Heroes and martyrs of Christianity; a thrilling story of the struggles, persecutions, wars, and victories of Christians of all times

Heroes and martyrs,

A THRILLING STORY OF THE STRUGGLES, PERSECUTIONS, WARS, AND VICTORIES OF CHRISTIANS OF ALL TIMES.

WRITTEN BY

FROM one point of view it may be said that Christians liave no business to be fighting; from another, that they may expect to be occupied with it most of the time. Their Master was the Prince of Peace; but He told them that He came not to bring peace on earth,but a sword. There was an “irrepressible conflict” between His ideas and those which then prevailed, and are still powerful, on earth; and thus the battle of Armageddon, in one shape or another, will go on until the kingdoms of this world—and the republics no less—really and thoroughly become His.

On the part of His people this conflict, as employing the arm of flesh, has been both passive and active. Under their Pagan persecutors the early Christians were as sheep led to the slaughter, and yet they were no less contending for the faith, which thus, within three centuries, outwardly and nominally overcame the world. In later days it was often possible and right for the oppressed to gather together, and, opposing violence by violence, to win deliverance from oppression. In either case they stood for the most precious of human possessions, liberty of conscience, and vindicated the sacred right of thinking and acting, in the highest matters, according to what they believed to be God’s will.

In this history of Persecutions and Religious Wars, it is intended to follow out the line of thought above indicated, and to acknowledge some of the greatest benefactions that have been bestowed, both in example and in accomplishment, by human beings upon their fellow-men.

The tale of the Maccabees furnishes a fit prelude to the long list of Christian conflicts. They were Jews, but in spirit and in life they were the ancestors of apostles and evangelists. With them, as afterwards, the Church was militant. Their story foreshadows that of any subsequent rising for religious freedom ; in doing and enduring they were the prototypes of those who since have stood and suffered for the faith of Christ.

Acknowledgments of obligation are incidentally made in various parts of this volume, and may here be repeated more specifically. For Chapters I. and II., the apocryphal books of the Maccabees, and Dr. Raphall’s “Post-Biblical History of the Jews,” have been used. For Chapters II—XI., the works of Neander,. Milner, Milman, Gibbon, have been drawn upon. In the mediaeval portions, reference has been had to Mr. Lea’s extremely valuable “History of the Inquisition,” to Perrin’s “History of the Albigenses,” to Mr. E. H. Gillett’s “ Life and Times of Huss,” and occasionally to Mr. Lecky and other writers. For those relating to England, Foxe, Green and Macaulay have been consulted. For the Huguenot wars, Dr. Hanna’s pleasant volume has been chiefly followed,, and that of Jonathan Duncan in some cases. For the Netherlands, no other work, of course, can compete with Motley’s immortal “ Rise of the Dutch Republic.” The history of persecutions and religious wars has hitherto been handled only in sections ; and while we do not pretend to have exhausted the subject—for which the labor of many years and the compilation of many volumes would be required—it may be safely claimed that no previous volume in the English language has covered so many portions of this field, from the beginning of systematic persecution and resistance to the coming of a better day. May the lesson of so much bloodshed not be pointed in vain I

ANTIOCHUS TAKING JERUSALEM.

VISION OF ARMY IN THE HEAVENS.

Preface, .... .........

CHAPTER I.

ANT10CHUS AND THE JEWS.

The Jewe—Ptolemy Philopater—Judea Transferred to Syria—Heliodorus—Jason—Menelans— Massacre in Jerusalem—The Temple Spoiled—Policy of the King—Popilius—Second Massacre : Cessation of Temple Worship—The Persecution—Eleazar—The Widow and her Seven Sons—The Revolt: Mattathias—Might Jews Fight on the Sabbath ? .... 17-36

CHAPTER II.

JUDAS, THE DELIVERER.

Apollonius and Seren Routed—Lyeias Regent—Nicanor and Gorgias : Their Defeat—Timothens and Bacchides Beaten: Battle of Bethsura: Recovery of Jerusalem—Fate of Antiochus— Activity of Judas—Folly of Joseph and Azariah—Defeat of Lysias: Peace—Campaigns of Jndas—Siege of Acra—Another Invasion : The Elephants—Death of Eleazar—Siege of Jerusalem—Judas Royal Governor—Death of Menelaus: Alcimus His Successor—Demetrius King—Bacchides—Alcimus and His Uncle : Nicanor: Peace and War—Nicanor’s Blasphemy,

Defeat, and Death—Embassy to Rome—Anger of the Jews—Judas’ Last Battle : His Death, 37-63

CHAPTER III.

THE AQE OF THE APOSTLES.

Non-resistance—Jewish Hostility—Causes of Persecution—Imperial and Popular Attacks—

Nero : First Persecution—Deaths of St. Paul and St. Peter—St. James—Other Apostles— Domifcian: Third Persecution, . . . . . . . . . 64-77

CHAPTER IV.

TRAJAN AND 1QNAT1US.

Ignatius : His Interview with Trajan—His Epistles : His Martyrdom—Pliny’s Letter—Hadrian :

Antoninus Pius, ............ 78-92

CHAPTER V. riARCUS AURELIUS, THE STOIC.

dmractei¹ of the Emperor—Fourth Persecution—Polycarp : Letter of the Church at Smyrna—

Ptolemy and Lucius—Justin Martyr—Felicitas and Her Sons—The Thundering Legion, 9.3-106

CHAPTER VI.

THE nARTYRS OP LYONS.

.Letter of the Church at Lyons—Vettius—Blandina—Sanctus and Maturus—Biblias—Pothinus—

Attains —Alexander—Blandina and Ponticus—Humility of the Confessors—Symphorianus—

Reign of Commodus, ........... 107-118

CHAPTER Vri.

SEVERUS AND IlAXirUN.

'Fifth Persecution—Speratus and Others—Perpetua and Felicitas—Sixth Persecution—Philip the

Arab—Prediction of Origen, ......... 120-130¹

CHAPTER VIII.

DECIUS.

■■Seventh Persecution—In Alexandria— Escape of Dionysius—At Carthage—The Lapsed—Serapion

—Reign of Gallus, . . ........ 131-142

CHAPTER IX.

VALERIAN.

Eighth Persecution —Cyprian’s Banishment: His Death—St. Lawrence—Dionysius Banished: Alexandria—Sapricins and Nicephorus—Cyril and Others—Gallienus: The Church Recognized—Fructriosus—Marinus—Aurelian : Ninth Peraecution, ..... 143-168

CHAPTER X.

MORE EDICTS AGAINST THE TRUTH: DIOCLETIAN.

"The Army: Maximian : Marcellus—Tenth Persecution: at Nicomedia—Churches and Books Destroyed—The Edict Torn Down—In the Palace : Through the World—Three More Edicts —Accounts of Phileas and Eusebius—Romanus and Others, ..... 167-174

CHAPTER XI.

THE LAST PAGAN PERSECUTION: GALERIUS AND MAXIillN.

Condition of the Empire—Boldness of Martyrs—Legend of St. Dorothea—Galerius Proclaims Toleration : His Death—New Measures of Oppression—Defeat and Death of Maximin, . 175-186

CHAPTER XII.

THE AGES OF DOCTRINE.

Edicts Against Heresy—Pagan Worship Suppressed—Theology : Arianism—Julian the Apostate—

Feeling Against Executions for Heresy—Arian Cruelties—Athamasius—The Dark Ages— Abelard—Arnold of Buscia—The Waldenses, ....... 187-199

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ALBIGENSES.

Origin, Beliefs, and Character of the Cathari—Their Persecutions—In Languedoc and Provence—

Raymond VI.—Crusade Preached, . . ...... 200-210

CHAPTER XIV.

THE ALBIGENSIAN WARS.

Sack of Beziers: “ Kill Them All Montfort—Fate of Minerve—“ Pilgrims : ” Sheep and Wolves —First Siege of Toulouse—Pedro of Aragon—Battle of Mnret—Raymond Deposed—Young Raymond: War Renewed—Second Siege of Toulouse—Death of Montfort—Massacre at Maxmonde—Death of Raymond VI.—Crusade of Louis VIII.—Siege of Avignon—Submission of Raymond VII.—Speech of De Foix—Fate of Languedoc, ..... 211-232

CHAPTER XV.

W1CLIF AND THE LOLLARDS.

Teachings of Wiclif— Efforts Against Him—Boldness of His Disciples—Burning of Sawtrey and

Badby—Lord Cobham—His Trial—Rising of the Lollards—Oobham Burned, . . 233-242

CHAPTER XVI.

BOHEMIA AND JOHN HUSS.

History of Bohemia—Early Reformers—Entrance of Wiclif’s Doctrines—Huss—Wiclif’s Books Burned—Huss Excommunicated—Council of Constance—The Safe-Con duct— Huss Goes to Constance: is Arrested, .......... 243-264

CHAPTER XVII.

THE I1ARTYRS OF CONSTANCE.

Charges Against Huss—Hia Trial—His Execution—Indignation in Bohemia—Jerome of Prague—

His Recantation—His Last Speech—His Death, ....... 255-268

CHAPTER XVIII.

TROUBLES IN BOHEniA.

Inquisitors Appointed—Calixtines and Taborites—Death of the King—Disturbances in Prague :

Zisca—Sigismund Heir to the Throne—Crasa Executed—Crusade Proclaimed—Specimen Cruelties—Open Rebellion—First Invasion : Tabor Attacked—Horrors of the War—Siege of Prague—The Pour Articles—Coronation and Retreat of Sigismund, .... 269-284

CHAPTER XIX.

ZISCA OF THE CUP.

Second and Third Invasions—League of Cities—Zisca Blind—Fourth Invasion—Battle of Deutsoh-

brod—Disorder in Prague—Civil War—Zisca Before Prague—His Triumphs—His Death, 285-296

CHAPTER XX.

CRUSADES AND COUNCILS.

Procopius—Two More Invasions—Negotiations—“Obsequies of Huss”—Last Crusade—Council

of Basle—Bohemian Deputation—Dissensions—Death of Procopius, . . . 297-308

CHAPTER XXI.

INQUISITION AND REFORMATION.

Rise of the Inquisition—In Spain—Tortures of the Victims—Suppression of Thought—Authority vs. Private Judgment—Toleration Among the Reformers—Luther—First Martyrs of the North—Tyndale, . .......... 309-320

CHAPTER XXII.

SMITHFIELD FIRES.

England and Henry VIIL—Cranmer—Edward VI.—Mary—Trial of the Bishops—Burning of Rogers, Sanders, Hooper, and Taylor—Of Ridley and Latimer—Of Cranmer—Effect on the

people The Roll of Martyrs—Queen Elizabeth—Scotland : Hamilton : Wishart: Ifnox :

Queen Mary, .... ....... 321-386

CHAPTER XXIII. .

IN FRANCE.

Early Reformers : a Hard Soil—Francis I.—The Estrapades—Massacres in Provence—Henry II.:

New Edict—Arrest of Du Bourg—Bourbons, Guises, and Chatillons—Francis II.—Du Bourg

Burned—Rising of Amboise—Executions—Castelnau, ...... SOT-362

CHAPTER XXIV.

WORDS AND BLOWS.

Assembly of Notables—Plots of the Cardinal—Condd Sentenced—Death of Francis II.—Catherine de Medicis—Colloquy of Poissy—Edict of Toleration—Conference at Saveme—Massacre Of Vassy—Anarchy and Bloodshed—Montluc and Des Adrets—Battle of Dreux—Siege of Rouen —Siege of Orleans—Death of Guise, ........ 353-373

CHAPTER XXV.

THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE.

Jeanne D’Albret—Henry—Second War: Battle of St. Denis—Third Wax: Battle of Jarnac:

Death of Conde—Battle of Moncontour: of Auray-le-Duc—Peace of St. Germain—Two Parties—Death of Jeanne, ....... - . 374-385

CHAPTER XXVI.

ST. BARTHOLOriEW.

Marriage of Henry—Charles IX. and Coligny—Coligny Wounded—The Plot—Murder of Coligny:

The Massacre—In the Provinces—The News Abroad—Fourth War: Sieges of Rochelle and Sancerre—The “ Politicals ”—D’Alenjon’s Plot—Death of Charles IX., . . . 386-404

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE THREE HENRIES.

Condition of France—Henry HI.—Fifth War: The League—Sixth and Seventh Wars—Taking of Cahors—Death of D’Alenjon—Treaty of Nemours—Preparation for War—Navarre Excommunicated—Eighth War: Battle of Coutras—Aggressions of the League : Guise in Paris :

Flight of the King—Second States of Blois—Assassination of Guise—Death of Catherine—

Alliance of Henry and Navarre—Murder of Henry III., ..... 405-428

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE FOURTH HENRY.

Weakness of the King—Battle of Arques—Battle of Ivry—Siege of Paris—Parma’s Strategy—

Siege of Rouen—Skirmish at Aumale, ... .... 429-445

CHAPTER XXIX.

ABJURATION.

The Estates at Paris—Henry Reconciled to the Church—Opposition of the Jesuits : The Pope’s Absolution Refused—Coronation—The King Enters Paris: His Clemency—Trial of the Jesuits: Attempt on Henry’s Life—War with Spain : Battle of Fontaine—The Pope Absolves Henry—Poverty and Financial Reforms—Amiens Lost and Retaken—Edict of Nantes—Peace of Vervins, ......... ... 444-468

CHAPTER XXX.

IN THE LOW COUNTRIES.

Charles V.—The Dutch Reformation—50,000 Martyrs—The Emperor Abdicates—Philip II —

William of Orange—Sack of St. Quentin—Philip Departs—Autos-da^fe in Spain, . . 461-473

CHAPTER XXXI.

* ON THE WAY TO WAR.

Gnmvelle : The Inquisition—Plain Words from Orange—General Excitement—The “ Compromise:’’ The “Request:” The “BeggarsField-Preachings-Image-Breaking—The “Accord”—The Regent's Slanders—Orange Alone—Affairs of Lannoy, Watrelots and Ostrar

■well—Tumult at Antwerp—The New Oath—Siege of Valenciennes : Its Punishment

Emigration,................................... 474-495

CHAPTER XXXII.

• ALVA AND THE BLOOD-COUNCIL.

Arrival of the Spaniards—Egmont and Horn Arrested—The New Council—Alva Viceroy- Orange Indicted: His Son Kidnapped—Murderous Decree of the Inquisition—Apology of Orange—The Wax Begins—Victory of the Holy Lion—Egmont and Horn Beheaded, . 496-50*

CHAPTER XXXIII.

UPHILL WORK.

Slaughter at Jemmingen—More Outrages—Campaign of Orange—Disaster at the Geta—Alva’s Statue : His New Taxes—The “Act of Pardon”—Murder of Montigny —Exploit of De Ruyter —Activity of Orange—A Desperate Situation, ....... 509-521

CHAPTER XXXIV.

REBELLION AND ITS PUNISHHENT.

The Sea Beggars—They Take Brill—Outrages at Rotterdam—Revolt of Flushing—Risings in the North—The New Government—Capture of Mons: Its Siege—Estates of Holland Meet—

Defeat of Genlis—Orange Takes Roermonde—His Progress Stopped by St. Bartholomew—His Narrow Escape—Surrender of Mons—Blood-Council at Mons—Sack of Mechlin— Horrors at Zutphen—Relief of Tergoes—Defections in the North—Destruction of Naarden—Siege of Harlem—Defeats of La Marck and Batenburg—Heroism of the Besieged—The Last Hope Fails—Fate of Harlem, . . ........ 522-6:5

CHAPTER XXXV.

ALKMAAR, HOOK AND LEYDEN.

Siege of Alkmaar—Victory on the Zuyder Zee—Departure of Alva—Naval Victory at Bergen—

Taking of Middleburg—Battle of Mook : Death of Louis—Mutiny of Spanish Troops—Naval Victory Near Antwerp—Siege of Leyden : Its Relief, .... . 5*6-559

CHAPTER XXXVI.

MUTINY AND MASSACRE.

Negotiations and a Wedding—Seizure of Schonwen—Death of Requesens—Death of Boisot: Fall of Zierickzee—Edict Against Mutineers—Confusion—Defense of Antwerp—The Spanish Fury—Its Effects : Treaty of Ghent, . ....... 560-570

CHAPTER XXXVII.

DON JOHN.

Demands of the Estates—The Governor Consents—His Efforts to Win Orange—The Spaniards Go —Seizure of Namur—Attempt on Antwerp Citadel: Its Destruction—Orange at Brussels—The Nobles: Archduke Matthias—Rising at Ghent—Preparations for War—Disaster at Gemblonrs —Amsterdam Won and Purged—A Barren Campaign—Death of Don John, . . 571-586

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

HARD TIMES.

The Prince of Parma—General Confusion—Bribery : Loss of the Sonth—Treason of Egmont—

Siege of Maestricht: Its Heroic Defense: The Massacre—Slanders on Orange—Troubles at Ghent—Great Offers to the Prince—Congress at Cologne—Treason of De Bours and Renne- berg—Siege of Groningen—Defeat of Coewerden—Departure of Count John—Orange Under the Ban—Siege and Relief of Steenwyk—Death of Renneberg, .... 587-603

CHAPTER XXXIX.

INDEPENDENCE.

Romish Worship Suppressed—Act of Abjuration—A Man Who Would not be King—Alengon as a Candidate: as Sovereign—Orange Dangerously Wounded by an Assassin—Death of the Princess—Parma’s Activity, ...... ... 604-613

CHAPTER XL.

A KNAVE AND A MARTYR.

Alengon’s Plot—French Fury at Antwerp—An Awkward Situation—Orange Refuses the Throne —Successes of Parma—Intrigues at Ghent—Murder of Orange—His Character—The Later Wars, . . . ....................................................... 614-626

CHAPTER XLI.

THE INVINCIBLE ARHADA. .

England and Spain—Preparations for Invasion—The Fight in the Channel: Off the Flemish

Coast—The Storm—The Results, ......... 626-635

CHAPTER XLI I.

THE PURITANS.

Under Elizabeth—James I.—Theory of Divine Right—Charles I.—Land and Wentworth—A Persecuting Church—In Scotland: “The Bishops’ War”—The Long Parliament, . . 636-648

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE REVOLUTION.

Cavaliers and Roundheads—Attempt to Arrest the Five Members—A View of Both Sides—Civil War—England Adopts the Covenant—Cromwell and the Ironsides—Marston Moor—The Self-denying Ordinance—Naseby—Execution of the King—Cromwell as Protector—The Restoration—The Covenanters—James II.: His Tyranny and Expulsion, . . . 649-664

CONCLUSION.

Conclusion,

666-669

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page

Vision of Army in the Heavens 6

The Holy of Holies 18

Hebrew Slaves in Asia 20

God’s Judgment on Heliodorus 21

Mnrder of Onias the High Priest 23

Massacre of Women and Children in Jerusalem.. 24

Antiochus 25

Jews Made Captive 26

Antiochus and His Army Spoiling the Temple__________ 27

Antiochus as a Persecutor 29

The Mother of the Maccabees and Her Youngest

Son...... 30

Flight of Refugees to the Mountains 32

Mattathias Slays the Apostate 33

Mattathias Exhorting His Followers to Defend

Their Faith 35

Ptolemy 36

Judas Assembling His Warriors 38

Lysias.. 39

Judas Restores the Temple 40

Fall of Antiochus 42

An Angel of the Lord Leads the Israelites Against

the Enemy 44

Judas Before the Army of Lysias 45

Burning of Jamnia 47

The Elephants in War 49

Judas Pursues His Enemies 50

And They Wonld Not Offer Resistance on the

Sabbath Day 5 ²

Suffocation of Menelaus 55

Sixty Jewish Rulers Slain by Bacchides .................... 57

The Vision of Judas—Jeremiah and the Golden

Sword. 58

jndas Last Battle 60

Early Christian Teaching 62

Page

Demetrius 63

St. Peter 65

Roman Court in Early Times 67

Ruins of the Interior of the Roman Forum ................... 69

St. Paul 70

St. Matthew 71

St. John 72

Ruins of Domitian’s Palace 73

St. James The Less 75

St. Bartholomew 76

Emperor Domitian 77

Trajan 79

Forum of Trajan 80

Ruins of Antioch 81

Over the Battlements 82

Gate of St. Paul 84

Arch of Titus 85

Scourging a Christian 87

Street Scene in Antioch 88

In the Catacomb of St. Agnes 89

Onesimus, for Whom St. Paul Pleaded, Taken to

Rome and Stoned 91

Underground Passage in Roman Palace ................... 92

And They Loved Their God Better Than Liberty. 94.

Subterranean Altar of St. Agnes 95

And Because of Their Faith They Were Thrown

into the Arena 97

Temple of Minerva 99

Polycarp’s Prayer loo

A Christian Sentenced to Death io₂

Bridge of Nomentano 103

Felicitas and Her Seven Sons 105

In the Amphitheatre 108

Staircase in the Palace of Calignla 109

Ruins of the Coliseum 111

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page

Fountain of Egeria 113

Ancient Armor 115

Christians Attacked by a Mob 116

Elegabalus 118

Nero... 119

Septimus Severus 121

Ruins of Casino, Minerva 122

The Arrest of Perpetua 123

The Martyr’s Dream 124

Caracalla 125

Roman Shields 127

Street Scene in Asia Minor. 128

Archway on Mount Sinai 129

Marcus Aurelius 130

Martyrdom of Metras 132

Serapion Assailed and Killed in His Own House.. 134

Remains of the Temple at Abydos 135

Besar, the Soldier, Loses His Life Trying to Protect the Christians from the Mob 137

The Ibis, the Sacred Bird of the Egyptians 139

Prostrate Colossal Statue of Pharaoh 140

Outer Mummy Case of Queen Ne-fert-Ari 141

An Egyptian Woman 144

An Alexandrian Donkey Boy 145

A Street View in Cairo 147

Tombs of Campagna 148

Lattice Window in Alexandria 150

The Collossi of Thebes 151

Great Hall in the Temple of Abydos 152

Gallineus 15 3

Scene Near St. Sabastian’s Gate 155

The Nile 156

Diocletian 158

Cobbler Installed in a Ruined Palace 159

Baths of Caracalla 160

Church of St. Trophimus, a Companion of St.

Paul. 161

The Martyr’s Faith 162

The Prefect with His Followers Destroying the

Principal Church of Nicomedia 163

Tomb of Hadrian 165

Gates at Nicea (now Isnik) in Bithynia 167

Interior View of Catacombs 169

Ancient Bnrying Palace of Rome 170

A Cairene Woman 172

Triumphal Arch of San Gallo 173

Decius 174

Remains of a Roman Aqueduct 176

Ruins of Temple of Minerva 177

Theatre of Marcellus, Rome 179

A Roman Fresco 180

Gate of Agora 182

Columns of Temple at Lexor 184

Arch of Constantine 188

Julian..... 189

Basilica of Constantine 191

Page

Constantius II <9²

Medal of Theodorus 193

Death of Julian, the Apostate >95

Burning of a Heretic 197

Valley of Angrogua >98

The First Crusaders on Their Way to the Holy

Land, Destroying the City of Pelagonia ................. 201

Arnold of Brescia, Preaching in His Native Town 203

Brescia 205

Crusaders Crossing the Mountains 206

Persecution of Albigenses 207

Penance of Raymond 208

The Old Fortress Town of Carcassonne 209

The Attack on Beziers 212

Vernet in the Eastern Pyrenees 213

The Crusaders Enter Minerve Singing the Te

Deum 215

Toulouse 217

Attack on Toulouse Repulsed 219

Avignon 221

Albigensian Worshippers on the Banks of the

Rhone 222

Ancient War Machinery 224

Death of Montfort at Siege of Toulouse 227

Siege of Avignon 229

Massacre of the Vaudois 231

Wiclif 234

Wiclif and the Monks 236

Wiclif’s Church 238

John of Gaunt Defending Wiclif Before the Bishop

of Lodi 240

Crouch Oak, Addlestone, Under Which Wiclif

Preached 241

Chamber in Lollard’s Tower, Lambeth Place,

Where the Reformers were Confined 244,

Trial of Wiclif in the Black Friars’ Monastery,

London 246

The Lollard’s Tower, Lambeth Place 247

Cobham’s Escape 248

John Huss 250

Burning of Wiclif’s Works at Prague ........... 251

Lutterworth Church 254

Bishop of Lodi Preaching at the Condemnation of

Huss, 256

View of Constance 258

Stones of Carnac 260

Trial of Huss—Degrading the Martyr 261

Jerome of Prague 263

Jerome Speaking at His Trial 265

Jerome on the Way to Execution 266

Fac-simile of a Part of Wiclif’s Bible 269

Tower of Bridge of Prague, to Which the Heads

of Martyrs Were Affixed 271

Outrage of Prague 272

Taborites Selecting a Pastor 274

Taborites Worshipping in a Cave 276

Page

Bohemian Women Fighting from Their Baggage

Wagons 278

A Group of Mendicant Friars 281

Preaching the Crusade 283

Peasant with Her Water Jug 287

Sigismund’s Army on the Way to Prague.................. 288

After the Battle of Deutschbrod 290

View of Rome

Wayside Preaching in the Time of Huss 293

Celehration of the Lord’s Supper by the Hussites

in a Field near Prague 295

Procipius, the Great Hussite General 298

Crusaders on the Way to Bohemia 299

Soldiers Searching for Bohemian Protestants.................. 301

Hussite Shield 303

Arrival of Hussite Deputies at Basle 304

Crusaders Perishing for Lack of Water 3 6

Seal of Council of Basle 307

Lyons 308

Ancient Leather Cannon 310

Gate of the Castle of Penhade Cintha 311

Penitents Receiving Absolution 313

The Inquisition in Session 3 rs

Martin Luther 317

Catherine Vou Bora, Wife of Luther 318

Luther’s Cell, Erfurt 319

House in which Luther Lived 320

Thomas Bilney on His Way to the Stake 323

William Tyndale 324

Cathedral of Worms 326

Latimer Exhorting Ridley at the Stake 32S

Archbishop Crantner 331

Queen Elizabeth 332

Catherine Discussing Theology with Henry VIII. 333 Parting of Patrick Hamilton from His Friends... 335

Hugenot Peasant at Home 338

Francis I 339

r ortrait of Calvin 341

Henry II 342

Catherine De Medicis in Youth 343

Burning of Protestants in Paris 344

Conde 346

A Lady of Ambeise 347

The Chateau of Amboise 349

The Hangings at Amboise 351

Mary Stuart 352

Rock of Caylus, an Old Huguenot Fortress 354

Shepherd Girl of the Pyrenees 356

Coligny at the Death Bed of Francis II 357

Mount St. Michael 359

Huguenots Destroying the Images 36 r

Christopher, Duke of Wurtemburg, Expounding the Lutheran Doctrine to the Duke of Guise

and Cardinal Lorraine 364

Chateau D’Arques 366

Montluc Slaying Prisoners at St. Mezard.,.................. 368

Page

Burying the Dead After the Battle of Dreux................. 370

The Night Before the Siege of Rouen 372

Preparing for the Siege of Orleans 375

Assassination of Guise, by Jean Peltrot 377

Death of Cond6 379

The Queen of Navarre Encouraging Her Troops.. 381

Battle of Moncoutour 383

Chamber of Horrors, Time of the Inquisition_________ 385

Cardinal of Lorraine 387

Attack on Coligny’s House 388

Assassination of Coligny 390

A Nobleman Seeking Refuge in Queen Margaret’s

Chamber 393

The Duke of Guise Viewing the Body of Coliguy. 395 The Night of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew .. 397 Cardiual Lorraine Receiving the Head of Coligny 399

Visions of a Guilty King 401

Charles IX. and His Mother 402

St. Bartholomew Medals 406

Henry III 408

The Louvre 409

Duke of Guise 411

Montmorency 414

Sully 415

Navarre at the Battle of Coutras 417

Guise Attacking the Germans and Swiss on Their

Way to Join Navarre 416

Woodman’s Cahin in the Ardenne Forest 421

Murder of Duke of Guise 424

Death of Henry III 427

Battle of Arques 431

Battle of Ivry 434

Henry IV. at Ivry 437

The Prince of Parma 439

Maria De Medicis 441

Henry IV 443

Beauva’s Cathedral 446

Rochelle, Once the Stronghold of French Protestantism 449

Entrance of Henry IV. Into Paris 451

Mount Pelvoux 452

Charlamagne 455

View of Nantes Where the Famous Edict was Issued by Henry IV. in 1598, for Nearly a Century

the Charter of Huguenot Freedom 458

French Soldiers 460

Charles V 463

Town Hall, Veere 466

Emperor Charles V. Resigning the Crown................. 468

Protestants Driven from Their Homes Take up

Their Abode in the Mountains 470

Clement Marot 472

Instruments of Torture from the Tower of London 473

Blois with Castle 475

Fountain in the Park of La Teto Do 477

A Field Preaching Scene Near Ghent 480

Page

Destroying Images and Altars, 483

The Town Hall, Hague 484

William the Silent Prince of Orange 487

Oriental Bishops with Long Beards 489

The Red Gate, Antwerp 490

After the Fall of Valenciennes 492

Castle of St. Angelo, Rome 493

Entrance to Hall of Knights 495

Duke of Alva 497

The Dunes on North Sea Coast, Near the Hague. 499

Rear Facade of the Flesher’s Hall 501

Costumes of Holland Women 503

Dutch Children in Their Working Dress 505

Death of Egmont 507

The Burgomaster’s Room in Antwerp 511

Tower of Joan of Arc, Rouen 513

Alva and His Army Entering Brussels 514

At the Door of a House in the Island of Marken.. 516

Crossing to Marken 518

Town Hall, Kampen 520

Fight between Spanish Fleet and the Ships of the

Sea Beggars 524

A Quay in Rotterdam 526

Flashing 527

View of Utrecht, in Holland 529

Genlis and His Army Attacked by the Spaniards

Near Mons 531

Dutch Protestants Worshipping in Caves 533

The Town Hall, Harlem 535

Entrance to the Zuyder Zee 538

Harlem 541

Dress of Zealand Women 543

Organ in the Great Church, Harlem 544

The Weigh House, Alkmaar 547

Alva’s Last Ride Through Amsterdam 549

Interior of a House in Alkmaar. 551

Battle of Mook 553

North Holland Dykes 556

Monument at Alkmaar 558

Town Hall, Leyden 561

Senate Chamber, University of Leyden................. 562

A Canal in Leyden 564

Pagb

The University of Leyden 566

The Water Gate 567

The Great Tower Zierickzee 569

A Dutch Officer 570

A Woman of Holland with Gold Head-dress.................. 573

Zealand Jewelry 574

In the Jews’ Quarter, Amsterdam 577

St. Anthony’s Weigh House, Amsterdam................. 580

The Slaughter of the State’s Forces at Gembours. 582 Children of the Protestant Orphanage in Amsterdam, Their Dress Being Half Red and Half

Black 585

Pulpit in New Church, Amsterdam 589

Montalban’s Tower, Amsterdam 591

The Night Before the Taking of Maestricht. .... 594

Alexander Famese, Prince of Parma 597

A Dutch Fisherman at an Unfamiliar Task................. 600

A Fisherman’s Child 603

A Street Scene in Amsterdam 606

Dutch Courtship on the Isle of Welcheren................. 609

Jan Six Burgomaster of Amsterdam 611

Prince Maurice, of Nassau 616

First Wife of Rembrandt, the Great Dutch Painter 618

Death of William the Silent 620

Statute of William the Silent, at the Hague 623

William the Silent and His Wife 628

English Fireships Sent Into the Armada 631

Lands End 633

Beachy Head 634

Lady Jane Grey 637

Elizabeth’s Tomb, Westminster Abbey................. 639

High Street, Oxford 641

The Martyr’s Memorial, Oxford 643

Glastonbury Abbey 646

Windsor Castle 651

Leicester Hospital, Warwick 654

Old House in Castle Street, Warwick 657

Magna Charter Island, Where the Great Charter of

English Liberty was Signed 660

Covenantors Worshipping by the Banks of the Whitadder 663

CHAPTER I.

HE Jews were our forerunners. Their sacred books make the greater part of our Bible. Their history must always be of interest to Christians. Their lawgivers and prophets were the early mediums of divine revelation. They were the world’s instructors in religion aud morals; through them humanity was prepared for its Messiah.

They were a fierce, proud, stubborn race, often unworthy of their privileges ; but they were the Lord’s peculiar people. Of their ■wars of conquest, their many vicissitudes, their exile in Babylon, their final ruin and dispersion, we have nothing here to say ; but one era of their later experience affords a fitting introduction to the history of Christian sufferings and contests. The persecution by Antiochus and the noble rising of the Maccabees have served as precedent and model for many deeds of Christian heroism. Our Lord, His apostles, and tlieir first converts were Jews. In the Church of the first centuries, the Hebrew element had a large and important part. When the followers of Jesus were called to “resist unto blood, striving against sin,” the memory of ancestral martyrs and confessors supplied incentive and inspiration. Harassed by cruel enemies, summoned under Nero or Decius to deny Christ or die, they found strength and comfort in looking back to the long line of those who had struck or suffered for what they knew of truth. So in later ages: the Albigenses of Languedoc, the Hussites of Bohemia, the Vaudois of the Alps, the Calvinists of Holland, the Huguenots of France, the Puritans of England, the Covenanters of Scotland, were sustained in suffering by the remembrance of those who had suffered long before, and found encouragement to take up the sword in the examples of those who had fought valiantly for Jewish faith and freedom. In Israel or Christendom alike, it was one cause, one fellowship, one brotherhood of service and endurance. For aid against the powers of this world when these are on Satan’s side, the Epistle to the Hebrews summons “a great cloud of witnesses ” from the very beginning of human life on earth.

(17)

ANTIOCHUS THE PERSECUTOR.

Its eloquent list ends with the citation of rameless heroes and heroines “who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of

the sword,out of weakness were made strong,waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens;” and of others whose success, less plainly yisi- ble here, wo a equal applause in heaven; who “ had trial of cruel mock- ings and scourgings, yea,moreover of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy); they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

Of this record, at once historic and prophetic, “looking before and

THE HOLY OF HOLIES. ft 11 "11 ^ j.' 11-1

after,” illustrations are well-nigh innumerable. In collecting some of them, it would be unfair wholly to pass by the Jewish heroes of the second pre-Christian century.

PTOLEMY’S SACRILEGE.

On the division of the immense empire of Alexander the Great, Judea was annexed to the Greek kingdom of Egypt, though much nearer that of Syria. For near a century this connection produced no discontent, the Jews being really governed by their high priest, who sent an annual tribute to Egypt. But in 221 B. C. Ptolemy IV. (called in irony Philopator, or Father-lover) reached the throne by the murder of his father: his character and conduct in general were of a piece with this commencement. A few years later, having defeated Antiochus of Syria at Raphia, near Gath, he visited Jerusalem, and, being admitted to the court of the Gentiles, insisted on going further. An early record says that, “ wondering at the good order about the holy place, he formed a design to enter the temple itself, even the Holy of Holies. But when they said that this could not be done, since it was not lawful for even the Jews to enter there, no, nor for the priests themselves, but only for the high priest, and for him but once a year; still he would by no means be dissuaded.” His profane insistence caused a terrible commotion. People came running from all parts of the city: “The virgins also, who were shut up in private chambers, rushed out with their mothers, sprinkled ashes and dast on their heads, and filled the streets with groans and lamentations. Brides, leaving their marriage-vows and that decent modesty which belonged to them, ran about the city in disorder. Mothers and nurses left their charges and went in troops to the temple.” The bolder citizens wished to prevent the sacrilege by violence, and were with difficulty restrained from so rash an attempt.

The priests were praying, the people crying and wailing, till it seemed that “the very walls and the ground echoed again; as if the whole multitude chose rather to die than see their holy place profaned.”

The tyrant, after the manner of his kind, cared more for his whim than for the public feeling or the divine law. But as he moved to enter the sacred building, he was smitten by superstitious terror or by a Hand stronger than that of man. The Third Book of Maccabees says that “ God chastised him, shaking him this way and that, as a reed is shaken by the wind; so that he lay upon the floor powerless and paralyzed in his limbs, and unable to speak, being overtaken by a just judgment.”

Being carried out, he presently recovered, no worse in body for his adventure, and certainly no better in mind. Disgusted or enraged at his repulse, he left the holy city, muttering curses against all Jews, but fearing to institute further experiments in Judea. Arrived at home, his malice found vent in a petty persecution of the Alexandrian Hebrews, whom he excluded from the palace, reduced to the lowest rank, and branded with an ivy leaf, the emblem of Bacchus, his favorite deity. Of many thousand Jewish citizens, but three hundred were thus prevailed on to renounce their faith, and these apostates were despised and shunned by their former friends. Angered by this resistance

HEBREW SLAVES IN ASIA.

to his will, the king had Jews by thousands dragged in chains from all parts of Egypt and shut up in the hippodrome, where his elephants were to be let loose upon them. For two days his drunken revels or changing fancies delayed the execution of this project, and wheu it was attempted, the elephants, being too highly primed for their work, turned on their keepers and on the pagan crowd. A bloody rebellion followed, in which forty thousand Jews lost their lives.

PUNISHMENT OF HELIODORUS.

The brief visit of Philopator to Jerusalem had serious results. Previously undisturbed in the exercise of their religion, the Jews bitterly resented that monarch’s attempted sacrilege, and awaited au opportunity to transfer their allegiance from Egypt to Syria.

They aided Antiochus in a war with Ptolemy V., and after his victory at Mount Panius, B. C. 198, welcomed the exchange of masters. The king, on his part, made fair promises for the protection of the temple, and liberal grants for its maintenance.

These favors were renewed for a time by his son Seleucus, till royal covetousness, prompted by domestic treason, brought in confusion and strife in place of harmony. Simon, governor of the temple, having quarrelled with Onias, the high priest, hinted to the king that the treasures of which he was guardian might pay the tribute to Rome and relieve any stringency at Antioch. Seleucus thereupon (B. C. 177) sent his treasurer, Heliodorus, to seize the wealth of the temple. And now the scenes of forty years before were re-enacted; the popular excitement, the wailing, the agonized prayers for help, the futile effort at resistance, and the strange result. “ There appeared a horse with a terrible rider, adorned with a

GOD’S JUDGMENT ON HELIODORUS.

very fair covering, and he ran fiercely and smote at Heliodorus with his forefeet ; and it seemed that he that sat upon the horse had complete harness of gold. Moreover, two other young men (t. e., angels) appeared before him, notable in strength, excellent in beauty, and comely in apparel, who stood by him on either side and scourged him continually, and gave him many sore stripes. And Heliodorus fell suddenly to the ground and was compassed with great darkness.” Restored by the prayers of Onias, he made haste back to Antioch, and told the king, “If thou hast any enemy or traitor, send him thither, and thou shalt receive him well scourged, if he escape with his life; for in that place, beyond doubt, is an especial power of God.” Within a year he murdered his master and was destroyed by the next king, Antiochus IV., called Epiphanes, or the Illustrious.

The Jews ascribed these deaths to the divine vengeance Upon sacrilege, and hoped for good days which they were not soon to see. Internal dissensions plajred into the hands of royal policy and rapacity. Simon, the disturber, Was indeed banished, to die , abroad; but the good Onias had three rascally brothers, who sought to rise by his fall. These aped Greek manners, assumed Greek names, and were willing to sacrifice the national faith, cause, and character, no less than natural affection, to their selfish ambition. Joshua or Jason, by a bribe, procured his brother’s exile to Antioch, and his own succession to the high priest’s office. After three years he was driven to the land of Ammon, and his place taken, through the same arts, by a younger brother, Menelaus, who had gone over openly to heathenism. He sold some of the consecrated vessels of the temple, through a fourth brother, Lysimachus, who was presently slain in the treasury by his indignant fellow-citizens. He procured the murder, first of Onias, the legitimate high priest, who had denounced this sacrilegious theft and then taken refuge in the famous (or infamous) sanctuary of Daphne, near Antioch; and then of three deputies who had been sent from Jerusalem to testify of his crimes.

Great and general was the wrath aroused by these vile deeds and hideous scandals. But Menelaus was firm in the favor of Epiphanes, who, through drink and the reckless exercise of arbitrary power had become almost a madman. On a false report of the king’s death in Egypt, Jason attacked Jerusalem, killed many, and won a temporary success ; but he was presently forced to fly, and after various wanderings, died in poverty so far from home as Sparta in Greece.

WICKEDNESS OF ANTIOCHUS.

Antiochus was enraged by exaggerated accounts of Jason’s raid, and of rejoicings among the Jews on hearing of his death. So “when this that was done came to the king’s ear, he thought that Judea had revolted; whereupon, removing out of Egypt in a ferocious mind, he took the city by force of arms, and

commanded his men of war not to spare such as they met, and to slay such as went up upon the houses. Thus there was killing of young and old, making away of men, women and children, slaying of virgins and infants. And there were destroyed, within the space of three days, fourscore thousand, whereof forty thousand were slain in the conflict j and no fewer sold than slain.

Such massacres were common in those days, as under the Roman Emperors, and long after. The presence of the monarch was sometimes as destructive as that of a hostile army; he would enter a city in peace, and on the spur of some malignant whim pour out the blood of his unoffending subjects as if it were water. Tyrants were irresponsible, and life was cheap. Humanity is the last virtue that men have learned. Our modern notions of it are the result of long ages of Christian teaching, slowly appreciated, as the doctrines of the gospel gradually overcame the hardness of men’s hearts and the dullness of their minds.

To wholesale cruelty Epiphanes added wholesale impiety; he had broken all bounds now. The ancient chronicler goes on:

“Yet was he not content with this, but presumed to go into the most holy temple of

MURDER OF ONIAS, THE HIGH PRIEST.

all the world, Menelaus, that traitor to the laws and to his own country, being his guide; and taking the holy vessels with polluted hands, and profanely pulling down the things dedicated by other kings to the increased honor and glory of the place, he took them away.”

This time no divine apparition, no access of sudden terror, hindered the despoiler. The chronicler is evidently perplexed to explain the failure of the

MASSACRE OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN JERUSALEM.

Most High to prevent this horrible sacrilege and protect His own. He manag. s it thus:

“ So haughty was Antiochus in mind, he considered not that the Lord was angry for awhile for the sins of them that dwelt in the city, therefore His eye was not upon the place. For had they not been wrapped in many sins, this man, as soon as he had come, had forthwith been scourged, and put back from his presumption, as Heliodorus was. Nevertheless, God did not choose the people for the place’s sake, but the place for the people’s sake; and therefore the place itself was partaker with them of the adversity that happened to the nation.”

The spoil of the temple, according to the Second Book of Maccabees (v. 21), amounted to near two million dollars—a sum worth ten times as much now. Much of this belonged to widows and orphans, and to other private persons ; for everywhere in the East the temples were then used as banks of deposit, the safest places where valuables could be stored, and not very safe at that. “ So when Antiochus had carried out of the temple a thousand and eight hundred talents, he departed in haste unto Antiochia, weening in his pride to make the land navigable, and the sea passable by foot; such was the haughtiness of his mind.”

Dr. Raphall, author of the valuable “ Post- Biblical History of the Jews,” thinks that the crimes of Epiphanes were not due simply to frenzy or covetousness, but in part to a settled policy. His kingdom included a hodgepodge of tribes and races—Greeks as rulers and recent colonists, with Canaanites, Assyrians, and what not, native to the soil or settled there antiochus.

for centuries. All these he aimed to fuse into one nationality, with (as near as might be) uniform laws, beliefs, and customs. In this huge undertaking he had the advice of an astute though unprincipled politician, Ptolemy Macron, who served him as a sort of prime minister. In those days, as too long after, policy was ruthless, and an end in view was held to justify any means in the way of slaughter and destruction. Most of the people under Antiochus’ yoke, being pagans, would exchange one form of idolatry for another without much compunction. But the Jews were of a different temper. Narrow, exclusive, separate from the nations around, despising Gentiles as worshippers of false gods, they were generally accounted enemies of mankind. Some among them, like Jason and Menelaus, had been corrupted by foreign manners, and were really apostates; but the true Jew cared more for his faith and his nationality than for everything else in life. Epiphanes hated them because he had wronged them; because he

knew they hated him, and with reason ; because he saw they would not easily be bent to his will, and were thus the chief obstacles to his plan of unifying his domains. Resolutely to oppose an absolute monarch is to be in his view a traitor, a heretic, a blasphemer, a monster of iniquity, an offense to be wiped off the earth. These mingled motives, in a mind half crazed with constant debauches and with the conceit of empire, will account for the furious and frightful persecutions on which Antiochus now entered.

The holy city and its inhabitants might hope in vain for a respite from woes that were but just begun. An event with which they had nothing to do inflamed their foe against them. The king had for years maintained a desultory war against Kgypt; he was now (168 B. C.) besieging Alexandria, when an embassy arrived from Rome. Its leader, Popilius, who had been his friend in former

______ years, disdained

his offered embrace, and handed him a tablet inscribed, “Au- tiochus, you will stop making war on the Ptolemies.” Cut to the soul, he said, “I will take counsel on this, and give you my decision.” “ No,” replied the Roman, and with his cane he drew a circle in the

jews madu captives. answer now, be

fore you cross this line.” Here was a foe he could not grapple with; swallowing his rage, he bowed his haughty head, and said, “I will obey the Senate.”

PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS.

Baffled and humiliated, his fury had to find a vent, and Jerusalem lay in his path. It was in the power of Philip, a Phrygian, “ for manners more barbarous than he that set him there,” and of the detested Menelaus, “ who, worse than all

ANTIOCHUS AND HIS ARMY SPOILING THIJ TEMPLE).

the rest, bore a heavy hand over the citizens, having a malicious mind against his countrymen.” Marching back from Egypt, the king detached Apollonius, the collector of tribute, “ with an army of two and twenty thousand, commanding him to slay all them that were in their best age, and to sell the women and the younger sort; who, coming to Jerusalem aud pretending peace, did forbear till the Sabbath, when, taking the Jews keeping holy day, he slew all them that were g.jue to the services, and, running through the city with weapons, slew great multitudes.” The city wall was broken down, the houses pillaged, and many of them destroyed to strengthen the citadel, which commanded the temple. Mene- laus would no longer conduct the services; the daily sacrifices ceased in June, B. C. 167. The priests and other survivors left the ruined city to its garrison, and to those who had adopted the views and worship of the tyrant.

A decree was now issued that throughout the kingdom of Syria all should worship the gods of Antiochus, and no others. The exercise of the Jewish religion was thus prohibited; circumcision, the reading of the law, and the observance of the Sabbath became punishable with death; books of the law, when found, were torn or burned. One Atheneus was sent to Jerusalem and put in charge of the temple, which he dedicated to Jupiter Olympus. A heathen altar (“the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Jeremy the Prophet”), was erected in the sanctuary in November, 167 B. C., and profane sacrifices offered there and in every other city. The Bacchanalia took the place of the feast of the Tabernacles, and a monthly festival was instituted, at which the citizens were compelled to sacrifice to the idols and to eat pork, a meat forbidden by Moses and abhorred as unclean.

Overseers and soldiers went throughout the kingdom to enforce the new decree. The Samaritans complied willingly enough, and so did the renegade or Hellenizing Jews, the party of Menelaus. Some submitted with reluctance, to save their lives. “ Howbeit many in Israel were fully resolved and confirmed in themselves not to eat any unclean thing ; wherefore they chose rather to die, that they might not be defiled with meats, nor profane the holy covenant; so then they died.” Two women, who had privately circumcised their infants, were thrown from the battlements of the temple, and others that had gone into caves near by, to keep the Sabbath, were all burned together, “because they made a conscience to act for the honor of the most sacred day.”

Antiochus, offended at so much obstinacy, came to Jerusalem, that the terrors of his presence might overawe rebellion. In person he presided at the executions, seeming, like later tyrants, to enjoy the torments of the martyrs. Bleazar, a man of position and character, in his ninetieth year, refusing to swallow the forbidden food, the officers proposed to substitute meat lawful for him to eat, so that at once the appearance of submission might be preserved and his life. But he refused, saying that it became not his age to dissemble, nor

to set an example of hypocrisy and cowardice to the young, and so went cheerfully to the scourging, crying out in his last moments that though enduring sore pain in body, in soul he was well content to suffer, because he feared God.

THE MOTHER’S SACRIFICE OF SEVEN SONS.

More memorable yet is the case of the seven brothers who, with their mother, were brought before the tyrant. “What wouldst thou ask or learn of

ANTIOCHUS AS A PERSECUTOR.

us?” said the eldest. “We are ready to die father than to transgress the laws of our fathers.” Each in turn spoke noble words, defying the tempter, and endured frightful torments with constancy. Through it all the mother stood by, exhorting each: “I cannot tell how ye came into my womb; I neither gave you breath nor life, nor formed your members. But doubtless the Creator

THE MOTHER OF THE MACCABEES AND HER YOUNGEST SON.

will of His own mercy give you breath and life again, as ye now for His laws’ sake regard not yourselves.” Wheu six were dead, the king, in his character of grand inquisitor, offered the youngest wealth and favor and office if he would conform, and begged the mother (whose speech was in her native tongue), to urge his acceptance and save his life. But her counsel was this: “ Oh my son, have pity upon me that bare thee in my womb, and gave thee suck, and nourished thee, and brought thee up to this age! Look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that were not; and likewise He made mankind. Fear not this tormentor, but be worthy of thy brothers and take thy death, that in His mercy I may receive thee with them again.” On this the boy, scarce waiting for her to cease, cried: “ I will not obey the king’s commandment, but the law given to our fathers by Moses.” More he said, denouncing retribution on the persecutor, and perished in tortures like the rest. The record closes: “ So this man died undefiled, and put his whole trust in the Lord. Last of all, after the sons, the mother died.” Another narrative, of less authority, says that the king offered to save the boy’s life by a subterfuge: he would drop his signet- ring and the youth should kneel and pick it up; but the martyr, perceiving that this would be taken by the attendant crowd as an act of idolatrous homage, refused, like old Eleazar. Also, that the mother, in her dying agony, exulted thus : “ Father Abraham, I have overpassed thee, for I have raised seven altars for the sacrifice of seven sons'!”

The king soon withdrew in disgust from the city of these obstinate fanatics, as they seemed to him; but the persecution lasted in full vigor for near half a year. It spread throughout the kingdom, and was imitated by the Ptolemies in Egypt. “ Never before had the Jews been exposed to such extreme misery, for never before had they been persecuted on account of their religion. Every public act of worship was at an end; every private observance was certain destruction as soon as discovered.” Paganism had usually been tolerant; its various forms, having no revelation at their back and little moral force of conviction in their adherents, met and mixed easily. Strife had hitherto had secular causes and objects; but this was a war of extermination, and a war, as it seemed, of the powerful against the weak, of the mailed hand against naked breasts—a war for the extinction of a faith.

The trodden worm will turn; the persecuted, when opinions and circumstances permit, will find strength and spirit to resist. When life is worthless men say to themselves, “As well die fighting as by pincers and slow fires.”

Thus was it with the Jews in their extremity. Out of weakness comes forth strength; the naked found arms wherewith to stand against the mighty, and weapons to overthrow armies and princes. Of conflicts against odds they had precedents in their past history, handed down by their sacred books; but

this was their first fight for, faith alone. It was a fight not merely for the laws of Moses, but for liberty of worship; not only for the Sabbath and their ancient usages, but for the rights of conscience. As such it was the warfare of humanity ; its record is a precious and imperishable chapter iu the history of freedom. How often, in distant lands and ages, have these good examples nerved the oppressed not only to endure with patience, but to dare and do valorously!

It was a glorious war, alike in its motive, its persistence, and its success. Dr. Hales, in his “New Analysis of Chronology,” says that “ such a triumph of a petty province over a great empire is hardly to be paralleled in the annals of history.” Dr. Raphall maintains, with reason, that this statement might be

made stronger. The most nearly similar struggle in modern times > that of the Dutch provinces against Philip II., magnificent as it was, had sympathy and help from without. So our American colonies, in their strife for independence, gained allies and assistance from Europe. Whereas the Jews, abso- ^ lutely unaided,

| relied wholly on Heaven, and won

flight of refugees to the mountains. ^ their own phy

sical prowess and mighty zeal alone. It may be added that distance from their tyrants, which favored the later revolutionists, was wanting in the case of the Maccabees. The British armies had to be brought across the Atlantic, and those which opposed Holland were recruited chiefly in Spain and Italy; whereas Syria was under one rule, and Antioch at no vast distance from Jerusalem.

REVOLT OF MATTATHIAS.

The war began in what might seem a slight and casual way. Mattathias, an aged priest, descended from Aaron the brother of Moses, with his five sons,

was living at Modin, a town near the seaport Joppa. “And when he saw the blasphemies that were committed in Judah and Jerusalem, he said, ‘ Woe is me! Wherefore was I born to see the misery of my people, arid of the holy city, and to dwell there, when it was delivered into the hand of the enemy, and the sanctuary into the hand of strangers ? Her temple is dishonored; her glorious vessels are carried away into captivity; her infants are slain in the streets; her young men with the sword of the alien. What nati'on has not had a part in her. kingdom, and gotten of her spoils ? All her ornaments are taken away; from a free woman she is become a bond-slave. And, behold, our sanctuary, even our.beauty and our glory, is laid waste, and the Gentiles have profaned it. To what end then should we live any longer?’ Then he and his sons rent their clothes, and put on sackcloth, and mourned very sore.” •

Soon the king’s emissaries, led by one Apelles, came to Modin on their evil errand,-and asked Mattathias, as the chief man of the place, to lead in obeying the decree. On his indignant refusal, one of the renegades, officious to show his loyalty, came forth to sacrifice. At this odious sight the old priest “ was inflamed with zeal, and his reins trembled, neither could he forbear to show his anger according to judgment; wherefore he ran and slew” the apostate. A tumult arose; Apelles and his men were killed, and the idol-altar pulled down.

Accepting the consequences of his act, the priest, now a leader of open rebellion, “cried throughout the city with a loud voice, saying, ‘ Whoever is zealous of the law and maintains the covenant, let him follow me.’ So he and his sons fled into the mountains.” Others joined them; the little company of ten men grew to hundreds, and began to harass the heathen in the villages around about, making nocturnal sallies, and destroying several Syrian garrisons.

The doc trine of non-resistance on the Sabbath was soon severely tested. Soldiers pursued a company who “were gone down into secret places in the wilderness.” "Being attacked, these “answered them not, neither cast they a stone at them, nor stopped the places where they laidhid, but said, ‘ Let us all die in our innocency! ’ ”

So they were slain, men, women and children, to the number of a thousand, with their cattle. It became evident that to be non-combatants on one day in the week was to be fearfully handicapped in conflict with a foe who knew no such scruple: so Mattathias sensibly concluded, like a greater than he two hundred years later, that “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Therefore he and his followers came to this agreement: “Whosoever shall come to make battle with us on the Sabbath day, we will fight against him; neither will we die all, as our brethren that were murdered in the secret places.”

This resolution, being spread abroad among the refugees, changed the complexion and prospects of the nascent war. Recruits came rapidly to Mattathias, and his activity increased with his force. His forays were frequent, and not merely annoying but destructive to the Syrians. Wherever he went, he demol-

MATTATHIAS EXHORTING HIS FOLLOWERS TO DEFEND THEIR FAITH.

ished the idolatrous altars, and re-established the worship and customs handed down from the time of Moses. When his strength gave way, after some months of this rough life, he exhorted his sons to be valiant and zealous for the law, and appointed the third of them, Judas, to be captain of the band, with the second, Simon, as his counsellor. So he died in honor, “ and his sops buried him in the sepulchre of his fathers at Modin, and all Israel made great lamentation for him.”

PTOWiAl Y.

CHAPTER II.

JUDAH THE DELIVERER.

choice of a successor was wise and fit, for while Simon was noted for prudence, Judas (or Judah) possessed not only great strength and fearless courage, but, as was soon proved, rare military capacity. He was thenceforth called Maccabeus, a name of uncertain origin, and applied by the Gentiles to all his party, and no less to the martyrs of the cause; thus the widow who perished with her seven sons, as before related, though probably of another family, is called “mother of the Maccabees.” The new leader, more than his ancient namesake, seemed to fulfill the prophecy of the patriarch Jacob: “Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise; thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up.” He was soon able to hold and fortify the towns he took, for his force had increased to six thousand men.

These small matters were beneath the attention of Antiochus, who was then revelling and playing the fool at Daphne. It has often been the mistake of kings to despise the earlier stages of a revolt. But his tax-gatherer, Apollonius, hated for his recent cruelties in Jerusalem, raised a considerable army, largely of apostates from his provinces of Judea and Samaria: him Judas defeated and slew, and took his sword, “and therewith he fought all his life long.” The spoil of the vanquished served to arm many of the victors besides their general.

After this, Seron, “ a prince of the army of Syria,” and next in command to Ptolemy Macron in the latter’s province, levied “ a mighty host of the ungodly,” and met Judas at the rocks of Beth-horon, northwest of Jerusalem. The patriots complained, “ How shall we be able, being so few, to fight against so great a multitude and so strong, seeing we are ready to faint with fasting all this day ?” But Judas answered, “ With God it is all one to deliver with a great multitude or a small company, for the victory standeth not in the numbers of a host, but

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strength, cometh from heaven;” and charging furiously down the hill, routed the enemy, and pursued them to the lowlands, with much slaughter.

The king at length turned his attention to this business, and was much disgusted with what he heard. But at this time matters of importance on the

JUDAS ASSEMBLING HIS WARRIORS.

Persian border called him to that distant portion of his dominions ; so he left his relative, Lysias, as regent and guardian of his heir, giving him half the royal army and a strict charge “ to destroy and root out the strength of Israel and the remnant of Jerusalem, and to take away their memorial from thence, and place strangers in all their quarters, and divide their land by lot.” Lysias accordingly sent out forty thousand foot and seven thousand horse, under Nicanor and Gorgias, who encamped at Emmaus (the village where the risen Christ revealed Himself to two of His disciples), a few miles northwest of Jerusalem.

This was a new experience to the guerillas of the hills. The troops whom they had met and vanquished in the field were raw levies of Samaritans and renegade Jews; before encountering the victorious armies of Antiochus they might be excused for feeling as did, seventeen centuries later, the first followers of William of Orange, who for years could not stand, on firm ground, against the terrible Spaniards. But the leader never flinched. On the contrary, “As for such

as were building houses, or had betrothed wives, or were planting vineyards, or were fearful, these he commanded to return, every man to his own house, according to the law.” By this means he reduced his little army one-half, three thousand only remaining with him.

NICANOR’S MISTAKE.

In the Syrian camp, meantime, was mirth and rejoicing over the expected victory, and no fear of so despicable a foe. For “Nicanor undertook to make so much money of the [to be] captive Jews as should defray the tribute of two thousand talents [about two million dollars], which the king was to pay to the Romans; whereupon immediately he sent to the cities upon the sea-coast, proclaiming a sale of the captive Jews, and promising fourscore and ten bodies for one talent”—or only about eleven dollars apiece, a low price for able-bodied slaves. If the chonicler was right, this was but a poor calculation of Nicanor’s, apart from the imprudence of counting his captives before catching them. At this rate all the men Judas had ever commanded could have brought hardly seven talents, or one-thirtieth of the amount he wished to raise. But, having nabbed the army, he probably meant to add to them what remained of the non-conforming population of Judea, and relied on their mounting as high as two hundred thousand, and being caught, and chained, and brought to market, easily and with small loss of time.

However faulty Nicanor’s reckonings— and, as the event showed, they were as far out as possible—the slave-traders of Cesarea and Gaza, and Tyre and Sidon, and perhaps even of Antioch, to the number of a thousand, had full faith in them; for “ the merchants of the country took silver and gold very much, with servants, and came into the camp to buy the children of Israel for slaves.” The wealth they brought, and even their own precious persons, were shortly put to a use widely different from that which they intended.

Learning of the smallness of the patriot force, the royal generals thought it shame to waste their whole army upon so few; so Gorgias took a picked body of five thousand infantry and a thousand horse, and went by night to sur. prise the camp of Judas. Reaching it undisturbed, he “ found no man there, and sought them in the mountains, saying, ‘ These fellows flee from us.’ ”

Meantime the Maccabee, bting informed of this plan, had withdrawn by another way and fallen on the camp of Nicanor, whose troops he soon routed and pursued with slaughter. Not waiting to take the spoils, he turned upon Gorgias, who was recalled from vain wanderings in the hills by the sight of his colleague’s burning teuts. A panic seized these invaders, who saw the tables turned upon them, and from pursuers became the pursued. In these two engagements, or rather in the chase of the fliers, nine thousand Syrians fell.

JUDAS RESTORES THE TEMPLE.

annfrel ^ ? ^JerUSalem’ ^and N^anor, “putting off his glorious

to Anting I f ’°^{ame Hke a fugitive servant with} dishonor to Antioch where he told abroad that the Jews had God to fight for them, and

therefore they could not be hurt, because they followed the laws He gave them.”

This action occurring on a Friday, the victors spent their Sabbath with

peaceful triumph and due observances in the enemy’s camp, where ikey found

great and useful spoil of money, provisions, plate and munitions of war. The prisoners, especially those that had come to buy Jewish captives, were sold for slaves. Such were the manners of the time: “ Woe to the vanquished'’ was the motto in all wars.

Discouraged and reluctant, Timotheus and Bacchides brought another army against Israel, but were defeated with the loss of twenty thousand men and all their goods. Of this engagement we have no particulars; but Judas was now so well provided that he could bestow a liberal portion of his booty upon widows and orphans, the aged and the poor. There was much destitution in the land, and those who had caused it now became the unwilling means of its partial relief. Of the charity which the patriots exercised toward one another, they had none to spare for their foes. After the last battle they exulted in the death of one of their late persecutors ; another, Callisthenes, who had set fire to the gates of the temple, they found in a small building where he had taken refuge, and burned him there.

The next year, 165 B. C., Lysias the regent, constrained, it may be, by very shame, took the field in person with “ threescore thousand choice men of foot and five thousand horsementhat is, they were the best he could get after the disastrous defeats his previous armies had endured. Judas met him with ten thousand, his largest force as yet, before the fortress of Beth-sura in Idumea, in a contest more stubbornly disputed than its predecessors. There seems to have been no surprise, no rout this time; but the Syrians left the field with the loss of five thousand, having accomplished nothing, but proposing to try again a year later. It was a less brilliant victory than the patriots were accustomed to win, but it left them masters of Judea, excepting only the heathen fortress in the holy city. The recovery of Jerusalem was to be the chief and dearest reward of their heroic efforts, and now the time had come for that. The capital seems to have been won without a blow, the garrison remaining quietly in the citadel of Acra. It was the first task of Judas to restore and rededicate the temple, which was in a sad condition, weeds growing in. its courts, the sanctuary profaned and half ruined; but in June, 164 B. C., the day on which the worship had ceased three years before, it was resumed with grateful triumph.

FATE OF A TYRANT.

King Antiochus had been for some time in the eastern part of his vast dominions, and his absence had been of great advantage to the Jews. His last exploit was the attempted spoiling of a rich temple, either in Elymais or Persepolis; here he was violently resisted and shamefully put to flight. Arriving at Ecbatana. the capital of Media, he received news of the disasters which had befallen his armies in Judea. Foaming with rage, and vowing to exterminate these unmanageable subjects, he turned his march westward. But he had

never, except under dire necessity, as in his relations with the Romans, controlled his passions, and he had now to pay the penalty. To such as he the lust of wine is apt to be even more expensive than the thirst for blood. His long- continued excesses, with an accident of the road;-brought on the loathsome disease which, in the case of a later tyrant, Herod, is called in Scripture “ being eaten of worms,” and he died at Taba, a village near Mount Zagros, on the way to Babylon. Polybius ascribes his wretched end to the vengeance of the deity whose temple he had lately tried to plunder. One of the Jewish chroniclers insists that he expressed great remorse for the sacrilege he had committed at Jerusalem and the wrongs inflicted on their people, promised, if his life were spared, that he would make full amends, and even proposed to “become a Jew himself, and go through all the inhabited world and declare the power of God.” If so, it was dotibtless a case of “the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be.” Such repentances are taken for what they are worth, and they are seldom worth the testing. So ended Antiochus, falsely called the Illustrious, leaving to our time the fame of a persecutor so savage, that he has hardly been matched in all later ages, except by Philip II., the “ most Catholic ” king of Spain.

His death, like his long absence, was fortunate for the ’jews. Considering Lysias inefficient, he had, in his last days, appointed Philip regent and guardian of his son and successor. But Lysias, not wishing to lose his office, at once proclaimed the new king as Antiochus V. (he was a boy of eight years, and called Eupator or “ Well-fathered,” an epithet as ironical as these surnames were wont to be), and installed himself as protector. On this the prudent Philip fled to Egypt.

These arrangements lasted about three years, being confirmed by the Roman Senate from interested motives. Demetrius, a nephew of Antiochus IV. and son of Seleucus, was the lawful heir to the Syrian throne; but he had long been a hostage at Rome, and was too vigorous a prince to be entrusted with so much power by the masters of the world at that particular time. So Lysias kept the regency. Old Ptolemy Macron, who as adviser of the late king had humored him and borne a part in the earlier atrocities, now changed front and urged peace, being statesman enough to recognize the ability of Judas, and to see that further warfare with so unconquerable a rebel was expensive and undesirable. Thereon Macron was deposed from his government of Ccele-Syria and accused of treason: unable to endure the fall from his former greatness, he committed suicide by poison. Such were the intricacies of Oriental politics.

WARRIOR AND STATESMAN.

Meantime Judas, though a conqueror and in possession of the capital, had no easy time of it. The tribes around, ancient enemies and never friends of Israel, betook themselves to petty and irregular hostilities, murdering such Jews

as lived among or near them. Maccabeus had to chastise these offenders, to strengthen the fortress of Beth-sura, and to protect with new walls and towers the temple, threatened as it was by the citadel on Mount Acra, which he was not yet

AN ANGEL OF THE LORD LEADS THE ISRAELITES AGAINST THE ENEMY.

in condition to attack. To these cares was soon added the necessity for repelling renewed invasion. Having defeated a body of Idumeans under Gorgias, he attacked and reduced their strongholds. No sooner were these destroyed than he marched against Timotheus, who had raised the tribes east of the Jordan ; these also were overthrown, and their commander slain in Gazarah, after a five days’ siege. Inflamed by these reverses, the heathen raged yet more furiously in the east and north. In Tob more than a thousand Jews were killed, and their families carried into captivity. Endangered in Gilead and Galilee, they sent to Jerusalem for succor, which was furnished in haste by two rescuing parties, one led by Judas and his youngest brother Jonathan, the other under Simon. Unable permanently

JUDAS BEFORE the ARMY OF LYSIAS.

to protect their brethren in these distant regions, the leaders adopted the wise measure of removing them to Judea, which, after the recent massacres and partial depopulation, could afford lands and homes to all. Two important ends were thus secured; the refugees were comparatively safe, and at hand to swell the defending armies of Israel.

When he marched from Jerusalem on this errand, Judas had of necessity left part of his force behind. This he committed to two brothers, Joseph and Azariah, strictly charging them to use it merely for the defense of the city, and to attempt nothing further. But these men, finding themselves in temporary command and pining for distinction, disobeyed their orders, and rashly planned the capture of Jamnia, a town on the sea-coast, south of Joppa. Gorgias, who commanded there —he who had been twice beaten by Jndas—got wind of their attempt, and was not slow to improve his advantage ; the officious lieutenants were surprised and routed, with the loss of two thousand men.

The moral effect of this disaster was worse than the material loss. It destroyed the prestige of the Jewish armies, hitherto invincible, and it mightily encouraged their enemies. Thus heartened, Lysias, the regent, led forth the army he had been some time preparing, “ thinking to make the city a habitation of the Gentiles, and to make a gain of the temple, and to set the high priesthood to sale every year.” He sat down before Beth-sura, having eighty thousand foot, besides the cavalry and eighty elephants. As the Hebrew army went out to meet him “there appeared before them on horseback one in white clothing, shaking his armor of gold. Then they praised the merciful God all together, and took heart, insomuch that they were ready not only to fight with men, but with most cruel beasts, and to pierce through walls of iron. Then they marched forward in their armor, having a helper from heaven; and giving a charge upon their enemies like lions, they slew eleven thousand iootmen, and sixteen hundred horsemen, and put all the others to flight.”

• Demoralized by this reverse, the regent made peace on terms satisfactory to the Jews, granting amnesty and the free exercise of their religion, they to pay tribute as of old.

But this peace was rather nominal than real. The king was a child, the regent’s authority was little respected, and the generals commanding on the frontiers, instead of repressing the lawlessness of barbarous tribes, found it convenient and safe to give vent to their own vindictiveness and to the hatred everywhere cherished against Israel. It was impossible to protect all the outlying Jews, scattered in scores of towns and over innumerable plains and hillsides; but Judas and his troops were kept busy with reprisals and punishments for repeated and varied acts of bad faith and cruelty. At Joppa two hundred Jews, under some pretence, were inveigled out to sea and drowned. At Jamnia a similar brutality was intended, but frustrated. Maccabeus, de-

BURNING OF JA.MNIA..

scending in wrath on those traitorous towns, burned the ports and shipping, and slew many; the flames at Jamnia were visible at Jerusalem, thirty miles away. At Raphon, Timotheus, the son of him who was killed at Gazarah, took the field at the head of an incredible army, said to have comprised a hundred and twenty thousand infantry and twenty-five hundred horsemen; at sight of the terrible Judas these fled in panic rout, and one-fourth of them were slaughtered in the pursuit. Some, with their leader, took refuge in a fortified temple at Camion; the city was taken and burned, and Timotheus purchased his life by releasing many captives from Galilee. Ephron, a strong city which refused to open its gates to the victorious Jews, was assaulted, plundered and destroyed. Everywhere the Maccabee succored his afflicted countrymen, and many of them followed his march homeward. Doubting.the fierce Scythians, settled of old at Beth-shean, he stopped to inquire into the condition of the true believers there : finding that, contrary to the usual experience, they had received only kindness- from their pagan neighbors, he thanked the authorities of the city and made friends with its people. These acts of charity were in strong contrast to the general manner of that cruel age and of armies on their march.

All these events, and many of minor note, are supposed to have taken, place in a single campaign. Loaded down with non-combatants—rescued prisoners of war, refugees returning from dangerous quarters to the centre of their faith, women and children, the aged, the sick, the needy—himself riding with the rearguard that he might watch over the weak and lagging, the deliverer of Judea returned to the holy city in time for the feast of Pentecost. No sooner was it over than he went forth to meet Gorgias and his Idumeans in a stubborn and well-contested battle. Fortune at length decided against the heathen, and their leader narrowly escaped capture. The chronicler adds that when the bodies of the Jewish dead were taken up for burial, idolatrous emblems were found upon them: “ then every man saw that this was the cause wherefore they were slain,” and doubtless also of the duration and toughness of the contest; for how should the Lord favor an army in which some false worshippers were arrayed on His side ?

On his way back Judas found time to take Hebron and Azotus, the latter a chief town of the Philistines, besides sundry fortresses, and to destroy many altars with their idols. Returning, he found that the royal garrison, which still held Mount Acra, disregarding the peace and taking advantage of his absence, had been threatening the temple and harassing the worshippers there. Therefore, turning his talents to military engineering, he invested the citadel so closely as to give hope of its ultimate fall. It was well provisioned and defended, holding, besides the Syrian soldiers, many apostate Jews ; but the idea was to prevent egress, so that no word might go thence to Antioch and no succor be sent to relieve the place. The renegades, however, saw through this

plan, and made a sally, by means of which some of them escaped and reached the court. There they gave a one-sided account of what had been done, laying all the blame on Judas and his men for the breach of the peace, The regent and the child-king, listening to these tales and believing according to their inclination, determined again to invade Judea, and with a larger and better appointed army than they had yet put into the field for that purpose.

LYSIAS AND HIS ARMY.

And now was Jerusalem threatened by a greater danger and a more formidable force than it had yet beheld. Beth-sura again was the point of attack; there were Lysias and his young master with a hundred thousand foot, twenty thousand

horse, and thirty-two elephants. (Another account gives the figures respectively as a hundred and ten thousand, five thousand three hundred, and twenty-two elephants, adding three hundred chariots of war,) Since these huge animals bore a prominent part in this battle, as in many another in ancient times and Eastern lands, it is worth while to cite the account of their disposition and of the appearance of such an armament.

“To the end they might provoke the elephants to fight, they showed them the blood of grapes and mulberries. Moreover, they divided the beasts among the armies, and for each they appointed a thousand men, armed with coats of mail, and with helmets of brass on their heads; and besides this, for every beast were ordained five hundred of the best horsemen. These were ready at every occasion; wheresoever the beast was, and whithersoever he went, they went also, neither departed they from him. And the elephants in war. _Up_0n ^ b_east_{s were} strong towers of wood, which

covered every one of them, and were girt fast unto them with devices; there were also upon every one two and thirty strong men that fought upon them, besides

JUDAS PURSUES HIS ENEMIES.

the Indian that ruled them. As for the remainder of the horsemen, they set them on this side and that side, at the two parts of the host. Now when the sun shone upon the shields of gold and brass, the mountains glistered therewith, and shone like lamps of fire. So, part of the king’s army being spread upon the high mountains, and part in the valleys below, they marched on in order. Wherefore all that heard the noise of their multitude, and the marching of the company, and the rattling of their harness, were moved; for the army was very great and mighty.”

Against this terrible host the undaunted Judas went forth with a high and resolute heart, “ committing all to the Creator of the world, and exhorting his soldiers to fight manfully, even unto death, for the laws, the temple, the city, the country, and the commonwealth. And having given the watchword to them that were about him, Victory is of God, with the most valiant and choice young men he went into the king’s quarters by night, and slew in the camp about four thousand men, and the chiefest of the elephants, with all that were upon him. And at last they filled the camp with fear and tumult, and departed with good success. This was done in the break of day, because the protection of the Lord did help him.”

In this extremely active reconnoisance the Jewish hero aimed chiefly to give notice of what he could do on occasion, and to take any advantage that might come of his exploit. As it turned out, the main value of the skirmish (if so one-sided an affair may claim that title) was in its moral affect, which Judas was by this time as well able to appreciate as any later commander. He was an extremely sagacious captain; he knew perfectly well that apart from strategy, or surprise, or violent attack and consequent panic on the other side, he could not expect to cope with a regular and disciplined army of ten times his strength, fighting under its master’s eye. His faith was in Providence and the doctrine of chances, and it must be owned that his faith was never put to shame. He was very fitly taken as a model by Cromwell and his Ironsides. If he had lived in modern times he would have agreed heartily with the exhortation of that general, “ Trust in God and keep your powder dry,” though scarcely with the observation of Napoleon, that “ Providence is always on the side of the strongest battalions.” He was never guilty of dictating to Providence and assuming success as certain ; all his prayers and preachments before battle had the saving clause, “ If the Lord will.” And thus he derived the strange successes he won through six most active and glorious years, and was kept safe in constant perils almost as long as he was imperatively needed on earth.

HEROIC DEATH OF ELEAZAR.

Nor did the Lord forsake him now, though deliverance came not at the usual time nor in the way he might most expect. The battle which ensued

AND THEY WOULD NOT OFFER- RESISTANCE ON THE SABBATH DAY.

was for the Jews neither a victory nor a disgraceful defeat. They made a good stand, inflicted some loss on the enemy, and then, “ seeing the strength of the king and the violence of his forces, turned away from them.” When a general has no chance of inducing vastly superior numbers to run, it is doubtless to his credit to get his men out in good order before they are surrounded and crushed. The occasion is chiefly memorable for the self-immolation of Eleazar, fourth of the noble brothers. “ Perceiving that one of the beasts, armed with royal harness, was higher than all the rest, and supposing that the king was upon him, he put himself in jeopardy, to the end he might deliver his people and get him a perpetual name. Wherefore he ran upon him courageously through the midst of the battle, slaying on the right hand and on the left, so that they were divided from him on both sides; which done, he crept under the elephant and thrust him under and slew him: whereupon the elephant fell down upon him, and there he died.” Why is not this sacrifice as worthy of remembrance as those of the Decii, or Curtius, or Codrus, or any other hero of classic history or myth ? It was not Eleazar’s fault that his voluntary death inflicted no great injury on his enemies, did no particular service to his cause, and had no other notable effect than to “ get him a perpetual name,” and afford one of not too many examples of self-devotion. The highest Authority has said that “ greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

After reducing Beth-sura, where the garrison was compelled to capitulate, Lysias and the king besieged Jerusalem. It was the Sabbatical year of rest for the land; preceding harvests had been small, the country being but partly tilled and in great measure desolate; hence the city had been imperfectly provisioned, and numbers left it, owing to the scarcity of food. Its brave defenders were in extremity, when an unexpected cause, in no way of their producing, brought their relief.

Philip, whom Epiphanes on his death-bed had appointed regent in place of Lysias, returned from Egypt and was acknowledged by the troops who had been with the late king in the East, and who had now, by slow marches, made their way back : this party seized upon Antioch and prepared to keep it. This news, which Lysias prudently kept to himself, changed all his plans. It was by no means worth his while to go on besieging a provincial town when his power at home was threatened by a rival claimant. So, pretending that the king had come south with all his array merely to relieve the siege of his fortress Acra and to assert his authority, he made peace with Judas and was admitted withiu the city. Here he destroyed the fortifications of the temple, which was not in the terms of pacification ; but they could be built again, and the Jews were probably glad to get rid of him at no greater expense. Returning to Antioch, he speedily put down Philip and his pretensions, but foreign and domestic complications showed him the importance of having no more intestine strife along the eastern border of the

Mediterranean j ust then. To stop the tribal warfare and restore order, he took the strong measure of appointing Judas royal governor.

No man ever rose to power by a more genuine title. This is the way rulers were supposed to be made originally, a king being he who kens and can, that is, who knows and is able to perform. From the regent’s standpoint too (if he wished to manage the affairs of the kingdom rationally), it was a wise and safe selection; for Maccabeus was loyal enough to the constituted authorities, so long as they would let him be so. He was no fanatic; he had no illusions, no dreams of empire or national independence; he knew the time for these was long past. All he wanted was the free exercise of their religion for Israel, to be allowed to worship God in their own way, according to the laws of Moses. This granted, he would be a far more honest and capable servant of the king than the self-seeking parasites who usually held the posts of honor. But he accepted kings on sufference and of necessity; his Sovereign was in heaven.

JUDAS GOVERNOR.

The fugitive of the hills, the guerilla captain, the daring and defiant rebel, was now part of the system he had fought against, a king’s officer, holding his post by grace of the powers of this world. But such promotion could not change his principles, nor elate the man who took good and evil fortune as from above. Nor does it make him more honorable in our eyes. We honor character and conduct— bravery and fidelity, and devotion to a great cause—not titles and the trappings of office. And indeed the later history of this era is not so impressive as what has gone before. It is too complicated, too tangled with changing heathen politics, to stir the mind as does the story of those first brave fights for freedom. There is a falling off, too, which estranges our sympathies from most of the men of Israel; slackness here, foolish fanaticism there ; a decay of constancy and courage, not in the great leader, but in all except a few of those he led so well. It is sad to contemplate these declensions ; yet where is the cause that has not had its ups and downs of spiritual as well as of carnal fortune ? What heaven-appointed captaiu in the hosts of Right has been served with uniform capacity and faithfulness ? And how many have left a record as spotless, as unbroken, as that of Judas Maccabeus ?

It is with satisfaction that we take leave of Menelaus, the renegade, the oppressor of his countrymen, the tool of heathen tyranny. When the first peace was made, he had attempted to resume his office as high-priest; but the Jews would have none of him, and he was driven to the citadel of Acra, where he did as much harm as he could, promoting attacks upon the temple. At the second peace he wished to be made governor of Judea; but Lysias, who had found him a doubtful adviser and an instrument apt to cut the hand that held it, was now convinced that one so detested by the Jews could be of no use to the government. He was convicted of treason and sentenced to the ash-tower at Berea, where he died,

probably by suffocation. With the Persians this strange punishment was confined to offenders of high rank; the Greeks of Syria used it more freely. He was succeeded by Alcimus, another priestly apostate,whom the men of Jerusalem declined to accept. Repulsed, he went to Antioch, to emulate the mischievous career of his predecessor.

Demetrius, the legitimate heir to the throne of Syria, had been a hostage at Rome from childhood. Finding the senate unwilling to assert his claim, he escaped from Italy, returned home, was acknowledged by the army, and put to death his young cousin, Antiochus V., and the regent Lysias. By reason of his long absence he knew little of Eastern affairs, and was ready to listen to the interested, not to say slanderous, accounts of Alcimus and other renegades, who easily persuaded him to believe that Judas was the creature of the late usurpers and the oppressor of all loyal servants of the new king. The high priest ended his harangue with these words: “As long as Judas liveth, it is not possible that the state should be quiet.”

Inflamed by these misrepresentations, the king sent forth Bacchides, governor of Mesopotamia, with a great

SUFFOCATION OF MENELAUS.

army. This general had had experience of Maccabeus of old, and feared him; therefore, taking the advice of Alcimus, he made peaceful propositions, by which Judas was much too wise to be beguiled. Not so, however, with the people.

The evil times were come again, and in one respect they were worse than before, for the faithful were no longer united. They had enjoyed a taste of peace, and wanted no more war: believing that their faith was not endangered, they saw no reason for further resisting the authorities. This was a personal matter mainly; why should the nation be forced into conflict for the sake of a few men, or of one ? Puffed up with a little recent prosperity, they disregarded the warnings of Judas, and probably felt, as had some of old toward Moses, that he “took too much upon” him. Even the Hassidim or pietists, formerly his warmest supporters and stoutest fighters, shared these views. When Bacchides, with all politeness and assurances of safety, invited the chief men to a conference, sixty of them insisted on going, and were treacherously slain. Among these was Jose ben Joezer, president of the Sanhedrim and uncle of Alcimus. One of the Hebrew books (the Midrash) relates a verbal encounter between these two. As the aged priest was led to execution, the scaffold preceding him, his apostate nephew, finely mounted, called .a halt and thus addressed the martyr: “Look at the horse my master has •given me, and that on which your Master will presently make you ride! ” "“If thus to those who offend Him,” Jose answered, “how much more to those -who obey Him! ”—referring to the rewards of the righteous in another life. The-traitor could not- forbear another sneer: “And who has ever obeyed Him more faithfully than you?” The reply came in another epigram: “If thus to those who obey Him, how much more to those who offend Him!”—implying the punishments of sin, here or hereafter.

THE TRAITOR ALCIMUS.

The foolish treachery of these murders opened the eyes of the Jews, who would now have no more to do with the king’s emissaries, but said: “ There is neither truth nor righteousness in them, for they have broken the covenant and oath that they made.” So Bacchides, having accomplished nothing further, went back to Antioch, pausing at Bethesda to slaughter certain Jews and deserters. He left Alcimus with force enough to commit several outrages, until Judas went out and drove him away.

Next came Nicanor with a great army, swollen on the way by Jewish renegades, who were always ready to fight their countrymen when there was not much danger. Simon, being sent out against him, drew off his army, •dreading to give battle; and Simon’s greater brother, no less judicious than valiant, delayed the combat till it should be inevitable. On his side, Nicanor, like Bacchides, remembered a former defeat, and was so disinclined to strife

( '

SIXTY JEWISH RULERS SLAIN BY BACCHIDES.

with Judas that he presently made peace, and remained for some time in Jerusalem as a friendly visitor.

This state of things did not suit Alcimus; he again complained to the king, who ordered his general at once to resume hostilities. Nicanor, finding himself in danger from his master’s wrath and driven by necessity, endeavored by wiles to entrap Judas, whose prudence escaped the snare. At length the armies met in the field, with a loss to the Syrians of five thousand.

THE VISION OF JUDAS—JEREMIAH WITH THE GOLDEN SWORD.

But the victory of Judas was not complete: desertions left him weak, and he moved northward with a small company, while Nicanor returned to Jerusalem, full of boasts, and threatening to destroy the temple, unless the rebel chief was given into his hands. The city was now in sore straits: some Jewish writers claim that the 74th, 79th and 80th Psalms (in our Bible credited to Asaph) are products of this period.

THE END OF N1CANOR.

At length the Syrian general mustered courage to seek in the field his ancient foe, his recent friend; for it is recorded that during their late intimacy in the holy city “he would not willingly have Judas out of his sight, for he loved the man from his heart; he prayed him also to take a wife and to beget children; so he married, was quiet, and took part in this life.” But those days of peace were over for both, and the earthly end of each was near. Nicanor’s heart was now full of bitterness. He had a mixed army, including many Jews who were there by compulsion rather than of choice; some of these begged him not to fight on the Sabbath. Then he asked them “if there was a mighty God in heaven, who had commanded the Sabbath-day to be kept.” And when they answered according to their faith, he said, “And I also am mighty upon earth, and I command to take arms, and to serve the king.”

The battle was on the anniversary of Israel’s deliverance from Hainan’s plot, recorded in the book of Esther. The night before—it was near Beth-horon, on the border of Samaria—Judas saw in a dream or vision the high priest Onias and the prophet Jeremiah, who gave him a golden sword, as a gift from God, with which he should smite his enemies. With this tale he so mightily encouraged his men that they attacked with fury. At the first onset Nicanor fell, and his troops fled in a panic; “so that fighting with their hands, and praying unto God with their hearts, they slew no less than thirty and five thousand men.” The countryside joined in the pursuit, and, according to one account, not a man of the enemy was left alive. Nicanor’s head and right hand were carried to Jerusalem, and fastened on the tower in public view—a hideous vengeance, which too long prevailed do less in Christian lands.

After this came a brief period of peace, which the conqueror knew could not long endure. Statesman as well as warrior, he measured the past and future with an unerring eye. In the days of persecution, when the temple was profaned and the voice of praise silenced, when the people had to deny the faith or die, they were ready to take the sword in hand and fight with the courage of desperation. But now they had Jerusalem; the old order was re-established; the smoke of idol- sacrifice arose no more, or only from voluntary altars. The war had scarcely any longer a religious character, and diplomacy was taking, or might take, the place of arms. Few of the people cared to go on fighting, and yet the terrible king of Syria would soon send another army, which Judas could not hope to meet. What was to be done but to invoke the mighty power of Rome ? That distant republic was destined to control the world; already its emissaries were everywhere; the greatest kings paid it tribute, aud appealed to it in their disputes. It was heathen, but so were all thrones and potentates ; the one God had not seen fit to give his saints the dominion of the earth. The Senate was true to its allies and terrible to its enemies, and more just than the monarchs of Asia. Once before now they had

JUDAS’ LAST BATTLE.

interposed in affairs of Judea, sanctioning the first peace made by Lysias, and demanding a deputy to be sent to meet their ambassadors at Antioch. What other succor was to be sought on earth ? And it might be asking too much of heaven to fight all their battles almost without humau implements. Surely it was God’s will that His servants should serve Him with such intelligence, such native strength, such extraneous aids, as they could command.

In reasoning thus, the vanquisher of so many Syrian armies showed himself possessed of a modest, a well-balanced, a progressive mind ; one capable of learning, beyond the narrow prejudices of the past, and nowise puffed up by the laurels he had won. Accordingly he chose two men who had had experience in this sort of work, and sent them to Rome “to make a league of amity and confederacy.” The ambassadors were entirely successful, and this alliance soon secured peace for Israel, when her chief defender was no more.

Yet this wise and needful measure excited disgust and wrath among those it was destined to deliver. The old-time Jew, when not indifferent to the faith and an imitator of foreign manners, was liable to stiffen into the most rigid of conservatives, if not the most fanatical of zealots. Few were able to take the happy mean with Judas. The Hassidim, true ancestors of the Pharisees, regarded their former leader almost as an apostate, because he courted the friendship of the Gentiles. Their chief man, Jochanan, said to him angrily, “ Is it not written, ‘ Cursed be he who placeth his dependence on flesh, while from the Lord his heart departeth ? ’ Thou and thine, I and mine, we represent the twelve tribes of Jehovah; and through us alone, I am assured, the Lord would have wrought wondrous]y.”

The soldier’s mighty heart must have sunk, not under the injustice of this rebuke, but beneath the desertion of friends and the ungrateful folly of his people. More keenly than ever he must have realized that the Lord whom he was accused of denying was his only defense, for vain was the help of man. Perhaps he felt that the end was near, and that it was not much he was leaving, as he went out to his last battle.

THE HERO’S LAST FJGHT.

For Demetrius had sent forth “the chief strength of his host,” a small but select body of twenty thousand foot and two thousand horse, being the noted right wing of his army, under Bacchides and Alcimus. After storming Masadoth and slaying many, they met Judas at Eleasa. He had but three thousand men, and of these near three-fourths, availing themselves of his magnanimity and of the command in Deuteronomy xx., verses 5 to 8, deserted him in his extremity. This time no vision from on high, no promise of victory, encouraged him; but his ending was as chivalrous as that of any crusading knight. “ When he saw that his host slipped away, and that the battle

pressed upon him, he was sore troubled in mind and much distressed, for that he had no time to gather them together. Nevertheless unto them that remained he said, ‘ Let us arise, and go up against our enemies, if peradven- ture we may be able to fight with them.’ But they strove to dissuade him, saying, ‘We shall never be able: let us now rather save our lives, and hereafter we will return with our brethren, and fight against them; for we are but few.’ Then Judas said, ‘God forbid that I should do this thing, and flee away from them: if our time be come, let us die manfully for our brethren, and not stain our honor.’ With that the host of Bacchides removed out of their tents and stood over against them, their horsemen being in two troops, .. and their slingers

^aud
archers z°ⁱⁿs

before the host; and they that marched in the van weie all mighty men.” Their right wing was led by Bacchides in person; this Judas routed, and pursued toward Azotus. But the Syrian lieutenant length- K'JI ra ^y \ - ened his line and pg f,i i-npH it, so that rJffc.'Xi?-*' ,the Jews were

'"xyffllrB ~~^{v soon} surrounded.

^*^M^HThe little band '— “^“^^^^were as one to-

EARIyY CHRISTIAN TEACHING. , , -

twenty-seven of

their foes: with these odds it is scarcely credible that “tne battle continued from morning till night.” The survivors, led by Jonathan and Simon, seem even to have kept the field; for they recovered their brother’s body, “and buried him in the sepulchre of his fathers at Modin. And all Israel made great lamentations for him, and mourned many days, saying, ‘ How is the valiant fallen, that delivered Israel!’ ”

His ending was the fit close to a noble and unsullied career. In all that is recorded of Judas there is no word to his dispraise; and it was his privilege to “crown a goodly life with a fair death.” The subsequent history of

Judea was built up on the foundation which he laid. His brothers succeeded to his leadership, Jonathan from 161 to 144 B. C., and Simon from 144 to 135; and Simon’s descendants, known as the Asmonean dynasty (from Asmoneus the great-grandfather of Mattathias, who began the revolt against persecution), were princes and kings in their native country for a century or more. For a little time after Judas’ death the land was sorely troubled, till the Romans intervened and stopped the war; and in 143 B. C. the king of Syria formally acknowledged the independence of Judea.

D^M^TRICS.

CHAPTER III.

THE AGE OP THE APOSTLES.

OR nearly the first three hundred years of her existence the Church of Christ endured persecution passively. The Master’s direction had been plain: “I say unto you, that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.”

This ordinance, which has not been held as of permanent obligation, was at least considered binding on believers during the first centuries, and especially in their relations with the heathen. For this (if one may venture to analyze the motives of a divine command), there were two reasous. One was of obvious policy; any other line of conduct would have been suicidal. To resist the mighty power of the Roman empire, which then included almost all the known world, was to invite extinction; had the adherents of the new faith assumed the attitude of rebellion, their religion, humanly speaking, would have been wiped out.

The other reason for non-resistance took a higher view, and looked to inward principles and moral effect. The cardinal doctrines of the Gospel were the universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of men; one of its chief practical aims was to cultivate the hitherto almost unknown virtues^- of gentleness, patience, forgiveness, charity. The world had held these softer graces in contempt; its ideal was military; the qualities men admired were sternness, force, self-assertion. The desired change could be brought about only by teaching and example. According to the plan of Jesus, each of His disciples was to be a “living epistle”— a missionary and evangelist, showing forth his belief in his walk and conversation. In dealing with the heathen, he was to remember that they were uninstructed, that they had not his lights: how should they follow the way of Truth, unless it were shown to them ? How learn that love was superior to hate, except by seeing the fruits of the new law in human lives ? He was to “ teach them better then, or bear with them.”

The results of this lofty and generous policy were wonderful, as we shall see by frequent examples. From a mere human viewpoint, it was a rash and desperate experiment, to try to vanquish paganism by submitting meekly to all that it could inflict; but it succeeded. The old rule of strife and violence was overthrown by its victims. Their dream, their Master’s promise, that

“ into gentleness should rise The world that roughly cast them down,”

was fulfilled. Within ten generations the Church had conquered.

But the ten generations had to pass, the “ ten great persecutions ” to be endured, before this end could be attained. “ The noble army of martyrs ” had to be enrolled, and through various crosses to win their crowns. The sad, and in one view monotonous, catalogue of cruel sufferings had to be written out on the pages of history. The first followers of Jesus knew what they must expect. They had seen their Leader bear the contradiction of sinners, the malignant hatred of Scribes and Pharisees, and die like a base-born murderer or a fugitive slave. The disciple was not above his Master. “If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you,” was, as has been well said, the warning of common sense. •

If any of them needed to learn this lesson, their eyes must have been opened by the fate of deacon Stephen, and not long after, by that of St. James the elder. The source whence their earliest troubles were to come was plain in view. The temper of the Jews, as has been said, was fierce and narrow, ready on slight occasion to contract into bitter bigotry. Most of their ruling men, while rigidly adhering to the letter of their law, knew little of its spirit, and were eager to brand any innovation, any liberal interpretation even, as heresy and blasphemy. From first to last they were opponents and haters of the Gospel. The gentle elements which were not lacking in their sacred books had found no lodgment in their hearts. Slaves of tradition and of a frozen orthodoxy, the warm and wide teachings of the Son of Man appealed to

ST. PETER.

them only to rouse angry repulsion and denial. So well was the national character known in the outside world, that the origin of Christianity long injured the reputation of its adherents, who were regarded as a Jewish sect, and credited with the Jewish vices of scarcely concealed disloyalty to government and hatred of mankind

THE WORLD AGAINST THE CHURCH.

This fact may in part explain the hostility of Roman officials everywhere, and of the mass of their subjects. But other causes were not far to seek. The ancient world knew nothing of the rights of conscience: that an individual should presume to think for himself on matters within the range of custom and legislation was an offense almost unheard of. The genius of the Greeks, and still more of the Romans, was political; religion was an engine of the state; the human being was first of all a citizen or a subject. Much has been said of the tolerant spirit of heathenism ; but this had its limits. Cicero, who did as much private thinking as any man of his time, states this rule: “ No man shall have separate gods of his own, and no man shall worship new or foreign gods, unless they have been publicly acknowledged by the laws of the stated As Rome went on conquering the world, there was a gradual, though usually prompt, recognition of foreign deities, and a fusing of the religions of various tribes and provinces with that of the old republic ; but all these had the sanction of long continuance and acceptance, and new additions were forbidden. Judaism, among others, was tolerated, and in a way respected, though its votaries were greatly disliked ; but Christianity never was licensed or allowed until it was recognized by Gallienus as one of the religiones licit(s—it could not be, because it could not mix with the various forms of paganism. And thus it came under the condemnation of the eminent jurist, Julius Paulus : “ Those who introduced new religions, or such as were unknown in their tendency or nature, by which men’s minds might be disturbed, if men of rank, were degraded; if in lowly station, were put to death.”

Maecenas, the patron of Virgil and Horace, a man of high character and great liberality, long the friend and favorite of the Emperor Augustus, thus advised that monarch, according to the historian Dion Cassius: “Honor the gods, by all means, according to the customs of your country, and compel others thus to honor them. Hate and punish those who introduce anything foreign in religion; not only for the sake of the gods, since they who despise them will hardly reverence any others, but because they who bring in new divinities mislead many into receiving also foreign laws. Hence arise conspiracies and secret meetings, which are of great injury to the state. Suffer no man either to deny the gods, or to practice sorcery.”

Such being the ideas which ruled the world at the era when the new faith began its career, it was impossible that it should escape the jealousy of monarchs and the lash of executioners. It was a novelty, and therefore against the laws;

it was exclusive, and therefore it must be put down. However meekly submissive its followers, they were certain to be accused of treason; though models of piety, they were long branded as atheists.

It is to be remembered that heathens did not, and without illumination could not, understand the Christian position ; j ust as we, who breathe a Christian atmosphere and live in a society permeated by Christian influences, can only by some historical knowledge enter into the mental condition of the pagans of eighteen hundred years ago. With them, religion was a matter of outward observance ; with us—if we have really heeded the Master’s teachings —it is mainly a matter of heart and life. With us, individual freedom, within wide and defined limits, is a matter of course, and the interference of the state in the domain of thought, speech or worship would be an impertinence; with them it was just the other way. The spirituality of the Gospel, its appeal to unworldly motives, were to the heathen strange and incomprehensible; they stood amazed before its lack of temples and images ; they deemed it marvelous that men, yes, and women and children too, should lay down their lives rather than go through a harmless (and possibly meaningless) form, like casting a little incense upon an altar. Of this obtuseness of theirs, this deep and wide gulf between the two positions, we shall see abundant illustrations. And yet this very strangeness of the Christian principles helped to win many converts, and in time the general victory.

It is not to be supposed that persecution was incessant: the Church had intervals of repose. Nor must we think that it was always formal and universal. Now and then an emperor would issue edicts, and order his officials in every province to proceed against the followers of the Nazarene; sometimes a proconsul or inferior officer, out of personal zeal or malice, might institute inquiries and apply punishments; often the fury of the populace would burst forth, and the believers in that region would suffer before tribunals incited to act, like Pilate, by the force or fear of local opinion. When Alexander of Pontus found that trade was dull and customers listless, he urged the people to stone “the atheists,” and thus avert the anger of the gods. The similar device of Demetrius, who made images of Diana for the temple at Ephesus, is recorded in the nineteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. A flood, a famine, an earthquake, or a pestilence would be ascribed to the wickedness of the new sect. St. Augustine quotes an African proverb, “If it does not rain, lay it to the Christians.” And even a learned man like Porphyry, eminent in the third century as a new-Platonist, could credit an infectious disease to the spread of the new religion, which prevented Esculapius, the god of healing, from attending efficiently to his business.

As for the literary enemies of the Gospel, who probably did no great harm, their mode of warfare was legitimate, and they were abundantly answered by the Christian apologists. We may judge of the force of their reasoning by this specimen from the famous Celsus: “ One must be weak indeed, to fancy that Greeks and barbarians in Asia, Europe, and Africa can ever unite under the same system of religion.” It was not argument that the Church had to fear, but the power of the sword, the strength of ancient prejudice, the intolerance of new ideas, and the depravity of human nature.

After these introductory remarks, needful to explain the causes and motives of so much bitter enmity to the most inoffensive of beings, and to a scheme which aimed only to promote human welfare in this world and in the next, we go on to offer, in order of time, a view of the chief attacks and the most noted or notable victims.

Tertullian, an African priest who lived from about 160 to 245 A.'D., tells an impossible tale of the Emperor Tiberius having proposed to admit Christ among the deities of Rome, and threatened penalties against any who should accuse his followers as such. Passing this fable, we come to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome under Claudius, A. D., 53. Suetonius says they were “ constantly raising tumults, at the instigation of Christusthis seems to indicate that the Christians were confounded with the Jews, and the Author of their faith with a man then living. At that time, and long after, the Romans,: even the best and wisest of them, had little real information concerning the new sect, and would have thought it beneath their dignity to inquire.

RUINS OF THE INTERIOR OF THE ROMAN FORUM.

PERSECUTION UNDER NERO.

This fact is curiously illustrated by a famous passage in the Annals of Tacitus, describing the first great persecution, under Nero, A. D. 64. That bad emperor was generally suspected of having caused the late conflagration in Rome. Tacitus says: “ The infamy of that horrible affair still adhered to him. In order, if possible, to remove the imputation, he determined to transfer

the guilt to others. With this view

crew of profligate and abandoned st. paul. wretches, who were induced to con

fess themselves guilty; and on their testimony a number of Christians were convicted, not on clear evidence of having set the city on fire, but rather on account of their sullen hatred of the whole human race. They were put to death with extreme cruelty, and to their agonies Nero added mockery and derision. Some were covered with the skins of wild beasts, and left to be devoured by dogs; others were nailed to crosses; numbers were burnt alive; and many, smeared with inflammable materials, were used as torches to illumine the night. The emperor lent his own gardens for this tragic spectacle; he added the sports of the circus, driving a chariot, and then mingling with the crowd in his coachman’s dress. At length the cruelty of these proceedings filled every breast with pity. Humanity relented in favor of the Christians. Their manners were no doubt pernicious, and their evil deeds called

for punishment; but it was evident that they were sacrificed, not to the public welfare, but to the rage and cruelty of one man.”

This extract from the great historian gives memorable witness both to the atrociJies.of Nero and to the slanders then generally believed. Neander thinks that many of these “living torches” and other victims of the tyrant may have been accused as Christians without being so. There was evidently no regular inquiry, and no aim at what the laws called justice: the hated name of Christian might conveniently be bestowed on any malefactor or person of evil repute.

Tradition connects the death of the two chief apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, with this persecution; and Canon Farrar fancies that St. John also may have beheld these horrid scenes, and described them, in a large poetical way, in the Apocalypse. We may cite an eloquent paragraph from Dr. Farrar’s “ Early Days of Christianity: ”

“A great French artist has painted a picture of Nero walking with his lictors through the blackened streets of Rome after the conflagration. He represents him, as he was in mature age, in the uncinctured robe with which, to the indignation of the noble Romans, he used to appear in public. He is obese with selfindulgence. Upon his coarsened features rests that dark cloud which they must have often worn when his conscience was most tormented by the furies of his murdered mother and his murdered wives. Shrinking back among the ruins are two poor Christian slaves, who watch him with looks in which disgust and detestation struggle with fear. The picture puts into visible form the feelings of horror with which the brethren must have regarded one whom they came to consider as the incarnate instrument of satanic antagonism against God and His Christ,— as the deadliest and most irresistible enemy of all that is called holy or that is worshipped.

ST. MATTHEW.

“ Did St. John ever see that frightful spectacle of a monster in human flesh ? Was he a witness of the scenes which made the circus and the gar, dens of Nero reek with the fumes of martyrdom? Tradition points in that direction. In the silence which falls over many years of his biography, it is possible that he may have been compelled by the Christians to retire from the menace of the storm before it actually burst over their devoted heads. St. Paul, as we believe, was providentially set free from his Roman imprisonment just in time to be preserved from the first outburst of the Neronian persecution. Had it not been for this, who can tell whether St. Paul and St. John and St. Peter might not have been clothed in the skins of wild beasts

to be torn to pieces by the bloodhounds of the amphitheatre, or have stood, each in his pitchy tunic, to form one of those ghastly human torches which flared upon the dark masses of the abominable crowd?

“But even if St. John never saw Rome at this period, many a terrified fugitive of the vast multitude which Tacitus mentions must have brought hixrj tidings about those blood-stained orgies in which the Devil, tht. Beast, and the False Prophet— ‘that great Anti-Trinity of Hell’ —were wallowing through the mystic Babylon in the blood of the martyrs of the Iyord.”

It will be noticed that Dr. Farrar believes St. Paul to have escaped this persecution. His death, however, occurred about this time, or not long after, and by decapitation, probably without scourging or other torture ; that being the privilege of a Roman citizen, and he having been “free bom,” as he told the centurion (Acts xxii. 28).

DEATHS OF THE APOSTLES. -

St. Peter is popularly supposed to have perished with St. Paul. The traditional account, partly collected by Eusebius and St. Jerome, and not traced farther back than the third century, is that he was bishop of Antioch from A. D. 35 to

ST. JOHN'.

43> and then went to Rome, where he presided over the local church. But he was not at the capital of the world when St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans, A. D. 58, nor during St. Paul’s imprisonment there, A. D. 61 to 63, nor at the date of his own Epistles, A. D. 66 and 67 ; and it is not absolutely certain that he was ever in Rome at all. A legend, wholly unreliable as history but beautiful as poetry, relates that he escaped from the city during the horrors under Nero, and on the road met a form bearing a cross. By the moonlight he recognized

RUINS OF DOMITIAN’S PALACE.

the bleeding brow, the pierced hands and feet. Trembling, he asked, “ Master, whither goest Thou ? ” The apparition answered, “ I go to Rome, to be crucified again, and in thy place.” By this he knew his Lord’s will, and returned to meet his doom. When his time came, he asked to be fastened to the cross head downward, saying, “ I, that denied my Lord, am not worthy to suffer in the same posture as He.” The probability is that he was martyred at Rome, A. D. 67 or later, after a mere visit or brief residence there.

Meantime St. James the Less, “the brother of the Lord,” had met his fate in Jerusalem, where he was bishop, and greatly honored by the Jews for his lofty integrity and strict observance of the Law, being called “The Just.” Josephus says that he was stoned to death, having been condemned by the Sanhedrim at the instigation of Ananus the high priest, a Sadducee, who for thus exceeding his authority was rebuked by Albinus the Roman governor, and deposed from his office by King Agrippa II. This was in A. D. 63. Hegesippus, the earliest of church historians, who wrote about A. D. 175, and fragments of whose work were preserved by Eusebius, asserts (what seems improbable) that the Scribes and Pharisees asked St. James to restrain the people from “wandering after Jesus the Crucified.”

“ And he answered in a loud voice, ‘ Why do ye ask me again about Jesus the Son of Man ? He both sits in the heavens on the right hand of the Mighty Power, and He will come on the clouds of heaven.’ And when many had been fully assured, and were glorifying God at the witness of James, and saying: ‘ Hosanna to the Son of David! ’ then the Scribes and Pharisees began to say to one another, ‘ We have made a mistake in offering such a testimony to Jesus. Come, let us go up and cast him down, that they may be afraid, and not believe him.’ And they cried out, saying, ‘ Alas, even the Just one has gone astray! ’ And they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah, ‘Let us away with the Just, for he is inconvenient to us.’ They went up therefore, and flung him down ” [from the battlements of the temple]. “And they began to stone him, since he did not die from being thrown down, but knelt, saying, ‘ Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ But while they were thus stoning him, one of the priests, 01 the sons of Rechab, cried out, ‘ Cease! What are ye doing ? The righteous one is praying for you.’ But one of the fullers, lifting up the club which he used to beat out clothes, brought it down on the head of the Just. So he bore witness; and they buried him on the spot, beside the sanctuary. He was a true witness to Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ. Immediately afterwards ” [z'. e., six or seven years later, A. D. 70,] “ Vespasian besieged Jerusalem.”

The other St. James, the son of Zebedee, had been beheaded (probably at Jerusalem, about A. D. 45), as recorded in Acts xii. 2. Clement of Alexandria says that the executioner, moved by his example, professed himself a Christian, and tut two suffered together.

For the earthly endings of the other apostles and their companions we are indebted to traditional accounts, which sometimes vary. According to these doubtful legends, St. Philip was tied to a pillar and stoned by the Jews of Hier- apolis in Phrygia (Asia Minor), A. D. 54. Barnabas, for some time the comrade and co-worker of St. Paul, perished at the hands of a mob stirred up by a Jewish sorcerer in the island of Cyprus, A. D. 64; after misusing him in various ways, they put a rope roundhis neck, dragged him out of the city of Salamina, and

burned him. In the same year St. Mark the Evangelist, having labored at Alexandria in Egypt, endured similar treatment, and died on his way to the fire.

Epaphras, Aristarchus, Prisca (or Priscilla), Aquila, Andronicus, and Junia, all fellow-1 aborers of St. Paul and mentioned in his Epistles, are said to have

and then beheaded. ⁷ ’ st.jws theless.

St. Thomas, who would not believe that his Master had risen from the dead till he had the evidence of the senses, is thought to have labored in India, where a sect of native Christians long bore his name. In that region, beyond the bounds of Alexander’s conquests, the idol-priests accused him to their king. He was tortured with red-hot plates, then cast into an oven ; and when they saw (according to the legend) “ that the fire did not hurt him, they pierced his side, as he lay in the furnace, with spears and javelins.” St. Jerome says that his body, unconsumed, was buried there, at a town called Calamina.

St. Matthew the Evangelist was sent to Ethiopia, and there, after zealous labors, was nailed to the ground and beheaded at Naddavar under King Hytacus. St. Simon the Canaanite, sumamed Zelotes, is said to have been crucified in Syria; his brother Judas or Jude, sumamed Lebbeus or Thaddeus (the author of the Epistle), preached in Persia, and was beaten to death by the pagan priests there.

Of the other apostles, St. Andrew, Peter’s brother, is said to have been crucified at Patrae in Achaia (Greece), by order of the proconsul Egoeus. Some pious fancy of later days has put these words into his mouth : “ O Cross, most welcome and long looked for, willingly and joyfully I come to thee, being the scholar of Him who did hang on thee; for I have always been thy lover, and have coveted to embrace thee.”

St. Matthias, who took the place of Judas the traitor and suicide, is thought to have gone further into Africa than any other, and there to have been stoned and beheaded.

Other Christians said to have suffered in Nero’s time were Prochorus, Nicanor, and Parmenas, three of the seven deacons ; Trophimus and Carpus, friends or converts of St. Paul; Matemus and Egystus, two of the seventy disciples, and many more.

sT Bartholomew. the Evangelist is said to have

been hanged to an olive-tree in Greece, at the age of eighty-four; and St. John, banished to the isle of Patmos, saw the visions which he recorded in the closing book of the New Testament. Special interest attaches to the fate of one who is mentioned in the message to the Church in Pergamos, a city in Mysia, the northwestern province of Asia Minor: “Thou holdest fast My name, and hast not

denied My faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was slain among you,where Satan dwelleth” (Revelation ii. 13). The legend is that this Antipas was enclosed in a brazen ox or bull, like that of Phalaris, the tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily, B. C. 552. This metallic image being hollow, a fire was built beneath it, and the victim thus slowly roasted.

Timothy, whom St. Paul called his “own son in the faith,” and to whom he addressed two Epistles, became bishop of Ephesus, and was there stoned, probably about A. D. 95, though some say earlier.

At Ravenna in Italy Ursinius, a physician, refused to sacrifice to the gods and was sentenced. Under terror of death his faith was failing, when Vitalus, a native of Milan, who had come to Ravenna in the suit of the magistrate Paulinus, thus addressed him : “ My brother, often by your potions you have healed the sick: take heed now, lest by denying Christ you sink to eternal death.” At this Ursinius regained his courage and laid his head upon the block." Vitalus was soon after tortured and buried alive, and his widow, Valina, beaten to death. Romulus, bishop of Fesula in Italy, suffered about this time; and in France, Nicasius bishop of Rouen, with Quirinus a priest, Scubiculus a deacon, and Pascientia a virgin; and at Bellovaci, north of Paris, Lucian the bishop, with two of his presbyters, Maximian and Julian.

EMPEROR DOMITIAN,

CHAPTER IV.

TRAJAN AND IGNATIUS. •

' NDER Nerva, the first of tlie five good emperors, the Church enjoyed a brief respite. He put down informers, forbade slaves to testify against their masters, punished such as had done so, and released from imprisonment or exile those who had been accused merely as Christians. But a new law of his successor, Trajan, published A. D. 99, forbidding secret societies, was easily directed against the followers of Jesus, and many suffered in this reign. The most illustrious of these was Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who loved to call himself Theophoros, or God-bearer. He was a pupil of St. John, a man of apostolic character, ¹ with much of his teacher’s simplicity and sweetness, deeply revered (as his memory is still) in the Church, a pure type of that intense unworldliness and spiritual zeal which sometimes ran to the excess of disregarding, if not despising, this present life. The emperor being at Antioch, and thinking that the new sect required looking after, summoned its local head to his presence, and this colloquy ensued: “Who are you, poor devil,” said Trajan, “who are so willfully transgressing our decree, and also tempting others to their destruction ? ”

Ignatius answered: “ No one calls him who bears a God within him ‘poor devil,’ for the devils turn away from the servants of God. But if you mean that I am evil inclined toward the devils, and that I give them trouble, I confess it. For, having Christ as my heavenly King, I set at nought the plots of evil spirts.”

Caught by a phrase, the emperor asked: “And who is this that bears a god within him ? ”

“He that has Christ in his heart,” the bishop answered.

Said Trajan: “Do not we seem to have gods in our minds, seeing we use them as allies against our enemies ? ”

It was a point with the early Christians to regard the heathen deities not as poetic fictions, but as real and evil beings. Unflinching, Ignaties replied: “ The devils of the nations you call gods through a mistake. For there is

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one God that made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, the Only Begotten; of whose kingdom may I be a sharer! ”

“ You mean Him who was crucified under Pontius Pilate?”

Said Ignatius: “Him who hath crucified my sin with the author of it, and hath put down all devilish error and evil under the feet of those that bear Him in-their hearts.”

The novelty of this idea —for any spiritual idea was novel to the politically-minded

Roman—still amused and ) A»-j

puzzled Trajan. Humorously,

as one who answers a fool ac- (

cording to his folly, he again

asked: “Do you carry the

Crucified One in yourself,

then?” vli

“Yea, verily, for it was written, ‘ I will dwell in them and walk in them.’”

By this time the emperor hadhad enough of what seemed to him crazy nonsense. He ended the interview by saying,

“We decree that Ignatius, who says he bears the Crucified One within him, be led bound to Rome, there to be the food of trajan.

wild beasts.”

What seems to us the brutality of Trajan’s part in this dialogue should be credited not so much to the man as to the monarch, and chiefly to the age,—which was like all ancient ages. We must remember that the state was eveiything, the individual nothing. The dignity of office, character, and conviction which, to our minds, shines brightly in Ignatius was invisible to heathen eyes. The emperor saw before him only a dangerous fanatic, a blasphemer of the gods, a defier of the laws, an upsetter of that religion which was a prop and portion of the institutions of the empire. As Professor Maurice observes, the creed which the bishop of Antioch proclaimed, in the view of the Roman ruler, “ went altogether beyond the limits within which opinions might be safely tolerated: it united the perils of the definite and the indefinite: it carried you to a depth which no plummet-line could sound; yet it bore directly upon the common life and common relations of men.” Any officer of the state would

have been likely to decide as Trajan did. He was no bloodthirsty wretch like Nero and Domitian; he has the fame of a just and wise monarch. We

shall see, within this same century, an emperor far more humane and devout than Trajan issuing edicts against the Christians, and, at least indirectly, causing the . blood of some of their best to flow. What we are called upon to abhor in these persecutions is not the men who ordered or conducted them, but the false idea from which they proceeded, the imperfect system which made them necessary:—a system and a set of ideas

FORUM OF TRAJAN. which dl-

dured for centuries, and which only Christianity, understood as it has been only in modem times, could displace by something infinitely better.

A JOURNEY TO DEATH.

The westward journey of Ignatius was by slow stages and under a guard, to one or other of whom he was fastened, as none but desperate criminals

are now. “From Syria even unto Rome,” lie wrote, “ I fight with beasts both by sea and land, both night and day; being chained to ten leopards, that is to say, to a band of soldiers, who, the kinder I am to them, are the worse to me. But I am the more instructed by their injuries: yet am I not therefore justified.”

However painful the trials of the route, its fruits were abundant and most precious. If Trajan aimed, by sending the condemned so far from home, to

RUINS OF ANTIOCH.

avoid the effect which his execution in his own city might produce, and to terrify the people of those through which he passed, he was much mistaken: the result was rather to spread the infection through Asia Minor. The eminence of the victim and the strange measure of his deportation were, to use our modem language, an admirable advertisement for the Christian faith, which could not have had a more brilliant examplar. His weary march was almost a triumphal progress; wherever his escort stopped, the bishops, clergy, and their flocks came to express their sympathy and to beg the martyr’s blessing.

On the way he found opportunity to write several of those letters which are by far the most remarkable of the early Christian writings outside of the New Testament, and nearest to the style and spirit of those inspired books. The genuineness of these letters has been questioned, and portions of them may be interpolated; but the more personal parts, relating to his feelings

_ and prospects, could not easily

have been imagined or imi- ‘' '• 4 ^ -.A,- I tated. They bear the unmis-

j.SF“ || || takable stamp of his singular

Imk character, his loving humility,

his triumphant and estatic faith; they thrill with the joy of anticipated martyrdom. Among all the meditations of saints, in the whole range of devotional literature, there is nothing more remarkable than these burning and adoring aspirations. If the tone seems strained and beyond the capacity of human nature, we must remember that such enthusiam was the life of the Church in that age of faith and of trial; and no less that these were no mere vaporings of a heated fancy, no vain imaginings of the distant and impossible, but the outpourings of a martyr on his way to execution. Hun- ■Hfcffi-v dreds at that era felt and acted

r'V ' and died as did Ignatius,

^ - HBlalJSS though they had not his

over the battlements genius, his poetic strain, his

wonderful power of expressing the rarest and sublimest thoughts.

To the Church at Smyrna he wrote: “The nearer I am to the sword, the nearer am I to God; when I shall come amoug the wild beasts, I shall come to God.” Hearing or suspecting that the Christians of Rome meditated an effort to save his life, he sent an epistle to dissuade them: “I fear your love, lest it do me an injury. For it is easy for you to do what you will; but it will be hard for me to attain unto God, if you spare me. Never again

shall I have such an opportunity; for if you but be silent in my behalf, I shall be made partaker of God; but if you will love my body, I shall have my course again to run. Wherefore ye cannot do me a greater kindness than to suffer me to be sacrificed, now that the altar is prepared; that when ye shall be gathered together in love, ye may give thanks to the Father, through Christ Jesus, that He has vouchsafed to bring a bishop of Syria unto you, being called from the east unto the west. For it is good for me to go from the world to God, that I may rise again to Him. Pray for me, that He may give me both inward aud outward strength, that I may not only speak, but will and act; nor be only called a Christian, but be found one. For if I be proved a Christian, I may then deserve to be called one; and be thought faithful, when I shall no longer appear to the world. I write to the churches, and signify to them all that I am willing to die for God, unless you hinder me. I beseech you that you show not an unseasonable good will toward me. Suffer me to be food to the wild beasts, by whom I shall attain unto God. For I am the wheat of God, and by the teeth of wild beasts I must be ground, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Rather encourage the beasts, that they may become my sepulchre, and may leave nothing of my body, that, being dead, I may not be troublesome to any. Then shall I be truly Christ’s disciple* when the world shall see me no more. Pray therefore to Christ for me, that by these instruments I may be made the sacrifice of God.

“ I do not, like Peter and Paul, command you. They were apostles, I a condemned man: they were free, but I am to this day a servant. But if I shall suffer, I shall then become the freeman of Christ, and shall rise free. May I enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me ! I wish they may exercise all their fierceness upon me. I will encourage them, that they may be sure to devour me, and not leave me as they have some, whom out of fear they have not touched. And if they will not do it willingly, I will provoke them to it. Pardon me in this matter: I know what is profitable for me. Now I begin to be a disciple; nor shall anything move me, whether visible or invisible, that I may attain to Christ. Let fire, and the cross ; let the companies of wild beasts, the breakings of bone and tearing of members ; let the shattering in pieces of the whole body, and all the wicked torments of the devil, come upon me; only let me enjoy Christ Jesus. All the goods of the world, and the kingdoms of it, will profit me nothing: I would rather die for Jesus than rule to the utmost ends of earth. Him I desire who died and rose for us. This is the gain that is laid up for me.

“Pardon me, my brethren: ye shall not hinder me from living. Suffer me to enter into pure light, where I shall be indeed the servant of God. Permit me to imitate the passion of my God. If any has Him within himself, let him consider what I desire, and have compassion on me, knowing how I am straitened. The

prince of this world would fain carry me away, and corrupt my resolution, Let none of you help him; rather join with me. For though I live, my desire is to die: my Love is crucified. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ; and the drink I long for is His blood, which is incorruptible love. I have no wish to live any longer after the manner of men ; neither shall I, if you consent. If I shall suffer, ye have loved me; but if I shall be rejected, ye have hated me.”

GATE OF ST. PAUL.

It must be admitted that these strange inversions, this turning upside down of ordinary feelings and motives, this putting of life for death, and death in place of life, are not according to modem ideas. Times change, and manners with them; the virtues of our day are practicality and common sense. Tried by this standard, Ignatius seems insane ; except that we have read something of this kind in the New Testament, and cherish it as a matter of theory, to our easy and

ARCH OF TITUS.

inexpensive faith his ardor may appear almost as remote, as impossible, as it did to Trajan. But this was the kind of faith that was needed in the days of martyrdom : this was the spirit which overturned paganism and conquered the world. Against such unworldly zeal as this, thrones and laws, emperors and executioners, were helpless.

At length, in A. D. 107 (or, as some reckon, 116), the Bishop of Antioch arrived at the Eternal City, and had his desire. Two doors were opened, t*c> lions rushed out; a moment, and only a few of his larger bones were left: these were gathered with reverent care and taken to the city where he had lived and taught. Thence, long after, they were brought back to Rome. We can fancy how, in the course of centuries and the corruption of faith, the loving gratitude felt for such examples led to the superstitious honors lavished on real or alleged relics of the saints.

PLINY’S FAMOUS LETTER.

Another document of the greatest historical importance is preserved to us from this reign. The younger Pliny, a noted scholar and author, a man of unblemished character, upright, courteous and humane, came in A. D. no as governor to Bithynia and Pontus, in the northern portion of Asia Minor. Perplexed by the spread of the new religion in those parts, and doubtful of the exact nature of his duty in regard to its suppression, he wrote to the emperor for instructions. His letter is of such value as a testimony to facts, otherwise imperfectly known at that early date, and as recording the attitude of thoughtful heathens, that we here give it entire:

“It is my constant custom to refer to you in all matters concerning which I have any doubt: for who can better direct me where I hesitate, or instruct me where I am ignorant? I have never been present at any trials of Christians; so that I know not well what is the subject-matter of punishment or of inquiry, or what strictures ought to be used in either. And I have been perplexed to determine whether any difference ought to be made on. account of age, or whether the young and tender, and the full-grown and robust, ought to be treated all alike: whether repentance should entitle to- pardon, or if all who have once been Christians should be punished, though they are now no longer so: whether the name itself, though no crimes, be detected, or only offenses belonging to the name, are exposed to penalties. As to all these things I am in doubt.

“Meantime, this is the course I have taken with all who have been, brought before me and accused as Christians: I have asked them whether they were so. On their confessing that they were, I repeated the question a second and third time, threatening them with death. Such as still persisted, I ordered to execution; for I had no doubt, whatever might be the nature of their opinion, that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be

punished. There were others of the same infatuation whom, because they were Roman citizens, I have appointed to be sent to Rome.

“In a short time, the crime spreading even when under persecution, as is usual in such cases, various sorts of people came in my way. An anonymous information was given me, containing the names of many who on examination denied that they were or ever had been Christians; they repeated after me an invocation of the gods, and with wine and frankincense made supplication to your image, which for that purpose I had caused to be brought and set before them, together with the statues of the gods. Moreover, they reviled the name of Christ; none of which things, it is said, they who are really Christians can by any means be compelled to do. These, therefore, I thought proper to discharge. Others, who were named by an informer, at first confessed themselves

were wont to meet scourging a CHRISTIAN.

together on a stated day before dawn, and sing among themselves alternately

(antiphonally) a hymn to Christ as God, and to bind themselves by a solemn.

oath, not to the commission of any wickedness ” [as was popularly supposed], “but to abstain from theft, perjury, and adultery; never to break their word, nor to deny a pledge or trust committed to them. After this they separated, and in the evening met again for a simple and orderly repast; but this they had forborne since the edict against assemblies.

“ After receiving this account, I thought it necessary to examine by torture two female slaves who were called ministers (deaconesses). But I have discovered nothing beyond an evil and excessive superstition. Suspending, therefore, all judicial proceedings, I turn to you for advice ; for it appears to me a matter highly deserving consideration, especially on account of the great number of persons who are in danger of suffering; for many of all ages, both sexes, and every rank, are or will be accused. Nor has the contagion of this superstition seized cities only, but the smaller towns too, and the open country. Still, it seems to me that it may be restrained and corrected. It is certain that the temples, which were almost forsaken, begin to be more frequented, and the sacred solemnities, after a long intermission, are revived. Victims likewise” [for the pagan sacrifices] “are everywhere bought up, whereas for some time there were few purchasers. Whence it is easy to imagine that numbers might be reclaimed, if pardon were granted to those who shall repent.”

Trajan’s answer was in these words: “You have taken the right method, my Pliny, in your proceedings with those who have been brought before you as Christians; for it is impossible to lay down any one rule that shall hold universally. They are not to be sought for. If any are brought before you, and are convicted, they ought street scene in antioch. to be punished. But he that denies

being a Christian, and makes it evident by offering supplications to our gods, though he be suspected to have been so formerly, let him be pardoned upon repentance. But in no case, of any offense whatever, accept an unsigned accusation ; for that would be a dangerous precedent, and unworthy of my government.”

Tertullian makes a sharp point against this decision :

“ O sentence of a confused necessity! As innocent, he would not have them to be sought for; and yet he causes them to be punished as guilty! ”

That is, if Christianity were a crime, its adherents ought to be searched out like any other criminals: if not, why punish them at all ? But Tra- j an’s cool statemanship was not concerned about the logic of the matter.

He did not

care to draw ^{IN THB CATACOMB 0F ST}- agnes.

increased attention to the new sect by undue inquiry; but when cases were

properly brought before the tribunals, the law must take its course. His high-

minded contempt for those who stab in the dark very properly ordered the disregard of anonymous charges, which were usually the offspring of cowardly malice; but no less he left the Christians at the mercy of informers who were willing to sign their accusations.

Among the reputed victims of Trajan’s decree were Simeon, bishop of Jerusalem, a very old man, who, after repeated scourgings, was crucified; and Phocas, bishop of Pontus, who, for refusing to sacrifice to Neptune, is said to have been cast into a hot limekiln, and then into a scalding bath. The punishments of this age, as of nearly all other persecuting times, were so varied and hideous in their cruelty that the details of them would often be intolerable to modem ears. Judges, inquisitors, and executioners were apt to display a devilish ingenuity in inventing new torments for the human frame, with the aim, too often successful, of inducing their victims to recant; and the position taken as a matter of course by the humane Pliny, that mere “ contumacy, or inflexible obstinacy ” was an offense deserving the heaviest penalty, exposed believers not merely to death, but to frightful and long-continued agonies. The idea, so firmly implanted in the general mind that it has given way only in recent times, that men have the right to impose opinions and beliefs upon their fellows, and that denial of the prevalent opinions is a crime, has made the history of religious differences the most scandalous in the annals of the race.

Among alleged martyrs under Trajan, about A. D. 107 and later, were several persons mentioned in the New Testament, who had attained to a great age. According to the ancient legends, Simon the son of Cleophas, a near relative of Jesus, was most cruelly treated by Atticus, governor of Judea, being beaten for several successive days. The executioners wondered at the endurance of a man said to be over a hundred years old: he was finally crucified. Onesimus, the fugitive slave for whom St. Paul pleaded in his Kpistle to Philemon, and the bearer of that letter and of the one to the Colossians, was taken from Ephesus to Rome, and there stoned. Dionysius the Areopagite, one of St. Paul’s converts (Acts xvii. 34) and bishop of Athens, was martyred there, or, as some say, at Paris. Rufus, one “chosen in the Lord” (Romans xvi. 13), with Zosimus, was beheaded at Philippi in Macedonia. The eunuch, who was treasurer of Queen Candace of Ethiopia, and received the gospel from Philip the deacon (Acts viii. 26-39), is reported by St. Jerome to have preached in Arabia and on an island in the Red Sea, where he is thought to have laid down his life for the faith.

Other victims during this reign were Publius of Athens; Barsimceus, bishop of Edessa in Mesopotamia, with Barbelius and Barba; Justus and -Pastor of Completum (now Alcala) in Spain: of these we have no particulars.

The third persecution is believed to have continued for a time under Trajan’s successor, Hadrian, who, however irregular in his conduct, was a firm

supporter of the ancient faith. The sufferings of the Christians in this reign were probably caused chiefly by popular clamor and the compliance of local governors, who found it easier, and perhaps more congenial, to grant than to resist the demand for blood. Two hundred are said to have been slain in Rome, and ten thousand on Mount Ararat. Among the more noted victims tradition mentions Symphorissa, who perished with her children being scourged, tied up by her hair, and then thrown into the river with a stone tied to her neck; and Eustachius a military officer, who on his return from a successful campaign was required by the emperor to sacrifice to Apollo for his victories, and refusing, was sent with his family to Rome and executed.

Eleutherus and his mother Anthea perished at Messina in Sicily ; and at Brescia in Italy, Calocerius, a heathen, seeing the patience of Faustinus and Jobita under torments, exclaimed:

“ Great is the God of the Christians!” and was presently put to death. These cases became so common that the victim’s blood was soon regarded by the Church as a sufficient substitute for his baptism.

Perhaps influenced by the apologies (treatises in defense of the faith) presented by Quadratus and Aristides, two learned Athenians, and more certainly in consequence of a complaint from Granianus, proconsul in Asia Minor, Hadrian, about A. D. 125, took measures to repress the popular fury, to punish false accusers, and to protect the Christians from all except the regular procedure of the courts on formal accusations.

Antoninus Pius, who reigned from 138 to 163, was a sovereign of the gentlest and purest character. A letter of doubtful genuineness expresses his

respect for those who “rather covet to die for their God than to live,” and in earthquakes and other public calamities “ are bold and fearless, much more than ” their heathen foes. Accordingly he—if this document be really the emperor’s—forbade the acceptance of accusations against Christians merely as such, and directed the punishment of those who brought them.

UNDERGROUND PASSAGE IN ROMAN FALACQ.

CHAPTER V.

MARCUS AURELIUS, THE STOIC.

^rHE Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180), in the character of a persecutor, presents an anomaly that has puzzled many. To judge him by the fact that the Church suffered heavily during his reign is to form a hopelessly false view of one of the noblest, purest, and sweetest spirits that ever tenanted a human form. A professed philosopher, his philosophy was no tissue of pretence and pedantry, but an earnest effort to learn how to live and die aright. In him the pride of Stoicism was softened to humility, and its ancient harshness to tender charity. Rigorous with himself, he was forever making excuses for those he could not reform. His Meditations, written only for his own eye, contain as much wisdom and piety as any volume outside of Holy Writ. His transparent sincerity was a proverb; few lives have shown such close agreement between theory and practice. Though a soldier, he hated warfare and bloodshed ; if he could, he would have abolished the hideous shows of the amphitheatre. He despised officialism and the conceit of empire; two of his maxims were, “Take care not to be Ccesarized, not to be dyed with this dye;” and, “Is it thy lot to live in a palace? Even in a palace it is possible to live well.” He would have restored the Republic had that been possible; as it was, he counted himself the steward of God and servant of the people.

How, then, could such a man be a persecutor ? It must be remembered that the men of the past are to be judged by their lights, not by ours. Marcus was the slave of a most exacting conscience; again and again he sacrificed his feelings to what he deemed his duty. So well was he known, the very Christians who suffered under him used to say, “If he but understood us, he could not be our foe.” Such language as Trajan used toward Ignatius would have been impossible to him; he who burned, unopened, the correspondence of the traitor Avidius Cassus, and begged the Senate to let those go unpunished who had assisted in that rebellion, was not one to

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preside in person at executions, or witness the tortures of the meanest slave. If the horrors of the proceedings at Lyons had been within his knowledge, he would doubtless have stopped those bloody excesses promptly. The worthiest

verses of Pope, coupling his name with that of the man most famous for virtue and wisdom among the Greeks, did him no more than justice :

¹‘ Who noble ends by noble means obtains, Or, failing, smiles in exile or in chains, Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.”

And yet he was a heathen, with the inevitable limitations of paganism ; and an emperor, with the heavy responsibilities of one who ruled the _:y!l ^world* No Paul preached be' !\ ^ t fore his judgment-seat; if he •BsL ■ ¹ '^: jfM knew that the Christians had ^ESmrt i InxRi a literature of their own, he

1 P^robably ^never saw a line of t CjllJrSl * "^kV jf the New Testament. The

rf motives which enforced and ■ raff .; must excuse his great mistake

B \\ are thus analyzed by one of

the deepest thinkers and ablest B gn. teachers of the last generation:

mmi- “As Marcus Aurelius was

JMS/.il ^more devout than his predeces-

'» sors, as the worship of the gods

and they loved their god better than liberty. _{was w}jth him less a mere deference to opinion and tradition, he felt a more hearty indignation against those who seemed to be undermining it. As he had more zeal for the well-being of his subjects, and a stronger impression of the danger of their losing any portion of the faith and reverence which they had, the political motives which swayed earlier emperors acted more mightily upon him. As he had convinced himself that the severest course of self-discipline is necessary in order to fit a man for overcoming the allurements of the visible and the terrors of the invisible world, he despised and disbelieved those who seemed to have attained the results

without the preparatory processes. As he wished to reconcile the obligations of an emperor to perform all external duties with the obligation of a philosopher to self-culture, and found the task laborious enough, the strange mixture of the ideas of a polity with ideas belonging to the spiritual nature of man, which he heard of among the Ch r istians, must have made him suspect them of aping the Caesars and the Roman wisdom in their government, as well as of aping the Stoics in their contempt of pain.

Such reasons, if we made no allowance for the malignant reports of courtiers and philosophers, the prevalent belief of unheard of crimes in the secret assemblies of the Christians, the

foolish state- SUBTERRANEAN AI.TAR OF ST. AGNES.

ments and wrong acts of which they may themselves have been guilty, will explain sufficiently why the venerable age and character of Polycarp, the beautiful fidelity of the martyrs of Lyons, did not prevent them from being victims of the decrees of the best man who ever reigned in Rome.”

These profound observations of the late F. D. Maurice (if we have patience to weigh them as they deserve) may help us to understand, what has often baffled learned divines and historians, the hopeless severance, the inborn antagonism, between the old system and the new. A heathen, while he remained a heathen, simply could not apprehend the Christian position. Even Marcus, who needed nothing but intellectual illumination to place him heartily on the side of Jesus, shows his complete misconception of the martyrs when he says that readiness to die should proceed from the exercise of reason, and “ not from mere obstinacy,, as with the Christians.” It was the plan of Providence that these misunderstandings should exist much longer, and the Church be tried as by fire for another hundred and fifty years, lest she should yield to the corruptions of the world. Slowly and painfully her foundations had to be laid in tears and blood; the woful experience of the Redeemer had to be repeated in their degree by a long succession of disciples, that His ideas might take root and His work be spread abroad on earth. Without the ages of the martyrs to interpret it, the lesson of the Cross might never have really penetrated the general brain and heart.

Now came what is called the fourth persecution ; and it raged with a severity wholly out of keeping with the character of this gentle monarch. Melito, bishop of Sardis, in a memorial addressed to the emperor, wrote thus : “ The worshippers of God in Asia Minor are now afflicted more than ever before, in consequence of new edicts; for shameless informers, thirsting after other men’s goods, now plunder the innocent by day and night, whenever they can find an excuse for it in these decrees. If this comes by your command, we know that so just a ruler would not do injustice, and we willingly bear the happy lot of such a death. We ask only that you would acquaint yourself with those who are thus persecuted, and judge fairly whether they deserve punishment and death, or safety and tranquillity. But if this new decree—one scarcely suitable against barbarian enemies —comes not from yourself, we pray you the more earnestly not to leave us exposed to such rapacity.”

The decree referred to may possibly be one bearing (perhaps by mistake for Aurelius) the name of Aurelian, who reigned a hundred years later. This document directs officials throughout the empire to “mingle justice with severity, and to let the punishment stop when its object is attained.” The aim of Marcus, as of other well-meaning rulers, was to wean the Christians from their supposed error and induce them to recant. But these directions were abused, by the brutality of ancient customs and the cruelty of many governors and inferior officers, to the infliction of torments which sicken us in the bare recital, and Would have sickened Marcus had he beheld them.

AND BECAUSE OF THEIR FAITH THEY WERE THROWN INTO THE ARENA WHERE THE LIONS WERE LET

LOOSE UPON THEM.

POLYCARP S GOOD FIGHT.

The venerable Poly carp had long been bishop of the Church at Smyrna. To him in that capacity Ignatius, on his way to the lions of the Roman amphitheatre, had addressed one of his memorable letters ; and in childhood he was said to have been a pupil of St. John. Through that apostle his flock had been honored with a prophetic message (Revelation ii., 8-10): “ Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shalt cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”

What may be regarded as a fulfilment of this prediction was described in a •document which has fortunately come down to us. The letter is of unquestioned .genuineness, and is worth transcribing here, with slight abridgment.

“ The Church of God which sojourns at Smyrna to that at Philomelium, and in all places throughout the world: may the mercy, peace, and love of God the Father, and of the Lord Jesus Christ, be multiplied ! We write you as well concerning the other martyrs, as particularly the blessed Polycarp ; who as it were sealing by his testimony, ended the persecution. For these things were so done that the Lord from above might set before us the model of a gospel martyrdom. Poly carp did not rashly give himself up to death, but waited till he was taken, as our Lord Himself did, that we might imitate Him, not caring only for ourselves, but also for our neighbors. Blessed and noble are the sacrifices that are ruled according to God’s will! Let all admire the magnanimity, the patience, the love to their Master, of those who, though torn with whips till the frame and structure of their bodies were laid open even to their veins and arteries, yet meekly endured, ■so that the bystanders pitied them and lamented. But such was their fortitude, that not one of them uttered a sigh or groan. Thus they evinced to us all that at that hour Christ’s martyrs, though tormented, were absent, as it were, from the body ; or rather that the Lord was present and conversed familiarly with them. Thus they were supported by the grace of Christ; thus they despised the torments of this world. The fire of savage tortures was cold to them, for they wished to avoid the fire unquenchable. And with the eyes of their heart they looked toward the good things reserved for those who endure—things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived: but these were then disclosed to them by the Lord. They were then no longer men, but angels. So those who were conducted to the wild beasts underwent first cruel tortures, being placed under shells of sea-fish, and otherwise variously tormented, that, if it were possible, the enemy, by an uninterrupted series of pains, might tempt them to deny their Master. Much did Satan contrive against them, but, thanks to God, without effect. Germanicus, by his patience and courage, strengthened the weak. He fought nobly against wild beasts, and, when the proconsul urged him to pity his own age, provoked them, as desiring to depart more quickly from a wicked world.

^U The multitude, astonished at the fortitude of the true worshippers, cried out, ‘Away with the Atheists ! Search for Polycarp! ’ One, by name Quintus, lately come from Phrygia, at sight of the beasts, trembled and gave way. He had persuaded some to come, unsought and of their own accord, before the tribunal.

Him the proconsul, by soothing speeches, induced to swear and to sacri- fi ce . On this account, brethren, we do not approve those who offer themselves for martyrdom; for we have not so learned Christ.

“The excellent Polycarp, when he heard what took place,was unmoved, and intended to remain in the city. But on the entreaties of his people,

he retired to temple of minerva. -

a village at no great distance ; and there, with a few friends, he spent the time in praying, after his custom, for all the churches in the world. Three days before he was seized, he had a vision while at prayer; he saw his pillow

consumed by fire, and, turning to the company, said, ‘ I must be burned.’ On hearing that those in search of him were at hand, he removed to another village. Not finding him, the officers seized two servants, one of whom was induced, by

POIyYCARP’S PRAYER.

torture, to confess the place of his retreat. The magistrate, named Cleronomus Herod, made haste to bring him to the stadium; that he might obtain his lot as a follower of Christ. Taking then the servant as a guide, they went about supper-time, with their arms, as against a robber; and arriving late, found him lying in an upper room. Even then he might have escaped, but would not, saying, ‘The Lord’s will be done.’ So he came down and talked with them.. All admired his age and constancy; and some said, ‘Was it worth while to take pains to arrest so old a man?’ He ordered meat and drink to be set before them, and asked for an hour to pray unhindered. This he did standing, and was so full of God’s grace, that he could not cease for two hours.

“When he had finished, having made mention of all whom he had ever known, small and great, noble and common, and of the whole Church throughout the world, they set him on an ass to lead him to the city. On the way the irenarch Herod and his father Nicetes met him and took him into their chariot. They began to advise him, thus: ‘What harm is it to say, “Lord Csesar,” and to sacrifice, and be safe?’ At first he was silent, but on being pressed said, ‘I will not do it.’ Angry, at being unable to persuade him, they thrust him out of the chariot, so that in falling his thigh was bruised. But he, unmoved as if unhurt, went on cheerfully with his guards. As he entered the arena, amid a great

tumult, a voice spoke, ‘ Be strong, Polycarp, and play tlie man.’ None saw the speaker, but many of us heard the words.

AWAY WITH THE ATHEISTS !

“When he was brought before the judgment-seat, the proconsul exhorted him thus : ‘ Have pity on your great age. Repent: swear by the fortune of Caesar: say, “ Away with the Atheists! ” ’ Looking about upon the crowd, waving his hand toward them, and then turning his eyes to heaven, Polycarp repeated, ‘ Away with the Atheists ! ’ Then the proconsul urged him : ‘ Swear, and I will release thee : reproach Christ.’ The bishop answered, ‘ Bighty and six years have I served Him, and He has never wronged me: how can I blaspheme my King who has saved me ? ’ The governor insisting, ‘ Swear by the fortune of Caesar,’ Polycarp said, ‘ If you assume not to know me, let me speak frankly. I am a Christian ; and if you wish to learn the Christian doctrine, appoint me a day, and listen.’ The officer now said, ‘ Persuade the people.’ ‘ I answer you] the other replied, ‘ for we are taught to pay all honor to the powers ordained of God ; but it is not fit that I should speak to them, for they are not worthy.’ ‘ I have wild beasts,’ said the Roman : ‘ I will expose you to them, if you repent not.’ ‘ Call them,’ the martyr answered : ‘ It is well to alter from evil to good ; but from the better to the worse we change not.’ ‘ If you despise the beasts, I will tame your spirit by fire.’ ‘ The fire you threaten burns for a moment,’’ said the believer; ‘you know not of the judgment and the fire eternal. But why delay ? Do what you will.’

“Saying this and more, he was full of confidence and joy, and grace shone in his undismayed countenance. But the proconsul, baffled and disturbed, sent a herald to proclaim thrice in midst of the assembly, ‘ Polycarp has confessed himself a Christian.’ On this the multitude, both Gentiles and Jews, shouted with insatiate rage, ‘ This is the doctor of Asia, the father of Christians, the subverter of our gods, who has taught many not to worship or sacrifice.’ They now begged Philip, the Asiarch, to let out a lion ; but he refused, saying that the shows of wild beasts were finished. Then they all cried, ‘ Let Polycarp be burned ! ’ The material was prepared with speed, for the people brought fuel from the workshops and baths, the Jews being foremost in this office, as usual.

“As soon as the pile was ready, he stripped off his clothes, loosened his girdle, and tried to remove his shoes,—a thing unusual for him, for his. blam- less integrity had long since won such regard that the faithful strove with each other for the honor of ministering to him. When they were about to fasten him to the stake, he said, ‘ Let be; for He who gives me strength to endure the fire will enable me also to remain unmoved in it.’ On this they bound, but did not nail him. And he, being tied as a ram selected from a great flock, a burnt-offering acceptable to God, joined his hands and said,

‘O Father of Thy beloved and blessed Son, through Whom we have attained the knowledge of Thee, O God of angels and principalities, and of all creation, and of all the j ust who live in Thy sight; I bless Thee that Thou hast counted me worthy of this day and this hour, to receive my portion in the

number of martyrs, in the cup of Christ, for the resurrection to eternal life, both of soul and body, in the incorruption of the Holy Ghost: among whom may I be received before Thee this day as a sacrifice well- favored and acceptable, which Thou hast prepared, promised, and fulfilled. Wherefore I praise Thee, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, by the eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ, Thy well-beloved Son; through Whom, with Him in the Holy Spirit, be glory to Thee, both now and forever. Amen ! ’ “And when he had ended, saying amen aloud, the officers lighted the fire, and a great flame bursting forth, we, to whom it was given to see, and who are reserved to relate the facts to others, beheld a wonder. For the flame, forming the appearance of an arch, like the sail of a vessel filled with wind, was as a wall about the martyr’s body, which was in the midst, not as burning flesh, but as gold and silver refined in a furnace. We received also in our nostrils such a fragrance as arises from frankincense, or some other precious perfume. At length the impious, observing that his body could not be consumed by the fire, ordered the executioner to pierce it with his sword. On this a quantity of blood gushed out, and the crowd were astonished to see the difference thus displayed between unbelievers and the elect.”

A CHRISTIAN SENTENCED TO DEATH.

The letter goes on to tell how the Jews and certain heathens tried to prevent the Christians from obtaining the remains of their bishop, pretending to fear that they would “leave the Crucified, and begin to worship him.” Moved by their representations, “the centurion put the body in the midst of the fire and burned it. Then we gathered up his bones, more precious than gold and jewels, and deposited them in a proper place.”

This is the earliest contemporary and full account that we have of any martydom: this fact, and the eminence of the victim, give it great value. Eleven Christians from Philadelphia suffered with Polycarp: the date was A. D. 166.

About this time, or a little earlier, Ptolemy and Lucius were put to death at Alexandria. A certain woman of Rome, and apparently of rank, had with her husband led a profligate life. Being converted, she mended her ways, and did all in her power to reclaim her spouse, but to no avail. At length, unable to endure his wickedness, she left him; whereupon he accused her to the authorities as a Christian. Her case being delayed, he turned his malice against her teacher, Ptolemy. This man, after long imprisonment, was brought before the judge, and freely confessed his so called crime; “for,” as the ancient record says,

“no true Christian can act otherwise.” He was ordered to be led to instant execution ; whereon Lucius, who was among

° BRIDGK OF NO MONTANO.

the spectators,

offered a remonstrance, saying that to put men to death merely for a name, with no charge of real wrongdoing, was absurd and unjust, unworthy of the late Emperor Pius, or of his (adopted) son the Philosopher, or of the sacred Senate. All that the prefect thought fit to answer was, “You seem to be of the same sect.” “I am,” said Lucius. He was sent to the block with his

friend, “rejoicing to pass from under an unrighteous government to that of his gracious Father and King.”

JUSTIN MARTYR.

This story comes to us from Justin Martyr, who added that he expected the same fate. A native of Samaria, he was bred a heathen, received a superior education, and always wore the philosopher’s cloak, even after his conversion. He wrote several books, including two apologies, the one addressed to Antoninus Pius, the other to Marcus Aurelius.

Accused by Crescens, a rival teacher, probably in the year 167, he was fcrought with others before the prefect Rusticus, himself a noted Stoic, who had been one of the tutors of the emperor. This officer asked to what school he was attached. He announced that he had tried all methods of learning, hut had found satisfaction only in the Gospel. “Wretch !” Rusticus exclaimed, are you deluded by that superstition?” “I follow the Christians,” said Justin, “and their doctrine is the true one.” “And what is their doctrine?” ^u This: we believe in one only God, the Creator of all things visible and invisible. We confess our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, the Saviour, Teacher, and Master of those who obey Him, and the future Judge of mankind.” The prefect asked, “Where do the Christians assemble?” “Our God is not confined to any especial place.” “Where do you instruct you scholars?” Justin gave his residence, and added that he explained the doctrine to such as chose to come to him.

Then Rusticus said, “You who are called eloquent, and fancy that you have the truth; if I scourge you from head to foot, do you think you will go to heaven?” “Though I suffer what you threaten, I expect to receive the portion of those who obey Christ; for to such the divine grace is reserved to the world’s end.” “So you think you will ascend to a reward on high?” “I do not think so, I know it, and am assured beyond all question.” “Enough of this,” said the magistrate. “Let us turn to the business in hand. Agree together and offer sacrifice to the gods.” Said Justin, “No man of understanding forsakes true religion for error and impiety.” “If you do not obey, you shall endure torments without mercy.” “We desire chiefly to bear tortures for our Lord, and to be saved; so shall we have confidence at the last day.” To this the others assented, and said, “ Be quick; we are Christians, and cannot sacrifice to idols.” They were scourged and then beheaded; their friends obtained their bodies for burial.

FELICITAS AND HER SONS.

Records less reliable than those which describe the ending of Justin and Polycarp, give the story of Felicitas, a Roman widow, who, with her seven sons,

suffered about this time. Except for place and date, the tradition is very similar to that of “ the Mother of the Maccabees.” The family had position and influence, were all devout believers, and had brought many to Christ Accused by the heathen priests, they were privately examined by Publius, who strove to spare them and turn them from the faith. But Felicitas said, “ Flatteries and threats alike are useless ; I am ready to endure all.” The magistrate urged her to die alone if she would, but to have a mother’s pity on her

FELICITAS AND HER SEVEN SONS.

sons, and command them to ransom their lives by sacrificing. She answered, ‘‘Your compassion is cruelty; so would my sons lose their immortal souls, and become slaves of Satan,” To them she said, “Remain steadfast in the faith, and confess Christ; for He and His saints are waiting for you. Behold, heaven is open before you ; fight valiantly for your souls, and show your love to Christ.”

Then the judge became angry and said, “How dare you speak thus impudently, and make your sons obstinate in disobedience?” She replied, “If you knew our Saviour Jesus, and the power of God, you would no more persecute His people, nor tempt them, nor revile them ; for whoever curses Christ and His faithful ones, blasphemes God, who by faith dwells in their hearts.” Then they struck her in the face, to silence her, but in vain.

Then the judge took aside each of the seven brothers, and talked first to one and then to another, striving to persuade them. When he could not prevail, he had them severally punished, in presence of their mother. Janua- rius, the eldest, was beaten with a scourge made of cords, each having a leaden ball at the end ; under this torture he died. Felix and Philip met the same fate, except that rods were substituted for the scourge. Sylvanus, the widow’s fourth son, was cast down from a high place. Tired with their useless labors, the executioners resorted to the axe, and the three youngest brothers, Alexander, Vitalis and Martial, were beheaded. Last of all the mother died, likewise by the sword. '

Another tradition, preserved by Euschias, the historian of the Church in Constantine’s time, records the death of Carpus, Papylus, Agathonicus, and others, who won the crown of martyrdom at Pergamus in Asia Minor, about A. D. 168.

THE “THUNDERING LEGION.”

The most famous, and also perhaps the least veracious, of the legends of this reign is that of the “ Thundering Legion.” In the year 174 the emperor was warring against the Marcomanni and the Quadi, two barbarous tribes, in what is now Hungary. It was a hot summer, and the army suffered greatly from drought; the enemy were at hand and likely to attack, and the soldiers could get no water to appease their thirst. In this extremity relief came (according to the tale) from the prayers of the twelfth legion, which was largely composed of Christians. As they rose from their knees a heavy storm burst over their heads, and the Romans presently gained a victory. The Christian writers of the third century claimed that Aurelius had acknowledged this service, and become more favorable to the Church on account of it. But this was not so, for the persecution continued in full, vigor, as we shall see. The Pagans credited the welcome storm to their own gods, and to the prayers of the pious emperor. Pictures were said to represent him in an attitude of supplication, and the soldiers catching the rain in their helmets; and a coin of this reign shows Jupiter sending thunderbolts upon the cowering barbarians. There was such an occurrence ; doubtless the Christians in the army prayed, and their prayers were answered; but the only credit they received for a supposed miraculous deliverance was from their own people. • -

CHAPTER VI.

HORRORS AT LYONS.

are authentic is the account of the frightful persecution at Lyons and Vienne in southern France, A. D. 177. It is contained in a long letter from these afflicted Churches, after the model of that of Smyrna eleven years before, addressed “to the brethren in Asia and Phrygia.” Communication between these distant regions, almost at the two extremities of the Mediterranean, seems to have been close and frequent. The probable writer of this epistle, Irenseus, was a pupil of Polycarp, eminent among the fathers of the Church, and from this date bishop of Lyons.

The attack began with an outbreak of fanatical fury on the part of the populace, and was carried on through the hands of officers scarcely less savage than the mob. In the midst of it the governor sent to Rome for instructions, and was told to execute those who would not recant. But he far exceeded his orders, preluding or heightening the final penalty of death with wholesale and abominable horrors. We retain the substance and mainly the language of the local report, omitting what seems comparatively unimportant. .

“We are not able to express the greatness of the affliction sustained here by the faithful, the intense hatred of the heathen, nor the complicated sufferings of the blessed martyrs. The enemy assailed us with all his might, and in his first efforts showed intent to exert his malice without limit and beyond control. He left no method untried to habituate his servants to the bloody work, and to prepare them by previous attempts against the flock. We were forbidden to enter any house but our own, to be seen in the baths, the market, or any public place. But God’s grace fought for us, preserving the weak and exposing the strong, who as pillars were able to withstand him in patience, and to draw the whole fury of the wicked against themselves. These entered into the contest, and bore every species of pain and reproach. What was heavy to others, to them was light, while they were hastening to Christ, evincing that the sufferings

(107)

of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.

“ The first trial was from the populace : shouts, blows, the dragging of our bodies, the plundering of our goods, casting of stones, confinement within our houses, and all the indignities that a fierce and outrageous multitude can inflict. And next, being led into the forum, they were asked, before all the people, whether they were Christians ; and, on confessing, were shut up in prison till the governor should arrive. Brought at length before him, he treated us brutally. This aroused the spirit of Vettius Epagathus, a young man of exemplary life, blameless in obedience, unwearied in charities, full of godly zeal. Indignant at seeing justice thus perverted, he asked to be heard on behalf of his brethren, and offered to prove that atheism and impiety were not among them. The spectators cried out against him, and the governor, vexed at such a demand from a man of rank, merely asked if he was a Christian. He openly confessed it, and was ranked among the martyrs. They called him ‘ the Advocate of the Christians but he had an Advocate within, the Holy Ghost, as he proved by laying down his life for his friends. He was, and still is, a true disciple of Christ.

IN THE AMPHITHEATRE.

Others now began

to be eminent. The chief martyrs were prepared for the contest, and did their part with alacrity of mind. Others seemed not so ready, but rather unexercised)

weak, and unable to sustain the shock of such a conflict. Ten of these lapsed: their case filled us with sorrow, and cast down the spirits of those not yet arrested, who bore many indignities rather than desert the martyrs in their distress. We all feared the uncertain issue of confession; not that we dreaded the tortures, but the danger of apostasy. Now daily such were seized as were counted worthy to take the places of the lapsed—the best from the two Churches, even those by whose labor they were founded.

BRAVE CHRISTIANS.

“The governor had openly ordered us all to be sought for. Thus among the seized were some of our heathen slaves, who by Satan’s impulse and at the suggestion of the soldiers, fearing the torture, accused us of eating human flesh, and of unnatural vices, such as are not fit to be mentioned or imagined, and ought not to be believed of mankind. At this all were incensed even to madness, so that our relatives and former friends raged against us. Now was our Lord’s word fulfilled, ‘Whosoever killeth you will think he doeth God service.’

“The holy martyrs now endured tortures beyond description; Satan laboring by this means to extort slanders upon the faith. The whole fury of the multitude, the governor, and the soldiers was spent especially on Sanctus of Vienna, the deacon; on Maturus, a late convert, but a mighty wrestler in the spirit; on Attalus of Pergamus, a man who had always been the pillar and support of our Church; and lastly, on Blandina, in whom Christ showed that things which appear contemptible to men are most honorable before God, through love to His name, exhibited in real energy, and not in boasting and pretence. For while we all feared,—and in particular her mistress in the flesh, herself one of the noble

army of martyrs,—that she would not be able to witness a good confession, because of the weakness of her frame, Blandina [a slave] was endued with such fortitude, that those who successively tortured her from morning to night were worn out with fatigue, and avowed themselves conquered, and their apparatus of torment exhausted. These were amazed to see her still breathing, while her body was torn and laid open ; they said that any single species of the torture would have been sufficient to dispatch her, much more so great a variety as had been applied. But the blessed woman, like a generous wrestler, gained fresh vigor in the act of confession ; and it was evidently a refreshment, a support, and an annihilation of all her pains to say, ‘I am a Christian, and no evil is committed among us.’

“Meantime the impious hoped to extort from the deacon Sanctus, through the intensity and duration of his pangs, something injurious to the Gospel. But he, bearing barbarous cruelties in a manner more than human, resisted so firmly that he would neither tell his name nor origin, nor whether he was a freeman or a slave, but to every question answered in Latin, ‘I am a Christian.’ This, he repeatedly professed, was to him name, and state, and race, and everything; and nothing else could the heathen draw from him. Hence the rage of the governor and of the torturers was so fiercely turned against this holy man, that after exhausting all the usual modes of torment, they fastened red-hot brazen plates to the tenderest parts of his body. Yet he remained inflexible, being, no doubt, bedewed and refreshed by the fountain of living water which flows from Christ. His outward man indeed bore tokens of the ghastly tortures he had sustained, being one continued wound and bruise, contorted, and scarce retaining the human form. In him the view of Christ suffering wrought wonders, confounded the adversary, and showed, to encourage the rest, that nothing is to be feared where the Father’s love is, and nothing painful where Christ’s glory is shown forth. For while the impious imagined, when after some days they renewed his torture, that a fresh application of the same treatment to his wounds, now swollen and inflamed, must either overcome his constancy, or by dispatching him strike terror into the rest; so far was this from true, that his body recovered its natural position under the second course of torture ; he was restored to his former shape and to the use of his limbs ; so that, by Christ’s grace, this cruelty proved not a punishment but a cure.

“ One of those who had denied Christ was Biblias, a woman. The devil, supposing her now his meat, and desiring to increase her condemnation by inducing her to accuse the Christians falsely, led her to the torture, and forced her, as a weak and timorous creature, to charge us with horrid impieties. But in her torment she came to herself and awoke as out of a deep slumber, being admonished by a temporal punishment of the danger of eternal fire. To the anger of the impious she cried, ‘How can we eat infants—we, to whom the

RUINS OF THE COLISEUM.

Ill

blood of beasts is not lawful?’ She now professed herself a Christian, and was added to the army of martyrs.

“The power of Christ, exerted in the patience of His people, had overcome the usual artifices of torment, and the devil was driven to new devices. Christians were thrust into the darkest and most noisome parts of the prison; their feet were distended in a wooden crank, even to the fifth hole ; and in this situation they bore all that fiendish malice could inflict Hence many, whom the Lord was pleased thus to take to Himself, were suffocated in prison. The rest, though so afflicted as to seem scarce capable of recovery under the kindest treatment, destitute as they were of earthly help and support, yet remained alive, strengthened by the Lord.

“Some young persons, who had lately been seized, and whose bodies, never before exercised in suffering, were unequal to the severity of their confinement, died. The blessed Pothinus, bishop of Lyons, in age above ninety years, and very infirm and asthmatic, yet strong in spirit and panting for martyrdom, was dragged before the tribunal. His body worn out with age and disease, he yet retained a soul through which Christ might triumph. While the multitude shouted against him as if he were Christ Himself,, he made a good confession: the governor asking him who was the God of the Christian, he answered, ‘If you are worthy, you shall know.’ He was then unmercifully pulled about, and bore a variety of ill usage. Those who were near insulted him with their hands and feet, without the least respect to his age, and those at a distance threw at him whatever came to hand. Every one regarded himself as lacking in zeal, if he did not abuse him in one way or another; for they fancied that they thus avenged the cause of their gods. He was thrown into prison almost breathless, and after two days he expired.

“A singular dispensation of Providence, and the vast compassion of Jesus for His own, appeared in this. Many who, when first taken, had denied their Saviour, profited nothing thereby, but were shut up in prison and suffered dreadful severities; while those who confessed were confined as Christians, and on no other charge. Now the former, as murderers and incestuous wretches, were punished much more than the others, who besides were supported by the joy of martyrdom, and the hope of the promises, and the love of Christ, and the Spirit of the Father. The lapsed were oppressed -with the pangs of guilt, so that, while they were dragged along, their very faces marked them for what they were. But the faithful walked with cheerful step: their countenances shone with grace and glory: their bonds were as ornaments, and they as brides in rich array, breathing the fragrance of Christ. The apostates went on dejected, spiritless, forlorn, disgraced, insulted by the heathen as cowards, and treated as murderers: they had lost the precious, the glorious, the soul-reviving Name. Others, observing these things, were confirmed n the

faith; when arrested, they confessed at once, nor admitted the suggestion of the tempter for a moment.

BLANDINA’S TRIUMPH.

“The martyrs were put to death in various ways ; in other words, they wore a chaplet of varying odors and flowers, and presented it to the Father. It became God’s wisdom and goodness to appoint that His servants, after enduring a great and manifold contest, should as victors receive the crown of immortality.

Maturus, Sanc- tus, Blandina, and Attalus were offered to wild beasts in the amphitheatre, in the common spectacle of heathen inhumanity.

“One extraordinary day of the shows being afforded the people on our account,

Maturus and Sanctus were dealt with as if they had suffered nothing before,—like those wrestlers fountain of egeria.

who, having already won several combats, are obliged to contend afresh with other conquerors, till some one overcomes all, and so is crowned. As they were

led to the amphitheatre, they bore the blows inflicted on the condemned: they were exposed to be dragged and torn by the beasts, to all the barbarities which the mad populace with shouts exacted, and above all to the hot iron chair, whence came the shocking odor of their roasting flesh. But not a word could be drawn from Sanctus, beyond his frequent ‘I am a Christian.’ Only after long torments were these faithful gladiators released by death.

“Blandina, suspended to a stake in the form of a cross, and occupied in constant prayer, was offered to the beasts, which at that time would not touch her. The combatants, beholding Christ crucified in the person of their sister in the faith, were inspired with new alacrity. She was taken down, thrown again into prison, and reserved for a future contest. Weak and despicable as she might appear, grace made her a mighty champion.

“The multitude vehemently called for Attalus, who was a person of great repute among us. He advanced with cheerful serenity, an experienced believer, ever ready and active in bearing testimony to the Truth. He was led round the amphitheatre, and a tablet carried before him, ‘This is Attalus the Christian.’ The rage of the people would have had him killed at once; but the governor, hearing that he was a Roman citizen, sent him back to prison, and wrote to the emperor for instructions as to him and others who could plead the same privilege.

“ This occasioned an interval which was of benefit to the Church. The pity of Christ appeared in the patience of many. Dead members were restored to life through the living, the martyrs (by example and persuasion) being true helpers to the lapsed. Thus the Church rejoiced to receive her children returning to her bosom; for by these means most of those who had denied Christ were recovered. They felt again the divine life in their souls; their God, who wills not the death of a sinner, was again precious to them, and they desired a fresh trial, wherein they might not fall, but stand.

“Caesar sent orders that the confessors of Christ should be put to death, and apostates set free. It was now the annual assembly at Lyons, frequented from all parts, and the prisoners were again exposed. Roman citizens were to be beheaded, the rest to be offered to wild beasts. Now was the Redeemer magnified in those who had lapsed. They were questioned apart from the others, as persons soon to be dismissed; to the surprise of the heathen, they confessed, and were added to the list of martyrs. A few remained in apostasy; they were such as had no spark of faith, no knowledge of the riches of Christ, no fear of God whose lives had brought reproach on the gospel and showed them to be children of perdition.

“During the examination of the lapsed, there stood near the tribunal a physician named Alexander, a Phrygian by birth but long resident in France, known for his love of God and zeal for Truth. His face showed his sorrow for the apostates, and his gestures encouraged them to confess the faith. The crowd, angered

by what they saw and heard, cried out against Alexander, as the cause of this change in many. ‘Who are you?’ the governor inquired. ‘A Christian,’ he replied. The next day he suffered with Attalus, who to please the people was again exposed to the torments of the amphitheatre. Seated in the iron chair, the smell of his scorching flesh piercing the nostrils of the spectators, Attalus said to them: ‘Ye are the devourers of men ; we do not that, nor any other wickedness.⁵ Some one asked him for the divine name : he answered, ‘ God has not a name as men have.’ Alexander uttered neither word nor groan. Thus, having sustained a very grievous conflict, these heroes of the faith expired.

“Blandina, with Ponticus, a boy of fifteen, had been daily brought to see the punishment of the rest: on the last day of the spectacles, they were led forward and ordered to swear by the gods. Incensed by their refusal, the crowd showed no pity to sex or tender age. The whole round of barbarities was inflicted; but menaces and pangs were alike in vain. The heathen saw with fury the maiden strengthening and comforting the child, who, after a magnanimous exertion of patience, gave up the ghost.

“And now the blessed Blandina, last of all, as a generous mother having exhorted her children and sent them before her victorious to the King, reviewing the whole series of their sufferings, hastened to undergo the same, rejoicing and triumphing in her exit, as if invited to a marriage-supper, not going to the teeth and claws of beasts.

After she had endured stripes_; the tearing of the animals, and the iron chair, '

she was enclosed in a net and thrown to a bull; having been tossed for some time, and proving superior to her pains, she at length breathed out her soul. Her enemies admitted that no woman among them had ever suffered such and so great inflictions.

“ Their rage not yet satisfied, they began a peculiar war against the corpses of the saints. Disappointment increased their fury; the devil, the governor, and the mob equally showed their malice; that the Scripture might be fulfilled,

‘He that is unjust, let him be unjust still,’ as well as, ‘He that is holy, let him. be holy still.’ They now exposed to dogs the bodies of those who had died in prison, and watched carefully night and day, lest any of us should by stealth, perform the funeral rites. And then, collecting what had been left by the wild beasts or the fire, relics partly tom or scorched, and the heads with the trunks, they kept them unburied under a military guard. Some gnashed on them with their teeth, as if to make them feel more of their malice. Others laughed and insulted them, praising the vengeance of their gods upon our martyrs. Even those of a gentler spirit, who had some sympathy with us, upbraided us, often

saying, ‘Where is their God, and what profit do they get from their religion, which they valued above life ? Now let us see if their God can help them to rise again.’

“Our sorrow was increased by being forbidden to inter our friends. Neither through darkness, nor by prayers or payment, could we prevail. The bodies, having been exposed and insulted for six days, were burned to ashes and scattered by the wicked into the Rhone, that not the least particle of them might remain on earth. These things they did as if they could prevail against God and prevent the resurrection M I of the just, and that they might

|| <* turn others, as they said, from

Gfttit!" wra the hope of a future life.”

' ' ' In this recital of atrocious ; ‘ cruelty and amazing endur- ", £ ^ JmjSr ance, several points are to be W ' ''** ^marked. Though the viru- BM||jl||gp ^~lence of the mob may have been im—equal in both cities, the perse-

CHRISTIANS ATTACKED BY A MOB. . _r . ^C,

cution was more ferocious here than at Smyrna, where the chief magistrate, Quadratus, bore no enmity to the Christians, and perhaps regarded their punishment as an unpleasant duty; while

the governor at Lyons, by some thought to be that Septimius Severus who afterwards attained the throne, showed the temper and manners of a savage. By Roman custom the populace were entitled, in lieu of liberty, to their amusements, the horrid sports of the circus ;' but the usual deference to their wishes was never carried to a more scandalous length than in allowing them to select their victims, and in heaping especial torments upon women and old men who had chanced to arouse their capricious fury.

The lack of anything like decency or moderation in the proceedings at Lyons was matched, as it must seem to us, by a lack of intelligence in those who conducted them. Sensible pagans did nbt believe the Christians guilty of incest, cannibalism, and other secret enormities ; yet to obtain confessions or accusations to this effect appeared to be the chief object of the prosecution. A mere charge, unsupported by any evidence, was enough ; those who denied Christ, sacrificed to the gods, and did everything that was required of them, instead of being released according to precedent and common sense, were locked up and roughly treated, until the emperor’s order came for their discharge. The stupidity of the local authorities went still further to defeat their ends, by allowing the confessors free access to the lapsed in their common confinement; by this means, as we have seen, most of the apostates were induced to return to the fold, and the government lost the greater part of what little it had gained.

Very notable also was the temper of the faithful under these sharp and heavy trials. The spirit which upheld them was not, as the stoical emperor and many others fancied, one of fanatical pride and obstinacy, but of love and meekness. They had no angry reproaches for their tormentors, whom they regarded as mistaken men, deceived and enslaved by the common enemy. Careful of what was entrusted to them, they judged not the alien and the injurious. The answer of Pothinus, “ If thou art worthy, thou shalt know,” is among the noblest ever given by the defenseless to the mighty. Toward each other these sufferers were models of considerate tenderness. One of them, named Alcibiades, professed an ascetic life, and in the prison kept to his accustomed diet of bread and water only. It was revealed in a dream or vision to Attalus, after his first public contest in the amphitheatre, that this habit of his friend might be offensive to the brethren, and so was unacceptable to the Lord. On hearing this, Alcibiades gave up his chosen custom, and for the short time he had yet to live .ate thankfully whatever was set before him.

Most touching and impressive is the humility of those who survived their first torments. Their friends, properly enough, applied to them the name martyr, which at first meant merely a witness ; and they certainly had borne noble witness to the Gospel. But they would not have it. “ If any of us by word or letter gave them the title, they reproved us vehemently.” Emaciated, bruised, bleeding, crippled, half dead with wounds, they said, “ He is the faithful

and true witness, the First-Begotten from the dead. And they indeed are martyrs whom Christ has deigned to receive to Himself in their confession, sealing their testimony by their deaths. But we are poor and lowly confessors.” With tearsi they begged the brethren to pray fervently for them, that they might be perfected.

Here perhaps began the distinction, afterwards universally recognized, between martyrs, those who have died for the faith, and confessors, those who risk their lives, without losing them, in the same cause.

Shortly after these horrors, an isolated martyrdom occurred at ^EJdui, now Autun, at no great distance from Lyons. The Christians were not numerous in those parts, and had received no official attention, when Symphorianus, a young man of rank, brought himself into notice. A festival of Cybele was in progress, and her image carried about, when he refused to fall on his knees with the rest, and dropped some words about the folly of idolatry. He was accused as a seditious person and a disturber of worship, before the governor, Heraclius, who said, “I suppose you are a Christian. You must have escaped our notice, for there are but few followers of this sect here.” The youth replied, “I am: I pray to the true God, who rules in heaven. But I cannot pray to idols: nay, if I could, I would dash them down.” He was adjudged guilty of crimes against the laws and religion of the state, and sentenced to lose his head. As he was led to execution, his mother called out, “ My son, keep the living God in thy heart. Fear not death, which leads direct to life. Lift up thy heart, and look to Him who rules on high. Thy life is not taken from thee to-day, but thou art conducted to a better. By a blessed exchange thou wilt pass this day to heaven.”

Though the experience of Lyons may have been exceptional in its severity, we are not to suppose that it was unique. On the contrary, as Eusebius says, from the details in the letter that has been cited we may judge of the fierceness of persecution in other parts of the empire. For one.

ELAGABALUS.

the

martyr whose record has come down to us, there may have been hundreds, or perhaps thousands, whose names, though written in heaven, are forgotten on earth.

Commodus, the son of Marcus, like him in face and form, but his opposite in every trait of character, reigned from 180 to 192. He had a mistress, Marcia, who, from whatever reason, favored the Christians: to this ignoble cause they owed comparative security. A senator, Apollonius, was accused by a slave, avowed himself a believer, and was executed by a decree of the Senate, as was also his accuser: and Arrius, the proconsul of Asia Minor, began a persecution on his own account, but was deterred by the multitude of Christians who flocked to his tribunal for that purpose, and invited them to hang themselves. With these events Commodus had little or no connection. It is the irony of history that the religion of purity and love should have suffered so much under the purest and gentlest of rulers, and enjoyed almost complete immunity under a worthless tyrant.

NERO.

SEVERUS AND MAXIMIN.

N those days the Church was never wholly free from trouble; the “ten great persecutions ” indicate merely the periods when she suffered most. If there were no new edicts, the old ones were still in force ; if an emperor was favorable or indifferent, his subordinates, in distant parts of the world, might be led astray by their own zeal or by popular clamor. Irenseus, who testifies that under Commodus the Christians might travel where they pleased and were much at court, says also that at all times martyrs were ascending to heaven. Clement of Alexandria, writing toward the end of the second century, said, “We see daily many burned, crucified, and beheaded before our eyes.” .

Septimius Severus, who reigned from A. D. 193 to 211, had a Christian slave named Proculus, who cured him of an illness. This man’s influence, according to Tertullian, made the emperor indulgent for some years ; but in 202 he enacted a law forbidding conversions to Christianity under heavy penalties. The so-called fifth persecution, which might apparently be assigned to this date, was already raging so fiercely in parts of Africa that, as Eusebius says, the sufferings of the faithful were thought to be a sign of the speedy coming of Antichrist. In some places the churches had been able to purchase permission for the free exercise of their worship; but this, Neander thinks, might easily open to the officials a new way of enriching themselves, by threatening or enforcing the terrors of the law. Others thought this making terms with the heathen an unworthy and base compliance.

In the year 200 Satuminus, proconsul at Carthage, had before him in Scil- lita, a town of Numidia, (which is now the eastern part of Algeria), nine men and three women, to whom he promised the emperor’s pardon, if they would “return to their senses, and observe the ceremonies.” To him Speratus said, “We have wronged no man by word or deed: nay, we pray for those who injure us, and praise our Lord for all.” The governor oberved, “We too have a religion, and a simple one. We swear by the genius of the emperor, and pray for his welfare,

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as you too ought to do.” “If you will listen,” said Speratus, “I will explain to you our doctrine.” The governor answered, “Shall I hear you speak ill of our worship? Swear, all of you, by the genius of the emperor, that you may enjoy life and its pleasures.” But the Christian said, “I know no genius of the emperor. I serve God, Who is in heaven, Whom no man hath seen nor can see. I have done no wrong: I obey the laws ; I pay my dues and taxes ; I worship the King of kings. I have complained of none, and none ought to make complaints against me.” The proconsul turned to the others, saying, “Do not imitate this man’s folly, but fear our prince and obey him.” Cittinus answered, “We fear only the Lord our God, Who is in heaven.” Thereupon they were sent to prison.

The next day Saturninus, thinking that the women might be more easily persuaded, said to them, “Honor the king, and do not sacrifice to the gods.” Donata replied, “We honor Csesar as Csesar, but we offer prayer and worship to the Lord.” Said Vestina, “I too am a Christian; this my heart shall ever say, and my lips repeat.” Secunda added, “And I no less believe in my God, and will be true to Him.” The proconsul now called for the men, and asked Speratus, “Are you still determined?” “I am. Let all hear:

I am a Christian.” The others said, “We also are Christians.” The governor, not liking the bad business thrust upon him, offered such remonstrance as he could. “Will you neither consider your danger nor accept mercy?” They answered, “Do what you will: we are glad to die for Christ.” Anxious to defer the sentence, he inquired, “What ai sacred books?” “The four of our Lord Jesus Christ, the of the Apostle St. Paul, and scripture inspired of God.” give you three days to refl come to a better mind.” B ratus said, “I am a Christian, and so septimius severus.

are all these with me. We will never quit the faith of our Lord Jesus. Do, then, as you think fit.”

In this extremity the governor was helpless. If he followed the dictates of compassion, and let these contumacious persons go free, he would be violating the laws, and liable to accusation at Rome. So he said, “ Speratus, Narzales, Cittinus, Veturius, Helix, Acyllinus, Loetantius, Januarius, Generosus, Vestina, Donata, and Secunda, having acknowledged themselves to be Christians, and

refused to pay due honors to the emperor, I command their heads to be cut off.” On this they gave thanks, and again, kneeling, at the place of execution. “And the Lord,” says the chronicle, “received His martyrs in peace.”

Few magistrates were as merciful as this Satuminus, who endeavored to save the lives of his prisoners, and failing, sentenced them to the simplest and most expeditious punishment, refusing to add any of the torments which were usually so familiar. By this time it was understood that so much, and no more,

was required of a governor, in cases where the accused confessed their faith. Tertullian, in a letter to the proconsul Scapula, cited by Neander, tells him that ^ he might fulfil all the law exacted from his office, without indulging in cruelty, if he would use only the sword against the Christians, as the governors of Mauritania and of Leon in Spain were in the habit of doing.”

PERPETUA FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.

^ More harrowing and far more famous than the tale of Speratus and his friends is that of Vivia Perpetua, a lady of rank, who with four young catechu-

mens (persons under instruction, and not yet admitted to communion), two of them slaves, Felicitas and Revocatus, was arrested at Carthage in the year 202. She was but twenty-two, and tenderly reared ; she had an infant at the breast, a husband, a Christian mother, and a pagan father who was utterly unable to comprehend her scruples ; but all these ties, the force of which she keenly felt, could not induce her to value life when placed in the balance against her faith. To her aged father’s entreaties to recant, she replied by pointing to a vessel in the room, and saying, “ Can that be called anything else than what it is ? No more can I be given any other name than Christian.”

The ministers of the Church, who were most faithful in visiting prisoners during the persecutions, often purchasing that privilege from the jailers, and

risking their lives in doing so, found means to baptize these catechumens during their first confinement. “The Spirit prompted me,” said Perpetua, “to ask at my baptism nothing else than patience.” A few days later they were cast into the dungeon. “ I was terrified,” she said, “ because I had never before been in such darkness. Oh, what a wretched day ! The stifling heat from the crowd of prisoners, the rude treatment we suffered from the soldiers, and above all, my anxiety for my child !”

The deacons who ministered to them and brought them the consecrated elements, by a judicious use of money, procured better quarters for the confessors, or at least permission to leave the dungeon for some hours together. When Perpetua’s mother brought her baby to receive its natural food, “the prison became a palace.” In the night a dream or vision encouraged her to endure all.

The MARTYR'S DREAM.

Her father, who had at first been angry at her obstinacy, was now bowed down with grief, alike through natural affection and terror at the disgrace her execution would bring upon the family. As the time for her trial drew near, he cried, “ My daughter, pity my gray hairs! Pity your father, if he ever was worthy of the name ! I have brought you up to the bloom of your age ; I have loved you above your brothers ; give me not up to such shame among men ! Look on your mother and your aunt: have pity on your boy, who cannot survive you. Lay aside your proud spirit, lest you destroy us all ; for not one of us can hold up his head, if you come to such an end.” The old man threw himself at her feet, he kissed her hands, he called her his mistress—but all in vain. Perpetua “lamented that he alone, of all her family, would not rejoice in

her sufferings.” She said to him, “When I stand before the tribunal, God’s will must be done. We rely not on our own strength, but on-His.”

The next day, when the prisoners were brought into court, he came with his little grandson to renew his entreaties. The procurator, Hilarion, added his entreaties: “Take pity on your father’s gray hairs, have pity on your tender child : offer sacrifice for the prosperity of Caesar.” Perpetua said simply, “That I cannot do.” “Are you a Christian?” “I am.” When the old man heard his daughter sentenced to the wild beasts, he uttered a cry, threw his arms about her neck, and in a frenzy tried to drag her away. Hilarion directed one of the attendants to strike him with a staff: Perpetua felt the blow as if it fell on her own flesh.

They returned to the prison rejoicing; and there one of the men, Secun- dulus, died. Felicitas, the young slave, was about to become a mother, and feared lest her child should perish unborn. Her companions prayed for her, and she was delivered shortly before the horrid “sports” of the arena came on. Her pains were violent: the jailer said, “If you can scarcely bear this, what will you do when cast before the beasts?” She answered, “What I bear now, I endure alone; but then Another will suffer for me, because I shall be suffering for Him.” The child was given to a Christian relative, who reared it as her own.

As was too often the case, they had been roughly handled and half starved in prison, till the calm Perpetua said to the officer, “Will it not be for your credit that we should appear well fed at the spectacles?” This suggestion procured them relief.

In accordance with a custom which may have come down from the days when human sacrifices were offered to Baal, it was intended to clothe the male victims as priests of Saturn, and the women in the dress belonging to priestesses of Ceres. But they refused to wear these pagan garments, saying, “We have come to this end of our own will, that we might retain our freedom. We give up our lives that we might not be compelled to these practices.” The justice of this objection was admitted, and the martyrs were not thus disguised. To the procurator they said, “Thou judgest us, and God shall judge thee.”

After being scourged, Perpetua and Felicitas were stripped naked, and put into nets to be exposed to a wild cow. But it seems that some of the

spectators had decency enough to be offended at this treatment of a lady of rank and beauty, and a mother lately delivered; so the executioner drew them from the nets and gave them loose clothing. Perpetua was first attacked and overthrown: seeing her garment torn by the beast’s horns, her native modesty impelled her to pull it together as well as she could, and to put up her disordered hair. Then, noticing Felicitas unable to rise, she lifted her to her feet. “I wonder,” she said, “when they will expose us to the cow?” for she was unconscious of what had passed, till they showed her the blood flowing from her wounds. She called her brother, and exhorted him and the rest, saying “Continue firm in the faith; love one another; and be not alarmed nor offended by what we endure.”

None of the confessors having been killed in the first contest, the people clamored for their death. They gave each other the last kiss, and advanced to meet the executioners. The others expired silently; but Perpetua fell into the hands of an unskilful gladiator,—probably a slave who disliked and was confused by his horrid office,—who wounded her in the side. She cried out at the pain: then, recovering her self-command, she guided his trembling hand to her throat_; and passed to her reward. Her story has profoundly impressed believers in all ages. Two hundred years after her death, St. Augustine, the greatest of the Latin fathers, cited Perpetua as an example of divine love prevailing over the natural affections, and devoted three sermons to her memory and that of her companions.

Other African martyrs of this period,, according to Tertullian, were Rutilius, who after many tortures was committed to the flames, and Mavilus of Adrumelum, who was torn by wild beasts. Eusebius and other writers mention the deaths at Alexandria of Leonides, father of the famous Origen, who was beheaded; of Plutarch, Heraclides, Hero, two men named Serenus, Rhais, and Marcella, whom Origen is said to have instructed in his youth; and of Basilides, who from an executioner became a believer. These matters are doubtful; but it is certain that many suffered in Egypt during the reign of Septimius Severus.

The death of Irenseus, bishop of Lyons from 177, is usually placed about the year 202. Some think that he perished in a local persecution similar to that which he had survived twenty-five years before; but the manner as well as the date of his departure is in obscurity. He was one of the most eminent authors of the early Church; but though some of his writings survive, we know next to nothing of his life.

Septimius, an able ruler, was succeeded by his ruffianly son Caracalla (212217), a fratricide, who was credited with piercing through his mother’s hand to reach the heart of his brother Geta, that he might enjoy the throne without a partner. The slave of violent passions, he shed much blood, but showed no special animosity against the Christians. The wretched Elagabalus (218-222) was but

seventeen when the soldiers slew him. He cared nothing for the Roman constitution, and delighted to introduce the religions of his native Syria, with all their vile impurities. Naturally, he was no persecutor. His successor, Alexander Severus (222-235), ^{was u}P^right, humane, and studious, with novel ideas of his own—ideas of eclecticism and tolerauce. He knew something of Christianity, and respected it so much that he introduced the bust of its Founder, with those of Orpheus and Apollonius of Tyana, into his private chapel, among the old gods of Rome. He favored the Church, and gave it a piece of ground to build on in the capital. Therefore the tale of Calapodius being drowned in the Tiber, and others at Rome more formally executed, for refusing to sacrifice, would seem to be either an error, or wrongly dated. Yet it is possible that Henry of Lyons, Narcissus of Jerusalem, and some others, may have perished under local oppressions at the beginning of this reign. Ulpian, the jurist, collected the rescripts of former emperors against the Christians, though these were then in abeyance.

A BARBARIAN ON THE THRONE.

Maximin, a Thracian savage, reached the throne by the murder of his master. He had won his place in the army by wrestling, and risen by sheer physical force and brute courage. Eight feet in height and of enormous strength, he could draw loaded wagons, crumble stones in his fingers, pull up trees by the roots, and break a horse’s leg with a blow. The popular abhorrence credited him with the daily consumption of seven gallons of wine and thirty pounds of meat. When he heard that the Senate had decided against him, his howls of rage are said to have been rather those of a beast than of a man. From such a monarch no mercy could be expected; and during his brief reign (235-238) the Christians in several districts, especially in Asia Minor, suffered much from the popular fury, aroused by earthquakes. It is said that some sixty persons of note thus perished, and that several thousands were locked up in their assemblies, and so burned, refusing to save their lives by idolatrous compliance.

This is called the Sixth Persecution; but it was not general. Neander says that “though less severe than those of former

times, it made a greater impression, be- roman shields.

cause the long interval of repose had left men unprepared to expect hostilities.”

The amiable and ill-fated Gordian (238-244) was not a ruler to be feared by any ; and Philip the Arab (244-249) did ndthing against the Church. Eusebius indeed says that he was a Christian, and on attempting at Easter-eve to enter a Church, the bishop (probably Babylus of Antioch) met him at the door and refused to admit him till he had done penance for his crimes, by which was

STREET SCENE IN ASIA MINOR.

meant the murder of his predecessor. Whatever his sentiments, he conformed outwardly to the heathen rites and customs, and his coins bear pagan emblems. In his reign the thousandth anniversary of the founding of Rome was celebrated

with great pomp. But the republic was a remote memory, and the empire had seen its best days. Eaten up by its own corruptions and cruelties, the old Roman system was failing fast, that on its ruins, after many centuries, might rise the edifice of a new and milder civilization.

TESTIMONY OF ORIGEN.

Origen, the ablest Christian teacher of that period, writing in Palestine toward the close of Philip’s reign, makes some important comments on the history, condition, and prospects of the new faith in its conflicts with an unbelieving world:

“Although the Christians, who were commanded not to defend themselves by violence against their enemies, obeyed this tender and humane precept; yet what they never could have obtained, had they been allowed to use the arm of flesh, they have received from God, who has always fought for them. He has restrained such as oppressed them and would extirpate their religion. As a warning to them, when they saw some contend for their faith, that they might become stronger, and despise death, a few (so . • •

God has prevented a war of extermination against the whole Church ; for He " ■*j* wished His people to^endure, He desired

assaults upon them that neither em- opposed its propagation. But since He ^

willed that it should become a blessing &/-- ' • $'■ P

to the Gentiles, all the assaults of men archway on mount sinai.

have come to shame. And the more the Caesars, the governors, and the multitude have sought to oppress us, the more peaceful have we become.” He goes

* This does not agree with the statements of Clement and Irenaeus.

on to observe that though many well-born, well-placed, and well-to-do have been baptized, there are those who still abhor the faithful and believe the slanders against them. Though he is sure that the gospel will finally prevail, he foresees further and heavier persecutions, as outgrowths of the opinion that seditions and other public calamities arise from the decay of the state religion and the growth of the Church. “While God wills, we enjoy peace in a world which hates us. As the Master has overcome the world, so may we by His power. But if He wills that we should again battle for the faith, let the adversaries come : we can do all things through Him that strengthens us.”

MARCUS AURELIUS.

DECIUS AND THE SEVENTH PERSECUTION.

HE foresight of Origen was soon justified by the event; the two years of Trajan Decius (249-251) were the bitterest the Church in general had yet known.' An effort, more intelligent and systematic than any before, was made to crush the society, chiefly by removing her leading men.

Too many writers have thought it necessary to judge the Roman ^rulers, not by their characters and motives, but! ; by their attitude toward organized Christianity: thus Constantine is exalted, while Julian, vastly his superior in high-mindedness and purity of life, is held accurst. We need not repeat this error. The serious and conscientious Emperors (and there were several such) acted from political motives and from a stern sense of duty. They bore the weight of a huge mass of tradition, and by this, however erroneous it may since have been proven, they felt bound to direct their actions. What seemed to them injurious to the state, they repressed with the hand of power; and the promptings of humanity, if recognized at all, were held as nothing beside the public welfare. In our view they were hugely mistaken; but the mistake was that of the entire ancient world, and of the system of ideas universally accepted, until it was overthrown by the might of Christ.

Decius was of old Roman stock, a lover of the traditions of the republic, a hater of Eastern innovations. Descended, as he believed, from those illustrious plebeians who in remote ages had thrice sacrificed themselves for the state, he aimed to live as they had lived, and he made as heroic an end as they. A senator, he took with reluctance the highest post in the army, and by the army, then the real power of the empire, was forced to accept the throne. Gibbon, a historian

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MARTYRDOM OF METRAS.

always favorable to the pagans, calls him “ an accomplished prince, who has deserved to be compared, both in life and death, with the brightest examples of ancient virtue.”

But ancient virtue was apt to have little humanity in it, and a ruler of the old severe type would stop at nothing with those whom he considered enemies of the state. Thus arose the terrible Seventh Persecution.

“It did not begin,” says Dionysius of Alexandria, “with the emperor’s proclamation, but a full year before, when a certain soothsayer came to our city and stirred up the heathen against us. First they arrested a priest of ours, named Metras, and brought him forth to make him speak after their blasphemies: when he would not do this, they laid upon him with staves and clubs, and with sharp reeds pricked his face and eyes; afterwards they took him out iuto the suburbs, and there stoned him to death. Then they took Quinta, a faithful woman, and led her to the temple of their gods, to compel her to worship with them; when she refused, abhorring their idols, they bound her feet, and dragged her through the whole street of the city upon the rough stones; and so, dashing her against walls, and scourging her with whips, brought her to the same place of the suburbs, where she likewise ended her life. This done, in a great tumult and with a multitude running together, they burst into the houses of the godly, spoiling, sacking, and carrying away all they could find of value; the rest they took into the open market and burned. Meantime the brethren withdrew themselves, and took patiently the spoiling of their goods.

“Among others that were seized was a woman well stricken in years, named Apollonia. They dashed out all her teeth, and made a great fire, threatening to cast her into it, unless she would blaspheme with them and deny Christ. At this she, pausing a little as one that would consider with herself, suddenly leaped into the midst of the fire, and there died. There was also one Serapion, whom they took in his own house; after they had assailed him with sundry kinds of torment, and broken almost all the joints of his body, they cast him down from an upper room, and so finished him.

“No road, either private or public, was left for us to escape by day or night; the people made an outcry against us, that, unless we uttered words of blasphemy, we should be drawn to the fire and burned. And these outrages endured for a time; but at length, as the Lord willed, the wretches fell to dissension among themselves, which turned the cruelty they practiced against us upon their own heads. And so we had a little breathing-space, while the fury of the heathen was thus assuaged.”

This, however destructive, was a mere popular outbreak. Alexandria was a disorderly city, given to violence and riots, which the authorities, when not themselves threatened, took no great trouble to put down. Indeed, the mob had little reason to respect the law, for it set them no example of justice. The governors

did what they could, on the urging of greed or malice; and the Emperor Caracalla, visiting Egypt some years before this, had on small provocation ordered a bloody massacre, sending his troops into the streets to kill all whom they met.

But the organized persecution of the Christians soon began; their bishop, Dionysius, goes on to tell the tale. “The emperor’s edict, as our Lord had foretold, was so terrible as to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. All were astonished and dismayed: many of the richer sort came forward of their own accord; some, who held posts under government, were obliged on that account to appear; others were brought by their relatives or friends. As each of them was

SERAPION ASSAILED AND KILLED IN HIS OWN HOUSE.

called on by name, they drew near the unholy altars, some pale and trembling, not as if they were to perform sacrifice, but as if they were to be the victims slaughtered; so that the crowd around jeered them, and it was plain that they were afraid either to die or to sacrifice. Others came boldly, saying that they had never been

Christians—fulfilling our Lord’s words, ‘ How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God I ’ The rest partly followed the example of these; some fled, and others were arrested. Among the latter some went no further than being chained; some bore confinement for a few days, and then abjured the

REMAIN'S OF THE TEMPLE AT ABVDOS.

faith, even before they were brought to trial; some, after enduring the tortures for awhile, gave in; but the blessed and steadfast pillars of the Lord, being strengthened by Him, became true martyrs.”

MORE CRUELTIES.

First among these faithful ones was Julian, a man afflicted with gout; unable to walk, he was carried by two, one of whom at once denied Christ. The other,.

Cronion, confessed with Julian; they were placed on camels, led through the city, then scourged, and at last cast into a fire, in presence of a multitude. Besar, a soldier, lost his life for protecting them from the insults of the mob. Machar, a man from Western Africa, was burned; so were Epimachus and Alexander, who had borne long imprisonment and many torments ; and with them four women. Ammonarion, an aged deaconess, “was grievously tortured by the judge for having declared beforehand that she would not repeat the blasphemy which he ordered: she continued faithful, and was led away to execution.” Her constancy was the means of procuring a more merciful death for several of her sisters in the faith ; for the magistrate, “ ashamed of torturing them to no purpose, and of being baffled by women,” ordered Mercusia, Dionysia, and others, to be simply beheaded. The men did not fare so easily : Heron, Ater, and Isidor, after cruel torments, perished in the fire. A boy of fifteen, Dioscurus, was examined with them, but showed such firmness under pain, and such wisdom in his answers, that the governor, for once relenting, set him free, giving his youth time for repentance ; and he, Dionysius adds, “ is with us still, rescued to a greater and longer conflict.” One Nemesian, falsely accused as a robber and truly as a Christian, after clearing himself of the first charge, was scourged and burned as a malefactor. Four of the guard in attendance at these trials, Ammon, Zeno, Ptolemy, and Ingenuus, gave open signs of disgust at the cowardice of one of the apostates, presently owned that they were Christians, and went joyfully to their death.

Besides these martyrs of Alexandria, many in the smaller towns and rura7 parts of Egypt suffered, either by popular violence or by prosecution in the courts ; among them Iscyrion, agent to a magistrate, who, refusing to recant, was impaled.

Dionysius himself, to whom we owe all these particulars, escaped in a singular way, as he relates in one of his letters. Learning that he was to be arrested, he remained four days at home, while the officer sent after him searched diligently through “ the roads, the river, and the fields, where he suspected I might be hid”—never thinking to look for the bishop in his house. Becoming convinced that it was God’s will he should seek to preserve his life, he went into the country with his servants and many of the brethren. That evening they were all seized, and confined in a village. A friend, hearing of the arrest, fled in alarm aud told the facts to a peasant whom he met. This man was on his way to a nuptial feast; arrived there, he repeated what he had heard to the company; they rose with one accord, went to the place where the prisoners were under guard, and shouted with all their might. The soldiers were struck with panic and ran away. The rescuers, entering the house, found the bishop and his friends lying down. He, taking them for robbers, invited them to cut off his head and end the business. He was unwilling to escape; they dragged him out, and by sheer force delivered him from his enemies.

BESAR, THE SOLDIER, LOSES HIS LIFE TRYING TO PROTECT THE CHRISTIANS FROM THE MOB.

The cruelties practiced upon the faithful were now legalized. By the edict of Decius, A. D. 250, strict inquiry was to be made about persons suspected of disregarding the pagan rites. Christians were required to sacrifice, and if they refused, were to be threatened, tortured, and finally put to death. The persecution was especially directed against the bishop; and several of them, as Fabian of Rome, Babylas of Antioch, Alexander of Comana, were executed. Others, like Dionysius, sought shelter from the storm, that they might be preserved for further service to their flocks. Among these were the famous Cyprian of Carthage, who thus explains his action:

“ On the first approach of trouble, when the people, with loud outcries, constantly demanded my death, I retired for a time, not so much from care of my own life as for the safety of the brethren, that the tumult which had begun might not be further excited by my presence, which was offensive to the heathen. The Lord commanded us to yield and fly in case of persecution ; this He directed, and practiced it Himself. For as the martyr’s crown comes by God’s appointment, and can be received only in the fullness of time, so he denies not the faith, who, remaining true to Christ, withdraws at need; he only waits his time.” His own time arrived a few years later.

The absence of the bishop did not cause the persecution to abate at Carthage. Numidius, a presbyter, having encouraged many to endure, saw his wife perish in the flames, and was himself left for dead, crushed and lialf burned. His daughter, seeking his body under a heap of stones, found signs of life: he revived, and was honored as a confessor. Others endured torments for eight days in prison, and were finally starved. A woman, brought to the altar by her pagan husband, had her hands tightly held, and was thus compelled to go through the form of sacrifice, but cried out, “ I did it not;” strange to _ say, she was merely banished.

At Smyrna, Eudemon the bishop, forgetful of the glorious example of his predecessor Polycarp, became an apostate. But Pionius a presbyter, well known and greatly respected, put a chain about his neck to show his willingness to suffer, and through long imprisonment and many pains witnessed a good confession, being at last nailed to the stake and burned. In Asia, Maiimus, a merchant, exclaimed under torture, “ These are not torments we suffer for our Lord; they are wholesome unctions.” He was finally stoned. Another, having endured the rack and redhot plates, was smeared over with honey, and exposed under a semi-tropical sun to the stings of insects. A well known legend records the yet more fiendish device practiced against a well-made youth : he was tied with silken cords to a bed in a fair garden, and left to the wiles of a beautiful temptress. Anxious only to preserve the purity required by his religion, he bit off his tongue, that the pain and loss of the power of speech might protect him from temptation.

USES OF PERSECUTION.

The pious Cyprian found a providential reason for all that believers had endured, _ “When the cause of the sickness is once known, then the remedy may

be found. The Lord wished to prove His people, because the course of life which He commands had been destroyed in the long time of our tranquillity. Therefore a divine chastisement has roused the Church, fast sinking, as it then was, into careless slumber. Forgetting how the godly lived in the time of the apostles,

and how they ought always to live, men gave their hearts to the increase of their possessions on earth. Many even of the bishops, who ought by word and example to lead their flocks, neglected their divine calling, and busied themselves with administering the affairs of this world.'’

So it was in every prolonged interval between the later persecutions. As the Church grew in numbers and in wealth, formalism and corruption crept within

PROSTRATE, COLOSSAL STATUTE OP PHARAOH.

Estimated weight 900 tom. The toe measures S feet long and the foot 5 feet across,

the sacred enclosure; faith dwindled to a tradition, and sacraments to mere observances, till many of the members, living in ease and security, became such merely in name, not in deed and in truth. The ready apostacy of many in Alexandria, as related sorrowfully by their bishop, proves that this was so ; nor was their case without parallels throughout the empire. Besides these, who were Christians only during fair weather, there must have been many sincere but weak believers, whose attachment to the faith might fail under fiery trial. Even Origen, “the man who had done more than all others to promote the study of the divine oracles, the teacher of pagans, the strengthener of Christians, the converter of nations, of whom his contemporaries could not speak without love, who was most admired by those who were brought nearest the circle of his influence,” was thought by some to have used an unworthy compliance to save his life. We cannot believe that Origen acted against his conscience; his views were more expanded, less rigid, than those which largely prevailed in his day; and it is on record that as a confessor he bore the torture.

Dionysius tells a curious story of one of the lapsed, Serapion, an old man of blameless life, but who had given way under fear of the heathen punishments. Repenting, he begged again and again to be restored to communion, but was refused. At length disease attacked him, and he lay as dead for three days. Recovering consciousness and the power of speech, he said to his grandson, “ How long do you keep me here ? Be quick; bring one of the presbyters.” The minister was ill, but gave.

d f* ||^ ^ . .

prisoned awhole year m Rome, outer mummy case of q^een nefert-ari,

wrote thus to Cyprian: “ What ^Mscovered ”¹⁸⁸¹'^{at MBahaU}-

can be more glorious and blessed, than under tortures and in sight of death to acknowledge God the Lord, and with lacerated body, with free though departing spirit, in Christ’s name to become fellow-sufferers with Him? We have not yet shed our blood, but we are ready to shed it. Pray for us, dearest Cyprian, that the

Lord may daily more richly comfort and strengthen us, and at length lead to the battlefield that is before us His warriors, whom He hath practiced and proved in the camp of a prison. May He bestow upon us those divine arms which never can be conquered.”

Decius soon perished in a battle with the Goths, and was succeeded by Gallus. For a year the Church had rest; then the spread of pestilence, with other public calamities, roused the fury of the superstitious people against the Christians. A new edict appeared, requiring all subjects of the empire to sacrifice to the gods. Again the services were suppressed, and the faithful had to hide themselves; for it was now understood that prudence was a part of duty. Cyprian, in a letter to an African church, is explicit on this point:

“ Let none of you, my brethren, when he sees how our people are driven away and scattered from fear of the persecution, be disturbed in mind because he no longer sees the brethren together, nor hears the bishops preach. We, ■who dare not shed blood, but are ready to let our blood be shed, cannot meet at such a time. Wherever, through the exigencies of these days of trouble^ any of you may be separated for awhile from the rest, he is absent in body, not in spirit. Let him not be disquieted by the pains or perils of the journey• and if he be obliged to seek concealment, let not the solitude of a desert frighten him. He who keeps God’s temple within him is not alone. And if, in the wilderness or in the mountains, a robber or a wild beast should attack the fugitive, 01 hunger, thirst, or cold destroy him; or if, when he crosses the sea, a storm should sink his vessel; yet Christ, in every place, beholds His warrior fighting.”

The bishops were still the especial objects of attack, and in particular those of Rome. Fabian had fallen in the last reign; his successor, Cornelius, was now banished from the Capital, and then condemned to death. To accept that high office at this time was to expose oneself to almost certain punishment; and a third, Lucius, soon shared the same fate. But the persecution does not seem to have been general. Gallus was kept busy by enemies far more dangerous than the Christians; and he and his son Volusian, after two years of troubled power, followed Decius to their account.

CHAPTER IX.

VALERIAN.

HE Christians now enjoyed an interval of repose, for the new emperor favored them at first. Valerian, who reigned from 254 to 260, was of high reputation as a soldier and a man. But when he had been three years on the throne, his mind was poisoned by one Macrianus, who is said to have initiated him into the mysteries of magic, and he began what is called the Eighth Persecution.

Of this Cyprian was the most illustrious victim. He was summoned before Paternus, the proconsul of Carthage, who told him, civilly enough, that a rescript had arrived from Rome, requiring all to observe the Roman ceremonies; he therefore asked Cyprian his intentions. The bishop answered: “I am a Christian: I know no God but one, who created heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them. Him we serve; to Him we pray day and night, for ourselves, for all men, and for the emperor’s prosperity.” “Do you persist in this?” Said Cyprian, “A good resolution, which comes from the knowledge of God, cannever change.” “Then it is the will of the princes that you be banished.” “He is no exile who has God in his heart, for the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” Paternus added, “These letters relate to the clergy as well as the bishops. Before you go, tell me who are your presbyters.” Cyprian very properly replied, “Your laws forbid the laying of information, and it is not for me to accuse any.” The proconsul said: “ I will begin to search the city to-day.” “Neither our views nor your directions,” said the bishop, “ encourage men to give themselves up ; but if you look for them, you will find them.” “ The Christians are to hold no more assemblies under penalty of death.” “ Do what you are ordered,” said Cyprian, and went to his exile at Curubis, a town about fifty miles north, near the Mediterranean.

It appears from this, that cruelties were not at first intended, at least against persons of repute and station. But before long the mines in that regiou were filled with Christians, whose sufferings the bishop took pains to relieve, using for that purpose the funds at his command, and whose condition he thus describes in one of his numerous letters:

Though in the mines are no beds to rest on, the faithful there have rest in

AN EGYPTIAN WOMAN.

Christ. The limbs, weary with labor, lie on the cold ground, but it is no pain to be there with Christ. The feet have been fettered with bands and chains, but he

is happily bound of men whom the Lord doth loose. Though the outward man

AN ALEXANDRIAN DONKEY BOY.

be covered with filth, yet the inward man is the more purified. There is but little bread ; but man lives not by bread alone, but by the word of God. There

is but little clothing to keep out the cold ; but he that has put on Christ has garments and ornaments enough. Even the loss of the means of grace, my dearest brethren, can do your faith no injury. You celebrate the most glorious communion, you bring to God the most costly offering, even yourselves.”

To the ministers who were undergoing this punishment he wrote: “Most of the faithful have followed your example, confessing with you, and with you being crowned; they love you so that the prison and the mines could not separate them from you ; even girls and boys are among you. What triumph, to walk through the mines with imprisoned body but free spirit, to know that Christ delights in the patience of His servants, who tread in His footsteps and walk in His ways to heaven !”

The separation of the bishops from their flocks failed to accomplish its purpose. Wherever they went, they kept up their activity, gathering congregations, and even founding new societies in remote places where the gospel had not taken root before. Thus Dionysius of Alexandria, having been banished to a wild region west of. Egypt, could report: “At first we were abused and stoned, but afterwards not a few of the heathen left their idols and turned to God. There we first planted the seed of the word; and as if God had brought us thither only for that end, He led us away again as soon as the work was done.”

MARTYRDOM OF CYPRIAN.

Seeing that milder measures were not successful, Valerian in the year 258 put forth this edict: “ Bishops, priests, and deacons shall at once be beheaded. Senators and knights shall lose their dignities and possessions, and, if they still continue Christians, shall die by the sword. Women of rank shall be banished, and their property confiscated. Servants of the court shall be branded and sent in chains to labor on the public works.”

This decree caused the death of many, among them Cyprian. He had been released from banishment, but now went into hiding for a time. Learning that he was to be taken to another city, Utica, and feeling that, as he wrote in his last epistle, “it becomes the bishop to confess the Lord in that place where he is set over the Church,” when the governor returned to Carthage, he followed, and was presently arrested. Vast crowds, both of Christians and pagans, came to witness the trial, for his fame had spread far and wide. He was heated, and a soldier offered him fresh clothing ; but he said: “Shall I seek a remedy for ills which may last no longer than to-day ?”

The proconsul entered, and this dialogue ensued: “ Are you Thascius Cyprian?” “I am.” “Are you he whom the Christians call their bishop?” “I am.” “Our princes have ordered you to worship the gods.” “That I will not do.” “You would do better to consult your safety, and not despise the gods.” “My safety and my strength is Christ the Lord, whom I desire to serve

forever.” The governor said, “I am sorry for your case, and would like f d take counsel on it.” But Cyprian answered, “I have no wish that things should be otherwise with me than that I may adore my God, and hasten to Him with all the ardor of my soul ;”and he quoted Romans viii., 18. Thereupon the proconsul, his patience exhausted, pronounced sentence: “You have lived long in sacrilege. You have formed a society of impious conspirators. You have shown yourself an enemy to our gods and our religion, and have not listened to the just counsels of our princes. You have been a father and a ringleader of the godless sect. Therefore you shall be an example to the rest, that by your death they may learn their duty. Let Thas- cius Cyprian, who refuses to sacrifice to the gods, die by the sword.” “God be praised,” said the martyr.

As they led him away, many followed, crying, “ Let us die with our holy bishop !” The

! . V I. ^r rTVV.!'-'

A street VIEW IN CAIRO.

officers conducted him into a plain girt around with trees; on these many climbed, for the better view. He took off his outer garments, directed money to be given to the executioner, knelt down, and bound a cloth over his eyes. A presbyter and a deacon tied his hands; some of the people brought napkins

and handkerchiefs to receive his blood. The sword descended, and the head was severed.

This trial and its result offer a marked contrast to some in preceding persecutions— especially to the horrid scenes at Lyons, eighty years before. The decency and regularity of the proceedings, the respect shown to the accused, the absence of torture, the proconsul’s reluctance to go to extremes, and his anxiety to explain and justify the sentence he was obliged to pronounce, all indicate an increased seriousness in

the official mind as it encountered, and tried to suppress, the unauthorized religion. The careless frivolity, the contemptuous indifference of former judges, have disappeared. The Church could no longer be despised, for it had grown immensely, and some of its ministers and members were persons of mark and

influence. The government, perceiving these facts, seemed in part to realize the magnitude of the problem it had taken in hand. Valerian and the better sort of his officers evidently wished to avoid needless cruelty, and to shed as little blood as might be.

ST. LAWRENCE.

But it was too much to expect that all magistrates throughout the empire should share these views, or confine themselves to the letter and spirit of their instructions. The famous story of St. Lawrence, deacon at Rome, illustrates as forcibly as any the barbarity of ancient manners, and the abuse of office which could still go unrebuked, even at the capital. As Sextus, the fourth Roman bishop to be slain within a few years, was led to execution, Lawrence, in tears, asked, “ My father, are you going without your son ?” Sextus answered, “You shall follow me in three days.” The prefect of Rome, who had heard a tale of the great riches of the Church there, sent for Lawrence, and ordered him to deliver them up. He asked for time to get them into order, and three days were granted. These expired, the deacon brought forward a number of poor persons and offered them as the Church’s treasures, with certain widows and virgins as her jewels. The prefect, in a rage, exclaimed, “Do you mock me ? I know you pride yourselves on despising death, so it shall not be swift or easy for you.” The legend goes on to say that, after enduring various torments, the bold deacon was fastened to a huge gridiron and broiled over a slow fire; and that having borne this for some time, he invited the executioners to turn him over. This expression of his amazing fortitude has been thus versified by some grim jester of later days :

“ This side enough is toasted;

Then turn me, tyrant, and eat;

And see whether raw or roasted I am the better meat.”

DIONYSIUS.

Dionysius of Alexandria, who had escaped in the persecution of Decius, was now brought, with some of his clergy, before the prefect ^milian, and required to recant, and set an example to others. He answered, “ We ought to obey God rather than man. I worship Him, the only true object of worship.” The magistrate said: “Hear the clemency of the emperor. You are all pardoned if you return to your duty as good citizens. Adore the gods who guard the empire, and give up these notions of yours, which are against nature.” The bishop, to gratify this humane governor, descended to argument. “All men do not worship the same gods; their ideas and their observances vary. We adore the One God, the Maker of all things, who gave the empire to our lords Valerian and Gallienus ; to Him we pray constantly for their welfare.” ^u What do you mean ?” ^milian asked. “ Can you not worship that God of

yours—supposing He is a God—along with our gods ?” This was the position of the pagans; they could never understand the separateness, the exclusiveness of the Christian belief. The bishop saw that discussion was useless, and answered simply, “ We worship no other God.”

He got off with banishment; but he bears this testimony to the fate of others in Egypt: “There were men and women, young and old, soldiers and peasants, of all sorts and ages. Some, after stripes and fire, were crowned victors. Some at once by the sword, and others after short but severe torture, became acceptable sacrifices to the Lord.” He mentions several who ministered to the confessors in prison; most of these died of diseases contracted in their work of mercy. Eusebius, afterwards a bishop in Syria, was especially diligent in these latticed window in Alexandria. tasks, and in burying the bodies of mar

tyrs, a labor of much difficulty and danger. “ The governor to this day ceases not to behead some, and to tear others in pieces by torments, or consume them more slowly by fetters and imprisonment. He forbids any to come near them, and inquires daily whether his orders are obeyed. Yet God still refreshes the afflicted with His comforts and with the attendance of the brethren.”

SAPRICIUS AND NICEPHORUS.

A curious story came from Antioch in those days. Sapricius, a presbyter, and Nicephorus, a layman, having long been intimate friends, quarreled. After a time the latter softened and begged forgiveness, which Sapricius would not. grant. The persecution came on ; the presbyter was arrested, answered bravely before the judge, bore torments with patience, and was led out to be beheaded. Nicephorus, hearing of this, ran to the scene, and renewed his entreaties, at. last quoting the text, “Ask, and it shall be given you but the other was still obdurate. Here was a strange spectacle; a minister of the word, nearing his. earthly end, unmindful of one of his Master’s plainest precepts ; a confessor,, on the very verge of martyrdom, cherishing revenge and hatred in his heart,, refusing to be reconciled to his former friend. But the single sin, thus, cherished, sapped the tower of his virtue; at the last moment his strength gave way, and he cried, “Strike me not; I am ready to sacrifice.” Horrified at this, Nicephorus begged him not to lose what he had so nearly gained; but his ear was still closed to the voice of faithful and long-suffering affection. Then the

other, as if feeling that amends must be made for this defection, cried out, I am a Christian; I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has renounced. They sent word to the governor, and by his direction Nicephorus was executed

in place of the apostate.

Surprising constancy was shown by a boy named Cyril, at Caesarea of Cappadocia, in the eastern part of Asia Minor. His pagan father had driven him from the house ; the judge told him he should be taken back if he would

be wise and look after his own interests. “ God will receive me,” said the child. “I shall have a better home. I fear not death, for it will lead me to life eternal.” He was led out as to execution, then brought back, and again tempted with threats and flatteries, but to no purpose. Despising the sword and fire, he told the sympathizing beholders that they should rather rejoice than lament at his fate, for he was going to a heavenly city.

To another Caesarea, that in Palestine, came three countrymen to be devoured by wild beasts, blaming themselves because the persecution had not sought them out at home. Their case, like the last two cited, may show an excess of zeal, such as was not generally encouraged or approved. In times of severe affliction fanaticism springs up in the noblest hearts; and the martyr’s crown was supposed to secure immediate admittance to the highest seats in heaven.

Valerian, though far from the worst, was the most luckless of Roman princes. While at war with Persia, he was taken prisoner, and Sapor, the King of that distant country, exposed him to the derision of the crowd and used him for a horseblock, placing his foot upon an emperor’s neck whenever he went out to ride. When Valerian died, after three years of this wretched captivity, his skin was stuffed and hung up in a temple. This tale, at least, was believed by the Christians, who saw the vengeance of heaven in the fate of their persecutor.

GALLIENUS.

His son Gallienus, who had shared the throne, now reigned by himself, and proceeded to reverse his father’s active policy. He was a man of easy temper, cultivated mind, and light character; according to Gibbon, “ master of several curious but useless sciences, a ready orator, an elegant poet, a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and a most contemptible prince.” To his proper business of ruling he paid no attention, and under his lax hand the empire, long threatened by foreign foes and internal dissensions, nearly

went to pieces. This was the period of the so-called “ Thirty Tyrants,’ ’ of whom only nineteen are known. Nearly every Roman general of importance in the various provinces proclaimed himself emperor, or was proclaimed, sometimes against his will, by his legions; and some of these beneficent usurpers, especially in Gaul and Germany, preserved civilization, which but for them would have been overrun by the barbarians.

The Church, however, profited by the carelessness, the incompetence, and the vices of Gallienus. Caring nothing for the state religion, and perhaps regarding the Christians as one of many philosophic sects, he granted them the free exercise of their religion, and ordered that their buildings, cemeteries, and

GALLIENUS.

other property, which his father had confiscated, he restored to them. Their faith was thus at one stroke placed in the class of tolerated or allowed religions.

It must have been before this edict reached the western borders of the empire, that Fructuosus, bishop of Tarragona, in Spain, suffered with two of his deacons. After six days’ imprisonment, the governor required them to “worship the gods whom the emperor Gallienus worships.” The bishop answered, “ Nay, I worship no dumb gods of wood and stone, but the Lord and Master of Gallienus, the Father and Creator of all things, and his only Son sent down to us ; of whose flock here I am the Shepherd.” The magistrate sneered: “Say not you are, but that you wereP He then committed them to the flames, “where, their bonds being loosed by the fire, they lifted up their hands, praising the living God, to the wonder of those who stood by.”

The martyrdom of Marinus, at Caesarea in Samaria, about 261, is accounted for by the fact that that region was then in the power of Macrianus, one of the first generals to rise in rebellion. Marinus was a soldier, and was about to be promoted to the post of a centurion or captain of a company, when another who stood next in rank, coveting the place, accused him as a Christian, who could not legally hold military office. This was scarcely so, for many Christians were in the army through these three centuries, and some rose to the highest dignities; but in a time of persecution the laws, which before were relaxed, might be rigidly applied. Achaius, the judge, after inquiring into the matter, gave Marinus three hours to reflect and determine on his course. The bishop, Theotecnus, found him, led him into the church, and, pointing with one hand to the sword which the soldier wore, and with the other to the book of the gospels, told him he must make his choice. On this Marinus raised his right hand and laid it on the sacred book. “ Now,” said the bishop, “hold fast to God, and may you obtain what you have chosen.” He made a good confession, and was put to death by the sword he had renounced for his Master.

AURELIAN.

Claudius, who reigned from 268 to 270, was an able and virtuous monarch. He won his glorious surname of Gothicus by defeating the Goths, the most dangerous enemies of Rome ; and he did not trouble the Christians. Aurelian (270-275), another great soldier and conqueror, put down foreign and domestic foes alike, and restored order and unity throughout the empire. A serious heathen and zealous for the laws, he no doubt meditated proceedings against, the Christians ; but the so-called Ninth Persecution, which is ascribed to him, was rather intended than carried out.

During a war in the north, the Senate had neglected or declined to consult the ancient oracles, placing more confidence in the emperor and his army than in any help their deities might give. When Aurelian heard of this, he- •

was displeased, and wrote them, “I wonder that you should have hesitated so long to open the sibylline books, as if you had been consulting in a Christian church, and not in the temple of all the gods.” He urged them to support his military operations in the field by abundant pagan rites at home, and offered to bear all the costs of victims for the sacrifices, and to send on prisoners of war, apparently to be slaughtered in these ceremonies—a practice never much in vogue at Rome.

So much' for his sentiments ; but it was not easy to proceed against a religion which had been formally placed among those tolerated by the state. In one celebrated case, indeed, he was obliged to give it his personal sanction, by deciding a dispute SCENE near sr. sebastian’s gate. among the Christians. They of Antioch appealed to him to remove Paul of Samosata, who claimed the bishopric, though under a stigma of false and heretical opinions. Aurelian. not caring to go into such a matter, referred it to

the bishop of Rome, with authority to settle the question. This, which occurred about 273, was afterwards used to support the claims of Rome to primacy over the universal Church.

The alleged martyrs of this reign were so few, and the accounts of them so doubtful, as scarcely to be worth mentioning. Privatus, a French bishop, is said to have been killed by German invaders, and Mormas, a shepherd of Asia Minor, to have been accused of sorcery before the proconsul of Cappadocia, and after cruel torments thrust through with a spear. No more reliable, probably, are the legends which tell how Aurelian was prevented, by lightning or by a suddenly paralyzed hand, from signing a decree against the Christians. Eusebius says he was about to publish such an edict; others claim that he had already done so. At any rate, his plans were frustrated by his death, which came in the usual way, at the hands of conspirators. Few of the emperors, especially at this period, died in their beds; most of them, good or bad, were murdered by their own men.

Disregarding the merely nominal persecution of Aurelian, the Church had almost uninterrupted rest for forty years, from the death of Valerian to the end of the century. The excellent Probus, the warlike Carus, and the feeble or short-lived rulers who preceded or followed them, did not trouble her. Her position, as recognized by the state, was very different from what it had b eu in days of outlawry. By consequence, her numbers increased enormously, aud the character of her membership, and of her .ministry too, declined. She was no longer separated from the world, hated, oppressed, and helpless. Corruption came in apace; there was need of a new trial of faith, a last purging as by fire.

THE NILE.

CHAPTER X.

DIOCLETIAN.

HE great monarch under whom the terrible Tenth Persecution began was not, as some have supposed, a mere bloodthirsty tyrant, but a statesman and a soldier, with brains to plan and force to carry out the reconstruction of the empire after a new pattern. Born in the lowest station, he rose by sheer native merit, and at last took to himself a title (dominus or lord) which offended the stricter pagans of the old school, for they thought it more than man might claim. Living more and more in the East, he prepared the way for the transfer of the capital from Italy to the shores of Asia. He introduced a pomp of oriental despotism, before which the last remnants of republican simplicity gave way. He saw that the times had changed, and strove to fit his court and manners to the change. Whatever he did, he did advisedly; but the structure he built up was not long to endure. History now becomes cumbrous and complicated; there are two Augusti or emperors, with two Caesars or sub-emperors, who divide the earth between them; and these will presently be marrying each other’s daughters, quarreling among themselves, putting each other down, taking one another’s places. These fashions are far from our sympathy, and almost as far . from our understanding. Monarchy seems overgrown, the earth is weary; the day of a great change is at hand.

For nearly twenty years, or almost to the end of his reign (284-305), Diocletian favored the Christians, or at least did nothing against them. Many of them were about his court and in the army, holding positions from the lowest to almost the highest. That he held the old political theory appears

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from an edict published in 296 against the Manichees, a half Christian, half pagan sect which arose in Persia: “The immortal gods have in their providence ordained and established what is true and good. Many wise and good men agree in the opinion that this must be maintained without change. These we dare not oppose, and no new religion should venture to blame the old; for it is a great crime to pull down that which our forefathers built up, and which has dominion in the state.” Christianity certainly meant to pull down the

old religion, but that fact might not be always perceived by the government, and the Church was for the time permitted and recognized.

The boldness, if not sometimes the rashness, of true believers was liable to open the eyes of the authorities. The army was of first importance, and nothing that interfered with it could be allowed. Yet some had always held —probably in this age a small minority —that military service was inconsistent with a profession of Christ. In 295, at Sevesta in Numidia, a youth called Maximilian was conscripted. His name was taken down, and the formalities of his enrolment had begun, when he cried out, “ I cannot be a soldier; I can do nothing wicked; I am a Christian.” The proconsul, taking no notice of what he probably regarded as a mere petulant outburst, directed him to be measured, and then said, “Let them put the badge about your neck.” He replied, “I will not wear it; I bear The governor thought it now time to try a threat; “I will send you to your Christ at once.” The undaunted youth answered, “I hope you may: it would be a glory to me.” They tried to put the soldier’s leaden badge upon him, but he struggled, and threatened to break it. The humane officer tried to persuade him, telling him that there were Christians in the body-guard of all the four emperors; but he would not listen. At last he was sentenced to death, not at all for his religion, but simply for refusing to render military service.

MARCELLUS THE CENTURIAN.

Occurrences like this (and they may have been numerous) would easily give a handle to charges that the followers of Jesus were seditious, and their

DIOCtETIAN.

already the badge of Christ, my God.”

religion injurious to the state. Galerius, Diocletian’s son-in-law and one of the Caesars, often used the sacrifices and auspices in his camp: on such occasions the Christians about him, regarding the heatheu deities as devils, used to make the sign of the cross, to ward off their evil influence. This practice was noticed, and the pagan priests claimed that “the gods were no longer present at the sacrifices, not because they feared the cross, but because the hostile and profane sign was hateful to them.” In this way they roused the wrath of Galerius, who in turn worked upon Diocletian, and procured, about 298, an order that every soldier should offer sacrifice.

On this, as Eusebius says, many of all ranks left the army, and a few were put to death. The victims were probably those who had made themselves conspicuous, as in the notable case of Marcellus.

He was a centurion serving at what is now Tangier, opposite Gibraltar, on the extreme western border of the empire. In the midst of a festival, before all his comrades, he suddenly rose, threw down his arms and sign of office, and said, “I will fight no longer for your Caesars, nor pray to your gods of wood and stone. If the condition of a soldier requires him to sacrifice to gods and emperors,

I abandon the vine-branch and the belt, and serve no more.” He was sentenced to be beheaded, probably for insubordination or mutiny, and met his fate as boldly as he had provoked it. We are told that Cassian the register, whose duty it was to record the sentence, objected to it as unjust, and followed his friend a month later.

It may have been partly the motive of this edict—if the persecutors were wily enough to lay their plans so carefully—to provoke resistance like that of Marcellus, and thus to bring the Christians into such discredit as might make further steps against them easier. Men who had served long and faithfully in the army, without being required to do anything contrary to their belief, would

naturally be indignant at this new and sudden requirement, and at the suspicion which it implied. If they spoke or acted rashly, how easy to say, “You see, these Christians are all disloyal; not one of them can be trusted. They are a standing menace to government: it is time to put them down.”

AT NICOMEDIA.

So the fierce Galerius thought, and so he acted.

But it was years before he could bring Diocletian over to his views. The • emperor was old, sick, and tired of the cares of state; his wife and daughter were said to be secretly Christians. All winter the two rulers were together at Nicomedia, in Asia, not far from the coast of Thrace.

The younger man urged; the elder objected, doubted, feared to act. The emperor wished to restrict the persecution to the court and army; the younger insisted that it should be general, the object

being to stamp out Christianity. At length Diocletian, overborne,gave way the*' horrors that ensued may be credited rather to his weakness than to his will.

Maternal influences spurred the fury of Galerius, who seems to have cared

nothing for the feelings and opinions of his wife. His mother, a fanatical worshipper of Cybele or other deities, “was seized with a Spirit of proselytism, and celebrated almost every day a splendid sacrifice, followed by a banquet, at which she required the presence of the whole court.” The refusal of the Christians to attend made her very angry, and her offended and revengeful pride was the immediate cause of what followed. Her son, having secured an oracle to suit his end, wished to burn all who refused to

the MiRTYR’s faith. sacrifice ; but Dio

cletian said there must be no loss of life. So the attack commenced in a new way, on the festival of the Terminalia, February 23d, 303.

Gibbon tells the story thus: “At the earliest dawn of day, the pretorian prefect, accompanied by several generals, tribunes, and officers of the revenue, repaired to the principal church in Nicomedia, which was situated on an eminence in the most populous and beautiful part of the city. The doors were instantly broken open; they rushed into the sanctuary ; and as they searched in vain for

some visible object of worship, they were obliged to content themselves with committing to the flames the volumes of Holy Scripture. The ministers of Diocletian were followed by a numerous body of guards ..and pioneers, who marched in order of battle, and were provided with all the instruments used in the destruction of fortified cities.

“By their incessant labor a sacred edifice which towered above the imperial palace, and had long excited the indignant and envy of the gentiles, was in a few hours leveled with the ground.” Galerius, reckless of the danger of the flames spreading, had wished to burn the church, but was overruled.

The Christians made no resistance; it was contrary to their Master’s command, and it would have availed them nothing. Anxiously they awaited what should come next. It might be more regular, as it certainly was usual, to- begin with a proclamation; but the action of the government spoke more loudly than words. Next morning this edict was posted in the market-place: “The assemblies of the Christians are forbidden. Their churches shall be pulled down, and all copies of their sacred books burned. Those who have, offices of honor and dignity shall lose them, unless they abjure. In the judicial investigations, the torture may be applied against all Christians of any rank whatever. Those of lower condition shall lose their freedom. Slaves, while they remain Christians, may not be set free.” This sentence, terrible enough in its wording, was more terrible in what it implied. Believers were subjected to any kind of loss and punishment, short of death. We know that, as a direct result, many were made slaves, and condemned to the hardest and most revolting kinds of labor.

SACRED BOOKS DESTROYED.

Let us turn aside a moment from the direct course of our narrative, to- consider this new crusade against the sacred writings—chiefly, of course, the. four gospels and other books of the New Testament. It was a cunning thought, which would not have occurred to the pagans of a century earlier. If the idea could have been carried out—if all the books could have been destroyed—the Christians would have lost, not indeed the Foundation of their faith, for that went deeper than any array of words, but the documents that were- essential to the preservation of that faith in its purity.

The emperors fancied that the measure would be effectual. In. Spain, two pillars were erected in their honor, one “ for having extinguished the name of the Christians, who brought the state to ruinthe other “ for having everywhere abolished the superstition of Christ, arid extended the worship of the gods,” And a coin or medal is said to exist with this inscription, “ The name Christian being extinguished.” But they were mistaken ; it was not within the; power of Diocletian and Galerius to abolish Christianity.

TOMB OF HADRIAN.

Doubtless many copies of parts of the Bible were destroyed, being taken by violence or through, the fears of those who had the keeping of them. Those who gave them up were regarded with scarcely less horror than those who sacrificed to idols. They were called traditores, whence comes our word traitor; he who handed over the Scriptures to be burnt was a traitor to the faith. But many guarded this trust as more precious than life. A reader (one of the inferior ministers then already recognized in the Church) replied to the proconsul’s question, “ Yes, I have them, but it is in my heart.” Another African, Felix of Tibinra, said, “ I have them, but I will not part with them and being ordered to execution, thanked God that he had “ lived fifty-six years, kept his purity, preached faith and truth, and preserved the gospel.”

Nor was the search always conducted with the careful zeal which the emperors expected ; their object was sometimes defeated by the pious artifices of the clergy, or the easy compliance of the officers. Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, concealed all the copies of the Scriptures, and left in the churches only the writings of heretics ; these were taken by the searchers, to whom one book was as good as another. Some of the leading pagans learned the facts, and reported them to Annulinus the proconsul, asking him to look in the bishop’s house ; but he refused to take further steps in the matter. So Secundus and Felix, two other bishops, refusing to betray their trust, were asked, for form’s sake, to “ give up something, anything, no matter what; any writings of little value, which they did not care for.” In one case the prefect suggested the answer he was quite willing to receive, “ Perhaps you have none ?” and was amazed that a Christian conscience would not purchase safety by a lie.

To return to Nicomedia, where the immediate results of the decree were far more tragical. The edict was at once torn down by a Christian of the upper classes, with the sarcastic remark, “ New victories against the Goths and Samaritans !” He was promptly arrested, and “ burned, or rather roasted, by a slow fire; and his executioners, zealous to avenge the personal affront which had been offered to the emperors, exhausted every refinement of cruelty without being. able to subdue his patience, or to alter the steady and insulting smile which in his dying agonies he still preserved.” We who are bred to free speech may admire the spirit, but not the prudence, of one who could thus provoke despotic power. Tyrants are not forgiving, and the only effect of his rashness was to bring fresh calamities upon his friends.

Within fifteen days the palace was twice in flames. Galerius left it and the city in haste, pretending that his life was not safe there. The guilt of these attempts (if they were not accidents) was, of course, laid upon the Christians, and by them upon Galerius. If the second fire was a device of his, as seems probable enough, the plot was entirely successful. The'mind of Dio- “ cletian was now inflamed with rage and fear, and he was ready for any measures

against those whom he had been brought to look ou as his most disloyal subjects and most dangerous foes. The Caesar had accomplished his deadly purpose; the emperor was as ferocious against the faith as he.

CRUEI-TIES

IN THE PALACE.

His first victims were his own domestic servants, suspected as the authors of the alleged attempts upon his life, and known to be guilty of professing Christ. His own wife and daughter were compelled to sacrifice, and those who would not do so were tormented in his presence. The powerful eunuchs,

Dorotheus, Gorgonius, and Andreas, were strangled, after a variety of sufferings. Peter, one of the household officers, was scourged till his bones were laid bare; vinegar and salt were rubbed into his wounds; and at last, refusing to renounce his religion, he perished in a slow fire. In those inhuman days, an angry tyrant easily became a fiend.

The city was next attended to. Antlii- mus, the bishop, was beheaded. Many shared his fate ; many were

burned ; many were tied, with, stones about their necks, rowed out to the middle of the lake, and drowned.

From Nicomedia the persecution spread in every direction. The other rulers were required to do their share. The rude Maximian Hercules, whom Diocletian had made his colleague, willingly did his part in and about Italy. Constantius Chlorus, the second Csesar and father of Constantine the Great, was of different metal; he had charge of the western province.¹!. A humane man and a friend to the Christians, he was not ready for a civil war, and so was forced to make a show of obeying his orders. He pulled down certain churches, but took no life: in France, where he chiefly lived, not a drop of blood was shed.

THE TENTH PERSECUTION BECOMES GENERAL.

The general effects of the first edict are thus described by Gibbon, who always made as little as he could of the persecutions: “The property of the Church was at once confiscated, and either sold to the highest bidder, united to the imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or granted to the solicitations of rapacious courtiers. After taking such effectual measures to abolish the worship and dissolve the government of the Christians, it was thought necessary to subject them to the most intolerable hardships. The whole body of them were put out of the protection of the law. The judges were authorized to hear and to determine every action brought against a Christian. But the Christians were not permitted to complain of any injury which they had suffered; and thus these unfortunate sectaries were exposed to the severity, while they were excluded from the benefits, of public justice. This new species of martyrdom, so painful and lingering, so obscure and ignominious, was perhaps the most proper to weary the constancy of the faithful.”

But this was not all; it was only the beginning. It was easy to find excuses, if excuses were wanted, for further severity against the Christians ; and certain disturbances or risings in Syria and Armenia were, as usual, laid to their charge. Two incidents, which occurred a little later, show the suspicious temper of the government. A youth in Palestine, being asked what was his native land, replied, “Jerusalem, where the sun rises, the country of the pious.” The sacred city of the Jews was now known only as JElia Capitolina, and the proconsul had probably never heard of either the earthly or the heavenly Jerusalem; so he began to make careful and extensive inquiries, to find some town in the far east which the Christians had founded, and from which they meant to upset the empire. Procopius, a priest, being required to’offer libations to the two Augusti and two Csesars, quoted a line of Homer to the effect that it is not well to have too many rulers. This gibe also was taken seriously, and supposed to indicate a deep and widespread conspiracy.

The edict of Nicomedia was shortly followed by three more. One directed the governors of the various provinces to seize all the clergy and put them in

chains: by consequence, “ the prisons, destined for the vilest criminals, were soon filled with a multitude of bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and exorcists.” The next directed the magistrates to set free such prisoners as recanted, and to

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sometimes connived at the escape of their victims. “ One was dismissed as if he had sacrificed, though he was dragged to the altar, and the thing to be offered put into his hands by violence. Another went away in silence, some persons, with a humane falsehood, testifying that he had complied. One, after he had been tortured, was thrown out as dead, though yet alive. Another, protesting

against what was exacted of him, was struck on the mouth to compel him to silence, and thrust out of the court.” But these cases were the exceptions.

TESTIMONY OF PHILEAS AND EUSEBIUS.

The cruelties perpetrated were so severe, those against whom they were directed so numerous, and the time so near that of the Church’s triumph, that

ANCIENT BURYING PLACE OF ROME-

we liave more records of this persecution than of all that had preceded it together. Phileas, an Egyptian bishop and afterwards a martyr, while in prison at Alexandria, wrote this account of what he had seen:

“Coveting the best gifts, the martyrs, who carried Christ within, underwent all sorts of tortures once and again. And while the guards insulted them in word and deed, they were preserved serene and unbroken in spirit, because perfect love casteth out fear. But what language can do justice to their fortitude? Free leave was given to any to injure them; some beat them with clubs, others with rods ; some scourged them with ropes, others with thongs of leather. Some, having their hands tied behind them, were hung upon a wooden engine, and all their limbs stretched by machines. The torturers rent their whole bodies with iron nails, applied not only to the sides, as with murderers, but also to their stomachs, their legs, their cheeks. Others were hung up by one hand, and all their joints distended. Others were bound to pillars, face to face, their feet being raised above the ground, that their bonds, being stretched by the weight of their bodies, might be drawn the closer; and this they endured for nearly a whole day. The governor ordered them to be dragged on the ground as they were dying. He said, ‘ No care ought to be taken of these Christians: let all treat them as unworthy the name of men.’ Some, after they had been scourged, lay in the stocks, with both feet stretched to the fourth hole, so that they had to lie face upward, being unable to stand through the wounds caused by their stripes. Some died under their tortures. Others, having been recovered by methods taken to heal them, and obliged to choose between sacrifice and death, cheerfully preferred to die. For they knew what was written, ‘Whoso sacrificeth to other gods shall be destroyed,’ and ‘Thou shalt have no other gods but Me.’”

Eusebius, the historian of the Church and bishop of Caesarea, says that while in Egypt he saw many put to death, both by the sword and by fire, in one day; so that the two executioners were fatigued and their weapons blunted. He tell us much of the martyrs of Palestine, Procopius, who so imprudently quoted Homer, being the first of them ; and he speaks of a governor of Bithy- nia (the province of which Nicomedia was, then the chief city), who was as proud “as if he had subdued a nation of barbarians, because one person, after two years’ resistance, had yielded to the force of torments.” He knew others who boasted that their administrations were not polluted with blood (that is, lifeblood), because they aimed to torment without killing. Lactantius, a famous scholar of this period, justly denounces these men as the worst sort of persecutors ; they studied the human frame to see how much it would bear, and sought to inflict the greatest amount of suffering, while denying to their victims the release of death and the martyr’s crown.

Libanius, a heathen, in his funeral oration on Julian, called the Apostate, bears testimony to what the Christians had suffered at this time, by telling what

they looked for on Julian’s accession to the throne. “They were in great terror, and expected that their eyes would be plucked out, their heads cut off, and that rivers of their blood would flow from the multitude of slaughters. They feared

that their new master would invent new kinds of torments, compared with which mutilation, the sword, the fire, drowning, being buried alive, would appear but slight pains. For the preceding emperors had employed against them all these sorts of punishment.”

It is needless to give the list of even the more noted martyrs, or to sicken the reader with the varied record of cruelty; but a few instances of fidelity and patience may be cited. Ro- manus, a deacon of Caesarea, chanced to enter Antioch when many apostates were thronging to the temples to sacrifice. At the sight his spirit arose within him, and he loudly rebuked their weakness and desertion. He was seized at once, and a cairene woman. being fastened to the

stake, asked boldly, “Where is the fire for me?” Galerius, who was present, was enraged at this, and ordered his tongue to be cut out; he offered it without a murmur. He was put in prison, kept there long under torments, and at last

strangled. A boy of twenty stood unbound, with his hands extehded in prayer, exposed to bears and leopards, which would not touch him. A bull, urged with a hot iron, turned on the tormentors and tossed them. At length the brave youth was dispatched. Adauctus, a man of noble birth and high office, suffered bravely in Rome. A Phrygian town, almost entirely Christian, was thought worthy of the attention of an army. The people, refusing to sacrifice, ran to the church; the soldiers set it on fire, and all perished together. Three ladies of Antioch, otherwise defenseless against the insults of the soldiers, sprang into the sea; two others were thrown there by the persecutors.

In Pon- tus, on the south shore of the Euxine or Black sea, sharp reeds were thrust under the finger-nails of some, and melted lead poured on the

backs of others. In Egypt some were tied to crosses with their heads toward the earth, and so left to die. In one day, at one place, a hundred meD, women, and

TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF SAN GALLO.

children were put to death by various torments. When the officers grew tired of murdering, they took to cutting off a leg or plucking out an eye, and then sending the maimed body to the mines. It is to be remembered that any of these victims could at any time save what was left of them by submission.

A few dying speeches or prayers may end this doleful chapter. Victoria, a girl of Carthage, was troubled by a brother, who claimed that she was of unsound mind. “Such mind as I have,” she said, “has not changed and will not change.” The proconsul asked, “Will you go with your brother ?” “No; they are my brethren who obey God’s commands.” One in torture cried: “Help me, O Christ! Have pity on me, that I be not brought to confusion ; O give me strength to suffer.” Another, in like case, was told by the proconsul, “You ought to have obeyed the edict,” and answered, “I care only for God’s law now ; for this I will die, in this I become perfect; beside this there is no other.”

DECIUS.

CHAPTER XI.

galerius and maximin.

N the year 304, Diocletian went to Rome to celebrate a triumph, less glorious in modern eyes than those of the Scipios and other ancient heroes. Returning to Nicomedia, he had a long and mysterious illness. On recovering from this, he astonished the world by his abdication, and retired to a farm and palace near Salona, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic sea, in his native country of Dalmatia. Here he lived for eight years, planting cabbages and meditating on the vanity of earthly greatness. If he felt remorse for the cruelties he had allowed and practiced, he made no sign. Maximian Hercules was persuaded or forced to abdicate also. They were succeeded by Galerius in the East, who made his nephew Maximin Duza his Caesar, and in the West by Constantius Chlorus and Maxen- tius, the latter a son of the retired Maximian. Licin- ius and Constantine also presently came to the front as associate emperors. If the modern reader finds it troublesome to keep in his mind so many royal names, the subjects of the empire groaned under the conflicting tyranny and enormous expense of so many royal establishments. The condition of the world, and especially of the eastern provinces, which at this time were considered the richest, most populous, and most important, is well described by Dean Milraan : “ The great scheme of Diocletian, the joint administration of the empire by associate Augusti with their subordinate Caesars, if it had averted for a time the dismemberment of the empire, and had introduced some vigor into the provincial governments, had introduced other evils of appalling magnitude; but its fatal consequences were more manifest directly the master hand was withdrawn which had organized the new machine of government. Fierce jealousy succeeded at once, among the rival emperors, to decent concord ; all subordination was lost; and a succession of civil wars between the contending sovereigns distracted the whole world. The earth groaned under the separate tyranny of its many

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masters ; and, according to the strong expression of a rhetorical writer, the grinding taxation had so exhausted the proprietors and the cultivators of the soil, the merchants and the artisans, that none remained to tax but beggars. The sufferings of the Christians, though still inflicted with unremitting barbarity, were lost in the common sufferings of mankind. The rights of Roman citizenship, which had been violated in their persons, were now universally neglected ; and, to extort money, the chief persons of the towns, the unhappy decurions, who were responsible for the payment of the contributions, were put to the torture. Even the roasting by a slow fire, invented to force the conscience of the devout Christians, was borrowed, in order to wring the reluctant impost from the unhappy provincial.” Such, in remote ages, had been the usage of oriental

REMAINS OF A ROMAN AQUEDUCT.

despotism, which the emperors now imitated; such is still the wretched practice in Turkey and other Mohammedan lands.

In Italy the faithful no longer suffered for their faith ; if they still resorted to the catacombs, it was rather from precaution than from fear of active enemies. Maxentius was a loose reprobate, dangerous to all men’s wives and daughters alike. “If a Christian matron, the wife of a senator, submitted to a voluntary death rather than to the loss of her honor, it was her beauty, not her Christianity, which marked her out as the victim of the tyrant.” In France and Britain believers were protected, as far as possible, by Constantius and his greater son, who succeeded him in 306. But in the East their condition was no way bettered, for the Caesar Maximin was the worthy pupil of his uncle Galerius. Apologies may be made for some earlier persecutors; but these two, though

RVIHS OF TSMfW or MINERVA.

not without ability, were bloodthirsty tyrants. Even on grounds of policy they •can hardly be defended, for the stars in their courses fought against them, and by this time not only the best brain and conscience of the empire, but a large ishare of its population, was Christian. They lived to retrace their steps, to withdraw their edicts, and to confess that their atrocities had been a huge mistake.

For all that could be done had no other effect than this, to winnow the grain and separate the tares from the wheat. The followers of Jesus might lose their bravest and best; but the spirit of these survived, their example animated many. Now, as always, the blood of the martyrs was the Church’s seed. The survivors met in secret, they preserved their sacred books, they would not give up their principles. They were too many to be exterminated, too firm to be overcome. The inborn sense of human rights, the modern reverence for conscience, were constantly displayed by the confessors in an age when all other influences tended to slavishness.

ASIATIC MARTYRS

Appian, a young man of education, coming to Caesarea, was bold enough to interrupt Urban the governor in his public sacrifices, and to reprove his idolatry: after fearful tortures he was thrown into the sea. Incited rather than dismayed by this example, his brother ^Edesius, seeing Hierocles giving over virgins to abuse at Alexandria, expressed his manly indignation, and even struck the magistrate; he was treated as Appian had been. At Gaza, a woman, being threatened with violation, spoke her mind freely about an emperor who could employ as judges such ministers of impurity. Another, dragged by force to an altar, threw it down. Taracus, Probus, and Andronicus, who were martyred at Tarsus in Cilicia (St. Paul’s native town), used plain language to the magistrates: one of them, on being required to sacrifice to Jupiter, cried out, “What! to him who married his sister—that loose liver, that adulterer, as all the poets [testify ?” They had cast away all care for their lives, and they valued truth more highly than politeness.

But the martyrs were oftener as eminent for meekness as for courage. Paul, one of the many victims in Palestine, on being sentenced, asked for a brief respite, and used it in praying aloud for the Church, the Jews, the Samaritans, the ' heathen, the emperors, the judge, and the executioner, so fervently and forgivingly that those who stood by were moved. Agapius did not murmur when sentenced at Caesarea to be thrown to wild beasts with a slave who had murdered his master; nor when Maximin, celebrating his birthday in the usual inhuman fashion, gave pardon and freedom to the murderer, and cast the Christian to a bear—another case of “ Not this man, but Barabbas.” Grievously tom, he was -carried back to prison, and the next day flung into the sea.

STORY OF DOROTHEA.

The human motive and heavenly hope which supported these martyrs is set forth in the legend of Dorothea of Antioch, on which Milman has built a drama. Young, tender, and delicately reared like Perpetua of Carthage, she was tormented for an hour on an engine like the rack of later days, and then given over to two of her former friends, recent apostates. Instead of their persuading her to sacrifice, she prevailed on them to return to Christ and to suffer for Him. After a

TrtEATRE OF MARCEU.US, ROME

second contest, when life was ebbing fast, she was ordered 10 the block; but first the governor asked her if she would beg forgiveness of the gods. She said, “I pray for your forgiveness, and I will pray for it in the land whither I am going.” “And what sort of land is that?” he inquired, in the spirit of Pilate’s question, “ What is truth ? ” But she answered seriously: “A land of perpetual light and of everlasting spring. There is no night, no winter, no sorrow. There is the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, and the tree of life that yields its fruit every month. There are unfading flowers, and a paradise of joy.”

The pagans were capable of any brutality. By way of jest, one of her old companions said.to the dying girl, “And when yot£ come to that land, send me

someof those flowers.” She looked him in the eye, and said—they were her last words—“I will.” A few minutes later, as they were going, a wonderfully beautiful boy came to them, in his hands four roses, two red, two white, such as none had seen before. “Dorothea sends you these,” he said, and disappeared. The boy was an angel, aud the roses grew in no earthly garden. The legend goes on to say that he who asked for them and received them, one fragment of a roman fresco. Theophilus, at once pro

fessed himself a Christian, and was beheaded. The Church commemorated these martyrs on the sixth of February.

About 308 the persecution slackened; the confessors in the mines of Palestine were more mildly treated, and even allowed to eTect rude buildings for theirworship. But soon the storm burst forth again: a new edict required that the pagan temples be restored which had fallen to decay, end all citizens obliged to offer sacrifice.: the eatables offered in the markets were to be sprinkled with wine or water which had been used in idol-worship, so that the ^{FRO vI A} roman fresco.

Christians might be forced into contact with what they abhorred, or compelled to

starve. And now the old scenes were repeated: “ those who submitted performed the hated ceremony with visible reluctance, with trembling hand, averted countenance, and deep remorse of heart: those who resisted to death were animated by the presence of multitudes who, if they dared not applaud, could scarcely conceal their admiration. Women crowded to kiss the hems of their garments; and their scattered ashes or unburied bones were stolen away by the devout zeal of their adherents, and already began to be treasured as incentives to faith and piety.”

EDICT OF TOLERATION.

At length Galerius was seized by the hideous disease which has ended the lives of other persecutors ,aud voluptuaries—Antiochus Epiphanes, Herod the Great, Philip II. of Spain. For months he lay in agony, and the palace was infected by the stench of his ulcers. While thus bearing tortures as great as any he had inflicted, he attempted at once to justify and to change his course in this extraordinary edict, in which the names of Licinius and Constantine are added to his own :

“Among the weighty cares which have occupied our mind for the welfare of the state, it was our intent to correct and re-establish all things after the ancient Roman law and discipline. Especially we wished to recall to the way of reason and nature the deluded Christians, who had renounced the religion and usages of their fathers, and presumptuously despising the practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and opinions at the dictates of their fancy, and collected a varying society from the different provinces of our empire. The edicts we have published to enforce the worship of the gods have exposed many of the Christians to danger and distress: many have suffered death, and many more, who still presist in their impious folly, are deprived of any public exercise of religion. We are therefore disposed to extend to these unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit them freely to profess their opinions, and to assemble in their conventicles without fear or hindrance, provided they keep a due respect to the laws and government. We shall declare our intentions to the magistrates by another letter ; and we hope that our indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up their prayers to the Deity whom they worship, for our safety and prosperity, for their own, and for that of the commonwealth.”

Here was a strange thing—a persecutor asking the prayers of those he had striven to exterminate for what he still called “ their impious folly.” But Galerius was soon past praying for: he died in 311, leaving four emperors contending which should rule the world; and of these the worthless Maxentius was drowned a year after.

Constantine and Licinius were glad to protect the Christians ; but Maximin, whose name had not been added to the edict of toleration, was of another temper. A bigoted pagan and a ruthless despot, he planned new attacks while he seemed to

RATE OF AGORA,

obey the edict of his uncle. “ The prison doors were thrown open, the mines rendered up their condemned laborers. Everywhere long trains of Christians were seen hastening to the ruins of their churches, and visiting the places sanctified by their former devotion. The public roads, the streets and market-places of ■ the. towns, were crowded with long processions, singing psalms of thanksgiving for their deliverance. Those who had maintained their faith under their severe trials passed triumphant in conscious, even if lowly pride, amid the flattering congratulations of their brethren: those, who had failed in the hour of affliction hastened to reunite themselves with their God, and to obtain readmissioit into the flourishing and reunited fold. The heathen themselves were astonished,, it is said, at this signal mark of the power of the Christians’ God, who had thus unexpectedly wrought so sudden a revolution in favor of His worshippers.” For many years these battle-marked confessors, piteous remnants of men, with bodies scarred and twisted, many lacking an arm, a foot, an eye, held the place of honor in Christian assemblies, and were looked upon with reverence.

CUNNING MEASURES OF MAXIMIN.

But within a year Maximin, who now aimed to extend his dominions, had arrayed the pagan interest against the Christians. New and subtle devices were employed, and a profane ingenuity set to work to discredit their religion and its Founder. False Acts of Pilate were forged and circulated, the streets were placarded with slanders : these blasphemies were made text-books in schools, set to music, and sung or recited everywhere. The old libels were revised ; vile women of Damascus were induced to pretend that they had taken part in Christian orgies, and their false testimony, by Maximin’s express command, was published through the empire. The judicious might not believe these tales ; but all were not judicious, and the faithful were thus wounded in two very tender places,—their purity, and their regard for the honor of the faith. They were used to being called atheists, impious, seditious; but now, in the very hour of their victory, to have it believed that their sacred books taught them to conceive and practice foulness was hard indeed.

The emperor next took pains to restore the old religion with new improvements, borrowed from the Church. He appointed persons of rank and wealth as priests in all the cities, and gave them power to compel the attendance of all citizens at the sacrifices, which were performed with unusual pomp. He procured addresses from Antioch, Nicomedia, Tyre, and other places, begging him to drive' out the enemies of the gods. With artful malignity, he invited Christians of position to feasts, and set before them meats that had been offered to idols. Many of humbler station were mutilated : a few, including the bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, and Emesa, were put to death, or died in prison.

Maximin’s answer to the petition of the people of Tyre is still preserved. He praises their zeal, laments the obstinate impiety of the Christians, cheerfully

agrees to the banishment of them, and authorizes the priests to inflict any punishment short of execution. In particular he points out the benefits received from the heathen gods, who have smiled upon the laud and kept off plague, drought, earthquake, and tempest.

But it would not do. These very calamities were about to fall upon the Hast, exhausted by the emperor’s tyranny, and enraged by his insolent vices.' His officers went through the provinces to collect recruits for his harem, using force on occasion. The noblest families were not secure; their daughters, where

COLUMNS OF TEMPLE AT LUXOR.

he had had his will, were married to slaves or barbarians. Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian and widow of Galerius, was handsome and wealthy; he wished to marry her, and she refused. Her estates were confiscated, her servants tortured, lier friends put to death, her fair reputation assailed, and she and her mother Prisca banished, and at length, through the strange cruelty of Licinius, beheaded and their bodies thrown into the sea. Diocletian, from his retirement, in vain tried to protect them; and the world beheld with amazement two empresses

treated like common criminals. Their fate could hardly have been more cruel if they had been really Christians; and we know nothing of their character to contradict the rumor that they were so.

VICTORY OF THE CHURCHES.

Meantime the evils which Maximin praised the gods for averting—drought, famine, pestilence—came heavily upon Asia. The court lived in luxury, and the soldiers plundered freely, while the people starved. In the general distress, pity and help came only from the Christians. ‘‘They were everywhere, tending the living and burying the dead. They distributed bread ; they visited the infected houses; they scared away the dogs which preyed in open day upon the bodies in the streets, and rendered to them the decent honors of burial. The myriads who had perished and were perishing, in a state of absolute desertion, could not but acknowledge that Christianity was stronger than love of kindred.” The Church, just emerging from long and fierce persecution, displayed her p oper character in loving her enemies and returning good for evil.

Maximin had attacked the Christian Kingdom of Armenia with doubtful success; he was still less fortunate in his contest with Licinius. He is said to have vowed, before the battle, to abolish the Christian name, if Jupiter would give him victory ; and, after his defeat, to have massacred the pagan priests who had flattered him with vain hopes and urged him to the war. In the same spirit he issued an edict of toleration, more complete than one a little before, which the Christians had been too wise to trust: he now even restored their church-lands_j which had been taken from them. This was his last official act. Stricken with a sore disease, his body wasted away as from an inward fire. If we may believe Eusebius, he died the death of Galerius and other persecutors, crying in his agony, “ It was others, not I, who did it,” and imploring help from the Christ whom he had fought in vain. .

His death, in the year 313, removed the Church’s last dangerous human enemy. The other emperors had already established toleration in Europe ; aud Constantine, a year before, had seen, or pretented to see, a bright cross in the sky, with the inscription, “ In this sign you shall conquer.” From that time the cross was upon his banner, and the emblem of the Prince of Peace was carried in the front of every battle.

The connection of Licinius with the Christians was merely a matter of policy. He afterwards put himself at the head of the pagan party, closed the churches of Pontus in Asia Minor, tore some of them down, and caused or allowed some of the clergy to be put to death ; but the battle of Hadrianople ended his power in 323, and the Church, no longer oppressed, became established throughout the empire. Except during the brief reign of Julian (361-36.5) who inflicted only the mildest penalties, her enemies and dangers were thenceforth within: except

in remote and barbarous regions, her ministers and people had nothing to fear from giant Pagan. The age of heathen rule was over. Our succeeding chapters must record the dissensions of Christians among themselves, the sufferings which —not understanding their Master’s mind, or lacking His gentle and benignant spirit—they inflicted upon each other.

CHAPTER XII.

THE AGES OF DOCTRINE.

HE establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman empire was attended by certain inevitable evils. It opened the door wide to all the corruptions of the world: it brought in the power, wealth, and pomp of a state Church, with the intricacies of an elaborate theology, in place of the simplicity of the first centuries; and it put the Christians in a position to inflict the punishments they had previously endured. The theories of government were unchanged, and non-conformity, in the shape of paganism or heresy, now became the objects of attack. The Jews were still protected, but it was thought necessary to fix heavy penalties for any who threw stones at a Christian convert from the synagogue, and for any Christian who became a Jew. Among the first measures of Constantine, after he got rid of his rivals and became sole emperor, was the attempted suppression of the Arian and Donatist sects. Their meetings were prohibited, their churches and writings destroyed, their bishops sent into exile, and death threatened against those who concealed their books.. Executions were rare, for the Christian sentiment was at first strong against taking life.

The heathen were still so numerous that it was not expedient to push them to extremes. Constantius II. did more in this direction than his father. Magic and divination were forbidden; those who practiced them were to be thrown to wild beasts in Rome, and in the provinces to be tortured and then crucified. This was carried further by Valeus, who was an Arian, and persecuted all who-

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differed from the views of that sect. Among his victims were a philosopher, who wrote to his wife to hang a crown over her door; an old woman who tried to cure a fever by repeating a charm ; and a youth, who sought relief from sickness by touching a marble pillar, and saying a. e, z, o, u. If all who use such remedies in our own day and land were to be punished, our prisons and police-courts would be wofully overworked.

We have no clear and full account of the suppression of paganism. It was not left to die a natural death, though no such systematic cruelties were exercised

AR^PH OF CONSTANTINF.

upon its votaries ss the Christians had endured under Decius and Diocletian. Edicts were aimed chiefly at the temples, rather than at their worshippers. The words pagan and heathen (countryman) both show that the old faith lingered in rural parts long after it had ceased to lift its head in the cities. Libanius, who had been the minister of Julian, protested in vain against the destruction of the temples. They were to the poor peasants, he said, “ the very eye of Nature, the symbol and manifestation of a present Deity, the solace of all their troubles,

the holiest of all their joys. If these were overthrown, their dearest associations would be annihilated. The tie that linked them to the dead would be severed. The poetry of life, the consolation of labor, the source of faith, would be destroyed.” One may without shame own to a little human sympathy with those who had to stand by and see their sacred buildings torn down. Many may have lost their lives in trying to defend them; and we read of one bishop who too zealously aided the work of destruction apd was killed in a riot of this

JULIAN.

kind. But the old religion was doomed; it had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. It had to perish, with all its adjuncts ; and a decaying cause has no historians and leaves few friends. By the end of the fourth century all the pagan sanctuaries, except in the city of Rome, are said to have disappeared, or been turned to Christian use. St. Augustine, who died A. D. 430, says that a sentence of death was incurred by any who celebrated the old rites, and that this severity met the unanimous approval of Christians.

RISE OF THEOLOGIES.

There is no lack of information as to the divisions of the Church and their tragic consequences. The Theodosian code, compiled in the first half of the fifth century; besides many laws against pagans, Jews, magicians, and apostates, has sixty-six against heretics. It is probable that these were freely and vigorously enforced. But there was one embarrassing fact: what was considered heresy at one time or place might be orthodoxy under another emperor, or in another province. The term heresy, which at first meant division, schism, had come to indicate error in doctrinal opinion. The proverb, “ Many men, many minds,” was true then hardly less than now. Since “ many minds” produce differences of opinion, the only way to avoid heresy was to induce men not to use their brains with reference to their religion. Plain people might believe what they were told ; but the leaders of the Church were obliged to meditate deeply upon the doctrines they were evolving. No race has had such a gift for subtle and abstract thought as the Greeks, and no age has done so much work in hammering out. theological systems as did the fourth and fifth centuries. It was a long time before this task was finished and a result substantially agreed on ; and till then there was much ill-feeling and not a little bloodshed over the varying human interpretations of divine truth.

The most troublesome difference was between the orthodox, whose views were finally fixed upon Christendom, and the followers of Arius, a priest of Alexandria. The Arian doctrines have since been generally condemned, not only because the Church decided against them, but because, as one of the most eminent Unitarian divines of our day has pointed out, they made Christ neither God nor man, but something between the two. The famous Council of Nice, A. D. 325, inserted in its creed the word homoousion, “of one (or the same) substance” with the Father. The Arians would not agree to this, but used instead the expression homoiousion, of similar substance. These long and closely resembling words were used as war-cries by the mobs of Alexandria, when the two factions rushed upon each other in the streets.

Incredible as this may appear, it was but a sign of the times. The most delicate subtleties of doctrine, whether men could .understand them or not, were supposed to be vital matters, to be defended with life or contested at the peril of one’s soul. Few modern worshippers could follow the minute distinctions of the so-called Athanasian Creed; but for centuries it was held that “ whoever would be saved must before all things believe ” them. In all good faith and earnestness, the fathers of the fourth century

“ Fondly essayed to intertwine Earth’s shadows with the light divine.”

“A prudent heathen,” quoted by Jeremy Taylor, complained that the emperor Constantius “mixed the Christian religion, plain and simple in itself,

with a weak and foolish superstition, perplexing to examine but useless to contrive, and excited dissensions which were widely diffused and maintained with a war of words.” As Mr. Lecky says, “However strongly the Homoousians and Homoiousians were opposed on other points, they were at least perfectly agreed that the adherents of the wrong creed could not possibly get to heaven, and that the highest conceivable virtues were futile when associated with error.”

JULIAN.

The consequences of these changed views were obvious and inevitable. The Church in its beginning was a brotherhood, with faithful allegiance to

BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE.

Christ as its leading principle: it now became, especially in its chief assemblies, a debating-club and a battle-ground. It had been said of old, “See how these Christians love one another!” The emperor Julian had a saying, “No wild beasts are so ferocious as angry theologians.” Too wise to persecute, it was his favorite amusement to get a few divines of different sects together and set

them by the ears. A painting of our time represents him thus, occupied and smiling in cynical delight, while his guests nearly came to blows. To encourage these dissensions, to exclude the Christians from the schools and from some posts of honor, to satirize the wealth and fashion which had come in among them, and to restore the pagan rites and emblems, were the only revenge he took for the murder of his family and his own embittered youth. His temper and his conduct were milder than those of many who looked on him as Antichrist. A fanatical Arian bishop, old and blind, once rudely interrupted him at a sacrifice.

“Peace,” said the emperor, “your Galilean God will not restore your sight.” “I thank my God,” the intruder cried, “for the blindness which spares me the sight of an apostate.” Julian gave no heed to the insult, but calmly went on sacrificing If some outrages accompanied restoration of heathen worship, especially in certain towns of Syria, it was not by any order of the

emperor. A few soldiers were put to death for mutiny or breach of discipline, but in this reign no Christian suffered directly for his faith. Yet all the virtues and abilities of Julian could not turn the tide of destiny, nor galvanize the corpse of paganism into life. His early death caused vast rejoicing among the Christians, who feared another persecution. One would like to believe the legend that as he lay dying from a Persian javelin, he threw a handful of his blood into the air, and cried, “Thou hast conquered, Galilean!” But the tale is rather well

the

CONSTANTIUS II.

invented than well supported. His successors were not his equals, but at least they were on the side of Providence.

The best opinion of the Fathers of that age is thus expressed by Chrysostom : “We should condemn heresies, but spare and pray for heretics.” St. Ambrose of Milan went so far as to say, “ Neither the state nor the Church has a right to forbid your saying what you think.” But this was by no means the prevalent view ; indeed, he would have probably gone on to say that you ought to think only what is orthodox. The great St. Augustine held for awhile that it is wrong to do any violence to misbelievers ; but he afterwards modified that judgment, and settled upon this : “ No good men approve of inflicting death on any one, though he be a heretic.” When two obscure French bishops, in the year 385, procured the execution of some members of an equally obscure sect, St. Martin of Tours indignantly denounced their conduct, and refused to hold communion with them; and Sulpitius very justly said,

“The example was worse than the men. If they were heretical, to execute them was unchristian.” The humanizing influence of the gospel had produced, at least in its best disciples, a feeling against all shedding of human blood, and especially that the Church

and the clergy ought to medal of theodorius.

have no hand in it. In later ages this degenerated into the hypocritical farce of handing over a culprit to the secular arm, with a formal plea for mercy— which meant that he was to be burned alive.

But the emperors, their officers, and the baser sort of private persons, were not always restrained by these sentiments. Gibbon, who habitually makes the most of the cruelties of Christians, and as little as possible of those inflicted on them by the heathen, has filled pages with the brutalities and disorders of this era. An Arian bishop, receiving authority from Constantine, used strange methods to force the Catholics of Thrace and Asia Minor into his communion. “The sacraments were administered to the reluctant victims, who denied the vocation and abhorred the principles of Macedonius. The rites of baptism were conferred on women and children who for that purpose had been torn from the arms of their friends and parents. The mouths of the communicants were held open by a wooden instrument, while the consecrated bread was forced down their throats. The same extraordinary missionary attempted to convert—or else to exterminate—

the Novatians of a district in the north of Asia Minor, and took with him four thousand soldiers for the purpose. The peasants, driven to despair, attacked the troops with their scythes and axes, and killed almost all of them, with heavy loss to themselves. In western Africa the members of a Donatist sect, angry at the banishmeut of their bishop and other interferences, took to the desert, became brigands, slew many with their clubs, and kept two provinces disturbed for some time. Julian, who succeeded his cousin on the throne, says in one of his letters that in this reign “ many were imprisoned, abused, and driven into exile. Whole troops of those who were called heretics were massacred, particularly at Cyzicus and at Samosata. In Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and many other provinces, towns and villages were laid waste and utterly destroyed.”

ATHANASIUS.

The adventures of Athanasius, the great champion of orthodoxy against Arius, would, as Gibbon says, furnish “a very entertaining romance.” He was repeatedly banished and constantly in danger. Many of his followers were slain in defending him from attack. Once, when the troops broke into the church, he refused to escape till he had dismissed the congregation, and then slipped away in 'the darkness. Once he hid in a dry cistern, and had just left it when the place was disclosed by a slave. Once, at midnight, he suddenly appeared in the house of a maiden of rank and wealth, famous for her beauty, and said a vision had sent him there : she kept him, in innocence and absolute secrecy, till the danger was over. From his hiding-places he wrote innumerable letters, and kept his finger on the pulse of the time. In disguise, and protected by friends in every city, he traveled over half the world, and witnessed the proceedings of two councils, unsuspected by his enemies. Dean Milman thinks that his immense •energies and indomitable spirit were spent on too small a cause. “ During two reigns he contested the emperors’ authority. He endured persecution, calumny, exile; his life was frequently endangered in defense of one single tenet, and that, it may be permitted to say, the most purely intellectual, and apparently the most remote from the ordinary passions of man : he confronted martyrdom, not for the broad and palpable distinction between Christianity and heathenism, but for the fine and subtle expressions of the creed. He began and continued the coutest not for the toleration, but for the supremacy, of his own opinions.” But this is not the view usually held. He has generally been revered as a rare moral .-hero, as the greatest character, if not the greatest intellect, of his age, standing, "“the world against him, he against the world,” for what he believed the truth ■of God and the honor of his Master. And if success be the test of merit, his rmerit was of the highest, for he succeeded in imposing his opinions upon the •great bulk of Christendom, Catholic and schismatic, Roman, Greek, and Protest-

DEATH OF JULIAN, THE APOSTATE.

ant, to our own day. If we do not now use the Athanasian Creed (which is of later date), at least nine-tenths of Europe and America still profess the faith of Athanasius.

The Arian controversy, however, gave much trouble throughout the fourth century. Valens, who ruled the East from 367 to 378, persecuted the orthodox; and some of the barbarian tribes, who were now overrunning the western provinces, received Christianity in an Arian form, and displayed much ignorant and disorderly zeal in its behalf. But these disturbances formed a very small part, of the miseries which fell upon the empire. A time of change had come: the old civilization had to perish, that on its ruins, after the lapse of many hundred years, a new and better order might arise. Christianity could not save the old system of government and society, doomed by its own vices. “The glory that was Greece ” had long been but a memory ; “ the grandeur that was Rome ” was. rotten with the satiated lust of conquest and of luxury. These mighty races, had had their day : their successors needed to receive the slow education of ages. During the dreary process learning, literature, the arts, almost the power of thinking, died out, or became the lonely prerogative of a few.

THE DARK AGES.

During this long period, from the sixth to the twelfth century, “religious persecution was rare. The principle was indeed fully admitted, and whenever the occasion called for it it was applied; but heresies scarcely ever appeared, and the few that arose were insignificant.” A collection of canon laws compiled about 1018- contains none on the punishment of heresy. Certain executions in the eleventh century were conducted by princes or mobs, and seem to have been disapproved, by the Church. About 1045 the Bishop of Liege, being appealed to concerning- some Manicheans, urged that their lives should be spared; since God had patience with them, men might do the same. Abelard, a famous French theologian and one of the ablest men of his time, taught dubious opinions about. the Trinity; but when St. Bernard procured his condemnation in 1140, there was no thought of putting him to death; to destroy his reputation and take away his- liberty was enough. Dean Milman says that many of the well-fed bishops and. abbots who condemned Abelard, having dined or been hunting just before, took little interest in the proceedings. While the fiery Bernard arrayed his proofs and. poured forth his indignant eloquence, they slumbered in their seats; and being- roused to pronounce on each successive count in the indictment, they would lift, their heads, half open their eyes, murmur “Damnamus” (“we condemn him”), “’namus,” and go to sleep again. Abelard was a heretic, and heresy was not to be allowed: that was enough ; they did not care for the particulars.

But these mild measures were soon to be exchanged for sterner ones. Arnold of Brescia, a pupil of Abelard, boldly rebuked the wealth and vices of

the clergy, and was burned at Rome in 1154, leaving many followers, who were condemned by several popes and soon united with the Waldenses.

THE WALDENSES.

Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons, had the New Testament and some extracts from the Fathers of the early Church translated into the Romance language. Becoming convinced that these precepts were not obeyed, he gave away his property, took to the work of an evangelist, trained or started many other preachers, and exerted a wide influence. For a time he was recognized by the pope; but the Poor Men of Lyons, as his disciples called themselves, soon became obnoxious, and were condemned bv several councils in

VALLEY OF ANGROGNA, A HIDING PLACE OF THE WALDENSES.

1184 and later. They denied the authority of popes and bishops, and some of them disbelieved in purgatory. They held that God is to be obeyed rather than man; that laymen and women may preach; that prayers may be offered as well in a private room, a stable, or anywhere else, as in church ; that masses and prayers for the dead are unavailing; and that the services of the clergy are of value only in proportion to their characters.

These doctrines struck at the root of the whole Church system as it then existed. The Waldenses, who were extremely active and spread everywhere, soon became objects of general attack. In Spain they were outlawed by Alonzo II. of Aragon in 1194, and three years later condemned to the flames by Pedro II. In the south of France they were confounded with the Albigenses, a different sect, of which we shall hear more presently, and involved in their destruction. They were burned in Strasburg in 1212. Some of them fled to Bohemia, where their bishop, long after, consecrated those of the United Brethren.. For centuries they were heard of in northern Italy, where their descendants survive to the present day.

An early inquisitor thus describes these people: “Heretics may be known by their customs and speech, for they are modest and well ordered. They take no pride in their clothes, which are neither costly nor vile. They avoid lies and oaths and frauds ; they are not traders but mechanics; their teachers are cobblers. They gather no wealth, but are content with things needful. They are chaste, and temperate in meat and drink. They do not frequent taverns, dances, or other vanities. They refrain from anger. They are always at work. They are to be known by their modesty and precision of speech ; they hate light, profane, and violent language.” St. Bernard, who delighted to persecute them, and who died in 1153, has given similar testimony as to the followers of Arnold: “If you question them, nothing can be more Christian: their talk is blameless, and. what they speak they prove by deeds. As to the morals of the heretic, he cheats no one, he oppresses no one, he strikes no one. His cheeks are pale with fasting; he eats not the bread of idleness, his hands labor for his livelihood.” But in those days an error of opinion was counted far worse than any faults of character.

THE ALBIGENSES.

HE most dreaded sect of the Middle Ages was that of the Manichees. Its founder, Manes, who lived in Persia in the third century, believed in the existence of two equal Principles, good and evil, who divided the universe between them. Matter, he taught, was accursed ; this world was made and governed by the devil, who had also inspired the Old Testament. The gospels, on the contrary, were the work of God, whose Son assumed the mere appearance of a man to overthrow the kingdom of evil.

These wild notions, somewhat modified in the course of time, spread through southern Europe. In spite of frequent persecutions, these people, the Paulicians, or the Cathari, as they were afterwards generally called, gathered multitudes of converts, who clung to their doctrines with fanatical enthusiasm. They were numerous in what is now Bulgaria, and in the whole region between the Black sea and the Adriatic. When the first crusaders were on their way to the Holy Land in 1097, they heard of a city called Pelagonia, belonging to these people; so, by way of practicing their swords for the slaughter of Mohammedans, they destroyed and massacred all its inhabitants. But a calamity like this had little effect on their progress. They had founded Tran, on the gulf of Venice, which became their headquarters : and by the end of the tenth century they were established in the south of France, where they grew and throve mightily.

Their views were almost as peculiar as at the start. Believing in a warfare of the spirit against the flesh, they rejected marriage (except under narrow restrictions), animal food, and the gratification of the senses iu any form. That is, the stricter among them did; for it is hardly to be supposed that most members of the sect took these precepts literally. Yet, strange to say, their lives were pure and innocent.

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Vulgar superstition credited them, as it had the primitive Christians, with devil- worship, the murder of children, and horrible secret orgies ; but their persecutors testified with shame that their moral standards were much above those generally observed in the Church of Rome.

Yet they were not without the wisdom of this world. Though their priests were in theory merely teachers, they had a strict organization, and a hierarchy like that of the Church. Most of them were poor and j>lain people, especially weavers; but they had learned theologians, and an extensive literature, very little of which survives. Their zealous missionaries vised much of the serpent’s cunning, pretending to be Catholics and promising indulgences to those who would read and circulate their tracts; in this way many priests were deceived. To ridicule the worship of the Virgin Mary, they made an image of her as one-eyed and deformed, to illustrate the humility of our Lord, who had chosen sueh a mean and unattractive person to be His mother. With this they worked counterfeited cures and miracles, till the image gained a great reputation and was copied for various orthodox churches ; then they exposed the trick. Other deceptions they wrought in various ways.

Their conduct under persecution varied so much that we must remember the existence of certain less rigorous sects among them, and still more the distinction always made between the Perfect, or completely initiated, and the ordinary believers. Among the latter may have been many hangers-on or halfmembers—as always in other religious bodies—on whom worldly considerations exerted more or less force. These, when their faith was tired, would recant and profess whatever was required of them. There may also have been dispensations for preserving specially valuable lives; for some leading laymen, without apparently incurring blame, would be good Catholics when the crusaders came among them, and stout Cathari when the peril was over. But most of them exhibited a constancy equal to that of any primitive Christian—often, indeed, amounting to a half-insane fanaticism. Mr. Lea, the historian of the Inquisition, declares that “No religion can show a more unbroken roll of those who unshrinkingly and joyfully sought death in its most abhorrent form, in preference to apostacy. If the blood of the martyrs were really the seed of the Church, Manicheism would now be the dominant religion of Europe.” It is to be remembered that these people, when really indoctrinated, believed that the flesh and everything visible were under a curse, and that by dying for their cause they escaped from the dominion of Satan, and passed at once into the abodes of bliss and the presence of the original good Deity.

The mere name of heresy was usually enough to infuriate the mob, and in regions where the Cathari were not well known, they were much detested. When some of them were on trial at Orleans in 1017, King Robert placed his queen at the door of the church to hinder the crowd from tearing them to pieces as they came out; but she was so angry that she struck one

of their leaders and put out his eye. There were fifteen of them; all but two refused to recant, and perished in the flames, to the wonder of the beholders— such spectacles being then much less familiar than they afterwards became. A few years later some were burned in the north of Italy. About 1040 the Archbishop of Milan sent for others, who came freely, a countess among them, and professed their faith without reserve. In prison they tried to convert those who came to see them as curiosities, till the visitors d-agged them out and burned most of them. In 1052 the Emperor Henry hanged some at Goslar in north Germany. But these were unusual occurrences in that century. It was in 1045 that the good Bishop Wazo of Liege counseled leniency, saying that “those whom the world now regards as tares may be garnered as wheat at the last harvest, and such as we think enemies of God He may place above us in heaven.” Wazo was far ahead of his age.

In the twelfth century religious executions became more common. In Italy those who did not believe in passive submission raised a civil war in 1125, and killed one of their chief persecutors in 1199. At Florence many were burned, hanged, or exiled in 1163. In the same year eight men and three women, who had fled from Flanders, confessed their faith before the Bishop of Cologne, and mightily impressed the bystanders by their cheerful readiness to suffer. The cords which bound their leader being partly severed by the flames, and the muscles of his arm not yet destroyed, he placed a mutilated hand on the heads nearest him, and said, “Be constant, for this day you shall be with Lawrence”—the famous saint of the gridiron, who had perished in Rome nine hundred years before. The executioners, touched by the beauty and modesty of a girl among the victims, drew her from the fire and offered to find her a husband or place her in a convent. She feigned to agree till her friends were dead, and then suddenly covered her face and sprang into the flames.

In England, three years later, another band of fugitives was found and tried at Oxford. In answer to all persuasions they repeated such of the Beatitudes as best suited their case: “ Blessed, are, they who are persecuted for righteousness’'sake;” “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you.” They were scourged, branded on the forehead, and driven out in the winter. A law was presently passed forbidding any to shelter them under heavy penalties, so that all the thirty soon died of hunger and exposure. This was almost the only known case of heresy in England till Wiclif’s time; but in other lands they were abundant. A young canon of Rheims in the northeast of Frauce, riding out with a party in 1180, tried to make love to a girl who was working in a vineyard. She replied that to listen to him would be to lose her soul. The archbishop, coming up, recognized the language of heresy and had her arrested, with one who had taught her. The older woman, on being questioned by orthodox divines, showed such knowledge of the Bible and such ability in

argument as clearly proved her to be inspired by the evil one. According to the tale, she flew away like a witch, but the girl was burned. We need not doubt the latter part of the story. In the neighboring country of Flanders, a year or two later, many were discovered, including noblemen, clerks, and soldiers, as well as poor mechanics and their wives, and many executed.

IN LANGUEDOC AND PROVENCE.

But in the south of France heresy was too strong to be easily repressed. The Bishop of Toulouse asked a knight of high repute why he did not expel the Cathari from his estates. “How can we?” he answered. “We have been

BRESCIA.

brought up with these people ; we have kindred among them, and we see them live righteously.” Here the fulmina- tions of popes and councils went for nothing. In 1165 the “good men” or “good Christians,” as they called themselves, had a debate with the Catholics in presence of nobles and bishops, and cared not that the decision went against them. Two years later they held a council of their own near Toulouse, and elected five bishops for different parts of France; deputies from Italy attended, and the presiding officer was Nicetas of Constantinople, their chief dignitary,

CRUSADERS CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS.

Protestantism now held its head aloft and openly defied the Church. In 1179 the kings of France and England sent a mission composed of sundry bishops. The people of Toulouse laughed at them and called them hypocrites to their faces. One layman of high position was scourged through the streets, heavily fined, and sent on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; under the force of this example many other timeservers recanted for the moment. Henry of Clairvaux thought that if the mission had been left till three years later, it would, have found no Catholics at all in the city. When the three years had passed the same Henry, now cardinal of Albano and papal legate, headed a crusade which besieged Lavaur, caused two Catharan bishops and many others to recant, and accomplished little more.

The chief effect of these feeble measures was to encourage the Cathari. One writer of the time says that “Satan possessed in peace the greater part of southern France. The clergy were so despised that they were accustomed to conceal the tonsure through very shame, and the bishops were obliged to admit to holy orders whoever was willing to assume them.

The . whole land, under a curse, produced nothing PERSECUTION OF ALBIGENSES.

but thorns and thistles, ravishers and bandits, robbers, and, murderers.” But it is true that brigands roved about in numbers and bestowed much ill usage 'on priests and monasteries. Another champion of Rome complains that the doctrines of the Cathari had infected a thousand cities, and were in a way to corrupt all Europe if they had not been put down by force. A third asserts that “in Lombardy, Provence, and other regions there were more schools of this new religion than of the mother Church, with more scholars; that they preached in the market-places, the fields, the houses ; and that there were none who dared to interfere with them, owing to the multitude and power of their protectors.” They had schools for both sexes; they drew recruits from the ranks of their enemies. In one case “all the nuns of a convent embraced Catharism without quitting the house or the habit of their order.”

RAYMOND OF TOULOUSE.

The counts of Provence were practically independent sovereigns, and their court was considered the most refined and splendid in Europe. Thither resorted the troubadours, whose language, still spoken in that corner of France, is famous for its poetry. The land was rich, full of flowers, fanned by warm southern breezes ; its capital was the home of art, of elegant literature, of graceful luxury.

This charming climate and these light accomplishments fitted ill with the earth-hating asceticism of the severe religionists who had gathered there; and Count Raymond VI. was the last man to lead a brave and resolute people against their invaders. Their loyalty to him was seldom justified by any act of his. Easy, careless, selfish, vacillat-, ing, he took both sides by turns, and was of little use to either. Most of his subjects were either Protestants or their protectors; yet when pope and council demanded its suppression, he ranged himself on their side as his father had done, and strove in vain to save his possessions by taking up arms against those who loved him far better than he deserved.

In reality lie cared little for religious questions. When he came to his own in 1195, the Church in his dominions had fallen so low that the old Bishop of Toulouse, Fulcrand, had lost all influence and almost all income. His successor was justly deposed, and Foulkes, who came to the see early in the thirteenth century, said he was forced to water his mules with his own episcopal hands, having no servant to do it for him. He was not minded to endure this state of things, and the new pope, Innocent III., indignant at the count’s indifference, marked Raymond for destruction and began to call for a crusade.

For several years he called in vain. Raymond became more and more detested at Rome, till in 1207 one of the pope’s legates excommunicated him,

THS OLD FORTRESS TOWN OF CARCASSONNE.

and a year later was killed, as his friends claimed, at the count’s instigation. This sacrilege roused the wrath of Christendom : an ordinary murder was of small account, but to touch a consecrated head_s especially one commissioned by Christ’s vicar, was the crime of crimes. The pope now issued the proclamation usual in such cases, solemnly releasing Raymond’s vassals from their allegiance, and offering his domains to whoever should seize them. Recruits came forward, and in Germany women, since they could not go to the war, thought they helped the good work by running and shouting through the streets.

These domestic crusades were a great convenience to the popes when they had enemies to get even with. Their armies were to be paid only with the hope of plunder in this world and salvation in the next. Their sins in the

past and for some time ahead were all pardoned, and on these terms they could commit any excesses they liked—short of heresy or sacrilege—with impunity. In the present case, the region, to be chastised lying so near, the term of service was only forty days, and the indulgence, or forgiveness, just the same as for the long journey to the Holy Land. As the preachers of the crusade observed, it was not every day that paradise could be gained on such easy terms. The argument was obvious and forcible, and the lords and ruffians of Europe responded— twenty thousand cavaliers, and over ten times as many footmen.

Raymond was now alarmed, and with reason. He hastened to the nearest legate, Arnaud, and offered to prove his innocence of the crimes imputed to him, but was sternly referred to Rome. His nephew, Roger of Beziers, advised him to resist, but he was not man enough for that. So he notified the pope of his submission, gave up seven of his strongest castles, and did public penance, being led through the church of St. Gilles with a rop^ round his neck, bare to the waist, and thrashed till the blood came, in view of a great and gaping crowd.

This humiliation did not save him ; nor was it all he had to endure. He swore upon the gospels to obey and assist the crusaders who came to harry his -dominions and murder his subjects ; and he fulfilled his oath as far as he was able. Impossibilities were exacted of him, and he was led on to his ruin step by step. Forgiveness, even of fancied injuries, was unknown at Rome. The legates had their orders to enmesh their victim with alternate deceits and severities, and there was no more justice than mercy in the measure meted out to the disgraced prince. When the invaders met at Lyons, toward the end of June, 1209, he went out to meet them, gave them his son as a hostage, and led the way to Beziers, where his nephew, with a spirit far more royal than that of Raymond had prepared to defend his possessions and his people as best he might.

THE ALBIGENSIAN WARS.

was a hopeless fight that lay before the defenders of their liberty. They had no leader. The nobles were not united: each town looked after itself: the country lay open to the invaders. For the next twenty years the history of Provence and Languedoc offers little but a tedious array of siege, pillage, and massacre, broken only by the intrigues of popes, legates, kings, and princes, each aiming at selfish gains, and often striving by the basest treachery to outwit the other.

The name by which the Cathari are commonly known in modern times comes from the district of Albigeois in Languedoc, where they were very numerous. Its capital, Albi, bore no especial part in the struggle, and any of several other titles would have fitted them as well as that of Albigenses.

Beziers, which is near the Mediterranean, was first attacked. Its viscount, Roger, had gone to Carcassonne; its bishop was with the crusaders, and wished to spare the town. He asked that the heretics be given up; but the chief men said that, rather than betray their neighbors, they would hold the place till they were starved. Such was the generotis spirit of that region, where Catholic and Protestant had grown up together and lived in friendship—an oasis of tolerance in a desert of bigotry. In those days, this virtue was punished as a crime. The legate Arnold, abbot of Citeaux and afterwards archbishop of Narbonne, commanded the crusaders. Some one said to him, “ All these people are not heretics : what shall wo do with the Catholics?” A writer of the time records his ferocious answer : “ Kill them all. God will know His own.”

The savage order was obeyed to the letter. The siege had not begun, and no dispositions had been made on either side, when the walls were suddenly carried, it is said, by a rush of camp-followers. A frightful carnage followed. The city resounded with the shouts and curses of soldiers, the groans of citizens falling in a vain effort to defend their homes, the shrieks of women and children. Seven thousand were butchered in a church to which they had fled for refuge. Of the entire population of the city, variously estimated at from twenty to a hundred thousand, not one soul was left alive. Fire followed the sword, and by the end of the day nothing remained btit smoking ruins. The strangest

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thing, to our modem minds, is that no particle of blame rested upon the murderers. The blessing of heaven was supposed to attend their march of ruin • and he who had commanded this ruthless havoc lived out his days in honor in the land he had made bare.

The fate of Beziers spread terror through the country. Many strong places were deserted, or given up on the first summons. Narbonne allied itself to the crusaders. Chasseneuil was taken, and its people, refusing to recant,

VERNET IN THE EASTERN PYRENEES.

perished at the stake. Carcassonne made a brave resistance, but its water gave out, pestilence came, and Viscount Roger was taken prisoner by treachery and soon died. The town was forced to surrender, and the inhabitants were sent forth m their underclothing, to take their chances outside.

. MONTFORT.

This ended the first crusade, for the forty days had passed, and the soldiers of the cross, satiated with blood and plunder, went home. But it was necessary to hold the lands that had been taken, and after three nobles had declined the difficult trust, it was bestowed upon Simon de Montfort, titular Earl of Leicester. Of Norman descent, son of a French father and an English mother, he is to be distinguished from his son of the same name, famous in English history. He had won much repute for valor, wisdom, and piety; his private life was blameless, and his public character stood high, according to the standards of that age; judged by ours, he was a bitter bigot. When urged to join the crusade, his course was decided by the first verse of Scripture his eye lighted on, though he could not translate it himself. His actions were chiefly governed by what then passed for religious motives; and if in his later years he took more pains to secure his lands than to suppress heresy, he might well think himself entitled to reward for all the troubles and perils he had endured in winning and keeping these lands for the Church and out of the clutch of her enemies.

His perils now began. He was expected to hold an extensive territory with a small force, while surrounded by those who had abundant reason to hate him and his cause. If his men straggled on the march or went out to forage, they were liable to be cut off by guerillas. His garrison at Carcassonne were alarmed and wished to desert; nor was it easy to find any one to take command there while he attacked other places. Yet under these huge difficulties he accomplished the impossible, carried his conquests to Albi, eighty miles north, and was praised by the pope for taking five hundred towns and castles. We may hope that the number was exaggerated, for it is not pleasant to think of what befell the inhabitants of so many captured places: in that age man’s life and woman’s honor were of small account beside a point of creed. Nothing in Protestant legends is likely to exceed what human beings inflicted on each other, through four hundred years, in the name of Jesus.

Short of men and money alike, the conqueror was unable to hold his conquests, and saw many of them slip from his hands, He called on the pope for aid, and it came. The churches, like the temples of old, were largely used as banks of deposit, especially in troublous times. Innocent III. now ordered all bishops and abbots in that region to confiscate the funds which had been entrusted to their keeping by Albigenses, and hand them over to the persecutor, to be used for the destruction of their owners. Such was the faith of the Church and the honesty of that lamentable age.

AT MINERVE.

In the spring of 1410 many recruits arrived, under the pleasant name of “Pilgrims:” the pope had released them from the duty of paying interest on their debts, however large. Montfort now resumed his active labors. It was

THE CRUSADERS ENTER MINERVE SINGING THE TE DEUM.

his custom, on taking a town or castle, to kill the garrison and burn the people who would not submit to Rome. “Lavaur, Minerve, Casser, Termes,” says Mr. X,ea, “ are names which suggest all that man can inflict and man can suffer for the glory of God.” At one of these places a zealous officer complained against the sparing of such as should recant. “You need not fear,” said the legate Arnold; “there will not be many such.” And so it proved. Perrin, the old historian of the Albigenses, gives this account of what was done at Minerve: “The place was by nature very strong, on the frontier of Spain. It surrendered, for lack of water, to the discretion of the legate ; he ordered the crusaders, to enter with cross and banner, singing the Te Deum. The abbot of Vaux wished to preach to those who were found in the castle, exhorting them to acknowledge the pope. But they, not waiting till he had ended his discourse, vcried out with one accord, ‘ We will not renounce our faith ; we reject that of the 'Church of Rome. Your labor is to no purpose; neither life nor death shall miove us to forsake our religion.’ Upon this answer Earl Simon and the legate •caused a great fire to be kindled, and cast therein a hundred and forty persons of both sexes, who approached the flames with alacrity and joy, thanking and praising God that He had vouchsafed them the honor to suffer death for His name’s sake. Thus did those true martyrs of Christ end their frail and perishing lives in the flames, to live eternally in heaven. Thus did they triumph over the pope’s legate, opposing him to his face, threatening Earl Simon with the just judgment of God, and that he would one day, when the books should be opened, pay dearly for the cruelties which he then seemed to exercise with impunity. Several of the monks and priests exhorted them to have pity on themselves, promising them their lives if they would obey the rule of Rome; but three women •only accepted life on condition of abjuring their religion.’’

Apart from these official butcheries, many outrages were doubtless committed by the “Pilgrims,” who had absolution beforehand for all they might •do—though none was needed for slaying or mutilating a heretic. Thus at Bol- bonne they blinded certain Catharans, “and cut off their noses and ears till there was scarce a trace of the human visage left.” Years after, in a sermon, Foulkes of Toulouse spoke of the faithful as sheep and the heretics as wolves. A man who lacked eyes, nose, and lips rose in the congregation and interrupted the preacher by asking, “Did you ever see a sheep bite a wolf like this?” “Well,” the ready bishop answered, “ Montfort is a good dog, to bite a wolf so hard.”

Count Raymond, who ought to have been at the head of his nobles, was kept idle for two years by the tricks and false promises of the pope and the legate. In 1211 Montfort, with another force of forty-day crusaders, suddenly besieged Toulouse, which had more than once protested its orthodoxy, and had. even helped to take a neighboring town. When the citizens were required to

renounce their prince and drive him out, they manfully refused, and made such a stout resistance that the besiegers drew off in the night, leaving their wounded behind. The city and the count were now excommunicated—it was not the first time—for their “persecution” of the Church’s servants. It was the sheep biting the wolf again.

PEDRO OF ARAGON.

This siege was Montfort’s only failure. Sometimes with large forces, sometimes with small, he steadily increased his dominions, and his enemies dared not meet him in the field. It was a desultory but most destructive war, aggravated on his side by all the horrors which bigotry could suggest. Raymond in vain asked to be tried for his alleged offenses, and his wife’s brother, Pedro II. of Aragon, who had a claim on some of his possessions, took up his cause. After fruitless negotiations at Rome and in Provence, this king, already called “the Catholic/’ and a vehement supporter of the Church, entered the field against the Church’s

TOULOUSE.

armies, and with a thousand cavaliers aided Raymond’s troops in the siege of Muret, near Toulouse. He was an accomplished prince, a poet, and a mirror of chivalry, renowned alike for his magnificence, his prowess, and his gallantries. When Montfort started in haste to relieve his garrison, a priest asked him if he

did not fear to meet so famous a soldier on such unequal terms. He showed a letter which his scouts had taken from the messenger who bore it. In it Pedro declared to a lady of Toulouse that he was coming to drive the French from her country for love of her. “Fear him!” cried the crusading general, who cared for no woman but his wife, and was as far from sensuality as the Cathari: “fear him who comes for a woman’s sake to undo the work of God? May God help me as much as I despise him ! ”

On September 13th, 1413, Montfort, having entered Muret from the rear, came forth with about a thousand horsemen to attack twice that number, not counting the numerous militia of Toulouse, who were laboring at the siege. Raymond, with whom discretion was always the better part of valor, would have waited for them in the intrenchments; but the Spaniard insisted ou charging in the style of a tournament, leaving the infantry behind. His courage was better than his wit, for, according to his son’s testimony, he was so exhausted from recent dissipatiou that he could not stand that morning. As they galloped on without regard to rank or order, the French attacked them in their squadrons, carefully disposed. Two knights made for Pedro, who was soon killed. Raymond and the others then ran for their lives. The crusaders, after pursuing them and slaying many, turned back to the infantry, and made clean work of them. With a loss of less than twenty, Montfort’s men slew fifteen or twenty times their own number. None escaped but such as managed to cross the Garonne, and many were drowned in the attempt. The Catholics credited this slaughter to a procession and fast for the cause in Rome, two weeks before.

RAYMOND DEPOSED.

After this reverse Raymond submitted entirely to the legate, and went to England.., The honesty of Italian priests at this era, and their success in duping a victim, are lauded by a writer of the day in terms perhaps more accurate than he intended : “ O pious fraud ! O fraudulent piety! ” Fraudulent as well as truculent piety was more to the taste of the thirteenth century than it is to ours; it mattered not how base a trick might be, how many lies were told, what natural feelings of humanity, decency, loyalty, were outraged, so long as an end was attained. A council called by the legate in January, 1215, deposed poor Raymond and installed Montfort in his place. The pope confirmed the count’s sentence, alleging heresy—which meant no . more than its toleration—as the cause; he left the settlement of the lands to a general council, called the twelfth. This great assembly met at Rome November 1st. Raymond was there to plead his cause, with his son and his tributary counts of Foix and Comminges, who had been despoiled like himself; but they sought justice in vain. The council assigned to Montfort all his conquests, with the cities of Toulouse and Montauban, which he had not conquered. Any remaining lauds were to be held by the

ATTACK ON TOULOUSE REPULSED.

Church in trust for the younger Raymond, who was then eighteen, and handed over in time if he proved satisfactory. The wishes of the people of those realms, and their pathetic and even fanatical attachment to their legitimate sovereign, were not considered ; if a prince had no rights that popes and bishops need respect, what could be said for the great number of tradesmen and mechanics ?

This decision might have been supposed to settle the matter; but it had exactly the opposite effect. If the people of Provence and Languedoc had looked for justice in Italy, they were now disenchanted. The avarice and perfidy of the chief officials, not to mention their cruelty, were fast bringing the Church into contempt. In spite of so many disasters, national feeling was still strong ; all that was needed to call it forth was a leader. Nor was the leader wanting now.

RISING OF YOUNG RAYMOND.

Young Raymond, though but a boy, was more of a man than his father. Inheriting his father’s pleasing traits, he had won the pity and regard of the elderly pope, who at parting had advised him “not to take what was another’s, but to defend his own.” This counsel he accepted for more than it was probably intended to be worth. The lands which the council had declared to be his, and which had not yet been involved in the war, lay east of the Rhone, and included the cities of Marseilles, Arles, Tarascon and Avignon. He now proceeded to amend the verdict of the council by putting himself in charge of these. The people “ rose as one man to welcome their lord, and demanded to be led against the Frenchmen, reckless of the fulminations of the Church, and placing life and property at his disposal.”

Meantime another crusade had been harrowing the wretched districts of the west, and Montfort had quarreled with Arnold, who wished to be duke as well as archbishop of Narbonne. The champion of the Church now found himself excommunicated—a strange contradiction, to which this confused period offers many parallels. Religion foiled his efforts to relieve Beaucoise, for the chaplain of the besieging army promised full pardon to those who worked on the intrench- ments, and many were glad to save their souls so easily. Indulgences and interdicts, the hopes and terrors which the Church could raise, were now at the command of both parties, and equally effectual in the hands of either.

SIEGE OF TOULOUSE.

Hearing that Toulouse was treating with its former master, the earl attacked it, and after some fighting in the streets exacted a large sum as the price of its safety, disarmed the people, and destroyed the walls. But these precautions were in vain. Early in 1217 he had crossed the Rhone to attack young Raymond, when news reached him that the elder count, with troops from Spain, had been welcomed in his old capital, and that the nobles whom he had so often defeated

were gathering to support their deposed sovereign. In September he beleaguered the town, which he may have expected to fall an easy prey. But the spirit of the citizens had risen, as once before in extreme danger. They had the fate of Beziers in fresh remembrance, and knew that the inhuman order to kill all and spare none might be repeated in their case. Women as well as men worked by

day and night to renew the fortifications, and the vehement remonstrances of the new pope had no effect.

Perrin has a rather full account of this, which is here condensed. According to him, Raymond would have been in straits if Montfort had come at once ; the delay saved him and the city. He appointed a provost to have charge of the

K»

ALBIGENSIAN WORSHIPPERS ON THE BANKS OF THE RHONE-

defenses, keep the ditches clear, repair breaches in the walls, and assign every man his post. . Those who desired vengeance for injuries done by Montfort, and they were numerous, came from all parts to help the count. The general’s brother, Guy, led an attack, but was put to flight. The forty-day men, having had enough for that season, went home.

THE CRUSADERS MEET DISASTERS.

Montfort, after his arrival, was discouraged by furious sallies of the besieged. At a council, the legate Bertrand strove to hearten him with promises that the town would soon be taken and its inhabitants all killed, while any of the crusaders who fell should go direct to paradise. But one of the chief officers said, “You talk with great assurance, Lord Cardinal. If it be so, the war will not much benefit the general. For you and the rest of the prelates and clergy have stirred up all this strife, and would fain make more trouble.” The legate took no notice of this affront, which it was not then convenient to resent; and they determined not to assault the city, but to blockade it on the west side, which looks upon the Garonne. As part of the army was moving toward the river, they were attacked from within the walls. The count of Foix, coming up with reinforcements, drove the enemy to the water, so that they sprang pell-mell into their boats, and many were drowned: Montfort himself had a narrow escape.

Raymond called an assembly, invited the people to thank God for this beginning of victory, and exhorted all to help prepare the engines to play against the castle outside the walls, which had been yielded to Montfort years before. They speedily got ready slings, crossbows, mangonels, and other devices for sending forth stones and arrows ; these they directed against the castle, to the great dismay of those within it. Bishop Foulkes of Toulouse, who loved to oppress his flock, assured the general that the legate had sent letters and messengers throughout the world, and that succors would soon come in such force that he might do whatever he-wished. On this-the same cavalier who had berated the cardinal turned on the bishop and treated him to a yet more vigorous scolding.

Cold weather coming on, the besiegers went into winter-quarters ; but Raymond raised a rampart about the city, and sent his son to beat up recruits. Both sides awaited the arrival of a new army of the cross, which came in the spring of 1218 to the number of one hundred thousand. Montfort and the legate, “being resolved to make them earn their pardons,” ordered an assault for the next day. The people of Toulouse, not waiting for this, sallied out in the night, surprised the camp, which was in disorder and poorly guarded, and covered the ground with corpses. Weary of slaughter, they returned in safety to thank God for His gracious help.

Two of the newly arrived lords, not pleased with this reception, urged the general to make peace. The indignant legate rebuked them, saying that the

ANCIENT WAR MACHINERY.

Church needed no help from men who favored heretics. Then a noble, one of those who loved to repress the insolence of the clergy, replied, “Sir Cardinal, why should you rob Count Raymond and his son of what belonged to them ? If I had known as much of these matters as I know now, I would have stayed at home.”

The old chroniclers whom Perrin followed were evidently full of national feeling, and recorded everything that made for the credit of their side and the- discredit of the enemy. If they have not improved the facts, Raymond showed far more spirit and ability during this nine months’ siege than in his previous career, and Montfort vastly less. The general was sick at heart, and the legate blamed him for his want of success, ascribing it to indifference or incapacity. The hatred which the whole country, or what he had left of it, felt toward the earl, now caused a lack of supplies, so that “the camp was near starving, while the city felt no such want.” But the end of this contest, and of all earthly things for the persecutor, was at hand.

DEATH OF MONTFORT.

Early on the morning of June 23d, 1218, Raymond’s troops made a sally, uttering the war-cries of their several cities, and drove the foe before them. A messenger ran to the earl, who was at mass ; he said he would come when the service was over. Others followed, crying that they were undone, since the army was without a head ; but he answered that he would not stir, though he were slain on the spot, “till he had seen his Creator”—meaning the consecrated bread, raised on high by the officiating priest. But the chaplain, more prudent than his master, hurried the mass to an end, “ clipping and curtailing it, for fear his ears should be clipped.” After the earl had mounted, his horse was wounded by an arrow. Being in pain, the beast would not be controlled, and bore his rider too near the ramparts. There he was shot with a crossbow in the thigh, so that he lost much blood. He called for his brother, and wished to be taken to the rear. While they were talking, a stone from a mangonel, said to have been worked by a woman, struck him on the head and severed it from his body. On this the crusaders withdrew, their forty days having expired. During the confusion of their de parture, Raymond made another sally and a great slaughter. The remains of the army soon abandoned the castle and fled to Carcassonne.

Montfort’s end was differently estimated by the two parties. The Catholics called him a martyr, the bulwark of the faith, and even the new Maccabee. The latter title was most inappropriate, for Judas Maccabeus, as we have seen, was the defender of liberty and of his country. However sincere the motive in either case, there is a vast difference between him who stands for his altars and his fires, and those who go into other men’s lands to meddle, to rob, and to repress by violence a faith which by right concerns only those who hold it.

Montfort’s work now went to pieces, for his son and heir, Aylmer, or Amanri, Tiad little of his ability. The counts of Foix and Comminges recovered most of the lands that had been wrested from them. Foix was returning from Lauragues with prisoners and spoil when he was pursued by French troops, who claimed to fight “for Heaven and the Church.” Young Raymond came to his aid and shouted : “ We fight against thieves who use the Church for a cloak. They have ^stolen enough ; let us make them vomit it up, and pay off old scores.” They -charged, and cut the foe to pieces. Captain Segun, “ an eminent robber,” was laken and hanged on a tree. Aylmer besieged Marmande, with little success at ■first, for the defenders were brave, and the ditches filled up with corpses. Prince Louis of France came in 1219 with thirty earls and a great force. The town, which had but five thousand inhabitants, surrendered on his promise that all lives should be spared. This displeased Aylmer, who called the prelates together and said that these people had killed his father, and he wanted blood for blood. ■The bishops, after their manner, agreed that heretics and rebels were unworthy to live. Aylmer brought his troops within the walls, and charged them to kill :all. It was done; men, women, and children perished in an indiscriminate slaughter like that of Beziers. Louis was offended, but not beyond forgiveness, as we shall see. On his way home he summoned Toulouse to surrender, but it declined.

During the next few years Aylmer, the pope, and a new legate called in vain for more crusaders, while the national party gathered strength. Protestantism raised its head again; its fugitives came out of their hiding-places, its missionaries resumed their old activity, and its bishops defied those of the Church. Yet when the elder Raymond died at Toulouse, in August, 1222, his body was -denied burial. Though no heretic, he had not been diligent enough in repressing heresy, and such crimes the Church never forgave. His son, a quarter of a century later, presented to the pope abundant evidence of the dead man’s religious character, but in vain. His bones long lay above ground, “the .sport of rats,” in the building of the Hospitallers, whom he had endowed ; and his skull was preserved for near five hundred years.

CRUSADE OF LOUIS VIII.

Aylmer, unable to maintain his position, made repeated offers of all his claims to Philip Augustus of France. That king died in 1223, and was succeeded by his son, Louis VIII., who in February, 1224, accepted the cession. He prepared a new crusade, and only disagreement over the terms supposed to be agreed on with the pope, who tried one of the usual tricks, saved the count from probable destruction. Unable to cope with the power of France, Raymond VII. met the bishops at Montpellier on June 2d, 1224, and promised to support the Church, punish Protestants, and do whatever else was asked of him. But this was not enough ; he had been a rebel and was not to be trusted. The pope wrote to

DEATH OF MONTFORT AT SIEGE OF TOULOUSE*

Louis that Languedoc was “a land of iron and brass, from which the rust could be removed by fire only.” The customary shuffling, juggling, and overreaching went on, to the disgust of sundry delegates at the council of Bourges, who openly protested against the greed of the papal court.

In 1226 the king put his crusade in motion, having forced his own terms on the pope. Like most monarchs, he was generally on his guard with the clergy- He was to stay as long as he saw fit, with his nobles and men-at-arms, thus securing far more continuous and efficient work than had been possible on the forty days* plan. He was to receive a tenth of all Church funds for his expenses ; the abbots and other dignitaries protested against this, but he would accept no less. The crusade was thus much less popular with the clergy than among the laity. “The legate was busy dismissing the boys, women, old men, paupers, and cripples, who had asstimed the cross. These he forced to swear as to the amount of money they possessed; of this he took the greater part, and let them go after granting them absolution from the vow—an indirect way of selling indulgences which became habitual and produced large sums. Louis drove a thriving trade of the same kind with a higher class of crusaders, by accepting heavy payments from those who owed him service and were not ambitious of the glory or the perils of the expedition.”

The army, said to comprise no less than fifty thousand cavalry and infantry in proportion, gathered at Bourges in May, 1226. This formidable array filled the land with terror, and most of the cities, including Albi, sent to notify Louis of their submission. But Avignon, which was among the number, plucked up a spirit at the last moment, closed its gates, and refused to admit the king, saying that he could pass around it. It contained many Waldenses, who feared to trust themselves in the power of the crusaders. The army besieged it through the whole summer, and suffered much from insufficient food and succeeding pestilence ; for Raymond was active, wasting the adjoining lands and attacking any who set forth for forage. If Avignon could have held out a little longer, it. would have saved its walls and the ransom which was exacted on its surrender. It also agreed, of course, to suppress heresy, and received a bishop who was likely to carry out this provision. Within a week after this a freshet occurred, and the site of the royal camp was under water.

Passing to the west, Louis began the siege of Toulouse, but soon abandoned it, and died on the way home, in November. All that had been accomplished by these vast preparations was the leaving of various garrisons, and a royal governor, De Beaujeau, who in 1227 took a castle, put the garrison to the sword, and burned a deacon and some other Christians.

SUBMISSION OF RAYMOND Vlt.

After two years more of desultory warfare, the spirit of Raymond, or his power of resistance, was exhausted. He went to Paris, made peace with young

SIEGE OF AVIGNON.

Louis IX., and his mother the regent, did public penance, and was formally reconciled to the Church. As the old historian of Languedue remarks, “ It was a lamentable sight to see so brave a man, who had stood out so long against so many, come barefooted and half-dressed to the altar, in presence of two cardinals, one the legate to France, the other to England. But this was not all the ignominious penance inflicted on him; for there were many articles and conditions in that treaty, any one of which should have been sufficient for his ransom if the king of France had taken him fighting in the field against him.”

It is needless to detail the eighteen articles of this treaty, which are given in full by Perrin. One of them required him to spend five years at Rhodes or in the Holy Land, and “to fight against the Turks and Saracens this he never fulfilled. But he was confined in Paris for some time, and obliged to sign a decree against the persons and estates of Protestants. They were to be sought out by the Inquisition, their lives taken, their goods confiscated, their houses demolished. As Mr. Lea observes, “It was a war between the two opposing principles of persecution and tolerance, and persecution was victorious.”

A marriage was patched up between Raymond’s daughter and a brother of Louis IX., two children of eight years old. After securities had been taken, the count was granted a life-interest in some of his former territories. The cities and castles were dismantled, and he was to maintain peace on the Church’s terms. Amnesty was proclaimed to all but heretics, and his old comrades, who had withstood Montfort, the legate, and the pope, might hope to escape beggary by becoming persecutors.

. THE COUNT OF FOIX.

This turn of affairs was far from pleasing to the Albigenses; but all that remained for them was the choice between hiding-places, apostacy, and martyrdom. The count of Foix, an old and childless hero, was minded to resist to the last, and met Raymond’s persuasions by saying that he could not renounce his party or his faith, but would face the next crusade and leave the event to God. He yielded at last to the entreaties of his subjects, who feared to be exterminated and longed for peace. The noble aud pathetic speech in which he announced to the legate his reluctant submission is as far as possible from a recantation, or from the self-abasement of his late feudal superiors, at whom he glanced with manly scorn :

“I have long since bid adieu to rhetoric, being used to plead my cause by the point of sword and spear. My cousin the Count of Toulouse has earned my thanks by procuring from our enemies a hearing, which they would never, grant till now; and he desires us to desist from opposing and making head against those who would do us mischief, assuring us that the king of France will govern according to justice. It was ever my desire to maintain and preserve my liberty. Our country owes homage to the Count of Toulouse for making it an

earldom, but it owns no other master than myself. As to the pope, I have never offended him, for, as a prince, he has demanded nothing of me in which I have not obeyed him.” (Roger’s ideas were evidently not clear on this topic.) “He has no call to meddle with my religion, since in that every one ought to be free and to use his own pleasure. My father did always recommend.to me this liberty, so that, continuing in this state and posture, I might be able to look up with confidence when the heavens were dissolved, fearing nothing. This alone it is that troubles me. . . . It is not fear that makes me stoop to your desires, and constrains me to humble my will so far as coward-like to truckle to your purpose; but being moved by benign and generous dread of the misery of my subjects and the ruin of my country, and wishing not to be counted factious, opinionated, and the firebrand and incendiary of France, it is thus I yield in this extremity. Otherwise I would have stood as a wall, and proof against all assaults of enemies. I therefore give you a pledge of friendship, for the sake of general peace. Take my castles, till such time as I have made the submission you require.”

In 1240 Trancavel, a natural son of Roger of Beziers, headed a rising against oppression, besieged Carcassonne, and took one of its suburbs. Anxious to avenge his father, who was thought to have been poisoned there by his captors in 1209, he slew thirty priests who had been promised their lives. In 1242 a band of eleven inquisitors, going cheerfully about the country on their bloody errand, were set upon and murdered at Avignonet. The Catharan stronghold of Montsigno, perched on a cliff among the mountains, held out till 1244, when the difficult approaches to it were betrayed by shepherds, and the outworks taken in the night. A huge funeral pile was built, and two hundred and five of the “Perfect,” both men and women, refusing to recant, were thrown into the flames. Raymond, who had been forced into the position of a persecutor, became such sincerely in his last years: in 1249 he ordered eighty persons, who had acknowledged their belief, to be burned. Shortly after this.he died, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, the French Alphonse, who was entirely acceptable at Rome, and needed no urging to punish heretics. Among his first expenses were a large grant to support the Inquisition and purchase wood for its burnings. Protestantism had now more than ever to hide its head. Some of its votaries fled to Lombardy, some recanted, and many perished. For a hundred years the Inquisition had its way, completing the evil work which the crusaders had begun. As always and everywhere, the result of its efforts was to crush intelligence, to corrupt and weaken the national character, to impoverish and ruin the country. Yet some embers of the old free faith lurked amid the ashes, and in the sixteenth century the Reformation was eagerly received through all that war-harried and blood-soaked region.

WICLIF AND THE LOLLARDS.

NGLAND, surrounded by the seas, escaped some of the evils which afflicted the continent ; for instance, the Inquisition never found a lodgment there. Its people were marked by a sturdy spirit and a love of liberty, which often showed themselves in contempt for the corrupt lives of the clergy and opposition to the greedy exactions of Rome. In the fourteenth century a great man arose to give voice to these feelings, and reasons why they should go further than they did. If Wiclif’s immediate results were small, if his fame is still less than it ought to be, it is because he was bom too soon. He was a reformer in an age that sorely needed reforms but was not ready for them, a Protestant when protests were little understood, a Puritan two hundred ~ years before Puritanism took a name and became a recognized power in the world.

“Orthography was optional” in those days, and Wiclif’s name has been spelt in as many different ways- as that of Shakespeare. It is not the lettering of his name, but his opinions, his writings, and their influence, that made an era in religious histoiy. His spirit was mainly practical and political, for which reason some severe theologians, as Mr. Milner, have found in him “not much that deserves the peculiar attention of godly persons,” and “ could not conscientiously join with the popular cry in ranking him among the highest worthies of the Church.” He retained a few notions now generally discarded, such as a partial belief in purgatory, so that rigid Protestants find him not quite up to their standard. He thought little—perhaps too little—of some points of order and discipline still retained by many, and therefore he does not satisfy thoroughgoing churchmen. But if we allow for the fact that he died a hundred years before Luther was born, we shall find it remarkable enough that he anticipated in most matters not only the opinions of the men who changed the religion of half Europe, but those which prevail to-day.

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John Wiclif was bom in Yorkshire about 1324, and became famous at the University of Oxford for learning, and for qualities then somewhat less highly esteemed, eloquence and courage. His first book, “The Last Age of the Church,” appeared in 1356, and attacked the covetousness of the papal court. Nine years later, when Urban V. demanded the arrears of a large tribute which King John had promised to the pope in 1213, but which had not been paid in a long time, Edward III. referred the question to Parliament, and it was much disputed, many of the clergy taking the pope’s side : Wiclif now distinguished himself by maintaining that no monarch could pledge the revenues of England without consent of Parliament. He fully shared the general disgust felt toward the begging friars. He disapproved the wealth and temporal

power gained by the Church, and held that priests should be allowed to marry like other men. The universal practice of confessing to them he deemed unnecessary. Growing bolder as his thoughts traveled further, he rejected the pope’s supremacy as the source of all the Church’s evils, and the cause of mixing up carnal and spiritual things in hopeless confusion. He regarded excommunications and interdicts as mere impertinent abuses—not powers liable to be abused, but usurpations and wrongs in idea and in fact. As for pardons and indulgences, he called them “a subtle merchandise of anti Christian clerks, whereby they magnified their own fictitious power, and, instead of causing men to dread sin, encouraged them to wallow therein like pigs.” In short, he denied the claims and despised the practices which Protestants reject to-day, but which prevailed in his time and long after. Scripture was in his view the only exponent of divine truth, and -reason its only interpreter.

These principles he diligently taught in his writings, in his preaching at Oxford, Lutterworth, and London, and through missionaries or “poor priests,” whom he sent out to preach the gospel, in its apostolic simplicity and purity, throughout England. In his later years he translated the New Testament and

WICLIF.

most books of the Old: this version was completed by a friend, and published not long after his death.

These bold efforts at reform made him a marked man, whose downfall would be welcome to many; and his denial of transubstantiation could not but offend most. In any other country his life* would probably have been sacrificed. Indeed, it is still a marvel that he escaped a violent death ; but England, as we have seen, was then unused to trials for heresy, and he had a powerful protector in “old John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster.” This famous duke stood by him when, by the pope’s order, he appeared before the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, in 1377, to answer to certain charges. The next year, when he was dangerously ill at Oxford, a committee of the notorious begging monks, or mendicants, entered his room and asked him to purge his conscience by taking back his slanders upon their order before he died: on this he raised himself in bed, and with blazing eyes cried out, “I shall not die, but live, aud declare the evil deeds of the friars !”

Other charges were brought against him, and referred by the bishops to the university, which took no action of importance ; but in 1382 the storm raised by his opinions about the mass caused his banishment from Oxford. In 1384 he was summoned to Rome ; but he did not go, and died peacefully in his bed on the last day of that year. The Council of Constance, while it was considering the case of his disciple Huss, in 14x5, took an impotent revenge on Wiclif by ordering his bones to be dug, up and burned, and this sentence was carried out in 1428. His ashes were cast into a stream called the Swift, which flows into the river Avon. Thence, as Luther said, they passed into the Severn, and from the Severn to the ocean ; and so his doctrine was to be spread abroad through all lands.

SPREAD OF LOLLARDRY.

Wiclif’s teachings took strong hold at Oxford and throughout England; it was claimed that every other man you met was a Lollard, as his followers were called. “Women as well as men became the preachers of the new sect. Lol- lardry had its own schools, its own books ; its pamphlets were passed everywhere from hand to hand.” The clergy were freely satirized, and a petition sent to Parliament in 1395, reflecting severely on the corruptions of the Church, and claiming that its income, beyond what was necessary for working purposes, would enable the king to endow a hundred hospitals, and to support fifteen hundred knights and six thousand squires. This close estimate was adopted by a Parliament of the next reign, though the proposed confiscation was not carried out till that of Henry VIII.

The first attempts at persecution only raised the spirit of the Lollards, for their cause was more popular thau that of their opponents. “Few sheriffs would arrest on the mere warrant of an ecclesiastical officer, and no royal court

WTCI.I* AND THE MONK “ I no* die, bul live, and declare the evil deeds of tlx monies /

would issue the writ ‘for the burning of a heretic’ on a bishop’s requisition.” They grew yet bolder with this impunity, and “ delighted in outraging the religious feeling of their day. One Lollard gentleman took home the sacramental wafer, and lunched on it with wine and oysters. Another flung some images of the saints into his cellar. The preachers stirred up riots by the violence of their sermons against the friars.” The new sect had its own way for a time in London, and was strong at Lincoln, Salisbury, and Worcester.

When Henry IV. came to the throne in 1399, he found it expedient to secure the support of the clergy by putting down their enemies. This king was the son of John of Gaunt, Wiclif’s old protector ; but Archbishop Arundel made it plain to him, that “to make his throne secure, he must conciliate the Church and sacrifice the Lollards.” The first victim was William Sautre or Sawtrey, a preacher of London. On February 12th, 1401, he was accused by Arundel of having once renounced his errors and afterwards returned to them. The eight charges against him contain chiefly these dangerous doctrines: that he would not worship the cross, but only Christ who suffered on it; that a vow to go on pilgrimage was not binding, but the expenses of the intended journey might be given to the poor: “that every priest and deacon is more bound to preach the word of God than to say the canonical hours and that the consecrated bread does not cease to be bread. Confessing these crimes, especially the last named, and refusing to change his opinion, he was handed over to the king and by him to the sheriffs, with command that he “be put into the fire and there really burned, to the great horror of his offense aud the manifest example of other Christians.” The sentence was carried out soon after; and this was the first fire kindled in England for a Protestant.

The next martyr, so far as we are informed, was John Badby, a plain layman. In March, 1409, he was condemned, like Sautre, for accepting the evidence of his senses about the bread. They led him to Smithfield, a suburb famous long after as the scene of similar atrocities, put him in an empty barrel, chained him to a stake, and piled dry wood about him. The king’s eldest son, who chanced to be present, urged him to renounce his errors and save his life ; but he would not. When he felt the flames, he called on God for mercy : the prince, misunderstanding him, ordered the fire to be put out, and promised him a pension if he would recant. Rejecting this, he was again put in the barrel, and the torch again applied. He was a long time dying, but bore his torments with great fortitude.

William Thorpe, a preacher of the new doctrines, has left a long account of his examination by the archbishop, which occurred in 1407; but there is no record of his execution. Probably he died in prison.

LORD COBHAM.

The most famous of all these victims was Sir John Oldcastle, who by marriage became Lord Cobham. A man of war and of affairs, he stood high in the favor of king and prince, though known as the captain of the Lollards. Their preachers were openly entertained at his houses in London and in Wales; his main seat, Cowling Castle, near Rochester in Kent, was their continual resort; and he was the firmest adherent of their doctrines. When the House of Commons in 1404 and 1410 urged the king to meet his needs by confiscating the abbey lands, Cobham was probably their moving spirit, for the clergy charged him with “arming the hands of laymen for the spoil of the Church.” His character was above reproach; his enemies owned that his heresies were concealed

WICLIF'S CHURCH.

“under a veil of holiness.” In 1413 the Convocation accused him as “the principal receiver, favorer, protector, and defender” of the sect, and alleged that he had sent out their missionaries and attacked or threatened their opponents. The bishops demanded his trial: Henry V., who had come to the throne in this year, was the same prince who had cast Badby back into the flames, but in his friend’s case he asked for delay, and promised to undertake his conversion in person. Cobham was not to be convinced, and in September he was arrested and confined in the Tower of London. The language he used concerning the pope was indeed so violent as might easily offend the king beyond forgiveness: Foxe says that, hearing it, Henry “would talk no longer with him, but gave him up to the malice of his enemies.”

At his first examination, he handed in a paper wherein the sacrament of the altar, penances, images, and pilgrimages were moderately and prudently treated of. On this he wished to rest his case, though the archbishop told him other points should be inquired into. A few days later his opinion was asked as to four articles which had been sent to him in prison. He was agaiu offered absolution if he would submit: instead of doing this, he knelt, raised his hands and eyes, and confessed the sins of his youth. Then rising and turning to the audience, he exclaimed in a loud voice, “ See, good people ; these men never yet cursed me for breaking God’s commandments, but for their own laws and traditions they handle me and others most cruelly. And therefore both they and their laws, according to God’s promise, shall be utterly destroyed.”

This unpromising beginning produced some confusion in the court. Order being restored, a long discussion ensued, in which the prisoner showed a good degree of knowledge and acuteness. Having declared that he believed all the laws of God, all the contents of the Bible, and all that the Lord wished him to believe, he was asked whether any material bread remained after the words of consecration were pronounced. “ The Scriptures,” he replied, “ make no mention of material bread. In the sacrament there are both Christ’s body and the bread: the bread is the thing we see with our eyes, but Christ’s body is hid, and to be seen only by faith.” On this they all cried out, “It is heresy.” Said Cobham, “ St. Paul was as wise as you, I am sure, and he called it bread in his epistle to the Corinthians. ‘The bread that we break,’ said he, ‘is it not the partaking of the body of Christ ? ’ Lo, he calls it bread, and not Christ’s body, but a means whereby we receive His body.”

Being asked whether he would worship the cross on which the Lord died, he inquired where it was. “Suppose it to be here,” the friar answered. “This is a wise man,” said Cobham, “to ask me such a question, when he knows not where the thing is. But how should I worship it?” “Give it such worship,” one of them answered, “as St. Paul speaks of, ‘God forbid that I should glory save in the cross’ ”—a lame and stupid explanation, which Cobham thought fit to brush aside with contempt. Spreading his arms wide, he said, “ This is a cross, and better than your cross of wood, for God made this, and man the other; yet I will not seek to have it worshipped.” “Sir,” said the Bishop of London, “you know that Christ died on a material cross.” “Yes,” he replied, “and I know also that our salvation came not by the material cross, but by Him who died thereon. And I know too that St. Paul rejoiced notin the cross itself, but in Christ’s sufferings and death, and suffered himself for the same truth.”

This was enough ; anxious to prove that “ the letter kills,” the prelates condemned Lord Cobham as a heretic, and sent him back to the Tower. But as “ a man of integrity, dearly beloved by the king,” his execution was delayed, and one night in November he found means to escape. While in hiding he sent

JOHN OF GAUNT DEFENDING WICI.IF BEFORE THE BISHOP OF LODI.

messages to his brethren: secret meetings were held, and a revolt on a large- scale organized. Few will blame the Lollards for conspiring to defend their faith; but rebellion against the lawful king, especially on merely religious grounds, was seldom successful in England. The rising was put down in St_ Giles’ Fields, January 6th, 1414. This broke the power of Lollardry, and

CROUCH OAK ADDLESTONE, UNDER. WHICH WICI.IF PREACHED.

henceforth trials and executions were frequent............................. Near forty, including Sir

Roger Acton, a knight, and Beverley, a preacher, were promptly hanged or burned near the spot where they were taken in arm s. Had they entered. London and effected a junction with their friends there, the result might have

been different; but tbe leaders were taken one by one, and all further attempt at resistance prevented.

Cobham bad again escaped, and lived as an outlaw for near four years longer. In December, 1417, be was caugbt on tbe Welsh border, sent to London by Lord Powis, dragged on a hurdle, “with insult and barbarity,” to St. Giles’ Fields, and there hung in chains over a slow fire.

In 1424 William White, a godly man and eminent preacher, was burned at Norwich, and with him or soon after, two others, Abraham of Colchester and John Waddon. Many others suffered; andLollardry survived only “ in scattered and secret groups, whose sole bond was a common loyalty to the Bible and a common spirit of revolt against the religion of their day.” They were still objects of persecution in the middle of the fifteenth century ; but the cause of free conscience and public reform was practically lost, and the good work had to be all done over again a hundred years later.

BOHEMIA AND JOHN HUSS.

HE doctrines of Wiclif spread less widely, and had far less visible effect, in England than in another and distant land, where the soil was better prepared to receive them.

Bohemia, which is now the northwestern province of the Austrian empire, is almost in the middle of the map of Europe; military writers have called it the key of that continent, and many important battles have been fought within its borders. Its natives, though surrounded by Germans, are not of German stock, but Czechs, a branch of the great Slavonic race; their ancestors came from the east in the fifth century of our era. When they received Christianity, which was not till four or five hundred years later, it was not from Rome, but from the Greek Church. Two missionaries, Methodius and Cyril, were sent from Constantinople in the year 862, and labored with success in Moravia, which adjoins Bohemia on the east and was settled by the same tribe. They preached and held services in the tongue of the people—whereas Latin was always and everywhere the language of the Roman Church: they also translated the Scriptures into Czech. In 871 Borzivoy, duke of Bohemia, visited Moravia, listened to the new teachings, and was baptized with his wife Ludmilla. Within the next hundred years the country was gradually Christianized.

The people of that region Were therefore trained in the usages of the Eastern Church, which in three important points differed from those of the Western. Their prayer-books and services were in their own language ; their priests were allowed to marry; and they received the communion in both kinds, bread and wine—whereas Rome denied the cup to the laity. The last difference was the one on which both sides laid such stress as to cause a fierce persecution and a bloody war in the fifteenth century.

The popes, never content to permit any departure from the uniformity of their ritual and discipline, made various efforts to suppress these irregularities,

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Gregory VII. declared in 1079 that it was “the pleasure of Almighty God that divine worship should be held in a private [or dead or unknown] language, though all do not understand it.” And he gave this curious reason : “ for if the singing were general and loud, the service might easily fall into contempt.” The ideas which govern public religious services in our day are the exact opposite of this. Congregational singing, which is now desired and cultivated almost everywhere, was then a thing to be dreaded and avoided. But it was the usual policy of Rome to let the clergy do all, and keep the people mere spectators.

CHAMBER IN LOLLARD'S TOWER, LAMBETH PLACE, WHERE THE REFORMERS WERE CONFINED.

So much for the language of worship. As to the domestic lives of priests, CelestinllL, in 1197, sent a legate to Prague to insist on their celibacy. But the jeople listened to him with great indignation, and took no trouble to obey, preferring that their ministers should have each his own family ties and comforts, and not be tempted to meddle with theirs. As to the cup in the communion, its use was forbidden in 1353 ; but the Bohemians would not yield. In this matter the reformers introduced no novelty, but simply defended the ancient custom of the land, which they justly claimed to be also that of the primitive Church.

Of these reformers Huss was not the first. Conrad Stickna, after a visit to Rome, spoke freely against the corruptions of the Church and the vices of the

monks. Militz, his colleague in the cathedral at Prague, preached righteousness in three languages and several times a day. Janow, confessor to the emperor Charles IV., moved many by his writings, and sought to procure a general council for purposes of reform. All these were sent into exile ; their deaths occurred in 1369, 1374, and 1394.

At this time Prague, the capital city, was also capital of the empire, and eminent as a seat of learning. Charles IV., the king of Bohemia, was German emperor from 1346 to 1378, and in 1348 founded the University of Prague, which for fifty years was the only institution of the kind in Germany. Here Huss and Jerome received their training, and here they taught. The authorities were mainly on the pope’s side, and in its governing board Bohemia had but one vote against three from neighboring papal countries, Bavaria, Saxony, and Poland ; but books and lectures breed free thought, and the close connection between the two great universities, Prague and Oxford, helped to open a way by which Wiclif’s doctrine might enter.

As early as the twelfth century, Peter Waldo, from whom the Waldenses were named, fleeing from persecution in France, sought refuge with some of his followers in Bohemia. The darkness of those ages leaves us' little knowledge of the spread of their doctrines in their new home; but they must have done something to confirm and extend the liberty-loving spirit which afterwards went so far to anticipate the Protestant Reformation.

Another foreign influence began with the marriage, in 1382, of Anne of Bohemia, the emperor’s daughter, to Richard II. of England. She took with her a copy of the gospels in Bohemian, German, and Latin—an example to which Wiclif referred in defense of his English translation of the Bible. From this time communication between the two countries became more frequent. The queen’s attendants, returning to their native land after her death in 1394, perhaps carried with them some of Wiclif’s writings. Others were brought in by students going from one university to another. Two from Oxford produced at Prague a forged document—for the age of pious frauds was not over—pretending to be a formal approval of Wiclif’s doctrines by the University of Oxford, sealed with its great seal. A few years later the pope thought it necessary to write to the Archbishop of Prague, denouncing the “ arch-heretic ” Wiclif and the “ cancer ” of his teachings, and ordering that his works be taken by force from any who had them, and such persons—priests, professors, or whoever they might be—be cast into prison.

These doctrines, which for the time were extremely radical and sweeping, by no means gained at once the entire approval of the Bohemian liberals. Even Huss was at first scandalized by some of them, and to the last did not adopt them all. In May, 1403, a Convocation of the University of Prague met to examine forty-five articles, said to be drawn from Wiclif’s writings. The

TRIAL OF WICLIF. IN THE BLACK FRIARS MONASTERY, LONDON.

Germans wished to condemn them, and carried their point. The Bohemians defended them in part only, but said that others did not fairly represent the Englishman’s views. Five years later these proceedings were repeated, and both, parties appealed to King Wenzel or Wenceslaus, who decided in favor of his own countrymen. This brought matters to a crisis. The Germans would have no more to do. with Prague, and founded new schools at Leipsic and Brfurt. John Huss now came more than ever to the front.

This famous reformer and martyr was born July 6th, 1373, amd took his second name, after the fashion of the time, from his native village

of Hussinecz. . -= ~X'

His parents all f|ff^^If'N' were poor but respectable people, and his main desire was to get an education. He managed to enter the University at sixteen, and made his way through it, as many great men have done since in

many lands, by means of his own labor and the charity of others. His abilities were solid, his application steady, and his life so blameless that his enemies could say nothing ^th^°^'^ow_E_r, i,amb_Eth palace.

against it; but in those days a man’s opinions were considered far more important than his character. We, who have reversed this way of j udging, can approve both his character and his opinions, and remember him with honor as a great light shining in a dark place. He took his degrees of B. A. and M. A. in 1393, and 1396, was ordained, became a tutor in the college, minister of the Bethlehem chapel, and won much fame as a preacher. In 1402 he was. made rector of the University. The king was his friend; his feet seemed firmly planted on the.

ladder of success. If lie liad been a trimmer, a prudent man of moderate views, keeping on the right side of the powers of this world,—if he had put his interests i>efore his conscience,—he might have risen to be archbishop. “ But what things

were gain to him,

these he counted loss ^% ^ ‘ ' -- ^^or Christ”

''.t- _t,- _ In March, 1410,

^T " i , ' .~'^j ' ' :-V a bull or decree from

%^r'■-i- ■■ ' i the pope reached

T Prague, coudemning

■ ' wfWiclif’s heresies and

^ ? rMwBBHIB giving the archbishop

authority to do what he saw fit to suppress them. Over two hundred volumes of them, each representing months of labor and the cost of many scores of such books as the printing-press has since made common, were seized and burned. Huss refused to stop preaching, and appealed to the new pope in vain. When he repeated from his pulpit the late pope’s charges of heresy, the congregation shouted, “ He lies ! ” He inquired whether they would support his appeal, cobham’s escape. and the vast audience

replied, “We will!” The archbishop was hissed in the streets, and asked to pay for the books he had burned. Three monks who had preached against Wiclif ivere mobbed, and one of them all but drowned.

The appeal of Huss, and the complaints against him, were referred by the new pope to Cardinal Colonna, who summoned him to Rome. Under advice of

the king and other friends he refused to go, but sent two deputies, who were cast into prison and kept there for some time. In February, 14n, he was excommunicated. He paid no attention to this, and the people of Prague stood by him; so the city was placed under an inderdict, which forbade all the ministrations of religion, — alike public services, sacraments, weddings, and burials. This was a terrible weapon when public opinion supported it; but the king arranged matters with Archbishop Zbinco, who soon owned himself beaten, and died on the way to Rome. He was succeeded by a miserly old man who neglected his duties, and two years later by Conrad of Vechta, who found it expedient for a time to favor the reformers.

In those ages every reform was at the start moral rather than doctrinal. The corruptions of the Church, which were many and great, from the pope down to the obscurest priest or most ignorant monk, engaged men’s minds much more tnan points of abstruse theology. Huss had won his fame and popularity by thundering against the worldliness and vices of the local clergy; but as his horizon broadened with experience of the enmity of Rome, his sermons took a wider range and a loftier flight. When a youth at college, he had spent his last pennies on an indulgence—a pardon of past (or sometimes of future; sins, to be purchased for cash ; but he was older and wiser now. At this juncture his wrath was roused, like Wiclif’s before and Luther’s afterwards, by papal emissaries who traveled through Bohemia selling indulgences, to raise money for a crusade against the King of Naples. Huss tpoke boldly against “the power of the keys,” denied the value of absolutions granted by men who could not save their own souls, and denounced the peddlers of indulgences as thieves.

When the pope’s legate arrived at Prague, he asked Huss whether he would obey “the apostolical mandates.’’ “Certainly,” he answered; “that is, the teachings of the apostles. So far as the pope’s commands agree with these, I will obey them cheerfully ; but not otherwise, though I stood before the stake.” In a public disputation at the University, in June, 1412, he used still plainer language.

Disturbances now arose, for his followers thought it was for him to speak and for them to act. A crowd seized some of the papal bulls of indulgence, and burned them at the pillory ; the leader, a favorite of the king, went unpunished. A few weeks later, three young workmen or students, John Hudsk, Martin Kri- desco, and Stanislaiis Passec, interrupted the preachers of indulgences in as many churches, crying out that these lied, and that Master Huss had taught them better. They were at once arrested and condemned to death. Huss begged for their lives, and the magistrates promised to shed no blood, but had the three privately beheaded. Huss preached their funeral sermon, and called them martyrs. A tumult ensued; the authorities became alarmed, and set free others who had been imprisoned.

Huss was now again excommunicated: the pope ordered his chapel to be tom down, and his person handed over to the archbishop and the stake. A single attempt was made, in October, 1412, to carry out this sentence ; but the congregation was so large, and so ready to fight, that the armed assailants prudently

withdrew, after merely looking in. The king would allow nothing more to be done. Most of the people, the students, and the nobles were in warm sympathy with the reformer, though the clergy generally, and the German residents, took the pope’s side. Toward the end of the year Huss was persuaded, for the sake of peace, to leave the city. For the next year or two he preached diligently to great crowds in the rural parts. In his treatise “On the Church,” which appeared in 1413, he said that the pope was a successor of the apostles only if he followed their example; if he cared chiefly for money-getting, he showed himself to be the vicar, not of Christ, but of Judas.

JOHN HUSS.

THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE.

In December, 1413, Pope John XXIII. was forced to call a general council, to meet eleven months later at Constance in Switzerland. The chief objects of this assemblage were three : First, to decide between the rival popes, one at Rome and the other at Avignon in France—a scandal that had long divided and distracted Christendom. Second, to reform the manners of the clergy, and correct the abuses and corruption now generally felt and admitted. And third, to suppress heresy, chiefly in Bohemia. . Every bishop, monastery, university, king, and ruler was to be represented. The interest felt in this gathering and in its expected work was great and general. Nothing of the kind had been seen for two hundred years. Its decisions were to be final, and the questions on which it determined were of the highest importance. Its members came from every country of central and western Europe, and included the ablest and most eminent men of these lands. Over sixty thousand are said to have been in attendance ; more than one-fourth of these were of noble blood. And yet this great

BURNING OF WICLIF’S WORKS AT PRAGUE.

assemblage, whatever else it did or left undone, is chiefly famous for the j udicial murder of its best and best-known man—of the man, at least whose memory is now cherished beyond any other of that period, who stood, in advance of all others, for the truest thoughts and purest cause of his time. Ask any schoolboy who has dipped far enough into history, or any student familiar with the later middle ages, “ What did the Council of Constance do ? For what is it chiefly remembered ? ’ ’ He will answer, “ For breaking a safe-conduct and burning John Huss.”

The Emperor Sigismund, brother of King Wenzel, cited Huss to appear before the council. To go was to take his life in his hand, and a selfishly prudent man might have disobeyed the summons. Being what he was, he had no choice, and no desire other than to give his testimony and to abide the result. He doubtless expected from the professed reformers at Constance more sympathy than he found; but he was warned by friends, and knew at least the possibility of the fate before him. By papers left in Bohemia he indicated this fear, disposed of his little property, and expressed remorse for trifling sins of his youth, such as losing his temper at chess before he was ordained—the heaviest offenses his conscience could acknowledge. Before starting he took such precautions as he could. He procured a certificate of his orthodoxy, strange to say, from the grand inquisitor of Bohemia, and saw the archbishop and papal legate, who said he knew nothing against Huss except his being under excommunication. He did not wait for the emperor’s safe-conduct, but received it later; it was in these words:

THE SAFE-CONDUCT.

“ We have taken the honorable Master John Huss under the protection and guardianship of ourselves and of the Holy Empire. We enjoin on you [z‘. e., all imperial officers] to allow him to pass, to stop, to remain, and to return, freehand without hindrance; and you will, as in duty bound, provide for him and his, whenever it shall be needed, secure and safe conduct, to the honor and dignity of our majesty.” The later treatment of this paper and its bearer showed what the faith of kings is sometimes worth.

He began his journey October nth, 1414, with three noblemen, his friends and protectors, and an escort of some thirty horsemen. Everywhere he put up notices that he was going to Constance to defend his faith against any who should attack it. The bishop of Lubeck, who went over the road the day before, spread the false tidings that “Huss was being carried in chains” to the council, and urged the people not to look at him, for he could read their thoughts. Multitudes came to stare at the great heretic; but he was treated with respect and courtesy at every stopping-place, and disputed freely with priests and magistrates.

He reached Constance November 2d, when the council had not opened. Pope John and his cardinals, who had it all their own way at that time, suspended his excommunication, and let him go where he pleased. Deceived

by these civilities, he celebrated the communion at his lodgings, and meditated a sermon to the clergy, which should expose their vices and attack the whole established order of the Church. The latter would have been a scandal not to be allowed even in thought; the former was forbidden, but he replied that he had a right to consecrate and administer the elements, and meant to do it. On November 28th he was summoned before the cardinals, and after a slight examination was detained and kept under guard. This was at the instigation of two of his bitterest enemies, Stephen Palecz, a former friend and associate in the university of Prague, and Michael Deutschbrod, called de Cansis, a priest who had absconded with moneys entrusted to him by King Wenzel for mining operations, and with the proceeds of his theft had bought an interest in the trade of indulgences. These worthies now came to Huss, and told him that they had him and meant to hold him. Another conspirator was Tiera, who had brought the indulgences to Prague.

THE SAFE-CONDUCT DISREGARDED.

The reformer’s friends protested against his arrest, but to no purpose. The emperor, who arrived on Chrismas day, was indignant, ordered his release, and threatened to withdraw his protection from the council. But the cardinals said they would break up the council if the heretic was let loose. Under this prospect of a collision between Church and state, and of heavy penalties against himself, Sigismund yielded, breaking his plighted word and losing his honor. All his later career was of a piece with this beginning; he was a faithless and dishonest monarch. The doctrine that no faith was to be kept with heretics, and that one plausibly accused of heresy was to be counted guilty, though then new in Germany, was long familiar in the Latin countries, and even regarded as a principle of the canon or Church law. The fact has often been denied of late, but this denial proves only that our modern views of truth and duty are happily different from those of the Middle Ages.

On this ground the emperor excused himself, June 7th, 1415: “Many say that we cannot under the law protect a heretic or one suspected of heresy.” In answer to indignant protests fro'm the nobles of Bohemia and Moravia, he strove to excuse himself by claiming, in effect, that in such matters civil authorities and secular conscience must give way to the Church. “ On this account,” he wrote, “we even left Constance till they declared to us that if we would not allow justice to be done, they knew not what business they had to be there. Then we concluded that we could do nothing, not even speak of the affair.”

The council itself used the plainest possible language in a decree passed September 23d, 1415, declaring that “whatever safe-conduct may be given by emperor, king, or prince to heretics or persons accused of heresy, it cannot and ought not to cause any harm to the Catholic faith or hindrance to the Church’s jurisdiction; but that it is allowable, in spite of the safe-conduct, for any competent

ecclesiastical judge to inquire into the errors of such persons, and to punish them as they deserve if they will not recant, even though they come to the place of judgment trusting to the safe-conduct, and would not have come otherwise.” These eminent guides of the blind can hardly have been acquainted with St. Paul’s severe sentence (Romans iii. 8) on those who say, “ Let us do evil that good may come.”

Another precious decree of this council justifies the emperor for breaking his word, since ‘‘John Huss had by his heretical opinions utterly forfeited all

GUTTER WORTH CHURCH.

right and privilege, and no faith whatever, either by natural, human, or divine right, ought to be kept with him to the prejudice of the Catholic faith.” It goes on to say that all true Christians must cease to complain of the acts of the council toward Huss, and that any who continue grumbling will be punished as enemies of the Church and traitors to the emperor. It would perhaps be too much to claim that religions bodies have in our time neither will nor power thus to pervert men’s consciences and play ducks and drakes with right and wrong; but happily they can no longer (unless in Russia) call in the state to enforce their decrees with chains and fagots.

THE MARTYRS OF CONSTANCE.

ROM December 6th to March 24th, Huss was kept in a cell of the Dominican convent Here he was kindly treated, and allowed the use of pen, ink, and paper, but not of books. Hoping to intercept some of the letters he sent out secretly, one of his chief foes, Michael de Cansis, spent much time about the gate, with the remark, “ By God’s grace, we shall burn this heretic who has cost me so many florins.” This same Michael drew up, or lent his name to, the articles of accusation against the prisoner. The chief crimes charged were these: asserting that the bread in the eucharist remained bread after its consecration; denying the power of the keys and the validity of the sacraments when administered by wicked priests; “ holding that the Church should have no temporal possessions; disregarding excommunication; granting the cup to the laity; defending the forty-five condemned articles of Wiclif; exciting the people against the clergy, so that if he were allowed to return to Prague there would be a persecution such as had not been seen since the days of Constantine.”

His former friend, Palecz, made a list of forty-two alleged errors found in his writings : these he answered at length. He was several times examined in his cell, and replied to all questions mildly and moderately, denying much that was imputed to him. His opinions were not in all respects so advanced as those of later reformers. But his fate was determined on beforehand; he was condemned, as his friends loudly insisted, on the testimony of his mortal foes, and largely on grounds foreign to the real issue between him and the pope.

On March 24th he was transferred to the castle of Gottlieben, across the Rhine. Here he soon had for a fellow-prisoner John XXIII., who, seeing matters going against him at the council, fled, but was caught and carried back. The pope, who was shortly condemned for the very vices and corruptions which

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BISHOP OF LODI PREACHING AT THE CONDEMNATION OF HUSS.

Wiclif had denounced, pleaded guilty, and was given a good post by bis successor : the reformer, who had nothing to confess, was reserved for those earthly flames which were supposed to prefigure the torments of misbelievers in a future life.

HUSS IN PRISON.

He was spared the torture, which in those days was almost always inflicted on persons accused of heresy ; but he suffered much in body and in mind. Kept in chains at the top of a high tower, half starved, and allowed to see no one, he was attacked by disease, and at one time was thought to be at the point of death. He had no fanatical exaltation, no stoical pride, no joy in the prospect of martyrdom ; at times he still hoped to escape from the cruel end that awaited him. His temper was meek and gentle, wholly free from rancor or resentment; for his malignant enemies he had only full forgiveness. He could not lie, he would not deny the truth nor recede from his position ; he was resigned to the fate he might iu his simplicity and singleness of heart have seemed to provoke, but had never coveted. In his prison he wrote a hymn in praise of that sacrament., whose virtue he was accused of denying. “ Since Christ,” says one of his- biographers, “no man has left a more affecting example of the true Christian., spirit; he was one of the chosen few who exalt and glorify humanity.” Yet Palecz, a scholar and once his friend, staked his soul on the huge assertioni that since Christianity began there had been no more dangerous heretic than Huss ! Through such blunders the word heresy has come to have less meaning, and far less terror, to us than it had to our ancestors.

The trial of Huss, after that of his Master, is probably the most famous one in history. To try a man for his opinions is to the modern mind an absurdity ; and perhaps it was in keeping that in such trials there should have been so little pretence of reasonableness or fairness. The accused was allowed no advocate and no witnesses, while against him were arrayed all the malignity and all the learning of his personal or official foes. He was bound, while they were free; his guilt was practically taken for granted: it was a case of “give a dog a bad name and hang him.”

The proceedings against Huss were iu their earlier stages conducted privately, as has been said, but the records of them were fully kept. The policy of the Inquisition was to delay, to weary and overawe its victim, and, if possible, to procure his submission. A recantation, on the part of a prominent teacher and leader, would be far more edifying and useful than a burning. Had Huss been brought so low, he would have been degraded from the priesthood and imprisoned for life; but this he probably did not know at first. The chief Bohemian members of the council, who were still his faithful partisans, aimed to expedite his trial, hoping to save him. On May 13th and 31st they presented memorials, complaining of the treatment he had received, and asking that his.

case be heard speedily in public. A few days later he was brought back, still in chains, to Constance, and immured in the Franciscan convent. The prosecutors still meant to deny him a hearing; but his friends appealed to the emperor, who ordered that nothing should be done till Huss and his books were before the council.

At length, on June 5th, he was brought in, and again on the 7th and Sth; but the situation was very different from that which he had imagined

when he came to Constance seven months before. He had expected a

free discussion, in ^VI^^{W 0F} Constance. which his eloquence, learning, and logic might have a chance to triumph over

ancient prejudice and selfish greed: he found himself condemned in advance, listened to with impatience, or not at all. The emperor, to whose protection lie had trusted, frowned and advised him to submit, saying, “We will never

defend you in your errors and obstinacy. Rather than that, we will prepare the fire for you with our own hands.” The council was at times a howling mob, on which his courage, coolness, and ability of thought and speech were simply thrown away. He acknowledged his writings, and was ordered to answer yes or no to each article of accusation: when he attempted to explain—and in such matters explanations are essential—his voice was lost in the noise of the assembly. If he asked to be shown in what he had erred, they told him he must first recant. They flung questions at him from every side, not waiting for the answers; and some cried, “Burn him! ” After three days of this he could hardly stand or speak, but he still asked in vain for another hearing, and exclaimed, “For the love of Ck>d, do not force me to wrong my conscience ! ” When he insisted that opinions were charged against him which he never held, the emperor stupidly asked him, “If they are not yours, why cannot you renounce them ?” and he had to explain that to recant or abjure meant to give up tenets which one had held or taught, to confess oneself guilty—which, as to some of the accusations, would be swearing to a lie. Thus he was caught between two fires ; the stake in this world, the punishment of perjury in the next.

As he was led out on the third day, his steady friend, John of Chlum, managed to grasp his hand, to look him in the eye for a moment, and to whisper a word of love: it was almost the only sign of human sympathy which reached him throughout this bitter struggle. For four weeks more the contest lasted, and, as Mr. Lea, the historian of the Inquisition, declares, “No human soul ever bore itself with loftier fortitude or sweeter or humbler charity.” With amazing forgiveness and meekness, he chose for a confessor his bitterest enemy, Stephen Palecz. This man urged him to recant, and not to mind the humiliation of it. Said Huss, “The humiliation of being condemned and burned is greater: how then can I fear the disgrace? But advise me: What would you do if you knew you did not hold the errors you were accused of? Would you abjure them ? ” Palecz owned that it was not an easy question, and broke down completely when Huss asked his pardon for any offense given in their past controversies, as for calling him a false witness. He retired from his impossible office, perhaps feeling that he was in the position of Caiaphas confessing Christ. Others succeeded ; one of them, setting the spirit of the law above the letter, gave the martyr a needless absolution. The rest urged him to submit, and one of the theologians said, “ If the council toM me I had but one eye, I would confess it to be so, though I knew I had two.” But Huss had higher standards, and set his conscience above his life.

All the arts of persuasion were now tried. One of the cardinals called him “dearest and most cherished brother,” and tried to make him believe that any guilt of his submission, as perjury or condemnation of truth, would rest upon the council, not on him ; one should not trust to his own judgment against that of the Church. But Huss, a Protestant in essential principle, knew better, and

was not to be thus deceived. Concessions beyond precedent were made, to meet his scruples. On June 8th he had been told that his full submission might be admitted with a merely partial recantation of the errors imputed to him. On July 5th, as a last effort, this was carried further: if he would only abjure the heresies claimed to be found in his own writings, he might deny those attested by his accusers. But he was not to be moved, and said the extracts from his books had been garbled: if they could prove him to be in error on any point, he would disown that error; he could uot disown the truth.

STONES AT CARNAC.

Tradition represents them os an army 0/ heathen wamnrn stiffened into stone.

Long since he had given up the hope of escape, and reconciled himself, as. best he could, to the inevitable. Other martyrs have been made of sterner stuff, or buoyed up by more ecstatic fancies. Huss was no Spartan hero, but very human; he had no indifference to pain, no iron endurance. His last writings record the agony of his mental conflict; but he was no coward, no traitor to

his convictions and his cause. On June 18th he drew up for his friends at home an account of the trial, and ended, “It remains only for me to abjure and undergo fearful penance, or to burn. May Father, Son, and Holy Ghost grant

TRIAL . OP HUSS.—degrading the martyr.

me the spirit of wisdom and fortitude to persevere to the end, and escape the snares of Satan! ”

On the fatal day, July 6th, 1415, he was led to the cathedral, and kept outside the door till the mass was over. Then he listened to a sermon by an Italian bishop, who told the emperor that what was then transacted would make him forever famous—which was true, though not in the sense intended. The

charges on which he was convicted'were read, and his protests were silenced. He said, “I came here of my own free will. Had I refused to come, neither the king nor the emperor could have compelled me, for there are many nobles in Bohemia who love me and would have protected me.” A cardinal cried out, “See the fellow’s impudence ! ” But John of Chlu-m said, “It is true. I could easily keep him safe for a year against both king and emperor, and others are stronger than I.” Huss weut on: “I came here, on the emperor’s promise that I should be free from all constraint, to bear witness to my innocence and to answer for my faith to all who question it.” He looked straight at Sigismund, who turned very red: as Mr. Lea says, “that blush was the only item in the whole affair that is to the monarch’s credit.”

His sentence was read, condemning him as an incorrigible heretic, to be degraded and given over to the justice of the state. Seven bishops put the priestly robes on him and warned him to recant. He said, as he had often said before, that he could not lie to God. The robes were taken off, and the tonsure destroyed by cutting a cross in his hair. A paper cap eighteen inches high, with devils painted on it and the words, “ This is the arch-heretic,” was put on his head. The emperor turned him over to the Palsgrave Louis, and he to the officer who had charge of executions, saying, “Take him as judged by us both, and bum him as a heretic.” He was led out of the cathedral, and the council ‘ ‘ calmly turned to other business, unconscious that it had performed the most momentous act of the century.”

Guarded by two thousand soldiers and followed by a multitude of every rank, he was led through the streets, past the bishop’s palace, where he smiled to see his books burning, and to a field near the river. Here he knelt in sight of the stake. A priest offered to confess him if he would recant; if not, he could not receive absolution. He replied, “It is not necessary; I am no mortal sinner.” He smiled again as the guards replaced his paper cap, which had fallen off. He took leave kindly of his recent jailers, and began a speech in German, but was silenced and fastened to the stake. Two cartloads of wood and straw were piled about him, and then he was offered his life if he would recant; but he said again that he had been convicted of errors he never held. The officers clapped their hands and retired; the pile was set on fire. The martyr cried twice, “ Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon me!” After the wind blew the smoke and flame into his face, his lips were seen to move for a few moments; but no groan, no sign of weakness or pain, escaped him. His last trial was brief, and endured as blamelessly as had been his long imprisonment and his manful contest for the faith.

His mantle was taken from one of the executioners and cast into the flames; his body was burned to ashes and thrown into the Rhine ; “ even the earth about the stake was dug up and carted off.” These extraordinary pains were taken

to prevent the Bohemians from obtaining relics of their great leader; yet they “long hovered about the spot, and carried home fragments of the neighboring; clay.” On.the following day the emperor, many princes and men of rank, nineteen cardinals, seventy-seven bishops, and all the clerical members of the council, joined in a procession and solemnly gave thanks to God for what had been_ accomplished for His glory.

JEROME OF PRAGUE.

If the council expected, by its treatment of Huss, to appease the ferment in Bohemia, it was much mistaken. He was venerated there as a saint, and the day of his death inserted as a feast in the calendar; hymns and songs were composed in his honor, and sung by the people in the streets; and the barons, as- soon as the news arrived, sent on an indignant protest. In August, on receiving a letter from the council exhorting the authorities to put down any remaining heresy, a national assembly was called, and near five hundred nobles and gentlemen signed a defiant address, setting forth their belief in the orthodoxy and integrity of Huss, and in the injustice of his conviction and execution ; their regrets for his friend Jerome, whom they supposed to have been likewise dealt with ; and their anger against the liars and traitors, who had accused their country of anything wrong. A yet more revolutionary document announced that foreign excommunica- jerome of praguk.

tions and interdicts would not be regarded; that priests should have freedom to preach the gospel; and that bishops should not disturb them except when, they taught amiss.

The council could not recede, and this defiance could only increase ther danger of Jerome of Prague, then a prisoner in its hands. The name of this- singular man is inextricably linked with that of Huss, whose views, efforts, anci fate he shared, though their characters were widely different. Far less steady and blameless, Jerome was far more versatile and brilliant. In ancient or

modem times literature, science, or some other secular field would have claimed liis energies, rather than the Church ; but in that age religion was the only resource of a scholar. Of mercurial temper and highly nervous organization, he was adventurous, audacious, and often reckless. At once more learned and more radical than his master, he had taken degrees at Paris, Cologne, Heidelberg, and Cracow, and copied some of Wiclit’s books at Oxford. He had traveled almost everywhere, even in the Holy Land. He was a fiery preacher, and had •done missionary work iu Hungary, Poland, and Russia. Wherever he went he carried the new doctrines, and, urging them with more zeal than prudence, was expelled from most of the countries he visited, as earlier from the University of Paris. In England and Vienna he was imprisoned as a heretic. At home alone was he safe and honored, but he could not be content to stay there long. He was the most active supporter of Huss, though sometimes by methods not ±0 his leader’s approval. It is said that he was prominent in the riots at Prague, and even that he hung the pope’s bulls about the neck of a loose woman, and so conveyed them to the burning. He carried a sword and knew how to use it: the tale of his adventures, if we "had them all in detail, would make lively reading. This phenomenon, with his dash, magnetism, fine appearance, noble ■voice, varied accomplishments, vast attainments, and wonderful command of all Ms stores and resources, lacked nothing but stability, and belonged rather among the men of mystery and magic who flourished somewhat later than to the sober and heroic company of reformers. He was well adapted to make a figure and cause a sensation anywhere; but he ought to have kept away from Constance.

There, however, he went early in April, 1415, to see what he could do for his imprisoned friend. Fiuding that he could do nothing of any use, he should lave withdrawn at once; but it was his nature to go and come, dashing into and away from danger. Twice he fastened notices on the church-doors, and twice he escaped from the city. The first of these proclamations asserted that Huss was orthodox, which nobody would believe on his credit; the other ' -' announced to the emperor and the council that he was on hand, ready to reply to any charge of heresy and to bear the punishment if convicted, but ithat he wanted a safe-conduct, and if treated ill, would regard such action as ^unbecoming scholars. Two days after this strange performance he started for Ihome, but on the way was arrested at Hirsan in Bavaria, and held till the council could be heard from. Meantime that body had summoned him three times as a heretic. On May 24th he was brought back to Constance in chains, and subjected to an imprisonment more severe than that of Huss.

JEROME RECANTS. ,

It is needless to give the details of his last year on earth; the record is less edifying than that of his teacher’s constancy under trial. At first he defended

himself with his accustomed brilliancy; but confinement through the summer and the prospect of a death like that of Huss were too much for his courage, and it gave way. On September 1 ith, he read a long and formal recantation before the council, and twelve days later another. It is pitiful to think of this recent champion of progress denouncing the doctrine which he had spread so vigorously, writing home to Bohemia (as he was required to do) that the national

JEROME SPEAKING AT HIS TRIAL.

prophet, his master, had been justly burned, and from the pulpit invoking a curse on all who wandered from the faith (according to the pope), including all the friends of his adult life, and on himself if he should return to the errors of Wiclif and Huss.

JEROME ON THE WAY TO EXECUTION.

But this was not to last. We count no man happy or wretched till his earthly career is ended, for the end crowns and stamps the life. As the tree falleth, so shall it lie; but it is given to some human trees to fall and rise again. Conscience and self-respect were not dead in the apostate, and the wise men of the council were not wise enough to keep what they had gained. It was their custom to flatter with false promises till their victim gave way, and then leave him to the rigors of the law. Finding that a heretic who had recanted avoided little or nothing but death, Jerome came by degrees to himself again. His accusers, Palecz, de Causis, and the rest, were still watching his symptoms. John Gerson, chancellor of the great University of Paris, a man of most eminent attainments, repute, and character, supposed by some to be the author of that famous “Imitation of Christ” which bears the name of Thomas & Kempis, was Jerome’s enemy of old, having had trouble with this too zealous reformer when a student; he brought the case again before the council in October, and attacked the past record of this doubtful penitent. The matter was in suspense till February, 1416, when a new trial was begun. In sundry private examinations, lasting throughout the spring, he baffled, perplexed, and confounded the inquisitors. On May 26th, he was allowed to speak before the council, and never had he been more powerful than in recanting his recantation. “I am but a man,” he said in substance. “I weakly yielded to persuasion and dread of the fire. Your judges know what their promises were, and how they have been kept. No sin of my life weighs upon my conscience like that cowardly disowning of all I held dear, that dishonor done to him whom I still love and reverence. Wiclif wrote with deeper truth than any before him; and as for Huss, he was a just and holy man, with whom be my eternal portion.” He passed to a terrific arraignment of the corruptions which had called forth Wiclif and Huss—the confessed vices of the papal court, and of the clergy in general. Openness of mind was not the leading trait of theologians in that age ; but such of the council as had any of it must have been impressed by Jerome’s oration. The secretary, Poggio Bracciolini, says that “ he stood fearless, undaunted, not merely despising death, but longing for it, like another Cato. A man worthy of eternal remembrance among men ! If he held beliefs contrary to the Church’s rules, I do not praise him ; but I admire his learning, his knowledge of so many things, his eloquence, and the subtlety of his answers.”

JEROME’S FATE.

He was given four days of grace, and on May 30th was called up for sentence. The bishop of Lodi, who had preached at the condemnation of Huss, was again chosen to set forth the amenities of the occasion. He said it was a scandal that men of low birth like Huss and Jerome should have the impudence to mislead their betters, and disturb such a noble kingdom as Bavaria. Then, turning to the prisoner, he charitably remarked: “You were not tortured; I wish

you had been, for it would have forced you to vomit up all your errors. It would have opened your eyes, which sin had closed.” Jerome spoke briefly, lamenting again his base recantation. He was handed over to the officers, and put on the paper cap, saying, “I gladly wear this for His sake who wore the crown of thorns for me.” By ten in the morning he was at the stake, on the spot where Huss had died. The executioner was about to apply fire from the rear, but he said, “Light it where I can see it. If I had feared this, I would not be here.” Seeing a poor and ignorant old man bringing fagots, he smiled and said: “Holy simplicity! The guilt is his who has misled thee.” He was of more vigorous frame than Huss, and his agony lasted longer, but he bore it with entire dignity and firmness, ^neas Sylvius, afterwards pope, joins the two as models of fortitude. In the judgment of his contemporaries, Jerome’s ending atoned for his former errors; and we may take the same view.

John of Chlum, the steady friend of Huss, was brought to a recantation like that of Jerome. As he was a nobleman and not a scholar, no particulars of the proceedings in his case remain; but doubtless it was under heavy pressure, and from the lips, not from the heart, that he justified the execution of his friends, and swore to maintain the faith, not as it is in Jesus, but as it was according to the popes.

TROUBLES IN BOHEMIA.

EANTIME matters had been advancing so rapidly in Bohemia that by Jerome’s death the relations of that country with the Church were more than strained. The use of the cup in the communion, reviving an old national custom, had been introduced in Prague while Huss was in Constance; it spread everywhere, and excited an enthusiasm to be understood only when we remember that zeal for the eucharist was always a striking trait of piety in that region. Communion in both elements became the leading principle, and “the cup” the watchword of Bohemian rebellion and reformation.

Immediately after the execution of Huss, the council tried to establish the methods of the Inquisition in Bohemia, which hitherto had been happily free from this most doleful experience of o*her lands. An inquisitor had been there, as we have seen, but his office had been nominal, and he had done nothing. So little, indeed, had he been imbued with the spirit of his order, that he freely certified to the orthodoxy of Huss. All this was now to be changed. On August 31st, 1415, “Iron John,” the bishop of Litomysl, received powers to suppress heresy in Bohemia; but his person and his purpose alike were so far from being acceptable at home that he dared not show his face there. Three weeks later two other prelates, foreigners (the patriarch of Constantinople and John of Senlis), were appointed a commission to try Hussite Christians and to summon them to Rome for trial. But they had no mind to be tried. They thought their beloved teacher had exhibited meekness enough for them all; they were infuriated by the treatment he had received; they revered his memory as that of a saint; and they meant to stand up for their beliefs and their rights. It must be owned that for some time they were quite able to do so, and carried on their share of fighting and persecuting.

In December, 1415, the nobles sent another address to Constance, again accusing the council of bad faith and injustice in the prosecution and death of Huss, and disowning its authority. In return they and their sympathizers were

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summoned to appear and answer to the charge of heresy. To attempt to serve this paper would have been as perilous as to obey its call, and it was simply posted to church doors in four German cities. In March, 1416, the council appealed to certain barons of their party (for there were some such in Bohemia), setting forth their own tenderness and patience towards Huss, the wickedness of his followers, the alarming spread of their teachings, and the cruelties practiced on monks and priests; they urged these lords to help the legate, John of Litomysl, and to stamp out the growing evil. Nothing came of this effort (at that time), nor of the emperor’s threat of a Catholic crusade. In May the University of Prague put forth a warm defense and eulogy of Huss and Jerome. In December the council wrote to Sigismund, complaining of the terrible state of things in Bohemia, and calling on him to suppress these disorders. He promised to help his brother to do so. But King Wenzel was an easy, indolent monarch, more given to the bottle than to his duties, half in sympathy with his people and their cause, and with little will or power to serve the pope.

CALIXTINES AND TABO RITES.

The reform of doctrine and practice went on vigorously, undeterred by the archbishop’s interdict and the threats of the emperor and council. In 1417 the university sanctioned the cause of utraquism or communion in both kinds, and declared that no ordinance of man could change or set aside the command of Christ and the custom of the early Church. Already there were two parties: the Calixtines (from calix, cup) were moderate reformers and thought enough had been gained; the Taborites (so named from a hill where they used to meet) were ready to go much farther. Some denied the existence of purgatory, objected to relics, images, prayers for the dead, invocation of the Virgin and saints, and sundry other customs then generally received. Some held that anybody could administer baptism in any place, and that consecrated buildings were not necessary to the worship of God. We moderns are obliged to sympathize partly with these views: but they were then considered so dangerous that the university twice declared against them. There were still Waldenses, who condemned oaths and capital punishments, and regarded the value of sacraments as dependent on the character of those who conveyed them ; even these extreme opinions made headway in some quarters, and were denounced in others.

With all this ferment there could not but be much hard feeling and much disorder. The Protestants of that day had little more idea of toleration than the popes; each iudividual was sure that his own position was the right one, and men could not agree to differ. Nor were all in Bohemia of one mind in opposing pope and council. There were German miners in the mountains, who killed the reformers in their neighborhood; there were priests and nobles who would gladly do as much, if given a convenient opportunity. The Hussites of both parties

were continually irritated by new measures taken against them from without. Catholic Christendom was now reunited under a vigorous pope, Martin V., he who as Cardinal Colonnahad sat iu judgment on the case of Huss and excommunicated him in 1411; he meant to accomplish more than his predecessors. In February, 1418, he issued orders to the inquisitors, bishops, and priests of Bohemia and the

OUTRAGE AT PRAGUE.

adjoining countries, to pursue, arrest, and punish all those who did not adhere to Rome. At the same time the council required King Wenzel to do his part. But not much, as yet, came from these proclamations, for the emperor kept his promises only when it suited him, and usually contented himself with exhorting

and threatening his lazy brother. It is not easy to proceed against a whole kingdom, except by getting a sufficient force from outside.

The Taborites were growing apace; on one day, July 22d, 1419, no less than forty thousand of them met on their hill. Some wished to depose Wenzel; but their leader, Coranda, sensibly reminded them that as what they wanted was liberty, King Log might suit their purpose better than King Stork, and it was prudent to let well alone.

WAR BEGINS.

But Wenzel’s days were numbered. Jealous of the small remnants of his authority, which was little respected by the Hussites, he withdrew several times from Prague. His soldiers and adherents had difficulties with the people, and closed a few of their churches. A force led by Zisca entered the city on July 30th, and some of them broke into a church, hung the priest from the window of his parsonage, and then celebrated the communiou. The incongriiity between these actions, so striking to us, was not apparent to them. Then they marched to the council-house and demanded the release of some of their brethren, who had been put in prison. A stone flung from a window struck their minister. That stone, it has been said, began the Hussite war. With Zisca at their head, they forced their way into the building. Eleven councillors escaped; seven, who were Germans, were caught, thrown from the windows, and killed by the crowd below. The news of this affair so enraged the king that he had a stroke of paralysis, and died August 15th. His fury, with its fatal result, is said to have been caused not so much by these deeds of violence as by the fact that the citizens at once elected new magistrates without consulting him.

A period of anarchy ensued. Within a few days after Wenzel’s death churches and convents were attacked and despoiled, the Carthusian and Dominican monasteries burned down, and the monks made prisoners. The disturbances extended to the country, and a crowd of peasants came to Prague. The emperor Sigismund succeeded to his brother’s crown; till he could arrive on the scene, the queen acted as regent. After some weeks of truce she fled, for the citizens, learning that her officers had sent to Germany for troops, attacked the castle and called Zisca to their aid.

The real name of this famous man was John of Trocznow; he was called Zisca (one-eyed) from having lost an eye in battle. He came of poor but noble parents, and was said to have family reasons for hating priests. This, and a strong national feeling, seem to have been at the bottom of his fierce attachment to the cause of reform. He was much less a pietist than a soldier, for revenge was his ruling motive. At court he had gained favor as the king’s chamberlain. After the news came of the martyrdom of Huss, he was one day in gloomy meditation in the palace courts. His master asked what troubled him. He answered, “The grievous affront that had been offered to this nation.” Said the

old king, “You and I are not iu a condition to avenge it; but if you can find the means, take courage and pay them all we owe.” Thus encouraged, he bided his time, and when that time came, acted out the advice in full.

After four days’ fighting in the city, the garrison still holding the castle, a truce was agreed on, which was presently broken. Barbarities were abundant on both sides; the Protestant historians chiefly relate those of their enemies. A Hussite preacher, who had been visiting the sick, was seized on the highway and

TABORITES SELECTING A PASTOR.

sold to some Bavarian troops. They asked him to disown the cup, which he refused to do. His hands were pierced with swords, cords were drawn through the holes, and thus he was bound to a tree and burned to death. Many were thrown into wells or pits. Some were starved in jail. Sixteen hundred are said to have perished by these methods. Meantime Zisca and the Taborites were not idle. A desultory war went on throughout the kingdom,

and it was the horrid practice of both parties to cut off the feet and hands of their prisoners.

S1GISMUND KING.

In December Sigismund arrived at Brunn in Moravia, and demanded the allegiance of his subjects. Many of them were unwilling, for he was hated for the death of Huss, and the extremists would have liked a republic. But the divine right of hereditary kings was not to be set aside, and the barons and deputations from the cities went to meet him. Toward the end of the year (1419) he received the embassy from Prague. He was very angry with his capital, but not ready to proceed to extremities; so he made vague and doubtful promises. The citizens agreed to remove the chains from their streets, to destroy their forts and entrenchments, and to stop molesting monks and priests. Having gained these points, he presently showed his hand, by removing Hussite magistrates, and filling all posts of importance with his own trusty partisans. On January 9th, 1420, John of Chodecz, a man of note, with three ministers and many laymen, was thrown into a deep well. It was easy to excuse such deeds as reprisals for those of the Taborites, who had sacked and burned several hundred convents, forty of them in Prague; but the question was, was the new king going to respect the rights of his subjects or not?

It soon appeared that he was not going to do any such thing. To Czenko, governor of the castle of Prague, he wrote: “Exterminate the Horebites.” This letter and others fell into the hands of the Hussites; and the fate of two of their brethren made their prospects yet more clear. Krasa, a merchant visiting Breslau, for the crime of talking somewhat freely about Huss and the communion in both elements, was ordered to be dragged by the heels to the stake and burned. Nicholas, a student, was sent to Sigismund with a message that Prague would receive and acknowledge him if he would allow the use of the cup. The monarch flew into a rage and sentenced him to share Krasa’s fate. In their prison the merchant encouraged the youth, reminding him of the trials of the ancient martyrs, and of their reward. On March 15th, 1420, Nicholas was led out to die; but his courage gave way as his ankles were being tied to the horse, and he recanted. Krasa, unmoved, was slowly dragged through the streets on his back. The pope's legate followed, and several times halted the procession and exhorted him to save his life; but be answered, “I am ready to die for the gospel of Jesus.” He was tied to the stake half-dead, and so finished. Two days after this fit beginning, the pope’s bull for an exterminating crusade against the Hussites was posted on church doors and read from pulpits.

The far-seeing Zisca waited no longer,—if indeed he had waited so long,— but went to work to fortify Mount Tabor. This rocky hill, some fifty miles south ol Prague, was admirably fitted by nature for uses of retreat and defense, and a little later became famous as the hiding-place and battle-field of the fiercest

asserters of liberty in Europe. But before its day of glory arrived, many sufferings were endured by those who had not the advantage of its shelter.

MORE MURDERS.

Pescheck, the Taborite historian, who claims all virtue for his party, and calls the Calixtines “degenerate, rude, and cruel,” says that a price was set on the heads of the faithful, five guilders for a minister, and one for a layman, “ which

TABORITES WORSHIPPING IX A CAVE.

gave occasion to many horrid butcheries” Of some of these he gives particulars. Pichel, the burgomaster of Leitmeritz, seized in one night twenty- four respectable citizens, his own son-in-law among them, threw them into a deep dungeon, and, when they were half-dead from cold and hunger, had them taken out, chained on wagons, and conveyed to the banks of the Elbe. A crowd gathered, among them the wives and children of the prisoners, lamenting loudly. Pichel’s

daughter and only child knelt at his feet, begging for her husband’s life. He answered brutally: “Spare your tears; you can have a better one than he.” She rose and said: “You shall not give me in marriage again.” Tearing her hair and beating her breast, she followed her husband. At the river’s bank the martyrs were thrown from the wagons. They raised their voices, calling earth and heaven to witness that they had done no wrong. Then, bidding farewell to wives, children, and friends, they exhorted them to constancy and zeal, and to obey God rather than man. Finally, they prayed for their enemies, and commended their souls to God. Their hands and feet were tied together, they were put into boats, rowed to the middle of the river, and cast into the water. Along the banks stood men with pikes; when any came floating near the shore, they stabbed him or pushed him back. The burgomaster’s daughter, watching her opportunity, sprang into the river, seized her husband, and strove in vain to loosen his bonds and draw him to the land. They sank together, and were found the next day, his helpless form clasped in her faithful arms; one grave received them. This was on May 30th, 1420.

At a village near Miliczin, some Austrian troops arrested the minister and his assistant, with three peasants and four young children. They were taken before the general at Bistritz, who sent them to the bishop. He ordered them to give up the use of the cup. He replied: “The gospel teaches it, and your mass- books say the same; so it must be right,unless you renounce the Scriptures.” Angered at his boldness, a soldier struck him in the face, drawing blood. They were sent about between the bishop and the general through the night, and on the next morning, Sunday, July 7th, were fastened to a stake, the children in the minister’s lap. Again the bishop required them to renounce the cup. The minister answered for all: “Far be it from us ! We will rather die a hundred deaths than deny the plain teaching of the gospel.” And so they were burned. It seems strange that any one should have wished to kill infants (the oldest of the four is said to have been but eleven) for a point they could not understand; but all the pagan brutality survived iu the fifteenth Christian century, and longer too. As has been often noticed, religious bigotry has power to muddle the heads as well as harden the hearts of men and women. The executions of Huss and Jerome, and probably of these poor country parsons and peasants, were quite according to law; and all we can say is that the law of those days was extremely bad, and the ideas on which it was based were false ones.

OPEN REBELLION.

Pescheck says that Conrad, for some years archbishop of Prague, was so disgusted by these cruelties that he laid down his office and joined the Utra- quists or Calixtines. His resignation opened the way for a much worse man Iron John of Litomysl. But the Bohemians did not propose to give up either

BOHEMIAN WOMEN FIGHTING FROM THEIR BAGGAGE WAGONS.

their faith or their lives if they could help it, and since the commencement of the crusade against them it had been war to the knife. John the Premonstrant, a former monk, expounded the Apocalypse, and raged against the emperor as the Great Red Dragon of St. John’s vision. Zisca and the barons disowned allegiance to the persecutor, and formed a league of rebellion. The people of Prague swore never to receive Sigismund as their king, and sent letters to the other cities, urging them to take the same stand. The royal troops besieged Pilsen, which was surrendered on terms, and then treacherously attacked the Hussites on their retreat. Having no cavalry, the latter protected themselves by arranging their baggage-wagons in a circle, and thus repelled the enemy, This was the battle of Sudomertz, March 25th, 1420. Zisca took Ausch or Aussig by a night assault, and when it was burned not long after, removed the population to Hradisch near Tabor. The two were ultimately made into one fortified place of great strength, and placed under command of Procopius, Zisca’s ablest lieutenant. In Prague the contending parties drew off from one another. The Germans and others who adhered to the pope and the emperor took refuge in the castle and the Vissehrad. Calixtines and Taborites, forgetting their dis- sentions for the moment, united against the common foe. Prague was composed of two cities, the Old and the New. Each was put in charge of four captains,, with forty inferior officers, ready to act in any emergency.

These precautions were taken none too soou. The treasures of the Church and of the empire had been spent for the holy work of extirpating heresy, and. a terrible army of a hundred and fifty thousand men, gathered from every part of Europe, was on its way to crush Bohemia. An advance guard was already in the country, and the point of attack was Tabor. The lord of Rosenberg, an apostate from the cause of reform, who had forbidden the use of the cup on his. estates, offered his services, and was given command of this expedition. Zisca had been called to Prague and was helping the citizens in besieging the Vissehrad, whose garrison, half starved, had agreed to surrender, if not relieved in fifteen days, when this news arrived. On June 25th he sent three hundred and fifty horsemen under Nicholas of Hussinecz, in whose village Huss was born, and who had been a candidate for the throne at Wenzel’s death. They arrived in good time. The royal troops were said to outnumber the defenders twenty to one, but the Taborites were strong in their faith. On June 30th, the terrible peasants came down with their flails and pikes from the rocks of Tabor, while Nicholas and his cavalry struck the enemy in flank. Demoralized by this shock, they fled, and in the pursuit many were captured or slain. A vast quantity of spoil was taken; not only provisions and munitions of war, but gold and silver plate, rich cloths, jewels, and articles of luxury. It was the custom of past ages for princes and commanders to display their wealth, and in every persecuting war the hardy defenders of liberty, from Judas Maccabeus,

to the seventeenth century, made profit of belongings which their assailants had not sense enough to leave at home. This was about the only material advantage which came of these contests, and the only method by which property was distributed in a manner tending at all to equalize possessions.

The taking of Hradish, a walled town of some importance, occurred a few days before this victory: it was accomplished by a Hussite preacher and some colliers and farmers. An army of ten thousand men tried to retake it, but in vain. A little later four thousand imperial cavalry were routed at Voticz, between Tabor and Prague.

A CRUSADE.

Meantime Sigismund was advancing on Prague, and robbing such monasteries as were left to replenish his treasury. Between the two armies the rural parts, and often the cities too, suffered heavily. Cruelties were abundant on both sides, and each act of violence called forth others in retaliation. Rosenberg, raging at his defeat, hunted down his peasants and filled his dungeons with captives; in return, their friends ravaged his estates. The pits about Cuttem- berg, where the German miners worked and slaughtered, reeked with the stench of corpses. The emperor in his march threw confessors into the Elbe, and Hinko Krussina with his Horebites, most ferocious among the devotees of reform, “breathed vengeance against all priests and monks, and seemed to find no satisfaction equal to that of torturing, mangling, insulting, and murdering them.” These dangereous fanatics were now summoned to Prague, and their leader was made one of its chief defenders.

Early in the century, D’Ailly, one of the most eminent of the cardinals, had longed for a crusade, as a means to get rid of some of the ruffians who infested France, Italy, and every other western country. The body politic, he said, was diseased, and needed to lose a good deal of blood. He now had his wish. The army contained much of the worst material in Europe. If “catholic” meant universal, it was more catholic than the council of Constance. Beneath the princes and generals was a mass of men of the sort since considered chiefly useful as “food for powder.” Thousands of them helped to fertilize the fields of Bohemia; but they did an immense amount of damage before returning to their native dust. Not an unfair sample of them, perhaps, was that captain who in December, 1420, broke into the church of Kerczin during service, massacred part of the congregation, took the chalice full of wine from the altar, drank it to his horse’s health, and gave him some of the consecrated fluid, saying that the horse too had become an Utraquist.

SIEGE OF PRAGUE.

On the last day of June the emperor reached Prague, where the castle was still held by his officers, and relieved the Vissehrad. He tried to storm the city

walls, but every attack was repulsed. Before lie could occupy the Gallows Hill, which, overlooked the town, it was seized and fortified by Zisca. 0:i July 14th, it was assaulted in great force, nearly taken, and saved in a singular way. While the people of Prague gazed in terror on the danger of their friends and implored help from heaven, a minister suddenly issued from the city gate, bearing the consecrated elements, and followed by fifty women and a crowd of

A GROUP OF MENDICANT FRIAKS.

peasants with their flails. The imperial troops, astonished, and thinking this a sally in full force, drew back. Zisca’s men, encouraged by the spectacle, rushed from their entrenchments, driving all before them, and hurled the enemy down the rocks. Several hundred were slain, and many prisoners taken. The emperor,

from a point of vantage, witnessed the failure of his effort, and drew his armj back to camp. The victors knelt upon the field and sang: joyful procession* went through the streets, giving thanks for a success which seemed achieved by miracle.

The invaders were enraged at their defeat, and still more at the burning of their tents five days later—perhaps an accident, but credited to the Hussites.. The name of Bohemian became a reproach, though many of that nation were in their army. They burned every one who fell into their hands, regardless of his. creed. In revenge the Taborites took sixteen prisoners from the town-house, led them outside the walls, put fifteen of them in hogsheads, and applied the torch in sight of the royal army. The one spared was a monk, who promised to celebrate the communion in both kinds—a promise he was likely to keep no longer than his life depended upon it.

Both hosts were now torn by intestine feuds. In the camp Germans an<? Bohemians were continually quarreling: the former, unable to do anything against the city, roved about the neighborhood, burning houses, bams, furniture,, men, women, and children, with indiscriminate zeal. Within the walls of Prague the Taborites had become a nuisance to the more sober citizens. Invaluable as. fighters, they were intolerable as guests. Abhorring all the pomp of worship which had prevailed but a few years before—liturgies, ceremonies, decorations— they were not willing that their allies should think or act differently. A mob of both sexes, led by the minister Corando, made their way into St. Michael’s, church and tore up the seats, pretending that these were wanted to strengthen Zisca’s fortifications on the Gallows Hill. Further outrages of the kind were probably intended.

The Calixtines or moderates had no taste for such proceedings. Their party included most of the barons, who were tired of seeing their estates ravaged. These now made overtures for peace, on the basis of their four essential principles : the full and free preaching of the gospel throughout the kingdom ; communion in both kinds; the exclusion of the clergy from civil posts and large possessions ; and the strict repression and punishment of gross and public sins,, alike in clergy and laity. As these were the very points at issue, Sigismund, backed or impelled by the pope’s legate, refused to permit their discussion. To- define their position, the citizens set forth those “four articles” in a long and formal document, justifying each with arguments and Biblical quotations, and averring their intention to maintain them with all their power and to stand by them in life and death. The Taborites presently drew up twelve rival articles, insisting that proved enemies of God’s Truth should be driven from Prague and no favor shown them ; also that “ monasteries be broken up and destroyed, as well as unnecessary churches and altars with their images, robes, gold and silver chalices, and every antichristian abomination savoring of idolatry or simony.” The-

PREACHING THE CRUSADE.

New City, where this party had the majority, accepted these articles; but Old Prague, less fond of destruction, hesitated. To illustrate the disputed doctrine, the Taborites sacked another monastery and burned the royal cloisters. Having found in the vaults more wine than they were accustomed to, some of them attacked the Vissehrad, and were repulsed with loss. Then they left the city with .Zisca.

Their departure could not have been borne, and would not have been thought ■of, if the enemy had still been near. But ou July 28th Sigismund, after having himself crowned in the castle as King of Bohemia—an empty and useless ceremony —had withdrawn with his army, ravaging as he went. We are only anticipating a little in copying from Mr. Gillett’s “Life and Times of Huss” this picture of "the wretched kingdom :

“ Here we shall find the tombs of kings profaned, their dust no longer protected by coffins, the golden plates of which could pay the wages of a ruffian soldiery; there the fragments of marble altars, and pavements on which the knees of devout pilgrims had rested, are used to charge the catapults of the invading host. The carcasses of the slain had poisoned the air, till pestilence "helps famine to do its work. Indiscriminate massacre involves the innocent and the guilty, friend and foe, in one common doom. Retaliation and vengeance, .sometimes though rarely conducted under legal forms, supply each party with its hosts of martyrs. Dreadful traditions have perpetuated the memory of as many frightful scenes. Near Toplitz, it was said, might be seen a pear tree, which blossomed every year and never yielded fruit—a tree accursed from the streams of blood that have saturated its roots. At Commotau, near a church where thousand of victims perished, it was asserted that the soil was formed of the remains of bones, and that at whatever depth search was made, nothing could be found but human teeth.”

ZISCA OF THE CUP.

,N leaving Prague August 22d, 1420, Zisca had two objects in view; to avoid a breach with the Calixtines, and to keep his forces occupied in suppressing the imperial party throughout the kingdom. Resolute and ruthless, he had no pity for the enemies of his cause, and they were unable to resist or to escape him. At Kniczan, a league from the capital, he burned the church and seven priests. He meant to spare Prachatitz, where he had studied in youth, but it refused to open ^ its gates at his summons, and shared the common fate of towns taken by assault. Over eighty were burned, and two hundred and thirty slain in the streets. The strange confusion of mediaeval ideas was shown in his reply to appeals for mercy: “We must fulfil the law of the Lord Christ in your blood.” Like some of the Puritans in later ages, he seemed to have studied the Old rather than the New Testament, and to imagine that the Prince of Peace had come into the world frowning and sword in hand.

Sigismund had raised a new army, and came back to Prague just in time to see the Vissehrad, which he had saved a few months before, surrendered to the besiegers. He offered battle, and was beaten by Krussina and the Horebites— for Zisca was still absent. Seeing his vanguard in flight from the rustic weapons, he cried, “I want to come to blows with those flail-bearers.” “Sire,” said a noble of Moravia, “I fear we shall all perish; those iron flails are very dangerous.” “Oh, you Moravians !” the tactless monarch answered, “I know you; you are afraid!” Stung by the taunt, the Moravians dismounted and rushed upon the foe, only to fall as the Austrian barons had fallen before the Swiss burghers thirty-four years earlier at Sempach. Thousands were left on the field, and the emperor again retreated, having gained nothing and lost a large portion of his best troops.

The Taborites, if they could not have a republic, favored an elective king. Seeing that Sigismund could not be brought to their terms, the Calixtines now came over to this project. The union of the two factions was hindered by a controversy as to whether the ministers should wear their robes when celebrating the

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•communion, till Jacobel, one of their leading ministers, suggested that this was not a vital matter. Nicholas of Hussinecz, seeing his claims set aside, swore never to enter Prague again, and rode off in anger. His horse fell, he was carried back to die, and his troops joined Zisca. The crown was offered to the king of Poland, who refused it. Bohemia was practically without a head, and Zisca made life hard for those who still adhered to Sigismund. He was now strong enough to garrison the places that fell into his hands, instead of destroying them. He took and fortified two cloisters. He surprised Bohuslaus, one of the emperor’s generals, in the fortress of Kastirow, and let his prisoner go. Perhaps in disgust at this leniency, some of his soldiers left him,- and set up an army of their own, but were soon routed by the enemy. This lesson was not wasted; Zisca came to be recognized as the national chieftain, and his forces grew larger day by day. The emperor ventured on a third invasion, and began to besiege Kladrub, one of the new cloister-forts; but on Zisca’s approach a panic seized his troops, and he made haste to get out of his nominal kingdom, after a third disgraceful failure within one year.

Though Zisca’s best fighters were Taborites, he himself was a Calixtine thus far. He knew how to use the fanaticism of his followers, without sharing it; his own fanaticism, if he had any, was that of a patriot and a soldier. It was part of his policy, as stimulating the enthusiasm of his men, to have in the front a priest with cup in hand. He allowed so-called prophets to march with his troops, but smiled at their vagaries—as when they forbade the army to encamp in a certain field, predicting that fire would fall from heaven there next day, and rain came instead. But his toleration did not extend to Martin Loqui, who held some extravagant and apparently dangerous notions. This man was driveu from Tabor, and put to death with some of his followers.

THE LEAGUE AND REGENCY.

As the year 1421 advanced, most of the Bohemian cities entered into a league with Prague, on the basis of the four Calixtine articles. This alliance the general vigorously furthered, and even enforced under the heaviest penalties. Jaromirtz, which would not join, was sacked, and many of its people drowned or burned, among them twenty-three priests, who would not agree to use the cup. At Leit- moritz Zisca had the mortification to fail both in persuasion and in attack, and then to see the city open its gates to a force from Prague, and swear cheerfully to the four articles. But this was a most unusual case, and he consoled his wounded vanity by taking the castle at Prague after a two weeks’ siege. Its governor, Czenko, now openly joined the Calixtines. Thus fell the last remnant of royal authority in the capital.

In July 1421 a convention of the states, with some deputies from Moravia, met at Czaslau, appointed a regency of twenty, and adopted the four articles.

The barons and some others wished to add two more, excluding Sigismund forever from the throne, and putting the kingdom into commission. In answer to ambassadors who tried to induce them to accept their lawful king, they replied with a document in the spirit of Magna Charta and of modern liberty. The emperor, they claimed with entire truth, had been an accomplice in the death of Huss and the tyrannical acts of the council of Constance. He had published the crusade and tried to carry it out, defaming and invading the kingdom. He Tiad burned one of their brethren (Krasa) at Breslau, and executed many more. His army had devastated their fields, destroyed their castles and villages, massacred their people, and half ruined the country, regardless of its rights and liberties.

Other charges they brought, probably all well founded. It is easy to heap up counts in the indictment against a tyrant; and Sigismund had been foolish enough to proceed as if he had to deal with slaves instead of men of spirit.

An attack from Silesia was met, just after the convention, by Czenko and Krussina, former enemies, now allies: the invaders withdrew in haste. Zisca

was at this time disabled by the loss of his remaining eye, which was struck by an arrow at the siege of Raby. He went to Prague in hope of regaining his sight, but in vain. When friends wished him to stay in the city, his answer was characteristic of the man: “Let me go; I have blood yet to shed.” And so he had. His terrible career was by no means over. The army sent for him; his men would follow no other leader. His endurance was iron, his powers as unfailing as his will. Some of his chief campaigns and battles were conducted after he became totally blind.

MORE INVASIONS.

And he was needed. Sigismund had prepared for a new invasion on a still larger scale, and from both sides of Bohemia at once. Had he possessed fair military talent, he might have crushed the rebellion even now. But his plan failed through his own delay. A German army, said to reach the huge number of two hundred thousand, entered from the west in August and began to besiege a town ; but, meeting opposition and hearing nothing from their employer, they became discouraged and withdrew. It was the end of the year before the emperor made his appearance on the eastern frontier, and began his destructive march toward Prague.

Zisca had been putting down the imperialists, who were always ready to raise their heads when a royal army approached. He was besieging Pilsen, but had to retreat in haste. From Prague he marched to Cuttemberg, of ill repute in the past from the murders of Hussites. The city now belonged to the league, and of course received him. But its people, either Calixtines or Catholics, were disgusted by what seemed to them the rude and vulgar freedom of the Taborite worship. Accustomed to the stately ceremonial of the mass, they were amazed to see the newly arrived soldiers and their chaplains, covered with the dust of travel, jump from their horses, rush into the church, receive the communion in bits of ordinary bread and a tin or wooden cup, and with the briefest possible form of service. Such allies were not at all to their taste, and when Zisca was gone they received the emperor. He rewarded them, a little later, by burning their town to the ground—an example easily and freely used against him.

The blind general was now in straits. Some of his reinforcements from Prague left him ; he encamped on a hill, and was presently surrounded ; but in the night he cut his way through the emperor’s camp, with very little loss. Sigismund, after the aimless and disconnected fashion of all his campaigns, had now enough of it, and retreated into Moravia. Zisca pursued, and on January 9th, 1422, defeated him at Deutschbrod, after a three hours’ battle. The imperial troops had to make their way across a bridge so narrow as to impede their progress. Seeing this, the cavalry, under an Italian general, ventured on the frozen river; the ice broke, and near fifteen thousand were drowned. Seven standards,.

AFTER THE BATTLE OF DEUTSCHBROD.

five hundred baggage-wagons, and other spoils, fell into the hands of the victors. Zisca, who was never greedy of gain for himself, divided the booty among his men.

This event practically gave a deathblow to the emperor’s pretensions in Bohemia. But he had one remaining partisan, “Iron John,” now the nominal archbishop of Prague. This fighting prelate, who fiercely hated reform and reformers, had an army and a stronghold near Broda. Zisca now turned upon him and broke his force to pieces. The blind conqueror, “assuming the authority which his victories assured him, seated upon the ruins of the fortress and under the captured standards, knighted the bravest of his soldiers, and distributed among them an immense booty.”

RIOTS IN PRAGUE.

Delivered from her former tyrants and foreign enemies, Bohemia now became a prey to internal feuds. It is melancholy to see the brave defenders of liberty turning their counsels and their arms against each other, and to record that this civil strife, in its extremest form, was begun by the hitherto moderate Calixtines. The governor and council of the Old Town of Prague, on March 9th, 1422, summoned John the Premonstrant, a noted preacher, and nine (or, as Peschech says, twelve) others to appear before them. Coming freely, these men were accused of sedition, interference with the authorities, or other irregular acts, hastily tried, and at once privately beheaded. This outrage, more fitting in popes, kings, and inquisitors than in the elected magistrates of a free city, justly enraged the Taborites. “When the blood was seen flowing from the hall, it occasioned a great uproar: the people ran together, broke open the doors, and sought the bodies. One found the head of John, and held it up in view of the people surrounding the town-hall, which caused an indescribable wailing. A minister laid the head upon a dish, carried it through the city, and called on all he met for vengeance. The bodies were carried into a church, and buried with great lamentation. The minister, who addressed the people from Acts viii. 2, presenting the head of John, conjured them to bear in mind what they had learned from that faithful teacher, and to believe none who should teach otherwise, though an angel from heaven.”

The vengeance of the crowd was swift and destructive. They killed the magistrates who had ordered the execution, sacked their houses, destroyed the town records, and plundered the University library. It is in the nature of a mob to do such deeds; the wonder is that sober senators should have incited them by similar violence. But there was truth in the Taborite complaint that the Calixtines had greatly degenerated. Some of them, except in the matter of the cup, were but little removed from the old views; and many of the barons were so unwise as to fancy that Sigismund had by this time learned enough to be trusted with his inherited power. As may be seen elsewhere in this history, such reactions have attended and retarded the progress of every national reform.

CIVIL WAR.

Bohemian politics at this juncture were very complicated. The crown had been declined by the king of Poland and the grand duke of Lithuania ; but the latter had recommended a relative. This prince, Corybut, embraced the Calixtine cause, spent some time in Prague, and might have been crowned but that Sigismund had in 1420 prudently carried off the crown and other royal belongings. At a diet held in November, 1421, Zisca had vainly endeavored to keep peace between the parties; but many, who were already jealous of his power, took offense at his tone, and made their hostility too obvious to be forgiven.

VIBW OF ROME.

Personal resentment now supported his statesman’s sense of what was necessary for the country: seeing no middle way open, and knowing that he could trust nobody but the soldiers, he became a Taborite and made war on the Calixtines.

The party to which he had nominally belonged till now were foolish enough to think they could do without Zisca. The nobles gathered sn army under Czenko,

went forth to meet their old comrade, and were soundly thrashed. Kozagedy and other places were stormed and destroyed. Koniggratz was taken, and a second force, under Borzek, once governor of Prague, beaten with heavy loss. Wearied with incessant labors and night marches, the troops mutinied. “We are not blind like Zisca,” they complained: “we cannot fight in the dark.” But he soon brought them to order. “This is your affair,” he said. “What do I get by it? I could make peace for myself, if I chose. Where are we now? ”

wayside preaching in the time of huss. ^^

Between certain hills, they told him. “ Good ; go and Will light up the next village, that we may see our way.” « '

By the flames they pursued their conquering and de- l)|J||f|liW^||!'^^,rr

vastating march. • ¹

One war at a time was not enough for him. Procopius, his lieutenant, had taken certain cities in Moravia. Encouraged by the civil strife in Bohemia, Sigismund’s nephew, the Archduke Albert, was getting these back. Zisca went after him and chased him into Austria, to the very bank of the Danube.

Returning at the end of the year, he overthrew a force from Prague, and took several towns and castles. By the summer his army was so reduced that he was obliged for a time to retreat before the troops of Czenko and Corybut; at length, by careful strategy, he got them where he wanted, and overcame them.

ZISCA BEFORE PRAGUE.

Prague was now almost helpless before him,'for he had destroyed or scattered all the forces it could raise. On September i ith, 1423, he reached its gates; they were closed and barred. His men shrank from storming the walls they had so often defended. Again he had recourse to the rough eloquence of the camp. Mounting on a cask, so that all might see as well as hear, he spoke thus :

“ Comrades, why do you murmur ? By me you have gained so many victories ; by me you have won fame and wealth. And yet, for you I have lost my sight, for you I dwell in darkness. What is my reward for all my labors? Nothing but a name. It is not my own interest that brings me here. Does Prague thirst for the blood of a blind old man ? It dreads your fearless hearts, your invincible arms. When they have taken us in their nets, they will lay snares for you, and what then will be your fate ? Therefore let us take Prague, and crush this sedition before Sigismund learns of it. A few, thoroughly united, will do more against him than a multitude divided. It is in your interest I am acting. Now make your choice. Will you have peace ? Take care that it does not cover some ambush. Will you have war? Here am I.”

The soldiers yielded to these persuasions, and the city was invested. But it was not stormed. Zisca delayed the attack, sharing, as we may believe, the scruples of his men, and hoping that terror would remove the need of violence. Nor was he mistaken. A deputation came from the city, headed by John of Ro- kyzan, a preacher of great eminence. A treaty of peace was signed, and an altar of stones raised as a monument. Zisca entered Prague in peaceful triumph, and was received for what he was, the greatest man in the kingdom.

Another and crowning honor was reserved for him. The emperor actually proposed that Zisca should govern Bohemia as his nominal officer, retaining all the real power. For himself, he said, it would be enough if he were merely proclaimed king.

Sigismund’s promises were worth very little ; but this one may have been sincere, since he saw he could get nothing as matters stood, and vanity grasps at an empty title. Yet a man of honor could hardly have stooped so low. JSneas Sylvius says justly, from his point of view, that the proceeding was disgraceful. That the first man in Christendom should offer such terms to one “ hardly noble by birth, old, blind, a sacrilegious heretic, an audacious rebel ”—propose to give him the rule over the kingdom and its armies, with a vast revenue—this was sufficiently degrading. Yet it was in keeping with the character of him who

CELEBRATION OP WE IfORD’S SUPPER by THE HUSSITES, IN A FIELD NEAR PRAGUE-

over his own safe-conduct gave Huss to the flames, and turned his subjects into foes by showing himself their bitter enemy.

DEATH OF ZISCA.

What the great captain thought of this strange proposal we do not know. It may not have seemed so strange to him. In those days, as from the beginning of time, men rose by the sword, and he had risen so high as to deserve any fortune. He could have governed Bohemia—none else so well, for no other had gained such fame, or shown ability to be compared to his. But it was not to be. While besieging a town on the eastern frontier, he died of the plague, October nth, 1424. In his last illness—so goes the famous tradition—he ordered his carcass to be thrown out like those of his victims, and his skin made into a drum and carried before his armies, that their enemies might still tremble before the name of Zisca.

The grim command was not obeyed. He was buried in the cathedral at Czaslau, and his mace hung near his tomb. Three epitaphs are said to have marked the spot. The first is so pretentious that we may trust it was not of his suggesting: “Here lies John Zisca, inferior to no other general in military science, the vigorous punisher of the pride and avarice of the priesthood, and the zealous defender of his country. What the blind Appius Claudius did for the Romans by his counsel, and Curius Camillus by his prowess, I accomplished for the Bohemians. I never failed Fortune, nor she me; and though blind, I always saw what ought to be done. I fought eleven times with standards displayed, and I always conquered. Without 'ceasing, I was seen defending the cause of the poor and oppressed against sensual aud bloated priests • and therefore did God sustain me. If their hatred did not hinder, I should be reckoned among the most illustrious; and yet, in spite of the pope, my bones repose in this holy place.”

This certainly agrees well with what we know of Zisca’s character; and it is noteworthy that the tone is much more pagan than Christian. The second is much milder: “Here rests John Zisca, the leader of oppressed freedom in and for the name of God.” But the third is one of the most striking epitaphs ever written. “ Huss, here reposes John Zisca, thy avenger; and the emperor has quailed before him.” It was true: if the shade of the meek and forgiving martyr of Constance could be supposed to desire earthly requital of his wrongs, he had been terribly avenged.

CRUSADES AND COUNCILS.

HE death of Zisca, though it deeply afflicted his followers—some of whom took the name of Orphans—was not fatal to the cause he had served so well. The terror of his name, the prestige of his victories, and the discipline he had given to his armies, remained; the Bohemians were yet to show themselves, on a more extensive scale than formerly, the best fighters in Europe, and to give their neighbors a taste of what those neighbors had striven to inflict on them.

Procopius, who had been Zisca’s right- hand man, now came to the front. He was of good birth and education, had been a monk, and was still something of a theologian. That warlike age saw no hopeless gulf between the gown and the sword, and no striking incongruity in exchanging one for the other; many, in fact, like “Iron John,” exercised both professions at the same time, and would hurry from camp to altar, or from pulpit to battle-field. Procopius had proved, and was yet to show, in many a fray, that he was no unworthy pupil of his heroic master. He was a man of affairs as well as a man of war, and for peace if it could be had with honor; but he knew that the safety of Bohemian faith and freedom lay in the warrior’s strong right hand. ,

He was soon needed. The council of Sienna, echoing the thunders of Constance, had at the end of 1424 put forth savage decrees against the disciples of Wiclif and Huss, and the pope soon proclaimed a new crusade. After four years of exemption from foreign foes, the kingdom was again invaded. The Hussites were besieging Aussig: a hundred thousand imperial soldiers endeavored to relieve it, and were, defeated on June 15th, 1426, with the loss of full one-tenth their force. Nothing more was attempted till the next year, when the diet of Frankfort determined to send out four armies, under the command of an English cardinal, and so piously conducted that each man was required to

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confess and hear mass every week. The first instalment of these well-regulated troops sat down before Miess, on the Bavarian frontier. The Hussites marched in haste to relieve the town. At sight of them the invaders broke ranks and ran: the Horebites sprang in with their flails, covered the ground with corpses, and proceeded to divide the spoil. As several times before, the chief material result of this irruption was to bring in wealth from abroad, and generously leave

it for those who possessed little or none.

Early in 1428 an attempt was made to reconcile the various factions. It came to nothing, for the Calixtines held to seven sacraments and an elaborate ritual, while the Ta- borites were all for simplicity.

The Orphans, lacking occupation at home, now took to ravaging Silesia, which is on the east. Undaunted by one or two reverses, they returned with a larger force, defeated the natives in a pitched battle, and wasted the whole province. Meantime Procopius took Lichtenburg and Bechin, and harried Austria.

Sisrismund now

PROCOPIUS, THE GREAT HUSSITE GENERAL. °

made another effort,

in a peaceful way. He urged that Bohemia had no settled government, which was true, and that he was its lawful king, whom his subjects ought to accept. They replied, what was equally true, that by his whole course, beginning with his treatment of Huss, he had forfeited any rights over them, and given them

CRUSADERS on the way to bohemia.

occasion to regard him only as a public enemy. But Procopius, with an eye to possibilities, received the ambassadors, procured from them a safe-conduct, and visited the emperor. If he proposed to take the government on the terms on which it had been offered to Zisca, he was disappointed, for the two came to no agreement. But not long after this, he proposed to receive Sigismund on the basis of the Calixtine articles—chiefly, of course, the communion in both kinds. The terms were impossible, and the Orphans exclaimed that a free people needed no king.

But the emperor’s rejection of the proposed conditions had the effect of partially reconciling the contending parties at home. Such a reconciliation was sorely needed. There had been fearful riots in Prague, and on one day, January 30th, 1429, a bloody conflict between the Old and New towns, Calixtines and Taborites. Procopius arranged a peace, with a heavy money penalty to be paid by whoever should break it. He was now elected general-in-chief, which gave the distracted country a nearer approach to a central government than it had had for some years. Aware that the troops, now united, must be kept employed, he wisely concluded that foreign fields were the best for their activity.

“ THE OBSEQUIES OF HUSS.”

Many grudges were yet to be paid off to the neighboring kingdoms and provinces, which had furnished troops for the armies that had so often invaded Bohemia in the interest of emperor and pope. The day of peace and comparative harmony at home was well adapted to the settling of these old scores, and they were now settled with interest. In the autumn of 1429 Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, and Brandenburg might have fancied that Zisca had risen from his grave and set ■out upon his travels. The smoke of churches, convents, and towns filled the air, and the streets were soaked with blood. Among the ruins the avengers shouted, “ Behold the funeral ceremonies of John Huss ! ”

The conquerors came home for the winter, bearing various pleasant names, as Collectors, Little Cousins, and Wolf-bands. In the spring they started out again, a formidable force of 30,000 infantry, 20,000 horse, and 3,000 chariots. On the way to Dresden they sacked or burned over a hundred towns. The larger cities, as Nuremberg and Bamberg, had to purchase exemption from pillage with heavy bags of gold. The German princes, differing among themselves, could agree on no measures for the common defense.

But the pope was not idle. He wrote to the King of Poland to assure him that he could do “ nothing more acceptable to God, more useful to the world, or more for his own fame, than to turn all his thoughts and all his strength to the extirpation of this new religion.” The Polish king did not dispute the point, but he had other business just then. After delays, a diet held at Nuremberg ■determined to make an effort. Cardinal Csesarini, the papal legate, brought a

bill ordering a new crusade, and took pains to beat up recruits for the holy league, as he called it. One of his letters may serve as a specimen of many such “Alas, the abominable heresy of the Wiclifites and Hussites exceeds to-day all those of preceding ages. It has inspired them to a fierce obstancy, so that, like the adder, they shut their ears to the voice and doctrine of their mother the

SOLDIERS SEARCHING FOR BOHEMIAN PROTESTANTS.

Church, regardless of all the methods she takes to bring them back to reason. Not content with their poisonous dogmas and their blasphemies, they have despoiled all '* humanity and all piety, and become like ferocious beasts, to be satisfied only with the blood of Catholics.” No doubt it seemed, to the pope, the emperor, and their party very strange and very hard that the weapons which they had so freely employed should be turned against them. To short-sighted self-interest it is a bad argument which will work both ways. It is always easy to see the wickedness of persecution when we are the

victims.

While the army was preparing, Sigismund again sent ambassadors to invite his rebellious subjects to receive their king. The parties were disputing ^as usual; strange to say, only the Orphans saw the insincerity and uselessness of these proposals. The leaders, including Procopius, gave them serious consideration, and actually sent four deputies to confer with the emperor. After two weeks or more, these deputies found out that he was merely playing with them and gaining time ; then they spoke out their minds, returned to Prague, .and gave the alarm. Preparations were made in haste, and the forces which were ravaging abroad were called home for national defense. The factions joined hands like brothers, and fifty thousand infantry, seven thousand horse, ;and thirty-six hundred chariots were ready before they were needed.

After the usual delays the crusade was getting ready too; but the cardinal legate, who was to march with it, wished first to try the effect of his talents as a letter-writer. He now employed a style quite different from that of the document quoted above. His epistle to those whom he had denounced so fiercely a year before “overflowed with tenderness and anxiety for their spiritual welfare. He vaunted the tender mercies of the Church, and protested that the aim of the invaders was kind and Christian: if the Bohemians v/ould only submit and return to the unity of the Church, they should be left entirely unharmed. In a tone of earnest entreaty, as if any act of violence or cruelty was most remote from his thought, he urged and besought them to give up their Protestantism .and accept the charity which the Church was ready to bestow.”

THE LAST CRUSADE.

But the Bohemians were not simple enough to be thus taken in. In a •spirited reply, they laid down the four Calixtine articles as the only possible basis of agreement; intimated that they understood the artifices of their foes; .and declared that they would maintain their rights by the strong hand. Its closing sentence was a taunt, repudiating with contempt the pious professions of the •cardinal, and placing their cause on far higher ground than his: “Your trust is in an arm of flesh ; ours is in the God of battles.” Besides this lofty reliance, they had the better soldiers, and by far the best generals.

The crusade started with great ceremonies in August, 1431, under command of the Elector of Brandenburg. A minor force was to operate from the east; eighty thousand infantry, half as many horsemen, and a formidable artillery, entered the western part of Bohemia. Procopius had taken pains to delude them with false reports of dissensions and elements of weakness among his men, and they were marching confidently through a forest near Tansch, close to the Bavarian border, when they heard that the whole Hussite army was at hand. Not waiting for its attack, they turned about and ran—electors, archdukes, officers and privates. The legate seems to have been the only man among them with

any qualities of a leader: lie tried to rally the fugitives, but they would stay only for a sight of their dreaded foes. They left everything which could be dropped. There was no battle, only pursuit, slaughter, and the gathering of a rich spoil. The men of Brandenburg had barely afforded the time to tear up their standards before they fled. All the heavy artillery, with eight thousand wagons full of military stores and the strong chest of the army, remained to enrich the defenders of Bohemia. The cardinal, who stayed longer than most of the laymen, left his red hat, his robes and cross, and even the pope’s bull ordering the crusade. The last was long kept as a trophy.

Thus ended for that generation the efforts to suppress heresy in Bohemia by force of arms: what was the use of sending out armies which would not stand and fight ? The German nobles cast the blame on the princes: the knights, smarting under their disgrace, “ vowed to restore the honor of the empire and to march against the Hussites, on condition that no prince was permitted to join their ranks.”

But the historian Wenzel ascribes the flight chiefly to “the unwillingness of the common soldiers to serve against the Hussites, whose cause they thought both glorious and just.”

The legate, who had learned, by sharp experience, how formidable were these Bohemians, now changed his measures, and invited them to appear at the coming council of Basle. The council itself, assembling at the end of the year, offered full and free discussion of the points in dispute, with liberty of their own worship in their quarters, and even promised that no sermons against their four articles hussite shield.

should be permitted while they were in the city. All this and more was guaranteed by a safe-conduct, which was now sent with assurances that any attempt to violate it should be severely punished, and that they would be escorted back safely to their own frontier. But they remembered the fate of Huss, and were in no hurry to accept the invitation.

ARRIVAL OF HUSSITE DEPUTIES AT BASLE-

There was general dissatisfaction in. Germany. The great and famous council of Constance, which was called to reform the Churcli, had failed to- accomplish its purpose, beyond burning Huss and Jerome and putting down the rival popes. The unwearied legate warned the new pope, Eugenius IV., that the corruptions of the clergy “had irritated the laity beyond measure.” If something were not done to suppress these evils, he wrote, “ men will say that we are making a mock of God and man; aud as the hope of reform vanishes,, others will persecute us as the Hussites have done.” The new pope, who was no reformer, wished to dis-olve the council of Basle, and convoke it aga’n in some Italian city; but the council refused to move.

THE HUSSITES AT BASLE.

Its first letters the Bohemians did not deign to answer. Anxious inquiries, followed, and proposals for a conference at Kgra, which they would not attend. They demanded hostages of noble birth; they distrusted the pledges of the princes in support of the safe-conducts. At length their suspicions were set at. rest, and in January, 1433, confident in their strength, they appeared at Basle. It was a noble deputation, three hundred strong, the most eminent men of the kingdom, with Procopius at their head. They came not as Huss had come, alone and meek among his foes, but with heads erect and haughty mien, not to plead,, but to assert their cause. They, his successors and spiritual heirs, had been, eagerly urged to attend on equal terms in the interest of peace. It was Bohemia’s, hour of triumph, even more than when the chivalry of Europe, the hosts of emperor and pope, had fled before the Hussite flails. Strong was the desire to- see them—those famous preachers of Protestantism, Rokyzan the Calixtine, Biscupek the Taborite, Ulric of the Orphans, and the English scholar Peter Payne; still more to behold the victors of so many battles, with their strange garments, their eagle eyes, their faces stem and scarred; and most of all the famous Procopius, dark, hawk-nosed, terrible in appearance as in fame. The city came out to stare at them; the fathers of the council were on the wall; the streets and squares were crowded; faces were at every window; women and children covered the roofs. Men who had defied the Church and conquered the empire were not to be seen every day.

The pledges of the council were kept, for the cardinal legate Was its presiding officer. He received the delegation in a polite address, and Rokyzan replied. January 16th was the day fixed for opening the debate. The Bohemians presented their four articles, hoping for their approval, “so that they may be freely held, taught, and irrevocably observed in the kingdom of Bohemia and the march of'Moravia, and in such places as adhere to the views they set forth.” They went on to say; frankly and fairly enough, “We are ready to be united and to become one in the way which all Christian believers should follow, and to adhere

to and obey all legitimate rulers of the Church in whatever they command according to God's law: so that if council, pope, or prelate shall determine or command that to be done which is forbidden of God, or shall pass over, or command to pass over, what is written in the canon of Scripture, we shall be under no obligation to respect or obey them, since the law pronounces such things execrable and accursed. These conditions we offer, to be accepted and concluded mutually between you and us.”

A long discussion followed, but led to no result. When a speaker on the opposite side used offensive expressions, some left the assembly, and Procopius said indignantly, “He does us great wrong, so often calling us heretics.” The duke of Bavaria proposed a conference between a select number from each side. At this it was urged that the Bohemians should at once join the council, and abide by its decisions. This they of course refused, insisting on their four articles. After over two months of talk, they withdrew; but the council sent a deputation with them, to try whether more could not be accomplished at Prague. It failed likewise; but a compromise was agreed on a little later, by which three of the articles were accepted, and the use of the cup granted for a time with certain explanations.

• DEATH OP PROCOPIUS.

This failed to satisfy the more radical party, and the flames of civil war blazed again. A hideous conflict arose between the Old and New towns of Prague, in which twenty thousand were killed. Procopius hastily raised the siege of Pilsen and marched upon the capital; but his sun of glory had set, and the hero who was invincible by foreign arms fell by the hands of his countrymen at Bomiskbrod, May 30th, 1434. The

Taborites and Orphans were exterminated ; the ^{SEA1, 0F} c⁰™⁰¹¹* ^0F basi,b. last of their leaders, Czorka, “was hunted down like a wild beast, found under a rock, and hanged.”

Thus pitifully ended the most glorious chapter in Bohemian history. Two years later the faithless Sigismund entered Prague, and began to break down what had been so long in building. But he died in 1437 • the spirit of liberty was not dead, and the land was never wholly reconciled to Rome. Its later annals are full of dissensions, collisions, variations of worldly and of spiritual fort xme. During the reign of George Podiebrad, 1457-1471, arose the “Brethren of the Rule of Christ,” whose memory is dear to modern Protestants. They were accused of infamous crimes, and branded with the hated names of Picards, Beghards, and Waldenses. They bore much persecution patiently; often they fled through the snow, treading in each other’s tracks, and dragging a branch behind to disguise the trail from pursuers. In poverty and affliction, sometimes

numerous, sometimes nearly extinct, they survived to the time of Luther, and long after. Protestantism, which flourished during the sixteenth century in Bohemia, was practically wiped out by the terrible Thirty Years’ War; but the lingering remnant of the ancient Brethren found refuge long after on the estates of Count Zinzendorf, and their name, beliefs and usages are preserved by the most blameless of modern sects.

LYONS.

INQUISITION AND REFORMATION.

HE struggles which we have followed in Languedoc, in England, and in Bohemia were specimens of what was going on all over Europe. The spiritual descendants of the Cathari, of Peter Waldo, and of Wiclif were everywhere, and everywhere the same arts and arms were employed against them. In the north of Italy the Vandois, who claimed an earlier origin than the Waldenses, were the objects of almost unremitting persecution for five hundred years. The synod of Verona in 1184 had pronounced a solemn curse on all heretics and those who sheltered them, ordered their property to be confiscated and their persons given over to the executioner, and anticipated the methods of the Inquisition.

The frightful engine which carried cruelty to its greatest height, and whose name stands to the modem mind for all that is most devilish, was the invention of the thirteenth century. Till then “inquisitors” had had to do with the taxes : from about 1225 the word signified those who inquire into men’s beliefs. The author of the system, St. Dominic, was moved by the purest motives and the most fervent zeal; but no saint ever served Satan better. He founded the famous order which took his name ; its members, who were at first preaching friars, presently grew into something worse. The “Holy Office,” which received its name about 1220, speedily became the most powerful machine ever devised for suppressing free thought and preserving orthodoxy.

This dubious task had hitherto been left to the bishops of Rome, each of whom, like the pagan emperors or proconsuls of old, attended to it according to his own ideas and temper. The synod of Toulouse, which organized the Inquisition for Languedoc in 1229, placed the details in the hands of each prelate for his own diocese. But greater efficiency was desired. An

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individual bishop might be lacking in zeal, in vigor, or in acuteness; so in 1234. the Dominicans were given entire charge of the good work, and from their court there was no appeal but to Rome. As it was sought to spread this system, through Europe, the Catholic bishops resisted its inroads, being jealous of any encroachment on their authority and willing to ‘ ‘ bear, like the Turk, no rival near their throne.” In England, as has been said, it was never received, and in France it was opposed by the chief powers of the Church ; but in Italy it had free course, and in Spain it became a power mightier than the crown. These countries were the first to accept it in its full force, respectively in 1224 and 1232, and in both its effects were desolating. In Germany its early violence produced a reaction, and in 1235 the magistrates of Strasburg found it necessary to warn the local inquisitors to convert people by preaching, and not to burn them without a hearing.

Though meant to serve religion, the Inquisition was not above being turned to- purposes of private malice. When it was strong, it could do what it pleased; when it was comparatively weak, a temporal ruler could make his arrangements

with the pope for its use. In 1314 this was done in France, where the Knights Templar, an order of near three hundred years standing, had gained such wealth as to excite the greed of Philip the Fair. They were accused, probably on slight foundation, of the most atrocious crimes, and some of them, under torture, confessed whatever was desired. Hundreds of them died in prison or at the stake. The grand master, De Molay, as the flames rose about him, indignantly summoned his enemies to meet him at a higher tribunal ; and both pope and king died within a year.

What was thus done to a famous and powerful military order could be practiced with ease on private persons. The chief inquisitors were able men, armed with a relentless purpose and the cunning of long experience. Their “familiars” were men in every station : their notaries made a record of all proceedings : their executioners had pincers, rack, and coals in readiness. No human power could help the victim who fell into their hands: property, liberty, and life had been as safe under Nero or Domitian. Many of them, no doubt, were men of earnest and devoted character; but all held firmly that heresy was the worst of iniquities, that outside the Church and its dogmas was no salvation, that to light the misbeliever’s passage through earthly torments to everlasting

ANCIENT LEATHER CANNON.

flames was a pious act, acceptable to God and useful to the community.

IN SPAIN.

The Inquisition had from the start a congenial field in Spain, where were a multitude of Moors and Jews to be dealt with. It reached its most towering height after its reorganization there in 1480. Its torture-chambers offered the best mundane imitation of the infernal regions, and the names of its chief officers, Torquemada and Peter Arbues, still occupy a bad eminence among the troublers of mankind. The latter was soon killed in the cathedral of Saragossa by friends of some of his victims; but Torquemada, who was inquisitor-general from 1482 to 1498, besides the expulsion of above eight hundred thousand Jews from their native land, has to his credit the burning alive of near nine thousand of his fellow-creatures, and the perpetual imprisonment or other severe punishment of ten times that number. While Columbus was discovering the New World, the auto-da-fe, or “act of faith,” was the chief amusement of Spanish cities. The court, the nobles and their families, the people of both sexes and all ages, thronged to these spectacles as their descendants do to bull-fights, and as the ancient Romans did to the amphitheatre to see gladiators slaughter each other and Christians torn by bears and lions. The mania for

GATE OF THE CASTLE OP PENHADE CINTRA.

"blood and flames is said to Have grown so great that the inquisitors were spurred on in their hideous work by popular clamor.

The procedure of the Holy Office, in these later days and in this most Catholic of kingdoms, was simple. By night, at his own door—any time and place would answer, but secrecy was generally preferred—a familiar placed his hand upon the victim’s shoulder; once arrested, he was not likely to be heard of again. His guilt was taken for granted; his accuser was his judge. Professions were unavailing; casual words and harmless actions were twisted into evidence of heresy. Spain at this time was full of Moors and Jews who, while outwardly conforming, really retained their old faith; many of them were rich, and Church and king alike coveted their wealth. What mattered one’s real sentiments, when his destruction was resolved on? A mere rumor, the hint of an enemy, a word dropped in confession, were enough to begin on; to be suspected was to have given grounds for suspicion. Once in the dreaded vaults, the culprit’s groans and shrieks could not penetrate to outer air, as his judge and the familiars worked their will upon him. If he died in prison, he was burned in effigy. If he survived the torture without owning to his guilt, he had a slight chance of being released, months or years later; but it was as well to die at once. Scarred, lamed, mutilated, he emerged to find his property confiscated, his friends counting him dead, his name loaded with a stigma worse than that of thief or murderer. More probably he marched in procession on some festival, in coat and cap painted over with devils, to be lighted up, like Nero’s living torches fourteen centuries before, for the pleasure of the crowd.

But physical anguish was not all that the Inquisition could inflict. As Mr. Lecky says:

“In those days the family was divided against itself. The ray of conviction often fell upon a single member, leaving all others untouched. The victims who died for heresy were not, like those who died for witchcraft, solitary and doting women, but were usually men in the midst of active life, and often in the first flush of youthful enthusiasm ; and those who loved them best were firmly convinced that their agonies upon earth were but the prelude of eternal agonies hereafter. This was especially the case with weak women, who feel most acutely the sufferings of others, and around whose minds the clergy-had most successfully wound their toils. It is horrible, it is appalling, to reflect what the mother, the wife, the sister, the daughter of the heretic must have suffered from this teaching. She saw the body of him who was dearer to her than life, dislocated and writhing and quivering with pain; she watched the slow fire creeping from limb to limb till it had swathed him in a sheet of agony; and when at last the scream of anguish had died away and the tortured body was at rest, she was told that all this was acceptable to the God she served, and was but a faint image of the sufferings He would iuflict through eternity upon the dead. Nothing was

wanting to give emphasis to the doctrine. It rang from every pulpit. It was painted over every altar.”

ETHICS OF PERSECUTION.

Yet all these horrors did not avail to destroy the cause against which they were directed. The Dark Ages could not last forever. The human mind, left barren like a fallow field, grew ready to receive again the seed of knowledge. Ignorance and arbitrary rule play into each other’s hands : where beliefs are

PENITENTS RECEIVING ABSOLUTION.

imposed from without and slavishly accepted under penalties, thought dies: civilization and progress thrive only under free discussion. But thought may seem to die, and come to life again after a sleep of centuries. Thus was it with the later Middle Ages. Too long “innovation of every kind was regarded as a crime : superior knowledge excited only terror and suspicion. If it was shown in speculation, it was called heresy ; if in the study of Nature, it was called magic : ” in either case, its reward was apt to be the stake. “ The Church had cursed the human intellect in cursing the doubts that are the necessary

consequence of its exercise. She had cursed even the moral faculty by asserting the guilt of honest error.”

The wickedness of this course, to which the men of those days were blind, is plain enough to us. We see that “the persecutor never can be certain that he is not persecuting Truth rather than error, but he may be quite certain that he is suppressing the spirit of Truth.” Lessing said that if an angel were to come offering him the choice of two divine gifts, in one hand Truth itself, in the other the spirit of Truth, he would answer, “Give me the spirit of Truth.” For Truth itself, the definite, absolute, and final Truth, is in most matters beyond us here and now; but the Truth-loving and Truth-seeking spirit is within reach of every one, and is at once the chief virtue of humanity and the means by which it makes all its noblest gains. But these subtleties. were unknown to the men of the Middle Ages. Between them and us was a great-, gulf fixed. Their principle, their test of Truth, was Authority; ours is Private Judgment. Early in the sixteenth century the two ideas came into violent and for the first time into not unequal conflict. In the forefront of the opposing hosts two banners were carried high: the inscription on one was Inquisition, on the other Reformation.

THE PRINCIPLE OF TOLERATION.

Like nearly all great leaders, the Reformers “ builded better than they knew.” They aimed to substitute one set of opinions and usages for another: the development of their essential principles was left for later generations. Neither Luther nor Calvin would have assented to the doctrine which Jeremy Taylor, “the Shakespeare of divines,” the greatest ornament of the English Church, put forth in 1657 in his “Liberty of Prophesying/’ Before turning back to the horrors which Christian men, not understanding the beauty and duty of tolerance, perpetrated on one another in their Master’s name, let us pause a moment to digest the most brilliant and instructive passage of this admirable book:

“It is unnatural and unreasonable to persecute disagreeing opinions. Unnatural ; for understanding, being a thing wholly spiritual, cannot be restrained, and therefore neither punished, by corporal afflictions. It is in aliena republica, a matter of another world. You may as well cure the colic by brushing a man’s clothes, or fill a man’s belly with a syllogism. These things do not communicate in matter, and therefore neither in action nor passion ; and since all punishments, in a prudent government, punish the offender to prevent a future crime, and so it proves more medicinal than vindictive, the punitive act being in order to the cure and prevention; and since no punishment of the body can cure a disease in the soul, it is disproportionable in nature ; and in all civil government, to punish where the punishment can do no good, it may be an act of tyranny.

but never of justice. For is an opinion ever the more true or false for being persecuted ? Some men have believed it the more, as being provoked into a confidence and vexed into a resolution ; but the thing itself is not the truer; and though the hangman may confute a man with an inexplicable dilemma, yet not convince his understanding: for such premises can infer no conclusion but that of a man’s life; and a wolf may as well give laws to the understanding as he whose •dictates are only propounded in violence and writ in blood. And a dog is as capable of a law as a man, if there be no choice in his obedience, nor discourse in his choice, nor reason to satisfy his discourse.

“And as it is unnatural, so it is unreasonable that Sempronius should force Cains to be of his opinion because Sempronius is consul this year and commands the lictors ; as if he that can kill a man cannot but be infallible: and if he be not, why should I do violence to my conscience because he can do violence to my person ? ”

It is easy—it was easy even under Nero and Diocletian—to see the wickedness of our enemies in persecuting us ; but it was reserved for the nineteenth century to admit that the other side has rights as sacred as ours. The early Protestants, with few exceptions, perceived this no more clearly than the papists. The doctrine of general toleration was first proclaimed by Chatillon or Castellio, -who was a French scholar and an early friend of Calvin. He denounced the burning of Servetus, and insisted that theology was a series of developments, that error might be innocent, and that the object of beliefs was to make men better. Such heresies could no more be .tolerated in reformed Switzerland than by Simon de Montfort or the council of Constance. Castellio shared the fate of those who are too far ahead of their age : he was driven from his professorship at Geneva and Basle, abhorred as an infidel or worse, and left to die in abject ^poverty.

LUTHER.

But however imperfect may have been the perceptions and sympathies of the chief Reformers, they lifted the world out of the slough of despond in which it had long been wallowing, and caused such light as they had to shine far into the general darkness. They laid the foundations on which we have since been building; Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, and America are what they are largely because these great men could see further into the Bible and human nature than the popes did, and because they had all the courage of their convictions. It was a disciple of Socinus (nominally at least) who wrote thus about Luther :

“ Half-battles were the words he said,

Each born of prayer, baptized in tears;

. And, routed by them, backward fled

The errors of a thousand years.”

MARTIN LUTHER.

From a nnrtmit by Lucas Cranach, painted in l5kS.

When lie nailed his ninety-five propositions to the church-door at Wittem- berg, and burned the pope’s bull, he delivered some of the most telling blows for freedom that were ever struck. He was a fighter all through, and said, when his friends held up the fate of Huss before him, that he would go to Worms if there were as many devils there as tiles on the houses. His courage and his faith were infectious, and emboldened others who had been thinking some of the same thoughts to come out and say so. Whether by the arm of flesh or simply

that of the spirit, it was fearless moral strength that won the battle through half the civilized world.

It is not our purpose to repeat the familiar history of the Reformation in the north, nor to detail the horrors by which it was stamped out in the south. The devil does not die easily, and when he can he much prefers to kill those who rise against him. The Reformation had a fair start in Italy and Spain, but the pope and the Inquisition . were too strong there. It is a mistake to suppose that persecution is never successful. When it is fierce enough, and steady enough, and continued long enough, it will accomplish its object: this has been repeatedly proved. Much depends on the national temper, much on the will of sovereigns. In northern Germany the princes protected Luther and his doctrines: in England one monarch broke with the pope, another fostered the Reformation, a third tried to put it down, and under a fourth it was established. But where a state uses all its power to suppress a new faith, and the adherents of that faith are not able to resist in arms and keep on resisting, they will be either exterminated, driven out of the country, or compelled to recant. Already we have seen these various results in Languedoc, England, and Bohemia: we shall see

CATHERINE VON BORA, WIFE OF LUTHER.

them again, in France, where the Protestants were beaten after a long struggle, and in Holland, where they made the most magnificent fight in modern history, and won. The struggle lasted for a hundred years or more, and the present conditions of the various peoples of Europe were largely determined in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

FIRST MARTYRS OF THE REFORMATION.

Nowhere was the transition easy from spiritual servitude to comparative liberty. The Church had long had its grip on every court, city, and village, and was reluctant to let go. In Switzerland, France, England, there were victims. In the Low Countries (now Belgium and the Netherlands), long afflicted by Spanish rule, the number mounted high into the thousands.

Two young Augustinian monks,

Henry Voes and John Esch, were the first martyrs of that region. Fleeing from persecution at Antwerp, they were arrested, taken in chains to Brussels, and condemned for maintaining that God alone, not the priest, had power to forgive sins. The inquisitor asked them to confess that they had been seduced by Luther: they answered, “ As the Apostles were seduced by Christ.” They were publicly burned July ist, 1523, repeating the Creed and calling on their Master. In their honor Luther wrote a poem which passes for the first of his hymns ; part of it is familiar in a free English version:

“Flung to the heedless winds, or on the waters cast,

Their ashes shall be watched and gathered at the last;

And from that scattered dust, around us and abroad,

Shall spring a plenteous seed of witnesses for God.

Jesus hath now received their latest living breath;

Yet vain is Satan’s boast of victory in their death.

Still, still, though dead, they speak, and trumpet tongued proclaim To many a wakening land the one availing Name.”

Thirteen years later, and within a few miles of the same spot, perished in like manner a famous man of God, the greatest of all English translators of

the Bible. William Tyndale’s work was done under heavy difficulties, but it includes the New Testament and half the Old ; thus far it “is not only the basis of those portions of the Authorized Version, but constitutes nine-tenths” of them. The last ten years of his life, so far as we know, were spent on the continent, and largely in concealment; for the hunters of heresy from his native land were always on his track. One of these blood-hounds found him at last at Antwerp, and, after claiming his hospitality and borrowing some money of him, betrayed him to the authorities. He was taken to the castle of Vilvorde, and there burned October 6th, 1536, having first been mercifully strangled. His last words were among the noblest and most pathetic ever uttered: “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes!”

HOUSE IN WHICH LUTHER LIVED.

NGLAND, as we have seen, was the theatre of an active religious movement long before L/uther’s day. That movement was crushed, and the land remained apparently rooted in the old faith. The people were of a practical turn, not fond of novelties, little given to theological speculation, and loyally attached —until their freedom-loving consciences were outraged—to their monarchs. Throughout the sixteenth century the Tudors held the country in the hollow of their hands; scarce, any attempted, few desired, to say them nay. Reform therefore had to come from above, not: from the middle or lower strata of society, as. it did in Germany. Tyndale’s dying prayer expressed the feelings even of the persecuted. If the king’s eyes were once opened, those of the kingdom would follow; the king was all-important, nothing could be done without him.

The martyr’s prayer was answered, though not to the letter. The king’s eyes were opened only in part, but through his self-will a door was set ajar—not thrown wide at ouce, but pushed back by slow degrees—through which Tyndale’s, Bible and the light he loved might enter.

No chapter of history is more familiar, and none is more important, than this. It is a fashion with some to sneer at the British Reformation, as savoring too much of politics and princes; as if State as well as Church were not ordained and tolerated from on high, and one no more infallible than the other. Those who would have Truth and Grace enter the affairs of nations with no mixture of earthly alloy, must seek in some other planet than this. The sweetest saints have not been so gifted as to exhibit unmixed wisdom or render faultless service. He who causes the wrath of man to praise Him can also use men’s lusts and selfish policies to further His own ends. Base as the king and nobles might be who broke with Rome, there was heroism enough in England before the reform was made secure. The chief martyrs not only gave their blood to cement the edifice, but had done their best to guide the hands that unwillingly laid its foundations.

SMITH FI ELD FIRES.

Henry VIII. wished to divorce his first wife, Katharine of Aragon. The pope would have been glad to gratify him, but could not, for fear of a yet mightier potentate, the king of Spain and emperor of Germany. So Henry threw off all connection with the see of Rome, and declared himself head of the English Church. That, with a wholesale, hasty, and rather scandalous pillage •of the monasteries, was about the extent of his reforming zeal. In earlier years he had earned the title, still worn by his successors, of “Defender of the Faith,” by a highly orthodox treatise ; and he had little or no desire to change any remaining points of doctrine, discipline, or worship. But it is easier to start a movement than to control it after it is started. The clergy submitted—they had to ; but the change set men thinking, and those of the better sort knew what was going on across the North sea. The nobles looked to their pockets, and grew rich by the plunder of the abbeys : the scholars consulted their books, and worked their brains harder than had been their custom: among the common people the lingering embers of the old Lollard faith were stirred by the preaching of a few who had read Tyndale’s Testament. In those days such of the clergy as were able became statesmen or ministers of state. Cranmer, who was made archbishop in 1532, was the moving spirit of his time. Moderate, adroit, a consummate courtier and politician, yet sincerely devoted to “ the new learning,” he guided the ship of reform through dangerous and intricate channels with success, where it might have been wrecked with a firmer character at the helm. Himself and his cause detested by the old papal party, his tact and the king’s favor carried him safe through many plots and perils. Whatever his failings, English Protestants owe to him a debt immeasurable.

MARY TUDOR.

The much-married king left but three children by his various wives. Edward VI.,. who succeeded him in 1547, was the son of Jane SeymOur, and a boy of nine. He had been brought up a strict Protestant, and Cranmer and the Reformers now had it all their own way. But their triumph was brief, for six years later he died. The time had not come to talk of a “ Protestant succession,” and the effort to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne resulted only in her execution and that of her friends ; for the English were conservative, and she was not the legal heir. That heir, inelegantly but justly styled “Bloody Mary,” was the daughter of Katharine of Aragon, and a bigoted papist. There have been few more melancholy or misplaced sovereigns. Unattractive, lonely, gloomy, severely conscientious, and far more sensitive than sensible, she had brooded from childhood over her mother’s wrongs. Her marriage to Philip II. -of Spain was a wretched failure; her hopes of an heir came to nothing. One .motive sustained her, one purpose ruled her life,—her fanatical devotion to the

THOS. BII,NEY ON HIS WAY TO THE STAKE. Martur under Henry VIII.

old ways. As she told her Parliament, she believed she had been “predestined and preserved by God for no other end save that He might make use of her, above all else, in bringing back the realm to the Catholic faith.” Her councillors, all approved servants of the pope, strove to restrain her zeal, knowing her chosen measures to be ill adapted to the English taste, and likely to hurt rather than help her cause; but she would not be restrained. In the flush of her accession and under pressure of her advisers, she did indeed promise the¹

people of London that “though her own conscience was stayed (i. e., hindered) in matters of religion, yet she meant not to compel or strain men’s consciences otherwise than God should, as she trusted, put in their hearts a persuasion of the truth that she was in, through the opening of His word to them by godly and virtuous aud learned preachers.” But this rational method proved much too mild: her promise was cast aside, and word went forth to light the fires for heresy.

The news was personally alarming to but a fraction of any class, for the country as yet was by no means firmly Protestant. The nobles had made haste to face about; among the clergy were many vicars of Bray, whose principle was to hold their places; and a large majority of priests and people still at heart preferred the old ways. Of the Reformers such as were at liberty, and had prudence and cash to spare, fled to their friends on the continent: Geneva and Germany welcomed some noted exiles, who were to be useful in the next reign. Those who remained set their lips together and awaited what was to come. Early in 1555 began a series of

WILI.IAM TYNDAI.E

exhibitions such, as England had not seen before, and was never to see again. Let it be remembered that there was no complication of foreign war or domestic rebellion. One or two risings had been easily put down, the few traitors were executed or outlawed. In a time of profound peace, surrounded by a submissive and loyal people, the queen began to commit her subjects to the flames for a mere difference of religious forms, professions, and opinions. In her mother’s country, Spain, this would have been a matter of course: in Italy, France, or parts of Germany, it might not have occasioned much comment : in England it was an unusual proceeding, and a grave mistake. It was her own work, first and chiefly. Her new archbishop, Pole, a cardinal and pope’s legate, agreed to it with reluctance. Of course she found spirits like her own, to attend to the details of judicial murder. Bonner, bishop of London, was the chief assistant-butcher: Gardiner of Lincoln, then lord chancellor, helped at first to sharpen the stakes and gather fagots: both passed for learned and able men. . Edward’s bishops, or most of them, had been deposed, and were now to be tried as by fire. It was a bad day for England, but worst of all for the persecutors and for their cause, that sought to stand on innocent blood.

TRIAL OF THE BISHOPS.

It took but a year to undo what had been done under Henry and Edward, to unite the realm—or at least the government—to Rome, more closely than it had ever been united before, and to pass the requisite laws against heresy and heretics. In April, 1554, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were taken from the Tower to Oxford, and there examined at length by certain theologians of the old school. The dispute, as with Cobham and the other Lollards, turned chiefly on the Real Presence in the mass or communion. All engaged in it were learned men, and the three Reformers were among the ablest in England. Latimer, being unduly urged, replied, “No. I pray you, be good to an old man. If it please God, you may come to be as old as I am.” But respect for age or venerable character was not a trait of the persecutors. As to the doctrine of the eucharist, he said that Christ “gave not His body to be thus received; He gave the sacrament to the mouth, His body to the mind.”

It is to be noted that all the trials were mainly on this point: to deny tran- substantiation was the unpardonable sin. The princess Elizabeth, half-sister to Mary and afterwards queen, being at this time in confinement and under grave suspicion on political as well as religious grounds, and much badgered by divines who sought to get evidence against her from her own mouth, is said to have given this prudent and admirable answer:

“ He was the Word that spake it:

He took the bread and brake it;

And what that Word did make it I do believe and take it.”

CATHEDRAE, OF WORMS.

The lines were probably written by Dr. Donne, who was born' some years after Elizabeth’s accession ; but they doubtless give the substance of her reply to the inquisitors.

When the three bishops were condemned, Cranmer arose and said, “From this your sentence I appeal to the j ust j udg- ment of God Almighty, trusting to be present

with Him in heaven, for whose presence at the altar I am thus condemned.” Ridley came next; “Though I be not of your company, yet I doubt not that my name is written in another place, whither this sentence will send us sooner than in the course of nature we should have gone.” Latimer added, “I thank God most

heartily, that He hath prolonged ray life to this end that I may glorify Him by that kind of death.”

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS.

The fires of Smithfield were not lighted till the next year, and these leaders were not the first to suffer. The roll of Marian martyrs was headed by John Rogers, whom Ridley had made one of the clergy of St. Paul’s cathedral in. London. As he was led out on February 4th, 1555, repeating the fifty-first psalm, his wife and eleven children met him, “ten able to walk and one at the breast for the Reformers had long since cast aside the rule that priests may not marry. As he was chained to the stake his pardon was brought, signed and sealed, and’ offered him if he would recant, but he refused. A great crowd had gathered to see him bum, and wondered as he washed his hands in the flame. Four days later Lawrence Sanders, a preacher who had been educated at Eton and Cambridge, met the same fate at Coventry, embracing the stake and crying: “Welcome, the cross of Christ! Welcome, everlasting life !’’ On the ninth a more distinguished victim, John Hooper, late bishop of Gloucester, died by lingering agonies in his cathedral city, the fagots being green and the wind violent. The account of his sufferings, which lasted near an hour, is too horrible to repeat;, but they were borne with perfect patience and fortitude.

Dr. Rowland Taylor, vicar of Hadleigh in Suffolk, having been arrested in London, was taken to his parish to be executed. His wife and children watched, by night in the street for his coming, and took a tender farewell. On way he was “merry and cheerful as one going to a banquet or bridal.” The sheriff asked how he fared; he answered, “ Never better, for I am almost at home. But two stiles to go over, and I am even at my Father’s house.” The streets were- full of his parishioners, weeping and lamenting. “ God save thee, good Dr. Taylor,” they cried: “Christ strengthen thee and help thee ! The Holy Ghost, comfort thee ! ” When the fire was kindled, a man cruelly cast a fagot at him,, which struck his face, so that the blood ran down. “Friend,” said he, “I have harm enough; what needed that?” He had not been allowed to speak to the people ; and as he was repeating the fifty-first psalm, a knight struck him on the lips, saying: “You knave, speak in Latin, or I will make you.” Having commended his soul to God, “he stood still without either crying or moving, with his hands folded together, till one with a halberd struck him on the head, so that the brains fell out, and the corpse fell down into the fire.” .

LATIMER AND RIDLEY.

These four perished in February. In March eight followed, among them Robert Ferrar, who had been bishop of St. David’s, and was burned at Carmarthen in Wales. By the end of September sixty-two had perished. October 16th,

1555, was the last day on earth of Ridley and Latimer, the famous and godly

LATIMER EXORTING RIDLEY AT THE STAKE.

**Be of good comfon, Jotter Ridley, and play the man; we shall thii day light such a candle by God’s grace as I trust shall never he put out." 328

ex-bishops of London and Worcester; Oxford, which had been their place of trial and imprisonment, witnessed their last confession. The dying words of Latimer were a prophecy: “ Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as I trust shall never be put out.” We are told that he “received the flame as it were embracing it. After he had stroked his face with his hands, and, as it were, bathed them a little in the fire, he soon died, as it appeared, with very little pain, or none.”

These triumphs over death were not confined to great prelates and learned divines. Plain tradesmen and mechanics, women and boys, shared the spirit as well as the fate of Latimer, Ridley, Taylor, Bradford, and Rogers. Bonner asked a youth if he thought he could bear the fire: for answer, he placed his hand in the flame of a candle and held it there, like Mutius Scsevola of classic fame. Another, when chained to the stake, requested the bystanders to pray for him. One of them brutally replied, “No more than I will pray for a dog.” “Then,” cried the young martyr, “Son of God, shine upon me!” It was a dark day, but at once the sun shone out from a cloud.

CRANMER.

The most eminent, though not the noblest, of the victims was the late archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer was not of heroic mould, and under long imprisonment his courage failed. Like Jerome of Prague he recanted shamefully, and said or signed whatever was required of him. But his sentence, as primate of England, had been left to Rome, and Rome knew no forgiveness. When he found that his doom was still the stake, he called out all his latent manhood, and made as imposing an end as that of Jerome. On March 21st, 1556, a dignified assemblage waited in St. Mary’s Church at Oxford to hear his last recantation; but they were sorely disappointed. Almost in Jerome’s words he said, “Now I come to the great thing that troubles my conscience more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my life, and that is the setting abroad of writings contrary to the Truth; which here 1 now renounce and refuse as things written by my hand contrary to the Truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death to save my life, if it might be. And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall be the first punished; for if I come to the fire, it shall be the first burned.” And so it was: at the stake, exclaiming, “This was the hand that wrote it: this unworthy hand!” he held it steadily in the flame, and “never stirred nor cried” till his atonement was finished with his life.

The series of object-lessons they were getting could not be lost upon the English people. The old British love of liberty and justice was roused by the ferocity of government and the firmness of its victims. The smoke of each

succeeding sacrifice carried abroad seeds of the new doctrines : the martyrs preached more effectually by their deaths than they had done with living lips. Yet the latest and best historians agree that the archbishop’s fate, alike from his prominence and his weakness, made the deepest impression. Says Mr. Green:

“ It was with the unerring instinct of a popular movement that, among a crowd of far more heroic sufferers, the Protestants fixed, in spite of his recantations, on the martyrdom of Cranmer as the deathblow to Catholicism in England. For one man who felt within him the joy of Rowland Taylor at the prospect of the stake, there were thousands who felt the shuddering dread of Cranmer. The triumphant cry of Latimer could reach only hearts as bold as his own, while the sad pathos of the primate’s humiliation and repentance struck chords of sympathy and pity in the hearts of all. It is from that moment that we may trace the bitter remembrance of the blood shed in the cause of Rome, which still lies graven deep in the temper of the English people.”

MARY’S FAILURE.

A new and fanatical pope was doing his best—and for such purposes he was wellnigh omnipotent—to embarrass the most devoted servant of Rome that ever wore a crown. Paul IV. refused to accept the submission of England till the queen had restored all the property which her father had wrested from the Church. This was far beyond her power. The monasteries had been long dissolved, their buildings were in ruins, their lands had passed into other hands; and the nobles, who came cheerfully back to the old faith, had no mind to gn-e up any of their plunder. So the island remained but partly reconciled to Rome. But Mary, iu profound discouragement, kept on offering humau sacrifices to this implacable Moloch. Disheartened but dogged, she insisted that the burnings should continue, and they did. Gardiner had withdrawn from them in disgust before his death; the bishop of London was the only high instrument left to her hand. Some have attempted to defend Bonner, but it is easier to make excuses for Torquemada and Alva, since England had not the history or the temper of Spain. When Elizabeth came to the throne, this butcher offered his obeisance with the rest, but she refused to let him kiss her hand, and under a justice far more merciful than that which he had administered, he spent his last ten years in prison.

It would be tedious and useless to repeat the list of Mary’s martyrs. Not that we depend for them, as in the first Christian centuries, on scattered documents or doubtful tradition. The flames of these unjust judgments burnt their mark into history: the names, the dates, the places, often the minutes of the trials and incidents of the executions, were preserved, and have been made familiar through that long-famous book, Foxe’s “Acts and Monuments.” In 1555 there were seventy-two burnings, or rather that number of victims ; iu

1556, ninety-four; in 1557, seventy-nine; and in 1558, thirty-nine ; in all two- hundred and eighty-four, over forty of them in London. “In a single day thirteen persons, two of them women, were burnt at Stratford-le-Bow. Seventy-three Protestants of Colchester were dragged through the streets of London, tied to a. single rope.”

THE REACTION.

Yet all was unavailing. “The old spirit of insolent defiance, of outrageous violence, rose into fresh life at the challenge of persecution. A Protestant hung a string of puddings round a priest’s neck in derision of his beads. The restored images were grossly insulted.

The old scurrilous ballads against the mass and relics were heard in the streets. Men were goaded to sheer madness by the bloodshed and violence about them. One wretch, driven to frenzy, stabbed the priest of St. Margaret’s , as he stood with the chalice in his hand.”

Nor were the burnings merely ineffectual; they produced just the opposite result from that intended. One wrote to Bonner, “ You have lost the hearts of twenty thousand that were rank papists within these twelve months.” Such as had not parted from the old opinions felt that the bonds of humanity and nationality rose superior to those of creed. On July 28th,

1558, when the queen, between disappointment and disease, was near her end, “ there were seven men burned in Smithfield, a fearful and a cruel proclamatiou being made that, under pain of present death, no man should either approach nigh unto them, touch

ARCHBISHOP CRANMER.

(Prom a ‘portrait in the Bibliotheque Nationals.)

them, speak to them, or comfort them. Yet were they so comfortably taken by the hand and so goodly comforted, notwithstanding that fearful proclamation and the present threatenings of the sheriffs and sergeants, that the adversaries were astonished. The crowd round the fire shouted “ Amen ” to the martyrs’

prayers, and prayed with them that God would strengthen them.”

Scandalized by these horrors, and yearning for them to end, the nation felt that its sovereign was of a temper alien to its own— rather Spanish or Italian than English. A long poem of that doleful time recites the sufferings of the many martyrs, giving a word or a verse to each, and ends every stanza with “We longed for our Elizabeth.” On November 17th, 1558, Mary died, and England, though not yet queen euzabeth. half converted

from the old ways, welcomed Elizabeth as it had never welcomed her sister. The burnings stopped at once : the prison-doors opened : the exiles came back; and the land drew a long breath of relief, knowing that the changes which had to come would be brought in with a due regard to reason, justice, and decency.

CATHERINE DISCUSSING THEOLOGY WITH HENRY VIII.

ELIZABETH.

Elizabeth was a heroic rather than an attractive personage. Prudent, resolute, and imperious, a “Henry VIII. in petticoats,” she justified the confidence of her subjects, and embodied the national cause, much more than any approved type of feminine character. She was no lover of liberty for its own sake, and had no warm attachment to the doctrines of Luther or of Calvin. The Puritans she always disliked and treated harshly, though they were her firmest supporters. She would have preferred to rule with the high hand as her father had done; but she was well aware that times had changed, aud that the strongest motive she knew, self-interest, bound her tight to the Protestant cause. Why ? For an obvious and most domestic reason. She was the daughter of Anne Boleyn, whom Henry had married (and beheaded) while Katharine, his first wife, was living. Both marriages could not be legal, and therefore either she or her sister Mary was illegitimate and no heir to the throne. The pope had decided for Katharine and Mary : his successors could not if they would, they would not if they could, acknowledge Anne’s marriage or Anne’s daughter: therefore Elizabeth and Rome were mortal foes. On such personal causes often depend the fate of nations and the complexion of churches: and these complications, with a good deal of help from Mary’s too zealous burnings, made England Protestant. The national Church received its character of happy compromise mainly from the •embarrassed position and strong will of the last Tudor monarch.

The nation, which had already experienced much violent jolting from her royal relatives, was willing to be governed as she saw fit. The politic were ready to change again their prayer-books and their principles: court, parliament, and ■convocation were little more than puppets in the hands of so vigorous a queen. The Protestants rejoiced, expecting to have their own way—which they did not get so completely as they expected. Most of the Catholics were used to dealing with the pope at long range or not at all, and content to learn new ways of doctrine and devotion if they were obliged to. A small faction, acknowledging a foreign sway, went abroad or remained at home to engage in deep and dangerous plots against Elizabeth’s throne and life: this fact, and the constant perils to which it exposed her, increased the loyal love of her people, and explain the severities and cruelties to which she was sometimes driven. The deplorable fate of the poet Southwell, and some other events which shock our modem sensibilities, were in part excused by the belief that every secret emissary of the pope carried—as many of them really did—a concealed dagger to aim at the breast of the heretic queen.

In reorganizing the Church, as she speedily did, her trouble was with the clergy in general. Men enough could be found of the sort she wanted for the few bishoprics : but the mass of the parish priests were so ignorant, if not so wedded to the old ways, that they could not be trusted to concoct their own

PARTING OF PATRICK HAMILTON FROM HIS FRIENDS,

sermons. For this reason the Homilies were imposed; they make dreary reading now, and have long ceased to be needed. Edward’s Prayer-Book was revised, and the Articles, which were then considered an important part of it, served as a carefully prepared body of doctrine. With these safeguards to restrain or guide the zeal of certain licensed preachers, the cause and its progress might be trusted to the healing influences of time. Dissent was not then dreamed of, though its materials were accumulating. The established order was fenced in with penalties, though religious killing was happily gone out of fashion. During a long, able, and successful reign, though by no means one of perfect peace and quiet, the Reformation completed its work, and England became Protestant forever. We shall have to see later something of the steps by which tolerance and liberty of conscience won their slow and painful victories.

IN SCOTLAND.

The Scottish Reformation was another affair, and deserves more space than we can give it. Its first martyr, Patrick Hamilton, was a youth of the highest connections, a great-grandson of King James II. At thirteen, after the corrupt fashion of that day, he was made abbot of Feme. While studying abroad, he received the new learning from Erasmus. Accused of heresy at home, he fled to Germany, came under Tyndale’s influence, but soon returned to preach in the rural parts. Cardinal Beaton, the primate of Scotland, enticed him to St. Andrew’s under pretence of a conference, and then treacherously arrested him. He was condemned for “detestable opinions,” and burned February 29th, 1528, being hardly twenty-four years old. As one of the papists expressed it, his “ reek infected as many as it did blow upon.” Eighteen years later George Wishart suffered at the same place. At the stake he predicted the death of the tyrannical archbishop, who was soon after murdered. Wishart's influence had secured to the cause a most important recruit in the person of John Knox, whose fiery sermons, especially after his return from Geneva in 1559, resulted in the speedy destruction of the monasteries, the removal of images and pictures from the churches, and the general overthrow of the old system. On August 1st, 1560, the Parliament, following the popular impulse, threw off the papal yoke and established the reformed religion in its Presbyteriau form. Queen Mary, who returned from France a year later, did her best to undo this work, with only partial success. She tried her fascinations on Knox in vain: enraged by his fierce denunciations, she exclaimed, “ I cannot get quit of you: I vow to God I shall be once revenged !” She had him tried for treason and otherwise harassed; but in 1568 she was a prisoner, and in 1587 her death-warrant was signed by Elizabeth. With Mary Stuart expired the last hope of renewed Romish supremacy in Britain.

IN FRANCE.

E have seen that the revolt against Rome, and? in good degree the doctrines of Luther and Calvin, were anticipated in the south of France, three hundred years before, by the: Cathari and Waldenses. Savagely persecuted and driven from one hiding-place to another, these sects were never wholly extirpated. Soon after the Albigensian wars a colony of Vaudois, finding their lot intolerable- in Piedmont, had fled across the border and settled between Nice and Avignon. Their descendants, very early in the sixteenth century, were reported to Louis- XII. as heretics. He ordered an investigation, and as its result directed the- accusations to be thrown into the river, and said, “These people are much better Christians than I am.” A little later they sent delegates to confer with the German and Swiss Reformers, and raised fifteen hundred crowns to print the first. French version of the Bible.

Meantime a doctrinal reform had begun at the other end of France with. Jacques Faber, or Lefevre, who in 1512 put forth a Latin commentary on St. Paul’s epistles. He was afterwards forced to take refuge in the south, at the- court of Navarre, while Farel and other learned men of similar views found it. best to leave a country in which they were not safe. The cause was thus left, in the hands of the poor and humble. Bernard Palissy, famous for discovering and perfecting the process of enameling pottery, and afterwards a sufferer for his faith, tells thus of his own efforts at Saintes, near the west coast, which were like those of many :

“There was in this town a certain artisan, marvelously poor, who had so- great a desire for the advancement of the gospel that he explained it day by day to another as needy as himself, and with as little learning—for they both knew scarcely anything. Yet the first urged upon the other that if he would occupy himself in making some kind of exhortation, it might do much good. Thus persuaded, one Sunday morning he collected nine or ten persons, and read to them.

(337)

some passages from the Old and New Testaments, which he had written down. These he explained, and added that as each had received from God, he ought to distribute to others. They agreed that six of them should speak thus, on successive Sundays. That was the beginning of the reformed church at Saintes.” As Dr. Hanna has shown, in his sketch of the Huguenot wars, France was then in a condition different from other countries, and peculiarly unfavorable to

the Reforma-

Church was not groaning there under the same bondage that elsewhere oppressed her; she had already fought for and so far achieved her independence that no foreign priests were intruded into her highest offices, nor were ^ ^^{er reVellUeS} \‘liable to be di- if\IV^vertec^ ^{at t}^^e ¹ p°p^e’^{s int}° \ I \ " ' Italian channels.

^^ Philip the Fair

had two centu- ^ VjfiBMlMfe ries before eman- K 1^: B| | cipated the mon-

^ ^Neitier V^B(BKr Church nor state • f **!. : •________________ had in France tlie

huouenot peasant at home. same grounds of

quarrel with

Rome which they had in other lands. There was less material there for the Reformers to work upon. With little to attract either king or clergy, the Reformation had in its first aspects everything to repel them. The Church saw in it a denial of her authority, a repudiation of her doctrine, a simplification of her worship, an

overturn of her proud and ambitious hierarchy. The royal power was in conflict with two enemies—the feudal independence of the nobles, which it wished, to destroy, and the growing freedom of the great cities, which it wished to curb. To both these enemies of the crown, the Reformation, itself a child of liberty, promised to lend aid. Absolutism on the throne looked on it with jealousy and dread. Alone and unbefriended, it had from the beginning to confront in France bitter persecution, a persecution instigated at first by the clergy alone, afterwards by the clergy and the monarch acting in willing concert.”

FRANCIS I.

Francis I., the most popular sovereign in Europe, who ruled from 15x5 to 1547, was for some time indifferent to the spread of heresy in his dominions.

He invited not only Erasmus but Melanchthon to his court, and applauded a play in which the pope and his cardinals were ridiculed. He patronized Lefevre, and twice saved Louis de Berquin, who by his books had roused the wrath of the orthodox Parliament, and who at last, in 1529, was seized and hastily executed in

Francis’ absence, “lest ~ francis i.

recourse should be had to the king.” His sister, Margaret of Valois, had much influence over him; she favored the new doctrines, and he sharply

resented reflections made upon her by monks, preachers, and the theologians of the Sorbonne. But in after years he came to believe, what there were plenty to assure him of, that “Lutherans” were dangerous to the government, and that nothing but harm could come of tolerating them. After he had married his son to the pope’s niece, he announced that France should have but one king, one law, and one faith. But his first severities were provoked by the foolish action of an enthusiast who, in the early morning of October 18th, 1534, covered the walls of Paris with placards reflecting in offensive terms on the “intolerable abuses of the popish mass.” One of these was placed at the door of the king’s chamber in the castle of Amboise. Always jealous of his dignity, Francis was very angry, and his wrath involved the innocent with the guilty. Many now suffered by the “estrapades,” a horrible device presently used to strike terror to the heart of heresy.

THE ESTRAPADES.

In the morning of January 21st, 1535, all Paris was agog to see a very splendid procession, surpassing anything ever known before. In front marched priests bearing little chests which contained the most precious relics—the head of the spear which pierced the side of Christ; the crown of thorns ; a piece of the true cross ; the skull of St. Louis, aud many more. Next came a multitude of clergy of every rank, from cardinals and archbishops down, all in their richest robes. The king walked bareheaded, holding a huge wax candle, and was followed by princes, nobles, ambassadors, the parliament, the court, the ministers of state. The procession halted at six places, which offered the chief attractions of the day. At each of them stood an altar with its decorations, and beside it— instead of children dressed to represent angels, as usual—a pile of blazing vood, with an estrapade above, and a Protestant fastened in it. By this fiendish contrivance the victim was alternately lowered into the fire and hoisted out of it. The affair was so ordered that when the king stopped before the altar and knelt in prayer, the fastenings should give way and the poor sufferer be dropped into the fire and left there, the royal devotions keeping time to the victim’s agonies. In this same month Francis attempted to abolish the use of the printing press— a measure which should have been taken by all persecutors.

The estrapades produced an effect not only in Paris, but in foreign lands. The Lutheran princes of Germany sent letters or messages of remonstrance to the king, who replied that he had only been punishing “ certain rebels who wished to trouble the state under the pretext of religion.” Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” which appeared six months later, was dedicated to Francis, and aimed “to relieve the brethren from an unjust accusation,” and to be the means of “opening to them a shelter” in other lands. The author was then but twenty-six, and had already left France, to settle, after a year or two of wandering, as theological professor in Geneva. His influence soon became

JOHN CALVIN.

dominant, not only in Switzerland, but among the friends of reform in France. His books were read by peasants and nobles alike, and gave definite dogmatic character to the movement.

SLAUGHTERS IN PROVENCE.

For the next ten years there was not much persecution; but in 1545 a hideous crusade was directed against the Vaudois of Provence (already mentioned) in the southeast corner of France. The Parliament of Aix had decreed that “the villages of Merindol, Cabrieres, and Les Aigues, and all other places that were the retreat and receptacle of heretics, should be destroyed ; the houses razed to the ground, the forest trees cut down, the fruit trees torn up by the roots, the chief men put to death, and the women and children banished forever.” In this typical sentence the character and the effects of bigotry are well set forth : the fury of anti- heretical zeal raged alike against human life, intelligence, industry, and the very fertility of the ground. What mattered it that a colony of peaceful and laborious farmers had caused the desert to rejoice aud blossom? Turn it into a wilderness again: let no habitation henry 11. . . stand, no crops grow, with

out the Church’s blessing. Such was the spirit of 1545.

After some hesitation the king assented to this infamous decree, and D’Op- pide, a nobleman, was sent with six hired regiments of cutthroats to kill and

ir.

burn. They carried out their instructions even beyond the letter. One or two* villages were taken by surprise and mercy shown to none; the others were mostly deserted. In Merindol only an idiot remained ; he was tied to a tree and. shot Cabrieres was defended for a day by sixty men, who surrendered on promise of safety, and were at once massacred. Thirty women, who had stayed with, their husbands, were driven into a barn and burned there; when any tried to- escape, they were pushed back by the soldiers’ pikes. Twenty-two towns and hamlets were destroyed, with every vestige of civilization. But few of the inhabitants escaped across the border. A number, perishing in the hills, begged to be allowed to leave the country with only the clothes they wore. The ruthless commander refused. “I know what I have to do with you,” he said: “I will send every one of you to hell, and make such havoc of you that your memory will be cut off forever.” Two hundred and fifty were put to death in a batch. Six hundred of the strongest young men were sent to the galleys, and. one-third of these died within a few weeks.

HENRY IL

The king, who was not without human feelings, was displeased with these- severeties. An inquiry was begun some Henry II. succeeded his father in 1547. afterwards too famous; but he was governed by his mistress, Diana of Poitiers, a woman old enough to be his mother.

She and his favorite Montmorency alike hated the Reformation, and the consequences of this hatred were soon manifest In January, 1551, a new law was made, reviving the old one which condemned all heretics to death, and adding several unusually sharp provisions. Both the state courts and those of the Church received full power to act, so that one might catch what the other missed. Those who owned or brought in books of the Reformers were liable to heavy penalties.

All property of refugees was to be confiscated. The informer was to receive one-third of the goods of these people.

Sentences were to be carried out speedily and without appeal.

Another edict, introducing the Inquisition, was less successful. The Parliament withheld its assent, and its president was bold enough to use these noble

years after, but nothing came of it His wife was Catherine de Medici,,

K'"' N hi

CATHERINE DE MEDICI, IN YOUTH.

■words: “Since these punishments on account of religion have failed, it seems to ms conformable to the rules of equity and right reason to follow here the footsteps of the early Church, which never employed fire and sword to establish or ■extend itself, but a pure doctrine and an exemplary life. We think, therefore, that your majesty should seek to preserve religion only by the means by which it was first established.” This was certainly not the teaching of Rome, nor the

. . . ' •

burning of protestants in paris. foreign intervention.

On April 3d, 1559, a treaty was signed between France and Spain, which bound Henry to imitate the furious course of Philip II. Nine days later the king sent letters to the various provinces, saying, “I desire nothing more than the total extermination of this sect—to cut its roots up so completely that jiew ones may never be formed. Have no pity then, but punish them as

they deserve.” Yet, a month after, the reformed churches held their first national synod in Paris.

An unduly lenient sentence, condemning four persons to exile only instead of death, caused a suspicion of unsoundness in one section of the Parliament of Paris. The cardinal of Lorraine, after the manner of such dignitaries, urged Henry to invite certain senators to a conference, encourage them to speak ■out freely, and then, by a little useful treachery, arrest and punish them on evidence of their own supplying. “ The burning of a few heretic members of Parliament,” he remarked, “ will be a pleasant spectacle to the Duke of Alva and •other Spanish grandees, who are now in Paris.” This advice was followed, and several fell into the trap set for them. Du Bourg went so far as to say, “One sees every day crimes left unpunished, while those who have done no wrong are dragged to the stake. It is no light thing to condemn to the flames those who in the midst of them invoke Christ’s name.” He and four others were sent to the Bastile. But Henry was not to see their execution. In a tournament the lance of a Scottish knight entered his brain, and he died July 10th, 1559, to be succeeded by a child.

THE GREAT FAMILIES.

To understand the confused events which follow, we must pause to explain the condition of France at this juncture, and to introduce some of its chief personages. The house of Valois was on the throne; the next heirs were the Bourbons, a name soon to become famous. They were descended from the sixth son of Louis IX.; Antony, the head of the family, by marrying a niece of Francis I., had become king of Navarre. He had called himself a Protestant, but the threats and promises of Philip II. induced him to return to the Roman communion. His brother, Louis Prince of Conde, was a stronger character, and more useful to the cause of reform.

The new doctrines, as we have seen, gained their earliest converts in the working classes. “ Painters, watchmakers, goldsmiths, printers, and others who, from their callings, have some mental superiority,” says a writer of the other party, ‘‘were among the first taken in.” The accession of the great lords changed the face of things, and caused the movement to become no less political than religious. Under a strong monarch like Francis I. the nobles were kept in their places; but during the feeble reign of Henry II. corruption came in like a flood, the royal authority was despised, and occasion given for personal jealousies and ambitions which, not less than opposing principles, were soon to fill the realm with disorder, violence, and bloodshed.

The chief rivalry was between the Bourbons and the Guises. The latter house was founded by Claude of Lorraine, who was made Duke of Guise and married his daughter to James V. of Scotland. He had six sons, all eager supporters of Rome ; the two eldest played leading parts in the history of the time:

Francis, second Duke of Guise, was an able soldier and a fierce bigot. His brother Charles, cardinal of Lorraine, though a coward, was an accomplished scholar,: courtier, and intriguer. One bold, the other subtle, and both grasping, these men became for a time the power behind the throne ; they were close allies of Philip II., leaders of the papal party, and foremost in persecution.

On the other side, with Conde and others, were the three sons of the Marquis of Chatillon and nephews of the Constable Montmorency. The eldest had been made a cardinal at sixteen ; the second, Coligny, in 1556 became Admiral of France, an office next to that of Constable. He and his younger brother D’Andelot were men of grave and earnest character ; both, as soldiers, had been prisoners of war. In the tedium of confinement both had made acquaintance

with the Scriptures and some works of the Reformers; as a consequence, both, with their brother the cardinal, embraced the Protestant cause.

The versified psalms of Clement Marot were to France what those of Stemhold and Hopkins were to England, and those of Rous, a century later, to Scotland—and perhaps somewhat more tunable than either. They were much sung in the streets of Paris, and the fact alarmed the clergy. D’Andelot was accused of taking part in these exercises, of protecting ministers of the new faith, and of keeping some of their books. The king sent for him and asked ^ him what he thought of the mass. With

coNDfe. more frankness than prudence or politeness,

he called it “a detestable profanation.” Henry accused him of ingratitude, and said, “I have given you honors and promotion. You are my servant; you are bound to follow my religion.” D’Andelot replied that his person and property were the king’s, but his conscience was his own. Enraged, the monarch caught up the first object at hand, flung it at his head, and placed him in confinement.. The dignitaries of the Church would have made an example of him; but his. friends were too powerful, and the times were not yet quite ripe for the burning of a prominent nobleman. He was released on the simple condition of witnessing a mass in which he took no part. Even for this moderate compliance he was blamed by Calvin and other severe religionists.

FRANCIS 11.

Francis II., who came to the throne in 1559, was a boy of fifteen, married the year before to Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland, claimant of the English

f. Vj

'XHit OI«n«tlinIpunp brr t)otDQroyl;114»rn &r[(Q)<ba[i ip Shilm

A UDY OF AMBOISE.

throne, and niece of the Guises. While the Bourbons and Chatillons were at a -■distance, her uncles were at hand, and took charge of her whole administration. The nobles of older creation and prior rights, including the great Protestant princes, were indignant at this intrusion of men whom they considered parvenus. They met at Vendome ; Cond£ and D’Andelot were for war at once, but Coligny -and the cooler heads restrained them. It was agreed that the king of Navarre, as their natural chief and nearest to the throne, should go to Paris and claim his rights. But his weakness was no match for Guise and the cardinal, who soon scared him into submission with threats from their ally, Philip II., to invade so much of Navarre as had not been previously seized by Spain.

The new government soon showed its temper. Du Bourg, the judge of Parliament arrested some months before, was refused a trial by his peers, enclosed in an iron cage, and burned December 23d. His rank, his character, his confession, "his bearing in confinement, on his pretended trial, and at the stake, placed him Tiigh on the roll of French martyrs. His execution, as a papist said, “did more harm than a hundred ministers could have done by all their preaching.”

Even apart from this example, the sixteen-months’ reign of the boy-king, ■or rather of the Guises in his name, was the most terrible period France had known. The edict of 1551 was revived in all its force, with new provisions .against the lives of those who attended any private religious meeting, or knew -of such and did not report them. Large rewards were offered to informers: Cham.bres Ardentes or courts of burning were founded to make way with Huge- nots : some of the methods of the Spanish Inquisition, though happily not its forms, were introduced. “In Paris, Bordeaux, Lyons, Grenoble, Dijon, and other •cities where the Calvinists abounded, private houses were broken into upon the slightest suspicion, and whole families hurried to prison; espionage, pillage, confiscations, exectitions, multiplied day by day.”

Such proceedings, in a civilized land and age, against so large a faction, with some of the chief men of France at its head, were not long to be tamely borne. Eminent theologians and jurists of the new views, at home, in Switzerland, and in Germany, were asked “whether, provided no violence were offered to the king and the lawful magistrates, men might with a good conscience take up arms for the safety and liberty of the country, seize Francis of Guise ,and his brother the cardinal, and compel them to resign their usurped authority.” •Calvin, who always taught non-resistance, answered in the negative; but others counseled revolt, if sanctioned by a prince of the royal blood and by most of the states of France.

The inquirers attached less weight to the second condition than to the first. Navarre was of no use; his brother Conde, the case being put before him, said that he did not wish to begin a civil war, but if any one else would give the rising a fair start, he would then place himself at its head.

RENAUDIT’S CONSPIRACY.

Renaudit, a man of good family, undertook the task. After vainly seeking aid from Elizabeth of England, who was too prudent to interfere, he carried out his mission with great diligence and entire secrecy at home, visiting the leading malcontents and stirring up their zeal. A meeting was held at Nantes, February ist, 1560, attended by many gentlemen of position and estate, though by none of the chief nobles. All agreed to meet in arms at Blois on March 10th, state their grievances to the king, and if he refused redress, to seize the two Guises and call upon CondS, who was to be at hand.

The plans were carefully laid and promised well; but when many are parties to a conspiracy, all are seldom to be trusted. A Calvinist lawyer in Paris,,

CHATEAU AM BOISE.

The scene of dark events in Huguenot history.

in whom Renaudit was obliged to confide, was base enough to send the news to the cardinal. Guise at once removed the court from Blois to Amboise, which had a strong castle, and summoned Conde, Coligny, and D’Andelot. They came, and Coligny, being asked for advice, said that the way to stop revolt was to grant liberty of worship. Renaudit, unwilling to give up his plans, simply postponed the attack six days, and notified his friends of the change of date and place. But he was again betrayed. Guise, who learned his intentions in detail, prepared to meet them; he was defeated, killed in the fight, and his body, according to

the statute against traitors, hung and quartered, and its parts exposed with his head in public places of the town. The other conspirators, being met by forces greater than they expected, were slain or taken, and this first rising came to naught.

EXECUTIONS AT AMBOISE.

It was bitterly avenged. Within the next month twelve hundred men were hanged, drowned, or beheaded in the small city of Amboise. There was not room enough for so many gibbets, so they hung the victims from the castle walls. The duke of Guise was at table, when a messenger from another great noble came to ask after his health. “Tell your master that I am well,” he said, “and report to him the kind of viands I am regaling myself with.” As he spoke he pointed to the window, where a man of lofty stature and fine appearance was then dangling from the bars.

This brutality was not confined to the commander, nor to the sterner sex. Every day, at a fixed hour, the ladies of the court, arrayed as for a ball, seated themselves at the windows to enjoy the hangings and beheadings which were conducted there for the entertainment of the fair. Among them, and in the place of honor, was the queen, Mary Stuart, then little past seventeen. Reared in this school of tigers, it is no wonder that on her return to her own realm she agreed but poorly with the grim Calvinists of Scotland, and that they had little love for her.

Her child-husband, a year younger than she, and feeble in body and in mind, was of a less savage temper. It is on record that he once burst into tears and said to his uncles, “What have I done to my people, that they hate me so? I would like to hear what they have to say. I don’t know how it is, but I am told it is you the people are so angry at. I wish you would go away, that I might learn whether they complain of you or of me.” The Guises answered, “If we were to leave you, the Bourbons would soon make an end of us.” Unscrupulous devotion to the interests of their family was indeed a ruliug motive with these men ; but they—or at least the duke—had another nearly as strong, in fanatical attachment to the Church of Rome. As for religion, in the modem sense of the word, it is not uncharitable to assume that they knew very little of it. Both were for blood, but that was a soldier’s trade. The duke was fearless, and not without a sense of honor: the cardinal, while always counseling extremes, took great care of his own safety. Anxious that the ladies might miss none of the sport, he would sit with them at the windows, explaining details of the executions, making jests upou them, and commenting on the impudent obstinacy of the victims.

Sixteen men of rank, leaders in the insurrection, had surrendered on promise of safety—a promise it was not thought necessary to keep. At his trial, the Baron of Castelnau showed such knowledge and ability that the chancellor,

THE HANGINGS AT AMBOISE.

Olivier, inquired with a sneer at what school of theology he had studied. He answered by another question : “ Do you not remember asking me, when I came back from Flanders, how I had passed my time in my imprisonment there ? I told you I had been reading the Bible. You approved my studies, advised me to attend the assemblies of the Reformed, and expressed a wish that all the nobles of France had chosen the better part like me.” Olivier had no more to say, and the cardinal took up the debate, to be presently worsted. “ You see,” said Castelnau to the duke, “we have the better reasons.” “I know nothing of arguments,” the man of blood and iron replied, “but I know how to cut off heads.”

In a vain effort to elicit confessions, the sixteen were put to the torture: they all declared they had risen against the Guises, not against the king. When they were condemned for treason, Castelnau scornfully exclaimed, “ So the Guises are kings of France, then ? They have violated our laws and liberties: if it be treason to resist them, proclaim them kings at once.”

Mary Stuart and the court were at the windows as usual, to enjoy the beheadings, which for their accommodation took place close by. Castelnau said his last prayer and died like a man. Another, Villenorgue, dipped his hands in the blood of his friends, raised them aloft, and cried, “Lord, it is the blood of Thy children unjustly slain : Thou wilt avenge it! ” At this one of the ladies ran shrieking from the room : it was the Duchess of Guise. “ I have seen the blood of the innocent flowing,” she wailed : “ I fear that cry for vengeance will fall heavy on our house.” Olivier, the chancellor, took to his bed. The cardinal came to see him. “You have damned yourself and all of us,” the remorseful man cried. Two days later he was dead.

MAKY STDART.

CHAPTER XXIV.

WORDS AND BLOWS.

from repressing the movement toward liberty* the severities at Amboise aroused a fury of resentment, and the numbers .of the Protestants grew daily. From this time they began to be called Huguenots, a name of obscure and doubtful origin, applied at first by their enemies in reproach or ridicule. As the stench of the unburied bodies drove the court from Amboise, so the savor of' those evil deeds spread through the land, and the: Guises found themselves obliged to temporize.. An assembly of notables was convoked at Fontainebleau August 21st, 1560. The Bourbons were not present, but the Chatillons were, with, eight hundred of their party. Coligny offered a petition from the Protestants of Normandy, protesting their loyalty and offering to pay double taxes if they could have their own places of worship and use them undisturbed. It was objected to as having no signatures. “ For obvious reasons,’^y said the admiral; “but fifty thousand can be had in a few days.” The Duke of Guise answered in his own spirit: “And I can as easily get a million good Catholics to lead against these fellows,,and break their heads.” But the tide was too strong to be thus checked, and even the cardinal found, it best to counsel milder measures. No mercy- should be shown to rebels or traitors, he said, and for the king to allow heretical conventicles would', be to insure his own damnation; but “ as to those poor fanatics who, without arms and for fear of’ being damned, went to their preachings and psalm-

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singings and things of that sort, since punishment had as yet accomplished -nothing, he was of opinion that the king should no longer pursue them in that •way.” It was agreed that the States-General should meet at Meaux December

ROCK OF CAYLUS, AN OLD HUGUENOT FORTRESS.

:10th, and a national council, for a possible reformation of the Church, at Paris January 20th. As to the last, the cardinal with an air of great fairness said that

lie saw little need of it, but would not oppose it. He was a cunning knave, and could preacb almost in tbe strain of a reformer on occasion.

Meantime tbe Prince of Conde was under grave suspicion as the secret leader of the late rising, and the almost certain head of others that were to come. While he was with the court at Amboise, the cardinal had wished to have him arrested and tried ; and he, hearing these rumors, had boldly demanded audience of the king, denounced his accusers, whoever they might be, as liars, and flung down his gauntlet in challenge to any such. The Duke of Guise, with whatever motive, had offered to be Conde’s second. Nothing more was done just then; but after the assembly in August, the cardinal, whose moderate talk was a mere blind, devised what he called a “ rat-trap.” The States-General were to meet at Orleans, a fortified city, instead of Meaux. Large forces were collected there, with troops from Spain and Savoy. The king was to present a Confession of Faith such as no Protestant could honestly sign ; this was to be passed and made a law of France. The precious document was then to be carried about the country, and every adult who declined to place his name to it was to be put to death at once.

PLOT AGAINST THE BOURBONS.

To make this fine plan the more secure, the two Bourbons, as the most dangerous men in the kingdom, were to be got rid of beforehand. Working in the dark, the cardinal had probably gathered evidence enough against Conde ; as for Antony, he, though a king, was of less consequence, and could easily be attended to. They were summoned to Orleans. Trusting too much to their great name and their royal descent, they went. At Limoges they were met by over seven hundred Huguenots of rank, who urged them to head an insurrection, and promised to raise a force of sixteen thousand speedily. Conde would have done it, but Navarre was still unwilling, to appear in arms against the throne. Then the prince was entreated to remain with his friends ; but he was too high- minded to let his brother go on alone.

Disregarding all warnings and declining an offered escort, they went to what was meant to be their doom. “As they approached Orleans, a vague terror came over them. No one came out to meet them. They found the city crowded with military. Between two files of soldiers, drawn up as if to guard them as prisoners by the way, they reached the house in which the king was lodged. Its main entrance they found closed; they had to pass in by the wicket. As soon as they were in his presence, the king proceeded to accuse Conde of treasonable designs upon his person and crown. The dauntless prince flung back the charge upon his accusers. “In that case,” said Francis, “we shall proceed according to the ordinary forms of justice.” Conde found himself a prisoner, closely guarded, and soon condemned. His haughty spirit disdained to bend. He refused to receive a priest who came to celebrate the mass, and said to one who urged his

submission to the all-powerful uncles of the queen, “ My only way of settling with them is at the lance’s point.”

NARROW ESCAPE OF NAVARRE AND CONDE.

Antony had been allowed to go, and his remonstrances were treated with contempt. Bearing a king’s title, he could not be arrested like his brother, or

executed as his brother was to be. So the Guises, who had their pupil thoroughly under control, devised a plan—the cardinal’s finger in it is plain—to attain their end without public scandal. Navarre was to be invited to the cabinet of Francis, who was then to pretend to be angry and draw his dagger on the visitor: the attendants,, watchful of their monarch’s safety, were then to finish the work. Such methods, long used in the politics of Italy, were now familiar throughout Europe, especially where the intrigues and interests of Philip II. extended. This shepherd girl of the Pyrenees. most zealous Cath

olic had a deep and active interest in French affairs, and what he could not teach in the way of lying, trickery, and murder was not worth learning.

COUGNY AT THE DEATH-BED OF FRANCIS II.

Navarre had warning of the plot against his life, and neglected a first summons from Francis. Another came, and he obeyed. As he placed his foot upon the steps, a friendly voice whispered, “ Mount not, sire: you go to perish.” He turned to his attendant and said, “ I go into a place where I know they have sworn my death; but my life shall be dearly sold.” But the intended tragedy was not enacted. The visitor bore himself too royally, and the boy-king was not equal to his part. Guise stood in the antechamber, his hand on his sword- hilt, waiting to hear raised voices and the sound of a blow; but he was disappointed As Navarre passed out untouched, the duke muttered, “The baby, the coward ! He has let the prey go.”

Conde’shead was to fall December ioth, just before the States-General met; but he was saved by what seemed an interposition of Providence. On November 17th the king was taken ill. The Guises literally moved heaven and earth to prolong his life: the duke swore at the doctors, the cardinal had prayers said, masses sung, and processions moving, everywhere. They begged the dowager-queen, Catherine de Medicis, to agree to anticipate Conde’s sentence, if not to execute both the Bourbons ; but she had her own ends in view, and refused to interfere. The dying Francis sought at first to purchase a reprieve by vows such as his directors recommended: he would not spare “ mothers, infants, wives, any who bore the taint of even the suspicion of heresy.” Finding this useless, he put up a wiser and more Christian prayer. “ Pardon my sins, and impute not to me those of my ministers.” He died December 5th, and his death was as useful as his reign had been pernicious. It changed the situation completely, and relieved France, for the time at least, from outrageous and intolerable oppression.

CHARLES IX. AND HIS MOTHER.

The States-General met December 13th, and sat till the end of January. They found the finances in a terrible condition, which they proposed to relieve by using the Church’s wealth. They urged various reforms, including free permission of the Reformed worship, and put on record their conviction that another year of persecution would ruin the country. The new king, Charles IX., being a child of ten years, they would have made Navarre regent, as next to the reigning family in blood; but he had allowed himself to be set aside, and Catherine de Medicis installed

This woman, who for the next twenty years was one of the leading powers of Europe, had a curious history and a no less curious character. A pope’s niece, and married in youth to a king’s eldest son, for more than twenty yearns she was apparently content to be a cipher and to see her husband ruled by an elderly mistress. Through all those years she was gathering knowledge and biding her time: that time had come at last. Greed of the power of which she had been so long bereft was her ruling motive. She cared for her sons chiefly

for what she might get by them, and used them as tools toward the attainment, of her purposes. In politics and religion she wavered and swayed between the parties, having neither heart nor principle to bind her to either, and ready to deceive both in turn. She gained the regency by persuading Coligny and D’Andelot that she was a friend to reform, and then promised the clergy to support the Church, in return for their assuming a large share of the national debt.

The estates insisted on a council, or colloquy as it was called, between tlie ministers of both opinions. The news of this disturbed the pope, and Catherine, who had not then chosen a side, and was trying to steer a middle course, wrote

MOUNT ST. MICHEL.

to him to explain it. “The numbers of those who have separated from the. Church of Rome,” she declared, “are so great, the party has become so poweful through the multitude of nobles and magistrates who have joined it, that it is, formidable in all parts of the kingdom. But among them are no libertines, anabaptists, nor holders of any opinions regarded as monstrous ; all admit the twelve- articles of the Apostles’ Creed as explained by the seven oecumenical councils.. On this account, many zealous Catholics think that they ought not to be cut off from the communion of the Church.” She went on to say that “frequent.

conferences between the learned on either side ” was the best way to recall ■dissenters, and that to keep others from leaving it was necessary to remove abuses and scandals, such as image-worship, private masses, communion in one kind, and the use of Latin in the churches. One is almost forced to believe that this amazing letter was written for Huguenot eyes, and that she sent another privately to the pope to explain her explanation.

COLLOQUY OF POISSY.

The colloquy began at Poissy September 8th, 1561. The regent, the king, and their court were present, with a great array of clergy. After the proceedings were opened, twelve Protestant ministers were admitted. At their head, sent to represent Calvin, was Beza, one of the ablest theologians of that school. He •offered prayer, and then began to state and defend their doctrines. It was the first opportunity of the kind the Huguenots had enjoyed, and may be compared to the council of Basle, where the Hussite leaders discussed their faith with dignitaries of the old Church. But the two parties were not here on equal terms, and the priests had small idea of pure debate; for when Beza said that Christ’s real body and blood were as far from the bread and wine as heaven from earth, cries of “blasphemy ” arose, and some wished to leave the assembly. The Cardinal of Lorraine took a week to prepare his answer, which convinced all those who already held to its two points, the Church’s authority and the real presence •of Christ in the consecrated elements. The bishops cried out that the advocate? of reform were vanquished and must submit. Beza wished to reply at once, but the meeting was adjourned. The pope’s emissaries now urged, rightly enough from their standpoint, that such public discussions would do more harm than .good, and that if the debates were carried further, it had better be on a much smaller scale. Thus no more definite result was reached than on any similar occasion, when each side is perfectly satisfied at the start that it has the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. A few efforts, honest or pretended, were made to draw up a formula on which both could agree, but nothing came of these.

At more than one crisis in history, laymen have grasped the idea of toleration when divines have missed it. De l’H&pital, who had succeeded Olivier as chancellor of France, when opening the States-General in 1560, had called it folly to expect differing religions to dwell together in peace. But the progress of events had taught him something. At a meeting of notables and deputies in the first days of 1562, he used some remarkable language. For a king to lead one religious party of his subjects against another, he said, would be “unworthy not only of Christianity, but of humanity. Whichever side gaiued, the victory would be as sad for the conquerors as for the conquered. A moral evil will never yield to mere physical remedies. Do not waste your time in inquiring

HCGDENOTS DESTROYING THE IMAGES.

which of the two religions is the better. We are here not to establish a dogma of faith, but to regulate an affair of state. Ought the new religion to be tolerated, according to the demand of the nobles and the Third Estate ? Must one cease to be a good subject when he ceases to worship after the king’s fashion? Is it not possible to be a good enough subject without being a good Catholic, or even a good Christian ? Cannot citizens of different beliefs live in harmony in the same state ? These are the questions you are called on to decide.”

It being an assemblage of laymen and not of priests, the far-seeing orator carried his point, though against much opposition. On January 17th, 1562, an edict of toleration was passed. Under certain restrictions, the chief of which excluded them from the limits of the cities, the Protestants were allowed to hold their own assemblies, and recognized and protected by the law. ’

CONFERENCE OF SAVERNE.

But the fires of religious strife were not so soon to be extinguished. The Huguenots had committed some imprudent and violent acts, seizing a few churches, destroying the images aud whateyer seemed to them to savor of idolatry. The Guises and their friends, on the other hand, were not to be reconciled to toleration. ■ Born intriguer as he was, the cardinal had already devised a scheme to cut off his enemies from any foreign aid in the wars which he foresaw, and to put them in a false light before their natural allies, the Lutheran princes of Germany. At the colloquy of Poissy, he had tried to entrap Beza and the others into a refusal to sign certain articles from the Augsburg Confession which were unlikely to satisfy Calvinists : but Beza had prudently answered that he and his friends would consider these if the bishops signed them first. Foiled in this effort, the wily prelate reflected on the usefulness of lies when truth was not at command, and proceeded to instruct his brother iu a part to be carried in the scheme. They then invited Christopher, Duke of Wiirtemberg, to a conference at Saveme. He came in February, 1562, bringing his ablest theologians. The cardinal preached two sermons in which these could find nothing to object to; the rough duke, saying that he was a man of war and knew little of such matters, opened doctrinal topics, and seemed to agree heartily with his new instructors. Next morning early he awoke his guest to say, “I could not sleep for thinking of our conversation. I told my brother some of it, and he wants to talk with you and Brentius.” Christopher was pleased, of course. After listening to a long exposition of Lutheran doctrine, the cardinal swore by all that was holy that he agreed with every word of it. His Church had gone too far about the Real Presence. Melanchthon and the rest were quite right; but he could not tell all he knew at home on account of the weaker brethren. Delighted, the Germans urged him to work for a pure gospel and religious peace and unity. “I will,” said he: “I mean to. But those pig-headed Calvinists are

hard to manage. If they would only have accepted the Augsburg Confession as a basis, I could have got the bishops to sign it.” Thus he talked till the honest Wiirtemberger went home satisfied that the cardinal and his brother were sound in the faith, and that the Huguenots were dangerous and impracticable people. And thus the wretched gulf was deepened between Calvinists and Lutherans, so that the German princes would hardly ever help their brethren across the French or Dutch border, regarding them as of an alien sect, nearly or quite as far from the truth as Rome. If Protestants had been united, the area of Protestantism in western and central Europe would to-day be far larger than it is.

MASSACRE AT VASSY.

The duke and the cardinal also turned homeward, chuckling over their easy victory. They stopped at Joinville to visit their mother, who was a Bourbon, though no friend of Navarre and Conde. She complained of a Reformed conventicle that had risen at Vassy : it was nine miles away, but even the rumor of so much plebeian psalm-singing shocked her Catholic and aristocratic nerves. On the morning of Sunday, March 1, her sons, with a large retinue, were riding toward Paris, when they heard bells ringing. “What is that for?” they asked. “The Huguenot service,” they were told. The duke became furious. “We will Huguenot them,” he cried. “March ! We must take a part in that meeting.” The humble worshippers were gathered in a large barn, and their minister had begun his sermon, when Guise and his men rushed in, using their weapons freely. Some of the congregation tried to escape by the roof, and were picked off from outside: one man boasted that he had “brought down half a dozen of those pigeons.” Sixty were killed outright, over two hundred wounded. The minister, his head and shoulder bleeding from sabre strokes, was dragged before the duke, who called him a seducer, a teacher of sedition, the cause of all this bloodshed—it was the sheep biting the wolves again—and ordered him to be hanged at once ; but the order was not carried out.

If the cardinal took no part in this butchery, he did nothing to hinder it. He was resting outside, when his brother brought him the pulpit Bible, saying, “Here, look at one of their cursed books.” The churchman, who had all the learning of his family, ran his eye over the title. “ Why, there is no great harm in that: it is the Bible.” “The Bible!” the duke roared. “Isn’t it fifteen hundred years since Christ died ? And that book was only made last year : look at the date. Call that thing the Bible! ” The cardinal said carelessly to a bystander, “My brother is in error.” The duke sent for the judge of the dis^ trict: “ Why have you allowed this sedition-shop ? ” The magistrate referred to the edict of January 17th, six weeks before. “It is a damnable edict!” Guise cried: “this sword shall cut it to pieces! ” In fact, he had already done so.

CHRISTOPHER, DUKE OP WURTEMBERfi, EXPOUNDING THE LUTHERAN DOCTRINE TO THE DUKE OF GUISE AND CARDINAL, LORRAINE.

The news of this massacre spread everywhere, and excited varying feelings. When the Duke of Wiirtemberg heard it, his confidence in the sound Christian character and peaceful temper of the Guises was perhaps modified ; but he may have thought that the Huguenots of Vassy had deserved their fate for being unwilling to subscribe to the Augsburg Confession. Almost everywhere points of creed were still valued above human lives.

The French Protestants, being the injured party, felt much as we would in such a case—except that we might leave vengeance to the law, whereas their laws were mainly with the strong arm. Pictures of the outrage, widely circulated, helped to rouse their fury. Equally natural, though harder for us to comprehend, was the exultant and fiendish joy of the old party. Though Guise afterwards insisted that what he did at Vassy was the result of a sudden impulse and not of a preconceived plan, he had rightly calculated on the support of half France. He now approached Paris like au ancient emperor returning from glorious victories. “His entry into the city was a triumphal ovation. On his right hand rode the Marshal St. Andre, on his left the constable; more than twelve hundred noblemen and gentlemen followed in his train. The mayor of the city met him at the gate of St. Denis, and presented him with a congratulatory address. The assembled multitudes rent the skies with their acclamations, hailing him as the champion of the faith ”

The regent, offended at this bold law-breaker, summoned him to Monceaux, where the court then was ; but he would not go. Deputies of the Reformed hastened there to ask her protection. They showed her a list of over two thousand congregations, and said they could raise fifty thousand men. Still in doubt which side to take, but justly dreading the Guises most, she invited Conde to Fontainebleau, and would have put herself and her son in his hands. He made the mistake of his life in delaying to accept the offer ; for whoever had charge of the king’s person possessed a vast advantage over the other side. This advantage Guise was quick to grasp. When Catherine refused to move to Paris, the duke roughly said that she could do as she pleased, but the king should go with him. Yielding to force, she was again helpless in the lawless hands that were stronger than law.

OUTRAGE BREEDS OUTRAGE.

The massacre at Vassy was but the beginning of similar scenes. At Ch&lons, Tours, and elsewhere, Papists attacked Protestants ; in a short time three thousand were said to have been slain. Nor were the violences all on one side: those of the new faith rose against their enemies, and not always in self-defense. Four years before this time Beza had placed their numbers at four hundred thousand, and they were making converts every day. They were strongest in the south and about Orleans, and numerous in Normandy and Burgundy ; Picardy and Paris were the parts most bitter against them. “For weeks

and months,” says one of their historians, “the blindest, wildest, bloodiest fanaticism ran riot over France. Where the Huguenots had power, the Catholic worship was abolished. The priests were driven away or killed; the churches were sacked, their altars overturned, their images broken, their relics scattered and •defiled, their baptismal fonts turned to the vilest uses. The shrines of saints, the tombs of kings, whatever monument was venerable by age or association, were marked for ruin. The ashes of Irenseus were flung into the Rhine, those of St. Martin of Tours into the Loire: the sepulchres of Louis XI. at Cleri, of Richard Cceur de Lion at Rouen, of William the Conqueror at Caen, were rifled and desecrated. The Catholics had no churches of their opponents to pillage,

CHATEAU D'ARQUES.

no images of theirs to break: their wrath directed itself not against dead monuments, but against living men. In the north, spurred on by the priests, and encouraged by a terrible edict of the Parliament of Paris, which doomed every Huguenot to death, and called upon the faithful everywhere to rise and execute that doom without form of law, it was a frightful havoc that they wrought. We read of a stream of Huguenot blood running in one place nearly a foot deep.”

Open war could hardly be worse than these irregular and lawless horrors; and war was inevitable. Admiral Coligny, the best and ablest man in France,

was reluctant to leave liis peaceful retreat at Chatillon. A proved soldier and firm patriot, he dreaded the desolations of civil strife; an instructed disciple of Calvin, he more than disliked to mix the sword of the Spirit with earthly weapons. His brave and faithful wife decided his course. He asked her, “Are you ready to hear of our defeat, to see your husband condemned and executed as a rebel, and your children disgraced and ruined, begging their bread of their enemies ?” She answered, “Go, in God’s name.” He joined Conde at Meaux, with a force like Zisca’s Taborites or Cromwell’s Ironsides : they had their chaplains, their religious exercises, their daily instruction in faith as well as arms.

Coligny would have marched at once on Paris; but Condfe was the general- in-chief, and the whole summer and fall were spent in negotiations and preparations. Meantime the mutual slaughter went on in the various provinces. Mont- luc was sent to ravage Guienne in the southwest. Years after, without the least remorse, he wrote an account of his first exploits on this expedition. “I got two hangmen, whom they called my lackeys, because they were always at my heels. I was determined to use all possible severity, for I knew gentle means would never reclaim these hardened scoundrels. At St. Mezard three prisoners were brought to me bound in the churchyard, by a stone cross which they had broken. I seized one by the collar with harsh words. ‘Ah, sir,’ he cried, ‘have mercy on a poor siuner!’ ‘What?’ said I in a great rage; ‘have mercy on you, a villain who had no respect for the king?’ With that I pushed him roughly to the ground, so that his neck fell exactly on the broken cross, and called on the hangman to strike with his axe. The word and the blow came together: off went the fellow’s head, and with it another half foot of the cross. The other two I hanged on an elm close by. This was my first act after leaving home.”

Such were the manners of gentlemen and soldiers, or some of them, in the year of grace 1562. Montluc evidently thought he had done a fine thing; and so did the pope, who wrote him a letter of thanks for many similar barbarities, and the home government, which made him a marshal of France.

On the other side, Des Adrets was harrying the Catholics of Dauphiny, in the east. His name became a terror; none could stand before him, and cities made haste to open their gates at his summons. One specimen of his temper will suffice. After taking a castle and butchering most of its defenders, he reserved a few for his evening amusement. Seated on the top of a high tower, he made the wretches, one by one, take a short run and then jump to certain death. The last made three starts, and each time stopped on the edge. “Bah!” said the conqueror, “you are a coward.” The man turned like a flash, and said: “Baron, brave as you are, I will give you ten trials to do it in.” His wit and spirit saved his life. Not only Coligny, but Conde too, was instructed enough to see that such excesses as those of Des Adrets brought no credit to the cause

MONTLUC SLAYING PRISONERS AT ST. MEZARD.

of reform, and had better be left to the Papists. They blamed him for his cruelties, and he afterwards left their party in disgust.

Coligny objected, on principle, to receiving foreign aid, until he saw that Guise was drawing troops from Spain and Switzerland. The English queen, who always drove a sharp bargain with her allies, promised six thousand men and a supply of cash in exchange for Havre, a valuable port on the Channel; and D’Andelot recruited in Germany a body of heavy cavalry to set over against the Swiss mercenaries. Paris was reinforced before Cond£ was ready to attack it, and there was no open action till December 18th. Then the armies met near Dreux, fifty miles west of the capital.

BATTLE OF DREUX.

For two hours they stood looking on each other, without moving. The old Constable Montmorency was on one side, his two nephews on the other; ancL many families of minor note must have been likewise divided and opposed. Guise had nineteen thousand men, five-sixths of them infantry; the Huguenots had eight thousand horse, and but five thousand foot. The battle raged for seven hours, and at first was contested with equal stubbornness. Then the royalist centre and right wing gave way; Conde broke and drove the Swiss, ancL Coligny with the Germans pressed Montmorency hard. Of the so-called triumvirs or chiefs of the old party, the marshal, St. Andre, was killed, the constable wounded and a prisoner. His son begged the duke to rescue him, and received the answer, “Not yet.” Guise showed himself the best general there. Holding" his division together, and biding his time till the enemy’s cavalry were scattered in pursuit, he at last shouted, “Come on, the day is ours,” and made a charge which fulfilled the words. The admiral and his brother were driven back, and Cond6 was made prisoner. He was treated like a prince, and lay that night— though not to sleep—in the same bed with his captor.

Antony of Navarre was not in the fight. He had been won over—not for the first time—by the enemy, and killed in besieging Rouen, which was held by his brother’s English allies. His son was destined to become the leader of the- cause he had deserted, and one of the most famous kings of France.

AN INCIDENT.

At the siege of Rouen occurred one of the most remarkable escapes, or series of escapes, recorded anywhere. Francis Civile, an officer of the garrison,, was shot in the head while standing on the ramparts ; he fell, and was buried with others. His servant, on hearing this, wished to take the body home. Montgomery, the Scottish knight who had killed Henry II. in the tournament three years before, was in command of the town: he led the servant to the place. The pit was opened and a number of bodies disinterred, but that of Civile was

BURYING THE DEAD AFTER THE BATTLE OF DREUX

not found among them. They were covered up again: the faithful valet went off in dismay, but returned to take a last look. Near the pit he saw a hand protruding from the earth; on one finger sparkled his master’s diamond ring. He made haste to dig up the body, found it yet warm, and carried it to a hospital. The surgeons, who had more than they could do, would not touch such a hopeless case. The servant conveyed Civile to an inn, dressed his wound, and with much labor brought him back to consciousness. While he lay helpless, the ■city was taken and sacked by Bourbon’s soldiers, who threw him out of a window. He fell on a heap of manure beneath, and lay there three days, again supposed to be dead, and really very near it, till his brother found means to carry his senseless form out of Rouen. After all these strange experiences, he received medical aid and proper care; and he was alive forty years after, when the historian Thuanus (de Thou) wrote his story.

DEATH OF GUISE.

After his victory at Dreux, Guise besieged Orleans, which had become the stronghold of the Huguenots, and was now held by D’Andelot. Cond6 was a prisoner, and Coligny was raising troops in Normandy. The southern suburb ■of Orleans was taken: the city seemed doomed, and with it the cause. All was ready for an assault to be made on February 19th, 1563 ; but on the evening before, as the duke was riding to his quarters, chatting with a friend, he was shot from behind by a Huguenot named Peltrot. He cried, “They owed me this! ” Indeed, from the standpoint of his party, such actions were to be not only excused but praised. The assassin risked and lost his life to deliver France from a tyrant, and the Protestants from their most terrible foe.

Guise lingered six days, and they were the most creditable of his life. His approaching end raised, calmed, and purified his thoughts; whatever nobleness was in his character came out as it had seldom done before. If we may believe the chroniclers, he urged his eldest son, then a boy of thirteen, not to avenge his murder, and to take warning by his example. It was all in vain, for the young duke was destined to repeat his father’s career and to meet a similar fate. More effectual was his advice to the regent to make peace at once: this she was well disposed to follow.

Conde and the Constable Montmorency, each lately held prisoner by the other’s friends, arranged the preliminaries. Seventy-two Protestant ministers, meeting at Orleans, wished to make no concessions, and insisted on the burning of “all atheists, libertines, anabaptists, and disciples of Servetus,” who had himself been burned for heresy at Geneva in 1553* Cond6 brushed these bigoted suggestions aside with contempt, and on March, 18th, 1563, the Edict of Amboise proclaimed partial toleration. It allowed every Frenchman “to live at liberty in his own house, without being forced or constrained for conscience’s sake;” but it

TUB NIGHT BEFORE THE SIEGE OF ROUES.

restricted the public worship of the Hugueuots, and forbade it in Paris. A peace of four years’ duration followed, marred by the intrigues of Philip II., and broken by frequent violences and riots, iu which those of “the new religion” were usually the chief sufferers.

THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE.

HE little kingdom of Navarre, including the principality of Beam and five counties, lay on both sides of the Pyrenees; but in 1515 the southern portion was annexed to Spain,, which in after years often threatened the remainder. More than once its sovereignty passed to new hands through failure of a. male heir. Catherine, the heiress of the house of Foix, famous in the Albigensian wars, was married to a D’Albret in 1491. Her son Henry, who lived till 1555^ espoused Margaret of Valois, the pious sister of Francis

I., who was half a Protestant. At their court, as has been mentioned, Farel, Lefevre, and other early Reformers found refuge and welcome. Their only child was Jeanne D’Albret, born in 1518 and married at twenty to Antony of Bourbon. A woman of strong character and unusual attainments,, she became a Huguenot in 1560, as a result of careful and dispassionate study. On her husband’s death, two years later, she established the new worship, and then or later suppressed that of the Catholics in her dominions. A papal legate was sent; she refused to receive him. He wrote her a threatening letter; she replied in extremely plain language, saying: “ I use no compulsion, and condemn no one to death or imprisonment, penalties that are the nerves and sinews of a. system of terror. I blush for you when you falsely say that so many atrocities have been committed by those of our religion. Purge the earth first from the blood of so many just men shed by yon and yours. Your words are not surprising, considering whence they come; but they are far from suiting me. Use other language, or, better still, be silent.”

Much more of the same sort she wrote to the amazed cardinal. In October, 1563, the pope summoned her to Rome, on pain of excommunication and outlawry. She appealed to Catherine de Medicis, who made Gregory understand that he had gone much too far, since in France he had no authority over kings or queens, and it was not for him to give away their dominions. The pope took his snubbing meekly, and rescinded his hasty action. After this Philip II. set

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PREPARING FOR THE SIEGE OF ORLEANS.

on foot a plot to seize Jeanne and her children, carry them to Spain, and have her condemned by the Inquisition; but she heard of it, and took refuge in a strong castle. She worked for seven years on a code of laws for her little kingdom; it ■was published in 1571, remained in force for more than two hundred years, and showed her to be, as some have claimed, “the wisest and most enlightened sovereign of her age.” Several of its provisions equalled or surpassed the best legislation of later times; thus begging was forbidden, needy widows and orphans provided for, education made a public charge, murder alone punished with death, interments kept apart from towns and churches, the sale of public offices (which went on openly in France for another century or two) abolished, and all subjects regarded as equal before the law.

The religious provisions of this code made a hearer approach to toleration than was then customary. It seems monstrous in modern eyes that all were obliged, under penalties, uot only to attend the Reformed services, but to partake regularly of the communion; but nowhere, then and long after, was any divorce between Church and State dreamed of; everywhere the civil authorities were thought responsible for order and conformity in spiritual things. In Navarre no one could be executed, or even tried, for heresy. The last vestiges of Roman worship had been suppressed in 1569, because the priests, previously allowed in a few districts, had stirred up sedition. The property of the Church was now devoted, in equal parts, to education, charity, and the support of the new religion. The Bible was translated into the dialects of Bearn and Gascony, and a ministry supplied through a seminary at Orthez, with funds for fifty students of divinity. Calvinism was now well provided for in the south of France.

YOUNG HENRY.

The birth and rearing of him who was to be Henry IV. of France were as -remarkable as his later career. His two older brothers had died in infancy through the folly of those to whom they were entrusted. Old Henry, who wanted an heir—“no peevish boy, nor whimpering, whining girl”—insisted that his daughter, during her throes of labor, should sing an old song of the country_; and so she did, not omitting one of the many stanzas. Then he gave her a gold box containing his will, and took away the child. Its lips were rubbed with garlic, a few drops of Gascon wine put in its mouth ; at this it raised its head and swallowed them eagerly. “Ha!” the king cried, “thou shalt be a true Beamois!” The boy was brought up in the mountains after the customs of the country, with the peasants and like a peasant. Thus trained for future tasks, he grew : strong and active. Gay and handsome, precocious and attractive, much of his childhood was spent at the French court. In 1565, when he was eleven, he overheard a conference between the regent and the infamous Duke of Alva, who ^advised the taking off of the chief Huguenots; “for one salmon,” said he, “is

ASSASSINATION OF GUISB, BY JEAN PEI.TROT,

worth a hundred frogs.” The boy took care that his mother should hear of this, and she never forgot the warning. At thirteen he returned to her, popular, accomplished, almost full grown. A magistrate wrote: “I shall hate the new religion all my life for having carried him off from us. Two astrologers here declare that he will some day be one of the greatest kings of Europe.”

His gifts were soon to be needed. Dreading the continual intrigues of Philip

II., Coligny hatched a plot to seize the young king at Meaux; it miscarried, and a second civil war began. Cond6 marched on Paris, and on November ioth, 1567, met a force much larger than his own in the indecisive battle of St. Denis, in which the old Constable Montmorency was mortally wounded. The sultan’s ambassador, seeing how well the Huguenots fought, exclaimed: “If my master had six thousand men like these, he could conquer all Asia.” To gain time, the regent made peace four months later; but toward the end of summer she sent out troops to seize Conde, with Coligny, who was visiting him at Noyers in Burgundy. A royalist officer, who disliked the treacherous business on which he was employed, gave them opportunity to escape with their families. Traversing rough mountain paths, and crossing the Loire by a dangerous ford, they in September, 1568, reached Rochelle on the west coast, which from this time was the stronghold of their party. There they were soon joined by the queen of Navarre and her son, then nearly fifteen. Conde offered to give up the command. to his nephew, but Jeanne refused, saying to her son: “You have ceased to be a child, you are now to be a man. Europe is watching you. Go, and under your uncle learn to obey, that it may be yours some day in your turn to command.”

BATTLE OF JARNAC DEATH OF CONDE.

The third war now began. The edicts of toleration were repealed, the exercise of any form of worship except that of Rome was forbidden on pain of death, and the Calvinist ministers were given fifteen days to leave France. The king’s army was nominally commanded by his brother, the Duke of Anjou, a boy of seventeen, who was guided by Marshal Tavannes. This skilful commander outgeneralled Conde, separated him from his reinforcements, and forced an action near Jamac on the Charante river, March 13th, 1569. Conde s leg was broken by a kick from the horse of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who rode beside him. With the bone protruding through his boot, he called on his friends to strike for Christ and their country, and gallantly led his last charge. He was soon unhorsed, and fighting on his knee. Says an old chronicler,

“ Around him was the bitterest and most obstinate contest that ever was seen, it was thought, during the civil wars. One old man, La Vergne, fell with fifteen of his descendants in a heap around him. But what could two hundred and fifty gentlemen do, opposed to two thousand in front, with twenty-five hundred German reiter on their right and eight hundred lances on their left, but die ?—as they

•did, two-thirds of them, on the spot ” Conde gave up his sword to a gentleman named D’Argence, who had him carried to the woods near by and laid carefully ■on the grass with his back against a tree. He was talking to a number of royalist officers who had gathered about him, when a captain of Anjou’s Swiss guard rode up and shot him through the head. Thus perished as gallant a prince as ever drew sword for the right. Had his ability equalled his spirit, France might have had a different history. His murderer was never punished, nor did young Anjou even blame the dastardly deed. By his orders the prince’s body, slung across a pack-horse, was borne into Jarnac and jeered at by the soldiers. It was afterwards given to his nephew, and buried in a tomb of his family at Vendome.

Though the Huguenots had lost only their leader and the advance-guard, "their spirits were low as Coligny and his brother drew them off to Cognac. Here the Queen of Navarre, who was no mean orator, hastened to join them, with Henry and his cousin, young Conde. In a glowing speech she pronounced the •eulogy of the heroic dead, raised the drooping courage of the troops, and offered her son and her nephew to carry on the work to which she pledged her life. With one accord the admiral, the nobles, and the whole army saluted the Prince ■of Bearn as their chief, and swore fidelity to him. Thus, when little over fifteen, he was placed in the high position which he was to fill so well, and entrusted with the defense of those liberties to which he was never false at heart. A man ■of meaner birth, whatever his capacity, could not have ruled the barons. Coligny had experience, character, prudence, and fidelity, but those who were his equals in rank would never submit to his ascendancy. Henry of Navarre they cheerfully owned as their superior, for he was of royal blood, the equal of the king’s brothers, and but three steps from the throne.

After the battle of Jarnac Pius V. wrote to Charles IX. in theSe words: “ If your majesty continues to pursue openly and hotly the enemies of the Catholic religion, even to their extermination, be assured the divine aid will not be wanting. It is only by the entire destruction of the heretics that you can restore the ancient worship to your noble realm.” The sentiments of the age were warlike and intolerant, but the Church should have been a little ahead of the age in wisdom and humanity. On the contrary, the alleged Vicar of Christ was constantly approving massacres and crying for more bloodshed.

The chief hindrance to any permanent peace in France was this continual outside interference from the pope, and much more from a monarch even more Catholic than the pope, Philip II. of Spain. The difficulties of the Huguenots arose from their divided counsels, their need of foreign allies, their lack of funds, and the consequent impossibility of keeping together, for any length of time, a force sufficient to meet that of the king. On the other hand, the royalists were weakened by their own mutual jealousies and intrigues. The queen-mother hated

THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE ENCOURAGING HER TROOfS.

the Guises (with reason), and wished to keep them down. In retaliation, the Cardinal of Lorraine poisoned the king’s mind against his brother, who was general- in-chief. The Duke of Anjoti, nettled at this, and anxious to show that nothing could de done without him, was slack in his operations ; or when he was zealous, his measures were made of no effect by secret orders from the king. Again and again, in their times of weakness and discomfiture, the small Protestant armies might have been crushed or greatly damaged, if their enemies had been united in heart and will.

It was largely through these dissensions that a force of German auxiliaries was enabled to march across France, and effect a junction with the Huguenots on June 23d. Their general died on the way, leaving his command to Mansfeldt, and his loss was followed by a greater, that of the brave and faithful D’Andelot. The Queen of Navarre decorated the visiting chiefs, among whom was the greatest and noblest man of that troubled time, William of Orange. But the chief effect of all this was to show that the Protestants of France were not without friends abroad.

BATTLE OF MONCONTOUR.

Young Navarre fleshed his sword in a severe skirmish at La Roche Abeille, leading a gallant and successful charge. The royalists now adopted the method of tiring out their foes, drawing off when they were strong, and gathering again later. Poitiers was besieged, and successfully defended by the young Duke of Guise and his brother—two boys oppressed by hereditary honors, and coming to the front like Anjou, Navarre, and Conde’s son, at an age when they should have been at school. The battle of Moncontour was fought October 3d, 1569, and lost within an hour. The Calvinists resisted a first charge but feebly; under a second their ranks gave way. Coligny’s jaw was broken by a pistol-ball, so that he could not shout the words of command ; it was the same sort of wound that had disabled Montmorency at Dreux, near seven years before. The admiral was forced to retreat with heavy loss, leaving his wounded, his artillery, and his baggage to the enemy. But his prudence had saved the precious life of Henry, the nominal general-in-chief. The boy cried with rage when sent to the rear and forbidden to take part in the battle. He watched it from a hill, and wished to engage at a moment when he might have changed the fortune of the day.

Rightly or wrongly, Coligny bore the blame of this defeat. An old historian says that “ he was abandoned by his officers, his nobles, and all save one woman, who bravely advanced to hold out her hand to the afflicted and assist in retrieving the affairs of the army.” The heroic Queen of Navarre assured him of her confidence, and pawned her crown jewels to raise funds for the cause, while the quarrels of the royalists enabled the admiral to gather the remains of his army and prepare for another campaign.

The seat of war was now transferred to the south. An army overran Navarre, practicing the usual cruelties, and taking every strong place but one : the Calvinist lords of the country in vain opposed its progress. Jeanne sent Montgomery from Rochelle with a few horsemen; he eluded the troops sent against him, collected a force, joined the barons, raised the siege of Navarreius, defeated the royalists, and took their general prisoner. Nearly at the same time Coligny descended from the mountains of Languedoc, made his way by forced marches into Burgundy, and with six thousand men confronted twice that number under Marshal de Cossfe. Being ill, he was obliged to leave the command to Prince Henry, who was in his element when heading a charge. On June 25th,. 1570, he defeated the royalists at Amay-le-Duc. This he afterwards called “ my first exploit of arms,” disregarding the skirmish a year before.

A HOLLOW PEACE.

Alarmed by these losses, the king and his advisers inclined to peace. It was concluded at St. Germain-en-Laye early in August, on terms very favorable to the Huguenots. The free exercise of their religion was granted, except at court, with a general amnesty ; their confiscated estates were restored; they were declared eligible to all offices, and received the government of Rochelle and three other towns, Montauban, Cognac, and La Charite, for the next two years. In October Charles IX., who was now twenty, married Elizabeth of Austria, amid general rejoicings. But no new queen could hope to gain an influence rivalling that of Catherine de Medicis. Among the confusions and rivalries of these unhappy years her dark and subtle policy mainly guided the destines of France, and she would have been glad to allow no power but her own.

The history of political intrigues is less edifying even than that of doubtful wars. One feels that men whose ideas cannot be reconciled and who hate each other might better be honestly fighting in the field than exchanging visits and courtesies, dancing at the same balls, pretending to be friends, and all the time trying to ruin one another. But the latter has usually been the way of courts. During the two years of peace two parties sprang up in France. The Extremists, headed by the young Duke of Guise, who inherited his father’s ideas and qualities, were in the confidence and pay of Philip II. Other Catholics, who liated this foreign meddling, wished to join hands with the Protestants at home and in the Netherlands against Spain, or at the least to resist its influence and have no more civil wars. Montmorency, the late constable’s son, was the chief of these; their adviser was the Chancellor De l’Hopital, who had long since shown himself a wide-minded statesman and a friend of toleration. Between these factions France was to be divided for nearly twenty years.

In the supposed interest of peace, a marriage was arranged between Henry of Navarre and Margaret, the king’s sister. Much against her will, Jeanne went

to Blois to settle details with Catherine. She had a wretched experience there- The loose manners of the place shocked her modesty; she complained that it was “the most vicious and corrupt court that could be imagined,” and that her sister and cousin had lost all sense of religion. As for the king, his amusements would not bear putting on paper. “I would not for the world,” she wrote her son, “ that you should stay here.” She was happily unaware that Henry’s morals were to conform rather to the practices of other monarchs than to the requirements of the catechism.

The two dowager-queens had not a sentiment in common, and agreed like oil and water. Each insisted that the young couple should reside with her and follow her way of worship. The pope objected to the union, and so did many others. But the young king overbore all opposition. Jeanne went to Paris to prepare for the wedding ; there she was seized with illness, and made a most Christian end on June 8th, 1572. Several Calvinist writers ascribed her death to poison ; but this charge had no better warrant than the bad repute of her enemies. The families of Valois and Guise were capable of any wickedness : Coligny’s elder brother, the cardinal of Chatillon, while an envoy in England, was poisoned by his servant, and this was but one case among many. But it is probable that the best woman of her time came to the death she welcomed by the visitation of. God and not of man.

CHAMBER OF HORRORS, TIME OF THE INQUISITION.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW.

ENRY, now king of Navarre, and Margaret of Valois, were married in Paris on August 18th, 1572. Four days later, in the same city, the most famous massacre in history began. Historians have toiled to unravel the hideous web of hypocrisy and treachery which connected the two events. In those days the children of great families were more apt to be trained in crime than in virtue. Nothing was too bad for Guise and his associates, for Anjou and his mother ; but tbe king’s consent had first to be obtained. The way in which this was done is partly made clear by memoirs of the time, including the confession—not intended as such—of one of the chief criminals. Cut it as short as we may, the necessary explanation will take us some distance back.

Charles IX. was not without generous impulses, and made some efforts to behave like a king ; but if he had any native strength of character, it must have perished under the tutelage of a mother without heart or principle. As he often complained, he was worse taught than many of his valets. Nervous, excitable, and wholly ignorant of restraint, he was often the sport of his passions, and usually the tool of vile advisers. It was to his credit that he seemed to form a real respect and affection for Coligny, the best man in France. At their meeting iu the summer of 1571, he would not let the admiral kneel, but seized him by the arm, saying, “I hold you now, and you shall not leave me ; I cannot spare you. This is the happiest day of my life.” Thenceforth he often sought his new friend’s advice, and it was given frankly, with wisdom and to the point. Coligny was of course a warm admirer of William of Orange, who had done more for civil and religious liberty than any other man alive or dead. He hated Spain and Rome ; he knew that the interests of Protestantism throughout Europe yere one; he was heart and soul with his cousin Montmorency and the other Catholic liberals, in their plan of uuion against the common enemy. Apart from the religious question, this was the obvious interest of France, and so the

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admiral told the king. A treaty with Bngland was signed; negotiations were on foot with the Dutch and German states; reinforcements were actually sent to William; all seemed ripe, or nearly so, for a breach with Spain.

The Spanish party saw all this, and raged inwardly. The queen-mother saw it, and trembled for her power. She had tried the Huguenot leaders, and they were too strict for her taste. More pagan than Roman, she preferred Rome to Geneva. But personal interests were always weightiest with her. Jealous of the new intimacy, she one day asked the king, in a sneering tone, what he learned in these endless conferences. His reply might well be fatal to his instructor: “ I have learned that my mother is my enemy.”

After meditating on this rebuff, she followed Charles to one of his rural retreats, beset him with tears and reproaches, warned him of the consequences of his course, and asked him, if he persisted in it, to send her back to Italy. The weak youth yielded for the moment, but soon fell again under the sway of the larger mind.

At a cabinet council there was fierce debate over a force that had been sent to Holland and waylaid by Alva. Coligny urged his colleagues to break with Philip at once, and cried, ^aHe is no true Frenchman who opposes it.” The king supported him;

COLIGNY ATTACKED.

The Duke of Anjou, who had ordered or approved Conde murder, was Catherine’s —if she cared for any of children. One day, just talking with the admiral, king showed violent anger toward his brother, and seemed to threaten his life—or so Anjou reported to his mother. The precious pair agreed that Coligny must die. Young Guise was their fitting instrument. A bitter partisan from his cradle, the heir of his father’s feuds and hatreds, despising his father’s dying counsels, it was congenial work for him.

The Protestants always felt that the court was not to be trusted, and many friends had warned Coligny not to return to Paris after the death of the Queen of Navarre; but he was not a man to weigh his safety in the balance with what seemed his duty. One of his attendants soon begged to be relieved from duty and

ATTACK ON COLIGflY’S HOVSQ.

allowed to leave the city. Being asked for his reason, he replied, “ Because they caress you too much, and I would rather escape with the fools than perish with the wise.” These fears were prophetic, and those who yielded to them proved to be the wise ones rather than the fools. But it appeared unreasonable to expect, in the midst of wedding festivities, that the vengeance of the godless would fall so soon and with such wholesale fury.

On Friday morning, August 2 2d,, four days after Henry’s marriage, the admiral was returning on foot from the palace, when a shot was fired from a window. Either the aim was not quite true, or he swerved aside ; but one ball entered his left arm, while another tore off His right forefinger. He pointed to the opposite house; it was the property of a servant of the Duke of Guise. It was searched at once: the gun, which was found on the floor, belonged to one of the duke’s bodyguard. It was soon learned that one of the duke’s horses had been waiting behind the house, and that the would-be assassin had escaped upon it.

When the news reached the king, he was playing tennis with Guise and Coligny’s son-in-law. He threw down his racket in a rage, and cried, “ Am I to be forever troubled with these broils ? Shall I never have any quiet ? ” He went to his chamber and paced it with black looks. His mother and brother came to him; he eyed, them with suspicion, turned away, and would not speak to them. Navarre and Conde, after a hasty visit to the wounded man, asked the king for permission to leave Paris, as they and their friends were not safe there. The king, still in a fury, swore that he would have vengeance on all concerned in .the outrage. He had the gates closed and the city searched, but he who fired the shot had gone.

Coligny, suffering from his wounds, sent for the king, who went at once to his bedside and called him “father.” Catherine and Anjou, fearing to trust the two together, thrust themselves into the room, but Charles sent them away when the admiral expressed a wish to speak with him alone. The queen soon interrupted them, pretending consideration for the injured man, and dragged her son away. As they went back, she asked again and again, “What did he say? ” He would not answer. At last, wearied by her importunity, he burst out, “Well, if you will have it, he said you have too much to do with affairs. He wanted to caution me, before he died, against letting you drive us all to the devil; and, by Jove, I believe he is right! ”

After that, what was left of the admiral was not worth insuring. A king who cannot keep secrets, nor protect his most faithful servants against their deadliest foes, is not one to handle affairs of state. Yet these details do not fit with the opinion long held by Protestant historians, that Charles was acting a part throughout He had hardly the ability for that, and certainly not the self-command.

Guise, believing that his share in the attempted murder could not be more than suspected, asked for an audience the next day, took the high tone of

injured innocence, and asked permission to leave the court. The king frowned: “ You can go when and where you please; but if you are proved guilty, I will know well enough where to find you.’’ In all this the evidence goes to show that the poor weak king was sincere. But he was like the mob, “always of opinion with the last speaker.” He could not resist pressure ; and now he was abandoned to

the enemies of his soul and of France.

THE PLOT.

If anything were attempted against Guise, he could turn on his accomplices; it seemed best for them to make a bold stroke and take matters into their own hands. Accordingly Catherine and Anjou, after consulting with Marshal Tavannes, the Duke de Nevers, and two others, went to the king’s cabinet with these advisers late on Saturday eveniug. The queen-mother did most of the talking. “The Huguenots are arming,” she begau. It was a lie, but what did that matter? “They mean to crush you. The Catholics have had enough of this ; the citizens are in arms.” “ But I have forbidden it,” said Charles. “Still it is done. And what will you do?” He did not know. She went on: “'One man has made this trouble. Remember Amboise, where they rose against your brother: remember Meaux, where they had planned to take you, and you had to fly. Away with them !”

ASSASSINATION OF COLIGNY.

After more of this talk, the councillors urged the killing of all the Huguenots. De Retz alone objected, and he was soon brought to agree with the rest. Catherine resumed her discourse. “They are coming to-morrow to demand vengeance on Guise. They will throw the blame on us. You may as well know it: your mother and your brother did the deed. We struck at the admiral to save the king; and you must finish the work, or you and all of us are lost.”

The poor weak monarch still hesitated. These men were his friends, he said; some of them he loved, to all he was pledged. What was to become of his honor? His mother brushed this trivial question aside. “If you will not do it_r we will leave you, and do what we can without you. So you are afraid of the: Huguenots?”

She knew how to play on her son’s passions. Rising in a rage, he cried: “By God’s death, since you think it right to kill the admiral, let every Huguenot in France die with him, that not one be left to reproach me with the deed ! ”

This much gained, the rest was easy. The city gates were closed, the citizens called to arms. Details were left to Guise, who was here in his element. By midnight his charges were given to the captains of the guards and to the town authorities. Every Catholic was to fasten a white cross on his cap and a strip- of linen on his left arm ; all were invited to join in the good work.

It was now Sunday and St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24th, 1572. The signal was to be given at daybreak, but the anxious queen ordered the bell—it was a church bell, of course—rung an hour and a half earlier. As she listened. at the window with Anjou, a pistol went off beneath. Struck with sudden terror, the sent a message to Guise to stop. But it was too late: he had ridden to the admiral’s.

MURDER OF COLIGNY.

The captain of the king’s guard knocked at the door, and struck down the servant who opened it. The soldiers rushed up stairs. Coligny was at prayer he told his attendants to save themselves if they could. Behme, a German, was. first in the room, asking, “Are you the Admiral?” He answered calmly: “Yes. Young man, respect my gray hairs.” The ruffian stabbed him; other blows followed, more than enough. “Is it done?” came a voice from beneath. “The duke will not believe it without seeing. Throw him out!” The body was- flung from the window. Guise and his brother wiped the blood from the disfigured face, and then (it is said) kicked or trampled on the corpse.

It is to be remembered in excuse for the young murderer, that he always believed, though without reason, that his father’s assassination had been ordered by Coligny. Few in those days had much regard for human life; but there was one difference between the two parties, which the papists could never understand. The better sort of Protestants were men of their word; they had a sense of

honor, which forbade treachery and underhand methods. Thus, throughout these long-continued struggles, they were at a heavy disadvantage.

The murder of Coligny was but the beginning. The Huguenots, waked by the ringing of church-bells and the shouts of “Death! kill all,” found the assassins at their doors or in their chambers. In the Louvre and its courtyard two hundred lords and gentlemen were cut down or shot, and at least three hundred more in the city. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld, an intimate friend of the king, who had left Charles but a few hours before, was stabbed by masked men at his bedside. Teligny, the admiral’s son-in-law, tried to escape by running along the roofs, and was shot from the street. One nobleman was chased to the chamber of Henry, who was not there. The young queen, wakened by his cries, -called the nurse to open the door; wounded in both arms and mad with terror, the intruder laid hold of Margaret, covering her with his blood. Her screams brought assistance, and she managed to save the man’s life. As she passed to her sister’s apartment, another fugitive was struck dead at her feet, and she fainted at the sight. Thus through the very courts of the palace the butchers pursued their prey.

A FEAST OF BLOOD.

It was the same throughout the city. Sixty thousand men of all ranks are said to have take a part iu the massacre, and two thousand were killed that morning. The highest nobles led the mob. Guise cried through the streets, “ It is the king’s will; let none escape!” Marshal Tavannes shouted, “Bleed them, bleed them! The doctors say bleeding is as good in August as in May.” It ■was a carnival of slaughter.

Navarre and Conde were not among the slain. Both were of royal blood; both, by the king’s desire, had lately married ladies of the court. Charles sent for them on that hideous morning, swore at. them fiercely, and required them to change their religion at once. Henry submitted; his cousin, a mere boy, was bolder. Given three days of grace, his resolution yet held out. “It is the mass, death, or the Bastile,” cried the frantic king. “Which you please,” Condfe answered, “ so it is not the mass.” Charles would have slain him then and there, but others held back the royal hand. But both princes were in the toils, and found it necessary to conform to requirements for the time.

On Sunday noon the king ordered the butchering to be stopped, and it ceased for that day. But Paris had had a taste of blood; the human tiger was roused, and wanted more. Next morning the bells rang out again, and the horrid business was resumed. It lasted iu full force for two days more, and incidental murdering went on till the week ended. The Huguenots who had hidden from the first attack were diligently sought for, and little mercy shown to sex or age. “Infants, packed in baskets, amid jeering laughter, were £ung over the bridge into the Seine. Little boys not ten years old were seen

A NOBLEMAN SEEKING REFUGE IN QUEEN MARGARET'S CHAMBER.

dragging with cords in triumph along the streets a Huguenot infant torn from its slaughtered mother’s breast.” The count of Coconnas, who was afterwards justly beheaded, seized thirty persons, imprisoned them, and on their refusal to recant put them to death by slow torture, and enjoyed their agonies. Ren&, Catherine’s perfumer, who was accused of having poisoned the late queen of Navarre through a pair of gloves, amused himself by visiting the Protestants in several prisons, and cutting them with his dagger. PeZen, a butcher, and Cruce, a worker in gold, afterwards boasted of having killed in a single day, the first a hundred and twenty Huguenots, the other above four hundred; but these claims were doubtless beyond the truth. These villains believed what their priests told them, that their crimes were acts of piety _r to be liberally rewarded in heaven.

INCIDENTS OF THE MASSACRE.

The story of those horrid days would fill a volume. Rank, repute, character, eminence of whatever sort, was no protection. Ramus, a famous scholar, was found at his devotions in an upper story of his house ; his last words were a prayer for his murderers. He was shot, stabbed, thrown from the window, and dragged, still breathing, through the streets: his head was cut off and his body flung into the Seine. La Place, a j urist and historian, was twice summoned to the Louvre, and then stabbed on the way. The head of the great house of La Force, after paying two thousand crowns as ransom for himself and his sons, was murdered with the elder of them. The younger, aged thirteen, lay still for hours between the bodies of his father and his brother, covered with their blood. Passers-by stopped to look at the group, and said “Ay, best kill the cubs as well as the old wolf.” Plunderers took their outer garments : at last came a poor man, marker in a tennis-court, who tried to pull off the child’s laced stockings, and let fall some expressions of pity. At this the boy raised his head a little, and whispered, “I am not dead.” “Lie still,” said the rescuer, “till I come again.” He returned when it was dark, covered the lad with a tattered mantle, and led him to a place of safety. On the way he was still in danger, and after reaching his relative, Marshal Biron, he had to be smuggled out of Paris in disguise, for the blood-hunters were still on his track. He lived seventy years longer, and became a Marshal of France.

The occasion was favorable for the settlement of private grudges, and the enriching of such as did not object to blood-stained gains. “Defendants in actions at law assassinated, the plaintiffs, debtors slaughtered their creditors, jealous lovers butchered their rivals.” Two nobles of the house of Clermont were at law; one look the shortest road to the title and estate by killing the other. The Baroness dn Pont was seeking a divorce; the process was abridged, and the ladies of the court much interested, by finding the baron with his throat cut. Brantome, in his Memoirs, says that he knew manv gentlemen who made

THE DUKE OF GUISE VIEWING THE BODY OF COLIGNY.

as much as ten thousand crowns apiece by pillage, and that the royal jewel-cases were largely replenished in the same unroyal way. Ren6, the perfumer, may have been a go-between in this irregular second-hand trade, for he got possession of the whole stock of a wealthy jeweler, on pretence of helping him to escape, and then killed him.

Charles IX. is said to have stood at his window and fired muskets at the fugitives till he was tired. On Sunday evening he wrote letters to send abroad, pretending* that Guise was the sole author of the massacre, and that he and his court had been in danger. Two days later he acknowledged his responsibility for this punishment of treason, as he called it, before the Parliament of Paris, which paid him man}'- compliments and ordered an annual commemoration of the deed. On the same Tuesday he, with his mother and her ladies, went to the slaughter-house at Montfaucon to exult over the headless body of Coligny, which, after being subjected to shameful indignities, had been partially burned anr| hungup by the heels like a pig. “Pah, it smells!” said one of the visitors- The king answered with a quotation worthy of its pagan source: “ The carcass of an enemy always emits a pleasant odor.” To finish here the history of the greatest Frenchman of his day; his memory was branded, his children were degraded to the rank of plebeians and made incapable of office, his castle of Cha- tillon destroyed, and the very trees on his estate, with the foolish rage for destruction that marked all French persecutions, were cut down. Yet his daughter, Teligny’s widow, became the wife of the great Prince of Orange.

Among the Huguenots who escaped was one who owed his life to a singular act of magnanimity. Regnier, a gentleman of Quercy, had a bitter personal •enemy, Vezin, who had sworn to take his life. During the massacre this man, with two soldiers, entered Regnier’s room and arrested him. Expecting instant death, he was led forth, told to mount a horse, and escorted in silence to his distant home. “ Now you are safe,” said his captor. “ Between brave men, danger should be equal. We can settle our affair when you will.” Of course Regnier protested his gratitude. Vezin answered, “ Love me or hate me, as you please,” and rode back to Paris. This story, with other events of that fearful time, is brilliantly told in a recent English book, “ The House of the Wolf.”

IN THE PROVINCES.

The massacre was not confined to Paris. Old fires of hatred were banked, not extinguished, throughout France. Either by hasty orders from Paris, or from the spontaneous rage of papists, similar atrocities were committed in many cities. The news of St. Bartholomew’s Day traveled fast, and was like a spark to powder. “They heard of it at Meaux on the Sunday evening; that night the streets of Meaux were drenched in blood. They heard of it at Orleans on Tuesday the 26th; for a week onward from that date, Catholic Orleans gave

397

THE NIGHT OF THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.

itself up to the pillage and murder of its Huguenot inhabitants. They heard of it in Lyons on Thursday the 28th, and scenes of horror, outrivalling those of Paris, were day by day enacted. The Rhone was literally so red with blood that the inhabitants of Arles and other towns below Lyons for days abstained from drinking its waters. Roueu, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Angers, Saumur, Bourges, and other cities, followed the lead. It was not the gusty act of a single night, but a prolonged and widespread massacre of six weeks and more.” Two historians place the number slain at a hundred thousand ; others say seventy, thirty, twenty thousand. One, who praises the slaughter, reduces it to ten thousand. The truth is probably between the two extremes.

There were some honorable and humane men among the Catholic officials. When Claude of Savoy received command to kill all the heretics in Dauphiny, he said it could not be the king’s, and he would treat it as a forgery. The Count of Chamy took a similar course in Burgundy. De Montmorin, the Governor of Auvergne, refused to obey the order unless the king were there to give it in person and witness its fulfilment. The Viscount of Ortes, Governor of Bayonne, was yet bolder: he reported that the town had good citizens and the garrison brave soldiers, but no executioner among them.

THE NEWS ABROAD.

It took two weeks for the news to reach Madrid. Philip at once sent six thousand crowns to Coligny’s murderers. “He showed so much gaiety,” the French ambassador wrote to his master, “ that he seemed more delighted than with all the good fortune that had ever before come to him. I went to see him next morning, and as soon as I appeared he began to laugh, and with signs of •extreme content to praise your Majesty. You deserved your title of Most Christian, he said, and there was no king worthy to be your comrade, either for valor or prudence. I thanked him, and said I thanked God for enabling your Majesty to prove to his master that his apprentice had learned his trade.” This was strange language, and sounds to us like Protestant irony ; but probably all concerned regarded it as a delicate compliment.

At Rome the joy was equally sincere and still more demonstrative. Catherine made haste to send Coligny’s head to the Cardinal of Lorraine, whose conscience must have smitten him that he had not been at home to plan the massacre and enjoy it. Cannons were fired from the castle of St. Angelo, the city was illuminated for three nights, and the new pope, Gregory XIII., said that such a deed of faith pleased him more than fifty battles of Lepanto, where the Turks had lately been beaten in a great naval fight. A heretic, you see, was much worse than au unbeliever. He went in procession about the city, with his cardinals and dignitaries ; masses and Te Deums were sung in the finest style : it was a most impressive and edifying occasion. Strenuous efforts have

since been made to deny these facts, but in vain. Tlie Bodleian library at Oxford preserves a two-leaved pamphlet, now very rare, describing the solemnities ordered by this pope on learning “the blessed news of the destruction of the Huguenot sect.” Medals still exist that were struck to commemorate the massacre; we need not describe them, for we can furnish copies. And on

CARDINAL LORRAINE RECEIVING THE HEAD OF COLIGNY.

the walls of the Sistine chapel may still be traced, or might a few years ago, at least the outlines of a painting by Vasari, setting forth the deed of blood; it once had the inscription, Pontifex Coligni necem probat—“The Pope approves the slaying of Coligny.”

Brantome says that his Holiness shed tears in private over the details of the massacre, and lamented that “so many of the innocent perished with the guilty,

and that the guilty had so little chance to repent and make their peace with God.” These sentiments are to his credit so far as they go; but humanity of this kind must he considered rather ornamental than useful.

The effect produced in the north was of another , sort. “ A cry of horror rang through Germany. Many writings were published there, all denouncing the massacre, and describing it as a compound of trickery, perfidy, and wickedness, beyond all that had ever been committed in the annals of tyranny. Charles- sent deputies to explain that he had been forced to nip a dangerous conspiracy in the bud, since Coligny had plotted to kill him and many more, and to place- Conde on the throne ; but these slanders on the dead gained little credence,, and the king’s excuses were coldly received. His ambassador in England had. no cheerful office when he presented the despatches. The room was hung with black : the court was in deep mourning. “A gloomy silence was preserved: no' friendly eye was turned toward him : every countenance was mournful" and downcast. He approached the queen, who neither rose from her throne nor extended, her hand, according to the courtesy of the times.” After reading what he brought, she spoke with a frown: “ Heaven weeps for the miseries of France. Your king must be a cruel master to have so many traitors in his realm. It. seems some wished to do away that commandment which says, ‘ Thou shalt not., kill.’ ”

However great the satisfaction of those who had urged him on, Charles was. not wholly pleased with what he had done. He said to his physician, “ I know not what ails me ; my whole body seems in a fever. I see nothing round me but. hideous faces covered with blood. I wish the weak and innocent had been spared.” Strange tales were told, which Henry IV., long after, used to repeat with a shudder. Ravens perched on the Louvre and croaked all night, for a. week. Groans and screams and blasphemies were heard at midnight; the king, thinking the massacre had begun afresh, sprang from his bed and sent his guards, into the streets to stop it; but there was nothing. These noises lasted through the first week in September : they bear witness to the superstitions of the time,, and to the royal remorse.

SIEGE OF ROCHELLE.

And yet “the Huguenot sect” was not destroyed, as the pope and the court supposed. Error dies hard, and Truth still harder. There were risings in the south and elsewhere ; the survivors of the party soon numbered eighteen thousand armed men, and held a hundred towns and castles. Those who had fled to foreign lands acted as political missionaries, and stirred up sympathy and wrath. Montauban, Nimes, and Rochelle fortified themselves and formed a confederation. The English nobles offered to send troops to France at . their own expense ; but Elizabeth, who always grudged help to the distressed away from home, forbade the expedition. The fourth war was carried on by sheer native courage. Rochelle,.

VISIONS OF A GUILTY KING. Charles IX. qfter Due massacre of ISt. BarOtoIumm:.

■with a garrison of a thousand and its citizens, withstood a large army for four months. It was blockaded by sea aud laud; the besiegers, led by Anjou and nearly all the Catholic nobles, made twenty-nine assaults, dug seventy mines, and fired thirty-five thousand cannon-balls at the town, but all in vaiu. Inspired by their ministers and valiantly helped by their wives and daughters,

•the burghers shouted out Clement Marot’s psalms and repelled every attack.

Among their prisoners was Cosseins, the captain of the guard who had broken in Coligny’s door and killed the porter; they put him to death. The Duke D’Au- male was shot in the trenches ; Anjou, busy with his schemes 011 the throne of Poland, neglected his duty. A pestilence broke out among the troops, which is said to have

carried off cmaix. and us muthmk.

near thirty thousand of them, while twelve thousand fell in the fight. It was a costly and a useless siege.

SIEGE OF SANCERRE.

Still more memorable is the defense of Sancerre. It was a small places poorly fortified and ill supplied; but its heroic citizens held out for ten months against five thousand regular soldiers. The provisions gave out; from half a pound of bread a day they were reduced to a pound a week. When all the domestic animals had been eaten, they hunted for rats and mice. Their minister, who had been through a famine at sea, taught them to soak and chew strips of leather. After these were gone, books, papers, parchments, were used. “ I have seen them eagerly consumed,” he testified, “when the writing could still be read distinctly on the fragments served up in the dish.” Nearly all the young children died, but the sentiments of honor and decency survived. Some famished wretches who were caught feeding on their offspring were publicly executed. To eighty- four men who were killed by the enemy, five hundred died of starvation. But there was no thought of surrender.

A treaty signed July 6th, 1573, granted to Rochelle, Nimes, and Montauban the free exercise of their religion. The ambassadors who had come to offer Anjou the Polish crown, some of them being Protestants, had interceded for the oppressed, and their wishes could not be overlooked; besides, the treasury was empty. Sancerre was cruelly excluded from the peace; but its heroic defenders, gaunt, hollow-eyed, tottering on the verge of the grave, held out till the same terms were given them. The fourth war was ended.

The Huguenots soon showed that their spirit was not broken. On August 26th their deputies met at Montauban and framed a petition to the king. In this bold document they asked for liberty of worship throughout the realm; for the punishment of those who had murdered their friends a year before; for a reversal of Coligny’s sentence, and the vindication of his memory; and for a general amnesty, extending to all who had taken part in the late war. The demands had at least a moral effect. Catherine, on hearing them, cried indignantly, “If Conde were still alive, and had fifty thousand foot and twenty thousand horse to back him, he could not ask the half of this.”

The moderate or “third party,” otherwise called the Politicals or Malcontents, now came to the front again. Depressed by the recent turn of events, their ideas and desires were unchanged, and they had additional reasons for hating Guise and the extremists. Montmorency and his brother deeply resented the murder of their cousin Coligny, and the insults heaped upon his corpse and his memory. With them were the Marshal Biron, whose young relative, La Force, had so strangely escaped from the massacre, and other great nobles. These formed a close alliance with the Huguenots, whose leaders were still Navarre and Conde; for every one knew that their conformity to Rome was merely under pressure and for the time.

D’ALENCON.

The allies received a strange recruit and an unworthy chief from the royal house. This was the king’s youngest brother, the Duke D’Alengon, who after- -v?rds played a somewhat prominent though an ignoble part in Dutch and English history. Since Anjou had gone to Poland, he aimed at the succession to the throne. He wished to be lieutenant-general, but Catherine would not consent. Between the members of this family there was no strong affection: long jealous of his brothers, he had borne no part in their crimes. He now headed a conspiracy which was to be carried out on March ioth, 1574. He, with Navarre and Condd, was to escape from the court, which was then at St. Germain, to seize certain strongholds, to raise their party, and to do what more they might, hoping to take the power from Catherine and Guise.

It was D’Aleneon himself through whom the plot failed. His resolution, feeble at the best, gave way, and he basely betrayed his accomplices to their worst enemy, his mother. Several lives paid the penalty of his folly, among them that of Montgomery, the slayer of Henry II. The Marshals Montmorency and Coss6 were imprisoned in the Bastile, and the princes confined at Vincennes. L,a Noue, the Huguenot general, was ready for war; but another event changed everything.

The king had long been failing. Never strong in body or mind, he was exhausted alike by his exercises, his passions, and perhaps his remorse. As his end drew near, he sent for Navarre, and said to him: “Beware of—.” The name was whispered so low that none but Henry heard it; it was supposed to be that of his brother or his mother. So Catherine thought, for she offered an objection: “My son, you should not speak thus.” “Why not?” said he; “it is true.” He died on May 30th, 1574, “bathed,” it is said, “in his blood, which oozed from every pore.” He was not bigot enough to feel as did the dying Marshal Tavannes, that his share in the Feast of St Bartholomew was a merit which would wipe out all his sins.

THE THREE HENRIES.

ENRY III., hitherto known as the Duke of Anjou, had been but two weeks in Poland when he received the news of his brother’s death. Already tired of the throne he had taken such trouble to gain, and much preferring the license and luxury of Paris, he fled from his palace by night with his dissolute companions. Having crossed the Polish frontier, he traveled, with much less haste, and spent some weeks in Italy. One of his first acts on reaching France was to march bare-headed in a procession of Flagellants, each holding a torch in one hand and <n the other a scourge, which he applied to the back of the man in front. The Cardinal of Lorraine, doubtless much against his will, took part in these proceedings, and the unaccustomed severity of the exercise is said to have caused his death, which occurred in this same year, 1574. He was one of the ablest men of his time, but his ability had been used only for ends of mischief. It was not merely the prejudice of his enemies that painted his character in dark tints₍ for they were the only ones that fitted the subject. “ He was a priest without piety, and a statesman without honor; a libertine by temperament, and a hypocrite by habit; avaricious, unfeeling, treacherous; concealing, under an engaging air of simulated candor, a black heart and a malignant and revengeful spirit.”

(405)

FAC SIMILE OF MEDALS STRUCK IN ROME AND PARIS, IN HONOR OF THB ST. BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW MEDALS.

The history of this reign, which lasted fifteen years, offers little of striking interest, except the tragedies that marked its close. The intrigues of the contending parties kept the realm in confusion, and this period is chiefly memorable as that in which France sank to the lowest depth of anarchy and wretchedness. The massacre of St. Bartholomew, throwing to the winds all restraint of truth, justice, and humanity, had been a fearful example to the nation. Hatred and suspicion ruled, and the government, destitute of any fixed principle or moral force, sank into contempt. The great nobles more and more grasped at power and drew into factions, whose course is not always easy to follow, because most of them aimed only at their own selfish ends. “ The ignorant populace, infatuated with religious frenzy, recognized no other law than the law of the strongest, and the arbiter of their disputes was the dagger or the bullet.” Private virtue might still be found in scattered homes and among humble Calvinists, but it was vain to look for it at court. If there were any more women like Jeanne d’Albret and Coligny’s wife, they were not prominent. Catherine de Medicis still set the fashions, and they were bad ones. A fantastic mock- chivalry prevailed in the higher circles, and took the place of purity of life, honorable sentiments, and real respect for the sex.

During this era of decay three men, having the same given name, were the chief personages in France. Henry, Duke of Guise, had the merit, such as it was, of being true to his inherited principles. Brave, liberal, and of popular manners, he was the undisputed leader of the extremists and the idol of the Parisian mob. To put down the Protestants, and to get all that could be got for himself and his relatives, were the objects he steadily pursued. He was not a genius; his aims and character command little of our modem sympathy; but the murderer of Coligny, the leader in the great massacre, was at least consistent throughout his whole life.

HENRY III.

This was far more than could be said for the King of France. He was much abler than .any of his three brothers; but no monarch ever made less use of his abilities. As a boy he had been a soldier, a deep intriguer, a relentless persecutor ; but no sooner did the Polish throne seem within his grasp than he abandoned cares of war and state for what he considered pleasure. The condition of the country, and even his own safety, required a wise head, a firm and steady hand; yet he at once became the most frivolous, the most despicable of sovereigns. His childish games, his two thousand lapdogs, his worthless favorites, occupied his time. Laced, painted, and perfumed, the king and his councillors would walk abroad, each striving to outdo the other with his cup and ball, amid the jeers of Paris. The next day they would be seen clad in sackcloth, counting their beads, mumbling their Latin prayers, and feebly scourging one another. The older nobles murmured because these parasites excluded them

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from the honors and profits of office : when several of the new men killed each other in duels, the king lamented as if for a wife or child, but he grieved alone. While yet a novice in his high place, “ he was loaded with dishonor. The Polish diet had expelled him with the most degrading marks of infamy, and he now slumbered on the throne of France, while its foundations were crumbling into dust He was hated by the Calvinists for his breaches of faith; he was despised by the Catholics for his imbecility. The substance of royalty had departed from him, and nothing but the shadow remained.

Openly bearded by the Huguenots, while the Guises secretly conspired against his authority and even his personal liberty, this miserable descendant of the house of Valois saw none but enemies abroad and traitors at home. ”

His mother was his chief adviser, and her policy tacked and veered with changing winds of danger. How much she cared for the chief question at issue was shown

henry m.

by her remark when Conde was thought to have won the battle of Dreux, in the first of these religious wars: “The worst will be that we shall have to say our prayers in French.” She never understood that any could be more serious and earnest than herself. So far as she was concerned, bigotry was but a pretence: the murder of Coligny and so many thousands was but a means to confirm and extend the power of this worthless woman, by fixing her son more firmly in her leading-strings.

Henry of Navarre was yet to win his fame. Though released from confinement, he was closely watched for a time. As soon as he could escape, he loudly proclaimed that he had always been a Protestant at heart, and had conformed to Rome only under compulsion and to save his life. This satisfied the Huguenots, who gladly accepted him as their leader. The next ten or twelve years he spent in his own dominions, except when he was in the field. The moderate Catholics were either his open allies, or his opponents in name or for the moment. The Marshals Montmorency and De Cosse were still in prison and in danger, and the Calvinists exacted their release as a condition of peace. The king at one time ordered these nobles to be strangled, but was persuaded to defer the sentence, which had no effect but to make more enemies for him, and to tie D’Amville_r Montmorency’s brother, who was governor of Languedoc, more firmly to Navarre.

SMALL WARS.

A fifth war began in 1574. The king attempted to besiege Livron, but accomplished nothing, and soon left the field-work to other hands. His brother, Alengon, escaped in 1575 and joined Conde, who was bringing troops from Germany. These were defeated at Langres by Guise, who in the action received a wound in the cheek that gave him a scar for life and the nickname of Le Balafrt. But elsewhere the Huguenots were more than able to hold their own, and a truce was made in November. It was broken; more hostilities ensued, and in May, 1576, a peace was concluded, granting all the confederates asked for—free exercise of the Reformed religion, cities, provinces, and honors to their leaders, and the reversal of Coligny’s sentence. Sully, Navarre’s chief adviser, said of Catherine: “She offered more than we meant to demand. Promises cost her nothing; and in making that peace she aimed only to disunite us.” This she did chiefly by stirring up jealousies between D’Alengon and Navarre.

Enraged by the liberal terms granted to Protestants, the extreme party formed now a Catholic League, which was to trouble France sorely for many years. Its members swore, “ under pain of excommunication and eternal damnation, to yield ready obedience and faithful service to the head.” The real head was the Duke of Guise. Its objects were the same that this faction had long been seeking, but their attack upon the throne was now more concentrated and more apparent.

The king heard of this danger, and gathered such resolution as he had to meet it. Before the Estates of Blois, in December, 1576, he made an able speech on behalf of peace, showing the exhausted condition of the country and the uselessness of persecution. But the League was all-powerful, and the cry of the assembly was “one religion.”

Deputies were sent to Navarre, Conde,

and D’Amville, requiring them to dis- ^

band their troops—a proposal which they declined without thanks. Henry III. now yielded to pressure, and began the sixth war, which amounted to little. After displays of military and naval force which exhausted the funds of both sides, peace was made in September, 1577, on nearly the same terms as before. The Huguenots made certain moderate concessions, and received eight strong places.

After less than _ . two years of nominal ^ peace, a seventh war, called that of Lovers, was stirred up by the wife of one king and sister of the other.

To gain an end of his own, Henry III., who was a poor j udge of virtue, accused Margaret of Navarre of adultery. The charge was believed to be premature, duke op guise.

though it would have been amply justified a few years later. She protested her innocence, and in revenge urged her husband to seize Cahors, a city that had been

promised to him as part of her dowry, but never given up. D’Alenson fomented the discord: the children of Catherine de Medicis knew nothing of moral principle, and little of natural affection. In the summer of 1580 Navarre, with but fifteen hundred men, attacked Cahors, which was defended by a large force. He blew up the gate with a petard, but his entrance was hotly opposed. His men became discouraged and wished to retire, but he refused, saying that his only retreat from the town would be the retreat of his soul from his body. “ Speak to me of nothing but fighting,” he cried: “conquest or death!” After five days of hand-to-hand combats on the bridge and through the streets, Cahors was taken. Three marshals came out against the victor; but Henry III. had no wish to crush one who was useful as a foil against more dangerous foes, and peace was made, this time to endure a little longer,

The vagaries of the Duke d’Alengon would fill a chapter at once comic and romantic, with some elements of tragedy. His ambition was boundless, his talents chiefly those of deceit, his character feeble and shallow. Disappointed at home, he aimed at the throne of England. Queen Elizabeth deluded him with empty promises of marriage, and urged the Netherlands to accept him as their sovereign. As will be told in a later chapter, he ruined his chances there by conduct worthy only of a criminal lunatic. His death, on June 10th, 1584, left Henry of Navarre next in succession to the throne of France; for the king, though married for ten years, was childless, as his three brothers had been.

THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE.

This painful prospect roused the League to full activity. What ? A heretic, a Protestant, to wear the crown and wield the sceptre ? Never. So Guise consulted his associates, put forward the Cardinal of Bourbon, Navarre’s uncle, as claimant for the succession, made a secret treaty with Philip II., and prepared for war. The king scented trouble in the air, and called his councillors; they were divided. Some urged alliance with the Huguenots; others said, Submit to the League. Epemon, a chief favorite, was sent to Navarre to counsel his reconciliation with the Church ; but he refused, against the advice of some of his friends, who told him that private opinions ought to give way in such a case. He might well hesitate before throwing himself into the hands of those who had murdered his friends twelve years and a half before. Besides, the nearest personal tie that bound him to the reigning house was broken, or at least much loosened, for his wife had left him.

While Henry III. was lamenting this failure, the greatest opportunity of his life came. William of Orange had fallen by the hand of an assassin, and the Netherlanders in their distress begged the French king to take them under his protection on any terms—to become their sovereign, if he would. It was a noble offer; but he was not man enough to accept it, and it was well for Dutch freedom that he declined.

The Catholic League included most of the great and wealthy nobles of the realm ; but these, while zealous in the cause, liked to increase their possessions much better than to spend hard cash. In this juncture their ally, Philip II., came to the rescue: the gold of Mexico and Peru, or what was left of it, was poured out without stint. Thus encouraged, the Leaguers, after a long and solemn preamble, and with free use of the holiest names, published their intention “to use strong hands and take up arms, to the end that the Church of God may be restored to its dignity and to the true and holy Catholic religion,” as well as for several alleged minor ends— the advantage of the nobles, the easing of the people, the prevention of new taxes, and the welfare and happiness of all.

TREATY OF NEMOURS.

The king issued a counter proclamation, but it had little effect. The League had put an army in motion, and took possession of several cities; Paris was theirs already. This was the eighth war, if that may be so called which was all on one side ; for Henry III. had not the spirit to call the Huguenots, or even their allies, the moderate Catholics, to his support. He yielded to the dictation of his foes, and on July 7th, 1585, signed the infamous Treaty of Nemours, which prohibited every religion but that of Rome, doomed the estates of Protestants to confiscation, and gave them six months—to their ministers but a single month—to abjure their faith or leave the country.

And now events begin to move more rapidly, and to assume a more picturesque and striking form. From that hour Guise was the real sovereign of France; but he trembled in the hour of his triumph. When, on the day after the signing of the treaty, he walked between the files of the royal guard into the presence of the puppet whom he had practically dethroned, he had a premonition of the fate that was to befall him three years later. “ I thought myself dead,” he said afterwards, “and my hat seemed lifted up on the tips of my hair.” When Navarre heard the news, he bowed his head and cried, “Unhappy France, can I then do nothing for you ?” But soon came a messenger from Montmorency with a hasty note: “ Sire, I have seen the treaty. The King of France and the King of Spain wish to gain me, but I am yours, with my brothers and my army.” No more was needed to raise a soldier’s spirits. He put forth a proclamation in his turn, defending his opinions and course, giving his accusers the lie, denouncing the Lorraine nobles as foreign intruders in France, and challenging Guise to combat, either singly, or with two, or ten, or twenty on a side, after the manner of chivalry.

This challenge was declined. Whether by design or accident, the duke never directly encountered Navarre in all these wars. They were of nearly the same age; they began their stormy career at the same time; they were accounted the bravest and best fighters in the kingdom ; every instinct, interest,

and principle, made them mortal enemies; and yet they were never pitted against each other in arms. The Huguenot prince doubtless felt .that this ought not to be so, and he put himself on record accordingly. The Leaguers replied that it was not a quarrel of individuals, that none of them had any personal ill will to Navarre, and that their cause was too sacred to be staked on the issue of a duel. Their reasons were more modern than their cause, and better adapted to our age than to that one. In this matter the honors rested with the maintainer at once of old chivalry and new freedom; his spirited conduct won approval, sympathy, and friends.

PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.

Henry III. now summoned the chiefs of the Parliament of Paris, the mayor, the Cardinal of Guise, and some others, and made them a sarcastic speech. Its

substance was this: “You wanted this war; now you have got it, and you can pay for it. I was against it, and you need not expect me to bear all the cost. Gentlemen of the Parliament, you cannot expect any salaries while this business lasts. Mr. Mayor, call your citizens together and tell them I want two hundred thousand gold crowns. Lord Cardinal, this is a holy war, and the Church will have to hand over her revenues.” They all began to protest, but he stopped them. “You would have done better to take my advice, and keep the peace, instead of holding councils of war in your shops and cloisters. This attempt to put down the preachers may bring the mass in danger. Now act, and leave off talking.” This last exhortation might have been thrown back on himself, for he was an admirable talker on occasion, and very poor at doing. ,

Less than half-hearted in this enterprise, he took steps to embarrass those with whom he was supposed to be acting. Guise and his brother, the Duke of Mayenne, were to command the chief armies: the king appointed other generals, nominally to co-operate with them, but really to neutralize their efforts. To give Navarre time for his preparations, he sent a deputation of orators, who should try to convert him. The prince replied to their arguments with the plainest language, calling the court a prison, the war an unjust one, and Guise a coward for refusing to settle the dispute in person. It fitted neither with his

; ¹ ’'ll.,

MONTMORENCY.

lonor nor his conscience, he said, to be dragged to mass by force ; and he trusted God to protect the right, as He had done before.

NAVARRE EXCOMMUNICATED.

At this j uncture Gregory XIII: died. The Leaguers had vainly tried, through the Jesuit Mathieu, who was called their courier, to gain his sanction for their plans. The new pope, Sixtus V., threw himself eagerly into the cause, and made haste to excommunicate Navarre and Conde as relapsed heretics, declaring them incapable of the throne. After the old manner, he released their subjects from allegiance, gave their possessions to any who could take them in the Church’s name, and doomed them and their helpers to all possible penalties in this world and the next. The League was delighted with this sentence, but rational Frenchmen felt otherwise, knowing how such impertinences had been resented in the past, and aware that, so far as they had any effect, they struck at the liberties both of the state and the Gallican Church. Navarre replied with his usual frankness, calling the pope a liar, a heretic, and antichrist This affair brought him more friends, and the pope himself admitted in after days that the two sovereigns whom he respected most and would like best, if only they were on the right side, were Elizabeth of England and Henry of Navarre.

The spirit in which -

the leaders entered on .

this new war appears from some words exchanged between Navarre and his minister ■of finance. The little kingdom was poor, the funds were low, and these facts had

SULLY.

been made clear at a meeting of the council just before. “ Well, Baron of Rosny,” said the king, “ are we not ready to die together ? It is no time then to economize : men of honor must venture half their estates to save the other half.” “No, sire,” Sully answered; “we shall live together, not die. I have still a wood that will bring a hundred thousand francs, and you shall have them.” The Huguenots, persecuted elsewhere, fled for protection to Navarre; to provide for them, he confiscated the property of Catholics. “As for us,” he said to his men, “we shall get our living in the camp of the League.”

This eighth war was called the war of the Three Henries. Its active operations did not begin till 1586, and then they were not so active as to require much description here. Conde had some successes in the west, and fought a battle in which D’Andelot’s sons were killed. Navarre, hemmed in by two royal armies, brought his troops through their lines without loss, and went to Rochelle. To this neighborhood, under a local truce, came Catherine, who always placed great reliance on her diplomacy. The sterner Calvinists, knowing that she would tempt their leader to abjure his religion, and that the chief studies of the court, as Sully said, were gallantry and falsehood, were much alarmed at the prospect of this interview.

It took place December 15th. The old queen brought along her “flying squadron”—the maids of honor through whom so many affairs of state were conducted. Navarre knew his customer well; in fact, neither believed a word the other uttered. Catherine complained of the trouble he was giving. “ Madam,” lie answered, “ it is not I who keep you out of your bed. It is you who will not let me sleep in mine.” “Must I always be thus disturbed?” she lamented: “I, who desire nothing so much as repose? ” “ Oh,” said he, “the trouble you take does you good. You could not live if you were quiet.” She asked him, significantly, what he would have. He looked deliberately over the group of attendant beauties,, and replied, “Nothing that is here.” And so the useless conference ended.

BATTLE OF COUTRAS.

Though seven royal armies were in the field, little was done till the fall of 1587. On October 20th, near the village of Coutras, and some twenty-five miles northeast of Bordeaux, Navarre met the enemy. He had but four thousand infantry and twenty-five hundred horse; the Duke of Joyeuse, one of the French king’s chief favorites, commanded ten thousand or more, whose gay apparel contrasted strongly with the faded garments and rusty armor of the Huguenots. “Behold your prey!” the prince shouted to his men; “it is a bridegroom who has the nuptial present in his pocket.” He arranged his forces in a crescent, with Conde and Conde’s younger biother ou the right. “You are Bourbons,” he said, “ and, please God, I will show myself the head of our house.”

As the Protestants knelt, Joyeuse said with scorn: “What are they doing? Why, they are afraid!” “Not so,” one of his officers replied; “they are most

flPPi

NAVARRR AT THE BATTLE OF COUTRAS.

dangerous after prayer.” They rose, and rolled out a verse of Marot’s psalms. Henry, wearing his famous white plume, rode along the ranks, with words of encouragement. The royalists charged, driving before them a force of light cavalry that had been placed well in advance. But the main, body stood firm, while the foe came up in confusion. Navarre was in his element that day. To friends who thrust themselves in front to protect him, he cried, “Give me room: you stifle me; I must be seen !” He seized an officer of Joyeuse by the collar, shot another who came to the rescue, and shouted to the first, “ Yield thee, Philistine !” The word, as we know, meant an enemy ©f the chosen people and of progress; but its use was much less familiar then than it is now.

In half an hour the battle was over. Joyeuse was slain, with near one-third of his men, four hundred of them nobles. Three thousand prisoners and eighty- four ensigns graced the triumph of the Huguenots, who had lost but about two hundred. Henry acted with moderation and clemency, sparing life as far as he could, and expressing regret for the fate of Joyeuse, whose body he sent back to Paris. When his councillors asked what terms he would now demand, he answered, “The same as before.” He wrote, with his usual wit and point, to Henty III.: “Sire, my Lord and brother; thank God, I have beaten your enemies and your army.” A sermon and a political treatise were in that short note. He meant that the French king had no business to be making war on his friends, and that armies so employed were his enemies. The other Henry knew this well enough, and perhaps was not sorry for the fate of Joyeuse, who alone among the favorites had urged submission to the League.

Meantime the third Henry—Guise—was having his own way in the north and east. A large force of Germans and Swiss, badly led, were on their way to join Navarre. The duke, with some help from Epernon, hung on their flanks, prevented a junction, surprised them twice by night, slaughtered many, and finally drove them out of the country. As foreigners and plunderers, they were generally hated; a story is told of a woman in Burgundy who cut the throats of eighteen sick or wounded Germans who had been left in her cottage.

GUISE IN PARIS.

Henry III., who had borne a part in this campaign, returned to Paris in triumph with his favorite Epernon. But the people gave all the credit to Guise. “Saul,” they sang, “has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands.” A book was sold with the title, “Military Exploits of the Duke of Epernon;” on each of its pages, in large type, was the word “Nothing.” The throne was held in contempt, while Guise received an almost idolatrous devotion. Meaning to profit by this, he called a secret meeting of his family at Nancy. Their objects were the same as ever, but they had grown bolder with success. “ They resolved to extirpate the Calvinists, to depose the king, immure him in a cloister,

GUISE ATTACKING THE GERMANS AND SWISS OX THEIR WAY TO JOIN NAVARRE.

expel the minions, confer on themselves all the high offices and dignities of the state, and rule the whole government of France at their pleasureat least this was reported and believed. The Cardinal of Guise used to say that he would never be happy till he held the king’s head between his knees, to fit a monk’s cowl on it. His sister, the Duchess of Montpensier, carried a pair of gold scissors, and boasted that she meant to make the cowl with them.

Without announcing all their private aims, the Leaguers wrote to the king requiring him to drive from his court and council all persons offensive to them; to give up such forts and towns as they might name, himself paying the garrisons and all other expenses; to confiscate the estates of the Huguenots; and in short, to make himself entirely and absolutely a puppet in their hands. A more lawless and indecent demand was never made of any nominal sovereign. It was in the interest not of liberty, but of persecution ; not of the state, but of a few persons, and chiefly of a single family, which had come into France within the century. Tenacity was the one virtue of the Guises; they never changed a purpose nor let go a possession. Their ruling vice was not so much bigotry as shameless greed. Their pockets were considered first, the Church next, and justice and humanity came in nowhere.

WHICH IS KING ?

The feeble monarch, sorely embarrassed by these insolent demands, saw nothing better to do than delay his answer. Thereupon the Council of Sixteen, who held Paris for the League, concocted a plan to attack the Louvre, kill the courtiers and ministers, and hold Henry a prisoner. All was well arranged, when the plot was betrayed. The king increased his guards and prepared the palace for defense. The Sixteen, fearing for their lives, urged Guise to come to Paris at once. Henry, both by messenger and by letter, forbade his coming; he disregarded the order, and entered the city on May 9th, 1588, with but seven attendants. Huge crowds gathered to meet him : according to a witness of the scene, “the shouts of the people sounded to the skies ; nor had they ever cried, ‘Live the king,’ as earnestly as they now shouted, ‘Live Guise/ Some saluted, some thanked him, some bowed, some kissed the hem of his cloak. Those who could not get near expressed their joy by gestures. Some adored him as a saint, touched him with their beads, and then pressed these against their lips, eyes, and foreheads.” It helps one to understand the fierce Parisian mob of those days, that their idea of a saint was one who had most to say and do against the Reformed. Certainly there was nothing saintly about Guise, unless his hatred of the Protestants were so considered.

He called on Catherine, and she went with him to her son. The king had been advised to strike down the rebel then and there, and it was as good an opportunity as came later ; but if he meant to do it, his mother restrained him.

WOODMAN’S CABIN IN THB ARDBNNB FORRST.

Tumults ensued: Paris was full of visitors from the provinces : the wildest rumors passed from mouth to mouth: barricades arose for the first time in the streets: the royal guards were not able to make head against the mob, and many jof them were slain. The all-powerful duke stopped the fighting: the queen- mother went to him to negotiate, but his demands were too monstrous. She cried out angrily, “What would people say, what would the sovereigns of Europe think, if the king allowed a subject to propose what amounted to his abdication?” Guise replied coolly, “Those are my terms.”

There was nothing left for Henry but flight; and he escaped next day by the back door (so to speak), while Catherine occupied the duke’s attention with a prolonged argument. In the midst of it an attendant came in and whispered in his ear. He sprang to his feet and exclaimed, “ Madam, you have betrayed me. He has gone, and I am undone.” The aged dissembler pretended to be surprised and not to believe the news. Her son had left for Chartres, where he was safer for the moment.

Meantime Philip of Spain was sending his famous armada to England, and urging Guise to delay no longer. The latter ordered Paris to his mind, and tried to convene the Parliament. Its president, Harlai, refused, saying boldly, “It is to be lamented, when the servant drives away the master. My soul I confide to God ; my heart is the king’s; my body is at the service of the lawless.” Said Guise, “I must have certain measures passed.” Again the lawyer answered with an epigram : “When the majesty of the throne is violated, judges have no longer any lawful authority.” But others were less scrupulous, and the usurper got what he wanted in that part of France.

; Basely yielding to pressure, Henry signed in July a paper which made him nominal head of the League, excluded Protestants from the succession, and bound him not to rest till Calvinism was crushed, besides making Guise general- in-chief. These promises he made, meaning to break them ; it was his habit to provide only for the moment, and take no thought of difficulties ahead.

SECOND STATES OF BLOIS.

The States-General met again at Blois in October, and again the king displayed his talents as an orator. He spoke of his poverty, which was now pressing, and promised economy: he would wear his clothes out before getting new ones, and be content with a single fowl for his dinner, if a pair were thought too many. The Assembly, again controlled by the League, replied by reducing his supplies. He would agree to pronounce Navarre incapable of reigning while he remained a Protestant: they replied that Navarre as an individual must be excluded, and that a king might not even tolerate heresy. He flung out in Wrath a sentiment which deserves far more approval than any of his actions: “He who sacrifices the national welfare to personal ambition, and seeks to promote his private fortunes by duplicity and treachery, must pay for it in infamy

on earth, and endure God’s judgments elsewhere.” This only made Guise and his friends angry, for the cap fitted their heads perfectly. He insisted on printing his speeches: this filled the Leaguers with alarm, for rational people could not help seeing that, so far as the king’s arguments went, he was in the right With scarcely concealed sympathy, he presented a letter from Navarre, denouncing the meeting as packed by his enemies, denying its right to condemn him, and protesting that he was not a heretic. It is curious that people have always been so sensitive about the application of this elastic word. From the Roman point of view the Calvinists were heretics of course, and the pope and his adherents from that of Calvin ; yet either side was much offended when the obnoxious term was applied to them. St. Paul had been much more candid in admitting that he worshipped the God of his fathers in a way which his opponents called heresy.

ASSASSINATION OF GUISE.

It had become plain that there were too many Henries in the field. Navarre was at a distance, out of reach for the moment, and not really the main point at issue, after all, just then. The two chief antagonists were at hand and in close collision ; one or other of them had to retire from the scene. Guise was still at his plots against the throne and possibly the life of his master, who received several warnings of the fact. Enervated by long self-indulgence, Henry had nearly lost the will and power to act; but he would screw his courage to the striking- point, rather than be stabbed or thrust into a monastery.

The court was still at Blois. A council of state was summoned for the morning of December 23d, 1588. Between the hall where it would meet and the king’s cabinet were a small antechamber and a bedroom: these were to serve as the place of sacrifice. The king first asked Grillon, the captain of his guard, to undertake the business. Though he hated the duke, this man replied that he would gladly challenge Guise, or die for his master, but that he was a soldier and not an executioner. Asked next if he would be silent, he said that was his business. Another readily took his place. The guards were doubled that night, and next morning, long before light, forty-five of them were admitted, by a secret stair, to the king’s presence. He told them what was to be done, and they all professed readiness to do it. Eight of them, armed with sword and dagger, were stationed in the antechamber. It is strange that the fine Italian hand of Catherine de Medicis does not appear in these arrangements, except in objection to them.

It was an age of treachery and suspicion, and one who had planned so many murders might well have distrusted his old accomplice, whom he had since wronged beyond forgiveness. But an infatuation of blind self-confidence came over Guise. On five or six notes of warning he wrote, “He dare not.” To a friend he said, “Iknow no man on earth who, hand to hand with me, would not

A s*r?<T*

ML’KDER OV THE DUKE OV GUISE.

■i

have more reason to fear than I.” To some who urged him to leave Blois at once, he replied, “Affairs are in such a state that I would not go out by the door if I saw death coming in at the window.” This last was mere bravado, for he agreed to leave the next day.

He supped that evening with one of his titled mistresses. When he reached his own room at three A. M., his uncle was there to give him another warning, but he brushed it aside as before, with “He dare not.” At eight he was in the council hall. Here the Archbishop of Lyons gave him a hint, before a royal officer: “That dress is too light for the season: you should wear one stiff with fur.” But it was not fur that could save him: in a simple, athlete’s costume, with a naked sword in his hand, he might possibly have escaped, for he was extremely strong. His eldest son, Joinville, was in the tennis-court with Henry’s nephew, the Grand Prior; this had been arranged to keep the youth out of the way. His secretary sent a hurried note at the last moment, “ Save yourself, or you are dead;” but Guise had already left the hall for the king’s cabinet, to which a valet summoned him.

It is said that on the way he was seized with sudden faintness: if so, the murderers held their hands till he recovered. Noticing something sinister in their demeanor, he turned to glance at them as he raised his arm to lift the hangings at the door of the bedroom: at this moment the eight fell upon him. Encumbered with his cloak, he tried in vain to draw his sword; but he dragged the assassins across the room before he fell. He was covered with wounds, and died without a word.

Encouraged by this success, Henry,had the doors and gates thrown open, and announced to those who crowded in that he meant to rule in deed as well as in name. He went to his mother, who lay sick, and said, “The King of Paris is no more; I am now King of France.” She answered, “ I fear you will soon, be king of nothing.” He had the remaining chiefs of the League arrested and confined, except the Dukes of Mayenne and Nemours, who escaped. The Cardinal of Guise was executed: his body and that of his brother were buried in quicklime, in a place known to but a few, lest they should be turned into relics.

Abundant proofs of conspiracy, treason, and complicity with Spain, were found: the papers of Guise showed that he had received two million ducats from Philip II. But all this went for nothing, so fiercely were the passions of the Parisian mob aroused. Every demonstration of hatred assailed the absent king: his statues were broken, his arms torn down, his name left out of the public prayers: the priests called him Herod, and demanded revenge for the blood of Guise. The theologians of the Sorbonne declared that he had forfeited the throne, and that his subjects ought to cast off their allegiance: the Parliament ratified the sentence, after Harlai and others had been thrown into the Bas- tile. The Council of Sixteen called on Mayenne to take the government; lie

came to Paris, and was made lieutenant-general. Half of France was presently in revolt.

DEATH OF CATHERINE.

Amid these commotions Catherine de Medicis died, January 5th, 1589, within a fortnight of her old accomplice. She had outlived three sons, two of them on the French throne, and left a fourth, king in little more than name: all of them put together had hardly the making of an average man. She had borne her large share in demoralizing France, in destroying its wealth and prosperity, in drenching it with blood. Two of the chief authors of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew had now gone to their account, and the third was soon to follow. By rights, they should all have been hanged sixteen years before.

And now one of another mould than these comes to the front. The king of Navarre was no saint; but in every attribute of manhood he was far above his foes. He had largeness of mind and heart; his ambition was legitimate, not basely selfish ; he was true to his friends; and he loved France. Much love he cannot have had for the enemy of his j'outh, the murderer of his comrades; but policy was the law of princes, and the policy of Navarre was loyal and generous. It was not by treachery and assassination that he meant to reach the throne of France.

Henry III. was loath to call on this ally, for he too felt that a great gulf lay between them. He made overtures to Mayenne; they were rejected with scorn. He sent to Rome for absolution: it was refused. His agent urged that the Cardinal of Guise, like his brother, was a traitor: the pope replied that he was the judge of that. In sore straits, with neither men nor money, and threatened by the all-powerful League, he made a treaty with Navarre. The two met at Plessis, near Tours, on April 30th. Bourbon knelt; the other raised and embraced him. In a long interview they arranged their plans. After it was over, Navarre wrote to his friend Momay, “ The ice is broken, not without many warnings that I came here to die. As I crossed the river, I commended myself to God.” The councillor answered, “Sire, 3'ou have done what you ought, but what none of us could have advised.” So greatly and justly was the good faith of the last Valois distrusted, that the prince had halted a few miles from Tours, and consulted his attendants whether to go on or turn back. Sully claimed to have urged his- master to take the risk ; and the event more than justified his wisdom.

The country was already torn by another civil war. Mayenne attacked Tours in the night, but was driven off. Reinforcements came ; the two kings marched on Paris with forty thousand men, forced the gates of St. Cloud, and prepared to besiege the capital, where Mayenne had a force of less than ten thousand. The news that he was excommunicated alarmed Henry ; for two days he would not eat. “ My brother,” said Navarre, “ the bolts of Rome do not touch conquerors. You will be safe from them in Paris.” It was to be assaulted ou

August 2d. But the weapons he had so freely employed were now to be turned against the king: he had done forever with the Louvre and its tinsel joys.

MURDER OF HENRY III.

At least one priest freely preached assassination. Lincestre, the chief orator of the League, held up in the pulpit a chandelier that he said had come

death OF HBNRY III.

from the palace, ornamented with figures of satyrs. “See,” he cried, “these are the king’s devils, the gods he worships, the instruments of his enchantments.

Would it be lawful to kill sucb a tyrant? I myself would be ready to do it at any moment—except wlien I am consecrating the Lord’s body in the mass.”

Jacques Clement, a young Dominican monk with a bad record, was excited by these tirades. He boasted much of what he meant to do, and was laughed at by his comrades. The prior of his convent told him it would be only a misdemeanor, not a crime, to slay a tyrant, and spoke to the Dukes of Mayenne and Aumale, who did not discourage the design. The Sixteen urged him on and said (having no authority to make such promises) that he should be a cardinal if he escaped, or canonized if he fell. Guise’s sister, the Duchess of Montpensier, whose husband was in the king’s army, was liberal in her favors to this low-born and ignorant fanatic. He bought a dagger, steeped it in what he believed to be poison, and by false pretences procured from imprisoned royalists a letter of introduction and a passport to the king’s army. Presenting these at St. Cloud on July 31st, he was taken in by La Guesle, the attorney-general, who had him watched that night; but he slept like a child. Admitted next morning to the ioyal presence, he offered a letter, and while Henry was looking at it, stabbed him in the abdomen. The king drew out the knife and struck the assassin’s face with it, crying, “My God, the wicked monk has killed me ! ’’ La Guesle dispatched Clement, whose body was thrown from the window to the soldiers beneath, and burned.

The wounded man lingered for thirty-six hours. To Navarre, who came hastily in tears, he spoke with affection, urging his officers to recognize and be true to his successor. “To be king of France,” he said, “you will have to tura Catholic. You must—and you will.” His last hours displayed more dignity than his life. With him ended the house of Valois, which in the persons of thirteen successive kings had held the throne for two hundred and sixty years.

THE FOURTH HENRY.

ENRY of Navarre was now the lawful sovereign of France; but his crown and sceptre were yet to win. The officers of the late king kept aloof; they acknowledged his rights of birth, but thought these vitiated by his heresy. “Conform,” they said; “submit to Rome, and we follow you.” He answered, as he had done before, that he could not do it with the dagger at his throat. Even if he had no regard to his conscience, his honor forbade; better lose thirty crowns than that. To ask him to change his faith so suddenly was to imply that he had no faith to change. No; he would consider the matter; he was always open to conviction; if a general council could be had, he would abide by its decision. Meantime he guaranteed the free exercise of the Catholic religion, with all the possessions and privileges of the Church. A contract to this effect, with other provisions little favoring the Huguenots, was signed on August 4th, and registered in the Parliament of Tours. Not satisfied with these concessions, Epemon and many others left him. By prompt action and with Marshal Biron’s aid, he retained the Swiss mercenaries; but within five days the royal army was diminished by one-half, and it had become plain that the siege of Paris must be abandoned.

He now issued an address to the French people. With the usual high- minded professions, it contained an argument the power of which is better appreciated in our day than it could be in his: “Consider how hard and unjust is this attempt to coerce me in matters of faith, when I, your lord and master, permit you to enjoy perfect freedom of conscience.” It was the language of weakness appealing to strength, of a minority against superior numbers. He concluded with asking the prayers of his subjects that God would “enlighten his conscience,” as well as direct his councils and bless his endeavors. He was obliged not only to make friends at once, but to look forward, however reluctantly, to the distant but inevitable event of his so-called conversion. His support was feeble: the

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Protestants were divided, and not all of them trusted or followed him. Some dreamed of a Reformed confederacy under foreign protection. Montmorency and other governors, thinking the king’s cause hopeless, expected to see France break into fragments, and to become themselves independent princtes. If the League had been really united and ably led, Henry would indeed have been in straits; but its soul was gone with Guise, and here too each was for himself. Mayenne was heavy and slow; and the Cardinal Bourbon, whom this faction presently proclaimed king as Charles X., was a tool and figurehead at best, and now a prisoner. In such times of confusion success falls not necessarily to the' worthiest cause, but usually to the keenest brain and quickest hand. Through all these wars France produced no commanding genius, no general or statesman of the highest order; but Henry IV. was the first man of his time, by qualities as well as birth the fit and natural ruler and leader of the afflicted land.

Great was the joy in Paris over the news of the late king’s end. The Duchess of Montpensier, a lady ready to lay aside her aristocratic pride on every due occasion, embraced the messenger, and regretted only that the victim did not know that she had sharpened the knife. She wished to substitute bright green for the usual court mourning. The town was with her; fireworks and huge bonfires celebrated the happy event. The Jesuits proposed to raise the regicide’s statue in the church of Notre Dame. The pope was equally pleased, of course, and praised the deed before his cardinals, comparing it to the most heroic sacrifices of ancient times, and even, for its supposed value, to the birth and resurrection of the Son of God. But however frantic his oratory, Sixtus V. was a politician, and had no wish to see the Most Catholic King become lord of all western Europe. He knew that Philip II. had designs on the French throne ; it suited him better to have the place occupied by a harmless elderly priest, who represented nothing but orthodox)/- and an ancient family. Charles X. was a younger brother of the late Antony of Navarre, and an uncle of the rival claimant.

BATTLE OF ARQUES.

Having much ground to cover with a small force, Henry divided his army into three, and went north with barely eight thousand men, to await reinforcements promised from England. Thither Mayenne followed with thirty thousand, meaning to bring back the Bearnois, as this faction called the king whom they would not acknowledge, a pitiable prisoner. Couriers were appointed beforehand to hasten with the news to Paris, and windows on the street along which the triumphal procession was to pass were engaged at high prices. But the show did not come off as expected.

The succors were delayed, and Henry, his position being insecure, was urged to retire into Germany or England. From this step, which might have been his ruin, he was saved by his own resolution or the wise advise of Biron.

Jocosely lamenting his misfortunes, lie called himself “ a king without a kingdom, a husband without a wife, a general without an army-chest.” But he went to work to fortify his position at Arques, a few miles from Dieppe and the coast A trench eight feet wide was dug around his camp, including a castle and a hospital called the Maladrerie; within, earthworks were thrown up aud cannon planted.

BATTLE OF ARQUES.

The enemy attacked on September 2ist, 1580, under cover of a heavy fog, which ■concealed their movements. They gained a temporary success by a ruse ; their German mercenaries, pretending to desert, were allowed to cross the trench and

helped by Henry’s Swiss to climb the earthwork. Having thus effected a lodgement, they turned on the Swiss, and, aided by two French regiments who rushed in, drove the defenders from the Maladrerie. A general assault was ordered, under which Montpensier’s division gave way. Had Mayenne been as quick as his adversary, he might have kept his advantage; as it was, Henry was in danger. He cried, “Are there not fifty gentlemen brave enough to die with their king?” In the nick of time Chatillon, Coligny’s son, came up with two small regiments of Huguenots. “Here we are, sire,” he said; “we will die with you.” The arrival of this reinforcement, and the lifting of the fog at the same critical moment, saved the day. The guns of the castle opened on the foe as the Calvinists raised their battle-psalm: “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered.” Chatillon, with Biron, who had been wounded an hour before, drove the Germans from the Maladrerie. The discouraged royalists reformed their ranks, and turned on the foe with new ardor. After a fierce fight, in which Henry showed his usual valor, the Leaguers were forced to retreat.

ATTACK ON PARIS.

The moral effect of this victory was great: it raised the king’s reputation and brightened his prospects. The pope said, “That Beamois will win: he is no longer in bed than Mayenne is at his dinner.” Five thousand English and Scotch arrived, with twenty-two thousand pounds from Elizabeth—the largest sum Henry ever yet had handled. Joined by his other armies, he entered Amiens, the chief city of Picardy, a province always bitterly hostile to the Protestants. Thence he marched on Paris, and took the wealthy faubourg of St. Germain, with much booty. Pillage was the custom of the times, and Sully gained three thousand crowns here. Chatillon, who had his father’s murder to avenge, was extremely active. Nine hundred Parisians fell, and four hundred prisoners were taken. Among them was the prior of the Jacobins, who was soon after tried and convicted as an accomplice in the murder of Henry III. and for having praised it from the pulpit. This wretched priest was sentenced by the Parliament of Tours to the frightful punishment of regicides : his body was harnessed to four horses which were driven in opposite directions, and so tom apart.

As Mayenne advanced from Flanders to relieve Paris, Henry retired to Tours, where he was acknowleged as king by two French cardinals and by the Venetian Republic. After securing Normandy, he attacked Honfieur, but left it to relieve Meulan, and forced the Leaguers and their Spanish auxiliaries to raise the siege. Meantime the pope had sent to Paris Cardinal Cajetan as legate, with three hundred thousand crowns, intended as a ransom for Cardinal Bourbon, otherwise Charles X.; but Mayenne got possession of the money. These gentlemen always wanted all they could get from whatever source, and generally

kept most of it. Unlike lionest John Tompkins of the ballad, “Although they were rich, they desired to be richer.” They also loved office and position and power, not only for the profit to be had thereby, but for the honor and dignity. As Henry’s star rose, Mayenne was more willing to listen to his propositions ; but he could not bring himself to accept them and make peace, for he hoped to- be able to snatch the crown himself. There were many other schemes and crosspurposes among the Leaguers ; but it is not necessary to dwell upon these, for they had no other effect than to protract the miseries of France, and they finally came to naught.

BATTLE OF IVRY.

The two armies met again at Ivry, fifty miles northwest of Paris, on March 14th, 1590. Henry had about eight thousand infantry and three thousand horse ; Mayenne had twice as many, including seven thousand of Parma’s men from. Flanders, brought by the young Count Egmont. This nobleman, a devotee of the cause which had slain his father, insisted on fighting when Mayenne would have avoided it, and paid for his rashness with his life. Each army was arranged. in a cresent.

The horsemen of the League bore the heavy lance of chivalry : those of the- king had only sword and pistol. He said to them, “Comrades, if this day you. share my fortune, I too take all yonr risks. I am resolved to die or conquer with you. Keep your ranks, I beg you ; but if you should break them in the- heat of the fight, rally at once. Should you lose sight of your colors, keep my white plume in view: it will lead you to victory and honor.” They knew that, these were no idle words. The Huguenots knelt while their chaplain prayed, and then both armies charged together. Macaulay’s ballad, which has added to» the deserved fame of this battle, may serve as a description of its beginning and end; it is put in the mouth of one of the Protestant soldiers:

Oh, how our hearts were beating, when at the dawn of day We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array,

With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers,

And Appenzel’s stout infantry, and Egmont’s Flemish spears.

There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land;

And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand.

And as we looked on them, we thought of Seine’s empurpled flood,

And good Coligny’s hoary hair all dabbled with his blood ;

And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war,

To fight for His own holy name and Henry of Navarre.

The king is come to marshal us, in all his armor drest,

And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest.

He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye:

He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high.

Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing,

Down all our line, in deafening shout, “God save our lord the King.”

“ Aud if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well be may—

For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray—

Press where ye see my white plume shine amidst the ranks of war,

And be your oriflamme to day the helmet of Navarre.”

Hurrah ! the foes are moving ! hark to the mingled din Of fife and steed and trump and drum and roaring culverin !

The fiery duke is pricking fast across Saint Andre’s plain,

With all the hireling chivalry of Gueldres and Almayne.

Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France,

Charge for the golden lilies now—upon them with the lance !

A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,

A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow-white crest.

And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star,

Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre.

It was not a royalist victory from the start. On the contrary, the weight and numbers of the Leaguers drove Henry and his cavaliers back. He shouted to them to turn and see him die, and led a few in a desperate charge. For some moments he was out of sight, hidden in the press of foemen; his friends thought he was down. But his usual good fortune had not deserted him. The white plume appeared again ; his followers raised a mighty cheer, rallied, and dashed furiously on the enemy. The ranks of the League wavered, and then broke all along their line. Their generals fled like cowards; Mayenne, to secure his own safety, pulled down a bridge behind him, leaving hundreds of his men to drown in the river or be slaughtered on its bank. The Swiss, who had taken no part in the fight, surrendered ; the Germans, whose leader was killed, offered to do the same, but were cut down with many of the Spaniards. The rout was complete and disgraceful.

Now God be praised, the day is ours ! Mayenne hath turned his rein;

D’Aumale hath cried for quarter: the Flemish Count is slain.

Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale :

The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and cloven mail.

And then we thought on vengeance, and all along our van,

“ Remember St. Bartholomew ! ” was passed from man to man.

But out spake gentle Henry then, “ No Frenchman is my foe:

Down, down with every foreigner, but let your brethren go.”

Oh, was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in war,

As our sovereign lord King Henry, the soldier of Navarre !

Ho, maidens of Vienna ! Ho, matrons of Lucerne !

Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never shall return.

Ho, Philip ! Send for charity thy Mexican pistoles,

That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearmen’s souls.

Ho, gallant nobles of the League ! Look that your arms be bright.

Ho, burghers of St. Genevieve ! Keep watch and ward to-night.

For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the slave,

And mocked the counsel of the wise and the valor of the brave.

Then glory to His holy name, from whom all glories are;

And glory to our sovereign lord, King Henry of Navarre.

Most of this description is accurate. As the pursuit began, Henry gave orders to “ spare the French.” The Spaniards were justly hated for their cruelties in the Netherlands, and the Germans, by their recent treachery at Arques, were supposed to have deserved their fate. Few regretted Egmont, who had been base enough to disown his father’s memory. Ou his reception in Paris, the president, wishing to compliment him, had praised the late admiral, who had been stadtholder of Flanders and a famous soldier: but the son replied, “Do not speak of him: he was a rebel, and merited his death.” Apart from its filial impiety, this was a stupid speech, for those to whom it was made were in arms against their lawful king. Moreover, it was not true, as we shall see in another place.

The only other eminent victims of this battle were two Germans—Schom- berg on the king’s side, the Duke of Brunswick on the other. The nobles of the League, as has been said, took excellent care of their precious selves ; but with their men it was another matter. The cavalry, who had sustained the whole fight, had a chance to escape when it was over : not so with the footmen, who had stood still, scarcely firing a shot, and were now cut down or taken. • Some six thousand lost their lives, and as many were made prisoners : the remaining half of the rebel army was scattered in promiscuous flight. The victors lost but five hundred killed, and two hundred wounded. Sully, who captured Mayenne’s standard, received no less than seven wounds ; but he recovered, to live over fifty years longer, and be for twenty of them an important figure in French history. Sixteen French and twenty Swiss colors, eight cannons, with all the ammunition and baggage of the camp, fell into Henry’s hands. At ten that night he wrote to La Noue : “God has blessed us. To-day the battle came off. It has been fought well. God has shown that He loves right better than might. Our victory is entire. The enemy utterly broken. The Reiter fairly destroyed. The infantry surrounded. The foreigners badly handled. All the cornets and cannon taken. The pursuit carried to the gates of Mantes.” Next morning he was playing tennis.

As at least once before, he neglected to follow up his victory with the requisite speed. Had he moved as quickly now as he did during the fight, he might have taken his capital and practically ended the war ; but it was his weakness to seek repose and pleasure after a victory. At this time Charles X., the nominal king of the League, died at Fontenay, having acknowledged his nephew’s title. Coins of this fraction of a monarch exist, but he has no place in the list of French kings, the only one of that name and number having come to the throne two hundred and thirty-four years later. Still he had been useful to the Leaguers, and they were perplexed whom to put in his place, for they would not submit to Henry.

HKNRY IV. AT IVRY

SIEGE OP PARIS.

Paris had been well fortified when he reached it on May 7th, and was prepared to repel an assault; so nothing was to be done but starve it into submission. It was defended by five thousand soldiers and thirty thousand armed citizens ; the whole number within the walls was two hundred thousand, and there was food enough for a month. When this was gone, the convents were forced to supply the people for a fortnight from their reserved stores. The priests and monks bore part in the defense : thirteen hundred of them marched in procession, crucifix in one hand and gun or pike in the other; and one of them, being awkward with his unfamiliar weapon, managed to shoot the secretary of the pope’s legate, who had come out in his carriage to review them. These recruits probably gave up their supply of victuals to the public need with more reluctance than they exposed their bodies to the besiegers’ bullets.

By the end of June the famine became frightful. “A bushel of corn so V for a hundred and twenty crowns. The only bread, and that very scarce, was made of oats. Horses, dogs, asses, and mules were used as meat, and they were delicacies publicly sold for the families of the greatest lords. The poor fed on herbs and grass, which they picked up in yards and streets, and on the ramparts; these produced such cruel disease that many died. Excessive heat, following excessive rain, increased the general sickness.” Wood for fire had given out, and meat—when there was any—was eaten raw. A dog and a man, both emaciated, fought in the street; the dog won, and dined off the man’s shrivelled carcass. The horrors of Sancerre were repeated on a larger scale, and carried further. When the hides and parchments were all gone, slates were pounded into powder and mixed with water and a little bran. The Spanish ambassador, or some one else, remembered reading that in an eastern city, similarly beleaguered, bread had been made from bones: on this hint the graveyards were disturbed, and human skeletons turned into a hideous food. Bodies of famished children were salted for their parents’ use.

August came, and the survivors were scarcely able to clear the streets of corpses. The two hundred daily deaths increased fivefold; it is said that in this last month of the siege thirty thousand perished. Maddened by the sight of fields ready for the harvest, many went outside the walls and snatched a handful of the ripe grain, heedless of wounds and dangers. Fanaticism endured these extremities rather than submit to the humanest sovereign of his time. At an earlier period of the siege, Henry had allowed three thousand women, children, and old men, to pass through his lines. He now let his compassion override his. interest. According to Sully, “ He could not bear the thought of seeing the city, where he was destined to rule, become one vast churchyard. He secretly permitted whatever could contribute to its relief, and pretended not to notice that his officers and soldiers were sendiug in provisions, some to help their friends

and relatives inside, others to make profit out of the need of the citizens.” This, on the king’s part, was good charity, but very poor warfare. At this rate, why besiege Paris at all ? If he thought to win over the citizens by his kindness, he was mistaken ; they still cursed him as the author of all their calamities. Yet he would not yield to the repeated entreaties of his soldiers, and especially of the Huguenots, to storm the city; and this was chiefly, some thought, from fear of the awful massacre that would ensue, in revenge for St. Bartholomew. He said to the bishop of Paris, who came out to treat with him : “ I would give one finger for a battle, and two for peace. I love my city; I am jealous of her ; I long to serve her ; I would grant her more favors than she asks of me ; but I would grant them of free will, and not be compelled to it by the King of Spain and the Duke of Mayenne.”

PARMA RELIEVES PARIS.

At length the Duke of Nemours, who had charge of the defense, sent word to his allies outside that he would be forced to surrender if not relieved in ten days. On this Mayenne advanced to Meaux, where he was joined by Alexander Famese, the great Prince of Parma, then Philip’s Governor of Flanders. In view of the approach of these forces, Henry raised the siege at the end of August, and marched to Chelles, more than half way to Meaux, that he might intercept the enemy on his way to Paris. Delighted at the prospect of an encounter with the foremost soldier of the age, he

THE PRINCE OP PARMA.

encamped on a hill, prepared for battle, and wrote to one of his lady friends, “If I lose it, you will never see me again, for I am not the man to retreat or fly.” But there was to be no battle. Parma, on arriving in the neighborhood, got a view of Henry’s army, saw that it was equal to his own, and said to Mayenne: “ Those are not the ragamuffins you told me of; they are well appointed, and they have cannon.” So he determined not to fight, but to resort to strategy, in which he was more than a match for Henry. The king sent him a challenge; he answered that he understood his own business, and had not come so far to take counsel of an enemy; it was not his habit to engage when he could get what he wanted without it; let Henry force him

to a battle if he could. On September 6th he outwitted his antagonist by drawing out his army as if for attack, aud then suddenly turning towards Lagny, which he took next day, crossing the Marne by a bridge of boats. Henry, enraged but helpless, saw his garrison at Lagny destroyed, and the way made clear for the relief of Paris.

A campaign of skirmishes followed, in which the king could do little more than hang on Parma’s flanks and cut off stragglers.

The invader stormed Corbeil on October 16th, which freed the passage of the Seine ; having sacked it, he wished to garrison the place with Spaniards, but Mayenne objected. This town and Lagny were soon retaken by one of the Icing’s lieutenants. In November Parma returned to the Netherlands. Henry, while pursuing him, deviated from the road to follow one of those romantic adventures of which he was so fond. He had cast an admiring eye on -Gabrielle d’Estrees, afterwards intimately associated with his history, but at this time shy. He now went twenty-four miles out of his way, almost alone, through a hostile country, and visited the lady in the dress of a farm laborer. It was a delicate attention which she never forgot. “After this,” he said, "“nothing will go wrong with me.” Such were his recreations on the march.

Before. the end of this year, 1590, he took Corby, a town on the Somme, Tiear Amiens. In remoter regions he was less fortunate. Indeed, he still hal reason to fear the breaking up of his kingdom into bits, through the ambitio j of the petty princes, favored by the confusions of the time. The Duke of Savoy had taken Aix in the southeast, and in the northwest Brittany was claimed by the Duke of Mercceur, one of the never-satisfied Lorraines, in right of his wife. The Prince of Dombes was acting there for the king, and had built a fort by the :sea, but was driven off by a Spanish fleet.

The religious question, which was inextricably intertwined with the politics of the time, added to the king’s embarrassments. Bordeaux, through its councillors, begged him to make more speed in the way of enlightening his conscience, and his Catholic adherents often reminded him that he had promised, a year before, to call a council within six months for the attainment of that import- .ant end. He excused himself by referring to the toils of war, his battles, his siege of Paris ; and he was obliged to add that for the present the royal cause needed Protestant aid from abroad : why cut off loans and reinforcements from England and Germany by hastening a decision as to his faith ? Yet he knew that he was only gaining time, and that these delays could not go on forever.

Meanwhile the councils of the League were distracted. Certain acts of violence in Paris provoked reprisals, and ended in the downfall of the Sixteen . and the discredit of the extremists. The Duke of Nevers abandoned faction for 1 loyalty, and was made governor of Champagne. The Duke D’Aumale attacked vSt. Denis, was repulsed, and killed at the door of an inn whose sign was The

Royal Sw-ord : some importance was attached to this trivial coincidence. Henry, on his part, besieged Chartres from February 16th to April 19th, 1591; it fell at last, chiefly through the valor and skill of Chatillon, of whom great things were expected. His death within the year, at the early age of thirty, was a heavy loss to the Protestants, who believed that he would have equalled or even excelled his illustrious father. The name of another leader has not appeared of late; Condfe, Henry’s cousiu, was poisoned in 1588. These wars, intrigues, and hatreds were fatal to many of the best.

As the season advanced, the king took Noyon, and his officers won other successes in the north and south. A new pope sent a new legate, who published a decree commanding the clergy to leave all places which recognized Bourbon, and otherwise invaded the liberties of the national Church: this aroused much wrath, and injured the cause it was meant to help. The Parliament of Paris accepted the bull, but those of Tours and Chalons ordered it to be burned, and denounced obedience to it as high treason.

Young Guise escaped from confinement at Tours, not at all to the satisfaction of Ma-

yenne, who feared in his nephew a rival claimant to the throne.

MARIA DE MEDICIS.

Second wife of Henry IV.

HENRY’S RASHNESS AT AUMALE.

In the early autumn the Prince of Anhalt brought six thousand Germans, and the Karl of Essex half as many English. With an army increased to •forty thousand, the king began on October 1st the siege of Rouen, which his father’s troops had taken from the Protestants twenty-eight years before. Here he performed many deeds of valor, and won the admiration of Marquis Villars, who commanded the defense. This officer, who was moved to equal activity

by so chivalrous an example, declared that Henry deserved a thousand crowns, and regretted that his religion prevented true Catholics from serving him. , But in January, 1592, Parma entered France again, and the king went to meet, him, leaving Biron to carry on the siege. At Aumale he suddenly encountered the whole Spanish army. Following impulse instead of reason, he charged with but a few hundred horsemen behind him. The nearest regiments dashed forward to cut him off; the white plume was recognized, and the cry went through the whole host, “Navarre!” If Parma had acted promptly, he would have been taken or slain; but the.Italian, who did nothing without a plan, suspected a trap, and forbade a general advance. As it was, the foolhardy king was in imminent peril, and barely escaped with the loss of half his men. He was the last to reach a bridge which offered the only way of retreat: as he crossed it, a bullet inflicted the only wound he received in all his battles. The injury was luckily not severe, and he made his way to Dieppe with the survivors, no two of whom could give the same account of the skirmish. He laughed off his rashness, which perhaps brought him no less honor than discredit: but Parma, who regarded war as a science, was deeply disgusted. When blamed for neglecting to improve so rare an opportunity, he replied with contempt, “ I supposed I had to do with a general, not a mere captain of dragoons.” Another slur he passed on his antagonist, observing that “it was a fine retreat; but for my part, I never engage in a place whence I am obliged to retire.” That is, he would not fight unless he was sure to win ; and from this maxim the able tactician never departed.

MORE OF PARMA’S STRATEGY.

The approach of the Spaniards and Leaguers forced Henry to raise the seige of Rouen, in which he had lost three thousand men. He placed his troops across the enemy’s path and offered battle ; but Mayenne, who had encountered him twice, had little of

That stern joy which warriors feel

In foemen worthy of their steel.

Parma appeared to accept the challenge, but again eluded the king by drawing off his force under cover of the cavalry. To free the lower Seine he took Caude loc: while thus engaged, a bullet from the walls entered his arm at the elbow and passed down to the wrist. He uttered no sound, and went on with his observations, till the blood dropping from his hand attracted the attention of those about him ; but the wound disabled him for a time, and contributed to his death within the year.

Mayenne, who had the command in this emergency, led the army into the peninsula of Caux, a narrow and dangerous place. Henry promptly blocked the entrance, cut off supplies, and thought he had them shut up in a trap. But though Parma’s body was weakened, his mental resources had not failed: he

procured boats and rafts from Rouen, built a temporary bridge in the night, and crossed the rivet in safety. Having now accomplished his task, and being needed in the. Netherlands, he returned thither, much to the disappointment of Mayenne and the League, who wished to have everything done for them and to make no returns. Parma told them that they were unreasonable and ungrateful, since he had saved their two chief cities, and Spain had borne nearly the whole expense of the war. Yet he meant to invade France again, had not his death removed the most dangerous of Henry’s foes.

ABJURATION.

OTH parties, with reduced forces, now carried on the war in a desultory way. There were no more great battles like Ivry, no more terrific sieges like that of Paris ; only chance encounters, the taking and retaking of small places, the interruption of normal business, and increasing misery. Marshal Biron was killed at the siege of Epernay, July 26th, 1592 : he was the most Yi- prominent of the king’s generals, marked with the scars of seven battles, and a scholar of some repute: the great Cardinal Richelieu was his godson and namesake. He used to keep a sort of diary, and record in it every notable event or remark: it grew to be a proverb, when any one said something out of the common, “You found that in Biron’s pocket-book.”

Negotiation now largely took the place of arms. Every one wanted peace; "but the question was, On what terms ? Matters seemed no nearer a settlement; the king’s cause was by no means won, and fresh perils sprang up around him. His Catholic supporters, offended at his long delay in settling the religious question, were growing cool or turning away: they disliked Protestant alliances, and were not easily reconciled to the idea of a Protestant sovereign. The Estates- General, called together by Mayenne, met in Paris in January, 1593, and sat fjr months. Its authority, disowned by Henry, was acknowledged by Spain and the Pope. Philip II. claimed the crown for his daughter, who was a grandchild of Henry II. The nobles scouted this suggestion, for the Salic Law of France forbade succession through a female line : even the Bishop of Senlis, who had praised the murder of Henry III., cried out that the proposal was “ the greatest evil that could have befallen the League, and confirmed all the Politicals had said, that interest and ambition had had more to do with the war than zeal for religion, and that in thinking to serve the Church they had been the blind tools of a foreign king.” These plain remarks made an impression, which was deepened when the Spanish ambassador admitted that Philip meaut to give his daughter in marriage to the Archduke of Austria. The assembly agreed that this (444)

■would, never do. The envoy then said that a French prince might be substituted, to be named and elected king within six months. Who should it be ? The young Duke of Guise.

The critical time had come. To embarrass his enemies, Henry, through his Catholic supporters, had proposed a conference with some of the deputies ; Mayenne and other Leaguers, dreading Spanish dominance, had favored the idea, and certain bishops were in session at Surenne. To enliven the dullness of these proceedings and remind people that he was not to be left out of the account, the king attacked Dreux early in June, and took it after a month’s siege.

THE KING OF FRANCE MUST BE A CATHOLIC.

It would be tedious to recount all the steps which led to an inevitable end. Only a member of the national Church, a Romanist, could mount and hold the throne of France: this had been apparent from the start, and became clearer every day. The Huguenots numbered perhaps one-sixth of the population, and they were not increasing. The first force of the Reformation-wave had been spent long before ; and the crown had not, as in England, such power or prestige that it might chauge the religion of the people. Personally, creeds and forms were of small consequence to Henry, whom nobody ever mistook for a pietist. His belief was a matter of inheritance, of tradition, of association: as he had several times intimated, what held him to it was rather a sentiment of honor than a conviction of conscience. And now it was a question—or rather it was hardly a question any longer—whether this private sentiment ought not to give way to considerations of the public welfare. What other hope was there for France, what other solution of the problems of the time ? Not one which would not make bad worse. He was a public man, and public life makes its own requirements. Abjuration, from the standpoint of Calvin’s theology, was a crime; from that of statesmanship, it was a virtue.

We need not regard Henry as one who nobly sacrificed himself for the general good. He was a popular hero, not a moral hero. Ambition and self-love were not wanting in his nature: he always considered himself, though he considered others too. It is only by contrast with the baser spirits round him that he shines so superior. There have been far better men and kings than he; but to one better ruler there have been thousands worse. Above all others he was the man of his time in France: could he have met the requirements of the occasion if he had been a severe religionist ?

His case was not the case of Jerome of Prague or Cranmer, who under terrible pressure renounced for a moment the cause to which they had given their hearts and lives. Some of his Protestant councillors backed up the advice of their Catholic friends. Sully’s view was this: “I see but two ways out of your present straits. One is to put a force on nature and inclination. You must pass

through a million difficulties, fatigues, pains, perils, labors, be always in the saddle and in arms, helmet on head and sword in hand. Farewell to repose and pleasure, to love and mistresses, to games, dogs, hawking. You can come out only by a multitude of combats, taking of cities, great victories, and vast shedding of blood. That is one way. The other is to accommodate yourself in the matter of religion to the will of most of your subj ects. So you would escape all these pains and difficulties—in this world. As for the other world,” he added, with a backward glance to the catechism they had both been taught in childhood, “I cannot answer for it.” And then they both laughed, as if they had been free-thinking philosophers of a much later period. There were no theoretical skeptics in their time; but Henry and his minister were men of the world, not devotees. Coligny might have advised differently; but Coligny had been long in his grave. The king expressed the feeling of many besides himself when he gazed from neighboring heights on his rebellious capital, and said, “Paris is worth a mass.”

Since he had so little faith to change, it is to his credit that he was so long in changing it. The delay was against his interests, for he might have had peace before on this condition. The main motives which had restrained him— so far as we may analyze any human motives—were two that always go together; a manly pride and a regard for appearances and reputation. He was unwilling to be dictated to, and he did not wish to appear light. The change, once made, was to be made forever;' or at least—since the matter which was called spiritual was to him mainly worldly—for this present life. There was an unconscious sarcasm in his last words to his new instructor: “ The way you now make me enter I leave only by death.” Perhaps he thought that beyond the grave he should be a Huguenot again.

HENRY RECONCILED TO THE CHURCH.

His resolution, once taken, was carried out as speedily as might be. Care was taken to surround with trappings of solemnity what all thinking men knew to be a farce. The king expressed his wish for instruction in the points in dispute between the two systems; he received it. He had his doubts ; they were removed one by one. During the process he did not always restrain his mocking humor. He offered to pass the point of Prayers for the Dead, remarking that he was not dead yet, nor in a hurry to be. As to Purgatory, he said, “I will receive it to please you, knowing it to be the bread of priests.” But at the end he became serious. “You have not satisfied me as much as I desired, but I put my soul into your hands, and I pray you, have a care.” The bishops, being royalists, were more anxious to have the business settled than to lay too heavy, burdens on their convert.

On Sunday, July 25th, 1593, in the church of St. Denis, he was received into the bosom of the Church of Rome, confessed to the Archbishop of Bourges,

and heard mass. It was an occasion of local and almost national rejoicing; cannons were fired, and the soldiers and people shouted in delight But the conscience of which Henry made too little must have pricked him when he abjured the “errors” of his youth, the teachings of his mother, the faith'of Coude and Coligny, and said that he repented of having held them. The peril of enforced conformity, if not of all union between Church and State, lies in this, that men to gain an end will use words which they do not mean, regarding the most solemn professions as an empty form; so that reverence and the sense of truth are weakened, and sincerity becomes impossible except to the unthinking. An act that is to one’s interest loses all flavor of piety, and should not be cumbered with its pretense. But these thoughts, obvious and familiar now as the rule of three, were scarcely dreamed of three hundred years ago. Only through its blunders does the world learn wisdom.

The king’s recantation aroused very various feelings in different circles. The severer Calvinists regarded him as a lost soul. Their men of affairs, while regretting the perversion of their leader, knew that it was for their prosperity and peace. To the Catholic royalists generally, and to the mass of Frenchmen* the removal of the obstacle which had kept Church and throne apart brought nothing but relief. Only a few serious and high-minded men felt, as did one of the prelates, that “ it would have been better had the king remained in his religion than changed as he has done; for there is a God above who judges us: respect to Him alone should sway conscience, and not a regard to crowns and kingdoms.” But this idealist would hardly have been counted a practical man, and was wholly out of touch with the French public opinion of his time.

THE POPE AND THE JESUITS NOT SATISFIED.

Another class of persons, from widely different motives, offered vehement objections to the abjuration, even before it was made ; for of course it had been announced in advance. The partisans of Spain and of the pope wanted no halfhearted converts like Henry, at least not when these were likely to gain so much by coming into the fold. They were sharp enough to distrust his sincerity and his promises, and they wanted a king who would be their tool: to this end they were willing to see France kept in turmoil and misery for any length of time. The legate threatened the clergy throughout the land with excommunication if they accepted the “pretended conversion of the Bearnois,” or honored the iniquitous ceremony of St. Denis with their presence. This had little effect, for the Galli- can Church of those days, as has been remarked before, was jealous of its partial independence, and resented too much papal meddling in national affairs. The Archbishop of Lyons and some others refused to acknowledge the king till he should receive absolution from the pope, which, as we shall see, was not easy to obtain. The Jesu’ts, as devoted to the Spanish interest, were especially violent.

Barrifere, a layman of low degree, encouraged by the head of this order at Paris,, went to St. Denis to murder Henry as lie came out of the Church after his abjuration ; but his heart failed him. He followed the court from place to place, having; abundant opportunities, but still wavering, till he was arrested at Melun, where he confessed his purpose and was executed. His accomplices were still safe in Paris.

Having made with the League a truce of three months from August ist,, the king sent the Duke of Nevers to Rome to procure his absolution. Clement VIII. refused to consider the matter or receive the ambassador in public; the clergy who had gone with him were threatened with the Inquisition for having

ROCHELLE, ONCE THE STRONGHOLD OF FRENCH PROTESTANTISM.

taken part in absolving the relapsed heretic at home, so that Nevers was obliged to keep them in his own quarters and to protect them from arrest in leaving the papal territories. This high-handed treatment encouraged the League, but disgusted all others, and arrayed the national spirit more firmly on Henry’s side.

As the king’s submission to the Church ended the Protestant wars in France,, it might appear that we should now take leave of him and his dominions. But his recantation, as most men knew, was little more than nominal. His ideas,, aims, and sympathies had not really changed ; he was still the representative of toleration, of progress, of comparative liberty. The conflict between the two

■systems, the mediaeval aud the modern, that of Rome and that of rational statesmanship, continued in France for five years more, and we may well trace its course to the end.

CORONATION OF HENRY.

The truce expired November ist, and Henry refused to extend it. Mayenne still held the capital, but others were growing tired of resistance to their lawful sovereign. Meaux, Orleans, Bourges, Lyons, Aix, aud other cities were given up to him. On February 27th, 1594, his coronation took place in the cathedral •of Chartres. We read with amusement that, as the flask of holy oil from which the ancient kings had been anointed was out of reach, being iu the hands of the League, another was procured from Tours, which au angel had brought from lieaven to heal St. Martin in equally remote ages. In our view it matters little what oil or what formalities were employed on the ablest man who had ruled France for centuries; but these ceremonial details were then, and in monarchical lands are still, accounted part of the divinity that doth hedge a king, and none of them were here omitted. A splendid array of princes, bishops and nobles graced the occasion; it was as gorgeous and joyous a spectacle as that of his abjuration seven months before. But one part of it must have j arred on the nerves of some who stood by, and wrenched (we may trust) the conscience of him who was the central figure there. The old coronation oath contained a promise to root out all heresy and heretics. These words on Henry’s lips were a lie, and he used them simply as an idle but inevitable fjrm. He was no persecutor and no fool: no man ktiew better what had caused the miseries of France for fifty years. He meant to abate those miseries, to restore prosperity and peace; and he had no mind to turn on his old associates. It was not to be another Francis II., Charles IX., or Henry .III., the tool of Lorraines and legates, that he had labored so long and so hard. If ■a little perjury came into the account, he would not stick at that; but he had his -own plans all the same, and intended to carry them out.

HENRY ENTERS PARIS.

All this time there was much agitation in Paris. The city was tired of "being shut up, royalist writers and intriguers were active, and the cause of the ZLeague grew weaker with every day. Mayenne, feeling himself unsafe there, ’withdrew, leaving a Spanish garrison. The new governor, Count de Brissac, had been fierce for Guise and against Henry III., but Henry IV. won him over. He earned his pay, for the negotiations were carried on under great difficulties, and the betrayal of his trust was attended with extreme danger. At four in the morning of March 23d, the gates were opened and the royal troops marched in. Never was a city taken more quietly.. Two citizens and a few foreign soldiers, who made a vain resistance were the ouly lives lost. The capital awoke to see ithe king riding about the streets in high good humor. The fickle populace,

quickly recovering from their amazement, welcomed him almost as heartily as they had saluted Guise six years before. As he tried to enter the great cathedral, they crowded upon him so closely that the guard would have driven them back. “ No, no,” he cried: “they are starving to see a king. Let them knock me about a little.” As he wrote to a friend, “ An old woman of eighty seized me by the head to kiss me. I was not the last to join in the laugh.” His gaiety, his kindliness, the unsurpassed charm that did so much to make him beloved and famous, won all hearts that could be won. The rebel city was now almost as loyal as Rochelle or Tours.

The beautiful traits in Henry’s character shone out in his hour of success. Never was there a better illustration of the saying that good manners are good morals. His popular qualities—his familiarity with inferiors, his easy condescension that never seemed to condescend, his constant cheerfulness, his abounding humor,— came from no studied policy, no superficial politeness: they were the natural growths of a good soil, springing luxuriantly from a rich entrance of henry iv. into paris.

and generous heart. Many have been purer, more truthful, more rigidly upright, than he : some have been more disinterested ; nowhere out of France, and rarely in it, has monarch or private man shown more that was winning and lovable. There was no malice in his nature, nothing of personal grudge or vindictiveness. In an age in which the strong arm and the hard heart ruled, when secret

murders and ferocious cruelty were matters of course, his gentleness anticipated our modem ideas and manners, and seemed to predict the advent of a better era which was yet far off. Much as he loved battle, he hated to punish in cold blood. He had a noble maxim which savored rather of the pulpit than the camp: “ The satisfaction one gets from revenge lasts but a moment: that which clemency yields is eternal.” If his Huguenot troops had stormed Paris four years earlier, he could hardly have prevented a frightful massacre: now all was to be forgiven and forgotten. He proclaimed a universal amnesty, and said that he would gladly give fifty thousand livres to buy back the two French lives

MONT PELVOUX.

It was here, amid these mountains and canes, the French Protestants would hide from their persecutors.

that had been lost. Not one drop of native blood, he felt, should have stained his triumph.

TRIAL OF THE JESUITS.

Yet there were some in Paris who could not be allowed to stay there. A few leaders of treason and disturbance were sent away: all others were received into the king’s service, whatever their past record. The Spanish garrison of four thousand, with their commander the Duke of Feria, were given a safe-conduct to the frontier. As they marched past the palace, on the day of the king’s

entrance, he waved his hand from a window and called out, “My compliments to your master—but do not take the trouble to come back.” One body of yet more dangerous enemies remained. The Jesuits would not take the oath of allegiance, moderate as were its terms. The uuiversity cited them for trial, and its rector petitioned the Parliament for their expulsion. The cause was pleaded on July iath, 13th, and 16th, by Arnauld, on behalf of the university, and Dolle, representing the parish priests or regular clergy of the city, who were joined in the prosecutiou. These speeches, setting forth the treasons and crimes of the order, its constant agency in stirring up sedition and inciting to murder, make interesting reading yet. The fiercest Protestants have never said harsher things of the Jesuits than did these Catholic advocates of a city that would not endure the Reformed worship within its walls. Arnauld called them “traitors and assassins:” Doll£ pointed out that they had disturbed the whole discipline of the Church, headed the villainous Sixteen in Paris, turned women against their husbands in Switzerland, and made themselves intolerable everywhere. Their orators had abundant recent evidence to draw upon, and used it freely. The Jesuit defense was prudently delayed, and the consequent sentence still further.

At this they were foolish enough to rejoice, as at a victory; but their triumph did not last long. Early in December, when the king had just returned from Picardy and was receiving visitors, a young man named Chatel, son of a draper, attacked him with a knife. The blow merely cut his lip: the would-be assassin was seized, and confessed that the Jesuits had told him it would be a good deed to kill the king. Henry’s spirits were raised rather than dampened by the incident. “Ah,” he said, as he wiped off the blood; “other mouths have told me about these gentlemen: now my own shall convict them.” Chatel bore the punishment of a regicide: his father’s house was pulled down and a monument erected on the spot. One Jesuit was hanged: the number should have been larger, for one or two were known to have been connected with the previous attempt of Barriere. The whole society was banished from France, and stigmatized by the Parliament as “corrupters of youth, disturbers of the public peace, and enemies to the king and state.” The clergy denounced the teaching of murder as a devilish heresy, and warned all religious orders that the king must be respected and obeyed. The theologians of the Sorbonne had already decided that the king’s absolution was sufficient, and that resistance to his authority was mortal sin. Harlai had been restored to his place as first president of the Parliament, and all Paris was now submissive and loyal. Henry availed himself of this opportunity, the first fair one that had come to him, to grant partial toleration to the Huguenots, by re-enacting the edict of 1579.

A few military events had occurred during the autumn. Spanish troops had taken La Cappelle, a town on the Dutch frontier; on the other hand, Honfleur in Normandy was reduced, and other places, till now held by the

League, surrendered. The chiefs of that faction, tired of standing out against the inevitable, were coming in one by one : true to their principles, each of them had his price, and got it. For instance, the Duke of Elboeuf, one of the numerous and expensive Lorraines, demanded a pension of thirty thousand francs and the government of a province, which were cheerfully granted. In this way the king expended sums exceeding six million dollars, and in purchasing power worth ten times as much as that amount now. This new huge system of bribing kept France poor for a while, but Henry, who lacked neither courage nor brains, thought it the best way to restore domestic peace. He asked one of his earlier recruits of this kind, “What do you think of seeing me in Paris again?” “Sire,” the lawyer answered, “it is giving to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” “Giving?” the king repeated. “Not exactly. You sold them to Caesar,and made a good bargain of it.” Mayenne and Mercceur alone held out, and were too powerful to be overcome at once by force, though ready to join hands with any foreign foe.

WAR WITH SPAIN: BATTLE OF FONTAINE.

In January, 1595, the king, against the judgment of his more prudent advisers, declared war against his constant enemy, Philip II. Velasco, the Constable of Castile, crossed the Alsatiau border, took Vesoul, and was moving toward Dijon with eight thousand foot and two thousand horse, having joined Mayenne with fourteen hundred, when at Fontaine he came upon Henry, who was recou- noitering with a few cavaliers. The meeting was so unexpected, and the reports of his scouts so sudden, that the king had no time to put on his armor. The attendants brought his swiftest horse and urged him to fly; but he said he wanted their assistance, not their advice. Hastily rallying his small force, he dashed so furiously upon the enemy’s horse, dispersed in several squadrons, that he drove each back in turn, and retired with little loss before the generals could get their wits and their troops together. It was the affair of Aumale over again, with perhaps more motive and a happier result; for Velasco was so much alarmed by this lightning-like stroke that he retreated into Germany, much to Mayenne’s disgust. “Hang yourself,” Henry wrote to one of his boon companions, “that you were not at my side in a combat when we fought like madmen and to his minister Mornay, “Less than two hundred horse have put to fight two thousand, and driven ten thousand foot out of my kingdom.”

This escapade and its extraordinary success helped to reduce the number of his enemies by two— one at home, and one abroad. Mayenne abstained from all hostilities and meditated submission; and in September the papal absolution was published. Its chief conditions were that the Roman worship should be established in Beam, all property of the Church restored, and the heir to the throne educated as a Catholic. Some of these things Henry had already done, others he was ready to do—as far as he could ; for it was not easy to recover

ijflaBHWw

CHARLEMAGNr.

confiscated estates from their new owners. Clement had wanted better terms, but the king was now strong enough to refuse them. He declined positively to annul the edict of toleration, to admit that his absolution by the French bishops was invalid, to recognize any other than spiritual value in that of the pope, or to receive foreign investiture, as if Rome had power to give or take away his crown.

At this time Fuentes, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, took Cambrai and other towns in Picardy. Henry rode northward from Lyons to oppose him. In Paris the authorities begged him not to expose his precious life. “ Why,” said he, “unless I lead, nobody follows. If I had money to pay a few more regiments, I would not be in danger so often. I came here at a trot, and I am going off at a gallop; but I want cash.” Having procured a supply, he went at full speed to Amiens. At the gate the town council met him with a set address. “O king!” the spokesman began, “so great, so merciful, so magnaminous—” “ Yes,” he interrupted, “and so tired. Let us have the rest another time.” He was just sitting down to dinner when another deputation came in with another orator, who opened fire at once. “Sire, Hannibal, when leaving Carthage—” The king broke the thread of this discourse also. “ Hannibal had dined,” was his continuation of the tale, “and I have not.”

THE KING’S SUCCESSES.

He was at Monceaux in January, 1596, when Mayenne came to make his submission. He too commenced in the approved pompous style. “Sire, I am the humble debtor of your royal bounty. You have delivered me from the arrogance of the Spaniard—” when Henry jumped up, embraced him fervently, seized his arm, cried, “Come, see my garden,” and hurried him through the grounds. The duke, who was very fat and very lazy, was .soon panting and ■exhausted. The king stopped, as if struck by a sudden thought, and asked, “Cousin, am I too fast for you ?” “ Ah, sire,” the other puffed, “at this rate I shall soon be dead.” Henry laughed, offered his hand, and said, “That shall be your only punishment.” It was far less than Mayenne deserved and would have been likely to get from any other monarch ; but in France the great nobles were hardly less powerful than the king—some of them, as we have seen, were at times greater than the king; and their persons and estates were almost sacred.

In the spring of 1596 Calais and some other places were taken by a Spanish army under the Archduke Albert, and Henry had gained nothing in exchange but La Fdre. He sent to Elizabeth for aid; she offered it, on condition that Calais, when retaken, should be garrisoned by her troops, which was equivalent to its cession to England. There was no jesting in his reply. The proposal, he wrote, must “have been inspired by those who understand not the promptings of your spirit. Permit me still to believe that you disdain to measure, your friendship by the standard of self-interest, when the urgency of affairs is such that no

time can be lost in bargaining.” The spirited dignity of this rebuke secured better terms. An alliance was made between France, England, and the United Provinces.

Henry’s treasury was now empty. He wrote that his shirts were tom, his coat ■out at elbows, and his pot often empty, so that he was forced to dine with friends who had more to eat than he. In this extremity he placed Sully in charge of the finances, which had been vilely managed ; and that able minister soon raised five hundred thousand crowns, not by taxation, but by recovering stolen money from the thieves who had collected the taxes. It was the beginning of vast reforms. At an assembly of notables which he convened at Rouen in October, 1596, he said that, as they all knew to their cost, when he was called to the crown he found France half ruined, and quite lost to Frenchmen ; that he aimed to be its liberator and restorer ; and the present need was to save the realm from financial ruin. His words were heeded, and by Sully’s management good results followed.

AMIENS LOST AND WON.

In March, 1597, he received bad news. Amiens had been taken by a curious stratagem. Spanish soldiers, disguised as peasants, and carrying sacks of walnuts, followed a heavy wagon which was driven to one of the city gates and halted there. One of the men dropped his sack; the nuts rolled out, and the guard fell to scrambling for them. The Spaniards drew their weapons; others, concealed without, rushed to the attack. The portcullis was lowered, but the wagon prevented its fall; the assailants forced their way in and cut down the defenders of the place. It was one of the famous surprises of history.

Henry, who had been enjoying the pleasures of Paris during the winter, said to his favorite Sully, “I have played too long the King of France; it is time to be the King of Navarre again.” He hastened to Amiens, which was attacked and defended with great valor. The siege lasted near six months; Mayenne took part in it, and showed more ability than he had usually done on the other side. The Spanish commander, Porto Carraro, was killed, after complimenting his assailants. The Archduke came again from Flanders with a great army ; but Henry, without raising the siege, defeated Albert in what he called “the finest encounter that has ever been seen.” “The warlike Cardinal,” Henry wrote, “came on very furiously, but went off very sneakingly.” On September 25th Amiens surrendered. The king at once marched to Brittany against the Duke of Mercoeur, who lost no time in making his submission. All France was now loyal and united, except the recent Spanish conquests in the north, and a small corner in the southeast, which the Duke of Savoy claimed; this matter was not settled till two or three years later.

EDICT OF NANTES.

It is to Henry’s credit that he did not wait for a formal declaration of peace to right the wrongs of his early friends the Huguenots. He had already, as we have seen, revoked the persecuting edicts of 1585 and 1588, and restored the partial toleration granted by that of 1579. But this was not sufficient, and in the regions lately held by the League they were still subjected, not only to annoyance, but to grievous oppression. Iu many separate treaties with these rebellious towns and nobles, the king had not been able to set aside the prohibition of the Reformed faith ; for his embarrassments were great, and he could not do

VIEW OP NANTES,

Where the famous edict was issued by Henry IV., in 1598, for nearly a century the charter of Huguenot freedom.

everything at once. But now that the whole land was at his feet,—or rather in his hands, for he was always quick to raise those who knelt before him—the situation was changed. It mattered not to his generous spirit that since his abjuration his former allies put the worst construction on his motives, stood sullenly aloof, and looked on him as a foe or a tyrant: he would show them that they were mistaken. On April 15th, 1598, he signed the memorable Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed the sacred liberty of conscience. It removed the civil disabilities under which Protestants had labored, opened all public schools,

employments, and honors to them, and permitted their worship wherever it had been held before. If not perfect as a measure of toleration—for the least religious restriction is hateful to the modern mind—it was the best' France had ever known, and under it the Huguenots thrived and lived in tolerable peace for eighty-seven years, though Henry’s successors were continually limiting their privileges.

This great measure was not carried without a struggle; in fact, it was driven through by the king’s sheer will. The Parliaments of Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Rouen refused to register the edict. Rouen sent deputies to argue the matter with Henry. A charming story is told of their reception. He was on the floor, romping with his children, when they entered. Wholly unabashed, he said, “I am playing the fool with these babies ; but I am ready to play the wise man with you.” He rose, and led them to another room. When they had stated the case, he said, “I am the head of this realm ; you have the honor to be members of the body politic. It is my business to command, yours to obey. This is my edict: it is to be executed.” It was despotism enforcing toleration with a high hand. That is not the way we do now ; but in those days the republican idea was practicable only in Switzerland and Holland. Elsewhere, constitutions either did not exist, or were little regarded. If an absolute monarch used his power with wisdom and benevolence, that was the best that could be looked for, and far more than was usually found.

PEACE OF VERVINS.

Meantime the Spanish tyrant, who was neither wise nor benevolent, was nearing the end of a reign that had lasted far too long. The pope and his legates were anxious that this useless war between two Catholic powers should cease; for if Spain and France exhausted each other, what was to prevent the Turks from carrying their conquests beyond Hungary ? Philip II. found out at last, what he ought to have had the sense to see long before, that he had enough— and too much—to do in the Netherlands. The peace of Vervins, which was concluded May 2d, 1598, restored Calais and the other Spanish conquests, and enabled Henry to say that he had gained more towns by a stroke of the pen than he could have taken in a long campaign.

Thus released from the toils of war, he gave his mind to the series of reforms and internal improvements which raised France from her low estate. The love his people bore toward him was matched by the frantic hate of bigots. In the next twelve years eighteen more attempts were made upon his life, and in 1610 the dagger of Ravaillac removed the foremost sovereign of Europe. Had he lived longer, he might probably have averted the wretched Thirty Years’ War, which desolated Germany, retarded the world’s progress, and ruined the Protestant cause in so many states. His memory was long and dearly cherished in the

land he served so well; but his unworthy descendants did what they could to undo his work. By the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, more than half the commerce and manufactures of the country were destroyed, and its most useful citizens driven out to enrich other lands, among them England and America.

FRENCH SOLDIERS.

IN THE LOW COUNTRIES.

E Netherlands occupy a much smaller space on the map than in the history of freedom. Within a region which might be enclosed in almost any one of our American states, a land without natural defenses and exposed, to the constant inroads of the ocean, was waged for three-quarters of a century a war that will be remembered with wonder and admiration so long as men cherish liberty. Motley has told the story in seven large and eloquent volumes ; we shall have to trace its outline far more rapidly.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century Holland, Brabant, and Flanders offered to the rest of Europe a model of industry,, prosperity, and the arts of peace. Their narrow confines were crowded with cities, whose commerce and manufactures, went through the known world. The eastern portions had been wrested from the sea, and were the home of the most expert sailors and fishermen. The merchant guilds were ancient and wealthy. The towns and provinces had charters of remote date, which secured them a larger measure of freedom than existed elsewhere, except in the Swiss cantons. Their rulers had till lately been content with liberal taxes, and meddled little with these privileges, of local self-government. There was much mental activity, much self-assertion of the bold democratic spirit, much occasional turbulence. The current of life ran warm and swift: Dutchmen were not a sleepy race. The southern provinces, (now Belgium) were largely of another blood, and had much less seacoast; but the severance was not so marked as in later years.

Jacqueline, Countess of Holland, Zealand, and Hainault, who died in 1437, was the last native and inoffensive sovereign of these parts. Her dominions passed to Philip of Burgundy, ironically called the Good, who by fair means or foul got possession of Flanders, Brabant, and sundry duchies, counties, and baronies. He began the bad business of violating the constitutions which he had ■ (461)

sworn to guard, and thus set a vicious precedent to his successors. His son, Charles the Bold, played a prominent though a foolish part in history ; a would-be conqueror abroad, he was a tyrant at home, and valued his provinces merely for what he could squeeze out of them. Dying in 1477, he left no son, but a daughter Mary, from whose helplessness her subjects extracted a grant called the “ Great Privilege: ” it was destined to be disregarded like the older ones. She was married to Maximilian, son and successor of the German emperor; and their son, Philip the Fair, married the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. From this union came Charles V., King of Spain, Emperor of Germany, and possessor of more other titles than we care to remember. In this way half Christendom came under a single head, and the pernicious connection of the L,ow Countries with Spain, which was to cost so much blood and treasure, was brought about. The arrangement was against all common sense and all sound economy, for one man should have no more lands to govern than he can manage properly, and each nation has laws, customs, and a temper of its own. The Spaniard and the Hollander had nothing in common except mutual dislike, which soon rose to violent hatred : they were different in race, habits, opinions, and character. One was a feudal aristocrat, who despised all labor except fighting: the other was a busy trader, proud of his gains and his independence, who used the sword only to defend his rights, and regarded his masters as lazy, greedy, and meddlesome fools. The two countries ought to have been kept wide apart: but in those days the welfare of states was little regarded, and monarchs were in office for what they could get from it—for their own sake, not that of their subjects.

CHARLES V.

Charles V. had considerable ability and enormous power—far more than should ever have been entrusted to any but the cleanest hands, the wisest head, and the most generous heart. By comparison with his wretched son, his character appears almost respectable. He studied the arts of popularity and knew how to preserve appearances in a way, so that he was never detested in the Netherlands as he deserved to be, though he introduced the hideous system which caused so much misery, and more lives were taken there in cold blood by his orders than by Philip’s. He was outwardly the greatest monarch of his time: he had a multiplicity of affairs on hand, and stood for other interests besides persecution. But he was far from the modern idea: he hated reform and liberty: if he had been absolute in Germany, the new movement there might have met the fate that befell it in the south. Where he could, he supported the claims of Rome with fire and sword.

It must be remembered that the Netherlands, though in area so small a fraction of the possessions of these monarchs, and really owing them less obedience than they could legally command elsewhere, were important by reason

of wealth and population. Here, as has been said, were a number of the chief cities of Europe, enriched by a steady stream of commerce. Therefore, as a bank to be frequently drawn upon, the provinces received many royal attentions. The republican idea was not yet born; a sovereign’s visit, still more his temporary residence, was esteemed an honor, whatever evils came in its train. The nobles enjoyed the pomp which girds royalty about: the people, perhaps beyond all other nations, delighted in shows, processions, festivals.

Nobles and populace alike, though constantly abused, submitted cheerfully to a lordship by which they _i7, gained nothing, and were loyal till loyalty became impossible. Charles V. had wit enough to foster the trade of Antwerp, Amsterdam, and the other towns, knowing that the richer his subjects, the more he could gain from them. Philip II. ruined whole provinces for an idea that was false and pestilent.

The patience with which these states long endured the vilest oppression is almost as marvellous as the courage and persistence they afterwards chart.es v displayed in defending the most sacred rights of humanity.

THE DUTCH REFORMATION.

The collision came about largely, though very gradually, from religious causes. As much as in any land except Bohemia, the Reformation had been

anticipated in these provinces. There was no early war like those of the Albi- genses in Languedoc, no sporadic resistance like that of the Vandois, off and on for centuries, in northern Italy ; but from about 1240 the country had been full of Cathari, Waldenses, and other alleged heretics. Under various names and with differing opinions, they protested against the corruptions of the Church, and insisted on following private conscience. The most frightful severities were employed against them: in Flanders “a criminal whose guilt had been established by the hot iron, hot ploughshare, boiling kettle, or other logical proof”—for the most idiotic methods were adopted to detect a heretic, as long after to expose a witch—“ was stripped and bound to the stake : he was then flayed, from the neck to the navel, while swarms of bees were let loose to fasten upon his bleeding flesh, and torture him to a death of exquisite agony.” These barbarities, had little effect, unless to stimulate the zeal of the survivors: Waldo’s French Bible was translated into Dutch verse, and the numbers of the heretics grew apace with the luxury and immorality of the clergy.

When the Reformation came, many in these provinces were glad to receive it, and some were ready to go much further than the Reformers. Erasmus, the leading scholar of his age, who “laid the egg that Luther hatched,” was bom at Rotterdam : his writings had their full effect upon Dutch students. The emperor, much offended by the success of the new doctrines, put forth in 1521 a ludicrous edict against Luther and his followers: “As it appears that the aforesaid Martin is not a man, but a devil under the form of a man, and clothed in a priest’s dress, the better to bring the human race to hell and damnation, therefore all his disciples and converts are to be punished with death and for- * feiture of all their goods.” Two years later, as has been told in another chapter, the first martyrs of the Reformation were burned at Brussels.

Some disorders and acts of violence among the opponents of Rome helped to bring the cause of reform into disrepute, and to give an excuse to the persecutors. Some obscure sects, whose origin is remote aud doubtful, are said to have deserved part of the odium in which they were long held. Jeremy Taylor, writing as late as 1647, deliberately excluded them from the toleration which he claimed for all other Christian bodies. The so-called Peasants’ War, which convulsed parts of Germany in 1525 and later, was a series of horrors.

A crowd of wild fanatics, led by a baker of Harlem and a tailor of Leyden, crossed the border, seized Munster in Westphalia, and shocked the world by their murders and debaucheries. Their prophet called himself King of Sion, took to himself fourteen wives, and made several attempts on Duch cities. On a cold night in February, 1535, the good people of Amsterdam were alarmed by seven men and five women who ran through the streets in a state of nature, shouting, “The wrath of God!” On being arrested, they declared that they were “the naked truth.” They and many other victims of this delusion, who

should have been confined in asylums, were put to death. The mania spreads throughout the Netherlands, and lasted for some time. Similar phenomena,, though usually on a smaller scale, have occurred at every period of great religious excitement: they were common in England during the Commonwealth,, and extended to America in later days.

FIFTY THOUSAND MARTYRS.

The emperor did not wait for these excesses before beginning his bloody work at large. The Inquisition was introduced, if not at once under its own. name, yet with the whole array and fury of its processes. By repeated edicts- all gatherings for worship, even of a few friends, aud no less the private reading of Scripture and conversation on religious topics, were denounced as capital offenses. Even Spanish methods could hardly go further. The best that can be said for these laws is that they did not accomplish their purpose ; but that was not the fault of those who framed and executed them. They “were no dead letter. The fires were kept constantly supplied with human fuel by monks, who knew the art of burning reformers better than that of arguing with them. The scaffold was the most conclusive of syllogisms, and used upon all occasions. Still the people remained unconvinced. Thousands of burned heretics had not made a single convert.”

It would be easy but useless to fill our pages with details of these judicial murders. Some of the victims were lunatics; a few may have been criminals; but the great mass were doubtless quiet persons in humble life, who wished to serve God peaceably, as their descendants have since done at home or in England and America. The victims of persecution in this reign and within these provinces numbered no less than fifty thousand. The list of the Anabaptists alone, or of those claimed as such, with what is preserved of their trials and testimonies, fills thirteen hundred large columns in a work compiled by Thielem Van Braght in 1660, and lately translated and reprinted in a huge quarto by the Mennonites in Indiana.

Such wholesale slaughters did not then excite the horror the}’- move in us. In fact, it required more than fifteen centuries for professed Christians to learn what were the cardinal points of the morality taught by the Founder of their religion. In the view of emperors, popes, the clergy, and the masses generally, these were not truthfulness, justice, purity, and mercy, but simply orthodoxy, which meant a slavish submission to authority in Church and State. The regent, Queen Mary of Hungary, whom Erasmus praised as a “ Christian widow,” went but little beyond the general opinion in the advice given to her brother in 1533,: she thought that “all Protestants, even if repentant, should be dealt with so severely that the error might be at once extinguished—only taking care that the provinces were not entirely depopulated.” Her nephew, Philip II., went still

further, and was willing and even anxious ,to de-: stroy the whole' population.! In his view a ruinous solitude wa£ far better than tilled fields, busy canals, and crowded streets, wherein three milliou peoplei worshipped God in a fashion not the king’s. ' .

In 1549 this promising prince visited Brussels, that his father’s Dutch subjects might have the joy of gazing on their future lord. The occasion was celebrated by a new edict, confirming all those which had gone before. When he came to his power six years later, he was thus able to say, “You see, I make no new laws: I merely enforce the excellent ones under which you have been living.” These were such as to stifle intellect, to strangle conscience, to sap the foundations of a state, and reduce the Netherlands to a smaller and poorer Spain. But the Netherlands had a mind of

its own, which was yet to be reckoned with.

ABDICATION

OF CHARLES V.

In 1555 the world was astounded by the news that the great emperor meant to abdicate. But he had his reasons. Though not yet fifty-six, he was an old man. A king at fifteen and a Csesar at nineteen, he had led a hard and exhausting life. He had been in many campaigns and still more plots; he had shed a vast deal of blood; and he had eaten far too many early breakfasts and late suppers. It was

not his conscience that troubled him, but mainly his stomach. Amid all his intrigues and ambitions, he had given much of his mind and time to victuals and drink. He used to wake at five, consume “ a fowl seethed in milk and dressed with sugar and spices,” and then go to sleep again. His noon dinner never had less than twenty dishes, and he sampled them all. Two heavy meals followed, the last at midnight or later. After the manner of his kind, any appetite was a sufficient reason for its prompt and full indulgence. The active habits of a soldier, with constant attendance at mass and vespers (which he probably considered the chief preservation of health), enabled him to go on in this way longer than another might; but he paid the penalty at last. He was now bilious, gouty, asthmatic, scrofulous, and had the stone. Besides, his affairs had not gone well of late. He had been pushing back the ocean like Canute’s courtiers, ' fighting against heaven and manifest destiny, spending vast sums on tasks that ought not to have been attempted. So he determined to withdraw to a monastery in Spain, tired in body and mind : there he was to linger three years, wearying for old scenes and activities, finding his only solace in political despatches and his collection of clocks, dwindling in brain and spirit, and to die at length in the alleged odor of sanctity.

The only reason for regretting this step is found in the fact that he left hie place—or some of his places—to a smaller and worse man than himself. He did not succeed in getting his son elected to the empire; but Philip’s title was unquestioned in Spain, parts of Italy, and the Netherlands. The change was fortunate for Germany, which, though henceforth presided over by fourth-rate men, . escaped the worst of all possible rulers ; but it was unlucky for the Netherlands, ; since the new potentate, thus cut off from affairs in central Europe, could give < the more time to destroying thought, conscience, and industry along the Scheldt , and about the mouths of the Rhine. ;

The abdication took place at Brussels on October 25th, 1555. It was a great ^: and gorgeous occasion, a spectacle of solemn joy; but we are less inclined to linger over it with admiring awe than did the crowds who gazed upon the setting . and the rising sun of majesty. They saw an ugly old man with a shaggy beard, a hanging under lip, a protruding jaw, and a few snags of broken teeth, but with something of command in his brow and eye: bent and crippled, he leaned heavily with one hand on a crutch, with the other on some one’s shoulder. Next him i stood “ a small, meagre man, much below the middle height, with thin legs, a narrow chest, and the shrinking, timid air of a habitual invalid.” Artists and ' flatterers have tried to make Philip appear royal, but it was not in him: he never lookfed, thought, felt, or acted like a real king. Place him beside his rivals and enemies, Elizabeth of England or Henry of Navarre, and see how huge the : contrast! He was but the parody of his father—a human rat, forever gnawing j

EMPEROR CHARLES V. RESIGNING THE CROWN.

and undermining ; clothed, alas, by the irony of fate with the power of Jove to rain down tempests and lightnings on the unhappy land.

As the emperor entered the great hall of the palace, he leaned on the arm, not of his feeble son, but of a tall and well-made youth, then known only as the greatest noble of the provinces, but destined to an immortality as glorious as that of Philip should be vile. This man took his seat in the assembly, but was called forward, when the first speech was over, to support Charles while reading his farewell address. He was twenty-two, dark and handsome, with a small head and a deep brown eye. As he stood there in view of all, with Philip at his father’s left, none dreamed that these two coming men were to make each other’s lives a burden, and to stand forever in history as the opposite poles of thought and character, the incarnations of political light and darkness. It was William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, the future hero of freedom, the father of his country, the founder of the Dutch Republic.

SACK OF ST. QUENTIN.

As yet, and for some time to come, there was no thought of revolt. Lords and Commons, as has been said, were patient, conservative in temper, and loyal to their tyrant. Philip remained nearly four years in the Netherlands. During this period he spent a few months with his wife, the unhappy Mary of England, whom he had married in 1554, and forced that misguided country to join him in a war against Henry II. of France. In these campaigns he won success and reputation, chiefly through the valor and skill of his Flemish general, Count Egmont. Coligny, who defended St. Quentin, was defeated and made a prisoner, with his brother D’Andelot. The city was taken on August 27th, 1557, and its sack was one of the most horrible on record. Every man in it was butchered. The women were stripped of nearly all their clothing, that they might not carry off a coin or a piece of bread. The soldiers, in mere wantonness of cruelty, wounded the faces and cut off the arms of many. In this condition, by the king’s express order, thirty-five hundred of them were driven out of the town two days later, to perish or recover as they might. The town, or most of it, was burned, and not one person who had been born in France left alive among its ruins. But Philip, who, though no fighter, was on hand to claim the credit and the fruits of victory, was careful to have all the relics removed from the churches, and masses said over them in the cathedral, while the murdering and mutilating went on outside. In his view the treasured relics of a supposed saint long dead was infinitely precious, while living and defenseless Christians by the thousand deserved nothing better than to be slaughtered or slashed by those to whom they had given no offense, beyond living in a place which shared the common fate of war and siege. They were non-combatants ; there was no principle at stake, nothing but a question of language and proprietorship between two selfish

kings. If the heartless Spaniard could act thus to the mere subjects of a rival, ■where no question of religion was at stake, what was to be expected of him when

his ferocious bigotry was once aroused ?

In 1558 a French army took Dunkirk and ravaged the Flemish border, avenging on innocent peasants the cruelties the Spaniards had committed at St. Quentin. Egmont met them at Gravelines in July, and a battle which was for sometime doubtful ended in a complete victory. Alva, who had advised against it, taunted the count with his imprudence in engaging ; what would have happened if they had been beaten ? Angry discussions followed, and the

1’R.OTKSTANTS DRIVEN FROM THEIR HOMES, TAKE UP THEIR ABODE IN THE MOUNTAINS.

fjnarrel of the lords emphasized and intensified the natural jealousy between the taen of the provinces and those of Spain.

DEPARTURE OF PHILIP.

By the summer of 1559 the king had seen enough of his father’s native }and, and determined to return to his own, leaving as regent his half-sister,, Margaret, Duchess of Parma. He gave his parting commands to an assembly ■convened at Ghent on August 7th, and announced that the edicts “ for the extirpation of all sects and heresies” were to be strictly enforced. When the deputies, in their answering speeches, asked' for the withdrawal of the foreign troops, and stated that the supplies had been voted on this condition, he was much surprised and offended. His anger rose to fury on receiving a paper signed by Orange, Egmont, and other leading nobles on behalf of the States-General; it protested against the “pillaging, insults, and disorders” of the soldiers, which had been so ■atrocious in many places as to drive the people from their homes. Philip flung out of the room, exclaiming that he too was a Spaniard; did they expect him to leave the country and give up all pretense of governing it ? It would have been much better for himself and all parties concerned if he had done just this.

He soon found it desirable to temporize and make fair professions; but as he was about embarking, he turned fiercely on Orange and accused him as the author of this resistance to the royal will. The prince replied mildly that as a member and officer of the Estates, he had merely taken his proper part in their deliberations and actions. Philip seized his arm, shook it, and hissed, “Not the Estates, but you, you, you !” using a form of the pronoun belonging only to menials. In consequence of this insult, William paid his farewell respects from the wharf at Flushing. Had he placed his foot on the royal vessel, it is not impossible that he might have been carried to Spain against his will, and not soon or easily have got home again; for the despot was prompt to resent opposition as treason, and to punish it in his own irregular way.

BURNINGS IN SPAIN.

He had bad weather on the voyage: some of his ninety ships went to the bottom, and others had to be lightened. Much of the wealth which he had extracted from the provinces, products of the famous Flemish looms and other trappings of royalty, went overboard ; as a Dutch satirist expressed it, Charles and Philip “had impoverished the earth to enrich the ocean.” The dangers he escaped could teach him but a single lesson : his precious life had been saved that he might carry out his great mission of suppressing heresy. So he gave a new start to the Inquisition, and celebrated his return and his marriage to Isabella of France by two of those villainous “acts of faith” wherein the court and the clergy sat in state to witness the roasting of Christians in the name of Christ..

A young nobleman, fastened to one of the stakes, cried out as the king passed him, “How can you thus look on and let me be burned?” One of Philip’s admirers has preserved his answer: “If my own son were as wicked as you, I would carry the fuel for his burning.” His father’s chaplain and almoner had been among the condemned, but was fortunate enough to die in prison: the

corpse, with an effigy, was solemnly handed over to the flames. It was one of his chief grudges againt his Dutch subjects that they had the bad taste not to admire and approve these spectacles.

We have here the materials for a perfect persecutor. A feeble frame, disinclined to all active exercises; a cold and shallow heart; a narrow, pettifogging

mind; and a tenacious, unbending will. Other bigots have extorted our qualified respect by their stern virtues: Philip was a libertine and a liar. His religion put no restraint upon his vices, supplied not the least incentive to generous sympathies and worthy deeds. In an age when diplomacy was a

series of tricks, when every prince and senate was trying to outwit the others, his policy was the most tortuous and treacherous in Europe. This colossal egotist had no sense of honor, of reverence, of gratitude, of loyalty; he thought himself above the laws which earth or heaven had made for common men. To

CLEMENT MAROT

be bis friend was as dangerous as to be bis enemy. He had but one idea: the king was absolute and sacred, and he was the king. Resistance to his will, or even remonstrance, was treason, sacrilege, blasphemy. If it had ever occurred to him to differ with the pope and the system then in vogue, something—probably the whole machinery of tyranny—would have broken. What he took for religion was the hobby which he chose to ride: the mass was to be crammed down men’s throats, the cause to’be pushed by edicts, by cannon, by antos-da-fe, because it was his royal will; it was right, because he said so.

INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE, FROM THE TOWER OF LONDON.

1.—The rack. Block and axe. S.—Scavenger's daughter. 4.—Leg irons. S.—Necklace. ff.—Thumb screw.

ON THE WAY TO "WAR.

^rHE administration of the Duchess Margaret lasted through eight years of increasing misery and discontent. During the first five of these years her able prime minister, the Bishop of Arras, was tne real ruler ; he became Cardinal Granvelle in 1561. With the usual trickery and self-interest, this man served his master and the cause of despotism, and incurred much inevitable odium in doing so. New bishoprics were formed, and hated as the agencies of persecution. The wholesale violence of the edicts may be judged from a passage of one of them, which made accusation equal to proof. “ If any person, being not convicted of heresy or error, but greatly suspected thereof, and therefore condemned by the spiritual judge to abjure such heresy, or by the secular magistrate to make public fine and reparation, shall again become suspected or tainted with heresy, although it should not appear that he has violated any of the above commands, such person shall be considered as relapsed, and punished with loss of life and property, without any hope of mitigation of these penalties.” Such was the spirit of the Inquisition, and of Philip’s whole course : the desire seemed to be to take guilt for granted, and to destroy as many lives as possible. Yet the new doctrines spread faster than ever among the middle and lower classes. Many fled to Germany and to England, now a safe asylum: more remained to brave their fate. “The chronicles,” says Motley, “contain the lists of these obscure martyrs; but their names, hardly pronounced in their lifetime, sound barbarously in our ears, and will never ring through the trumpet of fame. Yet they were men who dared and suffered as much as men can dare and suffer in this world, and for the noblest cause which can inspire humanity. Fanatics they certainly were not, if fanaticism consists in show without corresponding substance. For them all was terrible reality. The emperor and his edicts were realities; the axe, the stake, were realities ; and the heroism with which men took each other by the hand and walked into the flames, or women sang a song of triumph while the gravedigger was shovelling the earth upon (474)

their living faces, was a reality also.” For many years the usual punishment for one sex was burning, for the other burying alive.

HERESY-HUNTING.

The most active of the heresy-hunters was Peter Titelmann of Flanders, who vastly enjoyed his work. The sheriff asked him one day, “How can you go about alone, arresting people everywhere, when I need a strong armed posse?” “Why, Red Rod,” the inquisitor replied, “you deal with bad folks: I seize only

BT.OIS, WITTI CASTr.E.

Memorable as a horns of Catherine de J[edicts.

the harmless, who let themselves be taken like lambs.” “Very good,” the sheriff retorted; “but if you arrest all the good people and I all the bad, who is to escape?” Many stories are told of Titelmann’s exploits. He burned a weaver of Tournay for copying hymns from a Geneva book, and a family of

Ryssel for not going to mass. As a boy prayed at the stake, a monk told him the devil, not God, was his parent. The flames rose ; the child said to his father that he saw heaven opening and angels calling them. The monk cried, “You lie : bell is opening: you see ten thousand devils dragging you in.”

These horrors had been borne for forty years by most with wonderful patience; but it was not in human nature that they should rot provoke some to acts of violence. Le Bias, a craftsman of Tournay, was moved in 1561 to protest publicly against the mass. After taking leave of his family and asking them to pray for his mad enterprise, he went to the cathedral, snatched the consecrated bread from the priest who held it aloft; broke and trampled it, and made no effort to escape. After frightful tortures and mutilations he was roasted over a slow fire.

The foreign troops continued to be a nuisance. In 1560 the Zealanders refused to repair the dykes, saying that they would rather drown than endure ihe insolence of the Spaniards. The regent and lier minister yielded to pressure, and the soldiers were for a time removed.

Egmont and AdmiraJ. Horn had long hated the cardinal, as indeed did nearly everybody else in the provinces, regarding him as a main author of their evilj In 1563 Orange joined them in letters to the king, setting forth. Granvelle’s unpopularity. Philip consulted the Duke of Alva, who expressed his rage against “those three Flemish seigniors,” and said, “Cut their heads off, or dissemble with them till you can do it.” This advice was equally characteristic of the giver and acceptable to the receiver. Two of the heads were destined to fall within five years, and it was neither Alva’s fault nor Philip’s that the third did not drop too. The three leading nobles of the provinces now withdrew from the regent’s council of state, and did not return to it till Granvelle had been recalled and left the country, amid general rejoicings, in 1564.

ORANGE SPEAKS OUT.

In October of this year the martyrdom of a preacher, who had been a monk, caused a riot at Antwerp: the executioners, the guard, and the magistrates were stoned and driven from the spot. The Catholic officials of Bruges protested against Titelmann and his irregular cruelties. Three months later Egmont was about to start for Madrid, and the council were debating as to the tenor of his instructions. No one had much to say except the Prince of Orange. Usually prudent and reticent, he now amazed them all by the plainness and vigor of his utterance. He said that he was a Catholic (so were all the nobles as yet), but he could not look quietly on at these doings. Corruption was everywhere, even in the highest places ; it was eating out the vitals of the land. Justice had become a byword, the judges were knaves; and he mentioned names. Reform was needed ; honest men must be put in office. As for religion, the council of

Trent was despised everywhere: its decrees could never be enforced here, and it would be ruinous to try. The king ought to know this: what was the use of sending an envoy of Count Egmont’s rank and fame, unless to tell him the unvarnished truth ? Tell him, then, that “ this whole machinery of placards and scaffolds, of new bishops and old hangmen, of decrees, inquisitors, and informers, must be abolished at once and forever. Their day was over. The Netherlands were free provinces, they were surrounded by free countries, they were determined to vindicate their ancient privileges.”

FOUNTAIN IN THU PARK OF LA TETO LO.

■ This speech so alarmed old Viglius, the president of the council, that he had an apoplectic stroke next morning. New instructions were drawn up, mid- i'way between the original ambiguities and the frank statements of Orange. Eg- mont, who was abler with the sword than in diplomacy, accomplished nothing, frtiH on his return was reproved by William for neglecting his duty. The canons of Trent were published, though their enforcement was resisted in many cities. The'laymen in an assembly at Brussels wished to repeal the severest enactments

against Protestants ; the prelates and theologians, of course, opposed this. Viglius wrote thus to Granvelle : “ Many seek to abolish the chastisement of heresy. If they gain this point, the Catholic religion is done for; for, as most of the people are ignorant asses, the heretics will soon be the great majority, if they are not kept in the true path by fear of punishment.” Such was the reasoning of those who did not understand the foundation on which true religion rests.

The inquisitors of Louvain wrote to Philip for aid and further instructions, complaining that only two of them were left, as three had been made bishops. He told them to go on, but that, for the avoidance of publicity and of the encouragement that might come from crowds, the heretics might be drowned in tubs in their prisons, with their heads tied between their knees. He wrote to everybody— even to Peter Titelmann, praising his efforts “to remedy the ills religion was suffering.” The Inquisition was to be revived, to do its work with more force than ever.

Great was the commotion, widespread the indignation, at this tyrannical defiance of the public will, this contemptuous overriding of the public rights. There was a stormy meeting of the council of state. The younger nobles, over their wine, made many treasonable speeches. Frequent anonymous notes called on Orange, Egmont, and Horn to stand out as defenders of the people. The presses teemed with protests, satires, invectives; pamphlets and handbills “snowed in the streets.” Montigny, Berghem, and young Mansfeld refused to enforce the decree in their districts. The cities of Brabant, by boldly insisting that they had never admitted the Inquisition, managed to escape it for the present Other regions were less fortunate. Adequate description of the general feeling requires such poetical prose as that of Mr. Motley : “ The cry of the people in its agony ascended to heaven. The decree was answered with a howl of execration. There was almost a cessation of the ordinary business of mankind. Commerce was paralyzed. Antwerp shook as with an earthquake. A chasm seemed to open, in which her prosperity and her very existence were to be engulfed. The foreign merchants, manufacturers, and artisans fled from her gates as if the plague were raging within them. Thriving cities were likely soon to be depopulated. The metropolitan heart of the whole country was almost motionless.”

THE COMPROMISE AND THE REQUEST.

On November nth, 1565, two notable events occurred at Brussels. The regent’s son, Prince Alexander of Parma, who was to play a great part there in later years, was married, amid immense festivities, to the Princess of Portugal; and twenty men of rank, among them probably Louis of Nassau and Sainte Aldegonde, after listening to a Huguenot sermon, formed a league to resist the Inquisition. Out of this grew the so-called Compromise, whose signers, while pledge ing themselves to resist foreign domination, asserted their loyalty. Orange and

the greater nobles bore no part in this, but within two months it had some two thousand names. A petition, or “Request,” was drawn up by the confederates in March, 1566, and handed to the regent on April 3d by Count Brederode, a descendant of the ancient sovereigns of Holland. The two or three hundred cavaliers who arrived with him or on the following day were magnified by rumor into an army of thirty-five thousand, ready for war at once. It is a pity that this was not a fact.

The Request merely protested against the Inquisition and the recent edicts, said they were likely to cause rebellion, and asked, in the interest of the petitioners and of the general public, that proceedings should be suspended till the king could be heard from Alas, the king was never heard from to any useful end, but always in the interest of bigotry, bloodshed, confusion, and ruin.

THE “ BEGGARS.”

The duchess, who for some time had been burdened beyond her strength, was much oppressed by this demonstration. Orange tried to reassure her by saying that the visitors were loyal and honorable gentlemen. Egmont remarked with a shrug that he had a bad leg, and must go off to the baths at Aix. Other members of the council, stiff king’s men and poor patriots, were more violent in their expressions. Berlaymont wished to use a cudgel on the petitioners. “ Why, madam,” said he, “are you afraid of those beggars? ” The word passed from mouth to mouth, and was accepted by those to whom it was applied in scorn. On April 8th, the three hundred confederates sat down to a banquet in Count Culem- burg’s house. During the festivities Brederode produced a mendicant’s wallet and wooden bowl : they were passed from hand to hand with the toast, “Long live the Beggars ! ” Orange, with Horn and Egmont, came in for a moment, and managed to stop this foolery and send the revellers home. But trivial incidents often lead to large results. A chance gibe, taken up in half defiant, half unmeaning jest by a party of reckless roysterers, spread among all classes and became the watchword of revolt. The young squires, to carry the joke further, adopted a plain costume of gray, and went about with pouch, bowl, and medals bearing Philip’s head and a motto, “Faithful to the king, even to wearing the beggar’s sack.” This inscription shows their lack of serious purpose, for fidelity to the king meant support of the Inquisition, against which they were professedly banded. Brederode received an ovation in Antwerp, announced to the crowd which gathered under his window that he would defend their liberties to the death, and exhibited his bowl and wallet amid great applause. These emblems, however childish, helped to fire the popular imagination. The hot youths who talked so much, as Orange knew well, were little likely to hurt tyranny or help freedom; but the name they had adopted took its place in history, and became the password of many a conspiracy, the rallying-cry of many a battle.

£ FI*LD-PRSA.CH1NG SCiiNH NBA*. GHJSNT.

FIELD-PREACHING.

All these proceedings were dutifully reported to Madrid, and diligently noted by the king as so many treasons. Fifty-three articles, drawn up by Vig- lius, proposed to substitute strangling or beheading for the burning of heretics: they were called “the Moderation ” by the government, and the “ Murderation” by the people. Berghem and Montigny, nobles of high rank and character, were sent to Madrid on a mission like that of Egmont. Heedless of warnings received on the way, they went on to meet their fate. Secret orders had already come from Philip to increase the fury of the persecution; but during a lull in the storm, the Protestants had become bolder than ever before. Field-preachings were attended by crowds. Former monks, Huguenots of good family, learned scholars, and plain dyers and weavers, proclaimed the gospel as they understood it. Marot’s psalms in a Dutch version were peddled about, and rolled forth as lustily as by the Calvinists of France. On Sunday, July 7th, twenty thousand persons gathered at the bridge of Emonville, near Tournay, to listen to Ambrose Wille. He came from Geneva, and a price was on his head ; but a hundred armed horsemen acted as his guard, and every third man in the multitude had a gun, a sword, a club, a pike, a pistol, a pitchfork, or a knife. At one of these meetings a Catholic theologian interrupted and easily confounded the ignorant preacher: he was with difficulty rescued from the angry audience, and put in jail to secure his safety. The regent forbade the assemblages, but could not enforce her prohibition ; the foreign troops had gone, and the militia were at the services or in sympathy with the worshippers.

In Flanders and Brabant, five-sixths of the people were thought to have embraced the new doctrines. Some were Lutherans, some Anabaptists', far more were Calvinists. They looked to the nobles as their natural protectors; most of these were still Catholics, though some were beginning to turn. A few, as Berlaymont and Aremberg, were thick-and-thin supporters of despotism. Egmont and Horn were in a dilemma, willing neither to oppress their countrymen nor to oppose the king. Orange, who had married Anna of Saxony in 1561, at this time disliked the doctrines of Calvin and inclined to those of Luther; he was counselling moderation and trying to preserve the peace. It was a hopeless task, but his temper was prudent and conservative: he understood, as the hotheads about him did not, the fearful difficulties of the task that lay ahead. He doubtless shared the view expressed by his gallant younger brother, Louis of Nassau : “There will soon be a hard nut to crack. The king will never grant the preaching: the people will never give it up, if it cost them their necks. There is a hard puff coming upon the country before long.” Few wished to be rebels, to precipitate a civil war; but what could be done with a pigheaded monarch who would not hear reason nor open his eyes to the facts, who regarded every effort to enlighten him as treason, who could not be persuaded that, when

subjects are no longer willing to be slaves, the consent of the governed is an '•element that must enter into the plans of those who attempt the art of governing ?

IMAGE-BREAKING.

The explosion came from the lowest orders, in a way unjustifiable and most unfortunate. In our day the claims of art and property are respected. If we do not like crucifixes, images, painted windows, we can keep away from them ; they are the affair of those who care for them, not ours. But the main trouble of former ages was this, that everyone thought himself the keeper of his neighbor’s •conscience ; what he considered wrong must not be allowed to exist. Every movement of religious reform has been attended by violences which the civilized world has deplored ever since, because they destroyed so much that we should value now. It was so in parts of France, when the Huguenots were strong •enough; it was so when the Puritans had power in England, eighty years later. Yet this must be said in excuse for the iconoclasts, that things harmless and often beautiful in themselves had been made hateful by vile association. They had seen their friends tormented for refusing to bow at these very altars ; the crucifix had been brandished in the face of martyrs at the stake. To the ignorant and unreflecting, the statues of apostles and saints were figures of persecutors; the bells that called to worship had the sound of death-dealing edicts ; the spire that pointed to heaven was an emblem of tyranny.

The cathedral of Antwerp, begun in the twelfth century and finished in the fourteenth, was the most splendid church of northern Europe. Its architecture, statuary, paintings, and innumerable decorations, were famous and hugely admired. Lesser structures, when they have been allowed to stand uninjured, ■draw visitors from all parts of the globe, and afford unending instruction and delight. On August 21st, 1566, only the bare walls remained. “A mere handful of rabble,” in the words of Orange, had toru the interior to pieces. He had been obliged to leave the city, and the cowardly magistrates, though they were -warned of what was coining, took no adequate measures of protection. Grown bold with impunity, the same mob in the same night sacked thirty smaller churches and all the convents. One hundred fanatics are said to have done all the actual work of destruction in Antwerp. Though poor and ragged, they stole nothing; nor did they aim at any human life.

Similar scenes were enacted at Ghent, Valenciennes, and almost everywhere throughout the provinces. At Toumay some rioters, acquainted with the annals of the past, dug up the embalmed body of the Duke Adolphus, who had committed a famous outrage on his father a hundred years before. In Flanders four hundred churches were sacked—and one man, who had pocketed a little of the ^oods spoiled, was hanged by his companions. A few competent leaders, a little presence of mind among the magistrates, could have prevented most if not

wmm

THE TOWN HAT I., HAGUE.

ajl of the destruction. At Mechlin barely eighty rioters did what, they chose, without opposition. In Antwerp, an English knight saw a dozen sack several churches, with ten thousand persons looking on, too timid or too careless, to interfere. Only once does there seem to have been effectual resistance. A large mob raged for days over the province of Tournay, and ruined the beautiful abbey of Marchi- ennes. Near Auchin a. noble with a small body of countrymen slew five hundred of them and drove the rest away. The rising was a brief midsummer madness, but it left behind it sad wrecks, and an' awful account to be settled.

THE

OUTRAGES PUNISHED.

The great mass of the Protestants had. nothing to do with these outrages, which the better sort of their ministers and people denounced and deplored. While they were going on, Wille told avast congregation’

that they disgraced the cause of reform. Not only this ; they weakened and imperilled it. Such excesses were sure to strengthen its enemies, to embarrass its staunchest friends, and to drive away the doubting and half-hearted. It is always •easy to hold a principle responsible for its abuses, however it may disavow them. Many nobles of the confederacy, disgusted and alarmed by this noisy chorus to their Beggars’ song, made haste to throw aside the bowl and wallet, and to vindicate their loyalty by turning against their late allies. The tools of despotism, of course, were satisfied that heretics and rebels were all of a piece, aud that it was not worth while to make distinctions among them. Philip gnashed his teeth with rage when he heard the news, swore by his father’s soul, and cried that it should cost them dear. The regent was so alarmed that she wished to escape from Brussels at once; Orange, Egmont, and Horn had much ado to allay her fears and dissuade her from a disgraceful and disastrous flight. In her panic she agreed to abolish the Inquisition and proclaim a partial liberty of worship, and an Accord to this effect was signed on August 24th. The provinces thus secured a delusive breathing-space before the storm burst upon them in full fury.

The great lords now went to their several governments, to reduce them to order. Egmont, now bent on making progress backwards, terrified Flanders by his violence, forbade all Protestant meetings, and ordered many executions for religion as well as for rioting. His secretary Bakkerzeel, according to an admiring historian, gave the duchess much consolation by his exploits; “ on one occasion he hanged twenty Protestants, including a minister, at a single heat.” Orange with much labor pacified Antwerp, and established that toleration of which he, almost alone among the men of his age, had conceived the full idea.

Horn was much less successful in Tournay, which was vehemently Calvinist. The people pulled him one way and the regent another, till he said he would rather -be besieged by the Turks. In October he was recalled, and on January 2d, 1567, the city was entered and disarmed by Noircarmes, an officer of evil note hereafter, at the head of troops who were much disappointed at not being allowed to sack it. When the magistrates opened their gates, he told them that if they had delayed another minute he would have burned the town and killed everybody in it. This was a pleasant foretaste of what they and their neighbors were likely to get a little later.

THE REGENT’S SLANDERS.

Meantime the Duchess Margaret was practising the kind of diplomacy most likely to be acceptable to her brother and master. Machiavel’s “Prince” was the text-book for princes in those days, and Philip, the most eminent proficient in this kind of learning, had infected every one about him with his Judas policy—smooth speeches, kisses, and flatteries, while plotting the victim’s ruin. So the regent kept up appearances with her councillors, and wrote a long series

of slanders to the king. These men, she asserted, were enemies of religion. Horn wished to give heresy full swing, or else kill all the priests. Egmont was raising troops in Germany. Orange meant to be lord of Brabant. The country was to be divided between them and their foreign allies: all the Catholics were to be massacred. It is not certain how much either she or Philip believed of this stuff: when people live in an atmosphere of falsehood, they lose the power to distinguish between truth and lies. Horn and Egmont were devout Romanists in their way; a little too patriotic to suit Spain, and much too loyal to their worst enemy to meet the approval of posterity. There was no plot between them: Orange became a rebel only when he was driven to it—we should think no worse of him if he had started on that path a little earlier. But the tyrant preferred to take the darkest view of any who were not his abject slaves; and those who served him with heart and soul and mind and strength, as we shall see, were not much safer from his jealous suspicions.

ORANGE ALONE.

By the end of this year the prince had received information of Philip’s dark designs, which were soon to be known to all the world. At Dendermonde he held a brief conference with his colleagues; but Egmont blindly insisted on trusting to the king’s good faith, and Horn, weary and disgusted, was determined to retire from public affairs. The confederacy was dissolved, having done more harm than good. Its members, according to a contemporary writer, had “ruined their country by their folly and incapacity;” in the opinion of Motley, “they had profaned a holy cause by indecent orgies, compromised it by seditious demonstrations, abandoned it when most in need of assistance.” Louis of Nassau and a few others were sound at heart, but young and wilful, ready to throw discretion to the winds, and longing for “the bear-dance to begin.” Orange, who counted the cost, was practically alone. He had won his famous title of “the Silent” by his ability to keep his own counsel under a terrible test. When in France after the war, early in 1559, Henry II., stupidly supposing him to be of the same stuff as Philip and Alva, had revealed to him a plan for murdering the Huguenots : the horrid news was at once taken to heart and never forgotten, but not a word, not a sign, not even a change of countenance, showed the French king that he had mistaken his man. Familiar from childhood with court and state business, deeply versed in affairs and men, he had learned to hold himself in check, to look through appearances and pretences at the inner fact, and to stand on guard. The only blemish on his character is his lack of straight- ₍ forwardness in dealing with the king; but he knew that it is necessary to fight the devil with fire, to employ spies and stratagems against a knave. If he descended to the arts of his age to serve his country, it was not that he loved tlecei;, but because without deceit successful statesmanship was impossible.

WWAM mg SII^NT, PRINCH OF ORANGE.

Had he been as guileless, as confiding, as his friends, there might have been no Dutch Republic.

His silence, as we have already seeu, was broken whenever lie saw the need of speech. At this time he put forth a pamphlet modestly urging the political necessity of some degree of religious toleration. He had felt and seen the truth which is well expressed by a modern writer, that “the heart turns to flint when the blessing of religion is changed into the curse of sect.” Between the unbending fierceness of two clashing opinions, the provinces were in a fair way to be destroyed. Even the regeut had lately urged the king to permit a meeting of the States-General, saying that “it was better to preserve the Catholic religion for a part of the country than to lose it altogether.” But no argument could move the bigot who was bound to rule or ruin. Either of these ends seemed to be equally acceptable to him: he would hear of no middle course.

WATRELOTS AND OSTRAWELL.

Most of the cities which had been guilty of image-breaking had now been attended to: but Valenciennes, which was intensely Protestant, refused to receive a garrison. It was on the French border, and took its name from the Emperor Valentinian, who founded it in the fourth century. At the end of 1566 it was outlawed, and Noircarmes began to besiege it. The citizens at first made light of this danger, and looked to their friends outside for aid. Near three thousand rebels gathered at Dannoy, and twelve hundred at Watrelots; but these were attacked and exterminated on one of the first days of 1567. The locksmith and preacher who headed the larger force was left to fight alone after the first fire, and his men were cut down as they ran or driven into the river to drown. Those at Watrelots, or half of them, made more resistance, but all were shot in the cemetery or burned in the belfry of the church. These were the first open fights for liberty in the provinces, and the result was alarm and discouragement. It was made apparent that undisciplined workmen and peasants could not stand against regular troops.

The same fate soon befell another rising. Brederode, the founder and chief of the Beggars, was making himself conspicuous rather than useful. His town of Viane was a source of Protestant publications and, as his enemies asserted, a centre of disorder. In February he sent to the regent a new request, demanding far more than the former one. Margaret, who had taken his measure, told him to go home and behave himself, or beware of the consequences. Undaunted, he rode about the country, boasting what he would do. Au agent of his, till stopped by Orange, was enlisting men in Antwerp for an attempt on the Isle of Walcheren. A better man than Brederode was drawn into the rash scheme. St. Aldegonde’s brother, Marnix of Tholouse, was a Protestant and a youth of promise. He left his studies to lay down his life for freedom, and put himself

at the head of a rabble of three thousand, entrenched at Ostrawell. De Beauvoir, commander of the regent’s body-guard, came forth against him with eight hundred picked soldiers, thirsting for blood and plunder. On March 13th, they attacked the fort, and annihilated its feeble defenders.

TUMULT AT ANTWERP.

The whole affair could be seen from the walls and roofs of Antwerp. Mar- nix’s young wife demanded aid or vengeance. Ten thousand armed citizens rushed to the Red Gate. Orange met them there. He was insulted and threatened ; a gun was aimed at him, but some one thrust it aside. His coolness calmed

ORIENTAL BISHOPS.

the tumult, for the moment at least. He told them that it was too late to save their friends: the attempt would merely expose themselves and the city to a. terrible retribution. Most of them listened; five hundred foolishly went forth, to cause the death, not of their enemies, but of the last fugitives from Ostrawell. De Beauvoir called his men from the pursuit. They had taken three hundred prisoners : these they now shot, and turned against the men of Antwerp, who hastily fled back within their gates.

This was not the end of the trouble. Fifteen thousand Calvinists barricaded the Mere, opened the jail, and scorned the authorities. There was terrible fear in the city that day and night; it would probably have been sacked, but for the prince’s masterful measures. The fires of sectarian bigotry raged fiercely: the three factions, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Catholic, all hated one another. The two latter included most of Antwerp’s wealth and aristocracy. By arming them.

Orange averted a combat for which all were ready. On the fifteenth, near forty thousand men were encamped in three different parts of the city. On the next day the danger was over. William, with his friend and colleague Hoogstrateu, then associated with him in the government of the city, had ridden to the Mere and induced the mutineers to hear reason.

While these deeds of arms were doing, the political situation was changing. The regent had recovered from the alarm of the previous August and disowned the Accord; with the subsequent success of her officers, she grew bolder, more tricky, and more tyrannical. Orange had spent part of the winter in his government of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, where he was almost as much needed as at Antwerp. The duchess wished him to restrict the Protestant preaching to the open country: he wrote her that the open country was under water. She agreed to allow it on the wharves, and then presently took back her word. This playing fast and loose disgusted William. His patience was a strong camel, but its back would hold no more such burdens.

THE NEW OATH.

The straw which broke it was a weighty one. Every officer of the king was now required to swear to obey all orders, whatever they might be, without limit. The reactionary lords, Mansfeld, Aerschet, Berlaymont, Meghem, and others, took the new oath readily. Poor Egmont, who was no longer to be counted in any sense a friend of freedom, followed their example. Orange refused at once, and resigned all the posts which he held under the king’s commission. Margaret would not accept his resignation. She had her secret orders from Philip, to use him and the others, and work them for all they were worth, till the king was ready to be done with them. Thus matters stood : the prince no longer considered himself a royal officer, though the regent still pretended to regard him as such, and laid much work upon him.

It will be remembered that Philip, though an absolute monarch in Spain, had no such right or title in the provinces. Here he was merely Duke of Brabant, Count of Holland, and so on. Legally, his powers were restricted by many old laws and local charters, which he was always overriding, though he had sworn to observe them. However the tyrant might disregard these documents, the patriots kept them in mind, and their efforts for liberty were on this historical basis. Nobody desired to resist the king’s rightful claims ; but his claims never kept within rightful limits. All laws, natural or written, human or divine, were swept aside by his insatiate conceit. As for the Prince of Orange, he had honors and dignities enough, apart from those held by royal commission ; these he retained —except as they might be taken from him by force—after he ceased to be a king’s officer. Among them was that of Margrave of Antwerp, and in this capacity he was still acting. The case, it must be owned, presented elements of

confusion, for the old order of things was breaking up, and the new order had not yet begun to be established.

PUNISHMENT OF VALENCIENNES.

Meantime the siege of Valenciennes was being pressed, and the surrounding country endured all the horrors of war, in an age when war had not begun to admit the restraints of civilization. The army had unlimited license, and its deeds were those of fiends. “Men and women who attempted any communication with the city were murdered in cold blood by hundreds. The villages were plundered of their miserable possessions; children were stripped naked in the midst of winter for the sake of the rags which covered them. Matrons and virgins were sold at public auction by the tap of drum. Sick and wouuded wretches were burned over slow fires, to afford amusement to the soldiers.” For a while the citizens made a brave defense, but under the first cannonade their courage gave way, and they surrendered on March 24th, 1567. Egmont, with the excess-

~ AFTER THE FALL OF VALENCIENNES. shed tO satisfy

any reasonable appetite. The soldiers were allowed to rob, ravish, and murder, almost at will. The chief citizens were arrested. Two eminent ministers, De Bray and De la Grange, escaped, but were caught and brought back. A countess, out of curiosity, visited them in their prison ; they told her that their chains were honorable, their sleep sweet, their minds at peace. Amid the tears of their parishioners they met their fate manfully, and spoke farewell counsels till the langman swung them off. Many others died on the scaffold or at the stake. A Catholic resident of the town testified that ^il for two whole years there was scarcely a week in which several were not executed, and often a great number were dispatched together.”

This was a golden time for those who were doing their master’s work most bloodily. Noircarmes grew rich on the spoils of rebels and heretics, and Beauvoir

claimed, as a reward for his easy success at Ostrawell, the estates of the slain Mamix and his surviving brother. Many longing eyes were fixed on the belongings of Orange and others of doubtful loyalty. Protestant bones would afford fine picking, for confiscation always followed death. Was it not written that the saints should inherit the earth? The saints might be brawlers, swearers, drunk-

CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO, ROME.

ards, liars, libertines, as well as murderers : no matter, if they were of Philip’s creed,

WORSE DAYS COMING.

The spirit of rebellion was now broken. Noircarmes wrote to Cardinal Granvelle: “ The capture of Valenciennes has worked a miracle. All the other

cities come forth to meet me, putting the rope round their own necks.” Even the fifteen thousand zealots of Antwerp, lately so anxious to fight their fellow- citizens, made no attempt to resist when Mansfeld entered their gates with a garrison on April 26th. The provinces had suffered much; they were to be tried still more heavily before they could find the will and the ability to make a real stand against oppression. Darker days than they had yet known were at hand ; for Alva had left Madrid, and was coming with a Spanish army. !

This news much offended the regent. With unusual boldness, she complained to her brother that she had been ill treated. The country was doing very well under her, she said ; and from her point of view it was true. She sent an envoy to explain that there was no need of Alva and his troops. The demigod’s reply expressed his amazement and high displeasure at her impertinence. If she had done any good to religion, she owed him humble thanks for having put her in a position to do it. What more did she want ? He was soon coming in person, he added ; but he did not mean it.

Orange could do no more, except to secure his own safety. Margaret, disregarding his repeated renouncement of her service, deluged him with sum-; monses, commissions, entreaties ; with his high lineage and his noble heart, she wrote, how could he forget his duty ? He replied that he had not taken, the new oath, and would not take it. She sent the secretary of her council, a man of tape and formulas, to argue the matter with him. Here the Silent found his tongue, as always when it was needed. “Do you expect me,” he asked in substance, “to break pledges taken long ago to our laws and to the late emperor? To enforce edicts which I loathe ? To persecute my neighbors for their opinions, and perhaps bring my wife to the block as a Lutheran ? Am I to be the blind slave of whomsoever the king sends here, though he be my inferior in birth and station? Is William of Orange to take orders from the Duke of Alva?”

DEPARTURE OF ORANGE AND MANY OTHERS.

At the baffled secretary’s request, he agreed to meet two or three of the leading royalists. It was his last interview with Egmont, whose recent conduct had not destroyed a friendship of long standing. He warned the del tided man of the perils he was confronting. “You are the bridge,” he said, “which the invaders will cross and then destroy.” The words put into Egmont’s mouth, “Adieu, landless Prince ! ” and William’s more apt reply, “Farewell, headless Count!” belong to the class of prophesies after the fact. The large estates of Orange were soon to dwindle, and Egmont’s head, which was serving him very poorly, did within fourteen months part company with his body: but the two friends would scarcely twit each other with these losses in advance. One remained; the other was in Germany by the end of April. His head had served him well, as was soon proved by a letter from Philip’s secretary, who was in William’s pay—

such were the intricacies of high employment. Among the king’s secret instructions to Alva was this pregnant passage: “Arrest the prince as soon as possible, and let his trial last no more than twenty-four hours.lU

Orange was not the only fugitive. His brother Louis was already in Germany, where neither of them was likely to waste his time. Brederode, whose activity was chiefly displayed in loud talking and hard drinking, had made a disgraceful submission and then fled: he died the next year, little regretted. Some minor lords of the late confederacy slept while their treacherous pilot ran into a Frisian port: their men were hanged, and themselves kept for Alva and his headsman.

The humbler classes, when they could, followed the example of their leaders. A few years earlier, thirty thousand workers in cloth, silks, and dyes had carried their useful arts to England, and Elizabeth, in giving them homes and protection, had prudently required each house to take a native apprentice. The number of such refugees was now multiplied, and many were killed in trying to escape. The Protestant services were utterly suppressed, the chapels torn down, the preachers and hearers hanged on timbers taken from their jSMpsjS places of worship. Every village,

says Meteren, the historian of entrance to the haw, of the knights.

Antwerp, had its executions, sometimes two or three' hundred. The dissenting societies were not only scattered, but weeded well: weak or false members, and some who had displayed great zeal, were now equally devout at mass.

The Duchess sent forth on May 24th a new edict, the object of which seemed to be to hang nearly everybody. But the king was much incensed, and ordered her to recall it as illegal, indecent, and unchristian. Why ? Because it provided only for hangings : nothing less than fire on earth and in hell would do for heretics. Alva would have no such wicked lenity.

ALVA AND THE BLOOD-COUNCIL.

HERE are names that, when they stood for living power, were greeted with a shudder or a smothered curse, and that live in history as the synonym of all that is most hateful. The man who, more than any other, shares his master’s infamy was of high birth and marked ability. His ancestor was the brother of a Byzantine emperor and the conqueror of Toledo. Alva himself, though despicable as a ^ statesman, was the most famous general of his day. He k_ was fifty-nine, tall and lean, haughty and unapproachable, cruel and avaricious. He cared little for pleasure, much for gain; as to the rest of his character, “ the world has agreed that such an amount of stealth and ferocity, of patient vindictivness and universal bloodthirstiness, was never found in a savage beast of the forest, and but rarely in a human bosom.” Such was he who for six years was to hold the Netherlands in the hollow of his hand, and take delight in crushing them. As the regent had written to her brother, he was already •well known and hated there: as he told his attendants, it mattered little whether he was welcome or not—the point was that he was on hand.

With him came twelve hundred cavalry, and four huge regiments of foot, from the Italian wars; in all, about ten thousand veterans. Each man was armed and dressed like an officer, and had his private servant—for the profession of arms was then the most respected in Europe, and Philip’s armies were the finest in the world. Two thousand women of the camp accompanied the march. All were under perfect discipline, splendidly equipped and provided, and masters of their business. These gentry were to play a great figure in the provinces for many years to come. The French king, for fear of the Huguenots, would not let them pass through his territories : on either side a French and a Swiss force followed and watched them closely, to see that they did no harm on the road. They went by way of Savoy, Burgundy, and Lorraine, often in lonesome and dangerous places where they might have been ambushed and annihilated by less than their own numbers. It seems a pity that this could not be done ; but

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rebellion as yet existed only in the tyrant’s jealous fancy. The provinces were cowed, shivering under the lash, and waiting in helpless terror for their lordly executioners.

EGMONT AND HORN ARRESTED.

In August Count Egmont, still smitten with judicial blindness, rode forthi to meet the old enemy who brought his death-warrant. “Here comes the chief heretic,” said Alva. Presently he threw his arm over the victim’s shoulders, and they went on to Brussels like loving friends. These lying pretenses of good will, with assurances of the royal favor, were kept up for some time, and extended to Horn, who was thus lured from his estate at Weert, where he had been sulking in retirement. Egmont at least received repeated warnings.

On September 9th, when they were dining with Alva’s son, the grand prior of the Knights of St.

John, the host whispered in his ear,

“Leave this place at once; take your fastest horse and escape.”

He rose in agitation, left the room and would have followed this honest advice; but Noircarmes, fit tool of all villainy, dissuaded him. He and Horn were arrested the same day, and a fortnight later placed in the castle at Ghent. Their secretaries and the burgomaster of Antwerp were also seized: Hoogstraten escaped through a lucky accident. Titelmann, the inquisitor, hearing of these captures, asked whether “Wise William” was among them, and exclaimed, “Then our joy will be brief; woe to us for the wrath to come from Germany ! ”

DUKE OF ALVA.

Bergen and Montigny, who had undertaken a mission to Spain the year before, were detained there. Bergen died heartbroken and perhaps poisoned; his estate was confiscated, and the other’s fate was deferred.

Alva’s next step was to establish a Council of Troubles, better known as the Council of Blood. Nominally it was to have exclusive jurisdiction in all cases connected with the image-breaking, the risings, and other recent disturbances: in reality, it set aside at one blow the courts, the laws, the charters of the provinces, and put in their place an irresponsible system of Spanish or Italian despotism. The duke became a czar or sultan ; with the aid of a few henchmen lie governed the country as he chose, with the almost avowed object of diminishing its population and turning its revenues, public and private, into the treasury. He had promised Philip a yearly income of half a million ducats from confiscations, and he boasted that a river of gold, a yard deep, should soon flow toward Spain. This involved the removal of those who had the gold ; and apart from what was to be gained, there was much pleasure in mere bloodletting, for surgeons of his quality. Religion afforded a fair pretense to all this slitting of throats and purses ; but any rich man was likely to be found a heretic. In fact, the eighteen articles of the new court brought nearly every exercise of intelligence within the range of capital offenses. It was high treason to have signed •or transmitted any petition against the edicts, the Inquisition, or the bishops; to claim that the old laws and charters were entitled to respect, or to question the king’s right to trample them under foot; to have had any connection with the preachings, or not to have resisted them and the ‘ Request * too, as well as the spoliation of the churches. Under this savage decree, almost the whole population of the Netherlands could be held guilty of treason; and this seemed to be the object aimed at. Never did tyranny use plainer language, or go to work with more wholesale and methodical ferocity.

THE “COUNCIL OF TROUBLES."

The new council was very loose in its texture and informal in its proceedings ; ease and efficiency were desired, and these could only be impeded by set forms. Both the privy council and the state council were practically merged in it; yet it had no charter, its chief members were mere creatures and appointees of Alva, and most of them had no votes. The duke kept it thus in his own hands for an obvious reason; as he significantly expressed it to his master, “ the men of law condemn only for crimes that are proved, whereas our state affairs are managed by different rules from the laws they have here.” His chief tools were old Viglius, Noircarmes, Berlaymont, and two Spaniards, Vargas and Del Rio. One of his favorites was Hessels, a native councillor of some note. Like the prelates at Abelard’s trial, this worthy used to sleep through the discussions, .and wake up when a case was finished, to say, “Adpatibulum—to the gallows.”

THE DUNES ON THE NORTH SEA COAST, NEAR THE HAGUE.

The usual method of procedure (if it deserved the name) was this : informations came in by the bushel, and were sent by Alva to the inferior councillors. They gave them some sort of examination, and made reports to Vargas on each paper, which might accuse a single person or any number. When the report recommended death, it was approved by Vargas, and the victims executed within two days. In any other case it was sent back to be revised, and the duke scolded his subordinates for their lack of zeal. The cases of Orange, Egmont, Horn, Montigny, and other nobles of eminence, whether within reach or not, demanded and received more time and attention.

By this atrocious travesty of justice eighteen hundred lives were taken in less than three months. We read of forty-six executed together at Malines, and eighty-four at Valenciennes. Some were hanged, some burned, some beheaded. It was intended to make a general clearance just before Lent of 1568; many had warning and escaped for the moment, but five hundred victims rewarded the zeal of the blood-hunters. No care was taken to discriminate between supposed guilt and the absence of it. One De Wit of Amsterdam was condemned for having prevented a rioter from firing at a magistrate; if he could do that, it was sagely concluded, he must have been a leader of the revolt. When another’s case came up, it was found that he had done nothing amiss, but had been put to death already. “No matter,” said Vargas; “if he was innocent, so much the better for him at his trial in the other world.”

ALVA VICEROY.

Since Alva’s arrival the regent’s occupation had been gone, and she fumed at the loss of her power and dignity. Again and again she had offered her resignation; at last it was accepted, and the duke named as governor in her stead. She left the provinces at the end of the year 1567, regretted only because she had given place to one much worse than she. In the light of later events her rule, which was bad enough, seemed lenient. Her last official act was a useless letter to her brother, urging mercy and forgiveness; but she said and did nothing to save her faithful friends and servants, Egmont and Horn, from the fate to which she had lured them on. She was not alone in finding it easier to preach than practice, easiest of all to condemn perfidy and cruelty which, though in greater degree, were like her own.

Alva had at once taken the keys of the chief cities, and distributed his terrible soldiery among them. His next care, after the Blood-Council, which usually cost him seven hours a day, was to provide means whereby his garrisons might securely hold and overawe the towns. The citadel of Antwerp, which was destined to play such a terrible part in the history of the next few years, was begun in October 1567, and hurried to completion, two thousand workmen laboring under the direction of two skilled Italian engineers. The cost, four hundred

thousand florins, was placed upon the burghers, who were thus obliged to pay for the suppression of their liberty. Alva meant to have no more such civilian tumults as Orange had put down; hereafter the soldiers would furnish the disorders.

ORANGE INDICTED.

In January, 1568, Orange, with his brother and other noble refugees, was summoned to appear before the Blood-Council within six weeks, on penalty of banishment and confiscation. He replied briefly, disowning the j urisdiction of that tribunal. He was sovereign of the principality in France which gave him

REAR FACADE OF THB FI,ESHER'S HALL, HARLEM.

his name, a member of the Germanic or Holy Roman Empire, and a Knight of the Golden Fleece, He could be tried only by his peers. He was ready to appear before the knights, under the statutes of the order, or before the emperor, the Electors, and their fellows. In either case; he would be in the charge of his brethren and friends, not in prison like Egmont and Horn.

If the prince be blamed for lack of definite speech or prompt action at this time, it must be remembered that he was a statesman and not a visionary. It was useless to rise before the time. He had had abundant evidence that his countrymen were not yet prepared, either morally or physically, to fight for their liberties. It was no mere selfish thought which prompted him to announce, on leaving the Netherlands nine months before, that he had yet an income of sixty thousand florins, and would not attack Philip so long as the king left his honor and estates untouched. In the coming conflict of right against might, he must have the sympathy of all fair-minded men; before he drew his sword, he must have manifest and unanswerable reasons. It was not only best, it was necessary, that the enemy should put himself utterly and wildly in the wrong. The only course open was to give the devil rope enough to hang himself with.

ABDUCTION OF WILLIAM’S SON.

At this time the one serious mistake of William’s life resulted in an irreparable loss. In removing his family to Germany, he had strangely left his eldest son, Count de Buren, at the college of Louvain. They were never to meet again, and the boy was to grow up under alien influences in a distant land. It was an abduction with the consent of the kidnapped. The child of thirteen, whose mother was an Egmont, seems not to have had the intelligence and knowledge that might be expected from his years and parentage ; for he was pleased at being invited to Spain in the king’s name, and even wrote to thank Alva for his kindness. Being of this temper, his body received no injury, but his soul dwindled under the tutelage of his father’s foes. When he returned to his native land, a man of thirty-three, it was as a gloomy bigot, in the company of the invaders. He was the only member of the noble house of Nassau who was not a patriot and a lover of liberty.

The faculty of Louvain, much shocked by this outrage, sent deputies to complain of the violation of their privileges. Vargas, as acting-president of the Blood-Council, told them plainly, “We do not care for your privileges.” They were lucky to get off with their lives ; under the new statutes, they might have been hung for treason. The magistrates of Antwerp sent some of their number to beg the lives of several eminent citizens, who were in prison. They trembled as Alva let loose the fury of his tongue upon them. He called their city a nest of traitors and heretics, their missiou a gross presumption. Let them beware, or he would hang all Antwerp, to teach other towns their duty : the king would rather make the whole land a wilderness, than let a single Protestant stay alive, in it. On this occasion, if on few others, the duke undoubtedly told the truth.

MURDEROUS DECREE OF THE INQUISITION.

As if to prove that Philip and Alva were not the only murderous bigots, and that one section of Christendom had learned nothing of Christianity in the

last three hundred years, a brief decree of the Inquisition, dated February i6th_y 1568, condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. Of the three millions, several hundred thousand, at least, were Catholics, but what of that? The spirit of the legate at Bezieres still prevailed—“Kill them all!

It was in a way to be done, for Philip had able implements at work ; but the church, through its approved and most powerful organ, wished to claim part of the credit, and to make it plain that no mere worldly and political motives governed the Catholic King. The gospel had been in the world for fifteen centuries* and yet in its professed chief seat and centre this was its interpretation. This was the will of God, forsooth, this was for the glory of Christ, that those whom God created and Christ died to save, men and women of all ranks and ages, harmless children, babies at the breast, should be harried and tormented, hunted like wild beasts, flung in the fire like weeds, swept from the earth by myriads and nations!

For the credit of human nature one would be glad to believe the decree a forgery, the tale a fiction. No more awful crime was ever perpetrated against humanity, no more bias- phemous insult ever flung in the ' v\.

face of the Most High.

There is force in the old argument, that it is almost a proof of the divine mission of the Saviour that His religion has survived such deeds committed in His name. The infidel historian was right in asserting that while the Pagans slew thousands ou the altars of their false gods, the Christians have murdered each other by the hundred thousand. The persecutions of Decius and Diocletian, horrible as they were, shrink almost into insignificance beside the persecutions of Philip of

COSTUMES OF ITOTX * KD WOMEN.

Spain. It may be claimed in excuse for the heathens that they knew no better: what shall be said of those who, having received the law of divine enlightenment, so misused it that they were more ignorant, more brutal, more malignant, than the heathens?

It cannot be asserted that this hideous sentence of the Inquisition had any marked effect on Alva’s doings. He needed no stimulus : the unholy fire which "burned in his breast was one with the spirit of Spain and Rome. The executions went on merrily. The duke wrote to his master, estimating the victims whose immolation was to improve the Easter festivities “ at eight hundred heads.” To prevent their last speeches at the scaffold or on the way to it, their tongues were now forced into iron rings and then burned, so that the swelling kept them in place and silenced their owners.

The provinces were now in a frightful condition. Bands of desperate men roamed the country, robbing and marauding. They called themselves the Wild Beggars, and made revolt a pretense to cover their crimes. Convents were plundered: many priests and monks had their ears and noses cutoff. These outrages did no good to the cause of liberty, and their authors were soon destroyed or dispersed.

ORANGE BEGINS THE WAR.

The Prince of Orange was not long in receiving the provocation he waited for. His son had been kidnapped and sent to Spain, his Dutch estates were confiscated, himself was condemned as a contumacious rebel for refusing to appear before a lawless court, composed, as he indignantly complained, of “ he knew not what base knaves, not fit to be his valets.” His position was now taken, and j ustified before the world in a published apology. The document explained the recent course of events, traced the troubles to their source, denounced Cardinal Granvelle as the first stirrer-up of trouble, denied having borne part in the ■so-called Compromise and Request, now absurdly treated as acts of treason, and threw the gage of defiance to Philip as an oath-breaker and tyrant.

In advance of this declaration, William had already taken steps toward war. A curious pretense of loyal regard, required by the notions of that age, was still maintained toward a king who could not be trusted to manage his own affairs. A commission issued on April 6th, 1560, to Louis of Nassau, authorized him to raise troops in order “to show our love for the monarch and his hereditary provinces, to prevent the desolation hanging over the country by the ferocity of the Spaniards, to maintain the privileges sworn to by his majesty and his predecessors, to prevent the extirpation of all religion by the edicts, and to save the sons and daughters of the land from abject slavery.” Similar commissions were given to Hoogstraten and others, but Louis, who had already showed his aptitude and love for this business, was the general and his brother’s right hand. To meet the expenses Orange sold his jewels, plate, and other personal property,

Avhich were of great value. Large contributions came also from Hoogstraten, Culemberg, and other nobles, from the Flemish exiles in England, from the Dutch cities, and from the German relatives of the prince. Alliances were made with several Protestant rulers, and nothing neglected that could be done at this -early stage to secure the sinews of war.

A private attempt against Alva failed. He was to be attacked publicly from three different quarters at the same time, but one of these enterprises was ■delayed. Villars, with near three thousand men, entered from the east about April 20th, and tried to enter Roermonde in Limburg, but was not successful A Spanish force, in numbers inferior to his own, attacked him with fury a few •days later, and cut his troops to pieces in two engagements near Dalhem. He and the survivors were soon captured.

BATTLE OF THE HOLY LION.

Louis of Nassau had already raised the standard of revolt in the north In this region, much less densely peopled than the southern provinces, and in

DUTCH GIRLS IN THEIR WORKING DKESS.

parts a marshy wilderness, he and his young brother Adolphus gathered a motley army of “Beggars,” adventurers, and whatever came to hand—some of them good fighters, but many raw recruits and poorly armed. With this indifferent array, held together largely by the hope of pay and booty—the first hard to get, the other extremely doubtful—they gained some small successes, threatened Groningen, and prepared to meet the terrible Spanish veterans.

Only able generalship conld do anything with such means against such odds ; but Louis was the man for the task, and was now to win the first victory for freedom.

Count Aremberg was stadtholder of Frisia, and one of the firmest native supports of tyranny. Though crippled and tormented by the gout, he was sent to his province to put down the insurgents. On May 2 2d, a skirmish occurred at Dam, in the northeast corner of the Netherlands. That night Louis marched southwards, and encamped in a strong position near the convent of the Holy Lion. It was the very spot where Hermann, or Arminius, had destroyed Varus and the. Roman legions fifteen hundred years before. Behind was a wood, to the left a rising ground, the only one for miles; in front a region of swampy pastures, intersected by wide ditches. The only safe approach was by a narrow causeway: along this the enemy followed the Beggars.

Aremberg’s orders were to attack only with his whole force, and his colleague, Meghem, was some hours behind. But the soldiers had no mind to share their expected plunder, and were impatient of restraint. Six cannon, brought from Groningen, were levelled against the hill. The patriot light troops, stationed on this eminence, had orders to retire at the first at ack. This ruse succeeded ; the Spainards clamored to advance, and their colonel, Braccamonte, taunted Aremberg with cowardice. Forgetting prudence (for he saw the dangers of the ground), the general yielded, and the troops dashed forward with fatal impetuosity. A volley of musketry broke their ranks, and they were presently struggling in the mire on either side. Then the rebel pikemen charged upon them, and a body that had been concealed behind the hill took them in the flank and rear. A thousand were shot or smothered in the bog-;: Braccamonte fled. Aremberg died bravely, after Adolphus of Nassau had fallen by his hand.

This battle showed that the Beggars were not always of necessity helpless and imbecile before their tyrants. But apart from its moral effect, the victory was useless. Louis conld not easily keep his troops together, and his attempt to besiege Groningen, as we shall see, had no result. On the other hand, Alva’s surprise and wrath were great, and he took speedy vengeance on those who were within his power. The Culemberg mansion at Brussels, in which Brederode had produced the beggar’s wallet and cup at the famous banquet, was torn down,, and a monument raised on its site, as if it had sheltered a regicide. On June ist, the Batenburgs and other men of rank, eighteen in all, were publicly beheaded. Villars and three more suffered the next day. Thus no distinction was made between rebels taken in arms, and those who had merely signed petitions or drunk toasts the year before. Anything less than uniform and slavish submission to the tyrant was dealt with as a capital crime.

EGMONT AND HORN BEHEADED.

The cases of Egmont and Horn drew more attention than all the rest, since, after Orange, they were the highest nobles in the land. Like him, both were

Knights of the Golden Fleece, and Horn was a Count of the Empire. Immense- influence, from the emperor down, was exerted on their behalf; protests and entreaties came in abundantly ; but Philip and Alva were immovable. After a

death of egmont.

mock trial by the Blood-Council, with scarcely the faintest pretense of legality in the whole proceedings, they were executed in the most public manner, in the great square of Brussels, on June 5th, 1568.

The chief emotion called forth in modern minds by this event is amazement at the stupidity of Philip. The victims were objects of universal sympathy at the time, but neither is entitled to much respect from us. In themselves they were not remarkable men, though Egmont was famous for the success of his arms in France. Both lived and died in the old religion ; both were loyal and faithful servants of their treacherous and cruel master. We have seen how little they ■did for civil or religious liberty ; and Egmont, in the months preceding his arrest, did much against it, showing such persecuting zeal as might have satisfied the king that this was a fit tool of despotism. Immediately before his end, he abased himself in a useless and submissive plea for mercy, “ kissing the murderous hand which smote him.” What could be gained by the destruction of two nobles, one of whom was harmless, and the other, as even a member of the Blood-Coun- cil testified, entitled not to punishment but to reward ? Merely a terrifying display of irresistible power, and a notice to all the world that the despot would bear no questioning of his royal whims.

Rational motives fail to account for these excesses of violence, and indeed for the whole suicidal course of this atrocious reign. A steady line of conduct so opposed to common sense and self-interest, no less than to all rules of humanity and justice, must be referred to a strange mental exaltation, a zeal inspired from beneath, the counterpart aud yet the contrary of that which has produced the noblest heroes and saints. We are forced to believe with Mr. Motley that “Philip was fanatically impressed with his mission: his viceroy was possessed by his loyalty as by a demon. In this way alone that conduct which -can never be palliated may at least be comprehended. It was Philip’s enthusiasm to embody the wrath of God against heretics. It was Alva’s enthusiasm to •embody the wrath of Philip.”

Egmont, who had hoped for pardon to the last, and whose family were reduced to bitter poverty by his condemnation, may be excused for giving signs •of impotent rage upon the scaffold. Horn met his fate with perfect composure: his aged mother, though he knew it not, had already given funds to support the insurrection. The uselessness of this attempt to terrorize the people might even then appear, for when a tyrant is no less hated than feared, his throne begins to totter. Though the square was lined with three thousand soldiers and the governor sat at a window opposite, tears were shed and muttered curses heard. Many even pressed forward to dip their kerchiefs in the blood of these involuntary martyrs of liberty. Their heads, it was said and believed, were sent to Spain, for the king to feast his eyes upon : their headless bodies did more for the cause of freedom than they had done in life.

UPHILL WORK.

HUS relieved from the necessity of guarding his prisoners in Brussels, Alva marched north with almost his whole force. He found Louis intrenched close to Groningen, with a mutinous army of ten thousand or more, clamoring for arrears of pay. Some of them, by skilful skirmishing, were lured forth on July 15th, and presently driven back; on this the whole force became alarmed and fled, burning the bridge behind them, and losing five or six hundred. Louis, who could no longer trust his men, neglected to seize a strong position at Reyden, and led them on to Jemmingen, where they were soon between the Spaniards and the river Ems. Here, as he told them, they would have to fight or be slaughtered ; but there was little fight left in them. At the last moment they opened the gates to let in the tide and drive out the enemy; but the advance guard of the Spaniards, wading knee deep, arrived in time to shut the gates and prevent further flooding of the ground. And now Alva’s tactics won an easy victory. He had closed every avenue of escape, and occupied every building for miles. Again hesdnt^his skirmishers forward to decoy the Beggars from their trenches, keeping his main body in reserve and out of sight. Hard pressed, the musketeers sent three times for help, but Alva told them to hold their own. At length, seeing little to oppose them, Louis concluded that the waters had done their work, and marched forth. Suddenly attacked in force, his men turned and ran, leaving the general to fire the cannon with his own hand. The guns were seized a moment later, and turned upon their recent owners: the trenches were carried, the rebels cut down as they fled, or driven into the water. Seven thousand fell, against only seven Spaniards. Louis of Nassau, the only man among them who seems to have kept his head and his nerve, escaped by swimming naked across the stream ; but few were equally fortunate. His army was annihilated, and the first campaign sadly ended.

This doleful affair occurred on July 21st. Three days before, a similar fate had befallen the third expedition of intending liberators, who entered the Netherlands at its other extremity. De Cocqueville, with twenty-five hundred Huguenots and Dutch Protestants, was driven from Artois back into France, and there overthrown by De Cossfe on July 18th.

AFTER JEMMINGEN.

The affair at Jemmingen was a mere carnival of slaughter. As one who took part in it testified, “not a soldier, not even a boy who wished to share in the victory, but could find somebody to wound, to kill, to burn, or to drown.” Many had fled to an island near the shore : next day, when the tide was down, the •conquerors waded across, and killed them all. This butchery extended to all the country round. The harmless peasants and their families were treated as if they had been in Nassau’s army. Every house on the road to Groningen was burned. The murdering and ravishing grew so uproarious that Alva thought it well to hang a few of his men as a lesson of moderation to the rest. At Utrecht, •on the way back to Brussels, he had a widow of eighty-four years beheaded for sheltering a preacher. The offense had been committed by her son-in-law without her knowledge, and she was a Catholic ; her real crime was her wealth. On the scaffold she remarked, “I know what this is for: the calf is fat and must be killed.” Then, turning to the executioner, “I hope your sword is sharp, for my neck is old and tough. ”

The duke’s return to the capital was signalized by a resumption of the judicial murders. Besides the ordinary victims, there were four men of some note, who had been so torn to pieces on the rack that they had to be carried to the scaffold and tied to their chairs upon it. The most eminent of these was Van Straalen, the burgomaster of Antwerp, who had supplied most of the funds for the campaign of St. Quentin. Even the Blood-Council had thought his public services a reason for sparing his life. Two others were the secretaries of Horn and Egmont. Bakkerzeel, though at first a member of the Confederacy, had distinguished himself, as we have seen, by his severities after the image- breaking. The promiscuous cruelty of Alva was expended alike on friends and foes, Catholics and Protestants, lovers of liberty and tools of despotism. Red- Rod, the Sheriff of Brabant, was one of these. After bringing hundreds to the gallows, he was hanged-on a charge ^ of executing many without a warrant, and suffering others to escape for a bribe. • One could wish that his friend Titelmann had shared his fate.

The death of Don Carlos, the heir to the Spanish crown, was not announced till after the return from Jemmingen, though it had occurred some time before. A youth of ungovernable temper and half mad, he had some designs upon the Netherlands, and was accused of treasonable dealings there. He gave Philip

JiS

THE BURGOMASTER’S ROOM IN ANTWERP.

much trouble, and was condemned by the Inquisition. The details of his end. are not certainly known, but it was believed to have been accomplished by his father’s order.

At this time one of Alva’s sons arrived with such large reinforcements that he reviewed at Utrecht thirty thousand foot and seven thousand cavalry. This increase of his troops made the task of Orange still more difficult, and the cause of freedom apparently hopeless.

All William’s friends now urged him to bide his time, and attempt nothing more for the present. “Your highness must sit still,” said the German princes. The “pitiable misfortune” at Jemmingen, as he wrote to Louis, “hinders us much in the levy we are making, and has greatly chilled the hearts of those who otherwise would have been ready to give us assistance.” Still he was not discouraged. The emperor ordered him to lay down his arms, and threatened him with loss of all his privileges in the empire if he continued to annoy “our excellent brother and.cousin Philip;” he replied that the king might mean well, but the Duke of Alva was governing vilely and must be resisted. On the last day of August, 1568, he issued a proclamation to the Netherlanders, announcing that he took up arms “to oppose the violent tyranny of the Spaniards,” and summoning “all loyal subjects to come and help” him. This document bore his motto, “For the law, the king, and the people.”

Contributions were now scanty, and such as came were chiefly from those who could ill afford them and had felt most sharply the fangs of persecution. For instance, “a poor Anabaptist preacher collected a small sum from a refugee congregation on the outskirts of Holland, and brought it, at the peril of his life^ into the prince’s camp. It came from people, he said, v/hose will was better than the gift; they never wished to be repaid, except by kindness when the cause of reform should be triumphant.” He spoke to no deaf ears, but to one of the very few men who had received the doctrine of tolerance. Orange was by this time a declared Protestant, but no narrow sectarian. He deplored the jealous rivalry between Lutheran and Calvinist, which did so much to hinder progress; he believed and urged that all lovers of the Truth should live as brethren and unite in the cause of liberty.

FIRST CAMPAIGN OF ORANGE.

Chiefly at his own expense, he gathered an army of twenty thousand foot and nine thousand horse. On a moonlight night early in October he crossed the Meuse into Limburg. The water was up to the shoulders of the footmen, but the force of the current was broken for them by the cavalry, standing together in a compact body. This plan had been devised and recorded sixteen hundred years before by Csesar; its repetition now was much admired, and gained for Orange no little reputation. Alva would not believe that the thing

had been done, but said, “ Is bis army a flock of wild geese, to fly over rivers; like the Meuse?” But this exploit afforded the only glory the prince was to reap in his whole campaign.

Recognizing that duty of humanity which the Spaniards despised, he sent a herald to suggest that prisoners taken on either side should be exchanged, not killed. The herald was hanged at once. This incident was suggestive. Apart, from physical disparity, William was under the disadvantage which a gentleman suffers in a conflict with a ruffian. He could not use the methods of his

enemy

It soon appeared that Alva would not fight, but meant to wear out his adversary by delay. He chose to run no risk, since the other had everything to gain, and he had everything to lose.

Should the liberator chance to win a victory, the provinces might rise; as it was, the terrible memory of Jem- mingen kept them down and Alva’s credit up. He had a standing army, whereas Orange could not long keep his troops together without some success in the field. Therefore he declined every challenge, and contented himself with watching the prince closely, and following him from place to place. He was a great strategist, and made, from the viewpoint of scientific war, a masterly campaign.

Hoogstraten one day taunted Louis Nassau with his recent defeat. “Why,” said he, “ we have been here some time now, and seen nothing of the Spaniards ^{TOWER OF J0AN OF ARC>
R0UEN}'

but their backs.” “When you see their faces,” Louis retorted, “you will remember them the rest of your life.” That life, to the loss of the cause, was to last but a few days longer.

DISASTER OF THE GETA.

Though Alva’s men were eager to fight, nothing beyond skirmishes at the outposts occurred till October 20th. On that day Orange crossed the Geta, leaving Hoogstraten with the rear guard of three thousand to protect the crossing or tempt the enemy. The enemy took the bait, but not the hook. The rearguard were surrounded and cut to pieces. Some took refuge in a house near by :■

ALVA AND HIS ARMY ENTERING BRUSSELS.

it was set on fire, and they fell by tlieir own swords or upon the lances of the Spaniards, who stood by to mock their last agonies. Alva’s son sent in haste, begging his father to advance and destroy the main body of the rebels : the duke refused to allow a man to cross the stream. A young officer cried out in anger, ^il Will you never fight?” Alva smiled and replied, “It is your business to fight, mine to tell you when to do it.”

A few days after this disaster, Orange was joined by the Count de Genlis, with thirty-five hundred Huguenots. But the campaign was practically over. The liberator was everywhere disowned by those he came to save. Whatever might be the feelings of the people, they knew too well the narrow chances of success, and the penalties that awaited rebellion, to give any outward sign of sympathy. The cities closed their gates, and supplies were hard to get. The soldiers clamored for a battle and for their pay. There was nothing to do but retreat into France. Genlis wished the prince to remain there and help the Huguenots, and this he was minded to do, but the army would not hear of it,, He disbanded them at Strasburg, and was still in their debt, after paying every dollar he could raise.

Great festivities greeted the viceroy’s return to Brussels ; he required them, and the people rejoiced under penalties for not rejoicing. He set up his owij colossal statue in the new citadel of Antwerp, with an inscription stating that he had “ extinguished sedition, chastised rebellion, restored religion, secured justice, and established peace.” In the peculiar meaning he attached to the words justice and religion, he perhaps thought he had really done all this. The statue stood a few years, and was pulled down by his successor.

Certain negotiations, which followed between the high powers of Europe, have little interest for us. The German emperor, who had been urged to mediate between the contending parties, offered a sort of remonstrance to Philip. In reply the king praised his own “ great clemency and gentleness,” and said that Orange was a bad man, and rightly responsible for all the heresy, image-breaking, rebellion, and other wickedness that had disturbed the Netherlands. There was more of this foolishness, which had no effect but to add to the difficulties of the prince and the increasing coolness of his German allies. Maximilian II. was no friend to liberty nor to its defenders, and he wished to see his daughter become Queen of Spain.

The year 1569 brought nothing of encouragement. William issued commissions to some privateers, of whom we shall hear more by and by, and visited the Huguenot leaders in France, as has been mentioned in an earlier chapter. Alva had a promising quarrel with Elizabeth of England, and received the high honor of a jewelled hat and sword from the pope. The persecutions went on as usual. Four eminent priests, who had received the new doctrines, had been for three years in prison at the Hague: their cases being now brought to mind, they

were degraded, strangled, and burned. A famous incident shows one of the many disadvantages that hampered the Reformed in their struggle with those who knew no impulse of humanity or justice. Dirk Willemzoon, a poor Anabaptist, fled across a frozen lake, with the sheriff after him. The ice broke under the pursuer, who screamed for help. The fugitive turned, and with much difficulty and danger rescued his enemy, thus losing his own life ; for a burgomaster was at hand to insist that the officer should not release his prisoner, who was soon writhing in a slow fire.

ALVA’S NEW TAXES.

Alva’s system of supporting the government by cutting off the heads and emptying the pockets of the governed worked well till the stream ran dry. He

AT THE DOOR OP a I-IOUSE IN THE INLAND OP MARKEN.

now set his purely military talents to work upon the finances. The mountain labored, and brought forth, not a mouse, but a monster. Setting aside in this respect, as he had previously done in others, the old laws and constitutions of the provinces, he devised a threefold tax. First, one per cent, was to be paid at

once on the value of all property of whatever kind; second, five per cent, on every transfer of real estate; and third, ten per cent, on every sale, from an apple to a farm or warehouse. The two latter taxes were to be perpetual. Thus if a jack- knife or a diamond ring changed hands ten times, the government would be richer by its entire value, and the successive owners, between them, that much poorer.

This fine scheme did not work as well as the governor expected. People might be willing to go to the stake for theij opinions, to have spies set about the cradle and the deathbed to see whether the rites of the Church were duly practised and respected ; but the pocket is a sacred thing, not to be rudely touched. Great and general was the murmuring. Viglius, always docile in matters of mere bloodshed, openly objected to the tenth, the twentieth, and no less to the hun- dreth penny. The city and province of Utrecht offered to commute, but positively refused to pay the tax. Soldiers were billeted in every house, and knocked their hosts about at will; still they would not yield. Resistance, of course, was more expensive than submission; they were summoned before the Blood-Coun- cil, and declared guilty of high treason. All their charters were taken away, all their possessions forfeited. After six months spent in exchanging pleas, rejoinders, and other legal papers, Vargas rode to Utrecht to execute the sentence. “ Many thousand citizens were ruined, many millions of property confiscated.”

No sooner was this new measure broached, than the duke sent to his master an inflated account of its success. All the provinces, he said, had consented to the tax. The hundredth penny would bring in five millions at least; the tenth and twentieth would furnish a perpetual income of two millions or more. A little later his figures had risen; some speculators had offered him four millions a year for the tenth penny alone, but it was worth much more. All this vaporing did not raise his credit; his plan was cursed in the Netherlands, and laughed at in Spain. The provinces soon revoked their consent to the two annual taxes, and the matter had to be compromised for a fixed sum payable till August, 1571.

The viceroy was now much out of humor, and wished to be relieved from his post. A pretended amnesty, which he published in July, 1570, only added to the general discontent. It was considered to offer pardon to nobody except the innocent, for all those who had had anything to do with the Compromise, the Request, the preachings, the image-breakings, or the armed resistance to authority, were expressly excluded; and not only such, but all who had failed to denounce the Reformers, or had ever been suspected of heresy or schism. If the king and his governor thought to pacify the Netherlands by such childish insults to intelligence, they were mistaken. In an unusual fit of mental openness, Alva wrote thus: “It is not wonderful the whole nation should be ill-disposed toward me, for I certainly have done nothing to make them love me. At the same time, such language from Madrid does not increase their affection.” What

CROSSING TO MARKEN.

most irritated the people in the so-called Pardon was its invitation to the guilty to come forward and to confess within six months; this called forth more sarcasms than responses.

The monotony of this year, 1570, was broken by three notable events. Montigny, who had been first detained and then confined in Spain, was privately strangled in his prison at Simancas before daylight on October 16th, and it was given out that he had died of fever. He was no more a traitor than his brother Horn: his guilt, it may be remembered, consisted in having offered some mild remonstrances against the earlier steps of Philip’s tyranny. He had been condemned in his absence by the Blood-Council, and, had he been at home, would doubtless have been executed with the other nobles.

On November 1st and 2d a terrible tidal wave devastated the lands along the coast. Dykes were broken and cities inundated; all Friesland was under water. Vessels were carried far inland, and even the southern provinces suffered greatly. The destruction of life and property was enormous. The Spaniards said that Heaven was celebrating All Saints’ Day by taking vengeance on the heretics.

. DE RUYTER’S EXPLOIT.

The castle of Lowenstein stood on the isle of Bommel, at the junction of the Meuse and Waal. Commanding these rivers and two adjoining towns, it was a place of some importance. In December it was the scene of an act of desperate heroism, the forerunner of many. A drover named De Ruyter, with three companions, entered the castle disguised as monks, and gained possession of it. The next day they were joined by twenty-five more. A large force, which was on its way, was delayed by the terrible condition of the roads. Before they could arrive, two hundred Spaniards attacked the place, and took it after two days’ severe labor. De Ruyter’s men were killed or taken; he stood in a doorway, wielding his terrible sword, under which many fell. At length, covered with wounds and feeling his strength give way, he fired a train of powder which he had laid, and went into eternity with his foes. The heart of Orange must have leaped when he heard the tale. Such deeds were to open the provinces to their deliverer and clear the way for the founding of the Dutch Republic.

The year 15 71 brought no gain to either party. Philip was deep in plots tN kill or capture Queen Elizabeth. He asked his viceroy to send ten thousand soldiers to England for this purpose; but Alva, while highly approving so pious a design, had no mind to spare his troops, and contented himself with forwarding a few Italian assassins. The tax was now renewed, and great disputes and difficulties arose about the tenth penny on all sales; it had to be remitted on corn, meat, wine, beer, and raw materials for manufacture. Alva’s disgust increased with that of his subjects, and he hailed with joy the prospect of a successor; the Duke of Medina Cceli was appointed in September to take his place, but delayed coming.

The condition of Orange began to improve. He had been desperately poor, loaded with debt, and not only beneath the hope of raising another army, but unable to pay the arrears due to his soldiers of 1568; but he never lost heart, submitted cheerfully to heavy sacrifices, and kept thoroughly informed of all that was passing. His enemies looked on him with contempt, and some of his friends thought his case past mending; but they were mistaken. ‘ ‘ Orange is

TOWN IIALL, KAMPEN.

plainly perishing,” said one; and Granvelle proposed to drag his escutcheon in the dust and have his family degraded. Reverses, desertions, outward dishonor, lie bore with the same calm resignation. Having learned by dire experience that mo help was to be had from princes, he looked more and more to the plain people. In papers sown broadcast by his agents, he said that he had done what he could,

and now others must bear their part; he called on the exiles, on the Protestant congregations, on the friends of liberty everywhere, to give their mites with their prayers, to stand by the sacred cause and against the common enemy. He did not call in vain. Contributions came in; his partisans increased; every Dutch patriot looked to him as chief and leader; the spirit of resistance to tyranny was ripening, and many waited only for an opportunity to strike

ALVA LOSING CREDIT.

Meanwhile Alva was losing all support but that of his soldiers. His former props and counsellors, Viglius, Berlaymont, even Noircarmes, felt and were free to own that the land had had enough and too much of him. They wrote to Spain that he had gone too far, that his financial measures were ruinous. They said as much to Don Francis de Alava, the Spanish ambassador to France, who came to Brussels early in 1572 to look into the condition of affairs. He had seen something of the emigration to France ; for the Catholics of the southern provinces were flocking thither, as the Calvinists of Holland bad long been doing to England. Noircarmes met him on the way. “ The duke,” he said, “will never get this filthy tenth penny out of his head. Ten thousand more are going. It must be stopped.” After a brief visit, Don Francis wrote to the king that the governor had too many unwise and impracticable notions, that his pet tax of ten per cent could never be raised, and that the whole land cried out for his departure.

These statements were -entirely true. Misgovemment had been carried to the point at which it ceased to be endurable. Viglius wrote to his friend Hopper, “ The disease is gnawing at our vitals. Everybody is suffering for the necessaries of life. Multitudes are in extreme and hopeless poverty.” The soldiers, who had not been paid of late, became troublesome to their employers and more oppressive than ever to the citizens. People grew desperate. The absurd tax had put an end to wholesale trade, and was fast stopping the wheels of every smaller business. The shops were closed; bread and meat were no longer to be had. As a native chronicler testifies, “The brewers refused to brew, the bakers to bake, the tapsters to tap.” Alva, in a rage, resolved to hang eighteen tradesmen as an example to the rest. The cords were ready, and Viglius had been waked at midnight to draw up the warrants, when a most unexpected ev.ent put an end to these proceedings, and saved the lives of the doomed bakers and butchers. The Beggars had shown their hands. A town had fallen; rebellion had at last found a foothold in the dominions of the most Catholic King. The revolution had begun.

REBELLION AND ITS PUNISHMENT.

F the Spaniards were thus far masters of the land, the Netherlanders were more at home upon the water. This was almost the native element of the wild Zealanders, who were sailors and fishermen from their cradles; and throughout the central a,nd northern provinces the inlets, bays, rivers, and canals made the people half amphibious. The sea was a cause of constant danger, as well as a medium of traffic and a source of supplies : it was to play a large and often a most useful part in the struggle for liberty.

Of late many whose former means of subsistence were gone, or who could not endure the oppressions of Alva and his minions, took to the ocean and became rovers, sometimes little better than pirates. Among these were men of birth and station, outlawed nobles who had injuries of their own to avenge and longed to repay their tyrants for the death of relatives and friends. To these Orange, as we have seen, issued letters of marque, authorizing them to attack Spanish vessels. This irregular naval war was at once their business and their joy: the Beggars of the Sea were gaining a name of dread. The prince restrained their excesses as well as he could, laying down rules for their observance, and appointing to commands the principal men among them; but he could not be present to see that they kept within these limits, and their manners were rough at best. There had beeu abundant opportunity, indeed, to learn the worst possible manners from their oppressors. In a war with those who knew no restraint and gave no quarter, the gentle temper of Orange could not always be expected to prevail; nor was the prince strong enough to refuse assistance, from whatever quarter it came.

His first admiral, for want of a better, was the ferocious William de la Marck, a descendant of the famous robber baron called the Wild Boar of Ardennes, and a relative of Egmont, whose death he bitterly lamented. Another leader of the Sea Beggai'S was William de Blois, Lord of Treslong, who had lost a brother in (522)

the same way, and escaped, with Nassau, from the slaughter of Jemmingen. These men, with a fleet of twenty-four small vessels, were lying off Dover at the end of March, when Elizabeth, to avoid offending Philip and Alva, ordered her subjects to sell them no more provisions. To replenish their larder, they sailed across the North sea, and halted, rather by accident than design, in the channel which receives the waters of the Meuse and separates the towns of Brill and Maas. All they wanted was food, for they were nearly starved : but their hunger led to great results.

THE SEA BEGGARS TAKE BRILL.

The people of the neighborhood were much alarmed ; but Koppelstok, a ferryman and a patriot, rowed out to the fleet and boarded Treslong’s ship. After a little consultation, he was sent back to demand the surrender of Brill and the visit of deputies to arrange terms with the admiral. The astonished magistrate asked, “How many men has he?” Coolly multiplying the real number by twelve or fifteen, Koppelstok answered, “Perhaps five thousand.” The deputies were sent, and informed that no harm would be done to the peaceable, but that Alva’s power was to be overthrown : the authorities might have two hours to con sider their reply. This was on April ist, 1572.

Brill was a place of some importance and well fortified, but the garrison had lately been removed to Utrecht. Treslong, whose father had been its governor, knew the town well, and is entitled to the chief credit of this affair. The magistrates and most of the citizens, having no confidence in the Beggars, employed the two hours in escaping; and the assailants, when they landed, had no difficulty in breaking down the gates and taking possession, which they did in the name of Orange, as stadtholder for the king. Thus did liberty gain its first foothold in the region that was to be its home.

The first care of the conquerors was to select their quarters and find materials for a dinner ; their next was to plunder the churches, for sacrilege was their favorite sin. Only about fifty people had remained in the town : among these were thirteen priests and monks, whom La Marck cruelly put to death.

Alva, in a fierce rage, at once ordered Count Bossu, who had succeeded Orange as stadtholder of Holland and Zealand, to retake Brill. He came by water with a force much larger than that of the Beggars. No sooner had they landed, than Treslong and another rowed out to the Spanish vessels, fired some of them, and cut others adrift; while a bold carpenter swam with his axe to the sluice, cut it, and let in the waters on the north of the town. The Spaniards, after a brief attempt upon the southern gate, made off in haste to their remaining ships, and many were drowned in their dangerous flight.

OUTRAGE AT ROTTERDAM.

Bossu, thus baffled, made haste to Rotterdam. The gates were closed, and the magistrates refused to admit a garrison, but agreed to let the troops pass

FIGHT BSTWSBN SPANISH FI.SKT AND THIl SKA BBGGARS,

through without stopping, a corporal’s guard at a time. The treacherous commander swore to observe these conditions ; but with the entrance of the first party, the whole band rushed in and cut down all before them. The innocent citizens- had trusted an officer’s word; but Bossu himself stabbed a blacksmith who* stood by the gate with his sledge-hammer. Hundreds were murdered, and women outraged as freely as if the city had been taken by assault. It was deeds, like this which made the Spaniards more than odious, and caused savage reprisals to be made when they fell into the power of the natives. The Beggars felt themselves to be avengers.

Finding that Brill was securely held by La Marck, and violence offered to- none but priests, its inhabitants began to return. They and their neighbors were forced to swear allegiance to Orange. The prudent and methodical prince was not wholly pleased with these doings. He thought that the place could not be kept, and he probably felt that his admiral was less dangerous at sea than on. land. That rover, in fact, had so little conception of the value of his prize that he wished to burn the town and sail away. His orders had actually gone out to that effect, when Treslong, whose wits were of a higher order, persuaded him to* recall them. It was he, rather than his immediate superior or the chief in whose- name they both acted, who laid the corner-stone of the new state.

Even the Prince of Orange could not foresee that the half-accidental capture of Brill would be the spark to fire a vast train; but so it was. The work, of liberation, painfully and vainly attempted from without by the aid of hired, armies, was begun by a chance swoop of Beggars of the Sea, and carried on by spontaneous risings of those who had borne oppression too long.

FLUSHING RISES.

“Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.” Alva, chiefly concerned for the cities of Flanders, Brabant, and the southern provinces, had comparatively neglected and despised the islands and canals to the north. Flushing, on the south shore of the Isle of Walcheren, was the first to rise. It had an. unfinished fort and, for the moment, a very small garrison. De Herpt, a gentleman of the place, called on the citizens to drive out the Spaniards. It was done, and just in time, for vessels presently arrived with a much larger force. A drunken vagabond offered, for a pot of beer, to fire two cannon at the ships. Not. knowing how sudden and casual was this resistance, they turned and sailed away. The governor of the island came next day to recall the rebels to their duty by argument; he was laughed at and ordered off. The burghers sent to Brill for men, and La Marck, who had been gathering recruits, spared them two hundred under Treslong. These presented a strange appearance, for some wore the chasubles and vestments taken from the churches, and others the gowns and cowls, of monks. It was the delight of the Sea Beggars to mock the religion which

their tyrants had sought to force upon them with fire and sword. Treslong s drinking-cup, after the capture of Brill, was a golden chalice meant for the altar and the mass.

On the very day of their arrival, their rage against the foreigners was wreaked on one whose life might well have been spared. Pacheco, the distinguished Italian engineer who had built the citadel of Antwerp, not knowing

what had occurred, came to Flushing to complete its fortress. To his surprise, he found himself among mortal enemies. He asked in vain for a soldier’s death, and was hanged with two Spaniards.

The prince, who had no liking for such deeds, soon removed Treslong from this command, and sent Zeraerts as Governor of Walcheren. Flushing was soon made secure by a mixed garrison of Dutch, French, and English; but half the island was still held for Alva, and many bloody

combats ensued, in which both sides showed equal ferocity, and no quarter was given.

The beginning made at Brill was followed up by many other towns besides Flushing.

Enkhuisen,

^{; _} •' ‘ - ontheZuyder

A QUAY IN ROTTERDAM. ^ _cll£mged

its government with neither violence within nor help from outside. Within a short time Harlem, Leyden, Alkmaar, and nearly every city in Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overyssel, and Friesland displayed the banners of Orange. In some the revolution was accomplished easily and quietly, in others with tumult and bloodshed. The patriots had long accounts to settle, and all Tvere not as forgiving as a certain widow of Gouda. The burgomaster, who

had slain her husband among many others, fled to her house for refuge. She showed him a secret place. “Is it safe?” he asked anxiously. “Oyes,” she said: “ my man lay there when you were after him, and you did not find him then.”

FREEDOM WINS IN THE NORTH.

Bach of the cities, as it threw off the Spanish yoke, elected new magistrates, who promised to resist Alva, his Blood Council, his tenth penny, and the Inquisition, “ to support the freedom of each and the welfare of all, to protect widows, orphans, and the poor, and to maintain justice and truth.” They also swore

FLUSHING.

It was here the Spaniards left the Netherlands, and the parting took place between Philip of Spain and William the Silent.

fidelity to the king, and to Orange as his stadtholder. The prince had accepted this office in 1559, and now resumed it without regard to Philip’s wishes; the fiction of loyalty it was thought necessary to keep up for some time yet. All that was done and claimed was on the basis of the ancient charters and the oath which the king had taken at his coronation. This he had broken a thousand times, and Alva had set aside all law but his own will. The plan of the new government was restoration, not destruction; and “the king,” in all these

commissions and oaths of allegiance, meant the king’s legal rights, no more—not at all his personal desires and schemes of tyranny. This distinction, which to our minds may appear too finespun, was then understood everywhere, and had its parallels in other risings before and after—for the day of republics had not yet come. As a king’s officer in this extremely qualified sense, Orange now appointed his subordinates, and sent Sonoy to be Governor of North Holland, with instructions to restore the exiles and provide for the free preaching of the gospel, but not to interfere with the old worship. He also supplied the form of an oath to be taken by “all magistrates and officers of guilds and brotherhoods.” One of its provisions was in these words : “Those of ‘the religion’ shall offer no hindrance to the Roman churches.”

This is an essential part of the prince’s claims to immortal honor, that in an age of bitter intolerance he announced and insisted on the great principle of religious toleration. The only other public man who had grasped the idea at this time was L’Hdpital, the great Chancellor of France; and he soon resigned his office, finding his large views constantly thwarted by the bigotry of those about him. The .partisans of Orange Were not generally in sympathy with him on this point. Even long after his death, the flames of theologic rancor wrought havoc and misery in the state whose foundations he laid so well; but while he lived and so far as his power extended, he enforced liberty of thought and worship, and refused to repay to priests and inquisitors the cruelties which¹ Rome had wrought on Protestants.

The southern provinces, as has been said, were more firmly held by Alva than those of the north. The Reformation had made good headway there, but had been savagely repressed. After years of the Inquisition, the massacres, and the tenth penny, it is not wonderful that risings were less frequent in this defenseless inland region than among the sea-dogs of Zealand and along the shores of the Zuyder Zee. But even in the south the viceroy was to have a lesson.

TAKING OF MONS.

Louis of Nassau had not his brother’s prudence and steadiness, but he had fidelity, gallantry, and dash. He had been for some time in France, on a secret mission; Alva sent an agent there, to watch him and report. This man was Antony Oliver, a painter of Mons, the capital of Hainault, an important town near the French border. Though in the pay of Spain, his heart was with Orange,, who knew his real character. He had the skill and daring which a spy needs, and he and Louis between them laid a plot to astonish Europe. Having made his arrangements within and without, Oliver entered Mons May 23d, 1572, with three wagons filled with arms, duly covered. Louis had fifteen hundred men in the woods within a few miles, and sent a dozen of them into the city in disguise. The next morning before daylight they bribed the porter to open one of the:

OTPECH1

.gates ; Louis rode in with fifty troopers, and tried to raise the town. But their friends did not answer the signal as expected, and the army which was to follow close also failed to appear. The fine plot was near failing, and the bold fifty were in danger. Nassau rode out in haste, and found that his Frenchmen had lost their way in the forest. He led them back at a gallop, each horse carrying -double, and arrived in the very nick of time, for all the gates but one were closed, •and the drawbridge before that was rising. A gallant Frenchman urged his horse upon it: it sank beneath the weight. The little army rode in, and the town was taken. :

Genlis, La Noue, and other Huguenots, were parties to this affair : their first care was to assure the magistrates and citizens, assembled in the market place, that no French conquest was intended. Louis then told them that he wanted mo new oaths, but only observance of the old ones. Religion should not be disturbed. He was no rebel, but an enemy to Alva, whom he asked the authorities "to denounce in the plainest and strongest terms. They did not see their way to •do this, nor yet to support his soldiers: but the manufacturers and merchants •came forward and did what was necessary. Nassau, whose manners were, of another sort from those of La Marck and Treslong, allowed no violence^ and Mons was soon securely held and garrisoned—for the time at least—in the -prince’s name. A quantity of plate, money, and other property belonging to the various churches and convents, which had been sent to Mons for saftty, fell into Louis’ hands.

Alva would not believe the news at first: he was sure that Nassau was still in Paris, playing tennis and watched by spies. When satisfied that Mons had -really fallen, he sent his son to besiege it, with four thousand men. There were now about as many within the walls, for Montgomery, who killed Henry II. of France in the tournament, had arrived with twenty-five hundred. At this time, as will be remembered, Coligny was apparently in high favor with Charles IX., and urging him to declare against Spain. The Huguenots, in actively helping their friends in the Netherlands, were only anticipating the course they hoped their government would soon take.

Within three weeks after the taking of Mons, a much greater booty fell into the hands of the insurgents. A rich fleet from Lisbon, knowing nothing of Tecent events, anchored near Flushing, and was promptly seized. Besides ammunition and a thousand prisoners, it yielded half a million golden crowns and a vast quantity of goods—enough, it was estimated, to support the war for two years, though it was not available for the immediate needs of Orange.

This fleet came on the track of another, which escaped the Beggars with •difficulty and some loss. The first arrived on June ioth, and brought Medina Coeli, who had been commissioned as governor. Finding that the work ahead was war instead of peace, he declined to supersede so famous a general as Alva.

During his stay of less than half a year, the two dukes were nominally equal in dignity, but the power remained where it was before.

THE ESTATES MEET.

The viceroy, whose treasury was now empty, announced his willingness to commute the tenth penny for an income of two million florins, and summoned

GENUS AND HIS ARMY ATTACKED NEAR MON’S.

the Estates of Holland to meet on July 15th. They met at Dort on that day, not on his call but at that of Orange. Amsterdam was still held by Alva, and some of the towns were afraid to send deputies, but twelve responded. They listened to a speech from Mamix of Saint Aldegonde, and voted taxes to pay an army of twenty-four thousand, which the prince had raised. Alva, commenting on this

complained to Philip, “It almost drives me mad to see how hard it is to raise your majesty’s supplies, and how liberally the people place their lives and fortunes at the disposal of this rebel.” He could not understand that there is a difference between taxation with representation and without. The - delegates appointed persons to conduct the war by sea under the direction of La Marck, whose commission as admiral was confirmed; and they had the sense to admit that, since many Catholics were foes of Alva and friends of liberty, the free exercise of both religions must be maintained. It was even thought necessary to threaten death against those who should suppress or disturb any form of worship—a penalty not always easy to enforce. .

Genlis had raised a considerable force in France, and was coming to relieve the siege of Mons, when he was attacked on July 19th, near the city, and completely routed. Twelve hundred of his men were cut down by the Spaniards, and many more by the peasants in their flight: only a hundred escaped to Mons. Alva’s son, Don Frederic of Toledo, got the credit of this victory, which was really won by two much abler soldiers, Vitelli and Romero. Their army suffered hardly any loss. Genlis, whose rashness had caused this disaster, was taken prisoner with many of his officers, and privately executed the next year in the citadel of Antwerp.

Orange had already entered the provinces from Germany, and on July 23d took Roermonde. His hired troops committed some acts of violence upon the Romish clergy, whom he was not able entirely to protect, though he renewed his order to respect the rights of person, property, and conscience. It was not an easy matter to teach professional soldiers new manners, and check the excesses hitherto allowed in every war; but the prince always did this as far as he could, whereas Alva ordered his men to murder prisoners and non-combatants, and systematically encouraged robbery and rape. The two armies might differ chiefly in degree of license, but their chiefs were perfect opposites. In the viceroy’s view, rebels and heretics, or those by chance associated with them, had no rights, and it was a duty to kill and ruin: with the liberator, humanity was sacred, and war a thing to be civilized as fast as possible.

THE NEWS OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.

His troops would not advance till they were paid. As soon as he received guarantees from Holland, he moved westward, meeting little opposition. Some of the towns welcomed him with joy, and others readily received his garrisons. Among them was Mechlin, midway between Brussels and Antwerp. With the capital he could do nothing; but he was in the heart of the country, and in daily expectation of reinforcements from France, when his progress was stayed by the frightful calamity of St. Bartholomew. Till the very hour when his course was changed by the wicked counsels of his mother, Charles IX. had been intending,

or at least promising, to send his armies to the Netherlands to support Orange and drive out the Spaniards. So he had written in direct terms to Louis of Nassau, and so Coligny and the leading Protestants believed. Instead of this, he had suddenly let loose a horde of murderers upon his unsuspecting victims, and deluged France with Huguenot blood.

The news was received everywhere with horror or fiendish joy; but it fell “with the blow of a sledge-hammer” on the great heart of Orange and on the rising hopes of liberty. Philip wrote Alva that the ambassador of Charles IX.

DUTCH PROTESTANTS WORSHIPPING IN CAVES.

urged him to execute all the French prisoners, with those who should be taken at Mons; “Do it at once,” he added. These men had gone to the Netherlands with the connivance of the master who now doomed them to destruction, and their fate was not long to be delayed. To make sure, Charles sent the same directions to his envoy in the

north, who on September 15th wrote back that Alva was cutting off heads every day, but suggested that the French king should call his subjects back from Mons. He answered—this he wrote in so many words to Charles himself—“They will not trust his Most Christian Majesty, but will prefer to die in Mons”—as well they might.

Meantime Alva had joined the besiegers, with Medina Coeli and others of high degree. He would not come out of his camp, knowing, as in 1568, that time worked for him and against Orange, whose army was enlisted for a short time only. The Archbishop of Cologne, whom he called “ a fine figure of a man, with his corslet and pistols,” urged him to fight, but in vain. At one in the morning of September 12th Romero with six hundred Spaniards surprised the prince’s camp, slaughtered the sentinels and many more, and almost captured William, who had but a moment to escape. His pet dog, by barking and scratching, awoke him just in time to avoid immediate death or a scaffold in Brussels. His personal attendants were slain, and only the imprudence of the assailants in firing the tents enabled the army to see their foes and turn upon them. Romero drew his men off with a loss of but gixty, after killing full ten times that number.

SURRENDER OF MONS.

The prince’s brief hour of success was over. His troops refused to serve longer, mutinied, even threatened his person. A hired assassin, one of many that were to come, attempted his life. The southern cities renounced his cause and returned to their tyrants. He wrote, “It has pleased God to take away every hope we founded upon man. The King of France has owned that he- ordered the massacre, has sent aid to Alva, and forbidden his subjects, on pain of death, to assist me. But for this, we had been masters of the duke.” He could do nothing for his brother, sick and in danger at Mons, but advise him to- make the best terms he might with the besiegers. With a few devoted friends he repaired to Holland, “having determined there to make his sepulchre.”

The defenders of Mons were almost as demoralized as the mercenaries of Orange. Alva, who was in a hurry, offered good terms, and they were accepted. The soldiers were to march out with the honors of war, having promised not to serve against Spain or France. Count Louis, for himself and his Englishmen and Germans, scornfully refused to take this pledge, and was. excused from it. He received many compliments from the victors, who would have been glad to- take his life. The city was evacuated on September 21st. Such of the citizens as were Protestants or had borne arms were to leave, taking their property along. Some of these, imprudently trusting to Spanish honor, remained a few days to settle their affairs, and were arrested.

Noircarmes set up an imitation Blood-Council, and proceeded to disregard, the promise of free exit to rebels and heretics, and safety to the rest. Every one-

-who had anything to do with the late resistance, or with the Calvinist services^ was put to death: those who rejected the offices of priests were burned. The old horrors were re-enacted, and all pleas for mercy spumed. A cobbler was hanged for eating soup on a Friday, and many paupers for taking Protestant alms. Mere suspicion of unsound opinions was enough; when this failed,, wealth was a ground for condemnation, A Catholic gentleman who lived in- France was kidnapped and beheaded, that his estate near Mons might be con-

THE TOWN HAW,, HARLEM.

fiscated, for not having communed at Easter and having twice heard the preachers out of curiosity. The Blood-Councillors complained that Noircarmes took ■nearly all the plunder, though they had helped him get it by sentencing so- many of their relatives and friends. The executions went on for nearly a year,,.

^sometimes twenty in a day. Mons had been one of the richest cities in the iprovinces, and famous for its manufactures ; all that was at an end. Its fate was that which many other towns had already endured, or were yet to endure.

SACK OF MECHLIN.

The tyrant’s wrath fell next upon Mechlin, whose wealth afforded the easiest way of paying the arrears due his troops. When it submitted to Orauge, Alva wrote to Philip, “ This is a direct permission of God for us to punish her as she deserves for the image-breaking and other misdeeds done there in the time of Madame de Parma, which our Lord was not willing to leave unchastised.” The city was the seat of an archbishop and contained few dissenters, but that did not matter at a pinch. The garrison fired two or three shots and fled. A procession of priests and citizens came out to implore mercy, but in vain. Mechlin was given up for three days to the soldiers—one each for Spaniards, Germans, and Walloons. A Catholic councillor wrote that his hair stood on end at remembering the scene. When it was over, those who survived might better have been dead. Beds were pulled from beneath the dying to see if they concealed money or plate : “ Hardly a nail was left sticking in the walls.” The murders and rav- ishings were past counting. As for the churches, no image-breakers or Beggars of the Sea could have spoiled them more thoroughly. The worst outrages of the Valenciennes mob, of Antwerp bigots and reckless Zealanders, were tame and puny compared with what was done by soldiers of the most Catholic King, with the full allowance if not at the express command of his zealous viceroy. Alva’s son Don Frederic was there with Noircarmes, and men less savage than they appealed to them in vain to stop the promiscuous destruction. Turks who had stormed a Christian city, or Attila’s heathen hordes descending upon Rome, could hardly have wrought more mischief. When all was over, Alva wrote to Philip to congratulate him on so fine a deed. Since this was the Spanish idea of governing, no wonder Spain sank so rapidly from her proud pre-eminence among the nations of the earth. ,

FATE OF ZUTPHEN.

It was ordained, in the mysteries of Providence, that as the spring and early summer of this year 1572 were to be marked by most unexpected and amazing successes for the cause of liberty, so its latter half should be filled with cruel disappointments and reverses. From Hainault and Brabant the blood-stained conquerors turned to the north and east. Zutphen, the capital of Gelderland, was one of the many cities which had declared for Orange. Alva sent his son against it, with orders to bum the town and leave not a man alive. It was easily and punctually done. When the troops were tired of slashing and hanging, five hundred citizens were tied in couples and thrown into the river. Some

who were caught last were hung up by the feet and left to perish. The women had occasion to envy their murdered husbands, brothers, and fathers. A relative wrote to Louis of Nassau, “ A wail of agony was heard above Zutphen last Sunday—a sound as of a mighty massacre; but we know not what has taken place.”

Zeraerts, who held Walcheren for the prince, after failing in several enterprises, had laid siege to Tergoes in South Beveland at the end of August. The Spaniards in vain attempted to reach and relieve the place, till a Flemish officer led them in a feat worthy of the boldest Zealander. A channel, ten English miles in length, had been formed by an irruption of the sea fifty years before, between the island and the main* land. A narrow causeway, four or five feet under water at low tide, and cut in three places, afforded a doubtful and laborious passage. Across this three thousand picked men under Mondragon made their way by night, two abreast or in Indian file, slipping, scrambling, at times swimming. The terrible journey was accomplished in five hours, between tide and tide, and with the loss of but nine men: it was a wonderful exploit, worthy of the bravest defenders of liberty instead of its destroyers. After a few hours’ rest on the shore, they began a march of twelve miles further to Tergoes. Their arrival by this seemingly impossible means struck terror into the besiegers, who were more numerous than they. Zeraerts in vain tried to rally his men ; they fled to their ships, chased by the enemy, who cut off their rearguard.

DESTRUCTION OF NAARDEN.

The fate of Mons, Mechlin, and Zutphen struck terror through the country. Friesland, Overyssel, and Gelderland returned to their allegiance. Van den Bergh, a brother-in-law of Orange, fled like a coward from Campen, which he had promised to hold to the last, leaving his sick wife behind. Only Holland and part of Zealand remained faithful, and Don Frederic was sent to Amsterdam to stamp out the last embers of rebellion. It was not to prove so easy a task as he probably imagined. More horrors were to be enacted, more rivers of blood to flow, other cities to be ruined, before the tide should turn again toward liberty.

Naarden was a small town on the south coast of the Zuyder Zee. Its surrender was demanded on November 22d, by a company of horse. The citizens refused, and a single gun was fired, without authority, by a half-witted fellow. The burghers sent to Sonoy for aid, but none was to be had. Being in no condition to defend the place, they sent deputies to treat with Don Frederic, but he would not receive them, and they were told to return with the army. The burgomaster escaped by the way ; his companion went on, and entertained Romero and his officers at dinner, after receiving a promise that neither life nor property should be inj ured. The keys had been given up on that condition ; but throughout these one-sided wars the Spaniards seemed anxious to make a reputation for treachery no less devilish than their cruelty. Five hundred citizens

ENTRANCE TO THE ZUYDER ZEE. from a painting by Slamfleld,_x

■were assembled in a church: the soldiers were suddenly let loose upon them, and the building fired. The massacre extended throughout the town. The butchers tortured their unresisting victims with sword and lance, opened their veins, and literally drank their blood. A rich and prominent man had his feet roasted till he paid a large ransom for his life, and then was hanged by special order of Don Frederic. Some who escaped from the town were chased into the fields, stripped, and hung by the feet to freeze. Most of the houses were burned, and what remained, with the walls, were soon after pulled down. Alva, with his usual blasphemy, wrote to the king that it was by God’s appointment that these people were foolish enough to attempt the defense of a place that was not defensible ; and Mendoza, the Spanish historian, who took part in these wars, thought that “the sack of Naarden was a chastisement which must be believed to have taken place by express permission of divine Providence,” because it was an early seat of Protestantism.

A moderate success, won on their own element, did something to revive the sinking hopes of the Hollanders at this juncture. Some of their vessels were frozen in near Amsterdam, and attacked by a picked force; but the Beggars,, more skilful on the ice than their enemies, drove them off with heavy loss, and a thaw the next day enabled the ships to escape. Alva, who was now at Amsterdam, was much surprised at this “ skirmish on the frozen sea.” He sent for seven thousand pairs of skates, and trained his men to use them.

SIEGE OF HARLEM.

Harlem, then as now an important town, was the next point of attack. Its capture would cut off the peninsula of North Holland, held by Sonoy, from the main ' province, where Orange was doing what he could to concert measures of defense. Three of the magistrates went privately to treat with Alva. Two of them returned, and were tried and executed. The burgomaster, who prudently remained at Amsterdam, wrote home advising the citizens to surrender; his messenger was hanged. Though the city had but weak walls and a small garrison, its commander, Riperda, roused the spirit of the burghers; the cowardly or traitorous magistrates were displaced by others who could be trusted, and every possible measure was taken for defense.

Water was to enter largely into these operations. To the west, five miles of sand lay between the walls and the ocean. A shallow lake, dangerous in storms, separated Harlem from Amsterdam, ten miles east, and was traversed by a narrow causeway. One arm of this late carried the waters of the Zuyder Zee to the northwest; another, called the Mere, extended far southward. On December nth, Don Frederic, having stormed the neighboring fort of Sparendam, began to invest the city: in a short time thirty thousand men, a force nearly equal to its entire population, were encamped around it. Continual fogs aud mists from the

frozen lake concealed the doings of each party from the other, and enabled Orange to introduce provisious, munitions of war, and reinforcements, till the garrison numbered about four thousand. Besides these there were three hundred women, regularly enrolled and armed, who did as good service as the men ; they were reputable characters, and led by a widow of high family and standing.

A relieving force under La Marck, in numbers nearly equal to the garrison, was not fortunate enough to reach the city. A thousand of them fell in a fierce battle, and many were taken and hanged on high gibbets in the Spanish camp.

La Marck sent to offer a ransom and nineteen prisoners in exchange for one of his officers : it was in vain. The officer was suspended by one leg and left to die, and La Marck hanged his captives in return.

The cannonading began on December 18th. In three days two thousand solid shots were hurled against the walls, to their great injury. But the people, women and children as well as men, labored by day and night, bringing sand, earth, and stone, to repair the breaches. They did not scruple to use the statues from the churches : this the besiegers thought shocking sacrilege. Human life, the rights of men, the chastity of women, had no value in their eyes; but images of the saints were too precious to be touched—except when these devotees were sacking a town.

Alva’s son, expecting to finish the business in a week, ordered an assault on December 21st. It was fiercely repelled, with a loss of but three or four to the defenders, and as many hundred to the enemy: Romero lost an eye. Against this defeat the Spaniards soon had a victory to record. Batenburg, who had taken La Marck’s place as admiral, was sent with two thousand men, seven cannon, and a quantity of supplies. He lost his way in the fog, all that he brought fell to the enemy, and his troops were slain or scattered. His lieutenant’s head was thrown into the town with a mocking message: the besieged retorted with eleven heads of prisoners, and a line saying that they were for Alva in payment of the ten per cent, tax, with one over for interest. These beheadings were in grim jest: prisoners on either side were usually hanged.

HEROIC DEFENSE OF HARLEM.

After the first assault, mining and countermining began. Sappers would cross each other's underground paths, and fight in the dark, with scarcely stand- ****"" ing-room. Explosions were frequent. “A shower of heads, limbs, mutilated trunks, the mangled remains of hundreds of human beings, often spouted from the earth as if from an invisible volcano.” Thus the winter passed, with constant labor and frequent loss, with battering and mending of walls, with mines and sallies, with steady courage and unflagging zeal. Seeing that the ravelin at the Cross-gate could not long be held, the men of Harlem, unknown to their foes, built a half-moon inside it. Ou January 28th they were gladdened by the

arrival of what they needed most, bread and powder. A hundred and seventy sledge-loads had been brought safely across the lake by four hundred patriots.

Three days later a midnight attack was made, and had almost succeeded; but the sentinels were brave, the bells were rung, the burghers rushed from their beds to the walls, and the expected massacre was postponed. At daylight of February ist came a general assault. It was strongest at the weakest point. The wall by the Cross Gate gave way, the Spaniards entered with shouts of triumph—to find a solid mass of masonry confronting them, cannon opening upon

HARLEM.

them from its top, and the ravelin blown up beneath them. Three hundred fell, and the rest retired.

After this second repulse, Don Frederic sent Mendoza to his father for permission to raise the siege. Alva refused it with threats, though thousands of his men were dying. The besiegers suffered from the severe winter, and both sides from lack of food The men of Harlem, growing desperate, welcomed the attacks of their foes, and in the intervals made their own. Once, in a heavy fog,

a party crept up to the largest Spanish battery and tried to spike the guns. Later, on March 25th, a thousand of them drove in the outposts, burned three hundred tents, killed nearly their own number with a loss of only four, and actually dragged into their gates seven cannon and many wagons of provisions, besides nine standards. The gentlest natures became heroic, the tenderest hearts rejoiced to shed the blood of their oppressors. Madame Hasselaer and her amazons bore their part in almost every fight Curey, who at first loved peace and hated arms, made himself a brilliant soldier, headed every forlorn hope, disdained helmet, corslet, and shield, and with his naked sword slew very many Spaniards. After each of these feats a reaction would come, and he lay sick for days, loathing such bloody deeds. Then he would rise and go forth to fight again like a madman.

A MODERN HORATIUS.

Alva, who had been familiar with battles and sieges from his childhood, wrote to Philip that “never was a place defended with such skill and bravery as Harlem,” and that “such a war had never before been seen or heard of.” Yet all this valor could only defer an end that was inevitable, unless the patriots could hold the lake before Harlem, or cut the dyke and starve out Amsterdam; of this the viceroy had his fears. Winter had helped the defenders of their country; but the ice broke up early in March, and Bossu brought some vessels near the city. Orange sent Sonoy to cut one of the dykes, but his men were driven off after a sharp water-fight, which was made illustrious by an exploit as heroic as that of the Roman Horatius at the -bridge. When all his comrades, fled, John Haring of Horn, alone with his sword and shield, held the narrowest part of the causeway against a thousand foes, and than swam off safe. Oliver, the painter and conspirator of Mons, was among the slain in this affair. His head was thrown into Harlem, and the prisoners were hanged as usual by the neck or heels, in view of their beleaguered friends, who took such vengeance as they could. As Mendoza wrote, every man in and about Harlem “ seemed inspired by a spirit of special and personal vengeance.” Whence the inspiration came did not occur to him, though the cause of it was not far to seek.

Meantime Orange had been moving heaven and earth to get reinforcements —from Holland, Germany, France, England, anywhere. With a force at all proportioned to that of his enemies, he might have held his own or more; but it was still a struggle of a few against many, of feeble Right against lawless and ruthless Might. He had gathered a hundred vessels or more, of one sort or another, under Brand and Batenburg; Bossu had fewer, but they were larger, and the Spaniards were by this time at home on the inland waters. On May 28th the control of the lake was disputed in a long, fierce, and destructive battle, and the patriots lost it.

Harlem was now doomed. Its provisions were giving out, its outer forts had fallen, its source of supply was closed. The citizens sent word to Orange that they could hold out but three weeks longer, and begged for speedy help. His carrier-doves bore them an encouraging reply. Through June they lived on .seeds, hides, and grass, and many died of starvation. The prince recruited nearly five thousand volunteers, solid burghers of Delft, Rotterdam, Gouda, and other towns. He wished to lead them himself, but.the cities objected; his life was of more value than even Harlem, and must not be exposed. So he gave up the

DRESS OF ZEALAND WOMEN-

command to the unlucky Batenburg, who left Gassenheim on the evening of July 8th, with seven cannon and four hundred wagons full of provisions. With these he hoped to enter and relieve the city, eluding the vigilance of the Spaniards ; but they were fully informed of his plans. Two of the prince’s pigeons had been shot, and the letters they were carrying to the besieged revealed all. The fullest preparations were made; the smoke from a mass of brush prevented the patriot signals from being seen, and concealed the dispositions of the foe.

As Batenburg approached the city from the south, he was surrounded and slain with many of his men; the rest were taken or dispersed. A prisoner, with his nose and ears cut oft^-, was sent within the walls to tell the news.

The burghers had already asked for terms, but none were granted. In their despair it was proposed that all the able-bodied men march out together and cut

their way through the Spanish camp or die in the attempt. The tears of their wives and children changed this wild resolve to a yet more hopeless plan ; they would form a square around their iamilies, enclosing the helpless, the aged, and the sick, and thus go forth to peri-h sword in hand. Bath by this time Alva's son, who had lately scorned their proposal, began to fear that these desperate men might bum the town and die in its ruins by their own hands, leaving little glory for him and no pleasure or plunder for his troops. So he resorted to the usual Spanish policy of lying,

and sent a promise of free forgiveness and full security if the gates were opened at once. His father’s orders and his own purpose, of course, were of another

complexion.

ORGAN IN’ THE GREAT CHURCH, HARLEM.

FATE OF HARLEM.

The city surrendered on July 12th. The atrocities which followed were not so frightful as at Mechlin, Zutphen, and Naarden. Strange to say, the town was neither burned nor sacked; the latter privilege was commuted for a large sum to be paid in four instalments. Not all the survivors were murdered; Alva gave the number as twenty-three hundred, the native historians put it somewhat lower. The garrison, which had been greatly reduced, furnished half of these victims, though six hundred Germans in it were let go. The officers were the first to suffer—or such of them as had not killed themselves. Among them was a natural son of Cardinal Granvelle, who had no sympathy with his father’s politics, and one of the noble family of Brederode. A case of Damon and Pythias magnanimity occurred here: one young Hasselaer had been arrested for another, and was going with closed lips to the scaffold, when his cousin gave himself up and insisted that he was the one to die. The miscellaneous slaughter did not begin till the third day, after a visit from Alva; and the story of it is tame, compared with that of the atrocities in other places.

The siege of Harlem was an expensive affair. It lasted seven months, during which twelve thousand of those engaged in it died of disease or wounds, and over ten thousand shots were discharged against the walls. To the inflamed eye of loyalty, all this outpouring of blood and irou was a good investment, since the news of the capture cured the king of a dangerous fever; but it would have been much better for the world if he had died then. He was to live twenty- five years longer, and do a great deal more mischief. In the five years of this war, on his side utterly foolish and wicked, on that of Orange and h s friends necessary, because forced on their manhood by intolerable oppression, twenty-five million florins had been sent from Spain to carry it on, besides probably as much more raised by confiscation and Alva’s patent taxes. As yet the conflict was only begun. It was to go on for a long and weary time, to the permanent ruin of Spain, the temporary destruction of the southern provinces, the upbuilding of a free state in the north, and the everlasting instruction of such nations as are able to learn anything from history.

ALKMAAR, MOOK, AND LEYDEN.

HE process of taking the revolted cities one by one was likely to be tedious, since Harlem, one of the weakest in defenses, had been able to hold out for seven months. Accordingly Alva sent out a letter inviting all to return to their allegiance and taste Philip’s parental clemency, rather than “wait for his rage, cruelty, and fury, and the approach of his army.” He added a warning that if they persisted in rebellion the king would “utterly depopulate the land, and cause it to be inhabited by strangers; since otherwise he could not believe that the will of God and of his majesty had been accomplished.” This proclamation had no effect. The Hollanders, thinking themselves better j udges than Alva of the divine will, were resolved to dare and bear all for liberty.

The Spanish troops, not having been paid in full, now broke out in a mutiny, the first of many. Besides terribly afflicting the natives at Harlem and elsewhere, they gave the viceroy a great deal of trouble. Some of them •offered, for a large sum, to hand over Harlem to Orange, but he could not raise the money.

The small town of Alkmaar, in North Holland, had refused to surrender. By the end of August, 1573, it was surrounded by sixteen thousand soldiers, -and so closely beset that, as Alva claimed, a sparrow could not get in or out. He wrote to his master that, if he took it, he was resolved “not to leave a single creature alive: the knife shall be put to every throat. Since the example of Harlem has proved of no use, perhaps an example of cruelty will bring the other cities to their senses.” He would much prefer to be lenient, he said; nobody liked mercy better than he; but it was of no use with such obstinate heretics and traitors. The only way to deal with them was to exterminate them, or near it. But in this case his savage purpose was to be baffled.

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ALKMAAR SAVED.

Alkmaar had a garrison of eight hundred, and thirteen hundred citizens able to fight. On September 18th it was cannonaded till three o’clock, and then assaulted in force on both sides, two fresh regiments from Italy leading. They were received with showers of pitch, lime, melted lead, boiling water, and oil. Hoops covered with tar were set on fire and thrown over their shoulders as they mounted to the attack. Every citizen was on the walls ; the women and children brought powder and shot, or stood by to help. Such of the assailants as gained a footing were met with cold steel and thrown down headlong. One of the few who lived to tell what he had seen, remembered only plain people inside, mostly

THE WEIGH HOUSE, ALKMAAR.

in fishermen’s dress. For four hours the fight was kept up with desperate valor. Only thirty-seven of the defenders fell; but when the Spaniards drew off at dark, they left at least a thousand dead. Don Frederic ordered a renewal of the assault next day, but his men positively refused, though some of them were killed by their officers. The besieged had taken one prisoner: after telling all he knew, he offered to “worship the devil as they did,” if they would spare his life.

Alkmaar could not hold out forever, and the only way to save it was to open the sluices and cut the dykes. As this would not merely drown out or drive off the Spaniards, but inundate the whole province and destroy much property, the

consent of friends at some distance was needed. A brave carpenter, Van der Mey, went forth at the imminent peril of his life with letters to Orange, Sonoy, and others, concealed in a hollow cane. He accomplished his mission and returned, after some of the dykes had been opened, with orders and promises to complete the work ; but when near the city he was so closely pursued that he lost his staff. The letters in it disclosed the plan to flood the region. Alva’s son hastily called a council of war, which agreed that discretion was here the better part of valor. The siege was raised October 8th, and Alkmaar delivered without the desperate expedient on which the patriot leaders had determined.

Meantime Louis of Nassau had beeu conducting negotiations in France, with at least the effect of weakening the dangerous alliance of that court with Philip. The business of St. Bartholomew, as he plainly told Charles IX., had delighted “the Spaniard, your mortal enemy, and enabled him to weaken your majesty more than he could have done by a war of thirty years.” The bloodstained king, his ministers, and even liis mother, were somewhat abashed by the indignation which the massacre had aroused. The Huguenots, as we have seen, though weakened, were not exterminated, nor was their spirit broken. Catherine de Medicis, in some dealings with their deputies, asked if a king’s word was not enough, and was sharply answered, “No, madam; by St. Bartholomew, no!” Holland sorely needed foreign aid, and Schomberg said that Nassau’s plan of a French protectorate was “grand and beautiful.” France wanted help to secure the Polish crown, and it was not so clear then as it afterwards became that her weak and perjured princes could be of little service to Dutch liberty. The only things to admire in this tedious diplomacy are the manly frankness of Louis, and the steady patience of his great brother. “I have more than I can carry,” Orange wrote, “and in the weight of these great affairs, financial, military, political, there is none to help me.” In a published letter to Philip and other documents he set forth, as he had done before, the facts and the principles underlying them, announced the resolution of the cities of Holland to stand to the last against Alva’s tyranny, and appealed to the judgment and sympathy of Christendom.

TWO NAVAL VICTORIES. ,

On October nth, three days after the siege of Alkmaar was raised, the patriots were gladdened by a naval victory. Bossu, who had thirty vessels on the Zuyder Zee, was attacked by twenty-five smaller ones under Dirkzoon. The Spaniards fled, were chased by most of the Dutch, and lost five ships. Only the admiral, in his great vessel “The Inquisition,” maintained the fight. Three of the small craft grappled her, and a savage conflict went on from three P. M. till the next day, with heavy loss on both sides. The ships, locked together, drifted about and went aground. With the first light of morning John Haring, the hero of the Diemer Dj^ke, hauled down the enemy’s flag, and was killed in the

AtVA’* I.A*T RIDE THROUGH AMSTERDAM

act. The Spaniards held their own a few hours longer, but they were far from help, and boats came from the shore to reinforce the Hollanders. At elieven Bossu surrendered with three hundred of his men. His capture saved the head of Saint Aldegonde, who was taken soon after in a skirmish at Maas. Orange sent Alva word that life would be taken for life, and they were finally exchanged.

Another prisoner of rank fell a victim to the last of Alva’s hideous cruelties. Less as a heretic than as one of the captors of Brill, Uitenhoove was roasted at a slow fire, and the viceroy was angry at the executioner for ending his torments with a spear-thrust. Sufferers of another sort were soon left to mourn that they had trusted the governor. Requesens, the Grand Commander of St. Jago, came to succeed him on November 17th, and a month later Alva departed under a load of general execration. His debts were enormous, and he had no means of paying them ; so he sent a trumpeter through Amsterdam to announce that all claims should be presented on a certain day, and in the night before sneaked off, leaving his creditors to be ruined. He got safely back to Spain, despite his fears of being shot from a window on the way, and lived nine years longer, most of the time in disgrace with the master he had served too well.

' The new governor was an average Spaniard of moderate ability and reputation. He pretended to believe that religion had little to do with the rebellion, but favored Alva’s policy of extermination. The finances were in a ruinous condition, and everybody else, even the Spaniards and native butchers like Noircarmes, desired peace; but the king and his representative meant to have the war go on. A show of milder intentions was made, but only to deceive the patriots and divide their counsels, as Orange knew full well. Saint Aldegonde, still in danger and tired of captivity, advised submission and emigration ; but stouter hearts disdained the idea of abandoning the sacred cause.

Mondragon, the old Spanish colonel who led the famous march through the sea to relieve Tergoes, was now closely besieged at Middleburg in the Isle of Walcheren. Two fleets, with over a hundred vessels under Romero and d’ Avila, were gathered at Bergen-op Zoom and Antwerp to relieve him and provision the town. The governor stood on thd dyke to see them off, and in saluting him one of the ships blew up. The patriot fleet, commanded by Boisot, was ready to oppose their progress. Orange had roused the enthusiasm of his officers, and received their promises to live and die for their country. The action occurred on January 29th, 1574. Schot, the captain of the flag-ship, came on board nearly dead of a fever, and insisted that his men, instead of going below to avoid the first fire, should stay on deck, ready to grapple and board the enemy.

The Spanish guns were discharged but once. Schot and his lieutenant fell; the admiral lost an eye. Then the grappling-irons and pikes did their work. The Sea Beggars gave no more quarter than their foes. When twelve hundred of the king’s men had been killed and fifteen of his ships taken, the rest

retreated. Romero’s vessel ran aground and lie swam to shore, remarking to- the viceroy, who was still on the dyke, “I told 3^011 I was not a sailor. If I had a hundred fleets, I could do no better.”

Mondragon, though nearly starved, swore to burn Middleburg if not granted

INTERIOR OF A HOUSE IN ALKMAAR.

terms. They were allowed, and he marched out on February 21st with honors of war, promising to secure the release of five prisoners of rank, or return in their place. But. Requeseus would not let him keep his word.

LAST CAMPAIGN OF LOU.S OF NASSAU.

The patriots now held all Walcheren and practically the whole coast. They had proved their superiority at sea, and their heroism in defending cities; but in an ordinary land battle they were no match for the Spaniards; they had the valor, but not the discipline and experience for that. The relief of Leyden was now their first concern, but was to be effected by foreign aid. It had been invested by Valdez at the end of October; the siege was. raised on March 21st, when all available troops were marched eastward to repel an invading force.

Louis of Nassau, after receiving profuse promises from Anjou and Alen?on, had raised an army in Germany, with the help of his brother Johu. He was highly esteemed through Europe; the victory of the Holy Lion and the capture of Mons had given him a military reputation perhaps higher than he deserved. The plan of his campaign had been arranged by Orange, who considered it “the only certain means for putting a speedy end to the war, and driving these devils of Spaniards out of the country, before the Duke of Alva has time to raise another army to support them.” Louis was to take Maestricht if possible, then cross Limburg and Brabant, and join the prince, who had six thousand infantry in the isle of Bommel.

The plan was not destined to succeed. The river was impassible, and Mendoza and Avila reached Maestricht before Nassau could cross it. On March 18th a night attack cut off seven hundred of his men, with a loss to the assailants of but seven. Others deserted, and on April 8th he moved northward. Avila kept pace with him, on the other side of the Meuse, to prevent his junction with his brother. The superstition of the country anticipated his doom. Early in February five men of Utrecht had sworn before the magistrates that they had seen a phantom battle in the sky by night. An army from the northwest, after giving way at the first onset of one from the opposite direction, had rallied and annihilated its opponents. The vision disappeared in clouds, and presently the heavens seemed to flow with blood. This account was widely circulated, and when the relative positions of Louis and Avila were known, men looked on the result as known beforehand.

SLAUGHTER AT MOOK.

The real battle took place at Mook, near the border of Cleves, on April 14th, 1574. The German mercenaries were in mutiny, howling for their pay as¹ usual, and little likely to stand against an equal force of Spaniards; but Louis could not retreat with honor, or thought he could not. Avila had crossed the Meuse from the west, and chosen a strong position. He had five thousand men against Nassau’s eight thousand; Valdez would arrive the next day with as many more, but the Spaniard would not wait to divide the honors of victory. After several hours of skirmishing, the village became the bone of contention; each side advanced and receded in attack and counter-attack. Nassau with his

cavalry drove a portion of the enemy in utter rout; the rest stood firm, and after a bloody action overthrew the Germans. Louis, with his brother Henry, led a last hopeless charge, and perished. His army was annihilated, and full four thousand slain in the fight and the pursuit, smothered in the marshes,

battle of MOOK.

drowned in the river, or burned in the houses near. The count’s body, with that of Henry Nassau and Christopher, Duke of the Palatinate, was never recognized, nor the particulars of their fate known. They went down in a furious melee; the faces of the dead were trampled out of human semblance, and their bodies stripped of all that could identify them. A dark rumor went abroad that the

general had dragged himself from among the slain and to the river bank, where he was murdered by some prowling countrymen; but no evidence was offered to support the tale. Thus, in the crash of ruinous defeat, obscurely, yet not ingloriously, ended the earthly career of a gallant soldier, an accomplished and high- minded gentleman, an unselfish and devoted servant of his country and of human rights. He was admired and beloved by all except those who hated liberty; in him Orange lost his strongest support, his most precious helper. Three of his mother’s sons had now laid down their lives in the battles of freedom : no family, in any age or land, ever did or suffered more for that sacred cause than the house of Nassau. Duke Christopher, who died with Louis and Henry, was another youth of promise. His father, the Elector Palatine, said, “It was better so than to have wasted his time in idleness.” Count John of Nassau had fortunately been sent to Cologne two days before to raise money for the troops.

A MUTINY AND A BATTLE.

The Spanish troops, to whom three years’ pay was due, mutinied the day after their victory, Throwing off all authority not of their own appointment, they chose a governor and councillors, and submitted to a discipline quite as strict, it must be owned, as Alva had ever enforced. They marched to Antwerp, took possession of it on April 26th, quartered themselves upon the richest citizens, and lived on the fat of the land. Champaguy, who had command there, sent for the viceroy and barricaded himself in a strong house. Requesens endeavored to recall the soldiers to their obedience; they answered that they wanted dollars and not speeches. He asked the magistrates for four hundred thousand crowns. They demurred, but after twcr weeks of this expensive hospitality offered part payment. The chief officer or “Eletto” of the mutineers urged his comrades to accept the terms, since each of them, so to speak, had a rope round his neck ; they deposed him and elected another. A similar mutiny broke out in the very citadel, but was soon suppressed, after its ringleaders had been cut down by a Spanish ensign, who would have been murdered if he had not gone into hiding. A few weeks later the town-council furnished the required sum, part in cash and part in goods, and received the governor’s bond, which was not of much value. The delighted soldiers arrayed themselves in fine cloth, brocades, satins, and silks, and sat down to gamble away their hard-won gains. Their festivities were interrupted by the sound of heavy guns down the river. The revellers rushed to arms and hurried to the dykes, but too late to disturb the sport of the Beggars. Admiral Boisot, desirous of adding to the laurels he had won at Bergen four months earlier, had come up the Scheld, encountered the Antwerp fleet of twenty-two vessels, destroyed fourteen of them with their crews, and made a prisoner of the royalist Vice-Admiral Haemstede.

SIEGE OF LEYDEN.

Leyden was, as it still is, a fine city, near the head of the Harlem mere. Its inhabitants, after standing a siege throughout the winter, ought to have profited by the temporary absence of their enemies to lay in provisions and increase their garrison. They imprudently neglected to do this, relying on the success of Nassau’s expedition. By the end of May they were again invested by Valdez with eight thousand men, while they had hardly any but volunteer troops. As elsewhere in Holland, the burghers were excellent at defending their own, and the commandant, Van der Does, was a man of rank, ability, accomplishments, and proved courage.

On June 6th Requesens proclaimed the king’s pardon to all who would return to the Roman Church, a few persons excepted. Orange feared the effect of this, but it had none. Holland and Zealand were now the only provinces in rebellion, and their population was almost solidly Calvinist. The prince had passed from his intermediate state of Lutheranism, and become one in profession with his fellow-patriots. These people were to be moved neither from their faith nor from their resolutions. Only two men, so far as known, came forward to claim the doubtful benefits of the pardon.

Leyden put a price on Spanish heads, and many were brought in. Sallies and combats before the gates were at first so frequent and active that it was soon found best to forbid them, that the small number of fighting men might be preserved for future emergencies. The besiegers attempted no assaults, having had enough of these at Alkmaar, but relied on starvation, varied with persuasion of a new kind. On July 30th Valdez urged the burghers to submit and accept the pardon. They refused, though food was now scarce among them.

As the sharp tooth of hunger began to be felt, the citizens, accustomed to good living, became impatient, and frequented an ancient ruined tower in the centre of the town, whence they could look far and wide to see if help was coming. It could come, as all knew, but from one source—the sea. Some royalists, who had been alloyed to remain unmolested, taunted their neighbors with what seemed a vain hope. “Go up to the tower,” they said, “and tell us if the ocean is coming over the dry land; ” for some miles of low and rich meadows intervened between the city and the mere. On August 21st word was sent to the prince, by the carrier doves which alone could go in and out, that the besieged had been a month almost without food, and could not hold out much longer. On the 27th they wrote to the Estates, complaining that they were deserted in their need. A prompt reply assured them that Holland stood or fell with Leyden: the waves should destroy all, before she should be forsaken.

THE DYKES CUT.

The hope of the watchers was not vain: the means of relief, though difficult and expensive, were not impossible. Through the Polderwaert fort, between

Rotterdam and Delft, Orange controlled the open country, or at least the means of making it untenable. The Spaniards had attacked this place on June 2gt , an been repelled with loss. In July his plans were perfected, and the Estates brought to agree to them. “ Better a drowned land than a lost land,” became a motto. Subscriptions were taken and a fund raised, as for a work of construction rather than destruction ; ladies gave their jewels and plate to ruin the fields and expel the foe. Early in August the cutting of the dykes began, and the waters came slowly in. Two hundred vessels were loaded with provisions. A most untimely fever, brought on by undue mental labor and anxiety, laid the prince on his bed,

and proved both tedious and dangerous. No one could take his place, and the

work was unavoidably delayed.

Valdez, alarmed at these proceedings, consulted his native allies, who said the country could not be flooded: they meant that it had not been done before by human hands. Had the general been better advised, he might have put more difficulties in the way of the patriots, whose task was hard at best.

At length the flotilla was put in motion on an artificial sea. The boats were defended by twenty-five hundred fighting men, one-third of them wild Zealanders,

sworn to give no quarter, and wearing on their caps a crescent, with the motto, “ Rather Turk than Pope.” Admiral Boisot had brought these from their native islands, and now took command of the expedition. The distance, not great in itself, was multiplied by obstacles. Five miles from Leyden was the Land-scheiding, a strong dyke eighteen inches above water. This was taken on the night of September ioth, and its few guards killed or driven away. With the first light the Spaniards attacked in force, but were routed with heavy loss. A Sea Beggar cut out the heart of one whom he had killed, bit it, and then threw it to a dog, saying, “Too bitter.” The mangled heart was picked up and preserved as a curiosity, or rather as an illustration of the savage hatred felt toward the foreign persecutors.

The dyke was cut through, the fleet passed on : within a mile was another, no better guarded than the first. Beyond it the sea became too shallow : the way led through a canal lined by the enemy, who also held a bridge across it. Boisot attacked them fiercely, but found their position and their force too strong. The boats, drawing but eighteen or twenty inches, scraped upon the bottom and stood fast: a precious week went by. By the 19th the waters had risen enough for them to move again: they reached a third dyke, strongly guarded at each end, but the defenders fled. Two forts and villages were fired ; the relieving fleet and the alarmed Spaniards moved on toward Leyden. At North Aa was yet another dyke, and but nine inches of water. Here Orange, barely able to leave his bed, visited the fleet and urged it on ; but the wind was wrong, and another week was lost.

Meantime Leyden was really starving. The people saw the fires which hinted at coming help, but knew not what to make of this long delay. Pestilence came in the train of famine, and carried off some seven thousand. Valdez, who knew that his time was short, sent daily letters, promising everything if the gates were opened. Fainting wretches beset the burgomaster with entreaties and threats: he told them it was better to starve than trust the tender mercies of the wicked and fall by Spanish hands. His words put new courage into their hearts ; the citizens mounted the walls and exchanged taunts and defiance •with the besiegers.

RELIEF OF LEYDEN.

On September 28th a pigeon brought an encouraging letter from the admiral, which raised their hopes; still, as Boisot wrote to Orange the next day, all depended on wind and tide. It was a belated equinoctial storm that saved Leyden from perishing. On the night of October 1st, on a sea that raged among fruit-trees and chimneys, by the light of their own cannon-flashes, the patriots destroyed the opposing vessels of Valdez, and drew near the city. As day dawned, two forts were deserted by their garrisons, who made haste to escape westward. The Zealanders leaped from their boats and chased them through the rising

MONUMENT AT ALKMAAR.

Erected to commemorate the victory of 2,100 Protentanta against IS,000 soldiers, under the Duke oj Alva.

waters ; hundreds were slain or drowned. One obstacle remained : the fort of hammen, directly between the fleet and the town, was firmly held by a Borgia, and could not be passed. Boisot, brave but prudent, anchored just out of range of its guns, and wrote to Orange that he would attack next day, but doubted the result.

That evening the burgomaster and many citizens climbed Hengist’s tower. “Behind that fort,” he said, “are bread and meat, and thousands of our friends. •Shall we help them ? ” They agreed, weak and famished as they were, to attack Lammeu the next morning. That night there was little sleep: the watchers on the towers and mast-heads saw lights moving from the fort over the water, and heard the ominous sound of a falling wall. Boisot’s men feared that the city had been taken. They feared it more when, straining their eyes in the faint dawning, they could see no signs of life about the fort. No; there was a boy, waving his cap from the battlements; and presently a man came wading to them from the shore. The boy had seen the Spanish retreat and been the first to prove it. The very giving way of a part of the wall, which laid the city open to its besiegers, had scared them off. Valdez had fled from the shore, and Borgia from Lammen : not a living enemy remained in sight.

Every creature who could move in Leyden hurried or crept to the wharves as the vessels entered the canals. Thousands of loaves were thrown on shore, and the starving wretches seized on this late relief so eagerly that some choked to death, and many were made sick, before arrangements could be carried out for distributing and administering the food, now too abundant. Magistrates, citizens, soldiers, sailors, went in long procession to the huge church, where prayers were said and a hymn of thanksgiving raised—but not sung through, for sobs and tears of joy checked the music. A letter was sent to Orange, and reached him the same afternoon, October 3d, in the church of Delft, where it was read by the minister. The next day the prince, though by no means fully restored to health, visited Leyden, and witnessed, as if by providential ordering, the receding of the waters under a sharp northeast wind. In a few days the land emerged, and those who had cut the dykes began to repair them.

A noble memorial was reared to commemorate the ending of this famous siege. The university of Leyden, soon to become one of the foremost in the world, was opened and consecrated with great ceremony on February 5th, 1575* Thus, in the early stages of a fierce struggle for existence, did the heroic Hollanders erect a temple at once to learning and to piety.

MUTINY AND MASSACRE.

B Spaniards were somewhat discouraged by their failure to take Leyden, and in the months which followed their military operations were comparatively slack. Holland was glad of a breathing- space in which to repair some of the damage wrought by the waters and the war. Orange, not wholly satisfied with the conduct of the cities, offered to resign his post: the Estates refused ta allow this, and in November, 1574, increased his powers. Sundry negotiations between the contending parties, and an attempt at mediation by the Emperor Maximilian, have little of interest or importance. Ten commissioners, five on each side, met at Breda in March, 1575, and sat for over four months, but accomplished nothing. In April Holland and Zealand formed a closer union than before, and gave the prince absolute powers of defense, instructing him to protect the Reformed worship and suppress the exercise of the Roman religion. He struck out the last two words, and put in their place “ religions at variance with the Gospel,” which left him free to judge and act No power could force him into persecution ; and the provinces never asked him to inquire into men’s personal beliefs.

His second marriage had been far from happy. Anne of Saxony proved the reverse of what a wife ought to be. He obtained a divorce with scriptural warrant for it, and in June, 1575, espoused Charlotte of Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Montpensiier, who was active in the French Catholic league. The lady was far from sharing her father’s sentiments; she had been a nun, but from 1572 was a Protestant and lived at the court of the Elector Palatine, having been disowned by her family. This third marriage was much objected to. It was in the interest of William’s private happiness, but not of any political ambitions: in fact, it estranged his German allies, and cut off help from them.

About this time Sonoy, Governor of North Holland, disgraced his cause by committing horrible cruelties on certain persons accused of traitorous plans.

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Orange stopped the outrages as soon as he heard of them, but Sonoy was too powerful, and had done too much good service, to be displaced as La Marck had been. As if to remind the world that the Spaniards claimed a monopoly of savageness, Hierges, on August 7th, after a short siege, took the small town of Oudewater, in the province of Utrecht, and perpetrated the usual barbarities. The place had seen the birth of Arminius, the famous theologian, fifteen years- before: it was now almost blotted out of existence. Schoonhoven soon after surrendered on fair terms.

LOSS OF SCHOUWEN.

Another disaster to the patriot cause was the loss of Schouwen, an island northeast of Walcheren. Helpless in vessels, the Spaniards reached it by an enterprise similar to that which had conducted them to the relief of Tergoes, and even more difficult and dangerous.

The way was shown them by traitors: it was again a submerged and narrow causeway, some five feet under water at low tide, between the isles of Philipsland and Duiveland.

Over this, a terrible six hours’ journey, three thousand men started on a stormy night, September 27th. Zealanders in boats attacked them, and many were killed or drowned. The tide came up and swallowed two hundred sappers and miners: the rear-guard had to retreat;

but the main body reached town hall,leyden

Duiveland, drove off a force of auxiliaries there, and passed, by a similar but shorter way, to Schouwen. Here they took Brouwershaven, destroyed Bommenede with almost every creature in it, and laid siege to Zierickzee on the south coast.

The estates of Holland had already voted that it was their duty to “abandon the king, as a tyrant who sought .to oppress and destroy his subjects.” The

sovereignty was now offered to Elizabeth of England ; but she, afraid to break openly with Philip and yet unwilling to abandon her Protestant allies, entered on a long course of tedious and tricky negotiations. The prince, profoundly discouraged, turned his mind to the desperate step of wholesale emigration. His idea was to get together every vessel within reach; to place the entire population of Holland and Zealand upon them, with all movable goods; to cut the dykes, open the sluices, and drown the land completely; and to sail for some foreign land. As Motley remarks, this plan, if carried out, might have had the most momentous effects on history and human welfare. Imagination is free to trace the possible growth of a new state in the far west or east, founded by the wisest and purest man of his time, with settlers unsurpassed in courage, intelligence, and virtue. But the scheme was scattered to the winds by an event

in itself of

ifi|lp no great im-

^ ‘ '' portance, but

which opened the way to a train of consequences s.% vast as to raise new hopes for liberty. The viceroy died suddenly on March 5th, 1576, a little preceded by

----‘V’.-r . ' ; -. T>'• i" Vitelli, one

J»5 * .-• .i' of his ablest

SENATE CHAMBER, UNIVERSITY OF LEVDEN. officers.

Requesens was a colorless character, and far from intrinsic greatness of any kind; but he had represented royalty, and he named no successor. The stupid advice of Hopper, then envoy at Madrid, and the idiotic delays of Philip, who could fix on neither a man nor a policy, prolonged the confusion which ensued, until it rose to anarchy. The State Council assumed control; as natives, most of its members were despised by the Spaniards; as tools of foreign tyranny, they were hated by their countrymen. Holland and Zealand, poor and suffering as they were, afforded to the obedient provinces an example of manly resistance and successful self-government. Their union was modified and cemented by a new act of April 2 5th, 1576. Orange was loaded with business, forgetful of nothing, writing innumerable letters, seeking allies everywhere. He was to find them before long.

THE MUTINY.

Zierickzee had been besieged by Mondragon since the fall. A fleet attempted to relieve it, bnt the harbor had been blocked. On May 25th Boisot’s vessel, the Red Lion, dashed against the obstructions, grounded, and was in danger from the shore ; the others were driven away. The admiral and his men could escape only by swimming, and he was drowned in the darkness. The death of this brave sailor and able commander, who had relieved Leyden and won several notable victories, was a heavy loss to the patriots. On June 21st, Zierickzee surrendered on honorable terms. Two hundred thousand guilders were demanded. There was but half that much money in the town ; but a temporary mint was set up, and the people brought their spoons, forks, whatever they had of silver, to be melted down and turned into coin. The soldiers began to mutiny ; Mondragon could not control them ; they locked up their officers, and elected others, as at Antwerp two years before. Having eaten the isle of Schouwen bare, they made their way back to Brabant, and moved southward. After threatening Brussels, Mechlin, and other places, they seized Alost in East Flanders, and established themselves there, in numbers about two thousand, and doing what they pleased.

Great were the wrath and terror throughout the provinces, and especially in the capital. The State Council, moved by the general clamor, denounced the mutineers in the king’s name as murderers and traitors. The Spanish officers, rejected by their men and suspected, if not imprisoned, by the citizens, were between two fires, and soon made common cause with the soldiers. Avila, the conqueror of Louis Nassau, now commandant of the citadel at Antwerp, laughed at the decree of outlawry. Verdugo, Roda, and others joined him there. Cham- pagny, the native Governor of the city, dared not proclaim the edict. By September all the troops had mutinied.

Orange was not slow to improve his opportunity. In letters to the Estates of Brabant, to those of Gelderland, and to many leading men, he urged the necessity of union against the common foe. A congress met at Ghent in October to discuss the situation, which had almost assumed the shape of civil war. In many places the people rose against the soldiers, but only to be slaughtered. At Tisnacq, in an unequal contest of this kind, two Spaniards and two thousand citizens fell. The army threatened to attack Brussels^ and the council took no steps for its defense. Its members had already .alien into popular disfavor, and on September 5th they were arrested and put in prison—a bold step, for which no one wished to appear responsible. Del Rio, the Spanish Blood-Councillor, was sent to Orange, who kept him close and asked him many unpleasant questions. The garrison of Ghent was besieged in the citadel. The prince was asked for troops to help in this, and sent them, relieving the fears of the Catholic malcontents by assuring them that their

religion should not be disturbed. The cannonading and the sessions of the congress went on together. Maestricht rose, won over the Germans of its garrison, and drove out the Spaniards. They returned with reinforcements, and took the city by a disgraceful stratagem : the women of a suburb were seized, and each soldier of the attacking column held one before him, firing over her shoulder. The burghers, unwilling to train their cannon on their neighbors and relatives,

A CANAL IN LEYDEN.

were overcome, and Maestricht, on October 20th, suffered the usual horrors in full measure.

ANTWERP IN DANGER.

Antwerp was now trembling, and the provinces trembled for Antwerp. All knew that the soldiers, thirsting for plunder and blood, had turned covetous eyes

upon the richest city in the world. The richest city was commanded by the strongest fortress, and that was full of bandits. Avila, their leader, was in close communication with the mutineers at Alost, Maestricht, and elsewhere ; mutineers no longer indeed, for all their officers had joined them, and Roda, as a member of the State Council, claimed to represent the king. When all the Spaniards in the country should have been collected in the citadel, what defense had Antwerp against their fury ? Only some German troops, led by Van Ende and Oberstein. Van Ende and his men were in league with Avila: Oberstein, whose wits were none of the brightest, had been beguiled, on October 29th, into signing a treaty with the others, which bound him to disarm the town. When he found what it meant, he refused to fulfil his promise, informed the authorities, and did his part manfully, backed by those under his command.

To help in the defense, Brussels sent six thousand Walloons under the Marquis of Havre, brother of the Duke of Aerschot: with him came Egmont’s son and other young nobles. They entered Antwerp on November 3d, after being kept outside for a day and a night. Champagny, the governor, hated the Spaniards more than he loved Philip, and was in correspondence with Orange ; but he distrusted these Walloons, and not without reason. They gave much trouble during their brief stay, and were of no use at all when most needed.

Havre brought letters, taken from couriers on the way, showing that Avila had invited the Spaniards from Alost and other places. A ditch was dug and a breastwork erected, chiefly by the citizens and their wives, opposite the castle: progress was soon interrupted by a cannonade. Champagny seemed to be the only efficient officer in the city ; his orders were not fully carried out, the barricades were imperfect, and there were few cannon. Next morning early, the troops of Romero, Valdez, Vargas, and others arrived from many directions, leaving the posts they had been appointed to hold, and coming to make war on their own account upon a city which had never renounced its allegiance to the king. It was no strife now between Papist and Protestant, nor between royalists and rebels: the natives of the land were striving simply to protect their homes against a foreign army. The Spaniards were all on one side, defying the edict of the State Council: the Germans were divided, some in the citadel and others among the defenders of the town.

« THE SPANISH FURY.”

About nine that morning, Sunday, November 4th, a small party emerged from the citadel and were driven back by the burghers. Soon after, a moving wood, like that which Macbeth saw from Dunsinane, came into sight from the southwest; it was the mutineers of Alost, near three thousand strong, each with a twig on his helmet. Avila had waited only for this important portion of his force. He offered them food, but though they had marched twenty-four miles in

the last seven hours, they were impatient for the assault, saying that they would sup in Antwerp or dine in Paradise: another place might have been more correctly named for the alternative. They marched out together at eleven, kneeling first to say their prayers, and carrying a banner with the crucifix and the Virgin Mary on it. There were but five thousand infantry and six hundred horse in all; the defenders of that city, not counting the burghers, were more numerous. With equal discipline and steadiness of valor, the sack of Antwerp might

THE UNIVERSITY OF LEYDEN.

have been prevented; but alas, no troops had yet been found who could stand face to face against the Spaniards on dry land.

They came in two nearly equal bodies by two different streets. The feeble barrier gave way before them; the worthless Walloons turned and fled. The Eletto was first on the wall; he was shot down. Over the breastwork they swarmed with their terrible war-cries, “Saint James! Spain! blood, flesh, fire, sack!” Van Knde’s Germans joined them ; those of Count Oberstein, faithful to their trust, fought till all were slain. Champagny also did his duty, and did

it nobly. He tried to fill tbe place of Havr6, wbo bad demanded tbe post of honor and of danger, and the places of Havre’s officers, who had likewise vanished from the scene. He was everywhere, striving to rally the flying cowards, rousing the burghers, pleading with the cavalry to make a stand by the horse- market; it was in vain. The citizens indeed did what they could; with the last of Oberstein’s Germans they stood before their beautiful Exchange, opposing a wall of flesh to the butchers, and went down in hundreds. Others fought along the streets, and died, sword or pike in hand, before their doors.

The carnage was frightful; the streets and the river changed their hue. In the square around which were ranged the splendid City Hall and the houses of the great guilds, many made their last resistance, till Vargas’ horsemen sabred and trampled them out of life. Others picked off the bandits from the windows and balconies of the buildings, till these were set on fire. Near a thousand houses were burned, with hundreds of their inmates. In a street near by, behind tbe town house, the burgomaster and many of his colleagues and neighbors checked the invaders for a time. There the corpses lay thick, and not all were men of Antwerp. Tbe margrave of the city was the last to fall here, perhaps the last to be slain, fighting, in Antwerp, but by no means the last to die. Women^md children, as well as men, were murdered, to the number of eight thousand.

For the citizens there was no escape: cooped up among their flaming homes, they fell sword in hand, or survived at the precarious mercy of their conquerors. Those who had come from without to defend them had more chance to get away,

WATER GATE.

especially if they were mounted and in full armor. Among these were Havre and several of his officers, who had wou no glory. Oberstein was drowned while making for a boat. Champagny, who had exposed his life for hours, when he could do no more, made his way to the river, and was received on a vessel of Orange.

INCIDENTS OF THE MASSACRE.

With nightfall the fight was practically over, but not the slaughter. The sack was more horrible than the combat, for the terrors and torments of the defenseless are worse than the wounds and death of those who can strike as well as suffer. The greed of these human bloodhounds was a positive mania. Treasure, when they secured it, was of little use to them, being in most cases speedily wasted or gambled away ; but to get it they would break every law of God and man, and shrink from no atrocity. Two ladies shut themselves in their cellar: the door was blown up with powder, the mother killed, the daughter strung up again and again, and let down when nearly strangled, to extort information which she could not give. The villains left her hanging: she was released ■ by a servant who chanced to enter, but her mind was gone. In another wealthy house, a wedding had unluckily been appointed for this wretched day. The feast which followed was rudely interrupted by the sounds of slaughter, but neither family nor guests could fly. When the robbers entered, money, jewels, whatever was portable, was given them, but all was not enough. The bridegroom was stabbed, then the bride’s mother and many more. The bride, a noted beauty, was seized, taken to the citadel, and locked in a room, while her abductor went off to seek more plunder. Her father snatched a sword from one of the Spaniards, and killed two or three of them before he was cut down. The bride, left alone in the fortress, tried to hang herself with a heavy gold chain. The kidnapper came back, stripped her bare, flogged her till the blood came in streams, and turned her into the street to die. These are but specimen outrages, two cases out of many. If the earth had opened to swallow the ruined and bleeding city, if the fires of heaven had descended to consume it while the massacre yet raged, it would have been a relief to the survivors, and scant justice to the fiends who laid it waste. ■

The murdering and pillaging went on for two days. Only about two hundred Spaniards fell. There were three thousand corpses in the streets, almost as many more in the houses, and another three thousand, it was believed, in the river. For destruction of life, the Spanish Fury, as it was called, was another St. Bartholomew. As to property, the value of six million crowns was stolen, and as much more burned. The criminals in the city jail, or such of them as could pay for their release, were set free by a captain who took his part of the plunder in this shape. The exchange was turned into a gambling-hell; one dragoon lost ten thousand dollars in a single day. Most of the finest buildings

were in ruins. All the public documents and other contents of the City Hall were destroyed. As the Estates of Brabant wrote to the States-General of the provinces, “Antwerp was but yesterday the chief ornament of Europe, the refuge of all nations, the source and supply of countless treasure, the nurse of arts and industry: she is now a gloomy

cavern, full of robbers and murderers, the enemies of God and man.” Yet Roda had the impudence to write to Philip, congratulating him on a “very great victory, and enormous damage to the city,” and praising Avila, Romero, and the rest, for their conduct. He knew what would please his master.

TREATY OF GHENT

Madrid might be gratified at the news, but the Netherlands felt quite differently. A howl of execration went up everywhere, and the deliberations of the congress at Ghent received fresh stimulus and a much sharper point. A letter from Orange, written just before the massacre, was read in a-, the glaring light that streamed from Antwerp, and helped the deputies to see their way. On November 8th, a treaty was concluded between the commissioners of the Prince, representing Holland and Zealand, and those of Brabant, Flanders,

Utrecht, and the other central and southern provinces. We need not enlarge on its provisions, for they were not long in force; but they bound all the provinces together in amity and alliance against ^{THE gre:at} tower, zierickzee. the Spaniards. Their expulsion was the first object: other matters were to be settled by the States-General. The past was to be forgotten, and religious persecution to cease. Hasty and imperfect as was this agreement, difficult as its

execution was to prove, it achieved the most important end accomplished by diplomacy in all these years.

Two military events in the same interest occurred at the same time. The fort or citadel of Ghent fell before the cannon of its besiegers, and Zierickzee, with the rest of Schouwen and the adjoining island, was regained by Count Hohenlo, acting for the prince. Another incident boded less well for liberty. Don John of Austria, the new governor, reached Luxemburg, on the southeast border of the provinces, on November 3d. He came disguised as a Moorish slave, with a single Italian cavalier and six soldiers.

DUTCH OFFICER.

DON JOHN.

HE new governor had been publicly acknowledged as a brother by the king, and as a son by the Emperor Charles V., though his mother, a German laundress, in one of her frequent furies,, denied this paternity. He was a gallant soldier, and had won great fame at the naval battle of Lepanto against the Turks. Young, adventurous, and romantic, he regarded the Netherlands merely as a stepping-stone to future and higher honors, not knowing that he was to find there little glory, much discomfort, and an early death. Such personal virtues as he had could be only an encumbrance in his new position, and of small profit to the friends of liberty, for Spain produced nothing but bigots, and Philip was not one to change his plans. To lie, to conquer, to tyrannize and persecute, were all he wanted of his viceroys.

The counsels of Orange to his new allies went straight to the point at issue. “Make no agreement with him,” he wrote to the States-General on November 30th, “unless the Spanish and other foreign troops have first been sent away. Beware, meantime, of disbanding your own forces, for that would be to put the knife into his hands to cut your throats. Remember, this is not play, and you have to choose between total ruin and manly self-defense.” He went on to say that all the old privileges must be maintained, the citadels destroyed, and all affairs managed by the body he was addressing.

This advice was heeded. Early in December deputies waited on Don John,

who was still at Luxemburg, and stated their case plainly. They demanded

that the troops be removed, the Ghent treaty maintained, and the States-General

assembled as of old. On these conditions they would accept him as governor,

and render due and loyal obedience. He agreed to send off the army, but insisted

that it should go by sea. This, as they soon found reason to suspect, meant a

descent on England, so they opposed it vehemently. While the matter was still

under discussion, the so-called Union of Brussels was drawn up in January,

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1577) ^and signed by all tlie chief men of the provinces, including Friesland and Groningen. It was a popular movement in the same interest, to get rid of the odious foreign soldiers.

DEMANDS OF THE ESTATES GRANTED.

More discussions, held at Huy in Liege on January 24th, ended in a violent quarrel. The governor lost his temper, and called the deputies rebels and traitors. From words they nearly came to blows, and all went to bed in a rage. But by next morning Don John had cooled down and bent to necessity. Yes, he would maintain the peace and the treaty, if they were not against the king’s authority and the Catholic religion. That was a large ijJ of which advantage might be taken later. For the present there was a new emperor in Germany, Spain was far away, and the provinces were united and resolute. Let him once get firmly in the saddle, and then he would see what he could do. Since it was necessary first to get there, he yielded every point, one after another. The troops should go by land, and the sanction of the local clergy was admitted a? proving the Treaty of Ghent satisfactory and harmless to king and Church An edict to this effect was signed by both parties on February 12th and 17th.

It was signed by both parties, but not by all. The deputies of Orange withheld their names. The prince was disappointed and dissatisfied. He would have demanded more, had he supposed that the viceroy would concede so much. He knew the value of Spanish promises, and had a bundle of intercepted letters proving bad faith. He complained that the Estates “had rushed upon the boar-spear.” Don John once installed, who could force him to expel the knaves who had ruined Antwerp ? That should have been done before the new man was admitted. Why should the Estates, which had outlawed these assassins before their worst •crime was committed, permit them to go with all their plunder, and even pay their wages too? If peace was really meant, why was his son, the young Count Buren, still kept a prisoner in Spain ? Holland and Zealand, though again alone, were united as one man. Better another war than be entrapped, deceived, destroyed.

ATTEMPTS TO BRIBE ORANGE.

But the governor was not for war, or not just then. On the contrary, he sincerely desired peace, and peace meant the conciliation of Orange. “ This is the pilot who guides the bark,” he wrote to Madrid. “He alone can destroy or save it. The greatest obstacles would disappear if he could be gained.” To this end, therefore, he bent his efforts, supposing, as many later statesmen have done, that every man has his price. His letters to Philip were extremely frank. “Your majesty’s name is as much abhorred and despised in the Netherlands as that of the Prince of Orange is loved and feared. I am negotiating with him, and giving him every security, for I see that everything depends on him. Matters have reached such a pass that we must make a virtue of necessity. If he lend

A WOMAN OF HOLLAND, WITH GOLD HEAD DRESS.

an ear to my proposals, it will be only on very advantageous conditions. We •will have to submit to these, rather than lose all.”

The prince, however, was not to be purchased. He told the viceroy’s envoys that he had had some experience of royal promises, and preferred to lay any

propositions before the Estates of Holland and Zealand, for whom he was acting. To Don John’s letters he replied, in language worthy of a patriot, that the chief thing in his eye was the welfare of the people, in comparison with which it was not his habit to consider his private and personal interests.

His prudent fears proved somewhat unjust to the Estates, which did not accept the new governor till the conditions were fulfilled, and to Don John, who was not so bad a man as his master. At least, he was honest enough with regard to the removal of the troops. This Zealand jewelry. _was delayed some time, for

there was difficulty in raising money for the expenses of the journey; but they marched in the end of April, and went straight on to Italy, leaving ten thousand Germans in the royal service. Meanwhile the viceroy was making himself agreeable at Louvain, and gaining a good deal of transient popularity. The departing

Spaniards gave up the Antwerp citadel to the Duke of Aerschot, who was prominent by virtue of his rank, but a weak character and an extremely poor patriot.

On May ist Don John was received at Brussels with much pomp and elaborate festivities; but he was not happy there. He did not like the country or the people ; he had been disappointed in all his schemes ; he believed there were plots against his liberty. He wrote dolefully to Madrid, and soon began to ask in vain to be relieved of an irksome post, in which he could do nothing. His gloom would have been yet greater, had he known that he was suspected of treacherous intentions, and caught in the meshes of a plot at once infernal and insane. Philip, guided by the secretary Perez, tried to elicit his inmost thoughts by confidential letters, hoping to find or manufacture some evidence of treason on the part of this too faithful servant; and Don John’s confident, Escovedo, was •decoyed to Spain within the year, and there murdered by order of the king, who rewarded the assassin with presents, pensions, and commissions in the army. Such was the detestable diplomacy of Spain.

THE VICEROY DISAPPOINTED.

In May the Governor made a last effort to come to terms with Orange. A long conference was held at Middleburg ; it accomplished nothing, for the vexed question of faith and worship was in the way. The prince was forced to say plainly to the envoys, “ We see that you intend to extirpate us. We have sub* mitted to you in good faith, and now you would compel us to maintain the Roman religion. That can be done only by destroying us.”

The viceroy now made up his mind to war. He issued a persecuting edict, and presided at the beheading of a poor tailor of Mechlin. Soon after, he seized the citadel of Namur, near the French border, and established himself there. This was a mistake, for it showed the obedient provinces that his intentions were treacherous and hostile, and set them against him, so that he was soon involved in an angry controversy with the Estates. He had already written the king that the people hated him and that he abhorred them.

Very different was the feeling toward Orange. Respected everywhere, he was deeply loved and absolutely trusted in Holland and Zealand. When he travelled, the people cried with joy, “Father William has come!” He was invited to Utrecht, and his visit led to an alliance with that city and province, on a basis of entire toleration.

Don John felt more and more the wretchedness of his false position. He was a soldier, with no especial gifts except for war, and he was in no position to fight. An attempt to possess himself of Antwerp citadel failed, and brought him deeper into discredit. Some troops of the states, led by Champagny’s nephew, defeated and drove off Van Ende’s regiment, which had taken part in the massacre. The other German soldiers barricaded themselves in the New Town, and

were bargaining -with the burghers, who offered them a hundred and fifty thousand crowns to leave, and were ready to double the amount. Suddenly rose a cry, “The Beggars are coming.” The ships of Orange, under Admiral Haul- tain, sailed up the Scheld, and fired two or three shots at the barricades. The Germans ran in a panic, and the merchants kept their money. This was on August ist. The mercenaries took refuge in Bergen and Breda, where they were besieged and forced to surrender. Their colonels, Fugger and Frondsberger, were given up with the towns. These villains had joined with the Spaniards in the Antwerp Fury, and ought to have been hanged for their crimes ; but the scaffold in those days generally found the wrong victims.

Great was the joy in Antwerp, delivered, for the first time in twelve years, from its foreign oppressors. The survivors of the massacre made haste to pull down the hated citadel. Citizens of every rank, ten thousand of them or more, labored day and night till all the side fronting the city was in ruins. Then they slept in peace, for the fortress could no longer shelter robbers and murderers. In a cellar was found Alva’s statue, which Requesens had removed. It was dragged in triumph through the streets, insulted, defaced, destroyed. Most of it was turned into cannon for the national defense ; bits of it were kept as relics of the detested past.

ORANGE AT BRUSSELS.

As Don John had written, Orange was the chief man in the country. Though only stadtholder of two small provinces, it was his counsels that guided affairs throughout the Netherlands, so far as they were guided with wisdom or to any useful end. The Estates-General now invited him to Brussels, which he had left on Alva’s approach, eleven j^ears before. In all that interval lie had been a proscribed rebel under sentence of death. Of late the tyrant’s vicegerent had offered him any terms he chose to name : he had refused, for he was not fighting for his own hand. Now the governor dared not leave the citadel of Namur ; the country was practically in rebellion, and even the great nobles, rigid Catholics as they were, admitted that nothing could be done without the heretic outlaw. Champagny, Aerschot, and other envoys went to Holland to beg his presence at the capital. He told them he could not go without the consent of his free provinces ; and this was not easily won. Setting out almost alone, he received an ovation at Antwerp, aud another at Brussels on September 23 d.

His first work was to stop the negotiations with the governor. The envoys of the Estates had made a treaty at Namur: Orange, whose word was law for the moment, said it must not be ratified, and insisted on other and more stringent terms. Don John must give up the Namur citadel and all the forts, disband all his troops, retire to Luxemburg, restore all confiscated property, release prisoners, and procure the immediate return from Spain of Count Buren, the prince’s son. The viceroy, of course, could not accept these humiliating conditions; so war was

IN THE JEWS' QUARTER, AMSTERDAM.

declared. He wished it to be deferred a little, but the Estates, knowing that he was constantly receiving reinforcements from the south and east, would allow no more than three days of truce. To set themselves right before the world, they issued a pamphlet in seven languages, stating their case, and adding intercepted letters to show the governor’s bad faith. He replied in a similar publication, giving his side of the story.

Two factions at this time divided the Catholic provinces. The plain people were attached to Orange and glad to follow his lead: but the nobles, jealous of his rising power, held other views. Most of these were men of small ability, less principle, and no real patriotism. Till lately they had been the willing servants of tyranny. Carried along perforce on the current of events, all that Aerschot, his son Havre, and others like them cared about was their own greatness and the means of increasing it. Orange trusted them “as he would adders fanged,” knowing that their services to liberty could be but slight and casual. 'They had sent an envoy to Vienna in August, to offer a sort of doubtful sovereignty to the Archduke Matthias, brother of the Emperor Rudolph and a boy of twenty years. He was allured by their proposals, and early in October set forth with a few attendants, disguised and in the night. He was received at Antwerp by Orange, who, through his own management and that of his ally the English queen, had accepted the post of lieutenant-general, thus turning what might lave be,en defeat for himself and his cause into a step forward. He was also elected Ruward of Brabant, an ancient office, long vacant, and nearly equal to that of dictator. Of Flanders he had several times been stadtholder, and might resume the place almost at will. Matthias, when formally accepted as governor-general, was but a puppet in the hands of his subjects and their real ruler.

RISING AT GHENT.

His inauguration was deferred for several months, during which Ghent became a scene of strife. Aerschot, appointed by the State Council Governor of Flanders, repaired on October 20th to that city, where he was far from welcome. It contained many Protestants, more lovers of liberty, and not a few who would now be communists or anarchists, always ready for revolt. A secret society of twenty thousand members was pledged to rise at the call of leaders who knew the duke too well to love or trust him. The chief of these were two men of rank, whose sentiments at every point were the extreme reverse of those held by most of the nobles. Ryhove and Imbize were young, restless, radical, vehement haters of Spain and Rome, lovers of the prince and popular liberty, and ready for any desperate deed.

Aerschot’s manners did not lessen his unpopularity in Ghent, and an intercepted letter (whether genuine or forged) of the old Blood-Councillor Hessels hastened the outbreak, for it intimated that the duke was in the interest of Philip

and Don John, and would soon “circumvent the scandalous heretic with all his adherents.” The reactionists grew loud and threatening; the old charters should never be restored, they said, and those who talked of privileges would get halters. Ryhove visited Orange at Antwerp early in November, and asked for help: the prince could not openly favor so irregular a project, but allowed it to be understood that its success would not displease him. That night the conspirators rose in Ghent, arrested Aerschot and the leaders' of his party, and established a provisional government, with Ryhove at its head. No blood was shed, though the duke’s person was attacked, and manfully shielded by the patriot captain at the risk of his own life.

This local revolution caused much excitement through the country, and served as an example for similar efforts. It was too irregular for the authorities to approve; even Orange found it necessary to offer some mild censure, and to ask for the release of the prisoners. Aerschot was freed, but the rest wer( kept in prison, whence Hessels and another were taken out only to be hanged ? year later.

RIVAL GOVERNORS.

On December 7th, the States-General declared Don John to be no longer governor, but a public enemy, and his native supporters rebels and traitors. Three days later a new Union was signed at Brussels, on a basis of equality between the two religions. So far, all had gone to the prince’s mind and after his heart. His wise counsels, his mighty influence, had done their work at last Young Egmont and the other Catholic nobles assented, or at least submitted with professed cheerfulness, to this triumph of liberal statesmenship. Protestantism, supposed to be suppressed long ago in Brabant and Flanders, reared its head again; the Calvinists came out of their hiding-places, and praised God in their own language without fear. An alliance was soon made with Elizabeth of England, who agreed to lend troops and money. Matthias was to be governor- general, taking an oath of allegiance to the king (this fiction was still preserved, as before by Holland when it was alone in rebellion) and to the States-General. Orange was to retain his post of Ruward, and to be lieutenant-general. The archduke accepted the conditions on December 17th, and a month later was installed with the usual processions and spectacles at Brussels. It was a very empty honor on which he entered, and a merely nominal part that he played in Netherlands history for nearly four years.

Don John’s wrath and disgust were freely expressed in a long letter to the emperor, whom he asked to recall his intruding brother. Princes, he said, ought to stand by each other in keeping their subjects in order, since “liberty is a contagious disease, which goes on infecting one after another, if the cure be not promptly applied.” But he did more than write and complain; he was gathering an army at Luxemburg. Mansfeld had brought troops from France, and others

came from the south under Prince Alexander of Parma, a nephew and former schoolmate of Don John. The Spaniards had come back, and would soon be heard from after their old fashion. Mondragon and Mendoza were in the provinces again, with over twenty thousand veterans. Thus backed, and with a lieutenant who was soon to rival or eclipse his fame, the most admired soldier of Europe might be expected to carve out a career more creditable to himself, and more painful to his rebellious subjects, than had been his for the last fourteen inglorious months. On January 25th, 1578, he put forth a proclamation in French, German, and Flemish, summoning all to return to their allegiance and

ST. ANTHONY’S WEIGH-HOUSE, AMSTERDAM.

repeating his intention to maintain the rights of Philip and the pope against all rebels and heretics. It was no idle threat. As in 1572, the advance of freedom was to be followed by disasters, and the work to be done over again or broken to pieces and left past mending.

It would be too much to expect that a great statesman and a model patriot, should be also a mighty warrior. The place of Orange was in the council- chamber rather than the field; and he had neither the disposition nor the power

of a tyrant. He did what lie could, but lie could not repress base jealousies, nor ignore rank tbat bad little merit to support it; be could not make traitors loyal nor cowards brave. The army of the States was about equal to the enemy in numbers, but inferior in every other respect. Most of the men were mercenaries; the officers, except Champagny and Bossu, who commanded the centre, were not of eminent ability, and few of them were devoted to the cause. Incredible as it may appear, and impossible as it would be under stricter discipline, the three chief commanders, Lalain of the infantry, Melun of the cavalry, and La Motte of the artillery, were actually absent from their posts, attending a wedding, when the armies met. They were justly charged with treachery.

If the States’ forces were half-hearted in this business, the Spaniards were not. They enjoyed also the consolations and encouragements of religion—of a certain kind. The pope had rushed to their support after his manner, proclaiming this a holy war, offering full pardon of all sins to those who took up arms ov. the right side, and—which was much more expensive—authorizing Don John to tax or use church property. How much the Catholic officers on the other side were afflicted by these thunders is left to the imagination; perhaps such, denouncements of Heaven’s wrath or favor were growing a little stale.

DISASTER AT GEMBLOURS.

The chief officers present with the rebel army were De Goignies, who had at least experience, and Havr6. On January 31st they turned from the nighbor- hood of Namur and marched in a northwesterly direction towards Gemblours. Most of the cavalry, about fifteen hundred, were at the rear, under Egmont and La Marck, a relative of the late admiral. These horsemen might better have been at the bottom of the sea, for they did vastly more harm than good. Don John pursued, with his banner bearing a cross and the Latin motto, “In this sign I vanquished the Turks, in this I will overcome the heretics.” His cavalry were in the van; some of these, with a thousand foot, under Gonzaga and Mondragon, were detained to harass the enemy’s rear, which was moving, not in the best order, ou the edge of a wet and perilous ravine. While the skirmishing was going on, Parma came up and saw his opportunity. With the foremost horse he floundered through the ravine and attacked in flank and rear. Egmont did his duty, but he did it almost alone.

The States’ cavalry, seized with panic, thought only of escape, and galloped through or over their friends in front, throwing the centre in hopeless confusion. Goignies tried in vain to rally his men ; without making the least resistance, they cast down their arms and followed the cavalry, though with far less chance of saving their worthless bodies. For an hour and a half Parma and his small force, reckoned at from six to twelve hundred, rode about hacking and hewing, with scarcely a man hurt. It was a massacre, rot a battle. Eight or ten thousand

perished—half the army that had been hired to fight for freedom. Six hundred prisoners were taken, and all were hanged or drowned. All the cannon and munitions of war, with thirty-four standards, fell into the hands of the Spaniards.

AMSTERDAM WON.

This victory of Parma’s (for it was his alone) profited the governor less than might have been expected. Louvain and other small towns opened their

SLAUGHTER OF THE STATES’ FORCES AT GEMBOURS.

gates to him, and several more were taken by force and cruelly punished; but these included no place of great importance. It was midwinter, and the roads

were in no condition for military movements. The patriots laid their late defeat. at the door of absent, incompetent, or treacherous commanders. There was much indignation at Brussels, and Orange with difficulty prevented an attack upon certain nobles. Amsterdam, the chief city and capital of Holland, had all this time refused to join the confederacy. Most of its people were Protestants, but the magistrates were not, and the monks were numerous and active. Ever since the Spanish garrison was removed, the town had been looked up m with angry and covetous eyes by the zealous liberals of its own province and of Zealand. Orange, whose love for orderly measures and respect for local liberty were perhaps carried- to excess in so turbulent a time, had forbidden any attack from without. Others,, who were less scrupulous, engaged in frequent plots to take the city; and in Kovember, 1577,an enterprise projected by Sonoy ended in bloodshed and failure. At length, through the good offices of Utrecht, a treaty was made on February 8th, 1578. By this the Calvinists were allowed to hold their services outside the walls, and to bury their dead within them. Though this measure of toleration was less than that granted in the central and southern provinces, it brought Amsterdam over to the national cause; and this gain was thought to more than match whatever Don John’s arms had won.

But the thoroughgoing Reformers within the city were not satisfied till they could control the magistrates and the militia. Bardez, a warm patriot, planned, a model rising, and secured the help of Sonoy. On May 28th he went to the council-house with others, to complain of their grievances. At noon one of them, appeared on the balcony and raised his hat. At this signal a sailor raised a flag on the square and called on all who loved the Prince of Orange to follow him. Instantly the streets were full of armed men. Bardez arrested the magistrates,, while parties went here and there and secured the monks. The prisoners were taken to the wharves and placed upon a ship, the mob shouting, “ Hang them! ” They thought they were to be drowned, in vengeance for their cruelties; one of the council refused a parcel sent by his wife, saying that he would need no- more clean shirts in this world. But no violence was done ; they were simply landed on a dyke and told not to return to the city at their peril. New magistrates were installed, the train-bands filled with trusty patriots, amd the churches opened to the Protestants. Amsterdam was now securely on the side of freedom.

A similar rising, not quite so peaceably conducted, occurred the next day at Harlem. Holland and Zealand were now united, and the last vestige of the Spanish occupation gone. In these provinces the prince had to defend the rights, of Catholic worship, which the people were minded to disregard or deny. In Flanders and Brabant he protected the equal liberty, so recently won, of those who believed as he did. The burgomaster of Antwerp came to complain that fifteen Reformed ministers were preaching in the city, and asked him to suppress the scandal. “Do you think,” said William with some dry humor, “that I, at

this late day, can do what the Duke of Alva could not with all his power ? ” It was far from his desire to do anything of the kind. He wished to see no more meddling with private consciences, but absolute and equal liberty of belief and worship.. The Anabaptists were still generally hated, and they held some strange notions regarding government: Orange was their only champion. He rebuked the authorities of Middelburg for disturbing these people, and ordered that they be let alone.

Meantime a native envoy had returned from Spain and started some perfectly useless negotiations. It was soon apparent to both parties that the controversy could be decided only by the sword. Philip had sent his viceroy nearly two million dollars, and promised him two hundred thousand a month. Orange was raising funds by equal taxation, except that Holland and Zealand, which till lately had carried the whole war, were left to contribute what they could or would This righteous exemption worked well, for they raised more than their share for the common need.

A BARREN CAMPAIGN. .

Military preparations went on during the spring and early summer, but little came of them. Don John had near thirty thousand men ; the Estates had about twenty thousand, under Bossu and the Huguenot La Noue. The well- grounded feeling against the nobles had subsided or been disregarded, for Aer- schot and the rest were still in high places. Duke Casimir of the Palatinate, with twelve thousand Germans, was stalled for some weeks near Zutphen, for lack of money to pay his troops, who would not advance without it. The two armies faced each other for a while on the borders of Limburg, Antwerp, and South Brabant, east of the chief cities, but only the outposts were engaged. On August ist there was a fight at Rijnemants, in which, strange to say, the Spaniards were defeated with the loss of a thousand. After this, as ofien before it, the viceroy offered battle, but it was refused. Bossu was much blamed for this conduct: the patriots remembered that he had loug been an officer of Philip and Alva, and doubted his fidelity ; but he was probably wise in declining a general engagement with a force so much superior to his own. Don John soon retired to Namur, having won no new laurels. Casimir arrived on August 26th, but there was to be no more fighting just then.

In its stead came confused intrigues and profitless diplomacy, on which we have no need to dwell. The Duke d’Aleneon, whom Motley calls “the most despicable personage who ever entered the Netherlands,” came with professions of friendship to Orange and the Estates, but with designs to find for himself a throne. Here was a third pretender—for we must not forget poor Matthias, a harmless youth, often in tears at the slights that were put upon his mock dignity. The real ruler of the provinces was one who cared little for titles, who had no selfish schemes, whose arts were all employed for the welfare of his country.

The north, for the present, was united, peaceful and safe. Count John of Nassau, the generous and faithful brother of Orange, was now governor of Gel+ derland.

In Brabant and Flanders the Silent Prince was thwarting the plots of enemies and false friends, and doing his best to enforce mutual toleration and repress

CHILDREN OF THE PROTESTANT ORPHANAGE, IN AMSTERDAM, THEIR DRESS HALF RED

AND HALF BLACK.

the wretched bigotry which cursed the land and blocked the advance of freedom. Champagny and other nobles offered a formal protest against the licensing of

heresy : the people of Brussels rose with cries of “ Paris” and “ St. Bartholomew,” and threw these petitioners into prison.

DEATH OF DON JOHN.

In the south, baffled ambition and helpless rage were eating out the heart of the conqueror of Le panto. Philip’s promises were not kept, the army was unpaid. Alencon had declared war against him from Mons; the States’ troops threatened him on the other side. Outwitted by Orange, hated by his rebellious subjects, unjustly suspected by his royal brother, his friend Escovedo murdered, his soaring plans all brought to naught, he sat iu his camp near Namur and mused on the vanity of human hopes. He wrote bitterly to the king, “The work here is enough to destroy any constitution and any life ; ” and to a friend in Italy, “They have cut off our hands, and we have now nothing for it but to stretch out our heads also to the axe ” In another letter he complained that he was kept in ignorance of his master’s intentions, and left, crying out for help in vain, “ to pine away till his last breath.”

These gloomy predictions were.soon fulfilled. On October ist, 1578, Don John died of a fever, or, as some thought, of poison. He was but thirty-three, and had qualities which, with an another education, might have made him useful > but the position of Spaniards in that age was so fatally false, so hostile to liberty, progress, and real civilization, that the removal of any of them who meddled with foreign lands was no calamity—except as be might make way for one yet worse.

HARD TIMES.

LEXANDER FARNESE, Prince of Parma, the next of Philip’s governors, had the advantage of being already on the spot. He was a few months younger than his late uncle, Don John, whom he equalled in valor and far surpassed in ability. The great-grandson of a pope and grandson of an emperor, he seemed born for high destinies : his ancestor, Paul III., had predicted for him a great career in arms. His father was a distinguished soldier; almost cradled in battles and sieges, his chief delight was war. Enough of his youth was passed in Spain to receive the stamp of its indomitable chivalry and its ruthless bigotry. He made acquaintance with the Netherlands during his mother’s regency there. While unoccupied at Parma, he varied the tedium of domestic life by midnight duels with strangers in the streets, till his disguise was penetrated and this amusement stopped. At Lepanto, receiving from his uncle several galleys in the front rank, he boarded the Turkish treasure-ship,. led the assault in person, slew with his own hand its captain and many more, and took this vessel and another, with an immense booty. Maturer years, without lessening his courage, had taken off its edge of rashness, and brought a grim kind of cold and resolute wisdom. He was no longer a knight-errant, but he meant to be a conqueror.

During the lifetime of his wife, the Princess Maria of Portugal, who had been taken to Brussels for her wedding, he trusted his safety in this world and the next to her prayers. After her death, his religion consisted of a rigid attendance at daily mass and a determination to put down all blackguard heretics. He stood by the principles of his order, which were chiefly the Church of Rome and the absolutism of his uncle Philip: humanity, common justice, and popular rights had of course no place in his scheme. For the rest, he was temperate, dignified, and distant. Don John, under more favoring circumstances, might

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have been loved by some; Parma was one to be feared by all. Even in his looks there was something of threat as well as of command. If trained under a different system and to ideas the opposite of those he held most firmly, lie might have been a great and useful man. Trained as he had been, he was the most dangerous foe that Dutch liberty had yet encountered or was likely to encounter. To a task more delicate and difficult than that of Alva he brought qualities far finer than Alva’s dense brutality. “He knew precisely the work which Philip required, and felt himself to be precisely the workman that had so long been wauted. Cool, incisive, fearless, artful, he united the unscrupulous audacity of a condottiere with the wily patience of a Jesuit. He could coil unperceived through unsuspected paths, could strike suddenly and sting mortally. He came prepared not only to smite the Netherlander in the open field,

’ but to cope with them in tortuous policy, to outwatch and outweary them in the game to which his impatient predecessor had fallen a baffled victim. To circumvent at once both their negotiators and their men-at-arms was his appointed task.”

‘ CONFUSION IN THE PROVINCES.

He found the central and southern provinces in a condition more favorable to his schemes than to the ends of liberty. The old religious feuds were rampant, the Pacification of Ghent was slighted and disregarded. Some Catholics stood firm for the national cause; others, including the nobles, were more than half ready to make their peace with the king. Bands of “Malcontents” roved about in search of plunder. The Protestants, not finding the toleration which had been promised, were sore and angry. Four armies, idle and unpaid, remained in the country, and contributed nothing to its prosperity and peace. Two foreign intermeddlers of high degree, D’Alengon and John Casimir, made matters worse by their foolish and selfish intrigues, until their departure in the winter of 1578-79. Ghent, always factious and turbulent, disgraced the cause of freedom by its lawless disorders. Ryhove took Blood-Councillor Hessels and another dignitary out of prison on October 4th, carried them beyond the gates, and hanged them. Violent riots occurred; the churches were attacked, images and ornaments destroyed, and the Catholics driven from the town. Brussels offered remonstrances on these proceedings: Orange visited Ghent at the end of the year, and strove to restore order. The second city of the provinces had fallen from her high estate: “ grass was growing and cattle were grazing in the streets.”

Outside the walls of the various cities there was still less security for property or life. The Malcontents under Montigny, the disbanded troops of Alengon and the others, swept the land bare. Havre complained that “they demanded the most delicate food, and drank champagne and burgundy by the pailful.” The Germans who had been brought by Casimir, after coolly asking

Parma to pay their wages, departed, singing songs of which Motley has given us a specimen:

O have you been in Brabant, fighting for the States ?

O have you brought back anything except your broken pates ?

O I have been in Brabant, myself and all my mates.

We’ll go no more to Brabant, unless our brains are addle.

We’re coming home on foot, we went there in the saddle ;

For there’s neither gold nor glory got in fighting for the States.

This was true enough in their case, for they had had no fighting at all.

BRIBERY. THE SOUTH LOST.

The governor, as has been said, was a master of arts no less than of arms. He was now fishing with a golden hook, and most of the nobles were ready enough to take the bait. These men, who held high commissions in the States’ army and had been entrusted with the government of towns and fortresses, were jealous of Orange and incapable of real patriotism. La Motte was the first to be bought, and helped in the purchase of others. Montigny, Lalain, Havr£ Egmont, and many more, betrayed the cause in which they had enlisted, and went back to the more congenial service of tyranny. There was much bargaining for higher prices, and some scandalous exposures of their greed were made. The prior Sarrasin, who was Parma’s chief agent in this business of bribery and corruption, was rewarded with the richest abbey in the Netherlands, and afterwards made Archbishop of Cambray.

The secession of these venal nobles involved that of the southern or Walloon provinces. Artois, Hainault, Lille, Douay, and Orchies (now mostly in France) signed a league of their own on January 6th, 1579, and the Malcontent chiefs and their followers returned to their old allegiance three months later. The Estates in vain appealed to feelings which did not exist, and the few patriots of the south strove in vain to check the backward tide. The last rising in these parts occurred at Arras late in 1578. Gosson, an eloquent and wealthy lawyer, called his confederates to arms, imprisoned the magistrates, and held the city for three days. Sarrasin bribed their captain, Ambrose, to desert his post; the tables were soon turned, and the leaders of the insurrection brought to the gallows or the block, before the government at Brussels could interfere to save them. One of these, Bertoul, had kept a gibbet in his house to remind him of tbe death which he expected. Ambrose was afterwards caught and hanged by the Estates for his treachery.

Thus was the south lost to the cause of liberty. Flanders and Brabant were for some time to be disputed territories. In the north, Friesland, Overyssel, and Drenthe were weak and doubtful. Between these and North Brabant lay Gelder- land and Utrecht. Through the agency of Count John of Nassau, these were

■firmly joined to Holland and Zealand in January, 1579, by the Union of Utrecht. Here, a little later, the glorious edifice of the Dutch Republic was to rise and remain, when the once rich and free cities of the south were given over to reaction and ruin.

On one of the first days of 1579 Parma took the fort of Carpen, near

MONT ALB AN’S TOWER, AMSTERDAM.

Maestricht, and hanged the garrison and their captain, who had dealt the same fate to Philip’s officer there a year before. On March 2d he attacked Antwerp, and was driven from beneath the walls, leaving four hundred dead. On March 12th he laid siege to Maestricht. During this spring much negotiation went

on among the Estates of the different provinces, and Orange did his best to hinder the Walloons from deserting the national cause, but in vain. The question of religion not being at issue, Philip and his viceroy could promise whatever was asked by Hainault, Artois, and the rest—restoration of their ancient privileges and the removal of the foreign troops. To one who has no conscience, promises cost nothing; and these were made only to be broken.

EGMONT’S TREASON.

On May 28th a Catholic festival caused a riot at Antwerp; some violence was done, and the priests were driven out of the city. They were recalled next day, on the remonstrance of Orange, who threatened to resign his posts if such conduct were allowed. A like disturbance took place at Utrecht. On June 4th, young Egmont, who was still an officer of the States and had command of 9 regiment at Brussels, made himself notorious by an abortive attempt at treason, At dawn his men seized one of the gates, killed the guard stationed there, ancl took possession of the great square. This was all that he accomplished, for those whom he sent to take the palace were arrested, and he and his troops were soon prisoners in the square. The citizens rose, barricaded every street, and hurled insults at the traitor, asking him if he were looking for his father’s head, which had been cut off in that place eleven years before. For twenty-four hours he and his regiment were kept there, abashed and starving. On the next day, the anniversary of the elder Egmont’s death, they were allowed to go, instead of being punished as they deserved. The count, after some useless lying and much dickering, formally entered the service of his father’s murderer. In a former chapter it has been told how his life was ingloriously ended on the field of Ivry.

Meantime Maestricht was vigorously besieged, on the most scientific principles. It had a population of thirty-four thousand, with several thousand refugees from the surrounding country, who were made to assist in the defense. The garrison consisted of a thousand men, and the burgher guard of twelve hundred. Orange did all he could to rouse the Estates in its behalf, but the response was scanty. He appointed the Huguenot La Noue to take command, but the city had been so closely invested from the start that there was no getting in or out. It had strong walls and brave citizens, but these could not stand forever against Parma’s cannon and twenty thousand veterans—a number gradually increased, as the siege went on, by full half as many more. The Bishop of Liege, anxious to help the most Catholic King, sent four thousand coal-miners, accustomed to working underground: on the other side the peasants, familiar with pick and spade, were employed in digging and countermining.

SIEGE AND DEFENSE OF MAESTRICHT.

Parma had built and fortified two bridges across the river. He first attacked the gate of Tongres, and after spending six thousand shots on the wall in that

part, found that another of great strength had been erected within. The miners, starting from a distance, approached this gate, and were met, to their sorrow, by the defenders beneath the surface. Women as well as men labored at this dark task, and had their companies and officers, called mine-mistresses. There were daily conflicts in these gloomy vaults : the assailants were encountered with boiling water, with fire and smoke, so that, after losing some hundreds, they were forced to give up their first mine. They dug another, beginning still further away, and, this time eluding the citizens, managed to blow up a part of the wall and its tower, so that the moat was filled. These ruins the Spaniards seized on April 3d, and by their means attempted to enter the city, but were not able. After a fierce battle, each party held its own.

A new mine was prepared in this direction, and the gate of Bois-le-Duc,. chosen as the second object of attack, was battered for two weeks. Having made these preparations, Parma ordered a general assault for April 8th. The Spaniards rushed to the breach, and were met by every conceivable weapon and the whole population of the town. The peasants wielded their flails with as terrible vigor as did the Taborites of Bohemia a hundred and fifty years before: women and children were armed with burning brands, pails of hot water, and tarred hoops to throw over the heads of their foes. Many hundreds had fallen, when a messenger appeared at each gate, shouting that the other had been carried. The lie inspired the assailants to renewed exertions, but did not appal the defenders. The explosion at the Tongres gate came, but not at the right spot and moment; for once Parma’s plans had gone amiss. Five hundred human forms went up, to fall mangled corpses—but they were those of Spaniards. Strange to say, not a townsman was hurt by this. Forty-five years later, an extraordinary relic was found far beneath the surface. Ortiz, a captain of engineers, had been blown up from the vault he had prepared, had fallen into it, and there been buried under the ruins. His bones were still “clad in complete armor, the helmet and cuirass sound, his gold chain around his neck, and his mattock and pick-axe at his feet”—the ghastly remains of one literally “hoist with his own petard.”

Even this frightful accident did not discourage the besiegers. They fought like the devils they were: the citizens resisted like men and women defending their homes and their lives. When four thousand of Parma’s men, one-sixth of them officers, were killed or badly wounded, his lieutenants begged the general to stop the assault. He refused, and was for rushing into the thick of the fray himself. They tried to hold him back, but in vain, till one near him reminded him of the king’s orders to exercise prudence as well as valor. If he fell, who could take his place ? He submitted with a frown, and the trumpets sounded the recall. Maestricht had beaten back the royal army.

The siege now became a blockade. A complete wall, strengthened by sixteen forts, was built around the doomed city, and defied succor or interruption

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE TAKING OF MAKSTRICHT.

from without Orange had with much difficulty raised a little army of seven thousand. Under his brother and Hohenlo, it marched to the relief of Maestricht, but soon saw that relief was impossible: the town could not be reached.

DESPERATE HEROISM.

The prince strove to obtain a truce, through the aid of a conference then in session at Cologne, but Parma’s agent there had his instructions, and no truce could be had. The gate looking westward toward Brussels was next attacked. Here the townsmen had raised a fort with three walls. Under a steady cannonade and a fierce assault the fort and the three walls fell, and a thousand or more of the brave citizens fell with them. Their last defense was a demilune with a deep ditch, behind this gate, and a breastwork behind the demilune. This they resolved to hold with their last breath. The garrison, now reduced to four hundred men, few of them free from wounds, began to talk of surrender: but the burghers threatened them with death, and made them see that they had better die fighting than as traitors or prisoners.

There was one coward in the heroic town: he escaped to the enemy, and revealed the condition of affairs within. The moat was wide and deep, but Parma bridged it under the guns of the demilune, and led tbe way and the dangerous work in person. He probably excused his rashness, and his disobedience to the king’s commands, on the ground that his men would not perform so desperate a task unless he were with them. Young Berlaymont, who had lately succeeded his father, and many other officers, fell at his side, but the viceroy seemed to bear a charmed life. If the town had possessed a marksman expert enough to pick off its worst foe, it might have been saved, and the Netherlands have had a different history. As it was, Parma stood there untouched till the bridge was finished and ten cannon drawn across it.

The new battery began to play, a new mine was fired beneath the demilune, another furious assault was made on the ruins. Slowly the defenders, after prodigies of valor, were driven back and took refuge behind their breastwork. Here every man who could stand and strike made his post, not leaving it by day or night. Their wives and children brought them what was needed to sustain life. They ate and slept upon the ground—slept, alas, too soundly. All that was left for them was to strengthen their breastwork and hold it to the end.

The end could not be far off: the city was past saving, unless by miracle. Yet when Parma, now sick of a fever, sent them a herald to praise their valor and urge them to surrender at discretion, they spurned the message. Soon after, a note from Orange reached them, no man knew how, promising help if they could hold out another fortnight—though none could guess how help might reach them, environed as they were by their enemies.

The value of this strange promise was not to be tested. Parma, indignant that his army made so little progress while he could not lead them, ordered an assault for June 29th, the day of St. Peter and St. Paul. The elder of these apostles, he said, would open the Brussels gates with his hey, the other would smite the heretics with his terrible sword. Not to ask too much of heaven, a close watch was set that night upon the crumbling wall from without; and as it proved, human means were quite sufficient to accomplish a task that would hardly have been congenial to glorified spirits. One of the guards, looking about him in the starlight, found a hole in the wall that had been overlooked by those inside. He easily made it larger, crawled through, and advancing cautiously, saw that Maestricht lay at the mercy of its foes. Its exhausted defenders were prone upon the ground; the sentinels had fallen asleep like the rest; not a creature but himself was stirring in the place.

THE MASSACRE.

It was quick work for the spy to return and tell his officers what he had seen, and for them to improve their opportunity. The tired burghers awaked too late, to find their foes upon them. Through the rest of that night, all the next day, and for two days more, the slaughter went on. Some six thousand were murdered, of whom more than a fourth, by the accounts of the murderers, were women. To escape a fate worse than death, some clasped their babies and sprang into the river Meuse, their only place of refuge. Every violence that human beings can practice on their fellows was committed. When all was over, the survivors were driven away or allowed to leave. A great booty was taken. The town, which had been prosperous through its manufactures of cloth, was depopulated and ruined. Within the year, say the native historians, most of the buildings were destroyed, to furnish fuel for the soldiers and tramps who were the only residents.

Tappin, who had conducted the defense with signal courage and ability, was not among the murdered; he was taken prisoner, and soon died of his wounds. Parma’s recovery was hastened by his success. He had himself carried into the city, through streets full of mutilated corpses, and into a church, where he gave thanks to the saints for a result which he profanely ascribed to their aid. Such was the Italian and Spanish idea of piety.

Many blamed William the Silent as the cause of a misfortune which he had done all in his power to avert Slanders against him were industriously circulated, and one was sent to the assembly of the Estates. The clerk paused as soon as the character of the letter became apparent, and some cried out in anger, but Orange, who was presiding, insisted on reading the whole of it aloud himself. Then he said, as he had said before, that, if people took that view, he would retire from public life and leave the country, rather than have it injured by

his means. There was but one answer to make to such a suggestion, and it was promptly and heartily made, as often elsewhere. Every one in the land who had a sane head and a sound heart knew that the prince was above reproach and indispensable.

TROUBLES AT GHENT.

About this time his presence was again required at Ghent, where affairs were in a sad condition. The ranting preacher Dathenus, a demagogue and former monk, had, in William’s own mild words, “been denouncing me as a man without religion or fidelity and full of ambition, with other statements hardly becoming his cloth, which I do not think it worth while to answer, further than that I willingly refer myself to the judgment of all who know me.”

This he cared little for, though aware that foolish noises may disturb and pervert unsettled minds. But Dathenus' friend, Imbize, had gained undue power in the city, and become much too active in stirring up disorder and sedition. As far back as March, the mob, at his instigation, had been abusing and plundering Catholics, conduct which drew a sharp reproof from Orange.

ALEXANDER FARNESE, PRINCE OF PARMA.

From a portrait in the gallery oj Versailles.

After this Imbize joined Dathenus in heaping loud and vile abuse upon the prince, whom he called a traitor, a disguised Papist, and so on. On July 25th this man arrested such of the magistrates and chief •citizens as were not to his mind, set up a government of his own, and allowed

Datlaenus to issue a pamphlet, stating that these measures were meant to hinder “the traitor” from coming to Ghent and bringing again his abominable “religious peace,” which was merely a contrivance in the interest of popish abuses and Spanish tyranny.

Folly like this, when it passes from private words to public deeds, requires to be attended to. Orange repaired to Ghent, where he easily overturned the new mock-government, and saw that au election was properly held. The conspiracy collapsed before him, and the chief conspirators made haste to run away. Imbize was dragged from his hiding-place by one of his own followers, received a lecture from the man he had denounced and defied, and was agreeably surprised to find that he was not to be hanged. He and Dathenus soon joined Duke Casimir in Germany, and remained to enjoy the society of that congenial mind: they were never missed at home. Orange, having pacified Ghent, consented to add to his other responsibilities -a post he had several times declined, that of Governor of Flanders.

MORE OFFERS TO ORANGE.

He had already neglected another opportunity to enrich himself. Responsible tools of the king, who dared not make their offers to the great rebel’s face, sounded his friends and relatives. He could have anything, everything—his son, his old estates, payment of all his debts and past expenses, which were huge, and even liberty to worship as lie pleased; if he preferred to leave the country, a million beyond all this. A German noble pledged his honor that these were not every-day Spanish promises, made to be broken, but should be kept to the letter. If the terms were not high enough, what would his Excellency have ? Let him only name his price. Unfortunately for Philip, he had no price: his ambition was not of that familiar kind. He said to the States-General, “They claim that I am the cause of this war. You can judge of that. If I am in the way of peace, I can get out of the way. It may be best to select some one else to guide your affairs. If so, I will serve him loyally.” It seems as clear in his case as in that of Washington that his was no vulgar and selfish ambition. These are the two historic names that stand, above all others, for pure and undiluted patriotism.

We need not burden our pages with the tedious and useless deliberations of the Cologne Congress. It sat from May to November, 1579, nominally in the interest of peace, exchanged a vast number of compliments, arguments, and writings, and consumed an immense quantity of solid and liquid substance. Thus we are told that the Bishop of Wurtzburg (we may hope with the aid of his household) swallowed “eighty hogsheads of Rhenish wine and twenty great casks of beer.” These proceedings cost the Netherlands a good deal of money, and brought them no advantage whatever. They demanded, as hitherto, that

the foreign troops should go, that all confiscated property be restored, that the union and status of 1576 be recognized, that offices be held by natives only, and that the Reformed and Lutheran services be permitted wherever then held. Philip’s envoys, of course, insisted on absolute obedience to him and the exclusion of all worship but that of Rome. The secret orders of the States included one significant passage : “The new religion has taken too deep root ever to be tom out, except by destroying the country.” A hint of what was coming was given in the open threat that, unless peace were soon made, “the States would declare the king fallen from his sovereignty.” These bold sentences bear the mark of Orange and the thorough patriots. As we know, all were not of this stamp. After the Congress had adjourned, Aerschot and four other deputies lingered to make their own terms with tyranny.

TWO TRAITORS.

Another defection had already occurred. De Bours, who had rendered good service at Antwerp, was now governor of Mechlin. Here he was corrupted by a monk named Peter Lupus, who hoped to be made Bishop of Namur. The two stole and melted a famous silver shrine, worth seventy thousand guilders, which had been spared when the churches were sacked eight years before. De Bours gave up the city to Parma for a bribe, and lived two years to enjoy his ill-gotten gains. Mechlin was recovered in six months, and friar Lupus killed in the streets, fighting like a layman and a desperado.

A more important and lamentable treason was that of Count Renneberg, Governor of Friesland. He was an accomplished gentlemen, a brother of the late Hoogstraten, and entirely trusted by Orange; yet he too sold himself to Parma for so much cash down, a pension, and other material advantages. His plot was for some time suspected, and was carried out only by the basest lying. On March 4th, 1580, he seized Groningen for the king. The burgomaster, Hilde- brandt, whom he had assured of his affection and fidelity but the night before, was shot down at his feet while trying to suppress the revolt.

This perfidy did not carry the province over, but only its capital city, which was at once besieged by Hohenlo, acting for the States. Among his chief officers was Entes, one of the captors of Brill, who had amassed wealth by privateering or piracy. This man lost his life on May 17th in a drunken attempt to take Groningen singlehanded. Hohenlo, though of a great family, was not of much higher character than Entes; but Orange had to use such materials as he could get.

Parma sent Martin Shenck to raise the siege of Groningen. Hohenlo moved south to meet him. The States’ army was feeble both iu numbers and in quality, and its general, who, according to a contemporary, was “by life and manners fitter to drive swine than to govern oious and honorable men,” knew no

better tban to attack a superior force wlien his troops were exhausted by a forced march of twelve or fifteen hours and fainting with thirst. The action took place on June i6th,on Hardenburg Heath, near Coewerden in the province of Drenthe. Within an hour the patriots were slain or scattered, and young William Louis of Nassau, son of Count John, had received a wound which lamed him for life.

. After this sad affair the north was in hopeless confusion. The traitor Ren- neberg kept his post as stadtholder for the king, but neither side had strength

A DUTCH FISHERMAN AT AN UNFAMILIAR TASK.

enough to accomplish much. “A small war now succeeded, with small generals, small armies, small campaigns, small sieges.” Bands of ruined peasants, calling themselves “desperates,” roamed about with a broken egg for their emblem, and did great damage in the open country. Much to the discomfort of Orange, John of Nassau threw up the government of Gelderland He had spent huge sums and loaded himself with debt in the cause of liberty, and his reward was, as he said, to be “fed with annoyance from a spoon.” He had not his brother’s fund

of patience, and his plain mind and warm temper were worn out by the petty quarrels and invincible meanness of the local authorities. His quarters and supplies were as poor as those of Henry of Navarre at his worst straits, a little later. He was nearly frozen in the winter; the States would not pay the baker, who refused to furnish any more bread. “The cook has often no meat to roast,” he wrote, “ so that we have to go to bed hungry.” It may be well that princes should sometimes taste the experience of paupers, but not through their generous fidelity to the people’s cause. So Count John resigned his post before the summer ended, retired to Germany, and took a second wife.

Orange could find comfort only in his patient faith. “ One must do his best,” he wrote, “and believe that when such misfortunes come, God desires to prove us. But for this, we would never have pierced the dykes, for it was an uncertain thing and a great sorrow to the poor people; yet God blessed the enterprise, and He will bless us still.” He was deep in debt, having spent over two million florins for the provinces, and so pressed by his creditors that he thought of making over to them the remnant of his estates. He conld not blame his brother, for he owed Count John more than half a million. One way to wealth and ease had been open, but it was a way he could not take. The cause for which he had lost and endured so much was dearer to him than life.

ORANGE UNDER THE BAN.

He was now formally under the ban, with a price upon his head. His old enemy, Cardinal Granvelle, had long advised Philip to take this step, pretending that it would so frighten the prince as to unsettle his wits if not end his life. The shameful document was prepared in March, 1580, and published in June. It blamed Orange for all that had gone amiss, called him “an enemy of the human race,” incited the general world to rise against him, and offered to any who might be “sufficiently generous of heart to rid us of this pest, delivering him to us alive or dead, or taking his life,” twenty-five thousand crowns, a patent of nobility, and pardon for any previous crime.

The ban had no particular effect, except to set forth in a glaring light the moral code of Spain and Rome, and to stimulate the greed of assassins. These had been on William’s track for years. As he said in his reply, “I am in the hand of God; my worldly goods and my life have long been dedicated to His service. He will dispose of them as seems best for His glory and my salvation.” He justified his course and that of the provinces in the rebellion, set forth the purity of his motives by stating familiar facts, and paid his compliments to Philip in plain round terms. The Netherlands knew no king, he said; there was ■one in Spain, who was no more than duke and count in the provinces; therefore he and his associates were no rebels. He quoted Demosthenes against Philip of Macedon, that “the strongest fortress- of a free people against a tyrant is

distrust.” He made light of the price set upon his head as no new thing. Far from being frightened to death, as Philip and his adviser affected to expect, he cared so little for the ban that he took his time about answering it. Six months elapsed before his “Apology” was read before the States-General at Delft, on. December 13th. It was soon translated into various languages, sent to every sovereign in Europe, and widely circulated. Its boldness roused misgivings in his friends. Saint Aldegonde, who was in France when he read it, said, “Now is the prince a dead man.” But he had long been doomed. The sword of Damocles had hung over his head since 1567, and it was sure to fall sooner or later.

During this year (1580) the States lost the valuable services of La Noue,. who was captured in a skirmish. They offered Egmont and another prisoner of rank in exchange, but Parma refused to “give a lion for two sheep.” The Huguenot’s life was spared only from the fear, or rather the certainty, of reprisals, in kind. He was kept long in the castle of Limburg, where he wrote several works of repute. Great efforts were made to obtain his release, which Philip offered to grant if he were first blinded. He was at length exchanged for Egmont in 1585.

END OF RENNEBERG.

Toward the end of the year, Renneberg, with seven thousand men, besieged the small town of Steenwyk, in the northwest comer of Overyssel, not far from the Zuyder Zee. It was defended by a garrison of nine hundred, under the brave and efficient Comput. Redhot cannon balls, a recent invention from Poland,, were here used for the first time in Dutch history, and did much damage. Some of the people murmured and wished to surrender, but the captain called them “gabbling geese,” and told a butcher, who asked what they would eat when the meat was gone, that he should be eaten first. Renneberg, whose character had sadly changed with the loss of self-respect, played off coarse jokes on the besieged, and sent them a pretended letter from Orange to Alenson, which said that religion was of no account in politics, and that any prince, once firm iu the saddle, could order it as he liked. This stupid forgery, obvious enough to any who knew the character and sentiments of the liberator, failed to alarm the citizens. Letters, assuring them that relief was at hand, were enclosed in hollow balls and fired into the town. On February 22d, 1581, the English Colonel Norris appeared with six thousand men and a store of provisions, and put an end to the siege.

Near five months later, Norris and Sonoy overthrew the royalist army of the North. Its commander was on his death-bed, writhing in remorse, cursing his treason, and refusing to see the sister who had prompted it. After his death, which occurred on July 23d, his body was opened, and his heart found to be “shrivelled to the size of a walnut.” His fate, as that of one who, capable of better things, turned deliberately to the worse, afforded an impressive lesson*

but one which the traitor nobles of the south had not conscience enough to profit by. The Spaniards said that he died of shame at failing to earn his heavy bribe. The friends he had betrayed remembered his early promise, and cast the mantle of charity over his crime.

A FISHKRMAN'3 CHILD,

INDEPENDENCE.

HE summer of 1581 was marked by several notable events and one of great importance. The services of tbe Church of Rome were prohibited in Brussels, Antwerp, Utrecht, and several cities of Holland. This intolerance was not to the mind of Orange, but he could not check it at the time, and the step was not without its excuses. Some of the clergy, as we have seen, were active agents of Philip and Parma, and most of them had more zeal than discretion. The feeling was almost universal among the Protestants, that a priest was by virtue of his office the foe of liberty. Some friars in the capital made themselves so obnoxious that the magistrates were moved to expose the tricks by which the superstitions of the ignorant were wrought upon. “They charged that bits of lath were daily exhibited as fragments of the cross ; that the bones of dogs and monkeys were held up for adoration as those of saints; and that oil was poured habitually into holes drilled in the heads of statues, that the populace might believe in their miraculous sweating.” These impostures enraged the Calvinists, and produced continual danger of collision and riot. From the modem point of view, it is lamentable that any kind of religious meetings should be interfered with: but religion three hundred years ago was apt to be closely intermixed with politics. All that was done was to suppress the Romish worship for the time in certain places. There was no meddling with private conscience, no forcing people to attend services they disliked.

Philip, with his usual wrongheadedness, conceived the notion that his sister Margaret of Parma had been so popular in the Netherlands that they would be glad to have her back; whereas the fact was that she had simply been less offensive and less hated than her successors. Accordingly he sent her there to be regent again, restricting her son to the command of the army. Alexander (604)

•was the very ast man to submit to such an arrangement, or bear a divided authority. On his mother’s arrival in August, he told her that the plan would not work; one of them must resign. She meekly submitted, and asked to be recalled. The king was obliged to consent, and to confirm Famese in his full powers. The duchess, at her brother’s express desire, remained for two years in the southern provinces, living privately under another name.

THE KING DISOWNED.

By the formal declaration of the national will, any representative of Philip was now a mere intruder in the Netherlands. On July 26th the Estates, meeting at the Hague, renounced their allegiance in a solemn “Act of Abjuration.” The preamble of this document was conceived in the spirit, not of democracy, but of constitutional monarchy. ^u All mankind know that a prince is appointed of God to cherish his subjects, as a shepherd to guard his sheep. Therefore when the prince does not fulfil his duty as protector, when he oppresses his subjects, destroys their ancient liberties, and treats them as slaves, he is to be regarded not as a sovereign, but as a tyrant. As such the Estates of the land may lawfully and reasonably depose him and elect another in his place.” The Act went on, in language of studied moderation, to set forth the king’s misdeeds and the long patience of his subjects; it ended by disowning his title and repudiating his authority.

An oath was framed three days later, by which all citizens were to bind themselves to “renounce the King of Spain, and not to respect, obey, or recognize ” him, but to swear fidelity to the United Provinces (Brabant, Flanders, Holland, Zealand, Gelderland, and the rest) and to their National Council, established in January preceding.

A MAN WHO WOULD NOT BE KING.

Thus was the Dutch republic born; and yet it was not meant to be a republic. That idea was cherished by few minds, and had been brought into disrepute by the excesses of Ryhove and Imbize at Ghent. The provincials were conservative in temper and opinions, law-abiding, opposed to needless change. They wished simply to maintain their ancient charters: they still respected royalty— but royalty under conditions. They needed a head, a ruler; the question was, who should he be ? In our view, and in that of many of his countrymen at the time, Orange was the man; the man singularly fitted by ability, experience, and character for the difficult post; the only possible ruler of the free Netherlands. But Orange himself stood in the way of this. The chief defect of his noble nature was an excessive scrupulousness, a modest desire to keep himself and his personal interests in the background. Had he been less loftily disinterested^ more open to the promptings of common ambition, it might have been better for

his country. He shrank from no labor, no peril, no loss, in the public service, but he would not have the sovereignty. Fraternal pride may have led John of Nassau to exaggerate iu saying that William was “ daily and without intermission implored to give his consent; ” but he knew his brother’s motives, and but one exception can be taken to the statement that “he refuses only on this account—that it may not be thought that, instead of religious freedom for the co mtry, he has been seeking his private advancement and a kingdom for himself.”

A STREET scene in AMSTERDAM.

The exception lies in the word “only.” Regard for his reputation was not and could not be the only nor the chief consideration with the prince in regard to anything affecting the public welfare. But he feared injury to that welfare from the jealousies of which he was the constant object, and which would be heated to tenfold fury if he became the ruler of the land. “ It seems to me,” he said, “ that I was born in this bad planet that all I do might be misinterpreted.” He was ready to die, ready to resign and retire, but not to do anything that might hurt the cause. Again, and still more : he felt that the provinces could not win their

"battle alone. Foreign aid was an absolute necessity, and no more of it was to be bad from Germany. He prized tbe alliance of England, and coveted tbat of France. Now tbe Duke of Anjou, called throughout this volume by his earlier title of Alenson, was the brother of Henry III. and the favorite of Elizabeth. On this account, and not from any special esteem or affection for the man (for ■which indeed there was little ground), William steadily urged the claims of Alengon as the most, indeed the only, available candidate for such sovereignty as the Netherlands were able and willing to confer.

ALENCON AS A CANDIDATE.

It is easy to oe wise after the fact, and to see that this selection was a great mistake. If statesmen were required to be infallible, so grave a blunder would be a sad blot on the prince’s fame. But, as Motley points out, the evidence was not all in at that time ; the moral could not be accurately drawn till a little later, ■when the man and the facts were much better known. Alenson was not without abilities, and had the gift of making a good impression. Saint Aldegonde, one of the most accomplished men of the time, had a long talk with him in Paris, and was so completely deceived that he described the duke as a model of all the virtues, and praised particularly his sincerity and his earnest wish to free the Netherlands. “If we fail to secure him,” he wrote, “ posterity will regret it with bitter tears for ten centuries.” Honest error could hardly go farther than that.

Others held a different opinion, and urged it with numerous and weighty arguments. Orange answered by pleading the necessity of the case. What else could be done ? Nothing but wait for the right ruler to turn up; and you might as well ask a hungry man to go on starving, in hope of a banquet by and by. The provinces were in that position, and must take such food as they could get.

It was not the fault of Orange that his hopes from this quarter were bitterly disappointed. The French court eagerly promoted the negotiations ; Catherine de Medicis longed to see her fourth son on a throne, and Henry made large promises of aid to his brother’s subjects. Still the matter dragged. As John of Nassau wrote, “The provinces are coming into the arrangement very unwillingly.” Holland and Zealand positively refused to come into it at all: they would have no sovereign but their own prince. Seeing that nothing else could be done here, he on July 5th accepted the post, with a reservation of his own inserting as to time. On July 24th, two days before the declaration of independence by the Estates-General, he was installed with Philip’s title of Count The change from his former office of governor was rather nominal than real, and added something to his dignity but nothing to his power.

Soon after this Alengon entered the provinces from the southwest, with twelve thousand foot and five thousand horse, the latter mostly men of rank, out for a holiday excursion. His appearance had the effect of relieving Cambray, a city now

well inside the French border, which Parma had commenced to besiege. Having furnished it with the necessary supplies, and learned that the country was not yet quite ready for him, he went to England to continue his flirtation with Elizabeth. On October ist Parma laid siege to Toumay, in the western end of Hainault It was bravely defended by the Princess of Epinoy, in the absence of her husband ; but no relief came, and the people had not the spirit of those in Maestricht The usual monk corrupted the garrison, the Catholics mutinied, and the Protestants preferred surrender to sack. At the end of November the princess gained honorable terms, and retired with her garrison, her property, and a great reputation, while the citizens got off cheaply with a fine of a hundred thousand crowns. This was the last military operation of the year 1581. In October the Archduke Matthias, who had been a harmless figurehead, went back to Vienna with the promise of a pension.

THE NEW SOVEREIGN.

Meantime all eyes were fixed on what was going on, or expected to occur, in England. The proceedings of the royal lovers were sufficiently foolish, but they still have a place in history, and they deluded everybody at the time. In order to mount a throne higher than that of the States, Alenson would no doubt have been glad to marry a woman old enough to be his mother. Elizabeth had different intentions; but she loved to flavor her political intrigues with mature coquetry, and to keep on good terms with France she stooped to return the blandishments of a youth whose looks were far below the average. Saint Aldegonde, again sure of what was not, informed Orauge in November that the marriage was agreed upon. Urged by the prince, the reluctant Estates sent envoys across to make final arrangements with the Frenchman. The queen, still keeping up the pretense of an affection she could hardly feel, sent Leicester and other great lords with him as a body-guard (the young Sir Philip Sidney was among them), and ordered her Dutch allies to treat him “as if he were her second self.”

The brilliant party landed at Flushing on February 10th, 1582, and were met by Orange and other dignitaries. A week later he took the requisite oaths_? which were stringent enough to make the liberties of the provinces secure, so far as that could be done by words; but Alengon had been brought up in a school where princes’ vows sat lightly on their elastic consciences. Having done this, he was conducted into Antwerp, and solemnly installed as Duke of Brabant with much speech-making and any amount of ceremonious festivity. No one noticed the farcical element of these proceedings. England and France were at peace with Spain ; yet leading nobles of both, with the hearty approval of both sovereigns, were setting up a ruler over what Philip still claimed as part of his dominions. Worse yet to logical minds and observant eyes, the son of Catherine de Medicis, the brother of Henry III., backed by these instigators of the St

Bartholomew massacre, was pledging himself to defend Protestant freedom.' But it was not to last.

ATTEMPTED MURDER OF ORANGE.

A month later, on March 18th, the prince was still at Antwerp, and had been entertaining company at dinner. As they passed through the hall, a stranger

DUTCH COURTSHIP ON THE ISLE OF WALCHEREN.

•of low condition handed him a paper, and then fired a pistol at such close range that his beard and hair were set on fire, and the wound so cauterized (the surgeon said) as to hinder his bleeding to death at once. The bullet went through his neck and mouth from right to left. He was dazed, but kept his feet, and fancied for a moment that the walls had fallen. Then realizing that he was wounded, he called out, “Don’t kill him: I forgive him my death. The duke loses a faithful servant in me.” The assassin had been at once cut down. Orange was helped to his room and received immediate attention, but there seemed little prospect of saving his invaluable life.

The news flew through the city, and caused a terrible commotion. The wildest rumors, the most fearful suspicions, were abroad. Who had planned the crime? Was it the strangers? Was it this new duke? Was it the two gentlemen who had slain the murderer, perhaps to remove his evidence against themselves ? A little later, and all the Frenchmen might have been massacred.

It was young Maurice, afterwards the greatest general of his age and the main prop of Dutch liberty, who took the first steps to bring the truth to light. He was but fifteen, and had just seen his father shot, it was supposed fatally; but he took his post over the mangled corpse of the assassin, “ pierced in thirty- two vital places,” directed a thorough search, and examined the papers found in the pockets. Every line, every word, was Spanish. This intelligence was at once sent out, and removed many frightful thoughts and all danger of violence. It was Alengon’s birthday, and there was to be a great banquet that night. Men remembered the Paris of 1572, the nuptials of Navarre, and were ready for vengeance on any seeming provocation.

Maurice went to his father, who believed that his end was near. “Alas, poor prince!” he cried; “what troubles will now beset thee!” When the surgeons forbade him to speak, he wrote to the States-General, begging them to be faithful to their new ruler. Saint Aldegonde now took charge of the articles stained by the assassin’s blood. He was a humane and cultivated -man, fitted, like his great friend, for a later age rather than his own; and his rage must have almost turned to pity at the sight of these lamentable marks of a crawling and perverted mind. There was indeed a hidden dagger, and there were bills of exchange for near three thousand crowns, the evident wages of the crime, paid in advance; but the rest were instruments of ether recognized Romish devotion or the basest superstition. Besides a crucifix, a Jesuit catechism, and the like, there were two dried toads, and prayers to all the saints the poor wretch had ever heard of, including "the Saviour’s son,” for success in what he considered a pious enterprise. There -were also vows to fast a week after its accomplishment, to buy “a new coat of costly pattern ” for the Lord and a new gown for His Mother, with a list of other offerings, which would have gone far to exhaust his three thousand crowns. How

lie expected to get off safe was also made clear; a cloud from heaven was to shut him in and darken the eyes of his foes.

THE MURDEROUS PLOT.

The whole vile conspiracy was soon unravelled. Anastro, a Spanish merchant of Antwerp, being nearly bankrupt, had thought to retrieve his fortunes by blood- money. Wanting a much higher rate than that offered by the ban, he made a

t ^ " ^he^

on the strength’of it jan six, burgomaster of amsterdam.

invited the provinces to return to their allegiance, since they were now “ relieved

of their tyrant and their betrayer.” It is needless to say that they took another

view of the matter, and that this new taste of Spanish manners did not improve their feelings toward the king.

Orange did not die, though long in danger. At a crisis in his illness, his life was saved by the skill of Alengon’s physician ; and this was the chief service which the French rendered to the Netherlands. On May 2d he was able to gO' to church to give thanks for his escape; then, as throughout his illness, he had every sign of sympathy and affection from the people. Three days later his wife died of a fever brought on by anxiety during the three weeks following the attempt upon his life. She was a gifted and lovable woman, and had enabled him to forget the unhappiness of his previous domestic venture. She left six daughters, but no son. In the summer his countship was made permanent, and the old constitution of Holland was replaced by a new and freer one.

In July another attempt was made upon his life, in which that of Alengon also was involved. The latter was being installed at Bruges as Count of West Flanders, when two men, an Italian and a Spaniard, tried to poison both, and confessed that Parma had employed them for the purpose. One of the knaves committed suicide in prison ; the other was sent to Paris and torn by horses. Young Egmont, to his lasting disgrace, was concerned in this murderous plot. In August, while similar proceedings were being conducted at Ghent, Parma’s men attacked those of Alenson, and were beaten with considerable loss under the city walls.

ACTIVITY OF PARMA.

Philip’s governor was active in other directions during the year 1582. On July 5th, after a siege of several months, he took Oudenarde in the southern part of Flanders, and exacted but thirty thousand crowns, for his mother had been born there. The place had been defended with spirit, and one incident of the siege brought out the general’s character in a peculiarly grim way. He was dining in the trenches with his staff and several eminent guests, when two cannon balls from the ramparts killed three of the company, and wounded at least one more. The survivors rose in horror, for the blood and brains of their friends were mixed with the dishes—all but Parma, who kept his seat unmoved, called for a fresh table-cloth, and insisted that the meal should be finished. Such was. the man who was gripping the life out of the southern and central provinces, and meant to reduce the north too. He failed to take Lochem in Gelderland, which was relieved in time, but succeeded at Steenwyk, where Renneberg had been repulsed a few months earlier. Before winter he had sixty thousand troops,, whose wages amounted to near eight million florins a year. Philip, having accomplished the conquest of Portugal by Alva’s means, had now more time and money to spend on the Netherlands than of late; yet at the siege of Ninove the starving army ate nearly all their horses.

The Walloon provinces had submitted on the express condition that no foreign soldiers should be brought in; but this Parma easily set aside, whether with or without the consent of the Estates—for this was a small item to a tyrant’s will.

A KNAVE AND A MARTYR.

LENCON, to all outward appearance, had been behaving tolerably well since his arrival. But the restraints of decency and law sickened him; he was tired of a limited position arid the moral ascendancy of Orange. Toward tbe end of the year he was joined by many French nobles, some of them men of eminence, but chiefly young rufflers and rou6s, of the same class with his brother’s “mignons.” These easily persuaded him that the oaths he bad taken were of no consequence and should be cast aside ; what was the use of being heir to the throne of France and sovereign of the Netherlands, except to join the smaller country to the larger, grasp at absolute power, and be free to amuse himself as he pleased? He lent a ready ear to these base counsels, and secretly entered on a plot to destroy the liberties he had sworn to cherish, and for which be had often professed himself ready to shed the last drop of his blood In the midst of this conspiracy he offered a solemn prayer for the success of his enterprise, and registered a vow to lead a life of chastity ever after, if his petition were granted. One is continually driven to pause in amazement at the strange ideas of religion which these men entertained

Preparations were carefully made by sending away a high officer who was faithful to Orange, and fomenting quarrels between the soldiers and the citizens in certain towns. On January 15th, 1583, Ostend and Dunkirk on the coast, and Alost and a few other places in the interior, were seized by the duke’s accomplices. They failed to get possession of Bruges, which had been left till a day later. At Antwerp, which the leading criminal reserved for his own share in this series ©f exploits, a mysterious warning was given by a Frenchman who had not wholly parted with his conscience. Suspicions were aroused, and two deputations, one of them accompanied by Orange, waited on their sovereign. He played the part of injured innocence, assured them vehemently of his faithful (614) .

affection, and indignantly denied the least intention of doing what he was just: about to do. Having promised not to leave the city on that day (January 17th),, he sent to ask William to ride with him to the camp outside the walls. Had the prince consented, he would doubtless have been imprisoned, perhaps murdered. Instead of going, he begged the duke, through the messenger, to keep his promise. Toward one o’clock the traitor rode out of the Kipdorp gate with three hundred horsemen, whom he presently ordered back, saying, “There is- your city; go and take it” Then he went on to the camp to send the rest.

THE FRENCH FURY AT ANTWERP.

. The direction of this scoundrelly affair was left to Count Rochepot, one of the body-guard. He, pretending to have hurt his leg, stabbed the captain of the watch, who came out to help him. The burghers who kept the gate were cut down by those whom they regarded as friends, and the three hundred troopers galloped into the city, shouting for Anjou and the mass. Those from the camp came almost on their heels, six hundred more horse and three thousand foot. The amazed citizens, roused from their dinners by the noise, were saluted by shots and cries of “The town is ours! Hurrah for the mass ! Kill, kill!” It was the Spanish Fury over again, and without notice for defense.

But it was not to end like the Spanish Fury. Antwerp had endured one massacre, and was not minded to endure another. The people knew they must rely on their own stout arms and brave hearts. There were no cowardly Walloon regiments now to run away, no Germans of Van Ende to join in pillaging and slaughtering those they were hired to defend. Nor were the Frenchmen so familiar with this sort of business, or so skilful at it, as the Spaniards. After killing a few, they scattered in search of plunder, favoring especially the goldsmiths’ shops, of which their officers had taken note before.

The town was presently in arms. A baker, naked at his oven, came forth with his bread-shovel, struck down a French cavalier, seized his horse and sword, and taking no thought or time to array himself for the streets, earned public thanks and a pension by rousing his neighbors and leading them to the fight They came forth with a good will, every class of them, with their accustomed tools or weapons in their hands. The streets were barricaded, the invaders caught in a trap. Men used silver buttons from their jackets, gold coins from their pockets, for balls to load and fire with ; women threw down tiles and furniture from roofs and windows on the cowering robbers. They turned to fly, but it was far less easy to escape than it had been to enter. The city they had come to spoil became their graveyard or their prison. Much of the best blood of France (counting by birth—the worst, if esteemed by deeds) was shed that day. Two hundred and fifty nobles, and near two thousand commoners, lay dead in the streets. Rochepot killed a dozen of his men in vainly trying to stop their flight.

'The Kipdorp gate was clioked with corpses. The whole affair was over in about an hour, with a loss to the city of a scant hundred lives.

Hundreds of the French were taken, and but few escaped. The wretched ■duke had remained outside, awaiting the event. When he saw some of his men jumping from the ramparts into the moat, he cried out exultantly that the 'burghers were being thrown down to death ; but he soon discovered his mistake.

His most distinguished visitors, who were no parties to the plot, freely expressed their indignation and disgust. Marshal Biron, whose two sons were winning disgrace and perhaps death within the wall, cursed him in good round terms. The Dukes of Mont- pensier and Rochefoucauld said that they were gentlemen, and not used to such methods of making war.

AN AWKWARD SITUATION.

Orange lived at the other end of the city, and knew nothing of the affair till it was nearly over. When he arrived at the wall, the triumphant citizens were firing their heavy guns at what was left

From portrait in the Gallerie Mistorique, Versailles. of their recent allies.

This he stopped at once. It was a victory for them and for the moment; but the situation was most embarrassing and threatening for him and for the country.

The defeated schemer retired to the southwest, meeting a new disaster on his way. The people of Mechlin, having heard of his doings, cut a dyke and flooded the country, so that he lost another thousand of his troops. When he

PRINCE MAURICE OF NASSAU.

tad got to a safe distance, he wrote back, demanding the property he had left in Antwerp, the prisoners, and supplies for his remaining force. Orange, for prudence’s sake, would have complied; but the duke’s subsequent letters presented such a combination of impudence, falsehood, and self-contradiction, as to defeat his purpose. He complaiued of ingratitude, indignities, insults: what bad occurred was an accident, or if by his order, the fault was theirs who had provoked him: he was willing to forgive, but he must have more power in the future, and his subjects must trust him more thoroughly. Would Orange kindly arrange the matter ?

It was difficult to treat with such a man as this. Orange answered him, frankly and sadly, that his position had been damaged by his own deeds: he must take a different tone, if he wished any good to come of their future relations. To this the duke had nothing to say.

The question of right or wrong was simple enough; but unluckily this was not the only element in the problem to be solved. To thinking men Alengon was of importance only as representing the alliance with France and England: if these powerful neighbors became enemies, the case of the provinces was hopeless. France, of course, would resent any apparent injury or affront offered to her heir-presumptive : the queen-mother promptly wrote in terms of scarcely disguised threat. To avert this danger was the first necessity and the difficult task of the liberator. To the Estates, who asked him for counsel, he replied that he was safe to be blamed, whatever advice he gave, but that three courses were open : to submit to Philip, to make terms with the duke, or to fight it out by themselves. The first was out of the question, as all knew. The last would suit him best, if they were strong enough, which they were not. It remained only to effect such reconciliation as they could with their French sovereign, and that at once. It was their affair, and they must decide it: he had neither the will to be a dictator, nor the force to defend a single city adequately ; but he was at the service of his country in life and death.

Negotiations were accordingly opened. However hollow, they had the happy effect of avoiding an open breach. Alen?on, after some treacherous dealings with Parma, simplified matters by returning in June to France, where he died a year later of the same horrible and somewhat mysterious disease which carried off his brother Charles IX. As was usual when a prominent man ended his days without manifest signs of external violence, there was talk of poison ; but the later members of the house of Valois were far from health of body or mind.

Orange, in the midst of these perplexities, consoled himself by taking for a fourth wife Coligny’s widowed daughter. In this choice, as in his third, he had little regard to worldly and political considerations. His services belonged to his country, his home life was his own. Weighed down by public cares and anxieties, he seemed to find domestic comfort and affection indispensable.

In August he received some very plain language, the language of friendly reproof and compassion, from the faithful deputies of Holland and Zealand. They had always abhorred and protested against the connection with Catholic France ; and now that the event had fully justified their objections, presuming on their long and intimate connection with the prince, they could not resist the opportunity of saying,

“I told you so.” In the true Puritan spirit, they intimated that it would be well to rely less on the favor of foreign princes and on the subtleties of human wisdom, and more on the help of heaven.

To prove their sincerity, they offered to give much more than they had hitherto given for the general defense against Spain.

ORANGE REFUSES THE THRONE.

If “Father William” was wounded by this filial censure, he perhaps found solace in the regard of the United Provinces, which in this same month offered and urged him to accept the sovereignty. He would

not hear of it, unless on conditions that were ^{FIRST
WIFB OF} mwbrajtot, the great dutch painter.

practically impossible—the consent of all the cities and outlying states. Apart from the fact that Alengon had neither formally resigned nor been deposed, Orange, as he pointed out, had no funds to carry on the war with; and he evidently doubted whether he could collect them under an ampler title. He still shrank from a dignity which most men in his position would have grasped at long before: he dreaded the responsibilities of an office which would not

bring tie power to discharge them, and preferred continuing to serve with a clear conscience iu an humbler station. At the same time he refused the important dukedom of Brabant, alleging that “he would not give the King of Spain the right to say that his course had been prompted by selfish ambition, and the desire to deprive Philip of the provinces that he might take them for his own.”

During this year Parma attempted no great military movement, trusting rather to his intrigues than to his expensive army. But for the watchfulness of Orange, his operations and his gains might have been much more rapid. He had observed eagerly the quarrel of the States with Alengon, and waited for the opportunity to spring. He secured most of the places which had been seized by French treason in the southwest, and in the north corrupted a brother-in-law of Orange, Van den Berg, who had succeeded Count John as Governor of Gelder- land: by this means he was enabled to take Zutphen on September 22d. Another of his tools was the Prince of Chimay, Aerschot’s son, who by pretending to be a Protestant had won the government of Flanders. Like the rest of his family, he was a turncoat; in fact, there were scarcely any nobles of high degree in this afflicted land who could be trusted to stand by the right, except the unequalled house of Nassau.

INTRIGUES AT GHENT.

The most important object at which Parma now aimed was Ghent, to which the traitorous Chimay had invited his attention. The local leaders of the plot were two men who had formerly been active against Spain. Champagny, soured by long imprisonment, though still confined, was allowed freely to receive his friends and correspond with them. Imbize, the redhot Republican and violent demagogue, who had earned a halter six years before, had now returned from Germany, pushed himself again to the front, and become as active as of old, though on the other side. The turbulent and fickle city was blown about with every wind of changing doctrine, and its magistrates had actually begun to treat with Philip’s governor, when the earnest remonstrances of those of Brussels and Antwerp, of Orange and the States-General, brought them to their senses. Argument and entreaty, which had been liberally showered upon them, were enforced by the detection of Imbize in a plot to sieze Dendermonde, midway between Ghent and Mechlin. Ryhove, whom we remember as the executioner of Hessels, happened to be in command there and to get notice of the attempt in time; it no doubt gave him pleasure to arrest his ancient rival and hand him over to the hangman, this time through due process of law. Ghent saw the execution and profited by it, and Parma’s plans in Flanders received a check, except at Bruges, which Chimay made over in May, 1584. The traitor was deserted by his wife, who had been the wealthy widow of young Berlaymont: she became a Calvinist and took refuge in Holland. Conversions of this kind

DBATH OF WILLIAM ThB SILENT.

among the nobles were at this time rare; the tide had for years been setting the other way.

Ypres, in tbe southwest part of Flanders, fell after a long siege, and afforded a curious example of Catholic zeal. The bones of the Reformed, that they might no longer pollute the earth, were dug up and hanged in their coffins. Living Protestants were obliged to leave the town at once. The fagot and the stake were happily out of date ; but no one knew when Spain might bring them in again.

MURDER OF ORANGE.

The price set by Philip on William’s head had inspired various assassins with the complex purpose of serving at once the king, the Church, and their own pockets. Besides those already mentioned, two missionaries of the ban had been executed in 1583-84 ; and a Frenchman had been released by his captors on promising to do what he never intended. The last of these emissaries was Balthasar Gerard, a Burgundian, who had looked forward to the deed for years. He was a strange combination of cunning and fanaticism ; Parma, to whom he applied, thought him unfit for the attempt, but Parma was mistaken. He assumed the air of a zealous Protestant, met Orange several times, and made acquaintance with his house at Delft. Poverty stood in his way, for he had received nothing in advance : it was his victim’s charity which enabled him to buy the implements of murder. Having laid bis plans with care (for he meant to escape), he concealed himself on a stairway, and shot the prince through the body as he came from dinner, at two o’clock on Tuesday, July 10th, 1584. The last words of the liberator were, “ My God, have mercy on this poor people ! ” He died in a few minutes. The murderer fled, but was soon caught, and punished with ruthless cruelty—for there was none to intercede for him now. He seemed proud of his crime, showed amazing fortitude under torture, and smiled in the faces of his executioners to the end. His parents were ennobled and enriched by the king of Spain, at the expense of the Orange estates, then in his power.

The untimely taking off of William the Silent is among the darkest mysteries of Providence. He was but fifty-one; in almost perfect physical condition, notwithstanding all that he had gone through; in the prime of his splendid, faculties; and in the midst of a work as noble as any to which God ever called His servants. It was not for a small cause that Philip hated him and that the people loved him. His were the head to plan, the hand to guide, the heart to endure and comfort. The revolution began with him, when he stood almost alone. It had gone on with him, step by step; he was its Maccabee, at once its Mattathias and its Judah. It did not end with him, because he had not lived in vain. His death established the Dutch Republic, but sounded the knell of liberty in the southern provinces. Had he been allowed to finish out his term of years, the fate of these might have been different; the seven free states would probably have been ten or twelve.

THE FIRST MAN OF HIS TIME.

One cannot but pause to meditate a moment on the extinction of such a light His removal saddened and enfeebled the friends of liberty, but his memory has enriched humanity. In the small company of those who have been both good and great he occupies a foremost place. Never was the cause of truth and progress more worthily represented, or served with more unselfish and unswerving devotion. His character was almost too fine, too pure, too gentle, for the rough work he had to do; an infusion of coarser elements might have fitted him better to cope with his adversaries and rule a divided land. Yet in tact, in patience, in the gift of managing men and events, he was unrivalled; he had no lieutenant and no successor. His should have been the task of reconciliation, of peaceful upbuilding; instead, he was forced to begin and carry on a lonesome war against hopeless odds. Charles V. admired and Alva respected his military talents; but it is plain that he had no pleasure in their exercise, and was reconciled to organized murder only by harsh necessity. In an age of brute force and savage conflict he was before all a man of ideas and principles, wishing only to instruct, advance, and liberate mankind. When nearly all men of rank thought the world made for their avarice and lust to prey upon, he impoverished himself for his country, steadily refused reward, and went on sacrificing all but honor to the end. Of birth and condition next to the very highest, called “ cousin” by kings and emperors, his aristocracy taught him chiefly to preserve his essential dignity and to do nothing base. A republican philanthropist at bottom, the phrase oftenest and last on his lips showed what was nearest his heart—“the poor people.”

It has been often charged that he was ambitious. In the common meaning of the word, “ambition should be made of sterner stuff.” In its higher sense, he was ambitious—ambitious to serve his Maker and his brethren. The only blot on his fair record is his stooping to practices then universal among diplomatists and rulers, and still counted permissible in times of war, as the use of spies and traitors; thus Philip’s secretary was for ten years in his pay, and served him well. To these arts he was driven by desperate necessity, not by personal inclination. No man better loved direct and simple ways, when such were consistent with the public welfare. His language to those whom he could trust (and at times to some who could not be trusted), to the States, to friends and neighbors, was the measure of his thoughts. He conducted an enormous correspondence, and his state papers were numerous and weighty; these documents afford a mirror of the times and of the man. The terms of compliment and courtesy he used when they were needed, but far oftener, in his home relations, the plainest and sincerest speech. Again and again he rebuked the jealousies and factions of the cities, their backwardness in the common cause, their niggardliness in providing for its defense. His was neither the scolding and exacting tone of

Elizabeth nor the gay humor of Henry of Navarre, but his utterances were mighty with the force of truth. Here he had nothing to conceal, nothing to disguise, nothing to seek but to set forth the facts and serve the right. The keenest statesman of his time gained his ascendancy by no arts of the politician or public flatterer. Whether he were repressing the follies and disorders of Ghent, or advising the Estates what to do about Alengon, or declining the titles they offered, he talked frankly, fearlessly, and straight to the point.

His private character was blameless and lovable; but in a life so utterly consecrated to the public service and spent in the public eye, his inmost traits became the property of his country and of mankind. In youth, while living like other nobles, he was grave, earnest, and reticent beyond his mates.

He matured early, and was always equal to the responsibilities that were thrust upon him. Solid, quiet, and steadfast, he seemed older than his years. When at thirty- three he defied the most powerful of earthly monarchs, he was merely acting out- the part he had chosen long before. From that date his views, his attitude, and his sympathies never changed. He had counted the cost of his venture, and found the source of inward strength. The most beautiful and benignant statue of wii,uam thb silbnt, at tub hague.

features of the Reformation were shown forth in him. His cheerful fortitude surmounted all reverses, his calm and gentle faith was as strong as that of the most fiery fanatic. No secluded pietist trusted more utterly to the mercy of God in Christ; but he believed that Heaven works not by miracle, but by human agencies, and that head, heart, and hand should do their utmost to serve the I^ord. No crusading hermit cared more for the Truth than he; but he had seen farther

into his Master’s mind than others, and knew that the Kingdom is not to be set lip by compulsion. To study his career is to see that its grand results were a.

stream flowing from a pure,, deep spring- With the feeblest outward resources he: accomplished much, because his Helper was on high. Few have been so revered and loved in life and death, and fewer still, it.

may be, have deserved such love and reverence. To the careless eye there are many more impressive figures, more sensational and tinselled heroes ; but if we judge by character and deed, no name stands higher on the noble roll of liberators and martyrs.

THE LATER DUTCH WARS.

The crime of Belthasar Gerard removed the chief obstacle in Parma’s way. The years next following present a lamentable chronicle of disasters. Ghent fell within three months, then Brussels and other cities, and in 1585 Antwerp,, after a siege that was one of the most amazing on record, and the chief triumph of Parma’s genius. This settled the fate of the Belgic provinces ; they returned reluctantly and perforce, to that “ allegiance ” which meant ruin.

But the war was not over. Young Maurice, emerging from careful studies, proved himself not only a master at arms but the inventor of a new science of warfare, so that the world came to the Netherlands to take lessons. In siege after siege the Spanish garrisons of the north were overcome, and many towns retaken. Parma died, and others took his place. Tbe Dutch Republic became a great naval power, won victories at sea, and established distant colonies. In 1598 Philip II. died, more full of years than of honors; in 1867 an Englishman,, visiting the famous monasteries of the Escurial, which this monarch built and where his mortal part was buried, “ saw a crowd of monks still praying ” for his misguided soul.

The war went on. Poor Philip III. felt bound to keep it up, though an expensive and in the main a losing game. In 1609 a truce was made, to last for

twelve years ; both parties wanted a breathing-space. The English Pilgrims ■were now received at Leyden, to remain till they crossed the sea at Plymouth in 1620. The Synod of Dort was held, and a spirit of intolerance developed which would not have pleased the Father of his Country. In 1621 war began again, just because fanatical and fossilized Spain could not bring herself to recognize the logic of events. It lasted till 1648, when the Spaniards were driven to acknowledge the republic which had been established more than sixty years before. By that time the King of England was a prisoner and the Puritans were in power.

Little Holland, faithful from the first, and cherishing alike the memory and the principles of her great leader, had won her long battle and become a nation. His sons or descendants were long stadtholders, and in our century kings; his great-grandson, at the revolution of 1688, became William III. of England.

ANCIENT SWORDS.

THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA.

NGLAND and Spain, during the last third of the sixteenth century, were natural enemies. While nominally at peace, each hated and feared the other, and was glad to inflict injury in irregular ways. Philip was more than once suspected of plotting against Elizabeth’s throne and life ; and while the queen was always chary of spending money or her subjects’ blool abroad, those subjects were more active than she in helping their neighbors across the North sea. “Her cold indifference to the heroic struggle in Flanders,” as Mr. Green says, “was more than compensated by the enthusiasm it roused among the nation at large. The earlier Flemish refugees found a home in the Cinque Ports. The exiled merchants of Antwerp were welcomed by the merchants of London. While Elizabeth dribbled out her secret aid to the Prince of Orange, the London traders sent him half a million from their own purses, a sum equal to a year’s revenue of the crown. Volunteers stole across the Channel in increasing numbers to the aid of the Dutch, till the five hundred Englishmen who fought at the beginning of the conflict rose to a brigade of five thousand, whose bravery turned one of the most critical battles of the war. Dutch privateers found shelter in English ports, and English vessels hoisted the flag of the States for a dash at the Spanish traders. Protestant fervor rose steadily among Englishmen as the best captains and soldiers returned from the campaigns in the Low Countries to tell of Alva’s atrocities, or as privateers brought back tales of English seamen who had been seized in Spain and the New World, to linger amidst the tortures of the Inquisition, or to die in its fires. In the presence of this steady drift of popular passion, the diplomacy of Elizabeth became of little moment. If the queen was resolute for peace, England was resolute for war.”

THE SPANISH MAIN.

Spain owed her wealth and greatness to the voyage of Columbus in 1492. Cabot, with an English vessel and crew, visited the mainland of America before

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the great discoverer did, and in 1498 sailed along its shores for eighteen hundred miles ; but nothing was done to follow up this advantage, and the Atlantic coast, north of Florida, remained untouched for another century. Meantime Spain, through the conquests of Cortes and Pizarro, monopolized the New World, and made many settlements on the Pacific. Early in Elizabeth’s reign the “ sea-dogs ” of England became as active as the “sea-beggars” of Zealand, and in the same way: acts of piracy at Spanish expense seemed to them acts of piety. At first their ravages were in familiar waters ; but in 1570 Francis Drake found abundant spoils in the West Indies. Seven years later he rounded Patagonia with only eighty men, attacked the new towns of South America, and after sailing round the world came home in 1580 with a vast treasure. His exploits were imitated on a smaller scale by others, and the Spanish Main became the scene of much desultory warfare, to which religious hatred lent added horrors. An awful fate awaited these bold adventurers when captured or shipwrecked among their foes: they became not only prisoners of war, but victims of the Inquisition. When they lost their vessels, they would retire into the interior and make friends with the natives, from whom they learned the uses of tobacco. This fact, with much interesting matter about the wild nautical doings of those days, is set forth in Charles Kingsley’s novel, “Westward Ho, or Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh.”

Philip was enraged by these attacks upon his western colonies, and especially by the successes and insolence of Drake. He asked that the pirate be given up to him; Elizabeth replied by knighting Drake, and wearing some of the stolen diamonds he had given her. The Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, told her that if she acted in that way, “matters would come to the cannon;” she answered that if he talked so he would go to prison. This unusual boldness in the prudent queen came from a conviction that Philip could not afford to break with her. She was mistaken : the conquest of Portugal, with its vast foreign dependencies, soon increased his wealth enormously, and made him more jealous than ever of the rising naval power of England.

As has been already hinted, Elizabeth’s long dallying with Alengon, and urging him on the reluctant Netherlands as their sovereign, are explained by her anxiety to keep on good terms with the house of Valois, that France might serve as a buffer between her islands and Spain. The duke’s perfidious folly and his departure Jrom the provinces put an end to these fine plans, and left England and the weakened republic to help each other as they might, or stand alone against the tyrant and the rage of Rome. They were not without friends indeed in France, but Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots had all they could do to hold their own.

After the murder of Orange, the English ambassador at Paris wrote home that what had been done at Delft there were “practisers more than two or three

In this

emergency

about to execute upon her majesty, and that within two months.” Elizabeth knew that her life was always in danger; tbe Jesuits and Mary Stuart had their plotters and would-be assassins continually busy. Henry III. was now a shadow, and Philip, through the Guises and their Catholic League, was practically master of France.

surrounded

by a network of intrigue, with

perils on every hand, to act seemed safer than to sit still. When Antwerp fell in August, 1585, the queen hesitated no longer : she sent Leicester to Holland with

■WILLIAM THE SILENT and HIS "WIFE.

an army, aud Drake to the West Indies with a fleet. The latter accomplished much, the former little. At the battle of Zutphen, September 22d, 1586, Sir Philip Sidney, the fairest flower of modern chivalry, left the world a beautiful example in his death. With quixotic magnanimity he had taken off part of his armor, to put himself in the same peril with the marshal. As he lay mortally wounded^ a cup of water was brought him with difficulty : seeing a dying soldier gaze wistfully upon it, he handed it untouched to the poor private, with the famous words, “Thy necessity is greater than mine.” The incident has done quite as much to preserve his fame as his sonnets, his “Arcadia,” and his “Defense of Poesie.”

PHILIP PREPARES TO INVADE ENGLAND.

The execution of Mary Stuart, on February 8th, 1587, enraged the Catholic world, and gave Philip a sort of claim on the British throne, to which the Queen of Scots had been the next heir. The pope offered financial as well as spiritual aid for the conquest of England. To protect his American possessions and secure "his provinces still in revolt, the king saw that he must attack. The English Jesuits had long been assuring him that Scotland, Ireland, and half England itself would rise in arms at the appearance of his fleet; they gave him a list of Catholic nobles and gentry who, they said, would join his standards. As the issue proved, it was a mistake to suppose that these men set their creed above their loyalty : the island contained many Romanists, but comparatively few traitors. Yet preparations went on diligently, within as well as without. A little army of three hundred priests, taking their lives in their hands, came over from the continent and went to work in secret, proving to their hearers, one by one, that it was their duty to obey the pope, oppose the queen, and put down heresy.

The fleet was a long time getting ready, and delays were numerous. It was .almost in shape to start in April, 1587, when the indomitable Drake, bound to “singe the Spanish king’s beard,” suddenly appeared in the harbor of Cadiz, burned near a hundred store-ships with a vast quantity of provisions, and then made a dash at Corunna and did more damage. All the supplies had now to be renewed, and this took a year. The Marquis of Santa Croce, an officer of experience and repute, had been appointed admiral, but he died, as did also his lieutenant, Paliano, and the command was given to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who was a very great nobleman but no sailor at all. It was May 29th, 1588, _v when the armada sailed for Lisbon ; a hundred and twenty-nine vessels, many of them the largest known, with over twenty-four hundred guns, near eight thousand five hundred sailors, and more than nineteen thousand soldiers. A storm speedily drove them back with loss, and they did not start again till July 12th, old style, or, as we reckon time, July 2 2d.

The plan had been to make for the coast of Flanders, and effect a junction with Parma, who had a quantity of transports at Dunkirk and some seventeen

thousand men. The united forces were then to land at the mouth of the Thames and elsewhere, under protection of the fleet, call out their alleged native allies; march upon London, and do other fine things which hardly need be specified. But difficulties, and very serious ones, arose to block the first steps of this programme. Parma, who was to conduct the land operations, had been ready for a year or two—long enough to become much better acquainted with the situation than his master was. He had little confidence in any rising of English allies, and he raised so many objections as to show that his approval of the scheme was not hearty. After landing, he wrote to Madrid, he would meet opposition, and have to fight so often and against such unknown forces that the issue must be extremely doubtful. Moreover, the Netherland patriots, who were just as much interested in these proceedings as their friends over the water, took such active steps to blockade his fleet that it would not have been easy for him to put to sea if he had been much more anxious to do so than he was. The whole affair was destined to be settled on the water.

THE FIGHT IN THE CHANNEL.

Meantime the alarm was great in England, and the preparations great also. The country was thoroughly roused, but not in the way Philip had been led to expect. Catholics and Protestants laid aside their differences and joined hands in defense of their common country. Some apprehensions were felt as to the loyalty of the admiral, Lord Howard, who was of the old religion, but they were needless. The heads of the old noble houses, whose names stood high in the Jesuit list of expected helpers, were as prompt as any to resist invasion. The queen asked the city of London for five thousand men and fifteen ships; twice these numbers were offered. Landsmen came forward from every quarter as volunteers. Elizabeth had a body-guard of forty-five thousand, while Leicester, with sixteen thousand, went to the coast to oppose Parma’s expected landing. The marine arrangements were still more zealously made. The royal navy had but thirty vessels, but these were joined by five times as many more, so that in all full eighteen thousand Englishmen were in the Channel. “ Coasters put out from every little harbor; squires and merchants pushed off in their own little barks for a brush with the Spaniards.” Lord Seymour took his position off Dunkirk, to help the Dutchmen watch their foes on land there; Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins, and. other noted rovers of long experience remained with Howard, ready to observe and welcome the armada on its approach from the open sea. The English ships, were imperfectly provisioned, were much smaller than the Spanish, and carried less than half the guns; but they were far swifter, more manageable, and better served.

On July 30th the armada entered the Channel in the form of a crescent, seven miles in length. In the evening it passed Plymouth, and beacon-1 ights-

ENGLISH FIRESHIFS SENT INTO THE ARMADA

flashed the news along the coast. The English ships came out of Plymouth harbor and followed, their numbers constantly increasing. The action began next day and lasted for more than a week. The Spaniards tried to close, but were not able; the light vessels of Howard and Drake, drawing but one foot of water to their two, sailed around them, pouring in a rapid and deadly fire, and “plucking their feathers one by one,” while the big guns from their lofty decks worked slowly, and in most cases fired too high. Several galleons were sunk or disabled, while the English suffered very little damage.

After seven days of this skirmishing, the armada, completely foiled thus far, dropped anchor in Calais roads, at no great distance from Dunkirk. Medina now sent to Parma, asking for some ammunition and smaller ships, and inviting him to cross the sea and make his descent upon England, according to Philip’s plan. But that wary commander, whose rule was never to fight unless he was tolerably sure of winning, replied that he had no light vessels, that the weather was against his sendiug powder and ball, and that he could not cross while the sea was full of English craft. All this was true enough, and the wind had from the start favored the defenders of their country and been against the invaders; but it was also true that Famese liked to have his own way and was little inclined to risk defeat, first on the water and then on an island that was fully armed and utterly hostile. The whole scheme depended on his co-operation, and was safe to fail without it.

OFF THE FLEMISH COAST.

Admiral Howard and his officers, however, had no inside view of Parma’s mind, and were by no means confident of the result. So far as they could see, Medina had attained his first object, in effecting a junction, or near it, with his allies in the Netherlands ; and they feared that the Spaniards might be able to drive away the Hollanders who were blockading Dunkirk, and thus to release Parma’s fleet. The English had all their force together, Lord Seymour having joined the rest; they had the ablest and bravest seamen in the world; but their provisions, and what was worse, their powder, were giving out. Something must be done to force the enemy out of his harbor into the open sea, where he could be attacked before it was too late.

This was done on the night of August 7th by meaus of eight fire-ships, which were sent into the roads of Calais with the tide. The Spaniards, in much alarm, cut their cables, stood out to sea, and moved eastward. One of their largest ships ran aground, and Howard attacked it in person. The rest of the English, led by Drake, pursued, and in a fight which lasted all day inflicted great damage, killing some four thousand men, sinking three enormous galleons, and driving three others ashore. The failure of their ammunition prevented Drake and his comrades from finishing the business then and there; nor did they know

low complete was their victo.ry. The armada still appeared to them “wonderful great and strong.”

But the Spaniards had had all they wanted in the way of fighting. “ Huddled together by the wind and the deadly English fire, their sails torn, their masts shot away, the crowded galleons had become mere slaughter-houses. Bravely as the seamen fought, they were cowed by the terrible butchery. Medina himself was in despair.” He said to one of his captains, “We are lost: what shall we do?” The officer was for continuing the fight, but he was overruled. A council of war was beld on August 9th. Ignorant, of course, of the momentous fact that their foes had no more powder to fight with, they dared not face the terrors of the Channel again: so the fatal order was taken to sail northward around the British islands, and so home.

THE STORM.

The English followed for several days, to a point beyond the mouth of the Humber, till they were not far

- . LAND’S END.

from starvation.

Further pursuit was needless, for the weather had taken the work out of the hands of Drake and Howard. It was as if the God of winds and waves had arisen in wrath to protect His favorite island and avenge the insult offered to liberty. A succession of violent storms arose, and kept battering the doomed vessels for a month or more. “ Some were sunk, some dashed to

BEACHV HS40-

pieces against the Irish cliffs. The wreckers of the Orkneys and the Faroes, the clansmen of the Scottish isles, the kernes of Donegal and Galway, all had their part in the work of murder and robbery. Eight thousand Spaniards perished between the Giant’s Causeway and the Blaskets, on the Irish coast. On a strand near Sligo an English captain numbered eleven hundred corpses which had been cast up by the sea. The flower of the Spanish nobility, who had been sent on the new crusade under Alonzo de Leyva, after twice suffering shipwreck, put a third time to sea to founder on a reef near Dunluce.” Of near a hundred and thirty vessels which had set out in July to do such great things, only fifty-four returned to Spain in October, and these so injured as to be nearly useless. Of their crews and the soldiers they had carried,, about one-third, less than ten thousand men, many of them half-dead from wounds and pestilence, survived to spread the tale of the desperate valor and the ferocious coasts by which their comrades had fallen.

This was the end of the Invincible Armada, as it had been boastfully called. Philip complained that he had “sent his ships against men, not against the seas ”—as if winds and waves were elements that could be left out of naval calculations. Confident in the wealth and power that were soon to be only a memory, he said that he could easily set afloat another armada if he wished; but some years passed before he repeated the rash experiment, and then on a. smaller scale and with no more success. Spain was no longer mistress of the seas. Her maritime supremacy had been broken by the feebler power she had attempted to destroy, and with it her glory departed, while the greatness of England began.

That summer month was the most glorious in her entire history, alike by the providential deliverance from a fearful danger which had long impended, and by the thorough union of English hearts and hands to defend their country. Dissensions had vanished in the hour of utmost peril: one common impulse had moved all true subj ects of Elizabeth. She could say, as she welcomed her defenders home, “Let tyrants fear! My chiefest strength and safeguard is in your loyal hearts.” From that day England had little to fear from Spain. Her privateers preyed more than ever on Spanish commerce, and in 1589 her fleet and army carried the war to the peninsula, besieging Corunna and attacking Lisbon.

The defeat of the armada was a heavy blow to the cause of papal aggression everywhere. It helped the Dutch patriots ; it encouraged Henry III. to throw off the crushing yoke of the Catholic League, and smoothed the way of Henry of Navarre to the throne of France. But most of all to us who are of English blood,- it sealed the triumph of English Protestantism. All felt that the war was for faith and conscience. The spirit of the nation spoke in the last words of Sir Richard Grenville, after fighting fifty Spanish ships larger than his own: “I die with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a good soldier ought to do, for his country and his queen, for honor and religion.”

THE PURITANS.

S has been said in a former chapter, Elizabeth hated the Puritans, though they were the strongest supporters of her throne. It was circumstance, not choice, that made her a leader in the path of national progress. Could she have had her way, the old religion might have suited her well enough, or better, a mongrel system like her father’s, in which doctrine and worship were unchanged, but the monarch became head of the national Church in place of the pope. She loved pomp and disliked republican simplicity: her temper was absolute, and she saw that Calvinism always developed a spiiit of liberty. The character of a Puritan, as drawn at that time, did not suit her at all: “In matters of faith, his reason was always submitted to the Word of God; but in all other things the greatest names in the world would not lead him without reason.” She wished her people to be led simply by her will.

But stern necessity identified her interests with those of Protestantism,, for Rome was her mortal foe ; and Protestant then meant chiefly Puritan. A middle course, like that of the Lutherans in Germany, would have been more to her mind; but the English Reformation took its direction chiefly from Geneva. As time went on, this character became more and more pronounced. The allies whom she was forced to aid, and for whom many of her subjects fought, both in France and in the Netherlands, were Calvinists: refugees from both countries came to England in great numbers, bringing their stern convictions of doctrine, of duty, and of individual rights. The struggle with Spain, the defeat of the armada, deepened and intensified this feeling. It was never universal, but it ruled the most earnest spirits in the land. They were not content with an official religion, which might be settled for them by the authorities: they believed in the direct relation between the individual soul and its Maker.

UNDER ELIZABETH.

It must be remembered that there was in those days but one national Church ; the quarrel was within this, and not between discordant sects. The

(636)

idea of Dissent was not yet born; the Romanists were the only nonconformists. Every one else belonged to the Church as of course, and (so far as he knew and

lady jane: gre;y.

cared about these matters) wished it to take the shape of his opinions. The

prevailing tendency was more and more against forms and decorations. The use of the Prayer-Book was enforced, and the surplice was generally worn by the clergy during the service, though many of them, then as long after, put on the Geneva gown when they mounted to the pulpit; but the ceremonial was rendered as simply as possible. There was much less music than is now employed. Stained glass windows had begun to be taken out iu the reign of Edward VI.; in that of Elizabeth, the communion-table ceased to be called an altar, and was removed from the chanfcel to the middle of the church. Successive archbishops varied in their sympathies and usages; one of them abandoned the venerable practice of bowing at the name of Jesus in the creed. Matters like these, which the more rational spirit of our time refers wholly to custom, taste, and expediency, then received an undue importance, and were soon to be fought over with a fierce zeal which was sadly out of place in things belonging to the sanctuary but noway essential to salvation.

The queen cared little for these details in themselves, and was safe to direct the services in her royal chapels as she liked ; but she strove to check the rising tide of independent opinion. Her efforts were ineffectual, because as a rule they could reach only the clergy and those who rushed into print or took part in public life. The Star Chamber, afterwards so notorious, flourished in this reign, having come down from that of Henry VII.; and many things were done which seem to us the work of shocking tyranny. The victims of these petty persecutions bore their sentences patiently, knowing that the Papists received much harder treatment, aud that the queen, after all, was in a large way the main bulwark of Protestant liberties. One striking and pathetic instance of this feeling was given as early as 1582. A lawyer named Stubbs put forth a pamphlet called “Discovery of a Gaping Gulfit objected, as nearly all men did, to the proposed marriage with Alengon. Elizabeth had no intention of raising that worthless scion of French royalty to her throne ; but, in the true spirit of despotism, she counted it treason that any of her subjects should presume to question her conduct. The unlucky author, after the barbarous fashion of that time, was sentenced to lose his hand: as soon as it was cut off, he waved his hat on the scaffold with the one he had left, and shouted, “God save Queen Elizabeth ! ” That was hardly an exaggerated sample of. the temper of the Puritans toward a sovereign who deserved less well of them than they did of her. As a rule, they were loyal; they did not wish to disturb the settled condition of government and society; but they would not be constrained in matters of conscience and opinion. In a later reign, under long and sore oppression, they came to hate both the monarchy and the Church.

As the need of defense against foreign enemies faded out of sight and the people turned their attention to domestic concerns, their love of liberty grew stronger. The movement spread among the middle classes: the merchants,,

most of the country squires, even many of the knights, were Puritans. The House of Commons in 1601 criticized and opposed certain measures of the queen, who prudently submitted. In the first Parliament of James I. it refused to do business on Sunday, as had been the custom. In the next, it showed its temper yet more plainly by going elsewhere than to Westminster Abbey to receive the communion, “for fear of copes and wafer-cakes.”

JAMES I. AND THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS.

James I., who succeeded Elizabeth in 1603, was the son of Mary Stuart, and already king of Scotland. Beyond his birth and titles, there was little royalty about him. He never understood the -

character of the nation which he ruled. A pedant, a truckler to France, a patron of base favorites, his whole policy was reactionary. At his accession England declined from the high place she had reached among the powers of Europe. But, as Macaulay says, “if his administration had been able and splendid, it would probably have been fatal to the country. We owe more to his weaknesses and meannesses than to the wisdom and courage of much better sovereigns.” For he was a tyrant at heart, and cherished notions which would have been the death of liberty, if he had been the man to enforce them. In his time the surprising theory of Sir Robert Filmer was developed and propagated, that God gave to the patriarchs, and through

,1 , 11 1 • ■ 1" 1 • ELIZABETH'S TOMB, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

them to all kings m lineal succession,

an absolute authority, a divine right, which transcended all other rights. According to this, the monarch, though a fool and a knave in unbelieving eyes, was a sacred person who could do no wrong, and whom nobody could call to account: his eldest son, and that son’s descendants for any length of time, though excluded from the throne, retained their superior character and authority, and the popular will and the general interest went for nothing.

When a sovereign holds ideas like this, it is fortunate if he has no standing army, and if his personal traits are such as to inspire neither affection, admiration,

nor esteem. James, though an incapable coward, was silly enough to keep his Parliament irritated by reminding them that they were merely his creatures, and had no more right to question his will or power than those of the Most High. These ludicrous pretensions, combined with his utter lack of commanding or even respectable qualities, rapidly undermined the loyal regard in which the nation had hitherto held the throne. The Tudors, who were forceful and masterful rulers, had never claimed so much. James, who was far more laughed at than loved or feared, seemed but a poor representative of the Deity.

Still the doctrine of Divine Right throve and spread. To the rational mind it is more obnoxious even than that of papal infallibility, for kings may possess absolute power in temporal things, which popes never had, except on a small scale. The common sense of England was to make short work of it in another generation, but it was to give much trouble first. It was accepted in good faith by the higher orders, the clergy, and some of the common people. It became a shibboleth, a superstition, to which many of the best and bravest were to sacrifice their fortunes and their lives. Our ancestors did not know as much as we do about the principles which underlie government; what we know has been learned mainly through their mistakes.

The fault of a state church is that it will naturally, and almost inevitably, be on the side of privilege and the court. When it is Protestant, owning no allegiance to a foreign power, its officers will be servants of the crown, which appoints them, rather than of the people. The reformed Church of England in this reign began to alter its complexion, passing from the doctrines of Calvin to those of Arminius, and from its accustomed simplicity to a more elaborate ritual and loftier pretensions. Laud, afterwards archbishop, was an active agent in bringing about these changes; he held the highest views, and urged the king to impose the Prayer-Book on Presbyterian Scotland. The pulpits, or some of them, now claimed that Episcopacy was necessary, not only to the well-being but to the existence of a Church, and began to ring the changes on that most lamentable of tenets, the divine right of kings and the duty of passive obedience in subjects.

All this was gall and wormwood to the thorough Puritans, who were being gradually forced into the position of sectaries. They had accepted episcopacy, the Prayer-Book, and the surplice, not from choice, but as non-essential matters which it was not worth while to object to: they now began to hate them as associated with what seemed a retrograde movement toward Rome, and as the signs and instruments of tyranny. The Pilgrims went to Holland, and thence across the sea, to make the first settlement in Massachusetts. Others remained to sulk, to scowl, to endure uncongenial customs with such patience as they might, and to make the world resound with their deeds somewhat later. Not all of them were like the figure painted by the popular imagination, and by such literary artists as Scott and Macaulay, “known from other men by his gait, his garb, his

lank hair, the sour solemnity of his face, the upturned white of his eyes, the nasal twang with which he spoke, and above all by his peculiar dialect” Fanatics enough there were, and wildly illiberal opinions, that put a curse on all amusements, most studies, and many occupations, making of life a narrow and gloomy cave. “Some precisians had scruples about teaching the Latin grammar, because the names of Mars, Bacchus, and Apollo occurred in it. The fine arts were all but proscribed. The solemn peal of the organ was superstitious. The light music of Ben Johnson’s masques was dissolute. Half the fine paintings in England were idolatrous, and the other half indecent.” So the advanced Puritans thought, and they were not men to keep their convictions to themselves. And against them stood the Church party, the loyalists, and “ the world’s people,” the everyday hearty Englishmen who liked their cakes and ale. Excesses on either side increased the alienation, and one extreme opinion or usage bred its opposite.

CHARLES I.

The foolish king died in 1625, leaving to his son an evil heritage. Charles

I. was much more of a man than his father, in appearance, manners, abilities, and character. In private life he would have been estimable and blameless; but as a ruler he had one fatal and unpardonable fault. He was so steeped in the pernicious doctrine of divine right that it blinded his intellect and paralyzed his conscience. He evidently thought that between himself and his subjects there could be no equality, and therefore no contract, no mutual obligation ; they had nothing but duties, he nothing but rights. This amazing delusion explains the moral delinquencies which, in such a man, seem far stranger than their punishment. If, through the wickedness of meu and the mysteries of Providence, he was reduced to the wretched necessity of bargaining and treating with his upstart subjects, his promises were to his mind no more binding than those made under fear of death to a madman or a murderer. His word was of less value than his prerogative : the one might be broken, the other not—with his consent. Rome had held that no faith was to be kept with heretics. Charles -was a devout churchman, but he disliked a Papist much less than a Puritan, and felt that rebellion was the worst kind of heresy.

With a cool fanaticism almost equal to that of the Spanish Philip, Charles entered on his ill-omened task of remaking England to his mind. A war was* on foot: he needed supplies, and it was the business of Parliament to grant them. But Parliament was not disposed to be his humble tool. It was led by able statesmen, learned lawyers, and courageous patriots, “men who knew-their rights, and knowing, dared maintain.” Twice, within the first year of this reign, the Houses met and were angrily dismissed. After the second dissolution, some of their boldest leaders were imprisoned: after each the king levied taxes for himself, without a shadow of legal authority. In a third Parliament he began his course of falsehood and perfidy, by sanctioning the Petition of Right, called the second Magna Charta, which he never meant to observe. In March, 1629, the anger of the Commons broke forth : the speaker was held down in his chair while the doors were locked against the usher who came with his usual message of dissolution, and Sir John Eliot uttered the prophetic menace, “None have gone about to break Parliaments but in the end Parliaments have broken them.” Eliot was thrown with others into the Tower, where he died, “the first martyr of English liberty.”

Charles now began to govern in his own arbitrary way, as none of his predecessors had ever tried to do, without a Parliament, and in contemptuous defiance of public opinion. Or rather, as Mr. Green claims, he thought that his position was secure, that he was simply acting on his rights, and that his people would come to their senses in time. His was tyranny on a moral basis, which needed no army to support it. Such an ill-instructed conscience does more harm than none at all. With all his sincere piety, he had read in vain the texts which

tell that “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,” and “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

LAUD AND WENTWORTH.

His concern was not for defenses, but for supplies. As he had said to the legislators, “If you do not your duty, miue would then order me to use those other means which God has put into my hand.” The divine name was invoked to cover opportunity used in total disregard of law. The laws, he would have said are for the people, not for 4*

the king, whose will is J.

man entirely sincere, of narrow, formal mind, of great energy, and of convictions so absolute that

they left no room for petty , j i , , j

God’s. THE MARTYRS’ MEMORIAL. OXFORD.

It was less easy to estimate the character of Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford. He had been one of the patriot leaders in Parliament, and his powerful and brilliant mind was perfectly familiar with both sides of the controversy, whereas the king, Laud, and many others, saw only one. He is a picturesque and striking figure, but history has no love for renegades, and it is not

unjust to call him a splendid cynic and egoist, who was willing to lend his great talents to the party that would give them most scope. When Buckingham, the king’s worthless friend and adviser, died in 1629, Wentworth made his peace with Charles, and soon became in effect the head of the civil aud military administration, as Laud was of the ecclesiastical. Both were as ruthless as tyrants need to be—for religion had not yet succeeded in teaching, except to a few elect spirits, its most obvious and primary lesson of humanity. They aimed, of course, to make their master an absolute monarch. But with all their ability and zeal, they had not the foresight to estimate the signs of the times, and distinguish between what was possible and what was not. They were bad architects, doomed to perish in the fall of their own edifice.

The chief instruments of tyranny were the infamous Star Chamber, which had charge of political cases, the High Commission, which dealt with those of religion, and a council at York, presided over by Wentworth. Lord Clarendon, the royalist historian, admits that nearly every man of note in the country had been injured by the first, that the second had few to speak well of it, and that the third had reduced Magna Charta to nullity in the north. All these proceeded in disregard of law. The ordinary courts were powerless to give redress, and the judges were mostly mere pliant tools of the king. Such a system- worked to a charm in Spain; it answered tolerably in France; but the English were not a people to endure it very long. Many of all conditions had resisted the illegal taxes, and gained their reward in imprisonment or something worse. John Hampden, early in this reign, won his first fame by refusing his contribution to the forced loan called ship-money. “I could be content to lend,” said he^ “but fear to draw on myself that curse in Magna Charta, which should be read twice a year against those who infringe it.” The court decided against him, and he exchanged his charming country home for the narrow and squalid quarters of a j ail.

PROTESTANT PERSECUTIONS.

But what galled the people even more than illegal taxes was religious persecution. Laud had conceived a scheme for improving the services, and returning, as he claimed, to the usages and beliefs of a former period. Judged by liberal standards of taste and devotion, the scheme had merits; it was revived after two hundred years, and is now largely followed in the Episcopal churches- of England and America. This has been of free choice, because ministers and congregations thought this mode of worship appropriate and useful; but Laud’s monstrous idea was to enforce it on everybody, whether they liked it or not. He did not stop to think that even truth turns to a lie when one is compelled to swallow it under penalties; that things harmless iu themselves, perhaps attractive and beautiful, become odious when thrust upon eyes averted and crammed doyvn reluctant throats. It was a sad and shameful spectacle, that of a Protestant

Church imitating the methods of paganism and popery, and coercing people to worship God in temples and attitudes not of their own choosing, and under forms which they abhorred. The scandal was the greater, because the matters in dispute had till lately been so leniently administered, and insisted on, if at all, only on the ground of national uniformity, not of intrinsic importance. But now a deliberate effort was made to dragoon the whole nation into accepting a point of view recently discovered or invented, kneeling at the same moment, bowing together toward the east, and pretending to regard these trivial details as if they were essential.

It is true that the punishments for Dissent were not so severe as those which Rome had made frightfully familiar; but some of them were brutal enough. No fagots were lighted, no lives taken in the name of religion; but fines and imprisonment were common, while cropped ears, slit noses, and branded foreheads marked those who had dared to protest against the new methods of persuasion. Archbishop Leighton’s father, for issuing a diatribe called “ Zion’s plea against the Prelacy,” was mutilated and kept in jail ten years. William Prynne, a lawyer of learning and some ability, and afterwards a member of Parliament, was placed in the pillory and lost his ears in May, 1634, besides being fined, imprisoned, and degraded, for a publication of the previous year, called “ Histrio-Mas- tix.” Nothing daunted, he again braved the censor with ‘‘News from Ipswich,” and in June, 1637, had the remnants of his ears taken off, and was put in confinement and kept there till released by the Long Parliament in 1640. These were by no means isolated cases, and such disfigurements were generally counted honorable scars.

Laud had other means of attaining his object. In the true spirit of a grand inquisitor, he sent his spies everywhere, and nearly every conventicle was reported, every petty gathering of sectaries broken up. In 1639, shortly before the crash came, several bishops assured him that not one dissenter could be found in their dioceses. Winthrop and his noble colony had gone to found Boston in 1630; such as could not leave the country went to church, rather than bear the penalties of staying away. The fear of jailors and hangmen produced an outward show of conformity, but at what a terrible cost! Rage and vengeance burned in the hearts of those who were forced to witness what they considered half-Romish abominations. Their grandfathers had complained, as did Milton, that “new presbyter is but old priest writ large;” they said far worse things now, below their breath—violent and bitter things, which there is no need of repeating. The bishops had themselves to thank for it, if prelacy was considered as bad as popery. The clergy, who justified every usurpation of the king’s, and denounced resistance to his will as if it were the will of God, were raising up foes who would soon thrust them forth from their pulpits, it might be to starve. For generations the Established Church ha.s been detested by thousands of

devout people, she is still disliked and shunned by many, because her rulers for a time grossly abused their trust, and forced her into the wickedly false position of a persecutor.

FAILURE OF TYRANNY IN SCOTLAND.

The king and the archbishop met their first serious check through their fitupidity in trying to force the Anglican system, with a liturgy of Laud’s own editing, upon turbulent and wilful Scotland. The book was introduced in St. Giles’ cathedral, Edinburgh, on July 23d, 1637; but it did not come to stay. Jenny Geddes, an old seller of apples, hurled her stool at the dean’s head as he was reading what she supposed to be the Romish mass. A riot ensued ; the ministers refused to use the book, and the magistrates found a way to evade the royal command. The news caused great commotion in England, and pleased many who ^iked the Church service, but wished its use to be left optional; for all Episcopalians were not bigots and tools of tyranny. The wild pamphleteers were encouraged to break loose again, and one of them invited all to oppose the bishops as “robbers of souls, limbs of the beast, and factors of antichrist.’’ Anothei' solemnly assured his readers that “hell was broke loose, and the devils in surplices, heads, copes, and rochets were come among us.” Extravagances of this kind, however lamentable, are not so severely to be condemned as the brutalities which called them forth. Vast crowds attended the punishment of these writers on their passage from the palace-yard to jail, and plainly testified their sympathy with the victims. Hampden again stood forth as the champion of the country against ship-money, and the trial excited great interest

The troubles in Scotland went on, and neither party would give way. The king’s demand for submission was answered by an enthusiastic renewal of the National Covenant, which had been drawn up and signed in 1580, binding the nation to the Presbyterian faith and policy. It closed with these words: “We promise and swear, by the great name of the Lord our God, to continue in the profession and obedience of the said religion, and that we shall defend the same, and resist all their contrary errors and corruptions, according to our vocation and the utmost of that power which God has put into our hands, all the days of our life.” This was eagerly subscribed by numbers in the churchyard of Grey Friars, Edinburgh, on March 1st, 1638. Copies were carried about the country for more signatures, and the pulpits rang with cries for its support Everywhere the people pressed forward: many signed with tears ; some, it was said, used their blood in place of ink. Nor was this an empty form ; far from it. Charles threatened war: the Scotch called back their volunteers from Germany, raised troops at home, and a voluntary tax for their support. With great difficulty the king collected twenty thousand men at York, and crossed the border; but General Leslie offered him battle, and he was forced to yield, agreeing to summon a free assembly and a Scottish Parliament.

NO GOVERNING WITHOUT PARLIAMENT.

These promises he never meant to keep ; but he could not hope to conquer Scotland without money, which he could get only from Parliament. It met in April, 1640, the first in eleven years. The hopes of the country mounted high, but they were soon dashed. Pym and Hampden were at the front, and the Houses wished to consider grievances before granting supplies. They were dismissed as of old, after sitting but three weeks.

Wentworth had been long in Ireland, which by severe measures he had reduced to an appearance of perfect order. His motto was “Thorough,” and he boasted that the king was absolute there, if not at home. He was now made lord-lieutenant and Earl of Strafford, and came back with eight thousand men, to reduce Scotland. But he was beaten without a battle. The Scotch crossed the border before he could, and occupied Newcastle: his troops were more ready to mutiny than to fight. England was almost in revolt. The people felt that the northern rising was in their own interest, and called these futile efforts to suppress it “the bishops’ war.” Defeated, humiliated, and helpless, the would-be autocrat summoned the peers to meet at York, without the lower house. It was a step without precedent, and it did not work at all. There was nothing left but to call a Parliament.

It met on November 3d, 1540, united and resolute—the famous Long Parliament, which was to sit for thirteen years and do great deeds. Its first acts were to break down the machinery by which despotism had done its work. The Star Chamber, the High Commission, the Council of York, were destroyed; the political prisoners were released; procedings were instituted against the king’s bad advisers. Chief-Justice Finch fled the country ; Strafford and Laud were committed to the Tower. The hottest wrath was directed against the earl: “ That grand apostate to the commonwealth,” said Lord Digby, “ must not expect to be pardoned in this world till he be dispatched to the other.” He was impeached on November nth, and a bill of attainder was passed at the end of April. On May 12th he met his death with a cheerful dignity, amid the joyful shouts of a crowd who welcomed the fall of tyranny’s strongest prop.

THE REVOLUTION.

URING the first months of their session, Parliament acted almost as one man. The work they had to do was obvious, and there were few differences of opinion about it. But when they came together after a short recess, at the end of October, 1641, they were divided between two parties. These, during the Civil War, were known as Cavaliers and Roundheads ; afterwards, for two hundred years, they were called Tories and Whigs ; in our time they are usually styled Conservatives and Liberals. Through constantly changing issues the main principles of each have been the same, and one or the other has drawn its majority from that large body of waverers, doubters, and moderates, which always stands between the two.

The sympathies of Americans go out naturally to English liberals, and it would be impossible for us to forget the debt which we and all free people owe to the Puritans and to those who with them spoke and fought against a misguided king. But it would be a mistake to suppose that all the truth and all the virtue were on their side. The case was not as simple as that of the Netherlands against Philip II. It had been until 1641; but the quarrel had now reached a point at which intelligent, honest, and patriotic men might and did differ seriously. We must remember that the republican experiment had not then been tried in England; that the people were deeply attached to the monarchy, though they might justly hate the king for his misdeeds; that a legitimate title was all-important, and that there was no successor at hand who could be put on the throne in place of the impracticable Charles. These facts greatly complicated the situation ; if we duly heed them, they will explain the position of the new or royalist party, which was organized by Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon and father-in-law of James II.

CAVALIERS AND ROUNDHEADS.

These men said, in substance, "We detested the misrule of Strafford and Laud but that is at an end. We have vindicated the law, redressed grievances,

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purged the churches of popish innovations, and stripped the king of his illegal powers ; let us preserve and support those he has by law and long custom. He promises to be reasonable in future, and we have provided that three years shall not pass without a Parliament. We have had disturbances enough; let ns shake the foundations of the State no further, but give our attention to preventing additional damage and maintaining things as they are.”

The other party replied, “We know how much respect the king has for our liberties, and what his promises are worth. If good laws could restrain him, we had enough of them ; but how has he regarded Magna Charta and the Petition of Right ? It is only fear that holds him in check: remove that, and he will break loose again. No: he is not to be trusted, and Parliament must keep the power.”

These discussions had only begun, when they were emphasized by terrible news from Catholic Ireland. The native chiefs of Ulster, relieved of Strafford’s stringent rule, had risen in revolt; thousands of English colonists had been massacred, and rumor magnified the tale of frightful outrages. An army was needed to avenge these crimes and restore order; but an army was what Charles wanted to overawe Parliament Harsh suspicions arose, hinting at a concerted, plan, and soon the Irish rebels pretended to be acting for the king and by his authority. His wife was a Papist, and it was whispered that his Protestantism was none too sound. He expressed a hope that these tronbles might “hinder some of the follies” at home. When he returned from the north in November, all was confusion and terror. A hostile measure of remonstrance barely passed the Commons. Falkland, Hyde, and Colepepper became his ministers. The extreme liberals talked of removing to New England The triumph of the royalists seemed to be at hand.

ATTEMPT TO ARREST THE FIVE MEMBERS.

It was frustrated by Charles himself, whose stupid perfidy could generally be trusted to confound his friends and play into the hands of his enemies. After refusing Parliament a guard, and promising to defend it from all assaults as he would his children, he attempted an act of gross violence, in contempt of its time-honored rights. On January 3d, 1642, he sent his attorney-general to bring a charge of treason against five leading members of the opposition, Hampden, Pym, Hollis, Strode, and Hazelrig, and a herald to demand their surrender. On the next day, urged by the queen and followed by many of his courtiers and servants, he went in person to Westminster Hall to arrest the five. They were not there, for the House had sent them off in time ; but for this prudence, there would probably have been a bloody conflict, for the Commons would hardly permit such an outrage without resistance. Charles asked if the men he wanted were present. The Speaker answered, with spirit and tact, that he had no eyes

to see nor tongue to say anything but what the House commanded. The tyrant withdrew, angry and foiled.

The news flew like lightning. London arose in wrath ; men poured in by thousands, each with the Parliament badge on his hat, from the surrounding country. The Houses were no longer without a guard ; nor was there any more doubt which side had the majority. The king was almost besieged and mobbed in his palace. On the tenth he left the city, while the five members returned in triumph. The die was cast, though six months were spent in vain negotiations.

WINDSOR CASTLE.

“If I granted your demands,” said Charles, “I should be no more than the mere phantom of a king.”

In the struggle that ensued, the lines were not always clearly drawn : there was a sliding scale of principles and feelings. At one end were the bishops, the ruffling courtiers, and the Romanists ; at the other were the vio'ent separatists. Between these was the mass of all ranks and conditions, who prepared sadly and doubtfully for civil war. As Macaulay says, it was a question of degrees: both parties loved order and liberty, but some laid more stress on one, others preferred the other. “A few enthusiasts on one side were ready to lay all laws and

franchises at the feet of kings. A few enthusiasts on the other side were bent on pursuing, through endless civil troubles, their darling phantom of a republic. But the great majority of those who fought for the crown were averse to despotism, and the great majority of the champions of popular rights were averse to anarchy.”

A VIEW OF BOTH SIDES.

Two opposite considerations, so far from our horizon that we are apt to overlook them, swayed many. A pure fanaticism of magnanimous loyalty had place in some minds, and seemed to suspend the exercise of their reasoning powers. Lovelace, who wrote two of our most exquisite lyrics, asks in one of his poems what idea, what cause, a man may look to and fix upon as his highest good. After searching in vain in several quarters, he answers, The King! A most absurd conclusion, in our modern view; but Lovelace was a gallant gentleman, and died in wretched poverty, having spent all for his delusive ideal. Thus other brave and generous hearts, who saw that the man Charles Stuart was unworthy, fancied the king entitled, in his extremity, to their fortunes and their lives. They deserved a better altar for their sacrifices.

Again, fear of the Puritans drove many to the same side. Artists, actors, all who minister to men’s amusements, knew that their bread would be gone if the Roundheads came into power. So at the other social extreme, and in every class: thousands hated cant and loved jollity. Falkland, the most learned and lovable nobleman of his time, prized above all things the right of unrestricted thought, and knew that this would be less disturbed in the Church than among the theologic sectaries. He loved liberty and his fellow-men as much as any; he hated the idea of civil strife; he saw almost equal good and evil on either side; but he had to choose between them. He went forth discouraged, doleful, looking for a speedy death, and fell at Newbury, groaning “Peace, peace!” in a cause that was not his.

On the other hand, not all on the popular side, by any means, were severe devotees or plain rustics. Hampden and Pym, the great leaders of the Commons, were accomplished men of enlarged minds, who sacrificed taste to principle, and looked to the long future rather than to the moment at hand. Both died early, one in arms, the other in his bed, leaving a glorious memory of services to civil and religious liberty. Between them and Falkland was small difference of sentiments and character; but they saw more clearly and further ahead than he. Five great lords adhered to the Parliament, and the Earl of Essex took command of its army ; but most of the nobles and gentry were for the king. Thirty-three peers and sixty members of the Commons joined him at York, to fight for they scarce knew what, and enter on a struggle of which no man could foresee the end.

CIVIL WAR.

Hostilities began in August, 1642. At first tbe Royalists had the advantage, for their troops were better drilled and led. They defeated the Earl of Stamford at Stratton, broke Waller’s line at Roundway, and took Bristol, the second city in the land. Essex proved but a poor general, and his subordinates had little experience. Of the statesmen, Hampden alone showed any capacity in the field, and he, after saving the day at Edgehillin June, 1643, rode home with a mortal wound received at Chalgrove from Rupert’s men. This prince from the Palatinate, a nephew of Charles, was a dashing cavalry leader, and for a time seemed to have things much his own way. The court was now at Oxford, and London trembled. Had matters gone on thus, the cause was doomed. The Lords were for peace, and six of them fled to the king; the Commons were importuned in the same interest, and some of them wavered.

But Charles was no manager, and failed to improve his opportunity. He met a check in besieging Gloucester, which was relieved just in time. He alienated his supporters by making terms with the Catholic rebels of Ireland, and bringing over an army of them to invade Scotland. At this some of his officers threw up their commissions; the peers who had lately joined him returned to London, and the Parliament was again united. The Scotch at once came to terms with England, imposing their own forms of belief, order, and worship on the sister state, for nothing less would satisfy them. On September 25th, 1643, the Commons signed the Covenant, which bound them to “ bring the churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of church government, direction for worship, and catechizing, that we, and our posterity after us, may as brethren live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to live in the midst of us.”

Thus was England made Presbyterian at a stroke. So far as the Parliament’s power extended, the Episcopal clergy were expelled from their livings: a little later, it was done everywhere. This was their punishment for preaching the divine right of kings and blocking the course of liberty ; but the change was not to last, for one violence bred another, and the seesaw was to go up and down for years yet. The arrangement was mainly the work of Pym, who himself preferred the Episcopal forms; but he labored with all his great powers, till his death in December, to attain the great end in view, which was to put down the Royalists and secure constitutional government.

CROMWELL AND THE IRONSIDES.

But now a new and unforeseen factor came into the problem. Oliver Cromwell had been to all appearance an ordinary country squire, little known outside his own neighborhood, till he entered Parliament in 1640. Some years before that, disgusted with the tyranny of Laud and Strafford, he had thought of removing

to America. If he had done so, the course of English history would have been different. When he entered the Parliament’s army as a captain, at the age of forty-three, no one dreamed of his coming greatness. He soon rose to be colonel, developed amazing military genius, and prepared a body of men who could beat

LEICESTER HOSPITAL, WARWICK.

any soldiers in Europe. They were far above the ordinary privates in character and condition; decent, grave, sober, God-fearing, and of intense religious and political convictions. Independent thought and fervent zeal were the marks of the

Ironsides. To a man they held opinions which, though perfectly familiar now, -were then considered startling, if not shocking. As prelacy (in the language of the time) was a step onward from popery, and Presbyterianism another step beyond prelacy, so the system of the Independents was an advance on that of the Presbyterians. Their descendants are the Congregationalists, a body as prominent and highly esteemed as any in England or America; but they were few and obscure in 1642, and became great by their military successes. They held that a Christian congregation was complete and supreme in itself, that the clergy were not an order distinct from the laity, and that any converted man might preach. In politics they were “root and branch men,” or radicals, caring little for customs, kings, councils, parliaments, or authorities of any sort. Their discipline was so perfect that they could be allowed to have clubs and meetings without risk. Their morals were above reproach. Woman’s honor was safe among them, and they touched no private property for their own profit; but they had small patience with “Malignants,” as they called the cavaliers, and none at all with altars, crucifixes, stained-glass windows, and the like. Their iconoclasm destroyed or marred many beautiful buildings, and is regretted to this day; but these losses were a small price to pay for their inestimable services to liberty.

MARSTON MOOR.

For nearly two years the war had been waged in a languishing, half hearted way. The Earl of Essex thought it not polite to be too rough with the king, and others of the Parliament leaders, in the field or at Westminster, wished merely to tire Charles out and bring him to his senses—which was a hopeless task. All this was now to be changed. At Marston Moor, on July 2d, 1644, the Scotch were routed, while Cromwell on his side carried all before him, and then called back his men from the pursuit to defeat the rest of the Royalist army. A single incident shows the temper of these fierce Independents. One of them, a youth, as he lay dying, told his officer that a regret lay heavy on his mind: “it was that God had not suffered him to be any more the executioner of His enemies.”

Marston Moor was a two-edged victory : it crushed the Royalist cause in the north, and proved, in conjunction with events a little later, that Cromwell and his Ironsides were the only hope of England. For on September 2d the king won two notable successes. Essex was surrounded in Cornwall and all his infantry captured, while the Irish, with the Highlanders under Montrose, overthrew the Covenanters at Tippermuir, so that Perth and Aberdeen were presently at their mercy. At Newbury, on October 27th, Cromwell might have finished the business had he been allowed to charge with his brigade, but Lord Manchester, who was in command, was still for half-way measures.

The quarrel was taken into Parliament, where Cromwell spoke his mind most plainly. The war must be carried on more vigorously, he said, and the army must be remodelled. By his efforts and those of Sir Harry Vane “the Self-denying Ordinance ” was passed on April 3d, 1645, which made military command incompatible with membership of either House. Essex, Manchester,, and Waller were retired. Fairfax became head of the army, but Cromwell was. its real chief. New officers were appointed, with less regard to birth and station than to their willingness and ability to fight.

Meantime Archbishop Laud’s long imprisonment had ended. He was tried in March, 1644, and beheaded on a bill of attainder, January 4th, 1645. Partisans on either side have tried to make him out a martyr, or a monster of wickedness. He was neither, but a well-meaning blunderer, who fatally misunderstood his age and his mission, and tried to serve God with the devil’s tools. As a counsellor and instrument of tyranny, he deserved his fate; as a. mistaken. Christian, he made a meek and edifying end.

BATTLE OF NASEBY.

The king won more victories at Leicester and Chester. It was plain that. Cromwell, though a member of Parliament, could not be spared from the army, and the House permitted him to retain his commission for a short time. That violation of the Self-Renouncing Ordinance, even more than the Ordinance itself, saved the state. The triumphant Royalists marched in full force to Naseby, eager to crush the mob of canting rebels. “ Never have my affairs been in so good a state,” said Charles to his nephew. The Parliament men were largely raw, but full of zeal, as they met the foe on June 14th, 1645. Ireton’s wing gave way under the charge of Rupert’s horse: the king’s infantry drove Fairfax and the centre: Cromwell and his Ironsides alone retrieved the day. As at Marston Moor, he broke and chased those first opposed to him, then turned upon the others and made havoc. Many were slain; five thousand laid down their arms the king escaped with a beggarly following of but two thousand. All his guns, baggage, and papers were taken; the latter, as usual, contained matter to enrage the victors and dispirit the royalists.

The war was practically over. It was easy for Cromwell to stamp out the embers of resistance in the south, and for his colleagues to reduce the remainder of the island. In the following spring the last royal force was destroyed at Stow. Its leader said, as he gave up his sword, “You have done your work now, and may go to play, unless you fall out among yourselves.”

EXECUTION OF THE KING.

We need not follow in detail the confused and straggling march of subsequent events. The king fled to the Scotch, who soon gave him up, for a price,.

to the commissioners of the English Parliament. Cromwell saw the importance of gaining and keeping possession of his person, and in June, 1647, placed him in the army’s charge. He escaped in November, was retaken, and thenceforth kept a close prisoner. He could not be brought to terms, and Parliament passed an act declaring all negotiation with him to be treason. In spite of this, he kept intriguing with the Scotch and English Presbyterians, who, as a modern writer says, “were always haunted by the notion that there was something sacred and inviolable in monarchy.” These doings enraged the army and the Independents, so that in December, 1648, more than a hundred members were driven out of Parliament by what was called “Pride’s Purge;” others had been expelled at an earlier date. Charles was brought to trial in London early in 1649 before a mixed court, condemned as a tyrant, murderer, and public enemy, and publicly executed on January 30th, to the amazement ~ of the world and the horror of most Englishmen. If we consider that a king is but a man, under the law like any other, then one who uses his head only to hatch mischief deserves to lose it; but if we remember that the prevalent feeling of that age and land recognized something half

divine in the per- _

son of royalty, we ^'

must admit the old house in castee street, warwick.

truth of Macaulay’s famous remark, that the execution was “not only a crime, but an error.” It was never forgiven by public opinion, and such of the regicides as could be caught were put to death at the Restoration, when all other offenses were covered by a general amnesty.

Cromwell disclaimed responsibility for the deed. Whether he planned it, or was overruled by the army, then the real power in England, is a question over which historians still disagree. He was a very busy and important man in those days, with much rough work to do abroad and at home ; for the royalists of every degree, who were far more numerous than the Independents, resented the king’s treatment during these last years, and much more what they regarded as his

foul murder. The House of Lords was abolished, and of the Commons only a fragment, called the Rump, remained. The executive authority was vested in a Council of State, of which Cromwell was a leading member; he was also lieutenant-general of the army, though not at once its commander-in-chief. He had put down risings in Scotland and on the Welsh border in 1648 : in August, 1649, he went to Ireland as lord-lieutenant, and by the following May had that turbulent country as quiet as it was under Strafford. Charles II. was welcomed and proclaimed as king by the Scotch: Cromwell defeated them at Dunbar on September 3d, 1650, and overthrew the Pretender at Worcester, exactly a year later.

In these last campaigns he was commander-in-chief, succeeding Fairfax, who would not fight against men of the same faith. In politics or in war he was now without a rival and practically above the law. The Rump Parliament had become useless and a nuisance: he dismissed it with contempt on April 20th, 1653, and summoned another, which installed him as Lord Protector, after which it too was dissolved in December

CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR.

However irregular his title, he held it undisputed for five years, and though •uncrowned, was one of the very greatest of British sovereigns. Before his elevation the sublimest of English poets had hailed him as “our chief of men,” and reminded him that

• “ Much remains

To conquer still: peace hath her victories No less renowned than war. New foes arise,

Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains.

Help us to save free conscience from the paw Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.”

This appeal was hardly needed. “Free conscience,” as the Puritans under- •stood it, was safe in Cromwell’s hands. He meant to make England “godly,” and the “hireling wolves,” as far as might be, were put down and kept down, along with the surplice, the theatre, Sunday sports, and similar enormities. How long the people would bear these restraints was another question.

One aspect of his reign is of indisputable glory. He lifted England from her low estate among the powers of Europe, and made her respected and feared by foreign tyrants. He did what no other sovereign had doue in centuries, raising a distant but commanding voice on behalf of the persecuted Vaudois. To -this he was moved by another noble sonnet of Milton, “ On the late Massacre in Piedmont: ”

“Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ;

Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones.

Forget not: in Thy book record their groans Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The waves redoubled to the hills, and they To Heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundredfold, who having learned Thy way Early may fly the Babylonian woe.”

Cromwell, to his eternal honor, interposed in behalf of these abused fellow- believers, and not in vain. As an old writer says, “Nor would he be backward in such a work, which might give the world a particular opinion of his piety and zeal for the Protestant religion; but he proclaimed a solemn fast, and caused large contributions to be gathered for them throughout the kingdom. Nor did he rest here, but sent his agents to the Duke of Savoy, a prince with whom he had no correspondence or commerce, and the next year so engaged the Cardinal of France, and even terrified the pope, without so much as doing any favor to the English Roman Catholics, that the duke thought it necessary to restore all that he had taken from them, and renewed all those privileges they had formerly enjoyed. So great was the terror of the Protector’s name. Nothing was more usual than his saying that his ships in the Mediterranean should visit Civita Vecchia, and the sound of his cannon be heard in Rome.”

THE RESTORATION.

At home Cromwell ruled more justly than most legitimate sovereigns had done ; but he was not loved, and he grew unhappy at seeing the failure of his grand experiment. The bulk of the nation resented his usurpation, and chafed under the rule of the army and the strict manners of the saints. The thorough Puritans had never been more than a small minority ; they rose above the majority, and kept it down, by their moral force, their strenuousness of conscience. They had their day and their triumph; these passed,- leaving solid results for liberty. The protector died September 3d, 1658, bequeathing his place to a son, who had neither strength nor will to keep it. He was displaced in a few months, and Charles II. welcomed back in 1660.

The long-exiled monarch, though otherwise worthy of little respect, had more sense than the rest of his breed, and made no very active efforts to be a despot. The bishops came back with the king : the Savoy Conference failed to adjust differences of belief and order, and in 1662, under a new Act of Uniformity, two thousand ministers, refusing to conform to the re-established order, resigned or were ejected from their benefices. Theirs was a hard lot, but it was exactly what had befallen the Episcopal clergy fifteen years before. The veering will

of the nation, expressed through its representatives in Parliament, was responsible for these changes. Our country was the first to avoid such blunders and scandals, by having no Established Church.

THE COVENANTERS.

The worst feature of this reign (and it had many bad ones) was the steady attempt to force Episcopacy upon Scotland, and the consequent persecution of the Covenanters, whose heroism and sufferings have been celebrated by Sir Walter Scott and many other writers. The king had signed the Covenant himself in 1650, but oaths and promises never bound a Stuart, and he had a grudge against the Scotch for the restraints they had laid upon him in his youth. The government of the sister kingdom was now placed in bad and cruel hands, and the most seuseless and ruthless efforts were made to coerce the people into a

mode of faith and worship which they detested. The country was full of soldiers and spies: dragoons invaded every cottage, and informers reported private prayers and opinions as acts of treason. The services which had prevailed there for more than a century were forbidden under heavy penalties, but in vain. Like the old Albigenses and Vaudois, the people gathered in wild mountain glens to hear the ministers, who threaded a dangerous way on foot, their Bibles beneath their cloaks, and their lives not worth a month’s purchase. Men received the Communion, like Zisca’s Taborites, with arms in their hands; and while the trembling congregations listened to the Word or received the bread of life, sentinels watched from the adjoining rocks. These meetings were no safer than those of the early Christians in the catacombs of Rome : often the wild troopers would come galloping in among them with oaths and pistol-shots. These ruffians were uuder little more restraint than Philip’s Spaniards, and the manners of their employers were not much better. The murder of pious John Brown at his own cottage-door, familiar to almost every

reader of Sunday-school books a generation ago, was but one of many similar outrages. In the towns the jails were crowded, and executions frequent under forms of law.

But the spirit of the people was not to be broken. Their old zeal for the Covenant gained new fervor : they rose in arms against their oppressors, and for some time maintained a guerilla warfare, the chief result of which was to increase the butcheries. The most detested of their foes was John Graham of Claverhouse, whose blood-stained figure has been perhaps unduly decorated by the great Scottish romancer. The handsome cadet of a noble house, he was active, fearless, and faithful to a bad cause. Beginning his home career of devastation in 1678 as a lieutenant of cavalry under his cousin Montrose, he gained much fame among the royalists. At Drum clog, June 1st, 1679, small force was routed by the resolute peasants. Smarting under this defeat, he led the horsemen under Monmouth to an easy victory at Bothwell Bridge three weeks later, and did most of the slaughtering. Four hundred were slain in the pursuit, and twelve hundred prisoners taken, who were treated with great cruelty in their confinement. After this Graham’s work consisted chiefly in hunting down his victims in their retreats. This wretched business went on through this and the next reign.

JAMES 11.

In the last years of Charles .II. there was much discontent in England. Two famous patriots, Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney, were executed in 1683 for alleged connection with the Rye-House plot. The king died in the communion of the Church of Rome, to which his brother, James II., had long openly belonged. His short reign, from 1685 to 1688, abundantly justified the fears of the nation, and was one of the most miserable periods in the history of England. Without his father’s virtues, he had the same despotic temper, and a bitter bigotry of his own. Efforts had been made to exclude him from the succession, but had failed. The Duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II., raised the standard of rebellion, and was joined by many of all ranks. It was soon put down, and followed by the most frightful severities. The infamous Judge Jeffreys, in what was called the Bloody Assize, hanged three hundred and twenty persons of the western circuit. The atrocities of “Kirke’s Lambs,” the regiment of a certain brutal colonel, were equally well remembered. England was not used to these experiences, which were too much like the government of Philip •and Alva in the Netherlands; yet a hundred years and more had passed since then, and the world had learned something of freedom and humanity.. One of the earliest victims of this reign, Rumbold, beheaded with Argyle in Edinburgh, made a memorable utterance on the scaffold. “I never could believe,” he said, “that God sent a few men into the world booted and spurred to ride, and millions saddled and bridled to be ridden.”

The Scotch persecutions went on, and were made hideous by the free use of the iron boot, the thumbscrew, and other instruments of mediaeval torture, on unlucky prisoners. One incident may be related to show the spirit of even the youngest Covenanters. A girl was tied to a stake on the beach, and offered her liberty if she would say “God save King James.” Faithful to her catechism and mindful of the doctrine of election, she would repeat the prayer only with the qualifying clause, “if it be His will.” This was not sufficient, and the judges sat by as the tide slowly came up and drowned her.

THE END OF STUART TYRANNY.

Every one knew that the king would try to impose his own religion upon the land, and waited for the crash to come. His preparatory steps were watched with anxious curiosity. In 1687 he tried to gain the support of the Dissenters, whom he hated, by removing some of their disabilities; but the wiser heads among these tried lovers of liberty were not to be caught by so transparent a bait. By the end of three years the people had had enough and too much of their popish king, who had not the wisdom to pause, but went on displacing Protestants and appointing Romanists to high places in Church and State. The question arose, who should succeed him? He had but one son, an infant, by his second and Italian wife; but his eldest daughter was married to the Prince of Orange, great-grandson of the illustrious founder of the Dutch Republic. On April 27th, 1688, James published a second Declaration of Indulgence, which struck at the law of the land and the purity of the Church. A week later he ordered it read in the churches. The clergy generally declined to obey, and seven bishops, among them the saintly Ken, author of the famous Morning and Evening Hymns, sent him a remonstrance. They were arrested, and on their ■way to the Tower were followed by the tears, prayers, and blessings of the people. These men, or some of them, believed in the divine right of kings, but they would not dishonor their office and injure the national cause. They were tried and triumphantly acquitted on June 29th. That night seven leading statesmen sent to William of Nassau, inviting him to come and take the throne. He came in November with an army ; England rose almost as one man to welcome and support him. The tyrant fled to France, ousted by his own son-in-law. Queen Mary’s conduct has been blamed as unfilial, but in such a case the lower duty merges in the higher. Justice, freedom, the public welfare, have stronger claims than a besotted and faithless father.

He never came back to England. His fanatical adherents raised his standard in Scotland, and Claverhouse, now Viscount Dundee, was mortally wounded at Killiecrankie in July, 1689. James, with French aid, invaded Ireland and made a stand, but was overthrown in the battle of the Boyne, July 1st, 1690. The united kingdoms had a constitutional sovereign, and were rid of the Stuarts.

'VyOR3HIppwe JSY THE; J3ANKS OF TBS WHITAPPJ5R.

Thus were the liberties of England vrn. Or rather, they were won by successive steps which we have traced; by the teaching of the Reformers, by the martyrs under Mary, by the defeat of Spanish invasion, by the Puritans who resisted Charles I., and by this almost peaceful revolution. Other minor struggles there were, almost to our own day, and one mighty rising against the foolish king George III., which was fought out in this western land for both America and England. But into this the question of religion scarcely entered; men had learned at length to leave matters of faith and worship to private consciences.

CONCLUSION.

/jETZ/m/ B have traced the history of religious liberty through several of its most important chapters. The early TO /Ja&xMr Christians, in submitting meekly to pagan persecu-

tiou, were watering with their blood the seed their vjK Master had planted, and securing the triumph of the

v jj/W faith for which they died. The Albigenses and the

M r Hussites, defending with the sword what they believed

to be the Truth as it is in Jesus, were forerunners of the Protestant Reformation. The Huguenots and the Hollanders stood and struck for the principles at once of the Reformation, of national welfare, and of civilized and modern life. We of to-day are debtors to all of them ; they fought our battle, and won victories not only for themselves, but for generations then unborn. The Puritans, at a yet later day, did their large part in winning freedom for England and America. These conflicts were not merely local and temporary, nor yet for mere points of creed: they were for the most precious possessions of humanity—the religion of Christ and the rights of private conscience. These two are not to be put asunder. To try to sever them—to maintain faith by mere authority, denying and suppressing the individual’s right to think and choose for himself—was the insane and wicked effort of tyrants and destroyers like Philip II. and Alva. God meant His creatures to be free, and sent His Son to proclaim and ensure that freedom. The service He desires is not that which comes by the compulsion of courts and edicts, but the voluntary homage of the heart.

But the best and greatest ends can be attained only by slow and gradual process. Rome was not built in a day, and the world could not be converted in a century. It was not really and thoroughly converted when nominal paganism was overthrown. Paganism of mind and heart lingered for ages in the Church, and Christ was wounded again and again in the house of His professed friends. If the tree is to be judged by its fruits, it is not easy to see that the authors of the hideous crusades against Languedoc and Bohemia, of the Spanish Inquisition, of the flames which raged at Smithfield and over Europe through half of the sixteenth century, of the Blood-Council and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, were better than the pagan persecutors. Is a crime less criminal because it is done in the name of Him who taught purity and love ? Is tyranny less odious because it has carved Bible texts on its fetters, inscribed them on its headman’s

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axe, painted them on the banners of its destroying armies, chanted them over the graves of its victims ?

The texts never justified or excused the tyranny. If the tyrants had understood the texts, they would have ceased to quote them, would perhaps have ceased to be tyrants. But the dullness of men’s heads and the hardness of men’s hearts made slow work of their understanding what all professed to honor. What to us is the most salient feature of the Gospel, the dominant note of the Master’s teachings ? Humanity—the law of love, the sense of brotherhood, consideration for our neighbor. How long has this been generally recognized and accepted, even in theory? Not three hundred years: one might say, hardly two hundred. Again, it is clear to every one who reads the New Testament in the light of our American institutions, that the two have one and the same spirit. Our Lord came as an emancipator, to break every yoke, to give sight to the blind and liberty to the captive, to remove the narrow prejudices of the past, to introduce the rule of gentleness and light. Candor, fairness, mental openness, breathe in all His sayings. His chief apostle is full of sharp rebukes to those who would lord it over God’s heritage, and play the judge and dictator in spiritual things. “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant ? To his own master he either standeth or falleth.” “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” Yet how long has this plain principle been understood? Only since the Netherlander^, by seventy years’ fighting, won the right to worship God in their own way, and the English Puritans taught the Stuarts that the mind of citizens is more than the will of kings.

It has puzzled innumerable minds, who would trace the ways of Providence in history, to see why so many horrors and iniquities, such seas of human blood, such ages of darkness and slavery and wretchedness, should have been allowed to intervene between Christ’s coming in the flesh and His coming, so to speak, in public opinion and general life—in the ideas of nations and the manners of multitudes. Why, when His kingdom was once set up and nominally accepted, should sixteen hundred years have elapsed before men began to realize that human bodies were temples of the Holy Ghost, that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were sacred things, not to be swept aside or tampered with at the whim of office-holders in Church or State ? The Master explained this, so far as it can be explained, by pointing out the necessity of nature, the law of our present life.

“All common good has common price;

Exceeding good, exceeding.”

No great gift comes easily and cheaply : every step of advance must be won through effort, labor, pain. It was so in His own life: it had to be so in that of His people. He was the Prince of Peace; yet He came, He said, not to bring

peace at once, but a sword. The tissue of sacred facts could be completed onlv through the gloom of Golgotha, through what seemed disgraceful failure.

“ Disciples saw their Master bleeding Upon the cruel cross;

Heedless of better days succeeding,

They mourned the battle’s loss:

Yet in that hour of their bewailing,

While sin on sorrow railed,

’Twas man who triumphed that was failing,

’Twas Christ who died prevailed.”

So it had to be for near three hundred years, and often afterwards. As has been shown abundantly, the early martyrs, suffering but not striking, regarded themselves as combatants, spiritual gladiators. They fought the good fight of faith, “filling up that which was behind the sufferings of Christand in so doing they saved the Church from extinction or corruption by the pagan world, and preserved the inestimable treasure that had been committed to the Church’s keeping. Through them again, as first in His own person, their Leader overcame the world; and the society which claims Him as its Head reveres their memory as that of its chief servants and worthiest members, and calls them its “noble army.”

After them came innumerable martyrs, whose names, for the most part forgotten on earth, are written in heaven, and whose obscure sacrifices, in ways which human eye cannot trace, helped to hand on the light which often burned like a little candle in the thick darkness of a naughty world. In time the kingdom that was not of this world became one of this world’s kingdoms, and strove to be the mightiest of all. In time the Church, polluted with earth’s pomp and wealth and weapons, seemed to be nearly (what it never was entirely) an apostate Church, and many who strove after primitive simplicity learned to disown and hate her. These, when they could, came together and made a stand for human rights. We have told the story of the Albigenses, not holding that, because they were beaten and crushed, they ought therefore to be forgotten. We have done no more than allude to the Vaudois, who for four hundred years kept up a heroic though desultory and almost hopeless struggle in the north of Italy; nor to the Waldenses, who for almost as long, and in nearly every land of Europe, went as sheep to the slaughter. These earned a collective fame which Christendom will not willingly let die ; and there were individual and isolated martyrs like Savonarola, whose words and fate made lurid marks upon their time. The Hussites, first and alone, showed that a little nation might rise in godly wrath, defy Europe, and sink only through its own dissensions. Fierce, fanatical, and furious they may have been, but they learned these vices from their persecutors;

their time was not as ours, and the history of great deeds can never be a record of sinless perfection.

With the Reformation came in what we call modern times. The men of the sixteenth century seem nearer to us than those of preceding ages, but their opinions and deeds were possible only because others had labored and suffered in the same cause before. And the theologians might have studied and preached iu vain, if others had not been ready to take their lives in their hands for the new faith, which they believed to be the old faith brought back. It was Mary’s martyrs who chiefly turned England away from Rome : it was by the sword that religious liberty was won, in part and for a time, in France, and for all time in Holland. Each national triumph was a triumph too for such other nations as had grace to see and use the fact; each step forward made other steps less difficult and more hopeful. The British battles of the seventeenth century were not so savage, so scandalous, as those of the continent two generations before. Much was yet to learn, but something had been learned already; as always, there were ups and downs of political and moral fortune, leaps forwards and stumblings backward, but no great step really gained was ever wholly lost.

It was otherwise on the continent, where the hideous Thirty Years’ War wiped Protestantism out of southern Germany, and the tyranny of Louis XIV. drove it from France. We have not touched upon these doleful episodes; such mysteries of Providence would afford no cheerful reading. They were real and permanent losses to humanity. England and America gained much, but the sufferings of innumerable exiles and martyrs are still matter for tears. The map of Europe, counting out its eastern part, was substantially made up in the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries : what was then done, for good or for evil, has been little altered since. Spain received its doom from Philip II. Holland still bears the stamp of the Silent Prince; and when another William of Orange drove the last Stuart from his throne, England became in essence or potentiality what she is to-day.

As for our own beloved country, it needs no words to prove that she is the heir of all lands and ages. Huguenot, Hollander, Puritan and Saxon have helped to make her what she is. Fleeing from persecution at home, they brought hither their unconquered consciences, their prized though varying beliefs, their resolute longings for a freedom the Old World could not afford. Trained in different creeds and fashions, they did not always understand at first that the rights of others were as sacred as their own; our Salem Witchcraft afforded a chapter of horrors not easily paralleled of its kind. But in time it came to be understood that civil and religious liberty, for you as well as for me, were absolute and inseparable. Our Revolution was the sequel to earlier wars abroad, the climax to efforts of the ancestors on whose foundation we built. Our Declaration of Independence made the noblest profession ever heard; our Constitution, as

amended in the light of later experience, secures the nearest approach that is to be found on earth to equal rights for all. We have our points of weakness and danger, but they do not include dominion over the private conscience unless by its own consent. No national Church exists or is desired. The State has nothing to do with forms of belief or worship, which belong wholly to the individual. Each one of us is attached to his own opinions or confession, and quite willing to let his neighbors go a different way. Our relations of business, society, and friendship recognize no -sectarian limits. If we think our neighbor is in error, we know that he has just as good a right to think the same of us. The notions which moved crusaders and inquisitors of old seem to us impossible, or fit only for a museum of monstrosities.

Even abroad—this side of Russia and Turkey—the lessons of the past have not been wholly wasted, and few (we may trust) desire to revive the old methods of meddling, compulsion, and cruelty. The parent lands have moved on, though not at our pace. That one which most of us call the Mother Country, though she still has a monarch, an Established Church, and a legalized aristocracy, is in essentials almost as. free as America. Two hundred years ago Dissenters, whatever their abilities and characters—men like Bunyan and Baxter—rwere liable to be put in jail, insulted by judges on the bench, or kicked and cuffed about as if they were hardly human. When Mr. Spurgeon died last year, he left the largest audiences in England, with an influence as great as any man’s, and he was art such lamented as if he had been Archbishop of Canterbury. So with us. Two hundred years ago the people of Boston hated the name of bishop —with some reason—almost as much as that of pope. When Bishop Brooks died there lately, he was honored and beloved by everybody. Times and manners have changed, and greatly for the better.

We are not perfect yet—far from it; but we are on the lines of progress. The errors of those who have gone before us, no less than their virtues and successors, are our lesson. History is still the great teacher of mankind ; its faithful records, in all the changes of events and issues, point out our interest, our duty, and our danger. The ideas of Christ, slowly penetrating the brains of successive generations, too often misunderstood or denied by His professing people, have led the advancing march of civilization : they will continue to lead it in the future toward the final triumph of freedom, intelligence, and virtue, when the kingdoms of this world and the hearts of its inhabitants shall be entirely His.

THE End.