with absolute
authority, and to remove them at pleasure, had arrived, but lay
unpublished in consequence of the Queen's repugnance, a provincial synod
sat at Seville, where the regal court then was, 1478. Had the clergy of
Castile desired the Inquisition, the synod would have said so; but so far
were they from approving of such a tribunal, to which every bishop would
be subject, but where no bishop would any longer have a voice, that they
passed over the affair of heresy in silence, not consenting to accept the
Inquisition, yet not presuming to remonstrate against it. Then would have
been the time for the clergy to add their power to that of the throne for
the suppression of false doctrine, believing, as they did believe, that
forcible suppression was not only lawful, but meritorious in the sight of
God; and so they would probably have done if inquisitor and bishop were
to have had cooerdinate jurisdiction, as in the first inquisition of
Toulouse, and in the early Italian inquisition; but they saw, with alarm,
that the episcopate was to be despoiled of its authority at a stroke.

A few months before the publication of the bull, but long after every
person in Spain knew the purport of its contents, and in the certainty
that it would be carried into execution, the Cortes of Toledo met;
but, instead of avoiding any act that would interfere with the new
jurisdiction then to be introduced, they made several provisions for
separating Jews and Christians by the enclosure of Jewries in the towns,
and for compelling the former to wear a peculiar garb, and abstain from
exercising the vocation of surgeon or physician or innkeeper or barber
or apothecary among Christians. The parliament plainly ignored the
Inquisition in making this enactment on their own authority.

And what said the magistracy and the people? Seville represented
the general state of feeling at the time. There, when a company of
inquisitors presented themselves, conducted into the city by men and
horses which had been impressed for the purpose by royal order, the civil
authorities refused to help them, notwithstanding the injunctions of the
bull, the obligations of canon law, and a mandate from the Crown. The new
inquisitors found themselves unable to act for want of help; meanwhile
the objects of their mission forsook the city, and found shelter in the
neighboring districts; and Ferdinand had to issue specific orders to
overpower the hostility of all the classes of the people and to compel
the magistrates to assist the new set of officers ecclesiastic. These
orders were most reluctantly obeyed.

Thus fortified, the inquisitors took up their abode in the Dominican
convent of St. Paul, and issued their first mandate January 2, 1481.
They said that they were aware of the flight of the New Christians, and
commanded the Marquis of Cadiz, the Count of Arcos, and all the dukes,
marquises, counts, gentlemen, rich men, and others of the kingdom of
Castile to arrest the fugitives and send them to Seville within a
fortnight, sequestrating their property. All who failed to do this were
excommunicated as abettors of heresy, deposed from their dignities, and
deprived of their estates; and their subjects were to be absolved from
homage and obedience. Crowds of fugitives were driven back into Seville,
bound like felons; the dungeons and apartments of the convent overflowed
with prisoners; and the King assigned the castle of Triana, on the
opposite bank of the Guadalquiver, to the "New and Holy Tribunal," to be
a place of safe custody. There the inquisitors, elate with triumph over
the reluctant magistrates and panic-stricken people, shortly afterward
erected a tablet with an inscription in memory of the first establishment
of the modern Inquisition in Western Europe. The concluding sentences
of the inscription were: "God grant that, for the protection and
augmentation of the faith, it may abide unto the end of time!--Arise, O
Lord, judge thy cause!--Catch ye the foxes!"

Their second edict was one of "grace." It summoned all who had
apostatized to present themselves before the inquisitors within a term
appointed, promising that all who did so, with true contrition and
purpose of amendment, should be exempted from confiscation of their
property--it was understood that they should be punished in some other
way--but threatening that, if they allowed that term to pass over without
repentance, they should be dealt with according to the utmost rigor of
the law. Many ran to the convent of St. Paul, hoping to merit some small
measure of indulgence. But the inquisitors would not absolve them until
they had disclosed the names, calling, residence, and given a description
of all others whom they had seen, heard, or understood to have
apostatized in like manner. After getting this information, they bound
the terrified informers to secrecy. This first object being accomplished,
they sent out a third monition, requiring all who knew any that had
apostatized into the Jewish heresy to inform against them within six
days, under the usual penalties. But they had already marked the very
men; and those suspected converts suddenly saw the apparitors inside
their houses, and were dragged away to the dungeons. New Christians who
had preserved any of the familiar usages of their forefathers, such as
putting on clean clothes on Saturday, who stripped the fat from beef or
mutton, who killed poultry with a sharp knife, covered the blood, and
muttered a few Hebrew words, who had eaten flesh in Lent, blessed their
children, laying hands on their heads, who observed any peculiarity of
diet or distinction of feast or fast, mourned for the dead after their
ancient manner, or whose friends had presumed to turn the face toward a
wall when in the agony of death, all such being vehemently suspected of
apostasy, were to be punished accordingly. Thirty-six elaborate articles
were furnished whereby everyone was instructed how to ensnare his
neighbor.

But what shall we say of a faith that could only hope to be kept alive
in the world by the extinction of charity, honor, pity, and humanity?
Llorente describes the immediate issue:

"Such opportune measures for multiplying victims could not but produce
the desired effect. Hence, on January 6, 1481, there were burned six
unhappy persons; sixteen on March 26th; many on April 21st; and by
November 4th, two hundred ninety-eight in all. Besides these, the
inquisitors condemned seventy-nine to perpetual imprisonment. And all
this in the city of Seville only; since, as regards the territories of
this archbishopric and of the bishopric of Cadiz, Juan de Mariana says
that, in the single year of 1481, two thousand Judaizers were burned in
person, and very many in effigy, of whom the number is not known, besides
seventeen thousand subjected to cruel penance. Among those burned were
many principal persons and rich inhabitants, whose property went into the
treasury.

"As so many persons were to be put to death by fire, the Governor of
Seville caused a permanent raised pavement, or platform of masonry, to
be constructed outside the city, which has lasted to our time [until
the French invasion, if not later], retaining its name of _Quemadero_
('Burning-place'); and at the four corners four large hollow statues of
limestone, within which they used to place the impenitent alive, that
they might die by slow heat. I leave my readers to consider whether this
punishment of an error of the understanding was consistent or not with
the doctrine of the Gospel?

"Fear caused an immense multitude of others of the same class of New
Christians to emigrate to France, Portugal, and even Africa. But many
others, whose effigies had been burned, appealed to Rome, complaining of
the injustice of those proceedings; in consequence of which appeals the
Pope wrote, on January 29, 1482, to Ferdinand and Isabella, saying that
there were innumerable complaints against the inquisitors, Fray Miguel
Morillo and Fray Juan de San Martin especially, because they had not
confined themselves to canon law, but declared many to be heretics that
were not. His holiness said that, but for the royal nomination, he would
have deprived them of their office; but that he revoked the power he had
given to the sovereign to nominate others, supposing that fit persons
would be found among those nominated by the general or the provincial of
the Dominicans, to whom the privilege belonged, and in prejudice of
whose privilege the former nomination by Ferdinand and Isabella had been
allowed."

So adroitly did the Pope take the absolute control of the Inquisition
into his own hands under pretence of impartial justice, and leave the
weaker tyrant to eat the fruit of his doings. But since that time pope
and king have been again united in the management of the Holy Office, the
latter, however, in abject subservience to the former. Neither in the
appeals nor in the brief was there anything that could divert Torquemada
from the prosecution of his purposes; and therefore he hastened to bring
Aragon under his jurisdiction. Ferdinand convened the cortes of that
kingdom in the city of Tarragona, April, 1484; in that assembly appointed
a junta to prepare measures for the establishment of another tribunal;
and then Torquemada, in pursuance of the latest pontifical decision,
created Friar Caspar Inglar, a preacher of the Dominican community, and
Pedro Arbues de Epila, a canon of the metropolitan church, inquisitors.
The King gave a mandate to the civil authorities--a firman, it might
be called--compelling them to lend aid to the new officers; and, on
September 13th following, the Grand Justice of Aragon, with his five
lieutenants of the long robe and various other magistrates, swore upon
the holy Gospels that they would give men and arms to defend and to
enforce the authority of the Holy Inquisition. And as they swore
thus, the King's chief secretary for Aragon, the prothonotary, the
vice-chancellor, the royal treasurer--whose own father and grandfather
were Jews, and persecuted by the old inquisitors--together with a
multitude of persons of high rank and office, in whose veins flowed
Jewish blood, and whose descendants are now among the first families in
Spain, looked on with dismay, and sent a deputation to Rome, bearing
remonstrance against the newly created Inquisition; and deputed others
to present their appeal to the same effect at the court of Ferdinand
and Isabella. All these deputies were afterward proceeded against as
hinderers of the Holy Office; and meanwhile the inquisitors, in contempt
of opposition, set themselves to work without delay.

In the months of May and June, 1485, two acts of faith were celebrated in
Saragossa, capital of Aragon, and a large number of New Christians burned
alive. The public was enraged, certainly, but helpless; yet not so
helpless but that many awoke to a conviction that, since the inquisitors
had resorted to terror for the conservation of the faith, they ought to
be restrained by terror in their turn.

In the night of September 14, 1485, one of the inquisitors, Pedro Arbues,
covered as usual with a coat of mail under his robes, and wearing a steel
skull-cap under his hat--for he was every moment conscious of guilt and
apprehensive of retribution--took a lantern in one hand and a bludgeon in
the other; and, like a sturdy soldier of his peculiar Church, walked from
his house to the cathedral of that same Saragossa, to join in matins. He
knelt down by one of the pillars, setting his lantern on the pavement.
His right hand held the weapon of defence, yet stealthily half covered
with the cloak. The canons, in their places, were chanting hymns. Two men
came and knelt down near him. They understood, as most Spaniards do, how
most effectually to attack a man, and how to kill him quickest. Therefore
one of them suddenly disabled him on one side by a blow on the left arm.
The other swung his cudgel at the back of his head, just below the edge
of the steel cap, and laid him prone. He never spoke again, but expired
in a few hours. This murder, as might be expected, was well made use of
by the priests, serving them to plead the necessity of an inquisition to
repress violence; and the inhabitants of the city were instantly overawed
by a display of high judicial authority which they had no power to
resist.

Queen Isabella, horrified at the murder of her confessor--for "confessor
of the kings" was an honorary dignity conferred on each inquisitor in
Spain--erected a monument to his memory at her own expense; and when the
murders perpetrated by Arbues himself had somewhat faded out of public
memory, he was beatified at Rome, and a chapel was constructed for his
veneration in the church where he had fallen. Therein his remains were
laid; and over the spot where he received the mortal blow a stone was
placed, with the inscription: "_Siste, viator,_" etc. "Stay, traveller!
Thou adorest the place (_locum adoras_) where the blessed Pedro de Arbues
was laid low by two missiles. Epila gave him birth. This city gave him a
canonry. The apostolic see elected him to be the first Father Inquisitor
of the Faith. Because of his zeal he became hateful to the Jews; by whom
slain, he fell here a martyr in the year 1485. The most serene Ferdinand
and Isabella reared a marble mausoleum, where he became famous for
miracles. Alexander VII, Pontifex Maximus, wrote him into the number of
holy and blessed martyrs on the 17th day of April in the year 1664. The
tomb having been opened, the sacred ashes were translated, and placed
under the altar of the chapel (built by the chapter, with the material
of the tomb, in the space of sixty-five days), with solemn rite and
veneration, on the 23d day of September, in the year 1664."

The intelligence of that murder threw all Aragon into commotion. The
powers, ecclesiastical and royal, panted for vengeance, and the murderers
were put to a most painful death. The Jews and New Christians trembled
with terror and rage. The inhabitants of many towns, Teruel, Valencia,
Lerida, and Barcelona included, compelled the inquisitors to cease from
inquest; and it was only by means of military force, after edicts and
bulls had failed, that the King and Pope together could quash two years'
public resistance. In Saragossa, where the murder had been contrived by a
party of chief inhabitants, a consciousness of guilt weakened their hands
and they endeavored to save themselves by flight. Thousands of people
deserted the city, although they had no participation in the deed and
were everywhere treated as rebels; and in that migration incidents
occurred which might throw a tinge of horrible romance on our history.
Let me briefly mention two.

An inhabitant of Saragossa found his way to Tudela, and there begged for
shelter and concealment in the house of Don Jaime, Infante of Navarre,
legitimate son of the Queen of Navarre and nephew of King Ferdinand
himself. The Infante could not refuse asylum and hospitality to an
innocent fugitive. He allowed the man to hide himself for a few days and
then pass on to France. For this act of humanity Don Jaime was arrested
by the inquisitors, thrown into prison as an impeder of the Holy Office,
brought thence to Saragossa, a place quite beyond the jurisdiction of
Navarre, and there made to do open penance in the cathedral, in presence
of a great congregation at high mass. And what penance! The Archbishop
of Saragossa presided; but this Archbishop was a boy of seventeen, an
illegitimate son of the King; and he it was that commanded two priests to
flog his father's lawful nephew, the Infante of Navarre, with rods. They
whipped Don Jaime around the church accordingly.

The other case was diabolical. Gaspar de Santa Cruz escaped to Toulouse,
where he died and was buried after his effigy had been burned in
Saragossa. In this city lived a son of his, who, in duty bound, had
helped him to make good his retreat. This son was delated as an impeder
of the Holy Office, arrested, brought out at an act of faith, made
to read a condemnation of his deceased father, and then sent to the
inquisitor at Toulouse, who took him to his father's grave, and compelled
him to dig up the corpse and burn it with his own hands. Whether the
inquisitors were most barbarous or the young man most vile, it may be
difficult to say. But it is a most infamous glory of the Inquisition
that, for satisfaction of its own requirements, the express laws of God
and man and the first instincts of humanity are equally set at naught.

The Arch-inquisitor of Spain, shortly after his accession to the office,
summoned the subalterns from their stations to meet him at Seville, and
framed, with them, a set of instructions for uniform administration. They
were published, twenty-eight in number, on October 29, 1484. On January
9, 1485, eleven more were added. The spirit of these instructions
pervades the _Directory_ of Eymeric, into which they were incorporated by
his commentator. It is only important to mention here that on the present
occasion an agent was appointed to represent this Inquisition at Rome,
and there to defend the inquisitors on occasion of appeals from the
subjects of inquisitorial violence or from their friends or their
survivors. And this was in spite of a bull sent into Spain two years
before, appointing the Archbishop of Seville sole judge of such appeals.
But that bull was a mere feint for conciliation and never acted on at
Rome.

We must not fail to mark this point in the history, forasmuch as here
begins the practically juridical relation between the court of Rome as
supreme, and the provinces of the Roman Church as subordinate, in matters
concerning inquisition.


JAMES BALMES


As to the Spanish Inquisition, which was only an extension of that which
was established in other countries, we must divide it, with respect to
its duration, into three great periods. We omit the time of its existence
in the kingdom of Aragon, before its introduction into Castile. The
first of these comprehends the time when the Inquisition was principally
directed against the relapsed Jews and Moors, from the day of its
installation under the Catholic sovereigns till the middle of the
reign of Charles V. The second extends from the time when it began to
concentrate its efforts to prevent the introduction of Protestantism into
Spain until that danger entirely ceased; that is, from the middle of the
reign of Charles V till the coming of the Bourbons. The third and last
period is that when the Inquisition was limited to repress infamous
crimes and exclude the philosophy of Voltaire; this period was continued
until its abolition, in the beginning of the nineteenth century.

It is clear that, the institution being successively modified according
to circumstances at these different epochs--although it always remained
fundamentally the same--the commencement and termination of each of these
three periods which we have pointed out cannot be precisely marked;
nevertheless, these three periods really existed in its history, and
present us with very different characters.

Everyone knows the peculiar circumstances in which the Inquisition was
established in the time of the Catholic sovereigns; yet it is worthy of
remark that the bull of establishment was solicited by Queen Isabella;
that is, by one of the most distinguished sovereigns in our history--by
that Queen who still, after three centuries, preserves the respect and
admiration of all Spaniards. Isabella, far from opposing the will of the
people in this measure, only realized the national wish. The Inquisition
was established chiefly against the Jews. Before the Inquisition
published its first edict, dated Seville, in 1481, the Cortes of Toledo,
in 1480, had adopted severe measures on the subject. To prevent the
injury which the intercourse between Jews and Christians might occasion
to the Catholic faith, the cortes had ordered that unbaptized Israelites
should be obliged to wear a distinctive mark, dwell in separate quarters,
called _juiveries_, and return there before night. Ancient regulations
against them were renewed; the professions of doctor, surgeon,
shopkeeper, barber, and tavern-keeper were forbidden them. Intolerance
was, therefore, popular at that time. If the Inquisition be justified in
the eyes of friends to monarchy, by conformity with the will of kings, it
has an equal claim to be so in the eyes of lovers of democracy.

No doubt the heart is grieved at reading the excessive severities
exercised at that time against the Jews; but must there not have been
very grave causes to provoke such excesses? The danger which the Spanish
monarchy, not yet well established, would have incurred if the Jews, then
very powerful on account of their riches and their alliances with the
most influential families, had been allowed to act without restraint, has
been pointed out as one of the most important of these causes. It was
greatly to be feared that they would league with the Moors against the
Christians. The respective positions of the three nations rendered this
league natural; this is the reason why it was looked upon as necessary to
break a power which was capable of compromising anew the independence of
the Christians. It is necessary also to observe that at the time when the
Inquisition was established the war of eight hundred years against the
Moors was not yet finished. The Inquisition was projected before 1474; it
was established in 1480, and the conquest of Granada did not take place
till 1492. Thus it was founded at the time when the obstinate struggle
was about to be decided; it was yet to be known whether the Christians
would remain masters of the whole peninsula or whether the Moors should
retain possession of one of the most fertile and beautiful provinces;
whether these enemies, shut up in Granada, should preserve a position
excellent for their communication with Africa, and a means for all the
attempts which, at a later period, the Crescent might be disposed to make
against us. Now, the power of the Crescent was very great, as was clearly
shown by its enterprises against the rest of Europe in the next century.
In such emergencies, after ages of fighting, and at the moment which was
to decide the victory forever, have combatants ever been known to conduct
themselves with moderation and mildness?

It cannot be denied that the system of repression pursued in Spain, with
respect to the Jews and the Moors, was inspired, in great measure, by the
instinct of self-preservation: we can easily believe that the Catholic
princes had this motive before them when they decided on asking for the
establishment of the Inquisition in their dominions. The danger was not
imaginary; it was perfectly real. In order to form an idea of the turn
which things might have taken if some precaution had not been adopted,
it is enough to recollect the insurrections of the last Moors in later
times.

Yet it would be wrong, in this affair, to attribute all to the policy
of royalty; and it is necessary here to avoid exalting too much the
foresight and designs of men; for my part, I am inclined to think that
Ferdinand and Isabella naturally followed the generality of the nation,
in whose eyes the Jews were odious when they persevered in their creed,
and suspected when they embraced the Christian religion. Two causes
contributed to this hatred and animadversion: first, the excited state of
religious feeling then general in all Europe, and especially in Spain;
second, the conduct by which the Jews had drawn upon themselves the
public indignation.

The necessity of restraining the cupidity of the Jews, for the sake of
the independence of the Christians, was of ancient date in Spain: the old
assemblies of Toledo had attempted it. In the following centuries the
evil reached its height; a great part of the riches of the peninsula had
passed into the hands of the Jews, and almost all the Christians found
themselves their debtors. Thence the hatred of the people against the
Jews; thence the frequent troubles which agitated some towns of the
peninsula; thence the tumults which more than once were fatal to the
Jews, and in which their blood flowed in abundance. It was difficult for
a people accustomed for ages to set themselves free by force of arms to
resign themselves peacefully and tranquilly to the lot prepared for them
by the artifices and exactions of a strange race, whose name, moreover,
bore the recollection of a terrible malediction.

In later times an immense number of Jews were converted to the Christian
religion; but the hatred of the people was not extinguished thereby,
and mistrust followed these converts into their new state. It is very
probable that a great number of these conversions were hardly sincere,
as they were partly caused by the sad position in which the Jews who
continued in Judaism were placed. In default of conjectures founded on
reason in this respect, we will regard as a sufficient corroboration of
our opinion the multitude of Judaizing Christians who were discovered as
soon as care was taken to find out those who had been guilty of apostasy.
However this may be, it is certain that the distinction between New and
Old Christians was introduced; the latter denomination was a title
of honor, and the former a mark of ignominy; the converted Jews were
contemptuously called _maranos_ ("impure men," "pigs"). With more or
less foundation, they were accused of horrible crimes. In their dark
assemblies they committed, it was said, atrocities which could hardly be
believed for the honor of humanity. For example, it was said that, to
revenge themselves on the Christians and in contempt of religion, they
crucified Christian children, taking care to choose for the purpose the
greatest day among Christian solemnities. There is the often-repeated
history of the knight of the house of Guzman, who, being hidden one night
in the house of a Jew whose daughter he loved, saw a child crucified at
the time when the Christians celebrated the institution of the sacrifice
of the eucharist. Besides infanticide, there were attributed to the Jews
sacrileges, poisonings, conspiracies, and other crimes. That these rumors
were generally believed by the people is proved by the fact that the Jews
were forbidden by law to exercise the professions of doctor, surgeon,
barber, and tavern-keeper; this shows what degree of confidence
was placed in their morality. It is useless to stay to examine the
foundations for these sinister accusations. We are not ignorant how far
popular credulity will go, above all when it is under the influence of
excited feelings, which makes it view all things in the same light. It is
enough for us to know that these rumors circulated everywhere and with
credit, to understand what must have been the public indignation against
the Jews, and consequently how natural it was that authority, yielding
to the impulse of the general mind, should be urged to treat them with
excessive rigor.

The situation in which the Jews were placed is sufficient to show that
they might have attempted to act in concert to resist the Christians;
what they did after the death of St. Peter Arbues shows what they
were capable of doing on other occasions. The funds necessary for the
accomplishment of the murder--the pay of the assassins, and the other
expenses required for the plot--were collected by means of voluntary
contributions imposed on themselves by all the Jews of Aragon. Does not
this show an advanced state of organization, which might have become
fatal if it had not been watched?

In alluding to the death of St. Peter Arbues, I wish to make an
observation on what has been said on this subject as proving the
unpopularity of the establishment of the Inquisition in Spain. What more
evident proof, we shall be told, can you have than the assassination of
the inquisitor? Is it not a sure sign that the indignation of the people
was at its height and that they were quite opposed to the Inquisition?
Would they otherwise have been hurried into such excesses? If by "the
people" you mean the Jews and their descendants, I will not deny that the
establishment of the Inquisition was indeed very odious to them, but it
was not so with the rest of the nation. The event we are speaking of gave
rise to a circumstance which proves just the reverse. When the report of
the death of the inquisitor was spread through the town, they went in
crowds in pursuit of the New Christians, so that a bloody catastrophe
would have ensued had not the young Archbishop of Saragossa, Alphonsus of
Aragon, presented himself to the people on horseback, and calmed them by
the assurance that all the rigor of the laws should fall on the heads of
the guilty. Was the Inquisition as unpopular as it has been represented?
and will it be said that its adversaries were the majority of the people?
Why, then, could not the tumult of Saragossa have been avoided in spite
of all the precautions which were no doubt taken by the conspirators, at
that time very powerful by their riches and influence?

At the time of the greatest rigor against the Judaizing Christians, there
is a fact worthy of attention. Persons accused, or threatened with the
pursuit of the Inquisition, took every means to escape the action of that
tribunal: they left the soil of Spain and went to Rome. Would those
who imagine that Rome has always been the hot-bed of intolerance, the
firebrand of persecution, have imagined this? The number of causes
commenced by the Inquisition, and summoned from Spain to Rome, is
countless, during the first fifty years of the existence of that
tribunal; and it must be added that Rome always inclined to the side of
indulgence. I do not know that it would be possible to cite one accused
person who, by appealing to Rome, did not ameliorate his condition. The
history of the Inquisition at that time is full of contests between the
kings and popes; and we constantly find, on the part of the holy see,
a desire to restrain the Inquisition within the bounds of justice and
humanity. The line of conduct prescribed by the court of Rome was not
always followed as it ought to have been. Thus we see the popes compelled
to receive a multitude of appeals, and mitigate the lot that would have
befallen the appellants if their cause had been definitely decided in
Spain. We also see the Pope name the judge of appeal, at the solicitation
of the Catholic sovereigns, who desired that causes should be finally
decided in Spain: the first of these judges was Inigo Manrique,
Archbishop of Seville. Nevertheless, at the end of a short time, the same
Pope, in a bull of August 2, 1483, said that he had received new appeals,
made by a great number of the Spaniards of Seville, who had not dared to
address themselves to the judge of appeal for fear of being arrested.
Such was then the excitement of the public mind; such was at that time
the necessity of preventing injustice or measures of undue severity. The
Pope added that some of those who had had recourse to his justice had
already received the absolution of the apostolical penitentiary, and that
others were about to receive it; he afterward complained that indulgences
granted to divers accused persons had not been sufficiently respected
at Seville; in fine, after several other admonitions, he observed to
Ferdinand and Isabella that mercy toward the guilty was more pleasing
to God than the severity which it was desired to use; and he gave the
example of the good shepherd following the wandering sheep. He ended by
exhorting the sovereigns to treat with mildness those who voluntarily
confessed their faults, desiring them to allow them to reside at Seville
or in some other place they might choose; and to allow them the enjoyment
of their property, as if they had not been guilty of the crime of heresy.

Moreover, it is not to be supposed that the appeals admitted at Rome, and
by virtue of which the lot of the accused was improved, were founded on
errors of form and injustice committed in the application of the law. If
the accused had recourse to Rome, it was not always to demand reparation
for an injustice, but because they were sure of finding indulgence. We
have a proof of this in the considerable number of Spanish refugees
convicted at Rome of having fallen into Judaism. Two hundred fifty of
them were found at one time, yet there was not one capital execution.
Some penances were imposed on them, and, when they were absolved, they
were free to return home without the least mark of ignominy. This took
place at Rome in 1498.

It is a remarkable thing that the Roman Inquisition was never known to
pronounce the execution of capital punishment, although the apostolic see
was occupied during that time by popes of extreme rigor and severity in
all that relates to the civil administration. We find in all parts of
Europe scaffolds prepared to punish crimes against religion; scenes which
sadden the soul were everywhere witnessed. Rome is an exception to the
rule--Rome, which it has been attempted to represent as a monster of
intolerance and cruelty. It is true that the popes have not preached,
like Protestants, universal toleration; but facts show the difference
between popes and Protestants. The popes, armed with a tribunal
of intolerance, have not spilled a drop of blood; Protestants and
philosophers have shed torrents. What advantage is it to the victim to
hear his executioners proclaim toleration? It is adding the bitterness of
sarcasm to his punishment.

The conduct of Rome in the use which she made of the Inquisition is the
best apology of Catholicity against those who attempt to stigmatize her
as barbarous and sanguinary. In truth, what is there in common between
Catholicity and the excessive severity employed in this place or that, in
the extraordinary situation in which many rival races were placed, in the
presence of danger which menaced one of them, or in the interest which
the kings had in maintaining the tranquillity of their states and
securing their conquests from all danger?

I will not enter into a detailed examination of the conduct of the
Spanish Inquisition with respect to Judaizing Christians; and I am
far from thinking that the rigor which it employed against them was
preferable to the mildness recommended and displayed by the popes. What
I wish to show here is that rigor was the result of extraordinary
circumstances--the effect of the national spirit and of the severity of
customs in Europe at that time. Catholicity cannot be reproached with
excesses committed for these different reasons. Still more, if we pay
attention to the spirit which prevails in all the instructions of
the popes relating to the Inquisition, if we observe their manifest
inclination to range themselves on the side of mildness, and to suppress
the marks of ignominy with which the guilty, as well as their families,
were stigmatized, we have a right to suppose that, if the popes had not
feared to displease the kings too much, and to excite divisions which
might have been fatal, their measures would have been carried still
further. If we recollect the negotiations which took place with respect
to the noisy affair of the claims of the Cortes of Aragon, we shall see
to which side the court of Rome leaned.

As we are speaking of intolerance with regard to the Judaizers, let us
say a few words as to the disposition of Luther toward the Jews. Does
it not seem that the pretended reformer, the founder of independence of
thought, the furious declaimer against the oppression and tyranny of the
popes, should have been animated with the most humane sentiments toward
that people? No doubt the eulogists of this chieftain of Protestantism
ought to think thus also. I am sorry for them; but history will not allow
us to partake of this delusion. According to all appearances, if the
apostate monk had found himself in the place of Torquemada, the Judaizers
would not have been in a better position. What, then, was the system
advised by Luther, according to Seckendorff, one of his apologists?
"Their synagogues ought to be destroyed, their houses pulled down, their
prayer-books, the _Talmud_, and even the books of the Old Testament to
be taken from them; their rabbis ought to be forbidden to teach, and be
compelled to gain their livelihood by hard labor." The Inquisition, at
least, did not proceed against the Jews, but against the Judaizers; that
is, against those who, after being converted to Christianity, relapsed
into their errors, and added sacrilege to their apostasy by the external
profession of a creed which they detested in secret, and which they
profaned by the exercise of their old religion. But Luther extended his
severity to the Jews themselves; so that, according to his doctrines, no
reproach can be made against the sovereigns who expelled the Jews from
their dominions.

The Moors and the Moriscoes no less occupied the attention of the
Inquisition at that time; and all that has been said on the subject of
the Jews may be applied to them with some modifications. They were
also an abhorred race--a race which had been contended with for eight
centuries. When they retained their religion, the Moors inspired hatred;
when they abjured it, mistrust; the popes interested themselves in their
favor also in a peculiar manner. We ought to remark a bull issued in
1530, which is expressed in language quite evangelical: it is there said
that the ignorance of these nations is one of the principal causes of
their faults and errors; the first thing to be done to render their
conversion solid and sincere was, according to the recommendation
contained in this bull, to endeavor to enlighten their minds with sound
doctrine.

It will be said that the Pope granted to Charles V the bull which
released him from the oath taken in the Cortes of Saragossa in the year
1519, an oath by which he had engaged not to make any change with respect
to the Moors; whereby, it is said, the Emperor was enabled to complete
their expulsion. But we must observe that the Pope for a long time
resisted that concession; and that if he at length complied with the
wishes of the Emperor, it was only because he thought that the expulsion
of the Moors was indispensable to secure the tranquillity of the kingdom.
Whether this was true or not, the Emperor, and not the Pope, was the
better judge; the latter, placed at a great distance, could not know the
real state of things in detail. Moreover, it was not the Spanish monarch
alone who thought so; it is related that Francis I, when a prisoner at
Madrid, one day conversing with Charles V, told him that tranquillity
would never be established in Spain if the Moors and Moriscoes were not
expelled.



MURDER OF THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER

A.D. 1483

JAMES GAIRDNER


The brief reign of Richard III, 1483-1485, left for historians one
subject of dispute which even to our own day has not been finally
determined--his alleged murder of his nephews, King Edward V and Richard,
Duke of York, sons of Edward IV. These princes at the supposed time of
their death were about thirteen and nine years of age respectively.

Before his usurpation Richard III, last of the Plantagenet line, was
known as the Duke of Gloucester. He served in the Wars of the Roses, and
on the death of Edward IV, April, 1483, he seized the young Edward V and
caused himself to be proclaimed protector. He then caused his parliament
to set the two princes aside as illegitimate, and they were imprisoned
in the Tower of London. On June 26, 1483, Richard assumed the crown, and
soon after the death of the princes was publicly announced.

In Gairdner's discussion we have the results of the best historical
inquiries concerning this most important question of Richard's career.

A great amount of public anxiety prevailed touching the two young princes
in the Tower. They were virtually prisoners, and their confinement
created great dissatisfaction. A movement in their behalf was gotten up
in the South of England while Richard was away. In Kent, Sussex,
and Essex, in Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Dorset, even as far west as
Devonshire, cabals were formed for their liberation, which all appear to
have been parts of one great conspiracy organized in secret by the Duke
of Buckingham. By the beginning of October some disturbances had actually
taken place, and the following letter was written in consequence by the
Duke of Norfolk to one of his dependents in Norfolk:

"_To my right well-beloved friend, John Paston, be this delivered in
haste_.

"Right well-beloved friend, I commend me to you. It is so that the
Kentish men be up in the Weald and say that they will come and rob the
city, which I shall let [_i. e.,_ prevent] if I may.

"Therefore I pray you, that with all diligence you make you ready and come
hither, and bring with you six tall fellows in harness; and ye shall not
lose your labor, that knoweth God; who have you in his keeping.

"Written at London the 10th day of October.

"Your friend,

"J. NORFOLK."

The rumor of the projected movement in behalf of the princes was speedily
followed by the report that they were no more. Of course they had been
removed by violence. Regarding the time and manner of the deed no news
could then be obtained, but the news that the deposed King and his
brother had been assassinated was spread with horror and amazement
through the land. Among all the inhumanities of the late civil war there
had been nothing so unnatural as this. To many the tale seemed too cruel
to be true. They believed that the princes must have been sent abroad
to defeat the intrigues of their friends. But time passed away and they
never appeared again. After many years, indeed, an impostor counterfeited
the younger; but even he, to give credit to his pretensions, expressly
admitted the murder of his elder brother.

Nevertheless, there have been writers in modern days who have shown
plausible grounds for doubting that the murder really took place. Two
contemporary writers, they say, mention the fact only as a report; a
third certainly states it, incorrectly, at least, in point of time; and
Sir Thomas More, who is the only one remaining, relates it with certain
details which it does seem difficult to accept as credible. More's
account, however, must bear some resemblance to the truth. It is mainly
founded upon the confession of two of the murderers, and is given by the
writer as the most trustworthy report he had met with. If, therefore, the
murder be not itself a fiction, and the confession, as has been surmised,
a forgery, we should expect the account given by Sir Thomas More to be in
the main true, clear, and consistent, though Horace Walpole and others
have maintained that it is not so. The substance of the story is as
follows: Richard, some time after he had set out on his progress, sent
a special messenger and confidant, by name John Green, to Sir Robert
Brackenbury, the constable of the Tower, commanding him to put the two
princes to death. Brackenbury refused to obey the order, and Green
returned to his master at Warwick. The King was bitterly disappointed.
"Whom shall a man trust," he said, "when those who I thought would most
surely serve me, at my command will do nothing for me?" The words were
spoken to a private attendant or page, who told him, in reply, that there
was one man lying on a pallet in the outer chamber who would hardly
scruple to undertake anything whatever to please him. This was Sir James
Tyrell, who is described by More as an ambitious, aspiring man, jealous
of the ascendency of Sir Richard Ratcliffe and Sir William Catesby.
Richard at once acted upon the hint, and calling Tyrell before him
communicated his mind to him and gave him a commission for the execution
of his murderous purpose. Tyrell went to London with a warrant
authorizing Brackenbury to deliver up to him for one night all the keys
of the Tower. Armed with this document he took possession of the place,
and proceeded to the work of death by the instrumentality of Miles
Forest, one of the four jailers in whose custody the princes were, and
John Dighton, his own groom. When the young princes were asleep, these
men entered their chamber, and, taking up the pillows, pressed them hard
down upon their mouths till they died by suffocation. Then, having caused
Sir James to see the bodies, they buried them at the foot of a staircase.
But "it was rumored," says More, "that the King disapproved of their
being buried in so vile a corner; whereupon they say that a priest of Sir
Robert Brackenbury's took up the bodies again, and secretly interred
them in such place as, by the occasion of his death, could never come to
light." Sir James, having fulfilled his mission, returned to the King,
from whom he received great thanks, and who, Sir Thomas informs us, "as
some say, there made him a knight."

It has been maintained that this story will not bear criticism. What
could have induced Richard to time his cruel policy so ill and to arrange
it so badly? The order for the destruction of the children could have
been much more easily, safely, and secretly executed when he was in
London than when he was at Gloucester or Warwick. Fewer messages
would have sufficed, and neither warrants nor letters would have been
necessary. Was it a sudden idea which occurred to him upon his progress?
If so, he might surely have waited for a better opportunity. If not, he
might at least have taken care to sift Brackenbury before leaving London,
so as to be sure of the two he intended to employ. Is it likely that
Richard would have given orders for the commission of a crime, without
having good reason to rely upon his intended agent's boldness and
depravity?

But, having tried Sir Robert's scruples, and found them somewhat stronger
than he anticipated, what follows? It might have been expected that
Sir Robert's respect for his master, if he had any, would have been
diminished; that the favor of his sovereign would have been withdrawn
from him; and perhaps that the tyrant, having seen an instance of the
untrustworthiness of men in matters criminal and dangerous, would have
learned to become a little more circumspect. But the facts are quite
otherwise. Sir Robert continued long after in the good graces of his
sovereign, always remained faithful to him, even when many others
deserted him, and finally fell in battle bravely fighting in his cause.
Richard did not become more cautious, but, on the contrary, more
imprudent than ever. He complained loudly of his disappointment, even in
the presence of a page. This page is nameless in the story, but he serves
to introduce to the King not less a person than Sir James Tyrell, who is
represented as willing to do anything to obtain favor, and envious of the
influence possessed by others. He undertakes and executes the task
which Brackenbury had refused, and for this service we are told he
was knighted. All this greatly misrepresents Sir James' position and
influence, if not his character. He not only was a knight long before
this, but had been in the preceding year created by Richard himself
a knight banneret for his distinguished services during the Scotch
campaign. He had been, during Edward IV's reign, a commissioner for
executing the office of lord high constable. He was then master of the
King's henchmen, or pages. He was also master of the horse. If his mere
position in the world did not make him disdain to be a hired assassin,
he at least did not require to be recommended through the medium of that
nameless page.

Moreover, it appears that the fact of the princes having been murdered
was held in great doubt for a long time afterward. Even More himself,
writing about thirty years later, is obliged to acknowledge that the
thing had "so far come in question that some remained long in doubt
whether they were in Richard's days destroyed or no." This is certainly
remarkable, when it is considered that it was of the utmost importance
for Henry VII to terminate all controversy upon the question. Yet Sir
Thomas tells us that these doubts arose not only from the uncertainty men
were in whether Perkin Warbeck was the true duke of York, "but for that
also that all things were so covertly demeaned, one thing pretended and
another meant, that there was nothing so plain and openly proved but that
yet, for the common custom of close and covert dealing, men had it ever
inwardly suspect." All this, it is urged, may very well suggest that
the doubts were reasonable, and that the princes in reality were not
destroyed in the days of Richard III. And, indeed, when we consider how
many persons, according to More's account, took part in the murder or
had some knowledge of it, it does appear not a little strange that there
should have been any difficulty in establishing it on the clearest
evidence. For besides Tyrell, Dighton, and Forest, the chief actors,
there were Brackenbury, Green the page, one Black Will, or Will
Slaughter, who guarded the princes, and the priest who buried them, all
fully aware of the circumstances of the crime.

In Henry VII's time Brackenbury was dead, and so it is said was the
priest; Forest, too, had ended his days miserably in a sanctuary. But it
does not appear what had become of either Green or the page. Tyrell and
Dighton were the only persons said to have been examined; and though we
are told that they both confessed, yet there is a circumstance that
makes the confession look exceedingly suspicious. Tyrell was detained in
prison, and afterward executed, for a totally different offence; while,
as Bacon tells us, "John Dighton, _who it seemeth spake best for the
King,_ was forthwith set at liberty." Taking Bacon's view of the
circumstances of the disclosure as if it were infallible, the sceptics
here find matter of very grave suspicion. "In truth," says Walpole,
"every step of this pretended discovery, as it stands in Lord Bacon,
warns us to give no heed to it. Dighton and Tyrell agreed both in a tale,
_as the King gave out_. Their confession, therefore, was not publicly
made; and as Sir James Tyrell, too, was suffered to live, but was shut
up in the Tower and put to death afterward for we know not what treason,
what can we believe but that Dighton was some low mercenary wretch, hired
to assume the guilt of a crime he had not committed, and that Sir James
Tyrell never did, never would, confess what he had not done, and was
therefore put out of the way on a fictitious imputation? It must be
observed, too, that no inquiry was made into the murder on the accession
of Henry VII--the natural time for it, when the passions of men were
heated, and when the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Lovel, Catesby, Ratcliffe, and
the real abettors or accomplices of Richard were attainted and executed.
No mention of such a murder was made in the very act of parliament that
attainted Richard himself and which would have been the most heinous
aggravation of his crimes. And no prosecution of the supposed assassins
was ever thought of till eleven years afterward, on the appearance of
Perkin Warbeck." Such are the striking arguments by which it has been
sought to cast a doubt upon the murder, and particularly More's account
of it.

To all which it may be replied, in the first place, that it is by no
means necessary to suppose More's narrative, though it appeared to him
the most credible account he had heard, absolutely correct in all its
details, especially in those which he mentions as mere reports. His
authority was evidently the alleged confession of Tyrell and Dighton,
obtained second-hand. This, though true in the main, may not have been
absolutely correct, even as it was first delivered, and may have been
somewhat less accurate as it was reported to Sir Thomas, who perhaps
added from hearsay a few errors of his own, like that about Sir James
Tyrell's knighthood.

Secondly, the argument with regard to Richard's imprudence, in pursuing
the course ascribed to him, goes but little way to discredit the facts,
unless it can be shown that caution and foresight were part of his
ordinary character. The prevailing notion of Richard III, indeed, is of a
cold, deeply politic, scheming, and calculating villain. But I confess I
am not satisfied of the justice of such a view. Not only Richard, but
all his family, appear to me to have been headstrong and reckless as
to consequences. His father lost his life by a chivalrous and quixotic
impetuosity; his brother Edward lost his kingdom once by pure
carelessness; his brother Clarence fell, no less by lack of wisdom than
by lack of honesty; and he himself, at Bosworth, threw away his life by
his eagerness to terminate the contest in a personal engagement. Had
Richard fully intended to murder his nephews at the time he determined
upon dethroning the elder, I have very little doubt that he would have
kept his northern forces in London to preserve order in the city till
after the deed was done. I for my part do not believe that such was his
intention from the first. How much more probable, indeed, that after he
had left London the contemplated rising in favor of the princes suggested
to him an action which cost him his peace of mind during the whole of his
after-life!

Thirdly, the doubts of contemporaries do not appear to have been very
general. The expression of Sir Thomas More is only "that some remained in
doubt"; and More is not a writer who would have glossed over a fact to
please the court. As to Perkin Warbeck, who pretended to be the younger
of the princes, Henry VII's neglect to confute his pretensions may have
arisen from other causes than a suspicion that he was the true duke of
York. There is no reason to suppose that his followers in England were
numerous. The belief in the murder appears to have been general. It
was mentioned as a fact by the Chancellor of France, in addressing the
estates-general which met at Tours in the following January. It was
acknowledged to be true in part by Warbeck himself, who, it has been
shown since Walpole's time, in personating the Duke of York, admitted
that his brother Edward had been murdered, though he asserted that he
himself had providentially escaped. It is evident that no one dreamed in
those days that the story of the murder was altogether a fiction. The
utmost that any well-informed person could doubt was whether it had been
successfully accomplished as to both the victims.

With regard to the confessions of Tyrell and Dighton, Bacon has certainly
spoken without warrant in stating that they were examined at the time of
Warbeck's appearance. The time when they were examined is stated by
Sir Thomas More to have been when Tyrell was confined in the Tower for
treason against Henry VII, which was in 1502, three years after Warbeck's
execution. Before that date there is no ground for believing that
Tyrell's guilt in regard to the murder was generally known. Before that
date, indeed, the world seems to have had no conception in what manner
the crime was committed, and the common story seems to have been that
Richard had put his nephews to the sword; but the confession of Tyrell at
once put an end to this surmise, and we hear of it no longer. Henry VII
assuredly did not for a long time treat him as a criminal; for not only
did he hold under Henry the office of captain of Guisnes, but he was
employed by the King in an expedition against Flanders. Nay, even after
Warbeck had been taken and confessed his imposture, Tyrell was employed
on an important embassy to Maximilian, King of the Romans. It is quite
clear, therefore, that he was never questioned about the murder in
consequence of Warbeck's pretensions. But being afterward condemned to
death on a charge of treason--not an unknown charge, as Walpole imagines,
but a charge of having treasonably aided the escape of the Earl of
Suffolk--he was then, as More says, examined about it in the Tower,
having probably made a voluntary confession of guilt to ease his
conscience before his execution.

No doubt, after all, the murder rests upon the testimony of only a very
few original authorities, but this is simply owing to the scantiness of
contemporary historians. It is true, also, that of these there are two
who only mention it as a report; but it must be observed that neither of
them expresses the smallest doubt of its truth, and one of them more than
hints that he believes it as a fact. How, indeed, could there possibly
be two opinions about a rumor of this kind, seeing that it was never
contradicted by the King himself? Assuredly from this time the conduct
both of Richard and his enemies was distinctly governed by the belief
that his nephews were no longer alive.

Moreover, the truth of the story seems to be corroborated by a discovery
which took place in the reign of Charles II. In the process of altering
the staircase leading to the chapel in the White Tower, the skeletons of
two young lads, whose apparent ages agreed with those of the unfortunate
princes, were found buried under a heap of stones. Their place of
sepulture corresponded with the situation mentioned in the confession of
the murderers, so that the report alluded to by More of the removal of
the bodies seems to have been a mistake. The antiquaries of the day had
no doubt they were the remains of young Edward V and his brother, and
King Charles caused them to be fittingly interred in Henry VII's chapel
at Westminster. A Latin inscription marks the spot and tells of the
discovery.

We have no doubt, therefore, that the dreadful deed was done. It was
done, indeed, in profound secrecy; the fact, I suspect, remained some
little time unknown; and for years after there was no certainty as to the
way it was performed. Years elapsed even before the world suspected the
foul blot upon Tyrell's knighthood, and he enjoyed the favor both of
Richard and of his successor; but at last the truth came out.

As to the other agents in the business, various entries in the Patent
Rolls, and in the Docket Book of King Richard's grants, show that they
did not pass unrewarded. Before the murder Green had been appointed
comptroller of the customs at Boston, and had also been employed to
provide horse meat and litter for the King's stables; afterward, if we
may trust a note by Strype--but I own I cannot find his authority--he
was advanced to be receiver of the Isle of Wight and of the castle and
lordship of Portchester. To Dighton was granted the office of bailiff of
Ayton in Staffordshire. Forest died soon after, and it appears he was
keeper of the wardrobe at Barnard castle, but whether appointed before
or after the murder there is no evidence to show. Brackenbury received
several important grants, some of which were of lands of the late Lord
Rivers.

And yet hitherto Richard's life, though not unmarked by violence, had
been free from violence to his own flesh and blood. Even his most
unjustifiable measures were somewhat in the nature of self-defence; or if
in any case he had stained his hands with the blood of persons absolutely
innocent, it was not in his own interest, but in that of his brother,
Edward IV. The rough and illegal retribution which he dealt out to
Rivers, Vaughan, Hawte, Lord Richard Grey, and Lord Hastings was not more
severe than perhaps law itself might have authorized. The disorders of
civil war had accustomed the nation to see justice sometimes executed
without the due formalities; and his neglect of those formalities had
not hitherto made him unpopular. But the license of unchecked power is
dangerous, no less to those who wield than to those who suffer it; and it
was peculiarly so to one of Richard's violent and impatient temper. He
had been allowed so far to act upon his own arbitrary judgment or will
that expediency was fast becoming his only motive and extinguishing
within him both humanity and natural affection.

Nevertheless, he was not yet sunk so low as to regard his own unnatural
conduct with indifference. Deep and bitter remorse deprived him of all
that tranquillity in the possession of power for the attainment of which
he had imbrued his hands in blood. "I have heard by credible report,"
says Sir Thomas More, "of such as were secret with his chamberers, that
after this abominable deed done he never had quiet in his mind, he never
thought himself sure. Where he went abroad, his eyes whirled about, his
body privily fenced, his hand ever on his dagger, his countenance and
manner like one always ready to strike again. He took ill rest at nights,
lay long waking and musing; sore wearied with care and watch, he rather
slumbered than slept. Troubled with fearful dreams, suddenly sometimes
started he up, leapt out of his bed and ran about the chamber. So was his
restless heart continually tossed and tumbled with the tedious impression
and stormy remembrance of his most abominable deed."

Such was the awful retribution that overtook this inhuman King during the
two short years that he survived his greatest crime, till the battle of
Bosworth completed the measure of his punishment. His repentance came too
late.



CONQUEST OF GRANADA

A.D. 1490

WASHINGTON IRVING


Although the Moors held Spain for over seven hundred and fifty years,
they never had possession of the entire country. In the North, fragments
of the Visigothic Christian kingdoms survived, and at length these grew
into a strong power destined to drive out the Arabs, who had so long made
the Spanish peninsula a seat of Mahometan civilization.

The Moorish power reached its height in the tenth century, and gradually
declined in the eleventh, when it broke up into petty and short-lived
kingdoms. The Almoravides from Africa began their rule in Spain about
1090. This dynasty was overthrown by the Almohades in 1145, and the
latter became extinct in Spain in 1257.

After the disruption of the realm of the Almohades, the Moorish kingdom
of Granada was established, and was held in vassalage to Castile, of
which Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1474, became joint sovereigns. The Moors
made Granada, their capital, a large and powerful city, and there in the
thirteenth century they built their magnificent palace and citadel, the
Alhambra, the finest example of Moorish architecture and decorative art.

In 1482, having prepared themselves for what proved a final struggle with
the Moors, Ferdinand and Isabella began the war against Boabdil, the King
of Granada, who the year before had seized the throne from his father,
Muley Hasan. After some early reverses and later interruptions--during
which the wavering Ferdinand was held to his purpose by the rebukes
and encouragement of his stout-hearted Queen--the Christian sovereigns
reduced the strongholds of the Moors, until by 1490 the more important
half of the kingdom of Granada had been conquered. The city and its
small surrounding district alone remained to Boabdil. On April 23, 1491,
Ferdinand and Isabella encamped before Granada with fifty thousand foot
soldiers and ten thousand horse, and the last contest began.

Though Granada was shorn of its glories, and nearly cut off from all
external aid, still its mighty castles and massive bulwarks seemed to set
all attacks at defiance. Being the last retreat of Moorish power, it had
assembled within its walls the remnants of the armies that had contended,
step by step, with the invaders, in their gradual conquest of the land.
All that remained of high-born and high-bred chivalry was here; all that
was loyal and patriotic was roused to activity by the common danger; and
Granada, that had so long been lulled into inaction by vain hopes of
security, now assumed a formidable aspect in the hour of its despair.

Ferdinand saw that any attempt to subdue the city by main force would be
perilous and bloody. Cautious in his policy, and fond of conquests gained
by art rather than valor, he determined to reduce the place by famine.
For this purpose, his armies penetrated into the very heart of the
Alpujarras, and ravaged the valleys and sacked and burned the towns upon
which the city depended for its supplies. Scouting parties, also,
ranged the mountains behind Granada and captured every casual convoy of
provisions. The Moors became more daring as their situation became more
hopeless. Never had Ferdinand experienced such vigorous sallies and
assaults. Musa[1], at the head of his cavalry, harassed the borders of
the camp, and even penetrated into the interior, making sudden spoil and
ravage, and leaving his course to be traced by the slain and wounded.

To protect his camp from these assaults, Ferdinand fortified it with deep
trenches and strong bulwarks. It was of a quadrangular form, divided into
streets like a city, the troops being quartered in tents, and in booths
constructed of bushes and branches of trees. When it was completed, Queen
Isabella came in state, with all her court, and the Prince and Princess,
to be present at the siege. This was intended to reduce the besieged to
despair by showing the determination of the sovereigns to reside in the
camp until the city should surrender. Immediately after her arrival, the
Queen rode forth to survey the camp and its environs: wherever she went
she was attended by a splendid retinue; and all the commanders vied with
each other in the pomp and ceremony with which they received her. Nothing
was heard, from morning until night, but shouts and acclamations and
bursts of martial music; so that it appeared to the Moors as if a
continual festival and triumph reigned in the Christian camp.

The arrival of the Queen, however, and the menaced obstinacy of the siege
had no effect in damping the fire of the Moorish chivalry. Musa inspired
the youthful warriors with the most devoted heroism. "We have nothing
left to fight for," said he, "but the ground we stand on; when this is
lost, we cease to have a country and a name."

Finding the Christian King forbore to make an attack, Musa incited his
cavaliers to challenge the youthful chivalry of the Christian army to
single combat or partial skirmishes. Scarce a day passed without gallant
conflicts of the kind, in sight of the city and the camp. The combatants
rivalled each other in the splendor of their armor and array, as well as
in the prowess of their deeds. Their contests were more like the stately
ceremonials of tilts and tournaments than the rude conflicts of the
field. Ferdinand soon perceived that they animated the fiery Moors with
fresh zeal and courage, while they cost the lives of many of his bravest
cavaliers; he again, therefore, forbade the acceptance of any individual
challenges, and ordered that all partial encounters should be avoided.
The cool and stern policy of the Catholic sovereign bore hard upon the
generous spirits of either army, but roused the indignation of the Moors
when they found that they were to be subdued in this inglorious manner.
"Of what avail," said they, "are chivalry and heroic valor? The crafty
monarch of the Christians has no magnanimity in warfare; he seeks to
subdue us through the weakness of our bodies, but shuns to encounter the
courage of our souls."

When the Moorish knights beheld that all courteous challenges were
unavailing, they sought various means to provoke the Christian warriors
to the field. Sometimes a body of them, fleetly mounted, would gallop up
to the skirts of the camp, and try who should hurl his lance farthest
within the barriers, having his name inscribed upon it, or a label
affixed to it containing some taunting defiance. These bravadoes caused
great irritation, but still the Spanish warriors were restrained by the
prohibition of the King.

Among the Moorish cavaliers was one named Yarfe, renowned for his great
strength and daring spirit; but whose courage partook of fierce audacity
rather than chivalric heroism. In one of these sallies, when they
were skirting the Christian camp, this arrogant Moor outstripped his
companions, overleaped the barriers, and, galloping close to the royal
quarters, launched his lance so far within that it remained quivering
in the earth close by the pavilions of the sovereigns. The royal guards
rushed forth in pursuit, but the Moorish horsemen were already beyond the
camp, and scouring in a cloud of dust for the city. Upon wresting the
lance from the earth, a label was found upon it importing that it was
intended for the Queen.

Nothing could equal the indignation of the Christian warriors at the
insolence of the bravado and the discourteous insult offered to the
Queen. Hernando Perez del Pulgar, surnamed "he of the exploits," was
present, and resolved not to be outbraved by this daring infidel. "Who
will stand by me," said he, "in an enterprise of desperate peril?" The
Christian cavaliers well knew the harebrained valor of Hernando del
Pulgar, yet not one hesitated to step forward. He chose fifteen
companions, all men of powerful arm and dauntless heart. In the dead
of the night he led them forth from the camp, and approached the city
cautiously, until he arrived at a postern-gate, which opened upon the
Darro and was guarded by foot-soldiers. The guards, little thinking of
such an unwonted and partial attack, were for the most part asleep.
The gate was forced, and a confused and chance-medley skirmish ensued;
Hernando del Pulgar stopped not to take part in the affray; putting spurs
to his horse, he galloped furiously through the streets, striking fire
out of the stones at every bound. Arrived at the principal mosque, he
sprang from his horse, and, kneeling at the portal, took possession of
the edifice as a Christian chapel, dedicating it to the blessed Virgin.
In testimony of the ceremony, he took a tablet which he had brought with
him, on which was inscribed in large characters "Ave Marie," and nailed
it to the door of the mosque with his dagger. This done, he remounted his
steed and galloped back to the gate. The alarm had been given--the city
was in an uproar--soldiers were gathering from every direction. They were
astonished at seeing a Christian warrior galloping from the interior of
the city. Hernando del Pulgar overturned some, cut down others, rejoined
his companions, who still maintained possession of the gate by dint of
hard fighting, and all made good their retreat to the camp. The Moors
were at a loss to imagine the meaning of this wild and apparently
fruitless assault; but great was their exasperation, on the following
day, when the trophy of hardihood and prowess, the "_Ave Maria_" was
discovered thus elevated in bravado in the very centre of the city.
The mosque thus boldly sanctified by Hernando del Pulgar was actually
consecrated into a cathedral after the capture of Granada.

The royal encampment lay at such a distance from Granada that the general
aspect of the city only could be seen as it rose gracefully from the
vega, covering the sides of the hills with palaces and towers. Queen
Isabella had expressed an earnest desire to behold, nearer at hand, a
city whose beauty was so renowned throughout the world; and the Marquis
of Cadiz, with the accustomed courtesy, prepared a great military escort
and guard to protect the Queen and the ladies of the court while they
enjoyed this perilous gratification.

A magnificent and powerful train issued forth from the Christian camp.
The advance guard was composed of legions of cavalry, heavily armed,
that looked like moving masses of polished steel. Then came the King
and Queen, with the Prince and Princess and the ladies of the court,
surrounded by the royal bodyguard, sumptuously arrayed, composed of
the sons of the most illustrious houses of Spain; after these was the
rearguard, composed of a powerful force of horse and foot; for the
flower of the army sallied forth that day. The Moors gazed with fearful
admiration at this glorious pageant, wherein the pomp of the court was
mingled with the terrors of the camp. It moved along in a radiant line,
across the vega, to the melodious thunders of martial music; while banner
and plume and silken scarf and rich brocade gave a gay and gorgeous
relief to the grim visage of iron war that lurked beneath.

The army moved toward the hamlet of Zubia, built on the skirts of the
mountain to the left of Granada, and commanding a view of the Alhambra
and the most beautiful quarter of the city. As they approached the hamlet
the Marquis of Villena, the count Urena, and Don Alonzo de Aguilar filed
off with their battalions, and were soon seen glittering along the side
of the mountain above the village. In the mean time the Marquis of Cadiz,
the Count de Tendilla, the Count de Cabra, and Don Alonzo Fernandez,
Senior of Alcandrete and Montemayor, drew up their forces in battle array
on the plain below the hamlet, presenting a living barrier of loyal
chivalry between the sovereigns and the city. Thus securely guarded, the
royal party alighted, and, entering one of the houses of the hamlet,
which had been prepared for their reception, enjoyed a full view of the
city from its terraced roof.

While grim tranquillity prevailed along the Christian line, there rose a
mingled shout and sound of laughter near the gate of the city. A Moorish
horseman, armed at all points, issued forth, followed by a rabble, who
drew back as he approached the scene of danger. The Moor was more robust
and brawny than was common with his countrymen. His visor was closed; he
bore a huge buckler and a ponderous lance; his cimeter was of a Damascus
blade, and his richly ornamented dagger was wrought by an artificer
of Fez. He was Yarfe, the most insolent, yet valiant, of the Moslem
warriors. As he rode slowly along in front of the army, his very steed,
prancing with fiery eye and distended nostril, seemed to breathe defiance
to the Christians.

But what were the feelings of the Spanish cavaliers when they beheld,
tied to the tail of his steed, and dragged in the dust, the inscription
"Ave Maria," which Hernando Perez del Pulgar had affixed to the door of
the mosque! A burst of horror and indignation broke forth from the
army. Hernando del Pulgar was not at hand, but one of his young
companions-in-arms, Garcilasso de la Vega by name, putting spurs to his
horse, galloped to the hamlet of Zubia, threw himself on his knees before
the King, and besought permission to accept the defiance of this insolent
infidel and to revenge the insult offered to our blessed Lady. The
request was too pious to be refused; Garcilasso remounted his steed; he
closed his helmet, graced by four sable plumes, grasped his buckler of
Flemish workmanship and his lance of matchless temper, and defied the
haughty Moor in the midst of his career.

A combat took place in view of the two armies and of the Castilian court.
The Moor was powerful in wielding his weapons and dexterous in managing
his steed. He was of larger frame than Garcilasso and more completely
armed; and the Christians trembled for their champion. The shock of their
encounter was dreadful; their lances were shivered and sent up splinters
in the air. Garcilasso was thrown back in the saddle--his horse made a
wild career before he could recover, gather up the reins, and return
to the conflict. They now encountered each other with swords. The Moor
circled round his opponent as hawk circles whereabout to make a swoop;
his Arabian steed obeyed his rider with matchless quickness; at every
attack of the infidel it seemed as if the Christian knight must sink
beneath his flashing cimeter. But if Garcilasso were inferior to him in
power, he was superior in agility; many of his blows he parried; others
he received upon his Flemish shield, which was proof against the Damascus
blade. The blood streamed from numerous wounds received by either
warrior.

The Moor, seeing his antagonist exhausted, availed himself of his
superior force, and, grappling, endeavored to wrest him from his saddle.
They both fell to earth; the Moor placed his knee upon the breast of his
victim, and, brandishing his dagger, aimed a blow at his throat. A cry of
despair was uttered by the Christian warriors, when suddenly they beheld
the Moor rolling lifeless in the dust. Garcilasso had shortened his
sword, and, as his adversary raised his arm to strike, had pierced him to
the heart.

The laws of chivalry were observed throughout the combat--no one
interfered on either side. Garcilasso now despoiled his adversary;
then, rescuing the holy inscription of "Ave Maria" from its degrading
situation, he elevated it on the point of his sword, and bore it off as a
signal of triumph amid the rapturous shouts of the Christian army.

The sun had now reached the meridian, and the hot blood of the Moors was
inflamed by its rays and by the sight of the defeat of their champion.
Musa ordered two pieces of ordnance to open a fire upon the Christians.
A confusion was produced in one part of their ranks. Musa called to the
chiefs of the army: "Let us waste no more time in empty challenges; let
us charge upon the enemy; he who assaults has always an advantage in the
combat." So saying, he rushed forward, followed by a large body of
horse and foot, and charged so furiously upon the advance guard of the
Christians that he drove it in upon the battalion of the Marquis of
Cadiz.

The gallant Marquis now gave the signal to attack. "Santiago!" was
shouted along the line; and he pressed forward to the encounter, with
his battalion of twelve hundred lances. The other cavaliers followed his
example, and the battle instantly became general.

When the King and Queen beheld the armies thus rushing to the combat,
they threw themselves on their knees and implored the holy Virgin to
protect her faithful warriors. The Prince and Princess, the ladies of the
court, and the prelates and friars who were present did the same; and
the effect of the prayers of these illustrious and saintly persons was
immediately apparent. The fierceness with which the Moors had rushed to
the attack had suddenly cooled; they were bold and adroit for a skirmish,
but unequal to the veteran Spaniards in the open field. A panic seized
upon the foot-soldiers--they turned and took to flight. Musa and his
cavaliers in vain endeavored to rally them. Some took refuge in the
mountains; but the greater part fled to the city in such confusion that
they overturned and trampled upon each other. The Christians pursued them
to the very gates. Upward of two thousand were either killed, wounded, or
taken prisoners, and the two pieces of ordnance brought off as trophies
of the victory. Not a Christian lance but was bathed that day in the
blood of an infidel. Such was the brief but bloody action, which was
known among the Christian warriors by the name of the "Queen's skirmish";
for when the Marquis of Cadiz waited upon her majesty he attributed the
victory entirely to her presence. The Queen, however, insisted that it
was all owing to her troops being led on by so valiant a commander. Her
majesty had not yet recovered from her agitation at beholding so terrible
a scene of bloodshed; though certain veterans present pronounced it as
gay and gentle a skirmish as they had ever witnessed.

The ravages of war had as yet spared a little portion of the vega of
Granada. A green belt of gardens and orchards still flourished around the
city, extending along the banks of the Xenel and the Darro. They had been
the solace and delight of the inhabitants in their happier days, and
contributed to their sustenance in this time of scarcity. Ferdinand
determined to make a final and exterminating ravage to the very walls of
the city, so that there should not remain a single green thing for the
sustenance of man or beast.

As the evening advanced the bustle in the camp subsided. Everyone sought
repose, preparatory to the next day's trial. The King retired early, that
he might be up with the crowing of the cock to head the destroying army
in person. The Queen had retired to the innermost part of her pavilion,
where she was performing her orisons before a private altar. While thus
at her prayers she was suddenly aroused by a glare of light and wreaths
of suffocating smoke. In an instant the whole tent was in a blaze; there
was a high gusty wind, which whirled the light flames from tent to tent,
and wrapped the whole in one conflagration.

Isabella had barely time to save herself by instant flight. Her first
thought, on being extricated from her tent, was for the safety of the
King. She rushed to his tent, but the vigilant Ferdinand was already at
the entrance of it. Starting from bed at the first alarm, and fancying it
an assault of the enemy, he had seized his sword and buckler, and sallied
forth undressed, with his cuirass upon his arm. The late gorgeous camp
was now a scene of wild confusion. The flames kept spreading from one
pavilion to another, glaring upon the rich armor and golden and silver
vessels, which seemed melting in the fervent heat. The ladies of the
court fled, shrieking and half dressed, from their tents. There was an
alarm of drum and trumpet, and a distracted hurry about the camp of men
half armed.

The idea that this was a stratagem of the Moors soon subsided; but it was
feared they might take advantage of it to assault the camp. The Marquis
of Cadiz, therefore, sallied forth with three thousand horse to check any
advance from the city. When they emerged from the camp they found the
whole firmament illuminated. The flames whirled up in long light spires,
and the air was filled with sparks and cinders. A bright glare was thrown
upon the city, revealing every battlement and tower. Turbaned heads were
seen gazing from every roof, and armor gleamed along the walls; yet not a
single warrior sallied from the gates. The Moors suspected some stratagem
on the part of the Christians, and kept quietly within their walls. By
degrees the flames expired; the city faded from sight; all again became
dark and quiet, and the Marquis of Cadiz returned with his cavalry to the
camp. When the day dawned on the Christian camp nothing remained of
that beautiful assemblage of stately pavilions but heaps of smouldering
rubbish. The fire at first had been attributed to treachery, but on
investigation it proved to be entirely accidental.

The wary Ferdinand knew the sanguine temperament of the Moors, and
hastened to prevent their deriving confidence from the night's disaster.
At break of day the drums and trumpets sounded to arms, and the Christian
army issued from among the smoking ruins of their camp, in shining
squadrons, with flaunting banners and bursts of martial melody, as though
the preceding night had been a time of high festivity instead of terror.

The Moors had beheld the conflagration with wonder and perplexity. When
the day broke and they looked toward the Christian camp, they saw
nothing but a dark smoking mass. Their scouts came in with the joyful
intelligence that the whole camp was a scene of ruin. Scarce had the
tidings spread throughout the city when they beheld the Christian army
advancing toward their walls. They considered it a feint to cover their
desperate situation and prepare for a retreat. Boabdil had one of his
impulses of valor--he determined to take the field in person, and to
follow up this signal blow which Allah had inflicted on the enemy. The
Christian army approached close to the city, and were laying waste the
gardens and orchards, when Boabdil sallied forth, surrounded by all that
was left of the flower and chivalry of Granada. There was not so much one
battle as a variety of battles; every garden and orchard became a scene
of deadly contest; every inch of ground was disputed, with an agony of
grief and valor, by the Moors; every inch of ground that the Christians
advanced they valiantly maintained; but never did they advance with
severer fighting or greater loss of blood.

The cavalry of Musa was in every part of the field; wherever it came it
gave fresh ardor to the fight. The Moorish soldier, fainting with heat,
fatigue, and wounds, was roused to new life at the approach of Musa; and
even he who lay gasping in the agonies of death, turned his face
toward him, and faintly uttered cheers and blessings as he passed. The
Christians had by this time gained possession of various towers near the
city, from whence they had been annoyed by cross-bows and arquebuses. The
Moors, scattered in various actions, were severely pressed. Boabdil,
at the head of the cavaliers of his guard, displayed the utmost valor,
mingling in the fight in various parts of the field, and endeavoring to
inspirit the foot soldiers in the combat. But the Moorish infantry was
never to be depended upon. In the heat of the action a panic seized upon
them; they fled, leaving their sovereign exposed with his handful of
cavaliers to an overwhelming force. Boabdil was on the point of falling
into the hands of the Christians, when, wheeling round, with his
followers, they threw the reins on the necks of their fleet steeds and
took refuge by dint of hoof within the walls of the city.

Musa endeavored to retrieve the fortune of the field. He threw himself
before the retreating infantry, calling upon them to turn and fight for
their homes, their families, for everything that was sacred and dear to
them. It was all in vain--they were totally broken and dismayed, and fled
tumultuously for the gates. Slowly and reluctantly Musa retreated to the
city, and he vowed nevermore to sally forth with foot soldiers to the
field. In the mean time the artillery thundered from the walls and
checked all further advances of the Christians. King Ferdinand,
therefore, called off his troops, and returned in triumph to the ruins of
his camp, leaving the beautiful city of Granada wrapped in the smoke of
her fields and gardens and surrounded by the bodies of her slaughtered
children. Such was the last sally made by the Moors in defence of their
favorite city.

They now shut themselves up gloomily within their walls; there were no
longer any daring sallies from their gates. For a time they flattered
themselves with hopes that the late conflagration of the camp would
discourage the besiegers; that, as in former years, their invasion would
end with the summer, and that they would again withdraw before the
autumnal rains. The measures of Ferdinand and Isabella soon crushed these
hopes. They gave orders to build a regular city upon the site of their
camp, to convince the Moors that the siege was to endure until the
surrender of Granada. Nine of the principal cities of Spain were charged
with the stupendous undertaking; and they emulated each other with a zeal
worthy of the cause. To this city it was proposed to give the name of
Isabella, so dear to the army and the nation; but that pious Princess,
calling to mind the holy cause in which it was erected, gave it the name
of Santa Fe, or the "City of the Holy Faith," and it remains to this day
a monument of the piety and glory of the Catholic sovereigns.

In the mean time the besieged city began to suffer the distress of
famine. Its supplies were all cut off; a cavalcade of flocks and herds,
and mules laden with money, coming to the relief of the city from the
mountains of the Alpujarras[2], was taken by the Marquis of Cadiz and led
in triumph to the camp, in sight of the suffering Moors. Autumn arrived,
but the harvests had been swept from the face of the country; a rigorous
winter was approaching, and the city was almost destitute of provisions.
The people sank into deep despondency. They called to mind all that
had been predicted by astrologers at the birth of their ill-starred
sovereign, and all that had been foretold of the fate of Granada at the
time of the capture of Zahara.

Boabdil was alarmed by the gathering dangers from without and by the
clamors of his starving people. He summoned a council, composed of the
principal officers of the army, the alcaids of the fortresses, the
_xequis_ or sages of the city, and the _alfaquis_ or doctors of the
faith. They assembled in the great hall of audience of the Alhambra, and
despair was painted in their countenances. Boabdil demanded of them
what was to be done in their present extremity; and their answer was,
"Surrender." The venerable Abul Kazim Abdalmalek, governor of the city,
represented its unhappy state: "Our granaries are nearly exhausted, and
no further supplies are to be expected. The provender for the war-horses
is required as sustenance for the soldiery; the very horses themselves
are killed for food; of seven thousand steeds which once could be sent
into the field, three hundred only remain. Our city contains two hundred
thousand inhabitants, old and young, with each a mouth that calls
piteously for bread."

The xequis and principal citizens declared that the people could no
longer sustain the labors and sufferings of a defence. "And of what avail
is our defence," said they, "when the enemy is determined to persist in
the siege?--what alternative remains but to surrender or to die?"

The heart of Boabdil was touched by this appeal, and he maintained a
gloomy silence. He had cherished some faint hope of relief from the
Sultan of Egypt or the Barbary powers, but it was now at an end; even
if such assistance were to be sent, he had no longer a seaport where it
might debark. The counsellors saw that the resolution of the King was
shaken, and they united their voices in urging him to capitulate.

The valiant Musa alone arose in opposition: "It is yet too early," said
he, "to talk of a surrender. Our means are not exhausted; we have yet one
source of strength remaining, terrible in its effects, and which often
has achieved the most signal victories--it is our despair. Let us rouse
the mass of the people; let us put weapons in their hands; let us fight
the enemy to the very utmost, unti